Audi Recalls Its First Electric Car for Battery Fire Risk (fortune.com) 106
Volkswagen AG luxury brand Audi is recalling its first all-electric vehicle due to the risk of a battery fire. From a report: The company issued a voluntary recall of approximately 540 E-Tron SUV models sold in the U.S. because of a risk that moisture can seep into the battery cell through a wiring harness glitch, spokesman Mark Dahncke said. The company isn't aware of any fires or injuries because of the flaw, which affects a total of 1,644 models, he said. The E-Tron, which went on sale in the U.S. in April, is Audi's first fully-electric car and one in a wave of contenders from traditional automakers looking to challenge Tesla's dominance of the segment. While electric vehicles are no more prone to accidents or fires than gasoline-powered cars -- and might be less so, according the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration -- the lithium-ion battery technology that powers them is still evolving, and there is no consensus on safe system design.
I wish Audi the best. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Audi has water leaking into their battery packs, and yes, the Jaguar I-Pace had a braking issue similar to Tesla's except that they can't fix it OTA like Tesla did in a week and instead will start sending out letters in a month to have people go into dealerships for updates. And there's no shortage of complaints about vehicle issues on the E-Tron and I-Pace forums.
E.g.... talk is easy but making new tech is hard. Audi first started talking up the E-Tron in 2009, and we're only here now.
But ultimately, it doesn't matter. A person who drives an E-Tron or an I-Pace is burning no more oil than a person driving a Tesla. And that's what matters. E.g. if there's some customer who didn't get a Tesla because they hate Elon Musk or whatnot and instead went and got an E-Tron or I-Pace... well, mission-freaking-accomplished.
You'll get past your teething problems soon enough, Audi. Keep at it - the world needs as many EVs as it can get!
Re: I wish Audi the best. (Score:2)
A person who drives an E-Tron or an I-Pace is burning no more oil than a person driving a Tesla.
Incorrect; the Tesla is measurably more efficient.
Re: I wish Audi the best. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me add boldface: no more oil than a person driving a Tesla.
Yes, I-Pace and particularly E-Tron use well more energy per km than even the inefficient pre-drivetrain-upgrade Model X, despite having less interior space than the Model S. But that energy is electricity, not oil.
Not every EV is as efficient as a Model 3 or an Ioniq. But they all share the key characteristic of not burning oil as fuel :)
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Let me add boldface: no more oil than a person driving a Tesla.
Yes, I-Pace and particularly E-Tron use well more energy per km than even the inefficient pre-drivetrain-upgrade Model X, despite having less interior space than the Model S. But that energy is electricity, not oil.
That would be true were it not for the fact that the nation's power grid is interconnected. Therefore, some portion of everyone's power comes from diesel no matter where you live. Therefore, unless there are EV owners who live in off-grid solar houses and charge exclusively at home, they all burn some amount of oil, albeit indirectly.
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Nobody generates electricity for the grid from diesel.
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Hawaii.
Re: I wish Audi the best. (Score:2)
Yes, there are islands of diesel use but these are not part of the grid.
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The claim was that "nobody" uses oil for electricity generation. I rebutted that with facts and now you are trying to move the goalposts.
Also, what is this "the grid"? Continental USA has multiple grids. 3, I think. Then, there is another grid for Hawaii and I have no idea how electrical supplies are organized in Alaska.
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Although it is true that the major interconnects aren't synchronized, and thus alternating current does not flow between them, they are still tied together by HVDC interconnects, so power can flow between them. (I'm not sure in which direction.) I'm sure there are probably some minor interconnects that are not connected at
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I know for a fact that the cogeneration plant at UC Santa Cruz uses (or at least historically used) diesel power when it starts up, then switches to natural gas after a period of time. I know this because the natural gas generation capacity is lower than the diesel capacity, and when it switches, it sheds load. So when that cogen plant is powering parts of the campus during a blackout, you'll get a power blink, followed by power again, followed by poss
Re: I wish Audi the best. (Score:2)
But they all share the key characteristic of not burning oil as fuel :)
Not indirectly, they don't.
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Let me add boldface: no more oil than a person driving a Tesla.
That might be true if they were working as intended. If they are in the shop for recall, and the customer gets the gas loaner for the many weeks that the car has problems, then it doesn't quite work out as well.
