
That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t - tokenadult
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-data-what-it-says-and-what-it-doesnt/
======
luigi
Overall I think Broder acquits himself well, and his explanation about
circling the Milford parking lot makes sense. Also, the Tesla engineer he was
on the phone with at the time should have been able to tell Musk that happened
(or Tesla should have just asked Broder to comment before posting the
rebuttal).

His action here is still hard to understand:

> The Tesla personnel whom I consulted over the phone – Ms. Ra and Mr.
> Merendino –told me to leave it connected for an hour, and after that the
> lost range would be restored. I did not ignore their advice.

So it sounds like he didn't speak to Tesla personnel _after_ he charged at the
weak station in Norwich for an hour. If I were him, I'd call them back and
say, "Uh guys, it says it only has 32 miles left and I have 61 to go. Maybe I
should give it another hour?"

~~~
lawnchair_larry
That stuck out for me and I think he is being dishonest with his delicate
wording. They didn't clear him to go, as he suggests. They told him that it
would be ready in an hour.

He also explains that he drove past a station "because no one made him aware
of it". That smells like wordplay too. He was probably aware of it, and any
reasonable owner of the car would probably be aware of it, or be well equipped
to look it up. The map of charging stations is quite easy to find. He surely
had an internet capable phone for backup.

Instead, he made an extra support call, and when they gave him bad advice, he
took the opportunity to maliciously comply. After 12 support calls, if you
want to cherry pick bad advice that seems inconsistent with your expectations,
you can probably find something.

I think Elon was wrong in _some_ of his claims, but I think the review was
still dishonest.

~~~
stephengillie
Maybe a driver should be responsible enough to be aware of his vehicle's
range, and able to locate refueling stations?

This is like saying "I ran out of gas because I couldn't find a gas station"
when you're a block away from one. It's ridiculous and, in this 21st century,
not an excuse.

------
zeteo
The logged data does support the broad lines of Broder's story (large drop in
battery charge overnight, slow driving, turning down heating) and the 10-15%
imprecision (driving at 52 mph instead of 45, heating goes down at 200 miles
instead of 182, charge time of 47 minutes instead of 58) is well to be
expected from what is a journalistic review and not a scientific experiment.
So this all comes down to what customer service might or might have not said
over the phone. Was Tesla customer service incompetent enough to suggest anti-
solutions (use the brakes more to save energy, charge up to 32 miles when you
need 60)? Was there miscommunication? Or did Broder completely make that part
up?

~~~
stcredzero
_> and the 10-15% imprecision is well to be expected from what is a
journalistic review and not a scientific experiment_

Sorry, but your standards are a bit low. A lot of things like a 10-15%
imprecision, all biased in the direction of making the car perform less --
that's exactly what I'd do if I were trying to fix the drive's outcome.

If Consumer Reports had multiple things 10-15% off, all pointedly to support a
given agenda, there would be an outcry. I see no reason why the NYTimes, in an
article in which they are reporting data, should be held to a lesser standard.

~~~
slantyyz
It's important to note that unlike the NYT, Consumer Reports wouldn't review a
car they didn't pay for. They will, however, preview/first-look cars they
didn't buy.

AFAIK, car reporters for the big media conglomerates usually get expenses paid
review junkets from the automakers. Those reporters tend to never post
negative reviews for fear that they wouldn't get invited again. I think the
same applies to movie and video game reviewers from major publications.

CR does have its hands on a Tesla, and they jumped through some hoops to
ensure that Tesla didn't know who bought it or cherry pick a review unit for
them.

[http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/01/our-own-
tesla-m...](http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/01/our-own-tesla-model-
s-finally-arrives.html)

------
codex
The tit-for-tat details here don't matter. The story is simply, "The Tesla
lost a ton of range overnight, unexpectedly. Tesla said it would come back
after an hour of low-power charging." Is that true? Clearly the former
statement is true but the latter is not. The only question is whether Tesla
gave the reporter bad advice, or whether the reporter lied because he wanted
to sabotage the test.

Given Tesla's focus on the tit-for-tat details, which I take to be a strategy
of distraction, I suspect that someone at Tesla did indeed make a mistake--
probably a high level PR employee with no expert familiarity with the car in
cold conditions. Tesla's HQ is located in California, where the weather stays
nice and warm, all the time.

~~~
hype7
I agree with you that the tit-for-tat details don't matter; I don't agree with
you that the only question is whether Tesla gave the reporter bad advice.

This is a textbook example of how not to solve a PR problem — to get in a
public, internet-driven slanging match with a journalist. Instead of "publicly
refuting", Musk should have called up and got a full account of what went
wrong; put the journalist on side, and got an at least somewhat positive
follow up account from the journalist saying "I spoke to Musk and he had some
questions and we talked through it and we realize that rather than the car
being at fault, a database with current locations of chargers hadn't been
updated etc etc etc".

Right now, instead, Musk can't win. And he's drawing a HUGE amount of
publicity to a fact that's already in the back of a lot of consumers minds —
that these EVs aren't ready for primetime.

~~~
ghaff
But Tesla is at least consistent in their approach, see e.g. battery
"bricking." [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/automobiles/Tesla-
Battery-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/automobiles/Tesla-Battery-
Failures-Make-Bricking-a-Buzzword.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) (This is an NYT
story although it wasn't originally reported there.)

I'm generally rooting for Tesla and EVs (where they make sense). But I didn't
think much of their PR handling of a situation where they were at least
somewhat in the wrong was good then and I don't think it's good now.

------
kdsudac
I get why Musk feels like he needs to defend his company but I think he may be
doing more harm than good on the PR front.

Do you think the average Tesla customer is going to want to wade through a
bunch of plots of battery charge vs distance, etc? I think the takeaway for
the average Tesla customer might be along the lines of "hmm, this seems really
complicated.... am I going to have to keep the heat down while I drive even
when it's 10 degrees outside?"

