Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/elon-musks-data-doesnt-back-his-claims-new-york-times-fakery/62149/

by nickheer • 13 years ago

379 248 13 years ago

cryptoz• 13 years ago

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

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

arrrg5• 13 years ago

Uhm … what do you expect?

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

stcredzero13• 13 years ago

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

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

codex4• 13 years ago

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

wmf• 13 years ago

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

codex4• 13 years ago

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

JPKab3• 13 years ago

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

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

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

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

deletes• 13 years ago

I was written by a woman actually. :)

Can I add on argument 6.: >>No. That wasn't the point of the article. Broder wanted to see how the car would do on a long range road trip relying on Tesla's two official Supercharger stations. <<

Ok, he wanted to rely on only official stations, but did he really have to completely discharge the car? Why couldn't he just stop and charge when he was super low at any normal charge station, and explain in the article that the two supercharge stations, failed? Well that's because then he couldn't post a nice article titled >>Stalled Out on Tesla’s Electric Highway<<

JPKab3• 13 years ago

Yeah, I've seen journalists trying to defend Broder, acting as if he had zero incentive to have the car die on him. Funny how they say that, yet the article went to the front page of virtually ever link aggreagator out there, while glowing reviews are old news and are thus ignored.

Broder knew it, and he wanted the car to die. We all know that. What is in debate here is to what degree he went to make the vehicle die that differs from what an average driver who wants to get to point B would have done.

davidiach• 13 years ago

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

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

grecy4• 13 years ago

> Given that his job was to write an accurate review

Why do you assume that?

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

specialist2• 13 years ago

As someone who's tried, with varied success, to work with reporters on technical stuff, I don't subscribe to "the somewhere in the middle" view.

To us geeks, often, stuff is either true or not true, with no room for maybe.

To reporters, they're both trying to understand what's happening without direct knowledge as well as convey that in a way a layperson can understand. Unfortunately, in that game of telephone, a lot of important details get lost.

I also think reporters deal with imperfect information and rely on their judgement to determine if any particular detail is important to the overall narrative, often influenced by the competing agendas of the players involved.

What's great (rare) about this story is there's published data, the validity of which no one disputes (yet), to chew over.

DanBC5• 13 years ago

Broder turned the heat up before turning the heat down. But he didn't mention turning the heat up; he only mentions having to suffer with a cold cabin.

ceejayoz2• 13 years ago

Also, that's the heater setting, not the cabin temperature. I can set my car's internal heat setting to 50 degrees after getting it nice and toasty, and as long as I don't turn the A/C on it's going to stay warm for quite some time.

taligent3• 13 years ago

> someone who has no education in comprehending quantitative

You need to a degree to understand a pretty basic line graph ? Give me a break.

People on here (and in the article's comments) need to stop acting like sanctimonious assholes. Electric cars are not some advanced technology that only the precious genius of Musk and IT nerds can comprehend.

The fact is that the truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle here. Big surprise.

JPKab3• 13 years ago

I get why you're irritated, but when I say "education" I don't mean necessarily a degree. I mean just some fundamental, working knowledge, whether that's from a degree, course, autodidactic, whatever. I did sound sanctimonious, but you know what? I didn't write a critique of someone's data dependent analysis. And if I lacked quantitative analysis experience, I wouldn't try to.

But to be fair, I have no way of knowing the author lacks this experience. My intuition told me this with the numerous mistakes made in the article.

dfxm122• 13 years ago

It is unreasonable for someone to expect the truth from a journalist? This is an issue about integrity. If the truth does, in fact, lie in the middle, it doesn't matter if the NYT author had a hidden agenda or not, it matters that the NYT author did not tell the truth.

I expect Tesla employees to be biased toward Tesla. I expect journalists to tell the truth.

brown9-22• 13 years ago

The author noticed her mistake and has since corrected it. Sometimes even the un-hackiest of us make mistakes.

stcredzero13• 13 years ago

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

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

I look forward to replication attempts.

ajross• 13 years ago

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

untog2• 13 years ago

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

Sometimes the reality is simpler than the conspiracy.

