Image: /u/RobseRob on Reddit
If there wasn’t already enough evidence that a Tesla is essentially an iPhone on four wheels, you can now check out the battery health on any of the company’s cars — or at least Tesla service personnel can.
Tesla has updated the “Service Mode” for its electric vehicles (EVs) in software version 2022.36.2. to now include a new tab for the high voltage battery (via Reddit).
Service Mode is a debugging utility designed to help service personnel diagnose problems on a Tesla EV. Even though the code to access Service Mode is just “service,” the feature is geo-locked and typically can’t be triggered unless the car is physically at a service center.
The new Battery tab details the car’s HV battery system and also includes a Battery Health percentage. What’s more, there’s also a Battery Health Test that can be run to gauge the health of the high voltage Battery.
According to the warning that pops up when attempting to run it, the Battery Health Test can only be initiated when the car is at less than 50% charge and is plugged into a level 2 charger. The test can take up to 24 hours, during which the Tesla will discharge and then fully recharge its high voltage battery.
Image: /u/RobseRob on Reddit
Tesla last month added additional information to Service Mode so that it also displayed the status of the vehicle’s GPS systems, infotainment ECU, Autopilot ECU, radar, and more. Before that, Tesla redesigned the Service Mode interface to show more detailed information.
Service mode is no longer geo-fenced. It can be activated anywhere.
Makes sense, remote diagnostics and Tesla Ranger can use it 😀
Is there a way for a user to enable it?
Anyone can enable it.. you go into the software menu, press the badge for your car (dual motor, standard plus etc) for 5 seconds. A password prompt pops up and the password is service.
Nah. That does nothing for me. Just go back to the Software screen.
You’re not on a really old firmware or anything? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C94hA0_s9cc
2022.36.2 as of yesterday.
Try the video — works here in my driveway for sure.
them you are doing it wrong… keep your finger there till you see the animation and after some seconds the popup
Of course I’m seeing the pop-up. I type service. Press enter. Pop-up disappear and nothing happens.
Maybe not available with Australian cars.
started the battery test process. Began the test @ 15% at home plugged into my 14-50 plug. Lots of noise from fans, etc at the front of the car for about an hour at which time it stopped making noises @ 7%. It slowly over the next couple of hours brought it down to 5% at which time it started charging the battery. My car is set to 90% but my understanding it charges it to 100%. Guess I will have to wait and see. Hopefully it provides a detailed report afterwards. Will let you know. Planning on making a youtube video on it.
How did it turn out? Mine did as you said, shedding power in a noisy and obvious way down to about 8%, then it drifted down to 7%, and it’s been sitting at 7% for several hours.
I’m going to have faith and sleep on it and see where it’s at in the morning, but at this rate I fear I might be taking public transit to work in the morning. (Or maybe I cancel in the morning, charge a little bit, go to work, and try the whole thing again some other time.)
Edited to add: It’s now the next morning and it’s finally down to 5%, but it hasn’t started to charge yet. Even if it started right now there wouldn’t be time to do the full charge before I go to work, so unless I want to walk to and from train stations in this morning’s snow storm with a 25 km/hr north wind maybe I’ll abort this and try again another day.
Takeaway: It takes the car a *long* time to drain the battery down to the level at which it starts the charging portion of the test. I thought maybe I could get away with around 12 hours if I started at a fairly low state of charge (≈18%), but it seems like you should count on it taking the whole 24 hours, and consider not even starting the test until you have driven down to around 5%.
I logged in to service mode but it didn’t show my battery health. Don’t want to run a 24 hour test. It did show active alerts. 2013 model s p85.