8 ms·

Musk extends Times feud, calls Model S review "ethics violation"

28 points by MikeCapone 14y ago

chimi 14y ago
Elon Musk was my hero until this Times feud. I loved him. I thought he was moving the world forward. He is. I just don't respect him anymore, not like I used to. I mean, I do, just not like I used to. I looked at the chart. I read his response. I read the original. The Times journalist was clearly being honest. He had a really hard time with the car. I had the feeling he wanted the car to be great. He didn't want the disappointment. Musk is painting him as a villain beset on destroying the future of electric propulsion. It's just not true. Just fix the car. Make it better. Just make it better, Elon. You can make it better. It's a little broken right now, but you can do it. I still believe in you. I'm a little broken up about your personal issues here, but please, rise above it and make the car better and change the world. I mean, keep changing the world. This is just a small distraction.
- niggler 14y ago
  "Just fix the car. Make it better. Just make it better, Elon. You can make it better. It's a little broken right now, but you can do it. " I highly doubt he can fix it. At least, not on his own. 1) There needs to be more accessible infrastructure. Having superchargers 200mi apart isn't sufficient. They need to be < 50 miles apart, ideally more concentrated in urban areas, and FTLOG why isn't there a charger in manhattan? The car may be able to reach the full range under ideal conditions, but in any non-ideal circumstance like the NYT trip the range will be diminished. 2) They need more realistic marketing. It's not a panacea, and to sell it as such is a misrepresentation. There are issues, the car must be coddled, and until that is explicitly admitted by Tesla marketing material people should not be expected to treat the car gently
  - chimi 14y ago
    One way would be to alter the algorithm calculating potential distance achieved based on temperature and energy storage capabilities of the batteries. Batteries don't power as well in cold temperatures, it's something many of us have experienced and there must be a formula for it. Figure out what the formula is and build it into the dashboard. That's a small fix that probably would have alleviated a lot of Broder's emotionally bad experience with the car.
    - niggler 14y ago
      "alter the algorithm calculating potential distance achieved based on temperature and energy storage capabilities of the batteries." This gets back to the marketing issue. If they made those issues clear, then Broder would have expected the effect. I still question the claim made on http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts "The Model S battery will not lose a significant amount of charge when parked for long periods of time. For example, Model S owners can park at the airport without plugging in." "Model S is engineered to perform in both hot and cold climates." I'm sure if those types of claims were dialed down then the expectations would be more reasonable
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  I don't give Broder the benefit of the doubt. I think he intentionally provided readers with information he knew he didn't have. His numbers, which he took pains to make appear exact, simply do not match the data. So where did he get the numbers? To me it seems extremely likely that he made them up to add veracity to his story. "Yeah, that sounds about right." This would not be the first time a journalist had done such a thing. He would have been fine if he had given approximate numbers, or if he had taken better notes, like a good journalist should. He clearly did neither of those things. Having said that, the theme of the story, that Tesla has problems in cold weather, seems likely to be true. That seems like a worthy story to tell. With real data, from a test under realistic conditions. Musk is harming his personal brand now, and he should stop for his own sake. But neither the Times nor Broder are in the clear, nor should they be.
  - chimi 14y ago
    No, I think Broder was describing with words and memory an experience he had with the car and it was probably as accurate as any mortal could write. Our brains aren't designed to log data like a car. When I read the article and looked at the chart, I could completely believe Broder's recollection of the events. Humans are fallible. Broder may have made some mistakes with the precision of his account, but it doesn't make him a liar. It makes him human and when we consider changing the world, we have to understand that our personal experience with the change is relevant. The important point from the article is that, even with professional help, it's still difficult to fit an electric car in a gas car world. That's a reality. That doesn't mean we don't keep moving forward.
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      If he doesn't remember with precision, that's fine. Of course. Report it that way. Simple standard. What isn't fine is reporting precision that doesn't exist. The point of such is to strengthen his reporting in ways it doesn't deserve. That's dishonest. Giving a reporter a pass on that kind of thing is not the way we should go. He's not some casual person casually telling a story to a friend. He's reporting, in "the newspaper of record", and as facts, details that he doesn't have. I honestly don't care one way or the other about Tesla. It's a long way from ready for mass use. But I do care that reporters make up facts they don't have. That matters.
