Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

The original subject was the allegations that Tesla had a "secret team" of nefarious agents that were working to suppress complaints about driving range. Not whether or not the range meter on Tesla's was accurate.

Hence my claim that the story was "baloney" and clickbait. Grist for the Elon haters as seen by some of the responses.

Sure, a lot of stories are generated through leakers and whistleblowers. But the behavior of most media sources in the last decade or so has shown a regular pattern of highly biased reporting with some kind of agenda in mind that usually seems to claim "reliable" or "unnamed" sources. An easy thing to hide behind isn't it ?
 
dnewton3 said:
I see this topic (EV range) as no different than that of fueled vehicles.
There is a difference between "range" and "remaining energy available".


Range, whether EV or a fueled vehicle, is an ESTIMATE of how far the vehicle will have remaining to drive, based on some algorithm taking into account past usage factors, etc.

Remaining energy (EV would be volts and fuels would be a fractional view of a full tank ("1/2 tank" or "3/4 tank") is just a report of a physical condition.


It is very common in fueled cars today to have a DTE display (distance to empty) to indicate remaining "range". How do they know how far you can drive? It's an estimate based on math; your avg fuel economy multiplied by the measure of gallons in the tank via the fuel gauge. The DTE can be very accurate if your driving style and other factors don't change much. Or, it can vary wildly if your driving habits and other inputs change often. I would assume the EVs do something similar; they estimate a range based on some nominal volt consumption multiplied by the remaining energy potential left (volts).


Now, if Tesla had a team of folks trying to suppress the info and defraud customers by cancelling appointments telling them "there's nothing wrong", to a point where it may have affected the outcome of a formal investigation, well ... that's another issue entirely. According to the linked story, Tesla was actively cancelling people's appointments by telling folks "it's all good; we checked the telemetrics data", leading them to believe there's nothing wrong. If the facts are true in the story, it's just reprehensible. I'll not own an EV, but I don't begrudge those who do. If I did own one, I'd want some form of government standard for testing and then hold the OEs accountable for making those claims hold true. It is a VERY controlled system for fueled vehicles. Shouldn't it be so for EVs as well???
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I agree, especially with never owning an EV. Back on topic, if the facts are true, stiff penalties should apply, very stiff penalties.
 
People are expecting precision in this age of technology. If your car tells you that you have 23 miles of range left and the trip to the store is 20 miles then that tells a lot of people that they can make it. Never mind that the owners manual that nobody reads says that the readings are approximate.
 
DwightFrye said:
The original subject was the allegations that Tesla had a "secret team" of nefarious agents that were working to suppress complaints about driving range. Not whether or not the range meter on Tesla's was accurate.
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I keep hearing how Tesla technology is so advanced. If that’s the case this information should already be known to them as supposedly these cars talk back to Tesla. Tesla must know every time the car is plugged in and all the data associated with that.
 
pbm said:
Maybe electric vehicles aren't all they're being cracked up to be. We certainly don't have the electric infrastructure to support them.
Speaking of 'electric infrastructure'....a European friend of mine was surprised to see that most of America still has a 1900s overhead wire electricity supply network. He said that most of western Europe has underground electric supply. I don't know if this is totally true but shame on our 'leaders' if so.
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Most newly developed areas are underground. I am sure your elected officials would be glad to have it done too but the average taxpayer rather not pay for relocating power lines and takes a strong pass on that. It's a big difference for a new community as the underground infrastructure is put in before the area is built.
This was evaluated many times on Long Island where many of the communities are 50+ years old. Very costly to tear up everything and place wires underground in areas with buildings, utilities and roads then take down all the above ground wires.
 
ragtoplvr said:
every car I have driven with a MPG indication is optimistic by 2 to 4 MPG. Or there is a vast conspriacy of overcharging gas pumps.

every car with gages now has a stablized temp display. Sometimes oil too

Why should tesla be different.
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Both our '09 and current '17 Forester are 5-7% optimistic on tank fuel economy.
The HAH is consistently 2-4% pessimistic.
 
fdcg27 said:
Both our '09 and current '17 Forester are 5-7% optimistic on tank fuel economy.
The HAH is consistently 2-4% pessimistic.
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Ford MPG computer is adjustable, at least it was on the F150. It had a setting called MPG Bias. If you check and track your fuel economy by hand for 3-4 tanks there was a calculation to adjust it. Once I did that it was never off by more than 0.1 mpg. Before that it was typically optimistic by 2-3 mpg.

We really can't be so wrapped up calculating power/fuel usage when driving style makes a massive difference. As I saw with every vehicle I've owned it will adjust to you, but tends to still be off except for the F150 since it could be adjusted. You have to know how to use the secret menus to adjust this. It took a key and button sequence to get into this menu. It wasn't meant for the end user to be able to adjust this unless they were an car/truck enthusiast.

I think this Tesla thing is being blown out of proportion. They understand what I said above. It's not really a problem with the car. It's managing expectations and anyone that doesn't understand is ignoring every vehicle they've ever owned or driven. Now if there's an actual issue causing efficiency issues or battery capacity reduction, that's a completely different thing. Lets just be honest here though. I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk's behavior, but we'll find the dumbest things to be out for blood and this thread is proof of it.
 
As a CEO, Musk is a salesman. I wouldn't put it past him, but Tesla's results speak for themselves. If you think corporate business always operates on the straight and narrow, guess again. Big business is brutal.
 
