Tesla Motors: PLEASE stop lying about specifications (60 to 75 upgrade)

[trils0n]

Tesla is advertising total capacity because it's what everyone else does. If you really believe that they should advertise usable, then great, but get the other manufacturers to play by the same rules.

Yes that is what I believe. That is the only position that eliminates possible negative customer reactions. It doesn't cost Tesla anything, so why not take a position that minimizes risk, with zero cost? This applies for all other manufacturers as well, but I don't really care about them, and that is beyond the scope of this discussion, IMO. It is about selling a product in the most honest/ethical way possible.

If they advertise 75kWh battery, and 72.6kWh is usable, with 2.4kWh buffer: Some customers will be upset, because, rightly or wrongly, they believed they were getting 75kWh to drive with. The 2.4 buffer, even if it serves as useful purpose, makes it seem like they are getting less than advertised/paid for.

If they advertise 85kWh battery, and 78kWh is usable, and there is a 2.4kWh buffer: Some customers will be upset, not only is total capacity less than advertised, but usable capacity is significantly less.

If they advertise 70kWh battery, and 70kWh is usable, with a 2.4kWh buffer: No customers will be upset. Specs match (usable), or exceed (total) expectations.

 

[ohmman]

Yes that is what I believe. That is the only position that eliminates possible negative customer reactions. It doesn't cost Tesla anything, so why not take a position that minimizes risk, with zero cost? This applies for all other manufacturers as well, but I don't really care about them, and that is beyond the scope of this discussion, IMO. It is about selling a product in the most honest/ethical way possible.

If they advertise 75kWh battery, and 72.6kWh is usable, with 2.4kWh buffer: Some customers will be upset, because, rightly or wrongly, they believed they were getting 75kWh to drive with. The 2.4 buffer, even if it serves as useful purpose, makes it seem like they are getting less than advertised/paid for.

If they advertise 85kWh battery, and 78kWh is usable, and there is a 2.4kWh buffer: Some customers will be upset, not only is total capacity less than advertised, but usable capacity is significantly less.

If they advertise 70kWh battery, and 70kWh is usable, with a 2.4kWh buffer: No customers will be upset. Specs match (usable), or exceed (total) expectations.

I generally agree, but a good start would be to advertise actual pack size on the badge. I doubt people will get too upset about that. Having 81kWh total in an 85 is appropriately seen as disingenuous and is difficult for them to defend. Having 85kWh with 81kWh usable in an 85 is easily defensible, regardless of whether it makes some buyers disappointed. Seems like it's a better balance between customer satisfaction and marketing.

Seeing as the 75 is 75, and the 60 is at least 60 (though we know it's software limited), I'd love to know what the 100 is. We could start to argue that the newer packs are more in line with advertised sizes, and possibly because of some of the exposure from @wk057. That's a good thing for Tesla and the customers, if so. But it's possible it's just coincidence, too.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Hear, hear ohmman. Tesla cleaned up their HP game after the P85D - and rightfully so, it was a disaster. Well, the first P90DL was problematic too, but they have been improving there... Hopefully the 100 pack is closer to 100 total, than 85 or 90 are... We shall see if such hope is warranted.

Then again, there is still that odd range issue: Could EPA Range approximations for 90D be low to help sell more P90D ?

It certainly is hard to avoid the feeling that some of the figures posted as model specs might have been carefully selected to represent wished-for differences between the models, rather than to represent cold, hard math.

The thing is, Tesla really has no real reason to be ambiguous about these things. People used to love Tesla under-promising and over-delivering. They would have bought P80s and been thrilled to hear later it was actually a P81... buying a P85 to hear it actually is a P81, not so much.

 

[trils0n]

I generally agree, but a good start would be to advertise actual pack size on the badge. I doubt people will get too upset about that. Having 81kWh total in an 85 is appropriately seen as disingenuous and is difficult for them to defend. Having 85kWh with 81kWh usable in an 85 is easily defensible, regardless of whether it makes some buyers disappointed. Seems like it's a better balance between customer satisfaction and marketing.

Seeing as the 75 is 75, and the 60 is at least 60 (though we know it's software limited), I'd love to know what the 100 is. We could start to argue that the newer packs are more in line with advertised sizes, and possibly because of some of the exposure from @wk057. That's a good thing for Tesla and the customers, if so. But it's possible it's just coincidence, too.

Seems like they are moving in the right direction. Depends on how the 100 works out. Judging by the range, it seems like usable and total capacity will be closer to 100 than the usable and total were for the 85, which is certainly a good thing.

