7 ms·

Holy shit! Did this have consequences?

gamblor956 8y ago
Tesla's response turned off a lot of potential customers who realized that Tesla would go through their trip logs if they made even the slightest critical comment of the company. Oh, you meant to the NYT? No, because they were just driving the car like a normal person would. They weren't trying to drive the car [like] a Tesla fanatic would, and it was bizarre for Tesla to go after them for trying to drive the car like a normal car...especially when Tesla spends so much marketing $$$ trying to convince people their cars can replace a normal car.
- Tade0 8y ago
  I remember that case and I don't think a "normal person" drives around the parking lot in circles when the range indicator shows zero.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    I just re-read the NY article and the normal person did not at any point drive circles around in the parking lot when the range indicator was zero. They were told by the Tesla mechanic to "recondition" their car because the range indicator wasn't working, which in the NYT article was him sitting in the parking lot for half an hour. As Tesla's own mechanics on the scene indicated that the car was malfunctioning, Tesla's subsequent PR statement has absolutely no value whatsoever and cannot be relied upon as an accurate statement of what the NYT driver did. Because Tesla's own people, on the scene, indicated that the Tesla software wasn't working, which means that the data Tesla used to "refute" the NYT article was simply untrustworthy, bad data.
- airstrike 8y ago
  > No, because they were just driving the car like a normal person would. I don't know about you, but I usually check how much gas I have in the fuel tank before going on a trip.
  - Kylekramer 8y ago
    Gas also doesn't typically disappear from the fuel tank overnight cause of the weather, which was the crux of the story.
    - slenk 8y ago
      No it was not. There were a few paragraphs towards the end of the article, but it is definitely not the crux. Maybe you just didn't know crux means the most important part of the story, not just a small point in the story
      - Kylekramer 8y ago
        The crux of the story was a person testing east coast chargers had enough range when he parked for the night, had the cold sap their range, and then was unable to make it back to the charger to point he needed a tow. It was at the end because it was a recounted story with a climax. Maybe you just need to defend mega corporations less and not assume other people are dumb.
  - northwest65 8y ago
    Not me, it's not something I ever give a second thought to. When I pull out of my driveway I look to see if I need gas, and if I do I get it. Having to put thought toward watering the horse before a long journey seems like a pretty archaic concept.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      FWIW, if I'm going on a long journey I tend to fill up my (diesel) car the night before. It's one less thing to worry about.
- Fuckyourself 8y ago
  Oh so they should just let these journalists blatantly lie about the performance of their product? Their argument clearly showed the article was misleading at best and a blatant lie at worst.
- decebalus1 8y ago
  > Tesla's response turned off a lot of potential customers who realized that Tesla would go through their trip logs if they made even the slightest critical comment of the company. Oh shit. WTF? This is the first time I'm hearing this. What? Tesla has access to the car's trip logs?????
  - sparky_z 8y ago
    If you borrow a "demo car" from Tesla for a few days and then give it back to them, then yes they obviously have access to the logs. Whether they have access to the logs of any random customer's car, I have no idea. But this doesn't prove things one way or the other.
    - makomk 8y ago
      They also pull the same stunt of selectively releasing info from data logs and spinning them to make the customer look like they're in the wrong every time a Tesla crash makes the news. There's a cell modem in every car to send them up to the mothership.
    - denimnerd46 8y ago
      they log everything. even their home solar panels send usage back to the mothership with no way to disable
- xoa 8y ago
  >slightest critical comment... fanatics... bizarre I don't know if it's intentional or not, but your comment reads as if you're very angry at Tesla yourself, which makes it harder to take your comment at face value. FWIW, if you're just legitimately trying to make an argument on HN it can be worth trying to be judicious about throwing around terms like "zealot" or "fanatic" or significant hyperbole in general. Furthermore you've started with something more then dubious: >that Tesla would go through their trip logs Above link was the first time I'd seen that, looks like it's from 2013. But even just reading Tesla's response alone I noted they said "media drive", as in this wasn't the reporter buying his own car and then writing about it, but getting a temporary loaner from Tesla. It's completely normal and within the rights of a manufacturer offering a loan of something valuable for review purposes to keep logs or check it for reported problems on return, it's their property after all and if there were real flaws they'd want to be able to work on fixing them. After I read further comments made at the time it was stated that private owners logs are theirs in turn, no Tesla cannot go through their trip logs if they write whatever they want. But if you want to just try something out for free, well it's not yours. This would be the same as if you used a company car or system or equipment or whatever, the company may monitor that. And loaners aren't the only way for journalists to do reviews either, Consumer Reports for example famously buys things themselves (with confidential shoppers to boot) precisely to avoid bias or cherry picking or whatever from either side. Given the above, I have doubts about your assertion of "a lot of potential customers" too. If you have some newer information indicating that Tesla was lying about not logging data of private cars without consent (real consent, with a signature) maybe include that in your post?
