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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

#251

Post by germinalphrase »

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.”

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.

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

#252

Post by johntiger1 »

malwrar wrote: post #158
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…

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…

It's a very humbling experience to be ignored by so many folks, glad you reflected on that. The story about the couple just flat out walking away strikes me as obtusely anti-social, but sadly not unexpected in our day and age.

Just out of curiosity, where was this?

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

#253

Post by NelsonMinar »

The decision to lie to owners about their cars' range came right from the top.

> The directive to present the optimistic range estimates came from Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, this person said. “Elon wanted to show good range numbers when fully charged,” the person said, adding: “When you buy a car off the lot seeing 350-mile, 400-mile range, it makes you feel good.”

> ... Korean regulators required Tesla to publicly admit it had misled consumers. Musk and two local executives did so in a June 19 statement, acknowledging “false/exaggerated advertising.”

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

#254

Post by KingLancelot »

malwrar wrote: post #158
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…

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…

[dead]

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

#255

Post by johntiger1 »

bumby wrote: post #152
syntaxing wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not defending Tesla but battery range is really hard without context. Kinetic energy is velocity^2, which means moving twice the speed takes 4X the energy. They probably can get the right estimate for a destination because it knows the speed limit for the route and using that as your velocity can give you a better answer.

> They probably can get the right estimate for a destination because it knows the speed limit Even this is a massive over-simplification. Driving the same speed with a 20 mph headwind is going to take lot more energy than with a 20 mph tailwind for example. There's lots of other variables and they may be certainly tracking some (like A/C current draw) but I doubt they track others (like rolling friction or road condi…

Does all this somehow not apply to ICE vehicles? Cause the gas meter/range estimate was pretty accurate in my dad's '93 Corolla...

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

#256

Post by croes »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #219
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…

"I hate almost everything about it." Not owning a car only using rentals, I still think Tesla has the best and most intuitive UI. I can find everything easily, whereas in a SUVs from Skoda/VW/Audi/BMW/Renault/... it's hard to find things - at least for me. What I do hate about the Model Ys we rented is the noise! Wind/wheel noise is as loud at 100km/h as a BMW at 150km/h - I guess they do this to safe weight and incr…

>the best and most intuitive UI

I think the best UI was before all the computer displays in cars. Everything operable without visual contact.

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

#257

Post by ooterness »

troymc wrote: post #163
syntaxing wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not defending Tesla but battery range is really hard without context. Kinetic energy is velocity^2, which means moving twice the speed takes 4X the energy. They probably can get the right estimate for a destination because it knows the speed limit for the route and using that as your velocity can give you a better answer.

"...moving twice the speed takes 4X the energy..." That's not quite right. The power required to maintain a constant velocity v against a constant drag force of F is P = Fv. With air drag on a car moving at highway speeds, the drag force F actually depends on v: it's proportional to the square of v, i.e. F ~ v^2. All together then: P ~ v^3 So doubling the speed will increase the required power by a factor of eight.

Power is energy power unit time.

You are correct that power lost to aerodynamic drag increases with the cube of velocity. However, if you increase speed, the time spent is reduced. As a result, the total energy grows with velocity squared.

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

#258

Post by localhost »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #159
syntaxing wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not defending Tesla but battery range is really hard without context. Kinetic energy is velocity^2, which means moving twice the speed takes 4X the energy. They probably can get the right estimate for a destination because it knows the speed limit for the route and using that as your velocity can give you a better answer.

It’s more relevant how much you need to accelerate, not just your velocity. A satellite in orbit uses very little energy even though it’s going very fast.

A satellite in orbit uses the energy imparted by the gravitational force of the Earth to stay in orbit (and very little to no drag depending on the altitude).

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

#259

Post by dinom »

malwrar wrote: post #158
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…

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…

> 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 out full/flat bed tow trucks these days for almost any reason.

Edit: fixed "breaking" to "braking"

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