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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

#231

Post by tfigment »

beedogs wrote: post #228
genghy wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing a part of the article (that supports your point) - here's a paste of two paragraphs straight from the article --- Tesla’s experts said that pumping in a little energy would help restore the power lost overnight as a result of the cold weather, and after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford. Looking back, I should have bought a membership to Butch’s and spent a few hours there while the…

If the data clearly shows that he never "limped along" at 45 MPH, there's really nothing in those two paragraphs I can believe.

Mr. Broder's reply in the other thread was "I cannot account for the discrepancy, nor for a later stretch in Connecticut where I recall driving about 45 m.p.h., but it may be the result of the car being delivered with 19-inch wheels and all-season tires, not the specified 21-inch wheels and summer tires."

I dont know how it measures speed whether GPS or wheel rotation or both and if that would make a difference. Anyone care to fact check?

Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

#232

Post by seanp2k2 »

Am I the only one who feels like Musk is doing more to soil the reputation of electric cars than to advance it? It totally sucks that the media is being a bunch of meanies about this stuff, but in many ways, Teslas still aren't practical for unwashed masses.

Also, their target market here will probably research this enough that the negative PR won't matter that much. It'll ruin public perception...just like they've done with diesel over the past decades. Now where's my diesel/electric car? Diesel/electric hybrid technology has been around since the first few years of the 1900s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel-electric_transmission#Sh...

I am not impressed with our "progress".

Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

#233

Post by seanp2k2 »

Shivetya wrote: post #36
gfodor wrote: post #21

I guess it's time to muddy the waters. The truth is in the middle! Of course, the entire debacle can be summed up with the following exchange: Q: "How many miles did you have left to drive on the final leg?" Broder: "61" Q: "And how many miles did your car tell you that you could travel before recharging?" Broder: "32" Of course, Broder claims that Tesla told him it was OK to leave. I think this is bullshit, but will…

did he think he added 32 more miles? I wonder if this is still a problem of UI and such... still its a 100k car and Musk is quibbling over temperature settings... really?

Very much related: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5124170 "We don't know why lithium batteries work"

Measuring usable capacity left in a battery is much more art than science still. You can model the drain rate and change your estimates based on historic usage and do all kinds of fancy FFT and other signal processing, but in the end it's still an estimate, batteries are not immune to physics, and li-ion batteries won't save the world (but they will create lots of hazardous waste in creation and disposal).

Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

#234

Post by RockyMcNuts »

stcredzero wrote: post #191
RockyMcNuts wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk doesn't show any smoking gun, and blows a lot of smoke. Methinks he doth protest too much. Musk comes across more as a Preston Tucker or a John DeLorean than a Henry Ford.

So, you're saying he's not anti-semitic? ("One of these things is not like the other...")

ya got me there. the only thing that matters in any debate is how it makes me feel about my tribal identity. I forgot that for a second.

Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

#235

Post by aptwebapps »

gamblor956 wrote: post #116
lawdawg wrote: post #106

Earlier 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…

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…

My recollection is the same as stcredzero's on the battery comments. What are the cc company comments to which you refer? (Google results seem saturated with more recent events).

Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

#236

Post by kamaal »

danso wrote: post #127
halviti wrote: post #87

Earlier 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…

Just for reference's sake: > After making arrangements to recharge at the Norwich station, I located the proper adapter in the trunk, plugged in and walked to the only warm place nearby, Butch’s Luncheonette and Breakfast Club, an establishment (smoking allowed) where only members can buy a cup of coffee or a plate of eggs. But the owners let me wait there while the Model S drank its juice. Tesla’s experts said that…

To assume that your customer must be intelligent is the biggest mistake you can ever make.

I worked at the Dell technical support call center some years back and our training said very specifically until you ascertain the caller actually knows what he is doing, you need to assume they are dumb. This saves a lot of trouble.

There are countless times when some one calls and I have to explain them they can get internet on their computer only if they a internet connection. It takes a lot of patience, to explain to someone that the the CD needs to be put in the CD drive with the shiny side facing down. Many people don't understand that they need something like VLC player or a codec to play a video.

Many people would view a computer as something similar to a TV. They simply expect things to work out of the box. There are times when I have assisted the elderly in creating email id's and teaching how to use email. There was one elderly woman who had literally become friends with me, I had to call her everyday and practically tutor her. The managers were OK, because many times this sort of calls bought in sales.

And this is beyond real issues that we would solve.

You can't adopt a programmers approach of RTFM or get lost approach or act like 'I know it all' with ordinary people.

