8 ms·

A lot of people are of the opinion that Musk should not have called out the NYT and taken a much more laid-back line. But consider for a minute the Iraq war - y

A lot of people are of the opinion that Musk should not have called out the NYT and taken a much more laid-back line. But consider for a minute the Iraq war - years after the start many people still believe that Saddam was directly involved in 9/11. Once people form an impression, even if that impression is completely, utterly and factually wrong, it will persist for a long time. Right now is a very crucial time for EVs and Tesla in particular when this popular impression is being formed. If nonsense like "Electric cars don't work in the cold" gains traction, it will be very bad for the industry. And if you think that quote sounds ridiculous, it is exactly the take-away a casual reader would have gotten from that NYT review. Remember, to this day a sizeable chunk of the population still believes Saddam was directly involved in 9/11. So I say, Musk did the right thing - if you don't defend yourself, you might end up with nothing to defend.

lotso 14y ago
>If nonsense like "Electric cars don't work in the cold" gains traction Well, isn't that kind of true? Obviously, EVs work, but the cold weather has a large impact on batteries.
- PotatoEngineer 14y ago
  That's the point - it's "kind of" true. But the takeaway from that NYT article is "you'll get stranded," which is much more painful than the truth: "be careful in the cold."
  - lotso 14y ago
    I read the NYT article. The takeaway for me was that there are serious problems with the car in cold weather. Regardless of it is "kinda of" true, cold weather concerns aren't "nonsense."
    - adestefan 14y ago
      Especially since being stranded in 0F weather without working heat is a really big deal.
- dba7dba 14y ago
  No, that's not kind of true. When something doesn't work, it doesn't work. But if something works but with lesser range, it still works some what. With the NYT's article, they gave the impression that driving tesla means you may end up calling tow truck often, which isn't entirely true.
- eksith 14y ago
  Cold weather also has a large impact on diesel and aircraft fuel, yet somehow engines that utilise both fuels are still in use. The lesson here is that EVs need to be treated differently to gasoline engines. Once those habits kick in, I'm sure we'll see a few in Siberia. Misconceptions are quite harmful to progress.
  - taligent 14y ago
    And downplaying legitimate issues are quite harmful to safety.
    - niggler 14y ago
      "is", not "are"
    - eksith 14y ago
      Who's downplaying? Cold weather takes preparation whether it's fossil fuel or electric. EV's take a different type of preparation and a different type of care, although Tesla has done a lot to make that transition smoother. The point here is the claim that EVs don't work in a cold climate, which is disingenuous at best.
- gopalv 14y ago
  The drop in capacity of electric batteries are well tested (in airplanes, for instance). What came up was two other hidden factors which were usually ignored (at least by one person - me). The heater systems for the gasoline cars run on parasitic heating, so does the power brake vacuum generation. Both need to be artificially generated for EVs, which busts the "slow brake" traffic MPG gain myth that the hybrids perpetuated.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    The heater systems for the gasoline cars run on parasitic heating I think you mean waste heat
    - MertsA 14y ago
      The brake booster on the other hand is parasitic.
      - sliverstorm 14y ago
        Technically correct, however the brake booster only activates when you are braking, in which case the engine is either spinning down to idle or idling. I am not certain of this, but I think this means it is essentially "waste work", because the engine would be idling anyway, and the power drain of the brake booster is not significant enough to warrant feeding the engine extra gasoline. This is distinct from things like A/C, which place a non-trivial amount of load on the engine even at idle, and often require things like a higher idle speed while engaged.
- martythemaniak 14y ago
