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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 h

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.
  - falcor84 3y ago
    In statistical terminology, I would prefer an "unbiased estimator with low skewness", such that it's as likely to overestimate as underestimate, even if occasionally the estimates are quite far off. But as discussed, manufacturers of course have a strong incentive to make these predictions very biased to overestimate the range.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  I'd have to see more to believe that people are seriously getting less than half the estimated range. Not one person "sometimes" having an issue. (Moot point anyway cause I'm probably never gonna buy a Tesla.)
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  > > He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range Either he has VERY BAD driving habits, or he's driving in some extreme scenarios. I have a Model 3 Performance that's estimated to have a 299 mile range, IIRC. I've driven at 75 mph in 30F weather, and it reduced my range to about 230 miles. That's just shy of 25%, which while is certainly a significant reduction, is not the >50% the guy was dealing with. Do people think they'll get the full EPA range at 70+ mph with the heat or A/C on? I always assumed EPA ranges were done on flat terrain at 60 mph with climate controls off and expected any deviation from that to reduce my range. That all said, getting over 50% less than estimate range is pretty bad, and unless they're driving fast in super cold weather up hill, it really points to a potentially faulty battery that Tesla is trying to get out of replacing.
  - unregistereddev 3y ago
    > Do people think they'll get the full EPA range at 70+ mph with the heat or A/C on? That likely depends partly on what car they are coming from. Some manufacturers overstate EPA range, others understate it. If they're coming from a Ford EcoBoost or a 15 year old Hyundai, they probably don't expect to achieve EPA ratings at all. If they're coming from a Toyota or a VW, then yes, they probably do think they'll get the full EPA range at 70+ mph with hvac on. My old Toyota ICE will happily meet the EPA ratings at 70mph with the AC running full blast. If I slow down to 65mph and turn off the AC, I can easily get 10% more range than the EPA estimates would suggest.
HWR_14 3y ago
But the example from the article wasn't about a sub 1% delta. It was someone getting less than half the estimated ranged.
- edude03 3y ago
  For sure, I was using an extreme example for my anecdote(s) but also how many people get 50% of their estimated range? This specific example might be someone with a bad battery that tesla is trying to sweep under the rug BUT the article positions this as it's basically everyone. "This 1 guy gets 50% of the estimated range and the problem is so wide spread tesla started a team to address it!" is really different from "Many customers are surprised they get less range than it says on the site and for a very extreme example, one guy gets 50% less (under uncertain circumstances)"
gen220 3y ago
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).
- mwint 3y ago
  > 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). No way. That’d be accurate to under 1% - well within the variation you’ll get just from different air densities (temperature, pressure, humidity). Forget about A/C on or off, tire pressure, etc. It’s gotta be tricking you somehow.
  - gen220 3y ago
    We regularly do road trips of 200+ miles, and we get 350 miles on a full tank of gas. At the beginning of the trip, the GPS will say something like "250 miles to your destination" and the car will say "180 miles left" I regularly pull off the highway to fill up with around "20 miles" left, when there are ~90 miles left in the trip (e.g. it was dead-on accurate for the last 160 miles), according to the GPS. I agree that it's spooky. I think, when making estimates for "miles left", our car must be doing some calculation like (rolling estimate of mpg) * (gallons left). It's also possible that it keeps a buffer of ~1 gallon of gas that it never tells us about, when quoting the total range, and it eats into this buffer without telling us. There's certainly a bunch of tricks they could be pulling off. The point is, from a driver's point of view, I have a trustworthy number. If they need to pull off some tricks to achieve that trustworthiness (e.g. low-balling total range), that's OK with me. With EVs, "total range" is a marketing term, so they have a strong incentives to fib about it. Unfortunately, this makes the vehicles worse to operate.
rootusrootus 3y ago
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.
- simondotau 3y ago
  Polestar also shows the wildly optimistic EPA rating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3P32TyLMMM&t=644s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3P32TyLMMM&t=644s
ninepoints 3y ago
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.
Outright0133 3y ago
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dmode 3y ago
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

