That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-data-what-it-says-and-what-it-doesnt/

by tokenadult • 13 years ago

375 258 13 years ago

wheels.blogs.nytimes.com

tokenadult• 13 years ago

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.'

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...

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.

slantyyz6• 13 years ago

I think in one of Broder's other posts, he mentioned that the spokesperson moved full time to SpaceX.

majormajor2• 13 years ago

"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.

jacquesm8• 13 years ago

There is a good chance that the vehicle stores that data for a limited time, not that it is posted through telemetry. If they are snooping on their cars (all of them, that is) then they have other problems. Fleet cars are also routinely fitted out with vehicle tracking systems, sometimes for insurance purposes.

SilasX• 13 years ago

>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?

Yes, if it helps us spot liars who are so far behind the times they don't realize we have the technology to catch them in their lies.

lawnchair_larry4• 13 years ago

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.

relic2• 13 years ago

On the point about the data logging, it was stated in Tesla's first response article that they "always carefully data log media drives". It is entirely possible that they were logging/monitoring far more data for Broder's adventure than they would for private consumers.

knowaveragejoe• 13 years ago

It's quite possible to derive that he was at the rest station in Milford simply by looking at the graphs. There is another possible explanation as well, in that Tesla specifically tracks more data for media drives.

jacquesm8• 13 years ago

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.

duaneb• 13 years ago

> 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.

If they did it through regular customer service, would it have been recorded? I suspect not or else the evidence would have been trotted out already.

surrealize2• 13 years ago

Looking at the plots from Musk's blog post, the battery state of charge diminishes a bit overnight, but the estimated range diminishes much more. Presumably because a cold battery has a shorter range. As the battery warms up, the estimated range should go up as well.

How much the range goes up probably depends on how much the battery warms up; in the cold morning weather in Norwich, the battery may have warmed up less than the Tesla people were expecting.

jacquesm8• 13 years ago

I drove a honda civic hybrid in Northern Ontario for two winter seasons. The batteries where NiMh and the cold was absolutely brutal on them. Indeed they'd recover a bit of charge when warmed up but it was usually very hard to tell if that was because of the engine running or because the batteries warmed up. (and sometimes even harder to tell because the displays wouldn't work at all below -25 celsius).

Maybe the batteries Tesla uses recover better/faster but since it's all electric there is obviously no way to get more power into the pack so the only thing that using a heater will do is drain it, and it will drain it pdq. If I was driving an all electric car and I was worried about my range the one thing you can be sure of is that I would maintain as constant a speed as possible and the heat would be off. After all it is a lot better to arrive at your destination cold than it is to deplete you battery and spending even more time in the cold.

I'm pretty sure Tesla knows the exact power curves for their batteries at any temperature condition that could realistically speaking occur, if they were asleep at the switch that's a big bad problem for them but if they had this info and used it and this is turning into a game of words rather than a game of data then the only thing they should do at this stage is to have a Tesla engineer duplicate the trip conditions to see what the result would be if you behaved rationally rather than irrationally.

That way we'd get some usable information. Experiments are only valid when you can repeat them.

rz2k• 13 years ago

This is not my area of expertise at all, but that sounds backwards.

As I understand it a given number of molecules' bonds can be broken at any point to generate current. In colder ambient temperature the propensity to generate current decreases. However, the quantity does not. In other words, the apparatus for measuring what "charge" is available will incorrectly judge how much is left, but an intelligent system on the other hand may also take into account what the ambient temperature is doing to the sensor of how much current flows given a certain test circuit.

I'd guess that there is not an objective way to measure the charge left. I'd also guess that at a colder temperature it might not have as much power or as much torque, but that it would not affect the range, especially if the battery if artificially (or intrinsically) warmed once it gets toward the "bottom" of its capacity.

