Technology

The number it gives is based on ideal driving. If it says there's 200 miles left, no one should be surprised they don't get 200 miles when they drive 85 on the highway

But it's addressing the same thing, no? The number it displays is the epa range and any state of charge. I prefer to just show a percentage but either way it's understood to be an estimate. If you want a true value just enter a destination (you can do a multi leg trip as well)

Also this article is so vague it's almost useless. I highly doubt this team was just straight up closing service tickets; so more than likely they trained a single team on the talking points of the display number vs real world and thus improved efficiency with service tickets. The article even admits the cars didn't need any actual service

I said it in another reply but it's not unlike a phone telling you it has 12 hours remaining, but then you play a graphically intense game and it dies in 2. The margins are much smaller here but the point is still valid

The gauge shows epa range available given battery SoC. Once a destination is entered it gives you an accurate estimate in the gps directions.

It can’t guess anything until it knows where you’re going.

Except that is really falsifiable. I pull data with TeslaFi and there's definitely no shenanigans being done.

The simplest explanation is that it's impossible to say (miles left) when you consume significantly more power going faster, going uphill, on a very hot day, etc. So they just go with the epa estimate based on your % state of charge and that's it.

If you want detailed info the car will quickly give it to you and consider all those factors if you put in a destination

In my experience, I tend to get probably 250-ish miles on a 320 mile charge,

That's a 28% exaggeration in economy.

You're putting a certain amount of electricity into that car, and you are being told that amount of electricity is good for 320 miles. You're only getting 250 miles from that. Everyone else is only getting 250 miles from that. The only people supposedly getting 320 miles of range from that charge are the salespeople convincing you to buy it. Misrepresentation of the distance you can travel on a battery is no different than misrepresentation of the distance you can travel on a tank. You're just multiplying the MPG by the size of the tank, or the kWh/mile by the battery capacity.

Suppose I buy a sedan with a rating of 32mpg. But I'm only getting 25mpg. I put 10 gallons in the 10-gallon tank, expecting to drive 320 miles, but I have to stop and put another 10 gallons in after 250 miles.

Everyone else who bought the same sedan is getting 25mpg. Meanwhile, my other car, an SUV from a different manufacturer, is also rated 32mpg, and actually gets 32mpg. Everyone else who bought that SUV is reporting pretty damn close to 32mpg.

Clearly, the manufacturer of this sedan is pulling something shady. It doesn't become less shady when the sedan is burning gallons of diesel instead of gallons of gasoline. Or gallons of propane instead of gas or diesel. Or cubic feet of natural gas or hydrogen instead of a liquid fuel. Or pounds of steam instead of a combustible fuel. It doesn't become less shady when the sedan is consuming kWh of electricity instead of a mass or volume of a physical substance.

The problem is that other vehicles adjust the projection based on current conditions - when I drive up a mountain, my projected range drops like a rock. When I drive back down I can end up with more range than I started. Reporting the “ideal” case during operation is misleading at best.