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

[jeffro01]

Incorrect, almost everyone cares about battery capacity as proven here ...

No... Not even close... Go into a Tesla gallery and ask everyone there what matters most to them, the pack size or the range. I'll be you 90%+ say range...

Jeff

 

[scaesare]

So some subset does care. They are likely the same ones who know that "kilowatt-hour" is not just something Doc Brown would say in a Back to the Future movie. Tesla, also knows that kWh has a precise definition.

There is also some subset that do not care. They only want to know range. Fortunately there is also a way to express that data: "Miles per charge".

This gives Tesla the opportunity to satisfy both groups of folks: publish the correct specifications for both. This way people can look at the items meaningful to them, and perhaps stop deriding those who are also interested in the other data.

I suspect that majority of people care more about number of cylinders or displacement than horsepower. And I bet fewer yet care about torque foot-pounds. Yet does anybody denigrate a car fanatic for wanting a correct torque specification?

 

[No2DinosaurFuel]

For those who don't care about kwh but only range here is a fact you might want to think about.

Range can change depending on the current conditions, but your kwh capacity, barring normal degradation, will always be constant during your drive.

Knowing your kwh, will allow you to make the decision to slow down, stop for a charge, go faster or what not. If you cannot rely on that number, i.e. think it is 85ish when it is only 77kwh, then you will be making a serious mistake planning your trip. Sure you can use the range indicator, but again that depends on the current conditions and what not. Moreover if their meter is incorrect you can have more capacity or less.

Finally for those who say the majority does not care. Look we don't have any concrete evidence of that. Even if the majority do not care, does it mean Tesla or any other company can screw the few that do care? Look at the Norway's lawsuit as a case study. These were only the few people that have the p85d in norway that cared. Obviously if you survey most T esla owner all over the world who do not have the p85d, they would care less about the lawsuit. Just because there is a small group of people who cares doesn't mean Tesla should get away with it.

I am still a Tesla fan but I just hope the industry move faster to introduce competition so they can be set straight on their advertising and hype machine.

 

[PRJIM]

I care about range, degradation, and lifestyle impact. If you can get me 400 miles consistently out of a single AAA battery for the next 10 years; I'll take it - I have no idea what the kwh capacity of a AAA is.

The nerd in me finds this helpful and informative. I'm very interested in the last part - could I (definitively) charge to 100% w/o degradation on a 60?

The ranting side of me just shrugs this off, possibly because I have a 60 and am a the gainer in this. But marketing happens across all auto manufacturers. For example:

We know a Model S60 stands for 60 kwh battery.

We also a BMW 330i used to stand for a 3 (series,) 3.0 (liter) inline (engine). Should we be up in arms that they offer both a 320i and a 330i that both use a 2.0 liter engine? If we get into "power" they'll both also dyno at different numbers with different % of drive-line losses compared to their marketed hp numbers....does it matter?

<shrug>

not sure, but nerd in me appreciates your info.

You miss the point. BMW in their specs does not over-state the engine displacement etc. Tesla can call the model whatever they see fit; the issue is the amount of energy that the battery is capable of storing doesn't line up with reality. Tesla provides a technical specification to customers, that is not true.

 

[qwk]

You are correct. Our Constitution didn't expect to dilute the educated vote, either, but that's what has happened. The more educated you are, the less your vote counts - this is statistically true in our current setup. Mostly, that's because educated people tend to move to urban areas in states where the electoral college doesn't count their vote proportionately.

An informed electorate is the foundation of democracy. Diluting the educated vote? That doesn't seem like a way forward.

So if California is supposedly so educated, care to explain how most of the posters from there in this thread cannot do first grade math?

 

[stopcrazypp]

So some subset does care. They are likely the same ones who know that "kilowatt-hour" is not just something Doc Brown would say in a Back to the Future movie. Tesla, also knows that kWh has a precise definition.

There is also some subset that do not care. They only want to know range. Fortunately there is also a way to express that data: "Miles per charge".

This gives Tesla the opportunity to satisfy both groups of folks: publish the correct specifications for both. This way people can look at the items meaningful to them, and perhaps stop deriding those who are also interested in the other data.