To me, Musk comes across as an out-of-touch engineer who keeps trying to argue
the technical case and insists it's the customer's fault--it couldn't possibly
be a faulty design, confusing U.I., or marketing not realizing a common
(mis)use case. If I dropped $60-$100k on a car and run into problems, this is
the last thing I'd want to hear on the other end of the phone.

~~~
jimmyyoung
Musks blog post is meant to be technical. It's not directly towards the
average Tesla customer. The average customer is probably not going to be
following this.

Thousands of newspaper are going to write an article everything that happens.
They will make it more reader-friendly.

Repeat: It is not Musks' intent for customer to read his blog.

~~~
kdsudac
_"Thousands of newspaper are going to write an article everything that
happens."_

Thousands of newspapers writing about this is exactly what Musk shouldn't
want! Thanks for making my argument for me. :)

~~~
marvin
But they're doing that regardless. Case in point: My local paper in Norway had
a big headline two days ago: "Super-car doesn't work in the cold" in response
to the original NYT article. They took it down straight away when Musk made
his tweets.

------
nikcub
The biggest mistake Elon made in his response was to dump all that data and to
attempt to tear apart each part of the review. This means that the rebuttals
now involve taking pieces of that and disproving them in the aim of disproving
Tesla's entire argument.

Tesla should have posted nothing more than a single line statement saying that
Broder left the last charging station for a 65 mile trip with 32 miles on his
range meter.

Tesla had the opportunity to define the territory of this argument very
narrowly. Because Tesla placed everything on the table in the response, this
has become a case of he-said, she-said.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Agreed. They've allowed Broder to just ride this out by muddying the waters.
He walks away from this only slightly tainted now.

At the very least, his notes and the resulting article are not accurate. He
confirms this himself.

This isn't surprising, and not necessarily malicious. But it's extremely
common, as anyone who has ever dealt with a journalist knows.

As a group, journalists simply get a great number of things wrong and cannot
be relied on for detail oriented work.

~~~
stcredzero
_> As a group, journalists simply get a great number of things wrong and
cannot be relied on for detail oriented work._

Something is very wrong here. If the way you conduct business has nearly equal
probability of pissing off innocent people unjustly as it has of making
wrongdoers hot under the collar, isn't it time to revisit how you do things?

~~~
inopinatus
Nonetheless it confirms my experience of journalists also: as a class, they
often play fast and loose with the truth and frequently misattribute
statements, misinterpret facts and quote misleadingly out of context.

Take everything you read in the press with a huge grain of salt.

~~~
stcredzero
Maybe the death of newspapers and magazines is generally well deserved?

~~~
JabavuAdams
It's not like the new new media are doing _more_ fact-checking.

------
tomkarlo
> "I was given battery-conservation advice at that time (turn off the cruise
> control; alternately slow down and speed up to take advantage of
> regenerative braking) that was later contradicted by other Tesla personnel."

This is one of the more bizarre statements in this whole discussion. Why would
anyone with the slightest understanding of electric cars or physics believe
that to be true - and I mean the reporter, as well? By extension, you could
recharge your electric car by alternately gunning the engine, then slamming on
the brakes. Perpetual motion!

~~~
csallen
To be fair, battery "conservation" is different than a battery "recharge".

~~~
tomkarlo
Given that "conservation" in this case is driven by the rate of usage, minus
the rate of recovery - the recharge - from the regen brakes, is it really
materially different?

~~~
danielweber
Maybe [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-
efficient_driving#Burn_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-
efficient_driving#Burn_and_coast) ?

~~~
tomkarlo
Perhaps, but there's a pretty huge difference between "burn and coast" and
"burn and brake". Plus that's for ICE vehicles, not all-electric. ICE uses gas
to keep idling even when your foot is off the gas, so that strategy might
work, but electric doesn't "idle".

------
jacquesm
Two bits are completely non-sensical to me, is there any battery technician or
otherwise knowledgeable person that can indicate in what conditions this makes
any sense?

> Beginning early in the morning of my second day with the car, after the
> projected range had dropped precipitously while parked overnight, I spoke
> numerous times with Christina Ra, Tesla’s spokeswoman at the time, and Ted
> Merendino, a Tesla product planner at the company’s headquarters in
> California. _They told me that the loss of battery power when parked
> overnight could be restored by properly “conditioning” the battery, a half-
> hour process, which I undertook by sitting in the car with the heat on low,
> as they instructed._ That proved ineffective; the conditioning process
> actually reduced the range by 24 percent (to 19 miles, from 25 miles).

If there is one thing that will use up large amounts of energy it is electric
heating, I find it hard to believe that using a heater as a consumer would
regenerate the battery capacity in excess of what the the heater is consuming
unless most or all of the energy was directed at the batteries. The exterior
of a car will drain heat energy about as fast as you can put it in under cold
conditions (or faster...).

> It was also Tesla that told me that an hour of charging (at a lower power
> level) at a public utility in Norwich, Conn., would give me adequate range
> to reach the Supercharging station 61 miles away, even though the car’s
> range estimator read 32 miles – because, again, _I was told that moderate-
> speed driving would “restore” the battery power lost overnight._ That also
> proved overoptimistic, as I ran out of power about 14 miles shy of the
> Milford Supercharger and about five miles from the public charging station
> in East Haven that I was trying to reach.

That does not make any sense either. Any kind of consumption will ultimately
reduce the available range, you don't restore by removing joules from a pack.

I've lived in a house powered with batteries, solar and wind for a long enough
time to know that indeed temperature affects battery capacity, sometimes
dramatically. But consuming power under cold conditions never put energy back
in. Is this different for the kind of batteries that the Tesla uses?

Or is the 'Tesla said' claim just an effort to get out from under the
apparently non-sensical decisions that were made here?

Or are Tesla spokespeople and product gurus totally clueless (which would seem
to be very hard on the imagination)?

All the hard data from the Tesla logs except for the 'shutdown' is
contradicted by words apparently spoken (and probably unverifiable except for
'he said/she said' style debate) rather than actually refuting the data.

