Tesla has lowered the range figures for its entire range of cars. The e-car pioneer responded to new regulations from the US authorities for corresponding measurements following reports from the Reuters news agency, expert reports and customer complaints about optimistic range estimates. The changes resulted from a Reuters comparison of the current information on the US group’s website with earlier saved versions. There was initially no statement from Tesla.
The change raised the company’s share price from Elon Musk came under pressure on the New York Stock Exchange. On Tuesday evening, the electric car manufacturer’s shares fell by around 2.5 percent.
Some of the changes are comparatively small. For the Model X Plaid, the estimated range was reduced from 333 miles (almost 536 kilometers) to 326 miles. For the Model S Plaid, on the other hand, the value given by Tesla fell from 396 to 359 miles. Reuters could not determine whether every sub-variant of each model is affected by the changes.
Range after switching on
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s new regulations for 2024 require that the expected range of electric cars be specified according to their “default” mode, i.e. the setting that the vehicle adopts after it is switched on. If there is no such mode, an average must be formed between the best and worst case.
The EPA adopted the new regulations in 2022. The other electric car manufacturers are also affected. However, a Ford spokesman said the estimates for the US group’s electric models – including the F-150 Lightning pickup – had not been changed. Statements from GM and Hyundai were not initially available. The editor-in-chief of the trade magazine Edmunds, Alistair Weaver, viewed Tesla’s changes as an important step for car buyers. “All eight Tesla vehicles we tested did not meet the EPA estimates,” he said of the previous standard. The head of the analysis company Recurrent, Scott Case, agreed with him: Tesla’s estimates in the past were “30 percent or more more optimistic than the actual range of the vehicles.”
The range of an electric car is particularly important in the USA among the most important criteria for consumers, which vehicle they buy or whether they even buy an electric car. In the country with a good 27 times the area of the Federal Republic, the term “range anxiety” is used to describe the worry about whether you can make it to the next charging station.
Maintenance appointment prevention team
In the course of research in the summer, Reuters learned from insiders that Tesla deliberately showed drivers “rosy” forecasts for the distance for marketing reasons. In addition, a special “diversion team” was secretly formed in 2022 to prevent customers with range complaints from making a maintenance appointment. Tesla declined to comment on the Reuters report.
The author of one of the studies on the range of electric cars, industry veteran Gregory Pannone, emphasized at the time that he was not accusing Tesla of fraud. The company is simply the most “aggressive” in calculating the range according to current EPA regulations. Tesla also carries out additional range tests on all models.
In contrast, many other automakers, including Ford, Mercedes and Porsche, based on an EPA formula to calculate the potential range of its electric cars, according to data for 2023 models. This usually leads to more conservative estimates.