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Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• MrPatan 3y ago
  To "combat misinformation", surely?
• WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  https://archive.is/zRA65 https://archive.is/zRA65
• TheAlchemist 3y ago
  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'.
  • ke88y 3y ago
    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.
    • wredue 3y ago
      Our caravan has been a pile of shit, which I’m sure anyone who’s ever had a caravan can attest to. Anyway. We are looking for reliability and imagine my surprise when Kia, of all brands, came out king of generally affordable reliability. Plus their EV reviews reasonably well. A lot has changed in 10 years for vehicles I guess…
      • cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        Kia is always a mixed bag. On the most important fundamentals they produce a good value vehicle. But they are able to reduce prices by cheaping out a bit on drivetrain components. E.g. axles and CV boots that wear quicker, just slightly cheaper parts. If you watch the Munro Live videos when they tear down an analyze the engineering, they often concur with this. And it's all fine if you drive your vehicle for <150,000km (100,000miles) and then sell or move on, but my experience with them is that after that they start to have mechanical parts issues. Which makes sense because they've effectively optimized for the most common consumer vehicle ownership pattern. But.
      • DSingularity 3y ago
        I’ll believe it when I see it.
      • ke88y 3y ago
        I've never heard a good story about a caravan, period! I do sometimes wonder if caravans are particularly crap vehicles for intrinsic reasons, or if targeting families means you have to cut costs which reduces quality (kids are $$$$$$), or if perhaps the driving habits of young families (lots of short trips) are particularly rough on vehicles of that type. Maybe all three conspiring. IDK about Kia, except that they're doing pretty well on the EV front compared to other legacies. But in general, 10 years is at least one product cycle, so I guess it's not that surprising that reputations-vs-reality mismatches appear on that time frame. It is weird though.
        • ncphil 3y ago
          Depends on the model year. The one we bought in 2003 only needed regular oil changes and a new set of tires every few years. We did have to get a rebuilt transmission just before its warranty ran out, but didn't pay a dime for that ("Not a dime? Really?" Yeah, well, I was a trial lawyer before going into tech). The 2013 is still running and other than normal maintenance the only problems we've had are with the sliding door coming off its track and one of the stow-away seats getting stuck. In both cases YouTube saved the day. Don't get me wrong, I really hate the look of that car. It definitely is not an identity statement. But given the astronomical prices of new (and used) vehicles right now, we're probably going to keep it for a while longer. Here's hoping that changes. Soon.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • Workaccount2 3y ago
      If their stock price is anything to go on, they channel perfect futuristic cars out of a time void and will bring about a utopian post-scarcity society.
    • dkarl 3y ago
      Musk is pretty much the whole reason. People have a much easier time remembering sleazy business practices when there's a celebrity CEO whose personality matches the crime. If you think about the CEOs of major corporations, the only ones who are personally memorable for the public are founders. How many exceptions can you think of, memorable personalities that were hired as CEOs or rose to become CEO of established companies? Lee Iacocca is one, barely. Carly Fiorina manages to be forgettable even though she ran for president. I'm sure there are more exceptions, but not enough to invalidate the rule. So why can flamboyant or quirky people like Musk or Zuckerberg not get hired as CEOs of huge corporations? At least part of the reason is that being bland and forgettable is part of the job requirements. It makes it that much harder for the public to remember the sleazy things they learn about a company. A crime committed by a faceless company is like a natural disaster. A crime committed by Tesla is easier to see as human evil, because we can see how Musk revels in his unaccountability. There's a story: evil person did evil thing. And an obvious corollary: evil person must be prevented from doing more evil! If Tesla had replaced Musk with a faceless professional CEO, there would be no story, just "bad thing happened for inscrutable reasons."
      • throwaw1yyy 3y ago
        [flagged]
      • deleted 3y ago
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    • lispisok 3y ago
      Are there quality alternatives that dont cost six figures?
      • ke88y 3y ago
        Basically everything coming out of Detroit is sub-100K. Even the tippy top trim of the e-F150 MSRPs just below 100K. Sedans and mid-size SUVS tend to be priced comparably to Tesla's offerings. Lucid are expensive, but their entire product line is basically a Model X competitor and prices are comparable.
    • lowbloodsugar 3y ago
      Do those people who say they will pay a premium to not own a Tesla already own a Tesla? Because all the people I know who own a Tesla say it's the best car they've every owned to the extent that they wouldn't consider any other car. Are they also in the market for an electric car? I said I would pay a premium not to own a Tesla, largely because of Musk. And then it came time to buy an EV: and there just isn't a vehicle under $100,000 that performs better under 100mph. And range? The Kia EV6 GT, which costs $5k more than the Model 3 Performance (or $12,500 because it doesn't qualify for the tax credit), is slower 0-60, has only 200 mile range. The Model 3 could have 26% lower range than advertised and still have 10% more range. So .5 second faster 0-60, 10% longer range, for $12,500 less.
      • deleted 3y ago
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      • JohnFen 3y ago
        > Because all the people I know who own a Tesla say it's the best car they've every owned I only know three people who own Teslas, but all three have little positive to say about them, and one of them will tell you at length about how he regrets buying his if you let him. It's for that reason, not my dislike of Musk, that if I were in the market for an EV I wouldn't even consider a Tesla.
    • ak217 3y ago
      I don't know much about Lucid, but Rivian in its current form is not sustainable. Their cars are incredibly overweight and overengineered, their COGS/BOM is out of control, and with the end of ZIRP I'm not sure they have the time and financing to fix these problems at the burn rate they are at. Don't get me started on their "environmentalist adventure vehicle" marketing that's putting 7000-pound cars on mountain trails. I'm a lot more excited about Hyundai/Kia and Ford.
