
Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery - nickheer
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/elon-musks-data-doesnt-back-his-claims-new-york-times-fakery/62149/
======
danso
This whole controversy has been a little depressing to read...not that the
Tesla vs. NYT discussions here have been worse than on other forums, but just
because it shows how technical minded people are as easily swayed by
preconceptions and alliances as more ostensibly non-scientific minds.

How many words have been expended in the other HN thread to allege that Broder
-- after most have already established that he is a charlatan -- is receiving
oblique funding from his Big Oil paymasters? It may very well be that Broder
got a swimming pool full of BP-money in his offshore hideaway...but isn't it
possible that just _maybe_ , that Elon Musk has a vested interest in
advocating for Tesla? Like, just a little bit?

It doesn't have to be that Musk is trying to cover up the truth. It could just
be that this is his big project and he is overly sensitive to (some of it
admittedly unfair) criticism to the point where he'll see malice where there
is none. It's possible: bias from sentimental influence is not unheard of in
the scientific community.

One of the most disappointing things about Musk's response was how he closed
it with an out-of-context anecdote:

 _In his own words in an article published last year, this is how Broder felt
about electric cars before even seeing the Model S: "Yet the state of the
electric car is dismal, the victim of hyped expectations, technological flops,
high costs and a hostile political climate.”_

If you read that article, Broder was clearly referring to the controversy
behind the Chevy Volt, which he also compared unfavorably to a "lawnmower".

Oh wait, that was Elon Musk who said that:
[http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-05-11/green_sheet/2...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-05-11/green_sheet/29962038_1_plug-
in-hybrids-tesla-s-ceo-chevy-volt)

So basically, if you think Musk knows what he's talking about, then Broder
spoke the truth about the Volt. Yet Musk uses Broder's assessment as a closing
statement of damning circumstantial proof that Broder is decidedly anti-
electric car.

Oh I know, this kind of cheap rhetorical trick is what all politicians and
businessmen do, and it's OK if someone we all really admire does it, as long
as his heart's in the right place. Maybe so, but I don't think it hurts to be
a little more objective towards our heroes and realize that they can be prone
to misjudgment too.

~~~
halviti
I've read all the arguments on both sides, and while both have made good
points, there is one that stands out.

This reporter clearly barely made any attempt at recharging his empty vehicle
in Norwich, and then attempted a drive well beyond the car's capabilities,
then made the "running out of fuel" his headline.

If he would have done this on gasoline, the result would have been the same,
and I think that is getting lost in the clutter of all of the other points
being made on this subject.

~~~
lawdawg
Did you (or 99% of HN) read the NYT article?

"When I parked the car, its computer said I had 90 miles of range, twice the
46 miles back to Milford. It was a different story at 8:30 the next morning.
The thermometer read 10 degrees and the display showed 25 miles of remaining
range"

"I called Tesla in California, and the official I woke up said I needed to
“condition” the battery pack to restore the lost energy."

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, and as I limped along at about 45 miles
per hour I saw increasingly dire dashboard warnings to recharge immediately.
Mr. Merendino, the product planner, found an E.V. charging station about five
miles away.

But the Model S had other ideas. “Car is shutting down,”"

\---

Sounds like he was in constant contact with Tesla and they incorrectly stated
that the ~65 miles lost overnight would magically return, and Mr. Broder,
unfortunately, took them for their word and left the charging station with the
dash showing less than the amount needed to make the trip.

Who is the real "liar" here?

~~~
halviti
Nobody is lying, but if you get in your car and it tells you that you can only
you can only go 25 miles, do you really think it's ok to drive over twice
that?

~~~
lawdawg
In my own car during day to day driving? Of course not. If I was reviewing a
car and was told that it was OK? Of course! Don't curious minds want to know
if the missing miles will actually return on their own? It's not like his life
was in any real danger, or that he was late for work or something.

------
adastra
The "Norwich Charge" data point is all you need to understand what happened
here. Notice how vague Broder is in his original account:

"After making arrangements to recharge at the Norwich station, I located the
proper adapter in the trunk, plugged in and walked to the only warm place
nearby, Butch’s Luncheonette and Breakfast Club, an establishment (smoking
allowed) where only members can buy a cup of coffee or a plate of eggs. But
the owners let me wait there while the Model S drank its juice. 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."

At every previous charge, he noted the exact mileage remaining when he headed
out. Why not this time? _Because the estimated range when he left that
charging station was less than he needed to reach his destination_ and he knew
damn well that that was the case.

[http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/r...](http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/ratedrangeremaining0.jpg)

(How he convinced the Tesla people to "clear" him at that point is a mystery
that hasn't been followed up on by either party.)

Later he hand-waves past this by saying he was testing the superchargers, not
normal chargers. But the fact is he knew he would run out of charge midway to
his destination if he didn't charge the car longer. Instead, he decided to
intentionally set up a situation where the car would be stranded.

