
A Most Peculiar Test Drive - reneherse
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive
======
ComputerGuru
Wow. I was as skeptical of the wisdom of Tesla attacking NYT's journalist for
their Model S review as all the other HNers - but this is incredible.

First: I realize the fact that what the hardware logs show and what the user
was shown may not be one and the same (i.e. hardware sensors may indicate
charge at 28% but due to a bug (it's possible!) it may be shown to be full).
But their travel logs shred, I repeat, _shred_ Broder's credibility and claims
alike.

It really does look like he was hell-bent on ripping Tesla a new one in his
review. Taking Tesla's rebuttal at face value: purposely embarking on journeys
over twice the indicated available range, driving around in circles in an
empty parking lot to kill batteries, turning up the heat and claiming to have
turned it down ("shaking, shivering, and with white knuckles" no less).

They post images, graphs, logs, maps, and more. I'm incredibly surprised at
how well they're defending themselves against dishonest reviews - for example,
I'd never have thought to log the changes to the cabin temperature, but
apparently they've done so and more!

This post makes me want to reconsider a Model S as my next car. As far as I'm
concerned, this is exactly the kind of attention to detail I want going into
the engineering, design, and manufacture of my vehicle.

I'd be interested in hearing NYT's response to this - they previously stated
unconditionally that they stand by Broder's review and believe it to be
honest, truthful, and factual.

If indeed at the end of the day this was Broder pushing his own agenda, not
only ignoring but outright faking facts, then I think his journalistic career
should be over.

~~~
drostie
If you really look at the two accounts, it's not necessarily clear that
they're contradictory except in a couple of statements on speed: he said 55
when he was doing 60; then said 45 when he was doing 50. Even then, it's not
clear whether this is human bias or something wrong with the car log, because
this data <i>is</i> from the car log and it would be nice to correlate it
against that Google Map they have. Does he set the climate control to low?
Yes, but he says that he did this when he switched to cruise control -- when
in fact he did this a little later, when he switched to city driving, as the
logs show. That's not a smoking gun either.

Poke further at the story. Look at the battery charge graph, and more
specifically look at its _slope_ , which is the fuel efficiency. Shifting to
cruise control did not affect the drainage curve at all, and when he called
Tesla they suggested that cruise control was a Bad Idea, because the Tesla has
regenerative braking, so you see that he turns it off at about 225 mi and
starts stop-and-go driving in the city. This _devastates_ the Tesla's fuel
efficiency. It does this for a very simple reason which should be high-school
physics: your brakes are energy dissipaters and are bound by the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. Regenerative braking just lowers the loss -- it does not
eliminate it.

Now, if that advice was given, then the journalist _trusted_ Tesla when they
said something which _contradicted high school physics_. That is a dark smear
on Broder -- at least if Broder was planning to be a scientific journalist --
but also a dark smear on Tesla's customer support. What were they thinking?
But the two accounts are immediately reconcilable now.

Broder now is thinking, "okay, stop-and-go city traffic will use the brakes
and recharge the car, this city driving will have a less negative slope." From
this impression he probably expected he was at 20% charge when he stopped; he
was actually at around 8 or 9% and it immediately drops 1% overnight. That
should chop 1/10th off of his remaining miles, but he claims it went from 90
miles to 45.

So, here's the story: He is expecting a number at around 100 miles because he
thinks he's being more efficient now. He sees 50 miles. On a digital display
at a hotel at night, he misreads the 5 as a 9, and this fits with his
expectation, so he goes to bed thinking he has 90 miles of range. He wakes up
and the Tesla has lost 5 miles of range inexplicably -- but it therefore has
become 45 miles, which looks totally different. He calls them up complaining
that the Tesla lost half of its charge overnight and some sympathetic tech
support describes it as a "software glitch."

That's a perfect storm scenario right there, because now he thinks that he
_does_ have the extra range and that braking is _good_ for the car and that
the car is simply misreporting what it can do. Confirming this, he makes it to
the Milford supercharge with less than 0 miles of range, and charges it back
up again to 185 miles. He is _confident_ now, and you see him averaging 65.
There are a bunch of full stops near 400 miles, but remember, he thinks that
full stops are _good_. With a bunch of this, he stops and calls up Tesla.
"What the hell, I can't get back to Milford on this expected range, can you
find me a nearby charger?" He goes 11 miles in the opposite direction, plugs
into a station in Norwich for an hour, and he visits a diner. He confirms that
he only got to 28% and really should have let the car charge here because the
display never got as high as it should be, but he says that Tesla had cleared
him to go to Milford and that he trusted the humans at this point over the
sensors in the car.

He gets back on the highway at 45/50 to try to conserve power (which does not
affect the slope of the curve all that much) and that is the subject of this
second-to-last Google Map. The sensors are right, the tech support was
misguided, the car stops and needs to be towed. Both stories fit pretty well
with each other.

~~~
Synthetase
Driving back and forth in front of the damn charger speaks for itself.

Straws. You maybe holding some.

EDIT: Two words. Occam's Razor. Your explanation is so tangled that an entire
battalion of Viet Cong could hide in it.

~~~
mythrowaway0
Speaks for not being able to find the charging point in the parking lot,
perhaps? Don't forget that Musk formulated his assertion of Broder's
motivation based on a data log of the car traveling between 5mph and 15mph for
0.6 miles. That sounds almost exactly like my average journey to find a
parking spot at the mall.

But no, you're right, let's assume a long-term _New York Times_ veteran lied
in the paper, intentionally. That's a safer explanation in the face of your
call for Occam's Razor...

~~~
veemjeem
John Broder does have an affinity for writing articles about big oil. I don't
exactly want to assume he was paid under the table to denounce electric cars,
but it's odd for a writer to have 90% of their articles being related to oil:
[http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/peopl...](http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_m_broder/index.html)

On Feb 8, 4 days before the controversial tesla article, he wrote one about
how poorly the Chevrolet Volt & Ford Transit performed. I think he already
decided on the tone of the article before he drove the Tesla.

His other articles about oil drilling claim that they help with job
creation... you be the judge.

~~~
protomyth
> His other articles about oil drilling claim that they help with job
> creation... you be the judge.

Since I live in ND, we have lots of oil drilling going on, and the Dec 2012
unemployment rate was 3.2% compared to the national rate of 7.8%; I would find
that a factually true statement.

~~~
roc
And how's that scale when we're talking about a population _larger_ than 700k
residents?

Just because something is factually true in a narrow context does not mean it
remains factually true when abstracted to a generality.

~~~
protomyth
Texas seems to be doing fine too and they have a bit of a population. The line
you quoted is factual. Oil employees a lot of people and generates a lot of
money.

~~~
Nrsolis
We had a ton of fine women working as telephone operators once too. My father
was a typewriter repairman for a bit.

When was the last time you saw either one of those?

Oil's biggest advantage (other than the massive amount of energy density) is
that the full cost of acquiring it isn't factored into the cost per barrel.
Since oil is both a commodity and a strategic resource, the government has
committed its full resources in the aim of securing supply.

You can argue if this is or isn't a good thing, but you can't argue the fact
that it happens.

~~~
protomyth
I have no idea how your comment relates to anything I wrote. Oil employees a
lot of people. The reporter's comment was factual. If we are talking subsidies
then "green" isn't exactly dieting at the federal trough.

~~~
Nrsolis
My point is this: just because oil employs lots of people, it isn't a reason
to concentrate investment in those industries.

The reporter might have been reporting a true statement, but it wasn't
informative or even relevant to the discussion about energy technologies.
There were plenty of telegraph operators, milkmen, and dockworkers once too.
Technological advancement made those jobs redundant or irrelevant.

------
bfe
This is really damning.

I became way more suspicious when Mr. Broder started trying to weasel in lots
of C.Y.A. wiggle room once Elon called his bluff: "Mr. Musk’s logs may show I
hit 75 m.p.h. for a mile or two during my trip, although it was likely before,
rather than after, the Newark stop..." [1] Suddenly he needed three
conditionals in just one sentence: "may", "a mile or two" (now he's not so
sure), and "likely".

Given all the hard data here that contradict the original story and show
intentional shenanigans like laps around a parking lot, plus the evidence of
Mr. Broder's stated a priori irrational bias against electric cars, it's hard
to see how this might end up without a retraction from the Times.

And once again I think all the Times's griping about industry disruption is a
secondary matter and a distraction from the fact that it's consistently not
actually a very good news source.

1\. [http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-
are-f...](http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-
over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/)

------
stcredzero
Here's what I posted after the NYTimes review:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204109>

Our culture is badly broken. When "the social contract" for broad swathes of
society is so little regarded that lying is a matter of course, then we have
already reached worrying levels of dysfunction, of the sort that historians
point out when they discuss the fall of the Roman Empire, Czarist Russia, or
the USSR. A point all of those have in common: The denizens came to assume
public information was false as a matter of course, as a time and sanity
saving measure. Large swathes of our society think of lying, even when
deceiving large swathes of the public, as a kind of sport, and profiting from
such lying as a kind of serendipitous fortune to be exploited without
conscience, like finding cash on the sidewalk.

Such attitudes are shoved in my face when I see exclamations like, "Pictures
or it didn't happen!" It's the same when big media corporations trade in
innuendo and conspiracy theories and deliberately sabotage the dissemination
of knowledge for their own ends. Such attitudes are so pervasive, that large
swathes of the population actually disbelieve in any kind of objective truth,
and accept mere social proof as its substitute and superior.

