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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, esp

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.
gizmo 14y ago
> 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. That would be the case in a more perfect world. However, rebuttals usually get only a small fraction of the eyeballs of the original piece. So unless you go on an all out war and escalate to an absurd degree nobody will hear of your rebuttal and presume your guilt. This fight is unbelievably lopsided. If Tesla didn't log everything they would have been completely unable to defend themselves. Now that they have logs and can prove what happened they still have to worry about people thinking "where there's smoke there's fire" and they still have to worry about reaching enough people with their rebuttal.
cheald 14y ago
I think the aggressive tone is warranted. Electric cars are still very much looked upon as an oddity, and Tesla has a lot to prove before they can achieve mass-market appeal. One of the most respected newspapers in the country doing a hit piece on their product deserves to be addressed hard and fast - to do any less would be a disservice to his company and to his shareholders. It's arguable that this article could have done Tesla significant financial harm. If I was Musk, I'd go for the kill and demand Broder's head on a platter alongside a published apology from the editor disavowing the review. There's no room for a lukewarm response here - the response needs to be loud, obnoxious, and the fallout needs to be messy to ensure that the rebuttal gets the same coverage as the initial damaging review.

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.

gizmo 14y ago

> 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. That would be the case in a more perfect world. However, rebuttals usually get only a small fraction of the eyeballs of the original piece. So unless you go on an all out war and escalate to an absurd degree nobody will hear of your rebuttal and presume your guilt. This fight is unbelievably lopsided. If Tesla didn't log everything they would have been completely unable to defend themselves. Now that they have logs and can prove what happened they still have to worry about people thinking "where there's smoke there's fire" and they still have to worry about reaching enough people with their rebuttal.

cheald 14y ago

I think the aggressive tone is warranted. Electric cars are still very much looked upon as an oddity, and Tesla has a lot to prove before they can achieve mass-market appeal. One of the most respected newspapers in the country doing a hit piece on their product deserves to be addressed hard and fast - to do any less would be a disservice to his company and to his shareholders. It's arguable that this article could have done Tesla significant financial harm. If I was Musk, I'd go for the kill and demand Broder's head on a platter alongside a published apology from the editor disavowing the review. There's no room for a lukewarm response here - the response needs to be loud, obnoxious, and the fallout needs to be messy to ensure that the rebuttal gets the same coverage as the initial damaging review.