Lifestyle
Understanding the Tesla 12V Battery Service Warning
During the time when I was sitting on the sideline waiting patiently for delivery of my Model S, I read up on pretty much anything and everything related to the vehicle. I remember reading about 12V battery failures on the Model S, something Elon himself even commented on during one of the earnings calls.
RELATED: Tesla Model S 12V Lithium-Ion battery replacement (up to 70% lighter, 4x life)
It was reported that Tesla had chosen a poor vendor for the 12V battery which impacted early Model S owners but apparently this issue is still happening across later production vehicles. My Model S as well as several others that I personally know of received the 12V battery service indicator. For me this took place after 7 months and 18,000 miles of ownership.
Purpose of the Tesla 12V battery
The 12V battery in the Model S performs many of the same duties as it would in any internal combustion engine (ICE) car.The connections to the 12V battery on a Model S appear to be a bit more complex than in a traditional ICE as seen in the following picture (source: TMC forum).
RELATED: Why Tesla’s lead acid 12V battery needs to be lithium-ion based
The 12V battery maintains power for critical systems when the main battery pack is damaged or disabled. It powers the hazard lights, airbags, door locking and unlocking operations, as well as other critical componets of the Model S. The 12V battery also ensures that electronics are “awake” and listening to the key FOB in order to automatically lock and unlock the vehicle based on proximity. It also allows the car to maintain its 3G connection for remote access when the rest of the vehicle is powered off. If the 12V battery happens to fail, it will isolate the main battery pack from the car and prevent charging. This is a safety feature of the Model S designed to help protect first responders in the event of an accident.
What does my warning mean?
The “12V Battery Needs Service” warning can indicate a number of problems and the only way to truly understand the reason for the alert is to call Tesla Service (they’re available 24×7) and have them pull the logs. This is something that Tesla service can diagnose remotely.
In severe cases Tesla Service will tell you to stop driving the car, but generally it’s an indication that the voltage level has dropped below a certain threshold but the vehicle can continue to operate normally until replaced. In the rare event that the the 12V battery dies while driving, the car will become disabled and will require a jump start to power on again. Our friend Kman has a good video on getting access to the terminals behind the nosecone to jump start the 12V, but please consult Tesla service and take caution before attempting this on your own.
Depending on the severity of the issue, there may be a 2-3 week lead time before Tesla Service replaces the 12V battery.
Many owners manage to get the battery replaced quickly, but in my case a busy Tesla Service Center combined with the fact that it was Thanksgiving holiday during a snowy New England week, had me driving with the warning light on for almost 2 weeks (about 1,000 miles) without encountering any issues.
Another interesting point to note is that Tesla may call you before you even see 12V battery service warning. Multiple owners have reported this proactive stance in advance of a warning which is great to see. Evidently Tesla’s early warning threshold is supersedes the trigger that kicks off the dash indicator.
Why are the 12V batteries failing?
Some owners are on their 3rd 12V battery already. Many others are reporting failures at the 1 year mark. In ICE cars you can normally expect about 4 years of life before needing to replace the 12V battery which begs the question – why are Tesla 12V batteries failing?
Some of the failures have been in the DC to DC converter that charges the 12V battery through the main battery pack. That converter can be seen as an equivalent to the alternator in your traditional ICE car. However, this doesn’t seem to be the main cause of the 12V battery failures. Current conjecture is that vampire load and the excessive strain on the 12V are causing the reliability issues.
Tesla may have a lingering design issue in their use of the 12V battery.
From my reading, I think they upgraded the quality of the battery in the earlier models but we’re still facing the same underlying design issue in the way the 12V is stressed. Can Tesla fix the way the 12V battery is used with software updates alone? We don’t know, but fortunately they’re taking care of all of the replacements in the meantime. Unless they can address it remotely via software updates, there could be a factory “recall” brewing (and I use this term loosely).
Either way, Tesla should be more upfront about these issues and let owners know what they’re doing to address the underlying problem.
Getting the 12V battery serviced
From everthing I’ve heard and experienced through my own Model S, the replacement including labor and parts is 100% covered by Tesla.
Tesla Service can handle the replacement at your location, but given the poor weather conditions here in New England, I opted to have them pick up my Model S and do the replacement in the comfort of their own Service Center. They were able to service it within the same day, and to Tesla fashion they also updated/fixed a bunch of other minor things for free, while at it.
Summary
The 12V battery is a relatively inexpensive part in the Model S and is fairly simple to replace, but the bigger concern is why they seem to be failing so quickly. It isn’t a major issue for now but certianly something we should continue monitoring as concerned Model S owners.
I’ve started a poll over on TMC to see what kind of failure rate we’re seeing on the 12V battery so feel free to contribute to it or use it as a way monitor progress. So far over 75% of respondents have had their 12V battery replaced within 2 years.
Lifestyle
Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory
Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.
Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.
The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.
Tailgate Utility Trackhttps://t.co/PCAYXlFBvS pic.twitter.com/sCV2NVxf1W
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) September 3, 2026
The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.
Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.
Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years
Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.
Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.
In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.
The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.
But we do need to act much faster than that if people still want to live where the beach is today. We have about 50 years or so to take action, which should be more than enough time for the space satellites to solve any heating problems. https://t.co/xhrVQALwQw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2026
Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.
This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.
Lifestyle
Police sergeant recounts his Neuralink journey with Elon Musk’s brain chip
A former Vancouver police sergeant with ALS accounts his journey to become a patient for Elon Musk’s Neuralink wireless brain-computer interface technology.
“I’m texting you from my brain right now.” That was the first message Lee Marten sent after waking up from Neuralink surgery, five hours and one migraine after dozens of threads were stitched into his motor cortex.
Marten, a former Vancouver police sergeant, is one of the first Canadian ALS patients to receive Neuralink’s N1 brain implant, and the 26th recipient overall. He tells his story in a first-person account published by Maclean’s.
Marten recounts how he was a healthy, athletic Vancouver police sergeant until April 2022 when symptoms of muscle twitching and balance loss, were followed by a bad fall that broke his leg. He would eventually be diagnosed with ALS in early 2025 at the age of 47. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that progressively destroys the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscle movement, eventually taking away a patient’s ability to walk, speak, swallow and breathe. There’s no cure, and most patients live two to five years after diagnosis.
He describes the devastation of the diagnosis and how he began preparing for it while connecting with other young ALS patients through a WhatsApp group called Young Guns. Through that group he learned about a Neuralink clinical trial at Toronto Western Hospital and, after a roughly seven-month vetting process (physical assessments, psychiatric evaluation, a final interview with the Neuralink team), was accepted this past April as the trial’s 26th recipient and the first Canadian ALS patient to get the N1 implant. He recounts the May surgery in detail, including the robotic system that stitched 64 threads into his brain, and describes the app, Link, translating his neural signals into cursor control, which he was using within hours of waking up.
Marten walks through what daily use looks like, including weekly “brain training” exercises, a real-time neural-activity display, charging the implant via a beanie-mounted MagSafe charger, and using the implant for emailing, texting, social media, and gaming via a “Magic Box” that connects it to other devices. He also gives brief context on brain-computer interface history and quite candid about Musk, calling him “divisive” but saying he found him “easy to admire.
The piece closes on a heavier note, with Marten seeking to pursue medical assistance in dying as his symptoms progressed, noting that he’ll be able to communicate his final words to his family through Neuralink rather than facing a silent decline. He expresses hope the data from his case will help future ALS patients, even without a cure in his own lifetime.