Coal-charged EV?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just coal, good old coal. About 90% of the electricity for an EV comes from coal.
Sorry... WAY OFF. It depends on where power for a specific EV comes from. Which varies from place to place. And thus, varies from EV to EV depending on how/where its owner charges the vehicle.
If you take grid power, one could take a ballpark average using the world's electricity generation [wikipedia.org]. Which has coal pegged around the 40% mark (2014 numbers, and I suspect falling). Less than half of that ridiculous 90% number of yours. What country on earth generates 90% of its electricity using coal? Certainly NOT big users like the US or China.
Where I live, most charging stations I've heard of are built by a company called FastNed. Which uses 100% renewables to power its charging stations (mostly wind & solar PV). Of course the sun doesn't shine at night. I'm sure that's dealt with along the lines of "pull 10 MWh from the grid at night, feed in 10 MWh above own use during the day". Slashdot readers should understand how that works. So charge an EV in the NL at a FastNed station, and yes you ARE driving around on 100% renewable power. Charge at home, and it will usually be grid power. Which unfortunately for the NL still depends heavily on fossil fuels including coal. But consumers here can choose where they buy their electricity from, and supplier's offerings include renewable power.
Not to mention that a significant % of EV owners will be environmental-conscious people. More likely than an average person to do something crazy like say, put solar panels up on the roof & charge EV using that.
Frequent OTA updates (Score:2)
So with a Tesla you keep getting over-the-air-updates to correct deficiencies in the product?
Is this like with Windows 10?
Cool!
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No. We mostly get new features and sometimes fixes.
I think it's more like a Mac.
The weakpoint is (Score:3, Interesting)
And will remain to be the batteries. Batteries suck frankly. They are heavy, slow to charge, lack energy density, wear out overtime and have a bad habit of catching fire or exploding when you mess with them. Tesla has done a lot to improve them but I think history will show that the Lithium cell is a dead end technology. EVs will really take off when something better is finally developed and makes it out of the lab. I have no idea what it will look like, I'm no chemist. But I think its plain to anyone who pays attention that lithium batteries are merely a stopgap.
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Everything is a stopgap to something better. That's like saying that land-lines are just a stopgap because some day we will have cell phones.
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But is it nearly as bad (Score:4, Interesting)
have a bad habit of catching fire or exploding when you mess with them.
If you think batteries catch fire easily, try this one weird trick with a gasoline vehicle!
Re:But is it nearly as bad (Score:5, Funny)
That's just an old gasoline car trick - transitioning from an internal combustion engine to an external combustion engine. ;)
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Belgian fire departments actually have a new procedure: they bring a container full of water and dunk the car into it for 24 hours. Works really well, apparently. Not kidding.
Re:The weakpoint is (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately, I agree. But I bought a Tesla anyway, and haven't regretted it a bit. Mind you, I went with a low mileage used one, rather than pay quite THAT much money out for a vehicle. The nice thing about Tesla is they've been selling battery powered cars since 2008 or so (first Roadster), and the Model S since 2012. So there's some history now to predict how they're holding up.
In the case of the very first Roadsters? They're starting to find the original battery packs need refurbishment at the 10-11 year old mark -- mainly because they're starting to develop shorts due to insulating materials degrading from time and the weather. Meanwhile, companies have started offering refurbishing for these, independent of Tesla -- so at least you CAN fix one back up and keep using it, should you want to. Alternately, Tesla offers a v3.0 battery for them that has much more capacity and improved materials. That will set you back about $29,000 including the labor though, so NOT real cost-effective, except for the fact these are basically sports/collectible cars at this point. Most owners are using them for car shows and parades more than as daily drivers. If they got 10 years of use out of theirs, they might spend the $29K to keep it around another 10+ with a much improved battery that gives it 350-400 miles of range between charges.
I figure my Model S has an 8 year, unlimited mileage warranty from Tesla with it, standard. So being a December, 2014 production date - it should be covered through the end of 2022. It's not likely I'd still own it that long, as I'd probably trade it in on a newer model with more capabilities by then. Whatever they sell by 2022 might be using a whole new battery technology, if Tesla is even still around? I mean, anything's possible.... At the end of the day, I bought this car because I knew I'd get a lot of use and enjoyment out of it while I owned it. And so far, I've done exactly that. I'm not super concerned about my "environmental impact" -- but I do like not having to hassle with stopping at gas stations anymore. (Charge the car overnight in my garage and it's good for my daily commute and whatever else I usually need to do.) And the performance is great too!
