Tesla has consistently exaggerated the driving range of its electric vehicles, reportedly leading car owners to think something was broken when actual driving range was much lower than advertised. When these owners scheduled service appointments to fix the problem, Tesla canceled the appointments because there was no way to improve the actual distance Tesla cars could drive between charges, according to an investigation by Reuters.
It’s likely that the range is right on point… if you’re driving in a way nobody actually drives.
I expect there to be a lot of asterisks next to any EV’s range.
Once, I was watching a presentation on some electric off-road vehicles. Big hulking things. They were bragging about their 120 kilometer range. I was looking at them sideways because you can’t just say a number like that.
Sure enough, if you take the off-road vehicles off-road and start driving up hills, that 120 kilometers turns into 20 kilometers.
I don’t want to look like I’m misrepresenting things here – you burn more fuel going uphill in an ICE car than you do on level ground as well. The thing with electric is you’re getting equivalent range with much less energy by being more efficient, which means you’re working with less when you come up against something that chews up your energy.