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    I'm not angry at Tesla, though I did cancel my preorder after their response to the NYT. I also had the opportunity to ride in one, and it was a depressingly sub-par quality car for the price. But in this case: at the time of the NYT article, Tesla's PR department was operating on hair-trigger reaction mode: even the slightest critical comment would send them into overdrive in response. They've since learned about the Streisand effect, and no longer respond to criticism in the way they did before. (This is likely because Musk no longer directly oversees the day-to-day of their marketing.) As for the trip logs: it's not just the NYT trip. It was every time there was an accident involving a Tesla. Or a negative review. Even Tesla's response to the Consumer Reports review included information from the CR vehicle's trip logs, even though CR acquired those vehicles from third parties. The problem isn't that Tesla is logging the cars (most new cars do), the problem is how Tesla is using that data in ways that violate cultural (and in the case of Europe, legal) norms regarding privacy. Finally, as to "a lot of potential customers," I count more than a few dozen in LA alone across a number of industries. Jaguar has seen the biggest windfall in terms of putative Tesla buyers switching to the iPace, followed by the BMW. A lot of the rest are simply waiting until the next generation of EVs and are sticking with their current luxury/mid-range vehicles. I am aware that on an absolute basis a few dozen customers isn't much, but it's a few dozen potential customers in the market segement most likely to buy and evangelize their cars.
- adrianmonk 8y ago
  Writing an in-depth feature story in the New York Times isn't really comparable to making "the slightest critical comment". I think most potential customers would be smart enough to realize Tesla's actions don't generalize from reporters to all customers. Especially since the reporter describes it as a "wondercar with California dealer plates", which means Tesla lent him the car. I don't see anything wrong with Tesla going through the logs on their own car after they got it back.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  >Tesla would go through their trip logs After a negative experience several years ago with Top Gear, a popular automotive show, where they pretended that our car ran out of energy and had to be pushed back to the garage, we always carefully data log media drives.
  - dmix 8y ago
    aka not a "normal person" on a "normal drive"
  - dmoy 8y ago
    Top Gear is a comedy show though? We're talking about the same show that featured taking a Reliant Robin needlessly fast around corners and getting pushed upright by celebrities, right?
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
      They blur the line between journalism and comedy. Their car reviews tend to give the appearance of being more of the former than the latter.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - arkh 8y ago
    > we always carefully data log media drives So you can easily data log any driver. So any government agency or any "partner" paying enough could have access to this data.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
      Sure, but those folks can also just stick a GPS tracker to your car.
      - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
        Or track your phone.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  It’s funny because Tesla’s responses just reinforces the absurdity of the whole thing. Reminds me of Steve Jobs “you’re holding it wrong.” A normal petrol car gives you zero anxiety about finding a refuel station, and it happens in under five minutes. Even in the smallest cities and towns in American.
  - bigger_cheese 8y ago
    Maybe not in America but I've been caught out driving on the highway in Australia in a regular petrol car. I had about a quarter of a tank left and saw a sign as I approached an off ramp which said "last service station for xx km". I did some mental arithmetic and decided not to pull over and refuel I'd be able to make it to the next service station. Sure enough I got to the next service station - however when I pulled in the single pump was out of order. I ended up having to call roadside assistance. That happened to me about 8 years ago and ever since I've been absolutely paranoid about range I'm very hesitant to let my tank drop below half nowadays.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Tesla's response turned off a lot of potential customers who realized that Tesla would go through their trip logs if they made even the slightest critical comment of the company. Oh, you meant to the NYT? No, because they were just driving the car like a normal person would. They weren't trying to drive the car [like] a Tesla fanatic would, and it was bizarre for Tesla to go after them for trying to drive the car like a normal car...especially when Tesla spends so much marketing $$$ trying to convince people their cars can replace a normal car.

