Tesla Roadsters Abandoned in Container Suggest That Battery Packs Also Die of Old Age

Pete Gruber shared the story at the beginning of May and said that the current owner of the vehicles was auctioning them. After some rumors that their battery packs were dead, I contacted Gruber to confirm if that was true or not. The Gruber Motors CEO said he still has no idea, even if some outcomes are more likely than others.

"There is a good chance that Tesla pulled the service plug on the batteries to stop the drain, considering they might spend months in transit and processing without being able to be charged. There is a very slim chance that Li-ion cells can last 13 years without a top charge, and that is what we will not know until we can get the cars here. The probability of these packs being dead is very high."

In other words, the rumors are not true – at least not yet. It may be the case that the battery packs did resist being idle for 13 years, even if that is doubtful. These cells are believed to last between two and four years without a charge – depending on their chemistries. It may be quite risky to try to charge them after so long without precautions because you just have no idea what happened inside them. Did any of their components degrade? Are their cases in perfect shape? All this has to be taken into consideration before anyone attempts to bring them back to life.

Gruber will only manage to check these Roadsters when they are at his shop. That will be the only moment in which it will be possible to determine whether these battery packs can be used. I'd bet these components will be removed from the cars and tested for charging outside them to prevent thermal runaways from happening with them in the vehicles. It would be the wisest move at this point.

With bids currently at $2 million for the three BEVs, they will first be shipped to Dubai, where they will be stored in a free zone. The idea is to "allow prospective buyers to view them without lengthy permit application and processing." The preparation to put them in individual containers should be concluded by June 7. After that, they should take 18 to 20 days to arrive in Dubai. Gruber will not see them before July.

When I first wrote about these cars, I said it was the first barn find involving electric vehicles. If Gruber confirms the battery packs really do not work anymore, we'll have to classify any of these discoveries involving BEVs as something else entirely. Barn finds may require the vehicles to go through some restoration work, but they often drive again with the replacement of a few hoses, tires, the 12V or 6V battery, new oil, spark plugs, and fuel. The engine and transmission are frequently in good shape, which is all a regular car requires to move. When it comes to BEVs, they are more likely to become museum pieces than drivable cars.

Unlike internal combustion-engined (ICE) vehicles, battery electric cars need a massive component to work again. Like the 12V or 6V battery in barn-find cars, they will very likely need to be replaced because they do not last for long: they are wear parts, even if nobody is treating them like that.

Things would be much easier if all BEVs used the same battery packs. If carmakers created a common standard for them, they could be easily replaced in any electric car that needed them, just like 12V or 6V batteries. They could select different suppliers, chemistries, ranges… Unfortunately, they don't. These Roadsters show how that will make things much harder for anyone willing to have a classic BEV in the garage.

Gruber recently shared with Motortrend that Tesla and his shop are keeping Roadsters alive with 3D printing and donor cars. Several components are no longer made because their suppliers went out of business, and the tools to make them probably turned into raw materials for recycling companies. Tesla pledged to help keep these cars running, but it is doing that by buying old units to extract the components these vehicles may have to offer – including their battery packs. The limited production also limited the interest of third-party suppliers in keeping them alive.

Sadly, these 13-year-old Roadsters that were only driven by Tesla technicians will probably end up with used components if they are ever supposed to run again. In case that's the plan, each used battery pack should cost a small fortune. That should not be an issue for anyone paying north of $2 million for these cars – or almost $700,000 for each. However, the buyers may also decide to put them in a museum to tell their story and (try to) recover their investment that way.

Ultimately, these three BEVs anticipate many of the issues people will have to keep electric cars running. If we do not acknowledge that their main components have an expiry date and are wear parts, we will stimulate the creation of disposable cars: museums will not have interest in all the millions of BEVs that are being produced right now.