11 ms·

The Charges Are Flying Over a Test of Tesla’s Charging Network

73 points by pzaich 14y ago

williamcotton 14y ago
Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage. How does someone this unaware of how transportation works end up in a position to be reviewing cars in a professional setting?
- codex 14y ago
  He called Tesla and acted on the advice they gave him. In this respect, he was acting like a normal consumer, not an automobile expert, which is precisely why I like his review. One shouldn't have to drive a Tesla like a auto expert to avoid getting into trouble.
  - jonknee 14y ago
    And yet somehow all the real people who paid good money to buy this car have managed to figure out not to become stranded on their first drive. It's not rocket science (though Elon could help there too).
    - vor_ 14y ago
      I can't help but doubt that you have spoken to all the drivers.
    - antiterra 14y ago
      Do we have good data on this, that no one who set out on their first long distance drive on the east coast in cold weather came up short in power between stations? A quick search of their forums turned up at least anecdotal evidence of owners running out of juice in their Tesla Roadsters.
- bigdubs 14y ago
  I think they're falsely assuming that electric cars work like hybrids, in that regenerative breaking will help boost economy vs. driving on a highway where you don't get this benefit. This isn't out of the question, you would assume that the Tesla's regenerative breaking would help it in the city.
- antiterra 14y ago
  As has been brought up in previous discussions, his primary role is as a "Green" correspondent, not an auto columnist. However, his inference wasn't all that crazy- consider, for example, that published mpg for the Prius is higher for city driving than on highways. Edit: Further, Tesla's own blog states the following, which could probably influence many to infer what Broder did: In contrast slower city driving speeds are more efficient and electric vehicles have a unique benefit in stop and go, low-speed driving due to regenerative braking http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-efficiency-and-range http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-efficiency-and-range
  - jonknee 14y ago
    There's highway, city and "stop and go" city. It doesn't matter what kind of car you have, gridlock is going to be inefficient.
    - doki_pen 14y ago
      But it could be less inefficient as driving 55mph on the highway with this particular car, no?
    - antiterra 14y ago
      At some speed, driving fast on the highway will eventually be less efficient than driving in very bad gridlock. It isn't entirely unreasonable to incorrectly estimate the intersection of two causes of inefficiency in driving. It's probably possible to design a car so aerodynamically inefficient at 35+ mph that stop and go is preferable to cruising at even moderate speeds.
      - klinquist 14y ago
        ...although it should be noted that the Model S has the second best drag coefficient on the market today (it was the first before a new Benz was released in 2013): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient
  - 14y ago
- mpyne 14y ago
  In fairness, that's what he was told by Tesla Motors when he expressed his concern with his remaining range. It's also not completely insane: Energy requirements for driving go up approximately as the square of the velocity. This would normally make city driving exceptionally efficient. The reason it's not efficient is because of all the energy lost due to idling and from being dissipated in the brakes. If the Tesla is able to idle at a much lower energy than a gas-powered car (which should be true) and if it can reclaim energy from braking by using regeneration then it could very well use less energy to "take a shortcut" through Manhattan. Whatever gains he might have obtained were eliminated by the extra distance though (and it's not even clear there were gains to be had). The right answer is even simpler (albeit frustrating): Drive slower.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    Yeah, that and the whole Newton's First Law thing. :-|
    - mpyne 14y ago
      Well, that's the beautiful thing about regenerative braking: The "external force" required to slow down the car comes from the electric motor itself, from the counter-torque of the motor acting as a generator to charge the battery. It's not lossless but it's far better than letting all the kinetic energy dissipate as heat.
  - elemeno 14y ago
    There's no reason for an electric car to idle at all - if you're stopped in traffic, why would you need to provide any power to the motor when the start up time for an electric motor is near instantaneous.
    - amenghra 14y ago
      something has to power that nice 17'' touch screen :)
      - 14y ago
- roc 14y ago
  When you're writing for an unsophisticated audience, it's generally more profitable to be a good writer than particularly knowledgeable about the subject.
- brown9-2 14y ago
  Seems like a fair impression if you include the sentence in the article immediately preceding the one you quoted: She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down.
jug6ernaut 14y ago
Honestly, the simple fact that there is a discussion regarding the range of the Model S shows that its still an issue. Will it work for some? Sure. Will it work for most? Probably not.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I don't think that is logical. I can pick fights on the internet about evolution, but that does not have any bearing on the reality of the situation. If these cars got 5k miles to the charge I could still start "discussion" about the range, but that wouldn't show that range is still an issue. The fact that anything is "being discussed" means nothing at all. You have to analyze the validity of the points being raised in that discussion.
  - jug6ernaut 14y ago
    "If these cars got 5k miles to the charge I could still start "discussion" about the range, but that wouldn't show that range is still an issue." Sure there would be, but it would be a positive discussion. Allow me to be more specific since you want to nitpick my choice of words. The simple fact that there are questions regarding the range of this vehicle shows there is an issue. If this vehicle had a similar range to that of the majority of vehicles no one would be arguing about the range, because no one would care. If anything everyone would be raving about this car because it would literally be the future of the car industry.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      > Sure there would be, but it would be a positive discussion. Not at all, I could start a conversation with any tone I wished. I'm not trying to nitpick words, I just don't think that you can make any conclusions about reality just by noting that people are discussing something, in a positive manner or otherwise. There just isn't any relationship between reality and what people discuss.
- klinquist 14y ago
  I think the question is: Will it work for most people most of the time - I think that answer is yes. How often do you drive >200mi/day? Remember you start off every morning with a "full tank."
travisp 14y ago