      • ke88y 3y ago
        I agree, and drive begrudgingly in any case. I'm merely observing that "Tesla" used to be a signal brand and it's now somewhere in-between "cheap plastic brand" and "anti-signal brand". > Don't get me started on their "environmentalist adventure vehicle" marketing that's putting 7000-pound cars on mountain trails. Car adventuring as an ends unto itself is something I just don't get, and since I can't really say anything constructive or nice about the entire activity/scene the EV component of it is a bit of a red herring. AFAICT, R1T is a decent e-F150 alternative if you need to tow. Buy, yeah, driving through wilderness for no particular reason is kind of idiotic.
  • londons_explore 3y ago
    I'd like to see more data... 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?
    • mikro2nd 3y ago
      I don't think you need more data. Tesla had a team of people "managing" this issue to relieve demand on their service centres. What more data do you think would be useful to clarify Tesla's actions?
      • londons_explore 3y ago
        That statement alone sounds good to me... If there is no repair action that can fix the range issue on these cars, then it is a waste of everyone's time to go to a service center only to have a service tech poke the battery and realise it's fine. What are you expecting them to do when you arrive? They certainly won't be taking out battery cells and putting them under an electron microscope... And measuring battery voltages and currents is already done automatically by the computer. There is very little you will diagnose on a modern car that the onboard computer isn't already aware of. Therefore... the idea of a team of remote diagnosis people to fix most issues without a service appointment makes perfect sense. As does the idea of having the analysis done automatically beforehand so the human doesn't have to wait.
        • mikro2nd 3y ago
          Except they did not fix anything. The battery readout was lying as so ordered by Musk. This caused people to complain, wanting it fixed. Instead of fixing it (in a service centre or remotely) they lied some more. What's so hard to parse here?
          • 3y ago
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • mrguyorama 3y ago
    >agencies start to act 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.
• furyg3 3y ago
  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?
  • galangalalgol 3y ago
    I had an uber driver that said his 3 had less than half the range when temperatures got over 100F (38C). I imagine that is just the increased load from the cooling system. My Y sounds like a combustion car the ac runs so loud the past couple months. I leave the display on battery percentage because the range counts down very quickly in this heat. But it doesn't when it is nice out. Cold decreases the range because the battery heater has to work hard. My point is that it isn't as simple as an average due to the massive temperature sensitivity. It applies to ICE cars too, but it certainly isn't as noticeable as the engine allows a wider range of temperatures. Ironically the EV is proposed as something to battle climate change, but it is much more susceptible to it's effects.
    • vel0city 3y ago
      On a lot of ICE cars there's definitely a hit to running the AC. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/hotweather.shtml https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/hotweather.shtml Personally my ICE goes from ~22-23mpg to ~19 when it's like 100F outside. That's a 17% drop in mileage. My EV has had a bit of a hit but not nearly as much, <10%. I can even offset that a bit more by ensuring I plug in and precondition before I leave, meanwhile my ICE will always burn it's gas to cool down even if I had remote start. Heating is usually "free" energy-wise though since the gas motor is just leaking massive amounts of heat all the time.
      • yardie 3y ago
        17% is about what you would expect when the temperature goes from 72F to 100F. Inlet temperature is also a major contributor to fuel efficiency. Hot air isn't as dense so the ECU will add more fuel and retard timing to compensate to help cool the cylinder and avoid pre-detonation.
• WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  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. That's a fairly amazing display of corporate customer contempt. Shareholders couldn't have shown more disdain for their consumers.
  • fnimick 3y ago
    Shareholder disdain and lying on estimates made the stock price go up. They couldn't be happier.
  • javajosh 3y ago
    I think it's also an opportunity for each of us to appreciate the frailness of the human condition. In particular, how plastic our minds our, how susceptible to "narrative" and social pressure (particularly when connected to income) we are. I imagine those employees are pretty normal people, and they were just responding to incentives. They didn't feel they were harming anyone, and in fact were doing a good job according to their bosses. They work at a famous, respected company and surely if the bosses were wrong that would not be the case, right? This is the utility of the cynic, the questioner, the doubter, the non-conformist. It is an uncomfortable position, at all times, but you need people among you who constantly fear being inadvertently, mindlessly immoral. Because it's a constant threat and more of a threat, I daresay, than overt evil.
• jvanderbot 3y ago
  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.
  • bdcravens 3y ago
    My EV6 reports a range that it also a loose estimate, but it seems based on recent driving behavior (ie, I was driving free and loose recently, so I may end up getting way more miles than it says, and vice versa)
  • londons_explore 3y ago
    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".
    • lotsofpulp 3y ago
      I thought braking aggressively increases range.
      • jackmott42 3y ago
        if you brake too aggressively then you will use brake pads as well as regen, and that wastes energy. Also, its still better to arrange to not need to brake at all, than to regen, since regen is not 100% efficient.
      • goshx 3y ago
        Not if you use the break pedal
• hdivider 3y ago
  "The directive to present the optimistic range estimates came from Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, this person said." "“Elon wanted to show good range numbers when fully charged,” the person said, adding: “When you buy a car off the lot seeing 350-mile, 400-mile range, it makes you feel good.”" Yep, the great Technoking's narcissism manifesting itself in critical technology decisions. Hopefully the ongoing stories of severe mismanagement at Tesla will show people that severe personality flaws matter, especially in technology.
  • user_named 3y ago
    An example of his "engineering" skills. He's an anti-engineer.
