I have a model Y. I hate almost everything about it. But most germane, The "Battery meter" at the top of the display is total bunk. That's got to be "rosy" numbers. It'll display a the battery in miles, but it's at least 25% inflated.
However if you punch in a destination, you'll get exact numbers, and those are insanely reliable. It claims (and I don't believe any claims coming from tesla) that it'll factor wind, elevation, temperature, etc. But regardless of what it factors in, it's on the money.
I actually got stranded once for some hours because of the mileage indicator!
Was driving back from a campsite that I turned out to not have charging compatibility with, but thought I had plenty of margin to get to the nearest charger. As I drove through the mountains however, I began noticing that a.) my battery was depleting much faster than expected and b.) I wasn’t seeing any houses and very few motorists. I watched with increasing dread as the trip miles began converging with the battery miles, as my friends in the car got more and more quiet. We reached the inflection point, and the best I could do was hope we’d encounter somewhere with a plug that might be able to get us the rest of the way. Eventually though the milage indicator reached zero, and I pulled off the road to what I thought was a campsite but turned out to be a sort of rest stop with no power plugs in sight. To make matters worse I was in a mountain valley and had no phone signal, and hiking wasn’t an option as it was pretty hot and we had no water. We were there for hours until I was able to flag down a nice older couple and get a ride to a place with cell signal, where I was able to get a tow truck capable of transporting my car (turns out you need one that has a full bed because of the regenerative breaking, and tesla’s service doesn’t have infinite coverage) to the charger I was trying to get to.
Ironically that last part was probably the most frustrating. The charging spot was full save one spot in the back, which my tow truck guy Mel couldn’t get back to. No sweat I thought, I’ll just try asking someone to swap, but people in their cars pretended to ignore me, and one couple leaving theirs just walked away, as I asked if they could move so we could unload my dead car. Had a sudden wave of empathy for the people I usually walk away from who ask me for spare change lol. Eventually someone left and I was able to charge and resume the 6 hour road trip home. Biggest lesson learned was that slow is fast, keep it at 60 if you want the milage meter to not die as quick.
Battery meter at the top is EPA range - ie. the official range measurement method, in basically ideal conditions.
The routefinder 'learns' from your previous driving habits. Driving style easily has a 50% impact on range between "drives 50 mph slipstreaming behind a truck" and "drives 90 mph and brakes aggressively at every corner".
I make EVs at a different company, and I'm not a fan of Tesla's range indicator. It's misleading because miles don't map directly onto battery charge. The range that that indicates is miles on flat level ground with no wind at 55mph which you will never experience in real life. At 80mph you're going to get 2/3 of that range every time. At 35mph you can get significantly higher range, but no one is ever going to drive 300+ miles at 35mph. If you just tap on the range icon it will change to percent, which is less misleading. ICE vehicles have all the same problems, but most ICE vehicles always just show gas level, rather than range.
As a Tesla owner, I think the source of the confusion is the EPA range displayed in the HUD on the Tesla. We toggled ours to show the battery percentage, which is much more useful to us.
We've never owned a gas vehicle that met it's EPA range and the Tesla is no different. No one takes EPA MPG * GALLONS of gas and expects it to be a real life estimate of range.
Wind resistance increases EXPONENTIALLY with speed. Drive a little over the speeds the EPA used to determine range, and the observed range will drop significantly as a percentage when compared to the EPA range for any vehicle.
If you do have a Tesla, you'll quickly find out that the trip computer is very accurate. The worst I've seen is a cold January day in Wisconsin (-10F) while on a road trip with a head wind. In that scenario, the trip computer was off by 7% mostly due to the head wind. In the summer, it is spot on usually within 1 - 2%.
FWIW Our Audis (Q5, A6 allroad) have significantly better MPGs than the advertised ones
The Q5 advertises 28mlg on the highway but i consistently hit 30+ here
And the wagon hits 35mpg on the highway very often even though it only advertises 26. It actually turns off 2 of the 6 cylinders when it senses that it can.
