
The Charges Are Flying Over a Test of Tesla’s Charging Network - pzaich
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/
======
travisp
As best as I can tell (unless Tesla releases data showing otherwise), the
reporter _probably_ did not intentionally sabotage the results, but made a
number of errors possibly because he was trying to simulate a "mass consumer"
driver. On the one hand, he should have known better. On the other hand, I can
imagine similar things happening to some subset of new Tesla owners who fail
to read up on what to do with the new technology, and it is fair to point
those faults out.

I imagine the reporter's article would have rubbed Musk the wrong way a lot
less if the reporter had made it more clear what was going on and that some of
the things that happened were the results of mistakes made (whether or not you
might expect consumers to make the same mistakes).

For example: if the reporter had explained that he was intentionally trying to
simulate "normal use" by not plugging in the car at night. If the article had
said, "The owner's manual said to plug in overnight, repeatedly, but I chose
not to in order to see what might happen if a less educated consumer were
driving the car," I imagine the article would have gotten more sympathy. The
article, as I read it, didn't really get into that, and seemed to simply imply
a failure on Tesla's part.

~~~
niggler
"If the reporter had explained that he was intentionally trying to simulate
"normal use" by not plugging in the car at night."

That runs at odds with a claim made on Tesla's site: "The Model S battery will
not lose a significant amount of charge when parked for long periods of time.
For example, Model S owners can park at the airport without plugging in."
(<http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts>)

Either Tesla is lying when it claims that it won't lose a significant amount
of charge, or Tesla is not lying (which would imply that not charging
overnight doesn't really matter)

~~~
travisp
Interesting, the manual says: "Tesla strongly recommends leaving Model S
plugged in when not in use" and "The most important way to preserve the
Battery is to LEAVE YOUR MODEL S PLUGGED IN when you’re not using it" and
"Tesla recommends charging Model S each night or when convenient to maintain
optimum driving range and battery health. If you go on vacation, plug in your
Model S before you leave."*

But this also doesn't say that you can expect to lose 65 mile range in the
cold if it's not plugged in. This is very good information to know and not at
all what's implied by the link you provide, but it would have been good if the
article had discussed all this in full context.

* [http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachme...](http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/ms_owners_guide.pdf)

------
codex
In reading the rebuttal here, I can't shake the feeling that one cannot take
anything uttered from Elon Musk's mouth at face value when it concerns his
baby, Tesla (and probably also SpaceX). He appears absolutely dedicated to the
success of his companies. He is a visionary, a True Beliver, and he will do
anything to advance his cause, even at the expense of personal credibility--so
it is important to unspin what he says, and give it the maximum amount of
scrutiny, because you can be sure he using every trick at his disposal to put
the situation in the best possible light.

In this respect, he sounds like a political candidate, and, to be fair, many
other CEOs behave like this.

~~~
lutusp
> I can't shake the feeling that one cannot take anything uttered from Elon
> Musk's mouth at face value when it concerns his baby ...

There's no need for that -- Musk has the car's logs, which describe the miles
driven, the speeds, and the battery's state of charge. Under the
circumstances, this is not a case of "he said, she said" -- i's a matter of
unambiguous computer records.

If the computer records contradict what Musk said, he's in big trouble, but I
doubt it will come out that way. And consider the consequences if Musk
reported something different than the records show -- and Musk knows this. Why
would he knowingly sabotage his own company?

~~~
walkon
> And consider the consequences if Musk reported something different than the
> records show -- and Musk knows this. Why would he knowingly sabotage his own
> company?

Wouldn't a privileged DBA be able to make the data look like just about
anything? Also, the location logging system as a whole isn't necessarily
infallible.

~~~
lallysingh
Indeed, if that location data's GPS, it can get pretty distorted in the city.
Especially if there's a lot of thick cloud coverage.

~~~
klinquist
The Tesla dash runs Android, doesn't it? I wonder if it can use wifi &
cellular data to help correct GPS like most mobile devices can.

~~~
lutusp
> The Tesla dash runs Android, doesn't it? I wonder if it can use wifi &
> cellular data to help correct GPS like most mobile devices can.

Unless the car is under a wet forest canopy, the GPS position will be more
accurate than the other ways of determining position.

------
lutusp
This reply to Musk's criticism essentially concedes its truth -- the
correspondent didn't fully charge the battery, just as Musk claimed, he did
add some gratuitous miles to his route as Musk claimed, and he exceeded the
speed limit as Musk claimed.

There are factors that made this a tough (some will say "realistic") test,
particularly the low temperature. But the correspondent's ignorance might have
been the biggest obstacle: "... I was under the impression that stop-and-go
driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage." Really?
Repeated acceleration and deceleration will help the overall mileage? The fact
that the car has regenerative braking can only reduce the losses created by
stop-and-go driving, not eliminate them entirely (the best regenerative
braking schemes can only recover a fraction of the energy lost in braking).

Musk's reaction to this account is understandable -- this technology is in its
infancy, and public perceptions, accurate or not, could make or break Tesla.

