I Drove My Tesla Until it Died! What Happens at 0%? 

The battery cannot charge at high speed when is empty or very low, same when is very high getting close to 100%. Reason is simple, the battery is at the most unstable state when they are on the extremes. Once it is closer to the middle (50%), the battery relaxes and can take a big punch. This is why it takes longer to charge at the extremes but charges very fast when is between 20% and 80% (approximately). If you want your battery to last very long (lifespan of the battery, not the charge) you want to keep it within that range all the time. In fact, for the longest lifespan, you would want to keep it between 40% and 60% ALL THE TIME. Of course that would be nonsense, but it is the way all these batteries work (same with cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc). While going to extremes a few times during the lifespan of the battery won’t do a permanent damage, you do want to stay away from doing that as much as possible. Never let the battery go under 10%. I would suggest to make that number 20% instead. And when charging, charge it up to 80% and no more than 90% (Tesla recommendation is 90% and only to 100% when going on a long trip). Until battery technology improves drastically, we will have to keep doing this. Hopefully within a few years we will see a breakthrough, and eventually (I give it about 10 years from now) we will have batteries that can charge in a few minutes, give two to three times more power and don’t need to be worrying about percentage, just charge it to 100% every time and go on with your life. And probably by then Tesla will have vehicles that go 0 to 60 MPH in under one second 😜 Cheers

imagine looking outside an seeing a tesla doing laps

Yo, thanks so much for running this experiment. We’ve ALL wondered what 0% really means!! Now we know. (Wow, 33km after 0)

Thank you for being the brave guy that did the testing for all of us!

I admire how you did this in a small neighborhood instead of a busy road or freeway. Thank you for doing this in a safe manner.

LMFAO the go pro ran out of battery before the 2% Tesla 😭

I have no electric car, but Your experiments with complete empty battery are very helpful for the other people who have an electric car.

This must have taken a long time to film. I liked watching the lamppost shadow move across your driveway.

Glad to see that there still is a bit of reserve when the car says 0%. I personally wouldn’t be brave enough to do this. I appreciate that POGauto did. Thank you sir for testing this.

Most gas cars can actually drive about the same distance on empty, interesting how Tesla mimicked that 👍

Great info! Good point too about making sure you keep your phone with You. All owners should watch this as it is pertinant info. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

Great video, Bro'. We are driving a 2022 Model YP and would not have had the guts to try this! Thanx for handling it for us. 🙂 You've earned yourself a new subscriber.

Great video Answer many of my questions regarding preening My luck on low charge Good to see the battery is pretty forgiving Keep up the good work I have an S and a Y I’m pretty sure the concept applies across the board.

This is actually really fascinating. My guess on why it took so long to charged from 0% is because it was charging the reserve power used after it said it was empty. Overall, seeing a Tesla's battery behave like this is very eye-opening

Excellent work. Helps all Tesla 2022 Model X users. Thanks a lot sir.

I reeeeally appreciate you putting your car through these kinds of tests for us!

Good to know can drive 33 KM after 0% SOC in emergency situation! I wouldn't do that test ever again on purpose on that $100k car though.

Great video! I can totally feel the frustration when you’re locked out. Now I also wonder if the locked out would increase difficulty of a roadside rescue.

Thanks for showing us the problems that can happen. You are brave like a test pilot.

Wowzers, thanks for running this experiment i've always wondered what happens on 0%. never thought it would die tho, interesting 🤔

It should pop the charge port out when it is seconds from running out of battery, it would be so simple but so useful

Videos like this keeps me putting money in my piggy bank, 0% and you still rolling 33kms! That's Insane! I want buy one! Not lease, buy! They are very expensive but worth every penny! They already warn me about the rip off when the battery needs replacing but, I have been rip off by Chevy, Ford and Chrysler for decades! So no big deal! Thank you for sharing! You are a lucky guy I see! Blessings to you!👊

Thank you for doing this test. It was extremely helpful.

This was actually a very interesting video!! Thank you for the video!