I suspect that majority of people care more about number of cylinders or displacement than horsepower. And I bet fewer yet care about torque foot-pounds. Yet does anybody denigrate a car fanatic for wanting a correct torque specification?

Yes, its better to have it specified, but I think it takes an industry-wide effort to do so. A manufacturer that does that will be at a disadvantage for pushing a lower number (plus there is that interesting discussion about how it encourages manufacturers to use larger SOC windows at the detriment of long term battery life). Most EV makers do not tell you the usable capacity. I believe so far BMW is the only one that breaks out the usable capacity in their spec sheet.

 

[JRP3]

Seems as if GM is using accessible capacity in it's designation of the Bolt pack, or close to it. I'm fine with using either accessible or total, as long as it's consistent and accurate. I gave Tesla a pass on the original 85 because they probably went off Panasonic nameplate specs, but they really should have rectified it after that by being more accurate with actual capacity if they weren't going to use accessible capacity. Not sure why Tesla put extra capacity in the software 60, other than to possibly mitigate degradation in a pack that is more likely to be used over a greater SOC range. I do wonder what the real numbers are on the 100's.

 

[GMDC]

Fully support the request. I ordered the 90D and after the fact I find that basically I will get less that i paid for.
I didn't just buy a "90D", I also bought a 90kWh car. The cells should add up to at least that.
When It's time for payment I will ask for a discount considering this, see what's the answer.

Dear Tesla Motors,

Over the past couple of years I've called Tesla out several times for misleading or flat out falsely advertised specs. The 691 "HP" issue, the 285 miles of range on a P85D, the 81 kWh 85's, etc. Well, adding another one to the pile:

Upgrading a software limited "60" to a to "75" actually buys you 10 kWh, not 15 kWh.

See this photo of a section from Tesla's own dev/diagnostics screen of a brand new 60D with < 30 miles:

So, you pay Tesla a huge amount of money for your 15 kWh upgrade and you end up really getting a 10 kWh upgrade because the "60" already included more capacity than it should have, presumably to keep a reasonable range value > 200 miles.

Honestly, basically no one should buy a 75. Charging a "60" to 100% is basically like charging a 75 to 86%... that's only 4% off of the 90% most people will charge to anyway. Seriously, charge your software limited 60's to 100% all the time and you're not hurting anything. For now we'll ignore the fact that a 75 only gives you 72.6 kWh (only 5 kWh less than an "85"), but, that's another story.

Anyway, Tesla, just give us the real damn numbers. Stop making up horsepower numbers. Stop making up capacity numbers. Stop making up range numbers. Just give us REAL specs.

I'll do my best to ignore the nonsense that is sure to consume this thread, but if there are tech related inquiries relevant to the topic I will try to reply.
EDIT: Seems I've failed in the above and will be ignoring this thread further. Please direct any relevant inquiries to me directly via PM, my twitter, or my site, since it's obvious no useful discussion can happen here on this topic.

-wk

 

[Troy]

Not sure why Tesla put extra capacity in the software 60

The most likely reason is, Elon wouldn't do less than 200 miles so they increased the capacity just enough for the software limited X60D to reach 200 miles. On the EPA website here, you can see that the X60D has exactly 200 mi EPA rated range.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Seems as if GM is using accessible capacity in it's designation of the Bolt pack, or close to it. I'm fine with using either accessible or total, as long as it's consistent and accurate. I gave Tesla a pass on the original 85 because they probably went off Panasonic nameplate specs, but they really should have rectified it after that by being more accurate with actual capacity if they weren't going to use accessible capacity. Not sure why Tesla put extra capacity in the software 60, other than to possibly mitigate degradation in a pack that is more likely to be used over a greater SOC range. I do wonder what the real numbers are on the 100's.

This had already been analyzed previously. They put more to keep the EPA range (210 miles) slightly above the old S60 (208 miles).

The software-limited 60kWh is less efficient from pack to wheels likely because of carrying extra cells (do note the EPA numbers show it has being more efficient than the old S60 by the MPGe numbers, but that includes charging efficiency, which have likely improved in subsequent models).

