Table 1 shows one common other fuel system related problems of the 2015 Tesla Model S.
| Problem Category | Number of Problems |
|---|---|
| Other Fuel System problems |
Was driving Tesla when warning light appeared “ charging declined “ . Drove car home battery no longer charging . Tesla stopped working after only 68,000 miles . Tesla wanted $15000 to replace the battery more than the car is worth.
The component that Tesla has stated is the part that is failing is the mcu (media control unit) which was a recalled part at one point but then Tesla decided to replace only a single part of the mcu which was the emmc (embedded multimedia card). Luckily the vehicle was not driving when it completely shut down and would not start back up but I was stuck in a restaurants drive-thru for roughly 4 hours till I could get a tow truck to come tow it. The tow truck had to put the car on dollies as the vehicle would not enter tow mode nor would it enter its emergency neutral mode so the vehicle could be moved. The windows would not go up or down and luckily the trunk was able to open because if not then I would have been stuck outside my vehicle as the door handles did not come out after I got out of it and closed the door behind me. Please read the messages from the tech as you will see that they tried to act as if they did not know what was going on with my vehicle but then I asked something else and they stated exactly what the issue was but supposedly could not confirm it was that unless they charged me a diagnosis fee and "got hands on" which I'm sure that info of what was wrong with my vehicle was nothing they needed to get their hands on. There were no warning lamps or messages until the vehicle shut off on me in the drive-thru and then the warnings started to populate staying that the vehicle was off, vehicle could not detect brake being pressed, and that the vehicle was not detecting the key. The repair estimate is no longer available in my app for some reason, probably because I did not repair the vehicle as they were wanting me to upgrade to the new mcu that is in the current vehicles and it would have been roughly $2,400. 00. Just today, the vehicle would not start, would not move my seat or anything to its memorized position when I got in the vehicle and the screen was frozen, just as it did when the original recall happened of the mcu/emmc, photo/videoattached.
My mcu (onboard computer system) glitched out and the screen began flickering. I lost all of the advanced driver assistance systems, navigation, music, phone link, sunroof venting, climate control, including defrost. The screen froze and I had no functions. This has happened 4 times, possibly a 5th time, while driving in the last 6000 miles. I put in a service request to Tesla and they ran a remote diagnosis, and told me that the old mcu1 is overwhelmed by the new software updates. Their solution was for me to upgrade to the newer mcu2 at my cost. I am afraid to drive my car as it will malfunction while I need the safety features, like basic defrost or ac in the 105 degree heat in phoenix. Tesla acknowledged that the previous mcu1 failure due to the emmc chip was a recall, but this is a new problem that has not yet been acknowledged by Tesla as a recall problem.
The Model S, which was bought in 2015, had a sudden acceleration while I was trying to park near the entrance gate of the parking lot. The accident happened on may 25, 2023. Fortunately, nobody got hurt and the car was totaled. I feel strongly that this should be investigated, as this can be a very serious public safety issue. It was inspected by the insurance company. There were no warning messages prior to the failure.
The car will issue a bms_w035 warning which is connected to the battery heater failing/failed. In this case, the car may not restart, per Tesla's on-screen warning. If this occurs while driving, or in stop-and-go traffic, this could lead to a dangerous situation of not being able to remove the car from the road safely without a tow truck. From recent incidents online, this is occurring in many 2014-2016 Model S vehicles with the colder weather change.
After having my battery coolant heater replaced on February 22, 2021 I noticed problems with my car starting up slowly. Note error messages were noted on my vehicle however. On March 10 while driving home from work on a smooth straight freeway the entire electrical system in my car failed causing propulsion to go off line and the brake pedal to lock up and become non-functional until the system rebooted. For approximately 20 to 30 seconds it was impossible to depress the brake pedal. Fortunately I was on the freeway and pressing the brake pedal wasn't required. I am concerned about the safety of this vehicle now since I had mistakenly believed that there was redundancy in the systems that would preserve brake function in the midst of a power failure. There is no manual hand brake. I am extremely concerned that a system failure like this could happen again as I am approaching an intersection, a school zone or going down a steep decline. I have attached invoices from the original service with the battery coolant heater that was replaced as well as the subsequent service after the incident where the technicians identified that the drive unit was improperly connected.
