Their site went live today: https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck
3 models, with the tl;dr:
- RWD at $60,990 w/ 250mi range
- AWD at $79,990 w/ 340mi range
- “Cyberbeast” at $99,990 w/ 320mi range
Their site went live today: https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck
3 models, with the tl;dr:
I have some terrible news for you. The manufacturers run the tests to produce the EPA numbers, not the EPA. and they’re allowed a “scaling factor” at the end.
With my AWD Model 3 you could gain efficiency by sleeping the front motor while driving on the rear motor. The motor that would be put to sleep was an induction motor so that there were no losses from the field generated by spinning the rotor inside the stator. In my Rivian you can gain efficiency by mechanically decoupling the motor from the rear driveline. In the case of the RWD Model 3, it did NOT lose this much efficiency from having only one, more powerful, rear motor. In the case of the ClusterTruck, the RWD version loses 100 miles, or about 1 third the range compared to AWD. That’s the difference between SR and LR of all the other products they make.
So, either they’re locking battery capacity from owners like they’ve done several times in the past, or their own specs page is complete BS. Since Tesla is the one making both claims here, it’s a bad look in both cases.
Great, so it is possible for the AWD CyberTruck to be more efficient than the single motor.
I agree, I don’t think the 90 miles can be made up by this difference as it was only ~2% on the AWD Model S. There would have to be some serious problem with the weight killing efficiency to make that be the case and I doubt that.
I’m not really sure how all the inner details of the EPA testing work, other than the EPA does at least some times test the cars. Sometimes to verify (they called Tesla out once and made them fix some numbers) and sometimes as the main test. (maybe minor changes are self, but new cars are via EPA?)
Recently there was a dispute where the EPA tested the car with what Tesla claims was a door open and the model S didn’t reach the 400+ miles it should have, so Tesla had them re-run the test, and then it was rated at 402 miles.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1128004_tesla-model-s-is-already-at-an-epa-cycle-400-miles-of-range-musk-says
Then a few weeks later, it was re-tested by the EPA and got the higher range.
https://www.autoblog.com/2020/06/16/tesla-model-s-long-range-plus-402-miles/
Maybe it was the door, maybe it wasn’t, I don’t know, but the EPA was clearly involved with these tests. Maybe not all tests, but this one they were.
So I’m not saying it isn’t possible to be a locked battery, they’ve done it before, but they really try to avoid it and have moved away from the practice.
Occam’s Razor would say the simplest explanation is it’s not 123kwh for the RWD, so that’s probably the correct answer. Next up after that would be your locked battery option.
Edit: And if were lucky, someone will ask about that on the next earnings call
No, all cars are tested primarily by the manufacturer. If the EPA suspects fraud (VW, Tesla, Mercedes, etc.) they may perform tests of their own to verify, but they are the extreme rare exception.
Also, the “door open” test wasn’t inefficient because the test was run with the door open. The tests are done on a dynamometer and aren’t done actually driving on an actual road. Tesla complained because they said it kept the car awake longer than it should between when it was charged and when it was tested. The difference between 400 and 402 miles is idiotic to even attempt to dispute because the vehicle will never accomplish that in the real world anyway.
Also its not extreme rare situations
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/how_tested.shtml
Since writing that page roughly an eternity ago, they have not confirmed 15-20%, and have complained about the lack of staff to do such a thing. You’re only just learning about this all now, so it’s an easy mistake to make.
It was 390 and 402, it wasn’t idiotic, it was also to be the first 400m production EV.
I also never said why the door was the problem, just that it was. (Edit but the point was the EPA did test it)