23 ms·

A Most Peculiar Test Drive

• ezy 14y ago
  I find it amusing that people will leap to defend the new shiny geek toy -- even if practically no one here can afford it. IMO, Telsa is sinking under it's own PR weight, and Elon knows it. The logs don't contradict the reporting in any significant way. The gist is that, even for a non-"sports" car, the Tesla is... lackluster compared to the non-electric alternatives. Now, whether the reporter is too dumb to own a non-hybrid electric car may be an issue, but most drivers don't know how a transmission works, or even how to change the oil -- so I don't think a failure to understand charge cycles & regenerative braking is all that damning.
• ComputerGuru 14y ago
  Wow. I was as skeptical of the wisdom of Tesla attacking NYT's journalist for their Model S review as all the other HNers - but this is incredible. First: I realize the fact that what the hardware logs show and what the user was shown may not be one and the same (i.e. hardware sensors may indicate charge at 28% but due to a bug (it's possible!) it may be shown to be full). But their travel logs shred, I repeat, shred Broder's credibility and claims alike. It really does look like he was hell-bent on ripping Tesla a new one in his review. Taking Tesla's rebuttal at face value: purposely embarking on journeys over twice the indicated available range, driving around in circles in an empty parking lot to kill batteries, turning up the heat and claiming to have turned it down ("shaking, shivering, and with white knuckles" no less). They post images, graphs, logs, maps, and more. I'm incredibly surprised at how well they're defending themselves against dishonest reviews - for example, I'd never have thought to log the changes to the cabin temperature, but apparently they've done so and more! This post makes me want to reconsider a Model S as my next car. As far as I'm concerned, this is exactly the kind of attention to detail I want going into the engineering, design, and manufacture of my vehicle. I'd be interested in hearing NYT's response to this - they previously stated unconditionally that they stand by Broder's review and believe it to be honest, truthful, and factual. If indeed at the end of the day this was Broder pushing his own agenda, not only ignoring but outright faking facts, then I think his journalistic career should be over.
  • richardjordan 14y ago
    I think that Tesla have been expecting this kind of shenanigans after the Top Gear pulava. It's clear that they have made sure that they have all the key data capture points switched on for a journalistic test drive. It doesn't surprise me that a big media columnist on a topic is so in-bed with the industry he covers that he goes out of his way to defend incumbents from newcomers. I'm just glad that this nonsense has been exposed for what it is. I'll be interested to see how the NYT handles it - though I suspect it'll be with denials and obfuscation as is par for the course for them in what has been a shameful decade or more of bogus stories, fabrications and toeing the establishment line on everything even in the face of countervailing evidence (that's as long as I've been in the US and paying attention).
    • olefoo 14y ago
      > It doesn't surprise me that a big media columnist on a topic is so in-bed with the industry he covers that he goes out of his way to defend incumbents from newcomers. More likely his thinking has been formed by years of contact with the industry he covers; his bias is more likely to implicit and unconscious than explicit and willful.
  • yread 14y ago
    I find it interesting that they didn't actually show the car going in circles on a map. Either they have the GPS logged and they don't want to show it (customers could think "oh this car is going to record my location?!") or they just don't have it and are guessing?
    • InclinedPlane 14y ago
      The GPS logs probably don't update fast enough and aren't accurate enough to make for an interesting display. It'd probably look like a confused scribble, the speed data is more accurate.
    • elliotanderson 14y ago
      The car park is described as a 100-lot area. Zooming in the map to show a tiny little circle wouldn't have conveyed the point - instead they showed the speed data logged instead. As for data loggin: Elon states it's only for the media test drives unless written permission is given [1] 1. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/301053361157988352 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/301053361157988352
• richardjordan 14y ago
  This is awesome. I've been waiting for them to show this and get it out there for peer review so no-one can say it's just he-said he-said. It's yet another example of how the New York Times which complains so much about the hardships it is suffering in the new media economy has brought most of the problem on itself by no longer being worthy of its once-exalted status.
  • jcdavis 14y ago
    Maybe I'm being too nice, but I'm willing to give the NYT a little benefit of the doubt that this might just have been a single journalist embellishing a story for publicity, as has been known to happen both there and at so many other publications many times over.
    • richardjordan 14y ago
      I came to the US in 1999, and understood the NYT to be the "newspaper of record". Then witnessed their atrocious coverage of WMDs and the drumbeat to the Iraq invasion. There was Jayson Blair. There was Rick Bragg. Just off the top of my head. They're always "isolated incidents" ...until it becomes a pattern of behavior. Just my 2c YMMV
      • ics 14y ago
        Americans can see the same effect just from being out of the country for a while. A few years, months, or weeks of not being subjected to the psychological burden of following 'the news' and its gradual narrative, whether that's NYT or otherwise, can have quite effective results on how ably you judge things in the future.
    • Ygg2 14y ago
      If I didn't live next to a journalist, I'd say it was a single journalist. But job of journalist is not to discuss the truth, inform the public, but to garner eyeballs. "Enhanching" the truth is their standard MO.
    • ghshephard 14y ago
• rsingla 14y ago
  Now that's how you respond to media - with the truth.
  • richardjordan 14y ago
    I think this is an important lesson to all startups who are disrupting an industry with powerful incumbents - particularly those whose advertising spend pays the salaries of the journalists who create the narrative in their marketplace. We can all learn from Elon Musk. Yet again his startup-fu is masterful.
  • arrrg 14y ago
    With confusing half-truths that are highly misleading and confusing? I guess you are right …
• rdl 14y ago
  If Tesla needs someone to do a fair review of the Tesla, particularly in urban environments, or for SF-Reno, I'd be happy to make the extreme sacrifice and take them up on it. (what I'd really like to do is test a Model S in police/security duty cycle. Lots of idling, powering accessory equipment, high speed short pursuit, long highway cruise. Or test the vehicle through something like the Blackwater driving/carbine course, where the low center of gravity would make it pretty awesome I think (especially vs. a Crown Vic or an armored GMC).)
  • PhilipA 14y ago
    I think I could do the sacrifice as well ;)
• morganb180 14y ago
  +1 for log files.
  • busterarm 14y ago
    I bet that Tesla gives automotive insurance underwriters massive hard-ons. I want one of these cars so badly. I had plans to buy the new 2017 Mazda RX-7 and keep my '88 10AE RX-7, but I might just sell the old one and figure out how to make the Model S purchase happen.
    • CamperBob2 14y ago
      I just bought a new 981S, but would have preferred to buy a car from Tesla, for what it's worth. I just can't get past my belief that EVs make no sense without a standardized battery-exchange infrastructure. I tend to keep cars for a long time, so hopefully the situation will be different next time around, and I can spend the money with Tesla. I'm very glad they were vindicated in this case. That said, I still agree with the discredited report in a qualitative sense: EVs that have to be charged in real time at arbitrary leaf nodes on the power grid are a really, really stupid idea.
      • busterarm 14y ago
        Maybe some day. It couldn't happen without Tesla's cars being ubiquitous and we'll never get there without having these cars out now. With the sled system that Tesla is using, one day it may be possible to do easy battery-exchange. If you live in an area where a Tesla is convenient and you don't need to do frequent long trips, it almost seems like a no-brainer to me though.
        • earthboundkid 14y ago
          I live in Honolulu and see Nissan Leafs on the road all the time, but I don't think I've seen a Tesla. Is the mainland different?
          • 14y ago
• petegrif 14y ago
  Interesting data. And of course there is another course of action that can settle this once and for all. Repeat the journey with an unimpeachable witness along for the ride.
• jtchang 14y ago
  Regardless of who you think is right the data is kind of indisputable. Unless Tesla is faking the data (which may happen but I really doubt it) it is up to us to determine the veracity of the NYT's article. Is it within journalistic means or did Broder straight out lie?
• Maxious 14y ago
  The kicker is the "detour". Not a detour as the journalist claimed but rather that he drove the Tesla in circles in a parking lot to ensure the battery was flat when returned.
• cpg 14y ago
  The article is direct, factual and Brother should undoubtedly be fired. Just why did Elon Musk not link to the article, for everyone to easily see Broder's embarrassment beats me. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the...
  • VMG 14y ago
    He has a new article from February 12 http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/?ref=johnmbroder http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-f... More strange things are claimed At that point, I was already experiencing anxiety about range and had called a Tesla employee from the New Jersey Turnpike to ask how to stretch the battery. She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down. 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. What?
    • stcredzero 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. If I were hiring John Broder to be a journalist covering electric cars, that right there would be enough to reveal him as disqualified: Doesn't know even the basics of thermodynamics or can't apply it to his subject.
      • VMG 14y ago
        On the other hand, the supposed advice from the employee doesn't sound right either, if that is what she actually said.