~~~
nirvana
The answer is very simple: Brody is lying about what Tesla told him, just like
he's told many other lies in his article and in the rebuttal.

Putting it into a "he said / she said" is a smokescreen.

The car might be a lemon but the idea that Tesla told him to run the heater to
charge the battery is beyond credulity.

This is not exactly the first time the NYT has told lies for ideological
reasons. The paper does it regularly, and really, the idea that it (or any
paper in america) is an "unbiased" media is quaint.

The difference is, Elon Musk is willing to stand up to them and call them on
it, so they are obfuscating.

~~~
HelloMcFly
Good thing Musk is willing to "stand up to them" given that he's the truly
unbiased one in this situation, right? He's playing an angle here too. And the
other article ([http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/elon-
musks...](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/elon-musks-data-
doesnt-back-his-claims-new-york-times-fakery/62149/)) casts some doubt on his
loud protestations. And they've only released their summarized charts, not the
raw log data, anyway. It's already a "he said / she said" situation, it's just
that much of the HN crowd is more apt to be on one side vs. the other.

~~~
enraged_camel
On the other hand, Brody has known record of exaggeration and distortion of
truth. Whereas Musk is an honest, no-nonsense engineer. (Although I'd be
interested if you could point me to a situation where Musk was caught
blatantly lying about something.)

~~~
HelloMcFly
Musk is a business man and is concerned about marketing as much as anyone
else. Here are his comments aimed toward the Volt:

"Yet the state of the electric car is dismal, the victim of hyped
expectations, technological flops, high costs and a hostile political
climate.”

Not exactly and objective view, or totally fair.

~~~
enraged_camel
Uh, that was said by Broder in one of his previous articles.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/sunday-review/the-
electric...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/sunday-review/the-electric-car-
unplugged.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

~~~
HelloMcFly
You're right. I was equating that quote and the calling-the-Volt-a-"lawnmower"
quote
([http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-05-11/green_sheet/2...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-05-11/green_sheet/29962038_1_plug-
in-hybrids-tesla-s-ceo-chevy-volt)) together. I was reading about them
yesterday. My mistake.

------
tunesmith
I put a graph together showing all the points/counterpoints and here's what
I'm left with.

\- not charging past 90% at the 1st station is defensible. Especially if Tesla
warns it will shorten the battery's life.

\- It'd be better if Tesla's software took temperature into account when
estimating mileage range.

\- Broder is being ridiculous about the cruise control and his speed
estimates, and the temperature. He has partial accountability for the NYT
graph. Turning the temperature down to 70 does not mean "sharply downward". He
turned it down once more at around 250 miles, but that's far after the 182
that the article/graph indicates, and markedly different than "a little over
200 miles". He writes about how his feet were freezing and knuckles were
turning white, but he didn't turn the heat down below 70 until (if my math is
right) right about the time he got to Manhattan, which was mentioned afterward
in his article timeline. On the other hand, it looks like it was turned down
for most of the leg between Manhattan and Milford.

\- The leg from Manhattan to Milford sounds legitimately stressful, but Broder
claims low-speed cruise control that never happened. He tries to blame this on
wheel size later, while simultaneously using Tesla's logs as showing that he
_wasn't_ driving very fast. That makes no sense.

\- Tesla claims they told Broder to fully charge at Milford. He did not, and
lists a lot of justifications for not following their advice.

\- Broder complains that Tesla didn't tell him more about how to get the most
out of charging stations, but Broder's a veteran at electric vehicles even if
it's true that he hates them. And his defense for not charging overnight is
laughable - plugging in overnight is not the same as plugging it at every
Walmart stop. It's overnight in cold temperatures and the car was at less than
50% of its range. He's just being obstinate here.

\- It's laughable to say that the Tesla fell short of its projected range when
the projected range was from the day before, before not plugging it in on a
cold night.

\- Tesla and Broder directly contradict each other on whether they gave him
the go-ahead to stop charging after an hour in Norwich. Broder's being vague
in his wordings - he phrases it as if they approved him to unplug when they
might have just said to plug it in for about an hour when they were trying to
find him the plugin station ahead of time. Tesla, in turn, says that he
unplugged over their objections.

\- Broder just can't "account for the discrepancy" about the logs showing him
driving close to 55 when he said he was limping along at 45, back from
Norwich.

\- Broder seems defensible on the parking brake - how is he to know not to
turn off the car? - and the driving in circles, although it would be
interesting to know just how clearly marked that supercharge station is. Musk
is probably guilty of the "fundamental attribution error" here.

Anyway, even after Broder's latest response, it still reads like Broder was
trying to stack the deck.

~~~
andrewfelix
_"reads like Broder was trying to stack the deck"_

I disagree. I think Broder is doing what a lot of journalists do and has
accentuated the overall negative experience to create a better narrative.

In spite of the poor communication and slight exaggeration, I don't feel like
there was malice or a great deal of intent on Broder's behalf. He generally
had a poor experience. The errors in his story do not negate that, and I don't
get the impression that he had intentionally stacked the deck against the car.

Musk on the other hand has _intentionally_ implied that Broder lied and was
possibly motivated by a hatred of the Tesla concept. That is a ridiculous
assertion to make by someone in his position. The data does not back that up.

Musk should have just presented the facts and let us interpret them.

~~~
redm
> In spite of the poor communication and slight exaggeration, I don't feel
> like there was malice or a great deal of intent on Broder's behalf. He
> generally had a poor experience.

I don't know much about electric cars, but I do know this: They aren't great
for long distrance driving.

I have no doubt that Broder had a bad experience. When it's 10 degrees
outside, I don't want to turn off the climate control. When I'm driving
between cities, I don't want to stop at gas stations for over an hour. The
list goes on.

This test was all about driving longer distances using fast (cough) charging
stations. It seems clear to me no matter how you cut this up that the
experience, compared to a gas powered vehicle was lousy. Who the hell wants to
wait 1.5 hours at a gast station?

Tesla sounds great for driving around your city but I wouldn't think twice
about buying one if I was driving great distances.

