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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

#571

Post by dmode »

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 are extremely biased. I have both owned a Tesla and non Tesla EV. Non Tesla EVs are way more conservative in their range estimates and you can actually beat their estimates. People routinely beat BMWs advertised EPA range - something you will never hear for a Tesla

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

#572

Post by unregistereddev »

hot_gril wrote: post #479
bilsbie wrote: post #77

It’s a controversial opinion but I really believe EV’s need 500 miles of range to truly compete with ICE vehicles. Think: batteries not fully charging or depleting for longevity concerns. Having to stop at chargers before range is out due to there not being another one coming up, extra headwinds, extra heat or AC, simply ending up at a broken or crowded charger and needing it to a different one, pulling a load, etc,…

Maybe it's more important to have more/faster EV charging stations. I'm not buying an EV until I can go to any regular gas station (or at least half of them) and charge it up in a similar timespan as an ICE. That should be doable.

Honestly, twice the time it takes to refuel an ICE would be perfectly acceptable. I'd just stretch my legs and use the bathroom while the car charges instead of gassing up the car and then wandering inside.

But I fully agree with you: "Twice the time it takes to refuel an ICE" would mean a roughly 10 minute charge time.

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

#573

Post by cameronh90 »

wnissen wrote: post #538
cameronh90 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I have a Nissan standard petrol car and it's pretty much the same. Every time I fill it up, it says I have 400 miles of range, then by the time I've driven about 300 miles, I've only got a few miles of range left. Interestingly the accuracy seems to get a lot better by the time I'm down to half a tank. I don't know if it's a sensor issue, or maybe my driving habits just change a lot when I have a…

Yes, my Mazda does the same. It will happily report a 450 mile (725 km) range on my 13.2 gallon / 50 L tank, when I have never gotten more than 380 miles. Sometimes much less. To be fair, if you cruised slightly above the speed limit on the highway in fair conditions and drove it to truly empty, I think you would actually get that. But the gauge reads empty when there is easily 1.5 gal / 5.7 L in the tank, so in prac…

Here there are some vehicle recovery services where they can dispatch a van with a giant battery in it to charge your stranded EV enough to get to the next proper charger.

Still more of a pain than a petrol can but better than a flatbed!

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

#574

Post by dmode »

cs702 wrote: post #325
sdfghswe wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compet…

Teslas absolute don't have long-lasting materials or great reliability or great performance. There have been hundreds of thousands of articles and experience about poor materials, build quality, reliability etc. I have owned both a Model S and Model 3, and I did own them because I wanted to support an EV maker, but they are by far some of the worst made cars I have owned. I switched back to a BMW EV and its like night and day.

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

#575

Post by mrguyorama »

tekla wrote: post #108
wredue wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er? Perhaps the car could make use of sensors that every ice and ev vehicle has had installed for decades, along with previous driving habits?

Yes the sensors on the car are now time machines that can figure out what the cars future conditions are going to be. Why would you want your previous driving habits to affect the base level estimation? Your driving today could be vastly different, and then you would be here complaining about how wrong it was and the range anxiety you got when the car vastly underestimated your range because it assumed you were in 40…

Funny, my ICE car doesn't have to look into the future to know that I've been driving like a grandma for the past 100 miles and I have four gallons of gas left so I can probably go another hundred miles at my driving style.

Which is how it calculates it's range, and also how my 2004 toyota calculated range. The maximum range figures consistently lowered over the course of time I owned it as the engine got old and less efficient! It went from consistently having a max range of 420ish miles to consistently having a max range of 380 miles over twenty years!

Funny that old stuffy mid 2000s toyota could manage that on a car that cost $25k, but legendary tech luxury car maker Tesla can't

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

#576

Post by mrguyorama »

marcosdumay wrote: post #387
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.

Hum... ICE vehicles have given their range in litters for decades, and nobody every had a problem with it. They recently stated giving estimates in distance, but it's clearly marked as an unreliable estimation. Looks like Tesla has another huge communications and UX issue, and not a mechanics (electric?) one. They have to get their designers in a room, fire the management, and ask them to actually design stuff for hu…

ICE cars have been ACCURATELY estimating remaining range based on current driving habits since at least 2004 in my toyota.

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

#577

Post by ke88y »

lispisok wrote: post #290
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…

Are there quality alternatives that dont cost six figures?

Basically everything coming out of Detroit is sub-100K. Even the tippy top trim of the e-F150 MSRPs just below 100K. Sedans and mid-size SUVS tend to be priced comparably to Tesla's offerings.

Lucid are expensive, but their entire product line is basically a Model X competitor and prices are comparable.

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

#578

Post by Sparkyte »

The driving range isn't bad though. You just need to know what you're getting into when you do your research. I'm not justifying Tesla. I'm saying that most complaints are users who don't research the product before using it. This gives me a headache.

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

#579

Post by ethanbond »

vel0city wrote: post #469
ethanbond wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Meh, I drove NYC Montreal in a $90,000 Tesla and I frequently drive NYC Raleigh in a $35,000 Acura.

There is a 0% chance you'll convince me that the Tesla is the superior experience. It's not even remotely close.

Granted Teslas aren't really the "nice" EVs these days anyway and not all of the badness of the Tesla experience was due to range/charging issues.

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

#580

Post by banannaise »

Sparkyte wrote: post #578

The driving range isn't bad though. You just need to know what you're getting into when you do your research. I'm not justifying Tesla. I'm saying that most complaints are users who don't research the product before using it. This gives me a headache.

> You just need to know what you're getting into when you do your research.

If only they didn't have a secret team to suppress the kind of things you would really want your research to turn up.

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