Both cars I've owned have had better efficiency and thus range than advertised (a Honda and a Subaru). I'm often shocked at how I can get 38-40mpg + on a car that is supposed to be getting 29mpg.
> We've never owned a gas vehicle that met it's EPA range and the Tesla is no different. No one takes EPA MPG * GALLONS of gas and expects it to be a real life estimate of range.
Because gas stations are still far more common than fast chargers. We'll get there with EV charging, but right now range does matter, especially if you routinely see half of what was advertised.
> We've never owned a gas vehicle that met it's EPA range and the Tesla is no different. No one takes EPA MPG * GALLONS of gas and expects it to be a real life estimate of range.
Why is this exactly? It's been true - MPG is lower than estimated - of every vehicle I've owned too except for my most recent, a '23 MX-5 (i.e. a sports car, which I tend to drive at higher RPMs and in lower gears.) I'm getting spot-on or a little above the EPA estimated on the car I'd least expect it.
My 2021 Honda CR-V doesn’t get close to EPA MPG but the range calculator is still accurate to within maybe 15%. I’ve tested it a few times driving from Oakland to LA which is right around the full range of the car and it gets pretty close- even with a whole mountain range to drive over north of LA. It doesn’t appear to use EPA MPG for its estimates and it makes for a better experience.
I think this is a problem because a lot of what people use to shop an EV is the headline range number, which you are declaring is not accurate. This is false advertising.
My EPA highway mile rating is lower than I see in actual driving in my ICE. City is about accurate unless I’ve been in a lot of traffic’s with its look back range for live mpg estimates. Lots of owners of other EV brands and the article itself said they’re much better than Tesla’s estimate as well. It’s difficult to see how the issue is anything but specific to Tesla and its method of presenting info to consumers. They were even force to lower their previously stated range, per the linked article.
I drove a Tesla for over a month and it was a relief to go back to my Honda Civic. The range (both miles and %) was wildly inaccurate. If I had to drive anywhere that wasn’t a few miles within the city, I was under constant anxiety. No thank you.
It’s a wonder to me that anyone would ever trust anything Elon Musk ever says about anything. He’s a proven liar and creates an openly hostile, negative culture wherever he goes. I feel sorry for people who are caught up in his lies, either customers or employees or people who work closely with him and have to suffer his tantrums. There was a point I admired him, but that is long past.
The article says that Tesla knowingly overestimated their numbers. Tesla even switches the range algorithm to be more accurate when mileage gets to 50%.
I think the difference is that a gas-powered car will keep driving when the gas indicator hits zero. You can still get a couple dozen miles at that points, and those are so important. Tesla is really doing you a disservice by not considering that.
I've had problems with the passenger side airbag not enabling, and turn signal not working. Both scary issues. Made appointments with the support. Both were cancelled outright by them (!). They tried to convince me that there was no problem, and it was all due to the way I use the car. They seemed to try everything to get out of appointments. My wife had to use the back seat for a month while I argued with them.
Eventually both problems were resolved by software updates, proving that the problems were indeed on their side.
A lot of comments are discussing the difficulty in estimating range accurately or how all EPA estimates are inflated. But the article claims Tesla knowingly uses an algorithm with inflated numbers and swaps the rost estimate out for a more accurate estimate at 50% charge. That's different than a good faith attempt at estimating range and a dark pattern.
That's a pretty damning article and it looks like there are more and more of those coming.
Tesla still somehow benefits from its innovators / clean company reputation, but at this pace it won't be long before agencies start to act on what's become much more than just 'optimistic marketing'.
I think that reputation already died in the last 2-3 years.
It's now pretty common in my circle to hear people say they'll pay a premium to not own a Tesla. Primarily because of lots of bad experiences with build quality/repairs, but also because there are now lots of high quality alternatives. Namely Rivian and Lucid, but also the legacy automakers (two friends bought mach-es recently and there's a smattering of F-150 lightnings.)