Elon might have been better off concentrating on this point more, rather than
some of the smaller inaccuracies. But the data is clear: the reporter was in
full control of the situation and manufactured the failure himself.

~~~
naftaliharris
> Elon might have been better off concentrating on this point more, rather
> than some of the smaller inaccuracies.

I agree. Often when you're arguing, you have a really strong argument and a
few weaker ones. You'd think that making both the strong argument and the
weaker ones would be the best case, (ie, that the strength of your case equals
the sum of the strength of its components). In fact, in public discourse often
the opposite is true. People will knock down your weaker arguments, making you
and your case look bad. So I think the strength of your case might actually be
closer to the _minimum_ of the strength of its components.

For this reason, Elon would likely have been better off to emphasize and shore
up his strongest argument--that Broder knowingly did not charge enough at
Norwich--rather than try and nickle and dime Broder on a lot of smaller
issues.

~~~
rayiner
> In fact, in public discourse often the opposite is true.

This isn't just true in public discourse by the way. It's true in
proposal/grant writing, legal argumentation, or even just arguing with your
parents. You should always lead with your strongest arguments, and think very
carefully before including any weak ones. Humans are just bad at doing
weighted analysis of persuasive arguments. Say you have an argument, with
three points, with weights: 0.9, 0.05, and 0.05. Your opponent destroying your
two weak arguments is going to convince the reader or decision maker far more
than the 0.1 combined weight of the arguments.

~~~
lcc_tn
What you say resonates very much with my experiences too.

Do you happen to have book recommendations maybe that talk about this at a
greater length?

~~~
rayiner
Argument and rhetoric is a whole field of study. Prof. David Zarefsky at
Northwestern has a good set of lectures on the subject which are on Amazon.
The outline is here:
[http://thefulldialectician.synthasite.com/resources/ZAREFSKY...](http://thefulldialectician.synthasite.com/resources/ZAREFSKY,%20David%20Argumentation,%20The%20Study%20of%20Effetive%20Reasoning%20guidebook.pdf)

My exposure to the subject has been in the legal context. This is a popular
textbook on legal argumentation: Gardner, Legal Argument: The Structure and
Language of Effective Advocacy. Someone has an older edition for cheap on
EBay: [http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGAL-ARGUMENT-THE-STRUCTURE-
AN-/310...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGAL-ARGUMENT-THE-STRUCTURE-
AN-/310529100649?pt=US_Nonfiction_Book&hash=item484cfa0b69). The text is quite
general, not all that specific to the legal context.

~~~
lcc_tn
Thanks very much! I'll definitely look into these.

------
gfodor
I guess it's time to muddy the waters. The truth is in the middle!

Of course, the entire debacle can be summed up with the following exchange:

Q: "How many miles did you have left to drive on the final leg?"

Broder: "61"

Q: "And how many miles did your car tell you that you could travel before
recharging?"

Broder: "32"

Of course, Broder claims that Tesla told him it was OK to leave. I think this
is bullshit, but will never know. The fact is he basically was stupid enough
to essentially leave a gas station with half a tank when he had a full tanks
worth of distance to travel. The only way you would do this is if you want to
get stuck. I don't care how scientific you are trying to be, you wouldn't risk
being stuck out in the cold with a dead car unless you really wanted that to
happen. Why we should take anything this man writes about cars seriously is
beyond me.

~~~
Shivetya
did he think he added 32 more miles? I wonder if this is still a problem of UI
and such...

still its a 100k car and Musk is quibbling over temperature settings...
really?

~~~
fleitz
Go to a BMW dealership, take an M5 for a test drive, when the car says it was
32 miles left try to drive it 60.

It's a 100k car and it won't make that feat either.

~~~
duaneb
I mean, I've never driven a car with a digital gas meter before, but on all
the cars I've driven they always have tens of miles when the gas light comes
on.

EDIT: To be clear, it is extremely stupid to do so.

~~~
jlgreco
Similarly, the car traveled 19 miles past it's projected range, and still has
reserve power when it claims to be empty.

~~~
duaneb
I'm not trying to claim that it doesn't, but perhaps the tester was a little
optimistic about the mileage he would get after it emptied.

------
JPKab
"Convincing? No. His other chart shows the mile range dipped below zero, which
would indicate the car could not move. "

Wow, I wish I could be as sloppy and awful at my job as these journalists are.
Had he actually bothered to truly read the response he is commenting on, he
would see that Musk states that, when the car's range dips below zero, it is
running on reserve power. It takes some miles after "zero" for the car to
actually stop moving.

What a hack. There is truly nothing worse than reading something by someone
who has no education in comprehending quantitative data try to critique it.

