A few days ago, Elon Musk claimed that the Tesla Model S was able to exceed 400 miles or 644 km, but that the EPA had made a mistake in the test protocol. The agency refutes this hypothesis.
A steep battle seems to be going on between the Tesla boss Elon Musk and the American Environmental Protection Agency. This time, if he hadn’t gone into hyperbole like he described confinement as fascist, he hadn’t been kind to the EPA. The organization defends itself against such claims.
These 9 little miles that sow seeds of contention
To put it simply, Tesla, but even more his boss, wants to cross the psychological barrier of 400 miles of battery range. This figure, which translates to 644 km in the metric system, is extremely close to the 629 km that have been officially allocated to the Model S Long Range Plus. But for Elon Musk these 9 miles make all the difference, especially in this period when the Lucid Air reaches 400 miles on the road and when Xpeng claims that its Model 3 killer holds the 706 km (439 miles) (in NDEC mode).
It was during the presentation of Tesla’s results for the first quarter who then said that the Model S Long Range Plus was indeed capable of covering 400 miles and that if it had only been certified for 391 it was due to a handling error by the EPA during the tests which had resulted from a waste of 2% of energy due to a door which remained open during a pause, the stopped vehicle being found to be on in a driver standby mode.
The American agency defends itself from any error and claims that the criticism of the boss of Tesla is false. According to an EPA spokesperson: “We can confirm that the EPA has properly tested the vehicle, the door was closed and we are happy to discuss technical difficulties with Tesla as we do with all car manufacturers.” So now we just have to wait for Elon Musk’s next attack.
