Tesla lies about car range

[DWtsn]

Tesla’s secret team, what Africa wants from Russia - and Meloni woos Washington

A Reuters report finds Tesla overstated the distance its cars could drive. The Wagner mercenary group and food supplies top the agenda as African leaders meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Joe Biden try to find common ground at the White House. Plus, a coup in Niger and...

www.reuters.com

So, Tesla has been outright lying to us about the car's range for several years now and had a special team who's job it was to deter people from bringing their cars in to get serviced!! What's that about??

 

[NV Ray]

Hmm, 3000-4000 word article that ends in "After doing more research into range estimates, he said he ultimately concluded there is nothing wrong with his car." IMO pure reporting.

 

[NV Ray]

Hmm, 3000-4000 word article that ends in "After doing more research into range estimates, he said he ultimately concluded there is nothing wrong with his car." IMO pure reporting.

pure should be poor Darn auto correct.

 

[Huachipato]

Honestly it's not the range of the car that would concern me. We all know the EPA numbers are pie in the sky to begin with so being off a bit is not something that would bother me (especially since I have a lead food). It's the creating a department to gaslight customers who are concerned about it that is a problem.

 

[maximizese]

Here's a more in-depth article about the topic:

Tesla’s secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

About a decade ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” projections of how far owners can drive before needing to recharge, a source told Reuters.

www.reuters.com

This is one reason why I've never recommended a Tesla to anyone and frankly a major reason why I'm on this forum. I don't have the confidence to take much of what Tesla says and how they operate at face value and want to understand what's happening underneath the noise they create. I've been asked by friends, relatives, and people I cross in the parking lot about how the Tesla experience is and I pretty much give them the good with the bad because I would hate for someone who assumes that Teslas are near perfect products with above average customer service to find themselves in a situation that they can't navigate. From my own experience, I've been gaslit by the former Service Manager at my local SC who went on for about 30 minutes about how it was impossible for them to be responsible for a large bubble to appeared when they retrofitted the MCU2.

I don't feel like I'm going too far out on a limb to say that many of us find the Tesla experience to be less honest than other car brands, but we tolerate it as long as the thrills outweighs the bills.

 

[zoomer0056]

This is a recurrent theme. There are already 3 other threads. Must be the current thing to complain about. This thread and two of the others citing the same single news article, Reuters must be getting a lot of clicks.

2023 Model Y LR Poor Mileage in real world

Even reccurent gives real world ranges of 180 to 260 Model Y Long Range I agree. A lot depends on the weather conditions, highway driving speed, number of passengers, and overhead loading conditions. That is why, my real-world usable range is between 150 to 200 miles. I'm generally heading...

teslamotorsclub.com

Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

wow mind-blown, how can this be, not Tesla, must be woke mind virus. Tesla’s secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

teslamotorsclub.com

Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” [range] projections

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/ Interesting. TL;DR 1. Above 50% SOC the cars over state range, and under 50% they become more realistic. 2. Tesla had or has a team in Nevada and now moved to Utah solely dedicated to cancelling Service requests for...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Darmie]

This is a recurrent theme. There are already 3 other threads. Must be the current thing to complain about. This thread and two of the others citing the same single news article, Reuters must be getting a lot of clicks.

2023 Model Y LR Poor Mileage in real world

Even reccurent gives real world ranges of 180 to 260 Model Y Long Range I agree. A lot depends on the weather conditions, highway driving speed, number of passengers, and overhead loading conditions. That is why, my real-world usable range is between 150 to 200 miles. I'm generally heading...

teslamotorsclub.com

Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

wow mind-blown, how can this be, not Tesla, must be woke mind virus. Tesla’s secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

teslamotorsclub.com

Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” [range] projections

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/ Interesting. TL;DR 1. Above 50% SOC the cars over state range, and under 50% they become more realistic. 2. Tesla had or has a team in Nevada and now moved to Utah solely dedicated to cancelling Service requests for...

teslamotorsclub.com

Yep.

Now can we get back to why my rear tires are wore on the inside complaint again.

 

[Unclepaul]

Tesla only publishes the official government EPA estimate, just like on the window stickers of every other automobile sold in USA. Shows estimated (by Govt) for City, Highway and Combined.

