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Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

Tesla advertises 350+ miles on its cars. I’d bet money that the cars can’t do 300 in normal weather, normal driving conditions without the AC/heater on, on a straight road with no elevation gain.

These are the things they blame when they say EPA estimates are different becase blah blah…

(I own a Tesla)

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How can Tesla advertise a “more accurate” number if they are required by regulation to use EPA estimate?

EPA range estimates being inaccurate is a real problem. They do not, and are not designed to, give actual expected range. It’s meant to be an “average” of “mixed” driving.

Take latest Model Y as example. If you compare EPA range vs WLTP (commonly used in EU)

327mi EPA est. (526km) US version (long range) / 586km WLTP est. (364mi) EU version (long range)

The WLTP is “average” as well, so which of these is more accurate?

This problem is not unique to Teslas, and actually not unique to EVs either. It’s just more noticeable, as ICE vehicles usually advertise MPG and tank size, not total range. So EVs suffer from their own advertisement highlighting numbers that will never be accurate.

They are allowed to advertise lower numbers than the EPA, and are also allowed to use different tests. Tesla typically uses the test that is most favorible to their own range rating.

Some other manufacturers go to a lot of effort to make sure that they aren't overstating things (eg, Porsche), but you are right that this isn't the norm.

> How can Tesla advertise a “more accurate” number if they are required by regulation to use EPA estimate?

By also providing the worst case scenario numbers in addition to the EPA numbers. Tesla could simply do a highway range test at 70mph, ideally in Winter:

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

They could also show towing range:

https://insideevs.com/news/713690/tesla-cybertruck-range-dro...

There's nothing stopping Tesla showing these things.

The one time Tesla did a towing demonstration those numbers turned out to be lies. Tesla never ran the quarter mile that they claimed to. When even your engineers lack basic honesty you've got a sick company culture:

https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/tesla-cybertruck-beast-vs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J3H8--CQRE

https://x.com/wmorrill3/status/1746266437088645551

The worst case scenario is pretty much unbounded. 80mph range will be worse than 70mph. But it's still better than range at 90mph or 100mph.

I guess you could use the highest legal speed limit in the US alongside the lowest temp and fastest headwinds ever recorded in Texas. In conjunction with the heaviest, least aerodynamic thing that the vehicle can physically tow.

But that may be annoying to replicate in a controlled setting and will be even less relevant to most people than the EPA distance.

> EPA range estimates being inaccurate is a real problem. They do not, and are not designed to, give actual expected range. It’s meant to be an “average” of “mixed” driving.

Also, EPA ranges expect mostly constant speed and driving within the speed limit, neither of which matches real world driving

You can review claims from some YTers here[0]. But I've copied the params and results over for the Model 3. They also have tons of other cars tested in similar params[1].

  Testing procedure:  
  - Tire pressure set to manufacturer recommendation   
  - DCFC to 100% SoC to ensure optimal battery temperature   
  - Most energy efficient drive setting   
  - Climate control set between 68-72 on most eco-friendly mode that still allows A/C, on lowest auto fan setting   
  - 70 mph constant GPS-verified speed with gentle acceleration to reach speed  
  - Avoid drafting trucks or other vehicles   
  - Stay on highway at 70 mph constant for as long as possible, until power is cut or low single digit SoC  
  - Use frontage roads at low SoC, try to maintain 55+ mph until stated remaining range depleted  
  - Arrive at charger just as car crosses 0-1 miles remaining and 0% SoC  
  Route:  
  - Drive from Wellington, CO up I-25 to Cheyenne, WY. Then east on I-80 into Nebraska   
  - Route ensures minimal elevation impact, and any wind is documented. Wind typically blows easterly, so the long stretch along I-80 allows for headwind to become tailwind at turnaround.  


 Tesla Model 3 Performance:   
    EPA: 303 mi  
    Actual: 288 mi / 265 Wh/mi  
   
 Tesla Model 3 LR AWD Panasonic:   
    EPA: 341  mi  
    Actual: 365 mi / 215 Wh/mi  
   
 Tesla Model 3 SR RWD LFP:  
    EPA: 272 mi  
    Actual: 277 mi / 213 Wh/mi  
   
 Tesla Model 3 LR AWD LG:   
    EPA: 305 mi  
    Actual: 308 mi / 249 Wh/mi  
   
 Tesla Model 3 LR RWD:   
    EPA: 363 mi  
    Actual: 386 mi / 206 Wh/mi

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmn7gpuAp9E

[1]: https://outofspecstudios.com/70-mph-range

tailwind would not counteract headwind because drag increases with the square of windspeed.