However, I do agree with his statement on the climate control. That was
something I noticed when I read Musk's response. Clearly, the Broder turned
the heat down, just not as early as he thought/claimed.

~~~
davidiach
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Broder might not have wanted to
"be evil". He might be like the guy who doesn't actually want to hurt the
company he is working for but still spends all his day playing games at work.

Given that his job was to write an accurate review, the fact that he didn't
really want to wait until the car is fully charged and was bored driving the
car at normal speed and so on, we can say he did a poor job with the review.

~~~
grecy
> Given that his job was to write an accurate review

Why do you assume that?

His job was to attract readership and hits for the NYT. Nothing does that
better than controversy.

~~~
taligent
The New York Times is not some Murdoch trashy paper that deals with gossip and
controversy.

The integrity of their work is important because that is what is keeping the
paper alive whilst the others are falling by the way side. Maybe you should
actually try reading it sometime.

~~~
rhizome
Pace your sense of the NY Times motivations, I offer Judy Miller:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller#New_York_Times_ca...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller#New_York_Times_career:_2002.E2.80.932005)

~~~
taligent
I am well aware of Judy Miller and the many other occasions where their work
has been dreadful. But we are talking about a paper that has been around 150+
years.

My point was that they aren't the type of paper who writes flamebait articles
just to get more online hits.

~~~
rhizome
The Judy Miller incidents directly refute your assertion that they don't deal
in controversies (and arguably gossip). Arguing that they don't do those
things at all, except when they do, isn't very convincing, and your conclusion
is a non-sequitur at any rate. "Many other occasions!"

------
aresant
"Tesla Motors initially expected to sell at least 5,000 units in 2012 and set
a sales target of 20,000." (1)

As of January 2013's run rate, it takes GM 72 hours to sell that many cars.
(2)

How about a comparable luxury target?

MB did 305,072 vehicles in 2012, so they do Tesla's sales every 2-weeks. (3)

Perfect comps? No way, but still . . .

To call Tesla an "early adopters" brand where you're going to run into some
bullshit, is an under-statement.

I was considering a Model S as my next vehicle, and even if the NYT article is
accurate that dissuades me zero percent. I get that this vehicle is going to
have some problems - BUT IT'S ELECTRIC AND BIG AND SEXY AND FAST AND NOBODY
ELSE HAS ONE!

But watching Musk's response to going full-Nerd-Nuclear (without CONCLUSIVE
data) to trash a journalist and the institution of the NYT actually does give
me pause in wanting to support that brand.

In other words, in my personal case (of one person, one piece of data) Musk is
damaging Tesla's goodwill more than he's helping it.

(1) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S>

(2)
[http://www.gm.com/content/gmcom/home/company/investors/sales...](http://www.gm.com/content/gmcom/home/company/investors/sales-
production.content_pages_news_us_en_2013_feb_gmsales.~content~gmcom~home~company~investors~sales-
production.html)

(3) <http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46221>

~~~
AlexeiSadeski
I hope you're familiar with the costs of battery attrition which accompany
owning a pure electric car.

~~~
jblow
I am, and the answer is: not very much.

I own a Roadster, and after 2.5 years of daily driving, my battery capacity is
down by 6%. That's not 0%, but it's also not a big deal.

~~~
AlexeiSadeski
That sounds like an extraordinarily small amount of degradation. Sufficiently
small, in fact, that I suspect that your capacity measurements may be off.

Capacity should decrease 5-10% per annum, from what I've read.

------
DanBC
> _Musk accuses Broder of thinking "the facts shouldn’t get in the way of a
> salacious story" (which is an odd choice of adjective for a car review)_

The story was "Electric cars suck". Broder is well known for having anti-
electric car opinions, so it's not surprising that he would want to write a
negative review.

Argument 1: The length of the detour is not as important as the type of
driving during that detour.

Argument 2: _"But Broder never claims he turned down his heat at the 182 mile
mark."_ \- well, he does claim he turned it down and doesn't mention he had
turned it up. People can lie by omission.

Argument 3: _"But the section before he broke down it does look like he
chugged along at a pretty low speed."_ , perhaps. But not at the 45 mph
claimed in the article.

Argument 5: _"No. His other chart shows the mile range dipped below zero,
which would indicate the car could not move."_ The car has a small reserve. 0
charge would mean "charge the car right now".

Argument 5: _"Broder also explains that he did not charge fully because of the
time it took to charge. He wanted to show the real world experience of a real
driver, who might not want to endure the hour and a half it takes to charge
up, when only needing a certain amount of energy to get to point B."_ I hope
any real driver would know that a distance of 60 miles would need enough
charge for a 60 mile journey, and that giving 30 miles of charge would be a
stupid thing to do. Just as if you needed to drive a distance needing 20
gallons you'd be stupid if you only filled with 10 gallons.

This article is, frankly, idiotic.

All it takes is one person to drive the same journey, but with proper
charging, and to release the logs to disprove Broder's points.

~~~
JC001
For Argument 2 and 3, why would he not slow down and turn down the temperature
earlier (such as when he claimed to have turned them down).