Also disclose YMMY (Your Mileage May Vary) alongside.

Not sure what else they could possibly do when publishing range.

Many owners do not drive exactly as the Government testing protocol, so it is only an estimate.

Owners also complain about this with their eBikes, electric Golf carts, boat trolling motors, etc.

ICE vehicle owners have been complaining forever that they do not achieve the posted EPA numbers. They will get less range at elevation, up hills, in rain, in snow, if they warm up their cars before driving off, if the drive agressively, if they have aftermarket tires, if they drive at higher speeds, if they have head winds, etc.

Think this is simply a click bait headline, as so often used in "journalism" to gain attention and readership.

 

[zoomer0056]

Think this is simply a click bait headline

Agreed, click bait and FUD, an to attempt to bring down the king of the hill. Still at the top.

 

[_panda]

As someone who has had the 3, Y, and refresh S, I'd say the range estimates on 3 are ok - it usually 20-30 miles short. Y is a joke. I'm usually 70% of what it claims. S is phenomenal and I get more than estimate when driving around 65-70 on freeway speeds.

Of course, drive above 80 and all range goes down the gutter

 

[smartypnz]

Don't care about range.... as long as I'm paying less than 5 cents a mile - I'm happy. Actually averaging between 3.5 to 4 (which varies based on conditions and my driving mood). This is with 2 MS's and an M3 combined total of over 400,000 miles.

 

[geordi]

The issue isn't that the range estimates don't live up to the EPA numbers. Everyone knows that the EPA tests are garbage, b/c they are done indoors on a dyno, at 50mph continuously with the windows up and the AC OFF, at 85 degrees ambient. NOBODY will drive like that!

The issue is like on my X: The EPA number might be 235 miles to a full charge. Tesla says that the prediction (energy screen 30 mile range) is 190 miles. Tessie says 180 miles. ACTUAL ends up more like 140!!!

That's not a small difference, and it IS repeatable.

They CLAIM that this case-dismissal-team isn't operating any longer, yet I've only had the X since February of this year and definitely HAVE HAD the exact kind of virtual-no-support reply that everything was just fine and the case was closed out. There was also a single missed call right before it was closed out, they called just after 8 am - when I'm highly unlikely to be answering my phone.

Tesla. Love the car, HATE THE COMPANY because they are ALWAYS lying to the customer. EVERY TIME I have been to a service center, I have been lied to, and in EASILY provable ways. It's getting ridiculous.

 

[Zuikkis]

Any sane person is using the percentage range view instead of distance.. Distance obviously can't be right, how is the car going to know how you will be driving? Uphill,, downhill, city or highway?

Once you actually set your navigator to somewhere, you see the estimated battery % at destination. That value is usually spot on, and can even be easily improved by driving slower.

 

[zoomer0056]

The issue is like on my X: The EPA number might be 235 miles to a full charge. Tesla says that the prediction (energy screen 30 mile range) is 190 miles. Tessie says 180 miles. ACTUAL ends up more like 140!!!

I tried to make sense of this ... it makes no sense. So I used AI to help me out. Still, it makes no sense:

"The problem is with my Tesla Model X. The EPA estimates a full charge will give around 235 miles of range. However, the energy screen prediction shows 30 miles, Tesla says 190 miles, and Tessie (possibly another source) says 180 miles. But, in reality, the actual range ends up being much lower, around 140 miles."

It's 235 or 30 or 190 or 180 or 140. Jeeze Louise. Just use battery percentage on your trips. Learn to use navigation, it also shows battery percentage.

 

[supratachophobia]

This is a recurrent theme. There are already 3 other threads. Must be the current thing to complain about. This thread and two of the others citing the same single news article, Reuters must be getting a lot of clicks.

2023 Model Y LR Poor Mileage in real world

Even reccurent gives real world ranges of 180 to 260 Model Y Long Range I agree. A lot depends on the weather conditions, highway driving speed, number of passengers, and overhead loading conditions. That is why, my real-world usable range is between 150 to 200 miles. I'm generally heading...

teslamotorsclub.com

Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

wow mind-blown, how can this be, not Tesla, must be woke mind virus. Tesla’s secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

teslamotorsclub.com

Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” [range] projections

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/ Interesting. TL;DR 1. Above 50% SOC the cars over state range, and under 50% they become more realistic. 2. Tesla had or has a team in Nevada and now moved to Utah solely dedicated to cancelling Service requests for...

teslamotorsclub.com

I mean, I started this thread in 2018.....

