Lab results never represent real street results. How could they? People drive differently and the outcome is based on many aspects that you can't reproduce in lab conditions.
The issue isn't that we can't "represent real street results", the issue is that manufacturers took deliberate steps to alter car behaviour with the intention of obtaining better test results than would be present outside the tests.
It's the same with smartphone and notebook batteries. Tell me, when was the last time, you actually got 9 hours of battery live (in case of a MBP)?
Don't get me wrong, i see it the same way as you are, but this is an issue that you can find everywhere not just in car manufacturing.
For example, a lot of power supply companies try all kinds of tricks to game the efficiency test systems.
And, if you got a bad battery that doesn't live up, they'll replace it at no charge.
Battery life declines with age, however.
The article points out that 1/3 of improvement in past 3 years to meet regulation requirements was real improvement and 2/3 was just manipulation.
It doesn't matter that people drive cars differently than they are tested in cars, to illustrate it they highlighted that due to those manipulations that difference now can be as high as 50% which is beyond claims that people drive cars differently than when they are tested in labs.
Why? You have just been shown corporate cheat on tests. Why you would ever assume this has something to do with fuel type? I expect Tesla cheat as much as MB or BMW in their "range" test. And if you believe otherwise you are just someone who doesn't learn from his experience.
Top Gear got complaints for doing the same thing to (I think) a Leaf.
But really, Tesla develop cars with high performance characteristics, and then people complain about "unrealistic driving conditions" when people drive them as they are designed?
Tesla could easily program the cars to accelerate moderately and with maximum energy efficiency, but they would't be able to command $80,000 price tags if they did that.
People who spend Tesla, Mercedes, or BMW money on a car, by and large, don't give a shit about economy.
Could you perhaps cite any data, any at all? It's not like we don't have a LOT of Tesla owners out there who are obsessively testing this, every day. Do you think they're just all part of the conspiracy?
If an electric car is much less efficient than claimed, you'll notice as soon as you try to drive to the limit of your car's range, because it won't get there.
I expect Tesla cheat as much as MB or
BMW in their "range" test.
Personally I'd expect a tesla that had just rolled off the production line to exceed the specified range easily.
[1] http://industrial.panasonic.com/lecs/www-data/pdf2/ACA4000/A...
It's hard to cheat in an electric car. Few people care about efficiency directly, but most electric car drivers care deeply about range, and range is just battery capacity multiplied by efficiency. If Tesla were cheating so they could lie about efficiency, Tesla owners would notice pretty much right away that they're not achieving the range they should.
The only practical way for Tesla to cheat would be to ship a larger battery than they say they do, and then fudge the numbers from there. Given the current cost of batteries, this would be an incredibly expensive cheat, and it would be tough to hide from the tinkerers who tear down battery packs to see how they're built.
My personal case is a Zero motorcycle, but I've heard confirmation from owners of other kinds; the range it gets is more or less exactly what they state for the test conditions (straight level ground, no winds, etc etc). Mine did in fact improve when I adjusted the aerodynamics, but that's another topic.