• Simulacra 3y ago
  Is this any different than companies paying public relations departments to salt the media and internet with positive stories, and downplay negative?
  • hef19898 3y ago
    Of course, since Tesla doesn't need, nor have, a PR department (unless they silently re-established one again after closing the first one down in a rather public manner).
  • Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
    No, it’s all the same and should be extremely illegal (read felony with mandatory minimums approaching life without parole) as such behavior is antithetical to democracy.
• b112 3y ago
  This is what small claims court is for. No lawyers. Cheap. Just a video of real range, the lies, get 20k or what not rebate due to the lies.
  • mikestew 3y ago
    Last I checked, small claims court in more than one state tops out at well under $10K. Hence the adjective “small”. IOW, you ain’t getting $20K out of small claims court.
    • HWR_14 3y ago
      Indeed, small claims are there so you and I can quickly settle the matter of you denting my car or something, possibly without either of us hiring lawyers (and in some states lawyers are forbidden), empaneling a jury, etc. because we are arguing about $250. Like "Judge Judy" but with a real judge.
    • b112 3y ago
      Huh, 25k where I am, but in Canuck bucks. Still, even 10k is better than 0k. And many small claims courts forbit compelled discovery. I paid $100, had no lawyer, wrote 2 pages of "what happened", served the paperwork by hand (and went back to the court and gave an affidavit to that effect), and ... The other side "big corp" had a law firm, and several lawyers. I paid $100 and spent a few hours. The paid 50k to their lawyers, and we just talked on front of a judge. In terms of "stick em in the eye" it's the way to go.
      • tredre3 3y ago
        10k was the limit in most of Canada until the 2000s. Since then most provinces have adjusted their limits. It is now 35k in BC/SK/ON and 15k in MB/QC/NB. Alberta is the outlier as usual. They're raising the limit to 100k next week.
      • mikestew 3y ago
        The other side "big corp" had a law firm, and several lawyers. Interesting: no lawyers in U. S. small claims court. That probably has something to do with the lower dollar limits in the U. S., but IANAL nor spend much time in court.
• light_hue_1 3y ago
  Man. I love my Tesla (please car manufacturers hire good software engineers, pay them better and let them do their thing). But screw that guy. I don't think we'll be buying another one. It's time for a class action lawsuit and to be rid of him.
  • HWR_14 3y ago
    I just hope some car manufacturers continue to not hire UX designers and have everything not related to the actual operation of the car (controlled by physical switches) just be a dumb screen for my phone to control.
    • javajosh 3y ago
      That would be great. I'd go further: I want mechanical linkages for throttle, breaks, and steering. No more "drive by wire". I cannot, will not trust my families safety to a smartphone with wheels.
      • ulfw 3y ago
        So you only fly old Boeings (not new ones like the 787 or even the 777) and no Airbusses?
        • javajosh 3y ago
          If those vehicles are connected to the internet and there is a path of control from the internet to control surfaces, yes.
• hammock 3y ago
  How does the Tesla advertised range compare to the advertised range of other EV makers: less accurate, or similarly inaccurate? edit: "advertised" I mean the range shown on the dash. I.e. the range communicated by the car itself, as relevant to this article.
  • josefresco 3y ago
    This might help but requires you do some cross referencing and math: https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/range-electric-car https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/range-electric-car This is better as it shows the claimed range, and the actual range: https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/
    • hammock 3y ago
      That's good info. However, I can clarify by saying "advertised range" I didn't mean the range touted in marketing materials, but the range remaining shown on the dashboard
  • rsynnott 3y ago
    I mean, I realise that reading the article is considered most improper on this website, but it _is_ addressed.
    • hammock 3y ago
      Added language to clarify what I mean
  • speedgoose 3y ago
    It’s a bit average. It’s not crazy optimistic like some Chinese brands or a bit pessimistic like some German brands. Here is a Norwegian winter test in real conditions: https://nye.naf.no/elbil/bruke-elbil/test-rekkevidde-vinter-2022 https://nye.naf.no/elbil/bruke-elbil/test-rekkevidde-vinter-... You can use a translator (Google, DeepL, chatGPT…) but the Arabic numbers are easy to spot.
  • 3y ago
• HWR_14 3y ago
  The article ends: > [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?
  • sneak 3y ago
    Tesla has more lawyers than you do. Bringing a lawsuit for fraud, which you may not win, will cost you $10-20k cash out of pocket up front.
    • HWR_14 3y ago
      This is why class action lawsuits exist. I can throw my $20 in with a thousand other people who all have the same problem. Or, more likely, when looking at that big a settlement, we can find a lawyer who works on contingency.
      • sneak 3y ago
        It's likely that you waived your rights to a class action against Tesla when you agreed to some EULA.
        • CryptoBanker 3y ago
          And that clause will never be enforceable in court
          • anticensor 3y ago
            There is a way to act against that too: "whatever is decided in court, if anything deviates from the spirit of this contract's full enforcement for any reason within either party's control, both parties are fully liable for undoing every part of their performance, including refunding all the products and services."
• cs702 3y ago
  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. YMMV.
  • sdfghswe 3y ago
    Are you happy with them?
    • cs702 3y ago
      Yes. At the moment, I think Teslas are the best vehicles available for purchase on the market, electric or otherwise: They have great performance, great reliability, long-lasting materials (my oldest Tesla still feels new!), decent service, and amazing charging infrastructure (at least in the US). In 1-2 years, I'm hopeful other automakers, including MB, BMW, and Audi, will come out with new EVs that are truly competitive on all these fronts vs Tesla.