- electrograv 14y ago
  Try to be sensitive to the fact that in cases like these, especially with such high stakes involved (a billion dollar company for Elon Musk, a career for the reporter), both sides are bound to throw everything they can into their argument. While such displays of human nature can legitimately be disappointing, at least try to see the whole picture and the motivations of each side. If you think Elon Musk is 100% correct that the reporter was a liar, or that the reporter was 100% in the right for publishing a big picture of a Tesla Model S being towed, you're going to be disappointed. Both sides are upset, extremely opinionated, and have their own slant on the matter. Both sides made mistakes, and probably could have held back on a few things they claimed. Elon Musk should have focused just on the obvious faults of the reporter -- like how the reporter probably should have more clearly highlighted that he literally began a trip for X miles with Y miles range displayed on the dash, where X > Y by a considerable amount (rather than burying this fact in noise). Not little details like air conditioning and driving in circles to find the supercharger. And similarly, although there's disagreement over what certain Tesla reps may have recommended over the phone, it seems at last slightly disingenuous to post a big photo of a Tesla Model S being towed given the fact that he started and forced a trip of length X when the car showed range Y on the screen, where X > Y by a considerable amount. Saying that you lost respect for Elon Musk is your right. However I personally haven't lost much if any. He was defending a cause he felt strongly about. What was the reporter's motivations? The article was clearly slanted. So was Elon's rebuttal, but with every force, expect an equal and opposite reaction. I'm not condoning the rebuttal, but I would put it this way: I understand and sympathize with Elon's overreaction far more than I do with the reporter's initial motivations to slant the story. And he very clearly did slant it. > Just fix the car. That's not really the issue, even if he could fix it. Which is easier said than done; we're dealing with advanced material science here. You can bet his team is hard at work on it, but this is the kind of thing that takes many years of deep research. Let's deal with the issue at hand (slanted articles vs slanted rebuttals), for now.
  - deleted 14y ago
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  - niggler 14y ago
    "If you think Elon Musk is 100% correct that the reporter was a liar, or that the reporter was 100% in the right for publishing a big picture of a Tesla Model S being towed, you're going to be disappointed." I don't think the OP went into it thinking that Musk or Broder were right. " just don't respect him anymore, not like I used to. I mean, I do, just not like I used to." I interpreted that statement to refer to how Tesla reacted to the review. Musk could have taken the opportunity to clearly explain the extenuating circumstances and extended a new opportunity for Broder to take a test drive, but instead opted for this reality-TV-like drama to play out (which, btw, other media sources like CNBC and CNN really enjoyed).
- SODaniel 14y ago
  100% agree. Unfortunately I am fairly certain that Elon is the kind of type-A, Narcissist genius that once he enters combat will not let go.
schiffern 14y ago
>Musk has said Tesla lost $100 million in sales and canceled orders as a result of the Times' review Nice game of Telephone. Musk actually said the damage to Tesla's reputation was a big part of that.
niggler 14y ago
The most hilarious part of Musk's ego-trip is that the longer he extends the feud, the worse he looks and the better Broder looks. Musk lost on the merits, and trying to re-litigate the arguments only reinforces that fact.
taligent 14y ago
For a smart guy Musk is being incredibly stupid. It's one thing to attack a show like Top Gear. It's a whole other to attack the New York Times. People around the world have a lot of respect for the paper and whilst nobody claims that they are always right there is the assumption that they wouldn't intentionally be dishonest or biased. So by continually picking a fight with them people will tune out and just take the "truth lies in the middle" position which is not good at all for Tesla.
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  I've just watched that clip for the first time: http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/electric-shocker?VideoBrowserMode=this-week&Page=1 http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/electric-shocker?VideoBrows... Defamation? Really? I think Clarkson was actually pretty fair, considering his usual style. What they showed at least seems believable to me.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    actually pretty fair, considering his usual style Which, sadly, brings us back to what they say about why Top Gear US can't be like Top Gear UK. Try that style in the US, and everybody is jumping down your throat.