If you already know you don't have sufficient range, why would you not try to
be more efficient to extend your range as soon as you can? He knew what to do
to make the car more efficient, he just chose not to until he could get the
result he desired.

I don't fully trust Musk and his counter claims, but this article and the
other NYT pieces are obviously very Top Gear in their formulas... Which is
very unfortunate for the EC revolution.

------
Kylekramer
Article makes a few good points. There has been a lot of "Hurry for data! Boo
journalists! Off with the oil shill Broder's head" talk here and elsewhere,
but Tesla's data seems too far from an ironclad refutation of the article. The
supposed circling would have lasted less than five minutes at 10-15 mph. It is
a strictly subjective "he said, she said" situation about whether Tesla did
tell Broder that he was good to go in Norwich. And unless the towing company
is lying, the car did shut down, contrary to Tesla's claims.

There is no clear winner or loser here.

~~~
salimmadjd
Exactly! Musk is trying to get ahead if this story and he is using some well
established tactics here, [http://photojournalist.quora.com/Ironically-Musk-
Tapped-The-...](http://photojournalist.quora.com/Ironically-Musk-Tapped-The-
Climate-Deniers-Strategy)

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
That is a good point, except he followed up with tangible details relatively
quickly. It took a few days for his technies to compile the blog post, but
Tesla did provide the data--it's not doubt for doubt's sake. Now that the data
is out there, we see the picture is not as clear as either side wants it to
be. In hindsight, that's the obvious conclusion.

I wish that Broder had been running a few cameras in the car during the whole
trip. Then we could have some data to compare against Tesla's. For example, we
could correlate the readings from the car's speedometer with video evidence
from which we could calculate speed.

------
lubujackson
If you need to bring in graphs to show that someone was going 50 instead of 45
MPH (if the data even matches the speedometer), you've already lost the
battle. This is all very aggressive on Musk's part when the overall review
still holds up (Tesla cars are bit ahead of the curve for normals). If the log
showed gross exaggeration I could see this reaction, but Musk is being a brat
and wasting a lot of goodwill. Remember, car reviewers are car reviewers, not
QA engineers. Things will go wrong, numbers won't match up exactly. If you
want positive coverage, don't post your MPG (or the electric equivalent) with
"best case" numbers like a normal gas car. Give yourself some wiggle room.
Calling the flatbed tow truck is a pretty bad negative event for a normal car
owner who is used to being able to ride on E for a few more miles.

------
onethumb
I thought the most convincing part of Elon's post was his 3rd bullet point,
which relies on no data outside of the article, and which this Atlantic Wire
journalist ignores entirely:

 _"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," contradicting his
own statement (see images below). The car actually did an admirable job
exceeding its projected range. Had he not insisted on doing a nonstop 61-mile
trip while staring at a screen that estimated half that range, all would have
been well. He constructed a no-win scenario for any vehicle, electric or
gasoline."_

The car said it would go 32. It went 51. Broder claimed this "fell short".
Clearly it didn't.

~~~
lawdawg
Actually it did when the car reported 90 the night before and a call to Tesla
assured him that a quick charge would "re-calibrate" the system because of a
software bug.

~~~
jessaustin
If his only defense is bad advice from a marketing person, then this reporter
has not adequately protected himself in this situation. This was a product
review, and if he had used the product in the same way that any other consumer
would use it then his only misfortune would have been some extra charging
time. It's possible that if he had spent the extra time charging and then
reported that, then Tesla and its obstreperous leader would have responded,
"don't pay attention to the gauge on the screen, just listen to our marketing
dude!" But that wouldn't have reflected as poorly on Broder as the current
situation does.

This is true even if you assume the best intentions from this reporter: he
should know that Tesla is his adversary in his search for the truth and they
will not suffer criticism passively. Many on HN and in the general public do
not assume the best intentions of any reporter, and in light of that reporters
should conduct themselves even more rigorously.

------
codex
The most interesting point on the range graph isn't mentioned in Tesla's
repsonse (or anyone else's), which is the huge drop in range overnight at mile
400, fron 80 miles of range to approximately 20. That is the Achilles' heel of
the Tesla that caused the car to run out of juice in this (possibly contrived)
example.

~~~
wmf
BTW, running out of range and bricking are not the same thing. One requires
recharging and the other requires $40,000.

~~~
codex
Thank you; Google agrees with you. I've changed the wording.

------
cryptoz
This article doesn't back _itself_ up. Claims are labelled as 'False' and the
evidence presented is 'Google Maps says so'.

Maybe Musk's data doesn't add up (I doubt it). If that's the case, present
something other than 'I plotted a route in Google Maps and it said 500. QED.'

~~~
arrrg
Uhm … what do you expect?