~~~
Anechoic
_he did add some gratuitous miles_

Two miles is "gratuitous"? That's a rounding error, even on my bicycle!

 _and he exceeded the speed limit as Musk claimed_

Does Tesla expect drivers to adhere to posted speed limits even when
prevailing speeds are much higher (as they are on I-95)?

edit: CamperBob2 wrote "Apparently the reporter was averaging 81 MPH, going by
an earlier comment."

As far as I can tell, that figure is based on a Reddit post from yesterday
([http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/18c15x/tesla_ceo...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/18c15x/tesla_ceo_elon_musk_accuses_new_york_times_of/c8dmzp9))
which in turn is assuming that the times and mileage on the travel map were
exact. It could be. But then again, those times could be estimates (note that
7 out of 9 time stamps appear rounded to the nearest 5 minute mark). I guess
we'll know when Tesla releases the logs.

~~~
CamperBob2
Apparently the reporter was _averaging_ 81 MPH, going by an earlier comment. I
don't know if that's true or not, but that is a very high average speed and it
will have serious effects on fuel economy.

To average 81 MPH in traffic, you are going to need to spend a fair amount of
time north of 90 MPH. If the charging station intervals were based on expected
speeds closer to 55-65 MPH, then the idea that the trip could be made at 80+
was questionable from the outset.

So, yeah, there's adhering to posted speed limits for best fuel economy,
there's driving with the traffic for maximum safety, and then there's full-
blown Mad Max mode, which is apparently what you do when you want to make the
car you're testing look bad.

~~~
smackfu
That doesn't seem very plausible. What's the other comment? Averaging 81 MPH
is nearly impossible in the Northeast.

~~~
CamperBob2
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5205378> was the post I was thinking of.
Not exactly specific, you're right.

~~~
smackfu
Ah, that seems more plausible if the speed limit was 75 for that stretch.

------
salimmadjd
The last paragraph is the guilty admission by Tesla, "He said that the East
Coast charging stations should be 140 miles apart, not 200 miles, to take into
account the traffic and temperature extremes in this part of the country."

As I commented here on the prior article on HN,
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203654>

Musk is trying to get ahead of the story. Instead of the headlines being,
"driver stranded in the cold" it was "NYT faked article".

Musk/Tesla is yet to show any data, the jury is still out. But given, it's
taken them this long, it seems to me, Tesla got the effect they wanted and
will most likely not publish anything that will drastically contradict NYT's
reporter.

------
williamcotton
_Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at
low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage._

How does someone this unaware of how transportation works end up in a position
to be reviewing cars in a professional setting?

~~~
antiterra
As has been brought up in previous discussions, his primary role is as a
"Green" correspondent, not an auto columnist. However, his inference wasn't
all that crazy- consider, for example, that published mpg for the Prius is
higher for city driving than on highways.

Edit: Further, Tesla's own blog states the following, which could probably
influence many to infer what Broder did:

 _In contrast slower city driving speeds are more efficient and electric
vehicles have a unique benefit in stop and go, low-speed driving due to
regenerative braking_

<http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-efficiency-and-range>

~~~
jonknee
There's highway, city and "stop and go" city. It doesn't matter what kind of
car you have, gridlock is going to be inefficient.

~~~
antiterra
At some speed, driving fast on the highway will eventually be less efficient
than driving in very bad gridlock. It isn't entirely unreasonable to
incorrectly estimate the intersection of two causes of inefficiency in
driving.

It's probably possible to design a car so aerodynamically inefficient at 35+
mph that stop and go is preferable to cruising at even moderate speeds.

~~~
klinquist
...although it should be noted that the Model S has the second best drag
coefficient on the market today (it was the first before a new Benz was
released in 2013):

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient>

------
jug6ernaut
Honestly, the simple fact that there is a discussion regarding the range of
the Model S shows that its still an issue. Will it work for some? Sure. Will
it work for most? Probably not.

~~~
jlgreco
I don't think that is logical.

I can pick fights on the internet about evolution, but that does not have any
bearing on the reality of the situation. If these cars got 5k miles to the
charge I could still start "discussion" about the range, but that wouldn't
show that range is still an issue.

The fact that anything is "being discussed" means nothing at all. You have to
analyze the validity of the points being raised in that discussion.

