The electric battery of a Tesla electric vehicle is one of the major contributors to its high purchase price. Without a battery, the price of a Tesla electric car would drop to almost half the original amount.
Hence it is incredibly important that a Tesla electric car owner keep their EV’s battery in check in order to avoid expensive battery repair and replacement costs.
An easy way to check if your battery is performing properly is to check the average range it offers. Moreover, a battery that loses charge too quickly also signals poor battery health.
How to Check a Tesla Electric Car’s Battery Health
Some useful tips that have been proposed by many Tesla and other EV specialists have proven to be extremely helpful for battery care and permanent damage prevention.
These tips include checking the battery’s range, overheating, chargeability, etc.
Moreover, these tips also allow a layman, who otherwise has no technical knowledge of how an electric vehicle’s battery works, to watch their electric car’s battery health.
Continue reading below to learn about some of the ways a Tesla electric car owner can check their electric vehicle’s health, degradation, and damage to take timely action.
Moreover, this article also contains tips for what a Tesla owner needs to do if their electric vehicle’s battery has sustained a lot of damage.
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Why Is It Important to Check Your Tesla Electric Car’s Battery Health?
A Tesla electric car’s battery makes up almost half of its purchase price. Without a properly functioning battery, a Tesla electric car will be nothing more than a futuristically designed automobile that does not do its job.
All lithium-ion batteries, which are usually the battery types found in most Tesla electric cars, come with a limited lifespan.
This means that like all other chemical batteries, a Tesla electric car battery is bound to depreciate and lose its capacity over time.
Usually, a Tesla electric car should be able to maintain its quality and performance for at least 22 to 37 years, or 300,000 to 500,000 miles.
However, certain damaging practices can cause the Tesla electric car’s battery to degrade and die before time.
Although technicians can repair many types of damages at a Tesla workshop, some damages are irreversible and permanent.
Hence, it is extremely important to keep your Tesla electric car’s battery health in check as it helps avoid unchecked premature degradation in order to prevent expensive battery repair and replacement costs.
Many Tesla electric car engineers and other electric vehicle specialists have put a lot of effort into understanding why an electric battery degrades before time and what an owner needs to look out for..
If the owner does not take timely action, they will have no choice but to incur heavy repair or replacement costs.
However, a proactive response can help avoid these costs and increase the Tesla electric battery’s total lifespan by slowing down its degradation process.
Read How Much Does a Used Tesla Cost
What Damages a Tesla Electric Car’s Battery Health?
Although a Lithium-ion battery is bound to lose range and capacity over time, certain practices can speed up the degradation process and shorten the electric car battery’s total lifespan.
Some of the common practices and driving habits that cause excessive, and at times, irreversible damage to a Tesla electric car’s battery are as follows:
- Using an outsourced charger that is not provided by Tesla themselves to charge the Tesla electric car’s battery.
- Frequently allowing Tesla’s charge to drop between 20 and 0%.
- Never allowing the Tesla electric car’s battery charging to reach 90% charge.
- Frequently overcharging the Tesla electric car’s battery, even when the display screen says 100% charged.
- Not developing a regular charging routine.
- Not allowing an overheated Tesla electric car’s battery to cool down before hitting the road again.
- Not allowing a cold Tesla electric car’s battery the time to warm up before hitting the road.
- Frequently using the public fast DC supercharging stations to charge the Tesla electric car’s battery.
- Deliberately and frequently driving the Tesla electric car over rough terrains and steep slopes.
- Frequently hitting the throttle to drive the Tesla electric car at varying accelerations.
- Making frequent stops and short trips.
- Frequently carrying a lot of excessive weight.
- Tying luggage to the Tesla electric car’s roof and affecting its body’s aerodynamic drag.
- Storing an uncharged battery for prolonged periods.
- Frequently driving the Tesla electric car on damaged, worn out, sticky, old, or poorly inflated tires for prolonged periods.
- Frequently driving the Tesla electric car at high speeds.
- Neglecting battery damage alerts as they pop up on the Tesla’s display screen.
- Delaying timely checkups and repairs of the Tesla electric car’s battery.
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Tips to Keep Your Tesla Electric Car’s Battery Health in Check
Although you cannot prevent a Tesla electric car’s battery degradation, you can slow it down.
Simple tips allow any Tesla electric car owner to check the health of their battery without requiring any excessive technical knowledge.
Such tips are listed and elaborated as follows:
Track the Chargeability and Performance of Your Tesla Electric Car’s Battery
In order to check whether the Tesla electric car’s battery has sustained damage or is perfectly healthy, the owner should track the performance.
To understand how one can track their Tesla electric car battery’s performance, let us look at the example of a mobile phone.
Like the battery of a Tesla electric car, the mobile phone’s battery will also come with certain expected abilities and qualities.
An owner can learn about these expected qualities from the salesperson or directly from the company when making the purchase.
For instance, the battery of a new mobile phone should be able to fully charge in a three-hour duration and retain its charging for twelve hours of use.