I thought this was all pretty convincing. What are your complaints?! I really
don’t get it. How would you suggest measuring distance? Is Google Maps really
not a good tool for doing so? Plus, Google Maps wasn’t really the centerpiece
here, for any argument.

~~~
stcredzero
This "defense" basically amounts to: See, Broder didn't lie, he exaggerated.
That, and the things Broder did to try and get stranded were fair game.

In that, they are making valid points, supported by facts. That it's the best
they can do is telling. I look forward to replication attempts.

~~~
arrrg
You and your weird wishes for replication. Not gonna help.

Plus, your framing is completely out of whack. You charge in there with your
preconceived notions.

As far as I can see, the only thing weird or unusual in the data is the speed.
It’s not at 54 mph, it’s higher. That’s pretty inexcusable in itself.

The rest seem like total non-issues to me. He never said he turned the
temperature down at exactly mile so–and–so. The drop in estimated mileage from
90 to 45 actually happened (plus he is not contradicted by Tesla in his claim
that customer support told him just driving even if the estimated range is so
low would be ok). He did slow down to 45 mph. The explanation of being unable
to find the charging stations and circling around is completely coherent and
makes lots of sense. (Have you seen photos of those charging stations? They
are pretty small.)

So, the speed is the only issue here. We can ignore all the rest as FUD from
Musk. Sad, really.

~~~
stcredzero
_> You and your weird wishes for replication._

The fact that you find replication weird, is weird. It would give me pause if
I were in any empirically based project.

~~~
arrrg
There is nothing wrong with replication, it’s just that it’s wholly unable to
clear anything up in this case.

The main important points of contention aren’t even disagreed over here. Those
you could figure out by replication.

It’s the interpretation of those results that’s the sticking point here.

Some details that cannot be replicated are also disagreed on (heat, circling
in parking lot, …), but replication won’t help you find out which is the
correct interpretation.

~~~
stcredzero
_> There is nothing wrong with replication, it’s just that it’s wholly unable
to clear anything up in this case._

Sorry, but not only John Broder's intentions are in question here. If a bunch
of other journalists replicate the trip, but come out with results more in
line with Tesla's view, then this calls into question Broder's accuracy,
intent or no.

You know, there's an empirical context underlying everything here.

~~~
slantyyz
>> If a bunch of other journalists replicate the trip

Is it really a replicable test? They'd need the same weather patterns, traffic
conditions and the same car (untweaked or modified since Broder's drive), not
a different, "equivalently equipped" model.

In the documentary Revenge of the Electric car, there's a scene where Musk
walks into a warehouse full of cars, all having different issues preventing
shipment. For all we know, there was a problem isolated to the particular car
Broder drove AND, at the same time, Broder was embellishing his story. In
other words, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Of course, we'll never know because we'll never get access to the raw logs.

~~~
stcredzero
_> Is it really a replicable test?_

Yes.

 _> They'd need the same weather patterns, traffic conditions_

Okay.

 _> and the same car_

Find an honest 3rd party who already owns the same model.

 _> not a different, "equivalently equipped" model._

Now you're just being obtuse. Consumer Reports gets to test a car that's the
same model. They're not required to come to your house and test _your car_!

 _> In the documentary Revenge of the Electric car, there's a scene where Musk
walks into a warehouse full of cars, all having different issues preventing
shipment._

That's a completely different car! They were taking Lotus bodies and fitting
them out with batteries and motors, somewhat by hand. This one is built on a
bona-fide assembly line and designed to be electric from the ground-up. Sorry,
but this is a huge stretch.

 _> For all we know, there was a problem isolated to the particular car Broder
drove AND, at the same time, Broder was embellishing his story. In other
words, the truth is somewhere in the middle._

I'm sorry, but this tactic of thinking of all the confounding things you can,
then throwing up your hands and saying "middle!" is the sort of thinking you
expect on Fox News or on the playground. If replicability can't settle such
debates, then _science_ is in deep doodoo. However, we know from the history
of science that it can settle debates 10X more acrimonious than this.

To be fair, you are right that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Exactly where is important and something we can get a good locality of through
replicating.

~~~
slantyyz
>> Sorry, but this is a huge stretch.

Why? Even individual cars produced in assembly lines can have problems.

When I worked at Toyota, there was a problem with a Lexus model that was so
hard to isolate. Eventually, after a long data collection period, they found
that the problem was only existent in cars painted in a certain color.

~~~
stcredzero
_> Why? Even individual cars produced in assembly lines can have problems._

So? If there's some conflicting results, we can then turn around and test the
same car as well. If there's a problem, those are measurable.

 _> When I worked at Toyota, there was a problem with a Lexus model that was
so hard to isolate. Eventually, after a long data collection period, they
found that the problem was only existent in cars painted in a certain color._

Color and whatever other factors were _measurable_. Empiricism is possible.
Your example supports my point.

~~~
slantyyz
>> Color and whatever other factors were measurable.

