Gas car range predictions are also regularly nonsensical. I thought this was well understood.

People have extremely high expectations of range estimates. These displays are known as Guess-O-Meters for good reason, they only account for past weather, driving conditions and style.

Perhaps that used to be a problem. The range estimates for gasoline cars that I've owned and rented in the past few years have been accurate to within a few percent, even in cold weather.

I expect that’s true over a full tank of gas but not when e.g. only 20 miles are left.

On my car (2013 mini) the range prediction is actually a more accurate indicator of how much fuel is in the tank than the (separate) fuel tank meter. Not sure why, you’d think they’d use the same input data for both, but it’s true.

By giving you a less precise fuel tank indicator (eg: 8 segment fuel display) versus xxx Miles of Range, your cajoled into trusting the estimator, and the range being so high on gas cars usually allows the estimator to end up closer to accurate thanks to bad and good economy driving and conditions averaging out.