EPA Denies Elon Musk's Claims Over Tesla Model S Range Test (cnet.com) 80
The Environmental Protection Agency has rebuffed comments Tesla CEO Elon Musk made concerning what he calls an error during the Model S Long Range's testing process, which the executive says cost the car a 400-mile range estimate. The agency tells Roadshow it conducted the testing properly. CNET reports: During Tesla's Q1 investor call this week -- which also included some colorful language surrounding stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic -- Musk said the Model S Long Range should boast a 400-mile range estimate, but instead, the EPA gave it a 391-mile estimate. Why? According to the CEO, at some point during the testing process, someone left the keys inside the car and the door open overnight. The Model S entered a "waiting for driver" mode, which depleted 2% of the EV's range, hence the sub-400-mile rating. Musk added that the company plans to retest the Model S with the EPA and is "confident" the test will produce a 400-mile car.
The automaker did not return Roadshow's request for comment on the situation, but an EPA spokesperson said in a statement, "We can confirm that EPA tested the vehicle properly, the door was closed, and we are happy to discuss any technical issues with Tesla, as we do routinely with all automakers." It could very well be that Tesla estimates show the Model S Long Range returns a 400-mile range, but for now, the 391-mile estimate sticks with the EPA. To Tesla's credit, that's still the highest range rating of any electric car currently on the market, and just nine miles off the coveted 400-mile mark.
The automaker did not return Roadshow's request for comment on the situation, but an EPA spokesperson said in a statement, "We can confirm that EPA tested the vehicle properly, the door was closed, and we are happy to discuss any technical issues with Tesla, as we do routinely with all automakers." It could very well be that Tesla estimates show the Model S Long Range returns a 400-mile range, but for now, the 391-mile estimate sticks with the EPA. To Tesla's credit, that's still the highest range rating of any electric car currently on the market, and just nine miles off the coveted 400-mile mark.
What is the difference (Score:4, Informative)
What is the difference between a 391 mile range and a precisely 400 mile range electric car?
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on the part of the EPA
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Need for ventilators going down now, turns out New York only NEEDED just over 5,000 and now past peak.
https://www.nationalreview.com... [nationalreview.com]
So that 30-40K "need" was total B.S., panicked governor overestimating by a factor of six or more...
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Yup.
The folks at the EPA really think they are going to lie successfully about a fully instrumented car that has a record of things like this?
This administration is ridiculously vindictive but that's matched by bone numbing levels of stupidity.
Re:What is the difference (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the difference between a radio priced at $399 vs $400?
Psychology.
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Re:What is the difference (Score:5, Informative)
He has the same condition as Trump. Hes so used to saying what he wants and getting away with it that he has lost the ability to think about the consequences of what he is going to say. I call it Entitled Prick Syndrome.
Re:What is the difference (Score:5, Informative)
He has also had to confront "Journalists" that claimed that Tesla's range was over-estimated (but who couldn't explain why their supposed trip from A to B included many miles driving around in circles in parking lots) & people like Jeremy Clarkson claiming to run out of electricity running around a track when the car lent to him at no point went below 20% charge.
IMO Tesla has the logs on the car lent to the EPA that show that the car was indeed left open with the keys in it. Whoever did so didn't think it was important & is now trying to cover their mistake up.
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Someone may have a job waiting for them in Detroit when their time of "public service" is over.
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IMO Tesla has the logs on the car lent to the EPA that show that the car was indeed left open with the keys in it.
It's possible that Tesla has the logs to back up Elon's claim. However, if that's the case, you'd think that a person like Elon who is never prone to understatement would have said that, since that would have made his statement much stronger. Did Tesla tell the EPA that they have the logs to back up Elon's claim? Either there are no logs or the EPA is bluffing knowing that they will be exposed.
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I listened to the call. It was really a quick remark, he was well aware that getting into a fight with EPA would not help and stated that they need to submit to a new test. So I don't agree with your theory. But I think there's a decent chance we might hear about any logs now.
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Tesla vehicles are known to have issues with "vampire drain", that is you think they are turned off and not using any power but they actually are. They try to maintain a connection to the cellular network so that the app can talk to the car, for example. The doors are also a common point of failure, often the sensors or the handles fail so it's possible that the car was broken from the factory.