My media control unit (mcu) is constantly crashing or failing to boot resulting in me not being able to control the hvac, adjust any options including turning on/off lights or safety controls, and failure of the back up camera. This will happen either on boot up of the car or while driving. This has been ongoing since at least March 2018 with Tesla constantly saying it's a software/firmware issue and that I need to update with the update never solving the problem. As late as February 2020 Tesla did a total "factory reset. Which will erase the entire mcu and all it's contents. " this did not do anything to solve any of the problems but it did allow them to install updates that severely limited my charging speeds citing concerns about the battery, but did continued on to say that nothing is wrong with my battery. If there's nothing wrong then why did they need to limit the charging speeds 50%? as far as the mcu this problems has happened in all situations whether driving on the highway, city streets, at a stop light or any where. Today, 12/30 Tesla told me that my emmc has failed and that is why my mcu was glitching but since I'm past 100k miles they will not cover it under their extend warranty explicitly covering this failure. They also claim this glitch today at 114k miles is not related to any other glitching I've made claims about in the past before I hit 100k miles so they won't cover under that either but they cite proprietary information and confidentiality when I ask for the reports/logs of these failures and the diagnostics. Tesla then stated even if they wanted to cover it I don't have the most up todate firmware so I've voided my warranty and they wont cover it. This is after Tesla offered to backdate my firmware to an earlier version in an attempt to solve my issues. So they will backdate it but then that will void my warranty?.
On afternoon of November 23, 2020, 2015 Tesla Model S 85d was in motion with single occupant, turning right turn into residential area off city street. Driver heard loud and deep metallic sound and immediately slowed. Warning message similar to 'unsafe to drive, pull over safely' appeared on dash. Driver stopped car right away and heard 3-4 loud, identical sounds. Driver heard another sound followed by loud 'pop' and smelled something burning. Driver immediately exited and saw smoke billowing from below the vehicle. Driver moved away. There was another loud 'pop' sound and flames started visibly shooting outward and upward from the front passenger wheel well area, mid-cabin and rear passenger tire well, charring the curb and grass next to vehicle. Fire continued to burn through passenger door, front of car (frunk), and underside of the car. Fire department and police department arrived on scene within minutes and extinguished fire. Fire damage to exterior was visible to front tire well and front passenger door. Additional fire damage noted inside rear passenger door. Cause is currently unknown.
Issue 1). Ever since I bought the car I noticed the drivers seat felt cooked causing low back pain. Eventually the seats power adjustment would only retract one side so it could not be adjusted evenly and I had to pay to have a whole new seat replaced issue 2). I have the 85 kw battery and after an update my battery capacity was reduced 10%. I was told it was due to risk of overheating the battery fire risk Tesla never resolved the issue and never reinstated the missing 10% charge capacity 3). The suspension had failed as I was driving over a speed bump less than 10 mph and the bottom of the car scrapped the pavement. I had to pay out of pocket to replace the suspension.
The mcu in this car went black several occasion while driving. I lost all controls of lightings and wiper. On several occasions. . . . The car shut down and I have to coast to the aide of the higjway.
The Tesla's large screen quit working. These are controls that power off the vehicle, turn the defrosters off and on along with the climate control. Control steering modes. Control back up camera, control lights. From the reading I have done it is called the mcu. It partially went out while I was driving, it came back on and then it died while I was working and I found out about it when I started the car after work.
My mcu has crashed several times over the last 8 weeks. First time was when the mobile service was coming out to code a replacement key. The software they sent appeared to crash the mcu the first time. It would work for a week at a time, then several days now it's permanently off. No hvac control, turn signals, and charging is limited to 8amps on my 30 amp level 2 charger and supercharging is disabled. Car is able to drive, but not far due to the painfully slow charge. App will not sync with car and I can't see my scheduled service appt. We purchased the car used (3rd party) and we did not have issues for almost 2 months until we coded the new key, and did a software update or two. There are 80 pages of complaints and this is well documented on Tesla's own forum, time for a safety recall at Tesla's expense, $2500 to replace a known issue seems ridiculous to put on a consumer. Elon, time to step to the plate bud or this is the last Tesla I will ever own.
The media control unit has gone out on my 2015 Tesla, which has led to the car not being able to be recharged (refueled), the ac being unsusable, and car unable to be locked among other issues. With Teslas, the media control unit (mcu) is the powerhouse of the vehicle, containing all of the safety, a/c, and driving controls. With this being out of commision, there is no telling what features are usable or not. This leads me to worry about whether the airbags will deploy, whether the car will stop randomly on the freeway, or the car not being refueled. In fact, since this mcu has gone out, the car has not been able to be refuelled due to the mcu not allowing chage to reenter the car. This has lead the car to be unusable and unresponsive. This first occurred for me while diving on a city street, with nothing unusual being noted at the time. The car was responsive, driving normally, and completely usable and out of no where the vehicles mcu went black and the driving features were handicaped. The car was still able to drive, however, a/c components and unknown electrical features (such as airbags, seat belts, abs) may have been compromised.
