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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

#191

Post by newZWhoDis »

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…

This is not a hard concept, and it’s rather surprising that this of all things is what you have issue with.

The battery icon is Miles of rated range, where “rated” means flat windless road at 60MPH and 70 degrees. Call it “standard” range if you will. The car has no idea where you’re going so it uses the standard calculation.

When you set a destination it can now (and does) factor in elevation change, speed on given roads, wind speed, wind direction, temperature along the route, etc etc etc and is more accurate.

So your least favorite feature is one you openly admit to not using properly? If you want laser precise range estimation set a destination ffs. Or, if you’re like most drivers you start every day with 200-300mi of range and unless you’re going out of state you don’t even think about range.

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

#192

Post by svnt »

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…

The difficulty is because of the difference in operating regimes of the power trains.

An old ICE has to run within an RPM range, so the top end on MPG is set below infinite, and the bottom end is limited by the time to ramp the engine to its max consumption.

Electric vehicles have neither of these issues. On a downhill run that is long enough you could in theory fully recharge your battery, and you can always send full power (and resultant fuel consumption) to the engine.

On top of this EVs are operating at much higher efficiencies so the effective size of the tank is smaller.

This is not to say range estimation couldn’t be improved, only that it is a much more challenging model with EVs.

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

#193

Post by juujian »

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…

I think the difference is that a gas-powered car will keep driving when the gas indicator hits zero. You can still get a couple dozen miles at that points, and those are so important. Tesla is really doing you a disservice by not considering that.

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

#194

Post by [deleted] »

aaomidi wrote: post #24
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…

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#195

Post by rootusrootus »

vagab0nd wrote: post #51

Not just battery and range. I've had problems with the passenger side airbag not enabling, and turn signal not working. Both scary issues. Made appointments with the support. Both were cancelled outright by them (!). They tried to convince me that there was no problem, and it was all due to the way I use the car. They seemed to try everything to get out of appointments. My wife had to use the back seat for a month wh…

> My wife had to use the back seat for a month

Is the back seat safer than the front seat, even if the front seat airbag doesn't deploy? I know recent tests show the back seat is a good bit less safe, and I think it's primarily due to most manufacturers not using the same seat belt technology as they do in the front, but maybe some of that is the lack of a front airbag.

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

#196

Post by stetrain »

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 advertises the EPA rated range. The car not actually achieving that range in real world conditions (which are more varied than the test conditions) is not necessarily defective or false advertising.

Now I do think that the EPA ratings are inadequate and inconsistent. Those could use some improvement to better reflect real world driving conditions.

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

#197

Post by jjtheblunt »

hammock wrote: post #19

How does the Tesla advertised range compare to the advertised range of other EV makers: less accurate, or similarly inaccurate? edit: "advertised" I mean the range shown on the dash. I.e. the range communicated by the car itself, as relevant to this article.

One datum: our 2014 BMW i3 (ev, no range extender) consistently outperformed its rated range.

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

#199

Post by sneak »

HWR_14 wrote: post #162
sneak wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's likely that you waived your rights to a class action against Tesla when you agreed to some EULA.

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

#200

Post by hypnoosi »

cevn wrote: post #134
syntaxing wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

Its not false advertising, perhaps you could make a case of inaccurate ... but that's just advertising? You are not giving the car the context to provide an accurate estimate. Also you driving style might affect the estimate?
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