~~~
drbawb
>when it's 10 degrees outside.

Not too long ago we had a week or so of 0-10deg [F] weather in the midwest,
and my _petrol_ car didn't give me heat for most of my commutes.

What little heat I did have, I voluntarily left to the engine so it could get
up to temp [knowing this is better for my car, and my emissions].

If it's going to be that cold, I bring an extra pair of socks and gloves. I
don't blame my car that I _know_ is struggling to keep itself at operating
temperature.

Not to mention, he had heated the cabin up to 74degF prior to that; no
journalist can reasonably expect me to believe that a _brand new_ luxury
electric car has worse insulation than an 01 Camry with cracked weather seals
on the rear doors.

I'm sorry, but unless you didn't read the weather report and packed shorts and
t-shirts, there is no way that 10degF ambient temp, in a well sealed cabin
that has previously been heated to 72degF, is "white knuckle" weather.

\---

I certainly agree with you, and with what I think was the larger point of
Broder's review: this is not a _no compromises car_, even CNN's reviewer said
that he had a bit of range anxiety on the longest leg.

Charging for an hour is a _compromise_, and criticizing it is well deserved.

A photo-op of the Model S on a flatbed truck, saying it broke down? That's no
longer fairly deserved criticism: especially when you pulled out of a station
with 32mi. of est. range for embarking on a 61mi. trip _knowing_ the battery
was having range problems b/c of the weather.

That being said, considering this is a performance oriented car, I think the
mileage was quite remarkable for an all electric vehicle. I'm honestly
impressed, and I'm a petrolhead.

Once the fast-charge network is a bit more built-up? I can easily see myself
planning long road-trips around it. -- On vacations we regularly spend 30-45
minutes at a filling station between tanks. Not because we _have to_, but
because we need to stretch our legs, rotate seats, eat lunch, buy more snacks,
maybe pick up a book, double check routes and reservations, etc. etc. I don't
think an hour at a station that has plenty of amenities is unreasonable for
200+mi. legs.

------
jules
> I was given battery-conservation advice at that time (turn off the cruise
> control; _alternately slow down and speed up to take advantage of
> regenerative braking_ ) that was later contradicted by other Tesla
> personnel.

What the heck? Does this guy seriously think that braking and then speeding up
will conserve battery? Maybe the adage "don't attribute to malice what can be
explained by stupidity" _is_ true.

~~~
codex
Had the reporter ignored Tesla's advice, the review would have been tainted.
It's either "do what Tesla says, they're the experts" or "I'm doing to do my
own thing sgainst Tesla's advice, invalidating all conclusions in this
article." The journalist chose the former.

~~~
zeru
I seriously dont think he ever got that advice. It speaks against 6th grade
physics and any common sense.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Welcome to Earth. Sixth-grade physics, for most people, is for passing the
6th-grade physics test. It has no relation to the real world or their
behaviour.

------
ANH
My summary:

1) We need more EV infrastructure, a point that seems to be getting lost and
that I think should have been the thesis of the original article.

2) Broder was irresponsible for not taking seriously enough what the car was
telling him and trusting too much the judgment of people 3,000 miles away.

3) Musk is on the defensive and perhaps overreacting because he feels he's
doing good in the world and has produced a solid product that is now being
unjustly (he feels) attacked.

4) External factors affect mileage, no matter what kind of car you're driving.

5) The attention this spat is receiving suggests to me people understand we
can do a much smarter, better job of hauling our asses around.

~~~
Charlesmigli
Awesome summary! You should love <http://tldr.io> :)

------
evo_9
Unfortunately I think Musk has over-reacted and truly done more damage to
Telsa/the electric car 'movement' in general the more this has gone on. It's
actually really upsetting to see something like this spiral so ridiculously
out of control because it's a fantastic car, and Musk is admirable person. But
before you make inflammatory claims one would hope a serious investigation
would occur. Unfortunately it appears that Musk took over the company
'megaphone' and got emotional, perhaps driven by ego? I don't get it, honestly
esp. after the poorly handled Top Gear incident, they apparently learned
nothing.

At first I was 100% behind Musk, esp. when I heard they had data to back up
their claims; but now, honestly I don't know what he was thinking, or what
Telsa as a company was thinking letting emotions take control of the
situation.

In the future I think Telsa would be well served by imposing a 72 hour minimum
media silence while they do their investigation into the matter, and for
F-sake keep Musk off Twitter/everything.

I'm still huge fan of Musk, I hope this can be turned into a positive for
Telsa somehow.

~~~
JabavuAdams
I like what Musk has been trying to build, but he seems rather impulsive. E.g.
the story about wrecking a super-car with Peter Thiel as a passenger.

There seems to be this assumption that just because he's clearly smart, and
doing great things, that he can't also be self-destructively impulsive.

It's a shame, because un-varnished communications are much more interesting
than generic corporate PR. On the other hand, he's doing his cause a
disservice. He needs to sit back and shut up. His recent comments on the 787
battery, and this internet-esque flame war are at least unseemly, and more
likely actively damaging his plans.

------
llambda
> Mr. Musk not only apologized, he said the charging stations should be 60
> miles closer together and offered me a second test drive when additional
> stations were built.