The mcu went out. Turn signals, brake lights, backup camera, hvac controls, all went with it. Car would drive, but would not.
The main computer display and memory card fails - freezing all safety monitoring of the car, lose control of charging (I. E. Refueling) . Suspension control lost, basically everything frozen without this - it is known common failure emmc chip.
On January 2, 2019 between 1:45 and 2 pm I drove from my house into a clinic parking lot. As I drove my 2015 Tesla Model S forward and steered to the right into a parking spot, I consciously eased my right foot off from the accelerator pedal, thus lowering my speed from 10-9 mph to about 5-6 mph. The brake pedal was not pressed, allowing regenerative breaking to slow down the vehicle. About a second into the parking turn, the vehicle suddenly jolted forward, accelerating unexpectedly. I felt as if the brakes failed to work when I reflexively removed my right foot from the accelerator, and stomped the brake pedal as hard as I could. My vehicle came to a stop only after colliding with a Chevrolet sports utility vehicle parked in the spot across. As I regained my bearings, I caught myself still flooring the brake pedal with my right foot, and continued to floor it until I after I had shifted it into parking gear, and made sure there was nobody walking in the vicinity. The impact from the Tesla Model S bumped the Chevrolet SUV parked in front about 5 feet back. The Model S itself stopped between 2-3 feet into the next parking space, slightly into the opposing parking space on the right side, as seen in the included photos. This would indicate the brakes **eventually** worked. Had they not, the Tesla would have been expected to roll forward and into the SUV's bumper after the collision. This is called Tesla creep mode, which I have enabled (slowly roll forward while no pedal is pressed). I asked the police officer to position his patrol car behind my vehicle before I moved it and advised the police officer I did not trust the car. I used an app to call for a tow through my insurance, but the tow's number was disconnected. I was able to drive off with the patrol car in escort.
Tesla has reduced the charging capacity and charge rate per: NHTSA action number: dp19005 - investigation subject : battery management software updates prior to this software update, the charge rate was double the shown rate.
Software update crippled charging speed at superchargers.
Nhtsa action number: dp19005 - investigation subject : battery management software updates starting with a software update in may 2019, Tesla capped the max voltage the high voltage battery would charge to. They claim they did this "out of an abundance of caution" after several non-crash fires happened to these models. Tesla took action to downgrade horsepower and range along with all other aspects of performance through a total voltage cap after claiming to be releasing a fire-safety update, but officially no safety update was released. This change happened while the car was parked in my garage and stationary.
A software update from the manufacturer has resulted in a loss of range and apparent rate reduction while using high voltage charging (I. E. , "supercharging"). This has resulted in longer charge times and range loss. The change occurred without notice or explanation of need, and has resulted in significant loss of use of an important function in long distance travel.
Shortly after a software update in June, 2019 I noticed that my charge capacity had diminished significantly (approximately 30 miles or 15%). I raised concerns about my battery knowing that Tesla represents an unlimited mile 8 year warranty on the battery. My battery was tested remotely and I was assured it was not a battery issue. Shortly thereafter I became aware that this is a known issue and actually the subject of class action litigation. I have text messages with Tesla going back to June, 2019 and again in October, 2019 - the date of my most recent service. Tesla has failed to acknowledge a plan of action related to the issue and will not "rollback" the update. I want Tesla to stand behind their battery warranty and make the necessary repairs to ensure safety and provide me with what I paid for. I have also experienced significant slowdowns of charging rates at various superchargers.
Nhtsa action number: dp19005 - investigation subject : battery management software updates our Tesla Model S software "update" greatly reduced the amount of total charge, and speed that we can charge our battery. We called Tesla, and initially they said that our battery had "degraded" and that was causing the problem. We responded that our battery is not even 4 years old (the car was purchased December 22, 2015), and batteries don't suddenly "degrade" 15 - 20% in one week. Tesla maintenance then admitted that the problem is due to a software update that reduced the speed and total charging of the battery "out of an abundance of caution". The service rep assured us that he was looking at our battery stats on line and there is nothing wrong with our battery. Fine, we said, if there is nothing wrong, take the crippling software update off. Sorry, can't do that, was the response. Your car is one of a number of cars that have had battery fires. It has a gen 1 battery (built before April 2016). We are researching the problem, and do not understand why this is happening. Ok, if you are aware of defective batteries, just replace our battery. The response was "sorry, we cannot due replacements at this time. " my wife needed to drive 500 miles up to oregon to be present for her mom's cancer surgery last week. She could not take her Tesla, as it now takes an hour and a half to "supercharge" the amount it used to receive in 35 to 40 minutes. She is afraid to drive the car. We read that in at least one of the Tesla battery fires, the electric door handles would not operate and the passengers could not get out of the car. The Tesla carries our family and loved ones. Tesla appears to be putting economics above safely in this matter. We need NHTSA to investigate to determine if it is safe to continue driving this car. Thank you.
