Here’s something that most Tesla owners are probably not expecting to replace, the onboard NAND memory. Inside EV’s has reported on a peculiar repair that, at the moment, is primarily affecting older 2010 era Tesla’s.
Apparently the on board computer uses NAND flash memory for both it’s firmware and logging. Over time the firmware has increased, roughly doubled, and thus logging has less space to work with. The good news, albeit minimal, is that the system does incorporate load leveling but over time this simply is not enough.
Three shops spanning from North Carolina, to Arizona, to Canada, have now reported on seeing flash wear issues. They attribute the majority of this wear and tear to excessive log files. Another issue is that with both the firmware and log files sharing the same memory they may have to compete for space. Not really a competition since the firmware will likely take priority thus increasing the write/erase processes for logging. This in turn only exacerbates the issue.
Repair costs vary from country to country but can range from around $1800 to over $3000. The lower cost approach requires removing the memory that is soldered to the boards and extracting keys/codes/data for the replacements. The higher cost approach, being done at Tesla service centers, is to simply replace the whole board.
As we progress away from the internal combustion engine we’ll likely encounter other problems that only time, and use, will need to be solved. Rome wasn’t built over night. Thanks to Tom’s Hardware for bringing this story to the tech community.