TLDR Tesla purposely and deliberately over projects its range. And employees various tactics (similar to any scammer) to discourage customers from filling complaints about range. Some snippets from the article: Advisers would normally run remote diagnostics on customers’ cars and try to call them, the people said. They were trained to tell customers that the EPA-approved range estimates were just a prediction, not an actual measurement, and that batteries degrade over time, which can reduce range. Advisors would offer tips on extending range by changing driving habits. If the remote diagnostics found anything else wrong with the vehicle that was not related to driving range, advisors were instructed not to tell the customer, one of the sources said. Managers told them to close the cases. The team was expected to close about 750 cases a week. To accomplish that, office supervisors told advisers to call a customer once and, if there was no answer, to close the case as unresponsive, the source said. When customers did respond, advisers were told to try to complete the call in no more than five minutes. In late 2022, managers aiming to quickly close cases told advisors to stop running remote diagnostic tests on the vehicles of owners who had reported range problems, according to one of the people familiar with the diversion team’s operations. Jonathan Elfalan, vehicle testing director for the automotive website Edmunds.com, reached a similar conclusion to Pannone after an extensive examination of vehicles from Tesla and other major automakers, including Ford, General Motors, Hyundai and Porsche. All five Tesla models tested by Edmunds failed to achieve their advertised range, the website reported in February 2021. All but one of 10 other models from other manufacturers exceeded their advertised range. Tesla complained to Edmunds that the test failed to account for the safety buffer programmed into Tesla’s in-dash range meters. So Edmunds did further testing, this time running the vehicles, as Tesla requested, past the point where their range meters indicated the batteries had run out. Only two of six Teslas tested matched their advertised range, Edmunds reported in March 2021. The tests found no fixed safety buffer. Edmunds has continued to test electric vehicles, using its own standard method, to see if they meet their advertised range estimates. As of July, no Tesla vehicle had, Elfalan said. “They've gotten really good at exploiting the rule book and maximizing certain points to work in their favor involving EPA tests,” Elfalan told Reuters. The practice can “misrepresent what their customers will experience with their vehicles.” https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/
> “They've gotten really good at exploiting the rule book and maximizing certain points to work in their favor involving EPA tests,” Elfalan told Reuters. The practice can “misrepresent what their customers will experience with their vehicles.” This sort of thing is what got VW hammered by the regulators.
Lol in no universe is this even close to what VW did. VW deliberately faked emissions data. Like what
Most of the complaint was that VW had knowingly designed the system to recognize test conditions and optimize accordingly. Tesla’s treading the same path here. Optimize for the test, not so optimal in the real world. And they know it.
Strangely we live in a world where deep down we know that this may be true and it doesn't surprise us that Elon/Tesla might be doing this and there won't be any consequences. On the other hand Volkswagen was in big trouble for something similar. And hypothetically Ford may go bankrupt or be forced to pay billions in fine for doing this.
Tesla’s already on the regulator radar for other things. Going to get slapped hard eventually.
I doubt it. He is a cry baby and will start crying - climate control, Biden bad, China blah, suffocating innovation, etc as soon as some one will start regulating him. We all know the SEC couldn't do anything after all his Tesla , crypto, doge coin tweets.