Tesla exaggerating EV range for over a decade

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 288 points –
Tesla exaggerated EV range so much that drivers thought cars were broken
arstechnica.com

Tesla exaggerating EV range for over a decade::undefined

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I've tested in my own model 3 and the range and kwh usage is actually pretty accurate as advertised assuming you accelerate slowly, drive the speed limit, and don't run the heat, and don't have a strong headwind. Many people, including myself, absolutely do not drive like that, so the range will be less.

This is honestly true for the ICE estimates as well. It’s just that people have a lot more range anxiety when they can’t find a refueling spot every other street corner.

Not that I’m condoning it. And not that they’ve always gotten away with it. They need to be held accountable to come up with reasonable range expectations.

But also ICE are so inefficient that a small percentage change doesn't affect them so much because you're wasting 80% of the energy anyway so you load up megawatts hour of power when you refuel. On BEVs losing 4kw of power for heating or other stuff means a lot because you waste only around 5% of the energy, so adding 1 or 2 or 3% of other losses will impact the small energy storage you have.

Yeah it's all about ideal conditions, and same for ICE as the other reply said. Even external temperature matters for EVs too, if it's too cold the battery won't perform as well.

Wait, so you can't use the air? You know, one of the major comfort features in a car? What a ripoff.

Running the heat can be energy draining because you don't have a hot engine to draw air from. Using the heated seats is much more efficient but of course less comfortable in cold weather.

You can use the AC is fine and you get pretty close to the rated mileage, but the heated air is a bigger drain.

Newer models come with a heat pump now, so running the heat should be just as efficient as running the AC.