It's entirely possible that the journalist in question is innocent of
deception and only guilty of poor journalism and/or poor trip planning and/or
insufficient UI design. However, the issue with the review and that of the
social contract are entirely related. In a world where reality itself is
relative and subject to social proof, there is no need to double check your
facts or to prove the null hypothesis. In a world where science is just
another fabricated self-serving belief system, there's no need to apply one's
scientific literacy or application of physics learned in school when doing
things like taking a car trip in winter. One only need know enough to read the
dials and gauges to be a good consumer, then complain loudly if things do not
go one's way.

True competence, be it in programming or journalism or any significant
endeavor, requires diligence with and prostration to the truth. Our society as
a whole has forgotten this and our society as a whole is oblivious to the
price it is paying as a consequence.

Another way to think of it: Our society as a whole doesn't have the
epistemological foundation needed for the level of technical sophistication it
has.

EDIT: Some of my fellow HN-ers seem to suggest they hold such relativism as a
world view. This warrants much reflection.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I sympathize strongly with your comment. But, following your own standards,
there should be a little voice of doubt in your mind about _this_ narrative as
well. Perhaps it seems that civilizations grow more corrupt over time merely
because their ability to detect and disseminate knowledge of such corruption
improves.

~~~
stcredzero
_> But, following your own standards, there should be a little voice of doubt
in your mind about this narrative as well._

That was written _before_ Tesla's response. You're saying, that for the
interest on impartiality, I should have doubted Tesla's side before I even
read it? Huh?!? Does that make sense?

As I stated elsewhere, someone can replicate both Tesla's side and Broder's
side by redoing the trip both ways.

~~~
arrrg
Realistically, that’s not possible.

The disputes are much more subtle here.

~~~
stcredzero
Any disputes so subtle as to require more expense than several more
replication attempts is immaterial.

Plenty of winter left. Even people who will volunteer. I think replication is
very possible. Hell, I have time. I'll do one!

------
abalone
Musk didn't disprove a thing. He's trying to manipulate the facts.

The estimated range that Broder is referring to is the _90_ mile estimate that
the car displayed at the end of the first day, not the 32 miles it displayed
the next morning. That is what he means when he says the car fell short of its
range estimate by 2/3rds.

He also states that the reason he proceeded in the morning with just a 32 mile
range is that "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." In other words, Tesla
TOLD HIM TO. Musk does not refute this.

Tesla flunked the test due to cold weather energy loss. It's that simple.
Superchargers alone cannot compensate for that. You still have to plug in
overnight and take conservation measures on the road, or you may end up
stranded. Musk can't change that no matter how hard he tries to distract you
from the facts with "facts".

(BTW, has anyone realized that Musk's "driving around in circles in front of
the charging station" conspiracy theory doesn't even make any kind of sense?
If the writer wanted to intentionally strand the car he'd do it on the road.)

~~~
jellicle
> He also states that the reason he proceeded in the morning with just a 32
> mile range is that "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." In other
> words, Tesla TOLD HIM TO. Musk does not refute this.

To quote from Musk:

"The final leg of his trip was 61 miles and yet he disconnected the charge
cable when the range display stated 32 miles. He did so expressly against the
advice of Tesla personnel and in obvious violation of common sense."

I'd say that is a refutation.

~~~
danielweber
Yeah. We're now in a sad he-said-she-said situation, unless someone was
recording phone calls.

. . . hey, most customer services lines tell you that the call may be
recorded? So maybe we _do_ have that call.

------
richardjordan
This is awesome. I've been waiting for them to show this and get it out there
for peer review so no-one can say it's just he-said he-said.

It's yet another example of how the New York Times which complains so much
about the hardships it is suffering in the new media economy has brought most
of the problem on itself by no longer being worthy of its once-exalted status.

~~~
btilly
The problems that the New York Times complains about are not at all
incompatible with the self-inflicted wounds.

When your budget is being decimated, it is hard to attract and support the
quality employees who can deliver the product that you want. It gets worse
with the way that new media is turning into a more virulent rehash of the old
"yellow press", thereby lowering journalistic standards among the companies
that the New York Times has to compete with. This means that people you try to
hire are unlikely to come from a culture that cares about facts - which
accelerates the downward spiral.

I do not personally believe that it will get better until it has gotten so
clearly bad that the public hungers for high quality news enough to pay a
premium to subscribe to it. (Which is how institutions like The New York Times
got started in the first place.)

~~~
rdl
I assume people are willing to pay for actionable intelligence on things that
matter to them. Or to be entertained. But you pay an entirely different amount
of money to find out an answer to "should I build a factory using natural gas
in the midwest, or will prices rise, or will a pipeline be constructed in time
that we can keep using our factory in Texas" vs. "what is latest on Tom Cruise
and his wife?".

Unfortunately, since voting is relatively ineffective, information on
political/social/etc. issues, even if it fully determines how you vote, is
closer in value to entertainment than intelligence.

~~~
btilly
The problem is more complex than that.

If you want information that is actionable and of interest to very few, you're
going to pay a premium. But if you want information that many want to hear,
you can spread the cost out and it can be individually cheap.

But it matters how people pay. The problem is that we've moved from paying for
a subscription to implicitly on ad impressions per click. With a subscription,
poor quality hurt the publisher because subscriptions got canceled. On per
click models, it is basically a war for the best headline. And the quality of
news is essentially irrelevant. By the time you realize that you've been
fooled into clicking on useless blogspam again, they've booked the ad
impressions.

You can't maintain quality on a per click revenue model. And you can't
generate subscription revenue when people are not dissatisfied enough with the
free blogspam. Nobody seems to have figured out good solutions to this yet.

~~~
rdl
I guess with intelligence there is also value if you get the information
first, or are one of a small elect with the information -- scarcity has value.
With public interest, it's often to your benefit if everyone gets the
information -- the value goes up from network effects or something as more
people know it.

------
dclowd9901
> When Tesla first approached The New York Times about doing this story, it
> was supposed to be focused on future advancements in our Supercharger
> technology. There was no need to write a story about existing Superchargers
> on the East Coast, as that had already been done by Consumer Reports with no
> problems!

As compelling as this blog post is, this statement _really_ stuck in my craw.
NYT, nor any other news group, is beholden to your ideal article. To make
matters worse, it was Tesla approaching NYT, not the other way around. So no
Elon. Just because the article didnt cover what you wanted it to cover,
doesn't mean you can get your panties in a bunch about it. The truthfulness of
the article is a whole other matter entirely, but as someone who studied
journalism, I have to give him a big "fuck you" for this imperialistic notion.

~~~
chaz
But that's how PR works. A company or their PR agency pitches a story to the
journalist, who is constantly in search of good content in exchange for
publicity. While the journalist and the publication get the final say, there's
an agreement of what's going to be covered, and what's out of bounds. What
Musk and Tesla are doing here is sinking PR agencies' willingness to work with
the Broder and NYT on a future story and reducing the chances they will get
media test drives of cars in the future.

The NYT is huge and important, so they'll never be completely shut out. But
I'm guessing they'll be pretty far down the waiting list for the Tesla Model X
media car.

~~~
donohoe

      While the journalist and the publication get the final say,
      there's an agreement of what's going to be covered, and what's out of bounds.
    

No. There is not. There is the notion of "off the record" when talking to
sources. However NYT never agrees to whats being covered in a PR sense.

Editorial policy is pretty clear on most things like that.

Whenever we visited Google's office and such we were forbidden to sign the
standard NDA's at check-in. It was fun to watch the people at the front desk
get flustered ("No one ever declines the NDA!")

~~~
foobarqux
> However NYT never agrees to whats being covered in a PR sense.

Maybe not formally but if the subject of the article has anything the NYT
wants like advertising revenue, insider information, scoops or exclusive
access then you can be sure the NYT has an incentive to be cooperative that is
directly proportional to how much it values receiving these benefits in the
future.

In the case of Tesla this incentive is essentially zero.

------
zero_intp
In my opinion, a damning comment in the journalists rebuttal causes him to
lose all credibility on it's own. "Mr. Musk has referred to a “long detour” on
my trip. He is apparently referring to a brief stop in Manhattan on my way to
Connecticut that, according to Google Maps, added precisely two miles to the
overall distance traveled from the Delaware Supercharger to Milford (202 miles
with the stop versus 200 miles had I taken the George Washington Bridge
instead of the Lincoln Tunnel)."

Anyone who has driven this trip knows that a "2 mile detour" into Manhattan
will cost them an hour+ of their lives, and a quarter of their soul, much less
a stop and go hell ride. A true testament to his disinginuity is his
pretending to think that stop and go is more efficient than highway mileage.
He has no place as an energy reporter unless acting as a shill.

~~~
mpyne
> A true testament to his disinginuity is his pretending to think that stop
> and go is more efficient than highway mileage. He has no place as an energy
> reporter unless acting as a shill.

Why is everyone here conflating gas-powered machines with EVs? There's a
reason Tesla recommended he slow down and go through a city. There's a reason
the Prius has a _higher_ mileage rating for city driving than highway driving.

The reason is that driving faster requires proportionally more energy. It's
always been that simple. The reason cities have historical given poor mileage
is because of energy wastage from idling and from braking, both of which many
EVs (incl. Tesla's) can minimize the energy loss from.

------
gojomo
Musk doesn't address the big drop in estimated range overnight, which actually
seems confirmed (at mile 400) in his charge/range graphs. I'm curious if
temperature alone can explain this, or some other bug or drain-left-on
overnight must be at play.

It does appear the reviewer wanted to trigger a car-stop scenario. Curiosity
about what happens when a driver messes up, or perhaps range estimates fail
because of unpredictable terrain/traffic is legitimate. So, I don't blame the
reviewer for the circles near the charging station. But ignoring the range
estimate and recharge opportunities, in order to require a tow and then report
it as if it were a car failure, seems indefensible.

~~~
venomsnake
That is why when conducting a review and not just a blog post , you should
have a protocol - what were you testing, how, why.

