Home » Tesla Reportedly Created A Whole New Department To Quash Range Complaints

Tesla Reportedly Created A Whole New Department To Quash Range Complaints

Morning Dump Tesla Screen Recall2
ADVERTISEMENT

Range anxiety is a funny thing. You’d think that with today’s long-range EVs and the reliability of, say, Tesla’s Supercharger DC fast charging network, it would largely be a thing of the past, but it isn’t. In the case of Tesla, that’s partly because real-world driving often doesn’t measure up to the official range claims. So, how do you address something like this? By adjusting range ratings downward to better reflect reality and apologizing to owners? I mean, I would, but not everyone would do the same.

Welcome back to The Morning Dump, where we digest the news that’s often a bit short for standalone pieces but still too important to miss. Today, a report claims that Tesla’s been playing range games with customers, chrome plating might be getting banned in Europe, and a ship carrying cars catches fire with a possible electric cause.

Vidframe Min Top
Vidframe Min Bottom

Tesla Reportedly Manipulated Range, Hushed Customer Complaints

Model 3 Range Hero Desktop Lhd

How far would you go to sweep complaints under the rug? Probably not as far as Tesla’s alleged to have. A Reuters investigative report claims that Tesla manipulated range readings and created a secret team to quash range complaints.

About a decade ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” projections of how far owners can drive before needing to recharge, a source told Reuters. The automaker last year became so inundated with driving-range complaints that it created a special team to cancel owners’ service appointments.

First, let’s unpack those optimistic range estimates. According to the report, these were initially programmed into Model S and Roadster vehicles. Once the charge dropped below 50 percent, realistic range estimates were displayed on the onboard trip computer. Above that threshold? Figures were allegedly inflated. As for who commanded this directive, guess what a Reuters source said?

ADVERTISEMENT

“Elon wanted to show good range numbers when fully charged,” the person said, adding: “When you buy a car off the lot seeing 350-mile, 400-mile range, it makes you feel good.”

You’d likely expect this approach to not go well, and guess what? It didn’t. As sales figures skyrocketed, so did the number of drivers who reported less driving range than Tesla claimed. Clearly, a solution was needed, but it was allegedly much different from the public apology and software fix you’d expect.

Advisers would normally run remote diagnostics on customers’ cars and try to call them, the people said. They were trained to tell customers that the EPA-approved range estimates were just a prediction, not an actual measurement, and that batteries degrade over time, which can reduce range. Advisors would offer tips on extending range by changing driving habits.

If the remote diagnostics found anything else wrong with the vehicle that was not related to driving range, advisors were instructed not to tell the customer, one of the sources said. Managers told them to close the cases.

Ah, so just sweep things under the rug, pull the old “your mileage may vary,” and keep an eye out for any actual range-related issues. Gotcha. However, Reuters reports that the last bit of that process didn’t last long.

In late 2022, managers aiming to quickly close cases told advisors to stop running remote diagnostic tests on the vehicles of owners who had reported range problems, according to one of the people familiar with the diversion team’s operations.

“Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” by advisors who had never run diagnostics, the person said.

Well, that’s one way to speed through concerns, but it’s not especially, um, good. Without diagnostics, it would be possible for a small number of people who actually needed battery replacement due to degradation to fall through the cracks.

The allegations contained within this report are serious, and perhaps the most damning is that Tesla apparently has a new Utah-based team to deal with customer range complaints. Although some deviation from official range estimates is to be expected, it’s usually standard corporate protocol that if issues pile up, it’s time to admit something’s wrong. Hubris typically doesn’t save face.

The Death Of Chrome Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

I7 2

ADVERTISEMENT

If you like your trim pieces particularly shiny, I may have bad news for you. British magazine Autocar reports that Europe is proposing a ban on hexavalent chrome from 2024. Wait, that’s next year! However, the ban isn’t without good reason, as hexavalent chrome used in automotive plating is particularly nasty stuff.

The ban has been proposed as a result of health issues associated with the creation of hexavalent chromium, which is a known carcinogen. In particular, it is a source of chronic lung cancer, with the airborne emissions given off during the plating process said to be 500 times more toxic than diesel.