 

[techmaven]

Yes that is what I believe. That is the only position that eliminates possible negative customer reactions. It doesn't cost Tesla anything, so why not take a position that minimizes risk, with zero cost? This applies for all other manufacturers as well, but I don't really care about them, and that is beyond the scope of this discussion, IMO. It is about selling a product in the most honest/ethical way possible.

If they advertise 75kWh battery, and 72.6kWh is usable, with 2.4kWh buffer: Some customers will be upset, because, rightly or wrongly, they believed they were getting 75kWh to drive with. The 2.4 buffer, even if it serves as useful purpose, makes it seem like they are getting less than advertised/paid for.

If they advertise 85kWh battery, and 78kWh is usable, and there is a 2.4kWh buffer: Some customers will be upset, not only is total capacity less than advertised, but usable capacity is significantly less.

If they advertise 70kWh battery, and 70kWh is usable, with a 2.4kWh buffer: No customers will be upset. Specs match (usable), or exceed (total) expectations.

This never ends up working out. Think of any other industry where someone gets significantly rewarded for going against the grain and downrating their specs. Today, Tesla is in a position where no one else makes 75+ kWh packs for light passenger vehicles. But that won't be forever.

How did this work out for the Mercedes B-class electric? They advertised a 28 kWh battery, it actually had a 34 kWh battery (36 kWh if you use Tesla's original way of measuring). Who knew that it has a 34/36 kWh battery? It shows up in very, very few places. And they made the "range mode" an option... hardly anyone knew it was a 100 mile BEV available in 2015. For 2016, they made the range mode standard, but the damage was done. Really, it should have been more popular than the i3. Of course, they also made it ugly, but it was just as ugly as the ICE B-series at least. If only they stuck this powertrain into a GLA... they would have had a hit.

Now, I do think that the originals should have been marketed much closer to their true nominal capacities and also provide the useable capacity in a spec sheet somewhere for full disclosure.

 

[apacheguy]

IMO, there is nothing wrong with the 75 kWh battery as advertised. The standard is to include buffer and Tesla is merely conforming to the standard.

However, I do agree that the 85 really should be labeled 80 and the 90 really should be 85.

 

[Snerruc]

Come on guys. This issue is beaten to death. I bought a "60" a few months ago and no more expected exactly 60 than I expect an ice engine to be the advertised horsepower. It may be higher and in some cases it may be lower. Power and energy figures can vary widely on production engines and batteries. Until someone posts capacities for a couple of dozen batteries all the same size, I consider this discussion essentially meaningless. As for my car, there is no badge on it. Also, when I bought it the site clearly showed the 60 was more than 80%of the 75, and that when I upgrade I will only get about 40 miles of range. The upgrade button on my account doesn't say that I would extend my range 25%.

 

[Doubletap67]

Can we charge a 2016 60D to 100% battery capacity as opposed to 90% as recommended as recommended by Tesla?

Yes! It's another bonus of the new 60 and 60D, besides what's apparently a couple of extra kWh. Plus faster supercharging at the top end of the charge capacity.

 

[stopcrazypp]

If there is a defined amount of bytes or bits available to the device, be it in MB or MiB or whatever number system you choose to use, that storage exists. If it is a 1,000,000 byte device, then 1,000,000 bytes can be written to it. Whether some of that amount is used by the filesystem or the OS is not the concern of the device manufacturer. The spec is still X bytes and X bytes can be read/written.

Tesla has defined the kWh capacity of these vehicles AND the parts themselves (on the actual battery packs) and have defined it unambiguously in kWh. Even if we allow them some allowance for "OS overhead" and "filesystem formatting" (ie, the bottom locked buffer) then they still fall short on all of the higher models. There is no ambiguity here and I fail to see a purpose in anyone defending this or comparing it to hard drives. It's absurd.

BACK TO THE ORIGINAL TOPIC OF THE THREAD, I WILL REITERATE:

60D has 62.4 kWh of usable capacity. 75D has 72.6 kWh in usable capacity. 75 - 65 = 15. 72.6 - 62.4 = 10.2. For those still with me, 10.2 is not equal to 15. I mean, seriously, HOW CAN THIS BE ARGUED? I just don't get it. Math is math. 10.2 != 15. Tesla is selling "60 kWh to 75 kWh" upgrades. Whether they used a buffer/lockout of some kind is irrelevant. If you pay them for 15 kWh, you get 10 kWh. I find it completely ridiculous that anyone can try to dispute this.

