Tesla may be forced to compensate owners of P85D in Norway

[JST]

The difference with the EV is that you actually have two different individual motors, not just one motor through a differential. Also keep in mind Tesla, at least from their message so far, never meant to imply "can sometimes channel 100 percent of the power to the (front) wheel(s) and sometimes channel 100 percent of the power to the (rear) wheel(s), and therefore it makes 200 percent of the power" (phrase edited to match Tesla context). That is what people upset interpreted it as, but I don't believe Tesla meant "motor power" to mean that (personally I never interpreted it that way).

Yes, you have two motors, but it's really a distinction without a difference. The question is "how much stored energy can I convert to motive energy at any given time?" That's the car's maximum power. Whether that's limited by the battery, the motor, the inverter, the carb, the fuel pump, the heads, the total swept area of the cylinders...it doesn't really matter.

In the case of the P85D, the bottleneck is the battery. That "motor power" tells you essentially the same thing as the torque split in an active differential. To use round numbers, if the battery can provide enough power to make 500 hp, the front motor can make 200, and the back motor can make 400, that's no different than saying "I have a 500 hp ICE engine with a differential that can put a maximum of 80 percent of the power to the rear."

What the combined motor power number represents technically is given a powerful enough battery, that is what the combined power the motor/inverter combo is capable of. In other words, it is a component based rating (a departure from the system based rating they were using previously). That might not be true of the differential case in your example (the differential may not necessarily be able to handle 200% of the power split in a 50/50 split).

But I think this nicely illustrates my point. If I said "I have an AWD car that has a differential rated to provide 200 percent more power than the engine can deliver," no one would care. I mean, I suppose people would view that as a sign of overall robustness, but it's certainly not the number you'd put in ads. Can you imagine ad copy like this:

AUDI S4, 660 hp*

*660 hp is the differential rating

Followed by a blog post a year later that explained that "differential rating" means the amount of power the differential could theoretical transfer if it were hooked to an engine of unlimited power.

I mean, people would laugh. They would jeer.

The other more subtle point Straubel's post implies is comparing dual motor to dual motor. It is possible for a dual motor car with the same battery limit but higher motor limits to perform better because they can put more power down on a specific set of wheels.

Yes...but the same is true of any AWD system that can actively distribute torque.

 

[wk057]

*cheers on Norway*

 

[vgrinshpun]

Yes, you have two motors, but it's really a distinction without a difference. The question is "how much stored energy can I convert to motive energy at any given time?" That's the car's maximum power. Whether that's limited by the battery, the motor, the inverter, the carb, the fuel pump, the heads, the total swept area of the cylinders...it doesn't really matter.

In the case of the P85D, the bottleneck is the battery. That "motor power" tells you essentially the same thing as the torque split in an active differential. To use round numbers, if the battery can provide enough power to make 500 hp, the front motor can make 200, and the back motor can make 400, that's no different than saying "I have a 500 hp ICE engine with a differential that can put a maximum of 80 percent of the power to the rear."



But I think this nicely illustrates my point. If I said "I have an AWD car that has a differential rated to provide 200 percent more power than the engine can deliver," no one would care. I mean, I suppose people would view that as a sign of overall robustness, but it's certainly not the number you'd put in ads. Can you imagine ad copy like this:

AUDI S4, 660 hp*

*660 hp is the differential rating

Followed by a blog post a year later that explained that "differential rating" means the amount of power the differential could theoretical transfer if it were hooked to an engine of unlimited power.

I mean, people would laugh. They would jeer.




Yes...but the same is true of any AWD system that can actively distribute torque.

This analogy is flawed.

The power is proportional to the product of torque and rotational speed. Or, in another words, torque is proportional to the power divided by rotational speed, and is constant in the lower band of rpm (approximately 0 to 30+ miles per hour for Model S). Since acceleration time is defined by the difference between the accelerating torque and load torque (due to friction, air resistance, etc) divided by the inertia of the car, and the higher motor horsepower results in higher torque, P85D has significantly better 0 to 60 acceleration time than 85D (approximately 0.8 sec), although the battery limit remains the same between the two variants of the car.

In case of the Audi, no matter how much one raises the differential rating, acceleration from 0 to 60mph will not change significantly, because the maximum torque, defined by the hp rating of the engine will remain the same.

