Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by berkes » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:42 PM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #307

berkes wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't battery tech achieve this? I have a very old petrol car (>35y) with a terrible fuel-indicator. I bring a spare 5L tank with petrol under the backseat always. An EV could achieve the same with a small portable powerbank, not? My current tank can hold some 50+L; this gives my old T3 a range of ~430km¹. When we lived in Botswana ('83, other car) we had an extra 150L spare fuel-tank instead of back-seats. We co…

That's just a UI trick, isn't it? Make 5% display as 0%, and add a solemn-looking toggle switch to select the reserve battery. (According to a random source on the web, a Model Y battery weighs 1,770 pounds, so a perfectly efficient 5%-size physical battery would add another 88 pounds to the cargo.)

My car has a spare tank built in. I just carry a spare- spare jerry-can because the indicator is just too unreliable and the milage on the built-in spare tank rather meh.

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

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Post by mint2 » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:42 PM UTC

martin8412 wrote: post #294

b0sk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Braking doesn't increase range. Rather the natural foot off pedal regen braking increases range. If you physically slam on brakes, I'm sure that doesn't help range.

That's a Tesla problem. They couldn't figure out blended braking. If I press the brake hard in my car, the regen goes to max possible.

That is an accurate meter, it is not a Tesla problem. My PHEV works the same way, but that fact isn’t really relevant.

The meter is presenting you the regeneration “rate” but what you’re thinking of is the regen rate integrated over time, I.e the amount of charge recovered during the process of stopping, which the meter is not showing you.

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

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Post by steveBK123 » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:43 PM UTC

stetrain wrote: post #229

Merad wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason why Tesla can't calculate the accurate range in both places, is there? My 2022 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid has a "distance to empty" number that "learns" based on your driving habits and typical mileage. It's not perfect, for example going on a road trip can throw it off (the hybrid gets significantly lower highway MPG than around town), but most of the time it's very accurate.

They do have a range estimate based on recent driving, it’s just in a separate Energy page. “Accurate range” is difficult. It could be accurate based on recent driving, but that number could be very inaccurate if there is a change in weather or you are taking a different kind of drive than your last one.

Probably showing range in 3 different places that don't really agree is bad right?

We are HN tech crowd here so its all fun & games hobbyist stuff.

But normies do not want to get into these types of inane subtleties.

Arguably the front & center, always-there range display should be the most accurate, not the least accurate.

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

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Post by hot_gril » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:43 PM UTC

mwint wrote: post #179

gen220 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe it gives the user an underestimate then wastes gas later to meet it? :D

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

#325

Post by cs702 » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:43 PM UTC

sdfghswe wrote: post #279

cs702 wrote: post #25

I have two Teslas. On both of them, I get close to the EPA range in city driving and lose 15%-20% on highway driving at 70-80 mph, on typical daytime temperatures for my area, which rarely drop below 40F in the winter or exceed 100F in the summer. On highways I always use autopilot, which keeps speed much more constant than I would -- it brakes and accelerates much less frequently. The estimates for battery use on tr…

Are you happy with them?

Yes. At the moment, I think Teslas are the best vehicles available for purchase on the market, electric or otherwise: They have great performance, great reliability, long-lasting materials (my oldest Tesla still feels new!), decent service, and amazing charging infrastructure (at least in the US).

In 1-2 years, I'm hopeful other automakers, including MB, BMW, and Audi, will come out with new EVs that are truly competitive on all these fronts vs Tesla.

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

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Post by bumby » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:44 PM UTC

nicpottier wrote: post #149

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".

I think it's basically some PM taking a stand at Tesla with the fact that there's just no good estimate possible without knowing the route, so they will always show EPA estimate. Any sane a Tesla driver changes that to show percent battery instead of range. As others have said the trip planner is excellent, within a percent or two even in winter conditions driving over passes etc.. Note that range changes a lot more…

My initial thought is that it's a mitigation to litigation. Maybe the thought was as long as you show the "legal" mileage calculation, you can't be held responsible for anything bad that happens? I don't think we apply that to ICE but I could see where a lawyer thinks it's necessary.

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

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Post by HWR_14 » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:44 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #209

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?

Most normal Tesla owners I'm familiar with just come to accept that the website range claim is complete horseshit. They go on with their lives and just don't worry about it. For around town, it'll get somewhat close to rated range anyway, and road trips aren't that common for most people. The supercharger network is pretty good, and if you have to stop every 200 miles instead of the rated 358, then so be it. Personal…

The EPA recommended system is pretty accurate and conservative, according to the article. Mercedes is supposed to use it and has more accurate estimates. Tesla is still using their own math from before the EPA had a plan.

Meanwhile, what difference does it make if most Tesla customers do X? Tesla now has enough customers that hurting 10% of them is a major impact.

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

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Post by jnmandal » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:44 PM UTC

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…

Both cars I've owned have had better efficiency and thus range than advertised (a Honda and a Subaru). I'm often shocked at how I can get 38-40mpg + on a car that is supposed to be getting 29mpg.

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

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Post by dinom » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:44 PM UTC

e136 wrote: post #312

dinom wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> able to get a tow truck capable of transporting my car (turns out you need one that has a full bed because of the regenerative breaking Sounds incredibly short-sighted that the regenerative braking can't be temporarily disabled by the driver... two people can push a "regular" car to a nearby gas station in a pinch. Even one person can push a smaller car around a parking lot if necessary. That said, they often send…

Most cars have one or more clutches to put the car in neutral. This is required so the engine can idle while the car stands still, among other reasons. Electric cars don't need to idle and therefore don't have any clutches in the drivetrain. Adding clutches just for allowing the user to push around the car seems needlessly complicated and over optimizing for a scenario that will not occur for the majority of cars.

> don't have any clutches in the drivetrain

Wouldn't a clutch be unnecessary in this case... a complete disconnect from the drive train should suffice, no?

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

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Post by londons_explore » Thu, Jul 27, 2023, 3:45 PM UTC

mikro2nd wrote: post #167

londons_explore wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think the 'fix' was mostly checking that the car was working as designed, then calling people like this hn commenter[1], and educating them that slow gentle driving is how to get the estimated range, not aggressively braking and driving 90 mph with the AC on max, windows down, and the trunk loaded with 2000 lbs of junk.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36893587