That being said, in the closest thing I will ever muster to a defense of Tesla... I think the thing that the articles might be missing on this, is this: Would people have adopted electric cars that work for them in all of their usecases, if Tesla hadn't lied about range to alleviate fears of range anxiety?
People overly sample issues with electric cars based on how far they can go, without ever acknowledging the part about them not actually needing the full range of the car. And Teslas still work for the majority of long drives as well, just with more frequent stops than they should have.
If an example car can achieve 700 miles on the EPA test, but normal usage averages 150, is it fraud to advertise 700? To show 700 on the screen at full charge?
I agree it’s an interesting question. If the difference was 5% I’m not sure people would care. But at 25% off I think it is a very a fair question.
Porsche reportedly tends to outperform its EPA number significantly. They chose to lower it (a choice automakers have) to provide a more realistic picture given their customers seem more likely to use the performance at the cost of raw range.
I feel like your example uses numbers that are so aggressive one has suspect that they are not real. I don’t have a stake in this or knowledge beyond a quick Google but the EPA test does not look obviously flawed.
The more pertinent question to me would be whether the Tesla range can genuinely achieve those EPA numbers with a typical car.
This is 100% truth. It is an estimated EPA range.
What's more it's often actually measured by an EPA. The Reuters article that spurred this lawsuit said that EPA, not Tesla, tested 6 Tesla cars since 2020. That's at least half of them (Tesla has only 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 = 10 different models on sale in U.S. although they have to re-certify if they change the battery).
So it probably was a fraud, by my standards.
I'm considering buying Starlink access, but now I have to rethink what it really offers - maybe they use some different than common metric, which is 'technically true' but miscommunicates the actual performance?
1. Tesla's estimates are not "highly accurate". They are alleged to use a deliberately optimistic estimate when the battery is near full, then gradually switch to a more realistic estimate as the battery drains. In particular they are alleged to incorrectly account for the weather. This means the car will always display nearly the advertised number at full charge (and on a test drive). Supposedly Tesla used to use a more accurate estimate but then got orders from on high to fudge the numbers.
2. For other car manufacturers, the range estimates are not terribly inflated. The report from Edmunds claim that most EV models meet or exceed their range estimates, and cars that miss their estimates don't miss by anywhere near as much as Teslas.
I agree the test needs a redesign. No one drives 55, and speed has a big impact on EVs due to wind resistance.
> The complaint cited testing that found three Tesla models fell short of their advertised ranges by an average of 26 percent. In addition to alleging false advertising, the lawsuit said that range estimates provided by Tesla vehicles during car trips fail to account for temperature and other factors that reduce range.
I’ve heard people on HN talk about this saying there are two separate values the car shows you and one is wildly and consistently wrong. The one that’s wrong, by the sounds of it aligns with their marketing materials.
I won’t buy a Tesla, but to me, their advantage is range. Right now their only competitors in range are more expensive (though quite a bit nicer imho). I imagine if I had bought a Tesla and the range wasn’t as good as it should be, I would be quite pissed…
The idea of a single value for "range" is fundamentally flawed. Is it Tesla's fault that people don't understand basic physics?
You will get less than "the range" if you drive 90mph on the highway until the battery is depleted. Where is Tesla lying anywhere in there? The consumer was just ignorant of what the EPA rated range means.
At least, at some point.
I'll try to get the filing and paste from it, give me a few.
It's "Porter et al v. Tesla, Inc.", in case someone beats me to it.
I recall reading over and over in car reviews how the other EVs had low EPA estimates and during tests got an avarage above the EPA range. Why is that?
There are absolutely other times when I'll get substantially less range, but it's understandably when I'm driving faster of more aggressive, or it's colder outside, or it's primarily uphill, or there's a strong headwind, etc.
There are a lot of different factors that can affect a car's range (regardless if it's an EV or ICE), and it seems like Tesla has decided to show the EPA range on the dashboard because there's no way they could magically know where you're driving if it's not entered in the navigation system. Once you start navigation however, it's able to factor in all these externalities and give a very accurate estimate. On the first leg of the above trip, I arrived to charge within 3% of Tesla's estimate.