The fact that Musk has adopted the public persona of a crazy uncle who doesn't get Thanksgiving invites -- and is heavily associated with the Tesla brand -- doesn't help either.
> [one customer] ultimately concluded there is nothing wrong with his car. The problem, he said, was that Tesla is overstating its performance
As I read this, either his car was defective or he was lied to to convince him to make a $XX,000 purchase. It seems that Tesla should be facing some form of fraud-based lawsuit over the lies selling the car or treating it under warranty, right?
I have an S so I'm biased but this feels like a hit piece.
Range is of course always going to be an estimate. Marketing is always going to be a battle of who has the bigger number. Having people schedule an appointment to fix their "broken" cars that can only go 470 instead of 500km is of course going to be a waste of time and money.
I'm part of a facebook group for tesla owners and literally every day this week there has been a post that goes something like "I left my house with 500km, drove 1km and now it says 497km. Should I schedule an appointment?" With the common advice being to switch to % instead of distance and remember that it's an estimate.
While I think Tesla (and most manufacturers) could do a better job at education, and of course having empathy for people who have spent a lot of money on something and worried it's defective, I don't think anything in this article is as damning as it sounds.
> He expected to get something close to the electric sport sedan’s advertised driving range: 353 miles on a fully charged battery.
> He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range
We’re not talking about a couple of miles here or there.
And if Tesla discovered that range issues (even if entirely based around customer perception) were a widespread enough issue to set up a team specifically to address it, that team said nothing publicly and instead cancelled service appointments without explanation… that’s absolutely newsworthy, whether you consider it a “hit piece” or not.
> Inside the Nevada team’s office, some employees celebrated canceling service appointments by putting their phones on mute and striking a metal xylophone, triggering applause from coworkers who sometimes stood on desks. The team often closed hundreds of cases a week and staffers were tracked on their average number of diverted appointments per day.
I've owned EVs from different brands, including Tesla. In my experience so far, only Tesla uses the naive and wildly optimistic EPA number for the range display. My wife drives a Bolt and it uses your moving average to calculate the range estimate, and it's pretty much dead-on accurate.
Tesla -could- do it but chooses not to. Put it in trip mode and it's pretty close to dead-on. Look at the consumption page and it's pretty accurate there too. Tesla elects not to use this already available information, because it would consistently show people a lower number than what the web page did when they ordered the car.
You should have higher expectations of your vehicle.
My 2016 ICE car's "miles left" meter is accurate to +/- 2 miles from the moment I top up the tank (80% highway driving, 20% hilly city and rolling country roads).
IMO, accurately telling the vehicle operator how many miles of juice you have left is a KPI, as it informs when you'll need to plan for refueling.
Having driven an EV for a few weeks in identical conditions, this inaccuracy is probably the major contributor to "range anxiety". I have no idea whether I'll need to recharge in 60 miles or in 25 miles, and that's totally unacceptable in most parts of the US (where there aren't available chargers every 5 miles of your trip).
This isn't a hit piece. As someone that formerly owned a Tesla, all of this rings true and I was so glad to finally ditch the vehicle back to the second hand market.
You are extremely biased. I have both owned a Tesla and non Tesla EV. Non Tesla EVs are way more conservative in their range estimates and you can actually beat their estimates. People routinely beat BMWs advertised EPA range - something you will never hear for a Tesla
“In March, Alexandre Ponsin set out on a family road trip from Colorado to California in his newly purchased Tesla, a used 2021 Model 3. He expected to get something close to the electric sport sedan’s advertised driving range: 353 miles on a fully charged battery.
He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range, particularly in cold weather – such severe underperformance that he was convinced the car had a serious defect.”
He simply does not understand how batteries and power delivery work. Driving through the Rocky mountains will reduce mpg significantly for an internal combustion engine as well. Colder temperatures require a heater and less efficient for batteries due to increased viscosity of electrolyte fluid. All a perfect storm for poor EV performance.