However, plating with hexavalent chromium isn’t the only way to make car parts shiny. Physical vapor deposition, or PVD, allows part markers to avoid the use of hexavalent chromium and still get comparable shine and hardness. So, how does PVD work? There are a variety of methods that can be used, but it all boils down to one of two processes, the most popular of which is evaporation — a solid (trivalent chrome, in this case) is evaporated into gas while under vacuum, deposited on a surface, and then re-solidifies. Of course, you get some overspray with this method so it isn’t perfect, but it’s far more environmentally sensible than plating, provided the right equipment is used.

The bottom line? Even if this proposal gets through, expect chrome to stick around in some form for quite a while. Although it won’t be quite the same as plating, most people won’t be able to tell the difference, and once UV-coated, PVD chrome plastic pieces shouldn’t have major durability concerns.

Another Ship Full Of Cars Has Caught Fire

The New Amg Eqs From Mercedes Eq: Press Test Drive, California 2021 The New Amg Eqs From Mercedes Eq: Press Test Drive, California 2021

With so many cars being transported across the world’s oceans every single day, it shouldn’t be horribly surprising that incidents can happen. Reuters reports that one person has died after a cargo ship transporting 2,857 vehicles including 300 Mercedes-Benzes burst into flames off the Dutch coast on Wednesday, and it may have started around an electric vehicle.

ADVERTISEMENT

The fire might last for several days, Dutch news agency ANP reported, citing the coastguard. Smoke continued to billow from the vessel near the northern Dutch island of Ameland.

“The fire is most definitely still not controlled. It’s a very hard fire to extinguish, possibly because of the cargo the ship was transporting,” said Edwin Versteeg, a spokesperson for the Dutch Department of Waterways and Public Works.

As for the cause of the fire, it hasn’t been firmly established yet, but reports suggest that it could have something to do with thermal runaway.

The coastguard said on its website the cause of the fire was unknown, but a coastguard spokesperson had earlier told Reuters it began near an electric car. Roughly 25 out of 2,857 vehicles on the ship were electric.

This isn’t the first time that a ship containing electric vehicles has gone up in smoke. Back in early 2022, a ship carrying various cars including EVs caught fire and sank. As NPR reports, the Felicity Ace was carrying 4,000 vehicles, among which included Porsches, Bentleys, and Lamborghinis. While something as simple as flammable material in a heating vent could cause a ship fire, electric vehicles onboard complicate extinguishment as thermal runaway can lead to lithium-ion cells self-igniting days, sometimes weeks, after the initial fire. According to established procedures, electric vehicle fires require huge quantities of water to put out, which may risk destabilizing ships. As it stands, there are no easy answers for dealing with electric vehicle fires on ships.

Your Turn

With all the hubbub about a potential chrome ban, I’d like to do an informal poll: Do you like chrome on cars? Obviously, chrome trim doesn’t work on many cars, but an excess of black trim can simply feel boring. What are your limits when it comes to chrome.

Badges? Trim? Wheels? I’d love to know.

(Photo credits: Tesla, BMW, Mercedes-Benz)

ADVERTISEMENT

Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.

Relatedbar

Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.

Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on whatsapp
WhatsApp
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
LinkedIn
Share on reddit
Reddit
Subscribe
Notify of
99 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Myk El
Myk El
1 year ago

My love of chrome depends entirely on context. Looks good on so many classics, but forced on a lot of cars, and not just modern. There were some gaudy in the worst ways Imperial trim Chryslers…

Freelivin2713
Freelivin2713
1 year ago

I love chrome!

Ron888
Ron888
1 year ago

Chrome? The way modern cars use -almost exclusively on plastic- it looks terrible to me.
I honestly don’t know why people accept it

Mike TowpathTraveler
Mike TowpathTraveler
1 year ago

The “Electric Version” of the VW DieselGate Scandal……

Brynjaminjones
Brynjaminjones
1 year ago

I’d say it’s a little different.

VW (and the other companies doing the same) were actively hiding the fact that their cars were ruining the environment that we live in and the air we breathe.

Teslas are not achieving quite the range they were advertised to get.
That’s not great, but it’s hardly comparable.

