Right To Repair is a movement everyone should get behind so that we as consumers and also private business repair shops of all kinds can have the ability to repair these products without being forced to only go through the original manufacturer for repairs. Bring back the old days when we all had access to parts, schematics, manuals, etc. To do the work ourselves.
Musk added apink slime to the new batteries so you cant replace (right t repair) modules yourself. It's why I wont ever buy a Tesla . Replacement Modules for my ID 4 are $500-$800 cheap and I can have my loclal mechanic swap them out for me
Is this purely a US issue or do we have the same problems here in the EU? Unsure what the EV repair situation is, although I briefly looked around locally and did not find any car battery refurb shops here in Stockholm.
CRAZY DESIGN. 1 bad $3 cell disables a whole car, a whole battery pack, for such a massive dismantling, diagnostics, then "we just snip it out of circuit". CRAZY DESIGN.
Agree, we should have software in the car where it would show the bad cell. It should be easy to drop the battery with a few bolts, open it up and replace the battery. Wonder if you get a warranty with Gruber motors after they replace it!
So true. Not an actor, no dramatization, just a guy who knows exactly what he is talking about and edited down to the density of a Hemingway short story.
The problems is, there are not many shops who can repair these batteries. They are increasing, but they are still few and far between. If you are in some place like Montana, you may have to be towed a thousand miles! And, somewhere between 150k and 200k miles, you are gong to have to get the battery pack fixed.
That electric jack you have to remove/move the Battery pack is way better than what they give us at Tesla to remove/move them. What we use essentially a padded table with 4 coaster wheels we have to push around and its at a Set height lol.
Amazing that one bad $2 battery cell can be the demise of a $130,000 supercar. Cheers to you for your sleuthing skills and sharing the inner workings and solution with us. As we transition more into a BEV society, these repairs will happen more often. I imagine a more serviceable product will be mandated. Thanks!!
Just like a $0.01 resistor being the demise of a $1200 phone, $1600 video card, or $3000 laptop. Electronics are just expensive things made of thousands of very very cheap things.
Of course there are. Not just for tesla. Imagine this car is an overgrown cordless impact driver. If only car manufacturers would make the battery pack maintenance and inspection easy and accesible, not requiring extensive and expensive equipment to access. The right to repair, not to be abused by dealers that will push you onto new battery packs because the old one is old and dead, when in fact a single cell replacement makes it great again, even after maaaaaany years of use. But that is the scsm of the official dealership, a monopoly to prevent customers from fair repair.
@@AudiTTQuattro2003 It’s nothing like an engine rebuild? You disconnect the HV, drop the battery out and remove the lid and a couple of hose fittings. You can check the battery voltage with a $20 multimeter. Yes it’s a sealed lid and removing and resealing it isn’t easy and that’s the part where specialist tools come in but that’s because it’s a completely sealed system - on purpose. That’s hardly engine rebuild territory. To put it into perspective, Neo (Chinese EV maker) just completed it’s 2 millionth battery swap. It takes about the same amount of time as filling your car with gas. Even Tesla’s battery is pretty modular.
@@AudiTTQuattro2003 you have no idea, you pull out a 10 year old battery pack to replace dead cell, put it back together and in a few weeks weeks or months another cell dies and need to do it all over again? That’s why Tesla want to replace the whole battery pack, and when you rebuild an ice engine it’s good for another 10-20 years
I work and fix tesla batteries in my country for 2 years now. The battery is super sensitive and you must take care of every step you make. One of the most hard things are sealing the battery pack so it will return sealed as it was, the problem is that it will not be water resistant as it was before, which means you cant drive it in winter again. For now the best sealing way is using rubberized silicone and a nylon cover. This prevents water from getting in by approximately 70%.
There are 3M sealants that are 100% waterproof used on boats and in salt water (3M 5200). So if you are getting water into your batter casing you're doing it wrong. Either you're not using the correct sealant, or you're not applying it correctly.
@@jrmorrissey207 Honestly this is the first time I've heard of this sealant, I did some research about it and it seems like it is the best sealant on the market. I am ordering couple of them soon. Thanks for the advice though.
Thank you for sharing this! My 2014 P85D has two years of battery warranty left and given the track record with drive unit replacements (3 so far) it’s comforting to know that there will be a non-Tesla option when the time comes for work on the main battery pack. I asked the Tempe service center last time I was there what the cost to replace the pack would be (since they do not repair, only replace) and they said “about $25K”. And that includes the credit for trading in the old pack! Very glad to have you guys as a local alternative to the Tesla service center - you’ve already saved me a ton of money on air suspension and other maintenance items. I think you’re going to get VERY busy as the 2012, 2013, 2014 cars begin to come off their powertrain warranties!
@@petegruber2353 Would be curious what options are for east coast cars-- since cross-country shipping is $$. Maybe partner with Electrified Garage? They need more locations too though. No viable options in my area that I'm aware of.
You can sell a pack with one failed module for like $8000 (they are bought for DIY powerwall and gasoline to electric conversion purposes). What's the cost for Tesla to install a new pack into a car that has had its pack removed and sold already? It could be more cost effective, ending up with a new pack and all.