As best as I can tell (unless Tesla releases data showing otherwise), the reporter probably did not intentionally sabotage the results, but made a number of errors possibly because he was trying to simulate a "mass consumer" driver. On the one hand, he should have known better. On the other hand, I can imagine similar things happening to some subset of new Tesla owners who fail to read up on what to do with the new technology, and it is fair to point those faults out. I imagine the reporter's article would have rubbed Musk the wrong way a lot less if the reporter had made it more clear what was going on and that some of the things that happened were the results of mistakes made (whether or not you might expect consumers to make the same mistakes). For example: if the reporter had explained that he was intentionally trying to simulate "normal use" by not plugging in the car at night. If the article had said, "The owner's manual said to plug in overnight, repeatedly, but I chose not to in order to see what might happen if a less educated consumer were driving the car," I imagine the article would have gotten more sympathy. The article, as I read it, didn't really get into that, and seemed to simply imply a failure on Tesla's part.
- adestefan 14y ago
  I don't think he was trying to simulate anything. I think he was just trying to drive a car to Boston.
  - travisp 14y ago
    When explaining why he didn't plug in the car overnight, he says the evaluation was "intended to demonstrate its practicality as a 'normal use,' no-compromise car" and that Tesla can't realistically expect all of its buyers to be "acolytes" who plug in all the time. I took that for him saying he didn't plug in on purpose, but I could be wrong.
    - protomyth 14y ago
      I live in ND and have stayed in several hotels here (lived out of one for 6 months). I can truthfully say ND gets a lot colder than where the reporter was driving. I am wondering which hotels have overnight plug-ins because I sure don't see it here?
codex 14y ago
In reading the rebuttal here, I can't shake the feeling that one cannot take anything uttered from Elon Musk's mouth at face value when it concerns his baby, Tesla (and probably also SpaceX). He appears absolutely dedicated to the success of his companies. He is a visionary, a True Beliver, and he will do anything to advance his cause, even at the expense of personal credibility--so it is important to unspin what he says, and give it the maximum amount of scrutiny, because you can be sure he using every trick at his disposal to put the situation in the best possible light. In this respect, he sounds like a political candidate, and, to be fair, many other CEOs behave like this.
- lutusp 14y ago
  > I can't shake the feeling that one cannot take anything uttered from Elon Musk's mouth at face value when it concerns his baby ... There's no need for that -- Musk has the car's logs, which describe the miles driven, the speeds, and the battery's state of charge. Under the circumstances, this is not a case of "he said, she said" -- i's a matter of unambiguous computer records. If the computer records contradict what Musk said, he's in big trouble, but I doubt it will come out that way. And consider the consequences if Musk reported something different than the records show -- and Musk knows this. Why would he knowingly sabotage his own company?
  - vor_ 14y ago
    Until the logs are released to the public, it is a case of "he said, she said."
  - walkon 14y ago
    > And consider the consequences if Musk reported something different than the records show -- and Musk knows this. Why would he knowingly sabotage his own company? Wouldn't a privileged DBA be able to make the data look like just about anything? Also, the location logging system as a whole isn't necessarily infallible.
    - ConstantineXVI 14y ago
grannyg00se 14y ago
Is this supposed to be some kind of 400+ horsepower road tripping car, or a great sedan that handles all of your daily driving needs? I'm a bit surprised that this kind of test is necessary. Even 150 miles on one charge should be plenty unless the market for this is drastically different than I thought. Range is important, for sure. But it shouldn't be a primary concern for a 4000 pound electric vehicle. I suppose if Elon thinks that's what it should be then that's what it should be and I really hope it works out well.
- roc 14y ago
  "Range Anxiety" is a very real (irrational) concern of a large slice of Americans. Regardless of how many trips they make within an electric vehicle's range, they will place outsize importance on edge cases. And between range and recharge times, I really can't see all-electric cars taking off among that group. Something like the Chevy Volt's "range extender" ICE seems the only way to reach anyone who's worried about road-trip-style range. Even if the supercharger network was 100% in-place, those people are going to turn up their nose at a 30-60 minute recharge stop.
  - aetherson 14y ago
    It's not all that irrational for... some electric vehicles. Probably not the Tesla Model S, though. I mean, I normally drive (much) less than 200 miles per day, and I'm sure that 99% of my driving would be fine with a 200 mile range electric vehicle. But when I do want to go farther, well... I mean... I actually want to go farther. I want to go skiing sometimes, and there is no skiing within 200 miles of me. I don't particularly want to spend even 30 minutes recharging along the way, either -- it's a long day without additional delays. When I went down to visit my sister when she was in LA, and again when she was up in Eureka, or my family in Mendocino, those are important trips to me. They aren't my usual use profile, but a significant part of the value of the cars I get is that they CAN meet my less usual needs as well as my more usual ones. Now, all that said, the Tesla Model S is a $50,000 to $100,000 car. Its owners have options. Probably well over 95% of Model S's sold are to multi-car households. And at the very least, its owners are clearly wealthy enough to do something like "go to Enterprise and rent a SUV for their ski-trips, without worrying about a few hundred dollars a few times a year." On the other hand, I don't think that most of the interest around the Model S is driven by the S per se. I think a lot of people are using it as a proxy for "a future, less expensive car that has similar range." And then we're back to people who can't necessarily buy their hypothetical future EV as a second car, retaining a household gas car for their road trips, or renting one with their large disposable income.
smackfu 14y ago
Seems like a PR person screw-up. Testing the car at almost maximum range in the winter is just a disaster waiting to happen. You can quibble with the details and things the reporter allegedly did wrong, but I would bet that a decent percentage of these attempted trips would end in failure. What if the reporter had hit traffic in the NY Metro area? I mean, that never happens, right? That's just dumb for a story you are setting up in the media.
lutusp 14y ago