 

[bwa]

I always thought you guys were all like Bjorn. haha I kid. On a more serious note, I'm struggling with this... because the question is, what is the remedy? At what point would these owners be happy. The car is capable of doing this with certain conditions. I've read the thread and it seems that they are more taken aback by industry standard testing methodology. This is again a case where Tesla gets unfair extra scrutiny. To be completely fair, saying combined 700hp may not have been right, but then again I'd say it because it's too annoying to say 250 hp in the front 470 in the rear because it's simpler. Most ICE cars state xx hp at the crank, but you expect over 20% power loss due to drive train. Not even factoring things like atmospheric pressure, grade of fuel, etc. but I don't see any articles about this.

At the end of the day the P85D is putting out comparable performance to high HP gas vehicle performance cars... If these specific owners feel like they were lied to and are so angry. I say Tesla should buy them back. Soon enough the owners will see that they are far worse without it.

Should be sold like electrinic components with graphs of speed/time, heat, soc, grade, load, pressure, wind and tire types (Norwegian vs Goodyear). It's not an ICE so don't sell it like an ICE. I get the feeling Tesla is afraid of its own success and can't get rid of useless tired old blood oil paradigms. Who owns a horse and hauls cargo with it?

 

[Andyw2100]

I have no dog whatsoever in the P85D fight, but the "motor power" thing really rubs me the wrong way. Literally any other company pulling the same stunt would be excoriated, and rightfully so. Imagine this exchange:

"Oh, well, yes, the 460 cubic inch V8 only makes 150 hp with a two barrel carb and a catalytic converter. But if you put a Holley double-pumper on it and some long-tube headers, it would make 400, easy. So we rated it as 400 hp."

"Do you sell the car with a Holley double pumper and long-tube headers?"

"No."

"When you sell the car, what kind of carb does it have?"

"2 barrel"

"And how much power does it make?"

"150."

"So why do you say it makes 400?"

"Well, the power that a V8 produces just feels a lot more immediate because it has so much more torque. So we feel like customers used to 4 cylinder engines might be confused by the 150 hp number."

"But, to be clear, this V8, in this car, can never actually produce 400 hp."

"Right."

Fantastic analogy!

 

[wk057]

I saw that in his blog post. But it's just self-evidently false, and the fact that they switched all of the cars to "motor power" proves it. If "motor power" is a better representation of the car's performance than system power, why don't S60s and S85s perform exactly the same? In fact, why aren't S60s faster, because they are lighter?

The answer is clear: "motor power" doesn't actually represent what the car can do, because it's a theoretical number that has no relationship to the actual cars. The claim that "motor power" is more representative of what the car can do than system power has some tissue thin logic when applied to comparisons with ICE cars, but it makes no sense when comparing one Model S to another--which is precisely what P85 owners were doing in late 2014 when considering whether to buy a P85D.

I have no dog whatsoever in the P85D fight, but the "motor power" thing really rubs me the wrong way. Literally any other company pulling the same stunt would be excoriated, and rightfully so. Imagine this exchange:


"Oh, well, yes, the 460 cubic inch V8 only makes 150 hp with a two barrel carb and a catalytic converter. But if you put a Holley double-pumper on it and some long-tube headers, it would make 400, easy. So we rated it as 400 hp."

"Do you sell the car with a Holley double pumper and long-tube headers?"

"No."

"When you sell the car, what kind of carb does it have?"

"2 barrel"

"And how much power does it make?"

"150."

"So why do you say it makes 400?"

"Well, the power that a V8 produces just feels a lot more immediate because it has so much more torque. So we feel like customers used to 4 cylinder engines might be confused by the 150 hp number."

"But, to be clear, this V8, in this car, can never actually produce 400 hp."

"Right."

This is great, and I love it. The problem is that the analogous exchange with Tesla isn't even that clear. They've yet to publish, or otherwise note anywhere in any exchange that I've seen, how much power the P85D/P90D/P90D (and the mythical creature, the P85D) actually produce.

 

[vgrinshpun]

The answer is clear: "motor power" doesn't actually represent what the car can do, because it's a theoretical number that has no relationship to the actual cars. The claim that "motor power" is more representative of what the car can do than system power has some tissue thin logic when applied to comparisons with ICE cars, but it makes no sense when comparing one Model S to another--which is precisely what P85 owners were doing in late 2014 when considering whether to buy a P85D.

This is not true. The higher motor power in P85D results in higher torque rating as compared to P85. This results in 0.8 sec improvement in 0 to 60 mph acceleration. The motor horsepower *has* relationship to what an electric car can do.

I have no dog whatsoever in the P85D fight, but the "motor power" thing really rubs me the wrong way. Literally any other company pulling the same stunt would be excoriated, and rightfully so.

Not true. Mercedes lists technical data for the Mercedes SLS Electric the same way as Tesla - combined motor hp. The same is true for the combined electric motor hp in Porsche 918. This is, perhaps, due to the existence of the ECE R85 European Regulation, reference to which is conveniently missing in the posts by the horsepower deprived.