1. The range is set by the EPA. They are the ones that do the testing and validate the claims. The EPA should fix their range guidelines for EVs. Maybe a summer and winter range would be more appropriate?
2. Tesla should have a better UI for range, but really they should just show the percentage. Acting like it is a conspiracy is a bit extreme. They are just doing EPA Range * SOC. Without knowing all of the variables of a drive, the estimated range is going to be wrong no matter what you do. People think that their way of being wrong is better than Tesla's. Maybe they're right but the best estimate is still when navigating to a destination, and this estimate Tesla does quite well.
3. Tesla is cancelling the service appointments because there is nothing they can do to "fix" it. So why waste the time with a service appointment? They are just going to run the same diagnostics they ran remotely. Their software does a fantastic job explaining where your range is going. (https://www.teslaoracle.com/2022/09/26/tesla-new-energy-cons...)
I have two Teslas. On both of them, I get close to the EPA range in city driving and lose 15%-20% on highway driving at 70-80 mph, on typical daytime temperatures for my area, which rarely drop below 40F in the winter or exceed 100F in the summer. On highways I always use autopilot, which keeps speed much more constant than I would -- it brakes and accelerates much less frequently. The estimates for battery use on trips are always accurate. I consider driving a high-risk chore, so I'm not an aggressive driver.
This really shouldn’t be read as a defense of EV companies, but I think there is just a learning curve for EVs which people really haven’t grappled with yet.
Here is a minor list of things which will reduce range pretty significantly:
- Driving over 50 MPH
- Using the AC
- Using the heat
- Driving in extreme cold or extreme heat
- Driving in an area with a lot of hills. (From what I can tell regenerative braking makes up less than it loses for a given hill. If anyone can correct me here, let me know)
- Accelerating more than necessary
- Not making full use of regenerative braking
- Driving on the highway rather than around town (see the 50 MPH comment)
Are these concessions OK? Is it just a matter of better education and more honest marketing? That’s sort of for everyone to decide collectively. One thing that is for sure is that EVs have a totally different set of quirks and limitations than ICE vehicles, and that will have to be adjusted for one way or another. It’s also worth noting that most of the things listed above _also_ adversely affect ICE vehicles, however not necessarily as much, or it’s not felt directly because getting gas is very convenient.
It also strikes me that anything which adversely affects MPG in an ICE vehicle can also be said to “reduce range.” You’re losing miles off your current tank of gas. Presumably because the range is so small, and recharge opportunities are so limited, this affects people in EVs more strongly than in ICE vehicles. Perhaps if both were improved (battery capacity and charging infrastructure) then these concerns would evaporate.
Giving optimistic estimates based on generalized vehicle information, then giving more precise estimates after the 50% mark—and after having collected usage information based on the user’s actual environment—sounds to me like a decent algorithmic solution to a hard problem.
I have owned a Model Y for a bit more than 2 1/2 years, having driven a Nissan Leaf for 8 1/2 years prior. Factoring away the obvious battery capacity difference, I have found the Tesla range estimates to be far more accurate and consistent when compared to the Leaf. While I found the "secret team" headline to be comedic, given my experience with electric cars, I do have other serious concerns (phantom braking #1). Estimating vehicle range using map data is not a simple problem, even if Tesla is utilizing high-resolution GIS data and/or on board accelerometers in their estimating. Weight of passengers, cargo weight, trailer utilization (I just completed a trip through the Cascades pulling a trailer on my Model Y) all factor in, and have larger effects as road grades increase. I think that mileage estimating is a case where Tesla has actually provided reasonable value, but these cars are fallible and far from all-knowing. I recommend developing a cautious range intuition when driving electric cars which may take some time to develop. Honest empathy to those who have been stranded in them.