      • dmode 3y ago
        Teslas absolute don't have long-lasting materials or great reliability or great performance. There have been hundreds of thousands of articles and experience about poor materials, build quality, reliability etc. I have owned both a Model S and Model 3, and I did own them because I wanted to support an EV maker, but they are by far some of the worst made cars I have owned. I switched back to a BMW EV and its like night and day.
        • cs702 3y ago
          Not my experience. Let me add that at first, I thought the materials and build of my first Tesla felt "cheap" and "plasticky." Over time, however, I've been pleasantly surprised at how well they've held up. My oldest Tesla is now three years old, and it still looks and feels new. I could never say that about the BMWs, MBs, and Porsches I've owned over the years.
• bigdang 3y ago
  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.
  • ke88y 3y ago
    That only makes sense if there's strong correlation between the first 50% of a charge and the second 50% of a charge, but NOT an equally strong correlation between the previous charge cycle and the current charge cycle. That can be the case (eg on road trips) but usually isn't. Why not just always give the more precise estimates?
    • barbegal 3y ago
      Because then you get people complaining it doesn't meet the range as specified in the marketing material which is based on the EPA (or equivalent) test.
    • tekla 3y ago
      How does the car know what conditions its going to be driving in? I don't believe Elon has installed a time machine yet into a Tesla.
      • wredue 3y ago
        Er? Perhaps the car could make use of sensors that every ice and ev vehicle has had installed for decades, along with previous driving habits?
        • tekla 3y ago
          Yes the sensors on the car are now time machines that can figure out what the cars future conditions are going to be. Why would you want your previous driving habits to affect the base level estimation? Your driving today could be vastly different, and then you would be here complaining about how wrong it was and the range anxiety you got when the car vastly underestimated your range because it assumed you were in 40 mph traffic when today you were late and speeding 80 mpg down the highway.
• christmm 3y ago
  [dead]
• speedgoose 3y ago
  > “We’re looking at the range, and you literally see the number decrease in front of your eyes,” he said of his dashboard range meter. 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.
  • guax 3y ago
    Thats the crux of the complaint tho, if the number requires education the number should not be used without context and something more realistic should be used. If on average the car does 250 miles it should not be advertised as 400. Either a range or a disclaimer should be present. I think the "number decreasing" complaint seems to be related to the fact that you would drive 10 miles and lose 30 on the dash. The article also claims the number becomes more realistic when it crosses bellow 50% charge so I expect this difference to be noticeable.
    • speedgoose 3y ago
      The car is probably warm by the time it goes below 50%. Such number is a difficult problem. The Tesla number doesn’t represent anything meaningful. I personally have the state of charge set in % and not distance. I used to have a BMW that was guessing the range based on the last driving conditions. It was very bad too. Driving downhill in a warm day was producing big range numbers the next day. Driving uphill in a snow storm would make you want to have the car checked for battery degradation.
• anonshadow 3y ago
  Tesla's VW moment
• vagab0nd 3y ago
  Not just battery and range. 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.
  • rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    A new "you're holding it wrong" level.
    • Zetice 3y ago
      "Works on my Tesla."
  • JimtheCoder 3y ago
    "My wife had to sit at the back of the car for a month while I argued with them." She must have enjoyed having a chauffeur for a month...
    • ke88y 3y ago
      Chauffeurs tend to drive vehicles that are more comfortable than the back seat of a Tesla. Sitting in the back seat of any non-luxury sedan sucks.
      • mrguyorama 3y ago
        Tesla claims to be a luxury car. Plenty of Luxury sedans meanwhile have terrible back seats that basically cannot be used, because it's a luxury car, not a family car.
        • simondotau 3y ago
• Lolaccount 3y ago
  I heard Walter Isaacson is writing a book about Elon Musk. Working Title: "Now I Am Become Musk, the Destroyer of Brands"
• helf 3y ago
  [dead]
• wredue 3y ago
  >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. It’s weird how this sentence was probably supposed to surprise the reader, but I really just reflected on how the fans conduct themselves regularly and thought “yup, sounds about on par”.
  • sethd 3y ago
    Just like a scene out of The Wolf of Wall Street. This company appears to be fraudulent to the very core.
    • mwint 3y ago
      I’ve thought that ever since they got caught rolling an EV down a hill for a promo video, after taking tons of money from a major automaker. Wait? That wasn’t Tesla? Okay, I guess there’s a level below “fraudulent to the very core”
      • crypot 3y ago
        Maybe this is what you were thinking: https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/17/tesla-engineer-testifies-that-2016-video-promoting-self-driving-was-faked/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/17/tesla-engineer-testifies-t...
        • frumper 3y ago
          This is what they are eluding to. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/nikola-admits-prototype-was-rolling-downhill-in-promotional-video/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/nikola-admits-prototype...
  • sdfghswe 3y ago
    > I really just reflected on how the fans conduct themselves regularly Reminds me of that youtube video (by a fan) almost having an accident on autopilot and his first reaction was "we're gonna have to cut that out".
• bilsbie 3y ago
  It’s a controversial opinion but I really believe EV’s need 500 miles of range to truly compete with ICE vehicles. Think: batteries not fully charging or depleting for longevity concerns. Having to stop at chargers before range is out due to there not being another one coming up, extra headwinds, extra heat or AC, simply ending up at a broken or crowded charger and needing it to a different one, pulling a load, etc, etc.
  • xutopia 3y ago
    I think you're wrong. The vast majority of "trips" are well below current ranges afforded by today's technology. Most electric car users are plugging in when they get home and never have to charge elsewhere. Furthermore battery technology is actually improving and the trajectory seems to indicate that there will be cars that will be able to hit the 1000km range within the next 5 years for those who would need it.
