Under the new U.S. government car-testing requirement, Tesla has reduced the estimated driving range throughout its electric vehicle portfolio.
Tesla has a history of overstating its vehicles’ range, which has led to several consumer complaints. In 2022, the carmaker formed a covert squad to ignore hundreds of complaints about the vehicle’s range and to cancel service appointments for owners who had scheduled appointments relating to the issue. Federal authorities had subpoenaed Tesla for information on the driving range of its cars, which the firm eventually revealed in a regulatory filing in October.
The limited availability of public charging stations is one of the main reasons American customers hesitate to purchase electric vehicles, even Teslas and other models with long driving ranges. According to a Reuters analysis of marketing materials found on Tesla’s website compared to archived copies of the same materials and range estimates for 2023 models on a US government site, the company has lately reduced the estimated driving range for variations of its Model X, S, Y, and three cars.
Under the new regulations, manufacturers of electric cars (EVs) must evaluate their drivability and fuel economy in what is known as the “default” driving mode, which is the first setting used by the vehicle when the driver starts it up. The Environmental Protection Agency mandates that automobile manufacturers test their cars in both their best and worst-case scenarios to determine their fuel economy and then take an average of the findings. On the marketing parts of its website that provide the expected ranges for its vehicles, Tesla doesn’t include a model year.
No one from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was available to comment when Reuters asked them about the reasoning for their testing requirement, the impact on Tesla and other manufacturers, and whether or not the EPA had approved Tesla’s updated range estimates.