My apologies to the innocent bystanders - we are back discussing the same stuff that seemingly has been beaten to death - several times over...

 

[Uncle Paul]

Couple thoughts spring to mind...

Reminds me of when automakers produce a very high horsepower car, but the tires are to small to put down the power and it all goes up in smoke instead of forward motion.
Many cars have electronic governers on them to protect their transmissions and drivelines. They will throttle back the torque in the lower gears to avoid damage.
Many cars have electronic traction control that also serve to reduce the engine power to the road. If tire slip is detected, torque will be reduced. Sold as a safety feature.
The Hellcat from Fiat/Chrysler has two keys. One releases the full 707 hp and the other only around 400. Might see a parking valet sue the owner that he was expecting to be parking a 707 hp car, but only got to experience 400 (and the tip was too small too)
Some cars throttle back available power if they detect knock from heat, lower octane fuel or uphill grade. The owner is never notified exactly how much power is available at any precise moment (the horror)
A new car often does not provide its maximum rated power until after a break in period.
One vehicle make more power than another of the same model due to production variations.

Fair settlement for this case might be for Tesla to offer to buy back the cars from those in dispute. Discount the buyback for depreciation and miles driven (evidently the owners were not so disappointed that they just let the cars sit). Then resell them, most likely taking a small loss of each one, but everybody would be made whole.

Lots will depend on the rules and regulations in each locality where the car was sold.

 

[rjcbox]

These owners that are taking Tesla to court should really get their priorities straight.

Plus, they should begin by appreciating how good they have it in Norway, compared say to Germany. Massive EV subsidies, tax breaks, free toll roads, and the like. Nothing like that over here. All we get is at most a few hundred Euros in road tax over a ten year period, plus the possibility for towns to let EVs use the bus lanes or free parking spaces (which incidentally almost now town council is currently planning to do/offer). Most of us over here couldn't even afford a P85D.

And anyway, 500 hp, 700 hp? Plus 0.7 seconds faster acceleration? What difference does it make in everyday driving? Norway afaik has very strict speed limits on most of their roads, no limit-free Autobahns either. So really, these owners should get on with life and be happy with the great performance car they have.

First world problems indeed, especially taking into account the current refugee crisis situation we have in Europe, with literally millions of displaced and practically homeless people, individuals, families, kids, babies. That is a problem worth thinking about. Even in our rural area, new refugee camps are popping up in every town. School sport arenas are re-purposed, as are barracks, empty business buildings etc. Basically every usable empty building that is available - and it is still by far not enough. The whole situation is beginning to put a huge strain on society, in many countries all over Europe. I think our US forum members might not even be able to imagine the true scope of this immense crisis and the effects it is having currently.

Honestly, as much as I understand being unhappy about carmakers' actions sometimes (we have a VW diesel after all - the Dieselgate version that is!), I still know how to set things in perspective.

First world problems indeed

 

[Cobos]

Norwegian consumer laws are pretty simple, if the company is forced to do a buyback it is at the original amount the customer paid, regardless of use and wear. Hence that WOULD be at a fairly significant loss to Tesla Norway. And why I said that is not the first offer.
Though on the flip side, you do not get any punitive damages, so you do not get someone suing Tesla to win the lottery. If the product is deemed to be $10k too expensive for what you got, then you get the $10k back, nothing more.

Cobos

 

[AustinPowers]

If those people feel they are victims of false advertising, going to court is the right way.

That is how issue can be resolved. They have to list their complaints/demands and tesla gets opportunity to explain their actions. And a third party then decides what is the matter. If there was something really wrong tesla did, they should be compensated. No matter the subsidies in other countries, no matter the actual 0-60 time.

If there was something really wrong, they should be compensated. But if the court decides there was not, they should pay all the legal fees and be ordered to somehow compensate Tesla for the smearing of their brand.

This is the way, not open letters, not forum complaining, not media ****-storm.

And if they had done that, that is done it the right way by simply taking this to court privately if they really feel that cheated, this thread here wouldn't even exist.

- - - Updated - - -

What is ridiculous is to bring up a unrelated refugee crisis.

But that doesn't matter. In the end of the day those people brought a performance version of the car for a higher price which now turns out to not perform much better. I mean wasn't the difference like $20k?


If your BMW 330Cd performed like a 318d you would also complain...


Then why does Tesla even sell it?

