What happens when you run out of power in your Tesla? Range anxiety – especially at Nordic winter time – is prevalent to all EV owners and this also includes Tesla owners. As most EV’s use battery capacities of around 20 KWh, Tesla’s generous capacity of up to 100 KWh dampens this anxiety somewhat but not entirely. And for this reason you have a tendency NOT to explore the full capacity of your battery as you have to make room for any discrepancies (traffic, delays etc.) in your calculation of your trip’s ideal power need. As nobody wants to be in the dreaded situation with ZERO power somewhere on the highway you typically add 5-10% on top of your calculated power need - just to be sure, don’t you?
Tesla encourage us to not exceed the zero power mark on our Teslas, but what exactly happens if you do? Tesla fanatic Bjørn Nyland tried this by accident in 2015 with his Model S P90 (7.x software) where he ended in the roadside with a completely depleted battery pack shortly after passing zero power and he had to be pushed(!) to nearest power outlet.
Now, on my Model S 85D (8.0 software) I made a deliberate “run-out-of-power” test late October, 2016 to see what happens when you continue to drive when you have zero left on your dashboard - and of course to share this useful knowledge with all fellow Tesla enthusiasts. Look into the video and see what happened:
As I’m not allowed to post an URL you will have to type in the https:// in your browser followed by youtu.be/zXwspEpQ81o