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+1. I also have a 2014 Model S, with roughly the same plan to upgrade next year or the year after. Great car. Quiet, powerful, convenient. What's not to like?
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Actually the one thing the eTron does right is fast charging. It will pull a constant 150kW from 0 to 80%, faster than any other EV on the market.
It's just a shame that it's also one of the least efficient EVs on the market too. If it was more competitive that charge rate could be in the order of ~700 MPH.
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It depends on the Tesla. In theory the Model 3 LR with a V3 supercharger all to itself and starting with a verylow SoC, yes. But most Teslas can't hit those speeds, e.g. the Model 3 SR and SR+ are limited to about 100kW peak and the S/X are about 130kW peak for the largest battery models, less for the smaller ones.
And yeah, what really lets the eTron down is the incredibly crappy efficiency. That massive battery could go a really long way if it didn't suck so much. Not exactly cheap either.
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1) Even a Model 3 charging on a V2 Supercharger is faster than an E-Tron charging at its maximum rate. Not V3.
As you can see here [fueleconomy.gov] from the "MPGe" figures, Model 3's highway MPGe (since it's on highways that people go long distances) is 59% that of E-Tron's. At 145kW (V2, not the 250kW V3s), a Model 3 charges at an equivalent of an E-Tron charging at 244kW, which of course it can't come close to doing. 150kW on an E-Tron equates to only 104kW in the Model 3. Furthermore, as per taper, 80% of an E-Tron's
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As I said it depends on the Tesla. The M3 SR/SR+ are limited to about 100kW charge rate. Also the charge rate for Tesla drops over time, it only sustains maximum rate for part of the charge cycle, so the optimal strategy is lots of short charges but of course that means no time to eat a proper meal etc, so take your pick.
The eTron has been tested by Fastned and hits 80% at 150kW real world. The secret is that the battery has a massive reserve, much larger than most cars. Audio made the interesting choice to
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I guess I have to repeat myself: "3) I haven't seen charging curves for SR/SR+ on V3, or even the upgraded 145kW V2s. Given that LR got a big upgrade, one expects a corresponding upgrade for SR/SR+."
~105kW is the pre-upgrade max. Given that LRs got an upgrade to their allowed C rate, then SRs should likewise be expected to.
I guess I have to repeat m
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Why would the SR/SR+ suddenly get a massive upgrade when they can't even max out the 120kW chargers?
They appear to have been software limited, presumably to encourage people to buy more expensive models. If you look at the charge curve it matches other Teslas with similar size batteries, only with a hard limit of 100-105kW.
About Fastned, you are arguing over the fact that it dips 20kW from the peak of 150kW about 2% before hitting 80? Okay, yes, I'm sure that makes all the difference, everyone be very caref
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Do you not know what a C rate is? I'll repeat: "Given that LRs got an upgrade to their allowed C rate, then SRs should likewise be expected to." There's no technical reason why LR should have its C-rate upgraded but not SR.
~140kW reported (probably 130-135kW realized) at low SoCs, too.
BTW, speak [youtube.com]
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Well, if it's just a question of them needing to test higher rate charging before releasing the software update they are really taking their time about it.
The charge limit is just to help differentiate products and provide an incentive to upgrade. Tesla are losing money on the SR, they really don't want to sell any, and the SR+ doesn't have the kind of margin they want or need. It's all about the up-sell.
Anyway, I'm not saying the Turd is a good car, just that Audi have an interesting and somewhat impressiv
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They're only just now starting to roll out updates for the higher powers for LR, S, X, and the Superchargers themselves. The update that let the Model 3 charge at those powers on the Ionity charger went out just last week.
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eTron doesn't do fast charging right. eTron just blacks out the top 20% of the battery capacity because they evidently haven't figured out how to safely use it yet.
You could fast-charge a Tesla as well, it's pretty easy, you just charge to 80% and call that "100%".