Since cars have integrated phone-home diagnostic software, why would the government even allow automakers to advertise 'estimated' ranges for specific car models and not simply show actual averages?
Why do they call it a 'secret team'? Why do they call it 'complaints'?
As said in the article, these are not complaints, but service appointments. Creating a team to handle these unnecessary appointments is completely normal. There's nothing secret about this team.
I was confused too. Title and first part suggested they were trying to suppress discussion about range issues. Then the rest was about cancelling service appointments. I'm pretty sure this is just a hit piece.
Yup. Quite blatant fraud, false advertising, deliberate falsifying of car data at Elon's request.
But why not? They get away with it for at least a decade+, if not forever. so far, after many years of fraud, all they get is a few bad press reports with a relevance half-life measured in hours. Maybe some prosecution team or class action firm will eventually go after them, resulting in a fine or settlement, another decade later, that won't even approach the scale of their gains from the fraud.
This is the system Elon is good at hacking, not technology.
My 3LR gets about 260 miles of usable range on a summer road trip, first leg. 200 miles per charge after that (assuming 10% to 80% charges). This is for temperate summer trips getting 260 Wh/mi. If it's hot, make that 280 Wh/mi because of air conditioning. If it's winter, make that 320 Wh/mi.
The car is rated at 358 miles of range. I knew that was bunk when I bought it, just going off the numbers on the window sticker suggests hitting 358 is a pipe dream. You can do it, but only on back roads at slower speeds.
For road trips you're better off just driving like a bat out of hell and charging only to 60% if you can, you will spend less clock time overall that way.
As others have noted, you should switch the battery display to percentage to be less irritated by the lies. The car knows your average and could use it, but instad just uses the unrealistic EPA estimate for that display. My wife drives a Bolt and sometimes shows less than EPA rated range when full, but OTOH it's always dead-on.
[+] [-] jvanderbot|2 years ago|reply
However if you punch in a destination, you'll get exact numbers, and those are insanely reliable. It claims (and I don't believe any claims coming from tesla) that it'll factor wind, elevation, temperature, etc. But regardless of what it factors in, it's on the money.
[+] [-] malwrar|2 years ago|reply
Was driving back from a campsite that I turned out to not have charging compatibility with, but thought I had plenty of margin to get to the nearest charger. As I drove through the mountains however, I began noticing that a.) my battery was depleting much faster than expected and b.) I wasn’t seeing any houses and very few motorists. I watched with increasing dread as the trip miles began converging with the battery miles, as my friends in the car got more and more quiet. We reached the inflection point, and the best I could do was hope we’d encounter somewhere with a plug that might be able to get us the rest of the way. Eventually though the milage indicator reached zero, and I pulled off the road to what I thought was a campsite but turned out to be a sort of rest stop with no power plugs in sight. To make matters worse I was in a mountain valley and had no phone signal, and hiking wasn’t an option as it was pretty hot and we had no water. We were there for hours until I was able to flag down a nice older couple and get a ride to a place with cell signal, where I was able to get a tow truck capable of transporting my car (turns out you need one that has a full bed because of the regenerative breaking, and tesla’s service doesn’t have infinite coverage) to the charger I was trying to get to.
Ironically that last part was probably the most frustrating. The charging spot was full save one spot in the back, which my tow truck guy Mel couldn’t get back to. No sweat I thought, I’ll just try asking someone to swap, but people in their cars pretended to ignore me, and one couple leaving theirs just walked away, as I asked if they could move so we could unload my dead car. Had a sudden wave of empathy for the people I usually walk away from who ask me for spare change lol. Eventually someone left and I was able to charge and resume the 6 hour road trip home. Biggest lesson learned was that slow is fast, keep it at 60 if you want the milage meter to not die as quick.
[+] [-] londons_explore|2 years ago|reply
The routefinder 'learns' from your previous driving habits. Driving style easily has a 50% impact on range between "drives 50 mph slipstreaming behind a truck" and "drives 90 mph and brakes aggressively at every corner".