Thanks for sharing. It would be crazy (like you say) not to be able to press just a mechanical button and open at least one door or the frunk lid to get the charging cable if we need to or to get at least our phone. OMG.

i would have thought that driving it would stop earlier so electronics keep working but i was wrong :), i still think there should always be a bit of power for charge port and doors at least after shutting down the motors or at 0% there would be a warning that you could drive max 10km on low power/speed to be safe and allow you to get in and out of the car.

Thanks for the informative video on the Tesla battery... good to know there's some reservoir juice left to go another 20-30km when it hits 0%.

Your scenario with an X was luckier than mine. I borrowed a (2018?) model X from a friend yesterday who drives it only a bit around town. She has no home charging facility but uses a local gas station with a supercharger. She's not aware of what RFID cards are for EVs, and neither was I. I charged it in the morning at the local gas station the owner always uses, to the maximum 80% the car allowed (I had no idea why this was limited to 80%) then I drove to a ski resort one hour away, went sledding with my daughter, left to go home at 6pm, and at 9pm we finally got stuck, no power left. About halfway back I saw that the remaining charge would make it tight to reach home so I stopped at a huge freeway rest stop with restaurant and all kinds of facilities. They had about 5 charging stations. When I went to charge up, the machine asked for my RFID card or credit card. I gave my CC. It said "You are not authorized to charge." I was stumped. I left and figured I would find another place. I drove by many gas stations, but found none with EV charging. I googled the car's charger-finder aid, but it failed to work. Had I managed to find one, would it have "allowed" me to charge the car? When the car finally died, I had just managed to get it off the road but the back corner was still in the bike lane a bit. I called a towtruck. They said they can't do Teslas. I called Tesla service. They said "if you have no charge, we don't support you." I asked why and his answer was basically, if you haven't got the sense to stay charged up it's your fault. When you call for help, you need help, not someone saying "your accident/situation was your fault so you deal with it!" FU Tesla! He gave me a phone number of someone he said would help. They came and tried to attach a booster to the car's 12V battery, which was totally buried under a large air filter housing NOT removable without removing around 10 screws. He didn't do that, just tried to squeeze the jumper clamps onto the terminals through a skinny gap between the air filter housing and "frunk" edge but they kept popping off. After an hour he left, but called me a towtruck that could handle a Tesla. I waited (again) in the freezing cold... my daughter long-ago picked up and brought home by a friend with an Uber. Around 11pm the tower arrived, towed me to a strange charging station at a public swimming pool nearby, used the car's charge cable, started charging, noticed after a while the car was not accepting the charge, because there was still no basic power to power the car's life systems to allow it to accept charge. He spent a long time fiddling with the stupid buried battery as well, then gave up and had to disassemble and remove the air filter housing to allow the cable to get a good contact with the terminals. Car finally accepted charge. After spending 3 hours with me he left me there after 1am to sit in the car and try to sleep while it very slowly charged. At 2am it showed 60km driving range so I stopped charging and drove the 10k to my friend's place (they're on a holiday) and took an Uber home. This nightmare would never have happened with a normal car.

Good to know I always wondered if zero means zero so I’m assuming if u hit 0% u still have 15 miles left. I have the Model S P85. I never let it go below 10% or 20 miles.

please can you do the same test with the model Y? what I was told is that it will only give you 5KM of range after you hit zero. i did not dare to try it, but you seem to have the right driveway/neighborhood and charger setup :) thanks for sharing

My sister has drove our Tesla Model S Plaid, Model X Plaid and Model Y around a lot But she’d never be brave enough for this. Thank you for being the brave guy who tested this out

Thank you for your experiment, good to know😊🥰

It's interesting that it went into a sort of low power mode. It's also interesting that the doors didn't work. I assumed those just ran off the 12 volt standard car battery.

I was literally thinking what happens if you hit 0% and this was recommended lol. Also if Im correct, when you were pulling up in the driveway, the tesla didn't have enough power to go up the very small incline of your driveway and was falling backwards?

damn, good work, thanks for doing this, very informative.

