Tesla was so swamped with complaints about driving ranges that it created a secret team to cancel owners’ service appointments, source says::To suppress the volume of complaints the automaker created a secret “Diversion Team” in Las Vegas to cancel appointments, Reuters reported.
My (diesel) Equinox gives a conservative range based on actual driving conditions. It is slow to increase a range estimate when I get on the freeway; quick to decrease when I get back into the city, and the actual range available is always 20-50 miles more than the gauge indicates. It is consistently and reliably under-promising and over-performing. If it tells me I can just barely make it to my next stop, I know I can make it, with fuel to spare.
I’d be pretty anxious about range if my car consistently overestimated its own capabilities. When I’ve been in stop-and-go traffic for the last 30 miles, it should not assume that I’ll spend the rest of the charge cruising on the freeway at 5 under the speed limit. If a manufacturer were to use such an algorithm to estimate range, I would say that manufacturer is perpetrating a fraud.