Kylekramer• 13 years ago

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

There is no clear winner or loser here.

salimmadjd• 13 years ago

Exactly! Musk is trying to get ahead if this story and he is using some well established tactics here, http://photojournalist.quora.com/Ironically-Musk-Tapped-The-...

MiguelHudnandez• 13 years ago

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

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

karanmg• 13 years ago

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

untog2• 13 years ago

So should the Tesla one, right?

OGinparadise4• 13 years ago

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

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

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

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

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

DanBC5• 13 years ago

When you say you are limping along at 45 mph you shouldn't be driving at over 50 mph.

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

Would that work with traffic police?

OGinparadise4• 13 years ago

Would that work with traffic police?

who cares, but usually yes, at least in US (you go fast, you slow, fast...and police are looking for the worst offender) . My point is: a car that has to be driven with a gazillion, million, billion specific instructions or else it's a brick, maybe it isn't for me or many others. "Your car died and you're in the middle of nowhere because you went 5mph over the recommended by Tesla speed," isn't for me. Isn't this an expensive car too?

ksherlock• 13 years ago

Some states have official tolerances codified into law, usually 5-10 mph, depending on the posted speed, road, how the speed was measured, etc.

http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/laws.html

waterlesscloud2• 13 years ago

If you don't remember exact details, you shouldn't give exact details in your report.

He could easily have given round estimates, but he made the choice to appear more precise.

His choice, his error.

jlgreco3• 13 years ago

> I, personally, would NOT want a car that is so specific about the speed, cabin temperature and so on

If you fill a ICE car up with less gas you need to get to your destination and attempt to make it anyway, you are going to need to be just as particular about your technique.

This should not be a news flash to anybody who has ever driven.

OGinparadise4• 13 years ago

If you fill a ICE car up with less gas you need to get to your destination and attempt to make it anyway, you are going to need to be just as particular about your technique.

Bad analogy, this http://www.statisticbrain.com/gas-station-statistics/ says that they are 121,446 gas stations in USA. It takes 5 minutes to add fuel for another 300 or so miles and they accept credit cards :)

grecy4• 13 years ago

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

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

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

CamperBob2• 13 years ago

Next time the New York Times tests a car in Australia, I'm sure your tip will come in handy.

tomrod• 13 years ago

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

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

aqme28• 13 years ago

Complaining on Yelp is one thing. Hyperbole has no place in journalism of this caliber.

snowwrestler• 13 years ago

Doesn't he claim he set the cruise control for 54? If so, I would not expect a cruise control to vary 5 mph in either direction.

gfodor• 13 years ago

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

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

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

Broder: "61"

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

Broder: "32"

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

fleitz3• 13 years ago

I'll second this...

If he was in death valley, or the arctic with no cell reception, and it was 61 miles to the next station and the car said 32 no sane person would ever begin that journey.

dlss2• 13 years ago

I'll third this. Here are his quotes from the article about Broder's motivation:

> [for why he didn't fully charge:] He wanted to show the real world experience of a real driver, who might not want to endure the hour and a half it takes to charge up, when only needing a certain amount of energy to get to point B.

> [for why he didn't use any of the non-supercharging stations:] Broder wanted to see how the car would do on a long range road trip relying on Tesla's two official Supercharger stations.

These two goals are simply not compatible.

therandomguy• 13 years ago

The point being, he was not.

Shivetya• 13 years ago

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

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

fleitz3• 13 years ago

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

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

adamnemecek• 13 years ago

Tesla S is 50k.

seanp2k22• 13 years ago

Very much related: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5124170 "We don't know why lithium batteries work"

Measuring usable capacity left in a battery is much more art than science still. You can model the drain rate and change your estimates based on historic usage and do all kinds of fancy FFT and other signal processing, but in the end it's still an estimate, batteries are not immune to physics, and li-ion batteries won't save the world (but they will create lots of hazardous waste in creation and disposal).

haberman• 13 years ago

Yeah, I think it's a little unfortunate actually that Elon Musk threw in so many other more minor points of contention. While they did help him spin a narrative of intentional malice (useful for his purposes but debatable as truth), they are also easier to quibble about (well maybe the driving around the parking lot was just trying to find a spot, etc).

