Tesla accused of overstating vehicle range for over 10 years as it quashed mounting complaints and service requests about disappointing performance

Tesla appears to have big plans ahead, with the launch of the Cybertruck electric pickup truck but a few short months out, and plans for the affordable Model 2 seemingly well under way. Amid all of Tesla's expansion plans, though, a report has surfaced on Reuters that claims Tesla has been knowingly fudging the numbers on its in-vehicle range estimates for around a decade.

The inside source behind the report alleges that Tesla's range estimation algorithm would display unrealistically-high range figures when the battery was above 50%, and that it supposedly returned more accurate data when the charge level was below the halfway mark.

Tesla also supposedly set up a team called the Diversion Team to tackle customer complaints about disappointing range or range that didn't live up to the estimate provided on the dash. Purportedly, this team would perform remote diagnostics on vehicles that came in with complaints about range and subsequently close service requests pertaining to range estimation issues.

It's likely that these vehicles genuinely did not need repair, but this procedure and the lack of accurate reporting likely caused significant frustration for customers who felt their vehicles weren't living up to expectations. Some Tesla owners on social media sites even report disabling the range estimation feature entirely, due to its inaccuracy, and recommend others do the same.

Real-world highway range tests, like those performed by InsideEVs reveal that Tesla's vehicles often underperform their EPA range ratings by around 8-12%, although other tests show different results, and the Reuters report is about what the in-car systems display, rather than EPA figures.

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