Tesla: bricked Powerwalls

[IvanV]

If you buy a Tesla Powerwall, Tesla can take it over remotely, it would seem. And they have done so for thousands of Powerwall 2 units manufactured between 2020 and 2022. The trick enabling them to take control was a software upgrade. And what that new software did was deliberately flatten the batteries. And if you flatten the batteries, they won't work, because they need some internal power to run their internal electronics. I discovered this with my own, much cheaper, batteries.

The reason that they did it was that some of third party supplied cells are faulty and a fire risk. They will get around to replacing your dodgy battery. But in the interim it won't work, which might be rather worrying for some people who might have been relying on it to some extent. I was surprised to learn that Tesla bought in third party cells, I thought they manufactured their own. But it seems they didn't have the capacity at the time. But in the interim, for safety reasons, your Powerwall is bricked. When my batteries went flat, I force charged them with a power source and some crocodile clips. And they worked again. (Until it happened again in some dim weather last month.) But doubtless with the new Tesla software have installed, they'll just flatten themselves again.

[Imrael]

I may have had the fault they are describing. The connectors on the main high current were fault. One night the unit failed with a big bang. The engineer that fixed it said he'd seen it before.

All over 18 months ago.

[Grumble]

If you buy a Tesla Powerwall, Tesla can take it over remotely, it would seem. And they have done so for thousands of Powerwall 2 units manufactured between 2020 and 2022. The trick enabling them to take control was a software upgrade. And what that new software did was deliberately flatten the batteries. And if you flatten the batteries, they won't work, because they need some internal power to run their internal electronics. I discovered this with my own, much cheaper, batteries.

The reason that they did it was that some of third party supplied cells are faulty and a fire risk. They will get around to replacing your dodgy battery. But in the interim it won't work, which might be rather worrying for some people who might have been relying on it to some extent. I was surprised to learn that Tesla bought in third party cells, I thought they manufactured their own. But it seems they didn't have the capacity at the time. But in the interim, for safety reasons, your Powerwall is bricked. When my batteries went flat, I force charged them with a power source and some crocodile clips. And they worked again. (Until it happened again in some dim weather last month.) But doubtless with the new Tesla software have installed, they'll just flatten themselves again.

Tesla have always bought in batteries. Yes they make batteries but they’ve never made anything like their full requirement.