Rollin Hand
Rollin Hand
1 year ago

The death of chrome has been greatly exaggerated? Not as greatly as the BMW’s grille.

MrLM002
MrLM002
1 year ago

I’ve never liked chrome, I prefer it to blued steel but stainless is much better than chromed metal.

What I really hate though is the fake chrome that gets all wrinkly after a few years. I’ve dubbed it “Scrotal Chrome”

Last edited 1 year ago by MrLM002
Drive By Commenter
Drive By Commenter
1 year ago

Polished aluminum is shiny like chrome. More renewable electricity powered aluminum! There’s a reason aluminum smelters and their arc furnaces are often located nearby hydroelectric dams or by power plants.

Cerberus
Cerberus
1 year ago

Chrome is even more outdated than wood dashboards. Fine for an era that’s long past. If I had to pick a reflective metal finish, it’s either low maintenance, less nasty stainless or classier nickel (though chrome is harder, which is why it replaced it). I hope vapor deposition encourages more creative finishes. Maybe titanium could be a thing, for example.

Holly Birge
Holly Birge
1 year ago

I miss chrome bumpers.

Cheap Bastard
Cheap Bastard
1 year ago

“And guess what kiddos? The firefighters are not idiots like these yellow ‘journalists’ keep saying. Firefighters are not incompetent. They are not untrained. They do not require the manufacturer tell them how to do their job. They’ve been putting out far worse fires for many decades.
Except those worse fires? They occur in large factories, which have on-site equipment specifically to fight those fires, because you can’t load 50 tons of sand onto a fire truck. And just like you see in ICE fires, putting water onto magnesium? Not a good time. (See also: catalytic converter explosions during extinguishing efforts. That’s why they stay well back. Water is not magic and there are many compounds that react explosively to it when fire is also involved.)”

I used to work at an IBM facility that manufactured hard drives. One of my co-workers had a great picture of a large mushroom cloud rising over the facility. The story was a dumpster full of HD metal shavings had caught fire and the IBM fire crew had just hit it with a hose.

BOOM!

As you say hitting a pile of burning magnesium and aluminum alloy isn’t good.

Andy Individual
Andy Individual
1 year ago

Elon should chrome plate all of the supercharges in Europe just to stick it to them.

Hoonicus
Hoonicus
1 year ago

Could the manufacturers have an easily accessible port to the cooling loop ?

Hoonicus
Hoonicus
1 year ago
Reply to  Hoonicus

Thanks for the reply.

Hoonicus
Hoonicus
1 year ago
Reply to  Hoonicus

Will solid state batteries solve this ?

Wuffles Cookie
Wuffles Cookie
1 year ago
Reply to  Hoonicus

Probably, just like every other battery related complaint they are supposed to solve.

But I had a professor who worked on commercial adaptation of reliable solid state cells for their PhD, and that was like 35 years ago. Currently, solid state batteries are expensive and do not scale well, and there is not a whole lot of real world testing to verify their allegedly greater performance or resilience.

Just remember, we’ve been promised batteries “better than Li-ion” for something like a quarter century now, and yet we still use Li-ion cells for basically all heavy-duty applications.

Thomas Metcalf
Thomas Metcalf
1 year ago

 500 times more toxic than diesel.

Interesting unit of measure. Something like an LD50 might be better.

Andy Individual
Andy Individual
1 year ago
Reply to  Thomas Metcalf

I wanna know how many packs of cigarettes that is, or bags of Cheetos.

Pupmeow
Pupmeow
1 year ago

Let’s all take a big breath together. In. And let it out with a sigh.

******************** ahhhhhh ******************

Okay, now that we are all feeling a little calmer, let’s discuss battery fires. Battery thermal events are scary. Extinguishment methods are more cumbersome. However, you are taking really far here. Your statement that “[i]t is extremely not hard to cause a fire in a battery pack” is true, but so is the statement that “it is extremely not hard to light gasoline on fire.”

LuzifersLicht
LuzifersLicht
1 year ago
Reply to  Pupmeow

It’s a lot easier to ship a car with an empty tank than a battery without lithium though.