The most sensational part of the article was the photo of a cutting-edge luxury car on a flat bed. That situation was directly caused by ignoring common sense. That's the main point Tesla's blog entry should have made; the rest is noise.

smackfu3• 13 years ago

> The fact is he basically was stupid enough to essentially leave a gas station with half a tank when he had a full tanks worth of distance to travel.

Part of the problem is that apparently the Tesla's displayed range can show one value after a cold night, then will increase when the battery warms up and is providing more energy. So you legitimately can start driving with too little range, and then it will come back. I assume that's why the Tesla rep cleared it too.

schiffern2• 13 years ago

You would think the range calculations would account for that effect. They already have temperature sensors in the pack, and storing some historical data is cheap.

brown9-22• 13 years ago

The goal of "review this car for everyday use" is not the same objective as just "get from A to B sanely".

A lot of comments here seem to miss that the reviewer was putting the car through a test, and the test required only abiding by certain parameters (the super charger stations).

BiosElement2• 13 years ago

Incorrect. He blames the car, not the charger stations. If he wanted to review the stations, he wrong the wrong article.

MarkMc• 13 years ago

This seems to be the killer argument from Elon Musk.

What's interesting is that Rebecca Greenfield doesn't see it as convincing argument at all. Here's her explanation for siding with Broder:

"Broder also explains that he did not charge fully because of the time it took to charge. He wanted to show the real world experience of a real driver, who might not want to endure the hour and a half it takes to charge up, when only needing a certain amount of energy to get to point B"

What?? In what 'real world' would someone needing to travel 61 miles leave a charging station with an estimated range of 32 miles?

I get the feeling that Rebecca Greenfield realised that an article titled "Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims" would generate more interest than "Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up Most Of His Claims, But For One Of His Claims the Data Is Compelling"

kamaal5• 13 years ago

No but in real world no one expects a fuel loss of 50% on a car that is just parked and left overnight.

DanBC5• 13 years ago

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article is, frankly, idiotic.

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

JC001• 13 years ago

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

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

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

btilly• 13 years ago

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

Key point that you need to add. They need to do it in the same weather.

Nathanael47• 13 years ago

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

uvdiv• 13 years ago

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

Instead he's muddying the issue like so:

"As the State of Charge log shows, the Model S battery never ran out of energy at any time, including when Broder called the flatbed truck." (Technically true and useless)

Broder's towing company further backs him up:

http://jalopnik.com/towing-company-the-nyt-tesla-model-s-was...

VMG3• 13 years ago

They think it was easily avoidable.

adastra3• 13 years ago

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

"After making arrangements to recharge at the Norwich station, I located the proper adapter in the trunk, plugged in and walked to the only warm place nearby, Butch’s Luncheonette and Breakfast Club, an establishment (smoking allowed) where only members can buy a cup of coffee or a plate of eggs. But the owners let me wait there while the Model S drank its juice. Tesla’s experts said that pumping in a little energy would help restore the power lost overnight as a result of the cold weather, and after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford."

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

http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/r...

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

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

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

codex4• 13 years ago

Earlier in the article, Broder claims that Tesla blamed the mileage inaccuracies on a computer glitch, and that some battery reconditioning would restore the range lost overnight. So it's not impossible that either he, or Tesla, (or both) believed the mileage readout to be inaccurately low, caused by a bug triggered by low temperature readings. I think the author implies that this was the situation, but it is indeed vague. Unless a transcript of the phone calls is released, this will probably remain a contentious point forever.

adastra3• 13 years ago

That all comes down to what Broder claims someone told him on a phone call. Except he doesn't quote them verbatim and never provides the name(s) of the people he was talking to.

