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Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)
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- techpineapple 2y ago[flagged]
- jfengel 2y agoIt feels less like "horseshoe theory" to me, and more like projection: accuse your opponents of doing the things you do. Your supporters believe it because that's what they want to do so you must want it too. The horseshoe theory can at least be honest, albeit ironic. This is just plain deceit and manipulation.
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- blacksqr 2y ago[flagged]
- londons_explore 2y agoThe article really focusses on range loss when cold, but as far as I can see that isn't really true. The reality is there is lots of range loss when using the cabin heater, which obviously one is most likely to do when cold. All modern Tesla's use heat pumps for cabin heating, which ~halves the range loss, but it's still substantial.
- pshirshov 2y agoI'm wondering, why the battery coolers are so sophisticated but never heat the cabin.
- timewizard 2y agoYou need to heat the battery when it's cold too. Tesla's used to, not sure if they still do, had a four way valve that could be used to route coolant around the system in the right direction. High wear and failure rate part.
- jfengel 2y agoDoes the heater really use all that much energy? A home space heater is something on the order of 1 kW, which is a fraction of a percent of what is needed to move the car.
- _carbyau_ 2y agoI don't own a Tesla but driving most any speed in winter at near snow temperatures is going to be hard to work against! It's not the same as an immobile insulated house.
- gruez 2y ago>A home space heater is something on the order of 1 kW, which is a fraction of a percent of what is needed to move the car. How are you getting "fraction of a percent of what is needed to move the car"?. Wikipedia says the model 3 (long range, RWD) has 82 kWh capacity and 363 mi range. If you drive at 40mph that's 9hrs of driving, meaning the car consumes 9kW at that speed. 1kW is not "fraction of a percent" of that.
- Rebelgecko 2y agoThe climate control in my (non-tesla fwiw) EV with a heat pump uses around 2kW when its going full-out. Anecdotally it also heats the cabin much faster than a space heater would. Usually it's only pulling that much juice for the beginning of a drive and after a few minutes it reduces when it finds a steady-state. 2kW is about the same amount of juice that the drivetrain pulls when driving 35mph, so it can make a pretty big difference in the efficiency of shorter drives. Sidenote: even though resistive heating is less efficient in heat per watt, using the heated seats is usually more efficient in terms of comfort per watt than heating the entire cabin
- darth_avocado 2y agoTesla advertises 350+ miles on its cars. I’d bet money that the cars can’t do 300 in normal weather, normal driving conditions without the AC/heater on, on a straight road with no elevation gain. These are the things they blame when they say EPA estimates are different becase blah blah… (I own a Tesla)
- infinghxsg 2y ago[dead]
- gleenn 2y agoI know some of the lithium-sodium batteries behave differently now but my Model Y yells at me whenever I charge above 80% or go below 20%, saying it's bad for the battery. Not exactly inspiring if it causes more wear unless you sacrifice 40% of the range.
- ajross 2y agoWhere's the sacrifice? Just charge it to 100% before you leave for a 200+ mile trip, there's even a setting in your app to make that happen automatically (it'll start charging at e.g. 2am or whatever is needed for your departure time). Did you gas up your car every time you drove back from work? No, right? So why complain that the car doesn't sit at 100% all the time in your garage? Seems like a silly complaint to me.
- thaumasiotes 2y agoThe sacrifice is that you can't use 40% of what's supposedly the range. > Did you gas up your car every time you drove back from work? No, right? Right, you gas up your car when it needs more gas. You can't do that with an electric car for two reasons: (1) you need to fuel the car well in advance of trying to use it, because fueling is extremely slow; (2) you can't go low on fuel without damaging the car. The only logical response to this state of affairs is to try to fuel the car whenever it's not in use. > So why complain that the car doesn't sit at 100% all the time in your garage? Capacity that you're not supposed to use is not capacity that you can usefully be said to have.
- sashank_1509 2y agoI have a model 3 (from 2023), that is rated 270 miles. I can get at max 120 miles, more like 90 miles from it. My drive to work involves going steeply uphill, not very cold. The only reason I don’t care is I have free office charging. If I didn’t I would be pissed by the range I observe. Also Tesla servicing is famously bad, and the way the employees treat service requests (as described in the article) explains a lot
- roflchoppa 2y agoHow fast do you normally drive?
- Rebelgecko 2y agowhat's the mileage like when you take into account the downhill return trip? Unless your commute is uphill both ways through the snow :)
- Spivak 2y agoThere might not actually be a downhill return trip if the commute involves going over a bunch of hills as is common in a pretty well known city that both has a lot of teslas and fits the parent's description.
- decimalenough 2y agoIf so, they'll get much of the energy expended going uphill back on the downhills, thanks to regenerative braking.