Thank you for sharing. I watched the electrified garage fix a battery pack and their system identified the bad sheets and bad cells within those sheets while the battery was still in the car so they knew where to go before they dropped the battery pack.
You guys are great, as a tesla model 3 owner i am so glad to see you out there doing this work and offering options for people i wish you all the best!
4:43 - to clarify, 4.2 volts is a normal 100% charge voltage for lithium ion batteries, and the 3.6 volts he speaks of is the NOMINAL or average voltage, not at 100% charge. Same battery different charge levels.
@@MortimerSnerve no model S uses lifepo batteries. Only standard range in china model 3 does atm. Also I think those in teslas are the higher capacity panasonic ones that are 4.3v for 100%, but never charged to that for better life cycles.
@@gelisob Well in reality, any Nickel based Lithium Ion cell can be charged to 4.3V. It's just always a compromise as each voltage increase of 100mV beyond 3.9V decrease cycle life by a factor of 2.
Love how he explains this fix video. Talk about someone who isn't full of himself but really wants you to grasp the way Tesla's perform and function. Excellent video!!! PS) I had no idea that those (VapeCigBatteries) 18650's were in parallel. That was all that's in a dang Tesla. I know that's the same with Renogy Solar Batteries too!!!
You are so far ahead of the curve! Glad I found your channel today. I look forward to watching more of your content to learn all about Tesla EVs from the inside out.
I always wondered what Gruber electric Co. did and it never occurred to me that you always had a Tesla or three in the driveway! Stumbled across this excellent video by a feed in Google. I immediately subscribed. The photo is of me and Betty, your neighbors.
The special process to determine the bad cell is most likely a thermal camera. When you charge the pack and watch it's temperature, the resistive cells will get hot and show quite clearly on a thermal image. Snipping them out is fine, as long as its not too many per pack. Effectively removing it will decrease the whole packs capacity, which will lead to balancing issues if a lot of cells are removed in this way. So if this is done repeatedly to a pack over a few years there will eventually come a point where you need to actually open it up and replace the faulty cells with new ones. As far as I can see the cooling solution they've gone for is flat tube sandwiched with thermal pads in between the cells. That way the cells are not directly touched by the coolant but can still dissapate their heat. So a replacement of cells should be possible, although it will take significantly longer than just cutting the fuse. So its best to only do this if the pack has lots (Say more than 10%) of bad cells.
Thermal camera might catch it, or you could probably use a sensitive DMM to measure the voltage drop across the fusible link to each battery. At equilibrium the bad cell will have approximately 74 times the voltage drop seen on the good cells.
@@fredhamilton1701that would be fine if the cells where in series but there in groups that are parallel. Put it on a power supply and wait for the hot spot, simplistic/fast. The real problem, it is all a waste of peoples money to do this. If a pack could be r&r in a hour that would be fine. The labor time to do this makes this a loser. You could fix it and two months later be back in it. The cells are going bad across the board because of the number of charge/discharge cycles. Great money maker for the shop, suckers bet for the customer.
@@mitchellcrane9809 The cell became resistive and perhaps that can be caused from the cycling, but it can also be a defective cell and not an indication that many more are about to fail. I've built 2 EVs with LiFePO4 cells whereas the most recent one has 38 cell modules with 52 cells per module. After just one year of use, I had one bad cell out of 1976 that went resistive. I designed my own BMS and was able to compensate by adjusting balancing parameters for that module but eventually, I added a one-off cell balancer to keep that cell topped off. That's worked for 6 years so far but I really should pull the pack and replace that cell.
@@NP-co7kj What do you mean by "topped off"? You bypass that cell? Also, if you replace that bad cell, will it throw off the balance because of age/capacity differences? I'm trying to learn about battery management.
I've worked on electric buses which uses software that looks at each cell within a battery pack - voltage and temperature - therefore can tell exactly which cell or cells are defective. I'm not a software engineer so I have absolutely no idea what's involved there. All I know is, whenever there was a problem, I could plug in my laptop into a specific network port to look at each battery pack, then zero in on all or individual cell in the defective pack. That made my job really easy.
@@grubermotorcompany On a salvage car(missing battery) there`s no reason someone cant build a battery pack using other battery formats with the right software/bms to talk to the OEM Tesla software, same goes for after market chargers, motors from Volvo/VW/Porsche etc would be a perfect engineering project in collage/uni etc....nothing wrong with learning :):)
@@grubermotorcompany if the only other option is a $US25,000 ($AU33,000) repair it would be economically feasible to fly you out to Australia to do the repair.
I'm glad the newer designs they are using today in the Model 3/Y and new Model S don't have this issue. These old Model S's are when Tesla was still struggling as a company, they've come a long way. But it's good there is an independent repair option.
Curious how the newer designs overcome this ? Is this indeed true ? Also curious how long it takes to find the module and then the particular brick and finally the "rogue" cell ?
I'm gobsmacked to learn the Tesla batteries are made up of thousands of the exact same battery used to power my vape! Who'd have thunk? Fascinatin' video.