What the support people could have been talking about is how to game the system so that the sensors report a more reasonable gauge of the true range. That means that the supposed decrease overnight was not that the potential energy dissipated, but that the colder temperature lead to less accurate readings. Causing a current draw through driving slowly in the parking lot and running the heater might cause the battery to heat up, and thereby affect the current available to a test circuit, something that matters to the sensors' test circuits.

I'd like to hear from someone who actually knows something about electrical engineering, but without being informed on the field, it looks like a failure of imagination in assuming good faith and imaging possible scenarios.

gratuitous analogy:

Let's say it is a fictitious 1975 where Porsche has remote telemetry, and a NYT reviewer is skeptical about oil-cooled engines, because he states that you may run a little low on oil then also be low on coolant or vice versa. In the early morning of a freezing day, he looks at the dipstick. It says he is a three or four quarts low! He calls support, and they tell him that he will have more oil if he warms up the engine, and he'll be able to go for a drive without hurting the engine. (They should have said that he would get a more accurate measurement rather than get more oil) So, he starts the car, revs the engine, drives in circles, etc. Maybe he checks the oil again, maybe not. He takes off, and a couple hours later the engine seizes up. Apparently, it was both looking like it was extremely low on oil and was also actually very low on oil. The telemetry shows the reviewer appearing foolish, and possibly trying to ruin the engine. You could say that he is a professional and should have been able to parse the statements from support more intelligently. Yet they both look bad, but it may not be an inaccurate depiction of what end users would experience.

gus_massa2• 13 years ago

Next time a journalist does a drive test, Musk should record all the telephonic conversations.

xuki• 13 years ago

Depend on where you live it might be illegal to do so.

Lewisham• 13 years ago

> 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 think what is happening is that he thinks the battery actually does have the charge, but the estimate is incorrect because of the cold. What he thinks is going to happen by driving is that the battery will heat up and become more efficient, and the estimated range will raise.

I do not find this an unreasonable mental model, even if it does or does not represent the actual workings of a battery-powered vehicle.

smsm425• 13 years ago

That seems to be plausible explanation, but I don't see how you give such advice to somebody on the road. You have two potential situations:

1. Battery has lost some charge for unknown reason, and has to be recharged. 2. Battery has proper charge, but the estimate is wrong.

If you act according to true scenario, client is happy in both cases. If true scenario is 2 but you act like it's 1, the client wastes and hour to recharge (which isn't necessary) but arrives at the goal. If true scenario is 1 but you act like it's 2, the client is stuck in the middle of the road and curses you.

Clearly, you should always choose to act as if the true scenario is 1 and recommend proper recharging, and try to debug why charge indicator was potentially wrong later. If the support person gave different advice, he was setting himself and his company for the mess up, and the mess up ensued.

chiph• 13 years ago

While the battery does have internal coolant (heat-exchange) loops, it's position on the bottom of the car (it's the entire floorpan) means that it has a large surface area exposed to the weather, and wind-chill would rapidly draw any internal heat away. The question that I don't know the answer to is: how rapidly?

tedunangst2• 13 years ago

Or are Tesla spokespeople and product gurus totally clueless?

Not entirely, but if your product has a known (tiny) glitch, and a reporter calls up with something that sounds like that glitch, what are you going to do? One obvious choice is tell them it's a tiny glitch of no consequence and hope you're right. In the best case scenario (tiny glitch), responses like "Oh, dear, it sounds like our car is underperforming" leave a bad impression too.

nirvana• 13 years ago

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.

HelloMcFly4• 13 years ago

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...) 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.

gamblor9562• 13 years ago

Elon Musk has a billion dollars riding on calling the NY Times a liar and discrediting them.

Here's the thing though: the problem with the Tesla battery is the same problem that every other EV to date has had in sub-zero weather: they lose their charge and the charging meter gets decalibrated.

Tesla's bane is not a biased NY Times reporter. Their fundamental mistake was giving an EV to the NY Times to test drive in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record.

