Since the first electric car silently rolled onto the street, ‘range anxiety’ has been a primary concern for customers – particularly in large countries like Australia.
Running out of fuel is not unique to electric vehicles, but vehicle owners are definitely more concerned about it happening to their ecars – either because ecars require special charging stations, it is difficult to recharge if the worst happens, or because we’ve been conditioned to panic about electronic devices via more than a decade of dead phone batteries…
Whatever the cause, ecar manufacturers have gone to great lengths to extend their advertised range through technical improvements to make their cars more appealing. Tesla, in particular, makes competitive claims about the performance statistics of its vehicles.
South Korea’s antitrust regulator – the Korea Fair Trade Commission – has announced that it will be fining Tesla $2.2 million (or 2.85 billion won) for failing to tell drivers about decreases in advertised range due to low temperatures after complaints were made.
The KFTC said that the company had exaggerated ‘driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to gasoline vehicles as well as the performance of its Superchargers’ on its website.
According to the KFTC, the range of a Tesla vehicle in cold weather could be 50.5 per cent of the stated figure.
Tesla has since added a note on its website reading: ‘Performance and mileage may vary by model. The displayed driveable distance may vary depending on external factors such as speed, weather conditions, and road conditions.’
Range anxiety is not an issue confined to Tesla.
GetJerry said that, ‘Road test drivers report that the average shortfall on reported EV range is about 20 per cent.’ This is a sizeable difference likely to annoy customers paying top dollar.
‘For example, according to Forbes, a MINI electric range was off by 32 per cent while the Jaguar I-Pace only had a 1.5 per cent discrepancy. The real fallout, however, happens when road test drivers estimate highway cruise range. At steady high-speed cruising speeds, Forbes reported that the average reported range shortfall jumps to 37 per cent.’
This is a separate problem from the drop in range due to natural battery decline which amounts to roughly 20 per cent for most vehicles inside warranty periods, severely impacting the resale value of ecars.
But don’t worry, pushing ecars has become a concerted hobby in a world obsessed with all things lithium. As such, there is plenty of advice and hundreds of inches of articles to calm those riddled with range anxiety.
Mind you, that has probably came as cold comfort to those UK ecar owners who spent over three hours waiting in queues over the Christmas period. The seemingly endless rail strikes forced excess traffic onto UK raods, crippling existing ecar infrastructure.
Ecars take a while to recharge, even with superchargers, meaning that any additional pressure on the system quickly amounts to angry lines of motorists watching in frustration as their fossil fuel cousins zoom through service stations toward their holiday destinations.
One Tesla owner told the Daily Mail: ‘New Tesla owner and I’m super disappointed with the charging lark. Nobody told me that a winter charge would barely achieve half the performance.’ Another complained about the cost, ‘Tesla are charging too much to use their chargers. Finding podpoint at 40p avg best value for money.’
This is not a Tesla problem – it only feels that way because Tesla has been one of the most successful ecar manufacturers, taking up a sizeable chunk of the UK’s 420,000 ecars. They are stuck bearing the brunt of the teething problems in the public eye.
Whether those problems are temporary or fatal, we do not know.