How interesting is that! Mr. Musk himself, noting his own perceived deficiency
in Tesla's charging station network. Whether or not this is an admission of
guilt, it certainly is quite interesting he would immediately offer a follow
up test drive after additional stations had been built. Fast forward to Musk's
blog post and it seems he's completely changed his attitude: now the fault is
entirely with the journalists; now Tesla is the victim of an ill-intentioned
agenda on the part of the New York Times...

~~~
relic
That line was from Broder's response to Musk's criticism...thus, it seems
reasonable to infer that the offer was made after this whole ordeal. I think
it is likely that Musk made the offer with a more favorable, redeeming article
in mind. I don't think Musk repealed the offer after the posting of Broder's
article, as your comment seems to imply.

------
stcredzero
_> I do recall setting the cruise control to about 54 m.p.h., as I wrote. The
log shows the car traveling about 60 m.p.h. for a nearly 100-mile stretch on
the New Jersey Turnpike. I cannot account for the discrepancy, nor for a later
stretch in Connecticut where I recall driving about 45 m.p.h., but it may be
the result of the car being delivered with 19-inch wheels and all-season
tires, not the specified 21-inch wheels and summer tires._

Okay, someone please explain to me how tires with a _smaller_ circumference
are going to result in _faster_ speeds?

John Broder already came across as someone who's hazy on basic physics. Maybe
he's not so hot on geometry, either.

~~~
smsm42
I think here the case is simple. Broder did not record his speed accurately,
he just drove "around 45 mph", which very well might be actually 55 mph, on a
good road with a good car 10 mph difference in speed doesn't feel at all.
However, he can't just say "I didn't really collect the data accurately" since
it'd hurt his credibility, so he mentions completely unrelated discrepancy in
hope that most of the readers would say "ok, it's plausible, maybe he's right,
maybe he's not, we're not engineers, we don't know whose fault it is". Thus
both Tesla's point would be neutralized and Broder's credibility won't be
hurt.

~~~
brisance
Or maybe he did report what the speedometer showed, and the calibration is
off.

~~~
smsm42
That is a possibility too. On a mass-produced car, I'd evaluate this as pretty
low probability, since setting speedometer for the actual car specs is a basic
expectation and if any company would let wrongly calibrated cars out of their
factory it would be a huge liability issue and a very loud scandal. However,
if custom modifications were made to the car, it is not out of the question,
theoretically. But then the effect of the smaller tires should be the
opposite, not? I.e. with smaller tires the speedometer should overestimate the
speed, not underestimate?

------
pilsetnieks
From the article: "In my 16 years at The Times I have served as White House
correspondent, Washington editor, Los Angeles bureau chief and a political
correspondent."

I don't mean to insult or slander Mr. Broder but how does one go from a White
House correspondent, Washington editor, Los Angeles bureau chief and a
political correspondent to reviewing cars and charger stations?

~~~
smackfu
He is the energy and environmental issues reporter now.

------
gfodor
Tesla employees give the guy a ballpark estimate that an hour of charging
should get him enough juice. He charges the car an hour. The car says it
doesn't have enough juice yet.

Instead of waiting until his tank is full enough, John instead starts driving.
Why? Is he just stupid, and decides to ignore the gauge and risk his own
safety based upon the ballpark estimate of a Tesla customer support rep? Or
did he decide that now his ass was covered if the car did somehow end up
dying, giving him his story? Either way, the story stinks.

------
damian2000
Musk and Broder should have got together and nutted out their differences in
person instead of having this public bun fight.

When I first read Musk's piece yesterday, I thought Broder must be some sort
of malicious a-hole, but after reading Broders first response and now this,
his second response, I'm thinking its just a case of Musk being overly
optimistic as to the capabilities of his product, and Broder being overly
pessimistic.

------
krashidov
I'm sure most people wouldn't have even known about the NYT article or even
taken it very seriously, but after this whole kerfuffle, Musk has put the
Streisand effect into full force.

Personally I think that Tesla looks bad here. They have been given so much
praise over the last year that this one unfortunate review caused them to
react with overzealous vigilance. Perhaps, if Musk had privately contacted
Broder, shown him the data and make an understanding out of all this, they
could have re-done the road trip and all would be well.

Instead, Musk attempts to embarrass him with internal logs and a blog post. It
almost seems like he is implying that Broder has some ulterior agenda. I'm not
saying Musk is right or wrong (I really don't know). I'm saying he could have
handled the whole thing a lot better.

------
dinkumthinkum
I'm over this he said she said with NYT vs Elon Musk. I love the concept of
the Tesla, let's just put up or shut up. Who cares about the times, let's get
a new, in depth, independent study. But let's get past this soap opera.

~~~
slantyyz
In my mind, the whole thing that turned this into a soap opera was Musk's knee
jerk responses on Twitter.

Had he come back with a more measured response (like OXO did with Quirky) and
just politely pointed out the inaccuracies of the article and made his same
offer of "We'll provide a car to any journalist to do the same test and see
what happens", I don't think we'd be discussing this right now.

~~~
logn
I agree. If you subtract Musk's twitter posts and the few inflammatory
sentences in his rebuttal to the review, I think he did a fine job of
defending himself and pointing out that the reviewer was trying to push the
limits of the battery (as the reviewer should). Musk should have simply made
the point that no average person would have ended up towing their car.

It would be like if I complained about my new Android not making it past 3
hours of web browsing and then HTC slams me for running 15 background tasks
and only charging the phone to 85% the night before. The point remains that
these batteries are not the greatest.

Musk comes across as too defensive and a bit of a jerk. I understand he
probably has PTSD after the other publication screwed him, but get over
yourself. Most people just accept bad reviews and move on.

~~~
slantyyz
After reading the original article myself, I didn't think it was that bad. My
main takeaway was "If you're a Tesla owner, make sure you charge your battery
if you're driving a reasonably long distance on a really cold day".

I didn't think the article was that big a deal. Now we have what is
essentially a "blogfight" with both sides parsing out every little word that
the other published.

------
lutusp
A quote: "About three hours into the trip, I placed the first of about a dozen
calls to Tesla personnel expressing concern about the car’s declining range
and asking how to reach the Supercharger station in Milford, Conn. I was given
battery-conservation advice at that time ( _turn off the cruise control;
alternately slow down and speed up to take advantage of regenerative braking_
) ..."