Given all that they had at stake, namely a disastrous NY Times review, how likely is it that Tesla would knowingly say "Oh, your reading says 30 miles, but you have more than twice that still to travel? Meh, it's probably just a computer glitch. Carry on."

Not bloody likely.

naftaliharris• 13 years ago

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

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

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

scarmig2• 13 years ago

Worse than that: imagine you have one absolutely damning issue and four weak ones. If the weak ones are swatted away one-by-one or muddled, the reader doesn't even remember the damning one that remains. It even comes off as "well, the person making the accusation prefered to spend time talking about the weak ones while he could have been talking about the ostensibly strong one, so how strong could it really have been?"

I would argue it's nearly always best, both rhetorically and analytically, to reconstruct your opponent's case as generously and sympathetically as possible, and then bear down very hard on your strong point.

rayiner3• 13 years ago

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

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

smackfu3• 13 years ago

>Because the estimated range when he left that charging station was less than he needed to reach his destination and he knew damn well that that was the case.

But the Times article does say exactly that, right? "The displayed range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford."

InvisibleCities• 13 years ago

I think you've missed the most important part of that paragraph:

>"...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."

Tesla themselves cleared Broder to make the trip. If I was driving a BMW with a BMW engineer in the front seat, and he told me that I would be able to make my journey despite the "empty" or "check engine" lights flashing, I would believe him and keep driving. I don't see why this scenario is any different.

To people who say that Broder is just making it up, and that Tesla never cleared him to make the journey, I ask you this: why won't Musk release the call logs to prove it?

BiosElement2• 13 years ago

Because it's nearly impossible to prove a negative.

vor_2• 13 years ago

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

It's interesting that you choose that wording, that Broder "convinced" Tesla to clear him rather than Tesla telling him what to do and giving him the go-ahead after an hour.

fleitz3• 13 years ago

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

VMG3• 13 years ago

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

spo81rty• 13 years ago

There's no such thing as bad press!

onethumb2• 13 years ago

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

"In his article, Broder claims that “the car fell short of its projected range on the final leg.” Then he bizarrely states that the screen showed “Est. remaining range: 32 miles” and the car traveled “51 miles," contradicting his own statement (see images below). The car actually did an admirable job exceeding its projected range. Had he not insisted on doing a nonstop 61-mile trip while staring at a screen that estimated half that range, all would have been well. He constructed a no-win scenario for any vehicle, electric or gasoline."

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

lawdawg4• 13 years ago

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

jessaustin• 13 years ago

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

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

knowaveragejoe• 13 years ago

Seeing as no-one has heard the phone call, it's hard to say what exactly the Tesla rep assured him of.

smackfu3• 13 years ago

One interesting tidbit is that those quotes are from the graphic that ran with the story, and the graphic refers to Broder in the third person as a "Washington-based reporter". I wonder if he was responsible for the graphic.

danso4• 13 years ago

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

Your statement is on point only if you don't consider what was in the actual graphic:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/02/10/automobiles/10t...

An excerpt:

"Driving a 2013 Model S with an 85-kilowatt-hour battery pack, which has an EPA range rating of 265 miles...the car barely reached the next Supercharger, 206 miles away in Milford, Conn. The next day, in 10 degree weather, the car fell short of its projected range..."

So when you read the statement in context, and you actually look at the graphic, you realize that the "fell short of its projected range" is a claim made in the summary of the graphic, in which it is clear that, because of space reasons, the journey is described as day by day segments.

So the NYT does not assert that the Model S's final leg was just the 32 miles left on the car. That "fell short of its projected range" is referring to the 265 EPA that the car normally would've had had it not been so cold out.

Should the NYT have been more verbose? Well, maybe. But I guess they also expect readers to actually look at the infographic, the purpose of which is to show greater detail.

