Rob Mauer from Tesla Daily takes a look at this 'special report' from Reuters :
Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
711–720 of 769 posts
Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
#712Earlier quoted context omitted.
They use the official process. Sue the EPA.
Sort of. The official process comes in a couple different flavors, and there are absolutely ways to game it. It's not like EPA is running the tests themselves, they just write the rules. Also, AFAICT there is no penalty for sandbagging (see also Porsche). Tesla could give realistic numbers but instead ran the tests in the most optimistic way possible and chose the best numbers they could plausibly claim to be EPA for…
Except the tesla numbers are realistic, you can check for yourself: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/browseList.jsp
Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
#713I 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…
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/browseList.jsp
Judging by this the EPA numbers it gives are accurate on average.
Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
#714Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, so if I give you all the data from my car, and say it has 10.3 gallons of gas, you’re telling me you can predict how many miles it will go to within a percent? No, you can’t. Because I might go uphill or downhill. It might rain. It might be hot or cold. The car is doing something tricky (aka lying) as discussed above.
I think if you gave us a hidden buffer of 1 gallon (i.e. we actually have 11.3 gallons, but I report that you have 10.3 gallons, and selectively burn some of that buffer without reporting it), and you drive in conditions that fit within the footprint of your prior 3000 miles of driving history, yeah we probably could guess within a percent. To the best of my understanding, this is what most modern ICE cars do when th…
A Tesla has exactly what you describe in the Energy app, and it is very accurate, always within 1-2% in my experience. The newest version also has a breakdown of which systems are drawing power.
But that’s off topic; this article is about the car not meeting its EPA range, because the EPA test is very synthetic[1] and doesn’t match most people’s driving habits. I find InsideEVs’ “70 mph range test”[2] series to be far closer to my personal experience.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/testing-national-vehicle-a...
[2] https://cdn.motor1.com/images/custom/bev-ievs-70mph-range-te...
Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
#715Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've thought it would be great if there were rentable battery trailers that had an extra full charge or two built in, plus maybe some extra storage. uHaul could make a killing off of them for people who want to take their EV on a road trip. If you could get 600 miles off of a single combined full charge you would be in the range of reasonable American road trip distance, and you could make the choice to stop and eat…
But of course uHaul can’t do this without the full cooperation of the electric vehicle manufacturers. As a first order approximation of course there is nothing tricky about suplementing the power of a running EV, but on a practical level I would expect the firmware to throw a hissy fit if it does not expects this. Also, why a battery trailer? Why not a gas tank plus generator trailer?
Because electricity can be sourced renewable very easy and the gas for a generator cannot. It would defeat the primary reason why people buy EVs.
But I guess if you need it once every few years as opposed to daily, it's ok.
Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
#716My 2015 85D's battery, with only 70k miles, died the day after the warranty expired. $15k to have them out in another refurbished, 8yo battery. And they kept mine to resell to someone else for $15k. Any other company I'd say it's a coincidence. But I suspect it was suppressing errors during the warranty period :/
Don’t you think if there was an intentional conspiracy to do this they would make it a little less obvious by not activating battery self destruct the day after the warranty ended? I’d have made it wait at least a month afterwards…
Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
#717Why do they call it a 'secret team'? Why do they call it 'complaints'? As said in the article, these are not complaints, but service appointments. Creating a team to handle these unnecessary appointments is completely normal. There's nothing secret about this team.
I was confused too. Title and first part suggested they were trying to suppress discussion about range issues. Then the rest was about cancelling service appointments. I'm pretty sure this is just a hit piece.
The high five thing is a little weird, like how they’re finding joy in it… but yeah, it’s not a fixable issue so it would just be a waste…
Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
#718ICE vehicles have the same issue with range, but we don’t focus so much on it, I think because we just believe that the range os enough, and if I need to refuel I can do that just about anywhere quickly. In those cases that we are heading into an area where that might not be true, we check our fuel and ensure we’re topped up to get all the way through. I wonder if the reason is focusing on a specific range, rather th…
can you expand on how ICE vehicles have the same issue with range?
When I fill up my gasoline car it claims 400 miles of range and I have never once gotten 300 before the needle hitting empty. (And I severely doubt the extra range on E is 100 miles…) Nobody is going after my car for lying about range…
Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
#719My wife's car broke down, and she took my Subaru for the week, so I ended up with a Chevy Bolt. It wasn't a Tesla, but it was an eye opener for me. Cost per mile was about the same as the Subaru, and the Subaru was a bigger car. Charging was slow and inconvenient. Range? Was really hard to predict in the Bolt because how you drive the vehicle has a big effect on what you get. I was really disappointed in the whole EV…
It doesn’t help that the Bolt is the worst EV on the market besides the Leaf, mostly due to price point. You also wouldn’t notice the charging being slow as much if you had a charger installed in your garage, cheaper too.
All that being said, having driven both, it’s no competition a Tesla is far better in every conceivable way. The Model 3 is more efficient with its energy as well.
Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints
#720This is why I don't want a car with OTA updates. At least a dealer flash will take many months to be deployed and show up these deceptive practices.
What does this have to do with OTA updates? It could come with the same software “built to lie” from the factory as well, couldn’t it?