Nicely presented with details and no bullshit. I like such informational videos. Don’t own Tesla yet but following closely for future ownership. Thanks
We have the 2018 Tesla MS 100D and it has been reliable until yesterday. I was driving from San Francisco to San Diego. I stopped near Bakersfield to charge the car to about 270 miles. We started down freeway 5 and I got a warning that I needed to charge the car and to pull over to the side of the road. I was lucky we were not hit by other traffic as it was about ten am. We had to wait for about two hours for Geico to send us a tow truck. Tesla in Bakersfield told us that the main battery needed to be replaced. Worse case it may take seven weeks to get it done. The battery is still under warranty so that helps. The car has about 83000 miles on it. They provided a model 3 to continue our trip home. I had to learn how to drive this M3 as it does not operate like the MS does. I have to say it rides ok, but I like my MS. Tesla Workers at the Bakersfield location are very nice. Our Model S did not give us any indication in the days leading up to this battery failure. Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? Are the batteries installed in the newer cars better? Thank you for the video.
If only tesla would allow repairs the ev cars would be selling like in china. Unfortunately, any little issue and the car is scrapped. U r a genius and thank u for sharing
Excellent video! It makes more sense to 'snip out' the defective cell - which has a minimal effect on overall capacity - than to replace the entire module. 5:00, don't you mean in series, one defective cell in parallel will have a negligible affect on the overall resistance?
The problem I see with fixing/cutting out single cells is the possibility of other cells failing in the near future. This might be fine when a battery pack is young as a failed cell is most likely a actual defect. If the pack has age (or more importantly charge cycles) then it could become expensive tail chasing proposition. Fix the pack today maybe it last a year or two years, perhaps only 4 months and you are back to pulling the pack again - time/expense.
The cells are surprisingly stable. Out of dozens of Roadster battery repair and recovery customers, which are 4-5 years older, we have had only one battery pack come back after a year of use with another cell failure. His car was also bricked, which stresses the cells much more than normal use.
@@dimmacommunication no, it usually means the battery was left to discharge itself dropping below 2.0V of cell voltage. Most common cause is to leave the car in storage without a charger attached. Once completely discharged, cells get damaged and you cannot "just" recharge the car.
I had heard something to the effect a long time ago that these cars were powered by a shitload of 18650 batteries, but I never followed up on it. Nice to know that what I heard several years ago was true and accurate information.
Brilliant, but shocking how one small battery renders a very expensive car almost worthless. With all our technology you would think it possible to locate the specific failed cell (ODB scan) and replace it without having to remove a 1200lb lump. Great video!
Finding a bad cell in a module is easy , you charge it up near 100 % and look at it with an infrared camera that plugs into an iphone . Bad cells get called heaters because they get hot and the infrared camera finds them right away .
@@petegruber7564 Thanks for replying , I find just touching individual cells with finger tips finds the hot ones , the heat is most noticeable on the positive terminal of the cell because of the cells built in the pressure relief circuit breaker switch that's under the little dome on the positive end of an 18650 cell has tiny contacts that restrict current and cause heat build up there .
Very interesting and informative, thank you. It's exciting to watch a company such as yours enter into what I would call "uncharted waters", apparently not to you, so good work and keep it up!
Thanks, the video has a lot of useful information. By the way, how much money does the procedure shown in the video cost for the your costumer? - Removing the battery, detecting the burned cell, replacing it with a new one, mounting the battery back, on the chassis.
It is a combination of special tools, and a concept I cannot over-emphasize enough - Patience. One of our employees worked at the Lathrop CA Tesla remanufacturing plant, where these dead packs go for restoration, and he said they destroy the lid taking it off, and just go get a brand new one out of stock.
Interesting how you identify a failed cell. You say you snip it and take it out of the circuit. I assume you then replace it with a new cell? Is there a way to test the modules to see if there are any other cells that might be close to failing?
@@JacobCHolden I think they mentioned in the video that it's about $5,000 to do this repair. That is certainly less than the $25,000 Tesla would charge for a new battery pack. But can you imagine if you owned this car bought it in the used market for reasonable price and then suddenly have a $5,000 repair bill? Did you can't get done just anywhere it has to be done at a specialty shop. And I wonder what the time frame is on getting it repaired at that shop? What happens when they tell you it'll be 3 months to get your car fixed? Internal combustion cars certainly have their problems. But the one advantage they have is a huge amount of shops and repair options to get them fixed. Also the ability to fix them yourself for most issues.