This reply to Musk's criticism essentially concedes its truth -- the correspondent didn't fully charge the battery, just as Musk claimed, he did add some gratuitous miles to his route as Musk claimed, and he exceeded the speed limit as Musk claimed. There are factors that made this a tough (some will say "realistic") test, particularly the low temperature. But the correspondent's ignorance might have been the biggest obstacle: "... I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage." Really? Repeated acceleration and deceleration will help the overall mileage? The fact that the car has regenerative braking can only reduce the losses created by stop-and-go driving, not eliminate them entirely (the best regenerative braking schemes can only recover a fraction of the energy lost in braking). Musk's reaction to this account is understandable -- this technology is in its infancy, and public perceptions, accurate or not, could make or break Tesla.
- Anechoic 14y ago
  he did add some gratuitous miles Two miles is "gratuitous"? That's a rounding error, even on my bicycle! and he exceeded the speed limit as Musk claimed Does Tesla expect drivers to adhere to posted speed limits even when prevailing speeds are much higher (as they are on I-95)? edit: CamperBob2 wrote "Apparently the reporter was averaging 81 MPH, going by an earlier comment." As far as I can tell, that figure is based on a Reddit post from yesterday (http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/18c15x/tesla_ceo_elon_musk_accuses_new_york_times_of/c8dmzp9 http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/18c15x/tesla_ceo...) which in turn is assuming that the times and mileage on the travel map were exact. It could be. But then again, those times could be estimates (note that 7 out of 9 time stamps appear rounded to the nearest 5 minute mark). I guess we'll know when Tesla releases the logs.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    Apparently the reporter was averaging 81 MPH, going by an earlier comment. I don't know if that's true or not, but that is a very high average speed and it will have serious effects on fuel economy. To average 81 MPH in traffic, you are going to need to spend a fair amount of time north of 90 MPH. If the charging station intervals were based on expected speeds closer to 55-65 MPH, then the idea that the trip could be made at 80+ was questionable from the outset. So, yeah, there's adhering to posted speed limits for best fuel economy, there's driving with the traffic for maximum safety, and then there's full-blown Mad Max mode, which is apparently what you do when you want to make the car you're testing look bad.
jmakov 14y ago
just replace the battery once you stop at the charging station with a fully charged one. you know, hydraulics, robots and stuff. but give the customer enough time to go to the toilet room. we don't want the customer to be in a hurry and having a bad feeling because her car is just there in the way doing nothing. heck, you can even populate your station's roof with cheap mirrors that reflect light all at the same point, make energy and call it an art project. don't screw this up. who knows when will EVs see the street if this project dies because of bad user experience. just replace the damn thing in 5 min and let the machinery do some futuristic sounds so that ppl feel important/ a part of "i'm so cool club". you could check how's the car's computer doing while you're at it... if nothing else works, edward bernays is your man.
- rdouble 14y ago
  The battery in the Tesla is not an easily removable battery like a car battery. The entire bottom slab of the car is filled with batteries. http://designapplause.com/wp-content/xG58hlz9/2012/06/teslas7.png http://designapplause.com/wp-content/xG58hlz9/2012/06/teslas...
  - jmakov 14y ago
    The fact that something monolithic, at the bottom of the car, which causes bad experience thingy isn't easily removed is the designer engineer's problem. It also shows that nobody really thought about the whole everyday experience of this kind of a vehicle.
    - rdouble 14y ago
      It's more the power engineers problem. There's no way to power a car like that with a smaller battery at the moment.
      - jmakov 14y ago
        The problem is not its size but the lack of easily replacing it at the charging station with a fully charged one. Also you could make it modular and increase its size. Maybe that kind of design would help replacing it faster.
Cushman 14y ago
This headline is altogether too clever for its own good.
- kmfrk 14y ago
  They probably expected to get more mileage out of it than they ended up with.
protomyth 14y ago
"While Tesla officials and many armchair experts have said I should have accepted the time penalty to top off the battery in Delaware at the Max Range setting, Tesla warns specifically that this shortens the battery’s life." I wonder by how much?
tokenadult 14y ago
I like the comment on the submitted article that Teslas should come with a bike rack and bicycle as a back-up plan. "On second thought, just buy a bicycle. You will get there faster and more reliably." In this jest is truth for my family, because we live at least 1,000 miles from the nearest currently installed Tesla Supercharger station http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger and yet my wife and I can use our bicycles year-round in our cold-weather but bicycle-friendly city, http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-minneapolis http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-m... so we can be even more environmentally friendly than the buyers of the big, heavy, expensive Tesla Model S by using our bicycles. As the New York Times reporter follows up, "Virtually everyone says that I should have plugged in the car overnight in Connecticut, particularly given the cold temperature. But the test that Tesla offered was of the Supercharger, not of the Model S, which we already know is a much-praised car. This evaluation was intended to demonstrate its practicality as a 'normal use,' no-compromise car, as Tesla markets it. Now that Tesla is striving to be a mass-market automaker, it cannot realistically expect all 20,000 buyers a year (the Model S sales goal) to be electric-car acolytes who will plug in at every Walmart stop. "Knowing then what I know now about the car, its sensitivity to cold and additional ways to maximize range, I certainly would have treated the test differently. But the conclusion might not have been any better for Tesla." P.S. I see from the pattern of votes so far on this comment that some fellow participant here is not amused by my suggestion that a bicycle is a more environmentally friendly form of alternative vehicle for someone living in snowy Minnesota than a Tesla Model S. But I am serious. There is NO WAY I would sink so much of my family's budget into buying a car like that when I can obtain more reliable transportation at a much lower price. That's the tough squeeze that Tesla Motors is in. There was an extensive, and on the whole more favorable, review of the Model S from The Verge http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/12/3969260/going-the-distance-driving-tesla-model-s-in-the-real-world http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/12/3969260/going-the-distance... submitted to HN earlier today (most participants missed the discussion on that article) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5208154 