EDIT: Also one of the warmest winters on record in that area of the country, but not during the period of the NY Times' test.

jusben13692• 13 years ago

They'll have a good chuckle at the NY Times (and even Fox would have a laugh) when they see you're accusing them of attacking alternative energy for ideological reasons.

danielweber5• 13 years ago

Any kind of consumption will ultimately reduce the available range, you don't restore by removing joules from a pack

It's entirely possible that the amount of energy you can get out a battery depends on its current temperature, and that by sitting around to let it slowly warm up, the total power you can get out of it would be faster than if you tried to pull it all out as fast as possible.

jacquesm8• 13 years ago

Sure it is. But that will only work when you warm up the pack, not when you warm up the car. The draining of energy will also warm up the pack (it should, to some extent because the pack will have an internal resistance which the current passes through, which will turn into heat) but this is still much less efficient than using that energy to propel the car forward.

The band where draining at a lower rate would warm up the battery to the point where the aggregate power taken from the pack would be higher if you drained it at a lower rate for a 1/2 hour and then at a higher rate is a very thin one if it exists at all.

The good news is that that is a thing that could easily be proven or disproven with a bunch of LiPo batteries, a freezer and a bunch of resistors.

I'd be quite surprised if the Ri of the batteries was low enough to allow sufficient current to flow, yet high enough to heat up to have this effect.

JoshTriplett• 13 years ago

Hopefully all the calls to Tesla started with the usual "your call may be recorded for quality or training purposes".

ChuckMcM4• 13 years ago

If I were to speculate, and I am, I would guess that the variable here is the temperature of the battery packs. Batteries are chemical power sources, and the chemical reaction which frees up electrons has temperatures where it works, and temperatures where it doesn't. (Hence "cold weather amps" as a selling point on car batteries).

Anyway, I'd speculate that the Tesla person was thinking that if the battery got up to temperature it would go back to what it thought was the current capacity (as measured by open circuit voltage level).

I suspect something drained power from the car over night. In my case I've experienced power drain (non Tesla) from leaving an MP3 player plugged into the 'aux' jack of the center console. But we may never know for sure without better instrumentation.

codex5• 13 years ago

The battery's heating system likely drained the power overnight. The battery pack must be kept above a certain temperature or it will become irreparably damaged.

recoiledsnake• 13 years ago

The major WTF moment for me was this:

> 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)

Someone failed at basic thermodynamics. Converting electricity to mechanical and back to electricity causes a terrible loss in power.

foobarian• 13 years ago

This. That a Tesla customer rep would ever say this seems beyond belief.

PebblesRox2• 13 years ago

Point 4 of this article suggests that accelerating in short bursts with long coasts in between works best for gas-powered cars. I can see how turning off cruise control could be more efficient in this case too, although I agree braking would be silly. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/07/26/hypermiling-expert...

nsfmc• 13 years ago

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

You know, i like a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but this seems like a genuine series of errors, intentional or not, who knows.

But, let me play a separate angle to this, which is that when I read this article, I immediately flash-backed to all the tech support calls i'd had with relatives where each of us made some mistake or made some assumption given the facts at hand. "turn down the brightness, stop using the cd drive, turn off bluetooth, limit wifi usage, oh, wait, it's plugged in? ummm... time for a new power supply then!"

I don't know why we should expect the 'average consumer' to have deep insight into the workings of batteries or electric car technology. This stuff remains new and I think the point to be gained from this article is that it's still not totally obvious what causes some failures and not others. It'd be one thing if this guy really tore into Tesla, but he seems ambivalent more than anything else.

And reading that is basically the same reaction i get from my mom about my iphone: it's nice, but it's confusing to me and i still make mistakes each time i use it—nice, but not for me.

All our tech makes some assumptions about what you know and the effort you're willing to expend to get something to work. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to step back and say "hey, something didn't work out and maybe that's a failure of the interface or our messaging or something" rather than jumping to claims of journalistic fabrication and oil conspiracies.

lutusp2• 13 years ago

> 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.