In this case not everyone will understand enough chemistry behind how batteries work. That is simply too much to ask from an ordinary user. Your product automatically needs to check for the temperature around, do the magical calculations and tell the user EXACTLY what they need to do. And when someone calls you for help you need to first ensure they are safe before beginning to do any trouble shooting. At the call center, we would specifically instruct the customers to shut down their machines before trouble shooting for any thing more than a trivial software install. In this case the guys at Tesla should have asked him to get this batteries to be charge to 100% before investigating or advising him any further.

And yes customer support is a part of the product not something apart from or outside it. Its all a part of the package. If you a sell a great car with bad customer support, you are ideally selling a bad car.

Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

#237

Post by redm »

fleitz wrote: post #39
Shivetya wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did he think he added 32 more miles? I wonder if this is still a problem of UI and such... still its a 100k car and Musk is quibbling over temperature settings... really?

Go to a BMW dealership, take an M5 for a test drive, when the car says it was 32 miles left try to drive it 60. It's a 100k car and it won't make that feat either.

> Go to a BMW dealership, take an M5 for a test drive, when the car says it was 32 miles left try to drive it 60.

Leave that same BMW overnight in a parking lot and it's range wont go from 90 miles down to 32 either.....

Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

#238

Post by kamaal »

mieubrisse wrote: post #164
danso wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for reference's sake: > After making arrangements to recharge at the Norwich station, I located the proper adapter in the trunk, plugged in and walked to the only warm place nearby, Butch’s Luncheonette and Breakfast Club, an establishment (smoking allowed) where only members can buy a cup of coffee or a plate of eggs. But the owners let me wait there while the Model S drank its juice. Tesla’s experts said that…

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that people need to put a little more thought into a car that's fundamentally different than standard cars today. Your last paragraph is making a bad comparison to try and put down this point: a laptop operates off of all one reservoir, while the current ICE car uses gas to drive and a battery to operate the "other stuff". We watch the gas gauge and see that it drops in a dir…

No, if something is different than you need make is stand out.

Its something like this, before mechanical vehicles came in you could ride your horse cart even if the horse was a little hungry. When cars came along it was the responsibility of the car maker to provide with an accurate fuel gauge so that the customers could refuel when needed.

Very clearly Tesla's charge indicators have a bug. They don't take into consideration or in correctly calculate mileage when temperatures change.

Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

#239

Post by kamaal »

Retric wrote: post #150
danso wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for reference's sake: > After making arrangements to recharge at the Norwich station, I located the proper adapter in the trunk, plugged in and walked to the only warm place nearby, Butch’s Luncheonette and Breakfast Club, an establishment (smoking allowed) where only members can buy a cup of coffee or a plate of eggs. But the owners let me wait there while the Model S drank its juice. Tesla’s experts said that…

Except, he would need to wait around at the next charging station anyway. So, taking a risk more or less stupid behavior. As to people doing the same thing, of course they do. Do you have any idea how many people run out of gas despite how common gas stations are and the standard reserve capacity?

>>Except, he would need to wait around at the next charging station anyway. So, taking a risk more or less stupid behavior.

Your new car's fuel indicator says you have more than half tank full of fuel in the night. You sleep, when you get up in the morning it says you only have something like 4 liters left. Something like half tank worth fuel vanishes overnight.

What will you do? Will you suspect fuel leakage, faulty fuel gauge or something else. Since the car is new, you are likely to call the dealership. The guy there says, just add an additional liter and fuel gauge should be pushed enough to show the last night's reading.

Clearly the customer is at no fault here. A bug in the fuel indicator due to temperature is not his problem.

>>As to people doing the same thing, of course they do. Do you have any idea how many people run out of gas despite how common gas stations are and the standard reserve capacity?

Its one thing to have a empty fuel tank out of absent mindedness and totally a different thing when your fuel indicator says you can go 90 miles before parking for a night and then 45 miles in the morning.

You are confusing the user.

Re: Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

#240

Post by Devilboy »

tfigment wrote: post #231
beedogs wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the data clearly shows that he never "limped along" at 45 MPH, there's really nothing in those two paragraphs I can believe.

Mr. Broder's reply in the other thread was "I cannot account for the discrepancy, nor for a later stretch in Connecticut where I recall driving about 45 m.p.h., but it may be the result of the car being delivered with 19-inch wheels and all-season tires, not the specified 21-inch wheels and summer tires." I dont know how it measures speed whether GPS or wheel rotation or both and if that would make a difference. Anyo…

The 19 / 21 inch is not the outside diameter of the tires, it's the inside diameter. Outside diameter would be about the same and would not make much of a difference.
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