    - DeepDuh 14y ago
      Honestly, as a European, that sums up pretty much the preconceptions we have about Americans: throat jumpy. If it accurately reflects American culture is another story, but I gotta say American media is not really helping the case - as isn't Mr. Musk here. That being said, I - and most of my acquaintances - still love American culture - the kind of 'just do it'(TM) attitude, shown as well by Elon here - the stunts he's pulling with three high risk industrial companies at the same time is pretty much unthinkable in 'the old world'. And I'm not sure, but maybe his aggressive stance, the ability to sort of indoctrinate himself with his vision, might actually be needed to push through these grand projects. It's not unlike what we've known from Steve Jobs, really. Most people would agree that he was quite an ass - but by god he was an influential one.
samstave 14y ago
Anecdote: I was in the Facebook Menlo park campus parking lot, and just in front of the single building I was entering were parked a total of (7) tesla model S cars. Comment: musk has made two of the most incredible companies of our decade, Tesla and Space X, they will mature. Any issues will resolve and the world will be better because of it. Screw the Times.
rossjudson 14y ago
Elon Musk cares. He has everything on the line, and everything he's worked for (and his employees and investors too). They're trying to change something fundamental. Years of effort by thousands of people, doing something that matters. To have that put at risk by a lazy/incompetent reporter, who's got nothing on the line but 24 hours of his ass in a car, someone who can't even take his job seriously enough to even attempt to get it right...it's got to be infuriating. Put the echo chamber idiocy out of mind. There's someone who's right here. And it's not Broder. Say, why hasn't Broder offered to repeat the drive? He's probably too busy figuring out how to review rocket technology without learning anything about that either.
- niggler 14y ago
  You've fallen into the trap of accepting Musk's false dichotomy here. Try to separate your emotions when you analyze what happened here. What's clear, from an objective point of view, is that there were issues that could be attributed to Tesla. Musk still hasn't refuted the fact that Tesla engineers gave Broder really poor advice during the trip. Musk didn't produce the call logs, and the "data" corroborates most of Broder's claims regarding what happened during the drive. "Elon Musk cares. He has everything on the line, and everything he's worked for " Gives him more incentive to fight the NYT and try to paint Broder as an evil man. CEO has billions of dollars on the line, NYT reporter has his career on the line, yet if this were any other traditional company you would side with the reporter. "To have that put at risk by a lazy/incompetent reporter, who's got nothing on the line but 24 hours of his ass in a car, someone who can't even take his job seriously enough to even attempt to get it right...it's got to be infuriating." Broder did get it right, and Musk's data and nonsequiturs proved it. The core facts were that Broder followed Tesla's advice and, by following the advice, the car ran out of charge. You are letting your blind faith in Musk cloud your reasoning abilities "Say, why hasn't Broder offered to repeat the drive? He's probably too busy figuring out how to review rocket technology without learning anything about that either." Why hasn't Musk revealed the call logs with the advice Tesla gave Broder during the trip? Is it because they would corroborate Broder's story? Most likely.
  - rossjudson 14y ago
haberman 14y ago
Why on earth is he still talking about this? There is nothing to be gained from it at this point. The story played out with words back and forth, whatever opinions people have formed about who was "right" have been formed. No one is going to think better of Tesla from Elon Musk continuing to talk about it. It was an unfortunate little kerfuffle, let sleeping dogs lie and move on already. I also think it's a mistake for Elon to continue claiming that the reporter acted in bad faith. There's no way to prove that; the data can show where the car went but not what was going on in the reporter's head. Elon's passion is changing the world, and I admire him immensely. The problem with passion is that it can sometimes cause a person to act rashly. If I were Elon, I'd find a cool-headed trusted friend to help me choose my battles a little more wisely.
SODaniel 14y ago
Elon Musk is one of those bona fide type A geniuses that I would HATE to see go the way of Rise and McAffee.
tonylemesmer 14y ago
Why doesn't Tesla spend its effort on improving the product instead of shouting at reviewers who criticize it?
drucken 14y ago
Given how little is known of Musk and Tesla in general, this continual public airing must be one of his cheapest sources of marketing...
codex 14y ago
Given that Elon libeled the NY Times and Broder with claims of "fakery"--an extraordinary claim which was not supported by the meager evidence presented--I'd say Tesla itself is guilty of quite a bit more than an ethics violation.