This is unbelievable. The advice is quite wrong, what remains is to discover
whether Broder actually got this advice from someone at Tesla or made it up
(or misremembered it). If Tesla offered this advice, someone needs an
education in electric car technology (stop-and-go driving can only hurt
battery life compared to driving at a steady speed). If Broder made it up, it
casts into doubt the remainder of his account.

For the record, regenerative braking is not something that one can take
advantage of -- it's always less efficient than not losing the energy in the
first place. It's only a way to minimize the energy loss involved in braking,
it can't eliminate the loss.

As to cruise control, in level terrain, it can only help the car's range by
preventing the driver from wastefully changing speeds.

"... that was later contradicted by other Tesla personnel."

Ah. Well, then. Tesla should have phone records, but probably didn't record
what was said (in many places, recording phone conversations is illegal
without explicit consent).

------
tokenadult
From the article, "Beginning early in the morning of my second day with the
car, after the projected range had dropped precipitously while parked
overnight, I spoke numerous times with Christina Ra, Tesla’s spokeswoman at
the time, and Ted Merendino, a Tesla product planner at the company’s
headquarters in California."

That quoted sentence includes the interesting phrase "Tesla's spokeswoman at
the time," seemingly implying that the company has a new spokesperson in just
the last few days. Who speaks for the company to the press now? It appears
that Christina Ra used to work for Honda

<http://automobiles.honda.com/2012/cr-z/blog.aspx?Author=5>

and LinkedIn suggests she works for both Tesla and SpaceX

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinara>

with the title "senior manager, communications" for Tesla.

"I spoke at some length with Mr. Straubel and Ms. Ra six days after the trip,
and asked for the data they had collected from my drive, to compare against my
notes and recollections. Mr. Straubel said they were able to monitor “certain
things” remotely and that the company could store and retrieve 'typical
diagnostic information on the powertrain.'

"Mr. Straubel said Tesla did not store data on exact locations where their
cars were driven because of privacy concerns, although Tesla seemed to know
that I had driven six-tenths of a mile 'in a tiny 100-space parking lot.'"

So just what is the spatial resolution of the data stored by Tesla? Who can
speak for the company on that exact issue, for the record?

I'm amazed, by the way, that commenters here and elsewhere claim that
something is easy to see because it can be seen in a Google aerial photo in
broad daylight in the summer, when the actual visibility issue is seeing the
same thing from a car, while driving, at night in winter. I know lots of
drivers who can drive right past things without seeing them, even while
looking for those things, if they are driving in an unfamiliar location at
night.

AFTER EDIT: Thanks for the several interesting comments in reply to this
comment. I'll use my edit window to dump in some links from earlier threads on
HN. There was an extensive, and on the whole rather 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 while most participants were discussing the John Broder New
York Times review. (Most participants missed the discussion on the article
from The Verge, which is too bad, as the article has interesting photographs
of the car and a lot of thoughtful commentary about its trade-offs as a
vehicle for regular use.)

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

The author of the report in The Verge 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."

ONE MORE EDIT: Reasonable taxpayer and consumer minds can differ, and the
differing opinions are widely expressed here on HN, but on the issue of the
data-logging, I trust Tesla LESS after the back-and-forth about how Tesla
thinks the reporter drove than I did before I saw Tesla's response. Tesla has
HUGE taxpayer subsidies keeping its business afloat. Its response to questions
about its technology's actual usefulness seems to be to go into attack mode
whenever a reporter raises questions about the Tesla driving experience after
driving a Tesla car. That doesn't make me think I want to drive a Tesla car.
If the cars are really great for driving in places that have snow in winter,
word of mouth should be able to tell that story, without any corporate P.R.
spin. I note that there are many other news stories out right now, some of
which have already been submitted to HN or mentioned in comments, in which
onlookers express their opinion that Elon Musk has come out of this looking
defensive. The product seems to be lacking in basic features I would need
where I live, namely reliable estimates of remaining driving distance in
winter, and that seems to speak for itself.

~~~
majormajor
"Mr. Straubel said Tesla did not store data on exact locations where their
cars were driven because of privacy concerns, although Tesla seemed to know
that I had driven six-tenths of a mile “in a tiny 100-space parking lot.”
While Mr. Musk has accused me of doing this to drain the battery, I was in
fact driving around the Milford service plaza on Interstate 95, in the dark,
trying to find the unlighted and poorly marked Tesla Supercharger. He did not
share that data, which Tesla has now posted online, with me at the time."

That bit is particularly curious. Is being able to spring a "gotcha" on a
reporter for publishing a "fake" review preferable to sharing the info with
the reporter so that, if malicious intent is suspected, the reporter knows
that Tesla knows exactly what the facts are?

The problems for Tesla here seems to be that the batteries don't like the cold
(unsurprising this may be) and that the Supercharger network is still sparse
at this point in time. Regardless of whose spin you buy, those points remain,
and are good to know.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
You could probably go either way on that strategy. If you had this capability,
and you suspected your adversary may be malicious, it is probably better to
keep quiet and then destroy their credibility afterwards. If they are
malicious, and know that they are being monitored, they might be more inclined
to keep you blind to them. If Tesla knows that the monitoring can be disabled
(it obviously can - how easily is the question), or thinks a reporter might go
so far as to switch cars, they probably would not want the monitoring known.

On the other hand, if I had very little monitoring ability, I would probably
overstate these abilities so that the adversary doesn't test them.

Broder's implication that there is a privacy scandal there seems like a weak
distraction. Elon said plainly that they do _not_ monitor customers by
default, but they turn this on for reviewers, citing the Top Gear review
scandal. This is totally reasonable, and so is lying to a reviewer about
whether or not it is enabled (even if they didn't lie). It's not comparable to
lying to customers.