@@kens97sto171 Yeh I hear that... I live in South Australia at the bottom of the world and the options for repair like this are a specialist work domain. I know this because my friend has a model 3 with 25,000km on it that is in for a battery replace after he hit a 75 ton truck jack doing 90km/h on the free way! He hit it with enough force to get the car airborne before it reeked damage through the undercarriage! The warnings went like this. Warning, rear wheel drive only some systems have been disabled, followed quickly by, coolant leak book in for immediate service.... Then it said.... Get out of the car! So he did only to be met with bin bag size fire balls erupting out the side!!! When I get the footage i'll link it here for all to see... Be careful what you choose to drive over because it could be a chunk of steel that will absolutely give you a bad day... Cheerio :)
@@JacobCHolden Wow he's really lucky. There will be all kinds of new challenges and issues that arise with electric vehicles that people didn't think about at the time. I'm sure that was true with combustion cars when they became popular versus horses. But there is going to be an adaptation. And I don't like the fact that Tesla controls the repair and maintenance almost exclusively. Also they can barely handle the repairs needed at their current production levels. That's going to ramp up very soon probably doubling in the next year. If people can't get their car fixed in a reasonable period of time this is going to be a serious issue for tesla. I would say that's one advantage that the legacy manufacturers have. They're used to sales and service after the sale. And they have the equipment and the facilities to handle that. On the flip side I think they're doing a much worse job of building decent electric cars although that is beginning to change. The new Kia ev6 and ionic 5 look pretty awesome. The vwid4 is pretty nice too. It has some problems with infotainment systems being a bit crappy. But the overall car is pretty damn nice. But I'm probably going to wait until Toyota brings something out. Currently driving a 13-year-old Prius with 377,000 mi on it. Original battery powertrain the only thing I had to change was the inverter 2 months ago. Bought one of the salvage yard for a hundred bucks took me 45 minutes to install it no big deal. And that's the kind of thing that you can't do with a Tesla currently. I definitely be interested to see the video when you post it. When lithium batteries go up they are rather exciting and not in a good way. Be safe out there, and love you guys down in Australia. Someday I'd love to come visit.
Cell matching is very difficult if we put new cell in old cells group we need to consider IR value is very important because new cell less IR compare to old cell. New cell charge rapidly compare old one now that group hit voltage first now bms stopped to charge the battery pack. Remaining groups not charge fully due to More IR. My opinion is we put old good cell put in that group IR also matched capacity also matching easily this im doing small lithium batteries repair in this method works well
Right To Repair is a movement everyone should get behind so that we as consumers and also private business repair shops of all kinds can have the ability to repair these products without being forced to only go through the original manufacturer for repairs. Bring back the old days when we all had access to parts, schematics, manuals, etc. To do the work ourselves.
@sparkie996 We now have access to the "tool box" and service screen, so that's great. We just need access to order all parts.
Anyone who claims to care about the environment should be actively supporting right to repair.
Musk added apink slime to the new batteries so you cant replace (right t repair) modules yourself. It's why I wont ever buy a Tesla . Replacement Modules for my ID 4 are $500-$800 cheap and I can have my loclal mechanic swap them out for me
Is this purely a US issue or do we have the same problems here in the EU? Unsure what the EV repair situation is, although I briefly looked around locally and did not find any car battery refurb shops here in Stockholm.
CRAZY DESIGN.
1 bad $3 cell disables a whole car, a whole battery pack, for such a massive dismantling, diagnostics, then "we just snip it out of circuit".
CRAZY DESIGN.
the F150 with the Ecoboost it easier to remove the engine or more commonly remove the cab to do engine work.
Agree, we should have software in the car where it would show the bad cell. It should be easy to drop the battery with a few bolts, open it up and replace the battery. Wonder if you get a warranty with Gruber motors after they replace it!
@@robertsmith6408 A $20 bluetooth OBD2 reader can give you that information. But yes, cars should include that capability.
I love how you explain things. Very clear and informative.
I was going to post the exact same thing, this guy should a teacher!
@@marcroy8023 Great minds...
So true. Not an actor, no dramatization, just a guy who knows exactly what he is talking about and edited down to the density of a Hemingway short story.
The problems is, there are not many shops who can repair these batteries. They are increasing, but they are still few and far between. If you are in some place like Montana, you may have to be towed a thousand miles!
And, somewhere between 150k and 200k miles, you are gong to have to get the battery pack fixed.
@@roadscholar05 If somebody in Montana buys a Tesla they are asking for trouble.
That electric jack you have to remove/move the Battery pack is way better than what they give us at Tesla to remove/move them. What we use essentially a padded table with 4 coaster wheels we have to push around and its at a Set height lol.
Amazing that one bad $2 battery cell can be the demise of a $130,000 supercar. Cheers to you for your sleuthing skills and sharing the inner workings and solution with us. As we transition more into a BEV society, these repairs will happen more often. I imagine a more serviceable product will be mandated. Thanks!!
Just like a $0.01 resistor being the demise of a $1200 phone, $1600 video card, or $3000 laptop. Electronics are just expensive things made of thousands of very very cheap things.
Poor design. Could have arranged the batteries to bypass the faulty battery.
@@SPX3455 that would be even more expensive tho right
Awesome, nice to know that there are options for older Tesla vehicles besides purchasing a new battery pack.
Of course there are. Not just for tesla. Imagine this car is an overgrown cordless impact driver.
If only car manufacturers would make the battery pack maintenance and inspection easy and accesible, not requiring extensive and expensive equipment to access. The right to repair, not to be abused by dealers that will push you onto new battery packs because the old one is old and dead, when in fact a single cell replacement makes it great again, even after maaaaaany years of use. But that is the scsm of the official dealership, a monopoly to prevent customers from fair repair.
@@AudiTTQuattro2003 It’s nothing like an engine rebuild? You disconnect the HV, drop the battery out and remove the lid and a couple of hose fittings. You can check the battery voltage with a $20 multimeter. Yes it’s a sealed lid and removing and resealing it isn’t easy and that’s the part where specialist tools come in but that’s because it’s a completely sealed system - on purpose. That’s hardly engine rebuild territory. To put it into perspective, Neo (Chinese EV maker) just completed it’s 2 millionth battery swap. It takes about the same amount of time as filling your car with gas. Even Tesla’s battery is pretty modular.