After all - see how detailed the testing methodology for some hardware sites
is. For a world class media like the times it is inexcusable. So it is very
sloppy to have times making reviews of expensive products that are worse than
these of 300$ video card.

I pushed the car to the limits is a viable test, just notice it.

~~~
brk
An excellent point. It's also probably worth mentioning that for this kind of
review, a single data point/drive is more of an anecdote than a test. At the
very least they should do a "round trip" there and back test.

------
staunch
People hear "NY Times" and think it means something. It doesn't. There's
simply no way (usually) for anyone to factcheck what happened on a reporter's
solo trip. The editor is completely reliant on the author's word.

In this case the writer is busted, but you can be sure that plenty of NY Times
articles are equally biased without anyone able to prove otherwise. I was
fortunate to personally witness absolute yellow journalism out of the NY
Times, so I know just low their reporting can go.

Trust individuals, ignore brands.

------
RyanZAG
From the data, all of the claims made are correct - except for the one about
the air temperature.

[http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/c...](http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/cabintemp0.jpg)

They put the arrow where it was increased for a short duration, but then
immediately after this the temperature is lowered considerably. A short delay
like that could be just timing differences on his watch or similar. Does not
seem like a valid complaint here, as the temperature was definitely decreased
substantially after that time.

Rest of it is, obviously, completely incriminating though. Tesla should have
just left this at the 'driving in circles in the parking lot'. That speaks for
itself more than anything.

~~~
MortenK
Look at the x-axis, he doesn't lower the temperature immediately after. At 182
miles, he states he lowered temperature. Instead he increases it in small
increments up to a bit more than 74 at around the 200 miles mark (18 miles
after he says he lowered it). Then he decreases it in two increments, down to
a little less than 70, around the 220 miles mark. He doesn't reduce it to
64/65 until around 250 miles.

~~~
RyanZAG
That could be a genuine mistake. If that was the only mistake - misreporting
80 miles when he lowered the temperature - then this would be no proof at all.
He did still lower the temperate, after all, just gave the incorrect distance
at which it was done. It doesn't actually affect the review.

As I said before though, this is hardly the only part of the puzzle that
doesn't add up.

------
querulous
elon musk accused the author of a significant detour in manhattan and not
charging to max in his tweets. he provides zero proof the first thing happened
and the article is very clear that the test driver/reviewer did not, in fact,
charge to max when elon musk claims he didn't.

i'm also appalled elon musk would use charge remaining charts that show the
battery dropping into the low single digits to prove the car never ran out of
battery when the tesla runs on lithium ion battery technology. lithium ion
batteries are ruined by complete discharges. if the tesla doesn't shut down
above some safe threshold it's a poor piece of engineering. elon musk is
definitely aware of this fact and is cherry picking facts and misleading his
audience to gain sympathy for his argument.

elon musk also cherry picks a quote from a response to his tweets and
attributes it to the original piece to further his argument

regardless of the new york time's behavior, elon musk is not acting in any
more honest a manner and is harming his companies reputation

~~~
stcredzero
_> if the tesla doesn't shut down above some safe threshold it's a poor piece
of engineering._

Such batteries have their charge scale as displayed to the user deliberately
shifted, so that even a small negative capacity actually indicates that safety
threshold. Do you actually know anything about making charge controllers? Your
statements seem to be of the type crafted to deceive uninformed readers.

 _> elon musk also cherry picks a quote from a response to his tweets and
attributes it to the original piece to further his argument_

[Citation Needed]

 _> regardless of the new york time's behavior, elon musk is not acting in any
more honest a manner and is harming his companies reputation_

There's no concrete proof you've offered in this comment at all, only a
willful misreading of Tesla's response.

------
mherdeg
An issue here which fascinates me is -- how closely do we expect any
subjective narrative to match the facts?

I'd love to see an experiment where you ask ten people to drive a car for 300
miles and write a story about how their trip went; then compare what they
wrote against actual instrumentation data. I would be fascinated to know what
parts of their narrative are most likely to be incorrect / misreported.

~~~
marknutter
This isn't just one of "ten people"; it's a nytimes columnist whose very
profession is to report facts, accurately. He got caught embellishing facts
for a pre-determined narrative, simple as that. I can't believe people are
actually trying to defend this sloppy journalism.

~~~
mherdeg
Hmm, I may be a little more cynical than you here.

To my eye practically all journalists are sloppy: when I read a newspaper
article about a topic I know well, it no longer comes as any kind of surprise
to read something inaccurate or incomplete.

I can maybe trust the facts in a New Yorker piece (their editors' attention to
detail is legendary) or in a WSJ feature article, where someone has had a
_lot_ of time to put things together and probably knows 10 times more than
they bothered to write down … but that's not how most news works. Most
newspaper stories are a "first draft of history" and I'm pretty much prepared
to accept that when I read a story, it is one person's interpretation of what
happened that is likely to deviate from reality in some hopefully minor way.

I'd like to understand whether I'm being unduly cynical or whether this is
really a common quirk in how people tell stories -- hence my suggestion that
I'd love to see an experiment where we measure empirically how good people are
at aligning their story with easily measured facts.

~~~
marknutter
You're probably right to be cynical, but the issue is that most people are
not. I would be that the vast majority of people who read an NYTimes article
take it as gospel, which is scary.

~~~
DanBC
It is scary.

But it's a shame that we're expected to distrust journalists working for a
reputable newspaper.

Journalists get special legal protections; newspapers get special legal
protections (at least, in the UK they do) and asking them to tell the truth
doesn't seem too onerous.

Telling the truth is a professional ethical obligation for journalists, and it
should be a personal ethical code for most people, and it's just weird to me
that we should be asking it of journalists.

(And I'm in the UK where we have scum writing for news papers.)

------
leepowers
This quote from Broder is telling:

 _This evaluation was intended to demonstrate its practicality as a “normal
use,” no-compromise car, as Tesla markets it._ [1]

The problem is "normal use" for gasoline engines doesn't map to "normal use"
for electrics. For instance, Broder left his Tesla parked overnight in the
cold and lost ~60 miles of range. For a gas car that doesn't happen - you can
park it in the cold for a week without losing any mileage.

An unbiased review would have pointed out the differences between gas ("old
normal") and electric ("new normal"). Yes, with an electric you will need to
charge more frequently (and possibly overnight) when operating in colder
environments. Yes, filling up a gas tank takes a few minutes - and fully
charging an electric can take 30 minutes to an hour. Yes, these are the
tradeoffs involved, etc., etc.

Instead (as the Musk rebuttal shows) Broder mis-used the Tesla, didn't charge
correctly, ignored advice and ended up blaming the technology. Broder's review
is a PEBKAC error written in the first-person.

[1] [http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-
are-f...](http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-
over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/)

~~~
lylejohnson
See also his snarky reference to "electric-car acolytes" in the same
paragraph. He seems to be a bit too careless in revealing his biases.

------
toyg
I'm surprised people are so surprised a NYT journalist might write pieces to
suit his own agenda. This is the paper who employed and defended Judith
Miller, the paper who didn't know Jayson Blair was plagiarizing and
fabricating stories. The entire old-media setup is suspect at the best of
times, these days, but the NYT is certainly one source you always have to take
with a grain of salt.

------
ryguytilidie
I don't get it. I'm reading all the comments and most seems to be defending
what are clearly some blatant lies. Of course there are things in there where
we can argue if it is overly nitty that Elon says the guy is driving 61 when
the guy says he was driving 55, but maybe we should focus on the stuff that
was clearly a lie?

The reviewer was instructed to fully charge the car at a station, he did not,
and was then surprised how low his range got. If I stopped at a gas station
and put 5 gallons in, when I knew I needed 6 and faulted the manufacturer in a
NYT review I shouldn't be allowed to be a journalist anymore.

The reviewer goes on to write about how cold it was after turning the heat
down at 182 miles, when he actually turned the heat up, I mean, how does one
even begin to explain? Oops, I thought to turn the heat down you turn the dial
clockwise?

He then goes on to talk about how he set the cruise control to 55, when he
went under 60 for about 15 total seconds in the first half of the trip. It
looks like the cruise control MAY have been set to like 60-62mph, but why not
use those numbers? Oh hey, because the ones he made up made tesla look worse,
see the theme here? He later goes on to say he drove 45 while the graph
clearly shows he never went below ~52.

How do you guys defend something like this? Are we just that okay with lying
as a society now? I can pick out 5-6 blatant lies in this story, but
apparently the fact that some of these are debatable makes it okay to lie in a
bunch of other situations? How does that work?

~~~
makomk
The reviewer already said exactly how much he charged it up at each charging
stop and why, so it's hard to really accuse him of lying about that. (Also,
there's apparently no temperature control dial to turn at all, just software
buttons on a huge center-console touchscreen with no tactile feedback.)

~~~
greedo
There's already too much pedantry on HN; please don't contribute to it. Broder
clearly was able to control the temperature, whether it was via a rheostat
dial or a touchscreen controller.

~~~
makomk
It's not pedantry. The comment I was replying to argued that of course it had
to be deliberate because it's not like you could accidentally "turn the dial
clockwise" - but it's quite a bit easier to accidentally tap a centimeter or
two above where you aimed on an unfamiliar touchscreen.

------
jonathanberger
Did anyone else try to find the citations made in the blog post back in the
original NYT article? I did and couldn't trace some of them down.

