Costly bricking of Tesla?
 

EV owners have to be completely aware of severe battery failure could destroy any resale value of those cars. The reputation of any EV brand could at risk with the general car buying public. Any completely discharged Tesla would be difficult to recharged/restarted and even to be pushed/towed along the street, requiring flatbed towing. Battery depletion has to be a constant concern for any Tesla owner/future buyer.
Unplugged or even insufficient current in recharging can deplete the battery charge and essentially destroy it. Teslas are always 'on', with parasitic maintenance subsystems continually working. Tesla warns that it takes 10-11 weeks of inactivity to completely discharge its batteries. Without replenishing them, will totally disable the vehicle. Long airport parking or defective/accidentally pulled extension cords in their garages are typical scenarios, creating disastrous results. When a Tesla battery does totally discharge, it cannot be recharged and would have to be replaced. Replacement costs are estimated to be 40K!!! Reports of disabled Roadsters are kept quiet but these unfortunate Tesla owners are claiming that Tesla warranties does not offer financial relief and requires them to pay for brand new batteries. Overseas Teslas are having these problems because of voltage incompatibility and are being returned. Typical auto insurance does not cover or even offer additional policies to cover this potential failure. Tesla does have a $12K battery replacement plan but interestingly it does not cover accidentally discharged batteries! Pay up, then you can get it back on the road.
Everyone with Teslas (Roadsters, for now) have to fundamentally understand that you have vehicles that could be rendered useless w/ discharges and there is NO way of monetary protection when it happens.
the understatement

If my suburban sits for over 2 weeks without being started the battery is fully discharged and normally needs replacement, perhaps tesla needs an e breaker for when the car sits so it can sit a little longer.

I'm surprised there is not a lockout on further discharge below a certain level, above the level where the battery cannot be recharged. That's how I would design it, and yes, I am an electrical engineer who has designed batteries, chargers, switching supplies and analog data acquisition systems.

My car had that problem, if it would sit more than 3 months the battery would discharge. When converted to the back seat LiFePO4 battery I installed a battery disconnect switch from painless wiring, $50, well worth it to protect a $300 battery.
Last time I went to afghanistan before the LiFePO4 conversion it was a huge problem to get the women to reconnect the - battery cable, and then they didn't unhook it after the car was moved. I get back, battery was dead.

UFO, how about designing an aftermarket limit/threshold alarm to send e-notifications to Tesla, your phone and your mother messages to remind you, GET SOME ELECTRICITY!

Tesla actually already offers that. It will send info to your phone telling you to charge it because its too low.

Here is some more info, a bit more level headed at that...

Tesla Battery 'Bricking': The Real Story Behind The Scare

How about sending a technician to your garage/location and put the plug back in?
Seriously, some multiple-supercar and occasional EV owners could use this type of concierge service.

a constant 30 watt draw seems a little steep and that is what it would take to discharge the 56kw battery pack over 11 weeks, but still it should be part of ANY battery BMS to cut power if the voltage drops to low, that is a big part of the point of having a battery management system (BMS) so to allow that 30 watt draw to stay on all the time is odd... have a "power up" lag time if the car has sat for weeks without being charged! my electric car's controller draws 50 watts for a few seconds every few minutes and that is it to keep the controller powered up and ready to go on the spot, sitting over winter is not an issue and that is with a much smaller battery pack.

I don't know how the battery sizes compare, but the Tesla Roadster has a better range than the Nissan Leaf. Perhaps that is (partly) because the Tesla appears to allow more of the battery capacity to be used? I wonder if that really does affect battery longevity. (I also wonder what the range of a Leaf would be if it was hacked to allow greater discharge than 20%)

The roadster has a pretty large 53kWh pack. Over twice the size of the Leaf's 24kWh pack.

The deeper you discharge lithium batteries the shorter their life span, right in the Nissan Leaf's owners manual it says that if you want the greatest life span of the battery not to charge it past 80% full and to not discharge it past 20%, it reduces your range a little but for most drivers their range would still be double what they need in a day, at least on the Leaf, these settings are programmed from inside the car.

Some updated info: Is Tesla 'Bricking' Story Just An Angry Owner's Warranty Claim?

Exactly.
My Volvo has something similar to prevent complete draining of the battery.
It was not smart enough to shut off the culprit though ;)

Looks like a design flaw when it's not included on an electric car with an expensive battery package.
Another flaw is allowing a product to completely drain a 56 kWh battery in 10 weeks - just sitting there.

It may not be the best design, but it is clearly stated in the product literature (user manual and warranty info) multiple times. If you read the comments its quite similar to changing your oil. If you don't change it, your engine will blow up eventually. If you don't plug in, your pack will die eventually.

Honestly, I'm sure Tesla engineers have thought of this scenario and have reasons why they did things this way. The car is not only beautiful but quite the feat of engineering. I'm sure they didn't have ignorant engineers.

Assuming zero self discharge rate (it's pretty small per month anyway), the car is using 31.5 watts ALL THE TIME when it's off?!

Yes, I believe the Tesla pack has a cooling fan(s) that runs much of the time.

What is drawing so much power? a computer fan in the battery box would draw a watt or two, anti-theft device would draw a few watts as well, speed controller staying powered up shouldn't draw more then 5 watts, seems like a keyless entry wouldn't even draw that much, seeing as how they do just fine in gasoline vehicles with much smaller batteries! and a keyless entry would be ideal for powering up any systems that need to turn on before you drive off, same as how some Diesel vehicles turn on the glow plugs when you get in and sit down, before you even put the key in.

Well... the main case is one where the owner used up much of the range, then parked the car for six weeks.

The rest are hearsay.

The 100 foot extension cord story has no citations and is laughable... because the only way that 100 foot extension cord would cause battery drain is if it were improperly plugged or dangerously shorted.

The Japan story... well... read the specs before you send it to a country with 100volt power first...

The other two, no comment.

But if you're told to plug the car in every so often to avoid bricking... what's wrong with, well... plugging the car in to avoid bricking?

The Nissan Leaf also needs to be plugged in every two weeks or so to charge, so this isn't a problem limited to the Tesla. Although, granted, Tesla's issues are probably worse because of the deeper discharge rate.

The same is true for any vehicle that is stored, you don't put a vehicle in a garage for months at a time and figure it will be ready to use on demand, even storing my motorcycles over winter, the batteries get put on a charger or they get started up every few months! I even have a computer UPS battery pack/inverter so I can top off the charge on my electric car in case it's being stored in the one shed without electricity.
Then again, people don't like to read owners manuals.