I'm done. I'm changing my TMC password to the unknown output of cat /dev/urandom | base64 | cut -b1-32 | head -1 and logging out. I seriously can't deal with this forum anymore. I tried, hoped for an intelligent conversation on the topic, and this is what happens: a thread with 70 replies in just a few hours with no substance whatsoever and basically nothing even remotely on topic.

Usable storage definitely plays into this topic.

I'll use another example that's perhaps closer. The 32GB Surface has 18 GB usable space, 64GB has 47GB. Using the same subtraction as you did, you would get 64-32=32 GB of extra space. However because of differences in usable capacity, it's actually 47-18 = 29 GB.
Surface storage

I should point out Tesla's upgrade page doesn't say you are getting x-amount of kWh more, bit rather tells you the additional miles of range you get:
Tesla — 75 kWh Battery Capacity Upgrade

 

[MP3Mike]

I should point out Tesla's upgrade page doesn't say you are getting x-amount of kWh more, bit rather tells you the additional miles of range you get:
Tesla — 75 kWh Battery Capacity Upgrade

According to this thread, Ad for battery upgrade, the in car ad said "Adds 25% more range."

Someone had a picture of the screen posted but it is no longer viewable. But I found an article over at Electrek that has the picture. It does say "improve range by 25%" which would imply an upgrade of 15kWh from 60 to 75. (Which is a lie, even based on their own EPA range numbers which only show a ~18% range increase.)

 

[AnxietyRanger]

I should point out Tesla's upgrade page doesn't say you are getting x-amount of kWh more, bit rather tells you the additional miles of range you get:
Tesla — 75 kWh Battery Capacity Upgrade

Actually, it does say (emphasis mine):

"Increase the battery capacity of your 60 or 70 kWh Model S with an over-the-air upgrade to 75 kWh."

The implication that you are buying either a 15 or 5 kWh (as the case may be) upgrade is obvious. Actual numbers seem to be over 10 or 7 kWh instead respectively.

It really does play into the same logic, although not as badly as on the 85/90 kWh level, that lowest-end is better than advertised, and higher-end is worse than advertised. Even that 75 is relatively to 60 advertised as better than it actually is, though it is of course in isolation the one model that seems to have logical correlation between advertised and nominal as well as useful kWh.

Assuming wk057 data is correct, of course.

- 60 kWh (orig) was 61 kWh total, 59 kWh usable
- 85's were 81 total, 78 usable
- 90's are 86 total, 82 usable
- 70 (orig) was 71 total, 69 usable
- 75's are 75 total, 73 usable
- 60 (new) are 62 usable
- 70 (new) are 66 usable

 

[stopcrazypp]

Actually, it does say (emphasis mine):

"Increase the battery capacity of your 60 or 70 kWh Model S with an over-the-air upgrade to 75 kWh."

The implication that you are buying either a 15 or 5 kWh (as the case may be) upgrade is obvious. Actual numbers seem to be over 10 or 7 kWh instead respectively.

It really does play into the same logic, although not as badly as on the 85/90 kWh level, that lowest-end is better than advertised, and higher-end is worse than advertised. Even that 75 is relatively to 60 advertised as better than it actually is, though it is of course in isolation the one model that seems to have logical correlation between advertised and nominal as well as useful kWh.

Assuming wk057 data is correct, of course.

You can do the math that way, but then it's clear by now that the kWh designation Tesla is using right now is largely a model designation (both for the car and the battery pack, as in the below sticker) and that it is based on very rough rounding in 5 kWh increments (although wk057's numbers may suffer from sample variance, esp some of the older ones where he would not have access to a fresh model).

They don't directly say you are buying "5 kWh more capacity" or "15 kWh more capacity".
I'm referring more to this part where they directly say what you are buying in practical terms:

Range improvements are listed below:

• 60 to 75 - adds approximately 39 miles of range
• 60D to 75D - adds approximately 41 miles of range
• 70 to 75 - adds approximately 15 miles of range
• 70D to 75D - adds approximately 19 miles of range

Tesla's kWh number is similar to how for Mercedes the S550 used to refer to a 5.5L engine, but now it's a 4.7L. Perhaps Tesla should just drop the kWh out of the designation (as they did in the above) and refer to it as we do in the forums (S60, S70, S75, S60D, S70D, S75D).

 

[stopcrazypp]

According to this thread, Ad for battery upgrade, the in car ad said "Adds 25% more range."

Someone had a picture of the screen posted but it is no longer viewable. But I found an article over at Electrek that has the picture. It does say "improve range by 25%" which would imply an upgrade of 15kWh from 60 to 75. (Which is a lie, even based on their own EPA range numbers which only show a ~18% range increase.)

Well it seems they took that ad off very quickly as that would be directly lying. I'm going by their ongoing advertising.