It's quite misleading for Elon Musk to harp on a summary-statement in a different context.

onethumb2• 13 years ago

That's not how I read it. The summary was pretty specific... "The next day" isn't a summary of the trip, it's a summary of that day. That day, the car projected 32 miles. It delivered 51. It didn't "fall short" that day.

stevewilhelm• 13 years ago

I really want to buy an electric car, but range anxiety keeps me from doing so. Unfortunately, the NYT article doesn't help.

The particular facts may be "peculiar," even fabricated, but the overall experience rings true. There are going to be trips that you can do easily today on petrol that would be difficult to do with the state of the art electric car from Tesla.

It's time for Tesla and Better Place (betterplace.com) to join forces.

newhouseb• 13 years ago

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

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

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

VMG3• 13 years ago

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

I think it boils down to this:

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

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

eridius• 13 years ago

And the answers to that seem to be

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

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

jtchang• 13 years ago

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

danso4• 13 years ago

This whole controversy has been a little depressing to read...not that the Tesla vs. NYT discussions here have been worse than on other forums, but just because it shows how technical minded people are as easily swayed by preconceptions and alliances as more ostensibly non-scientific minds.

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

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

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

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

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

Oh wait, that was Elon Musk who said that: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-05-11/green_sheet/2...

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

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

halviti3• 13 years ago

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

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

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

niggler2• 13 years ago

You haven't read the arguments carefully:

If the car tells you it has half a tank left, and if you find out 10 miles later that the car is almost empty, who do you blame? Do you blame the driver for not having filled the tank or do you blame the car for potentially misreporting the levels?

In context, I wonder if the data recorded by the tesla is indeed the same data reported on the dashboard. What would be cool and definitive is if they could present "screenshots" of what was displayed.

More general, what I would like to see, given the detail Tesla kept on the car, is a log of the phone calls that Broder made to Tesla during the journey.

gamblor9562• 13 years ago

Other Tesla owners have reported this exact problem (inaccurate charging gauge) in the Roadster; other reviewers have noted this problem in the Model S. Moreoever, this problem is endemic to all pure-electric vehicles in cold climates, such as Nissan Leafs and Chevy Volts. (Google for references)

Ergo, the likelihood of (1) the reporter not fully charging his car's battery and (2) the fuel guage inaccurately reporting a fully charged battery is the realm of more likely than not.

scarmig2• 13 years ago

I agree that that's the weirdest part of the journalist's story.

Why doesn't Musk focus on that? Instead of trying to discredit the reporter by saying he maliciously lied about when he turned the heat on or off by a couple miles, or whether the car had actually run out of juice at the very end.

lawdawg4• 13 years ago

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

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

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

Looking back, I should have bought a membership to Butch’s and spent a few hours there while the car charged. The displayed range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford, and as I limped along at about 45 miles per hour I saw increasingly dire dashboard warnings to recharge immediately. Mr. Merendino, the product planner, found an E.V. charging station about five miles away.

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

---

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

Who is the real "liar" here?

danso4• 13 years ago

Just for reference's sake:

> After making arrangements to recharge at the Norwich station, I located the proper adapter in the trunk, plugged in and walked to the only warm place nearby, Butch’s Luncheonette and Breakfast Club, an establishment (smoking allowed) where only members can buy a cup of coffee or a plate of eggs. But the owners let me wait there while the Model S drank its juice. Tesla’s experts said that pumping in a little energy would help restore the power lost overnight as a result of the cold weather, and after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford.

So if you read just Musk's piece, you get the perception that Broder lied about not knowing that he was under-juiced. To paraphrase:

Broder: "I should've stayed at the diner and charged for more hours"

Musk: "Broder is an idiot who should've stayed at the diner and charged for more hours"

OK, no argument there. But if Broder is trying to show what a lemon the Tesla is, he's sure doing about it at a roundabout way (which I guess I what we'd expect a well-heeled Big Oil secret agent to do).