~~~
jug6ernaut
"If these cars got 5k miles to the charge I could still start "discussion"
about the range, but that wouldn't show that range is still an issue."

Sure there would be, but it would be a positive discussion.

Allow me to be more specific since you want to nitpick my choice of words. The
simple fact that there are questions regarding the range of this vehicle shows
there is an issue.

If this vehicle had a similar range to that of the majority of vehicles no one
would be arguing about the range, because no one would care. If anything
everyone would be raving about this car because it would literally be the
future of the car industry.

~~~
jlgreco
> Sure there would be, but it would be a positive discussion.

Not at all, I could start a conversation with any tone I wished.

I'm not trying to nitpick words, I just don't think that you can make any
conclusions about reality just by noting that people are discussing something,
in a positive manner or otherwise. There just isn't any relationship between
reality and what people discuss.

------
andrewhillman
This car is clearly not intended for long distances. These charger stations
seem like a hassle. Waiting 1 hour at a Charge station for your "tank" to fill
seems crazy since it adds on an hour of traveling time to any road trip. Seems
painful to me. This car would cause me anxiety.

~~~
slantyyz
I'm curious if it would be practical even for some workday commutes on a very
cold day.

I live just outside of Toronto (there's a Tesla store here), and while it's
not as cold as Calgary or Winnipeg, it can get pretty damned cold. Power
outlets aren't widely available in all parking lots.

I know people who make ~75 mile round trips commuting from the burbs. After
reading the NYT article, I'd be a little nervous to make the trip home if I
had to leave my car out in the blistering cold for a full work day where there
was no charging station even if I did charge the battery fully the night
before.

\--edit-- I also read somewhere that there are no Supercharger stations in
Canada... yet.

------
walkon
How has this fallen of the front page so quickly, yet the story from Musk's
perspective is treated as irrefutable? Right now this is still mostly in
hearsay mode, proving the bias in HN readers (at least those ostensibly
flagging and down-voting this story into oblivion).

~~~
cremnob
Tech geeks have a hard-on for Elon Musk. The same is true for HN.

------
jusben1369
This is a valuable lesson for all startups. Tesla's in a dust up around a use
case that they don't really need to address for a while longer and can still
be very successful. Imagine how many people today fall into the category of i)
Being able to afford this car ii) Owning only this car vs having a gasoline
car and iii) Caring about traveling such long distances in the extreme cold?

Some, for sure, but not many and not enough to dampen demand. The majority of
electric car owners aren't going to undertake this trip at all (vs fly) or
would use a second car to do so. Better to have said "We're still 18 months
away from having enough charging stations and batter life to tackle this type
of trip" and shrugging as you cash checks from people who'll do a 13 mile
commute on the 101 or 95.

~~~
slantyyz
>> a use case that they don't really need to address for a while longer

Well, there's a Tesla store in Toronto.

Toronto gets pretty cold in the winter, and traffic is pretty nightmarish
getting in and out of the city during rush hour. And there's no way you're
going to sit in this traffic without a heater on.

There are lots of affluent people who live in the burbs outside of Toronto who
make 120+km round trips (~75 miles) who will get stuck in really bad traffic
to and from work, and probably leave their car parked in a spot that doesn't
have access to an outlet during the work day.

If the battery charge is going to drop that significantly on a cold day, I
think it would make some people think twice about a Tesla (for the homeward
leg of a winter commute) if they didn't already have a winter car or backup
plan.

------
dredmorbius
The key sentence from Broder's followup is: "But the test that Tesla offered
was of the Supercharger, not of the Model S, which we already know is a much-
praised car. "

The first question is: is that what Tesla proposed, and was the proposal based
on a cold-weather long-distance round-trip journey using _only_ Superchargers?

If so, then Tesla bit off more than it could chew. If no, then Broder is
misrepresenting Tesla's Supercharger service -- is it a waypoint recharge to
extend driving range reasonably _in conjunction_ with normal overnight
charging as would ordinarily be practiced, or is it a service on which long-
distance travelers can rely on exclusively?

My suspicion is the former (in which case Broder is at fault). This still
leaves Tesla with a serious image problem (and a ruffled, if still
understanding reviewer at The New York Times). For all the attractions and
upsides of EVs, range, and cold-weather range degredation, remain significant
issues.

