Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:
I never fully understood this Reuters range investigation. I have had a Tesla Model 3 for many years now, and it tells me I can go, say, 290 miles on a full charge. When I plan a long road trip, it figures out I need to stop at a charger after about 275 miles so I have a few percent left. So I drive the 275 miles, get to the charger with roughly that amount of % charge left, charge my car and keep on going. If I really only had 150 miles of range, there’s no way I would’ve ever reached that charger. I’ve done trips like this many times now. In my experience the advertised range is more or less realistic, and this is easily provable with any car.
Is it a quality control issue? Are people being confused by the massive effect temperatures have on EV range? It doesn’t seem like the major conspiracy it’s made out to be. Mishandled though, probably.
many years now
This appears to be an escalating fraud, affecting newer models more than old. So I’d guess that’s ^^ the answer.
It’s not just a Reuters investigation, they’ve been fined by a few jurisdictions and they absolutely do have the ability to pay lawyers to defend those charges if they’re false.
According to the article they had to derate their ranges by 3-5% or so. Cory is talking about the range being less than half of the estimated one. I think we would’ve seen thousands of stranded Teslas around here if that were really the case. So I remain doubtful.
FWIW I suspect most of these “omg why is my range suddenly gone!” complaints with Tesla to be exactly the same as with all other EVs: Very low temperatures, or towing. You’ll find plenty of people complaining about every model and make of EV because consumers expected to have the advertised range even though they’re towing a trailer or are driving through a freezing mountain pass. Unfortunately EVs just don’t handle this very well.
Teslas get most of the attention because they dominate the EV market, and Elon is a dick.
Yeah, Doctorow is a good writer, but sometimes he thinks he understands stuff but he doesn’t really.
Which model/year do you have? Is that fairly consistent throughout the year?
Drops significantly during winter, perhaps to 120 miles.
2018 model 3 Long Range.
Why linking to an article that simply repeats what the original Reuters article says, but in an exxagerated, sensationalized and occasionally downright misleading way? To be clear, I’m never buying a Tesla for the exact reasons described in either article, and more, but I prefer things being stated more factually, less sensational:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/
