Owing to the fact that the new Tesla Model S 60 and 60D actually feature 75 kilowatt-hour battery packs, rather than 60 kilowatt-hour ones, they can be regularly charged to 100% without any harm being done to the long-term performance of the battery-pack — going by various comments made by Tesla reps in recent days.
I’ve heard a fair amount of speculation on this matter (since the new Model S was announced) — particularly with the news that the model would actually feature a software-limited 75 kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery pack hitting the internet shortly after the announcement of the model.
Since the battery pack would be software limited to a 60 kWh capacity, the most likely means of doing so for the company would be simply to stop the car from charging fully. If the car is never being charged fully because of that, you can essentially charge it “fully” all you want without causing notable degradation.
A recent post on the Tesla Motors Club forum by “MountainRoad” seems to confirm this:
I asked the product specialist at my Tesla SC today whether the new 60 and 60D could be charged daily to 100% without harming the battery pack’s long-term performance.
She said that because there is actually a 75 kWh battery pack in the new 60 and 60D, there is no harm in charging to 100% (of the software-limited capacity, which is just 80% of the real 75 kWh battery capacity) in contrast to the previous recommendation that owners of models with 85 kWh limit the number of times they charge their cars to 100% capacity.
Has anyone else been able to confirm this?
This question is particularly significant to me as I am deciding between purchasing a used 2015 70D or a new 60D. I would rarely charge the used 70D past 80-90% if that is the recommended usage, so a 60D charged to 100% daily could provide me the same (or better?) range day-to-day. Am I missing something?
It should be remembered here that, when Tesla was still offering the Model S 40, it actually featured a 60 kWh battery pack — one that was software limited to a 40 kWh capacity, as the unconfirmed reports above claim about the new Model S 60. So, this all seems fairly likely to be accurate.
So…if someone manages to hack into that software limiter and unlocks the remaining 15KWh could Tesla sue that person for steeling 15KWh of battery capacity?
Never charging beyond 80% of battery capacity is great for battery life but if the battery degrades will it still only charge 80% of the degraded capacity or will the software allow the same amount of energy to be charged using the extra capacity?
If so that 75/60 version should deliver on its promised range for a very long time indeed.
That also probably means that superchargers can charge at full speed all the way up to ‘full battery’ on the S60.
The S60 then is a very attractive car also for long distance trips, sinve you would rarely charge beyond 80-90% on a S75 because of the charging getting slower as the battery fills up..