What was true once or once upon a time (in a galaxy far far away - oops, that's another story) is not always true - now. What does that bs mean? Way back during the first year of the S, when there were not so many cars on the road, we all read every word written from those that had the first S's. And way back then, Tesla didn't know what they didn't know about a lot of things. They didn't have years of studys or other owners experiences and didn't account for human behaviors. I'm not a scientist or behaviorist, but we tend to think that once something works its going to work like that forever. That's so much not-Tesla.
I can remember the experiences of the first few that ran their battery down. Sure-sure Tesla had warned us/them not to, but people did it. Way back then there really was a 20-mile or so reserve. It was proven several times, when people drove and recorded on video -5, -11 even -17 miles past 0. That info spread quickly. And I think it became common knowledge. And lots of people repeated it - still do. And we want to believe it. So we think it should be that way now. Now, that's not true. I mean, from what we can see there's no reserve. Back in the days of version 3.0 and 3.1 and all those full and small updates that came after, there were no significant reports and nothing concrete from Tesla that Tesla was adjusting the slider bar regarding where or if there was a reserve. But we saw it disappear. People got used to it quickly and suddenly it wasn't there. People stopped reporting experiences south of 0. And to this day we don't get explanations or clues that how much - how close we can get to 0. Those folks that need the most range or battery may as well try plotting how to update to a new or even a used 100S to get that range if its needed.
I don't think - let me correct that. I don't want to think that Tesla is purposely without their own explanation (that we may never know) fudging the range or reserve battery in a way that would punish or penalize owners. People are going to disagree, but I believe Tesla's big picture is to provide us the best product that they can. Lucky us it routinely gets better; and then sometimes its less than perfect while they use us to experiment with adjustments. But overall, I trust Tesla to do their best and I don't need to brow-beat them to keep them doing it.