[+] [-] aoweijrti|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dietsche|2 years ago|reply
We've never owned a gas vehicle that met it's EPA range and the Tesla is no different. No one takes EPA MPG * GALLONS of gas and expects it to be a real life estimate of range.
Wind resistance increases EXPONENTIALLY with speed. Drive a little over the speeds the EPA used to determine range, and the observed range will drop significantly as a percentage when compared to the EPA range for any vehicle.
If you do have a Tesla, you'll quickly find out that the trip computer is very accurate. The worst I've seen is a cold January day in Wisconsin (-10F) while on a road trip with a head wind. In that scenario, the trip computer was off by 7% mostly due to the head wind. In the summer, it is spot on usually within 1 - 2%.
[+] [-] annexrichmond|2 years ago|reply
The Q5 advertises 28mlg on the highway but i consistently hit 30+ here
And the wagon hits 35mpg on the highway very often even though it only advertises 26. It actually turns off 2 of the 6 cylinders when it senses that it can.
[+] [-] jnmandal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|2 years ago|reply
Because gas stations are still far more common than fast chargers. We'll get there with EV charging, but right now range does matter, especially if you routinely see half of what was advertised.
[+] [-] johnmaguire|2 years ago|reply
Why is this exactly? It's been true - MPG is lower than estimated - of every vehicle I've owned too except for my most recent, a '23 MX-5 (i.e. a sports car, which I tend to drive at higher RPMs and in lower gears.) I'm getting spot-on or a little above the EPA estimated on the car I'd least expect it.
(edited to clarify "it's been true")
[+] [-] tobobo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ergnle|2 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(physics)
[+] [-] bischofs|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ineedasername|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmode|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronblohowiak|2 years ago|reply
And the power required to move against the air is the cube, not the square!
[+] [-] iamleppert|2 years ago|reply
It’s a wonder to me that anyone would ever trust anything Elon Musk ever says about anything. He’s a proven liar and creates an openly hostile, negative culture wherever he goes. I feel sorry for people who are caught up in his lies, either customers or employees or people who work closely with him and have to suffer his tantrums. There was a point I admired him, but that is long past.
[+] [-] clouddrover|2 years ago|reply
Car and Driver's EPA range versus real world highway tests:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a43657072/evs-fall-short-e...
EVs are quite different to ICE when it comes to EPA range ratings.
[+] [-] soundsgoodtome|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] juujian|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vagab0nd|2 years ago|reply
I've had problems with the passenger side airbag not enabling, and turn signal not working. Both scary issues. Made appointments with the support. Both were cancelled outright by them (!). They tried to convince me that there was no problem, and it was all due to the way I use the car. They seemed to try everything to get out of appointments. My wife had to use the back seat for a month while I argued with them.
Eventually both problems were resolved by software updates, proving that the problems were indeed on their side.
[+] [-] blake929|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheAlchemist|2 years ago|reply
Tesla still somehow benefits from its innovators / clean company reputation, but at this pace it won't be long before agencies start to act on what's become much more than just 'optimistic marketing'.
[+] [-] ke88y|2 years ago|reply
It's now pretty common in my circle to hear people say they'll pay a premium to not own a Tesla. Primarily because of lots of bad experiences with build quality/repairs, but also because there are now lots of high quality alternatives. Namely Rivian and Lucid, but also the legacy automakers (two friends bought mach-es recently and there's a smattering of F-150 lightnings.)
The fact that Musk has adopted the public persona of a crazy uncle who doesn't get Thanksgiving invites -- and is heavily associated with the Tesla brand -- doesn't help either.
[+] [-] mrguyorama|2 years ago|reply
Uber is still a publicly traded company, despite explicitly starting up by just ignoring and bypassing existing regulation.
The US is so anti-consumer it will never relevantly punish a business making money.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] londons_explore|2 years ago|reply
For example, if you get 10 tesla cars of the same model, do the ranges differ?
