- A 2015 Tesla Mannequin S with 470,000 miles had its high-voltage battery upgraded.
- The previous 70 kWh pack was swapped for a more recent, 100 kWh battery.
- The job price about $12,000, however the proprietor, who did the improve himself, says it was value it.
Getting a second-hand Tesla Mannequin S generally is a nice deal, seeing how a first-generation automotive begins from round $6,000 on the used market. Nevertheless, the massive unknown is the high-voltage battery, which might result in a $20,000+ restore invoice.
However there are extra budget-conscious options on the market, together with swapping in a higher-capacity pack from a more recent automotive. That’s what Alex from Out of Spec Renew did to his 2015 Tesla Mannequin Swhich got here from the manufacturing unit with a 70-kilowatt-hour battery.
The automotive, which has slightly over 470,000 miles, was already on its second pack, which was put in at round 200,000 miles. So when the chance to swap in a 100 kWh pack appeared, Alex, who runs an EV restore store, jumped on it. We wrote about this explicit automotive on a few events up to now, together with the improve course of and the prices related to it.
So, for round $12,000 and some days within the store, is it value it? In accordance with Alex, it definitely is, and the charging stats are there to show it. With the previous battery, the charging energy would by no means go above 100 kW, so a 15-minute Supercharger session began at 10% state of cost would end in simply 15 kWh of power added and a 25% bump within the battery degree. As for the vary, that 15-minute top-up, which is normally the norm for fast-paced highway journeys, enabled 41 miles of driving at a continuing 80 miles per hour
With the brand new battery–new for this explicit automotive, however it was taken off one other Mannequin S–the stats are significantly better. The identical 15-minute charging cease, the place the automotive was plugged in at 10%, allowed the automotive to soak up 29 kWh of power, with the state of cost indicator going as much as 44%. That’s because of the upper charging energy that the bigger pack may maintain for an extended time period, with a peak of 132 kW.
After driving the automotive on the freeway once more, the whole distance coated earlier than hitting 10% once more was 76 miles–35 miles greater than with the previous pack. That’s an 85% enchancment in usable vary. And it may have been even higher as a result of the battery wasn’t as much as the perfect temperature when it was charged, and the ambient temperature was about 10 levels decrease. However nice outcome however.
That stated, the automotive’s effectivity dropped by about 5%, most definitely because of the elevated weight of the bigger pack, which is about 300 kilos heavier than the previous pack, but in addition as a result of the air is denser when it’s chilly out.