PimTac said:
People are expecting precision in this age of technology. If your car tells you that you have 23 miles of range left and the trip to the store is 20 miles then that tells a lot of people that they can make it. Never mind that the owners manual that nobody reads says that the readings are approximate.
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That seems to the crux of the problem. Under ideal conditions, and speeds, maybe it is accurate.

Gulfstream Aircraft have a decades long history of over performing. This seems to make owners very happy.

Using the over performing philosophy with EV's would require a 170 mile range rating instead of a 330 mile range rating. As that's about what Tesla cars can achieve on FL's fast highways, 180 miles.

We'd then see owners bragging about 250 miles of mixed driving, per charge, every week, all year long.

F150 2.7L 4x4 = 650 miles per tank 24/7 365. With 50+ reserve.
 
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Cujet said:
That seems to the crux of the problem. Under ideal conditions, and speeds, maybe it is accurate.

Gulfstream Aircraft have a decades long history of over performing. This seems to make owners very happy.

Using the over performing philosophy with EV's would require a 170 mile range rating instead of a 330 mile range rating. As that's about what Tesla cars can achieve on FL's fast highways, 180 miles.

We'd then see owners bragging about 250 miles of mixed driving, per charge, every week, all year long.
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Yeah probably. Expectations are shaped heavily on promise vs outcome. Most of our driving is 70mph speed limit highways and I'm definitely seeing better than 180 miles on a charge, though that includes in town driving before and after highway usage which does boost range in an EV. I've just never been one to squeeze every single mile out of a vehicle unless I had to, so I don't know that I really track it that close. It would be a different case though if I ran into constant issues with range and charging. I'd be tracking it and watching it like a hawk to know exactly what I was getting. I think that could be down to my understanding of consumption. I know it's much cheaper per mile with home charging, but I've been driving gas cars for 22 years and I'm used to mpg calculations. I'm not in tune with consumption numbers of EVs. I think that will only change when I drive it daily because whether it was my GTO, my Jag, my F150, or my GTi, I knew my mpg on every tank because I do a lot of highway driving. I still have a lot to learn on it. I like what I've seen so far, but what I really need to do is make it my daily for 2 weeks and I could give exact numbers at that point. I'd put it through its paces then.
 
Rmay635703 said:
My 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 Club Cab v8 is rated at 20mpg highway, driving normally you get 15mpg, driving 45mph you get 18mpg.

In the winter you get 10mpg

The EPA should have always provided a short/long trip winter rating
And should list the EPA crossover speed.
(Crossover speed is the steady state speed needed to achieve the rating, many Dodge/Ford vehicles are only 45mph, some Toyota’s as high as 75mph)

Providing this information would actually help people to understand the differences between a sedan and a CUV with the same “EPA” rating and could motivate OEMs to do better on the winter cycles which are absolutely abysmal on many newer vehicles.
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They don’t hold it at a speed, they have “cycles” and infer the fuel economy from tail pipe emissions.

https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/fe_test_schedules.shtml
 
Cujet said:
That seems to the crux of the problem. Under ideal conditions, and speeds, maybe it is accurate.

Gulfstream Aircraft have a decades long history of over performing. This seems to make owners very happy.

Using the over performing philosophy with EV's would require a 170 mile range rating instead of a 330 mile range rating. As that's about what Tesla cars can achieve on FL's fast highways, 180 miles.

We'd then see owners bragging about 250 miles of mixed driving, per charge, every week, all year long.

F150 2.7L 4x4 = 650 miles per tank 24/7 365. With 50+ reserve.
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BMW’s are “notorious” for showing lower mpg than what they actually getting if you calculate on pump manually.
Generally, European vehicles underestimate and with that over perform their official mpg.
That is imo only correct way to do it.
 
Skippy722 said:
They don’t hold it at a speed, they have “cycles” and infer the fuel economy from tail pipe emissions.

https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/fe_test_schedules.shtml
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They do and it’s an error to only use “the test” when you have a gigantic variance between vehicles at highway speed

Vehicles with the same highway rating can be dramatically different MPGs at the same highway speed and dramatically different winter economy .

3rd parties like cleanmpg do report the highway fuel Economy crossover speed.
If one car gets it’s rated instantaneous economy at 75mph but another does at 40mph it is well worth communicating to the consumer.

Right now epa literally ignores winter economy which is a massive problem if we actually care about the volume of pollution instead of merely a theoretical cat warm up time that doesn’t matter for 90% of folks driving in -15F weather.

Those driving under 30 miles or in City conditions make more pollution, waste fuel and damage their engine in winter conditions due to the belief we can force the cat to light up slightly faster.
 
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Rmay635703 said:
They do and it’s an error to only use “the test” when you have a gigantic variance between vehicles at highway speed

Vehicles with the same highway rating can be dramatically different MPGs at the same highway speed and dramatically different winter economy .

3rd parties like cleanmpg do report the highway fuel Economy crossover speed.
If one car gets it’s rated instantaneous economy at 75mph but another does at 40mph it is well worth communicating to the consumer.

Right now epa literally ignores winter economy which is a massive problem if we actually care about the volume of pollution instead of merely a theoretical cat warm up time that doesn’t matter for 90% of folks driving in -15F weather.

Those driving under 30 miles or in City conditions make more pollution, waste fuel and damage their engine in winter conditions due to the belief we can force the cat to light up slightly faster.
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They’ve been doing cold temperature testing (at 20F) since 2008.
 
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