So Broder is a professional journalist at the Times, but as far as I can tell, his role is to not describe what it's feels like to be a tech-expert who owns a Tesla. His scenario is not at all alien to anyone who's driven a gas-powered car and skipped "just one more" off-ramp even as the fuel meter hovers at 0.

Irresponsible? Sure. But this is how an average car owner might act. Not every car owner has, on a given day, the ability to wait around an extra hour after breakfast at a diner for the car to keep charging. If the charging stations are as commonplace as the map Musk produced indicates, then Broder may have thought (and misjudged) that he could make it to the next public station.

I think a passage from earlier in Broder's review is a good insight to what he was thinking:

> I drove a state-of-the-art electric vehicle past a lot of gas stations. I wasn’t smiling.

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.

The success of Tesla depends on the electric infrastructure improving dramatically. Until that comes about, there is apparently a lot of babying and thinking ahead that a Tesla owner has to do even when the car is running just fine.

I find it funny that so many people here are so quick to jump on Broder for not being so patient and tech savvy. While not everyone here is a huge Apple fan, I think most would laugh at a hardware manufacturer who delivered a high powered laptop that performed with variable results depending on the conditions of the day: it's powerful, and cutting edge, you'd just have to remember to plug it at night remember that the battery's decline won't be at a constant rate for more than the usual range of reasons.

It's not Tesla's fault that charging stations aren't ubiquitous, and Tesla deserves a lot of credit for trying to change it. And it's not Tesla's fault that people are sometimes dumb, impatient, and not constantly vigilant. But that's the reality of the market Tesla is selling its $100,000 vehicle for, and this is the market that the media writes for.

makomk3• 13 years ago

If he had done this on gasoline, he could have got a full top-up in under 10 minutes rather than the 10+ hours it would have taken to do a full charge at Norwich.

ZoFreX• 13 years ago

The reporter didn't really use the car correctly, agreed. There were other factors involved as well though: the poor performance in bad weather conditions, the weather conditions, and Tesla not providing good customer support. If Elon wants to stop this happening again, perhaps he should look to the factors he can control?

dclowd9901• 13 years ago

No, what's getting lost is that it takes an hour to fill up that fucking car. Thanks but no thanks; 10 minutes at a gas station is enough to make me want to chew my own arm off.

bambax• 13 years ago

> It could just be that this is his big project and he is overly sensitive to (some of it admittedly unfair) criticism to the point where he'll see malice where there is none.

This is obviously the case. Musk overreacted and will end looking like a fool.

But he has a lot of goodwill; he can afford to spend a little.

Udo• 13 years ago

I didn't want to take sides either way, because it's obvious that Broder's and Musk's interests are diametrically opposed and so both viewpoints need to be taken with a huge grain of salt.

However, after reading this article it's clear to me that the data shows Broder flat-out lied about several things (like turning down the heat or setting cruise control to 54 MPH). He also clearly did not just use one of myriad charging stations on the way, even when it was apparent that the car would run out of juice soon. He chose not to recharge. He also chose not to charge the car fully at any of his other stops. While it's fine to play fast-and-loose with your "gas tank" like that (heck, I've done it with normal cars), it's another thing if you do it deliberately to write an "out of gas" headline.

It doesn't matter if the author finds several of these points convincing or not. If the log data is to be believed, it shows that Broder did several things that actively contributed to his running out of energy, and then he lied about doing them.

helmut_hed2• 13 years ago

Both of those assertions are semi-true, at least - It looks like he averaged around 54mph between 400 and 460 miles. He also turned down the heat as claimed, but not when he stated - roughly between 250 and 300 miles. I'm willing to chalk that up to poor note-taking.

RockyMcNuts2• 13 years ago

Musk doesn't show any smoking gun, and blows a lot of smoke. Methinks he doth protest too much.