The third bullet point in the blog says "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,'"

When I do a Command-F on the article, I can't find "32", "51", "final leg", or
"fell short". Where is Tesla getting these quotes from?

~~~
surrealize
When Broder stopped at Norwich for the low-power charge, in the article he
says "after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford". The figure
that the NYT released:

[http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/02/10/automobiles/10t...](http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/02/10/automobiles/10tesla-
map.html?ref=automobiles)

is where it says that the car showed an estimated range of 32 miles when he
left Norwich.

Elon's blog post contradicts Broder's "they cleared me to resume the trip"
comment, saying "The final leg of his trip was 61 miles and yet he
disconnected the charge cable when the range display stated 32 miles. He did
so expressly against the advice of Tesla personnel and in obvious violation of
common sense."

So the car logs are hard to argue with; the contradictory claim here is about
what Tesla said to Broder when he was at Norwich, which presumably wasn't
recorded.

~~~
skore
It would be interesting to see the NYT double down on this... only to have
Tesla reveal that they did in fact record this conversation and it matches
their version of the story.

~~~
surrealize
Ha, that would be great. And even if they didn't record it, I wonder if
they'll start recording those conversations now.

------
danso
Jalopnik points out that the alleged driving "around in circles" at Milford
isn't automatically nefarious, given the supercharger's geographic location:

> * Note that the Milford station is on an off-ramp and it isn't at all small.
> A single loop around the station is nearly a 1/3rd of a mile, and if you
> make a wrong turn (or even hunt for the charger) and make one turn around
> you're at 1/2 mile.*

[http://jalopnik.com/tesla-claims-model-s-driving-logs-
show-n...](http://jalopnik.com/tesla-claims-model-s-driving-logs-show-nyt-
reporter-wor-192254006)

~~~
ricardobeat
Notice there is a left turn right after the first row of parking spaces, which
takes your directly to the charging station. You can also apparently take the
3rd entrance from the ramp and get there directly.

The red path depicts exactly what Musk claims: driving around in circles. Look
at the final leg, going around the chargers. Even with that ridiculous path
it's only 0.5 miles. _That_ is disingenuous.

~~~
danso
Not sure I understand you...for reference's sake, here's the location:

[https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.24586,-73.009073&z=17](https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.24586,-73.009073&z=17)

How direct of a path you take from the offramp depends on the signage, it's
not unreasonable to think that the writer missed it.

And when you say: " _Even with that ridiculous path it's only 0.5 miles._
"...you did read the OP right?

Musk uses this chart in which he says the reporter "circled" around for 0.6
miles:

[http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/s...](http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/speedmph0.jpg)

0.6 is very close to 0.5. This doesn't prove the reporter _didn't_ do
something nefarious...but the line between accidentally and purposefully
taking a circuitous route here is not a wide margin.

I mean, if the reporter wanted to screw with Tesla -- and while ostensibly
being unaware that he was tracked -- why wouldn't he just miss his exit a
couple of times and get stranded on the side of the freeway? If you wanted
maximum damning effect, that's what I would go for...driving around a
McDonalds seems less efficient.

~~~
ricardobeat
Read it again: even with that ridiculous path it doesn't add up to 0.6 miles.
Emphasis on _ridiculous_. The path drawn in red is "circling", it even goes
through the McDonalds drive-through lanes and against the flow at the end.

You'd have to do it on purpose - or be really, really, comically stupid, which
would be kind of surprising for a NYT reporter.

Look at the map you just posted in satellite view:
<http://cl.ly/image/233B400Z2T3w>

~~~
cube13
>You'd have to do it on purpose - or be really, really, comically stupid,
which would be kind of surprising for a NYT reporter.

Or just want a soda.

------
rdl
If Tesla needs someone to do a fair review of the Tesla, particularly in urban
environments, or for SF-Reno, I'd be happy to make the extreme sacrifice and
take them up on it.

(what I'd really like to do is test a Model S in police/security duty cycle.
Lots of idling, powering accessory equipment, high speed short pursuit, long
highway cruise. Or test the vehicle through something like the Blackwater
driving/carbine course, where the low center of gravity would make it pretty
awesome I think (especially vs. a Crown Vic or an armored GMC).)

~~~
PhilipA
I think I could do the sacrifice as well ;)

------
cpg
The article is direct, factual and Brother should undoubtedly be fired.

Just why did Elon Musk not link to the article, for everyone to easily see
Broder's embarrassment beats me.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-
the...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-
highway.html)

~~~
cpg
Oh, and BTW, it's not mentioned, but it would be quite interesting, and much
more of a burn, if Elon is actually making some of the charges, like driving
in loops, with a proof via GPS logs of the test drive.

~~~
lutusp
Yes, and after a little research, I find that the Tesla log contains GPS
positions, so this could be done in principle. But for a short distance like
within a small parking lot (as in the account of driving in circles), the
positions might not produce a useful graph (typical GPS accuracies are +- 10
meters or 32.8 feet).

~~~
Robin_Message
GPS is only accurate to a certain amount (maybe 1.5 metres, maybe 10 metres)
in an absolute sense, but in a relative sense they are much more accurate and
would easily show circles being driven in a parking lot (it's just that the
circle might be 10 metres away from the road).

This is also used in surverying to do something called differential GPS with
two receivers: one GPS receiver fixed in a known location, and another to
measure GPS locations relative to the first GPS in the known location -
absolute error is completely removed by this process
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS> claims 10cm accuracy). If you
think about it, two receivers separated by a little space is more or less
equivalent to two receivers separated by a little time, so you'd expect a
similar relative accuracy of 10cm.

~~~
lutusp
Yes, all well understood. The problem comes up in cluttered terrain and an
ordinary GPS unit that's in motion (no differential GPS option). In such a
case, if the receiver encounters obstacles in its satellite line of sight, it
may switch to more favorable satellites and recompute its position. As a
result, the apparent position will jump around within the normal error bound
(see below). I know, I've had the experience any number of times.

> GPS is only accurate to a certain amount (maybe 1.5 metres, maybe 10 metres)

Statistical civilian GPS accuracy is better understood than this. It's 7.8
meters (25.6 feet) for two standard deviations (i.e. 95% confidence):

<http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/>

~~~
Robin_Message
Good point about changing satelites. I guess an open parking lot would be
fine, but who knows.

I gave up looking for an accuracy figure on wikipedia, but knew I had seen 1.5
metres in the past, and that 10 metres is too inaccurate. Thanks for the link.

~~~
lutusp
> I gave up looking for an accuracy figure on wikipedia, but knew I had seen
> 1.5 metres in the past, and that 10 metres is too inaccurate.

It all has to do with the statistical error bound. For a specified accuracy,
one must also state the deviation for which that error is true. My point is
that GPS doesn't have a specific accuracy, always true, with a probability
cliff on each side. For a given accuracy specification, one must always
include the probability for that accuracy.

------
alan_cx
Well, lets see if this goes to court.

Tesla were as robust in their attack on Top Gear, and a court threw them out.
They still, regardless of the court decision, openly complain about Top Gear
trying to drown out the court loss. So, to be honest, Tesla have form. They
get criticised, loudly defend them selves, lose, but refuse to accept the
loss. This could possible turn out the same.

I think people getting all excited about this evidence should wait and see it
a) it goes to court and b) the out come of such a case.

I fully accept that their produce is likely under severe attack from their
petrol (gas) competitors and frankly in their position I would be a bit foil
hat about it, but equally they do seem hyper sensitive to criticism. There is
a lot of instant Tesla supports here, but I would exercise caution and wait
for both sides to be tested.

It is also interesting to me to see how opinion is divided. Here its all very
pro-Tesla, but in motoring circles, opinion is far more sceptical. I suspect
somewhere in the middle is where the truth lives.

~~~
nicholassmith
Top Gear wasn't dismissed because Tesla was wrong, it was dismissed as Top
Gear presented their case that they were demonstrating the cars for
_entertainment_ and not as a _factual_ review. The judge felt the distinction
had merit and dismissed the case, Tesla felt differently of course.

~~~
Kylekramer
This just isn't true. The entertainment angle was not at all why the judge
threw out the case. It was because they felt Telsa's claims were vague and
that people understand that cars perform differently under different
circumstances:

[http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2012/02/23/tesla-
libel...](http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2012/02/23/tesla-libel-action-
against-top-gear-fails-again/)

~~~
nicholassmith
Interesting, after it blew up I could swear I'd read that one of the arguments
the TG legal team used was "It's all done for entertainment, the situations we
place cars are in are completely unrealistic".

------
Maxious
The kicker is the "detour". Not a detour as the journalist claimed but rather
that he drove the Tesla in circles in a parking lot to ensure the battery was
flat when returned.

------
calhoun137
I think this article has woken some people up to what a lot of us have known
since 2003 (or earlier), namely: Don't believe everything you read in the NYT.

In case anyone is unaware, it was recently revealed that when the government
announces that "X militants were killed", that the word militant actually
refers to any military age male that is killed, and does not imply there is
any evidence to suggest the person was anything other than completely
innocent.

Furthermore, the NYT continues to parrot the government claims, and to use the
word militant in it's reporting, despite this revelation, without mentioning
that in most cases there is literally no evidence at all.

In fact, the NYT public editor recently wrote an article complaining about
this fact.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/public-editor/questions-
on...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/public-editor/questions-on-drones-
unanswered-still.html?src=twr&pagewanted=all&_r=1&);

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/drones-b...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/drones-
brookings-media)

------
jug6ernaut
I have a problem with log data being released with analysis being imposed over
it. I understand there need to show that they are in the right and NYTimes is
in the wrong but as it stands now this is just pure marketing. If they had
released the data plain and unadulterated i might feel differently, but at
least as of the link provided i saw no link to the raw log material. So as it
stands this is marketing, and that is really sad. If this data were indeed
true(and i am not saying it isnt) it should be able to stand on its own up to
3rd party analysis. One can always make data look the way they want for there
cause, and this goes for the NYTimes review as well.

~~~
gfodor
This is a hollow complaint because releasing the data with analysis and
releasing the data without analysis have one thing in common: the data.

~~~
smackfu
Did they actually release the data? I just see charts, and boy can I
manipulate charts to say what I want!