@@christinalaw3375 how is that unlike any car maker with non EV cars?
@@AudiTTQuattro2003 you have no idea, you pull out a 10 year old battery pack to replace dead cell, put it back together and in a few weeks weeks or months another cell dies and need to do it all over again? That’s why Tesla want to replace the whole battery pack, and when you rebuild an ice engine it’s good for another 10-20 years
That's crucial. I for one would never consider buying a Tesla if I am looking at a $22000 battery pack replacement after 8 years or so.
I work and fix tesla batteries in my country for 2 years now. The battery is super sensitive and you must take care of every step you make. One of the most hard things are sealing the battery pack so it will return sealed as it was, the problem is that it will not be water resistant as it was before, which means you cant drive it in winter again. For now the best sealing way is using rubberized silicone and a nylon cover. This prevents water from getting in by approximately 70%.
I like tô learn more about batterys on Electric cars
Where can I find online courses
There are 3M sealants that are 100% waterproof used on boats and in salt water (3M 5200). So if you are getting water into your batter casing you're doing it wrong. Either you're not using the correct sealant, or you're not applying it correctly.
@@jrmorrissey207 Honestly this is the first time I've heard of this sealant, I did some research about it and it seems like it is the best sealant on the market. I am ordering couple of them soon. Thanks for the advice though.
You must use 100% polyurethane-based caulk only lasts 25% as long as pure silicone does?
Thank you for sharing this! My 2014 P85D has two years of battery warranty left and given the track record with drive unit replacements (3 so far) it’s comforting to know that there will be a non-Tesla option when the time comes for work on the main battery pack. I asked the Tempe service center last time I was there what the cost to replace the pack would be (since they do not repair, only replace) and they said “about $25K”. And that includes the credit for trading in the old pack! Very glad to have you guys as a local alternative to the Tesla service center - you’ve already saved me a ton of money on air suspension and other maintenance items. I think you’re going to get VERY busy as the 2012, 2013, 2014 cars begin to come off their powertrain warranties!
We plan on expanding to meet the needs of our customers. Thank you for your business.
Pete
@@petegruber2353 Would be curious what options are for east coast cars-- since cross-country shipping is $$. Maybe partner with Electrified Garage? They need more locations too though. No viable options in my area that I'm aware of.
@@petegruber2353 Please open a location on the East Coast around DC or NY :)
It's a steal consider fe battery price today at about 100$ per kw
You can sell a pack with one failed module for like $8000 (they are bought for DIY powerwall and gasoline to electric conversion purposes). What's the cost for Tesla to install a new pack into a car that has had its pack removed and sold already? It could be more cost effective, ending up with a new pack and all.
Engineered like an old fashion Christmas tree light string.
Perfect analogy.
This is an excellent video which goes to show that whilst your Tesla battery MAY get a problem, it's not usually totally dead and buried.
So one cell here and there doesn't affect overall battery life that's truly a stellar example of redundancy
Thank you for sharing. I watched the electrified garage fix a battery pack and their system identified the bad sheets and bad cells within those sheets while the battery was still in the car so they knew where to go before they dropped the battery pack.
You guys are great, as a tesla model 3 owner i am so glad to see you out there doing this work and offering options for people i wish you all the best!
Great video; you should be a university professor. You explain things clearly using simple and plain language that anyone can understand. 👍👍👍
You are the future of mechanics
Thank you - ua-cam.com/video/QRS6_fpyFig/v-deo.html
I didn't know John Locke
from "Lost" is repairing Tesla battery packs....pretty cool.
I was going to go Paul Shaffer, but I see what you are saying
4:43 - to clarify, 4.2 volts is a normal 100% charge voltage for lithium ion batteries, and the 3.6 volts he speaks of is the NOMINAL or average voltage, not at 100% charge. Same battery different charge levels.
Could be different battery chemistries. LiFePO4 charges to 3.65 max, 3.2 nominal.
@@MortimerSnerve no model S uses lifepo batteries. Only standard range in china model 3 does atm. Also I think those in teslas are the higher capacity panasonic ones that are 4.3v for 100%, but never charged to that for better life cycles.
@@gelisob Well in reality, any Nickel based Lithium Ion cell can be charged to 4.3V. It's just always a compromise as each voltage increase of 100mV beyond 3.9V decrease cycle life by a factor of 2.
Probably different batteries
Just what I was looking for on my scavenger hunt today. What great Fortune.
What an incredibly informative video.. made it understandable for folks like myself that have 0 clue what the future looks like.
Glad to see Mike Ehrmantraut has found honest work in renewables.
Love how he explains this fix video. Talk about someone who isn't full of himself but really wants you to grasp the way Tesla's perform and function. Excellent video!!!
PS) I had no idea that those (VapeCigBatteries) 18650's were in parallel. That was all that's in a dang Tesla. I know that's the same with Renogy Solar Batteries too!!!
I need to know where we can find those replacement sheets (a single battery sheet)?
This guy speaks way better than my university professors!
Ha, reminds me of going through the old Christmas tree lights trying to find the bad bulb. Interesting video.