- lathiat 2y agoIn the Tesla Semi announcement, they showed pretty impressive data on exactly that. Here's a shot of the graph and some data: https://kilowatt.page/tesla-semi-regen-roundtrip-efficiency-is-95-percent/ https://kilowatt.page/tesla-semi-regen-roundtrip-efficiency-... Of course, this is from Tesla, and they famously puff up everything.. but I would expect even if not as good as claimed here, for the downhill part to certainly help a lot still. What may not help is if they fully charge at work and have no battery capacity to soak up the regen on the way home. Regen ability gets limited the closer you get to 100%.
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- NaOH 2y agoDiscussed at the time: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36891642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36891642 - July 2023 (746 comments)
- tonymet 2y agoI recently purchased new Y long range with “337” miles . Apparently EPA also applies a 0.7 handicap factor — a policy added in 2017 to address misleading range listings. My first 180m test drive completed within expectations , so things seemed great. I then did what should have been an easy 270 mile drive and the planner warned it would not make it . I stopped in for a 10 mile top up and arrived with just 16 miles remaining. Thinking the return trip would be better due to the topography, I had about the same bad experience . I’ve since learned that supercharger preconditioning kills 15-30 miles , so you need to fill up 50+ or you actually end up with less than if you hadn’t stopped. Even with this loss, the range doesn’t meet expectations . Sure I did everything I could , including driving below the speed limit , using “chill model , preconditioning , departing at a scheduled time, avoiding climate control. I usually exceed EPA gas estimates due to my chill approach . I was very disappointed for my brand new car to come up 20% short in what seemed to be nearly ideal conditions .
- natch 2y agoDriving style and speed also factor into it. My car doesn't get anything near the advertised mileage but that's because of speed and driving style. I'm thrilled with it. On long road trips I fill (charge) to about 1.5X my expected driving mileage, and don't have any problems. If, however, I was worried about the number, I would drive a different car… but then life would be no fun.
- tonymet 2y agoI hear you, but during my testing I’ve been driving like a grandma , and I usually drive tame enough to exceed Gas EPA estimates by 15%, so I was really shocked to have terrible EV range. In my 270 mile test I was under 60 for 85% of the trip, and never over 75
- Panzer04 2y agoAre you driving like a grandma slow acceleration or are you driving at low speed? The latter is much, much more important at highway speeds. Apparently the EPA test is run at 60mph Max and an average of 50mph, which would to a significant extent explain the difference if you averaged 65mph or similar. They also weight and combine it with city miles, which is probably even more generous to EVs with regen braking.
- wnevets 2y agoThe Tesla team also spys on their customers [1] but there was way more pearl clutching on HN about Mozillas ToS change. [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sens...
- _ea1k 2y agoIn related news, wltp range estimates today are even worse than epa estimates back then. And the EPA standards have changed since then, so that newer Teslas are much closer to their rated ranges than they were back then. Kind of weird to see this here now.
- stephc_int13 2y agoOver-promise and under-deliver seems to be the base of any Musk controlled org.
- fred_is_fred 2y agoWith self-driving it's more like fraud than over-promising.
- stephc_int13 2y agoI was trying to be charitable. From my perspective, Tesla is done. Sales are in free fall, especially in Europe and Asia, during an EV surge, the brand is dead for 2/3 of the planet (again, trying to be charitable) and the stock value is mostly relying on the promise of autonomous driving, but if they ever manage to get it work, I don't think that will be enough to repair the damages, we entered emotional/cultural territory regarding anything this guy touches.
- jnsie 2y agoIANAL but this seems like false advertising at best and fraudulent at worst.
- bdcravens 2y agoMy 2022 EV6 comes pretty close to its advertised range: advertised as 310 miles, and I regularly get 240 out of an 80% charge (assuming I'm driving responsibly lol)
- joshribakoff 2y agoDont cancel the appointment, insist they repair it, do 3-4 attempts even if they close it as “expected characteristic” or “education”, then request a lemon law buy back for failure to honor the warranty. Check your purchase agreement for where to send the lemon law request. Demand incident compensation during the buyback if they failed to provide loaners.
- corey_moncure 2y agoThis nonsense again. My 2020 S has a lifetime Wh/Mi of ~260. When the battery was new it was 96 kWh, that's 369 miles. And I floor that sucker all the time for fun, blast the stereo, and run the A/C constantly. Luggage rack on the roof. At the end of the day, I've never had a real problem with the range. I definitely don't feel lied to. I wouldn't trade it for any other car in the world.
- mindslight 2y agoI flew by a Cybertruck on the highway the other day like it was sitting still. It really should have had its hazards on, but I assume the additional power draw would have compounded the problem. Imagine spending all that money to compensate for your dominance anxiety, only to add range anxiety to your list of problems.
