

The Tesla Bricking Story? It’s Nonsense - jsherry
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/22/the-tesla-bricking-story-its-nonsense/

======
Kaedon
If anything, this confirms the other post. Making the parallel between
standard automobiles and the Tesla makes some sense to me, as does comparing
motorcycles to the Tesla. I feel like even given these comparisons, it does
not seem acceptable that they can permanently brick in the way that they do. I
can understand why the owners would feel upset.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Do you think it's acceptable that Ford will not honour their warranty if you
don't change the oil in your car?

~~~
Kaedon
I think that it would have been reasonable for Ford to honor the warranty for
cars in the Model T era. Fully electric vehicles have not been around long
enough for it to be common knowledge that draining a battery is as serious an
offensive as never changing the oil in your car. I understand the reasons that
they aren't honoring the warranty. I think that Tesla could consider replacing
the battery for the early adopters that got surprised by this and make it more
clear to future consumers that bricking can happen.

------
dmethvin
Where's the nonsense? This doesn't seem to debunk the claim that if the
batteries go totally dead you are screwed, out a $40K battery pack.

> Tesla batteries can remain unplugged for weeks (or even months), without
> reaching zero state of charge.

Maybe I'm trying to find a conspiracy here, but the batteries generally
_aren't_ unplugged; they are connected to the car and it's drawing a small
current. That drain from the mostly-idle Tesla's electronics are enough to
flatten the battery faster than if it was truly unplugged.

~~~
DanBC
That quote should be read as "tesla batteries can remain unplugged from a
power source for weeks".

I agree this article doesn't debunk the other article.

I haven't read the Tesla documentation, but if "bricking" is real I'd expect
some firm warnings about it. The other article said that those warnings were
absent; it also claimed that the documents played down the risk.

------
Anechoic
The TC story doesn't seem to back up the headline "It's Nonsense," it just
shifts the blame to the car owners.

~~~
sek
Why is everyone complaining about a Techcrunch headline? It's Techcrunch^^

------
apress
I don't get how the story remotely supports the headline. Nothing in Tesla's
long-winded statement says the bricking story is not true.

------
bstar77
IMO, this is a huge problem for the future of electric cars. If you own one,
you will always have to worry about this when going away for extended periods.
When I had my honda insight, just leaving it un-driven for 2 weeks would
seriously deplete the battery. I never killed the battery, but after the car
had 130k miles, just leaving it garaged for a few days would noticeably
deplete the charge. I'm afraid that electric cars will become the new
disposable car at some point because no one wants to flip the bill for a new
battery pack.

------
georgemcbay
I thought the story was a bit overblown when it was first posted, and still
do, but I don't see how you can call out another article as "nonsense" without
refuting a single factual claim it made.

"The Tesla Bricking Story? It's Overblown"... okay, yeah... but "Nonsense"?
Prove it.

------
p0ss
And what about Tesla remotely tracking vehicles without the owner's knowing?

------
rantertoday
I used to read techcrunch pretty often.. often enough to know that this
"article" is damage control then anything.