Re: The weakpoint is (Score:2)
I have no idea what it will look like
Stability obviously becomes more and more important as energy density goes up... ideally it would be a seemingly-inert material that could be burned, smashed, shredded or immersed; bonus points if it has additional properties such as tensile and/or compressive strength or even is just a good thermal insulator...
However, that could still be aiming too low... alleged 'tic-tacs' could be powered by this shit... or so the whack-jobs say. [wikipedia.org]
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Batteries suck frankly. They are heavy, slow to charge, lack energy density, wear out overtime and have a bad habit of catching fire or exploding when you mess with them.
Heavy?
BMW M3 ICE : 1,621 kg
Tesla Model 3 BEV: 1,730 kg
Toyota Mirai Hydrogen: 1,850 kg
3 Similar cars are within 10% of each other.
Energy Density? Who cares? You need to look at the vehicle as a whole not the individual battery. Sure gasoline is energy dense, but the whole power train isn't. A 400 horse power engine is going to be far more massive than 4 100hp electric motors. And if you want all wheel drive in an ICE you need complicated AWD linkages. You also need motor oil, you need an alternator, yo
Obligatory downplaying of fire risk (Score:2)
This business of prefacing any discussion of EV battery fires with "but ICE cars catch fire too" is also a false equivalence.
Your local fire department knows how to contain fires of ICE vehicles. They are just learning out to deal with lithium battery fires.
Your local fire department knows how to use its hydraulic "jaws of life" to extricate the injured from a wreck. They are just learning how and where they can cut into an EV without themselves getting seriously injured.
Once fire fighters arrive o
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The future is not Lithium Ion but even with Li-Ion the EVs have already taken off. Lithiom-Ion is the current best technology to expand EV market. Once Ultracapacitors becomes practical and affordable in EVs it will be a turning point.
I think the advantage of a good EV design is that you can replace Li-Ion with Ultracapacitors or any other electricity storage solution along with some OTA software updates without changing the electric motor and much of other components. Tesla really leads this part.
"Glitch"? (Score:3)
Oh, it's just a glitch? What an unusual word to describe the problem. I would expect a glitch to be a transient issue that goes away by itself.
Seeing as it won't go away by itself, it's actually a fault - in either the design or the installation of the wiring harness or it's connectors.
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Oh, it's just a glitch? What an unusual word to describe the problem. I would expect a glitch to be a transient issue that goes away by itself.
Seeing as it won't go away by itself, it's actually a fault - in either the design or the installation of the wiring harness or it's connectors.
You're trying to be hyper-technical, but if you were talking about the inverter having a glitch, it would mean that there is unintended phase error. That would never just "go away," you'd have to fix the control system to remove the glitch.
That happens all the time with PWM control too, not only with old or analog designs, but even with modern phase-correct PWM because of unexpected variations in capacitance or induction.
But even if you were right about the meaning of the word glitch; the problem goes away
Growing pains. (Score:4, Interesting)
Honestly, battery fire like this just seems to be the growing pains of the EV market. New EV manufacturers all have to learn the issues inherent with current gel-based lithium-ion batteries, much like they have had to do with gas tanks (nothing quite like getting rear-ended, splashed with gasoline and going up in a candle). However, after they refine the manufacturing process of solid state lithium-ion batteries and start using them in EVs then battery fires will be a thing of the past and all we'll have left is ICE carbeques.
Re:Growing pains. (Score:4, Informative)
There was no fire, they just did extra testing on the wiring harness and found that under certain test conditions there is seepage through a harness that is designed to prevent seepage. It isn't actually supposed to get wet in the first place under normal operating conditions.
This isn't about fires, this is about meeting specifications that are based on product testing rather than design. As you do more tests, you might have to modify the design. That's expected.
So it is just growing pains, but it is more of an ache than a burn. ;)
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They did not "just do extra testing on the wiring harness". Five cars had water sensors in the battery pack go off. Given that there's only a few thousand E-Trons on the road for an average of perhaps two months each, that's a problem.
Just translate Etron from french (Score:2, Funny)
Audi already has a reputation of building cars that spends more time in the retailer's garage than in the owner's, and this won't help.
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I don't know anything about translating from French, but it seems like perhaps your own comment didn't translate very well.
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"Ãtron" is French for "turd". E-Tron looks like a joke name to a French speaker.
