I thought the range was rated by a 3rd party (EPA in the US), is that not the case? They say EPA est. on the website at least but not sure exactly what that means.

It is, but there’s a big “but” with that. When the range is determined by agencies like the EPA, the car is allowed to run in the most optimal configuration, meaning:

• No heating
• No AC
• No radio or other stuff running
• No autopilot/self driving, which consumes a significant amount of power
• They even put tape over the gaps in the body (e.g. around the doors) to lower air resistance
• Minimal weight in the car. Only one person, no luggage, no extras that would add weight
• Optimal weather (not too hot, not too cold)

This way they get an artificially inflated official range. Now when a customer buys the car, loads in all their stuff and people and actually uses heating/AC/onboard entertainment/autopilot/… and drives in suboptimal weather their range would instantly show as much less than the official rating. And this is where they were cheating, and would show a range number that was closer to the artificially inflated official one.

To be fair, though, when determining “official” fuel consumption for fuel burning cars, they do the same tricks as above. But they probably won’t cheat on the range display, since range is much less of a relevant value for fuel burning cars. Also, everyone expects fuel burning cars to burn much more fuel than it says in the ads.

(That said, when I got my new car, a Dacia Jogger, I was really surprised that the actual fuel consumption is actually lower than the official one.)

EPA tests all cars stationary on a dynamometer through different cycles. Influence of air drag, air condition, cold temperatures etc. are then added through a factor that is typically 0.7 according to EPA‘s official information at epa.gov/…/testing-national-vehicle-and-fuel-emiss…

I agree part of the EPA range is calculated but I think it’s wrong to claim that a/c and other factors aren’t taken into account.

I’ve driven my EV better than EPA range at times and that included using A/C and having more than one person in the car. I’m not saying that driving it that way is a ton of fun and I’m not saying that I can do that in the midst of winter. But it’s definitely possible.

I just get a 502 error on that link…

Sorry, I have to admit, I didn’t look exactly into what the EPA does, but I have some experience regarding NEFZ, NDEC and WLTP, all of which don’t care about stuff like heating or AC.

But EPA has it’s own bag of flaws. For starters, these tests aren’t done by an independent agency or something, they are done by the manufacturers. They also don’t test the real road vehicles, but usually just pre-production prototypes.

And to factor in all of:

• Air resistance
• Heating
• Cooling
• Onboard entertainment
• Weight increase due to passengers and luggage
• Hot/cold weather impacting usable battery capacity

they just multiply the lab test result by 0.7. Compared with the test results from ADAC, that’s a correct adjustment would be 0.6, which is a pretty massive difference. For e.g. the Tesla 3, that’s a difference from 415km -> 355km.

What’s also not part of either of these calculations is what percentage of the time these cars will have to be heated/cooled. There aren’t too many countries where the weather is 15-25°C for the majority of the year, yet still the EPA calculates that heating and cooling will only be used infrequently.