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In A Recent EV Range Test For Accuracy While Telsa Tied For First In Overall Range It Came In 21st In Range Accuracy Which Is A Huge Problem If You Don’t Like Being Stuck

Out of 24 cars tested for range and accuracy Tesla came in 21st while Polestar Came in 1st and, ironically, both led the field with real world range.

Norwegian Car Magazine Motor and The Norwegian Automobile Federation (NAF) once again performed their massive EV range test, and Tesla came near the last in terms of range accuracy but tied for first in total real-world range.

Norway, which sells nine EVs for every ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) car, likely knows more about EVs than any other country, at least regarding how to make EVs work at the country scale. They have been doing an annual EV range test for the last 6 years, and this year's test was eye-opening.

Until recently, Tesla occupied the top spot, with a significant margin, over other electric vehicles and seemed unbeatable. However, over the last several years, companies ranging from Audi to Zeekr have made significant strides to advance their EV technology. Tesla seemed to be sitting still, rarely refreshing its offerings and making pretty massive mistakes, like the Cybertruck.

This is a winter test, and as most of us know, EVs tend to lose a lot of range in the winter. However, battery formulations and technology are improving, and with them, EV performance. 

Let's look at the results.

24 Cars And Tesla Sucked

Let's start with the Tesla, a refreshed Model-3, one of Tesla's newest cars. It had the longest claimed range, but in testing, it came in 21st, having lost just short of a 4th of its range. Even after losing that much, it still had more range than most other cars, with 330 miles, but the claimed range was 446 miles, which is a considerable drop. Only three cars were worse in terms of range drop, and they were the Peugeot E-5008, the Voyah Dream, and the Peugeot E-3008, which had a whopping 32% range drop down to 216 from an advertised 317 miles (typically 300 miles of range should be the accepted minimum for an EV). 

What I found fascinating is that the Polestar 3 winner also had a real-world range of 330 miles. Still, their advertised range was only 348, which means their range numbers, while identical to the Tesla's in the real world, would be far closer to what you'd expect in the summer. In fact, it is kind of interesting that the real-world range for the number one and 21 cars was the same and at least 20 miles greater than the next best cars, the Kia EV3 and Porsche Taycan, which both lost around 15% of their range in the winter. 

The problem is that the car's range is likely more closely related to what the screen shows as range, making these high variations potentially problematic, particularly if you are driving in areas with few high-speed chargers. 

WLTP vs. EPA

One interesting thing about the test is that the WLTP and EPA estimates are widely different. For instance, the WLTP range for the Polestar 3 is 279 miles, while the WLTP range is 350. This suggests that the EPA range estimates are far more conservative than the WLTP range estimates, and I’d rather have 60 more miles of range than 20 miles less than I expected. (Getting stuck with a dead EV is still a nightmare, as tow trucks with AC generators are the exception rather than the rule.) 

However, I prefer an accurate estimate rather than a widely wrong one in either direction. I expect we could test and require every car to publish its actual range and do so for each vehicle rather than every class; these ranges may vary from vehicle to vehicle, even along the same lines. In short, I want to know the range I will likely get, not a guess too high or too low.

Wrapping Up:

Range anxiety is a massive problem with EVs, but you don't solve this problem by overstating the likely range, as this leads to people getting stuck without power and no easy way to charge their ride. Norway takes EVs more seriously than any other country, mainly because it has embraced being green far more deeply than any other country.

Every country, including the US, should work to ensure that the range you get is almost identical to the range the car manufacturer advertised. Hopefully, we'll eventually get there. 

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst at Torque News who covers automotive technology and battery development. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on ForbesX, and LinkedIn.

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