Musk comes across more as a Preston Tucker or a John DeLorean than a Henry Ford.

stcredzero13• 13 years ago

So, you're saying he's not anti-semitic? ("One of these things is not like the other...")

metalsahu• 13 years ago

I don't think Broder was violating his journalistic integrity but I do think he fell into the confirmation bias trap. He took the car for a test drive with the preconceived judgement that electric cars are not ready yet esp. in cold weather conditions. Then he subconsciously starts doing things to support his hypothesis, hiding behind his flawed reasoning that this is what any common person would do. The experiment was doomed to fail from the start. I can very easily create a similar situation with a gas-powered car -- it really isn't very hard to run out of gas if you are not vigilant about how much gas is left and where the gas station is located. In this case the charging stations are no where as widespread as gas stations are.

helmut_hed2• 13 years ago

This. I wonder how much of the controversy comes down to left vs. right brain, East vs. West Coast, liberal arts vs. engineering discipline thinking. Are we just siding with our "team" here?

vertr• 13 years ago

Your mistake was assuming that anyone could be immune to persuasion or ideology.

IgorPartola• 13 years ago

You are misquoting the interview. Basically, he said "Tesla is not doing hybrids because we think that hybrids cannot be as efficient as pure electric or pure gasoline cars". He never said that hybrids are a dead end, just that he and his team think that they cannot be pushed to the same level of efficiency.

The lawnmower comment is out of context and the link you provide misquotes it as much as you do. Specifically, "And then when you have consumed your 40 miles, which is not going to happen every day, but maybe every third day, you are going to have an engine that is really underpowered. It's kind of like a lawnmower engine trying to power my sedan. So it's going to be running at very high RPM, it's going to be working really really hard..." (with some stuttering taken out).

You can in fact question a lot of what he said. The Chevy Volt does not have two drive trains. The engine does not power the wheels directly, but is connected a generator which powers the electric motor. The gas engine in a Chevy Volt spins at three very comfortable RPM levels, and I believe the highest is 4500 RPM or so. I think what he did is slyly switched the topic from the Volt to other plug-in hybrids like the Prius, where I can see some of these problems being an issue. In other words, you are right, he definitely is trying to downplay any competition. However, he did not say that the Volt is a lawmower.

I am also somewhat confused as to why a 40 mile powerpack needs to exert 5x the power of a 200 mile powerpack, though this may be my own lack of understanding.

mikemoka• 13 years ago

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

nikcub• 13 years ago

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

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

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

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

salman89• 13 years ago

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

lubujackson• 13 years ago

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

chmars• 13 years ago

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

AlexeiSadeski5• 13 years ago

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

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

That's a great thing.

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

aresant• 13 years ago

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

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

How about a comparable luxury target?

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

Perfect comps? No way, but still . . .

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

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

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

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

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

(2) http://www.gm.com/content/gmcom/home/company/investors/sales...

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

AlexeiSadeski5• 13 years ago

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

jblow• 13 years ago

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

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

pdubs• 13 years ago

I think a more apt comparison would be to Aston Martin as far as the target market.

schiffern2• 13 years ago

Re: volume, remember that Tesla is only on the second step of the Grand Three Stage Plan.

* Low volume, high price car.

* Mid price, mid volume car.

* Low price, high volume car.

Ygg2• 13 years ago

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

AlexeiSadeski5• 13 years ago

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

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

-Drive slowly? Again, what?

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

asimjalis• 13 years ago

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

gusgordon• 13 years ago

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

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

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

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

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

justin66• 13 years ago

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

rjurney• 13 years ago

A debate with DATA. How wonderful!

malandrew• 13 years ago

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

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

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

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

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

seanp2k22• 13 years ago

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

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

I am not impressed with our "progress".

justin_vanw• 13 years ago

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

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

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

stedaniels• 13 years ago

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

volts• 13 years ago

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

podperson2• 13 years ago

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

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

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

lutusp3• 13 years ago

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

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

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

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

podperson2• 13 years ago

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

bborud• 13 years ago

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

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

Elon Musk's Data Doesn't Back Up His Claims of New York Times Fakery

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