Tade0 8y ago
I remember that case and I don't think a "normal person" drives around the parking lot in circles when the range indicator shows zero.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  I just re-read the NY article and the normal person did not at any point drive circles around in the parking lot when the range indicator was zero. They were told by the Tesla mechanic to "recondition" their car because the range indicator wasn't working, which in the NYT article was him sitting in the parking lot for half an hour. As Tesla's own mechanics on the scene indicated that the car was malfunctioning, Tesla's subsequent PR statement has absolutely no value whatsoever and cannot be relied upon as an accurate statement of what the NYT driver did. Because Tesla's own people, on the scene, indicated that the Tesla software wasn't working, which means that the data Tesla used to "refute" the NYT article was simply untrustworthy, bad data.
airstrike 8y ago
> No, because they were just driving the car like a normal person would. I don't know about you, but I usually check how much gas I have in the fuel tank before going on a trip.
- Kylekramer 8y ago
  Gas also doesn't typically disappear from the fuel tank overnight cause of the weather, which was the crux of the story.
  - slenk 8y ago
    No it was not. There were a few paragraphs towards the end of the article, but it is definitely not the crux. Maybe you just didn't know crux means the most important part of the story, not just a small point in the story
    - Kylekramer 8y ago
      The crux of the story was a person testing east coast chargers had enough range when he parked for the night, had the cold sap their range, and then was unable to make it back to the charger to point he needed a tow. It was at the end because it was a recounted story with a climax. Maybe you just need to defend mega corporations less and not assume other people are dumb.
- northwest65 8y ago
  Not me, it's not something I ever give a second thought to. When I pull out of my driveway I look to see if I need gas, and if I do I get it. Having to put thought toward watering the horse before a long journey seems like a pretty archaic concept.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    FWIW, if I'm going on a long journey I tend to fill up my (diesel) car the night before. It's one less thing to worry about.
Fuckyourself 8y ago
Oh so they should just let these journalists blatantly lie about the performance of their product? Their argument clearly showed the article was misleading at best and a blatant lie at worst.
decebalus1 8y ago
> Tesla's response turned off a lot of potential customers who realized that Tesla would go through their trip logs if they made even the slightest critical comment of the company. Oh shit. WTF? This is the first time I'm hearing this. What? Tesla has access to the car's trip logs?????
- sparky_z 8y ago
  If you borrow a "demo car" from Tesla for a few days and then give it back to them, then yes they obviously have access to the logs. Whether they have access to the logs of any random customer's car, I have no idea. But this doesn't prove things one way or the other.
  - makomk 8y ago
    They also pull the same stunt of selectively releasing info from data logs and spinning them to make the customer look like they're in the wrong every time a Tesla crash makes the news. There's a cell modem in every car to send them up to the mothership.
  - denimnerd46 8y ago
    they log everything. even their home solar panels send usage back to the mothership with no way to disable
xoa 8y ago
>slightest critical comment... fanatics... bizarre I don't know if it's intentional or not, but your comment reads as if you're very angry at Tesla yourself, which makes it harder to take your comment at face value. FWIW, if you're just legitimately trying to make an argument on HN it can be worth trying to be judicious about throwing around terms like "zealot" or "fanatic" or significant hyperbole in general. Furthermore you've started with something more then dubious: >that Tesla would go through their trip logs Above link was the first time I'd seen that, looks like it's from 2013. But even just reading Tesla's response alone I noted they said "media drive", as in this wasn't the reporter buying his own car and then writing about it, but getting a temporary loaner from Tesla. It's completely normal and within the rights of a manufacturer offering a loan of something valuable for review purposes to keep logs or check it for reported problems on return, it's their property after all and if there were real flaws they'd want to be able to work on fixing them. After I read further comments made at the time it was stated that private owners logs are theirs in turn, no Tesla cannot go through their trip logs if they write whatever they want. But if you want to just try something out for free, well it's not yours. This would be the same as if you used a company car or system or equipment or whatever, the company may monitor that. And loaners aren't the only way for journalists to do reviews either, Consumer Reports for example famously buys things themselves (with confidential shoppers to boot) precisely to avoid bias or cherry picking or whatever from either side. Given the above, I have doubts about your assertion of "a lot of potential customers" too. If you have some newer information indicating that Tesla was lying about not logging data of private cars without consent (real consent, with a signature) maybe include that in your post?
