Cybertruck falls short in range test, achieves only 80% of promised mileage

[midian182]

Facepalm: Tesla and Elon Musk faced plenty of criticism when the Cybertruck officially went on sale, mostly due to it having a higher price and lower range than what Musk promised in 2019. One YouTube channel tested the dual-motor model to see if really could do 320 miles on a single charge. The result was that the EV managed just ~80% of that distance: 254 miles.

Over four years ago, Tesla said that its tri-motor Cybertruck would have a 500-mile range. The official delivery event at the end of November revised those numbers to 320 miles for the most expensive model, aka the Cyberbeast, and 250 miles for the base variant.

Out of Spec Motoring's Kyle Conner livestreamed an unofficial test of the $76,390 Foundation Series all-wheel-drive Cybertruck to see if it really could manage 320 miles on a single charge.

The five-hour stream involved driving the truck, which had all-terrain tires, on a Texas highway through the night at around 70 mph, while temperatures hovered at about 45 degrees. After driving the 100% charged vehicle until its battery was close to flat, Conner navigated to a mall parking lot and drove in circles until the EV ground to a halt due to a depleted battery.

The 123kWh battery pushed the truck 254 miles in total; Conner suspected it would be around 306 miles.

Cold temperatures can heavily influence the range of electric vehicles. A 2023 study from Recurrent Auto (via Business Insider) found that a Tesla Model 3 reached just 66% of its EPA estimated range when tested at 32 degrees. But commentators on Out of Spec Motoring's video expressed concerns about how the Cybertruck will perform in freezing and snowing conditions when it loses so much range in 45-degree temperatures.

Tesla does offer an optional range extender battery pack for the Cybertruck that increases the distance it can travel on a single charge. It costs $16,000 and takes up about a third of the truck bed.

It's worth noting that the the EPA's own testing procedures differ from those in Out of Spec Motoring's test. The chilly temperatures would have been a factor, as were the less-efficient all-terrain tires. But a near 70-mile shortfall is no small difference.

It was only a few days ago when Tesla decreased the official range estimates for several Model Y, S, and X vehicles, making them more realistic. However, the Cybertruck's estimates were unchanged. Tesla never said why it altered the figures.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/101429-cybertruck-falls-short-range-test-achieves-only-80.html

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Tires can make a huge difference, but if they are a factory option it’s on Tesla not the YTer.

 

[netman]

"The 123kWh battery pushed the truck 254 miles in total; Conner suspected it would be around 306 miles."

With full load in the tuck bed, Conner would have been lucky if he could get more than 150 miles...! What a piece of junk...!

 

[SRB]

The range of hybrid/EV/s has always been best in mixed driving. I own a hybrid, as well as work on them. A big chunk of their range comes from regenerative braking, esp in the city EPA numbers. This test set up at constant 70 mph @ 45 deg was close to the worst possible test for range.

Having said that, it illustrates clearly that EV's are not ready to replace ICE vehicles yet, much less heavy trucks. They are great commuter cars and can be perfect daily drivers, but for travel or work they are just NOT practical and won't be until something changes on the storage/efficiency side of the equation..

Not to mention the costs...I'm waiting to see what happens about 6-8 years from now when the batteries start needing replacement in any kind of significant quantities. Especially with all of the ingredients going up in price.

 

[PEnnn]

I really don't care for this EV truck.

But, everybody now assumes that EVERYONE who has a truck, EV or otherwise, drives over 1000 miles per day!!

I'd venture to say that 80 % of people who use their trucks professionally, average about 100 - 150 miles per day, on a busy day!!

The others can keep their smoke belchers and be happy.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

"The 123kWh battery pushed the truck 254 miles in total; Conner suspected it would be around 306 miles."

With full load in the tuck bed, Conner would have been lucky if he could get more than 150 miles...! What a piece of junk...!

Air resistance generally matters more than weight for mileage. So, pulling an enclosed trailer could halve the mileage, but a full truck bed would have little effect.

 

[toooooot]

Just come up with universal fair tests already damn it. Make a committee and standardize how every EV is tested.

