Ex-Tesla CEO Complains about Electric Roadster's Coolant Pump that Just Won't Turn Off
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 10.14.08
Tesla Roadster Reality Check
Martin Eberhard, the co-founder and former CEO of Tesla Motors has had his electric Tesla Roadster for a few months now (he blogged about getting it), and he has recently written a post on his blog about the Roadster's coolant pump.
Apparently it just won't turn off! Read on for more details.
In a post titled "Wasting Energy Like Two Really Nice Refrigerators" he Eberhard writes:
Soon after I got my car, I noticed a funny thing: the ESS coolant pump seems to run all the time. Even when the car is off. Even if it has been off for a long time. Even when the car is plenty cool. You can hear it run, and many people have commented about the noise of the pump and the noise of coolant gurgling into the overflow reservoir.The Tesla people tell me that when the battery is half-way discharged, and the car is off, and the ESS is cool, then the pump will shut off. Fine. But my average daily drive is less than 60 miles, and I have only driven far enough to drain half the battery 4 times since I got my car three months ago. So, except a few hours on these four occasions, this poor pump has been running 24 hours per day, 7 days a week for three months solid.
He installed a separate electricity meter just for his car, so he's been able to document how much electricity just the coolant pump used. "The pump draws about 146 watts all day long, all night long, every day. This works out to 1,278 kWh per year".
Not exactly ideal. In fact, he calculated that for his own personal driving usage, that amounted to 22% of the total electricity used by the Tesla.
Keeping Things in Perspective
Now, that's not the end of the world. Nothing's perfect, especially not new technologies. If that's the worse problem with the Tesla Roadster, that's almost a good thing. The problem can probably be fixed fairly easily. Maybe just a firmware update, maybe it won't even be a problem with the new drivetrain, because after all, Eberhard got a very very early production model. And even with that problem, we're pretty sure that the Tesla Roadster is more energy efficient and cleaner than most cars on the road (remember, the battery is non-toxic and can be recycled).
But we have to be honest, and this problem is a bit embarrassing. We hope that Tesla Motors will address it soon.
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I really hope they fix that. In fact, I can't see why they wouldn't.
They can leave temp sensors on so that the pump can start back up if it needs to.
I have no doubt they'll fix it. It's a $100,000 car. I could see excusing chronic problems like this on a $10,000 car, but this is different.
sour grapes?
If you want a problem fixed, posting on the web seems pretty indirect way to go about it.
Sour grapes? I don't think so.
Lots of people are interested in every detail about the state of electric cars. If the car makers are able to put out shoddy work, the public needs to know. Besides, he's been blogging about his car and how much it costs to "fill the tank" since day one. What makes you think he's not going to mention that it's electrical system is wasting power?
It should be fixable, maybe not so easily fixed on the cars that exist right now, but something that they can definitely take car of in future cars.
I guess its the kind of thing that you'd never have happen on a traditional car, because the coolant system runs off of the engine, so when the engine off, it doens't have power to run. I guess I'm kind of surprised that it isn't powered by the engine in this car, but I really don't know anything about the systems in electric cars.
Why is he venting about this? Isn't this something their service department will fix? No car is 100% even if you pay 100K for it. Also, I find it odd that a man who is still probably invested in Tesla is airing dirty laundry to the public. The car is beautiful and concept is innovative. Give these guys a medal!
This is a tradgedy, surely, and one that seems to be troubling the sleep of many commentors here. But why doesn't he do what other rich white liberals do when their fancy car is bust-icated? Tell his Mexican handyman to fix it.