Arizona toddler rescued after getting trapped in a Tesla with a dead battery | The Model Y’s 12-volt battery, which powers things like the doors and windows, died

ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 678 points –
Arizona toddler rescued after getting trapped in a Tesla with a dead battery
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have a small backup battery

As far as I understand, that 12V battery was that backup...

Nope it's a separate battery used like in a normal car to power the low voltage stuff so you don't have to use high grade power lines to run the windows and doors

During the pandemic my car sat in the garage until the battery died. After 7 hours of charging it, turned on the car and found the hybrid battery was almost full.

I get why the high and low voltage systems are separate, but damn that was one of those "Really!?" moments...

It's much much much cheaper to use the same 12V systems that other cars use.

Kia/hyundai solved this by having a disconnect on their (li-ion) 12V battery. When the voltage gets low it completely isolates the battery. There is a button inside the car that reconnects it right before starting the car.

The 12V is not a backup, it's the sole battery used to power electronics.

Not anymore, they've updated the platform to be 48v (which they shared the docs with the rest of the industry) and are using lithium batteries in both systems instead of lead acid. They're supposedly supposed to last the lifetime of the vehicle instead of having to be replaced every 4-5 years.

https://electrek.co/2023/12/07/tesla-shares-48v-architecture-with-other-automakers-to-move-the-industry/

https://insideevs.com/news/656775/tesla-switch-48v-voltage-system/

  1. That's only the Cybertruck

  2. The 48V battery will become "the sole battery" for the electronics so nothing will change in that regard. They're not connecting 400-1000v batteries to the electronics.

The point I was trying to make is that the model y switched to 12v lithium batteries in late 2021 that are supposed to last the lifetime of the vehicle (from the 2nd article). The 12v lead acid batteries you are used to seeing in every other car made since the 1960s usually only last 4-5 years.

I would bet that the model y from this story is either a 2019 or 2020 model

And what part of that were you referring to, specifically, when you said "not anymore"?