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Oh, I thought that in France they called it the Royale-E
Re:Sorry Rei (Score:4, Informative)
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Don't tell anybody, but I've overheated and burnt my brakes twice during that time frame.
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Slashdot is the LAST place you want to ask. You'll get a bunch of trolls who've never even seen a Tesla responding.
Here's some Tesla forums:
Tesla Motors Club [teslamotorsclub.com]
Tesla Owners Online [teslaownersonline.com] (formerly Model 3 Owners Club)
Tesla Forums [tesla.com] (owners only)
Tesla Reddit [reddit.com]
Ask away :)
And re: the screen, that's pure FUD. The author, Edward Niedermeyer, is one of the most famous Tesla short sellers on the internet, and has been writing anti-Tesla FUD since the Roadster days, where he was involved with TTAC's "Tesla Deathwatch". Let's j
Crappiest paywall clickbait ever (Score:4, Insightful)
This Fortune screed brings crappy paywall clickbait to an entirely new level of low. With three (or more???) links to the proprietary Bloomberg silo. Both Bloomberg and Fortune can FOAD. I will most happily get my news elsewhere.
Maybe a bit better quality control on Slashdot links would be in order.
"Models" (Score:2)
Article written by someone who apparently had no idea what a car model is.
Oh, Audi is selling over 1600 etron models? Even GM didn't have that many models in it's lineup before they went through and axed half of it.
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compare THE NUMBERS please.
OK, Audi sell 1.8 million a year and have a problem with 540. Tesla?
Re:Elon Musk is Terrified (Score:5, Informative)
Um, if you want to talk about Audi as a whole, in 2018 they recalled nearly a million vehicles [fortune.com] due to fire risks.
stop electric vehicles (Score:1)
Batteries are far too dangerous to be used in cars. They store dangerous electricity which can overheat, cause fires, even explode. It's time to ban EVs and rely on safe, inflammable hydrocarbon based cars. Do it for the sake of the children!
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LOL
Re: stop electric vehicles (Score:1)
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About 1 order of magnitude less per unit distance driven than ICE vehicles. Want to recall all ICE vehicles first? As of May of last year, 300k Teslas were on the road, having driven 7,5 billion miles, with about 40 fires reported, or about five per billion miles. The US average is 55 per billion miles.
Either 2 or 3 deaths have occurred on Autopilot (one in China could not be investigated), on something like 1,4B or so AP miles to date
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About 1 order of magnitude more per unit distance driven than ICE vehicles.
Fixed that for you.
5 is an order of magnitude more than 55? I think you need to take remedial math.
Re:Elon Musk is Terrified (Score:5, Insightful)
Making EV's is easy, and once mainstream manufacturers with massive budgets, massive geniuses and massive ego's get in the game, Tesla's dead.
Seems to me like making EV's is not as easy as throwing money at it and hoping something sticks...
Re:Elon Musk is Terrified (Score:5, Funny)
Or as I've seen it jokingly put in a number of places, "Accused Tesla Killers Acquitted Of All Charges" ;)
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"Autopilot" is a cruise control setting. Those deaths are caused by driver error, including things like sleeping while driving, and watching movies while driving.
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Re:Elon Musk is Terrified (Score:5, Informative)
Might [audiworld.com] want [audiworld.com] to [audiworld.com] read [audiworld.com] the [audiworld.com] E-Tron [audiworld.com] forums [audiworld.com]. These are just from the first page of the forum. And keep in mind how few E-Trons there actually are on the roads.
Of course, nobody goes around collecting every bad anecdote from everyone who owns an E-Tron, sharing them endlessly on Twitter, with an endless array of of Audi-hostile media outlets eager to turn each one into a front-page news article. Like happens with Tesla. Because a realistic person knows that anecdotes are just anecdotes. What matters is overall owner satisfaction.
Audi has had a really rough launch with the E-Tron on so many fronts, with much worse range and performance than planned, battery supply problems, higher production costs, the "Tesla price/performance goalpost" moving much faster than they expected, and on and on. Even the name turned out to be "problematic", as Étron is French for "turd". With such a rocky start, the last thing they need is this recall. But it's a learning experience. Everything they learn now will be incorporated into their next attempt. And I'm sure they'll do right by their buyers on this problem.
In the long run, it's the pace of innovation that matters. That's it.