@Boatguy - I'm not sure this survey, even if you got 50 or more responses, is going to prove or disprove the premise (below) that most people will experience something different than the EPA test data. To do that they would have to use the same or similar speeds, weather, altitudes, temperatures and other environmentals in both city and highway driving as EPA does and the reality is that just like ICE cars most people just don't drive to the standard. Do you agree or am I missing something?
"The discussion would benefit from knowing what the curve looks like for S90D owners. Is it centered on 273,
or do the majority of drivers experience something much different than the EPA test cycle?"
Clearly the data thus far says that S90D owners have different driving habits than those modeled by the EPA, so we agree on that.
Sure, nobody worries to much about reaching the EPA numbers in an ICE because there is a gas station on every corner. The EPA numbers are used just for comparison.
The purpose of the poll was to prove/disprove my assertion in another thread that Tesla over commits and under delivers on range. This was based on a) my experience with a BMW i3 which after two years reliably delivers more range than was promoted by BMW at the time of my purchase and b) early test drives of the Chevy Bolt by multiple members of the automobile press who all had not trouble extracting more range than Chevy is promoting in its advertising. The 2017 BMW i3 has an EPA rating of 97mi, but my 2014 with a 33% smaller battery routinely gets 85 so it seems likely that in the real world BMW buyers will easily experience more like 115. The i3 is overpriced, but BMW's credibility is intact.
The data in this poll thus far says that our tiny sample of S90D owners are getting less range than was promoted by Tesla when they purchased their car. The overarching point is that Tesla
knows the buyers won't get the range that is being advertised because they have the real data from 100,000 cars. Tesla could easily promote the car by saying something like "EPA rated range of 294, but our experience is that most MS owners see about 10% less".
I want to see Tesla succeed, but building a reputation of over committing and under delivering is not the path to success. M3 owners will be much more mainstream than MS/MX buyers. If somebody tells them to expect 220 miles of range, and their experience is 200, while Bolt owners are told to expect 238 and routinely get 250, that's going to be a big problem for Tesla's credibility and sales.
There is a folklore belief in the "first mover" advantage. But the reality is that the dominant company is not usually the first, or even the second to enter the market. PC's is obvious, nobody from the first generation is still in business except Apple and their PC market share is less than 10%. Microsoft Office is dominant and its various components were introduced about 5yrs after others already "owned" the market for word processing and spreadsheets. Excel was actually Microsoft's second spreadsheet product. Oracle was not the first database, Amazon was not the first online retailer, iPhone was not the first smartphone, etc. etc. Tesla could easily become a footnote in the transition from ICE to EV.
Credibility is important and EM/Tesla are building a reputation as talk big, deliver smaller and later. Sure EM's charming and that work's great with investors, but customers, especially those with choices, expect to receive what they are told when they buy the product.