If only they could use some of that data and processing power to back out someone’s standard commute, driving behavior, and local temperature.
Porsche isn't lying about their max speed either, just because you can't reach it with 300kg of load and bad weather.
If they removed the 'Miles remaining' number and only showed a percentage, you would end up having to do the exact same conversion in your head anyways. "Oh I have 43% remaining of my 330 mile battery, how much is that?" so this is really just a quick shortcut.
Tesla has a separate screen with very clear range estimates that the user can toggle (based on last n miles or based on current exact 'instant' reading). In addition, when navigating to a destination, the nav tells you the estimated battery % on arrival, which is also based on current driving and is generally quite accurate. In addition, it will tell you during & after the trip exactly why the estimated and actual range differed. Eg "0.5% extra battery used due to a 5.6mph headwind, 2% extra battery used by driving over 70mph", etc.
Having a count-down 'Miles remaining' on the dashboard doesn't always make sense, particularly when you haven't entered a destination, or if you're switching between highways and back rounds a bunch. Either way, it's never going to actually be accurate down to the last mile. In reality, you just have to know that the miles on the dashboard are "EPA miles", meaning if you're driving on a flat surface in good conditions at ~55mph, that's what you'll get. If you change your speed, or conditions get worse, you know you'll need to adjust it in your head (or use the dedicated in-car screen to automatically figure it out for you!).
It is common sense to take conservative estimates when you are missing data. The range indicator on the dashboard is a "will I make it" indicator. To help me decide if I need to plan a refuel/recharge. I don't want a best case scenario, not even an average, I want something like a 90 percentile.
In good conditions, the "enhanced" estimate (with nav) should be more than the baseline, as some of conservative estimates can now be replaced with more accurate data.
Good thing Tesla is not doing airplanes.
My Chevy Volt has a 15kwh pack, and only lets you use 10kwh. The bottom 2 and the top 2 are never accessible. Which means the batteries are never depleted, and never fully charged. I bought it knowing I have 10kwh to use around town or on trips (afterward the gas engine turns on). I use those 10kwh every single day, for all 177k miles of the cars life so far. I still get the same 10.3kwh I got on day one I made my purchase decision based on.
Tesla should advertise their packs the same way, explaining that the outlier 10kw are for emergencies too.
It's very easy to exceed EPA estimates in the city. The optimal speed to drive a Tesla is about 15mph. At that speed a Tesla will exceed EPA range by about 20%.
Driving at 80mph on a highway will greatly reduce the range of any EV, compared to 45 mph. Using high-draw features like heating (also depends on the type of heating used) will also drain the battery faster.
Cold temperatures also reduce range, but it depends on the EV. Teslas cool or heat the battery to keep an optimal battery temperature. Nissan Leaf uses air cooling, which means repeated supercharging in hot weather overheats the battery, so they cannot make long trips. So Teslas are less affected by hot and cold temperatures than some other EVs. So it depends on the EV.
EV users need to educate themselves on how electric cars operate regarding range. It's not unique to Tesla by any means.
ICE, and hybrid ICE, can all be more efficient depending how well you match its optimal driving profile.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LWL90paufE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynCaTDR4rDQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFB6hsYXDiA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvwOa7TCd1E
Spoiler alert: Tesla models fare about as well, if not better, than their EV cousins, hitting around 80% of the stated range in the wild.
It’s a bit of a stretch to say Tesla lied to customers here. I’d probably say Tesla didn’t carefully enough explain the laws of physics to uninformed customers is more accurate a statement.
I would not be surprised that Tesla over-optimized everything with the EPA test as an utility function. (reminds anyone of the VW scandal?)
* Some restrictions apply; not valid in CA, MT, AK; must take delivery of existing stock; not valid with other rebates and discounts; value of coupon reported as income to IRS....It's pretty dang high on the list in actual real world tested range.
In Edmonds testing the difference was really only 13mi. Really not that significant in the end.
Tesla is the only odd one out. Surely Tesla employees have driven cars before right? Surely they should understand that.
There’s a difference between “sued” and “committed fraud”.