Sure, but it was such a rare problem that they tried to reproduce it using the
same model and year and production run, assuming the problem would show up but
it didn't. They didn't think colour would have been the identifying indicator
of the problem until they had amassed enough data to lead them down that path.

Broder drove a car that has probably been used several times for review and
other uses, and may have had more wear and tear and/or maintenance and service
than a car sold to anyone else. It could also have been driven under stress
conditions that a brand new model may not have been.

All I'm saying is that there's a lot about that car that could be different
from other review cars. It could have been a freak occurrence and Tesla was
unlucky enough that Broder was reviewing that car when it happened.

In any case, if you go to the Tesla owners forums talking about the NYT
article, you'll also see actual owners who live on the east coast were not
surprised by what happened to Broder
([http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/13633-NYT-
arti...](http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/13633-NYT-article-
Stalled-on-the-EV-Highway)).

------
ajross
It has to be asked, given the tone and rapidity with which this article went
up: what relationship does Rebecca Greenfield (or maybe the editors at The
Atlantic) have to Broder? This _really_ feels like a "got your back" kind of
thing. Media figures don't, as a general rule, write stories with the sole
purpose of knocking down criticism of other media figures.

~~~
untog
Media figures try to write timely articles in an effort to get as many
pageviews as possible. This is a perfect example of that phenomenon- I would
bet that this will be The Atlantic's most popular article of the week.

Sometimes the reality is simpler than the conspiracy.

------
AlexeiSadeski
Elon's complaints have been silly from the get-go.

When a company reviews your car, they don't use the standards which you want
them to use. They don't do things precisely as you want them to. Reviewers
make mistakes, they are new to the equipment, they don't know everything about
your car. And you know what?

That's a great thing.

Electric cars, specifically, are unique products. They are novel, new (well,
technically they've been around for a hundred years, but haven't been common
for the past eighty or so). People don't know what to think about them.
Average Joe Sixpack from the NYT treating this car as a normal driver would,
and providing us his opinion, is a godsend.

------
stcredzero
This "defense" basically amounts to: See, Broder didn't lie, he exaggerated.
That, and the things Broder did to try and get stranded were fair game.

In that, they are making valid points, supported by facts. That it's the best
they can do is telling.

I look forward to replication attempts.

------
AlexeiSadeski
Elon's own arguments are absolutely killing the credibility of electric cars:

-Turn the heat down for more range? Who the heck wants to drive around cold in an extremely expensive car?

-Drive slowly? Again, what?

Elon is simply agreeing with the reviewer's most damning findings: The
consumer must make considerable sacrifices - in addition to spending more
money - in order to properly use their Tesla car.

------
newhouseb
> Where Google thinks it's located—we don't know the charging station's exact
> location

No, we do. The photo here is of the northbound charging spots:
[http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/tesla-begins-
east...](http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/tesla-begins-east-cost-
fast-charging-corridor/)

Assuming he took the car lane, even if he drove past every single parking spot
all the way back out to the road to the highway, he would only cover 0.4
miles. <http://goo.gl/maps/VzRjc>

------
karanmg
The headline should be updated to begin with "The Atlantic Wire claims..."

~~~
untog
So should the Tesla one, right?

------
Nathanael47
Do people really think that Broder lied about the car dying?

~~~
uvdiv
It's obviously true, because Elon would be contradicting it if it weren't.
Which he isn't.

Instead he's muddying the issue like so:

 _"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."_
(Technically true and useless)

Broder's towing company further backs him up:

[http://jalopnik.com/towing-company-the-nyt-tesla-model-s-
was...](http://jalopnik.com/towing-company-the-nyt-tesla-model-s-was-dead-
when-it-196100064)

------
malandrew
My bet is that John M. Broder made a call to James Bennet (the third person
Broder ever followed on Twitter. They have published many things together.
e.g. [http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/13/us/president-s-
acquittal-w...](http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/13/us/president-s-acquittal-
white-house-president-says-he-sorry-seeks-reconciliation.html)), who is the
Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic.

James hasn't tweeted since February 8th, but retweeted John Broder today about
9 hours ago (screenshotted for posterity in case someone following up to blog
about this wants it later) <https://twitter.com/JBennet>

This now calls in question the integrity of James Bennet and Rebecca
Greenfield. I haven't been able to determine a link between Rebecca and James
other than that of subordinate. She's been at the Atlandic since July 2010 and
he's been at the Atlantic since 2006.
<http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43905376>
<https://www.facebook.com/pages/James-Bennet/112357645448306>

I tried finding the Facebook profiles for these three people to confirm
connections, but it doesn't look like their profiles are publicly
discoverable.

Any journalists care to take on a story of examining the relationships within
the third estate here? There's probably a story.

------
VMG
I have the feeling that Musk shot himself in the foot with his original blog
post. He accused Broder of a host things, that now are being reduced by some
to seemingly critical points to the story while others debate minor points
like the point at which the AC was turned on and if Broder missed the charging
station or was trying to empty the battery.

I think it boils down to this:

1) Does Broders trip represent a typical experience driving a Tesla Model S?

2) Could Broder have avoided running the car down to empty and having it toed?