  • wredue 3y ago
    Most people never leave their city. For those of us who do, the small number that do road trips can easily get by with one ICE and one EV. Most people’s EV need to get to the grocery store or to work and back.
    • hot_gril 3y ago
      > For those of us who do, the small number that do road trips can easily get by with one ICE and one EV. I don't want to have to buy two cars to fulfill the role of one car.
  • 0xfae 3y ago
    How many miles do you think the average person drives per day?
  • jmpman 3y ago
    I’d like to be able to go 200 miles at 85mph, and do it between 80% and 20% of charge (so I can supercharge quickly and not worry about range at the bottom end) That would equate to a single stop on my typical family road trip. That’s 333miles at 85mph. My Model 3 can’t do that. Hoping the high end Cybertruck can get close.
• smithcoin 3y ago
  I wonder how much this article will be suppressed on x.
• testemailfordg2 3y ago
  And we all thought Tesla's success was only because of innovation and perseverance ? Forgot it is also a business and they will play every trick in the book.
• everdrive 3y ago
  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.
  • malablaster 3y ago
    What does any of this have to do with the fact that Tesla is lying to its customers and the other EV manufacturers are not.
    • cde-v 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • throwaw1yyy 3y ago
        [flagged]
    • jojobaskins 3y ago
• Geee 3y ago
  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.
  • hot_gril 3y ago
    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.
    • macintosh-hd 3y ago
      The high five thing is a little weird, like how they’re finding joy in it… but yeah, it’s not a fixable issue so it would just be a waste…
• lesuorac 3y ago
  > Neither Tesla nor Chief Executive Elon Musk responded to detailed questions from Reuters for this story. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The reporters are really missing a zinger on this one. Instead it should read, "When contacted about the range of Tesla's cars, Elon described it as the [poop emoji].".
• gonehome 3y ago
  I don’t really get the range complaints at this point, with an ICE vehicle people rarely know their range they just look at a gauge for F to E. 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.
  • ravenstine 3y ago
    That's because, even today, gas stations are far more ubiquitous than charging stations. People who own IC cars don't pay that much attention to range because there's rarely a question that they'll find a gas station within their last remaining gallon. With electric, that's a bit of a different story, especially when you're driving a long distance, and to somewhere that's not a major metropolitan city with thousands of Tesla owners.
    • gonehome 3y ago
      The national coverage of superchargers and built in routing cover the need at this point. It’s been this way for a couple years, really not something necessary to think about. Add in at home or destination charging and it’s even less relevant since you need fewer stations near areas where people live.
    • vel0city 3y ago
      I pay way more attention to the range of my ICE car over my EV, because I need to actually go someplace out of my way to recharge it while my EV practically always has more range than I need every day. I spend more of my time recharging my ICE than I do my EV. It's way less convenient and I never know what the cost will be tomorrow. Meanwhile my electricity is on a fixed rate contract measured in years.
      • ethanbond 3y ago
        People who are worried about range on EVs are not worried about a usecase that looks like this, obviously. Home/work plug-in is amazing, and an underrated QOL improvement over ICE, but it’s just not relevant to most of the concern around EV range. Range concern comes from either not having a charger available as a matter of daily business (street parking) or from frequently going on very long drives.
• edude03 3y ago
  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.
  • anon373839 3y ago
    What this article describes, if true, is actionable fraud. I’m not seeing this as a “hit piece.”
  • afavour 3y ago
    Literally the first paragraph of the piece: > 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.
    • ke88y 3y ago
      If the predicted range occasionally decreases by 3km after driving 1km, well, that's the nature of battery discharge models. It's fine. If the predicted range ALWAYS decreases by 3km after driving 1km, then the prediction is bs.
• sparrowInHand 3y ago
  That team has strangled every engineer suggesting high energy devices like radars be included in the car.
• dietsche 3y ago
  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%.
  • radlad 3y ago
    > 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. (edited to clarify "it's been true")
    • shiftpgdn 3y ago
      Consider yourself lucky. Off the top of my head both Ford and Subaru were subject to lawsuits about vehicles not meeting EPA range expectations. When I had an outback I was very lucky to get 17MPG and the EPA range on the window sticker was 27 which felt really deceptive.
      • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
        27 hwy? My 2013 STI gets like 23/19 on a good day and requires 93 oct or higher. oof! My fuel efficiency is horrid and advertised to be horrid.
• rootusrootus 3y ago
  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.
• swader999 3y ago
  I rode ebikes for commuting about 15 years ago. Looking at electric cars, I need at least double whatever specs they state for max range. So if I need 400 miles for instance, I need to find a manufacture promising 800. Wind, cold, age of battery, emergency reserve etc all play into it.
  • 542354234235 3y ago
    Battery tech has changed a lot since 2008.
    • swader999 3y ago
      I don't think so, cold and cycle degradation still impact range the same. Maybe battery heaters?
      • 542354234235 3y ago
        Battery heaters for the cold, and software and hardware improvements for charging. Current batteries can dynamically manage how they charge to optimize battery life. Batteries can precondition on the way to a fast charger. Almost all EV’s batteries are warrantied to be at least 70% capacity to 100,000 or 8 years. Battery tech improved in a thousand small boring ways, not in a flashy headline grabbing new innovation.
      • CyberDildonics 3y ago
        2008 was 15 years ago. Look up lithium iron phosphate batteries. Also the worst wear comes from charging while cold. If a charger is plugged in it can heat the batteries before charging them.
