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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

#171

Post by ke88y »

wredue wrote: post #87
ke88y wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that reputation already died in the last 2-3 years. It's now pretty common in my circle to hear people say they'll pay a premium to not own a Tesla. Primarily because of lots of bad experiences with build quality/repairs, but also because there are now lots of high quality alternatives. Namely Rivian and Lucid, but also the legacy automakers (two friends bought mach-es recently and there's a smattering of F-1…

Our caravan has been a pile of shit, which I’m sure anyone who’s ever had a caravan can attest to. Anyway. We are looking for reliability and imagine my surprise when Kia, of all brands, came out king of generally affordable reliability. Plus their EV reviews reasonably well. A lot has changed in 10 years for vehicles I guess…

I've never heard a good story about a caravan, period! I do sometimes wonder if caravans are particularly crap vehicles for intrinsic reasons, or if targeting families means you have to cut costs which reduces quality (kids are $$$$$$), or if perhaps the driving habits of young families (lots of short trips) are particularly rough on vehicles of that type. Maybe all three conspiring.

IDK about Kia, except that they're doing pretty well on the EV front compared to other legacies. But in general, 10 years is at least one product cycle, so I guess it's not that surprising that reputations-vs-reality mismatches appear on that time frame. It is weird though.

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

#172

Post by HWR_14 »

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…

But the example from the article wasn't about a sub 1% delta. It was someone getting less than half the estimated ranged.

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

#173

Post by DSingularity »

wredue wrote: post #87
ke88y wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that reputation already died in the last 2-3 years. It's now pretty common in my circle to hear people say they'll pay a premium to not own a Tesla. Primarily because of lots of bad experiences with build quality/repairs, but also because there are now lots of high quality alternatives. Namely Rivian and Lucid, but also the legacy automakers (two friends bought mach-es recently and there's a smattering of F-1…

Our caravan has been a pile of shit, which I’m sure anyone who’s ever had a caravan can attest to. Anyway. We are looking for reliability and imagine my surprise when Kia, of all brands, came out king of generally affordable reliability. Plus their EV reviews reasonably well. A lot has changed in 10 years for vehicles I guess…

I’ll believe it when I see it.

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

#174

Post by 542354234235 »

bigdang wrote: post #29

Giving optimistic estimates based on generalized vehicle information, then giving more precise estimates after the 50% mark—and after having collected usage information based on the user’s actual environment—sounds to me like a decent algorithmic solution to a hard problem.

It sounds like a terrible solution to an easy problem. And calling it an "algorithmic solution" is being generous, considering that our dead simple decade old Mazda 2 gives us a closer than 25% range estimate just based on the mpg for the previous X number of miles driven. That's not an algorithm, that is a simple math calculation with only two inputs; gas consumption rate and miles driven. Tesla, with thousands of data points on previous usage and driver behavior, could give you an almost dead accurate estimate, but chooses to give a basically useless estimate because it looks better. Then people come around and make ridiculous excuses for it and why its actually a “decent solution” (it isn’t) to a “hard problem” (its not).

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

#175

Post by gen220 »

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…

You should have higher expectations of your vehicle.

My 2016 ICE car's "miles left" meter is accurate to +/- 2 miles from the moment I top up the tank (80% highway driving, 20% hilly city and rolling country roads).

IMO, accurately telling the vehicle operator how many miles of juice you have left is a KPI, as it informs when you'll need to plan for refueling.

Having driven an EV for a few weeks in identical conditions, this inaccuracy is probably the major contributor to "range anxiety". I have no idea whether I'll need to recharge in 60 miles or in 25 miles, and that's totally unacceptable in most parts of the US (where there aren't available chargers every 5 miles of your trip).

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

#176

Post by shiftpgdn »

radlad wrote: post #166
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…

Consider yourself lucky. Off the top of my head both Ford and Subaru were subject to lawsuits about vehicles not meeting EPA range expectations. When I had an outback I was very lucky to get 17MPG and the EPA range on the window sticker was 27 which felt really deceptive.

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

#177

Post by aaronblohowiak »

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…

>Wind resistance increases EXPONENTIALLY with speed.

And the power required to move against the air is the cube, not the square!

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

#178

Post by thehappypm »

huijzer wrote: post #127
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…

> I have a model Y. I hate almost everything about it. Can you tell more about this? I'm curious.

I absolutely love my Model Y.

I do long road trips all the time with it. Best car I’ve owned ever by a mile.

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

#179

Post by mwint »

gen220 wrote: post #175
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…

You should have higher expectations of your vehicle. My 2016 ICE car's "miles left" meter is accurate to +/- 2 miles from the moment I top up the tank (80% highway driving, 20% hilly city and rolling country roads). IMO, accurately telling the vehicle operator how many miles of juice you have left is a KPI, as it informs when you'll need to plan for refueling. Having driven an EV for a few weeks in identical conditio…

> My 2016 ICE car's "miles left" meter is accurate to +/- 2 miles from the moment I top up the tank (80% highway driving, 20% hilly city and rolling country roads).

No way. That’d be accurate to under 1% - well within the variation you’ll get just from different air densities (temperature, pressure, humidity). Forget about A/C on or off, tire pressure, etc.

It’s gotta be tricking you somehow.

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

#180

Post by ke88y »

afavour wrote: post #170
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 e…

If the predicted range occasionally decreases by 3km after driving 1km, well, that's the nature of battery discharge models. It's fine.

If the predicted range ALWAYS decreases by 3km after driving 1km, then the prediction is bs.

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