~~~
eridius
And the answers to that seem to be

1) No, but Broder wants you to think it's yes.

2) Yes, but Broder wants you to think it was no.

------
InclinedPlane
I'm sure there are tons of small nuances and subtle details here, but at the
end of the day I'm not sure they matter. The ultimate question is whether or
not the NYTimes reporter presented an honest story, and that appears to be far
from true. it certainly looks like he went out of his way to try to
manufacture a story that isn't reflective of actual experience. But even if
that's not the case there's more than enough evidence that he twisted the
account and left out crucial details in the service of titilation and
excitement rather than factual accuracy.

Musk's job is to sell his cars, we accept that he might present things in a
manner that is most flattering to his products. That's ok as long as he
doesn't outright lie or mislead, we wouldn't expect anything else from any
other company. But the reporter's job is to present the truth to his readers,
and if he not only fails at that job but goes out of the way to present
falsehoods what faith can his readers have in him? At this point, what makes
him better than a reporter for a tabloid? Why should anyone believe anything
he writes? If a reporter doesn't have a reputation for factual accuracy what
good are they?

P.S. I'm reminded of Dateline NBC's "investigation" of the GM C/K series
pickup trucks. The trucks were fundamentally of an unsafe design, with side
mounted external gas tanks. But Dateline's crash tests included adding model
rocket engines to ensure that the rupture of the gas tank caused an explosion,
without revealing that to the viewers. And that, I think, is the problem here
where the reporter was not content to let the facts stand on their own and
went to every effort to juice up the story (although not the car).
Investigative journalism is a hard job, but when you make that leap and start
adding embelishments you are no longer doing journalism you are entertaining.

------
podperson
This article has confirmed crucial aspects of Broder's version with third
parties, such as the truck driver who picked up the inert car (it doesn't
matter if the battery still has 28% power if the parking brake won't turn off,
iirc Priuses also refuse to discharge their batteries below a critical
threshold), and used Google Maps to verify other issues (finding the Milford
supercharger).

I haven't seen anyone attempt to verify actual speeds based on computing the
area under the speed graph, but I suspect that this won't help Musk's case.
19/22 (ratio of the wheel size of the car driven and the wheel size
specification) is actually the perfect ratio to explain the variation between
recorded speeds and reported speeds. Perhaps one is based on GPS and another
on wheel rotation.

The correct response to this story was: we need to improve our customer
service, software, reporting of range (especially w.r.t. temperature) and
messaging; customers need to better understand the tradeoffs of gas vs.
electric cars, and not claiming a senior NY Times reporter will lie to
generate some extra hits on a pretty minor story.

~~~
lutusp
> I haven't seen anyone attempt to verify actual speeds based on computing the
> area under the speed graph ...

Area under the curve -- then that would be to establish _average_ speeds, yes?
I think the recorded road distances and travel times would be a simpler way to
establish that.

> The correct response to this story was: we need to improve our customer
> service, software, reporting of range (especially w.r.t. temperature) and
> messaging ...

Yes, that would have been a nice alternative to what actually happened. My pet
gripe about Tesla in this affair was their advice to Broder to engage in stop-
and-go driving as though that would help the car's range (it can't do that, it
can only hurt compared to driving at a steady speed).

~~~
podperson
Area under the curve is _distance_. (Integral of speed over time is distance.)
We know what the actual distances are so the actual distance could be compared
to the area under the graph to verify its accuracy.

------
justin_vanw
Musk's rebuttal is too wide reaching. It makes some accusations that the
evidence supports, but does not prove. This leaves his rebuttal open to a
counter rebuttal, when the whole issue revolves around one facet of the data:

The reviewer left Norwich with the car telling him he could travel 32 miles,
when he needed to go 62 miles. If he hadn't done that, he would not have had
an issue.

The atlanticwire article doesn't address this point at all, and how could it?
The car said it would go 32 miles. It went more than that, but less than 62.
Any reasonable person, needing to go 62 miles, would want the number the car
says to be greater than 62, because what kind of idiot tries to go 62 miles
with a car with 62 miles of range left? Now, what kind of full on retard tries
that with 32 miles left?

------
seanp2k2
Am I the only one who feels like Musk is doing more to soil the reputation of
electric cars than to advance it? It totally sucks that the media is being a
bunch of meanies about this stuff, but in many ways, Teslas still aren't
practical for unwashed masses.

Also, their target market here will probably research this enough that the
negative PR won't matter that much. It'll ruin public perception...just like
they've done with diesel over the past decades. Now where's my diesel/electric
car? Diesel/electric hybrid technology has been around since the first few
years of the 1900s: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel-
electric_transmission#Sh...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel-
electric_transmission#Ships)

I am not impressed with our "progress".