If you get 1 car and 10 different drivers, do some drivers get the advertised range while others don't?
If you disassemble the battery packs, do you find some bad/degraded cells in cars with reduced range, or is this a design fault?
Do drivers that have trouble have inefficient mods, like roof racks, big wheels, etc?
[+] [-] HWR_14|2 years ago|reply
> [one customer] ultimately concluded there is nothing wrong with his car. The problem, he said, was that Tesla is overstating its performance
As I read this, either his car was defective or he was lied to to convince him to make a $XX,000 purchase. It seems that Tesla should be facing some form of fraud-based lawsuit over the lies selling the car or treating it under warranty, right?
[+] [-] edude03|2 years ago|reply
Range is of course always going to be an estimate. Marketing is always going to be a battle of who has the bigger number. Having people schedule an appointment to fix their "broken" cars that can only go 470 instead of 500km is of course going to be a waste of time and money.
I'm part of a facebook group for tesla owners and literally every day this week there has been a post that goes something like "I left my house with 500km, drove 1km and now it says 497km. Should I schedule an appointment?" With the common advice being to switch to % instead of distance and remember that it's an estimate.
While I think Tesla (and most manufacturers) could do a better job at education, and of course having empathy for people who have spent a lot of money on something and worried it's defective, I don't think anything in this article is as damning as it sounds.
[+] [-] afavour|2 years ago|reply
> He expected to get something close to the electric sport sedan’s advertised driving range: 353 miles on a fully charged battery.
> He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range
We’re not talking about a couple of miles here or there.
And if Tesla discovered that range issues (even if entirely based around customer perception) were a widespread enough issue to set up a team specifically to address it, that team said nothing publicly and instead cancelled service appointments without explanation… that’s absolutely newsworthy, whether you consider it a “hit piece” or not.
> Inside the Nevada team’s office, some employees celebrated canceling service appointments by putting their phones on mute and striking a metal xylophone, triggering applause from coworkers who sometimes stood on desks. The team often closed hundreds of cases a week and staffers were tracked on their average number of diverted appointments per day.
I mean... c'mon.
[+] [-] rootusrootus|2 years ago|reply
Tesla -could- do it but chooses not to. Put it in trip mode and it's pretty close to dead-on. Look at the consumption page and it's pretty accurate there too. Tesla elects not to use this already available information, because it would consistently show people a lower number than what the web page did when they ordered the car.
[+] [-] gen220|2 years ago|reply
My 2016 ICE car's "miles left" meter is accurate to +/- 2 miles from the moment I top up the tank (80% highway driving, 20% hilly city and rolling country roads).
IMO, accurately telling the vehicle operator how many miles of juice you have left is a KPI, as it informs when you'll need to plan for refueling.
Having driven an EV for a few weeks in identical conditions, this inaccuracy is probably the major contributor to "range anxiety". I have no idea whether I'll need to recharge in 60 miles or in 25 miles, and that's totally unacceptable in most parts of the US (where there aren't available chargers every 5 miles of your trip).
[+] [-] ninepoints|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmode|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anon373839|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HWR_14|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Outright0133|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cudgy|2 years ago|reply
He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range, particularly in cold weather – such severe underperformance that he was convinced the car had a serious defect.”
He simply does not understand how batteries and power delivery work. Driving through the Rocky mountains will reduce mpg significantly for an internal combustion engine as well. Colder temperatures require a heater and less efficient for batteries due to increased viscosity of electrolyte fluid. All a perfect storm for poor EV performance.
[+] [-] eatporktoo|2 years ago|reply
1. The range is set by the EPA. They are the ones that do the testing and validate the claims. The EPA should fix their range guidelines for EVs. Maybe a summer and winter range would be more appropriate?