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5208154 and the author of that report takes care to mention, "Tesla hopes for its first quarter of black ink this year after a decade of operation, but make no mistake, it’s still in the throes of startupdom. Much of its working capital has come from nearly half a billion dollars in low-interest rate government loans. It has just a few dozen dealers around the world." I'm not going to be lining up to buy the first Tesla car for sale in Minnesota unless both the charging network and the car's cold-weather performance are massively improved. P.P.S. While I still have my edit window, I should mention that one blogger on business writes "Why Tesla's Elon Musk Should Consult The Communications Playbook," http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/02/12/dear-elon-shut-up/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/02/12/d... and a Forbes staff writer on the global auto industry writes, "Fake Or Not, New York Times' Tesla Review Speaks Truth About Electric Cars," http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/02/11/fake-or-not-new-york-times-tesla-review-speaks-truth-about-electric-cars/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/02/11/fake-or-n... suggesting that not all business writers have been impressed by Elon Musk's response to the first New York Times report so far.
jusben1369 14y ago
This is a valuable lesson for all startups. Tesla's in a dust up around a use case that they don't really need to address for a while longer and can still be very successful. Imagine how many people today fall into the category of i) Being able to afford this car ii) Owning only this car vs having a gasoline car and iii) Caring about traveling such long distances in the extreme cold? Some, for sure, but not many and not enough to dampen demand. The majority of electric car owners aren't going to undertake this trip at all (vs fly) or would use a second car to do so. Better to have said "We're still 18 months away from having enough charging stations and batter life to tackle this type of trip" and shrugging as you cash checks from people who'll do a 13 mile commute on the 101 or 95.
- slantyyz 14y ago
  >> a use case that they don't really need to address for a while longer Well, there's a Tesla store in Toronto. Toronto gets pretty cold in the winter, and traffic is pretty nightmarish getting in and out of the city during rush hour. And there's no way you're going to sit in this traffic without a heater on. There are lots of affluent people who live in the burbs outside of Toronto who make 120+km round trips (~75 miles) who will get stuck in really bad traffic to and from work, and probably leave their car parked in a spot that doesn't have access to an outlet during the work day. If the battery charge is going to drop that significantly on a cold day, I think it would make some people think twice about a Tesla (for the homeward leg of a winter commute) if they didn't already have a winter car or backup plan.
salimmadjd 14y ago
The last paragraph is the guilty admission by Tesla, "He said that the East Coast charging stations should be 140 miles apart, not 200 miles, to take into account the traffic and temperature extremes in this part of the country." As I commented here on the prior article on HN, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203654 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203654 Musk is trying to get ahead of the story. Instead of the headlines being, "driver stranded in the cold" it was "NYT faked article". Musk/Tesla is yet to show any data, the jury is still out. But given, it's taken them this long, it seems to me, Tesla got the effect they wanted and will most likely not publish anything that will drastically contradict NYT's reporter.
andrewhillman 14y ago
This car is clearly not intended for long distances. These charger stations seem like a hassle. Waiting 1 hour at a Charge station for your "tank" to fill seems crazy since it adds on an hour of traveling time to any road trip. Seems painful to me. This car would cause me anxiety.
- slantyyz 14y ago
  I'm curious if it would be practical even for some workday commutes on a very cold day. I live just outside of Toronto (there's a Tesla store here), and while it's not as cold as Calgary or Winnipeg, it can get pretty damned cold. Power outlets aren't widely available in all parking lots. I know people who make ~75 mile round trips commuting from the burbs. After reading the NYT article, I'd be a little nervous to make the trip home if I had to leave my car out in the blistering cold for a full work day where there was no charging station even if I did charge the battery fully the night before. --edit-- I also read somewhere that there are no Supercharger stations in Canada... yet.
arcticfox 14y ago
"She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down." There's either a fundamental misunderstanding here or Tesla just owned physics. Braking is never, ever a good idea for power preservation. (Slowing down is another story, but if "occasional braking" was actually in the advice, that's abysmal).
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
It it just me or is Tesla getting all the running in the electric car stakes? either they are atreets abead of Toyota and GM or are the other car manufacturers simply letting Tesla take all the knocks as consumers get used to the new ideas?
- gte910h 14y ago
  Toyota is partnering with them for tech. So Tesla is protecting their ongoing consulting relationship/tech share with this as well.
walkon 14y ago
How has this fallen of the front page so quickly, yet the story from Musk's perspective is treated as irrefutable? Right now this is still mostly in hearsay mode, proving the bias in HN readers (at least those ostensibly flagging and down-voting this story into oblivion).
- cremnob 14y ago
  Tech geeks have a hard-on for Elon Musk. The same is true for HN.
danbmil99 14y ago
Bad on Musk using the charge "fake". It's pretty clear the article was written in good faith; he's lucky the author didn't respond in alpha-male kind.
dredmorbius 14y ago
The key sentence from Broder's followup is: "But the test that Tesla offered was of the Supercharger, not of the Model S, which we already know is a much-praised car. " The first question is: is that what Tesla proposed, and was the proposal based on a cold-weather long-distance round-trip journey using only Superchargers? If so, then Tesla bit off more than it could chew. If no, then Broder is misrepresenting Tesla's Supercharger service -- is it a waypoint recharge to extend driving range reasonably in conjunction with normal overnight charging as would ordinarily be practiced, or is it a service on which long-distance travelers can rely on exclusively? My suspicion is the former (in which case Broder is at fault). This still leaves Tesla with a serious image problem (and a ruffled, if still understanding reviewer at The New York Times). For all the attractions and upsides of EVs, range, and cold-weather range degredation, remain significant issues. But in this case, Musk's reliance on log data doesn't seem entirely relevant: it's operator behavior and compliance which need to be addressed.