~~~
jlgreco
As someone who can manipulate charts to say what you want, I assume you are
familiar with what manipulated charts look like. Does anything stand out to
you?

~~~
smackfu
You can only tell if you get the raw data. Omission of data is the biggest
problem.

Another good way to manipulate data is how you pick your axes. like having the
x-axis be miles instead of time. Both are valid, but they show very different
pictures. A miles x-axis emphasizes the parts where you were driving fast,
while a time x-axis emphasizes parts where you are driving slow.

~~~
gfodor
Presumably you could write a script to extract the "raw data" (whatever that
means) from the charts themselves.

Unless you mean you want finer-grained data. Which is just as easily faked.

------
netc
Does anyone see any discrepancy in third graph, "Rated Range remaining vs.
Distance" ? The graph shows the distance from Delaware Supercharge to Milford
Supercharge is approx. 200 miles. The car arrived at Milford with almost zero
charge left even though projected range was 242 miles after charge at
Delaware! Which means battery lasted nearly 42 miles less than the projected
distance. Am I missing something?

~~~
busterarm
The detour taken in NY.

~~~
netc
Detour would show up as part of the distance calculation (x-axis in the
graph).

------
flexie
Mass media is show business.

Whenever I have known the facts in a story that happened to become a media
story, the facts differed from how the story was presented in media. Sometimes
a lot, sometimes a little. But always some. You can't trust mass media, not
even NY Times.

------
mechatronic
Theory: Broder didn't realize the logging capabilities of the car, and when
the Model S' software ui initially supported his internal baises he took
liberties with the truth. By "documenting" his experience through Tesla
support he attempted to falsely add credence to what would be a traffic
generating, "anti-electric" review masked in the journalistic repute of the
NYT.

Firstly, all of Broder's excessive winging about the cold weather (I think)
was designed to subtly imply that the Model S doesn't work in the cold. You
future buyer, will be cold and your car will break. This is why Musk had to
address the cold weather link directly in the evidence blog posting.

Secondly. Broder likely couldn't have fathomed that every parameter in the car
was being logged. Very specific details add credibility and character to a
story. They make the author appear diligent, and one who gives great attention
to detail. In the past such details were a "literary tool used to bend the
story. Now thanks to data driven engineering words and truth in such matters
should align more closely in cases such as this.

Lastly. For a man who may or may not have a bias against electric vehicles
(cars at least), the observation that "the estimated range was falling faster
than miles were accumulating" at the outset of the author's journey might have
set the tone of the coming review. With all the incessant calls to Tesla
support to document all the "trouble", Broder had plenty of documentation to
support his (what was IMHO a) journalistic malignment. This angle also had the
added benefit of generating views for NYT - plus through the courtesy of Tesla
arranging a tow - the money shot.

I hope NYT has the ethical chops to do what they must.

------
stephen
This is great for Tesla, but it's depressing to wonder how many other
people/companies have been screwed over by dishonest journalists, but did not
have the luxury of a GPS-based, by-the-minute log to call bullshit with.

~~~
tatsuke95
I don't understand how so.

Sure, they shredded the Times article. But this looks to me like an extremely
finicky car. I mean, you have to drive it slow, possibly turn off the heat in
the winter and charge it for an hour at a time? That's craziness.

Edit: Whoever is just combing through the comments, down-voting anything that
doesn't praise Saint Elon, how about you step up and point out what I've said
that's wrong. Or do we just downvote differing opinions now?

~~~
cryptoz
> I mean, you have to drive it slow

Are you trolling? No, you don't have to drive it 'slow'. Citation needed, and
one that isn't this NYTimes piece that's currently being called in to
question.

> possibly turn off the heat in the winte

No, you don't. You're just making things up.

> charge it for an hour at a time?

Yeah. Problem?

> That's craziness.

No, it's not. You know what's craziness? Humanity driving cars that burn
things and pollute our atmosphere to the point of causing and accelerating
global climate change, driving species to extinction and gunning towards
global upheaval. That's craziness.

~~~
tatsuke95
> _"Are you trolling? No, you don't have to drive it 'slow'"_

45 mph isn't slow to you? You must not drive. Broder is criticized for driving
too fast. Elon knocks the fact that he drove an average of 60+, and calls him
out for driving 80. So what if he did? I do all the time. That's how people
drive. If speed is irrelevant, why does Elon harp on it in his blog?

> _"No, you don't. You're just making things up."_

Huh? Elon is saying "Look! He turned the heat up!". So what? He wanted it
warmer. This is not a problem in an ICE vehicle.

> _"No, it's not. You know what's craziness? Humanity driving cars that burn
> things and pollute our atmosphere to the point of causing and accelerating
> global climate change, driving species to extinction and gunning towards
> global upheaval. That's craziness."_

Yeah, because the machinery required to dig all those precious metals out of
the ground to make these batteries aren't burning a ton of diesel in unstable
countries around the planet. Nor are the machines that need to build the
charging stations in close succession, because you have to charge these cars
far more often than you have to fill up with gasoline (and gas stations are
already too prominent on the landscape). Glad you'd like to see more. Nor is
the electric grid that most people will charge from "dirty".

Why do you take this so personally? You seem really angry that people aren't
as impressed with this thing.

Elon's argument is essentially: he drove too fast, he set the cabin
temperature too high, and didn't charge long enough. As a guy who puts 30k
miles per year on my car, those are things that would annoy me and I wouldn't
expect from a car approaching six figures.

~~~
cryptoz
> 45 mph isn't slow to you?

Yes, it's slow. You don't have to drive that slowly in a Tesla as you just
claimed.

> Huh? Elon is saying "Look! He turned the heat up!". So what? He wanted it
> warmer. This is not a problem in an ICE vehicle.

It's not a problem in the Tesla either. Elon's calling him out because it
appears the journalist lied.

> Yeah, because the machinery required to dig all those precious metals out of
> the ground to make these batteries aren't burning a ton of diesel in
> unstable countries around the planet. Nor are the machines that need to
> build the charging stations in close succession, because you have to charge
> these cars far more often than you have to fill up with gasoline (and gas
> stations are already too prominent on the landscape). Glad you'd like to see
> more. Nor is the electric grid that most people will charge from "dirty".

Better not make any progress then, or try anything new. You're right, let's
keep polluting the atmosphere.

> You seem really angry that people aren't as impressed with this thing.

On the contrary, you're the one who seems angry.

> he drove too fast

First, no that's not Elon's argument. Elon's argument is that the journalist
lied. Second, didn't he drive too fast? Did he break the speed limit and drive
illegally while reviewing a product? That seems like a bad idea.

> he set the temperature too high

No, that's not Elon's argument. His argument is that the journalist lied.

> and didn't charge long enough.

He didn't, but he claimed he did. Again, it appears the journalist lied.

> As a guy who puts 30k miles per year on my car, those are things that would
> annoy me and I wouldn't expect from a car approaching six figures.

So don't buy a Tesla yet.

Edit: Approaching six figures? Where I live, a Tesla Model S costs about
$48,000. That's hardly approaching six figures.

~~~
tatsuke95
I'm not claiming that Broder isn't a hatchet man and lied. If you'd taken the
time to read, rather than going off like an crazy environmental zealot in
every thread, you'd have seen that.

> _"Better not make any progress then, or try anything new. You're right,
> let's keep polluting the atmosphere."_

What are you going on about? No one is arguing anything of the sort. EVs just
aren't the environmental saviour you want them to be. They have their own
issues.

> _"No, that's not Elon's argument. His argument is that the journalist
> lied."_

Let me see if I can spell this out for you:

Broden said he followed the Tesla guidelines, like driving 54. He didn't. Elon
busted him in that lie. But Elon didn't say those aren't the guidelines.

 _I'm saying those guidelines are ridiculous._ Driving 11mph below the speed
limit and with-lower-than-desired temperature settings, just so you can make
your destination, is bad. Having to stop and charge for a whole HOUR, multiple
times on a 600 mile trip, is bad.

~~~
cryptoz
Rather than continue the debate, you're happy to start slinging the insults
and call me a crazy zealot. I'm out.

~~~
tatsuke95
You accused me of trolling, misconstrued my argument, then ranted about
environmental issues out of the blue.

I calls 'em like I sees 'em.

------
DanielBMarkham
Story 1: Tesla shows NYT review does not reflect what actually happened with
the car.

Story 2: Tesla, your mechanic, your insurance company, your spouse, the
government, and anybody else with access to the box can tell exactly how
you've been driving.

I'm a big Tesla and Musk fan. I have nothing but hope that Tesla rocks on. But
#2 is the way larger story here.

I continue to be amazed at how in 20 years or so suddenly the world is full of
people who don't mind detailed logs of their every movement and action being
kept.

~~~
covalence
Musk said previously in a tweet that logging is always on for media but only
on for customers with their written permission.

<https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/301053361157988352>

~~~
DanielBMarkham
This is a good point. Thanks for bringing it up.

But I think you miss the gist of my statement. My apologies. I should have
been clearer. I said "...anybody else with access to the box can tell exactly
how you've been driving..."

The issue here is that the car is automatically equipped to provide such
tracking. Whether the tracking is turned on by default, by court order, by the
police hacking your system, by the company in order to verify test drives, by
your insurance company convincing you to give them the data -- all good and
interesting situations for discussion, but not germane to what I was saying.

In fact, it's not the company I worry about. It's consumers who will easily be
lured into turning on tracking by their insurance companies -- and then this
data will be available to anybody who has system access. We are our own worst
enemies.

Your car -- a large, heavy, physical piece of reality which you trust to get
you from point A to point B -- is now only so much software. That's a big
deal.