> Tesla developed algorithms for estimating the range of its electric vehicles, which would display to drivers “rosy” projections for the distance the vehicle could travel on a full battery. However, once the battery reached 50% capacity, the algorithm would change and begin showing the driver more realistic projections. This would cause the estimated range of the vehicle to fluctuate drastically from that point.
According to the lawsuit, this was something Musk asked for:
> The decision to include these algorithms to present inflated range estimates came directly from Tesla’s chief executive officer, Elon Musk. As the Reuters report indicates, “Elon [and Tesla] wanted to show good range numbers when fully charged....When you buy a car off the lot seeing 350-mile, 400-mile range, it makes you feel good."
Hard coding a range algorithm to make new customers "feel good" is pretty on brand for Elon. When coupled with the establishment of a dedicated "Diversion Team" to cancel service appointments from complaining customers (because they already knew nothing could be "fixed"), this is all pretty scummy and lends legitimacy to the lawsuit IMO.
These are not mental trade offs I’m willing to make. I owe a debt to the early adopters who sacrifice their sanity for alpha/beta testing this kind of tech. A solemn and respectful nod from me to those that have lost their lives due to this technology.
In my ICE, I have to think "dang, getting low on gas, I better leave a bit earlier to make sure I can get gas next time" and then take time out of my day every other week to get gas.
In my EV, I practically never stop at all because I leave the house every day with a full tank.
Lots of folks don’t have those privileges.
Hypothetical Porsche didn't setup customer service teams to lie to customers on a mass-scale when the complaints came in though.
We have evidence of Tesla service-cancellation teams. We have evidence of Tesla's software purposefully being inaccurate when above 50% charge, and then slowly becoming more accurate when reaching 50% or less charge.
This is literally and precisely, a conspiracy perpetrated by Tesla and its executives to trick users into thinking Tesla cars have more range than they truly do.
Is that alleged? I saw only the support telling customers that this is expected. "There is nothing wrong with your car, don't bother comming. It is expected that sometimes your car gets galf the range." is not a lie at all. It seems absolutely truthful and in fact the total opposite of exaggerating the range of the car.
>We have evidence of Tesla service-cancellation teams. We have evidence of Tesla's software purposefully being inaccurate when above 50% charge, and then slowly becoming more accurate when reaching 50% or less charge.
The algorithm claim seems extremely weak. Unless you can get some actual developer to testify that he was explicitly ordered to build the algorithm to report a range which he knew was impossible to reach or something similar, this seems practically irrelevant.
The "service-cancellation teams" seem somewhat stranger. I don't think cancelling a service appointment is damning in any way, though.
Teslas appear to always show the EPA range at full and it sounds like they stay very optimistic for quite a long time, giving drivers a very unrealistic picture.
That’s lying to the customer. They’re not trying to be useful but to look good.
And in every EV range comparison I’ve ever seen, teslas are the ones that can’t meet their claimed range by a fair margin. Other brands are almost always close to accurate or in some cases do noticeably better than claimed.
Only Tesla does this.
Take a look for yourself. EPA range vs a "real world" test is all over the place depending on vendor, and even depending on the car. Rivian, Kia, Nissan all have ranges that are under by similar percentages as Tesla. Only Porsche seems to heavily sandbag here.
What's your source? Cause I don't think that's true... [1][2]
The question is if it is illegal.
I agree that reporting a maximum possible range is meaningless and might be misleading. But it is still a truthful metric making it a quite dubious legal claim.
>other EV tries to give a realistic range based on the temperate and your driving habits.
What I saw was specifying the test conditions under which the range was achieved and including disclaimers about possible factors which can reduce the range. Certainly more honest.
EDIT: wait, I don't see it. I think there was a setting in older software?
I swear there was a range calculation setting that was like "average" and "ideal"
Take the 911 GT3, a car I picked at random. Car and Driver testing found the following:
>The GT3 offers both a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic (a.k.a. PDK) or a six-speed manual. ... At our test track, the automatic managed a 2.7-second 60-mph time while the six-speed manual test vehicle snapped off an impressive 3.3-second run to 60 mph.
https://www.caranddriver.com/porsche/911-gt3-gt3-rs
Porsche advertises 0-60 times of 3.2 seconds for the PDK and 3.7 seconds for the manual. They undersold the car by 10-15%.