  • aaronblohowiak 3y ago
    You drive 400miles without access to charging?
    • swader999 3y ago
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• mvkel 3y ago
  This is like saying Microsoft created a secret team to suppress file transfer estimations over a 56K modem. Time estimates are an incredible challenge because you're effectively trying to predict entropy.
• toss1 3y ago
  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.
• indymike 3y ago
  My wife's car broke down, and she took my Subaru for the week, so I ended up with a Chevy Bolt. It wasn't a Tesla, but it was an eye opener for me. Cost per mile was about the same as the Subaru, and the Subaru was a bigger car. Charging was slow and inconvenient. Range? Was really hard to predict in the Bolt because how you drive the vehicle has a big effect on what you get. I was really disappointed in the whole EV thing.
  • macintosh-hd 3y ago
    It doesn’t help that the Bolt is the worst EV on the market besides the Leaf, mostly due to price point. You also wouldn’t notice the charging being slow as much if you had a charger installed in your garage, cheaper too. All that being said, having driven both, it’s no competition a Tesla is far better in every conceivable way. The Model 3 is more efficient with its energy as well.
• eatporktoo 3y ago
  I'm surprised by the reaction to this article. 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-consumption-graph-with-useful-insights-range-tips-software-update-2022-36/ https://www.teslaoracle.com/2022/09/26/tesla-new-energy-cons...)
  • ethanbond 3y ago
    > “We’re looking at the range, and you literally see the number decrease in front of your eyes,” he said of his dashboard range meter. From the third paragraph
    • simondotau 3y ago
      What a silly quote. The same happens to me in my ICE car. As I'm driving along the estimated range keeps decreasing. Because that's the whole point. I'm confused how anyone thinks it should do otherwise.
  • steveBK123 3y ago
    The EPA tests are poorly implemented, and there are two flavors of tests and the maker chooses which to run. Has to do with the number of "cycles". One of these tests tends to return fairly optimistic results, and is the one Tesla chooses for the EPA to run. Further, EPA only tests at default settings. Some makers (ahem Tesla) default everything to the most range maximizing settings. Next, car makers can market UP TO the EPA range, but can also market below. Tesla clearly advertises every mile they can, while the Germans undersell their range. You can see this across the board in the real-world range tests by InsideEVs, etc. Holistically I think having a single EPA range number is wrong given how different highway & city range is for EVs. Just like ICE cars report highway & city MPG, EVs should report range in these 2 buckets.
• nikau 3y ago
  This is why I don't want a car with OTA updates. At least a dealer flash will take many months to be deployed and show up these deceptive practices.
  • macintosh-hd 3y ago
    What does this have to do with OTA updates? It could come with the same software “built to lie” from the factory as well, couldn’t it?
    • nikau 3y ago
      OTA allows software hacks to mask hardware issues long enough to see out the warranty period.
• NelsonMinar 3y ago
  The decision to lie to owners about their cars' range came right from the top. > The directive to present the optimistic range estimates came from Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, this person said. “Elon wanted to show good range numbers when fully charged,” the person said, adding: “When you buy a car off the lot seeing 350-mile, 400-mile range, it makes you feel good.” > ... Korean regulators required Tesla to publicly admit it had misled consumers. Musk and two local executives did so in a June 19 statement, acknowledging “false/exaggerated advertising.”
• damnesian 3y ago
  QA excellence by obfuscation. That's going to be of great assurance when a family dies in a Tesla fire on the highway.
• Kosirich 3y ago
  Carwow did a test fairly recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvwOa7TCd1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvwOa7TCd1E
  • PaulMest 3y ago
    I didn't watch the whole video, but found the summary to be helpful. You can see it at 37m21s: https://youtu.be/fvwOa7TCd1E?t=2241 https://youtu.be/fvwOa7TCd1E?t=2241 spoiler: Of the 6 cars they tested, Tesla Model Y had the best performance in terms of miles per kWh and total range. But it still clocked in at only 81% of claimed range.
• hackernewds 3y ago
  Bet they're all here now to derail the discussions too
• raydiatian 3y ago
  Mmmmm, I’m sorry, this seems like a hit piece. As much as I’d love to hate on 2020+ Tesla and Elon, this “evidence” is so flimsy it could be a door
• blake929 3y ago
  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.
  • usaar333 3y ago
    I was trying to interpret what that means. I'm guessing they aren't factoring current conditions above 50% and instead rely on average conditions. I'd be surprised if this is actually worse than what the EPA views as average given the truth-in-advertising requirements they put on Tesla. This isn't entirely unreasonable. Most people whose battery is at 80% aren't going to be depleting it in the next few hours, so say factoring the present cold morning might produce overly pessimistic guesses. They are being aggressive for sure, but this article strikes me as pretty biased against Tesla. The article concedes that most of these customers have no range problems -- they are probably driving in cold at 80 MPH blasting their heat to 70 degrees wondering why their range is so poor -- even though it is entirely expected behavior.
    • ineedasername 3y ago
      > This isn't entirely unreasonable… factoring the present cold morning might produce overly pessimistic guesses It’s always unreasonable in something like this to present knowingly inaccurate data when accurate data is available. As others have pointed out, Teslas do seem perfectly capable of doing this based on their performance when estimating a particular route. It’s also something other brands do better, so even if there was an argument to be made that Tesla didn’t have the data, it would still be the case that they should have it. It is also not pessimistic to give an estimate in the conditions you outline: It’s accurate. Whether you’re going to be driving that long is irrelevant because Tesla should not be defaulting to some probabilistic behavior guess prior to even starting the car or entering a route. It should default to “hey, I see you’re driving your car. If you keep driving this is your range”. It shouldn’t default to “I don’t know how long you’ll be driving so I’ll just give a range estimate that assumed you’ll drive for a short time now and then more later and maybe later the conditions will provide better range, so let’s use that number” I’m not sure why Tesla would be defended in this point by anyone when other EV’s do this more accurately and consistently. If it was a general problem and no one could do it any better then by all means it would be unreasonable to complain about Tesla, it would simply be a limit of the technology. But it’s not.