- gamblor956 8y ago
  I'm not angry at Tesla, though I did cancel my preorder after their response to the NYT. I also had the opportunity to ride in one, and it was a depressingly sub-par quality car for the price. But in this case: at the time of the NYT article, Tesla's PR department was operating on hair-trigger reaction mode: even the slightest critical comment would send them into overdrive in response. They've since learned about the Streisand effect, and no longer respond to criticism in the way they did before. (This is likely because Musk no longer directly oversees the day-to-day of their marketing.) As for the trip logs: it's not just the NYT trip. It was every time there was an accident involving a Tesla. Or a negative review. Even Tesla's response to the Consumer Reports review included information from the CR vehicle's trip logs, even though CR acquired those vehicles from third parties. The problem isn't that Tesla is logging the cars (most new cars do), the problem is how Tesla is using that data in ways that violate cultural (and in the case of Europe, legal) norms regarding privacy. Finally, as to "a lot of potential customers," I count more than a few dozen in LA alone across a number of industries. Jaguar has seen the biggest windfall in terms of putative Tesla buyers switching to the iPace, followed by the BMW. A lot of the rest are simply waiting until the next generation of EVs and are sticking with their current luxury/mid-range vehicles. I am aware that on an absolute basis a few dozen customers isn't much, but it's a few dozen potential customers in the market segement most likely to buy and evangelize their cars.
adrianmonk 8y ago
Writing an in-depth feature story in the New York Times isn't really comparable to making "the slightest critical comment". I think most potential customers would be smart enough to realize Tesla's actions don't generalize from reporters to all customers. Especially since the reporter describes it as a "wondercar with California dealer plates", which means Tesla lent him the car. I don't see anything wrong with Tesla going through the logs on their own car after they got it back.
asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
>Tesla would go through their trip logs After a negative experience several years ago with Top Gear, a popular automotive show, where they pretended that our car ran out of energy and had to be pushed back to the garage, we always carefully data log media drives.
- dmix 8y ago
  aka not a "normal person" on a "normal drive"
- dmoy 8y ago
  Top Gear is a comedy show though? We're talking about the same show that featured taking a Reliant Robin needlessly fast around corners and getting pushed upright by celebrities, right?
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
    They blur the line between journalism and comedy. Their car reviews tend to give the appearance of being more of the former than the latter.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- arkh 8y ago
  > we always carefully data log media drives So you can easily data log any driver. So any government agency or any "partner" paying enough could have access to this data.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
    Sure, but those folks can also just stick a GPS tracker to your car.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Or track your phone.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
It’s funny because Tesla’s responses just reinforces the absurdity of the whole thing. Reminds me of Steve Jobs “you’re holding it wrong.” A normal petrol car gives you zero anxiety about finding a refuel station, and it happens in under five minutes. Even in the smallest cities and towns in American.
- bigger_cheese 8y ago
  Maybe not in America but I've been caught out driving on the highway in Australia in a regular petrol car. I had about a quarter of a tank left and saw a sign as I approached an off ramp which said "last service station for xx km". I did some mental arithmetic and decided not to pull over and refuel I'd be able to make it to the next service station. Sure enough I got to the next service station - however when I pulled in the single pump was out of order. I ended up having to call roadside assistance. That happened to me about 8 years ago and ever since I've been absolutely paranoid about range I'm very hesitant to let my tank drop below half nowadays.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]