Every EV window sticker carries a single range number certified by the EPA, and independent real-world testing shows that number means something different depending on which automaker built the car. In Edmunds’ own real-world range testing program, which drives each vehicle on a fixed highway loop and compares the result against its official EPA rating, a 2024 Mercedes-Maybach EQS SUV 680 rated for 280 miles actually delivered 368 — a 31.3% cushion. A 2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring rated for 516 miles came up nearly 10% short. Same testing standard, same government rating system, wildly different honesty on the sticker.
Mercedes-Benz Pads Its Numbers More Than Anyone
Across seven Mercedes-Benz and Mercedes-Maybach models in Edmunds’ real-world range comparison, every single one beat its EPA rating, by margins ranging from 12.1% (EQS 580, 340 EPA miles to 381 tested) up to that 31.3% outlier on the Maybach SUV. The average overshoot across the sample works out to roughly 19%, meaning a Mercedes EV buyer is likely to see meaningfully more range in daily driving than the number on the sticker ever promised — a low-risk way to under-promise and over-deliver.
GM’s Trucks and Cadillacs Consistently Beat Their Own Estimates
GM’s electric trucks tell a similar story. The Chevrolet Silverado EV WT rated at 492 miles tested to 539 (+9.1%), the GMC Sierra EV Denali rated at 460 beat that by 10.1%, and the GMC Hummer EV’s 329-mile rating undersold reality by 18.4%. Cadillac’s Escalade IQ and IQL electric SUVs posted even larger gaps, at +20% and +15.7% respectively. Across all five GM entries in the data, the average overshoot lands near 12%, meaning the brand’s conservative EPA submissions consistently translate into a pleasant surprise at the range meter.
Tesla’s Numbers Are the Closest Match to Reality
Tesla is the outlier in the other direction: its EPA numbers are the tightest match to what owners actually get. The 2026 Tesla Model 3 Long Range RWD rated at 363 miles tested to 393 (+8.2%), and the Model Y Standard rated at 321 miles tested to just 337, a 5% gap — the smallest margin, in either direction, of any brand in the entire data set. Audi’s A6 e-tron came close too, at +2.5%, though its S6 Sportback e-tron sibling swung to +19.5%, showing accuracy can vary widely even within one automaker’s own lineup.
Lucid Is the One Brand That Comes Up Short
Lucid is the only nameplate in Edmunds’ data where real-world range actually fell below the EPA number rather than beating it. The 2022 Lucid Air Dream Range, rated for 520 miles, tested to 505 (-2.9%), and the Air Grand Touring on 19-inch wheels, rated at 516 miles, tested to 465 — a 9.9% shortfall. Those numbers are still enormous by EV standards, but they’re the only case in this data set where the window sticker actively overstates what the car delivers, which matters a great deal to a buyer planning a specific road trip around a specific number.
Hyundai and Polestar Land in the Middle, With Wide Swings
Hyundai’s results show how inconsistent a single brand’s honesty can be model to model: the 2022 Kona Electric rated at 258 miles tested 21.9% over that figure, while the newer three-row Ioniq 9 beat its rating by a more modest 14.3%. Polestar’s single data point, the Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor, beat its 307-mile rating by 17.9%. None of these numbers are bad news for owners, but they show that EPA compliance testing leaves real room for an automaker’s own real-world driving conditions and calibration choices to shift outcomes by double digits either way.
German Luxury EVs Skew Conservative Too, Just Less Dramatically
BMW and Porsche land in between the extremes. The 2022 BMW iX xDrive50, rated at 315 miles, tested to 377 (+19.7%), and the Porsche Taycan Performance Battery Plus, rated at 318 miles, tested to 364, a 14.4% cushion. Both numbers track close to the broader German-brand pattern in this data set: comfortably beating the sticker, but rarely by the 30-point margins Mercedes posts at the extreme end, and rarely as tight as what Tesla and the base Audi A6 e-tron manage.
The pattern across every brand tested comes down to one thing: EPA certifies a number, but automakers still choose how conservatively to submit for it, and that choice is what separates a Tesla owner who gets almost exactly what the sticker promised from a Mercedes owner who gets a bonus 60 miles and a Lucid owner who comes up short.