~~~
covalence
All cars will soon require blackboxes [1]. I agree it's a big deal and it will
be interesting to see how good security / how accessible these are.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/12/black-boxes-
privacy...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/12/black-boxes-privacy/)

------
smackfu
Musk: _"The final leg of his trip was 61 miles and yet he disconnected the
charge cable when the range display stated 32 miles. He did so expressly
against the advice of Tesla personnel and in obvious violation of common
sense."_

NYTimes article: _"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,"_

So what Musk is correcting isn't actually in dispute.

-

Musk: _"Cruise control was never set to 54 mph as claimed in the article, nor
did he limp along at 45 mph. Broder in fact drove at speeds from 65 mph to 81
mph for a majority of the trip and at an average cabin temperature setting of
72 F."_

This seems disingenuous since there is clearly a good chunk on on the graph
where the reporter was driving below 55 mph on 95 in CT, which I would not
recommend. Musk is comparing the "majority of the trip" before the range
troubles with the parts about cruise control from the parts with range
troubles.

-

Musk: _"For his first recharge, he charged the car to 90%. During the second
Supercharge, despite almost running out of energy on the prior leg, he
deliberately stopped charging at 72%."_

NYTimes: _"Instead, I spent nearly an hour at the Milford service plaza as the
Tesla sucked electrons from the hitching post. When I continued my drive, the
display read 185 miles, well beyond the distance I intended to cover before
returning to the station the next morning for a recharge and returning to
Manhattan."_

Reporter never said he fully charged it, and didn't have any reason to if the
range gauge was accurate. Musk is basically saying the reporter should have
been worried about the range and overcompensated.

-

Musk: _"When Tesla first approached The New York Times about doing this story,
it was supposed to be focused on future advancements in our Supercharger
technology. "_

Seems odd they lent him a car for a test drive then.

-

Musk: _"In his own words in an article published last year, this is how Broder
felt about electric cars before even seeing the Model S"_

Musk should have stuck to the logs. Here is more of that paragraph:

"Yet the state of the electric car is dismal, the victim of hyped
expectations, technological flops, high costs and a hostile political climate.
General Motors has temporarily suspended production of the plug-in electric
Chevy Volt because of low sales. Nissan’s all-electric Leaf is struggling in
the market. And the federal government has slowed its multibillion-dollar
program of support for advanced technology vehicles in the face of market
setbacks and heavy political criticism. "

Are those facts untrue?

~~~
bobsy
> Reporter never said he fully charged it, and didn't have any reason to if
> the range gauge was accurate. Musk is basically saying the reporter should
> have been worried about the range and overcompensated.

My car doesn't have 'range'. That said when the fuel light is on I go to the
petrol station. Similarly I know a drive to my parents is about half a tank.
If I have less than that I put in the required amount of fuel to make it. If
fuel looks like it getting low I get off the main road and look for a service
station. Common sense.

If I was driving a car for the first time, was unfamiliar with my route or the
presence of charging stations I wouldn't trust the range. Range is always an
estimate. What if I hit traffic? I don't want the exact range because if I get
stuck in an hour of slow moving traffic I am buggered. Its the same with
petrol cars. Its the same with guestimating how far you can go on your fuel
tank. You cannot defend idiocy.

> Seems odd they lent him a car for a test drive then.

What better way to demonstrate Supercharger tech than in a real world
scenario. Drive the car, get it low, look how well it recharges to get you
going again. (I assume Supercharger relates to the speed of charging) My
impression of Electric cars is that take overnight to charge. Giving a car
which charges in an hour would be a good way to demonstrate both the
technology and the improvements in the practicalities of electric cars.

~~~
smackfu
>What better way to demonstrate Supercharger tech than in a real world
scenario.

My point is that Musk is saying that like he didn't write the story he was
supposed to, which was about 'future advancements in our Supercharger
technology'. But clearly they knew what the eventual point of the story was,
since they lent a car and provided support. So why bring up the original
intent of the story?

------
bane
You know what would be a killer feature? If the Model-S had an up-to-date map
of the locations of all of the chargers in the network, and it monitored how
close you were to the closest one and compared it to the remaining range you
had. It would be able to warn you if your range started getting dangerously
far from a charger "lifeline" and even give you emergency GPS directions to
the nearest charger as soon as the range got within say...5% of that minimum.

------
enraged_camel
See, here's the thing: this kind of stuff happens in journalism all the time.
The journalist decides on what to write _before_ they even begin their
investigation (i.e. test drive), and their decision affects the way they
conduct said investigation. They become majorly affected by confirmation bias
and leave out or distort important details (i.e. driving around in circles in
the parking lot).

The only reason Broder got called out in this specific case is because he made
the mistake of going against one of the most intelligent, ambitious and
accomplished figures in the tech industry - who expected the kind of
shenanigans Broder would try to pull and therefore logged the test-drive data.
He poked the wrong bee hive.

------
rsingla
Now that's how you respond to media - with the truth.

~~~
richardjordan
I think this is an important lesson to all startups who are disrupting an
industry with powerful incumbents - particularly those whose advertising spend
pays the salaries of the journalists who create the narrative in their
marketplace. We can all learn from Elon Musk. Yet again his startup-fu is
masterful.

------
dhackner
To play devil's advocate, I wonder if it's possible that there is no foul play
on either side - if the car had issues displaying accurate data to the driver
but logged properly to Tesla, he might have thought he was discontinuing the
charge with a fuller battery then he had. Same for the speedometer (a chilling
thought) and temperature.

As for the circles in the parking lot - I'd probably do donuts too if I was
given free reign over a slick sports car.

Obviously it's far fetched to think that display inaccuracies were really the
case, but food for thought.

~~~
stcredzero
_> As for the circles in the parking lot - I'd probably do donuts too if I was
given free reign over a slick sports car._

Yeah, but the middle of a range test _without mentioning it in the article_ is
a bit suspicious. Also, thanks for implicitly revealing your standards for an
acceptable white lie and acceptable journalism. ;) (Okay, devil's advocate, so
it only reveals about your devil's advocate persona.)

~~~
dhackner
to a reporter given the chance, donuts might be considered "normal use
patterns" :-)

~~~
stcredzero
I wonder what car insurance actuaries would make of this?

------
mieubrisse
While I agree that the charging logs are completely damning, I think it's
worth pointing out that Broder probably wasn't taking minute-to-minute notes
as he drove (which, as a fellow driver I appreciate). More likely, he simply
wrote the relevant portions of the article from what he remembered the night
after he drove. Which, in my mind, isn't unreasonable - Elon calling him out
to say "Broder never drove 45 mph" when he was driving 52 would seem somewhat
nitpicky were it not for the article's inflammatory language.

~~~
stcredzero
_> Elon calling him out to say "Broder never drove 45 mph" when he was driving
52 would seem somewhat nitpicky_

The performance of a battery in a piece of equipment is a matter of
_engineering and empirical fact_. Calling a 7 mph difference (over 15%)
"nitpicky" indicates a lack of understanding of what it takes to deal with
matters of _engineering and empirical fact_. This is even more true in this
particular context, as drag tends to increase with the square of the velocity,
which in layman's terms means you get a lot more drag than your increase in
speed.

A journalist who doesn't understand the above isn't qualified to write an
automotive article with any kind of empirical basis. (He can go be like Jeremy
Clarkson and emote lots instead.)

~~~
lttlrck
This is a public education issue for Tesla, instead they left to a journalist
to educate the public instead: EV's work differently. Job done. Frankly I
think Tesla slipped up. BTW. Plenty of ICE cars run more efficiently at higher
speeds due to long gearing/overdrive, increased drag or not.

------
pms
Actually... I don't get why he was doing circles on the parking lot...

I mean, think about it. Why he was doing it? I guess to check if the car will
get discharged in next few minutes to write in the review that car got totally
discharged after just few more minutes. Well, it didn't happen. Why then he
didn't write that the car actually still held some charge? I mean, he was
trying to show something negative about the car, but when he found something
positive, he was no longer interested in showing it?

------
jtchang
Regardless of who you think is right the data is kind of indisputable.

Unless Tesla is faking the data (which may happen but I really doubt it) it is
up to us to determine the veracity of the NYT's article. Is it within
journalistic means or did Broder straight out lie?

------
Swannie
Maybe it should become standard Telsa practice to provide all of this
information to the journalists within 24hrs of the end of their test drive.

That way there will be no confusion, and the facts are plain for the
journalist to see, and use in their article.

~~~
baq
blasting somebody in this way generates more publicity, i'd wager.

------
celerity
Two issues: One, in a matter of dispute, he is claiming his own logs as proof
-- which is nonsense. Two, even if the logs are legitimate, the error could
have been somewhere between the computer and the user (e.g., the user might
have been getting wrong information).

In either case, Tesla is being very unprofessional. Very petty, too. Think
about Musk: he created PayPal, where he was a total scumbag. Why would it be
different here?

------
confluence
I have only one word for this: pwnage

Assuming this data is not fabricated (always a possibility!) - then the news
reporter did some seriously shady reporting and should be fired immediately
(this is THE New York Times).

The only questions I have about the hit piece are the following.

Is he getting paid by anyone to be against electric cars?

What is his past history with electric cars?

Where has he previously been employed?

And what ties does he have to the ICE industry?

------
onedev
Absolutely brutal way for Broder's career to end.

~~~
busterarm
I'm skeptical that it will. Broder pretty much is their go-to guy for coverage
of energy/big oil. His articles fit their editorial vision.

If the NYT cares about their credibility, they'll get rid of him, but this
isn't an isolated incident for them. I stopped reading them a decade ago for
that reason.

~~~
CamperBob2
No, this is a Jayson Blair-level screwup. All opportunities the NYT might have
had to spin the logs in their favor ended when Broder deliberately drove
around a parking lot trying to exhaust the battery.

He's done. As in, "Yes, Mr. Broder, I would like fries with that."

