Electric gate: Are car manufacturers deliberately deceiving on range?
The range of electric cars is a decisive factor when buying. But most cars never reach the manufacturers' specifications. Sales tricks to make the cars more attractive? The manufacturers reject the suspicion of deliberate deception. While the EU is still on the side of the manufacturers, things are getting tight for Tesla in the USA.
A VW ID.3 achieved 69 instead of the promised 77 kilowatt hours in real operation. This is the result of tests by the ADAC on the consumption of the electric car. Deliberately embellished data to make the car more attractive or mere difference between the capacity of the battery and the real performance achieved on the road? According to VW, the difference is easy to explain: While the manufacturer's capacity figures correspond to measurements under ideal conditions, the actual performance when driving is influenced by many factors. For example, braking, acceleration and so-called recuperation, i.e. the recovery of energy that recharges the battery.
The discrepancy between promise and reality is not an isolated case. Tests in the USA also showed that e-cars usually consume more energy than the manufacturers claim. On average about 12.5 percent!
Many buyers feel deceived. A family from Austria has already filed a lawsuit against Citroen because of this. Their family van promises an electric range of 380 km. Most of the time, the family does not get more than 200 km. It seems that this enormous discrepancy can hardly be attributed to braking and acceleration. And if this is the case, shouldn't manufacturers adjust their claims anyway? What use is it to the buyer to know how far his car could theoretically get under ideal circumstances if he then still has to desperately search for the next charging station halfway through the journey to avoid being stranded at the side of the road?
The EU currently seems to be siding with the car manufacturers. While the real consumption of internal combustion vehicles with the latest Euro 6 standard is also subject to EU guidelines, there are still no specifications for e-cars to which the manufacturers must adhere. For the calculated fleet consumption of manufacturers, the EU counts each e-car with zero grams. It therefore makes no difference how much electricity is needed to charge the car or how often it has to go to the charging station - the calculation always comes to zero.
In the USA, however, things are getting tight for the car manufacturer Tesla. Investigations have been initiated against the e-car giant because it is said to have systematically cheated on the range. It is alleged that the vehicles always displayed a significantly higher range when the battery level was above 50%. As soon as the battery level dropped below 50%, the real range was displayed. After more and more customers suspected a defect in the display, Tesla is said to have set up a team whose sole task was to cancel workshop appointments made with customers.
It remains to be seen whether there will be a real electric scandal similar to the Diesel-Gate. So far, there are many dissatisfied customers, but no concrete suspicion that the European manufacturers have also deliberately cheated. However, a change in the legal requirements regarding the manufacturers' specifications, so that the battery performance under real conditions is also specified, is definitely overdue.