Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theatlanticwire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 262 posts

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

#41

Post by JPKab »

deletes wrote: post #12
JPKab wrote: post #7

"Convincing? No. His other chart shows the mile range dipped below zero, which would indicate the car could not move. " Wow, I wish I could be as sloppy and awful at my job as these journalists are. Had he actually bothered to truly read the response he is commenting on, he would see that Musk states that, when the car's range dips below zero, it is running on reserve power. It takes some miles after "zero" for the c…

I was written by a woman actually. :) Can I add on argument 6.: >>No. That wasn't the point of the article. Broder wanted to see how the car would do on a long range road trip relying on Tesla's two official Supercharger stations. Ok, he wanted to rely on only official stations, but did he really have to completely discharge the car? Why couldn't he just stop and charge when he was super low at any normal charge stat…

Yeah, I've seen journalists trying to defend Broder, acting as if he had zero incentive to have the car die on him. Funny how they say that, yet the article went to the front page of virtually ever link aggreagator out there, while glowing reviews are old news and are thus ignored.

Broder knew it, and he wanted the car to die. We all know that. What is in debate here is to what degree he went to make the vehicle die that differs from what an average driver who wants to get to point B would have done.

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

#42

Post by taligent »

JPKab wrote: post #7

"Convincing? No. His other chart shows the mile range dipped below zero, which would indicate the car could not move. " Wow, I wish I could be as sloppy and awful at my job as these journalists are. Had he actually bothered to truly read the response he is commenting on, he would see that Musk states that, when the car's range dips below zero, it is running on reserve power. It takes some miles after "zero" for the c…

> someone who has no education in comprehending quantitative

You need to a degree to understand a pretty basic line graph ? Give me a break.

People on here (and in the article's comments) need to stop acting like sanctimonious assholes. Electric cars are not some advanced technology that only the precious genius of Musk and IT nerds can comprehend.

The fact is that the truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle here. Big surprise.

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

#43

Post by stevewilhelm »

I really want to buy an electric car, but range anxiety keeps me from doing so. Unfortunately, the NYT article doesn't help.

The particular facts may be "peculiar," even fabricated, but the overall experience rings true. There are going to be trips that you can do easily today on petrol that would be difficult to do with the state of the art electric car from Tesla.

It's time for Tesla and Better Place (betterplace.com) to join forces.

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

#44

Post by newhouseb »

> Where Google thinks it's located—we don't know the charging station's exact location

No, we do. The photo here is of the northbound charging spots: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/tesla-begins-east...

Assuming he took the car lane, even if he drove past every single parking spot all the way back out to the road to the highway, he would only cover 0.4 miles. http://goo.gl/maps/VzRjc

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

#45

Post by dfxm12 »

stcredzero wrote: post #6
arrrg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm … what do you expect? I thought this was all pretty convincing. What are your complaints?! I really don’t get it. How would you suggest measuring distance? Is Google Maps really not a good tool for doing so? Plus, Google Maps wasn’t really the centerpiece here, for any argument.

This "defense" basically amounts to: See, Broder didn't lie, he exaggerated. That, and the things Broder did to try and get stranded were fair game. In that, they are making valid points, supported by facts. That it's the best they can do is telling. I look forward to replication attempts.

Exaggerations have no purpose in this type of journalism. This wasn't an opinion piece...

Yes, the author can write whatever the author pleases, but it is unethical to not print the truth and it is not unreasonable for readers (and Tesla) to expect the truth (and not exaggeration).

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

#46

Post by ceejayoz »

DanBC wrote: post #32
JPKab wrote: post #7

"Convincing? No. His other chart shows the mile range dipped below zero, which would indicate the car could not move. " Wow, I wish I could be as sloppy and awful at my job as these journalists are. Had he actually bothered to truly read the response he is commenting on, he would see that Musk states that, when the car's range dips below zero, it is running on reserve power. It takes some miles after "zero" for the c…

Broder turned the heat up before turning the heat down. But he didn't mention turning the heat up; he only mentions having to suffer with a cold cabin.

Also, that's the heater setting, not the cabin temperature. I can set my car's internal heat setting to 50 degrees after getting it nice and toasty, and as long as I don't turn the A/C on it's going to stay warm for quite some time.

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

#47

Post by jlgreco »

OGinparadise wrote: post #40
jlgreco wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I, personally, would NOT want a car that is so specific about the speed, cabin temperature and so on If you fill a ICE car up with less gas you need to get to your destination and attempt to make it anyway, you are going to need to be just as particular about your technique. This should not be a news flash to anybody who has ever driven.

If you fill a ICE car up with less gas you need to get to your destination and attempt to make it anyway, you are going to need to be just as particular about your technique. Bad analogy, this http://www.statisticbrain.com/gas-station-statistics/ says that they are 121,446 gas stations in USA. It takes 5 minutes to add fuel for another 300 or so miles and they accept credit cards :)

Oh no, it is a perfect analogy. He stopped filling it up, and he and you act stunned when the car doesn't move as far as he wills it. Hell, is this even an analogy? It's just the same fucking thing.

If you want to make the point that charging takes to long, or that there are not enough chargers, go right ahead. It is pretty easy to make that point convincingly without resorting to intellectually dishonest bullshit about the car requiring hypermiling techniques.

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

#48

Post by taligent »

grecy wrote: post #31
davidiach wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Broder might not have wanted to "be evil". He might be like the guy who doesn't actually want to hurt the company he is working for but still spends all his day playing games at work. Given that his job was to write an accurate review, the fact that he didn't really want to wait until the car is fully charged and was bored driving the car at normal speed and so on, we can…

> Given that his job was to write an accurate review Why do you assume that? His job was to attract readership and hits for the NYT. Nothing does that better than controversy.

The New York Times is not some Murdoch trashy paper that deals with gossip and controversy.

The integrity of their work is important because that is what is keeping the paper alive whilst the others are falling by the way side. Maybe you should actually try reading it sometime.

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

#49

Post by naftaliharris »

adastra wrote: post #24

The "Norwich Charge" data point is all you need to understand what happened here. Notice how vague Broder is in his original account: "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 pla…

> Elon might have been better off concentrating on this point more, rather than some of the smaller inaccuracies.

I agree. Often when you're arguing, you have a really strong argument and a few weaker ones. You'd think that making both the strong argument and the weaker ones would be the best case, (ie, that the strength of your case equals the sum of the strength of its components). In fact, in public discourse often the opposite is true. People will knock down your weaker arguments, making you and your case look bad. So I think the strength of your case might actually be closer to the minimum of the strength of its components.

For this reason, Elon would likely have been better off to emphasize and shore up his strongest argument--that Broder knowingly did not charge enough at Norwich--rather than try and nickle and dime Broder on a lot of smaller issues.

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

#50

Post by duaneb »

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.

I mean, I've never driven a car with a digital gas meter before, but on all the cars I've driven they always have tens of miles when the gas light comes on.

EDIT: To be clear, it is extremely stupid to do so.

Post reply on HN