But in this case, Musk's reliance on log data doesn't seem entirely relevant:
it's operator behavior and compliance which need to be addressed.

------
tokenadult
I like the comment on the submitted article that Teslas should come with a
bike rack and bicycle as a back-up plan. "On second thought, just buy a
bicycle. You will get there faster and more reliably." In this jest is truth
for my family, because we live at least 1,000 miles from the nearest currently
installed Tesla Supercharger station

<http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger>

and yet my wife and I can use our bicycles year-round in our cold-weather but
bicycle-friendly city,

[http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-
city-m...](http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-
minneapolis)

so we can be even more environmentally friendly than the buyers of the big,
heavy, expensive Tesla Model S by using our bicycles.

As the New York Times reporter follows up,

"Virtually everyone says that I should have plugged in the car overnight in
Connecticut, particularly given the cold temperature. But the test that Tesla
offered was of the Supercharger, not of the Model S, which we already know is
a much-praised car. This evaluation was intended to demonstrate its
practicality as a 'normal use,' no-compromise car, as Tesla markets it. Now
that Tesla is striving to be a mass-market automaker, it cannot realistically
expect all 20,000 buyers a year (the Model S sales goal) to be electric-car
acolytes who will plug in at every Walmart stop.

"Knowing then what I know now about the car, its sensitivity to cold and
additional ways to maximize range, I certainly would have treated the test
differently. But the conclusion might not have been any better for Tesla."

P.S. I see from the pattern of votes so far on this comment that some fellow
participant here is not amused by my suggestion that a bicycle is a more
environmentally friendly form of alternative vehicle for someone living in
snowy Minnesota than a Tesla Model S. But I am serious. There is NO WAY I
would sink so much of my family's budget into buying a car like that when I
can obtain more reliable transportation at a much lower price. That's the
tough squeeze that Tesla Motors is in. There was an extensive, and on the
whole more favorable, review of the Model S from The Verge

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/12/3969260/going-the-
distance...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/12/3969260/going-the-distance-
driving-tesla-model-s-in-the-real-world)

submitted to HN earlier today (most participants missed the discussion on that
article)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5208154>

and the author of that report takes care to mention, "Tesla hopes for its
first quarter of black ink this year after a decade of operation, but make no
mistake, it’s still in the throes of startupdom. Much of its working capital
has come from nearly half a billion dollars in low-interest rate government
loans. It has just a few dozen dealers around the world." I'm not going to be
lining up to buy the first Tesla car for sale in Minnesota unless both the
charging network and the car's cold-weather performance are massively
improved.

P.P.S. While I still have my edit window, I should mention that one blogger on
business writes "Why Tesla's Elon Musk Should Consult The Communications
Playbook,"

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/02/12/d...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/02/12/dear-
elon-shut-up/)

and a Forbes staff writer on the global auto industry writes, "Fake Or Not,
New York Times' Tesla Review Speaks Truth About Electric Cars,"

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/02/11/fake-
or-n...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2013/02/11/fake-or-not-new-
york-times-tesla-review-speaks-truth-about-electric-cars/)

suggesting that not all business writers have been impressed by Elon Musk's
response to the first New York Times report so far.

~~~
grecy
> I'm not going to be lining up to buy the first Tesla car for sale in
> Minnesota unless both the charging network and the car's cold-weather
> performance are massively improved.

Who cares?

Why does everyone want to voice their opinion so loudly on a product that
doesn't even meet their needs?

It is that you can't accept some status-symbol high-tech gadget wasn't made
with you in mind?

Of course the Telsa is not for everyone, it's new and cutting-edge and trying
to re-define something common-place, which will likely take years or even
decades.

I'm not buying a Ford F-150, or a Porsche, or a freaking smart phone either,
but all of those are products that many customers are buying and finding a
very good use for. Good for them. I'm going to keep my mouth shut about those
products, because they are not for me.