If temperatures are low and if the charging station can deliver more power than the batteries need to charge up, then using the heater may warm up the battery pack and allow it to charge more efficiently, then discharge more efficiently after leaving the station.

When batteries are cold, they neither charge nor discharge efficiently. Batteries benefit from higher temperatures (but not too high, as the recent Boeing Dreamliner battery story reveals).

corresation2• 13 years ago

Is it? The Tesla temperature chart makes a big thing about temperatures at a very specific point, ignoring that not much further in the journey the temperature dropped to the minimum for 50 miles. The infamous "32 mile" charge also shows that when the car was parked for the night it has 90 miles of range, disappearing overnight. Or complaining that he didn't know about a charge station that the car itself didn't know about.

Further, "hard data" is a bit of a stretch. No one but Tesla has the raw data, and they've carefully presented selective bits of it for maximum impact, which is naturally given that they're incredibly biased. Such as the "drove around a parking lot trying to kill the car" bit, when it was actually just five minutes looking for a unlit, unmarked charge station. It's also humorous that they take their telemetric speeds as gospel, when vehicle speedometers are notoriously unreliable.

kamaal2• 13 years ago

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

No, its not hard to imagine this and might even be true. Middle managers know little apart from running daily affairs.

Its very much possible that when faced with questions they have no answers to they might have imagined a analogous set up(ordinary fuel car) and apply the question to such a thing and seek answers.

When you make uninformed guesses in the wild especially about new things, you generally make colossal mistakes- that is what seems to have happened here.

deletes3• 13 years ago

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

jules• 13 years ago

> 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.

jacquesm8• 13 years ago

That bit about the second law of thermodynamics needs to get more attention in school.

tedunangst2• 13 years ago

He's probably thinking that other Tesla drivers will do what the company tells them to do, so he does it to see what happens. Do you think the author is going to be the dumbest person to ever drive a Tesla?

lawnchair_larry4• 13 years ago

Yes, because his actions are most consistent with someone seeking the lowest quality advice available to them. Despite having multiple sources of information for both the estimated range, as well as the nearest charging stations, he happened to not only choose the least reasonable, but the one with the worst outcome.

codex5• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

kdsudac4• 13 years ago

Curious.

Is this logical: cruise control ==> less (speed up / slow down) ?

So: no cruise control ==> more (speed up / slow down) ?

Do you believe the Tesla advice was to turn off cruise control to conserve battery? or do you think the times reporter is making that up?

Disclaimer: don't know much about Tesla implementation of cruise control.

jmount• 13 years ago

Cruise control is a more steady speed by applying more power up hills and such.

luigi• 13 years ago

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?"

jlgreco• 13 years ago

> His action here is still hard to understand:

Yeah, I got the same impression, but that seems so insane I'm not sure it is right. I mean, surely he called them afterwards, right?

deletes3• 13 years ago

I'm sure he didn't.

bitcartel• 13 years ago

Given the ambiguity of what the dash was reporting and what Tesla personnel were telling him, it looks like he put his trust in the humans. In that situation, where you've been led to believe the dash behaves like a wonky gauge, it's quite reasonable to not call back.

taproot4• 13 years ago

Can't say I'd call starting out on a 61 mile journey with 32 miles of charge reasonable.

nbouscal• 13 years ago

Yeah, there are really two major problems with the story. First, that he drove off with 32 miles left. Even if they did say it was okay, a rational consumer would be pretty skeptical. This also creates the problem that the story depends on what was said in a telephone conversation that we don't have access to, so there's really no way to know who is telling the truth. The other problem is this quote: "If there was a public charging station nearby, no one made me aware of it." When I go on a road trip and I'm running out of gas, I don't wait for a call from someone to tell me where the gas station is. I stop and I find out where the gas station is, and then I drive straight to it and fill the car. Broder says that he was trying to simulate a real trip, but that just doesn't square with his behavior. Only filling to 72% is not what an ordinary consumer does on a long trip. You fill the tank, because like your mother always told you, "Better safe than sorry."

stcredzero8• 13 years ago

> Yeah, there are really two major problems with the story. First, that he drove off with 32 miles left. Even if they did say it was okay, a rational consumer would be pretty skeptical.