To monitor the health and track the performance of the mobile phone’s battery, the owner should time the duration it takes for the phone to charge and check how long the mobile phone can retain its charge.
If the mobile phone takes longer than three hours to fully charge or is running out of battery charge in less than twelve hours, the owner will know that their mobile phone’s battery health has gone down.
Like that, an owner can compare their Tesla electric car battery’s expected capabilities with what it is actually delivering to judge the battery’s health.
On average, certain Tesla electric car models, such as the Model 3 sedan’s battery charging capacity is expected to drop by 2.9% after every 10,000 miles.
If the owner notices that the Model 3’s battery charging capacity has dropped significantly more than 2.9% in less than 10,000 miles, it becomes evident that the electric car battery has poor health.
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Check the Mileage of Your Tesla Electric Car’s Battery
Just like the battery’s ability to charge up and retain charging indicates the quality of the battery’s health, the mileage that the battery offers do the same.
The mileage of a Tesla electric car’s battery indicates the total number of miles traveled in a certain period of time.
Since a Tesla electric car’s lithium-ion battery is naturally expected to depreciate over usage, a drop in mileage over time is expected and completely normal.
This means that if a new Tesla electric car is able to cover 50 miles in an hour, after 10,000 miles of traveling, the mileage might drop to 45 miles per hour.
However, if a Tesla electric car’s mileage begins to drastically drop so that it is barely able to cover 30 miles in an hour just after 10,000 miles, it’s likely that the battery is not doing too well.
Keep an Eye on the LCD Display Screen of Your Tesla Electric Car
The Tesla display screen is designed to notify the driver regarding the electric car’s battery’s speed, miles, range, and battery charging.
Moreover, it also provides alerts and signals warnings if the Tesla electric car’s battery is not behaving properly or has sustained some damage.
For instance, if the Tesla electric battery has overheated, a warning sign indicating the undesirably high temperature of the EV’s battery will appear on the screen.
Consequently, the screen will also advise the driver to either get the battery checked or allow the battery time to cool down.
Read How Much Money Do You Save with a Tesla Electric Car?
Check the Range of Your Tesla Electric Car’s Battery
The range of a Tesla electric car’s battery indicates how much distance in miles the Tesla electric car can cover in one charge.
As the Tesla electric car is used and recharged over time, it begins to lose some of its charges storing capacity.
As a result of being able to store less charge, the battery’s range begins to naturally drop, and the Tesla electric car can cover fewer miles in a single charge.
Different Tesla electric car models offer different ranges according to their batteries’ size and charge storing capacity.
For instance, a Tesla Model 3 standard range sedan’s average range is expected to be between 220 and 260 miles.
On average, a Tesla Model 3’s battery degradation should be 1% for every 20,000 miles traveled. If the battery’s percentage of degradation is almost 4 to 5% for every 20,000 miles, it’s likely that the battery is dying.
Use a Mobile Application to Monitor the Health of Your Tesla Electric Car’s Battery
Many apps, such as TeslaFi, allow the owner to monitor different battery stats. These statistics and figures include the battery’s average range, charging capacity, temperature, mileage, etc.
With these figures, the application can provide information regarding whether the battery is performing as expected or if it needs professional repairs or replacement.
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Visit a Workshop to Check the Health of Your Tesla Electric Car’s Battery
Suppose a Tesla electric car owner is unable to measure the charging duration or cannot accurately check the range.
In that case, they should visit an electric car workshop to get a professional’s point of view.
The mechanic will be able to use their technical expertise and experience to check the Tesla electric car’s battery health thoroughly and will be able to offer an accurate analysis of the battery’s condition.
A great tip to ensure that the electric car’s battery care does not get neglected or delayed is to visit an electric vehicle’s workshop at least once every four to six months.
Doing so will allow all small issues to be dealt with in a timely manner. This will ensure that no small technical damage snowballs into a massive issue that might eventually lead to costly battery repairs or replacements.
Final Thoughts
The battery of a Tesla electric car is one of its most expensive, crucial, and sensitive components. Without a fully functional electric battery, a Tesla will lose its mobility.
This is why electric vehicle experts put so much significance on caring for an EV’s battery.
Although caring for a battery may seem like a technical job, in reality, the health of a battery is primarily dependent on how the Tesla owner charges it and drives their Tesla.
Suppose the Tesla EV owner follows the suggested battery charging routine and refrains from driving in a way that damages the Tesla or its components in any way. In that case, the Tesla battery will stay healthy, and will successfully retain its capacity, range, lifespan.
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My name is Matthew, staying in Seattle, Washington. Electric Vehicles (Electric Cars & Electric bikes) caught my attention for the last few years and my love for electric cars and bikes is everlasting. I spend many of my weekends traveling to various places all over various cities with my electric vehicle (e-bike and electric car). Here I am sharing my expertise, experience, and invaluable information about electric cars and electric bikes. Check out more.