~~~
smackfu
It's not really shocking, is it? When the next big thing that is getting great
reviews doesn't work for you, that's a big disappointment. It's like living in
Verizon country back when the iPhone came out as an AT&T exclusive.

~~~
grecy
> It's not really shocking, is it?

Yes, it is.

I try to keep my consumption in check, and I'm shocked people can be so
offended when the next big thing doesn't fit their needs. People are actually
upset they can't spend their money on it. Unreal.

------
protomyth
"While Tesla officials and many armchair experts have said I should have
accepted the time penalty to top off the battery in Delaware at the Max Range
setting, Tesla warns specifically that this shortens the battery’s life."

I wonder by how much?

------
grannyg00se
Is this supposed to be some kind of 400+ horsepower road tripping car, or a
great sedan that handles all of your daily driving needs? I'm a bit surprised
that this kind of test is necessary. Even 150 miles on one charge should be
plenty unless the market for this is drastically different than I thought.
Range is important, for sure. But it shouldn't be a primary concern for a 4000
pound electric vehicle. I suppose if Elon thinks that's what it should be then
that's what it should be and I really hope it works out well.

~~~
roc
"Range Anxiety" is a very real (irrational) concern of a large slice of
Americans. Regardless of how many trips they make within an electric vehicle's
range, they will place outsize importance on edge cases.

And between range and recharge times, I really can't see all-electric cars
taking off among that group. Something like the Chevy Volt's "range extender"
ICE seems the only way to reach anyone who's worried about road-trip-style
range.

Even if the supercharger network was 100% in-place, those people are going to
turn up their nose at a 30-60 minute recharge stop.

~~~
abruzzi
I don't think range anxiety is irrational. I may be that I only need extended
range in 5% of my driving, but unless I own a second vehicle or am prepared to
rent a vehicle for that 5%, it essentially makes a it a non-starter. In other
words, it doesn't matter how infrequent those edge cases are, if they are
necessary and without reasonable workarounds, then the design is a failure
(for this specific use case.)

Now, I'm in one of the more sparsely populated states in the union, so my
views and needs are colored by long distances it takes to get anywhere here.

~~~
roc
To be clear: range anxiety is not irrational because no-one should be
concerned about range. Range anxiety is irrational if and when someone is
giving _outsize_ importance to the edge cases.

It's specifically about the people who _don't_ do an objective analysis of how
often the edge cases happen, whether alternatives are sufficient, etc.

------
smackfu
Seems like a PR person screw-up. Testing the car at almost maximum range in
the winter is just a disaster waiting to happen. You can quibble with the
details and things the reporter allegedly did wrong, but I would bet that a
decent percentage of these attempted trips would end in failure. What if the
reporter had hit traffic in the NY Metro area? I mean, that never happens,
right?

That's just dumb for a story you are setting up in the media.

------
danbmil99
Bad on Musk using the charge "fake". It's pretty clear the article was written
in good faith; he's lucky the author didn't respond in alpha-male kind.

------
arcticfox
"She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery
regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down."

There's either a fundamental misunderstanding here or Tesla just owned
physics. Braking is never, ever a good idea for power preservation. (Slowing
down is another story, but if "occasional braking" was actually in the advice,
that's abysmal).

------
lifeisstillgood
It it just me or is Tesla getting all the running in the electric car stakes?

either they are atreets abead of Toyota and GM or are the other car
manufacturers simply letting Tesla take all the knocks as consumers get used
to the new ideas?

~~~
gte910h
Toyota is partnering with them for tech.

So Tesla is protecting their ongoing consulting relationship/tech share with
this as well.

------
Cushman
This headline is altogether too clever for its own good.

~~~
kmfrk
They probably expected to get more mileage out of it than they ended up with.

------
jmakov
just replace the battery once you stop at the charging station with a fully
charged one. you know, hydraulics, robots and stuff. but give the customer
enough time to go to the toilet room. we don't want the customer to be in a
hurry and having a bad feeling because her car is just there in the way doing
nothing. heck, you can even populate your station's roof with cheap mirrors
that reflect light all at the same point, make energy and call it an art
project. don't screw this up. who knows when will EVs see the street if this
project dies because of bad user experience. just replace the damn thing in 5
min and let the machinery do some futuristic sounds so that ppl feel
important/ a part of "i'm so cool club". you could check how's the car's
computer doing while you're at it... if nothing else works, edward bernays is
your man.

~~~
lutusp
> just replace the battery once you stop at the charging station with a fully
> charged one.

The Tesla battery weighs 990 pounds and is built into the car. There are
proposals like yours for other electric cars, cars that may be designed to
simplify battery removal, but in the long term, I think improvements in
battery technology will eventually make them more reliable and longer-lasting.

~~~
jmakov
Your battery is for some reason low on energy. You must charge it or call a
tow truck. There's no tech that will charge your battery faster than replacing
it.

~~~
lutusp
Yes, but for most present electric cars, this is not an option. Certainly not
for the Tesla.