> in normal weather, normal driving conditions without the AC/heater on, on a straight road with no elevation gain.

Another aspect of this debate from my own experience, Tesla's range estimates from the navigation system are much more accurate (which should be obvious because otherwise people would constantly get stranded when taking a road trip). Tesla would probably argue that is because all those factors you listed that impact range stop being assumptions when a defined time and route are known. But it is still no excuse for assuming the absolute best case scenario when defining the range used in marketing or displayed on the equivalent of the car's fuel gauge. If anything, the accuracy of those navigation estimates makes the other inaccuracies seem even more nefarious.

No different than fuel range numbers (fuel tank capacity x mpg) for ICE vehicles. They are under perfect conditions in a lab with no accessories. It might not be realistic but it’s absolutely the best way to compare it to other vehicles.

On any ICE I've ever driven, the range number displayed on the dash is calculated from the current trip's average mpg.

I think that's pretty fair on the side of the EPA, it's good for drivers to keep the estimate conservative. Imagine if the difference between "ideal" driving and "everyday" driving was like half. Someone who plans a road trip with the advertised range in mind is probably gonna have a bad day.

And because it's bad for batteries to be fully charged/discharged they should probably take that into consideration as well since "you could go further if you damage your car" isn't exactly a normal driving scenario.

I also own an EV. Mine is a Seik MG4 (long range) - a Chinese beastie with an old school British marque slapped on it. I went to school in Abingdon, Oxon, which is where the Morris Garage comes from. My car didn't!

There is a standard for range - WLTP - does the US subscribe to it? The W stands for Worldwide.

My car has a WLTP range of 323 miles. I've managed better than that. The standard itself is pretty decent and far better than the old one.

EVs are different to ICEs. Mind you they are both pretty efficient at around 50mph - funny that. EVs hate cold but if you pre-heat the battery, then its not so bad. An ICE can always have a bigger tank and you can easily pop a 15l can in the boot (trunk) to grab an extra 50 miles or so. EVs don't have that flexibility.

However, I pay 7p per KWh to charge my car and I fuel up at home instead of at Tesco. My "tank" costs about £5 and I can get about 300 miles out of it.

My other car (Renault Clio) costs about £70 at the moment (it has been far worse) to fuel up and I'll get roughly 700 miles out of it.

In Europe I think that EV vs !EV is almost certainly won but I do get that in the Americas, where it can get proper chilly at times and the distances involved can be huge means that an EV might not be indicated without a lot of caveats. EVs mostly do cost more too for the initial purchase, which isn't helpful.

Despite all that, do note I routinely pay roughly £5 for 300 miles, and I don't have to piss around with garages. My car plugs into my house!

Oh and I should probably ask how you felt when you first floored the pedal on your Tesla and realised it was sodding dangerous!

EVs have ferocious acceleration - no gears and no need to "wind up".

I used to own a Honda S2000 which was pretty funky - it could lift off in sixth gear and run up to around 150mph. EVs basically destroy ICEs - no gear box.

I did rather enjoy the S2000 when it hit 6500 rpm and then it decided to kick in and go a bit mental.

Previous poster mentioned he owns an MG, not Tesla.

I can't speak about their particular models but all EV have accelerator by wire were acceleration/power is electronically managed to avoid risks of wheelspins. Not all brands offer gimmicks such as "ludicrous mode" and launch control systems and most will prefer offering a default power management that favors range over acceleration.

So many can accelerate faster than comparable ICE vehicles, but not necessarily stupidly fast nor dangerous. Some even launch ridiculously slowly in standard settings.

Tbh an S2000 nowadays is somewhat slow. Fun and cool but not quick. Electrics do stupid good launches 0-30 but past that you're just comparing a brand new likely 4-500hp car to a very peaky, old, 240hp car.

Somewhat slow compared to what, though? It didn't cost a fortune. A 2.0L MX-5 ND is the nearest modern equivalent and they should both do the 0-60 in ~6s.

I mean, those two were never "performance cars" (though the S2000 should be rather good in the bends for a convertible), but this isn't slow nor quick in my books.

I'm talking strictly acceleration since the parent was about that. No dig at Miatas or S2000s for being light, cheap to run, fun cars but a dig at the comparison since it feels apples to oranges and a note on I guess the development of acceleration in the past years.

20 years ago when S2000s were the shit everyone was running 100hp shitboxes. Locally, one of the local car guys in the early 2000s became a legend with an Opel Astra pulling about 200hp with nitrous and every mod he could afford.