And someone who had an axe to grind, or who might benefit from pictures of a Tesla being towed, might decide differently.

smsm425• 13 years ago

I know if I had my car say "32 miles" and I know I need to go 62 miles, I'd request explicit confirmation from the techs that it's OK. I've been with computers long enough to know supporting somebody remotely is very hard as the person on the other side assumes you can see what they see. Being on the user's side, then, requires you to explicitly state all relevant information, and ensure the supporter is aware of it, otherwise his mental picture of what's going on may be entirely wrong, and you may get very wrong advice.

lawnchair_larry4• 13 years ago

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.

femto• 13 years ago

Maybe Tesla need to add an unobtrusive permanent display somewhere on the touch screen, showing the distance and direction to the nearest charging station? Touching the display would bring up detailed driving directions and start GPS navigation to the nearest station.

sachinag• 13 years ago

The Tesla in-car dash only shows Superchargers, not regular chargers.

erichocean3• 13 years ago

They didn't clear him to go, as he suggests. They told him that it would be ready in an hour.

This is exactly the point of contention, and presumably, there should be a call to Tesla after the hour of charging if Broder's version is correct, and not if Tesla's is.

We'll see.

stephengillie• 13 years ago

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.

james_ash• 13 years ago

The line "I did not ignore their advice" seems particularly ambiguous. An example of not telling the whole truth.

codex5• 13 years ago

He called early that morning complaining about the drop in mileage overnight. He was told the mileage drop was a glitch and to recondition the battery. When he called again, he was told to recondition the battery again--this time though a quick charge at Norwich. How many times should he call Tesla about the same problem, when he was told twice that the mileage was erroneously low? He had already attempted to recondition the battery--twice, which should be sufficient. In his mind, he now he has even more juice in his tank. He has even more of a buffer than he did pre-charge. So he gets on with the review. Of course, he does call again when it is clear that the conditioning + driving has not restored the needed juice--but by that time it is too late.

lttlrck3• 13 years ago

I sure hope Tesla has a Genius Bar in the pipeline.

adastra• 13 years ago

I agree, that's the key to the whole thing right there. It says to me that, if I had to guess, I'd bet he didn't call them and headed out despite the range being short, because he knew he was about to be stranded and have a tantalizing story. And when asked, he could always say he followed their recommendations to the letter.

Also, the amount of weasel words he manages to use on a lot of his other explanations doesn't exactly help his credibility...

jtchang• 13 years ago

I need more popcorn. This is great!

deletes3• 13 years ago

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

dinkumthinkum• 13 years ago

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.

slantyyz6• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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.

tomkarlo3• 13 years ago

> "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• 13 years ago

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

tomkarlo3• 13 years ago

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?

vellum• 13 years ago

To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke: For many people, past a certain level of understanding, technology = magic.

zeteo• 13 years ago

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?

avoutthere• 13 years ago

I wonder if Tesla customer support recorded the calls.

jacquesm8• 13 years ago

> So this all comes down to what customer service might or might have not said over the phone.

Exactly, that is what I get out of it too. And that is probably conveniently unverifiable. Tesla really should repeat the trip with the same parameters as much as possible. Common sense dictates that if they waste power the way indicated that they should run out of juice and if they are conservative and follow the normal procedures that you could expect to observe when using any vehicle with a power source that depletes with use (which is all of them, including gasoline) that they should be able to complete the trip without a problem.