 

[wk057]

Tried to go through and quickly "Dislike" every off-topic post here...

Maybe mods could move the political "discussions" elsewhere?

 

[MP3Mike]

Well it seems they took that ad off very quickly as that would be directly lying. I'm going by their ongoing advertising.

As far as I know that add is still up, but it is an in-car ad only so we would need someone with a software limited 60 to go look and see if Tesla has changed it.

 

[MP3Mike]

They don't directly say you are buying "5 kWh more capacity" or "15 kWh more capacity".

Umm yes they do: "Increase the battery capacity of your 60 or 70 kWh Model S with an over-the-air upgrade to 75 kWh. This upgrade is available for all new front fascia Model S 60 and 70 kWh vehicles." (At least if you can do math they say you are getting 75kWh when you had 60kWh, which is a 15kWh increase in battery capacity.)

Sure they also list the range changes, which are probably more accurate. (Which they don't do in the in-car ad.)

 

[stopcrazypp]

Umm yes they do: "Increase the battery capacity of your 60 or 70 kWh Model S with an over-the-air upgrade to 75 kWh. This upgrade is available for all new front fascia Model S 60 and 70 kWh vehicles." (At least if you can do math they say you are getting 75kWh when you had 60kWh, which is a 15kWh increase in battery capacity.)

Sure they also list the range changes, which are probably more accurate. (Which they don't do in the in-car ad.)

Well they don't directly tell you or refer to how much kWh you actually gain in usable capacity (similar to my Surface example from 32GB to 64GB, where if you did the math yourself, you would expect 32 GB more capacity, but actually you only get 29 GB more).

They do however tell you how much approximate range you gain.

In this case, the bolded part is used as shorthand for the model designation (60 or 70 kWh Model S = Model S 60, Model S 70, Model S 60D, or Model S 70D), while the latter is referring to the capacity you end up with (75kWh = final actual total capacity of pack, which appears to be the correct actual capacity, at least for this specific pack):
"Increase the battery capacity of your 60 or 70 kWh Model S with an over-the-air upgrade to 75 kWh".
They don't actually refer to how much usable (or total) capacity the 60/70 Model S has.

If they said:
"Increase the usable battery capacity of your Model S from 60 or 70 kWh to 75 kWh with an over-the-air upgrade".
Then that would more directly imply you are gaining 10 or 5 kWh of capacity (usable capacity specifically if usable is included). Of course, saying that would make the range numbers inconsistent.

 

[Troy]

@wk057,

I like this topic and I have a few suggestions:

1. If you can still edit the opening message, you could consider adding the correct names @AnxietyRanger mentioned here assuming you agree the suggested names would have been better.

2. @diamond.g summarizes the problem nicely in the following sentence. You could add that too. In the opening message, it is not clear what the problem is or why it matters.

It gets folks to buy the high-end thinking they are getting more than they really did?

3. The screenshot you added is OK but if somebody was writing a news blog, it would be difficult to use that image. You could add a larger screenshot that shows the whole diagnostics screen. Also, you could add multiple versions for different battery sizes.

4. The title could be less sensational and more referable. There are many news blogs that publish Tesla-related news but with a title like this, it is less likely that somebody would write a news article with a link to this thread. Maybe you could decide on a better title, then click on the report link in the opening message and let the moderators know.

 

[Andyw2100]

It really does play into the same logic, although not as badly as on the 85/90 kWh level, that lowest-end is better than advertised, and higher-end is worse than advertised.

This is a marketing tactic we have seen from Tesla before.

Tesla used 1-foot roll out when specifying the original P85D 0-60 time of 3.2 seconds. They had never used 1-foot roll out when specifying 0-60 times previousy, and didn't state anywhere that they had made this change. So the difference between the non P85Ds and the P85Ds appeared greater than it was, by about .3 seconds.

 

[trils0n]

How did this work out for the Mercedes B-class electric? They advertised a 28 kWh battery, it actually had a 34 kWh battery (36 kWh if you use Tesla's original way of measuring). Who knew that it has a 34/36 kWh battery? It shows up in very, very few places. And they made the "range mode" an option... hardly anyone knew it was a 100 mile BEV available in 2015.

As I understand it, MB did exactly as Tesla does with the 60 and 75. The battery was software limited. Pay extra and get extra range unlocked. I agree it was a mistake to kind of "hide" the extra battery capacity as an option. Tesla makes the option of extra battery capacity / range very clear by having a separate Model for each size, so they have avoided falling into that trap. Not sure why you brought this up -- I didn't advocate for anything like that.