        • stcredzero 14y ago
          Irrelevant. He doesn't say that's what she said. He says that's how he interpreted it.
• onedev 14y ago
  Absolutely brutal way for Broder's career to end.
  • busterarm 14y ago
    I'm skeptical that it will. Broder pretty much is their go-to guy for coverage of energy/big oil. His articles fit their editorial vision. If the NYT cares about their credibility, they'll get rid of him, but this isn't an isolated incident for them. I stopped reading them a decade ago for that reason.
    • CamperBob2 14y ago
      No, this is a Jayson Blair-level screwup. All opportunities the NYT might have had to spin the logs in their favor ended when Broder deliberately drove around a parking lot trying to exhaust the battery. He's done. As in, "Yes, Mr. Broder, I would like fries with that."
      • marcamillion 14y ago
        Yeh...I agree. Right now, Broder's job (and perhaps career) and NYT's credibility are mutually exclusive.
      • arrrg 14y ago
        I don’t get that. There is an obvious explanation for driving around the parking lot in circles: He was curious what the reserves are and how the car would react. Simple as that. He didn’t write about it in his review anyway and it’s completely irrelevant for his review.
        • evan_ 14y ago
          as long as we're imagining scenarios, let's imagine he DID get the car to go completely dead in the parking lot. How do you think he would have reported it? Would he have said "I decided to drive around in circles for a little while, and eventually, after a while it died, and I pushed it to the charger"? Or would he have said "I was barely able to coast off the highway into the parking lot, and I had to push two-and-a-half-tons of dead batteries the last quarter-mile to the charger head"?
• mieubrisse 14y ago
  While I agree that the charging logs are completely damning, I think it's worth pointing out that Broder probably wasn't taking minute-to-minute notes as he drove (which, as a fellow driver I appreciate). More likely, he simply wrote the relevant portions of the article from what he remembered the night after he drove. Which, in my mind, isn't unreasonable - Elon calling him out to say "Broder never drove 45 mph" when he was driving 52 would seem somewhat nitpicky were it not for the article's inflammatory language.
  • busterarm 14y ago
    He's a journalist. Taking notes is his trade. Journalists are well-accustomed to using voice recorders by now. Heck, most car reviewers videotape everything they do now. I think Elon makes a pretty convincing case that this guy was going out of his way to write a hit piece against the car. No sensible person would drive any car in the manner this reporter did.
    • mieubrisse 14y ago
      I absolutely agree with you; there was definitely a contrived scenario going on. However, I also think that Elon's taking a bit of an overzealous approach, especially given his Tweets. I can see where he's coming from - the company's stock did dip after all - but his rebuttal is somewhat inflammatory in my mind as well. Any person able to read a basic graph can see the untruth in Broder's article by looking at the charge graph, and I think that a more cool, professional approach could have given Tesla a very big PR boost as the more mature company in the situation.
      • busterarm 14y ago
        I guess it doesn't bother me that much. I think most of his twitter followers are probably fans and are likely to be taking his side in this anyway. The status quo for car companies is to stay quiet or give vague denials of any kinds of reported issues. Tesla has always been a different kind of car company and this is the reaction that I'd expect. Elon is heavily involved in his product in a way almost all other carmarkers (save for Christian von Koenigsegg) are not. If he wasn't responding to performance accusations passionately, I'd think something was wrong.
• pilif 14y ago
  While we now get accusations and nice graphs, as long as we don't get provably unaltered source log files, we'll never know who is right. Even if Tesla were to release the log files used to create the graphs, it would still be impossible for them to prove that the logs weren't being altered prior to release. It seems to me that either the reviewer or Tesla (or both) is playing unfairly here, but it's impossible to say who. Instead of coming to articles linked here and commenting how clearly the party not currently defending themselves must have been wrong, lets just just ignore this mud flinging contest and move on.
  • stcredzero 14y ago
    > While we now get accusations and nice graphs, as long as we don't get provably unaltered source log files, we'll never know who is right. What!? Piffle! There's this powerful tool scientists use called replicability. Just have some other journalists make the same trip as stated by John Broder in the article and compare. 3rd parties can also try to replicate the same result achieved by Broder, using the log information as published by Tesla. > Instead of coming to articles linked here and commenting how clearly the party not currently defending themselves must have been wrong, lets just just ignore this mud flinging contest and move on. My money's on Elon Musk. I'm pretty sure his world view is compatible with mine. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204109 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204109 "Move along" would only be an effective damage control strategy for John Broder.
  • michaelgrafl 14y ago
    That there are two sides of a story doesn't mean that they're equally likely to be true. I'd wager my house for a donut that Tesla's data is closer to the truth than the vitriol spewed by a guy who's had nothing but bad things to say about electric cars in the past.
  • lutusp 14y ago
    > Even if Tesla were to release the log files used to create the graphs, it would still be impossible for them to prove that the logs weren't being altered prior to release. Think about what you're saying. If the logs were reported dishonestly, someone in Tesla could (and would) make a million dollars by being a "public-spirited" whistleblower. A secret plan to twist the truth about an automatically-generated computer log would eventually unravel. In modern times, there are few truly secret secrets. I can think of just one exception -- where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. But that example only proves that someone was paid more to keep quiet than he would be paid to speak up. > It seems to me that either the reviewer or Tesla (or both) is playing unfairly here, but it's impossible to say who. On the contrary, I think this release shows who was telling the truth. Especially because Broder now has the option to sue Tesla and Musk for defamation of character -- if he dares.
• PakG1 14y ago
  I think this is fantastic, especially given that I had recently purchased some Tesla stock. However, I wonder, is anyone perturbed that Tesla has the ability to monitor all of this? I know that other car manufacturers are getting closer and closer to this kind of thing. But is anyone else perturbed? I know there must be precedents set already because of technologies like OnStar. What is needed for the police or a court of law to be able to demand this type of data from Tesla or the vehicle owner (not sure where the logs are kept, in the car or in the cloud).
  • lutusp 14y ago
    > However, I wonder, is anyone perturbed that Tesla has the ability to monitor all of this? Tesla has made a public policy statement that they will turn on logging and monitor media test drives -- but they won't be automatically monitoring the private uses of their car. That would be a public relations disaster. Also, to get to the log, they have to get to the car. It's not as though the log is automatically transmitted to Tesla by wireless. EDIT: Apparently, with the user's permission, Tesla can log car data remotely. How they go about this isn't clear, but it's apparently an option.
    • stuhood 14y ago
      Actually, assuming they had your permission, they could record all of this data remotely, just as you can: http://docs.timdorr.apiary.io/ http://docs.timdorr.apiary.io/
      • lutusp 14y ago
        Thanks -- as to the remote logging, I looked into this and it seems to be so. I edited my original post.
  • busterarm 14y ago
    They actually turn it off by default except for the press. I think when insurance companies, technology and public opinion catch up, it will be an always-on thing. I want that kind of logging if my car gets stolen. I want that kind of logging if I get hit by a cop and he calls his buddies to alter the evidence to make me at fault (this has happened to people). This kind of log data will only result in lower insurance premiums for everyone and evidence useful in court. The potential savings to society are tremendous.
• stcredzero 14y ago
  Here's what I posted after the NYTimes review: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204109 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204109 Our culture is badly broken. When "the social contract" for broad swathes of society is so little regarded that lying is a matter of course, then we have already reached worrying levels of dysfunction, of the sort that historians point out when they discuss the fall of the Roman Empire, Czarist Russia, or the USSR. A point all of those have in common: The denizens came to assume public information was false as a matter of course, as a time and sanity saving measure. Large swathes of our society think of lying, even when deceiving large swathes of the public, as a kind of sport, and profiting from such lying as a kind of serendipitous fortune to be exploited without conscience, like finding cash on the sidewalk. Such attitudes are shoved in my face when I see exclamations like, "Pictures or it didn't happen!" It's the same when big media corporations trade in innuendo and conspiracy theories and deliberately sabotage the dissemination of knowledge for their own ends. Such attitudes are so pervasive, that large swathes of the population actually disbelieve in any kind of objective truth, and accept mere social proof as its substitute and superior. It's entirely possible that the journalist in question is innocent of deception and only guilty of poor journalism and/or poor trip planning and/or insufficient UI design. However, the issue with the review and that of the social contract are entirely related. In a world where reality itself is relative and subject to social proof, there is no need to double check your facts or to prove the null hypothesis. In a world where science is just another fabricated self-serving belief system, there's no need to apply one's scientific literacy or application of physics learned in school when doing things like taking a car trip in winter. One only need know enough to read the dials and gauges to be a good consumer, then complain loudly if things do not go one's way. True competence, be it in programming or journalism or any significant endeavor, requires diligence with and prostration to the truth. Our society as a whole has forgotten this and our society as a whole is oblivious to the price it is paying as a consequence. Another way to think of it: Our society as a whole doesn't have the epistemological foundation needed for the level of technical sophistication it has. EDIT: Some of my fellow HN-ers seem to suggest they hold such relativism as a world view. This warrants much reflection.
