Tesla’s Battery Health Test - See your Battery Health in App or in Service Mode

Not a Tesla App

Tesla’s battery health and longevity have recently been revealed to be quite good as shown in their latest Impact Report. However, on rare occasions, you may still encounter problems or degradation, and it is worth knowing how to self-diagnose potential issues without needing to reach out to Tesla Service, at least as a first step.

Tesla offers two ways to test your vehicle’s battery health. One is a quick self-test that highlights any issues, while the other one takes much longer, but offers a detailed view of your battery’s health.

Battery Health Check in the Tesla App

Battery health check in the Tesla app

Not a Tesla App

You can open up your Tesla app and go to the ‘Service’ section on the main screen.

You can then tap “Request Service”, choose “Battery & Charging”, and finally “Range”. If you’re prompted to pick a service center, go ahead and pick any service center first. You’ll then be asked to describe the concern. You can type in “range” or any other text and then tap Next at the bottom.

Keep in mind this is an automated solution and your request won’t actually go to a service center when you tap Next.

The app will perform a quick self-diagnosis to see if your battery is within the normal range of degradation. This is a quick self-test and just lets you know that you’re well within Tesla’s expected battery degradation levels.

Thorough Battery Health Test in Service Mode

If you want a more detailed analysis, you can open Service Mode using our instructions. Navigate to the High Voltage menu and then tap on ‘Health Test’ in the ‘HV Battery’ section.

The battery health test in Service Mode is more in-depth and can take up to 24 hours – or more – depending on your charging setup. You’ll need to be plugged in – and not at a Supercharger.

The slower your means of charging, the longer the test will take. However, expect it to take at least 12 hours at minimum, and more than 48 hours if you’re charging a Long-Range vehicle at a lower amperage.

How the Service Mode Battery Health Test Works

The best time to run the Service Mode test is when your battery is closer to empty, rather than full – otherwise the car will need to spend time wasting energy to drain the battery.

Once it reaches a low enough state of charge, the car will then charge up to 100%. Once that completes, go back to the High Voltage section in Service Mode and the vehicle will display a Battery Health percentage.

According to Tesla, Tesla batteries degrade about 15% after 200k miles (321k km) on average. Much of the degradation is front-loaded, meaning that degradation happens faster when the vehicle is newer and the degradation then tapers off.

Note that running the battery health test should be used sparingly and mostly only if you suspect there may be an issue with your battery. By running the test you’re increasing the number of charge cycles on your battery and thus causing some additional degradation. One time won’t hurt it, but doing it often would not only degrade your battery but also increase your electric bill.

Compare to Others

Average battery retention per Tesla

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Below is a chart Tesla shared on the Model 3 and Model Y’s battery retention. It can be used to compare your results to Tesla’s findings.

Tesla recommends keeping the state of charge of your battery between 40%-80%, depending on the vehicle. Vehicles with LFP batteries are recommended to be charged to 100%.

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Tesla in Talks With Michelin To Test New Airless Tires (Michelin Says No)

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Update: While our original story sources mentioned that Florent Menegaux had begun talks with Tesla to test its Uptis airless tires, Michelin has since reached out to us and denied this. We are leaving the story up with this update at the top, and providing various sources for our readers. The original article is intact below:

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Michelin, one of the world’s largest tire manufacturers, recently confirmed in an interview with its CEO Florent Menegaux that it has begun talks about testing its Uptis airless tire technology on Tesla vehicles.

Michelin has so far been testing the Uptis tires on the Chevy Bolt and has also opened talks with GM for use on their EVs. So far, these tires are still all prototypes, so nothing for consumers just yet, but they could hit the market as early as the end of this year. Tesla has previously tested Goodyear’s airless tires in 2021.

Advantages of Uptis Tires

The Uptis (Unique Puncture-Proof Tire System) is a rather unique design that is airless, puncture-proof, and based on an open cell design.

Uptis essentially uses the strength of a unique composite, which has a rubber tread bonded to it. On the inner side of the tire is a network of flexible spokes that bend, and flex as required by road conditions and car weight.

When the tire rolls forward, it naturally flexes down and around small obstacles, providing far more flexibility than standard tires with air inside them. On top of that, they are uniquely puncture-proof, as there is no air to be lost if the tire rolls over a sharp object.

Michelin expects Uptis tires to last roughly 3 times longer than conventional tires, reducing tire waste and lowering emissions from tread wear. This will also help reduce the number of tires sent to scrapyards, contributing towards sustainable practices.

Advantages for Tesla

Uptis tires are also lighter and more aerodynamically efficient than regular tires – the open-cell design notwithstanding. Interestingly enough, many would think that the open cells would cause additional drag, but initial testing on EVs from Michelin has been “described as positive”.

If the tires truly do reduce drag, or at least cause similar amounts of drag to conventional tires, the reduced weight of airless tires could improve efficiency for EVs even further. This is a tire to watch if you’re interested in increasing your own Tesla’s range.

Menegaux also mentioned that these airless tires would likely be limited to “certain types of applications”, though he didn’t mention which application or why they’d be limited. It’s possible it could be limited to certain weather conditions or types of roads. They could possibly be a good fit for autonomous vehicles, like Tesla’s upcoming Robotaxi, which is set to be revealed on 8/8.

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Tesla to Add ‘Avoid Highways’ Option to Navigation

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Elon Musk recently confirmed on a livestream that Tesla will add a feature to avoid highways in its navigation options.

Avoid Highways has been an often-requested feature from Tesla owners, as most other navigation services, including Google and Apple Maps, and 3^rd party GPS devices, include such an option.

Avoid Highways

The avoid highways feature will be useful for many drivers, who prefer to take inner-city or country roads to their destinations. This option will most likely sit right next to the current “Avoid Tolls” option that’s already available in the navigation settings.

Tesla leverages various Google APIs for their navigation system, including map tiles, satellite imagery, traffic and points of interest. However, routing is developed in-house so that Tesla can choose energy efficient routes, as well as account for charging stops.

Tesla’s navigation system typically chooses highway routes due to being the fastest route, however, Tesla does show up to two alternate routes when a new destination is entered.

Owners have previously used workarounds like adding secondary stops off-highway or planning their route through a third-party interface like Google Maps to ensure they’re not on highways.

Avoiding highways can also help drivers find scenic, new, or unique routes that would otherwise be missing. This is an excellent option for semi-rural areas as well, where highways often run side-by-side or in the same general direction as country roads, minus the scenic features. Additionally, many young or old drivers are often uncomfortable with merging on and off highways for short trips.

Release Date

This feature is probably a little while away given that Elon Musk only confirmed it recently and Tesla needs to develop it themselves instead of just turning using it in Google’s API.

In the meantime, you can add stops along your route to force a path you’d like to take or use Google or Apple Maps on your phone.

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