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Okay, so if I give you all the data from my car, and say it has 10.3 gallons of gas, you’re telling me you can predict how many miles it will go to within a per

by mwint 3y ago

Okay, so if I give you all the data from my car, and say it has 10.3 gallons of gas, you’re telling me you can predict how many miles it will go to within a percent? No, you can’t. Because I might go uphill or downhill. It might rain. It might be hot or cold. The car is doing something tricky (aka lying) as discussed above.

gen220 3y ago
I think if you gave us a hidden buffer of 1 gallon (i.e. we actually have 11.3 gallons, but I report that you have 10.3 gallons, and selectively burn some of that buffer without reporting it), and you drive in conditions that fit within the footprint of your prior 3000 miles of driving history, yeah we probably could guess within a percent. To the best of my understanding, this is what most modern ICE cars do when they give you the "miles remaining" metric. I don't know how else they could be so outwardly accurate. This falls under the category of "trick", but it's actually a trick that helps me by allowing me to plan my trips better. Giving the "current estimate of actual miles remaining", as a multi-variate function of all the things you mention, is actually less helpful and more stress-inducing – even while it's technically providing more information, it's information that isn't very helpful.
- vmladenov 3y ago
  A Tesla has exactly what you describe in the Energy app, and it is very accurate, always within 1-2% in my experience. The newest version also has a breakdown of which systems are drawing power. But that’s off topic; this article is about the car not meeting its EPA range, because the EPA test is very synthetic[1] and doesn’t match most people’s driving habits. I find InsideEVs’ “70 mph range test”[2] series to be far closer to my personal experience. [1] https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/testing-national-vehicle-and-fuel-emissions-laboratory https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/testing-national-vehicle-a... [2] https://cdn.motor1.com/images/custom/bev-ievs-70mph-range-test-20211027.png https://cdn.motor1.com/images/custom/bev-ievs-70mph-range-te...

by mwint 3y ago

gen220 3y ago

I think if you gave us a hidden buffer of 1 gallon (i.e. we actually have 11.3 gallons, but I report that you have 10.3 gallons, and selectively burn some of that buffer without reporting it), and you drive in conditions that fit within the footprint of your prior 3000 miles of driving history, yeah we probably could guess within a percent. To the best of my understanding, this is what most modern ICE cars do when they give you the "miles remaining" metric. I don't know how else they could be so outwardly accurate. This falls under the category of "trick", but it's actually a trick that helps me by allowing me to plan my trips better. Giving the "current estimate of actual miles remaining", as a multi-variate function of all the things you mention, is actually less helpful and more stress-inducing – even while it's technically providing more information, it's information that isn't very helpful.

vmladenov 3y ago
A Tesla has exactly what you describe in the Energy app, and it is very accurate, always within 1-2% in my experience. The newest version also has a breakdown of which systems are drawing power. But that’s off topic; this article is about the car not meeting its EPA range, because the EPA test is very synthetic[1] and doesn’t match most people’s driving habits. I find InsideEVs’ “70 mph range test”[2] series to be far closer to my personal experience. [1] https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/testing-national-vehicle-and-fuel-emissions-laboratory https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/testing-national-vehicle-a... [2] https://cdn.motor1.com/images/custom/bev-ievs-70mph-range-test-20211027.png https://cdn.motor1.com/images/custom/bev-ievs-70mph-range-te...