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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

#461

Post by paulryanrogers »

cudgy wrote: post #450

“In March, Alexandre Ponsin set out on a family road trip from Colorado to California in his newly purchased Tesla, a used 2021 Model 3. 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, particularly in cold weather – such severe underperformance that he was convince…

Perhaps the range advertised should call out the variance, or use a more pessimistic number?

Much like MPG is denoted as city vs highway.

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

#462

Post by vdqtp3 »

germinalphrase wrote: post #251
gen220 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We regularly do road trips of 200+ miles, and we get 350 miles on a full tank of gas. At the beginning of the trip, the GPS will say something like "250 miles to your destination" and the car will say "180 miles left" I regularly pull off the highway to fill up with around "20 miles" left, when there are ~90 miles left in the trip (e.g. it was dead-on accurate for the last 160 miles), according to the GPS. I agree th…

“It's also possible that it keeps a buffer of ~1 gallon of gas that it never tells us about, when quoting the total range, and it eats into this buffer without telling us.” I am fairly confident that something similar is happening with my Honda. I thought I was going to run it dry, but then it just sat at 10 miles remaining for at least another 15-20 miles before I reached a station.

Most Honda models have a ridiculous reserve, something like 3.5 gallons. I still regret informing my mother of this fact...she never ran out of gas until I did.

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

#463

Post by capableweb »

tehwebguy wrote: post #214
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…

We rented one on a trip recently, super annoying to realize the dozen or so chargers in this beach town were actually incompatible or just too slow for real life. On the way back to the drop off autopilot tried to slam us into the Bentley next us! It had been traveling the same direction as us for like 20 minutes and when we passed through an intersection it just jerked hard left and I had to correct it manually. Pos…

> It had been traveling the same direction as us for like 20 minutes and when we passed through an intersection it just jerked hard left and I had to correct it manually.

Even if this and many other stories are just anecdotes, I could never imagine myself even testing this "auto-but-not-really-pilot" feature outside of a testing environment.

How do you folks dare to even try to use it? The risk is so big and the reward so tiny...

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

#464

Post by hotpotamus »

nmridul wrote: post #338
malwrar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually got stranded once for some hours because of the mileage indicator! Was driving back from a campsite that I turned out to not have charging compatibility with, but thought I had plenty of margin to get to the nearest charger. As I drove through the mountains however, I began noticing that a.) my battery was depleting much faster than expected and b.) I wasn’t seeing any houses and very few motorists. I watc…

>> (turns out you need one that has a full bed because of the regenerative breaking, and tesla’s service doesn’t have infinite coverage) Is there a service for "On demand battery charging". A mini truck carrying a generator that can be called to the location. Could charge premium from the EVs that are too tired to move.

I get that you just need a little juice to get to a real charger, but you'd probably need several 10's of kilowatts to get a decent charge in 10-20 minutes, and that's getting into fairly heavy equipment. No reason it wouldn't be somewhat feasible though.

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

#465

Post by giobox »

Reubachi wrote: post #456
dinom wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can enable free-roling wheels in the car and push away This was mentioned a little earlier and further down in the comment tree but many thanks to you too for clearing this up.

I'm racking my brain on this. Why is this not just called exactly what it is, "Neutral"? I just read about this feature which is advertised purely for car washes, and can be gotten into with a wierd combination of actions or "putting the car into neutral". Is it...not just going into neutral via disconecting a drive shaft?

> Is it...not just going into neutral via disconnecting a drive shaft?

Conceptually you are correct its like neutral, but almost no EV from any manufacturer has disconnecting drive shafts. Every Tesla model except the original roadster is locked in a single gear transmission that never disconnects - one of the big reasons EV drivetrains can be built so reliable with virtually no maintenance requirements (there is no service items on most EV drivetrains until a quick coolant flush in ~10th year of car's life span).

The Model 3/Y just dump the output of the rotor into a permanently locked 9:1 trans. There is no need for a reverse gear either as unlike a gas engine the electric motor can easily rotate in both directions.

An electric motor cant "stall" like a gas engine and generally never has to change gear, so there is usually no real benefit to fitting the cost and complexity of clutching driveshafts you typically need when you have a gearbox or gas engine.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but to best of my memory the only "mainstream" EV with a gearbox on sale today is the Porche Taycan/Audi E-Tron GT (they are both the same chasis/drivetrain underneath) with its pretty unusual 2-speed setup. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the next generation of that car eliminates the gearbox.

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

#466

Post by mdgrech23 »

cudgy wrote: post #450

“In March, Alexandre Ponsin set out on a family road trip from Colorado to California in his newly purchased Tesla, a used 2021 Model 3. 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, particularly in cold weather – such severe underperformance that he was convince…

They come up w/ the range under absolute perfect driving conditions that don't actually exist. The driving conditions should reflect normal driving conditions.

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

#467

Post by [deleted] »

Dalewyn wrote: post #225
malwrar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually got stranded once for some hours because of the mileage indicator! Was driving back from a campsite that I turned out to not have charging compatibility with, but thought I had plenty of margin to get to the nearest charger. As I drove through the mountains however, I began noticing that a.) my battery was depleting much faster than expected and b.) I wasn’t seeing any houses and very few motorists. I watc…

This really is an extreme and specific example, but risks like this are why most people want lots ( lots ) of range and why gas/diesel cars won't die out any time soon. The sheer ease of mind that comes with having densely packed energy that can be replenished at a moment's notice practically anywhere should not be disregarded easily. Maybe battery tech can get there some day, but it's certainly not today.

[deleted]

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

#468

Post by unregistereddev »

gen220 wrote: post #208
mwint wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

We regularly do road trips of 200+ miles, and we get 350 miles on a full tank of gas. At the beginning of the trip, the GPS will say something like "250 miles to your destination" and the car will say "180 miles left" I regularly pull off the highway to fill up with around "20 miles" left, when there are ~90 miles left in the trip (e.g. it was dead-on accurate for the last 160 miles), according to the GPS. I agree th…

> It's also possible that it keeps a buffer of ~1 gallon of gas that it never tells us about, when quoting the total range, and it eats into this buffer without telling us.

This is quite likely. My car supposedly has an 11-gallon gas tank, and if I refuel right when I hit 0 miles remaining then it only takes 10 gallons of fuel to fill the tank.

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

#469

Post by vel0city »

ethanbond wrote: post #400
vel0city wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who are worried about range on EVs are not worried about a usecase that looks like this, obviously. But this use case covers the majority of drivers in the US. The vast majority of people I've personally talked to concerned about range could absolutely charge at home and rarely drove more than even 100 miles.

Right but most people buy cars for the totality of the driving they have to do, not just the majority. I bought a car specifically because I was tired of the awful rental experience, so "just rent when you need to go on a longer drive" is not a viable solution.

As mentioned, I spend more time and deal with more of an overall hassle recharging my ICE than my EV despite going on more road trips and putting more miles on my EV than my ICE. And my EV is about the worst range option of the model line I bought and doesn't charge as fast as other options on the market today, so it's arguably not that great of a road trip EV.

Having an EV can absolutely be a viable choice for these people.

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

#470

Post by moduspol »

steveBK123 wrote: post #323
stetrain wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The only way to show the most accurate estimate is to know where the driver is going, and many drivers don't always input their destination.

It can also vary dramatically based on how you drive, and in fact, if you do have a destination, it will give hints if relevant (e.g. "keep speed below 70 mph to reach destination").

You can switch the EPA-rated miles for a battery percentage indicator by just tapping it in the UI.

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