This is a huge PR win for Tesla, what started out as one NYT review has blossomed into 4 or 5 articles and a he said she said drama.
There's no such thing as bad press!
Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
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Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
#112Regardless of all this, Tesla should look hard at a mapping solution that ties with their onboard sensors - the car can intelligently tell you where to stop and charge and how long to charge for by knowing where you are trying to get and what charging stations are along the way.
Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
#113If you need to bring in graphs to show that someone was going 50 instead of 45 MPH (if the data even matches the speedometer), you've already lost the battle. This is all very aggressive on Musk's part when the overall review still holds up (Tesla cars are bit ahead of the curve for normals). If the log showed gross exaggeration I could see this reaction, but Musk is being a brat and wasting a lot of goodwill. Remember, car reviewers are car reviewers, not QA engineers. Things will go wrong, numbers won't match up exactly. If you want positive coverage, don't post your MPG (or the electric equivalent) with "best case" numbers like a normal gas car. Give yourself some wiggle room. Calling the flatbed tow truck is a pretty bad negative event for a normal car owner who is used to being able to ride on E for a few more miles.
Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
#114This whole controversy has been a little depressing to read...not that the Tesla vs. NYT discussions here have been worse than on other forums, but just because it shows how technical minded people are as easily swayed by preconceptions and alliances as more ostensibly non-scientific minds. How many words have been expended in the other HN thread to allege that Broder -- after most have already established that he is…
> It could just be that this is his big project and he is overly sensitive to (some of it admittedly unfair) criticism to the point where he'll see malice where there is none.
This is obviously the case. Musk overreacted and will end looking like a fool.
But he has a lot of goodwill; he can afford to spend a little.
Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
#115Why not simply doing a retest? Seems easy enough, it's still winterly cold …
Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've read all the arguments on both sides, and while both have made good points, there is one that stands out. This reporter clearly barely made any attempt at recharging his empty vehicle in Norwich, and then attempted a drive well beyond the car's capabilities, then made the "running out of fuel" his headline. If he would have done this on gasoline, the result would have been the same, and I think that is getting l…
Did you (or 99% of HN) read the NYT article? "When I parked the car, its computer said I had 90 miles of range, twice the 46 miles back to Milford. It was a different story at 8:30 the next morning. The thermometer read 10 degrees and the display showed 25 miles of remaining range" "I called Tesla in California, and the official I woke up said I needed to “condition” the battery pack to restore the lost energy." Look…
The NYT upgraded their paywall this week, so there is a good chance that most of HN did not in fact read the NYT article before commenting on it.
Also, there is a disturbing amount of herd mentality in these comments; people are instinctively shielding/supporting Elon Musk, a fellow techie, rather than the "interloping" journalist, even though even a cursory Google search of other reviews of the Model S, the Roadster, and other manufacturers' EVs will show that they all suffer from the same battery charging/status problems.
It should also be noted that Elon Musk has made public misrepresentations in the recent past about competitors to SpaceX, in particular, about the cause of Boeing's battery problems, and he had a history of making similar remarks about credit card companies while he worked at Paypal.
Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you (or 99% of HN) read the NYT article? "When I parked the car, its computer said I had 90 miles of range, twice the 46 miles back to Milford. It was a different story at 8:30 the next morning. The thermometer read 10 degrees and the display showed 25 miles of remaining range" "I called Tesla in California, and the official I woke up said I needed to “condition” the battery pack to restore the lost energy." Look…
Nobody is lying, but if you get in your car and it tells you that you can only you can only go 25 miles, do you really think it's ok to drive over twice that?
In my own car during day to day driving? Of course not. If I was reviewing a car and was told that it was OK? Of course! Don't curious minds want to know if the missing miles will actually return on their own? It's not like his life was in any real danger, or that he was late for work or something.
Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
#118Elon's complaints have been silly from the get-go.
When a company reviews your car, they don't use the standards which you want them to use. They don't do things precisely as you want them to. Reviewers make mistakes, they are new to the equipment, they don't know everything about your car. And you know what?
That's a great thing.
Electric cars, specifically, are unique products. They are novel, new (well, technically they've been around for a hundred years, but haven't been common for the past eighty or so). People don't know what to think about them. Average Joe Sixpack from the NYT treating this car as a normal driver would, and providing us his opinion, is a godsend.
Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
#119I thought the most convincing part of Elon's post was his 3rd bullet point, which relies on no data outside of the article, and which this Atlantic Wire journalist ignores entirely: "In his article, Broder claims that “the car fell short of its projected range on the final leg.” Then he bizarrely states that the screen showed “Est. remaining range: 32 miles” and the car traveled “51 miles," contradicting his own stat…
Actually it did when the car reported 90 the night before and a call to Tesla assured him that a quick charge would "re-calibrate" the system because of a software bug.
If his only defense is bad advice from a marketing person, then this reporter has not adequately protected himself in this situation. This was a product review, and if he had used the product in the same way that any other consumer would use it then his only misfortune would have been some extra charging time. It's possible that if he had spent the extra time charging and then reported that, then Tesla and its obstreperous leader would have responded, "don't pay attention to the gauge on the screen, just listen to our marketing dude!" But that wouldn't have reflected as poorly on Broder as the current situation does.
This is true even if you assume the best intentions from this reporter: he should know that Tesla is his adversary in his search for the truth and they will not suffer criticism passively. Many on HN and in the general public do not assume the best intentions of any reporter, and in light of that reporters should conduct themselves even more rigorously.
Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery
#120The problem I have with "he made it up": unless you have a computer keeping track of miles, speed and temperature, you are going to be "lying" about it. For example, I could easily say that I was riding at 67 mph but the computer point out that I actually went as high as 72, as low as 52 a lot of the time. Was I lying? Who the hell is going to remember or write about every speed change on a 500 mile trip? Was it a sc…
When you say you are limping along at 45 mph you shouldn't be driving at over 50 mph. > 45 mph or 52mph, it's the same crap to me. Would that work with traffic police?
Some states have official tolerances codified into law, usually 5-10 mph, depending on the posted speed, road, how the speed was measured, etc.