Recently, South Korea's antitrust regulator fined Tesla 2.85 billion won (approximately US$2.23 million) for "false advertising" of the cruising range of its products.
According to the Korea Fair Trade Commission, since August, Tesla has exaggerated "the driving range of its cars on a single charge, the fuel cost-effectiveness compared with gasoline vehicles, and the performance of supercharger " on its official website. In addition, the cruising range of Tesla electric vehicles in cold weather has dropped by up to 50.5% compared to what was advertised. Tesla has not yet provided an explanation for this.
Seeing this, I believe domestic netizens will not be very surprised, because the "virtual label" of electric vehicles is indeed not surprising in China. Whether it is a domestic brand or a foreign brand, the cruising range of electric vehicles is generally relatively weak.
If you are in cold areas such as the north, the battery life is basically "unreliable". A Tesla owner complained earlier that the Model 3 standard range version claimed to have a cruising range of 468km, but the actual range was only 220km. Tesla, which has always focused on technology, why does it brag about battery life? Brother Jiang believes that there are two objective reasons:
On the one hand, due to the lower temperature in winter, the electrochemical reaction resistance of the electrolyte in power battery increases, and the battery capacity will decrease, resulting in a reduction in cruising range. This is a common problem with all lithium batteries, and for lithium iron phosphate batteries , it is even worse. In an environment of 0℃, the capacity retention rate of lithium iron phosphate is about 60%~70%, and at minus 20℃, only 20%~40% remains.
On the other hand, the cruising range is not entirely an "exaggeration" by car companies, but is actually closely related to the testing standards. For example, the NEDC standard that was basically implemented in the country has been criticized because it is the same as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's fuel consumption and has almost no reference value. Many netizens are discounting 20% off the NEDC range to measure the cruising range of electric vehicles.
This is because the NEDC test scenario is too "ideal", including 4 urban cycles and 1 suburban cycle, and the test location is also an indoor chassis testing machine. Obviously, the test conditions are significantly different from actual road driving, resulting in a significant gap in the data.
In contrast, the cruising range measured by the WLTC standard is much "real". The WLTC standard test conditions include four parts: low speed, medium speed, high speed and ultra-high speed. During the test process, various factors such as external temperature, vehicle mass, gear status, rolling resistance, load, acceleration and deceleration are also included in the assessment system. The overall test results are much more authentic than NEDC.
From this point of view, the cruising range has been "exaggerated", and all responsibility cannot be attributed to the car companies. Due to the "irregularity" of test standards, the actual value of cruising range is quite different from the test value. Of course, car companies are also obliged to truthfully inform the working conditions and standards of consumer testing to ensure consumers’ right to know.
For this reason, my country's " Passenger Car Fuel Consumption Limit " mandatory national standard (GB19578-2021) requires that before 2025, the test conditions of traditional energy passenger cars and plug-in hybrid electric passenger cars will be switched from NEDC to WLTC.
After the implementation of WLTC, the cruising range of electric vehicles will be closer to the actual cruising capacity, the phenomenon of "false cruising range" will be reduced, and consumers' cruising anxiety will also be alleviated. This also shows that solving the problem of "exaggerated" electric vehicle battery life is a systematic project that requires the joint efforts of the country, industry, manufacturers and other parties. What do you think about this? Welcome to follow "Cars Without Borders" and leave a message in the comment area below to share your views on Tesla's fine.