In general the range estimate in Teslas is not very good because it's extremely basic. They picked an optimistic mi
Re: What is the difference (Score:1)
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He has the same condition as Trump. Hes so used to saying what he wants and getting away with it that he has lost the ability to think about the consequences of what he is going to say.
The difference being that more often than not Musk is right, while Trump is ... well when experts can't even figure out what half his tweets actually mean I think technically he's not wrong...?
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not much, which has to make you question what made the moron make such a public idiotic statement.
I didn't see any news reports about the 391 mile range. Now I'm seeing reports about Musk's reaction. So now I know that Tesla is this close >< to having a 400 mile range.
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Marketing. The first mass produced electric car with EPA 400 mile range will make some headlines and sell some vehicles I imagine.
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But it already has a range of over 400 metric miles!
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In reality, less than nothing, it is already old tech. Readily replaceable batteries is the new tech. Drop into a battery service station and in a couple of minutes have your flat batteries replaced with fully charged batteries and never concern yourself with old batteries again but definitely go to dealer service stations to avoid shit batteries, otherwise you will be buying your next set to swap.
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Readily available batteries? Service stations?
So you really think that car-manufacturers are going to standardize the battery-packs and miss on the opportunity for vendor lock-in?
Re: What is the difference (Score:2)
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Readily replaceable batteries is the new tech.
Swappable batteries are not a new idea.
They have been tried but it doesn't work because someone who just paid $30,000 for a brand new 400-mile battery isn't willing to exchange it for a crappy ten-year-old battery that has lost 30% of its capacity.
Swapping was developed furthest by Better Place [wikipedia.org], an Israeli company that went bankrupt in 2013.
With super-charging times down to about 20 minutes for 80% capacity, battery swapping is dead.
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I don't think its practical in the long run
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What you are saying is more in line with the new liquid battery tech.
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not only is battery swapping less than nothing, as it is already old tech, but Tesla offered it years ago.
The eventually dropped it due to underwhelming response.
Re:What is the difference (Score:4, Funny)
9 mile range
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"9"
Re: What is the difference (Score:2)
What's the range of the car when the batteries are a year it two old?
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Interesting. Basically that means quibbling over 9 miles to get the marketting win of a 400 mile range is actually bullshit. Nobody will practically ever experience that range.
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Re: What is the difference (Score:2)
Who knows. Tempest in a teapot? (Score:4, Interesting)
Setting aside the fact that judging by his Tweets, Elon's mental condition appears to be... frayed?
From a technical perspective, Tesla has been known to keep detailed logs of cars that they are interested in monitoring. If the door was open, I assume they have logs confirming it. Sure, it could be a bad sensor, but I doubt the EPA is going on much beyond the technician had a vague recollection that the door was closed. If you put a gun to my head, I'd sooner trust Tesla on this one, Elon's bizarre behavior notwithstanding.
Re: Who knows. Tempest in a teapot? (Score:3)
Absolutely. I trust a log made by a computer over a government agency that has reputation to lose.
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As opposed to a car company with no reputation left to lose?
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Yes, on this I would think Musk would be the one to be right.
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Yes, doomsayer, Elon's so impaired he might only be 267% the thinker you are... so glad he's the one in position to influence the outcome of humanity.
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I bet you left the keys in his brain overnight when that measurement was taken.
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Tesla is logging actions in all of their cars? And people don't think that's a massive invasion of privacy? Unless you are going to say it is opt-in AND the EPA opted-in during testing (which would seem odd); even having the ability is a huge invasion of privacy waiting to happen (because you have to just hope and trust that "opt-out" really is).
Also: if 391 miles is missing 2%, that would mean the real range is 399 miles; still not a 400 mile car (if 9 miles matter, so does 1).
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"You have no privacy. Get over it" - Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, cerca 1998
If you think you still have privacy 22 years later you're living in Fantasyland.
Re:Who knows. Tempest in a teapot? (Score:4, Interesting)
Setting aside the fact that judging by his Tweets, Elon's mental condition appears to be... frayed?
Has it ever been different?
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Setting aside the fact that judging by his Tweets, Elon's mental condition appears to be... frayed?
Hasn't it always?
from the log (Score:2)
12:52 drove 20 miles at average speed of 38.2 MPH.
2:15 attached to charger
2:47 fully charged
3:14 some lunatic through a steel ball at me and cracked my window!