My car's charging speed was significantly reduced following a software update. I used to charge at 116kw until about 25% state of charge but now I barely get 90kw at that state of charge.
Starting with a software update in may 2019, Tesla capped the max voltage the high voltage battery would charge to. They claim they did this "out of an abundance of caution" after several non-crash fires happened to these models. Tesla took action to downgrade horsepower and range along with all other aspects of performance through a total voltage cap after claiming to be releasing a fire-safety update, but officially no safety update was released. This change happened while the car was parked in my driveway and stationary.
In mid may, 2019, Tesla sent me a mandatory software update for my 2015 Tesla Model S p85d ludicrous with the 85 kilowatt-hour battery. Immediately following this software update my Tesla experienced a 30% drop in supercharging rates at all states of battery charge level and battery initial temperature. I also experienced a 25 mile drop in maximum range when battery is at 100% capacity. I have brought my vehicle still under full warranty to Tesla service centers in dublin, CA and berkeley, CA. They have been unwilling to bring charging rates and battery range capacity to original levels before the may, 2019 software update, or to even acknowledge that there is an issue. They have removed car performance for which I paid a considerable amount of money with no compensation or any kind of explanation.
After software update 2019. 16. X last may, my 2015 Tesla Model S 70d lost around 30 miles of range. Charging times were affected with the car not been able to charge to 100%. The charging after 90% becomes extremely slow and stops @97%. When the update was done the vehicle was stationary. I contacted Tesla, but they refused to even look at the car, canceling my appointments and stating that this is normal. After last attempt to question the issue I was texted a message that they are aware of software issue and they are working on it. That was on July 24 2019.
When I purchased my car less than a year ago, it came with a 50,000 mile, 4 year "new car" warranty although it was a used car with approx 25k miles. Within 6 months, an update came out over the air and changed my software, and ultimately lead to a range loss of approx 40 miles and an increase in charging time by approx 3x because Tesla, admittedly through their service texts, has limited the charging on my car to "preserve battery life. " this is akin to selling me a 8 cylinder car, and limiting it to 6 to not have to change engine. The car has become almost unusable as it takes 3 hours to charge when it used to take 45 minutes. The car was able to get a full 116 kw for an extended period of time when the battery was below 15%-30% and the charging would gradually (over 45 minutes) drop to about 40kw. Now it starts at around 110 kw and quickly (within 5 minutes) drops to below 80kw. It tapers off and charges around an average of 35-40 kw. Tesla should be changing the batteries as they knowingly are doing this to stop the battery from over heating and starting on fire. This is a hazard and Tesla, instead of replacing the part with a warranty, limits the performance of the vehicle without telling the owner.
April, 2019- my Model S was stationary at a supercharging station, battery not charging normally, interrupting with error message: battery "recalculating". A 90% charge normally resulted in 242 miles of rated range. Suddenly, a 90% charge now results in only 210 miles rated range. Since new, the battery gradually lost a total of 3% of range, or 8 miles, over 3. 5 years. Suddenly, the loss of range is an added 15% or another 32 miles. The car now charges at a much slower rate. Normal supercharger rate of charge starts at 116 kw. Now, starts at only 60-80 kw. Charging now taking much longer. I contacted Tesla multiple times, with the above information. I have received no repair of issue after numerous attempts at receiving service. I've received many nebulous, conflicting, and untrue statements from Tesla, refusing to confirm clearly what has caused this battery performance and charging problem. At one point, they indicated "the charging rate and your battery's capacity was limited to prevent over degradation of cells and damage caused by overuse of supercharging. " another Tesla rep stated it was caused by a firmware update, but no one has put that statement in writing. But, they still insist the battery has no problem, and needs no repair. If there is no problem with my battery then why did Tesla cap it's voltage and charging rate with a firmware update? why will Tesla not restore my car's performance? indications are such that either the battery should be repaired or replaced. Considering that this firmware update coincided with some Tesla battery fires, I am concerned that a faulty battery could present a dangerous condition. Tesla has not been forthcoming with information, only refusing to repair the issue.
Here is a Tesla in the junkyard: https://. . Read more...
Here is a Tesla Model S in the junkyard: https://. . Read more...