Comment by eatporktoo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eatporktoo | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised by the reaction to this article.

1. The range is set by the EPA. They are the ones that do the testing and validate the claims. The EPA should fix their range guidelines for EVs. Maybe a summer and winter range would be more appropriate?

2. Tesla should have a better UI for range, but really they should just show the percentage. Acting like it is a conspiracy is a bit extreme. They are just doing EPA Range * SOC. Without knowing all of the variables of a drive, the estimated range is going to be wrong no matter what you do. People think that their way of being wrong is better than Tesla's. Maybe they're right but the best estimate is still when navigating to a destination, and this estimate Tesla does quite well.

3. Tesla is cancelling the service appointments because there is nothing they can do to "fix" it. So why waste the time with a service appointment? They are just going to run the same diagnostics they ran remotely. Their software does a fantastic job explaining where your range is going. (https://www.teslaoracle.com/2022/09/26/tesla-new-energy-cons...)

The EPA tests are poorly implemented, and there are two flavors of tests and the maker chooses which to run. Has to do with the number of "cycles". One of these tests tends to return fairly optimistic results, and is the one Tesla chooses for the EPA to run.

Further, EPA only tests at default settings. Some makers (ahem Tesla) default everything to the most range maximizing settings.

Next, car makers can market UP TO the EPA range, but can also market below. Tesla clearly advertises every mile they can, while the Germans undersell their range. You can see this across the board in the real-world range tests by InsideEVs, etc.

Holistically I think having a single EPA range number is wrong given how different highway & city range is for EVs. Just like ICE cars report highway & city MPG, EVs should report range in these 2 buckets.

Since the only real use of the EPA range is to make relative comparisons between cars, and since it will be very wrong for any car outside of the specific speed, geography, and season the EPA tests in, the EPA should choose some arbitrary number that is not miles. Then no one will feel misled when they buy electric, and we'll still be able to make range comparisons between cars.

General range barely ever matters anyway. ICE drivers thinking of going electric always ask about range, but over a certain minimum level of range what really matters is the estimation accuracy for a specific drive and the confidence that a planned charging location will be working as expected. If both of these are very good, the GPS travel time estimates will always be accurate and you don't really need to think about anything, which is how most people approach driving these days anyway: just follow the GPS.

The next thing that matters are the distance of chargers from the average route (we need more at interstate rest stops!) and the availability of 220V chargers at any place you will spend the night. The latter is the weakest right now, IMHO, but it's improving as more people go electric.

> “We’re looking at the range, and you literally see the number decrease in front of your eyes,” he said of his dashboard range meter.

From the third paragraph

What a silly quote. The same happens to me in my ICE car. As I'm driving along the estimated range keeps decreasing. Because that's the whole point.

I'm confused how anyone thinks it should do otherwise.

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