Leading electric car manufacturer Tesla programmed its dashboards to exaggerate how far the vehicles can drive on a single charge, and canceled service appointments for customers who noticed their cars’ range was shorter than expected, a report by Reuters found Thursday—the latest Tesla feature to face scrutiny.
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Tesla programmers rigged the cars’ range-estimating software to exaggerate how far they could go without running out of battery and then, when charge on the battery fell below 50%, readjust to a more realistic projection, one Tesla employee told Reuters—an idea that came directly from CEO Elon Musk himself.
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The range estimates that appear on the dashboard ignored external factors like weather—extreme hot or cold temperatures can dramatically impact how far electric cars travel—as well as hilly terrain, headwinds or running the air conditioning, Recurrent Auto CEO Scott Case told Reuters, citing data analyzed by his company.
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When customers noticed their range wasn’t matching the dashboard estimates and called the company to make service appointments, Tesla employees would follow directives to tell customers they’d performed “remote diagnostics” and cancel the appointment, the report said.
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The company reportedly went as far as to create an entire Las Vegas-based “diversion team” devoted to quieting customer complaints about the inaccurate range, a group that was told by managers it saved Tesla $1,000 for every appointment it cancelled.
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Tesla did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment.
www.forbes.com.au/news/innovation/tesla-exaggerated-its-cars-driving-range-report-says/
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