2. Tesla should have a better UI for range, but really they should just show the percentage. Acting like it is a conspiracy is a bit extreme. They are just doing EPA Range * SOC. Without knowing all of the variables of a drive, the estimated range is going to be wrong no matter what you do. People think that their way of being wrong is better than Tesla's. Maybe they're right but the best estimate is still when navigating to a destination, and this estimate Tesla does quite well.
3. Tesla is cancelling the service appointments because there is nothing they can do to "fix" it. So why waste the time with a service appointment? They are just going to run the same diagnostics they ran remotely. Their software does a fantastic job explaining where your range is going. (https://www.teslaoracle.com/2022/09/26/tesla-new-energy-cons...)
[+] [-] cs702|2 years ago|reply
YMMV.
[+] [-] everdrive|2 years ago|reply
Here is a minor list of things which will reduce range pretty significantly:
- Driving over 50 MPH
- Using the AC
- Using the heat
- Driving in extreme cold or extreme heat
- Driving in an area with a lot of hills. (From what I can tell regenerative braking makes up less than it loses for a given hill. If anyone can correct me here, let me know)
- Accelerating more than necessary
- Not making full use of regenerative braking
- Driving on the highway rather than around town (see the 50 MPH comment)
Are these concessions OK? Is it just a matter of better education and more honest marketing? That’s sort of for everyone to decide collectively. One thing that is for sure is that EVs have a totally different set of quirks and limitations than ICE vehicles, and that will have to be adjusted for one way or another. It’s also worth noting that most of the things listed above _also_ adversely affect ICE vehicles, however not necessarily as much, or it’s not felt directly because getting gas is very convenient.
It also strikes me that anything which adversely affects MPG in an ICE vehicle can also be said to “reduce range.” You’re losing miles off your current tank of gas. Presumably because the range is so small, and recharge opportunities are so limited, this affects people in EVs more strongly than in ICE vehicles. Perhaps if both were improved (battery capacity and charging infrastructure) then these concerns would evaporate.
[+] [-] bigdang|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gonehome|2 years ago|reply
With the superchargers, range doesn’t really have a material effect anymore and most of the time the network isn’t necessary anyway.
It’s not a real issue.
[+] [-] waffletower|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] furyg3|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Geee|2 years ago|reply
As said in the article, these are not complaints, but service appointments. Creating a team to handle these unnecessary appointments is completely normal. There's nothing secret about this team.
[+] [-] hot_gril|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thejazzman|2 years ago|reply
$15k to have them out in another refurbished, 8yo battery. And they kept mine to resell to someone else for $15k.
Any other company I'd say it's a coincidence. But I suspect it was suppressing errors during the warranty period :/
[+] [-] toss1|2 years ago|reply
But why not? They get away with it for at least a decade+, if not forever. so far, after many years of fraud, all they get is a few bad press reports with a relevance half-life measured in hours. Maybe some prosecution team or class action firm will eventually go after them, resulting in a fine or settlement, another decade later, that won't even approach the scale of their gains from the fraud.
This is the system Elon is good at hacking, not technology.
[+] [-] speedgoose|2 years ago|reply
Well, I’m not sure what the range meter is supposed to do? Freeze when an eye tracker detects the driver looks at it?
Or maybe he was idling the car in cold weather. Even without the heater running, the battery cools down and that can reduce the range.
Electric vehicles aren’t perfect and some little education can prevent a lot of frustration.
[+] [-] rootusrootus|2 years ago|reply
The car is rated at 358 miles of range. I knew that was bunk when I bought it, just going off the numbers on the window sticker suggests hitting 358 is a pipe dream. You can do it, but only on back roads at slower speeds.
For road trips you're better off just driving like a bat out of hell and charging only to 60% if you can, you will spend less clock time overall that way.
As others have noted, you should switch the battery display to percentage to be less irritated by the lies. The car knows your average and could use it, but instad just uses the unrealistic EPA estimate for that display. My wife drives a Bolt and sometimes shows less than EPA rated range when full, but OTOH it's always dead-on.