I'm more cynical than most, but it actually isn't normal to over-promise and under-deliver to the extent Tesla does.
That's not to say there aren't other class actions that ought to be considered, such as the whole FSD debacle. Now that is one I would definitely join.
If you did ONLY low speed city driving you would do even better!
Indeed, Tesla recommends to charge to 100% at least once per week.
https://insideevs.com/news/557527/tesla-model3-lfp-charging-...
edit: read response below
https://www.torquenews.com/15475/battery-charging-behavior-t...
https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModel3/comments/yh5ts5/m3_lfp_...
(They still degrade much less than the other kind of battery Tesla uses, however).
Many consumer goods work like this. Lots of cheap power tools are sold with the understanding that the consumer will use them a few times and no claims will be made during the warranty period. Many (most?) gym memberships are sold with the understanding that many clients will come a few times, then never return.
No sane company wants to deal with the possibility of paying for battery replacement if they don't absolutely have to.
Using the "whole battery" at the expense of its lifespan is not only worse for manufacturers, but it's worse for the environment as well. I think responsible charging and usage is critical for current battery technology.
Hell, my previous car was a 2016 Subaru BRZ manual, EPA estimated at 24 city/30 highway. Despite the occasional launch, I still averaged 32 mpg.
That said, I'm not upset by it, despite only getting 240-270 miles depending on the weather (Out of the 300 mile EPA range). I know the reality of the difference in how an ICE and an EV use their energy.
Tesla is doing nothing wrong. If the range estimations are inaccurate, it's the EPA that needs to change.
And it's good that it's designed to produce a characteristic value that is useful for comparison.
If my gas vehicle had that kinda range (my old pickup had this kind of range), I’d be annoyed.
I also suspect the range gap is more than 13 in winter, as the model Y has more advanced heat pumps.
Here's InsideEV's comparison to EPA range where Tesla is a huge outlier:
https://insideevs.com/news/679024/recurrent-tesla-range-lowe...
1. Other companies have more accurate estimates than Tesla.
2. Tesla uses a different and more accurate algorithm when charge is low.
3. Tesla's estimates used to be more accurate.
It doesn't make sense to argue the problem is intractable when it has supposedly been solved by many companies, including Tesla itself.
>Why would you expect it to factor in _potential_ weather when giving a range estimate?
I wouldn't expect that. The cars have thermometers.
This is different from ICE vehicles where fuel efficiency is more variable and does affect range more.
E.g., suppose the EPA range is 300 miles, you started from with a full charge, are 100 miles into your trip, and are at 1/2 charge. If what others have said is correct by default Tesla will estimate you have another 150 miles of range left (EPA range of 300 x 1/2 charge), whereas many others would say you have 100 miles of range left (you went 100 miles so far on 50% charge so if nothing changes the remaining 50% should give another 100).
If you look at the state of charge % (and use the miles setting, instead of %), then sure. It'll be optimistic unless you drive the standard EPA route.
Honestly though, because battery drain is so dependent on route, elevation traveled, temperature, etc, I find the 'guess-o-meter' estimates to be mostly useless. You'll frequently find other vehicles that will start optimistic and degrade over time as well.
I leave my car showing battery as % all the time, because the % * epa range number is meaningless
Lots of people always point to this idea that charging a car is a huge pain point compared to just pumping gas, but the majority of commuter cars would have the exact same experience as me.
For most commuters they spend more time pumping gas than they would waiting for their cars to charge, their travel costs fluctuate more, and they have to think more about buying gas than if they just had an EV for their commuter car.
https://www.statista.com/topics/5144/single-family-homes-in-...
82 out of 129 million units are single family detached homes. 62%. That's the majority. And I imagine most car-free households probably don't live in single-family detached by a large margin, so whatever percentage of that moves more car owners towards being the single family homes. Then another percentage of non-single-family-home dwellers probably aren't in the market for $40k cars, which for sure EVs have an upfront cost penalty.
Plus some of the other sizes like 2-4 units still often have garage or at least private parking spaces (carports and driveways) which would probably be easy to add individual chargers as well so another 16M units or 92/129 or 71% of housing units.
