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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

#161

Post by stetrain »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #118
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".

"Battery meter at the top is EPA range - ie. the official range measurement method, in basically ideal conditions." I guess I'm flabbergasted by this, as that's not how my Chevy Volt (and I presume many other BEVs) work. The range value ('guessimeter' people call it) on my Volt takes something like a rolling average of your last few drives and that's what it shows you. So if it's winter, it shows you less range becau…

Tesla has the guess-o-meter based on recent driving, it’s just on a separate Energy page.

I leave the dashboard meter set to percent because the “miles” option is just the dumb EPA rated range mapped to percent anyway.

The real way to predict range in a Tesla is to use the nav system which takes many factors into account and has been very accurate in my experience.

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

#162

Post by HWR_14 »

sneak wrote: post #132
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.

This is why class action lawsuits exist. I can throw my $20 in with a thousand other people who all have the same problem.

Or, more likely, when looking at that big a settlement, we can find a lawyer who works on contingency.

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

#163

Post by troymc »

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.

"...moving twice the speed takes 4X the energy..."

That's not quite right. The power required to maintain a constant velocity v against a constant drag force of F is P = Fv. With air drag on a car moving at highway speeds, the drag force F actually depends on v: it's proportional to the square of v, i.e. F ~ v^2. All together then:

P ~ v^3

So doubling the speed will increase the required power by a factor of eight.

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

#164

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#165

Post by [deleted] »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #5

That's a pretty damning article and it looks like there are more and more of those coming. Tesla still somehow benefits from its innovators / clean company reputation, but at this pace it won't be long before agencies start to act on what's become much more than just 'optimistic marketing'.

[deleted]

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

#166

Post by radlad »

dietsche wrote: post #160

As a Tesla owner, I think the source of the confusion is the EPA range displayed in the HUD on the Tesla. We toggled ours to show the battery percentage, which is much more useful to us. We've never owned a gas vehicle that met it's EPA range and the Tesla is no different. No one takes EPA MPG * GALLONS of gas and expects it to be a real life estimate of range. Wind resistance increases EXPONENTIALLY with speed. Driv…

> We've never owned a gas vehicle that met it's EPA range and the Tesla is no different. No one takes EPA MPG * GALLONS of gas and expects it to be a real life estimate of range.

Why is this exactly? It's been true - MPG is lower than estimated - of every vehicle I've owned too except for my most recent, a '23 MX-5 (i.e. a sports car, which I tend to drive at higher RPMs and in lower gears.) I'm getting spot-on or a little above the EPA estimated on the car I'd least expect it.

(edited to clarify "it's been true")

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

#167

Post by mikro2nd »

londons_explore wrote: post #100
mikro2nd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you need more data. Tesla had a team of people "managing" this issue to relieve demand on their service centres. What more data do you think would be useful to clarify Tesla's actions?

That statement alone sounds good to me... If there is no repair action that can fix the range issue on these cars, then it is a waste of everyone's time to go to a service center only to have a service tech poke the battery and realise it's fine. What are you expecting them to do when you arrive? They certainly won't be taking out battery cells and putting them under an electron microscope... And measuring battery vo…

Except they did not fix anything. The battery readout was lying as so ordered by Musk. This caused people to complain, wanting it fixed. Instead of fixing it (in a service centre or remotely) they lied some more. What's so hard to parse here?

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

#168

Post by rootusrootus »

My 3LR gets about 260 miles of usable range on a summer road trip, first leg. 200 miles per charge after that (assuming 10% to 80% charges). This is for temperate summer trips getting 260 Wh/mi. If it's hot, make that 280 Wh/mi because of air conditioning. If it's winter, make that 320 Wh/mi.

The car is rated at 358 miles of range. I knew that was bunk when I bought it, just going off the numbers on the window sticker suggests hitting 358 is a pipe dream. You can do it, but only on back roads at slower speeds.

For road trips you're better off just driving like a bat out of hell and charging only to 60% if you can, you will spend less clock time overall that way.

As others have noted, you should switch the battery display to percentage to be less irritated by the lies. The car knows your average and could use it, but instad just uses the unrealistic EPA estimate for that display. My wife drives a Bolt and sometimes shows less than EPA rated range when full, but OTOH it's always dead-on.

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

#169

Post by ravenstine »

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…

> - Driving on the highway rather than around town (see the 50 MPH comment)

That would greatly depend on the town one is picturing. In pretty much any neighborhood in LA, there's no way you're going to sustain a speed of 50 mph for any reasonable period of time without frequently stopping at intersections, your usual traffic congestion, pedestrians wandering into the street, other drivers making idiotic maneuvers, etc. No way is your mileage going to be better on surface streets even if you do your best to reach 50 mph but not exceed it. Frequently braking and accelerating requires more gas than will be eaten up by driving at a constant speed of 65 mph.

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

#170

Post by afavour »

edude03 wrote: post #145

I have an S so I'm biased but this feels like a hit piece. Range is of course always going to be an estimate. Marketing is always going to be a battle of who has the bigger number. Having people schedule an appointment to fix their "broken" cars that can only go 470 instead of 500km is of course going to be a waste of time and money. I'm part of a facebook group for tesla owners and literally every day this week ther…

Literally the first paragraph of the piece:

> He expected to get something close to the electric sport sedan’s advertised driving range: 353 miles on a fully charged battery.

> He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range

We’re not talking about a couple of miles here or there.

And if Tesla discovered that range issues (even if entirely based around customer perception) were a widespread enough issue to set up a team specifically to address it, that team said nothing publicly and instead cancelled service appointments without explanation… that’s absolutely newsworthy, whether you consider it a “hit piece” or not.

> 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. The team often closed hundreds of cases a week and staffers were tracked on their average number of diverted appointments per day.

I mean... c'mon.

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