Andy Individual
Andy Individual
1 year ago
Reply to  LuzifersLicht

A lot of electronics that have large batteries need to send the batteries in seperate shipments and there is a limit to how many batteries packed together in a shipment. This mostly applies to air cargo, but it might point in the direction that will need to be taken.

Perhaps the manufacturers will have to ship the skateboards on one boat and the bodies on another? Assemble them in market. At least there will be less extra combustible material around the batteries.

LuzifersLicht
LuzifersLicht
1 year ago

Not sure what that will do to battery prices though. Imagine other companies insisting their stuff not be shipped on the same ship as car batteries because they’re fed up with having to write off shipments due to container ships sinking because of battery fires. Imagine countries implementing laws for safely shipping large amounts of lithium batteries. Imagine shipping companies realizing they can now charge a premium. Imagine their insurance realizing THEY can now charge a premium. Suddenly shipping batteries is going to be damn expensive and guess who’s going to be paying for that?

OFFLINE
OFFLINE
1 year ago
Reply to  LuzifersLicht

Except… well. Reactive chemistry appear to have the greatest energy storage per kg or ltr. You can try to bind it up into a solid (which might be viable, but what’s being mass produced and what are the densities?) or you can use solvents, but things that give us lots of energy go bang. You rightly point out that we need better process for dealing with Li fires and I agree. If you ship this stuff, the extinguishing system needs to be tailored and ready.

LuzifersLicht
LuzifersLicht
1 year ago
Reply to  OFFLINE

honestly, maybe just store the lithium batteries in a location where they can easily be dumped if they start burning. How hard can it be to build a ship where a handful of containers gets a special little pedestal on a trapdoor or a tilting ramp or something? Doesn’t work in a harbour but in the middle of the Pacific? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nlpnt
Nlpnt
1 year ago

It sounds like the “chrome ban” is simply on one specific plating technology. Not only is there another one described but there’s also stainless steel, polished aluminum and vacuum-“plated” plastichrome.

OFFLINE
OFFLINE
1 year ago

Sure. Tesla won’t ever get decertified for any of this, and the other automakers will lead the charge to defend them. Linear fuel indicators? Since when are *any* of them linear? Safety? Try taking any other brand off of a cliff. Sniping customers who complain isn’t okay either, but deceritfy? Dude, you really need to relax and turn off the ‘net for a while.

Thevenin
Thevenin
1 year ago

I think RootWyrm might be the angriest man on the internet. My dude won’t be dying in any magnesium fires, but his blood pressure must be higher than his turbo boost. This is the price he pays to bring us hot takes this spicy every day.

Take it easy big guy, the sun’s getting real low.

Mrbrown89
Mrbrown89
1 year ago

Chrome looks decent on classic cars. What they need to stop using is black piano trims, looks awful after a few months.

Chronometric
Chronometric
1 year ago
Reply to  Mrbrown89

But CSIs love it.

Andy Individual
Andy Individual
1 year ago
Reply to  Chronometric

COTD

Andy Individual
Andy Individual
1 year ago
Reply to  Mrbrown89

I agree, but to be fair, with so many overstyled futzy interiors these days, many of them look pretty bad after a few months of accumulating dust and normal use grime anyway. The problem is they are all crevices that are a pain to clean and keep clean. I’d hate to see what’s lurking behind all those ‘floating’ tablets. Probably some sort of ass crack stuff…

Ranwhenparked
Ranwhenparked
1 year ago
Reply to  Mrbrown89

Seriously, piano black is just shiny plastic, one of the cheapest, crappiest materials available. If it was actual black laquerwork or ebony, sure, fine, but it’s really cheap plastic that scratches if you glance at it

TheHairyNug
TheHairyNug
1 year ago

I’m not saying that what Tesla did is OK, but the article is kind of written to allow a reader to conclude that this is still a thing. They did it a decade ago on Model S and Roadsters. If they’re still rigging range values, this piece of journalism didn’t exactly help clarify the situation

Last edited 1 year ago by TheHairyNug
3laine
3laine
1 year ago
Reply to  TheHairyNug

They’re not actually “rigging” anything. They’re reporting approximately the official EPA rated range on the main screen.