• gizmo 3y ago
  Many who buy EVs have range anxiety. Easiest solution for Tesla? Lying about the (remaining) range. Many consumers wrongly believe that they need a lot more range than they actually do, and you can't really convince them otherwise because it's an emotional issue rather than a pragmatic one. What Tesla did was immoral but I get why they did it. Tesla doesn't let you get you stranded on the side of the road. You'll still get directed to a Supercharger if you are unable to reach your destination. But you don't get an accurate range estimate when your car is fully charged, and this has been known for a long time.
  • hot_gril 3y ago
    Thanks Tesla, but I'll stick to a car that doesn't try to work around my emotional problems. > Tesla doesn't let you get you stranded on the side of the road Unless you don't use their nav, the conditions are bad, or you need to take a detour. To drive 40mi, I want 60mi range to cover my bases, considering the consequences of getting stuck vs just charging a little longer.
• gumby 3y ago
  DoT should publish range data just as it publishes milage data for dinosaur. Consumer Reports is falling down in this regard.
• kunalgupta 3y ago
  can’t be legal?
• andykellr 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • b0r3datw0rk 3y ago
    Just curious, did you ever own a high end vehicle before your teslas?
    • shmatt 3y ago
      I doubt it. Even Tesla superfans trash the M3 publicly. It's cheap for a reason
    • andykellr 3y ago
      1986 Saab 900 Turbo 1996 BMW 318 Convertible 2010 BMW 328x All manual which I miss.
  • reustle 3y ago
    > There are so many people out to get Tesla right now it's hard to process stories like these: the legacy auto makers, their supply chains, their unions, their dealers, the shorts, the elon haters, the ev haters, and on and on. > There are also a ton of click bait faux outrage articles in general about every subject you can imagine. I can’t help but be disheartened at the financialization (?) of everything. Can’t tell who’s real and who’s shorting.
  • e40 3y ago
    > There are so many people out to get Tesla right now it's hard to process stories like these I have no dog in this fight. Never owned or thought about buying a Tesla. The details described in the story, if true, are very serious. Are you suggesting the story is made up? I'm a firm believer in the idea that people can be brilliant in one way and dumb in many others. Elon seems hellbent on showing us all the ways he's dumb.
    • panick21_ 3y ago
      I wish I was so dumb that I could create SpaceX.
• lowbloodsugar 3y ago
  I rented one for a week and it showed battery percentage not miles. It seems pretty stupid on Tesla's part to show the very inaccurate EPA range rather just battery percentage. And it looks like they doubled down on the stupid with these tactics. I used to own a high hp gasoline car, and its mileage estimate would regularly be off by 50% when I drove it like I stole it. The difference is that there are gas stations everywhere. When I drove the Tesla aggressively, it pretty quickly told me I needed to turn around and go charge some more - there were no superchargers ahead of me. You might say I was lucky that I was using navigation for my route, so that it could figure an accurate battery usage. But I wasn't lucky. Of course I put the route into the navigation system. What was the outcome? I didn't go charge it, and instead I stopped driving like a c**t. I made it to my destination and back with 17% charge left.
• esalman 3y ago
  If I bought a used phone, I'd not expect the same battery life or screen time as the brand new counterpart. In fact I never buy a used phone for this reason no matter how sweet the deal is. Advertising the same range on a used Tesla as a brand new one is fraudulent practice, and people who fall for it are naive.
• dumpster_fire 3y ago
  The Tesla cars are the only cars I've ever driven that can simultaneously provide one with the very best, and yet absolute dog shit driving experience. It's a weird car that I honestly don't understand. Especially when people talk about the software being the best on the market. I don't recall the last time I cared about car software more than being able to use the turn signals properly. Great acceleration though.
• cudgy 3y ago
  “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.
  • paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Perhaps the range advertised should call out the variance, or use a more pessimistic number? Much like MPG is denoted as city vs highway.
  • mdgrech23 3y ago
    They come up w/ the range under absolute perfect driving conditions that don't actually exist. The driving conditions should reflect normal driving conditions.
    • cudgy 3y ago
      The problem is what are normal driving conditions? Another poster mentioned having efficiency numbers by the grade of the road, which would provide more information to buyers.
  • oatmeal1 3y ago
    > Driving through the Rocky mountains will reduce mpg significantly for an internal combustion engine as well. Do you mean it will reduce the mpg because of reduced air density, or because of temperature as well? I thought the efficiency of an ICE was dependent on the difference in temperature it creates between the combustion and the coldest part of the cycle. It seems efficiency would improve in cold temperatures because less energy would be wasted cooling the engine since the incoming air is doing that.
• rdevsrex 3y ago
  Ah yes, and when you factor in that EV's use 4x the materials to construct them as ICE cars, and we don't have the grid capacity yet for a full transition, I think we need another solution. Sure EV's are a part of it, but it's not the silver bullet the marketing would suggest.
• yolovoe 3y ago
  I have a 2019 Model 3 dual motors long range. I would not expect to get more than 180 miles on a good day. If it’s raining or snowing, even less than that. I still like the car and use it for city driving and even road trips with proper planning. Do not trust Tesla numbers.