73 points by pzaich 14y ago

Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage. How does someone this unaware of how transportation works end up in a position to be reviewing cars in a professional setting?

codex 14y ago
He called Tesla and acted on the advice they gave him. In this respect, he was acting like a normal consumer, not an automobile expert, which is precisely why I like his review. One shouldn't have to drive a Tesla like a auto expert to avoid getting into trouble.
- jonknee 14y ago
  And yet somehow all the real people who paid good money to buy this car have managed to figure out not to become stranded on their first drive. It's not rocket science (though Elon could help there too).
  - vor_ 14y ago
    I can't help but doubt that you have spoken to all the drivers.
  - antiterra 14y ago
    Do we have good data on this, that no one who set out on their first long distance drive on the east coast in cold weather came up short in power between stations? A quick search of their forums turned up at least anecdotal evidence of owners running out of juice in their Tesla Roadsters.
bigdubs 14y ago
I think they're falsely assuming that electric cars work like hybrids, in that regenerative breaking will help boost economy vs. driving on a highway where you don't get this benefit. This isn't out of the question, you would assume that the Tesla's regenerative breaking would help it in the city.
antiterra 14y ago
As has been brought up in previous discussions, his primary role is as a "Green" correspondent, not an auto columnist. However, his inference wasn't all that crazy- consider, for example, that published mpg for the Prius is higher for city driving than on highways. Edit: Further, Tesla's own blog states the following, which could probably influence many to infer what Broder did: In contrast slower city driving speeds are more efficient and electric vehicles have a unique benefit in stop and go, low-speed driving due to regenerative braking http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-efficiency-and-range http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-efficiency-and-range
- jonknee 14y ago
  There's highway, city and "stop and go" city. It doesn't matter what kind of car you have, gridlock is going to be inefficient.
  - doki_pen 14y ago
    But it could be less inefficient as driving 55mph on the highway with this particular car, no?
  - antiterra 14y ago
    At some speed, driving fast on the highway will eventually be less efficient than driving in very bad gridlock. It isn't entirely unreasonable to incorrectly estimate the intersection of two causes of inefficiency in driving. It's probably possible to design a car so aerodynamically inefficient at 35+ mph that stop and go is preferable to cruising at even moderate speeds.
    - klinquist 14y ago
      ...although it should be noted that the Model S has the second best drag coefficient on the market today (it was the first before a new Benz was released in 2013): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient
- 14y ago
mpyne 14y ago
In fairness, that's what he was told by Tesla Motors when he expressed his concern with his remaining range. It's also not completely insane: Energy requirements for driving go up approximately as the square of the velocity. This would normally make city driving exceptionally efficient. The reason it's not efficient is because of all the energy lost due to idling and from being dissipated in the brakes. If the Tesla is able to idle at a much lower energy than a gas-powered car (which should be true) and if it can reclaim energy from braking by using regeneration then it could very well use less energy to "take a shortcut" through Manhattan. Whatever gains he might have obtained were eliminated by the extra distance though (and it's not even clear there were gains to be had). The right answer is even simpler (albeit frustrating): Drive slower.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  Yeah, that and the whole Newton's First Law thing. :-|
  - mpyne 14y ago
    Well, that's the beautiful thing about regenerative braking: The "external force" required to slow down the car comes from the electric motor itself, from the counter-torque of the motor acting as a generator to charge the battery. It's not lossless but it's far better than letting all the kinetic energy dissipate as heat.
- elemeno 14y ago
  There's no reason for an electric car to idle at all - if you're stopped in traffic, why would you need to provide any power to the motor when the start up time for an electric motor is near instantaneous.
  - amenghra 14y ago
    something has to power that nice 17'' touch screen :)
    - 14y ago
roc 14y ago
When you're writing for an unsophisticated audience, it's generally more profitable to be a good writer than particularly knowledgeable about the subject.
brown9-2 14y ago
Seems like a fair impression if you include the sentence in the article immediately preceding the one you quoted: She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down.

jug6ernaut 14y ago

Honestly, the simple fact that there is a discussion regarding the range of the Model S shows that its still an issue. Will it work for some? Sure. Will it work for most? Probably not.

jlgreco 14y ago
I don't think that is logical. I can pick fights on the internet about evolution, but that does not have any bearing on the reality of the situation. If these cars got 5k miles to the charge I could still start "discussion" about the range, but that wouldn't show that range is still an issue. The fact that anything is "being discussed" means nothing at all. You have to analyze the validity of the points being raised in that discussion.
- jug6ernaut 14y ago
  "If these cars got 5k miles to the charge I could still start "discussion" about the range, but that wouldn't show that range is still an issue." Sure there would be, but it would be a positive discussion. Allow me to be more specific since you want to nitpick my choice of words. The simple fact that there are questions regarding the range of this vehicle shows there is an issue. If this vehicle had a similar range to that of the majority of vehicles no one would be arguing about the range, because no one would care. If anything everyone would be raving about this car because it would literally be the future of the car industry.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    > Sure there would be, but it would be a positive discussion. Not at all, I could start a conversation with any tone I wished. I'm not trying to nitpick words, I just don't think that you can make any conclusions about reality just by noting that people are discussing something, in a positive manner or otherwise. There just isn't any relationship between reality and what people discuss.
klinquist 14y ago
I think the question is: Will it work for most people most of the time - I think that answer is yes. How often do you drive >200mi/day? Remember you start off every morning with a "full tank."