Average miles driven is like 16k these days.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm
16,000 / 300 or so days driven is like 53 miles a day on average. Easily doable by any EV, even doubling or tripling that average use.
Maybe you should look outside your bubble. The majority of US households who could afford a $40k car probably live in a place that can add charging without too much difficulty. And they also don't drive much more than 50mi a day on average, by a large measure.
> I’m looking forward to when EVs catch up to the conveniences of ICE vehicles
For most US households in the market for a car priced like an EV, an EV can be more convenient than an ICE, today.
Has there ever been a single one of these systems overestimating by tens of miles consistently and for nearly every individual?
Putting a team together to tell customers their cars are fine seems completly legal and not a conspiracy in any way.
This isn't difficult. Tesla is not required to use the EPA range estimation figures to do any range estimation internally, it's literally only something that goes on the window sticker. Tesla instead chose to design their range display to do something that no other automaker did, and use a KNOWN OVERESTIMATOR as their methodology for range estimation.
Nobody else has to set up these call centers because nobody else chose to set up their range meters in such a way to mislead customers. It's really that simple.
unfortunately the expectations were already set by the pre-sales marketing.
If there aren't a lot of trucks around, then going 55 in the right lane has less of an impact on other drivers. But if there are many trucks (which there usually are, IME), then going 10 MPH under the limit will cause a lot of headaches for all the other drivers around you.
Why do people need to drive fast? The gains are minimal even if you stay exclusively on a lightly-trafficked freeway. In more realistic scenarios, the gains are almost nothing. You'll just be the first one to the light or traffic jam.
Tell me when highways, bridges, and streets are not paid by gas taxes -- you won't.
Tell me when I can trade money for reliably sequestered CO2 -- you can't.
edit: I didn't downvote them btw
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/the-puzzling-reason-why-t...
No gasoline car uses the EPA fuel economy to do it's range estimation, EVEN WHEN IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR THEM TO DO SO, because it's wrong enough often enough to make a range estimation using it lose significant value.
Tesla has made a choice to stray from normal industry practice. If they have done so in an attempt to sway customers with the incorrect numbers, that should be considered fraud. That's pretty damn difficult to prove as a crime, but not hard to make likely in a civil case.
Do you have more convincing evidence of this because I have used many Toyota vehicles and they do not use EPA figures to do their range estimation, and can be conclusively shown to be using their internally measured "average mpg" figures to estimate range.
I’ll tell my neighbors they should get an EV even though they can’t charge it at home and have commutes in areas where there aren’t super chargers yet, but on average they should be just fine, and let you know what they say, if you’d like.
So far we’re talking about refueling logistics, but a huge chunk of all the other uses of a vehicle preclude EVs as well.
You’re right though, that’s how you set world records. If you drive an EV at like 10 mph you could go a pretty insane distance. But no normal person would ever do that.
I'm mostly commenting on all manufacturers being conservative with fuel/energy use/metering. Even older vehicles I've had (carbureted pickup truck) usually have a gallon to so left in the tank on empty.
We’ve decided collectively how to fund infrastructure and engage in climate action as a society. If you don’t like it, feel free to lobby your neighbors and representatives to change the law.
The fuel-meter is absolutely lying to you at 50%+. And the customer-service reps know it, and they even have trained responses over this conspiracy.
The allegedy cospiracy would be that Tesla managment and its employees were conspiring to quickly deal with customer complaints. But what is actually illegal there? Note that the representatives were truthful when they dismissed customers. Their cars were not broken.
The more-and-more it is proven that your "just lying" is a coordinated effort across your company, the more and more it looks like fraud to ... well everybody.
Of course he was ordered to build it that way, it's not like some worker is just going to decide by himself.
Zero evidence for that.
> 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.”
-------
This is evidence, is it not?
It demonstrates that their original range claim was a lie.
You are bending over backwards to come up with an excuse for Tesla, when they quite clearly made a choice to either be lazy or misleading.
When my gasoline car says "You have 12 miles left", I KNOW I can drive 12 miles minimum, as long as it isn't at wide open throttle. The car has mountains of data at it's disposal, but in reality this technique has been used ever since a car could figure out how much gas was flowing into the injectors. The assumption is that how you have driven for the past ten minutes is a reliable indicator for how you will drive over the next ten minutes, and for most ten minute periods that is an accurate assumption.