I am so happy your around the corner with my latest acquisition. 😁
Welcome to the world of sustainable energy and Tesla Paul.
Pete
yeah welcome to the wonderful world of expensive repairs and high depreciation!
Awesome work, guys. I wish we had this service in Bulgaria.
Besides tech, you're an excellent teacher :)
Elegant, simple but very crisp explanation of the problem and solution.
What a great simple explanation of how it works and how you repair them.
Awesome!
You are so far ahead of the curve! Glad I found your channel today. I look forward to watching more of your content to learn all about Tesla EVs from the inside out.
Huh, this channel is actually kinda cool! Found it through some random internet blog/news website and for once it actually led me to something cool!
Much more content is coming.
Great explanation, and no political ads!
LOL
Great service, the model S is alive again.
I always wondered what Gruber electric Co. did and it never occurred to me that you always had a Tesla or three in the driveway!
Stumbled across this excellent video by a feed in Google. I immediately subscribed. The photo is of me and Betty, your neighbors.
Nice work keeping the battery cover flat for reuse.
This is awesome! Would love to see the replacement happen too - as well as the "power up" and drive.
We are working on the sequel. It supercharged this morning.
Here you go:
ua-cam.com/video/sH2bVWbsKWQ/v-deo.html
@@petegruber2353 This video and the one linked dont show you repairing a damn thing. take the fucking cell apart and do the actual repair.
Gruver I know you were a university professor, great presentation and explanation sir.
The special process to determine the bad cell is most likely a thermal camera. When you charge the pack and watch it's temperature, the resistive cells will get hot and show quite clearly on a thermal image.
Snipping them out is fine, as long as its not too many per pack. Effectively removing it will decrease the whole packs capacity, which will lead to balancing issues if a lot of cells are removed in this way. So if this is done repeatedly to a pack over a few years there will eventually come a point where you need to actually open it up and replace the faulty cells with new ones.
As far as I can see the cooling solution they've gone for is flat tube sandwiched with thermal pads in between the cells. That way the cells are not directly touched by the coolant but can still dissapate their heat. So a replacement of cells should be possible, although it will take significantly longer than just cutting the fuse. So its best to only do this if the pack has lots (Say more than 10%) of bad cells.
Thermal camera might catch it, or you could probably use a sensitive DMM to measure the voltage drop across the fusible link to each battery. At equilibrium the bad cell will have approximately 74 times the voltage drop seen on the good cells.
@@fredhamilton1701that would be fine if the cells where in series but there in groups that are parallel. Put it on a power supply and wait for the hot spot, simplistic/fast. The real problem, it is all a waste of peoples money to do this. If a pack could be r&r in a hour that would be fine. The labor time to do this makes this a loser. You could fix it and two months later be back in it. The cells are going bad across the board because of the number of charge/discharge cycles. Great money maker for the shop, suckers bet for the customer.
@@mitchellcrane9809 The cell became resistive and perhaps that can be caused from the cycling, but it can also be a defective cell and not an indication that many more are about to fail. I've built 2 EVs with LiFePO4 cells whereas the most recent one has 38 cell modules with 52 cells per module. After just one year of use, I had one bad cell out of 1976 that went resistive. I designed my own BMS and was able to compensate by adjusting balancing parameters for that module but eventually, I added a one-off cell balancer to keep that cell topped off. That's worked for 6 years so far but I really should pull the pack and replace that cell.
Only a sucker would buy an electric car
@@NP-co7kj
What do you mean by "topped off"? You bypass that cell? Also, if you replace that bad cell, will it throw off the balance because of age/capacity differences? I'm trying to learn about battery management.
The sun is shining in the shop.
And in some peoples finance after receiving this type of help
Great and very interesting talk, I just got my brain oppened up to how the battery system workson Tesla.
Your videos and company is needed ..thank you much.. from watch your videos.. I actually feel better about owning mine
Very easy to understand even I am not a native speaker. Amazing!!
I've worked on electric buses which uses software that looks at each cell within a battery pack - voltage and temperature - therefore can tell exactly which cell or cells are defective. I'm not a software engineer so I have absolutely no idea what's involved there. All I know is, whenever there was a problem, I could plug in my laptop into a specific network port to look at each battery pack, then zero in on all or individual cell in the defective pack. That made my job really easy.
Very clear and informative tutorial - thanks !
Yes, someone that can explain clearly and precise on battery cell packs!
The best and most informative Tesla Battery 🔋 Pack video I’ve seen
Andre Young We appreciate it! Part 2 of this series will be released shortly.
@@grubermotorcompany On a salvage car(missing battery) there`s no reason someone cant build a battery pack using other battery formats with the right software/bms to talk to the OEM Tesla software, same goes for after market chargers, motors from Volvo/VW/Porsche etc would be a perfect engineering project in collage/uni etc....nothing wrong with learning :):)
As a former electrical service & design engineer, I can tell the battery monitoring and services are most complex tasks in substation services.
i absolutely love this company reviving Tesla to improve them.
I wish we has a company like yours here in Australia. Very clear and concise information and thanks for sharing. And subscribed
Thank you! We work hard on these videos and feedback like this is very uplifting. Hope your weekend is a relaxing one!