If you plug something into the nav or go to the energy screen, it will estimate based on current conditions/speed/etc.

It’s not a secret, or new information that this is how Teslas work.

Should they TRY to better estimate the range on the main screen rather than use EPA numbers? Probably, but the claim that this is all new reporting is silly when Tesla owners and anyone even remotely knowledgeable about Tesla has known this for years.

TheHairyNug
TheHairyNug
1 year ago
Reply to  3laine

thank you for satisfying my schadenfreude quota for the day

Bork Bork
Bork Bork
1 year ago
Reply to  TheHairyNug

Edmunds has continued to test electric vehicles, using its own standard method, to see if they meet their advertised range estimates. As of July, no Tesla vehicle had, Elfalan said.

This is July. right?

Fleshharrower
Fleshharrower
1 year ago
Reply to  Bork Bork

No, This is Sparta!

Oafer Foxache
Oafer Foxache
1 year ago
Reply to  Fleshharrower

No, this is Patrick!

(sorry… couldn’t resist it!)

TheHairyNug
TheHairyNug
1 year ago
Reply to  Bork Bork
  1. I was specifically calling out this article for not explicitly mentioning whether or not this behavior is suspected of being currently implemented
  2. Not meeting EPA estimates is NOT the same as lying about range for the first half of a “tank” and then switching to a more accurate model afterwards
Amberturnsignalsarebetter
Amberturnsignalsarebetter
1 year ago
Reply to  TheHairyNug

Just curious, but how would we know whether the range-fudging stopped? If there are allegations that this is something that Tesla did in the past, it would be naïve to assume that they have stopped doing it.

I see some parallels to the dieselgate scandal in this kind of allegation (assuming there’s some truth to it); regardless of how damaging the actual behavior is, the bigger issue is the discovery of a deliberate effort on the part of the manufacturer to mislead customers and/or regulators.

Every company probably cheats to some extent, but the only deterrent to this kind of deception is to make sure that if they get caught they should expect to pay a hefty price.

Boulevard_Yachtsman
Boulevard_Yachtsman
1 year ago

Shiny and Chrome! My favorite of the automotive trim options. Sometimes its use may be questionable such as some of the cars of the late 50’s which had lots of interior pieces chromed. For example, the first time I drove a ’59 Cadillac at night, I thought I was getting pulled over out on the interstate as there was so much light bouncing around the inside of that car due to headlight reflections when other cars would go by in the passing lane.

And yesterday, with a heat index of a 105, I discovered chrome may have not been the best way to accent the door handles of my XK8 considering it felt like I burnt my finger-prints clean off trying to get in the car.

So, it may not be the best accent material for all occasions, but I don’t care – as a slave to certain ascetics, I will happily put up with a remarkable amount of inconvenience if something makes me smile when I look at it. And chrome pretty-much always has that effect.

Freelivin2713
Freelivin2713
1 year ago

Agreed!

Chronometric
Chronometric
1 year ago

Ditch the chrome. Let’s go back to Nickel and Brass!

Last edited 1 year ago by Chronometric
Andy Individual
Andy Individual
1 year ago
Reply to  Chronometric

And ivory!

Ranwhenparked
Ranwhenparked
1 year ago
Reply to  Chronometric

Polished nickel does tend to look a bit richer than chrome

EVDesigner
EVDesigner
1 year ago

Take a chill pill dude. Your comment is as long as the article itself.

Professor Chorls
Professor Chorls
1 year ago
Reply to  EVDesigner

Dude it’s like getting a free article IN YOUR ARTICLE!

Freelivin2713
Freelivin2713
1 year ago

Yeah, it was informative & a big reason (out of many) not to get a damn EV

Stacks
Stacks
1 year ago

I fuckin love it. No such thing as too much. I will ride eternal, shiny and chrome!

Ben
Ben
1 year ago

That Mercedes is making me squirm. I think it’s the combination of the wheels and face that give me a “centipede about to eat your favorite organs” vibe. I’m okay if every single one of those in existence spontaneously combusts.

Andy Individual
Andy Individual
1 year ago
Reply to  Ben

It was a soft poop day at the extraction end of the factory.

99
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x