When driving in the North somewhere I came upon a sign that said 'no gas for 200 miles'. I had a half tank of fuel but I still drove back to the last town to make sure the tank was full. It seemed only prudent. In an electric vehicle with limited range and with a limited support infrastructure it would be folly to leave for a trip on a leg with an indicated range below the known distance to the next fuel source and to not know exactly where those sources are relative to the car and the planned route.

erichocean3• 13 years ago

We don't need to know what was said, just that a call was made.

Broder claims that he was "cleared to drive" after an hour of charging with 32 miles of range on the car for a 61 mile trip.

But I don't think that actually happened (note how delicately Broder discusses this now). Tesla certainly denies it. And this is the reason the review was "bad", so this gets to the crux of the issue.

What at least happened, according to Broder, is that they told him to "plug it in for an hour, and then it should be good to go". Note the "should". Broder never actually says that he called Tesla back when the hour was up, explained there was only 32 miles of range left on a 61 mile trip, and that Tesla said "go for it, you are cleared for takeoff".

So Broder found his angle, thinking: I'll plug it in for an hour, then just leave, no matter what the range says. Hopefully it'll die on me this time. [Ed: I made up that last part, for flavor.]

Unfortunately, Broder wrote that Tesla "cleared him to leave", which doesn't seem to be the case, and according to Tesla, was not the case, and that's why he's in the hot water that he's in. If instead he simply quoted the reps and said he didn't call back, despite the data, he'd be in the clear (although the story would be far less compelling, since it'd be clear to everyone that Broder is either an idiot, or has an agenda -- or both).

Either way, all we need to do is see if Broder made a call to Tesla when the hour was up. His cell phone log is sufficient, and Tesla might have similar data on their side. We don't need to know what was said, we just need to confirm that Broder even had the opportunity to be "cleared" to drive by Tesla. Once we confirm that, then the tapes would be helpful. Otherwise, Tesla's version is the accurate one.

stcredzero8• 13 years ago

> 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.

slantyyz6• 13 years ago

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...

niggler5• 13 years ago

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

blehhhhhh• 13 years ago

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?

Anechoic2• 13 years ago

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).

erichocean3• 13 years ago

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?

llambda• 13 years ago

> 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...

relic2• 13 years ago

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.

Ygg2• 13 years ago

You are assuming he had log data at both points. He might have changed his story when logs were uncovered.

codex5• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

But Tesla is at least consistent in their approach, see e.g. battery "bricking." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/automobiles/Tesla-Battery-... (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.

127001brewer• 13 years ago

... that these EVs aren't ready for primetime.

“No new product does absolutely everything in exactly the same way as the product its replacing,” [Chelsea Sexton] says. "And yet when it comes to electric cars that’s the expectation."

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/whod-win-fight-te...

Personally, after reading these tit-for-tat spats, I'm more inclined in considering EVs. (It's worth listening to Marketplace's reporting on this.)

bathat2• 13 years ago

>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."

But why is that the story? The story could just as easily be, "The NYT reporter stopped charging when the battery was less than 3/4ths charged and subsequently couldn't finish his trip. He experienced some unanticipated range loss overnight, but it was less than what he would have needed to finish his trip."

codex5• 13 years ago

I think many people assume you should always charge a Tesla fully "just in case", but that takes much longer (hours longer) than filling up at a gas station. In practice people take shortcuts, especially when its freezing outside and they'd rather be arriving sooner at their hotel. Its human nature. The author's mistake is trusting the mileage reported by the car in cole weather, then trusting Tesla's PR lackey when he was told the range loss was a software glitch.

"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"

nikcub• 13 years ago

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.

waterlesscloud2• 13 years ago

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.

stcredzero8• 13 years ago

> 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?

Jun8• 13 years ago

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

This is quite a general statement, which in itself cannot be defended. Furthermore, I think that NYT's standards are higher than the average journalist taken "as a group". Their fact checking is rigorous (although, of course, is not infallible, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair)

andrewfelix6• 13 years ago

I think the biggest mistake he made was accusing Broder of intentionally making the car fail in attempt to discredit the concept of an electric vehicle.