  A fair headline for that NYT review should have been "Like ICE cousins, EVs also affected by the cold". Obviously, a far more boring headline than "Stranded on The Electric Highway". Everyone knows your gas consumption goes up during winter, so everyone just puts gas in more often. Everyone who lives in colder climates know to plug in the block heater otherwise your car won't be moving anywhere in the morning. EVs have some great benefits, unfortunately they're not a silver buttlet and you still have to take care of them. You just take care of them in a different way than ICE cars.
  - protomyth 14y ago
    My range in my Kia Rio 2012 has not dropped more than a couple mpg (36 normal, 32 in the cold and wind) this whole winter in ND. EVs in -20°F seem to have a much larger drop off.
OGinparadise 14y ago
He accused the writer of fraud, of wanting to drain the battery by driving in circles for a whole 0.6 miles. Imagine, 0.6 miles (the reviewer said he was trying to find the gas station in the parking lot, a very plausible explanation) Something like this would have done wonders, compared to the mess they created: "We are sorry that x writer had a bad...however we still believe that our car is ...... As always our engineers will keep working on improving the batteries even more and educating our users...
- lmg643 14y ago
  I wonder if Elon Musk has ever worked in a service job before, like being a waiter in a restaurant. Try to imagine this exchange: Customer: "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup." Waiter: "But that's impossible, I've seen the recipe and fly is not an ingredient." The biggest thing I've learned from serving customers is to approach complaints and challenges with the humility that hey, they just may be right. It is a mark of inexperience and immaturity to go on the offensive from the perspective of "stupid, bad customer, misunderstanding my product/service again." (And I know that the reporter is not necessarily a customer, but as a reviewer, he represents their potential buying interests and should be treated as such.)
  - phaus 14y ago
    Didn't the data pulled from the car indicate that the reviewer was almost certainly trying to fabricate a bad review? If I were the editor in chief of this publication, I'd definitely be investigating this to find out what happened. If what's been alleged turns out to be true, the reviewer is a POS and should be fired, blacklisted from the business of reviewing automobiles or any other products for that matter, and publicly called out for being a liar. A journalist's sole contribution to society is his word. If that word becomes worthless, he needs to shift into a different line of work.
    - lmg643 14y ago
      if you read the reporter's response, it certainly doesn't seem like tesla's data supported the story elon musk wants us to believe: 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...
nostromo 14y ago
Some research has suggested that refutations can actually strengthen the original myth. For example, all of the coverage of on Iraq not having WMDs may have actually ended up strengthening associations between the two. Somehow the "not" gets lost for a portion of the population. (Similarly autism & vaccines, Obama & Kenya, and a million other myths.) Here's an interesting paper about the phenomenon: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/journals/pspi/misinformation1.html http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/j... It's a long paper, but this picture shows a list of ways you can help prevent spreading the myth when you refute it: http://psi.sagepub.com/content/13/3/106/F1.large.jpg http://psi.sagepub.com/content/13/3/106/F1.large.jpg
- davorak 14y ago
  If I remember correctly the correct action is not to directly refute an incorrect claim but rather tell a story of your own with it's own details and twists.
- SolarUpNote 14y ago
  Don't think of an elephant.
- IgorPartola 14y ago