28 points by MikeCapone 14y ago

chimi 14y ago

Elon Musk was my hero until this Times feud. I loved him. I thought he was moving the world forward. He is. I just don't respect him anymore, not like I used to. I mean, I do, just not like I used to. I looked at the chart. I read his response. I read the original. The Times journalist was clearly being honest. He had a really hard time with the car. I had the feeling he wanted the car to be great. He didn't want the disappointment. Musk is painting him as a villain beset on destroying the future of electric propulsion. It's just not true. Just fix the car. Make it better. Just make it better, Elon. You can make it better. It's a little broken right now, but you can do it. I still believe in you. I'm a little broken up about your personal issues here, but please, rise above it and make the car better and change the world. I mean, keep changing the world. This is just a small distraction.

niggler 14y ago
"Just fix the car. Make it better. Just make it better, Elon. You can make it better. It's a little broken right now, but you can do it. " I highly doubt he can fix it. At least, not on his own. 1) There needs to be more accessible infrastructure. Having superchargers 200mi apart isn't sufficient. They need to be < 50 miles apart, ideally more concentrated in urban areas, and FTLOG why isn't there a charger in manhattan? The car may be able to reach the full range under ideal conditions, but in any non-ideal circumstance like the NYT trip the range will be diminished. 2) They need more realistic marketing. It's not a panacea, and to sell it as such is a misrepresentation. There are issues, the car must be coddled, and until that is explicitly admitted by Tesla marketing material people should not be expected to treat the car gently
- chimi 14y ago
  One way would be to alter the algorithm calculating potential distance achieved based on temperature and energy storage capabilities of the batteries. Batteries don't power as well in cold temperatures, it's something many of us have experienced and there must be a formula for it. Figure out what the formula is and build it into the dashboard. That's a small fix that probably would have alleviated a lot of Broder's emotionally bad experience with the car.
  - niggler 14y ago
    "alter the algorithm calculating potential distance achieved based on temperature and energy storage capabilities of the batteries." This gets back to the marketing issue. If they made those issues clear, then Broder would have expected the effect. I still question the claim made on http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts "The Model S battery will not lose a significant amount of charge when parked for long periods of time. For example, Model S owners can park at the airport without plugging in." "Model S is engineered to perform in both hot and cold climates." I'm sure if those types of claims were dialed down then the expectations would be more reasonable
waterlesscloud 14y ago
I don't give Broder the benefit of the doubt. I think he intentionally provided readers with information he knew he didn't have. His numbers, which he took pains to make appear exact, simply do not match the data. So where did he get the numbers? To me it seems extremely likely that he made them up to add veracity to his story. "Yeah, that sounds about right." This would not be the first time a journalist had done such a thing. He would have been fine if he had given approximate numbers, or if he had taken better notes, like a good journalist should. He clearly did neither of those things. Having said that, the theme of the story, that Tesla has problems in cold weather, seems likely to be true. That seems like a worthy story to tell. With real data, from a test under realistic conditions. Musk is harming his personal brand now, and he should stop for his own sake. But neither the Times nor Broder are in the clear, nor should they be.
- chimi 14y ago