 

[axiomatic13]

Air resistance generally matters more than weight for mileage. So, pulling an enclosed trailer could halve the mileage, but a full truck bed would have little effect.

That tracks with my experience with my F-150 Lightning. Stuff in the bed makes little difference. Towing something is a major loss.

 

[yRaz]

I really don't care for this EV truck.

But, everybody now assumes that EVERYONE who has a truck, EV or otherwise, drives over 1000 miles per day!!

I'd venture to say that 80 % of people who use their trucks professionally, average about 100 - 150 miles per day, on a busy day!!

The others can keep their smoke belchers and be happy.

As someone who does commercial construction all over the north east US I can confidently say I rarely drive more than 100 miles in a day and typically under 50 round trip. Also, if we work in an 85 mile or more radius of our home they to either pay us 3 hours of overtime or put us up in a hotel for the night. It's not uncommon to be out of state for a week and only come home on weekends on large projects.

So, as someone who does commercial construction all over the northeast US, an electrical vehicle is 100% practical logistically. They're actually pretty popular among people who work commercial construction because of how much we save on gas.

The people who say electric vehicles aren't practical as work trucks have never done real work in their lives.

I don't see EVs replacing long haul tractor-trailers, but most commercial vehicles that you see on job sites delivering material CAN. The only vehicles that I can think of that can't be replaced by an EV is a concrete pumper truck but those are basically a 150ft craine on wheels.

I DO see a major issue with excavators, earth movers or bulldozers being replaced with an EV. They are all hybrids already but they consume so much energy that they need to be refueled frequently. We measure their fuel use in "gallons per hour" and they're basically a 5Megawatt diesel electric powerplant on wheels.

 

[3volv3d]

The range of hybrid/EV/s has always been best in mixed driving. I own a hybrid, as well as work on them. A big chunk of their range comes from regenerative braking, esp in the city EPA numbers. This test set up at constant 70 mph @ 45 deg was close to the worst possible test for range.

Having said that, it illustrates clearly that EV's are not ready to replace ICE vehicles yet, much less heavy trucks. They are great commuter cars and can be perfect daily drivers, but for travel or work they are just NOT practical and won't be until something changes on the storage/efficiency side of the equation..

I was talking to someone who asked to design the battery/tank placement for a well known UK 4x4 company. As he put it, it's a waste of time, absolute BS and just there for the EV / Hybrid badge, for them to pass through loopholes and say, this is your green car of the future. Which they aren't greener, and switching everyone to EV would cause a mass pollution of petrol / diesel cars that are dumped, to be replaced by something that's just a massive waste of time.
Cars, are done. There is an article "Defying obsolescence, AMD's 22-year-old Radeon GPUs get new Linux drivers" above this. And yet here are cars are defying the fact they should stop making them, rebuild cities and towns and use rail and trams.
EV vehicles to keep things green should only be on Emergency, service, and possibly taxi.

 

[nulll]

The only "Facepalm" here is the complete lack or sourcing and references...
TLDR: Take it up with the EPA

So they looked at the EPA's extremely specific criteria for determining EV ranges and then decided "nah, throw that lot in the bin! We'll do it our own way!". They get done and shockingly the results of their completely non compliant "testing" is nothing like the results of EPA. Seriously? It really is awe inspiring at this point, I'm genuinely questioning whether the average internet user has ever done a highschool level science course. There is this notable Greek gentleman whom lived about 2500 years ago who had a method you could use here, I think it might even be named after him er something? As it turns out if you don't follow the recipe for a cake you don't actually get a cake. Anyway here is the relevant reading from the EPA's website, again with the public forum reading and needing to actually do some before publishing sensationalized non facts.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-Q/part-600/subpart-B/section-600.116-12

There is always a conversation to be had about how relevant government standards testing is to real world performance (such as crash testing an off center impact at highway speeds with an object several orders of magnitude less prone to compression than would ever be present on a highway). When or if the EPA actually begins to investigate a manufacturer for abusing the standards system and its deployment (like VW did during dieselgate) then there will be something to discuss here. If a Tesla or any other vehicle is citing a range calculated via the testing methodology of the EPA that isn't being replicated in the real world then the first port of call is to determine whether the testing regime is properly representative of the use case and then to ensure that the manufacturer is compliant with the testing regime. Suggesting that a manufacturer is fraudulent in their reporting of a regulated metric without any form of substantiation is dancing very close to fire with regards to slander. This is regulated by the US federal government, I like any rational person am perfectly happy to leave it up to them (yeah they screw up on occasion but their over under is pretty bloody solid all things considered).