  • aduitsis 14y ago
    Extremely insightful comment, thank you sir.
• querulous 14y ago
  elon musk accused the author of a significant detour in manhattan and not charging to max in his tweets. he provides zero proof the first thing happened and the article is very clear that the test driver/reviewer did not, in fact, charge to max when elon musk claims he didn't. i'm also appalled elon musk would use charge remaining charts that show the battery dropping into the low single digits to prove the car never ran out of battery when the tesla runs on lithium ion battery technology. lithium ion batteries are ruined by complete discharges. if the tesla doesn't shut down above some safe threshold it's a poor piece of engineering. elon musk is definitely aware of this fact and is cherry picking facts and misleading his audience to gain sympathy for his argument. elon musk also cherry picks a quote from a response to his tweets and attributes it to the original piece to further his argument regardless of the new york time's behavior, elon musk is not acting in any more honest a manner and is harming his companies reputation
  • nicpottier 14y ago
    Uhm.. I'm pretty sure the Teslas don't actually let you completely deplete the packs, but rather take you to the safest discharge they can handle before shutting down. Of course they aren't going to let a stubborn driver destroy $10,000 of batteries.
  • stcredzero 14y ago
    > if the tesla doesn't shut down above some safe threshold it's a poor piece of engineering. Such batteries have their charge scale as displayed to the user deliberately shifted, so that even a small negative capacity actually indicates that safety threshold. Do you actually know anything about making charge controllers? Your statements seem to be of the type crafted to deceive uninformed readers. > elon musk also cherry picks a quote from a response to his tweets and attributes it to the original piece to further his argument [Citation Needed] > regardless of the new york time's behavior, elon musk is not acting in any more honest a manner and is harming his companies reputation There's no concrete proof you've offered in this comment at all, only a willful misreading of Tesla's response.
  • Terretta 14y ago
    > elon musk accused the author of a significant detour in manhattan ... he provides zero proof the first thing happened The journalist acknowledges that detour, but claims it wasn't significant. He said the detour shouldn't have mattered because he only added two miles by going into Manhattan "stop and go traffic" via Lincoln tunnel instead of using the George Washington Bridge to follow I-95 bypassing Manhattan. Assuming this journalist is familiar with NYC, that's the most damning comment he's made. His claim might play for anyone not familiar with the area, but if you're from around here, his claim that it only added two miles is hysterical. As a local, I can tell you that's a difference of typically an hour and a couple gallons of gas, being generous. I've had that detour to drop a friend off in Chelsea add two hours before. Only two miles may be true, but baldly mischaracterizes the energy cost.
• dba7dba 14y ago
  A manager of mine (actually the best one I ever had) in the past told me this. "If you are going to argue with someone, just state the facts". It was when our team was arguing with another team about some problem. Still true. 'Just the facts'.
• dhackner 14y ago
  To play devil's advocate, I wonder if it's possible that there is no foul play on either side - if the car had issues displaying accurate data to the driver but logged properly to Tesla, he might have thought he was discontinuing the charge with a fuller battery then he had. Same for the speedometer (a chilling thought) and temperature. As for the circles in the parking lot - I'd probably do donuts too if I was given free reign over a slick sports car. Obviously it's far fetched to think that display inaccuracies were really the case, but food for thought.
  • yread 14y ago
    I would expect the car to show a higher speed to the driver (by 5%) not lower
    • dhackner 14y ago
      Agreed if things are going right - but again, for the sake of discussion, one could fathom there being some sort of bug. I don't believe that this could realistically be the case, but I'm just trying to mention all possibilities...
  • stcredzero 14y ago
    > As for the circles in the parking lot - I'd probably do donuts too if I was given free reign over a slick sports car. Yeah, but the middle of a range test without mentioning it in the article is a bit suspicious. Also, thanks for implicitly revealing your standards for an acceptable white lie and acceptable journalism. ;) (Okay, devil's advocate, so it only reveals about your devil's advocate persona.)
    • dhackner 14y ago
      to a reporter given the chance, donuts might be considered "normal use patterns" :-)
      • stcredzero 14y ago
        I wonder what car insurance actuaries would make of this?
• jonathanberger 14y ago
  Did anyone else try to find the citations made in the blog post back in the original NYT article? I did and couldn't trace some of them down. The third bullet point in the blog says "In his article, Broder claims that 'the car fell short of its projected range on the final leg.' Then he bizarrely states that the screen showed 'Est. remaining range: 32 miles' and the car traveled '51 miles,'" When I do a Command-F on the article, I can't find "32", "51", "final leg", or "fell short". Where is Tesla getting these quotes from?
  • gregstoll 14y ago
    It's in the graphic attached to the NYT article. It's also near the bottom of the Tesla post.
    • jonathanberger 14y ago
      Ah thanks, whoops. Should have finished the whole thing. :)
  • dtran 14y ago
    They're in the graphic linked to from the article: "GRAPHIC: A Range Estimate That Misses The Mark": http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/02/10/automobiles/10tesla-map.html?ref=automobiles http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/02/10/automobiles/10t...
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  • bathat 14y ago
    There was an inset graphic in the original story, which lists miles driven and estimated range remaining at various way-points. I believe this is the url: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/02/10/automobiles/10tesla-map.html?ref=automobiles http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/02/10/automobiles/10t...
  • 3dptz 14y ago
    Check the 3rd image from the bottom. It shows the route, a timeline and both estimated and actual distances.
• staunch 14y ago
  People hear "NY Times" and think it means something. It doesn't. There's simply no way (usually) for anyone to factcheck what happened on a reporter's solo trip. The editor is completely reliant on the author's word. In this case the writer is busted, but you can be sure that plenty of NY Times articles are equally biased without anyone able to prove otherwise. I was fortunate to personally witness absolute yellow journalism out of the NY Times, so I know just low their reporting can go. Trust individuals, ignore brands.
• haberman 14y ago
  If indeed this is true, it is incredibly despicable behavior to try to bury with lies a technology that could bring so much good to the world.
  • panacea 14y ago
    Trying to 'kill the electric car' is pure evil and sociopathic to my mind (if true).
• flexie 14y ago
  Mass media is show business. Whenever I have known the facts in a story that happened to become a media story, the facts differed from how the story was presented in media. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. But always some. You can't trust mass media, not even NY Times.
• alan_cx 14y ago
  Well, lets see if this goes to court. Tesla were as robust in their attack on Top Gear, and a court threw them out. They still, regardless of the court decision, openly complain about Top Gear trying to drown out the court loss. So, to be honest, Tesla have form. They get criticised, loudly defend them selves, lose, but refuse to accept the loss. This could possible turn out the same. I think people getting all excited about this evidence should wait and see it a) it goes to court and b) the out come of such a case. I fully accept that their produce is likely under severe attack from their petrol (gas) competitors and frankly in their position I would be a bit foil hat about it, but equally they do seem hyper sensitive to criticism. There is a lot of instant Tesla supports here, but I would exercise caution and wait for both sides to be tested. It is also interesting to me to see how opinion is divided. Here its all very pro-Tesla, but in motoring circles, opinion is far more sceptical. I suspect somewhere in the middle is where the truth lives.
  • shin_lao 14y ago
    The competition isn't petrol. You'll still need lots of petrol for plastic (for example). The competition is more traditional car companies that don't have an electric car yet.
  • stcredzero 14y ago
    > Tesla were as robust in their attack on Top Gear, and a court threw them out. That's because the psychology of human beings allows for media folks like Top Gear to score their points and (incidentally) severely damage Tesla through the effect of a lie, without actually stating the lie. > equally they do seem hyper sensitive to criticism. As for that: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204152 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204152 Stephen Colbert has a word for this. "Truthiness."
  • marcamillion 14y ago
    They can't go to court in the US, because America protects this type of speech as free speech - whereas in Britain and in commonwealth countries, libel laws are far-reaching and pervasive. Actually...he doesn't need to go to court...something as fact-filled as this, that will get a lot of attention, almost is better than a court-case. Because it plays out in the public, and Tesla will likely come out much better for it - because they are proving, with facts (not legal arguments), that this journalist was trying to perform a hack-job...but it backfired. I guarantee you, he is panicking right now - and the NYT editorial team (and perhaps board) is in panic mode right now. This cuts to the heart of journalistic integrity. As far as I can see...this is easily checkmate. Let's see how they respond.