If they didn't do this, they would have ended up with only 199 miles of EPA range.

 

[vgrinshpun]

Fully support the request. I ordered the 90D and after the fact I find that basically I will get less that i paid for.
I didn't just buy a "90D", I also bought a 90kWh car. The cells should add up to at least that.
When It's time for payment I will ask for a discount considering this, see what's the answer.

Would you agree if along with the discount comes proportional software limitation on range?

 

[SageBrush]

I note that Elon and Tesla have gotten through the Model 3 reveal and another ~ nine months without saying how many kWh are in the base model and very little angst from the ~ 400k reservations*.

How is this possible ? What the heck are we getting for $35k ?!?

Oh wait -- now I remember. The EPA range was disclosed.



* I say 'little' because I figure OP was off somewhere grinding his teeth.

 

[u00mem9]

I think the root cause here is actually the supercharger network. The network is basically setup with a max distance between stations that works with 200 rated miles. This allows people to get across the country even in winter.

The problem came when they needed to offer a lower cost model to attract Model 3 reservation holders. These new vehicles needed to be capable for making it from SC station to station...and they needed 200 rated miles minimum. So they made a little more than the 60kWh claimed capacity available to the end user. I'm even curious if the Q3 only special Model X60 was able to use a little more capacity since it was rated at exactly 200.

This made the 60kWh a great deal, and made the upgrade cost of 8500 or 9000 a complete rip-off. But I think most S75 buyers probably got the upgrade for free as part of the quarterly fire-sale tradition that has Tesla offering a discount equal to the upgrade cost every third month of the year!

I think unless you paid full retail for a 75kWh model, you got a great deal. I also think if the ratings were consistently under or over, then no one would complain if they were exactly correct.

 

[scaesare]

Yes, its better to have it specified, but I think it takes an industry-wide effort to do so. A manufacturer that does that will be at a disadvantage for pushing a lower number (plus there is that interesting discussion about how it encourages manufacturers to use larger SOC windows at the detriment of long term battery life). Most EV makers do not tell you the usable capacity. I believe so far BMW is the only one that breaks out the usable capacity in their spec sheet.

I'm not necessarily pushing for only usable capacity.. but rather total capacity. Some of the evidence seems to suggest that the total capacity doesn't round correctly (i.e. the 85 pack actually being 81kWh, including buffer).

And of course it doesn't have to be the model name.. even if it's just the actual spec in the manual somewhere. (Of course I suspect that also generates confusion... but at least it wouldn't be incorrectly reporting kWh, which have a precise definition).

 

[Snerruc]

Thanks guys Tesla seems to have withdrawn the 60to75 upgrade at least from my account.

 

[Mjølner]

I do, as many og you point out as an important factor, care about the range. But, if I could get even more range by getting what I paid for, that would not only fine but also totally correct.
90 kWh as promised and bought, should be 90 kWh, not 86. Usable or not, if they had a plausible explanation it would be OK with 86kWh usable and 4 as brick protection.
Comparing this with BMW 330 with 2.0 engine or whatever is in my eyes stupid. Data and spec's are given and delivered as you ordered and paid for. Not the same by Tesla.
Don't get me wrong, I've had many Tesla's and are satisfied. I just like getting what I paid for. My car now only have 77,4kWh left after one year. New 77,8, and that's far from 85.

 

[RAW84]

Would you agree if along with the discount comes proportional software limitation on range?

How would they software limit the range without limiting the kWh?

 

[tomas]

How would they software limit the range workout limiting the kWh?

I'm PRETTY SURE that @vgrinshpun was joking. Not certain, but pretty sure.

 

[stopcrazypp]

How would they software limit the range workout limiting the kWh?

It's fairly easy, just have the car software not allow you to drive more than x amount of miles on a charge regardless of how much kWh you have used.

The current software limit is applied by having a percentage limit on the full charge (same mechanism as using the charge limit slider).

 

[RAW84]

It's fairly easy, just have the car software not allow you to drive more than x amount of miles on a charge regardless of how much kWh you have used.

That would be acceptable if they give me a credit for every time I don't reach x miles on a single charge.

Something tells I'd come out way ahead in the bargain.