As an owner who has
never gotten close to EPA on highway, but can easily beat EPA around town, the answer seems obvious.
('19 SR+ 18" w/out aero covers, 40-42psi OEM Michelins)
...and NO, I don't think it's because they are paid shills, lol. What's that old saying?... "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately explained by stupidity"...and/or differences in speed... which may also turn out to be stupidity on my part.
My $0.02-
Edmunds simply drives faster than "you, in your car" and the other 'magazine' or youtube testers.
Why I think this-
Around town, commuting via residential surface streets, I can reliably hit 140-180Wh/mile for a roughly 16 mile trip. (does an SR+ really have 300+ mi range, no, it doesn't does it.... but 140Wh/mi trips get you that projection with 50kWh usable pack capacity)
However, when I commute nearly the same exact distance (15.3 miles vs. 15.7 miles), but using freeway, I avg. >300-400Wh/mile for the slightly longer trip. This has been consistent across all of my commuting since purchase, even if I switch it up, taking FWY up to Snottsdale and surface streets back down to PHX, and vice versa. The biggest variable besides avg. speed appears to be temperature. Temps <50° F have an outsized impact on consumption, regardless of avg. speed, so I'm thankful I don't live where real cold is frequent.
PS- I *thought* I read somewhere else that Edmunds is using total kWh into the car, as reported via their Juicebox or equivalent wall connector. This indicates to me that Tesla may not be factoring total energy into the car, where other manufacturers might be showing this as part of the consumption, and think that would further amplify the differences in their reported results between manufacturers. Likewise for other pack strategies, where they have much larger total pack capacity / buffer. It doesn't have to be an anti-Tesla conspiracy for the cumulative scenarios to make it seem that way to the inherently suspicious and defensive.