• bfe 14y ago
  This is really damning. I became way more suspicious when Mr. Broder started trying to weasel in lots of C.Y.A. wiggle room once Elon called his bluff: "Mr. Musk’s logs may show I hit 75 m.p.h. for a mile or two during my trip, although it was likely before, rather than after, the Newark stop..." [1] Suddenly he needed three conditionals in just one sentence: "may", "a mile or two" (now he's not so sure), and "likely". Given all the hard data here that contradict the original story and show intentional shenanigans like laps around a parking lot, plus the evidence of Mr. Broder's stated a priori irrational bias against electric cars, it's hard to see how this might end up without a retraction from the Times. And once again I think all the Times's griping about industry disruption is a secondary matter and a distraction from the fact that it's consistently not actually a very good news source. 1. http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/ http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-f...
  • DrDreams 14y ago
    I am only small time compared to all of these folks. However, I will share my brief story: I invented something somewhat nifty. It got lots of media attention. When the NYT wrote about it in their ideas-of-the-year mini-magazine, the reporter had definite ideas of what he wanted to say about it. He tried every way to coerce me into saying my device did this and that. Eventually, he got me to the point of saying something that wasn't strictly true about the device, but I conceded could possibly be true and I felt like this point about it didn't really matter. And so that's what was printed. That set off a major revolution in my mind. I had already been through a few media lessons, such as appearing on numerous blogs and seeing all the different errors and distortions and being on Slashdot listening to all of the people argue authoritatively about things I knew were wrong because they were about my work. I was already skeptical of the media, having learned Chomsky/Zimmerman's "Media Mode." The NYT experience took the cake, though. It made me realize just how hard publishers are looking for material to make stories with. And that's just about a student-with-a-gadget end-of-year story. I can't imagine how much more distorted and intense it gets when millions of dollars of investor money are involved. Let the reader beware. Disclaimer: I do like the idea of electric cars, even though I am far from being able to afford one and I drive a gas one with average-to-decent mileage (93 Honda Accord).
• sixQuarks 14y ago
  This guy needs to be fired.
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• netc 14y ago
  Does anyone see any discrepancy in third graph, "Rated Range remaining vs. Distance" ? The graph shows the distance from Delaware Supercharge to Milford Supercharge is approx. 200 miles. The car arrived at Milford with almost zero charge left even though projected range was 242 miles after charge at Delaware! Which means battery lasted nearly 42 miles less than the projected distance. Am I missing something?
  • busterarm 14y ago
    The detour taken in NY.
    • netc 14y ago
      Detour would show up as part of the distance calculation (x-axis in the graph).
• RyanZAG 14y ago
  From the data, all of the claims made are correct - except for the one about the air temperature. http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/cabintemp0.jpg http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/c... They put the arrow where it was increased for a short duration, but then immediately after this the temperature is lowered considerably. A short delay like that could be just timing differences on his watch or similar. Does not seem like a valid complaint here, as the temperature was definitely decreased substantially after that time. Rest of it is, obviously, completely incriminating though. Tesla should have just left this at the 'driving in circles in the parking lot'. That speaks for itself more than anything.
  • wub 14y ago
    > They put the arrow where it was increased for a short duration, but then immediately after this the temperature is lowered considerably. I don't think ~80 miles could be considered a "short duration".
  • MortenK 14y ago
    Look at the x-axis, he doesn't lower the temperature immediately after. At 182 miles, he states he lowered temperature. Instead he increases it in small increments up to a bit more than 74 at around the 200 miles mark (18 miles after he says he lowered it). Then he decreases it in two increments, down to a little less than 70, around the 220 miles mark. He doesn't reduce it to 64/65 until around 250 miles.
    • RyanZAG 14y ago
      That could be a genuine mistake. If that was the only mistake - misreporting 80 miles when he lowered the temperature - then this would be no proof at all. He did still lower the temperate, after all, just gave the incorrect distance at which it was done. It doesn't actually affect the review. As I said before though, this is hardly the only part of the puzzle that doesn't add up.
    • makomk 14y ago
      From what I've read, the temperature controls on the centre console are a touchscreen with none of the tactile feedback that physical controls have, so it's probably really easy to press the wrong button without ever realising it...
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• stedaniels 14y ago
  Crying about Top Gear again.. if they'd left that out, I'd probably have enjoyed the article more! Top Gear is an entertainment show, not a documentary!
  • eksith 14y ago
    That doesn't stop people from taking it as gospel, which could be very bad PR. Unjustified bad PR.
• Swannie 14y ago
  Maybe it should become standard Telsa practice to provide all of this information to the journalists within 24hrs of the end of their test drive. That way there will be no confusion, and the facts are plain for the journalist to see, and use in their article.
  • baq 14y ago
    blasting somebody in this way generates more publicity, i'd wager.
• marcamillion 14y ago
  Check. NYT - your move.
• edouard1234567 14y ago
  Elon Musk PR extraordinaire! I thought offering to help Boeing with their battery fiasco was an amazing PR coup! He's showing to be a true PR Master with this move. Check mate NYTimes?
• gojomo 14y ago
  Musk doesn't address the big drop in estimated range overnight, which actually seems confirmed (at mile 400) in his charge/range graphs. I'm curious if temperature alone can explain this, or some other bug or drain-left-on overnight must be at play. It does appear the reviewer wanted to trigger a car-stop scenario. Curiosity about what happens when a driver messes up, or perhaps range estimates fail because of unpredictable terrain/traffic is legitimate. So, I don't blame the reviewer for the circles near the charging station. But ignoring the range estimate and recharge opportunities, in order to require a tow and then report it as if it were a car failure, seems indefensible.
  • bathat 14y ago
    >Musk doesn't address the big drop in estimated range overnight, which actually seems confirmed (at mile 400) in his charge/range graphs. That's true. It looks like the car lost about 5% of capacity overnight, and that could have been a problem if he had stayed two nights. It looks like he used about 40% of capacity to get to Groton from the Supercharger. If he had let the car finish a standard (not even max range) charge at Milford, he would have had 90%-40%-5%-40% = 5% of battery remaining when he returned to the Supercharger at Milford the next day. That's an uncomfortably thin margin, but quite different from needing a flatbed.
  • gizmo 14y ago
    My understanding is that the battery mustn't get too cold so a heating element is automatically turned on during cold nights (you can't leave your iPhone or laptop in your car during freezing weather either). This explains part of the loss in range. The second part is that the charge level is less accurate when the battery is cold, so only after driving for a bit you see your "real" range. Either way Tesla recommends you always plug in your car at night.
  • venomsnake 14y ago
    That is why when conducting a review and not just a blog post , you should have a protocol - what were you testing, how, why. After all - see how detailed the testing methodology for some hardware sites is. For a world class media like the times it is inexcusable. So it is very sloppy to have times making reviews of expensive products that are worse than these of 300$ video card. I pushed the car to the limits is a viable test, just notice it.
• mixedbit 14y ago
  I'm surprised Tesla is already popular in Norway. Do they offer any service outside of US? And do they sell cars in Europe or are these imported by customers on their own?
  • henrikgs 14y ago
    Tesla has a showroom and service center in Norway, and I believe there are 2 importers. Official Tesla and an independent importer. Part of the popularity is price. Cars in Norway are heavily and progressively taxed on CO2 emission, horse powers and weight. This makes big strong cars extremely expensive, but normal cars are also relatively high taxed. EV's are exempted all those taxes, not just the one on CO2 emission. Some base prices: Tesla model S 85kWH: 106 250,- USD Mercedes Benz E 300 4MATIC (252 horsepower): 138 178,- USD If you want something with similar horsepower: Mercedes Benz E 500 4M (408 hp) 225 339,- USD Audi S6 (414 hp): 236 910,- USD (1USD to 5.6NOK conversion) I think outfitting an Audi S6 or MB E class from base to acceptable level of accessories would be much more expensive than with the Tesla Model S Also, electric cars can use the bus line and skip traffic where available
    • mixedbit 14y ago
      Thanks, I suspected Scandinavians will like Tesla cars, it is great they are already available and selling well.
• leepowers 14y ago
  This quote from Broder is telling: This evaluation was intended to demonstrate its practicality as a “normal use,” no-compromise car, as Tesla markets it. [1] The problem is "normal use" for gasoline engines doesn't map to "normal use" for electrics. For instance, Broder left his Tesla parked overnight in the cold and lost ~60 miles of range. For a gas car that doesn't happen - you can park it in the cold for a week without losing any mileage. An unbiased review would have pointed out the differences between gas ("old normal") and electric ("new normal"). Yes, with an electric you will need to charge more frequently (and possibly overnight) when operating in colder environments. Yes, filling up a gas tank takes a few minutes - and fully charging an electric can take 30 minutes to an hour. Yes, these are the tradeoffs involved, etc., etc. Instead (as the Musk rebuttal shows) Broder mis-used the Tesla, didn't charge correctly, ignored advice and ended up blaming the technology. Broder's review is a PEBKAC error written in the first-person. [1] http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/ http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-f...