@@grubermotorcompany if the only other option is a $US25,000 ($AU33,000) repair it would be economically feasible to fly you out to Australia to do the repair.
I'm glad the newer designs they are using today in the Model 3/Y and new Model S don't have this issue. These old Model S's are when Tesla was still struggling as a company, they've come a long way. But it's good there is an independent repair option.
Curious how the newer designs overcome this ? Is this indeed true ? Also curious how long it takes to find the module and then the particular brick and finally the "rogue" cell ?
I'm gobsmacked to learn the Tesla batteries are made up of thousands of the exact same battery used to power my vape! Who'd have thunk?
Fascinatin' video.
As always, great work by Pete Gruber and the Gruber Motors Team. Please open a shop on the East Coast.
Like in Maryland!
Thank you. Scaling what we do is in the plans.
Dont forget the East coast of Australia
Nicely presented with details and no bullshit. I like such informational videos. Don’t own Tesla yet but following closely for future ownership. Thanks
Thank you for providing this service. I will be shipping my 90d to you soon.
Oh it’s like those annoying Christmas lights that if one goes out they all go out. So smart and green. 😂
We have the 2018 Tesla MS 100D and it has been reliable until yesterday. I was driving from San Francisco to San Diego. I stopped near Bakersfield to charge the car to about 270 miles. We started down freeway 5 and I got a warning that I needed to charge the car and to pull over to the side of the road. I was lucky we were not hit by other traffic as it was about ten am. We had to wait for about two hours for Geico to send us a tow truck. Tesla in Bakersfield told us that the main battery needed to be replaced. Worse case it may take seven weeks to get it done. The battery is still under warranty so that helps. The car has about 83000 miles on it. They provided a model 3 to continue our trip home. I had to learn how to drive this M3 as it does not operate like the MS does. I have to say it rides ok, but I like my MS. Tesla Workers at the Bakersfield location are very nice. Our Model S did not give us any indication in the days leading up to this battery failure. Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? Are the batteries installed in the newer cars better? Thank you for the video.
If only tesla would allow repairs the ev cars would be selling like in china. Unfortunately, any little issue and the car is scrapped.
U r a genius and thank u for sharing
Solid work from the people at Gruber Motors!
Excellent video! It makes more sense to 'snip out' the defective cell - which has a minimal effect on overall capacity - than to replace the entire module. 5:00, don't you mean in series, one defective cell in parallel will have a negligible affect on the overall resistance?
The problem I see with fixing/cutting out single cells is the possibility of other cells failing in the near future. This might be fine when a battery pack is young as a failed cell is most likely a actual defect. If the pack has age (or more importantly charge cycles) then it could become expensive tail chasing proposition. Fix the pack today maybe it last a year or two years, perhaps only 4 months and you are back to pulling the pack again - time/expense.
Great info will surely need one of these days.
Great explanation. You should also teach. Well I guess this is teaching also probably much better than University.
The sunglasses 😎 make you look more electrify!
Well spoken , learned lots. Thanks
Very good explanations, thank you for the video
Amazing, I have confidence I could easily do this myself. I'm pretty good with this stuff.
Still alive, bro?
@@hieroglyph321 yes, but lost my right arm
Great video. I've been following Tesla for a few years. I love their cars and would have one if I could afford it. See you next time.
Thank you. I'd love to see HOW you located the bad battery module.
A fabulous video!!! You did a high end professional video!!!☺️
This is awesome. Is there significant risk of 1 or 2 more cells going bad in the 1-3 years and requiring then another ~5k x 1-2?
The cells are surprisingly stable. Out of dozens of Roadster battery repair and recovery customers, which are 4-5 years older, we have had only one battery pack come back after a year of use with another cell failure. His car was also bricked, which stresses the cells much more than normal use.
@@petegruber2353 bricked ? software failure ?
@@dimmacommunication no, it usually means the battery was left to discharge itself dropping below 2.0V of cell voltage. Most common cause is to leave the car in storage without a charger attached. Once completely discharged, cells get damaged and you cannot "just" recharge the car.
1:26: "It requires special equipment to remove": Hold my Rich Rebuilds
It's engineered to be removed in 2 minutes.
A lot simpler than an engine repair on an ICE car.
@@graciescottsdale perhaps one day, defo not yet.
@@brad9529 There are videos.
Favorited for future repair.
Excellent video. Good speech rate and very informative.
I had heard something to the effect a long time ago that these cars were powered by a shitload of 18650 batteries, but I never followed up on it. Nice to know that what I heard several years ago was true and accurate information.
Brilliant, but shocking how one small battery renders a very expensive car almost worthless. With all our technology you would think it possible to locate the specific failed cell (ODB scan) and replace it without having to remove a 1200lb lump. Great video!
Finding a bad cell in a module is easy , you charge it up near 100 % and look at it with an infrared camera that plugs into an iphone . Bad cells get called heaters because they get hot and the infrared camera finds them right away .
We find too much "bloom" using just infrared imaging, and have tried a number of different camera types.
@@petegruber7564 Thanks for replying , I find just touching individual cells with finger tips finds the hot ones , the heat is most noticeable on the positive terminal of the cell because of the cells built in the pressure relief circuit breaker switch that's under the little dome on the positive end of an 18650 cell has tiny contacts that restrict current and cause heat build up there .