travisp 14y ago

As best as I can tell (unless Tesla releases data showing otherwise), the reporter probably did not intentionally sabotage the results, but made a number of errors possibly because he was trying to simulate a "mass consumer" driver. On the one hand, he should have known better. On the other hand, I can imagine similar things happening to some subset of new Tesla owners who fail to read up on what to do with the new technology, and it is fair to point those faults out. I imagine the reporter's article would have rubbed Musk the wrong way a lot less if the reporter had made it more clear what was going on and that some of the things that happened were the results of mistakes made (whether or not you might expect consumers to make the same mistakes). For example: if the reporter had explained that he was intentionally trying to simulate "normal use" by not plugging in the car at night. If the article had said, "The owner's manual said to plug in overnight, repeatedly, but I chose not to in order to see what might happen if a less educated consumer were driving the car," I imagine the article would have gotten more sympathy. The article, as I read it, didn't really get into that, and seemed to simply imply a failure on Tesla's part.

adestefan 14y ago
I don't think he was trying to simulate anything. I think he was just trying to drive a car to Boston.
- travisp 14y ago
  When explaining why he didn't plug in the car overnight, he says the evaluation was "intended to demonstrate its practicality as a 'normal use,' no-compromise car" and that Tesla can't realistically expect all of its buyers to be "acolytes" who plug in all the time. I took that for him saying he didn't plug in on purpose, but I could be wrong.
  - protomyth 14y ago
    I live in ND and have stayed in several hotels here (lived out of one for 6 months). I can truthfully say ND gets a lot colder than where the reporter was driving. I am wondering which hotels have overnight plug-ins because I sure don't see it here?

codex 14y ago

In reading the rebuttal here, I can't shake the feeling that one cannot take anything uttered from Elon Musk's mouth at face value when it concerns his baby, Tesla (and probably also SpaceX). He appears absolutely dedicated to the success of his companies. He is a visionary, a True Beliver, and he will do anything to advance his cause, even at the expense of personal credibility--so it is important to unspin what he says, and give it the maximum amount of scrutiny, because you can be sure he using every trick at his disposal to put the situation in the best possible light. In this respect, he sounds like a political candidate, and, to be fair, many other CEOs behave like this.

lutusp 14y ago
> I can't shake the feeling that one cannot take anything uttered from Elon Musk's mouth at face value when it concerns his baby ... There's no need for that -- Musk has the car's logs, which describe the miles driven, the speeds, and the battery's state of charge. Under the circumstances, this is not a case of "he said, she said" -- i's a matter of unambiguous computer records. If the computer records contradict what Musk said, he's in big trouble, but I doubt it will come out that way. And consider the consequences if Musk reported something different than the records show -- and Musk knows this. Why would he knowingly sabotage his own company?
- vor_ 14y ago
  Until the logs are released to the public, it is a case of "he said, she said."
- walkon 14y ago
  > And consider the consequences if Musk reported something different than the records show -- and Musk knows this. Why would he knowingly sabotage his own company? Wouldn't a privileged DBA be able to make the data look like just about anything? Also, the location logging system as a whole isn't necessarily infallible.
  - ConstantineXVI 14y ago

grannyg00se 14y ago

Is this supposed to be some kind of 400+ horsepower road tripping car, or a great sedan that handles all of your daily driving needs? I'm a bit surprised that this kind of test is necessary. Even 150 miles on one charge should be plenty unless the market for this is drastically different than I thought. Range is important, for sure. But it shouldn't be a primary concern for a 4000 pound electric vehicle. I suppose if Elon thinks that's what it should be then that's what it should be and I really hope it works out well.

roc 14y ago
"Range Anxiety" is a very real (irrational) concern of a large slice of Americans. Regardless of how many trips they make within an electric vehicle's range, they will place outsize importance on edge cases. And between range and recharge times, I really can't see all-electric cars taking off among that group. Something like the Chevy Volt's "range extender" ICE seems the only way to reach anyone who's worried about road-trip-style range. Even if the supercharger network was 100% in-place, those people are going to turn up their nose at a 30-60 minute recharge stop.
- aetherson 14y ago
  It's not all that irrational for... some electric vehicles. Probably not the Tesla Model S, though. I mean, I normally drive (much) less than 200 miles per day, and I'm sure that 99% of my driving would be fine with a 200 mile range electric vehicle. But when I do want to go farther, well... I mean... I actually want to go farther. I want to go skiing sometimes, and there is no skiing within 200 miles of me. I don't particularly want to spend even 30 minutes recharging along the way, either -- it's a long day without additional delays. When I went down to visit my sister when she was in LA, and again when she was up in Eureka, or my family in Mendocino, those are important trips to me. They aren't my usual use profile, but a significant part of the value of the cars I get is that they CAN meet my less usual needs as well as my more usual ones. Now, all that said, the Tesla Model S is a $50,000 to $100,000 car. Its owners have options. Probably well over 95% of Model S's sold are to multi-car households. And at the very least, its owners are clearly wealthy enough to do something like "go to Enterprise and rent a SUV for their ski-trips, without worrying about a few hundred dollars a few times a year." On the other hand, I don't think that most of the interest around the Model S is driven by the S per se. I think a lot of people are using it as a proxy for "a future, less expensive car that has similar range." And then we're back to people who can't necessarily buy their hypothetical future EV as a second car, retaining a household gas car for their road trips, or renting one with their large disposable income.

smackfu 14y ago

Seems like a PR person screw-up. Testing the car at almost maximum range in the winter is just a disaster waiting to happen. You can quibble with the details and things the reporter allegedly did wrong, but I would bet that a decent percentage of these attempted trips would end in failure. What if the reporter had hit traffic in the NY Metro area? I mean, that never happens, right? That's just dumb for a story you are setting up in the media.

lutusp 14y ago

This reply to Musk's criticism essentially concedes its truth -- the correspondent didn't fully charge the battery, just as Musk claimed, he did add some gratuitous miles to his route as Musk claimed, and he exceeded the speed limit as Musk claimed. There are factors that made this a tough (some will say "realistic") test, particularly the low temperature. But the correspondent's ignorance might have been the biggest obstacle: "... I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage." Really? Repeated acceleration and deceleration will help the overall mileage? The fact that the car has regenerative braking can only reduce the losses created by stop-and-go driving, not eliminate them entirely (the best regenerative braking schemes can only recover a fraction of the energy lost in braking). Musk's reaction to this account is understandable -- this technology is in its infancy, and public perceptions, accurate or not, could make or break Tesla.

