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Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

reuters.com

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Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

#101

Post by jbm »

hedora wrote: post #96
tredre3 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idle draw is a pretty common complaint for Teslas.

I’ve only seen an EV do that once. The 12V battery died about a week later. (Or, rather, I left it parked, and after pouring 10% (!!) of the high voltage battery into the 12V, it gave up and completely shut down.) Anyway, I wonder if Tesla’s are missing the “if 12V is completely shot, give up” logic. Replacing it is cheap and might fix the car. Some models let you monitor the 12V charger with an OBD-II dongle. That’d…

Just to be clear, I actually had Tesla replace the 12V last year because I was worried that was the cause.

The problem did not improve.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

#102

Post by yalogin »

Oh looks like there a lot of people in this boat. Things have been degrading over time for sure. My car seems to be consuming “battery miles” at more than twice the regular miles.

May be this is why musk got into politics, so he can kill any regulatory body investigating Tesla battery complaints.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

#104

Post by dyauspitr »

elif wrote: post #86

Having road tripped from Florida to Washington and back in a big circle around the country, it is my firm belief that every single person complaining about the range estimates in a Tesla is speeding. By altering my driving style, I can get more range than the estimate. It's extremely predictable and accurate, to the point where I can notice the power drain from the self driving computers/cameras, arrive at the next s…

Speeding is a given, even a necessity on most US highways. Everyone is speeding by 10 maybe even 15 mph as a baseline.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

#105

Post by jwr »

Driving range can be estimated well: my VW ID.4 is pretty good at it, and the range estimate that it shows can be relied upon after correcting for things like headwind or driving uphill.

The max range I get is pretty close to the advertised one, too.

So do not believe when somebody says it can't be done.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

#106

Post by starspangled »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #10

I have a model 3 (from 2023), that is rated 270 miles. I can get at max 120 miles, more like 90 miles from it. My drive to work involves going steeply uphill, not very cold. The only reason I don’t care is I have free office charging. If I didn’t I would be pissed by the range I observe. Also Tesla servicing is famously bad, and the way the employees treat service requests (as described in the article) explains a lot

> I have a model 3 (from 2023), that is rated 270 miles. I can get at max 120 miles, more like 90 miles from it. My drive to work involves going steeply uphill, not very cold. The only reason I don’t care is I have free office charging. If I didn’t I would be pissed by the range I observe.

Were you mislead about or unaware of the range claims when you bought the car?

I don't own an EV or have any real interest in them, but I know the range is highly dependent on driving conditions and automobile condition (often to a much greater degree than ICE vehicles) and I'd assumed that was made pretty clear in advertising materials and sales pitch. I could easily see unscrupulous companies and salesmen or just unaware 2nd hand buyers being caught out by the range claims though.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

#107

Post by devanl »

jbm wrote: post #80
devanl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the idle draw is relatively high on Teslas compared to other EVs (even without sentry mode enabled), 7.5% is quite high. I track my stats with Teslamate and it estimates typical SoC loss of 1% over a day. What I have seen is that the BMS may update its SoC estimate after driving, and I've seen it adjust the estimated SoC up or down by as much as 5% in some cases. I get that from a planning perspective, it still…

5% to 7% is pretty normal for me - in both summer and winter. This is just leaving the car in front of my house for a few hours (let's say I don't want to park it in the separate garage). https://imgdrop.io/image/IMG-2984.ADiI7 It's not the end of the world for driving around town with less than my whole family (which is 90% of my driving) but it's definitely annoying to come back to a car with 50% charge and see it…

Huh, that's quite a bit more than I would expect. You already ruled out the 12V battery in the other thread, but there could be some other factors that would keep your car awake.

Does it only happen when you park in front of the garage at home, or does it also happen if you go out somewhere? For example, it might be struggling to connect to your WiFi at home (if you set it up with your home WiFi credentials) to download updates or upload telemetry, which would keep it awake longer than normal as it tries to make do with kilobits per second of usable bandwidth.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

#108

Post by acchow »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #10

I have a model 3 (from 2023), that is rated 270 miles. I can get at max 120 miles, more like 90 miles from it. My drive to work involves going steeply uphill, not very cold. The only reason I don’t care is I have free office charging. If I didn’t I would be pissed by the range I observe. Also Tesla servicing is famously bad, and the way the employees treat service requests (as described in the article) explains a lot

If the gradient is steep enough then you would not be recouping most of the energy going back downhill because your brakes will be burning off the energy. Uphill and downhills is a combination where the estimated range might be thrown off entirely, depending on situation.

Regardless, even with a small gradient, the kinetic energy can never need 100% converted back into stored energy into the battery. There will always be a loss.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

#109

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

londons_explore wrote: post #5

The article really focusses on range loss when cold, but as far as I can see that isn't really true. The reality is there is lots of range loss when using the cabin heater, which obviously one is most likely to do when cold. All modern Tesla's use heat pumps for cabin heating, which ~halves the range loss, but it's still substantial.

The article focuses on the censorship by "free speech" champions.

Re: Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

#110

Post by DannyBee »

jfengel wrote: post #8
londons_explore wrote: post #5

The article really focusses on range loss when cold, but as far as I can see that isn't really true. The reality is there is lots of range loss when using the cabin heater, which obviously one is most likely to do when cold. All modern Tesla's use heat pumps for cabin heating, which ~halves the range loss, but it's still substantial.

Does the heater really use all that much energy? A home space heater is something on the order of 1 kW, which is a fraction of a percent of what is needed to move the car.

Yes - for a non-heat pump it's 2-3kw, all-in. The car is not using more than ~10kw, all-in.

Today, it's closer to 1.5kw, all-in, accounting for heat pumps, etc.

Cooling is less intensive.

Keep in mind: Homes are also often well-insulated, at least, much more so than a car. Most car insulation is designed for noise/etc, not for temperature control. The glass is usually R-1 or worse.

So if you want realism:

My wife's office, no more than 150 sqft, built in 1923, and with no real insulation in the walls (and no space for it), and a bunch of older windows, can't be kept at 68F by a 1500 watt space heater running 100% of the time on a cold day (IE 30deg F).

This is in GA, so not exactly a super-cold climate, eiher.

Meanwhile, my workshop, same property, built a few years ago, 2000 sqft, and amazingly well insulated, can easily be heated/cooled to 72F by a 1.5kw minisplit running basically never.

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