Great video, explained very well. You are a great teacher in that regard.
His future is so bright.
Very interesting and informative, thank you. It's exciting to watch a company such as yours enter into what I would call "uncharted waters", apparently not to you, so good work and keep it up!
Very well done! You guys are my company when my battery dies
Thanks, the video has a lot of useful information.
By the way, how much money does the procedure shown in the video cost for the your costumer?
- Removing the battery, detecting the burned cell, replacing it with a new one, mounting the battery back, on the chassis.
love the channel, so happy youre giving these great cars new life.
Would be very interesting to know how you got the top cover off without shredding it though. Respect!
It is a combination of special tools, and a concept I cannot over-emphasize enough - Patience.
One of our employees worked at the Lathrop CA Tesla remanufacturing plant, where these dead packs go for restoration, and he said they destroy the lid taking it off, and just go get a brand new one out of stock.
You guys are giving away the farm. I appreciate it though. Very informative.
Interesting how you identify a failed cell. You say you snip it and take it out of the circuit. I assume you then replace it with a new cell? Is there a way to test the modules to see if there are any other cells that might be close to failing?
Fabulous content, fabulous channel. Sincerely, from UK, Wales :)
Great to see that there is an option for repairing it rather than just tossing the car. I'd be curious to know what the charge is for such a repair?
Yes indeed, how much?
@@JacobCHolden
I think they mentioned in the video that it's about $5,000 to do this repair. That is certainly less than the $25,000 Tesla would charge for a new battery pack. But can you imagine if you owned this car bought it in the used market for reasonable price and then suddenly have a $5,000 repair bill? Did you can't get done just anywhere it has to be done at a specialty shop. And I wonder what the time frame is on getting it repaired at that shop? What happens when they tell you it'll be 3 months to get your car fixed?
Internal combustion cars certainly have their problems. But the one advantage they have is a huge amount of shops and repair options to get them fixed. Also the ability to fix them yourself for most issues.
@@kens97sto171 Yeh I hear that... I live in South Australia at the bottom of the world and the options for repair like this are a specialist work domain. I know this because my friend has a model 3 with 25,000km on it that is in for a battery replace after he hit a 75 ton truck jack doing 90km/h on the free way! He hit it with enough force to get the car airborne before it reeked damage through the undercarriage! The warnings went like this. Warning, rear wheel drive only some systems have been disabled, followed quickly by, coolant leak book in for immediate service.... Then it said.... Get out of the car! So he did only to be met with bin bag size fire balls erupting out the side!!! When I get the footage i'll link it here for all to see... Be careful what you choose to drive over because it could be a chunk of steel that will absolutely give you a bad day... Cheerio :)
@@JacobCHolden
Wow he's really lucky. There will be all kinds of new challenges and issues that arise with electric vehicles that people didn't think about at the time. I'm sure that was true with combustion cars when they became popular versus horses. But there is going to be an adaptation. And I don't like the fact that Tesla controls the repair and maintenance almost exclusively. Also they can barely handle the repairs needed at their current production levels. That's going to ramp up very soon probably doubling in the next year. If people can't get their car fixed in a reasonable period of time this is going to be a serious issue for tesla. I would say that's one advantage that the legacy manufacturers have. They're used to sales and service after the sale. And they have the equipment and the facilities to handle that. On the flip side I think they're doing a much worse job of building decent electric cars although that is beginning to change. The new Kia ev6 and ionic 5 look pretty awesome. The vwid4 is pretty nice too. It has some problems with infotainment systems being a bit crappy. But the overall car is pretty damn nice. But I'm probably going to wait until Toyota brings something out. Currently driving a 13-year-old Prius with 377,000 mi on it. Original battery powertrain the only thing I had to change was the inverter 2 months ago. Bought one of the salvage yard for a hundred bucks took me 45 minutes to install it no big deal. And that's the kind of thing that you can't do with a Tesla currently. I definitely be interested to see the video when you post it. When lithium batteries go up they are rather exciting and not in a good way. Be safe out there, and love you guys down in Australia. Someday I'd love to come visit.
You rock Sir, I wish you have a shop here in Houston.
Really grateful
Very informative and simple explanation
Cell matching is very difficult if we put new cell in old cells group we need to consider IR value is very important because new cell less IR compare to old cell. New cell charge rapidly compare old one now that group hit voltage first now bms stopped to charge the battery pack. Remaining groups not charge fully due to More IR. My opinion is we put old good cell put in that group IR also matched capacity also matching easily this im doing small lithium batteries repair in this method works well
Superb video! Lots of tech stuff which is tough but nicely explained
Very nicely explained
Really great to see what you do, giving a new lease of life to battery packs.
Interessant wie so ein Model S- Akku ausgebaut aussieht 🤔!!!
👍👍👍
And I thought I was a kid genius when changing a bulb on Christmas lights
What an awesome introduction to the repair! Keeping making new videos, Gruber!
Very good information especially how you explain it in very simple terms
Wow, the guy is amazing.
Very impressive information
Thank you for sharing!Im curious what would be the billed hours for the repair?