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That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

wheels.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

#51

Post by danielweber »

jacquesm wrote: post #46
danielweber wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any kind of consumption will ultimately reduce the available range, you don't restore by removing joules from a pack It's entirely possible that the amount of energy you can get out a battery depends on its current temperature, and that by sitting around to let it slowly warm up, the total power you can get out of it would be faster than if you tried to pull it all out as fast as possible.

Sure it is. But that will only work when you warm up the pack, not when you warm up the car. The draining of energy will also warm up the pack (it should, to some extent because the pack will have an internal resistance which the current passes through, which will turn into heat) but this is still much less efficient than using that energy to propel the car forward. The band where draining at a lower rate would warm…

A car in motion uses ten times the power of a house. The engineers apparently wanted him to slowly pull power from the battery, which would be consistent with "sitting in the car with the heat on low."

If it turns out Tesla denies telling him how he can condition the battery, that would be significant.

Re: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

#52

Post by jacquesm »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #44
nirvana wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is very simple: Brody is lying about what Tesla told him, just like he's told many other lies in his article and in the rebuttal. Putting it into a "he said / she said" is a smokescreen. The car might be a lemon but the idea that Tesla told him to run the heater to charge the battery is beyond credulity. This is not exactly the first time the NYT has told lies for ideological reasons. The paper does it reg…

Good thing Musk is willing to "stand up to them" given that he's the truly unbiased one in this situation, right? He's playing an angle here too. And the other article ( http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/elon-musks... ) casts some doubt on his loud protestations. And they've only released their summarized charts, not the raw log data, anyway. It's already a "he said / she said" situation, it's just th…

> it's just that much of the HN crowd is more apt to be on one side vs. the other.

I don't think so, it's just that one part of the HN crowd likes data more than 'someone said'.

So now it is up to Tesla to provide even more data, preferably with an exact re-run of the conditions in the presence of said journalist. That should clear up any kind of difference and would establish whether or not there is either a bug in the system, a bug in the procedures or a systemic problem with the car. If the problem can't be reproduced with proper handling of the car then there should be a retraction. Regardless of which it is the bickering should stop.

Re: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

#53

Post by relic »

llambda wrote: post #36

> Mr. Musk not only apologized, he said the charging stations should be 60 miles closer together and offered me a second test drive when additional stations were built. How interesting is that! Mr. Musk himself, noting his own perceived deficiency in Tesla's charging station network. Whether or not this is an admission of guilt, it certainly is quite interesting he would immediately offer a follow up test drive after…

That line was from Broder's response to Musk's criticism...thus, it seems reasonable to infer that the offer was made after this whole ordeal. I think it is likely that Musk made the offer with a more favorable, redeeming article in mind. I don't think Musk repealed the offer after the posting of Broder's article, as your comment seems to imply.

Re: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

#55

Post by gamblor956 »

nirvana wrote: post #34
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Two bits are completely non-sensical to me, is there any battery technician or otherwise knowledgeable person that can indicate in what conditions this makes any sense? > Beginning early in the morning of my second day with the car, after the projected range had dropped precipitously while parked overnight, I spoke numerous times with Christina Ra, Tesla’s spokeswoman at the time, and Ted Merendino, a Tesla product p…

The answer is very simple: Brody is lying about what Tesla told him, just like he's told many other lies in his article and in the rebuttal. Putting it into a "he said / she said" is a smokescreen. The car might be a lemon but the idea that Tesla told him to run the heater to charge the battery is beyond credulity. This is not exactly the first time the NYT has told lies for ideological reasons. The paper does it reg…

Elon Musk has a billion dollars riding on calling the NY Times a liar and discrediting them.

Here's the thing though: the problem with the Tesla battery is the same problem that every other EV to date has had in sub-zero weather: they lose their charge and the charging meter gets decalibrated.

Tesla's bane is not a biased NY Times reporter. Their fundamental mistake was giving an EV to the NY Times to test drive in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record.

EDIT: Also one of the warmest winters on record in that area of the country, but not during the period of the NY Times' test.

Re: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

#56

Post by Ygg2 »

llambda wrote: post #36

> Mr. Musk not only apologized, he said the charging stations should be 60 miles closer together and offered me a second test drive when additional stations were built. How interesting is that! Mr. Musk himself, noting his own perceived deficiency in Tesla's charging station network. Whether or not this is an admission of guilt, it certainly is quite interesting he would immediately offer a follow up test drive after…

You are assuming he had log data at both points. He might have changed his story when logs were uncovered.

Re: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

#57

Post by kdsudac »

I get why Musk feels like he needs to defend his company but I think he may be doing more harm than good on the PR front.

Do you think the average Tesla customer is going to want to wade through a bunch of plots of battery charge vs distance, etc? I think the takeaway for the average Tesla customer might be along the lines of "hmm, this seems really complicated.... am I going to have to keep the heat down while I drive even when it's 10 degrees outside?"

To me, Musk comes across as an out-of-touch engineer who keeps trying to argue the technical case and insists it's the customer's fault--it couldn't possibly be a faulty design, confusing U.I., or marketing not realizing a common (mis)use case. If I dropped $60-$100k on a car and run into problems, this is the last thing I'd want to hear on the other end of the phone.

Re: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

#58

Post by JoshTriplett »

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Two bits are completely non-sensical to me, is there any battery technician or otherwise knowledgeable person that can indicate in what conditions this makes any sense? > Beginning early in the morning of my second day with the car, after the projected range had dropped precipitously while parked overnight, I spoke numerous times with Christina Ra, Tesla’s spokeswoman at the time, and Ted Merendino, a Tesla product p…

Hopefully all the calls to Tesla started with the usual "your call may be recorded for quality or training purposes".

Re: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

#59

Post by jacquesm »

danielweber wrote: post #51
jacquesm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is. But that will only work when you warm up the pack, not when you warm up the car. The draining of energy will also warm up the pack (it should, to some extent because the pack will have an internal resistance which the current passes through, which will turn into heat) but this is still much less efficient than using that energy to propel the car forward. The band where draining at a lower rate would warm…

A car in motion uses ten times the power of a house. The engineers apparently wanted him to slowly pull power from the battery, which would be consistent with "sitting in the car with the heat on low." If it turns out Tesla denies telling him how he can condition the battery, that would be significant.

It would be interesting too to see the rates of power consumption for the model S at cruising speed and the 'heat on low'.

From what I remember (doing some electric car design a long time ago) a car that is cruising at about 50 miles per hour uses > If it turns out Tesla denies telling him how he can condition the battery, that would be significant.

It would be, and on top of that they could prove in a re-run that that was what did in the trip (and starting out on a leg with less range than the leg was long, that bit did not make sense at all in the previous article).

Re: That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

#60

Post by brown9-2 »

jacquesm wrote: post #52
HelloMcFly wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing Musk is willing to "stand up to them" given that he's the truly unbiased one in this situation, right? He's playing an angle here too. And the other article ( http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/elon-musks... ) casts some doubt on his loud protestations. And they've only released their summarized charts, not the raw log data, anyway. It's already a "he said / she said" situation, it's just th…

> it's just that much of the HN crowd is more apt to be on one side vs. the other. I don't think so, it's just that one part of the HN crowd likes data more than 'someone said'. So now it is up to Tesla to provide even more data, preferably with an exact re-run of the conditions in the presence of said journalist. That should clear up any kind of difference and would establish whether or not there is either a bug in…

Does no one else find it odd that everyone accepts the Tesla-provided data as a given fact, given that they are the only people with access to it?

Can a third party verify the data?

And how do readers know that the data-collection itself works without flaws?

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