Tesla vastly overstates its vehicles' range, report states
Tesla vastly overstates its vehicles' range, report states
A new report out today details that Tesla, the world’s leading electric vehicle maker, is gaming the EPA system to...
Yeah, this won’t be a surprise to anyone who drives one regularly — the EPA rated range is a damn lie. I switched the car to percentage the day I got it, and rely on navigation to know if I can make it somewhere.
I would love to see them forced to be more honest and update it to be actually useful though. Most other EVs understate their range to help keep you from getting stranded.
What blows my mind is the energy estimate buried in the menus shows a reasonably accurate expected range based on driving behavior and conditions, and instead of using that value at the top level we get some basic kW-> miles conversion that means jack shit.
My first EV, a Chevy Bolt, had this nailed. It gave you an estimated range, and a min and max range if you drive carefully or recklessly. It was great! Tesla could absolutely do better here, but just doesn't want to show bad numbers.
Yup, yesterday a 130mi drive took up 75% of my M3s range, rated at 321mi when full, so I "lost" ~110mi of range on that drive. Of course AC full blast and it being hot as balls out is going to make it a little worse, but not 110mi worse.
I've also noticed "interesting" behavior at Superchargers. When navigating using their built in system, if it tells you to stop at a SC, while charging it will show your current battery % increasing, but not your arrival %. I assume to game you into charging a little bit more than you actually need to either account for these range differences, or to just make some extra cash from the charge at home crowd.
I think i've experienced some similar behavior. Usually canceling the nav and restarting it will make the arrival jump 5-7% or so.
We own a 2021 Model 3 that we purchased second hand with 7.5k miles. Yes, performance is noticeably impacted in cold weather, especially below 40 degrees F. Tesla probably deserves the scrutiny and best on tenge estimates and claims and how it handles customer service issues. However, consumers can also educate themselves better on current EV battery performance issues in cold weather and what happens when all systems are blasted while driving over the speed limit. A lot of factors influence range performance whether it is an EV or ICE vehicle.
Interestingly the behavior being described is close to how the fuel gauges in many North American ICE vehicles work. The first half of the tank takes longer to go through than the 2nd half and then when it displays "E" there's still 1-2 gallons of fuel in the tank as a reserve.
This isn't a secret either, here's an NPR Interview where it's discussed with an Automotive Engineer.