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The EPA testing for range is incredibly flawed. For EVs, pure highway driving at 75-80 mph should be used to figure range, since even cheap EV econoboxes have regen and will easily exceed their range in all city driving, and will travel so far it isnt feasible to use all of that range in a single work day of constant driving.

I really don't care for this EV truck.

But, everybody now assumes that EVERYONE who has a truck, EV or otherwise, drives over 1000 miles per day!!

I'd venture to say that 80 % of people who use their trucks professionally, average about 100 - 150 miles per day, on a busy day!!

The others can keep their smoke belchers and be happy.

Two problems here.

One: just because you dont daily go long distance or tow something outside your zip code doesnt mean you never do it. If I tow a trailer 250 miles once a year, and there are no chargers along that route, then an EV truck having only 250 mile range empty is a pretty big failure point, isnt it? There are VERY expensive vehicles being promoted as "the future" yet they cannot fulfill the duties of their predecessors.

Two "Just keep your smoke belchers" nice showing your bias there, but ecofreaks are doing their damnest to make sure that, in 11 years, those "smoke belchers" will be banned from new purchases. What will happen then? Will your response change to "well you dont REALLY need to go that far, do you?" or some other form of removing our ability to travel under the pretense of "progress"? Or willy ou admit there is actually a problem here?

 

[yRaz]

One: just because you dont daily go long distance or tow something outside your zip code doesnt mean you never do it. If I tow a trailer 250 miles once a year, and there are no chargers along that route, then an EV truck having only 250 mile range empty is a pretty big failure point, isnt it? There are VERY expensive vehicles being promoted as "the future" yet they cannot fulfill the duties of their predecessors.

You could rent a truck for a fraction of what you would save on gas. The real problem comes from a lack of plug in hybrid trucks. As far as towing an RV, I know someone who buying a RAV4 plug in hybrid and putting 2KW of solar on his RV to charge it when he takes it out. I think it's like 40 miles of all electric range or something. He can also use it as a generator in a power outage, on job sites or when at camp.

Frankly, I think plug in hybrids are better than EVs because you don't even have to turn the motor on for 90+% of trips while also being cheaper because you don't need a massive battery pack.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

This is the least of this clown car's problems. The final proof one would need of Felon Musk's neurodegenerative disorder.

 

[Homerlovesbeer]

Can we stop with the immature childish "Facepalm" at the beginning of the article? You could say this for EVERY SINGLE EV yet because the author has a personal issue with Elon they do the usual Tesla bashing.

 

[Puiu]

I suspect the tires made a huge difference. 80% in such conditions is not great, but it's not bad either. I suspect that with the right tires you can gain back at least 5% (after you break them in for a few miles). Gas cars behave the same.

 

[Jrfeimst2]

The range of hybrid/EV/s has always been best in mixed driving. I own a hybrid, as well as work on them. A big chunk of their range comes from regenerative braking, esp in the city EPA numbers. This test set up at constant 70 mph @ 45 deg was close to the worst possible test for range.

Having said that, it illustrates clearly that EV's are not ready to replace ICE vehicles yet, much less heavy trucks. They are great commuter cars and can be perfect daily drivers, but for travel or work they are just NOT practical and won't be until something changes on the storage/efficiency side of the equation..

Not to mention the costs...I'm waiting to see what happens about 6-8 years from now when the batteries start needing replacement in any kind of significant quantities. Especially with all of the ingredients going up in price.

Between 2011 to 2023, which is over the 8 years from now you talk about, only 1.5 percent of all EV batteries needed to be replaced.
https://blog.chargemap.com/electric...ed, just 1.5%* of,have required a new battery.

 

[Uncle Al]

Once again Musk is caught in another lie .... you would think the Consumer Protection Agency would lower the boom on him one of these years ........ yeah, right!