Reuters, citing anonymous sources and independent research, claims that Tesla has been deliberately falsifying the range indicators of its electric cars, and dissatisfied customers are “processed” by a special “sabotage group” to prevent their cars from being taken to service centers.
Last spring, we talked about an investigation by the German newspaper Handelsblatt, which showed the real and rather deplorable state of affairs around the development of the Tesla autopilot. The same investigation also reveals that the leading American electric car manufacturer is very reluctant to properly respond to customer complaints and prefers to ignore problems rather than solve them. Meanwhile, Tesla has more and more customers every year, and there are also more dissatisfied among them – the company is literally inundated with complaints on a variety of occasions.
A recent Reuters publication is devoted to such a sensitive topic for electric vehicles as the range on a single charge. The agency claims that about a decade ago, Elon Musk gave the go-ahead to “flexible” range display in Tesla electric vehicles to make it seem to customers that they could go very far with a fully charged battery. As soon as the battery charge drops to 50%, an adjustment takes place and the forecast of the remaining mileage becomes very pessimistic, more precisely, it becomes closer to reality, but in some cases it begins to melt right before our eyes, especially if it is cold outside.
Tesla drivers, seeing how the forecast of the remaining mileage on their cars “walks”, think that this is due to some kind of malfunction and load the Tesla service department with calls and complaints (recall that Tesla sells its cars directly, without dealers, and services them herself too). Last summer, Tesla created an entire “sabotage group” in Las Vegas to handle complaints about the power reserve: specially trained employees performed remote diagnostics, and then informed customers that everything was in order with the car and there was no need to visit the service. It is curious that if any real malfunctions were found during the diagnostics, then the client was not informed about them, but simply “closed the case”. These “specialists” explained the discrepancy between the declared and real power reserve indicators by the natural degradation of the battery and the predictive nature of the EPA certified power reserve – they say that in reality everything is not so, and there is no need to demand the impossible from the company, just continue to drive your electric car, performing simple battery saving tips.
EPA is the US Environmental Protection Agency, it is it that determines the passport economy of cars for the US market. EPA's range estimation methodology is one of the best, if not the best, out there, but it is clear that in reality there will still be deviations from the range figure shown during certification. Reuters is also honest about this, but citing several independent studies, including from the SAE (American Association of Automotive Engineers), claims that Tesla electric vehicles do not live up to the declared range figures much more than competitors' electric vehicles, which is another evidence of unscrupulous manipulation of the residual mileage forecast, which the consumer is guided by during operation.
At the moment, according to an anonymous source of Reuters, the Tesla “sabotage group” has already been disbanded. Perhaps this was done after the spring disclosures of Handelsblatt, when the prospect of litigation loomed in front of Tesla. Now the Tesla management, led by the great and mighty Elon Musk, has even more reasons to worry. The price of Tesla shares after the publication of Reuters predictably went down.
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