  • lylejohnson 14y ago
    See also his snarky reference to "electric-car acolytes" in the same paragraph. He seems to be a bit too careless in revealing his biases.
  • bane 14y ago
    > For a gas car that doesn't happen correct, for a gas car, at least in the old days, the battery would die and you couldn't get anywhere...or if it was a diesel you'd have to go plug in the engine warmer or you wouldn't get anywhere
• confluence 14y ago
  I have only one word for this: pwnage Assuming this data is not fabricated (always a possibility!) - then the news reporter did some seriously shady reporting and should be fired immediately (this is THE New York Times). The only questions I have about the hit piece are the following. Is he getting paid by anyone to be against electric cars? What is his past history with electric cars? Where has he previously been employed? And what ties does he have to the ICE industry?
• mixedbit 14y ago
  Can NY Times have an agenda to support traditional car business? Not possible, this might have only been an incompetence of a reporter that NY Times can not effectively prevent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AnB8MuQ6DU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AnB8MuQ6DU
• boulderdash 14y ago
  DATA FTW!
• celerity 14y ago
  Two issues: One, in a matter of dispute, he is claiming his own logs as proof -- which is nonsense. Two, even if the logs are legitimate, the error could have been somewhere between the computer and the user (e.g., the user might have been getting wrong information). In either case, Tesla is being very unprofessional. Very petty, too. Think about Musk: he created PayPal, where he was a total scumbag. Why would it be different here?
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• loup-vaillant 14y ago
  A journalist conducting a review on a consumer product is a scientist. And a scientist is supposed to set out to test theories, not prove them. Any journalist that falls short of this standard, even if it's because of honest mistakes, should not be allowed to conduct reviews.
  • lutusp 14y ago
    > A journalist conducting a review on a consumer product is a scientist. I think what you're trying to say is that a journalist is supposed to be objective. > And a scientist is supposed to set out to test theories, not prove them. A scientist cannot prove a theory true, but he might prove one false. Remember philosopher David Hume's famous remark about this: "No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion." So even a completely objective journalist, with no axe to grind, might discover that a claim is false. > Any journalist that falls short of this standard, even if it's because of honest mistakes, should not be allowed to conduct reviews. Perhaps in an ideal world. It turns out that Broder has a long history of bias in his reporting, and a rather favorable view of the oil industry and of conventional vehicles over electric ones. Notwithstanding those facts and this episode, I doubt his career is over.
    • loup-vaillant 14y ago
      We broadly agree. Science is more than "being objective". My "test" vs "prove" business was about devising tests that you expect would be most informative, not just accepting the results. For instance, I could test if an apple really falls when I drop it. But I'm know it will, and I'm quite certain I will learn nothing from such a test. Therefore, I won't perform it in the first place. I reckon objectivity is a good start, though. Also, I did say that a biased journalist should not be allowed to conduct reviews. That indeed prove we don't live in an ideal world. Unless you made a deeper point, and asserted that such journalists actually should be able to operate precisely because of non-ideal aspects of our world?
• pms 14y ago
  Actually... I don't get why he was doing circles on the parking lot... I mean, think about it. Why he was doing it? I guess to check if the car will get discharged in next few minutes to write in the review that car got totally discharged after just few more minutes. Well, it didn't happen. Why then he didn't write that the car actually still held some charge? I mean, he was trying to show something negative about the car, but when he found something positive, he was no longer interested in showing it?
• ck2 14y ago
  With that much log data, simply perform the same trip again at the same time. Temperature wouldn't be the same but I bet you could get close.
• DanielBMarkham 14y ago
  Story 1: Tesla shows NYT review does not reflect what actually happened with the car. Story 2: Tesla, your mechanic, your insurance company, your spouse, the government, and anybody else with access to the box can tell exactly how you've been driving. I'm a big Tesla and Musk fan. I have nothing but hope that Tesla rocks on. But #2 is the way larger story here. I continue to be amazed at how in 20 years or so suddenly the world is full of people who don't mind detailed logs of their every movement and action being kept.
  • RexRollman 14y ago
    Don't all new cars have black boxes now? I seem to recall reading something about it and how cops are using the information.
  • covalence 14y ago
    Musk said previously in a tweet that logging is always on for media but only on for customers with their written permission. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/301053361157988352 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/301053361157988352
    • DanielBMarkham 14y ago
      This is a good point. Thanks for bringing it up. But I think you miss the gist of my statement. My apologies. I should have been clearer. I said "...anybody else with access to the box can tell exactly how you've been driving..." The issue here is that the car is automatically equipped to provide such tracking. Whether the tracking is turned on by default, by court order, by the police hacking your system, by the company in order to verify test drives, by your insurance company convincing you to give them the data -- all good and interesting situations for discussion, but not germane to what I was saying. In fact, it's not the company I worry about. It's consumers who will easily be lured into turning on tracking by their insurance companies -- and then this data will be available to anybody who has system access. We are our own worst enemies. Your car -- a large, heavy, physical piece of reality which you trust to get you from point A to point B -- is now only so much software. That's a big deal.
• abalone 14y ago
  Musk didn't disprove a thing. He's trying to manipulate the facts. The estimated range that Broder is referring to is the 90 mile estimate that the car displayed at the end of the first day, not the 32 miles it displayed the next morning. That is what he means when he says the car fell short of its range estimate by 2/3rds. He also states that the reason he proceeded in the morning with just a 32 mile range is that "Tesla’s experts said that pumping in a little energy would help restore the power lost overnight as a result of the cold weather, and after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford." In other words, Tesla TOLD HIM TO. Musk does not refute this. Tesla flunked the test due to cold weather energy loss. It's that simple. Superchargers alone cannot compensate for that. You still have to plug in overnight and take conservation measures on the road, or you may end up stranded. Musk can't change that no matter how hard he tries to distract you from the facts with "facts". (BTW, has anyone realized that Musk's "driving around in circles in front of the charging station" conspiracy theory doesn't even make any kind of sense? If the writer wanted to intentionally strand the car he'd do it on the road.)
  • stcredzero 14y ago
    That's exactly what I'd suspect a clueless person would do if he were trying to intentionally damage the li-ion battery. (You should drain the cells directly, circumventing the charge controller, if you want to be sure.)
  • Sephr 14y ago
    The estimated range assumes that the driver follows the car manual which says it should be plugged into a 120v outlet over night, which he neglected to do.
    • abalone 14y ago
      So you're saying he's driving it wrong. Still a valid thing to criticize. Musk calls the Tesla "an electric car without compromises." Finding plugs and stringing extension cords at some random hotel in the woods so as not to get stranded is maybe a little bit of a compromise.
  • jellicle 14y ago
• mherdeg 14y ago
  An issue here which fascinates me is -- how closely do we expect any subjective narrative to match the facts? I'd love to see an experiment where you ask ten people to drive a car for 300 miles and write a story about how their trip went; then compare what they wrote against actual instrumentation data. I would be fascinated to know what parts of their narrative are most likely to be incorrect / misreported.
  • marknutter 14y ago
    This isn't just one of "ten people"; it's a nytimes columnist whose very profession is to report facts, accurately. He got caught embellishing facts for a pre-determined narrative, simple as that. I can't believe people are actually trying to defend this sloppy journalism.
    • venus 14y ago
      > He got caught embellishing facts for a pre-determined narrative Pre-determined narrative? Huh? Now you're embellishing the facts.
      • marknutter 14y ago
        > Now you're embellishing the facts. One, I'm not a reporter for the NYTimes, and two, I am giving my opinion.
    • mherdeg 14y ago
      Hmm, I may be a little more cynical than you here. To my eye practically all journalists are sloppy: when I read a newspaper article about a topic I know well, it no longer comes as any kind of surprise to read something inaccurate or incomplete. I can maybe trust the facts in a New Yorker piece (their editors' attention to detail is legendary) or in a WSJ feature article, where someone has had a lot of time to put things together and probably knows 10 times more than they bothered to write down … but that's not how most news works. Most newspaper stories are a "first draft of history" and I'm pretty much prepared to accept that when I read a story, it is one person's interpretation of what happened that is likely to deviate from reality in some hopefully minor way. I'd like to understand whether I'm being unduly cynical or whether this is really a common quirk in how people tell stories -- hence my suggestion that I'd love to see an experiment where we measure empirically how good people are at aligning their story with easily measured facts.
• hulpter 14y ago
  Gots to love the companion image of the S in the snow. Subtle.