• waffletower 3y ago
  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.
• dmode 3y ago
  When I used own a Model S, it nearly left me stranded in a mountainous highway, in winter with its optimistic range meter. Ultimately, I had to drift behind a truck, drive at 45 mph, and reach the Supercharger with 2% charge remaining.
• bastardoperator 3y ago
  The hundreds of videos on youtube in terms of build quality are enough for me to never consider buying a Tesla. The garbage they're delivering to people is off the charts.
• Sparkyte 3y ago
  The driving range isn't bad though. You just need to know what you're getting into when you do your research. I'm not justifying Tesla. I'm saying that most complaints are users who don't research the product before using it. This gives me a headache.
  • banannaise 3y ago
    > You just need to know what you're getting into when you do your research. If only they didn't have a secret team to suppress the kind of things you would really want your research to turn up.
    • Sparkyte 3y ago
      More like damage control and most companies do this to prevent people from seeing too much contradicting information. Like walking into reddit for a new video game where everyone complains about a small design choice of the game itself. Tesla on their page tells you the range, you can go into google maps and search travel distance and figure out if a tesla fits your needs. Complaints on lack of research into a product skew product interest. A company's job is to create an image and maintain it.
• galfarragem 3y ago
  “What’s similar in electric cars and diarrhea? The fear of not arriving at the destination..”
• Nifty3929 3y ago
  ICE vehicles have the same issue with range, but we don’t focus so much on it, I think because we just believe that the range os enough, and if I need to refuel I can do that just about anywhere quickly. In those cases that we are heading into an area where that might not be true, we check our fuel and ensure we’re topped up to get all the way through. I wonder if the reason is focusing on a specific range, rather than a fuel capacity. Gallons is a pretty intuitive quantity that people are comfortable understanding. Maybe we need to focus away from range for EVs and instead focus on kWh capacity of the batteries. This is apparently less useful, since I really care about actual range - but it’s more accurate and allows me to use my human understanding to think about whether I have enough relative to my driving circumstances. Just like with gallons of gas.
  • droopyEyelids 3y ago
    can you expand on how ICE vehicles have the same issue with range?
    • vel0city 3y ago
      Running the AC hard or driving at 80mph instead of 60mph can have a pretty big impact on range in an ICE vehicle but nobody really seems to care. A ton of people don't get the EPA rated mileage on their cars in their day to day driving habits, ergo they don't get the EPA listed range of their gas cars, but there's seemingly no organized outrage about that.
    • macintosh-hd 3y ago
      When I fill up my gasoline car it claims 400 miles of range and I have never once gotten 300 before the needle hitting empty. (And I severely doubt the extra range on E is 100 miles…) Nobody is going after my car for lying about range…
• machdiamonds 3y ago
  It's very easy to see how favorably or unfavorably Tesla's claimed range compares to competitors based on independent tests of multiple EVs in the same conditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LWL90paufE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LWL90paufE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynCaTDR4rDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynCaTDR4rDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFB6hsYXDiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFB6hsYXDiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvwOa7TCd1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvwOa7TCd1E Spoiler alert: Tesla models fare about as well, if not better, than their EV cousins, hitting around 80% of the stated range in the wild. No matter how much you guys say you hate Tesla, it doesn't change the fact what the best selling car in the world is.
• jscipione 3y ago
  I guess people don’t like to see Teslas when they are hitting golf balls.
• clouddrover 3y ago
  You're better off looking at real world highway range rather than the EPA numbers: https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ Some cars like the Porsche Taycan outperform their EPA range, other cars like the Tesla Model S underperform their EPA range.
• thejazzman 3y ago
  My 2015 85D's battery, with only 70k miles, died the day after the warranty expired. $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 :/
  • macintosh-hd 3y ago
    Don’t you think if there was an intentional conspiracy to do this they would make it a little less obvious by not activating battery self destruct the day after the warranty ended? I’d have made it wait at least a month afterwards…
    • thejazzman 3y ago
      You'd absolutely think so, but imagine how many times we might say that about Tesla & Co the last ~3 years :/ You've got to admit that a car that mostly sat idle for years (like a literal Sunday driver) had a sudden and catastrophic failure upon entry is bizarre and hard to justify. And of course my only option is to pay Tesla directly or junk the car (only worth about $20k now if the battery is fixed!)
• webworker 3y ago
  I own an Efoil, and probably the chief topic of discussion among other Efoil owners is how far we can push our (lithium ion) batteries and what we have to do to achieve that. My personal best is 17 miles, but I can only do that if I ride a certain way and have my board configured in a certain way. As the battery level dips, it gets increasingly difficult to stay foiling or to restart. And no brand, none of them actually live up to their marketed ride times because it's so highly variate. I get the need for alternative fuel sources, but I really don't want to have to figure these dynamics out in an automobile and am staying away from full electric cars for now.
• xracy 3y ago
  I got a model S with maximum range. It promised 370 miles of range on a single charge, and I don't know what stretch of road exists that that isn't a lie for. I never got 300 miles of range on it. Now, to their credit... Did I need that much range? No. But it would be nice to not be lied to.
• oska 3y ago
  Rob Mauer from Tesla Daily takes a look at this 'special report' from Reuters : https://youtu.be/nO63R4xS8Vg?t=530 https://youtu.be/nO63R4xS8Vg?t=530
• summonerlf 3y ago
  I saw this then asked myself why go through this hassle when they can use this manpower to improve their customers experience. I'm yet to get a Tesla model I was looking at Model Y. I'm not sure if I will go on after reading this.