~~~
arrrg
I don’t get that.

There is an obvious explanation for driving around the parking lot in circles:
He was curious what the reserves are and how the car would react. Simple as
that. He didn’t write about it in his review anyway and it’s completely
irrelevant for his review.

~~~
evan_
as long as we're imagining scenarios, let's imagine he DID get the car to go
completely dead in the parking lot. How do you think he would have reported
it?

Would he have said "I decided to drive around in circles for a little while,
and eventually, after a while it died, and I pushed it to the charger"?

Or would he have said "I was barely able to coast off the highway into the
parking lot, and I had to push two-and-a-half-tons of dead batteries the last
quarter-mile to the charger head"?

~~~
arrrg
By saying “He did this for nefarious reasons!” you are equally imagining
scenarios. We do not have to consider those hypotheticals if we do not even
have an explanation for this we can agree on.

That’s the first step. What could explain the data?

1\. He wanted to see how much reserve the car has and how it handles running
out of juice (with no intention of lying about what he did to get the car
empty).

2\. He wanted to see how much reserve the car has and how it handles running
out of juice (with intention to lie about what he did to get the car empty).

3\. The pattern in the data exists for unrelated reasons (e.g. driving around
searching, etc.).

Since he didn’t actually lie about this (he merely didn’t say anything) you
are speculating about his character. That seems a bit too uncertain for me.

Plus, after considering this question a bit more, I think we are wrong in
focusing so much on options 1. and 2.: The third one seems very plausible to
me, actually.

------
brown9-2
Is Tesla's data independently verifiable?

How is the reader to know the logs haven't been tampered with, if only Tesla
has them?

------
petegrif
Interesting data.

And of course there is another course of action that can settle this once and
for all. Repeat the journey with an unimpeachable witness along for the ride.

------
haberman
If indeed this is true, it is incredibly despicable behavior to try to bury
with lies a technology that could bring so much good to the world.

~~~
panacea
Trying to 'kill the electric car' is pure evil and sociopathic to my mind (if
true).

------
danielweber
_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._

But the graph showing the visible miles was well below zero.

Did the car really force itself to stop like Broder claims, or could Broder
have driven it farther?

 _Even if the battery had charge,_ if it forcefully stopped, then Broder is
right in essence. The fact that there is a reserve in the battery that Broder
cannot use for driving is, for all intents and purposes, the battery being
out.

On the other hand, if the car didn't forcefully stop, then Broder is lying.

------
bconway
_For his first recharge, he charged the car to 90%. During the second
Supercharge, despite almost running out of energy on the prior leg, he
deliberately stopped charging at 72%. On the third leg, where he claimed the
car ran out of energy, he stopped charging at 28%. Despite narrowly making
each leg, he charged less and less each time. Why would anyone do that?_

Time constraints? Maybe he had a meeting to get to (simulated)? Arguably,
people who can afford to drive around in a $100K electric car probably set the
meeting starts by their arrival.

------
morganb180
+1 for log files.

~~~
busterarm
I bet that Tesla gives automotive insurance underwriters massive hard-ons.

I want one of these cars so badly. I had plans to buy the new 2017 Mazda RX-7
and keep my '88 10AE RX-7, but I might just sell the old one and figure out
how to make the Model S purchase happen.

~~~
CamperBob2
I just bought a new 981S, but would have preferred to buy a car from Tesla,
for what it's worth. I just can't get past my belief that EVs make no sense
without a standardized battery-exchange infrastructure.

I tend to keep cars for a long time, so hopefully the situation will be
different next time around, and I can spend the money with Tesla. I'm very
glad they were vindicated in this case. That said, I still agree with the
discredited report in a qualitative sense: EVs that have to be charged in real
time at arbitrary leaf nodes on the power grid are a really, really stupid
idea.

~~~
busterarm
Maybe some day. It couldn't happen without Tesla's cars being ubiquitous and
we'll never get there without having these cars out now. With the sled system
that Tesla is using, one day it may be possible to do easy battery-exchange.

If you live in an area where a Tesla is convenient and you don't need to do
frequent long trips, it almost seems like a no-brainer to me though.

~~~
earthboundkid
I live in Honolulu and see Nissan Leafs on the road all the time, but I don't
think I've seen a Tesla. Is the mainland different?

~~~
CamperBob2
I don't think enough Model S vehicles have been produced to be considered
common in any locale, but there are quite a few of them in the Seattle area.
I'll encounter one perhaps once a month. About as frequently as I see a
Ferrari on the road, I'd guess.

------
hmexx
I've superimposed the 'charge' and 'range' graphs. The gap indicates the
reserve.

<http://i.imgur.com/mfB1IJ6.png>

I guess Tesla needs to figure out how to prevent wonky gaps like the one at
400 miles. Seems the algorithm jumped too quickly to the conclusion that range
was going to be severely impacted.

~~~
jessaustin
Thanks for posting this graph. My speculation just from looking at it is that
just before that recharge the car traveled in a more efficient way (i.e.
relatively constant 35-50MPH rather than 80MPH or stop-n-go 5MPH), so the
rates of decrease in both charge and range with respect to miles traveled were
less.

------
loup-vaillant
A journalist conducting a review on a consumer product is a _scientist_. And a
scientist is supposed to set out to _test_ theories, not prove them.

Any journalist that falls short of this standard, even if it's because of
honest mistakes, should not be allowed to conduct reviews.

~~~
lutusp
> A journalist conducting a review on a consumer product is a scientist.

I think what you're trying to say is that a journalist is supposed to be
objective.

> And a scientist is supposed to set out to test theories, not prove them.

A scientist cannot prove a theory true, but he might prove one false. Remember
philosopher David Hume's famous remark about this: "No amount of observations
of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the
observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion."

So even a completely objective journalist, with no axe to grind, might
discover that a claim is false.

> Any journalist that falls short of this standard, even if it's because of
> honest mistakes, should not be allowed to conduct reviews.

Perhaps in an ideal world. It turns out that Broder has a long history of bias
in his reporting, and a rather favorable view of the oil industry and of
conventional vehicles over electric ones. Notwithstanding those facts and this
episode, I doubt his career is over.

~~~
loup-vaillant
We broadly agree.

Science is more than "being objective". My "test" vs "prove" business was
about devising tests that you expect would be most informative, not just
accepting the results.

For instance, I could test if an apple really falls when I drop it. But I'm
know it will, and I'm quite certain I will learn nothing from such a test.
Therefore, I won't perform it in the first place.

I reckon objectivity is a good start, though.

Also, I did say that a biased journalist _should_ not be allowed to conduct
reviews. That indeed prove we don't live in an ideal world. Unless you made a
deeper point, and asserted that such journalists actually should be able to
operate precisely because of non-ideal aspects of our world?

------
tokenadult
The New York Times public editor now has an initial response to the Tesla
Motors blog post, "Conflicting Assertions Over an Electric Car Test Drive,"
just submitted to HN,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5221679>

and that post promises more follow-up to come and links out to some other
commentary on the story from other sources.

A Washington Post blog also comments about the dispute as a matter of
journalistic practice.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/wp/2013/02/1...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/wp/2013/02/14/tesla-v-new-york-times-did-reporter-have-disdain-toward-
electric-cars/)

------
ezy
I find it amusing that people will leap to defend the new shiny geek toy --
even if practically no one here can afford it. IMO, Telsa is sinking under
it's own PR weight, and Elon knows it. The logs don't contradict the reporting
in any significant way. The gist is that, even for a non-"sports" car, the
Tesla is... lackluster compared to the non-electric alternatives.

Now, whether the reporter is too dumb to own a non-hybrid electric car may be
an issue, but most drivers don't know how a transmission works, or even how to
change the oil -- so I don't think a failure to understand charge cycles &
regenerative braking is all that damning.

------
manishsharan
Is it possible that the sensors were broken or buggy ? A long time back, I had
poured all of my money into buying a second hand Porsche .One day I was
cruising merrily on I-90 when my car caught fire, even though all the
indicators were normal. Turns out the indicator were not functioning -- the
last mechanic (not a Porsche dealer )to tune the car had effed up the
indicators. ( I have stuck to Hondas and only authorized dealerships for
repairs since then).

I may be doing wishful thinking here but Car Journalist are could be biased ,
snarky , they might embellish a bit but they are rarely outright liars.

------
PakG1
I think this is fantastic, especially given that I had recently purchased some
Tesla stock. However, I wonder, is anyone perturbed that Tesla has the ability
to monitor all of this? I know that other car manufacturers are getting closer
and closer to this kind of thing. But is anyone else perturbed? I know there
must be precedents set already because of technologies like OnStar. What is
needed for the police or a court of law to be able to demand this type of data
from Tesla or the vehicle owner (not sure where the logs are kept, in the car
or in the cloud).

~~~
busterarm
They actually turn it off by default except for the press.

I think when insurance companies, technology and public opinion catch up, it
will be an always-on thing. I want that kind of logging if my car gets stolen.
I want that kind of logging if I get hit by a cop and he calls his buddies to
alter the evidence to make me at fault (this has happened to people).

This kind of log data will only result in lower insurance premiums for
everyone and evidence useful in court. The potential savings to society are
tremendous.

~~~
btilly
_This kind of log data will only result in lower insurance premiums for
everyone and evidence useful in court._

As long as everyone needs coverage, and accidents remain the same, the
insurance company will need to pay out about the same and therefore collect
something similar. That means that average premiums will not change across the
population.

However you can move costs from lower risk drivers to higher risk drivers.
Which may help YOUR premiums.