Which concept more useful for drivers, the concept of remaining range if you keep driving the way you’ve been driving, or “how many miles the car can get in the EPA test cycle”?
But the car can use your recent driving experience to get a good estimate. After all, if you've spent the past 10 minutes driving at 70 mph into a strong headwind, there's a decent chance that your next hour will be spent doing that. (Although this does get amusing on I-68 where my range estimates are markedly different after cresting the hill versus bottoming out in the valleys).
Sure, it's not the best estimate possible. But it's trivial to implement "assume recent past", and it's a far better estimate than "synthetic estimate that relies on a weighted average of two very different driving conditions."
EPA created a repeatable test where the car runs at a certain speeds, most likely without wind resistance.
If you drive faster, the car will use more energy per mile therefore will have lower range than the EPA estimate.
If you drive slower, they car will use less energy per mile therefore will have higher range than the EPA estimate.
If there's head or side wind, the car will use more energy => lower range.
Someone drove Model 3 for 606 miles, at extremely low speeds: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17405906/tesla-model-3-hy...
That’s 20-25mph faster than you. At that point you’re practically impeding traffic, and having a big truck pass you is terrifying.
Just because you can legally drive 55 or maybe even less doesn’t make it safe.
Generally, you actually can't legally drive that much slower than prevailing speed.
Where these signs aren’t present, I think you’d have to be going more than 10 under the maximum limit to get a ticket.
>The more-and-more it is proven that your "just lying" is a coordinated effort across your company, the more and more it looks like fraud to ... well everybody.
But there is zero evidence for this. There is no lie here. At best there are misleading statememts about performance.
"Fraud" is a legal term, and "intentionally misleading people" is the very definition of Fraud. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fraud
In fact, it seems like Fraud is still Fraud at the reckless or negligent levels. No intent needed (though I'm sure proving it at the "intent" level will get them more of a case).
So... is this Fraud? Well, yes. It would be. But the next step is for these plaintiffs to prove the fraud in court. It seems like they have a strong argument though.
If the plaintiffs have a sworn, signed statement from the person claiming that then it could be presented as evidence during the trial, subject to cross-examination.
If all they have is the article it's hearsay i.e. "evidence based not on a witness's personal knowledge but on another's statement not made under oath"
Also known as: bupkis.
If you believe Musk on this the lawsuit is practically pointless. Having an optimistic algorithm is not illegal and even alledging that it somehow is seems absurd.
Seriously, you shouldn't believe Musk with regards to lawsuits.
If Musk knew anything about law, he wouldn't have been forced to buy Twitter last year. The world was revealed to how ignorant this guy is to the law.
-------------------
By the way, this is a civil case, not a criminal case. "Illegal" is almost a non-sequitur.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fraud
> In civil litigation, allegations of fraud might be based on a misrepresentation of fact that was either intentional or negligent. For a statement to be an intentional misrepresentation, the person who made it must either have known the statement was false or been reckless as to its truth. The speaker must have also intended that the person to whom the statement was made would rely on it. The hearer must then have reasonably relied on the promise and also been harmed because of that reliance.
All they have to do to successfully sue here is prove that the other side was "misleading", and that they "knew about being misleading" (intentional), or even the lower-standard of recklessness (they didn't know they were misleading, but they didn't do enough research to prove their own statements true before telling customers).
Welcome to Civil Law. The standards are much lower than criminal law. But its just money, so that makes sense.
“Unless you can get some actual developer to testify that he was explicitly ordered to build the algorithm to report a range which he knew was impossible to reach or something similar, this seems practically irrelevant.”
“Zero evidence for that.”
When confronted with evidence that the algorithm was specifically designed to show an unrealistic, misleading, and apparently impossible to meet range based on orders from the highest authority in Tesla:
“Certainly not [evidence] for anything illegal.”
You are making stuff up. Musk said optimistic, which directly implies that it should be truthful and accurate, just not representative of average performance.
And it absolutely isn't moving the goalpost. If you didn't think I was initially asking for evidence that would support the legal claim against Musk I don't know what to tell you...