Now the affordable and reasonable "enthusiast" cars are 250-400hp. You can get a 10-15 y/o Cayenne that does 0-100 in the 4-5s while being a nice New York apartment on wheels for 15k (converted from eastern european pricing, your local market may vary) or a remapped (~300HP) 330d E90 for ~5k.

What I mean is that if you put someone blindfolded in the S2K 15 years ago chances are he'll think it's very quick, nowadays I think he'll think "it's a'ight". It's interesting how quickly people get used to acceleration and we now have very quick, affordable cars on the market so I believe people have a higher standard for what's quick. Something feels fucking insane, you do 50 pulls over a month and it's normal (assuming it's not a deathtrap spinning at stupid speeds).

I don't think comparing it to used or modified cars is very fair. I understand what you mean, though, and yes, the S2000 isn't that impressive anymore. Still, its straight line acceleration is very respectable for what it cost at the time, even when adjusting for inflation and average power isn't the only thing that went up, weight did too.

What can you get that trounces it for the price? Even a Golf GTI doesn't do much better (and you can't even get it in manual anymore).

I'm comparing it to used cars because it's a used car nowadays and because people don't drive exclusively new cars (which sets their expectation for acceleration) and because old cars are often so cheap you can't even get a Sandero for the price. I don't know how much an S2K costs now used but last I checked non molested ones were essentially collector items. They were in the nice Porsche Boxster territory. That was corona midlife crysis market though.

I looked up the price of the S2k new, apparently MSRP was ~32k$ for the AP1, inflation adjusted ~55k$. It's quite a bit. You can get a B58 Supra, M240 (again B58) or like an S3/TypeR. The S3 doesn't have a manual but the others do.

The Supra is probably the closest because RWD and it's an available in manual, 4s car with a B58 if eventually potentially you want to make stupid power in the future. Much heavier than the S2K but only the Miata and exotics exist in the lightweight convertible/coupe space nowadays. You do get an IMO lexusesque interior though.

Last minute thoughts:

Maybe a Caterham but then you're getting into stupid impractical territory.

Oh, actually the BRZ/GR86/etc is pretty interesting. It's not as quick and the engine is more boring (revs) but it's ~30k$ new and the same weight and power in coupe format. So a slightly more daily version for <60% of the price.

> EVs have ferocious acceleration

Not all of them. It's pretty easy for manufacturers to make ridiculously fast accelerating cars, and it seems those cars get all the attention. But there are others. I drive a Volvo XC40, which comes in two variants: one with two motors, one with a single engine. The two motors variant does 0 - 100 kmh in 4.9 seconds, which is pretty fast; to get that acceleration in an ICE car you'd need a pretty sporty sport car. But the variant with a single engine (which is the one I drive) does it in about 8 seconds, which is plenty fast for me but certainly not in ferocious acceleration territory.

I have no numbers on relative market shares of very fast vs more normal EVs. It wouldn't surprise me that the share of normally accelerating EVs will increase over time as we get cheaper cars meant for a larger public instead of expensive cars for enthusiasts.

BTW that fast acceleration of EVs is mostly at lower speeds. At higher speeds the benefits of an electric drive train diminish and depending on the specifics the EV might very well accelerate slower than an ICE.

The US uses EPA testing instead of WTLP. WTLP is closer to EPA than the Chinese standard but it's not uncommon for the EPA range to be 10-20% lower. Ofc people assume they'll get the EPA range if they're driving 80mph into a headwind which is when they run into trouble

> In Europe I think that EV vs !EV is almost certainly won

For people living in single family homes or in appartments with dedicated parking space, yes.

But lots of people are still living in apartments without a dedicated parking space. If you can't charge at home EV life is immediately a bit more compicated and expensive.

In the Netherlands, there is street charging everywhere. It is indeed a bit more expensive if you do not have a dedicated parking place, but not more complicated. By law, public charging has to be available in 'reasonable walking distance' from any EV owner. 'Reasonable walking distance' is defined by muncipalities, and tends to be higher in rural areas. Therefore it varies between a maximum of 150-500 meters depending on municipality.

Netherlands is a rather rich country even by european standards.

Here where I live people sometimes struggle to park their car in a 2km radius from their home and there are like 4 public street charging outlets in a 4-5km radius. We might eventually get there but it will take a while.

They are among the best in class when it comes efficiency so I don't understand where they are falling short. I've rented EquinoxEV(2024,Model 3(2022), Mach-E(2021 non heat pump) and Bolt EV(2023) for roadtrips and it seemed as if all except Mach-E were pretty good on their estimates. I guess I need to measure miles very closely. Maybe they were all just falling short and I didn't realize. :/

Which ones? Model 3 standard advertised is 428 km (265miles).