~~~
evan_
If all the bad drivers start getting charged more for their insurance, they
might stop driving altogether and take public transit or work to become better
drivers, which could ultimately lower accidents, a good outcome for everyone.

------
pilif
While we now get accusations and nice graphs, as long as we don't get provably
unaltered source log files, we'll never know who is right.

Even if Tesla were to release the log files used to create the graphs, it
would still be impossible for them to prove that the logs weren't being
altered prior to release.

It seems to me that either the reviewer or Tesla (or both) is playing unfairly
here, but it's impossible to say who.

Instead of coming to articles linked here and commenting how clearly the party
not currently defending themselves must have been wrong, lets just just ignore
this mud flinging contest and move on.

~~~
demallien
Who do you trust more - an engineering company with runs on the board, with
multiple good reviews of their product, and a CEO known for attention to
detail, or a journalist with a known previous bias against electrical cars?

Whilst we will never be 100% sure, I think that Tesla have proven their point
beyond reasonable doubt.

~~~
smackfu
That's a silly way to frame it when one side has a clear motive to make the
product look good and the other side has no clear motive to make it look bad.

------
nodemaker
I dont think anyone can deny that the battery depletion could have been easily
prevented. Now whether it was an act of malice is a little harder to
determine. But then why did he really turn the heat up?

------
FilterJoe
Trust issues abound in published reviews (with the possible exception of
Consumer Reports), whether by respected journalists, real buyers on Amazon, or
anonymous online posts. What I find of most interest about this story are the
possibilities it suggests:

Logging data published right along with reviews would be a terrific way to add
credibility.

Of course, then you need to set up a system to ensure logging data can't be
faked, and that the logging data is for the review in question. Something
along the lines of the black box in airplanes seems like a possibility.

------
ZenoArrow
What can be done to encourage NYT take appropriate action here? An apology is
the very least they could do, and firing John Broder for a complete lack of
journalistic integrity wouldn't hurt either. Would writing to them help?
Spreading the news to other media outlets? What's the best course of action?
Inaction is just what they want so the whole thing blows over, I think in this
case (when there's overwhelming evidence of foul play) we have a golden
opportunity to get NYT to start straightening out their act.

------
edouard1234567
Elon Musk PR extraordinaire! I thought offering to help Boeing with their
battery fiasco was an amazing PR coup! He's showing to be a true PR Master
with this move. Check mate NYTimes?

------
mixedbit
I'm surprised Tesla is already popular in Norway. Do they offer any service
outside of US? And do they sell cars in Europe or are these imported by
customers on their own?

~~~
henrikgs
Tesla has a showroom and service center in Norway, and I believe there are 2
importers. Official Tesla and an independent importer.

Part of the popularity is price. Cars in Norway are heavily and progressively
taxed on CO2 emission, horse powers and weight. This makes big strong cars
extremely expensive, but normal cars are also relatively high taxed. EV's are
exempted all those taxes, not just the one on CO2 emission.

Some base prices: Tesla model S 85kWH: 106 250,- USD

Mercedes Benz E 300 4MATIC (252 horsepower): 138 178,- USD

If you want something with similar horsepower:

Mercedes Benz E 500 4M (408 hp) 225 339,- USD

Audi S6 (414 hp): 236 910,- USD

(1USD to 5.6NOK conversion)

I think outfitting an Audi S6 or MB E class from base to acceptable level of
accessories would be much more expensive than with the Tesla Model S

Also, electric cars can use the bus line and skip traffic where available

~~~
mixedbit
Thanks, I suspected Scandinavians will like Tesla cars, it is great they are
already available and selling well.

------
Gravityloss
Broder didn't charge long enough, but there are compensating factors:

1\. the car showed enough range on the previous night 2\. he didn't have any
convenient place to hang out while the car was charging 3\. there was possibly
some misunderstanding between Broder and Tesla support

In the end the obvious happened. He started on the journey with too little
battery and it died.

What I don't understand, if he had just a few miles left, why not stop again
at some convenient place before running out of energy...

------
nwenzel
Too bad his message was lost by writing a 1,211 word article, explaining 2
different suspicious reviews, with multiple graphics, each with way too many
words to read.

Would have been the perfect time to sit on his hands and hire a PR firm to
tell the story. The details may be important in a courtroom, but potential
customers just want to feel safe.

Now the story is two guys who don't like each other, screaming at each other.

Great lessons here for office politics. Or the playground.

Liar! You are! No, you are!

------
migrantgeek
I haven't followed this thing very closely but has anyone suggested testing
this again and trying to reproduce the problem? If someone said my code was
faulty, the first thing I do is repro.

Why doesn't another newspaper just try the same experiment?

Maybe the journalist was bias, maybe he got a lemon, maybe he hit on some
weird bug, maybe it's true and the car doesn't work well in cold weather.

Arguing over who said what is crap. Just test it and get more data.

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

------
jw_
I think it's worth noting that seemingly all of Broder's past NYT articles are
about the oil and gas industry -
[http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/peopl...](http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_m_broder/index.html).

I think this might go a fair way in explaining why he wrote a fraudulent
review of an electric vehicle.

------
pasbesoin
You might want to touch up your blog format so that Facebook finds a more
useful title and topic summary to suck in when the URL is posted.

(Yes, I still use Facebook. Keeps me in touch with many "normal" friends...
for certain definitions of "normal". ;-)

Since this is a blog and public communication platform, I assume that issues
such as the one I point out may be legitimate concerns, in that context.)

------
fasteddie31003
I am a big fan of Tesla Motors. However, it should be noted in the graphs that
the car's "Rated Range" and "Distance" do not decrease 1:1 as they should if
the "Rated Range" was accurate. My solution would change the car's "Rated
Range" actively with data on recent power levels and actual distance traveled.
This would take in effect heating and other accessory's usage.

------
ck2
With that much log data, simply perform the same trip again at the same time.

Temperature wouldn't be the same but I bet you could get close.

------
mixedbit
Can NY Times have an agenda to support traditional car business? Not possible,
this might have only been an incompetence of a reporter that NY Times can not
effectively prevent: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AnB8MuQ6DU>

------
TheMagicHorsey
Thought this should be posted ... in case nobody else has. NY Times replies to
Elon Musk: [http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-
data-w...](http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-data-what-it-
says-and-what-it-doesnt/)

------
Shivetya
I am not sure I would be smacking the reporter around as they are. What stands
out to me is, here we have a 100k car that we cannot run the heat and get good
range out of. Here we have a 100k car that if don't drive at some contrived
speeds while keeping the climate control down low we cannot get good range out
of.

Frankly, if I cannot drive a car at a comfortable temperature the car or the
technology behind it is not ready for prime time.

I am still curious what the user is displayed versus what is in all these
logs. We also have other stories linked in the original thread of other Tesla
S drivers who had range issues as well.

Musk is not doing his brand any service especially when he highlights the user
only operating the interior climate control in the low seventies, really you
mean we cannot do that with a 100k car and have good range? Really?

Its a matter of expectations. With a 30 to 40k car similar to the Focus EV or
Leaf people will expect limitations of this sort, for a 100k car people expect
it to just work.

~~~
shiflett
Broder (the NYT reporter) cites a $101,000 car, but the Model S pricing
doesn't come close:

<http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options>

It could be an honest mistake, but it seems more likely the inflated price is
meant to solicit comments like yours.

~~~
correctifier
From your own page, with options, it can be configured to be more than
$101,000. Its likely that they would have a fully loaded demo car, so this is
probably right.

------
damoncali
Interesting marketing decision. I don't particularly care if a journalist lied
about the cars, and I did not read the Times article, or even know it existed.
But by blowing this up, Musk has made me painfully aware of the limitations of
electric cars.

------
MetalMASK
Broder's reply (posted just now):
[http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-
are-f...](http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-
over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/?ref=automobiles)

------
stedaniels
Crying about Top Gear again.. if they'd left that out, I'd probably have
enjoyed the article more! Top Gear is an entertainment show, not a
documentary!

~~~
eksith
That doesn't stop people from taking it as gospel, which could be very bad PR.
Unjustified bad PR.

------
amikahmad
this is fantastic. to me this isn't so much about tesla, or hack shop
journalism. it's about sensors and big data. which is really the future we are
looking at more than anything. if you publish the data logs publicly as open
information for every car they test, you wouldn't even need journalists.

------
MrBra
Can someone tell me why this got all these comments and points in a couple of
lines? Thanks

------
danieldrehmer
There should be security footage from the parking lot where the car was
running in circles.

------
sixQuarks
This guy needs to be fired.

------
fatjokes
Next article: Tesla tracks and publishes consumer's driving data!

------
hulpter
Gots to love the companion image of the S in the snow. Subtle.

------
wslh
John Broder must change from journalist to QA.

------
kbouw
Can't stop grinning while reading this

------
alinspired
oh, logs, we all love you :) I only hope owner can control retention and
delete these logs if desired.

------
baggachipz
Desire to purchase BlueStar++;

------
boulderdash
DATA FTW!

------
marcamillion
Check.

NYT - your move.

------
meerita
All my support to Tesla people.

------
shmiz
Brilliant

------
martinced
I was the first one, when the NYT article was linked to here, to say:

 _"Be careful, journalists love to fake car reviews to display cars they don't
like in a bad light"_

Car journalism 101. Even journalism 101.

I consider CNN and Fox to be propaganda. Now I'm badly losing faith in the NYT
too... Unless they react swiftly and promptly: public apologize to Tesla and
firing of that journalist.

------
eduran
I used to work for a big bus company here in mexico ( A.D.O )and they
implemented a system for recording everything that happened on the bus' trip.
The buses had a computer that recorded the ranges, the speeds, the times, and
the fuel the bus used during the trip and believe me, these sensors never ever
failed.