  No, I think Broder was describing with words and memory an experience he had with the car and it was probably as accurate as any mortal could write. Our brains aren't designed to log data like a car. When I read the article and looked at the chart, I could completely believe Broder's recollection of the events. Humans are fallible. Broder may have made some mistakes with the precision of his account, but it doesn't make him a liar. It makes him human and when we consider changing the world, we have to understand that our personal experience with the change is relevant. The important point from the article is that, even with professional help, it's still difficult to fit an electric car in a gas car world. That's a reality. That doesn't mean we don't keep moving forward.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    If he doesn't remember with precision, that's fine. Of course. Report it that way. Simple standard. What isn't fine is reporting precision that doesn't exist. The point of such is to strengthen his reporting in ways it doesn't deserve. That's dishonest. Giving a reporter a pass on that kind of thing is not the way we should go. He's not some casual person casually telling a story to a friend. He's reporting, in "the newspaper of record", and as facts, details that he doesn't have. I honestly don't care one way or the other about Tesla. It's a long way from ready for mass use. But I do care that reporters make up facts they don't have. That matters.
electrograv 14y ago
Try to be sensitive to the fact that in cases like these, especially with such high stakes involved (a billion dollar company for Elon Musk, a career for the reporter), both sides are bound to throw everything they can into their argument. While such displays of human nature can legitimately be disappointing, at least try to see the whole picture and the motivations of each side. If you think Elon Musk is 100% correct that the reporter was a liar, or that the reporter was 100% in the right for publishing a big picture of a Tesla Model S being towed, you're going to be disappointed. Both sides are upset, extremely opinionated, and have their own slant on the matter. Both sides made mistakes, and probably could have held back on a few things they claimed. Elon Musk should have focused just on the obvious faults of the reporter -- like how the reporter probably should have more clearly highlighted that he literally began a trip for X miles with Y miles range displayed on the dash, where X > Y by a considerable amount (rather than burying this fact in noise). Not little details like air conditioning and driving in circles to find the supercharger. And similarly, although there's disagreement over what certain Tesla reps may have recommended over the phone, it seems at last slightly disingenuous to post a big photo of a Tesla Model S being towed given the fact that he started and forced a trip of length X when the car showed range Y on the screen, where X > Y by a considerable amount. Saying that you lost respect for Elon Musk is your right. However I personally haven't lost much if any. He was defending a cause he felt strongly about. What was the reporter's motivations? The article was clearly slanted. So was Elon's rebuttal, but with every force, expect an equal and opposite reaction. I'm not condoning the rebuttal, but I would put it this way: I understand and sympathize with Elon's overreaction far more than I do with the reporter's initial motivations to slant the story. And he very clearly did slant it. > Just fix the car. That's not really the issue, even if he could fix it. Which is easier said than done; we're dealing with advanced material science here. You can bet his team is hard at work on it, but this is the kind of thing that takes many years of deep research. Let's deal with the issue at hand (slanted articles vs slanted rebuttals), for now.
- deleted 14y ago
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- niggler 14y ago
  "If you think Elon Musk is 100% correct that the reporter was a liar, or that the reporter was 100% in the right for publishing a big picture of a Tesla Model S being towed, you're going to be disappointed." I don't think the OP went into it thinking that Musk or Broder were right. " just don't respect him anymore, not like I used to. I mean, I do, just not like I used to." I interpreted that statement to refer to how Tesla reacted to the review. Musk could have taken the opportunity to clearly explain the extenuating circumstances and extended a new opportunity for Broder to take a test drive, but instead opted for this reality-TV-like drama to play out (which, btw, other media sources like CNBC and CNN really enjoyed).
SODaniel 14y ago
100% agree. Unfortunately I am fairly certain that Elon is the kind of type-A, Narcissist genius that once he enters combat will not let go.

