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Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

reuters.com

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Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#131

Post by stetrain »

cevn wrote: post #125
londons_explore wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battery meter at the top is EPA range - ie. the official range measurement method, in basically ideal conditions. The routefinder 'learns' from your previous driving habits. Driving style easily has a 50% impact on range between "drives 50 mph slipstreaming behind a truck" and "drives 90 mph and brakes aggressively at every corner".

It really does not learn. I have driven the same route to and from Richmond, VA as a range test over and over again since 2018. My range is approx. 180 miles, in favorable conditions (summer, AC off). If it was actually accurate, as soon as you hit 70-80mph you would see your range half. Clearly that doesn't happen, so the estimator is off by ~40% for highway conditions, i.e. complete bullshit.

Are you talking about the battery meter? That is just EPA range * battery percentage.

The precise estimate is in the navigation system, when you navigate to a destination and it says you will arrive with X% left. This takes into account speed, traffic, elevation, temperature, wind, etc. and is usually pretty accurate for me.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#132

Post by sneak »

HWR_14 wrote: post #22

The article ends: > [one customer] ultimately concluded there is nothing wrong with his car. The problem, he said, was that Tesla is overstating its performance As I read this, either his car was defective or he was lied to to convince him to make a $XX,000 purchase. It seems that Tesla should be facing some form of fraud-based lawsuit over the lies selling the car or treating it under warranty, right?

Tesla has more lawyers than you do. Bringing a lawsuit for fraud, which you may not win, will cost you $10-20k cash out of pocket up front.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#133

Post by stetrain »

jncfhnb wrote: post #81
londons_explore wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battery meter at the top is EPA range - ie. the official range measurement method, in basically ideal conditions. The routefinder 'learns' from your previous driving habits. Driving style easily has a 50% impact on range between "drives 50 mph slipstreaming behind a truck" and "drives 90 mph and brakes aggressively at every corner".

When you say “learns” is it actually factoring in the route or is it just using the historical average miles per… what, kWh, and multiplying it across the distance

When you use the navigation system in a Tesla, the estimated energy usage for that trip takes into account the specific route, your projected speed, elevation changes, traffic, temperature, wind, and adjusts based on what speeds you actually end up going.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#134

Post by cevn »

syntaxing wrote: post #114
jvanderbot wrote: post #8

I have a model Y. I hate almost everything about it. But most germane, The "Battery meter" at the top of the display is total bunk. That's got to be "rosy" numbers. It'll display a the battery in miles, but it's at least 25% inflated. However if you punch in a destination, you'll get exact numbers, and those are insanely reliable. It claims (and I don't believe any claims coming from tesla) that it'll factor wind, el…

Not defending Tesla but battery range is really hard without context. Kinetic energy is velocity^2, which means moving twice the speed takes 4X the energy. They probably can get the right estimate for a destination because it knows the speed limit for the route and using that as your velocity can give you a better answer.

They could, but they don’t.

Edit: someone else pointed out if you actually navigate then it will show remaining % more accurately. Still seems like false advertising..

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#135

Post by Y-bar »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #83
Y-bar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. And it is true of petrol cars as well. In my old clunker going from 110 km/h to 120km/h is a 9% speed increase but nets about 15% extra fuel consumption.

Is this with the windows up or windows down...?

Yes.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#136

Post by amluto »

api wrote: post #76
WatchDog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it’s common across all EVs for the range to be inflated by around 20%, at least for freeway driving. In a recent review, a Tesla did a slightly better job than most of the cars tested, as far as portion of stated range achieved. https://youtu.be/fvwOa7TCd1E&t=36m15s

Your 20% variation number seems valid for my EV. I have a 2022 Nissan Leaf with 220 miles EPA range. I've found that this number is reasonably close to correct if one is driving under 60mph on country roads under moderate climate conditions. We live in Ohio and so I have actually done long drives like that to go to remote places to go camping. (There are, surprisingly, both L2 and fast chargers around in rural Ohio b…

> Speed matters because air resistance increases exponentially with speed

No, drag is somewhere between linear and quadratic as a function of speed, not exponential. (Although it gets weird around the speed of doing.)

Heuristically, if you’re pushing through a cloud of particles, the number of particles you hit per unit time is linear with speed, and the impulse per particle is also linear with speed (because it’s the difference between your velocity and the particle’s initial velocity, times the particle’s mass, times a constant that’s around two for an elastic collision).

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#137

Post by deadbeeves »

sdfghswe wrote: post #102
wredue wrote: post #70

>Inside the Nevada team’s office, some employees celebrated canceling service appointments by putting their phones on mute and striking a metal xylophone, triggering applause from coworkers who sometimes stood on desks. It’s weird how this sentence was probably supposed to surprise the reader, but I really just reflected on how the fans conduct themselves regularly and thought “yup, sounds about on par”.

> I really just reflected on how the fans conduct themselves regularly Reminds me of that youtube video (by a fan) almost having an accident on autopilot and his first reaction was "we're gonna have to cut that out".

Well, to be fair to him, he didn't.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#138

Post by stetrain »

WatchDog wrote: post #28
jvanderbot wrote: post #8

I have a model Y. I hate almost everything about it. But most germane, The "Battery meter" at the top of the display is total bunk. That's got to be "rosy" numbers. It'll display a the battery in miles, but it's at least 25% inflated. However if you punch in a destination, you'll get exact numbers, and those are insanely reliable. It claims (and I don't believe any claims coming from tesla) that it'll factor wind, el…

Seems like it’s common across all EVs for the range to be inflated by around 20%, at least for freeway driving. In a recent review, a Tesla did a slightly better job than most of the cars tested, as far as portion of stated range achieved. https://youtu.be/fvwOa7TCd1E&t=36m15s

The rated range combines city and highway driving, and EVs get better city mileage due to the lower average speeds. So it would be expected that actual highway range (70+ mph) would be less than the rated combined range.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#139

Post by cde-v »

malablaster wrote: post #120
everdrive wrote: post #112

This really shouldn’t be read as a defense of EV companies, but I think there is just a learning curve for EVs which people really haven’t grappled with yet. Here is a minor list of things which will reduce range pretty significantly: - Driving over 50 MPH - Using the AC - Using the heat - Driving in extreme cold or extreme heat - Driving in an area with a lot of hills. (From what I can tell regenerative braking make…

What does any of this have to do with the fact that Tesla is lying to its customers and the other EV manufacturers are not.

[flagged]

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

#140

Post by cevn »

stetrain wrote: post #131
cevn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really does not learn. I have driven the same route to and from Richmond, VA as a range test over and over again since 2018. My range is approx. 180 miles, in favorable conditions (summer, AC off). If it was actually accurate, as soon as you hit 70-80mph you would see your range half. Clearly that doesn't happen, so the estimator is off by ~40% for highway conditions, i.e. complete bullshit.

Are you talking about the battery meter? That is just EPA range * battery percentage. The precise estimate is in the navigation system, when you navigate to a destination and it says you will arrive with X% left. This takes into account speed, traffic, elevation, temperature, wind, etc. and is usually pretty accurate for me.

Ah I see. I will check on that but you would think that as soon as you get on the highway that estimator would change. It is also the first place someone would look for range, not inside navigation so I would call that false advertising…
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