  Is it a general issue with how people process facts/myths or is there something more specific at work here? The myths you cited are held true by a certain sub-population and fueled by a certain "news" outlet. Moreover, the "news" outlet claims that it brings you the stories that others won't, in a way causing mistrust of other actual news networks. Therefore, once the seed of the myth is planted, it is very hard to refute it for anyone since they are now also a part of the myth. For example: Obama said multiple times and with multiple supporting documents that he was born in the US, yet I still encounter people that say that those were all fakes, and that Obama, his staff, and the media are trying to cover up the real story. When they are pointed to these facts they point back saying it's a conspiracy. In this situation first you have to prove that the people talking are not conspiring to deceive the listener, which is much harder to do than just to disprove a myth itself once a trusted source is doing so. Edit: In terms of this contravercy, I was left with the impression that NYT did not act in good faith and neither did Tesla. I do not believe we will ever know exactly what happened since the circumstances were very specific. However, this definitely left a sour taste. The impression that I got is that Tesla will fight any negative press, whether it is objective and impartial or not, and they will fight dirty. For a moment do s/Tesla/Ford/g in everything you have read about this story and then ask yourself if you would still buy a Ford after that.
cube13 14y ago
>So I say, Musk did the right thing - if you don't defend yourself, you might end up with nothing to defend. Musk didn't defend the biggest issue: The drop in charge and reported range at the overnight stop. He glossed over it completely, instead focusing on the .6 mile "circle."
phaus 14y ago
Wow. I live in one of the most conservative states in the country, and I've never heard anyone suggest that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11. If anyone did, I'm sure they would be immediately called out and ridiculed by pretty much everyone. That's not really what the controversy in Iraq was about, but I don't want to derail. A better example might be the hysterical fear of nuclear power that our country developed after Chernobyl.
- webXL 14y ago
  Same here. Just because the Bush administration spent a few hours tracking down leads in Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11 doesn't mean there's more "Saddam did 9/11" belief than "Elvis is alive" belief. Yes, in retrospect it was a stupid war and put a nail in the coffin of my belief that military action was the one thing our government had a hold on, but stop spouting the straw-man lie that Iraq was payback for 9/11.
  - Fishkins 14y ago
    For quite a while a majority of the US did believe Saddam was directly involved in 9/11 [0]. Although it's a minority opinion now, it's still a quite sizeable minority. Anecdotally, I remember hearing such claims/speculation in the news frequently just after 9/11, before they moved on to other excuses. [0] http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-501863_162-3253552.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-501863_162-3253552.html
    - phaus 14y ago
      What's the sample size for that survey? Howard Stern sent someone wandering through the streets of one of the poorest parts of New York, and found a bunch of idiots who either didn't know who the president was, or thought that Mitt Romney would win the election solely because he is an African American. That doesn't mean that everyone in New York is stupid. Any survey that supposes to represent a national opinion should involve at the very least, several million people. I'm just a bit taken aback, because that's such a ridiculous and idiotic view to hold. It's almost as stupid as believing the holocaust didn't happen.
tokenadult 14y ago
Oh great. So now you are arguing by analogy (an analogy other participants here have challenged for how you described the situation) to give a rationale for Musk's behavior. So let's see, rather than actually look at the issue of buying a Tesla Model S or not on the basis of how it performs in the climate where I live, or look at investing in Tesla Motors stock based on how it and other common stocks perform in the market, I should just refer to your analogy for my analysis? Well, what is the analogy? Is Elon Musk George W. Bush here, or is he Saddam Hussein?