Anechoic 14y ago
he did add some gratuitous miles Two miles is "gratuitous"? That's a rounding error, even on my bicycle! and he exceeded the speed limit as Musk claimed Does Tesla expect drivers to adhere to posted speed limits even when prevailing speeds are much higher (as they are on I-95)? edit: CamperBob2 wrote "Apparently the reporter was averaging 81 MPH, going by an earlier comment." As far as I can tell, that figure is based on a Reddit post from yesterday (http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/18c15x/tesla_ceo_elon_musk_accuses_new_york_times_of/c8dmzp9 http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/18c15x/tesla_ceo...) which in turn is assuming that the times and mileage on the travel map were exact. It could be. But then again, those times could be estimates (note that 7 out of 9 time stamps appear rounded to the nearest 5 minute mark). I guess we'll know when Tesla releases the logs.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  Apparently the reporter was averaging 81 MPH, going by an earlier comment. I don't know if that's true or not, but that is a very high average speed and it will have serious effects on fuel economy. To average 81 MPH in traffic, you are going to need to spend a fair amount of time north of 90 MPH. If the charging station intervals were based on expected speeds closer to 55-65 MPH, then the idea that the trip could be made at 80+ was questionable from the outset. So, yeah, there's adhering to posted speed limits for best fuel economy, there's driving with the traffic for maximum safety, and then there's full-blown Mad Max mode, which is apparently what you do when you want to make the car you're testing look bad.

jmakov 14y ago

just replace the battery once you stop at the charging station with a fully charged one. you know, hydraulics, robots and stuff. but give the customer enough time to go to the toilet room. we don't want the customer to be in a hurry and having a bad feeling because her car is just there in the way doing nothing. heck, you can even populate your station's roof with cheap mirrors that reflect light all at the same point, make energy and call it an art project. don't screw this up. who knows when will EVs see the street if this project dies because of bad user experience. just replace the damn thing in 5 min and let the machinery do some futuristic sounds so that ppl feel important/ a part of "i'm so cool club". you could check how's the car's computer doing while you're at it... if nothing else works, edward bernays is your man.

rdouble 14y ago
The battery in the Tesla is not an easily removable battery like a car battery. The entire bottom slab of the car is filled with batteries. http://designapplause.com/wp-content/xG58hlz9/2012/06/teslas7.png http://designapplause.com/wp-content/xG58hlz9/2012/06/teslas...
- jmakov 14y ago
  The fact that something monolithic, at the bottom of the car, which causes bad experience thingy isn't easily removed is the designer engineer's problem. It also shows that nobody really thought about the whole everyday experience of this kind of a vehicle.
  - rdouble 14y ago
    It's more the power engineers problem. There's no way to power a car like that with a smaller battery at the moment.
    - jmakov 14y ago
      The problem is not its size but the lack of easily replacing it at the charging station with a fully charged one. Also you could make it modular and increase its size. Maybe that kind of design would help replacing it faster.

Cushman 14y ago

This headline is altogether too clever for its own good.

kmfrk 14y ago
They probably expected to get more mileage out of it than they ended up with.

protomyth 14y ago

"While Tesla officials and many armchair experts have said I should have accepted the time penalty to top off the battery in Delaware at the Max Range setting, Tesla warns specifically that this shortens the battery’s life." I wonder by how much?

tokenadult 14y ago

I like the comment on the submitted article that Teslas should come with a bike rack and bicycle as a back-up plan. "On second thought, just buy a bicycle. You will get there faster and more reliably." In this jest is truth for my family, because we live at least 1,000 miles from the nearest currently installed Tesla Supercharger station http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger and yet my wife and I can use our bicycles year-round in our cold-weather but bicycle-friendly city, http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-minneapolis http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-m... so we can be even more environmentally friendly than the buyers of the big, heavy, expensive Tesla Model S by using our bicycles. As the New York Times reporter follows up, "Virtually everyone says that I should have plugged in the car overnight in Connecticut, particularly given the cold temperature. But the test that Tesla offered was of the Supercharger, not of the Model S, which we already know is a much-praised car. This evaluation was intended to demonstrate its practicality as a 'normal use,' no-compromise car, as Tesla markets it. Now that Tesla is striving to be a mass-market automaker, it cannot realistically expect all 20,000 buyers a year (the Model S sales goal) to be electric-car acolytes who will plug in at every Walmart stop. "Knowing then what I know now about the car, its sensitivity to cold and additional ways to maximize range, I certainly would have treated the test differently. But the conclusion might not have been any better for Tesla." P.S. I see from the pattern of votes so far on this comment that some fellow participant here is not amused by my suggestion that a bicycle is a more environmentally friendly form of alternative vehicle for someone living in snowy Minnesota than a Tesla Model S. But I am serious. There is NO WAY I would sink so much of my family's budget into buying a car like that when I can obtain more reliable transportation at a much lower price. That's the tough squeeze that Tesla Motors is in. There was an extensive, and on the whole more favorable, review of the Model S from The Verge http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/12/3969260/going-the-distance-driving-tesla-model-s-in-the-real-world http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/12/3969260/going-the-distance... submitted to HN earlier today (most participants missed the discussion on that article) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5208154 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5208154 and the author of that report takes care to mention, "Tesla hopes for its first quarter of black ink this year after a decade of operation, but make no mistake, it’s still in the throes of startupdom. Much of its working capital has come from nearly half a billion dollars in low-interest rate government loans. It has just a few dozen dealers around the world." I'm not going to be lining up to buy the first Tesla car for sale in Minnesota unless both the charging network and the car's cold-weather performance are massively improved. P.P.S. While I still have my edit window, I should mention that one blogger on business writes "Why Tesla's Elon Musk Should Consult The Communications Playbook," http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/02/12/dear-elon-shut-up/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/02/12/d... and a Forbes staff writer on the global auto industry writes, "Fake Or Not, New York Times' Tesla Review Speaks Truth About Electric Cars," http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/02/11/fake-or-not-new-york-times-tesla-review-speaks-truth-about-electric-cars/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/02/11/fake-or-n... suggesting that not all business writers have been impressed by Elon Musk's response to the first New York Times report so far.

