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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

Basically every other EV tries to give a realistic range based on the temperate and your driving habits.

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.

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https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/

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.

I think what the person above you is talking about is not EPA range vs "real world" range. It is "car's estimate of remaining range before you have to recharge" and " real world remaining range before you have to recharge".

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 use the navigation, or use the Energy app on the car, then both of those will appropriately tell you your expected remaining range and the arrival state of charge. It does this quite well.

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.

> 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.

What's your source? Cause I don't think that's true... [1][2]

[1]https://youtu.be/fvwOa7TCd1E?t=2233

[2]https://youtu.be/xg6-Vc9CSwk?t=2589

Carwow is in the UK and tests the claims against the European WLTP test. The claim is that Tesla doesn't meet their EPA range ratings.

Here's InsideEV's comparison to EPA range where Tesla is a huge outlier:

https://insideevs.com/news/679024/recurrent-tesla-range-lowe...

>Only Tesla does this.

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.

If you want the accurate range prediction, navigate to somewhere, the prediction is always spot on to the percent. Or view the energy screen, also extremely accurate. Just don't depend on the EPA range, go with what the car calculates when you navigate and you will never have an issue.

So the car only lies to you about its capabilities in some contexts? That's reassuring.

The car is optimistic in general, if you drove at city speeds on flat land. But if you tell it exactly where you're going, it calculates based on the route required. If you started at the top of a mountain pass, the more accurate range would actually show MORE miles than the general gauge. "Omg, Tesla is under promising range now!!"

The tiny battery gauge is just showing what % the charge is, either in % or in % * epa range. There is no lie, just showing you the state of your battery pack currently. If you want to see what charge you will have in the future taking into account your driving then you navigate to your destination and the car makes a very detailed estimate of state of charge in % at your destination.

I leave my car showing battery as % all the time, because the % * epa range number is meaningless

All that says to me is the car knows how to calculate that, which undermines Tesla’s position in my mind. Otherwise they’d use the EPA range everywhere.

tesla has two settings for range calculations, I forget what they were, but it was like realistic and ideal or similar.

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"

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