• bconway 14y ago
  For his first recharge, he charged the car to 90%. During the second Supercharge, despite almost running out of energy on the prior leg, he deliberately stopped charging at 72%. On the third leg, where he claimed the car ran out of energy, he stopped charging at 28%. Despite narrowly making each leg, he charged less and less each time. Why would anyone do that? Time constraints? Maybe he had a meeting to get to (simulated)? Arguably, people who can afford to drive around in a $100K electric car probably set the meeting starts by their arrival.
• hmexx 14y ago
  I've superimposed the 'charge' and 'range' graphs. The gap indicates the reserve. http://i.imgur.com/mfB1IJ6.png http://i.imgur.com/mfB1IJ6.png I guess Tesla needs to figure out how to prevent wonky gaps like the one at 400 miles. Seems the algorithm jumped too quickly to the conclusion that range was going to be severely impacted.
  • jessaustin 14y ago
    Thanks for posting this graph. My speculation just from looking at it is that just before that recharge the car traveled in a more efficient way (i.e. relatively constant 35-50MPH rather than 80MPH or stop-n-go 5MPH), so the rates of decrease in both charge and range with respect to miles traveled were less.
• brown9-2 14y ago
  Is Tesla's data independently verifiable? How is the reader to know the logs haven't been tampered with, if only Tesla has them?
• bane 14y ago
  You know what would be a killer feature? If the Model-S had an up-to-date map of the locations of all of the chargers in the network, and it monitored how close you were to the closest one and compared it to the remaining range you had. It would be able to warn you if your range started getting dangerously far from a charger "lifeline" and even give you emergency GPS directions to the nearest charger as soon as the range got within say...5% of that minimum.
• jug6ernaut 14y ago
  I have a problem with log data being released with analysis being imposed over it. I understand there need to show that they are in the right and NYTimes is in the wrong but as it stands now this is just pure marketing. If they had released the data plain and unadulterated i might feel differently, but at least as of the link provided i saw no link to the raw log material. So as it stands this is marketing, and that is really sad. If this data were indeed true(and i am not saying it isnt) it should be able to stand on its own up to 3rd party analysis. One can always make data look the way they want for there cause, and this goes for the NYTimes review as well.
  • gfodor 14y ago
    This is a hollow complaint because releasing the data with analysis and releasing the data without analysis have one thing in common: the data.
    • smackfu 14y ago
      Did they actually release the data? I just see charts, and boy can I manipulate charts to say what I want!
      • jlgreco 14y ago
        As someone who can manipulate charts to say what you want, I assume you are familiar with what manipulated charts look like. Does anything stand out to you?
        • smackfu 14y ago
          You can only tell if you get the raw data. Omission of data is the biggest problem. Another good way to manipulate data is how you pick your axes. like having the x-axis be miles instead of time. Both are valid, but they show very different pictures. A miles x-axis emphasizes the parts where you were driving fast, while a time x-axis emphasizes parts where you are driving slow.
• calhoun137 14y ago
  I think this article has woken some people up to what a lot of us have known since 2003 (or earlier), namely: Don't believe everything you read in the NYT. In case anyone is unaware, it was recently revealed that when the government announces that "X militants were killed", that the word militant actually refers to any military age male that is killed, and does not imply there is any evidence to suggest the person was anything other than completely innocent. Furthermore, the NYT continues to parrot the government claims, and to use the word militant in it's reporting, despite this revelation, without mentioning that in most cases there is literally no evidence at all. In fact, the NYT public editor recently wrote an article complaining about this fact. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/public-editor/questions-on-drones-unanswered-still.html?src=twr&pagewanted=all&_r=1&#38 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/public-editor/questions-on...; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/drones-brookings-media http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/drones-b...
• smackfu 14y ago
  Musk: "The final leg of his trip was 61 miles and yet he disconnected the charge cable when the range display stated 32 miles. He did so expressly against the advice of Tesla personnel and in obvious violation of common sense." NYTimes article: "Looking back, I should have bought a membership to Butch’s and spent a few hours there while the car charged. The displayed range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford," So what Musk is correcting isn't actually in dispute. - Musk: "Cruise control was never set to 54 mph as claimed in the article, nor did he limp along at 45 mph. Broder in fact drove at speeds from 65 mph to 81 mph for a majority of the trip and at an average cabin temperature setting of 72 F." This seems disingenuous since there is clearly a good chunk on on the graph where the reporter was driving below 55 mph on 95 in CT, which I would not recommend. Musk is comparing the "majority of the trip" before the range troubles with the parts about cruise control from the parts with range troubles. - Musk: "For his first recharge, he charged the car to 90%. During the second Supercharge, despite almost running out of energy on the prior leg, he deliberately stopped charging at 72%." NYTimes: "Instead, I spent nearly an hour at the Milford service plaza as the Tesla sucked electrons from the hitching post. When I continued my drive, the display read 185 miles, well beyond the distance I intended to cover before returning to the station the next morning for a recharge and returning to Manhattan." Reporter never said he fully charged it, and didn't have any reason to if the range gauge was accurate. Musk is basically saying the reporter should have been worried about the range and overcompensated. - Musk: "When Tesla first approached The New York Times about doing this story, it was supposed to be focused on future advancements in our Supercharger technology. " Seems odd they lent him a car for a test drive then. - Musk: "In his own words in an article published last year, this is how Broder felt about electric cars before even seeing the Model S" Musk should have stuck to the logs. Here is more of that paragraph: "Yet the state of the electric car is dismal, the victim of hyped expectations, technological flops, high costs and a hostile political climate. General Motors has temporarily suspended production of the plug-in electric Chevy Volt because of low sales. Nissan’s all-electric Leaf is struggling in the market. And the federal government has slowed its multibillion-dollar program of support for advanced technology vehicles in the face of market setbacks and heavy political criticism. " Are those facts untrue?
  • sabat 14y ago
• ZenoArrow 14y ago
  What can be done to encourage NYT take appropriate action here? An apology is the very least they could do, and firing John Broder for a complete lack of journalistic integrity wouldn't hurt either. Would writing to them help? Spreading the news to other media outlets? What's the best course of action? Inaction is just what they want so the whole thing blows over, I think in this case (when there's overwhelming evidence of foul play) we have a golden opportunity to get NYT to start straightening out their act.
• kbouw 14y ago
  Can't stop grinning while reading this
• toyg 14y ago
  I'm surprised people are so surprised a NYT journalist might write pieces to suit his own agenda. This is the paper who employed and defended Judith Miller, the paper who didn't know Jayson Blair was plagiarizing and fabricating stories. The entire old-media setup is suspect at the best of times, these days, but the NYT is certainly one source you always have to take with a grain of salt.
• Shivetya 14y ago
  I am not sure I would be smacking the reporter around as they are. What stands out to me is, here we have a 100k car that we cannot run the heat and get good range out of. Here we have a 100k car that if don't drive at some contrived speeds while keeping the climate control down low we cannot get good range out of. Frankly, if I cannot drive a car at a comfortable temperature the car or the technology behind it is not ready for prime time. I am still curious what the user is displayed versus what is in all these logs. We also have other stories linked in the original thread of other Tesla S drivers who had range issues as well. Musk is not doing his brand any service especially when he highlights the user only operating the interior climate control in the low seventies, really you mean we cannot do that with a 100k car and have good range? Really? Its a matter of expectations. With a 30 to 40k car similar to the Focus EV or Leaf people will expect limitations of this sort, for a 100k car people expect it to just work.
  • cma 14y ago
    But he did run the heat, the car never dropped below 60F and averaged 72F.
  • shiflett 14y ago
    Broder (the NYT reporter) cites a $101,000 car, but the Model S pricing doesn't come close: http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options It could be an honest mistake, but it seems more likely the inflated price is meant to solicit comments like yours.
    • correctifier 14y ago
      From your own page, with options, it can be configured to be more than $101,000. Its likely that they would have a fully loaded demo car, so this is probably right.
• nodemaker 14y ago
  I dont think anyone can deny that the battery depletion could have been easily prevented. Now whether it was an act of malice is a little harder to determine. But then why did he really turn the heat up?
• zero_intp 14y ago
  In my opinion, a damning comment in the journalists rebuttal causes him to lose all credibility on it's own. "Mr. Musk has referred to a “long detour” on my trip. He is apparently referring to a brief stop in Manhattan on my way to Connecticut that, according to Google Maps, added precisely two miles to the overall distance traveled from the Delaware Supercharger to Milford (202 miles with the stop versus 200 miles had I taken the George Washington Bridge instead of the Lincoln Tunnel)." Anyone who has driven this trip knows that a "2 mile detour" into Manhattan will cost them an hour+ of their lives, and a quarter of their soul, much less a stop and go hell ride. A true testament to his disinginuity is his pretending to think that stop and go is more efficient than highway mileage. He has no place as an energy reporter unless acting as a shill.