~~~
vacri
'turning it only on for X' is the same philosophy as having a back door in
your software. "Oh, don't worry, only _we_ will use it, and only for
_legitimate_ reasons. Trust us!"

~~~
lawnchair_larry
I assume it has to be enabled with physical access to the vehicle, though I
don't know this for certain. If they can turn it on remotely, then yeah,
that's definitely bad.

~~~
taproot
I am still unclear, were these diagnostics being sent to a tesla server
somewhere or was this information hardlined post review? Source?

Also, how is this bad anyway? Google probably has this information already, if
not google, your phone's carrier definitely does.

~~~
vacri
The more people that track your movements, the more potential for security
breaches or malicious use.

~~~
taproot
I trust Tesla a lot more than I trust Google, Facebook, ISP's, or the banks,
and they know everything there is to know about me.

I do understand what you are saying (perhaps more than most people), I guess
we just differ in opinion about how much it matters.

~~~
vacri
I've been arguing about this article on another forum, and have been looking
closely at how Musk is interpreting his own data - and he's being loose and
fancy-free with it (both sides have engaged in embellishment, it seems). As a
result, I don't think he's a shining bastion of honesty - I wouldn't trust
Tesla any more than any other entity.

------
jtchang
I need more popcorn. This is great!

~~~
deletes
I'm hearing Hollywood is making a movie about it.

------
chm
> Certainly, and as Tesla’s logs clearly show, much of my driving was at or
> well below the 65 m.p.h. speed limit, with only a single momentary spike
> above 80. Most drivers are aware that cars can speed up, even sometimes when
> cruise control is engaged, on downhill stretches.

Why not just admit that he pushed the car to 80mph? If he bothers giving a
really bad excuse for something benign, what's the rest of the article worth?

------
niggler
Until the call logs are revealed, the discussion will boil down to a he-said-
she-said.

------
revelation
_Certainly, and as Tesla’s logs clearly show, much of my driving was at or
well below the 65 m.p.h. speed limit, with only a single momentary spike above
80. Most drivers are aware that cars can speed up, even sometimes when cruise
control is engaged, on downhill stretches._

That sounds very very unlikely with the regenerative braking. They call it
single pedal driving for a reason - the braking is pretty strong.

------
encoderer
I cringed when I read Musk's charge that he circled the parking lot,
suggesting it was done out of a desire to kill the car that just wouldn't die
on its own. Who among us hasn't circled a parking lot a few times? There are
so many other possible reasons that making a charge like that, something that
if true could forever tarnish a journalist's career, was inappropriate.

I don't blame Musk for his desire to reply and "clear his name." (I'd be
surprised if he didn't identify personally with Tesla). But I think he let his
inner-geek shine through too much. That post of there's was in the classic
slashdot style of point-by-point refutation. You don't win friends that way.

Maybe a better strategy would've been to politely refute the conclusions about
cold weather -- since when is this guy a batter scientist -- but then suggest
that some bad luck and confusion had more to do with Broder's experience than
the cold weather, and possibly invite somebody to spend a little longer with
the car -- a week, a month -- to come to conclusions not as tainted by
circumstance.

------
calhoun137
The key issue here is, why did this reporter attempt a drive that was twice as
long as the range which he himself admits was displayed by the car?

His defense is laughable: because someone on the phone the night before told
me it would take an hour of charging.

Obviously, no one driving their own car would act this way, because then they
would run a big risk of getting stuck on the road.

------
horacio
Others have already noted parts of this, but Broder is very clearly only
naming 3 people at Tesla: the CTO, a press spokeswoman (who's since moved on),
and a product planner.

These are not technical support personnel.

I doubt that the specific operational advice that Broder received when he
called Tesla's 24-hour customer support line was wrong or contradictory.

I can very much believe that if he placed a reporter's call to a press
spokeswoman's cell phone late at night (as he claimed in his response of
today), or to a product planner, or even to a CTO who's not in the weeds of
the tech support database, that he might receive contradictory information.

I think this confusion between Tesla people who aren't technical giving Broder
advice, and Tesla's tech support people (who aren't named in Broder's story)
giving him advice, is a large part of the source of the contradictions.

------
meisterbrendan
Tesla customer care appears ignorant/poorly trained. This debate over things
as trivial as a .6 mile discrepancy actually underscores the most damaging
assertion that can be made against Tesla: that driving its vehicles in normal
winter conditions requires some sort of finesse or special knowledge that most
customers won't have. Niether end customers nor reporters should be expected
to have deeper knowledge of the product they are buying/testing than the
customer care agents who are assisting them. Tesla needs to clean its house of
bad customer care and accept responsibility for its role in Broder's bad
experience.

------
kevinthew
I'm not sure how people can defend Broder. He lied in a very well-respected
newspaper about the quality of a product he claims to be an expert in. That
could sink a less vigilant company. I get it's just one review, and Broder
also probably wasn't even necessarily trying to misrepresent anything. But his
rebuttals are completely disingenuous, and he won't admit any wrong doing
which is the cardinal sin journalists always seem to get away with. I don't
know why journalists can seemingly get away with anything. Always the critic
but can never be rightfully criticized by the public.

------
i2oc
As a Model S owner I found that taking the position that an electric vehicle
(EV) should behave exactly the same as an internal combustion engine (ICE)
car, especially in sub-zero temperatures was a big mistake on his part. Before
we set out to test the limits of our Model S in cold weather we spent time
learning about how it behaves. Call me crazy, but when using a different fuel
source that seems like a reasonable step to me?

[http://www.colinbowern.com/posts/drive-smart-in-the-cold-
wit...](http://www.colinbowern.com/posts/drive-smart-in-the-cold-with-an-ev)

------
electic
This car sounds like a huge pain overall and sounds like it has a few things
to work out. That, coupled with the price, makes me not want to consider any
electric car until they have some of these kinks worked out.

------
KRoP
Maybe I'm being dense, but it doesn't make sense to me: if Broder's only goal
was to write a negative review, and he didn't know about data being collected
from his car, why take the trip at all? And if he did know about Tesla
collecting data from his car, why would he do the things Musk claims he did?
He's not stupid.