------
jtchang
You know all this Tesla talk makes me actually want to own one now. Sure there
is a lot of talk about mileage and charging stations but on the whole it is
going to get better. And the more discourse we have the better chance the
product will be given a good deal of attention.

------
mikemoka
The articles about this event clearly explain in my opinion not who is wrong
or right here but how much even the most smart reader's opinion can be guided
or misled by what a specific author writes, whether by omissions, incomplete
data or other rethorical techniques

------
nikcub
This argument has nothing to do with facts, it is just one journalist
attempting to defend another, and you can tell by the language used. For eg.
in Argument 3 about cruise control and speeds, she says:

 _But the section before he broke down it does look like he chugged along at a
pretty low speed._

"It does look like"? This is a graph, it has data points, its not about
"looking like" - these points represent facts. At no point in the facts is
there proof of cruise control being set at 55mph.

She is taking a graph with real data and attempting to re-interpret it to fit
the NYTimes story. This is an emotional argument, as with 'oh no, this was
actually about testing supercharge stations'.

------
chmars
Why not simply doing a retest? Seems easy enough, it's still winterly cold …

------
stevewilhelm
I really want to buy an electric car, but range anxiety keeps me from doing
so. Unfortunately, the NYT 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.

------
fleitz
This is a huge PR win for Tesla, what started out as one NYT review has
blossomed into 4 or 5 articles and a he said she said drama.

~~~
VMG
Yeah companies love it when somebody calls their product unreliable and
consumers are uncertain. That's what FUD is all about after all!

------
justin66
It's interesting that one of the results of Musk's reaction might be for the
next journalist to bring a camera crew. It wouldn't have to be a Top Gear-
style hit piece: just record all the phone conversations with Tesla personnel
trying to figure out why things are not reading consistently. It's not going
to leave a favorable impression.

------
Ygg2
I've got a stupid question. Why doesn't some impartial soul(s), try to
recreate exact conditions as Broder describes them in the article? Tell Tesla
what you will do, film your trip there. If their experience doesn't match
Broder's they should just abuse the car until they recreate the exact
condition Broder ended up.

------
salman89
Regardless of all this, Tesla should look hard at a mapping solution that ties
with their onboard sensors - the car can intelligently tell you where to stop
and charge and how long to charge for by knowing where you are trying to get
and what charging stations are along the way.

------
gusgordon
Elon's argument should have probably been more focused. That doesn't change
the fact, though, that there are numerous pieces of evidence showing that
Broder expected unreasonable things out of the car, and then blamed the car
when it failed.

------
bborud
Shit, this is disappointing. And I was hoping we could announce a villain in
this story before the weekend -- and now you tell me that it is more
complicated than that?

Now I have to go back to being upset about there being horse-meat in lasagna.

------
asimjalis
Is Tesla allowed log data without informing the users? Will these logs also be
generated by cars that people purchase?

------
volts
I'm impressed that car runs as good as it does. Maybe there's hope after oil!
Go Elon!

------
stedaniels
All The Atlantic Wire "Convincing?" points are rather lame to be honest.

------
rjurney
A debate with DATA. How wonderful!

------
OGinparadise
The problem I have with "he made it up": unless you have a computer keeping
track of miles, speed and temperature, you are going to be "lying" about it.
For example, I could easily say that I was riding at 67 mph but the computer
point out that I actually went as high as 72, as low as 52 a lot of the time.
Was I lying? Who the hell is going to remember or write about every speed
change on a 500 mile trip? Was it a scientific study or a review for the
average user to understand? But let's look at the big picture: I, personally,
would NOT want a car that is so specific about the speed, cabin temperature
and so on, or call a tow truck because the battery died out on you. 45 mph or
52mph, it's the same crap to me.

Tesla, thanks to the tracking, may have every tiny detail, but their users
generally agreed with the reviewer--at a Tesla site forum no less.

Restaurant reviewer: Service was great but the food took an hour to arrive!

Restaurant owner: He is a liar, food was on the table with 50 minutes and I
have order slips to prove him wrong.

Me: underwhelmed at the "evidence," 50min and an hour is essentially the same
to me when waiting for food to arrive and I didn't expect the reviewer to hold
a chronowatch.

~~~
grecy
> 45 mph or 52mph, it's the same crap to me.

In Australia, you'll get a $100 speeding ticket for going 7MPH over the limit.
You need to drive more carefully.

<http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/usingroads/penalties/speeding.html>

~~~
tomrod
This is a law I could get behind. People regularly go 15 MPH over where I live
--which is unsafe on the specific road I have in mind.

The road is not a personal time transport no matter how late you are!

~~~
grecy
In Australia you'll lose your license on the spot for ~19MPH over. (actually
30 km/h)