lotso 14y ago

>If nonsense like "Electric cars don't work in the cold" gains traction Well, isn't that kind of true? Obviously, EVs work, but the cold weather has a large impact on batteries.

PotatoEngineer 14y ago
That's the point - it's "kind of" true. But the takeaway from that NYT article is "you'll get stranded," which is much more painful than the truth: "be careful in the cold."
- lotso 14y ago
  I read the NYT article. The takeaway for me was that there are serious problems with the car in cold weather. Regardless of it is "kinda of" true, cold weather concerns aren't "nonsense."
  - adestefan 14y ago
    Especially since being stranded in 0F weather without working heat is a really big deal.
dba7dba 14y ago
No, that's not kind of true. When something doesn't work, it doesn't work. But if something works but with lesser range, it still works some what. With the NYT's article, they gave the impression that driving tesla means you may end up calling tow truck often, which isn't entirely true.
eksith 14y ago
Cold weather also has a large impact on diesel and aircraft fuel, yet somehow engines that utilise both fuels are still in use. The lesson here is that EVs need to be treated differently to gasoline engines. Once those habits kick in, I'm sure we'll see a few in Siberia. Misconceptions are quite harmful to progress.
- taligent 14y ago
  And downplaying legitimate issues are quite harmful to safety.
  - niggler 14y ago
    "is", not "are"
  - eksith 14y ago
    Who's downplaying? Cold weather takes preparation whether it's fossil fuel or electric. EV's take a different type of preparation and a different type of care, although Tesla has done a lot to make that transition smoother. The point here is the claim that EVs don't work in a cold climate, which is disingenuous at best.
gopalv 14y ago
The drop in capacity of electric batteries are well tested (in airplanes, for instance). What came up was two other hidden factors which were usually ignored (at least by one person - me). The heater systems for the gasoline cars run on parasitic heating, so does the power brake vacuum generation. Both need to be artificially generated for EVs, which busts the "slow brake" traffic MPG gain myth that the hybrids perpetuated.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  The heater systems for the gasoline cars run on parasitic heating I think you mean waste heat
  - MertsA 14y ago
    The brake booster on the other hand is parasitic.
    - sliverstorm 14y ago
      Technically correct, however the brake booster only activates when you are braking, in which case the engine is either spinning down to idle or idling. I am not certain of this, but I think this means it is essentially "waste work", because the engine would be idling anyway, and the power drain of the brake booster is not significant enough to warrant feeding the engine extra gasoline. This is distinct from things like A/C, which place a non-trivial amount of load on the engine even at idle, and often require things like a higher idle speed while engaged.
martythemaniak 14y ago
A fair headline for that NYT review should have been "Like ICE cousins, EVs also affected by the cold". Obviously, a far more boring headline than "Stranded on The Electric Highway". Everyone knows your gas consumption goes up during winter, so everyone just puts gas in more often. Everyone who lives in colder climates know to plug in the block heater otherwise your car won't be moving anywhere in the morning. EVs have some great benefits, unfortunately they're not a silver buttlet and you still have to take care of them. You just take care of them in a different way than ICE cars.
- protomyth 14y ago
  My range in my Kia Rio 2012 has not dropped more than a couple mpg (36 normal, 32 in the cold and wind) this whole winter in ND. EVs in -20°F seem to have a much larger drop off.

OGinparadise 14y ago

He accused the writer of fraud, of wanting to drain the battery by driving in circles for a whole 0.6 miles. Imagine, 0.6 miles (the reviewer said he was trying to find the gas station in the parking lot, a very plausible explanation) Something like this would have done wonders, compared to the mess they created: "We are sorry that x writer had a bad...however we still believe that our car is ...... As always our engineers will keep working on improving the batteries even more and educating our users...

lmg643 14y ago
I wonder if Elon Musk has ever worked in a service job before, like being a waiter in a restaurant. Try to imagine this exchange: Customer: "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup." Waiter: "But that's impossible, I've seen the recipe and fly is not an ingredient." The biggest thing I've learned from serving customers is to approach complaints and challenges with the humility that hey, they just may be right. It is a mark of inexperience and immaturity to go on the offensive from the perspective of "stupid, bad customer, misunderstanding my product/service again." (And I know that the reporter is not necessarily a customer, but as a reviewer, he represents their potential buying interests and should be treated as such.)
- phaus 14y ago
  Didn't the data pulled from the car indicate that the reviewer was almost certainly trying to fabricate a bad review? If I were the editor in chief of this publication, I'd definitely be investigating this to find out what happened. If what's been alleged turns out to be true, the reviewer is a POS and should be fired, blacklisted from the business of reviewing automobiles or any other products for that matter, and publicly called out for being a liar. A journalist's sole contribution to society is his word. If that word becomes worthless, he needs to shift into a different line of work.
  - lmg643 14y ago
    if you read the reporter's response, it certainly doesn't seem like tesla's data supported the story elon musk wants us to believe: 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...