I think my car is lying to me...

So try to follow along with this napkin math. I'm going to define some well known facts to start: A. 90D pre-refresh nominal capacity 85.8kwh B. 90D pre-refresh usable capacity 81.8kwh C. 4kwh brick protection, cannot use (A minus B) D. Watts per mile used to calculate EPA rated range for...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[zoomer0056]

I mean, I started this thread in 2018.....

I think my car is lying to me...

So try to follow along with this napkin math. I'm going to define some well known facts to start: A. 90D pre-refresh nominal capacity 85.8kwh B. 90D pre-refresh usable capacity 81.8kwh C. 4kwh brick protection, cannot use (A minus B) D. Watts per mile used to calculate EPA rated range for...

teslamotorsclub.com

Nice. What have we learned since then? How can the various numbers be used? I think pick one and stick with it.

 

[wwu123]

I mean, I started this thread in 2018.....

I think my car is lying to me...

So try to follow along with this napkin math. I'm going to define some well known facts to start: A. 90D pre-refresh nominal capacity 85.8kwh B. 90D pre-refresh usable capacity 81.8kwh C. 4kwh brick protection, cannot use (A minus B) D. Watts per mile used to calculate EPA rated range for...

teslamotorsclub.com

Yes, your old thread was the one I was remembering in post #5 in the third new thread listed, specifically with regard to the "hidden buffer" issue, which is one of the things I think is specifically being explained in the Reuters article (about different range projection methods above and below 50% SOC), just couldn't find it. Thank you (and @David99) for being so diligent back then to collect meticulous data and isolate that particular phenomena out from other range issues...

That all said, all threads old and new devolve into same debates - EPA vs real-world range, individual driving habits and itineraries, range degradation, cold weather range. All justified complaints certainly, just nothing new that hasn't already been said a million times over.

 

[DWtsn]

It's funny to read all the fanboi responses on here that regardless of the fact that Tesla created an entire section to counter this, which is one of the most despicable business practices you could do, people just support Tesla in minion-like fashion!! lol. It's just comical. I think Elon has done great things but that doesn't mean he is doing some nefarious things with his business and it doesn't mean that Tesla, as a company, has some of THE WORST customer service in the industry. So while I am a fan of some, I cannot be "the minion" and I've got a '21 MSLR w/FSDb for sale

 

[ucmndd]

Tesla pretty famously games the EPA test cycle and has gotten very good at getting the best possible numbers to advertise while staying within the rules (at least there has been no accusation or evidence to support them NOT following the EPA rules to my knowledge). They’ve decided big numbers in ad materials are more important than actually delivering them, for better or worse.

As for the cloak and dagger “secret team” stuff, it’s hard to take that very seriously. Yeah, I have no doubt that they have a team of service specialists whose job is to evaluate tickets and cancel service requests when there’s nothing to actually fix. That’s just good business all around. There is nothing to fix for the overwhelming majority of “range issue” service requests because the cars are functioning as designed. Letting people come in just to do nothing is a disservice to everyone - the customer, the company, and everyone else with real service issues trying to get them addressed.

Regarding “rosy range projections”… find me an ICE car made in the last 20 years that has a real linear fuel gauge. EVERY car on the street has a gas gauge that straight up lies to you (the top “half” of the gauge is actually about 2/3 of the tank, while the bottom half is about 1/3). Many EVs use “guess o meters” that are equally dishonest. This is just the way of the world.

EV range estimates are BS because the EPA testing guidelines are broken and explicitly allow for vastly different outcomes. Tesla and others are exploiting the system. Do your research and know what you’re buying, because no Tesla service center on earth can fix “ZOMG I USED 200 MILES TO GO 120 MILES MY CAR IS BUSTED”.

 

[Tiger]

The EV Ninja explains it quite well and backs it up with open data: