MAYBE A MODEL T WOULD BE BETTER:  There are growing doubts about electric cars.  Will the mainstream press take notice?  From Issues and Insights: 

Three California residents last week filed a lawsuit against Tesla for what they claim is false advertising over the car’s range. But why stop at Tesla? And why just sue over false claims about range when every other claim about EVs is also a lie?

The lawsuit comes in the wake of a Reuters report contending that Tesla had been goosing the range displayed on its dashboard and created a “diversion team” to deal with all the customer complaints about faulty batteries.

The filing claims that “had Tesla honestly advertised its electric vehicle ranges, consumers either would not have purchased Tesla model vehicles, or else would have paid substantially less for them.”

But this isn’t new news. There have been several reports over the years about the wildly inflated EV range claims.

A little over a year ago, Forbes published an article detailing how the advertised range of EVs was often way off.

“I’ve been road testing electric cars regularly for more than two years now, and not once has a battery-only vehicle met the claimed capacity for its battery,” wrote senior contributor Neil Winton. “The average shortfall is close to 20%.”

Tesla actually did better in his tests than some of the other EVs.

A report from Car & Driver last August found that only three cars it tested did better than the official EPA range estimate. Tesla’s Model S is supposed to go 348 miles on a charge but only made it 280 miles. Ford’s electric F-150 came up 70 miles short of its reported 300-mile range.

SAE International studied the performance of 21 EV models this year and found that, on average, the cars’ range was inflated by 12.5%. “Most (EVs) tested to date fall short of both their electric consumption and range label values,” the report finds. EVs, it turns out, do worse on long-distance trips than urban short hauls because constant braking helps recharge their batteries.

The real-world range of EVs is even worse than these studies show because, unlike with gas-powered cars, weather can dramatically reduce an EV’s range.

Consumer Reports tested how well EVs performed in different weather conditions and “found that cold weather saps about 25% of range when cruising at 70 mph compared with the same conditions in mild weather. In the past, we found that short trips in the cold with frequent stops and the need to reheat the cabin saps 50% of the range.”

COMMENT:  Please read the rest.  Obviously it is an advocacy piece, but the source is solid and the arguments compelling.  We are seeing a scam before our eyes.  Will someone in the mainstream press please use the word.

August 10, 2023