  • mpyne 14y ago
    > A true testament to his disinginuity is his pretending to think that stop and go is more efficient than highway mileage. He has no place as an energy reporter unless acting as a shill. Why is everyone here conflating gas-powered machines with EVs? There's a reason Tesla recommended he slow down and go through a city. There's a reason the Prius has a higher mileage rating for city driving than highway driving. The reason is that driving faster requires proportionally more energy. It's always been that simple. The reason cities have historical given poor mileage is because of energy wastage from idling and from braking, both of which many EVs (incl. Tesla's) can minimize the energy loss from.
  • Tarrosion 14y ago
    Stop and go may be inefficient since it takes a lot of energy to get a still car moving. Regenerative braking can't capture all of the energy lost when decelerating. That said, city driving may still be more efficient than highway in an electric vehicle. Note that the speed which maximizes fuel efficiency for most vehicles is around 30mph. So driving 60 on the highway isn't as good as driving consistently 30mph. Depending on how much speed deviates from 30mph and how good the regenerative braking is, fuel efficiency could plausibly be higher at 30mph with some stop and go than a consistent 60mph. Of course, I imagine Manhattan is not the place to test this hypothesis...
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• danso 14y ago
  Jalopnik points out that the alleged driving "around in circles" at Milford isn't automatically nefarious, given the supercharger's geographic location: > * Note that the Milford station is on an off-ramp and it isn't at all small. A single loop around the station is nearly a 1/3rd of a mile, and if you make a wrong turn (or even hunt for the charger) and make one turn around you're at 1/2 mile.* http://jalopnik.com/tesla-claims-model-s-driving-logs-show-nyt-reporter-wor-192254006 http://jalopnik.com/tesla-claims-model-s-driving-logs-show-n...
  • ricardobeat 14y ago
    Notice there is a left turn right after the first row of parking spaces, which takes your directly to the charging station. You can also apparently take the 3rd entrance from the ramp and get there directly. The red path depicts exactly what Musk claims: driving around in circles. Look at the final leg, going around the chargers. Even with that ridiculous path it's only 0.5 miles. That is disingenuous.
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    • danso 14y ago
      Not sure I understand you...for reference's sake, here's the location: https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.24586,-73.009073&z=17 https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.24586,-73.009073&z=17 How direct of a path you take from the offramp depends on the signage, it's not unreasonable to think that the writer missed it. And when you say: "Even with that ridiculous path it's only 0.5 miles."...you did read the OP right? Musk uses this chart in which he says the reporter "circled" around for 0.6 miles: http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/speedmph0.jpg http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/s... 0.6 is very close to 0.5. This doesn't prove the reporter didn't do something nefarious...but the line between accidentally and purposefully taking a circuitous route here is not a wide margin. I mean, if the reporter wanted to screw with Tesla -- and while ostensibly being unaware that he was tracked -- why wouldn't he just miss his exit a couple of times and get stranded on the side of the freeway? If you wanted maximum damning effect, that's what I would go for...driving around a McDonalds seems less efficient.
• manishsharan 14y ago
  Is it possible that the sensors were broken or buggy ? A long time back, I had poured all of my money into buying a second hand Porsche .One day I was cruising merrily on I-90 when my car caught fire, even though all the indicators were normal. Turns out the indicator were not functioning -- the last mechanic (not a Porsche dealer )to tune the car had effed up the indicators. ( I have stuck to Hondas and only authorized dealerships for repairs since then). I may be doing wishful thinking here but Car Journalist are could be biased , snarky , they might embellish a bit but they are rarely outright liars.
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• halis 14y ago
  This just goes to show how far an old world media company will go to answer the call of their masters in the auto industry or whatever industry happens to be paying them at the time..I call that a whore.
• fatjokes 14y ago
  Next article: Tesla tracks and publishes consumer's driving data!
• stephen 14y ago
  This is great for Tesla, but it's depressing to wonder how many other people/companies have been screwed over by dishonest journalists, but did not have the luxury of a GPS-based, by-the-minute log to call bullshit with.
  • tatsuke95 14y ago
    I don't understand how so. Sure, they shredded the Times article. But this looks to me like an extremely finicky car. I mean, you have to drive it slow, possibly turn off the heat in the winter and charge it for an hour at a time? That's craziness. Edit: Whoever is just combing through the comments, down-voting anything that doesn't praise Saint Elon, how about you step up and point out what I've said that's wrong. Or do we just downvote differing opinions now?
    • cryptoz 14y ago
      > I mean, you have to drive it slow Are you trolling? No, you don't have to drive it 'slow'. Citation needed, and one that isn't this NYTimes piece that's currently being called in to question. > possibly turn off the heat in the winte No, you don't. You're just making things up. > charge it for an hour at a time? Yeah. Problem? > That's craziness. No, it's not. You know what's craziness? Humanity driving cars that burn things and pollute our atmosphere to the point of causing and accelerating global climate change, driving species to extinction and gunning towards global upheaval. That's craziness.
      • tatsuke95 14y ago
        >"Are you trolling? No, you don't have to drive it 'slow'" 45 mph isn't slow to you? You must not drive. Broder is criticized for driving too fast. Elon knocks the fact that he drove an average of 60+, and calls him out for driving 80. So what if he did? I do all the time. That's how people drive. If speed is irrelevant, why does Elon harp on it in his blog? >"No, you don't. You're just making things up." Huh? Elon is saying "Look! He turned the heat up!". So what? He wanted it warmer. This is not a problem in an ICE vehicle. >"No, it's not. You know what's craziness? Humanity driving cars that burn things and pollute our atmosphere to the point of causing and accelerating global climate change, driving species to extinction and gunning towards global upheaval. That's craziness." Yeah, because the machinery required to dig all those precious metals out of the ground to make these batteries aren't burning a ton of diesel in unstable countries around the planet. Nor are the machines that need to build the charging stations in close succession, because you have to charge these cars far more often than you have to fill up with gasoline (and gas stations are already too prominent on the landscape). Glad you'd like to see more. Nor is the electric grid that most people will charge from "dirty". Why do you take this so personally? You seem really angry that people aren't as impressed with this thing. Elon's argument is essentially: he drove too fast, he set the cabin temperature too high, and didn't charge long enough. As a guy who puts 30k miles per year on my car, those are things that would annoy me and I wouldn't expect from a car approaching six figures.
• baggachipz 14y ago
  Desire to purchase BlueStar++;
• dclowd9901 14y ago
  > When Tesla first approached The New York Times about doing this story, it was supposed to be focused on future advancements in our Supercharger technology. There was no need to write a story about existing Superchargers on the East Coast, as that had already been done by Consumer Reports with no problems! As compelling as this blog post is, this statement really stuck in my craw. NYT, nor any other news group, is beholden to your ideal article. To make matters worse, it was Tesla approaching NYT, not the other way around. So no Elon. Just because the article didnt cover what you wanted it to cover, doesn't mean you can get your panties in a bunch about it. The truthfulness of the article is a whole other matter entirely, but as someone who studied journalism, I have to give him a big "fuck you" for this imperialistic notion.
  • edd_dumbill 14y ago
    Exactly! It's a very cynical view of the media and unfortunately one I encounter too often among tech vendors. This statement makes everything else seem like sour grapes, regardless of the facts of the matter.
  • chaz 14y ago
    But that's how PR works. A company or their PR agency pitches a story to the journalist, who is constantly in search of good content in exchange for publicity. While the journalist and the publication get the final say, there's an agreement of what's going to be covered, and what's out of bounds. What Musk and Tesla are doing here is sinking PR agencies' willingness to work with the Broder and NYT on a future story and reducing the chances they will get media test drives of cars in the future. The NYT is huge and important, so they'll never be completely shut out. But I'm guessing they'll be pretty far down the waiting list for the Tesla Model X media car.
    • donohoe 14y ago
      While the journalist and the publication get the final say, there's an agreement of what's going to be covered, and what's out of bounds. No. There is not. There is the notion of "off the record" when talking to sources. However NYT never agrees to whats being covered in a PR sense. Editorial policy is pretty clear on most things like that. Whenever we visited Google's office and such we were forbidden to sign the standard NDA's at check-in. It was fun to watch the people at the front desk get flustered ("No one ever declines the NDA!")
• danieldrehmer 14y ago
  There should be security footage from the parking lot where the car was running in circles.
• damoncali 14y ago
  Interesting marketing decision. I don't particularly care if a journalist lied about the cars, and I did not read the Times article, or even know it existed. But by blowing this up, Musk has made me painfully aware of the limitations of electric cars.
• alinspired 14y ago
  oh, logs, we all love you :) I only hope owner can control retention and delete these logs if desired.
• wslh 14y ago
  John Broder must change from journalist to QA.
