Slightly more nuanced: the "range"/battery level listed constantly is always bunk. When I enter a destination the final battery level is very accurate. This counts in cold weather or hot, with terrain effects or not. Sometimes even weather. It's quite good and I imagine there's some data driven process from past performance of the vehicle.
So, if you plan to test drive a Tesla, evaluate its range this way. If you're curious for me the listed range is often around 300, and the effective drive range tends to be around 250 200, seldom less except in cold weather.
Our BMW i3 gets EPA range on my round trip commute in the summer. It starts at the top of a mountain with a “100%” (actually 90% according to reverse engineering) battery (a tesla couldn’t regen in that situation, the bmw can).
It can be as low as 80% of EPA range with the heat pump cranked up in low 30F’s weather.
I’ve carefully measured two other EVs (not Tesla) on that route. One gets 110% of EPA, but can’t regen at 100% (so, it is similar to the BMW model without the hard 90% charge cap). The other gets EPA in the winter and does not have a heat pump.
FWIW, Tesla drivers that live up here complain about bogus range estimates.
I agree with the “type in destination and let the computer estimate” approach. That works well on all three cars, despite the mountains.
> It starts at the top of a mountain with a “100%” (actually 90% according to reverse engineering) battery (a tesla couldn’t regen in that situation, the bmw can).
Ah so BMW advertises (and charges to I assume?) 10% less capacity than actual, which both reduces wear and allows regen even on full battery?
That's actually pretty cool. They're effectively sacrificing marketing for user experience.
My "compliance car" cheapo Ford Focus EV had about 5% over-provisioning. It realistically got its range estimate for the past 7 years except in winter which reduced the range about 20%. It's starting to lose range now on year 8.
Many non-Teslas are also over-provisioned (my 2nd EV is as well based on YT testing videos).
It's not that great for a solution. You can set the 90% in other cars too. With the extra benefit of being able to use 100% when you occasionally want to.
That has to be an option, which you need to know exists, and actively use.
Hell, bmw could expose that exact same setting the other way around, and maybe they do. But defaults are important, and from a UX perspective I think they have the better one.
So, if you plan to test drive a Tesla, evaluate its range this way. If you're curious for me the listed range is often around 300, and the effective drive range tends to be around 250 200, seldom less except in cold weather.