Only time I've notice significantly lower range is on a hot day (38c/100f) when I had the aircon cranking for a nice cool inside temp of 20c.

I know some of the lithium-sodium batteries behave differently now but my Model Y yells at me whenever I charge above 80% or go below 20%, saying it's bad for the battery. Not exactly inspiring if it causes more wear unless you sacrifice 40% of the range.

Where's the sacrifice? Just charge it to 100% before you leave for a 200+ mile trip, there's even a setting in your app to make that happen automatically (it'll start charging at e.g. 2am or whatever is needed for your departure time).

Did you gas up your car every time you drove back from work? No, right? So why complain that the car doesn't sit at 100% all the time in your garage? Seems like a silly complaint to me.

The sacrifice is that you can't use 40% of what's supposedly the range.

> Did you gas up your car every time you drove back from work? No, right?

Right, you gas up your car when it needs more gas. You can't do that with an electric car for two reasons: (1) you need to fuel the car well in advance of trying to use it, because fueling is extremely slow; (2) you can't go low on fuel without damaging the car.

The only logical response to this state of affairs is to try to fuel the car whenever it's not in use.

> So why complain that the car doesn't sit at 100% all the time in your garage?

Capacity that you're not supposed to use is not capacity that you can usefully be said to have.

> The sacrifice is that you can't use 40% of what's supposedly the range.

I do it all the time, just not every day. Going skiing? Set the car to charge in the morning. 40 minutes at 90%+ isn't going to hurt anything.

I think you've badly misunderstood that warning.

You shouldn't normally run a fuel powered car all the way to empty either. Fuel pumps tend to be cooled by the fuel they're pumping, running low means you might be pumping air in addition to fuel and air cooling isn't as effective as liquid cooling, so you will overheat your fuel pump (may not be a big deal depending on how long you can go with the tank critically empty). Fuel tanks also accumulate crud which is more likely to make it out of the tank when you run it low. And your fuel tank may be more likely to corrode when it has more air in it, which naturally happens when it has less fuel, so you should keep it mostly full when possible.

That said, it's usually not a big deal until your vehicle and its fuel tank has sat on the side of the road unused for a few years, and your fuel has degraded in place.

Car tanks are plastic nowadays, there's a fuel fiter and they're pretty good at managing surge/sloshing. Many even reduce power when the fuel light is on for example. You probably shouldn't drive aggressively with the fuel light on but even the user manuals usually recommend refuelling at about the 1/4 mark mentioning the potential pump issue, the danger of running out of fuel entirely and that if the engine is sputtering systems like power anything, ESC, TC, etc might not work correctly. A full tank doesn't hurt but nowadays if you're not being a mong you can cruise with the fuel light on without damaging the car in any way.

Edit: Or at least way less than bad shifting, lugging, not waiting for it to warm up, not letting turbos cool down, etc. The fuel thing is one of those things I hear a lot but then it comes from people (not you, don't know you) who start their car after sitting in a parking lot for an hour and immediately do a pull or hoon around all the way to the parking spot and immediately kill the engine when they stop, etc. Triggers my mechanical sympathy 'tism.

You can use the extra 40% when you need it (road trips), but you shouldn’t be using it when you don’t need it (daily commutes).

The difference is that I can fill my gas tank to 100% in a few minutes almost anywhere, no planning is necessary.

On the other hand, you don't have a gas pump in your garage, do you? Absolutely unbelievable we're still having these FUD arguments in 2025. EV's spend objectively far, far less of the driver's time fueling themselves for around-town driving, and it's not even close.

When my tank gets 10% on my ICE, I fill a full tank.

That's nice. It's just so weird to me that Musk's adventures in authoritarian nutjobbery are causing us to revisit long dead nonsense FUD arguments about EVs that have been clearly disproven in the market for like a decade now.

I mean, seriously? We're doing this?

It isn't super harmful to occasionally use the full capacity for longer road-trip type situations, but it is indeed slightly better for long-term (100k+ mile) battery health to keep it in the 10-80% range most of the time. But it's also not a big deal if you constantly use 0-100%; it'll just be ballpark ~10% degraded at 100k miles.

Subtracting the politics but including the actual range, do you regret the purchase?

No. They are still a pleasure to drive. It’s a great commuter car and depending on the electricity rates and whether you have solar panels, slightly more economical than ICE cars. And I’ve had lower maintenance costs. But that’s about it. Like all cars they have their own problems.

No. I absolutely love my car. I have put 60,000 miles on mine in 3 years, largely from long cross country road trips. It's far and away my favorite driving experience of any car I've ever driven.

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