• danielweber 14y ago
  As the State of Charge log shows, the Model S battery never ran out of energy at any time, including when Broder called the flatbed truck. But the graph showing the visible miles was well below zero. Did the car really force itself to stop like Broder claims, or could Broder have driven it farther? Even if the battery had charge, if it forcefully stopped, then Broder is right in essence. The fact that there is a reserve in the battery that Broder cannot use for driving is, for all intents and purposes, the battery being out. On the other hand, if the car didn't forcefully stop, then Broder is lying.
• meerita 14y ago
  All my support to Tesla people.
• mechatronic 14y ago
  Theory: Broder didn't realize the logging capabilities of the car, and when the Model S' software ui initially supported his internal baises he took liberties with the truth. By "documenting" his experience through Tesla support he attempted to falsely add credence to what would be a traffic generating, "anti-electric" review masked in the journalistic repute of the NYT. Firstly, all of Broder's excessive winging about the cold weather (I think) was designed to subtly imply that the Model S doesn't work in the cold. You future buyer, will be cold and your car will break. This is why Musk had to address the cold weather link directly in the evidence blog posting. Secondly. Broder likely couldn't have fathomed that every parameter in the car was being logged. Very specific details add credibility and character to a story. They make the author appear diligent, and one who gives great attention to detail. In the past such details were a "literary tool used to bend the story. Now thanks to data driven engineering words and truth in such matters should align more closely in cases such as this. Lastly. For a man who may or may not have a bias against electric vehicles (cars at least), the observation that "the estimated range was falling faster than miles were accumulating" at the outset of the author's journey might have set the tone of the coming review. With all the incessant calls to Tesla support to document all the "trouble", Broder had plenty of documentation to support his (what was IMHO a) journalistic malignment. This angle also had the added benefit of generating views for NYT - plus through the courtesy of Tesla arranging a tow - the money shot. I hope NYT has the ethical chops to do what they must.
• amikahmad 14y ago
  this is fantastic. to me this isn't so much about tesla, or hack shop journalism. it's about sensors and big data. which is really the future we are looking at more than anything. if you publish the data logs publicly as open information for every car they test, you wouldn't even need journalists.
• enraged_camel 14y ago
  See, here's the thing: this kind of stuff happens in journalism all the time. The journalist decides on what to write before they even begin their investigation (i.e. test drive), and their decision affects the way they conduct said investigation. They become majorly affected by confirmation bias and leave out or distort important details (i.e. driving around in circles in the parking lot). The only reason Broder got called out in this specific case is because he made the mistake of going against one of the most intelligent, ambitious and accomplished figures in the tech industry - who expected the kind of shenanigans Broder would try to pull and therefore logged the test-drive data. He poked the wrong bee hive.
• ryguytilidie 14y ago
  I don't get it. I'm reading all the comments and most seems to be defending what are clearly some blatant lies. Of course there are things in there where we can argue if it is overly nitty that Elon says the guy is driving 61 when the guy says he was driving 55, but maybe we should focus on the stuff that was clearly a lie? The reviewer was instructed to fully charge the car at a station, he did not, and was then surprised how low his range got. If I stopped at a gas station and put 5 gallons in, when I knew I needed 6 and faulted the manufacturer in a NYT review I shouldn't be allowed to be a journalist anymore. The reviewer goes on to write about how cold it was after turning the heat down at 182 miles, when he actually turned the heat up, I mean, how does one even begin to explain? Oops, I thought to turn the heat down you turn the dial clockwise? He then goes on to talk about how he set the cruise control to 55, when he went under 60 for about 15 total seconds in the first half of the trip. It looks like the cruise control MAY have been set to like 60-62mph, but why not use those numbers? Oh hey, because the ones he made up made tesla look worse, see the theme here? He later goes on to say he drove 45 while the graph clearly shows he never went below ~52. How do you guys defend something like this? Are we just that okay with lying as a society now? I can pick out 5-6 blatant lies in this story, but apparently the fact that some of these are debatable makes it okay to lie in a bunch of other situations? How does that work?
  • TillE 14y ago
    Unfortunately, I suspect Musk gave Broder and the NYT a little too much ammunition with some of his weaker claims. That's certainly what their response will be, proudly refuting one or two things while dancing around the blatant lies.
  • makomk 14y ago
    The reviewer already said exactly how much he charged it up at each charging stop and why, so it's hard to really accuse him of lying about that. (Also, there's apparently no temperature control dial to turn at all, just software buttons on a huge center-console touchscreen with no tactile feedback.)
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• nwenzel 14y ago
  Too bad his message was lost by writing a 1,211 word article, explaining 2 different suspicious reviews, with multiple graphics, each with way too many words to read. Would have been the perfect time to sit on his hands and hire a PR firm to tell the story. The details may be important in a courtroom, but potential customers just want to feel safe. Now the story is two guys who don't like each other, screaming at each other. Great lessons here for office politics. Or the playground. Liar! You are! No, you are!
• eduran 14y ago
  I used to work for a big bus company here in mexico ( A.D.O )and they implemented a system for recording everything that happened on the bus' trip. The buses had a computer that recorded the ranges, the speeds, the times, and the fuel the bus used during the trip and believe me, these sensors never ever failed.
• jw_ 14y ago
  I think it's worth noting that seemingly all of Broder's past NYT articles are about the oil and gas industry - http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_m_broder/index.html http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/peopl.... I think this might go a fair way in explaining why he wrote a fraudulent review of an electric vehicle.
• fasteddie31003 14y ago
  I am a big fan of Tesla Motors. However, it should be noted in the graphs that the car's "Rated Range" and "Distance" do not decrease 1:1 as they should if the "Rated Range" was accurate. My solution would change the car's "Rated Range" actively with data on recent power levels and actual distance traveled. This would take in effect heating and other accessory's usage.
• MetalMASK 14y ago
  Broder's reply (posted just now): http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/?ref=automobiles http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-f...
• tokenadult 14y ago
  The New York Times public editor now has an initial response to the Tesla Motors blog post, "Conflicting Assertions Over an Electric Car Test Drive," just submitted to HN, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5221679 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5221679 and that post promises more follow-up to come and links out to some other commentary on the story from other sources. A Washington Post blog also comments about the dispute as a matter of journalistic practice. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/02/14/tesla-v-new-york-times-did-reporter-have-disdain-toward-electric-cars/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/02/1...
• FilterJoe 14y ago
  Trust issues abound in published reviews (with the possible exception of Consumer Reports), whether by respected journalists, real buyers on Amazon, or anonymous online posts. What I find of most interest about this story are the possibilities it suggests: Logging data published right along with reviews would be a terrific way to add credibility. Of course, then you need to set up a system to ensure logging data can't be faked, and that the logging data is for the review in question. Something along the lines of the black box in airplanes seems like a possibility.
• stevewilhelm 14y ago
  I really want to buy an electric car, but range anxiety keeps me from doing so. Unfortunately, this 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.
• pasbesoin 14y ago
  You might want to touch up your blog format so that Facebook finds a more useful title and topic summary to suck in when the URL is posted. (Yes, I still use Facebook. Keeps me in touch with many "normal" friends... for certain definitions of "normal". ;-) Since this is a blog and public communication platform, I assume that issues such as the one I point out may be legitimate concerns, in that context.)
• Gravityloss 14y ago
  Broder didn't charge long enough, but there are compensating factors: 1. the car showed enough range on the previous night 2. he didn't have any convenient place to hang out while the car was charging 3. there was possibly some misunderstanding between Broder and Tesla support In the end the obvious happened. He started on the journey with too little battery and it died. What I don't understand, if he had just a few miles left, why not stop again at some convenient place before running out of energy...
• MrBra 14y ago
  Can someone tell me why this got all these comments and points in a couple of lines? Thanks
• martinced 14y ago
  I was the first one, when the NYT article was linked to here, to say: "Be careful, journalists love to fake car reviews to display cars they don't like in a bad light" Car journalism 101. Even journalism 101. I consider CNN and Fox to be propaganda. Now I'm badly losing faith in the NYT too... Unless they react swiftly and promptly: public apologize to Tesla and firing of that journalist.
• migrantgeek 14y ago
  I haven't followed this thing very closely but has anyone suggested testing this again and trying to reproduce the problem? If someone said my code was faulty, the first thing I do is repro. Why doesn't another newspaper just try the same experiment? Maybe the journalist was bias, maybe he got a lemon, maybe he hit on some weird bug, maybe it's true and the car doesn't work well in cold weather. Arguing over who said what is crap. Just test it and get more data.
• TheMagicHorsey 14y ago
  Thought this should be posted ... in case nobody else has. NY Times replies to Elon Musk: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-data-what-it-says-and-what-it-doesnt/ http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-data-w...
• shmiz 14y ago
  Brilliant