schiffern 14y ago

>Musk has said Tesla lost $100 million in sales and canceled orders as a result of the Times' review Nice game of Telephone. Musk actually said the damage to Tesla's reputation was a big part of that.

niggler 14y ago

The most hilarious part of Musk's ego-trip is that the longer he extends the feud, the worse he looks and the better Broder looks. Musk lost on the merits, and trying to re-litigate the arguments only reinforces that fact.

taligent 14y ago

For a smart guy Musk is being incredibly stupid. It's one thing to attack a show like Top Gear. It's a whole other to attack the New York Times. People around the world have a lot of respect for the paper and whilst nobody claims that they are always right there is the assumption that they wouldn't intentionally be dishonest or biased. So by continually picking a fight with them people will tune out and just take the "truth lies in the middle" position which is not good at all for Tesla.

DeepDuh 14y ago
I've just watched that clip for the first time: http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/electric-shocker?VideoBrowserMode=this-week&Page=1 http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/electric-shocker?VideoBrows... Defamation? Really? I think Clarkson was actually pretty fair, considering his usual style. What they showed at least seems believable to me.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  actually pretty fair, considering his usual style Which, sadly, brings us back to what they say about why Top Gear US can't be like Top Gear UK. Try that style in the US, and everybody is jumping down your throat.
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
    Honestly, as a European, that sums up pretty much the preconceptions we have about Americans: throat jumpy. If it accurately reflects American culture is another story, but I gotta say American media is not really helping the case - as isn't Mr. Musk here. That being said, I - and most of my acquaintances - still love American culture - the kind of 'just do it'(TM) attitude, shown as well by Elon here - the stunts he's pulling with three high risk industrial companies at the same time is pretty much unthinkable in 'the old world'. And I'm not sure, but maybe his aggressive stance, the ability to sort of indoctrinate himself with his vision, might actually be needed to push through these grand projects. It's not unlike what we've known from Steve Jobs, really. Most people would agree that he was quite an ass - but by god he was an influential one.

samstave 14y ago

Anecdote: I was in the Facebook Menlo park campus parking lot, and just in front of the single building I was entering were parked a total of (7) tesla model S cars. Comment: musk has made two of the most incredible companies of our decade, Tesla and Space X, they will mature. Any issues will resolve and the world will be better because of it. Screw the Times.

rossjudson 14y ago

Elon Musk cares. He has everything on the line, and everything he's worked for (and his employees and investors too). They're trying to change something fundamental. Years of effort by thousands of people, doing something that matters. To have that put at risk by a lazy/incompetent reporter, who's got nothing on the line but 24 hours of his ass in a car, someone who can't even take his job seriously enough to even attempt to get it right...it's got to be infuriating. Put the echo chamber idiocy out of mind. There's someone who's right here. And it's not Broder. Say, why hasn't Broder offered to repeat the drive? He's probably too busy figuring out how to review rocket technology without learning anything about that either.

niggler 14y ago
You've fallen into the trap of accepting Musk's false dichotomy here. Try to separate your emotions when you analyze what happened here. What's clear, from an objective point of view, is that there were issues that could be attributed to Tesla. Musk still hasn't refuted the fact that Tesla engineers gave Broder really poor advice during the trip. Musk didn't produce the call logs, and the "data" corroborates most of Broder's claims regarding what happened during the drive. "Elon Musk cares. He has everything on the line, and everything he's worked for " Gives him more incentive to fight the NYT and try to paint Broder as an evil man. CEO has billions of dollars on the line, NYT reporter has his career on the line, yet if this were any other traditional company you would side with the reporter. "To have that put at risk by a lazy/incompetent reporter, who's got nothing on the line but 24 hours of his ass in a car, someone who can't even take his job seriously enough to even attempt to get it right...it's got to be infuriating." Broder did get it right, and Musk's data and nonsequiturs proved it. The core facts were that Broder followed Tesla's advice and, by following the advice, the car ran out of charge. You are letting your blind faith in Musk cloud your reasoning abilities "Say, why hasn't Broder offered to repeat the drive? He's probably too busy figuring out how to review rocket technology without learning anything about that either." Why hasn't Musk revealed the call logs with the advice Tesla gave Broder during the trip? Is it because they would corroborate Broder's story? Most likely.
- rossjudson 14y ago

haberman 14y ago

Why on earth is he still talking about this? There is nothing to be gained from it at this point. The story played out with words back and forth, whatever opinions people have formed about who was "right" have been formed. No one is going to think better of Tesla from Elon Musk continuing to talk about it. It was an unfortunate little kerfuffle, let sleeping dogs lie and move on already. I also think it's a mistake for Elon to continue claiming that the reporter acted in bad faith. There's no way to prove that; the data can show where the car went but not what was going on in the reporter's head. Elon's passion is changing the world, and I admire him immensely. The problem with passion is that it can sometimes cause a person to act rashly. If I were Elon, I'd find a cool-headed trusted friend to help me choose my battles a little more wisely.

SODaniel 14y ago

Elon Musk is one of those bona fide type A geniuses that I would HATE to see go the way of Rise and McAffee.

tonylemesmer 14y ago

Why doesn't Tesla spend its effort on improving the product instead of shouting at reviewers who criticize it?

drucken 14y ago

Given how little is known of Musk and Tesla in general, this continual public airing must be one of his cheapest sources of marketing...

codex 14y ago

Given that Elon libeled the NY Times and Broder with claims of "fakery"--an extraordinary claim which was not supported by the meager evidence presented--I'd say Tesla itself is guilty of quite a bit more than an ethics violation.