- outside1234 2y agoThis company is a total dumpster fire. It will be amazing if their stock is above $50 this time next year.
- mattbillenstein 2y agoDo not underestimate the Musk reality distortion field... He's been saying FSD for like 10 years on investor calls and they just keep eating it up.
- elif 2y agoHaving road tripped from Florida to Washington and back in a big circle around the country, it is my firm belief that every single person complaining about the range estimates in a Tesla is speeding. By altering my driving style, I can get more range than the estimate. It's extremely predictable and accurate, to the point where I can notice the power drain from the self driving computers/cameras, arrive at the next supercharger at exactly the 3% I aim for, etc. There was a point in my road trip when I was on top of a mountain, and it said I would reach the next charger 100km away with 20km of range remaining, but I was only at 90km at the time. I made it with 17km of range remaining. The estimates are really good and useful if you don't speed.
- ejoso 2y agoMakes me wonder how it is stated. Normal driving conditions for many (most?) drivers is faster than the posted speed limit.
- mvdtnz 2y ago[flagged]
- decimalenough 2y agoThe article is talking not about the route planner, which I agree usually gives very accurate estimates for specific routes, but the advertised theoretical driving "EPA ranges", which are quite inflated. However, from what I can tell, the EPA numbers from all manufacturers are quite unrealistic, because the methodology doesn't match real-world driving.
- dbcurtis 2y agoYes, this is certainly true for ICE vehicles. The measurement methodology is spelled out in exacting detail, and yields highly repeatable results. Realistic? Nope, not at all. Nobody could claim that. But, it is repeatable and comparable, so that you can compare car A to car B. It gives you a strict rank order for vehicles that are driven exactly the same way, it just so happens that no person drives exactly that particular way. The utility is in providing a repeatable point of comparison. Is that useful?... forgive me for saying it, but YMMV.
- jaco6 2y ago[dead]
- zombiwoof 2y ago[flagged]
- yalogin 2y agoOh looks like there a lot of people in this boat. Things have been degrading over time for sure. My car seems to be consuming “battery miles” at more than twice the regular miles. May be this is why musk got into politics, so he can kill any regulatory body investigating Tesla battery complaints.
- IceHegel 2y agoi own a tesla and range is very annoying, though some of the comments here are a bit sensationalist. for me, fsd more than makes up for it. if i had to buy a car today, i'd have to get another tesla because there's no alternative to fsd.
- jwr 2y agoDriving range can be estimated well: my VW ID.4 is pretty good at it, and the range estimate that it shows can be relied upon after correcting for things like headwind or driving uphill. The max range I get is pretty close to the advertised one, too. So do not believe when somebody says it can't be done.
- openmarmot 2y agoEPA is a cycle of speeds with a max of about 60 MPH. The EPA range is accurate if you drive the EPA cycle in your car - which obviously no one does. I feel like everyone knows this by now. kind of odd article to post, just feels like rage bait
- lnsru 2y agoI have found Volkswagen’s range estimator and I think it’s trustworthy: https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en/electric-and-hybrid/charging-and-range/range/range-simulator.html https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en/electric-and-hybrid/charging... I think, the range from here could be estimated for similar Tesla models too. The fact is that WLTP is useless. I can do 2/3 WLTP range in summer and 1/3 WLTP range in winter on highway with long range Model Y. That’s bad joke. Luckily I drive long distances extremely seldom. Crawling at 60 mph all the time is not an option for me.
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago> Use our useful tool to get an estimated range based on factors such as your driving style, battery size and Volkswagen electric vehicle model. That’s such a VW sentence.
- rrr_oh_man 2y agoSeems I angered some VW PR people
- lnsru 2y agoSounds like the text was written by my German native speaker colleague and then translated to English. But the tool is fine. The range drops dramatically in winter on the autobahn. -1% or more per minute of driving. Not thinkable with petrol car.
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago> Sounds like the text was written by my German native speaker colleague and then translated to English. That's what I was hinting at, being a German native speaker myself. :)
- insane_dreamer 2y agoWe have a model 3, shows 270 miles fully charged, we get < 200 miles on a good day.
- guelermus 2y ago[flagged]
- neilv 2y agoIf you're not familiar with this story, the headline misses what seems to me like the bigger scandal, of Tesla rigging a dashboard instrument to lie: > Tesla years ago began exaggerating its vehicles’ potential driving distance – by rigging their range-estimating software. The company decided about a decade ago, for marketing purposes, to write algorithms for its range meter that would show drivers “rosy” projections for the distance it could travel on a full battery, according to a person familiar with an early design of the software for its in-dash readouts. > Then, when the battery fell below 50% of its maximum charge, the algorithm would show drivers more realistic projections for their remaining driving range, this person said. IIUC, when many individual drivers were realizing that the rigged instrument didn't agree with reality of their car, they assumed their car was broken, and initiated service requests. To reduce the costs of being caught in a lie, Tesla then created a team to again lie to customers, but this time it's humans lying one-on-one, rather than lying via rigged instruments. Also consider things like Full Sell Driving misrepresentations, mishandling sensitive video surveillance from the cars, quality problems, and occasional 'retaliations' against those who complain, and it looks like Tesla might have a culture of dishonesty. Hopefully other Musk-controlled companies have better cultures, since some of them are being put into positions of trust for the broader country and world. (Broader than safety of occupants of Teslas and any innocent bystander the car might crash into or harm with fire.)