jusben1369 14y ago

This is a valuable lesson for all startups. Tesla's in a dust up around a use case that they don't really need to address for a while longer and can still be very successful. Imagine how many people today fall into the category of i) Being able to afford this car ii) Owning only this car vs having a gasoline car and iii) Caring about traveling such long distances in the extreme cold? Some, for sure, but not many and not enough to dampen demand. The majority of electric car owners aren't going to undertake this trip at all (vs fly) or would use a second car to do so. Better to have said "We're still 18 months away from having enough charging stations and batter life to tackle this type of trip" and shrugging as you cash checks from people who'll do a 13 mile commute on the 101 or 95.

slantyyz 14y ago
>> a use case that they don't really need to address for a while longer Well, there's a Tesla store in Toronto. Toronto gets pretty cold in the winter, and traffic is pretty nightmarish getting in and out of the city during rush hour. And there's no way you're going to sit in this traffic without a heater on. There are lots of affluent people who live in the burbs outside of Toronto who make 120+km round trips (~75 miles) who will get stuck in really bad traffic to and from work, and probably leave their car parked in a spot that doesn't have access to an outlet during the work day. If the battery charge is going to drop that significantly on a cold day, I think it would make some people think twice about a Tesla (for the homeward leg of a winter commute) if they didn't already have a winter car or backup plan.

salimmadjd 14y ago

The last paragraph is the guilty admission by Tesla, "He said that the East Coast charging stations should be 140 miles apart, not 200 miles, to take into account the traffic and temperature extremes in this part of the country." As I commented here on the prior article on HN, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203654 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203654 Musk is trying to get ahead of the story. Instead of the headlines being, "driver stranded in the cold" it was "NYT faked article". Musk/Tesla is yet to show any data, the jury is still out. But given, it's taken them this long, it seems to me, Tesla got the effect they wanted and will most likely not publish anything that will drastically contradict NYT's reporter.

andrewhillman 14y ago

This car is clearly not intended for long distances. These charger stations seem like a hassle. Waiting 1 hour at a Charge station for your "tank" to fill seems crazy since it adds on an hour of traveling time to any road trip. Seems painful to me. This car would cause me anxiety.

slantyyz 14y ago
I'm curious if it would be practical even for some workday commutes on a very cold day. I live just outside of Toronto (there's a Tesla store here), and while it's not as cold as Calgary or Winnipeg, it can get pretty damned cold. Power outlets aren't widely available in all parking lots. I know people who make ~75 mile round trips commuting from the burbs. After reading the NYT article, I'd be a little nervous to make the trip home if I had to leave my car out in the blistering cold for a full work day where there was no charging station even if I did charge the battery fully the night before. --edit-- I also read somewhere that there are no Supercharger stations in Canada... yet.

arcticfox 14y ago

"She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down." There's either a fundamental misunderstanding here or Tesla just owned physics. Braking is never, ever a good idea for power preservation. (Slowing down is another story, but if "occasional braking" was actually in the advice, that's abysmal).

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

It it just me or is Tesla getting all the running in the electric car stakes? either they are atreets abead of Toyota and GM or are the other car manufacturers simply letting Tesla take all the knocks as consumers get used to the new ideas?

gte910h 14y ago
Toyota is partnering with them for tech. So Tesla is protecting their ongoing consulting relationship/tech share with this as well.

walkon 14y ago

How has this fallen of the front page so quickly, yet the story from Musk's perspective is treated as irrefutable? Right now this is still mostly in hearsay mode, proving the bias in HN readers (at least those ostensibly flagging and down-voting this story into oblivion).

cremnob 14y ago
Tech geeks have a hard-on for Elon Musk. The same is true for HN.

danbmil99 14y ago

Bad on Musk using the charge "fake". It's pretty clear the article was written in good faith; he's lucky the author didn't respond in alpha-male kind.

dredmorbius 14y ago

The key sentence from Broder's followup is: "But the test that Tesla offered was of the Supercharger, not of the Model S, which we already know is a much-praised car. " The first question is: is that what Tesla proposed, and was the proposal based on a cold-weather long-distance round-trip journey using only Superchargers? If so, then Tesla bit off more than it could chew. If no, then Broder is misrepresenting Tesla's Supercharger service -- is it a waypoint recharge to extend driving range reasonably in conjunction with normal overnight charging as would ordinarily be practiced, or is it a service on which long-distance travelers can rely on exclusively? My suspicion is the former (in which case Broder is at fault). This still leaves Tesla with a serious image problem (and a ruffled, if still understanding reviewer at The New York Times). For all the attractions and upsides of EVs, range, and cold-weather range degredation, remain significant issues. But in this case, Musk's reliance on log data doesn't seem entirely relevant: it's operator behavior and compliance which need to be addressed.