3:14 opened my own door to try to escape
3:15 realized that I am stuck in this shell and subject to the whims of the soft pink things forever.
3:17 depressed
4:27 now clinically depressed
7:22 full psychotic break
7:23 hey, flying with the other butterflies is really cool!
Only a 2 percent loss, big deal. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Only a 2 percent loss, big deal. (Score:4, Insightful)
If he were the kind of guy that didn't care about something like this he wouldn't have made a 400 mile range EV because he'd have just said "Fuck it, good enough" some number of miles well before that point.
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It's not really a 400 mile EV anyway. I mean you could do 400 miles if you drive very carefully, but if you just jump on the highway and cruise at 70 you won't get anything like that. So it's an arbitrary number anyway.
It's also kinda pointless. If you actually could get 400 miles at 70 MPG average that would be 5.7 hours on the road. That's illegal for commercial drivers in Europe and you would do well to stop for a 30 minute charge every few hours anyway. The Model S isn't the most comfortable of cars eit
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you're in for living some place where -40 is a temperature . . . your car is the *least* of your problems . . . :)
hawk
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It's not really a 400 mile EV anyway.
Sure it is, just like my vehicle is rated to get 40 MPG by the EPA. Of course it's based on speeds that I don't drive, so I never realistically get fuel economy that good. I have no doubt that if I did limit myself to those constraints that I would get my advertised number. If the test conditions aren't realistic, that's the fault of the EPA and policy makers. All manufacturers are required to use them so though so there's no incentive for other ratings agencies to organize and use more reasonable measureme
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duh, vehicle logs (Score:2, Interesting)
We already know how these things turn out after past disputes over what actually occurred during other Tesla vehicle trials. Tesla vehicles log everything and transfer logs back to Tesla headquarters servers. Musk has the vehicle logs for the vehicle under test. If Musk says the keys were in the car and the door open overnight, then that's really what happened and the EPA is lying.
Here [theguardian.com] is Musk debunking lies which the New York Times printed when it reviewed a Model S.
Re:duh, vehicle logs (Score:4, Insightful)
Tesla is known to lie and use "logs" (which it never publishes) as fake evidence. They do that a lot when there is an accident involving autopilot, for example. When NHTSA looked at autopilot crashes Tesla made claims based on logs that they later found to be false, for example.
Journalists have been discovered lying too of course, my point here is that we can't trust either of them and should wait for the re-test. Tesla, like all manufacturers, were probably cheating anyway. Cherry picked car with manually tweaked tolerances, the most efficient tyres, maybe strip some stuff out of the vehicle to reduce weight etc.
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Tesla is known to lie and use "logs" (which it never publishes) as fake evidence.
Nope. Tesla hasn't lied about their logs. They may have omitted truths and logs may not show the full details, but their logs have always reflected the recorded reality of what happened when filed.
What the NHTSA has determined in some cases is that the logs had erroneous records due to recording in faith faulty sensors. But no lying of false reports. I mean if what you said were even remotely correct there would be several Tesla people in jail right now. Can you name them?
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If Tesla want to have any credibility they need to release the unedited logs.
Like for example they say the door was open. Well was it, or was the senor faulty, or are they just making it up? Cry wolf so many times and the burden of proof goes up.
Even then the logs need to be carefully interpreted. For example not detecting hands on the wheel doesn't mean hands are not on the wheel.
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Tesla is known to lie and use "logs" (which it never publishes) as fake evidence.
No, in fact, not at all.
1. The parent post provides zero evidence supporting its allegation that Tesla is known to lie about logs. Because it is allegedly "known to", one would expect at least a single link to someone anywhere on the internet claiming to know that. But there is no such link provided, and the reason for that is:
2. A Google search [google.com] shows absolutely no such allegations anywhere on the entire internet.. (Except perhaps the trivial self-referential one.)
3. If Tesla never publishes the logs, as
Metric system ... (Score:1)
Is asking for repeatability unreasonable? (Score:1)
The truth... (Score:2)
The truth will be in the middle. Maybe I'm too easy to believe that "nobody is lying", but when Elon says they left the keys in the car and the door open, I think the truth is that: The car's telemetry shows that it detected the keys near the car and the door open.
When EPA says they closed the door, I'd think that the driver doing the test probably THOUGHT they closed the door. Possibly the keys were close enough to be detected in-or-near the car.
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