To answer in reverse order: why? I haven't got a clue. The whole idea of the "P" versions seems ridiculous to me, as do the prices for these upgrades. An S70D should be far more than enough for any spirited driver - especially in Norway with its ridiculously low general speed limits. (Not that low speed limits are bad per se, but complaining about supercar performance vs. even more supercar performance while living in a country with such speed limits is laughable at best).
I understand that the P versions are the halo cars for Tesla, but then again I don't understand the need for an i8 (or halo cars in general) either. I would never buy a BMW because they have the i8, nor a Mercedes because they have an AMG GT. But that is a whole different matter.

The difference between a 330 Cd and a 318d by the way is quite a bit more noticable than 0.7 seconds. I would of course complain if that scenario was the case, but I wouldn't go to the media to get as much attention as those guys did because I see no need to hurt a company more than necessary. In the case of our VW for example I see no big deal as yet because afaik at the moment, that special software isn't even active in our car. It is there, but not in use because the car meets our emission standards even without the software. (Don't argue about German emission standards, I think they are too soft either, but it is the way it is.)

What I would be more interested, how heavily Tesla actually "advertised" the 700 hp / performance to make those owners buy their cars in the first place. Oh and as you mentioned performance in particular, i agree, a 500 hp car of course isn't really a performance car


Oh and the refugee situation? Of course that is unrelated, I just brought that up to show how ridiculous these owners are behaving by making such a big deal about it in public. As others have said rightly, these owners could just have taken this to the courts and be done with it. Absolutely no need to make this public other than wanting some kind of "revenge" on Tesla. Which seems strange anyway, as I always thought people who bought EVs would be more rational, sensible and above all sensitive than the majority of the car-buying public. Then again, I think the "typical" EV buyer is not someone who cares too much about 700 hp cars in general anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

At the end of the day the P85D is putting out comparable performance to high HP gas vehicle performance cars... If these specific owners feel like they were lied to and are so angry. I say Tesla should buy them back. Soon enough the owners will see that they are far worse without it.

+1 Exactly

 

[AustinPowers]

You are missing the point so badly that I'm not sure it's worth replying, but I'll give it a go.
I'll give it another try to make you guys understand, using an analogy. [...]

No matter how much you love Tesla (which I do as well), I just can understand how you can think "this is not an issue, just enjoy your car". If it was the regular Model S, a slight performance loss could possibly be accepted since performance was not the main reason for purchase. This is about the performance version of Model S - people paid $20 000 extra ONLY for the extra performance Tesla promised. You can't just accept it and say "Oh well, the car is pretty good anyway" when you paid a premium for a noticable extra performance, and they don't deliver it.

[...]

I took the 700hp with a grain of salt yes, but that's because I was already aware that electric motors are different. You can't expect normal people to be completely aware of how this works. But I still did not doubt that it would be much faster than P85: It's got WAY more power so it's going to be WAY faster, not only during the first 100kmh.

The with/without rollout is not a minor thing in my opinion. Yes, it's an accapted standard, but it's absolutely not OK to use this standard for one model, and a different standard for another model. It's pretty obvious that they chose the 1 feet rollout timing to make it look even faster than the other versions. At the time there weren't even anything mentioning this, so the 0-100kmh times were undoubtably misleading.

Thankfully I neither know what "1 foot rollout" means, nor do I care.

To me it comes down to one simple question: how did Tesla advertise the "far better performance" in order to force these people to buy a car they have never test driven before?
You mentioned normal people. I don't want to speculate how normal these specific buyers are, but you would imagine that people who are about to fork out more than 100k Dollar/Euro/Krone for a car, let alone one driven by alternative means, would be a little knowledgable about the subject matter.
And a personal remark, imho no one in such a situation (or any car buyer, new or used) should buy a car without a test-drive first. But perhaps I am too old school in that respect.

 

[Yggdrasill]

I don't think the problem here is Norway. How would owners in the rest of the world feel if norwegians got their upgrade for free? They would be forced to give it to everyone asking. And as far as I understand, this is not a simple upgrade, but a very time consuming and thus costly upgrade.

A ruling here in Norway likely wouldn't have any meaningful impact outside our borders. Our consumer protection laws are unusually strong, so a ruling here doesn't mean a ruling elsewhere would have the same result. Tesla doesn't have to upgrade the cars anywhere but where they are forced to do so.

I took the 700hp with a grain of salt yes, but that's because I was already aware that electric motors are different. You can't expect normal people to be completely aware of how this works. But I still did not doubt that it would be much faster than P85: It's got WAY more power so it's going to be WAY faster, not only during the first 100kmh.

It is significantly faster. 0.7 seconds is *a lot* when you're talking about times under 5 seconds. But you're right that most people won't know how to assess the hp. This is something that will be central in an eventual court case. Tesla is the professional party and the professional party is always judged to a higher standard.