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.
- falcor84 3y ago
  In statistical terminology, I would prefer an "unbiased estimator with low skewness", such that it's as likely to overestimate as underestimate, even if occasionally the estimates are quite far off. But as discussed, manufacturers of course have a strong incentive to make these predictions very biased to overestimate the range.
hot_gril 3y ago
I'd have to see more to believe that people are seriously getting less than half the estimated range. Not one person "sometimes" having an issue. (Moot point anyway cause I'm probably never gonna buy a Tesla.)
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
> > He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range Either he has VERY BAD driving habits, or he's driving in some extreme scenarios. I have a Model 3 Performance that's estimated to have a 299 mile range, IIRC. I've driven at 75 mph in 30F weather, and it reduced my range to about 230 miles. That's just shy of 25%, which while is certainly a significant reduction, is not the >50% the guy was dealing with. Do people think they'll get the full EPA range at 70+ mph with the heat or A/C on? I always assumed EPA ranges were done on flat terrain at 60 mph with climate controls off and expected any deviation from that to reduce my range. That all said, getting over 50% less than estimate range is pretty bad, and unless they're driving fast in super cold weather up hill, it really points to a potentially faulty battery that Tesla is trying to get out of replacing.
- unregistereddev 3y ago
  > Do people think they'll get the full EPA range at 70+ mph with the heat or A/C on? That likely depends partly on what car they are coming from. Some manufacturers overstate EPA range, others understate it. If they're coming from a Ford EcoBoost or a 15 year old Hyundai, they probably don't expect to achieve EPA ratings at all. If they're coming from a Toyota or a VW, then yes, they probably do think they'll get the full EPA range at 70+ mph with hvac on. My old Toyota ICE will happily meet the EPA ratings at 70mph with the AC running full blast. If I slow down to 65mph and turn off the AC, I can easily get 10% more range than the EPA estimates would suggest.

HWR_14 3y ago

But the example from the article wasn't about a sub 1% delta. It was someone getting less than half the estimated ranged.

edude03 3y ago
For sure, I was using an extreme example for my anecdote(s) but also how many people get 50% of their estimated range? This specific example might be someone with a bad battery that tesla is trying to sweep under the rug BUT the article positions this as it's basically everyone. "This 1 guy gets 50% of the estimated range and the problem is so wide spread tesla started a team to address it!" is really different from "Many customers are surprised they get less range than it says on the site and for a very extreme example, one guy gets 50% less (under uncertain circumstances)"

gen220 3y ago

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).

mwint 3y ago
> 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). No way. That’d be accurate to under 1% - well within the variation you’ll get just from different air densities (temperature, pressure, humidity). Forget about A/C on or off, tire pressure, etc. It’s gotta be tricking you somehow.
- gen220 3y ago
  We regularly do road trips of 200+ miles, and we get 350 miles on a full tank of gas. At the beginning of the trip, the GPS will say something like "250 miles to your destination" and the car will say "180 miles left" I regularly pull off the highway to fill up with around "20 miles" left, when there are ~90 miles left in the trip (e.g. it was dead-on accurate for the last 160 miles), according to the GPS. I agree that it's spooky. I think, when making estimates for "miles left", our car must be doing some calculation like (rolling estimate of mpg) * (gallons left). It's also possible that it keeps a buffer of ~1 gallon of gas that it never tells us about, when quoting the total range, and it eats into this buffer without telling us. There's certainly a bunch of tricks they could be pulling off. The point is, from a driver's point of view, I have a trustworthy number. If they need to pull off some tricks to achieve that trustworthiness (e.g. low-balling total range), that's OK with me. With EVs, "total range" is a marketing term, so they have a strong incentives to fib about it. Unfortunately, this makes the vehicles worse to operate.

rootusrootus 3y ago

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.

simondotau 3y ago
Polestar also shows the wildly optimistic EPA rating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3P32TyLMMM&t=644s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3P32TyLMMM&t=644s

ninepoints 3y ago

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.

Outright0133 3y ago

[dead]

dmode 3y ago

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