Just a suggestion but the smart charger might have slowed down the charge when it was at 0% to keep from wearing down the battery as much and the car might show 0% longer that the battery is actually at 0% so the driver feels a higher urge to charge the car

I’m pretty sure the emergency tabs to open the front trunk are next to the left turn signal in that smaller vent behind the plastic piece that’s just there

Thank you for sharing 🙏🏾

Asking the real questions lol I love it

I should try this with my Segway I have an S Plus which is the longer range model so I’m curious about how it will react

the results you got were likely because your regenerative braking was charging the car very slightly, if you do this on the highway you might not get as far because you are just using the juice and not slowing down to let the regenerative braking do its thing.

Very informative and scary! I bet your neighbors thought you were nuts with all the circling! LOL! And how ironic your GoPro Battery failed FIRST! Cheers!

thanks for this test for the community. that really hurts the batteries but thanks again.

Yea I figured it would still drive a while after it was at 0% because they want to make you think it’s lower than it is so you can charge it more often

Its interesting and helpful though you have extra 30km of range after it shows 0% left

Thanks for this the video. Most Tesla owners in California can benefit from watching this.

I wonder what the thinking was behind not having any sort of mechanical access to the car in the event that it's completely out of power. I guess prying open the charge port is the only thing you can do to get it plugged in and then go from there once power's restored?

The one kid in the block: “Mom! There’s someone circling our house with a Model X!”

Teslas have induction motors so you don’t have to use your brakes because the induction motors cause a little resistance and the battery’s charge a bit

Can you share the purchase link of the speed radar holder? thanks

Thanks for testing!

I have always heard that doing what you did can severely damage the battery. Is that really true? And, did you need to have the battery repaired as the indicator had shown on your panel?

When you reach 0 you must charge it. The remaining power if exactly for the doors and ports to open. If you drive until complete die out it will not open the doors. Its understandable...

Thanks for showing how you had to open the charge port because that is what I wanted to see.

I could feel you getting nervous when it wasn't charging back past 0% my dude! New subscriber here. THINKING about getting one. Have you covered anything on the tax benefits yet?

When you realise that you don't even need to charge the Tesla

What if some stranger use your charger.

Its good thing to test this in a controlled situation. That way if it happens in an emergency you will know what to expect and react accordingly.

What's the mount you are using for your radar detector

The reason why the car was charging slower was because at low battery % batteries charge slower similar to how batteries take forever to get from 99% to 100%.

Best way to kill the 12V battery...

Help is on the way for all Tesla owners in these situations. Spark Charge very soon will team up with AAA for Tesla roadside charging. Spark Charge recently pitched their idea on Shark Tank. Thanks buddy for doing this experiment !

Nice information to know. I don't own a model x lr but hope to own a model y edd: Oct-Nov.

Even at 0%, Elon Musk made sure that some energy remains for safety purposes such as pulling over or in this case, reach a charger.

Takes 3 minutes to fill my Honda with gas hahaha.

thank you for sharing

Thanks for sharing this experiment.

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Hello, from what i know they added a extra bit more after that 0% so that people can make there way over to a charger, so people can make there way over its so that the owner does not have to worry about stopping

thank you for the little adventure !! hope your tesla is ok after this, i don' t know if this exist already, but, can teslas help each other ? i mean like normal cars, if your battery is empty in a highway for example, can you pull some juce from another tesla ?

Tesla no good. ⛽ Gas is better.

Great video! I have a model y, and was wondering about this scenario. Moral of the story, don't run out of battery!

Glad to see it's like a gas car, with a hidden range after 0km. But they should have a manual way to get into the car...like my lexus smart key has a method to get in even if the remote's battery dies, by holding it close to the door and performing some steps, I forgot lol whoops

Is normal that some cases the BMS disconnects the battery to protect it so is only running on 12v but even so some features may not work properly. Advisable to not close completely the car and more importantly not reach zero...

interesting test but the reason that one can drive further is so to preserve the battery one of the biggest killers of rechargeable batteries is running the thing down if the battery is kept some where in the mid point of charge they can live a long time the extreme hi charge and low charge loading of the battery is a killer and shortens the life of the thing it is Your car you can do as you want thank you for the test any way

I don't drive nor have a tesla, but I imagine that is very informative for people who do you at least get an extra 32kms when at 0%

When this type of battery is been used till get completely done the battery has memory and the full use of the power will be reduced little by little if you keep doing that sooner you'll find that the battery won't give the same performance or miles, though they have a limiter control to keep some power in them that's why the system start warning you to connect it

Thanks. Good to know there's an emergency "reserve" of ~20 miles at 0%.