Even so, stating the motor power is fairly common among car makers. I don't know about any car maker that states the power at the wheels. The central question will be if the actual power is less than what it would be reasonable to expect given the stated 700 hp. Which way this will go in court is very hard to say. If this ruling goes against Tesla, Tesla will probably need to retrofit Ludicrous to get it within the reasonable expectations of power.

The with/without rollout is not a minor thing in my opinion. Yes, it's an accapted standard, but it's absolutely not OK to use this standard for one model, and a different standard for another model. It's pretty obvious that they chose the 1 feet rollout timing to make it look even faster than the other versions. At the time there weren't even anything mentioning this, so the 0-100kmh times were undoubtably misleading.

They likely weren't *intentionally* misleading. Someone probably were just a bit too trigger-happy in the translation-department. It's very uncertain whether this translation-mishap will be judged to be significant. The site also has disclaimers like "Informasjon på dette nettstedet er basert på data tilgjengelig til enhver tid. Design, spesifikasjoner, pris og produksjonsdatoer kan endres uten forvarsel og gjelder spesifikt for amerikanske kjøretøy." ("The information on this site is based on the data available at any given time. Design, specifications, price and production dates kan be changed without warning and apply specifically to US vehicles.") Typically these sorts of disclaimers aren't worth much in court, but they have some weight. If this ruling goes against Tesla, again, Ludicrous will likely be sufficient to get the acceleration close enough to be within what one could reasonably expect.

 

[AustinPowers]

It is significantly faster. 0.7 seconds is *a lot* when you're talking about times under 5 seconds. But you're right that most people won't know how to assess the hp. This is something that will be central in an eventual court case. Tesla is the professional party and the professional party is always judged to a higher standard.

But I think that question hasn't been answered: what was actually advertised incorrectly? Just the hp? Or the acceleration time and max speed also?
In other words, do the cars in question accelerate as fast as Tesla advertised (even though the nominal hp is less than advertised), or do they also accelerate slower?

Can anyone from Norway answer that?

 

[schonelucht]

All I want to know is if Norwegian courts are efficient, then I'll know when I won't be seeing any more new threads on this topic. Please, please tell me they won't drag it on for years.

And to the OP: chickens haven't hatched yet.

Neither have yours : there are Danish and Dutch owners who are also contemplating action. This can drag on for a long, long time. Even worse if a Belgian owner would start a case. Courts are notoriously inefficient...

 

[eltoro]

Neither have yours : there are Danish and Dutch owners who are also contemplating action. This can drag on for a long, long time. Even worse if a Belgian owner would start a case. Courts are notoriously inefficient...

In Norway, this should be a very efficient process. If the consumers authorities judge this in favor of the P85D owners, then Tesla should accept that verdict. If not, this could be an really embarrassing case for Tesla in Norway.

 

[MuppetOwl]

But I think that question hasn't been answered: what was actually advertised incorrectly? Just the hp? Or the acceleration time and max speed also?
In other words, do the cars in question accelerate as fast as Tesla advertised (even though the nominal hp is less than advertised), or do they also accelerate slower?

Can anyone from Norway answer that?

The car is also slower than the 3.3 sec 0-100 kph Tesla write on the Norwegian webpage. Vbox show 3.7 to 3.8 sec from a stand still to 100 kph.

Noone use 1 ft rollout in Norway or Europe. 0-100 kph or 0-62 mph is from zero like all other car manufacturers specs cars i Norway and rest of Europe. Even other us manufacturers.

 

[smac]

This is great, and I love it. The problem is that the analogous exchange with Tesla isn't even that clear. They've yet to publish, or otherwise note anywhere in any exchange that I've seen, how much power the P85D/P90D/P90D (and the mythical creature, the P85D) actually produce.

Wasn't it in the blog post "Tesla All Wheel Drive (Dual Motor) Power and Torque Specifications" would seem a decent place to give some numbers...

<ducks>

 

[ToddRLockwood]

Keep in mind, those who purchased the P versions of Model S, did it BECAUSE of performance - nothing else.

Not entirely true. Many owners purchased P versions for the sport suspension and other features unique to the P models. Not every owner is out drag racing Lamborghinis.

This is a first world problem if there ever was one!

 

[JST]

Not entirely true. Many owners purchased P versions for the sport suspension and other features unique to the P models. Not every owner is out drag racing Lamborghinis.

This is a first world problem if there ever was one!

Other than the +, I don't believe Ps had specific sport suspension settings. That's one of the reasons I didn't get one.