That, and the fact that he has a fairly plausible explanation for each of
Musk's claims, would put the burden of proof on Tesla. (I also get lost in
parking lots; it doesn't prove he was trying to kill the car.)

------
mkhpalm
I think both Musk and NTY have errors in their stories. But I particularly
despise the way Musk went about responding to the article. If he's right, just
post the raw data with a summary of Tesla's findings for the readers to
decide. I much prefer a detailed and professional retort over an "emo" knee-
jerk berating. And if you can't do that, just post the parts Tesla doesn't
think add up minus the highly pointed commentary.

But thats me... I find you catch more flies with honey than you do with
vinegar.

------
methehack
REDO. With supervision. Seems worthless to yak back and forth when we can just
find out how the car performs. It's still cold on the east coast, right?

------
Havoc
This article reeks of deceptive phrasing. e.g. Instead of say nobody provided
energy saving instructions he says nobody provided _detailed_ energy saving
instructions.

I also find it highly improbably that a Tesla engineer would advise someone to
improve range by speeding up and slowing down.

Some of it does ring true. e.g. The driving in circles vs searching for charge
station. But on the whole it still sounds pretty weak.

------
jusben1369
"It's like wrestling with a pig in mud. Pretty soon, you realize the pig is
enjoying it"

\- I think the pig here is the NY Times. But Musk didn't get to where he is by
knowing when to take his foot off the accelerator (pardon the pun) and going
less than 110% when he sees an obstacle to winning. So can't really expect him
to handle this with restraint or reserve.

------
pulledpork
Here's what the data says - Elon Musk is generating a ton of hype by calling
these guys out. Right or wrong it's a savvy move.

------
blehhhhhh
google maps/streetview shows the milford stop in detail - take a good look and
explain to any reasonable person how can anybody miss the tesla charging
station - and then driving half a mile doesn't seem possible...maybe possible
if you mistakenly drove into the trucking lane, and had to circle
around...maybe 5 times over and over?

~~~
Anechoic
_take a good look and explain to any reasonable person how can anybody miss
the tesla charging station_

It was dark (5:45pm), on an I-95 rest stop during rush hour. That parking lot
was likely jammed with cars and pedestrians moving around, it's perceivable
that someone not familiar with the area could miss it (based on my experience
trying to find air pumps at various rest stops).

~~~
erichocean
A great opportunity for someone to visit the rest stop at 5:45pm, during rush
hour, and put up a YouTube video of the location.

Perhaps it was hard to find. Perhaps it was easy. It'll be obvious with a
video, no?

~~~
Anechoic
They are gonna have to wait a year since the sun sets later than it did on
January 23 (5:03pm vs 5:30pm now:
<http://www.calendar-365.com/calendar/2013/February.html> ).

------
kingkawn
The simple depth of engagement required by Tesla engineers for this test
drive, and now the amount of nitpicking being done about the minor details of
this trip suggest that this technology is not prepared for the average driver.

------
nutanc
Ultimately, it is about trusting the system. Even when on gasoline, and the
indicator shows empty, we have a gut feel for how much further we can push it.

But with these new cars, that trust is not there and hence the blaming of the
system.

------
kdsudac
Hope there are some Boeing battery engineers out there getting a kick out of
this!

------
rikelmens
Just redo the drive test ! The easiest way to see who is speaking the truth.

------
Mordor
Fear, uncertainty and doubt is all I'm reading. Top Gear was even worse.
Behind it all is the ego of the car. What's the identity of an electric car
which isn't trying to be green?

------
justin_vanw
I realize that the NYTimes likes to pretend they are 'the newspaper of record'
and therefore 'tell us how it is', but when they themselves are accused of
lying, to come out with an article claiming to tell us what is _really_ going
on? Ha! Haha!

Yes, nytimes, please tell us, what does the Tesla data says, and what it
doesn't. We shouldn't look at your _original_ article ourselves, and then look
at Tesla's reply. We should instead read the objective _analysis_ of the
situation. An objective analysis from the very party accused of lying. Oh god,
the irony, it burns, the goggles do nothing.

------
knodi
What ever the case maybe its clear Tesla cars are not ready for the real
world. I'm little saddened by this as I was hoping to get one in few years.

------
ck2
A cnn "journalist" is now doing the same run in a model S

<https://twitter.com/PeterDrives>

------
infinitivium
This is such a stupid debate.

Batteries aren't that great yet for long range travel.

This has made me respect the NYT and Musk much less for the mudslinging alone.

------
jamieb
This isn't journalism. This is a flamewar. Its not even a very good flamewar.
No popcorn for me.

------
gesman
Who gives a f __* about the bullshit between NYT and Tesla? Take it to the
restroom...

------
fuddle
All I can say is there's no such thing as bad publicity

------
petegrif
Let's just drive the route again. See what happens.

------
deletes
Can't wait to hear reResponse from Elon/Tesla.

------
ricardobeat
If he had just driven the fucking car and recharged as necessary, from looking
at the battery meter, it would've been a fine trip.

~~~
gamblor956
As the reporter noted, and Tesla itself has confirmed, the charging meter gets
decalibrated in extremely cold weather (i.e., near or below freezing) and does
not accurately state the charge level of the battery.

In a nutshell, the decais the root cause of the scandal.

Note that this problem is shared with all other EVs currently on the market
(i.e., the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf). It's a basic problem of physics and
chemistry.

~~~
ricardobeat
The car did show a sharp drop in mileage estimate (which turned out to be
correct), but he still believed the display was wrong; that's the opposite.

In Elon's post, he states they have strong sales in nordic countries, we
haven't seen any reports of failure from there. Just because they use the same
underlying technology (Li-Ion) doesn't mean all battery packs are the same,
Tesla's has a very different design.

------
mafro
All publicity is good publicity?

