4 ms·
Maybe, but I do think Occam's Razor favors the "expected 90, saw 50 in bad lighting, misread it as 90, could not misread it when it dropped to 45" explanation o
by drostie 14y ago
Maybe, but I do think Occam's Razor favors the "expected 90, saw 50 in bad lighting, misread it as 90, could not misread it when it dropped to 45" explanation over both the "battery suddenly dropped from 90 to 45" explanation and the "NYT reporter saw 50, lied his butt off and said it was 90 to tech support for no reason, then ran with the lie in his article because he's a shill for oil and hates electric."
Driving back and forth in front of the charger doesn't seem quite so crazy given the distances involved. The distance the Tesla logs for is ~0.5 miles at a speed of ~10mph, but that's only 3 minutes of malfeasance, if it's anything at all.
And I'm not sure it's malfeasance -- because it's certainly not led to anything in the report. Maybe he wanted to park and get some food but then remembered that the charging takes a while and did it in opposite order. That could take 3 minutes easily off.
- neuralnetwork 14y agoDigital displays are easier to read in bad lighting, not harder. So it's impossible to have misread 5 as a 9 at night.
- criley 14y agoFalse. It's possible to misread anything at any time in any condition. It is impossible to prevent all misreading, human error will always occur.
- drostie 14y agoYou're right -- it's not impossible but it might have been difficult. I hadn't checked out the interior and so I was not sure what sort of display one looks at to see the remaining range; there is one which suggests that you can see it right under the odometer: http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/2012-tesla-model-s-display-screen-photo-flickr-user-jurvetson_100393720_l.jpg http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/2012-tesla-model-s-di... ...in which case there is not much of an excuse for that type of thing. On the other hand there is a screen which gives the same information but would be very easy to misread, especially if there were glare: http://elonmusktesla.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/tesla-model-s-review-2/ http://elonmusktesla.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/tesla-model-s-... But yeah, it's not like I was thinking, some display with LCD/LED style digits where a 5 is just one line away from being a 9. You are very correct in that regard.
- RyanMcGreal 14y agoAlso: this is an automotive journalist, someone who is professionally trained to notice things accurately while driving a vehicle.
- antiterra 14y agoNo, he's not an automotive journalist. His main beat these days is on climate/eco issues. That said, I've never heard of automotive journalists being 'professionally trained to notice things accurately' as a matter of course.
- RyanMcGreal 14y agoMy apologies. I assumed the journalist test-driving a car for the NYT automotive section was an automotive journalist. Nevertheless, the "professionally trained to notice things accurately" applies generally to the fact that he's a journalist.
- danielweber 14y agoAuto-review journalists are, if anything, much worse at basic facts than normal journalists.
- Macsenour 14y agoBut if I'm writing for NYT, known for their accuracy and integrity, I tripple check every number and make copious notes. Mixing up and 5 and 9? Seems like something a journalist wouldn't do casually.
- SilasX 14y ago... and then ignore it if it's bad so as not to offend advertisers.
- Thrymr 14y agoAbsolutely not true. I don't know what the Tesla's speedometer display is like, but my experience with digital displays in cars is the exact opposite. I am much more likely to misread a digital display - in my old car this happened all the time with the digital clock display in the dash. I've never owned a car with a digital-only speedometer, but I've never liked them in rental cars. Digital displays are obviously better for reading a precise value, but not necessarily an accurate one. To generalize, I would say being off by a a couple percent is more likely when reading an analog display, but off by a factor of two is more likely by misreading a digital one.
- DannyBee 14y agoUh, "he's lying" explains everything quite simply, you just added a lot of extraneous stuff to it to make it seem otherwise.
- astine 14y ago"He's lying" explains everything in the same way that "God did it" explains everything. Now you have to explain what John Broder has to gain from falsifying a review and why it was worth risking his livelihood. Tesla makes it sound like he just really hates electric cars.
- DannyBee 14y agoThat is also equally easy to explain: He gets more clicks because of the picture of motor trend's car of the year on the flatbed. Also, he didn't think he'd get caught. People "risk their livelihood" all the time by lying to their boss, etc. I don't think any complex calculus is necessary to explain why someone would do that.
- foobarqux 14y agoOn the contrary, he probably would have been risking his livelihood by posting a glowing review. Major automobile manufacturers would call the NYT and complain that the review was not fair and balanced and did not adequately highlight the drawbacks of the Tesla compared to ICE and to their own electric or hybrid vehicles. Not wanting to do business with an institution that severely misrepresents the products of these major manufacturers they have decided to cut ad-spend at NYT by 50%. Editor is now responsible for multi-million dollar decrease in revenue. Editor cannot afford to publish stories or employ writers that will result in significant loss of revenue.
- astine 14y agoThat seems like a lot of speculation to me. Other reviewers have given the Tesla S a positive review and have not been destroyed by the oil industry so why should this guy be any different? There seems to be a lot of he said/she said going on and a lot of speculation, but not a lot of demonstrable facts.
- xanados 14y agoThe drop from 90 to 45 is shown in Tesla's own graph.