Tesla Battery Pack Failure Rates by Production Year.
- rory lee
- Jul 19
- 3 min read
The reason I started looking into this is that I’ve recently seen many posts about Tesla battery replacements. I wanted to compare that with actual statistics, since personal experiences often feel more alarming than the broader trend. That said, since there’s no official data available, I’ve had to rely on publicly shared research and online sources, so I understand that the findings may have limited reliability.
Manufacturing Year | Approx. Pack Failure Rate (Tesla vehicles built that year) | Models & Warranty Notes |
2012 (launch year) | High (est. ~15% of vehicles) | First-generation Model S (2012). Although there is very limited production data, the early pack design had significant issues (e.g., moisture ingress, cell faults). Many failures occurred within the 8-year warranty period, although some packs failed just after the warranty expired, leading to costly out-of-warranty replacements. |
2013 | 8.5% | Model S (first full year of production). Early battery designs were prone to failure (e.g., BMS_u029 error due to dying cells), often requiring a complete pack replacement. Most were replaced under Tesla’s warranty coverage, but several packs also reached the end of their life near or after the warranty period. |
2014 | 7.3% | Model S. Improved over 2013, but still has an elevated failure rate. Tesla implemented some design tweaks; however, several percent of the 2014 builds required pack replacements. Failures were typically covered under the 8-year battery warranty. |
2015 | 3.5% | Model S (and Model X introduced late 2015). This year saw a noticeable drop in failures as Tesla refined the pack design. The early 2015 Model S packs occasionally failed, but by late 2015, the Model X launch had adopted the updated pack design and experienced very few issues. Most 2015 pack failures occurred in warranty. |
2016 | <1% | Model S/X. Significant improvement: Tesla “solved” the Model S pack issues by mid-2015, so 2016-built cars have an order-of-magnitude lower failure rate. Pack failures became quite rare (well below 1% of vehicles). Nearly all incidents were early-life failures covered by warranty. |
2017 | <0.5% | Model S/X (mature design) and first Model 3 units (late 2017). No widespread pack problems – only isolated cases. Virtually all pack replacements were in warranty. (Note: 2017 overall EV stats spiked to ~11% due to Chevy Bolt recall, but Tesla-specific failures remained under 0.5%.) |
2018 | <0.3% | Model S/X/3. Tesla’s fleet-wide battery reliability by 2018 was excellent – only a few out of thousands of cars might need pack replacement. Any rare failures were almost always handled under warranty. |
2019 | <0.3% | Model S/X/3. Continued trend of extremely low failure rates. No known systemic issues; complete pack failures were exceedingly rare and covered by warranty or goodwill replacements. |
2020 | <0.1% (nearly 0%) | Model S/X/3/Y (Model Y introduced in 2020). Pack failures remained practically negligible. Apart from isolated defects or accident damage, no significant share of 2020-built Teslas required battery pack replacement. |
2021 | <0.1% (nearly 0%) | All Models. Tesla’s newer packs (including refreshed S/X and newer 3/Y) show virtually zero inherent failure rate in normal use. Any pack replacements were rare one-off cases, invariably within warranty. |
2022 | <0.1% (nearly 0%) | All Models. No meaningful incidence of pack failure outside of manufacturing anomalies. The vast majority of 2022 Teslas have had no battery issues; any that did were replaced under warranty. |
2023 (to-date) | <0.1% (nearly 0%) | All Models. Pack failures are essentially <1 in 1000 vehicles. Tesla’s latest batteries are highly reliable; almost all 2023-built cars remain on their original packs with no reported failures (the warranty covers any early defects). |
Notes: “Failure rate” here denotes the share of vehicles built that year that have required a complete battery pack replacement due to failure or factory defect (excluding routine capacity degradation). All figures exclude large recall campaigns (Tesla has not had a full-pack recall) and focus on non-recall replacements.
References:
[1] https://www.battermachine.com/post/battery-management-vs-pack-failure-what-ev-owners-need-to-know