nostromo 14y ago

Some research has suggested that refutations can actually strengthen the original myth. For example, all of the coverage of on Iraq not having WMDs may have actually ended up strengthening associations between the two. Somehow the "not" gets lost for a portion of the population. (Similarly autism & vaccines, Obama & Kenya, and a million other myths.) Here's an interesting paper about the phenomenon: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/journals/pspi/misinformation1.html http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/j... It's a long paper, but this picture shows a list of ways you can help prevent spreading the myth when you refute it: http://psi.sagepub.com/content/13/3/106/F1.large.jpg http://psi.sagepub.com/content/13/3/106/F1.large.jpg

davorak 14y ago
If I remember correctly the correct action is not to directly refute an incorrect claim but rather tell a story of your own with it's own details and twists.
SolarUpNote 14y ago
Don't think of an elephant.
IgorPartola 14y ago
Is it a general issue with how people process facts/myths or is there something more specific at work here? The myths you cited are held true by a certain sub-population and fueled by a certain "news" outlet. Moreover, the "news" outlet claims that it brings you the stories that others won't, in a way causing mistrust of other actual news networks. Therefore, once the seed of the myth is planted, it is very hard to refute it for anyone since they are now also a part of the myth. For example: Obama said multiple times and with multiple supporting documents that he was born in the US, yet I still encounter people that say that those were all fakes, and that Obama, his staff, and the media are trying to cover up the real story. When they are pointed to these facts they point back saying it's a conspiracy. In this situation first you have to prove that the people talking are not conspiring to deceive the listener, which is much harder to do than just to disprove a myth itself once a trusted source is doing so. Edit: In terms of this contravercy, I was left with the impression that NYT did not act in good faith and neither did Tesla. I do not believe we will ever know exactly what happened since the circumstances were very specific. However, this definitely left a sour taste. The impression that I got is that Tesla will fight any negative press, whether it is objective and impartial or not, and they will fight dirty. For a moment do s/Tesla/Ford/g in everything you have read about this story and then ask yourself if you would still buy a Ford after that.

cube13 14y ago

>So I say, Musk did the right thing - if you don't defend yourself, you might end up with nothing to defend. Musk didn't defend the biggest issue: The drop in charge and reported range at the overnight stop. He glossed over it completely, instead focusing on the .6 mile "circle."

phaus 14y ago

Wow. I live in one of the most conservative states in the country, and I've never heard anyone suggest that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11. If anyone did, I'm sure they would be immediately called out and ridiculed by pretty much everyone. That's not really what the controversy in Iraq was about, but I don't want to derail. A better example might be the hysterical fear of nuclear power that our country developed after Chernobyl.

webXL 14y ago
Same here. Just because the Bush administration spent a few hours tracking down leads in Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11 doesn't mean there's more "Saddam did 9/11" belief than "Elvis is alive" belief. Yes, in retrospect it was a stupid war and put a nail in the coffin of my belief that military action was the one thing our government had a hold on, but stop spouting the straw-man lie that Iraq was payback for 9/11.
- Fishkins 14y ago
  For quite a while a majority of the US did believe Saddam was directly involved in 9/11 [0]. Although it's a minority opinion now, it's still a quite sizeable minority. Anecdotally, I remember hearing such claims/speculation in the news frequently just after 9/11, before they moved on to other excuses. [0] http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-501863_162-3253552.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-501863_162-3253552.html
  - phaus 14y ago
    What's the sample size for that survey? Howard Stern sent someone wandering through the streets of one of the poorest parts of New York, and found a bunch of idiots who either didn't know who the president was, or thought that Mitt Romney would win the election solely because he is an African American. That doesn't mean that everyone in New York is stupid. Any survey that supposes to represent a national opinion should involve at the very least, several million people. I'm just a bit taken aback, because that's such a ridiculous and idiotic view to hold. It's almost as stupid as believing the holocaust didn't happen.

tokenadult 14y ago

Oh great. So now you are arguing by analogy (an analogy other participants here have challenged for how you described the situation) to give a rationale for Musk's behavior. So let's see, rather than actually look at the issue of buying a Tesla Model S or not on the basis of how it performs in the climate where I live, or look at investing in Tesla Motors stock based on how it and other common stocks perform in the market, I should just refer to your analogy for my analysis? Well, what is the analogy? Is Elon Musk George W. Bush here, or is he Saddam Hussein?