Thank you for testing this

Where’d you get the radar detector mount from? And what’s the name for it? Mounting on a model 3 screen. Thank you

this made me anxious lol but nice video

I have run my model X 15 miles below 0. Teslas have a buffer of 10 to 20 miles which is why they rate the range higher than what people might get if they only ran it down to zero. In any case at one point it said there was not enough energy for the computer to reboot. I plugged in the home charger and assumed it would schedule charge overnight. But apparently there was not enough battery for the car to even wake up for a scheduled charge. Instead it drained more battery and when I opened the door the next day and tried the start it, the reboot of the car used up every last drop of energy. Now I couldn't even charge the car, start the computer or open any doors. The 9 volt battery was dead even. I had to jumpstart the car and thus managed to provide enough juice to start the computer and to get the charge process started. Disaster averted.

30k after 0 on a flat road, mine barely made it from Vancouver to Britton Creek services, everything changes in the cold and when the gradient is more severe. I didn't think I was getting past the snow sheds I was going so slow.

Very brave indeed.. good video..!

Can you tell me what the name of the mount is that is holding your radar detector up

Lol the tires are going to have more wear doing lefts so many times 🤣

great work and information

That panic that set in was authentic

Good experiment! Do you recommend getting Model X over the Y? Do you think it’s worth it?

Do you precondition your battery while it’s still plugged in from the day before.

Thx. Good content.

Thanks for sharing.

Did you get the yoke because there was no option for a normal steering wheel available yet for your tesla?

Not many people know about details of DC and AC system. But people’s mind in general they willing test something or test themselves base on how feel it, but at the end they all will get the lesson learned either positive or negative results from it.

I love your sense of adventure. Are you in the USA? i am just wondering because I see your measurements are in Kph

1. driving around the block many times like that could be suspicious so you may want to talk to your neighbors and explain your intent to ease them because someone casing the place for robbery or something would do the same thing. 2. due to recent ev fires even involving teslas the newer teslas will slow charge a really low battery to get it up to a much safer level before doing a full charge. if you are recovering a over discharged or even zero volt battery cell it is good idea to slow charge until it gets up to a safe level in witch a faster charge would be safe. though it is very risky because the chemistry becomes unstable when it is over discharged. i hope your car survived and nothing bad happened. 3. i saw in another video that the circles on the front can be pushed out to reveal a hidden power cable witch you can connect a 9 volt battery to to get your front storage open however if your car is locked i doubt it will work.

Great to know that it still has 20 miles even when it hits 0%. I was stressing out when I saw 15% 😅

Many EVs don't set their 0% point at the cell minimum recommended voltage, instead they behave more like the E line on the gas gauge on gas powered vehicles. Some will set the E point at a half gallon, while others may set it at a point just above the line of the coil for the fuel pump so that users do not readily run the fuel level below the line of motor of the fuel pump since those are cooled by the fuel in the tank when submerged. Beyond that, when someone sees 0% or E, they will drive more conservatively and head straight for a gas station or charger.

It's good to know Tesla offers a power reserve even after reaching 0%, good enough to take you to the closest charging station you can find. However I guess those 33 km will be a smaller value if you were driving on highway at higher speed because this would use more power. Also this is the first video I see on your channel and I have a dumb question: how is it to drive using that weird shape steering wheel? It's like an F1 car..... how do you deal with roundabouts, parking etc? Because I guess is not easy to use for "palming the wheel"

Hey, interesting. I have a model Y bought Dec 22, and I can't find the emergency shut off. Any ideas. I could call Tesla but I thought i'd ask you first.