- throwaway5752 2y agoDon't worry! Even if Tesla is collapsing under the CEO's public behavior, he will be able to use his position of influence to attract opaque investment in his other companies https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43317526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43317526
- szundi 2y ago[dead]
- phtrivier 2y agoFrom a company that sell "full self-driving" cars that don't, you now, "self drive fully", I was kinda already expecting that whatever advertised range was, to put it nicely, a "large exageration". The bit of code in the dashboard to exaggerate even more is a nice touch. I wonder what the commit message was for that PR ? (Or maybe Tesla does not do PRs or commits, and just let anyone build anything on their laptop and put the binaries in the car. I mean, all that "software engineering" process sounds like so much useless efforts, right ?) Also, the author of the article takes a lot of pleasure in mentioning the EPA dozens of time - too bad the days of the agency are numbered.
- blitzar 2y ago> I wonder what the commit message was for that PR? They "trust me". Dumb fucks.
- falcor84 2y agoVouching and upvoting this. In case the context got lost by the original downvoters, this is in reference to Mark Zuckerberg's leaked conversations about creating Facebook [0]. I wouldn't be surprised if (some) Tesla employees/executives indeed internally hold a similar sentiment about their customers. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-people-first-ever-mark-zuckerberg-harvard https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-...
- libertine 2y agoThere was a time where false advertising used to be illegal.
- phtrivier 2y agoI suppose that would violate the advertiser's "free speech". It's very ironic that everyone is so afraid of Orwellian's "Ministry of Truth", and that we end in a world ruled by "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistical parrots, Inc."
- neuronic 2y agoFirst to clear up my bias: Tesla is an overvalued scam company by a fascist techno-oligarch. I hope we will boycott this company in Europe just based on Elon Musk behaviour alone. This is my political opinion. With that out of the way... My opinion as a driver is that these cars deliver far less value for the price than other EVs. I have driven Model 3 and Model Y so far and both experiences have been very mixed. - I enjoyed the responsiveness and on-the-road feel of the car for the most part which is entirely crippled by feelings of a cheap suspension and weird steering. The cars feel like racing a plastics car barely holding it together, gives me vibes of cheap Korean cars back in the 2000s. - I enjoy the clean interior design and wide views which are again crippled by low quality materials typically found in budget cars and low quality, cost-cutting material processing. - Wtf is that UX? Everything hidden in weird submenus in a central touchscreen. The OS has been designed by engineers rather than UX professionals and they seem to never have driven a car other than on empty, sunny 20mph roads or a parking lot. - The blinking UX is terrible and it's clear that this is the result of cost-cutting. - Charging is the best experience among EVs. Others need to catch up, still in 2025...
- misiti3780 2y agotells us how you really feel.
- qwe----3 2y agoIsnt every team in any company a secret?
- jahsome 2y agoAm I supposed to interpret this as surprising or even scandalous? What's next, are you going to tell me they have a PR department?
- bravetraveler 2y agoElon would never let them pay for the same thing twice
- kitsune_ 2y agoIsn't this just fraud?
- meekaaku 2y agoIsnt the rated range always more than the actual you get? I have a friend who has a BYD Atto 3, rated range is 260 miles. Actual is 200 for city/town driving, 170 miles for motorway/highway driving.
- randerson 2y agoPorsche loves to underpromise and overdeliver on their stats. The Taycan's EPA range is 318 mi, but Out of Spec tested one [0] to 367 mi @ 70mph in chilly weather. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAccv8Wuoys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAccv8Wuoys
- bagacrap 2y agoYour friend might be an inefficient driver.
- buyucu 2y agoTesla is (in)famous for making unrealistic promises, and not delivering on them.
- fedeb95 2y agoI hope someone will make driving range great again.
- rsynnott 2y ago> Recurrent conducted the study with the help of a National Science Foundation grant. Uh-oh...
- aurelien 2y agoThis sounds terrifying!
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- I_dream_of_Gen1 2y ago[dead]
- aaroninsf 2y ago> Managers told the employees that they were saving Tesla about $1,000 for every canceled appointment, the people said. Another goal was to ease the pressure on service centers, some of which had long waits for appointments. Foreshadowing.