It's one thing to present data that contradicts the article. But to suggest possible dishonest motivations was a step too far.

VeejayRampay• 13 years ago

Exactly. The bottom line is that if there's no good reason to leave a gas station with 32 more miles to go in the tank if you intend to go another 65 miles. The fact that the car is electric or a Model S is irrelevant.

It's just a dumb choice and if you make such a mistake, I am of the opinion that it disqualifies from saying anything about said car. Especially if you usually specialize in mostly hagiographic articles about oil companies in the NYT.

corresation2• 13 years ago

The bottom line is that if there's no good reason to leave a gas station with 32 more miles to go in the tank if you intend to go another 65 miles.

I find the notion that people like standing around looking at charging stations for hours on end extremely odd. The test was supposed to simulate a normal driver, and a normal driver will absolutely do the minimum necessary. With gasoline -- a ridiculous energy rich substance that we can fill in just a few short minutes -- most of us still find the five minute fill up once a week or less a nuisance.

Tesla is actually contradicting themselves a bit: They berate him for not heeding the in-car predicted range, and then pat themselves on the back that it actually went 51 miles, and supposedly still had juice (apparently an accessory battery was dead). In other words, that what their engineers supposedly told him (that it would recover the incredible loss of power overnight, from 90 miles left to 20 miles left, once the batteries warmed up) was actually largely right.

Musk also makes a big show about him not turning down the temperature, when his own graph shows that not much further in the journey he turned it to the minimum for an extended period of time.

Reading both sides, I find Musk's heavy handed attack response incredibly unpalatable. He was so hasty in attacking, he ignored that his own data and his own claims in many ways supported the reporter.

k_kelly• 13 years ago

There's an old saying that you shouldn't argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel.

It's still broadly true. Regardless of the dwindling influence of newspapers, arguing with the NYT doesn't sell cars but it does generate clicks for the paper.

Tesla can best refute the claims in the article by building great cars. A car review is not a story with legs, a fight between a genius billionaire and the worlds most respected newspaper has juice, and only compounds interest in a highly negative article for Tesla.

frozenport• 13 years ago

Moreover it draw attention the problem, it is now a controversial car instead of a car with charge limitations.

stcredzero8• 13 years ago

> 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.

DoubleCluster2• 13 years ago

Maybe you aren't so hot either. Tell me, what do 19-inch and 21-inch specify? The outer diameter of the tire or the DIAMETER OF THE RIM?

stcredzero8• 13 years ago

> Maybe you aren't so hot either.

So, grade school geometry refresher. When you increase the diameter of a circle, what happens to its circumference?

Thanks for playing: "Do I think I am clever but just accidentally revealed I'm the level of dolt that needs basic geometry spelled out and assumes everyone else is as clueless as me?"

RubyPinch• 13 years ago

well, assuming that the cruise control / rest of car was aware of the tire change, but the logging system wasn't

you have the motor spinning faster to make up for the smaller tires, while the logging system just sees the motor spinning faster.

however, as counterpoint to this, the read distance would probably change as well (unless the logging system was only partially aware). Then again there was some discrepancies with the travel distance as well, but that discrepancy isn't nearly enough to account for it.

smsm425• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

pilsetnieks• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

He is the energy and environmental issues reporter now.

ricardobeat2• 13 years ago

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.

gamblor9562• 13 years ago

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.

ricardobeat2• 13 years ago

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.

kdsudac4• 13 years ago

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.

niggler5• 13 years ago

"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. "

Fully agree. This is a great case study for other startups on what not to do.

slantyyz6• 13 years ago

For some reason this story reminds me a lot of Steve Jobs and the response to the Antennagate fiasco.

jimmyyoung2• 13 years ago

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.

kdsudac4• 13 years ago

"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. :)

bmj• 13 years ago

The average customer is probably not going to be following this.

I wonder about that. I mean, if you are a Tesla customer (or a would-be Tesla customer), I reckon this story has come across your radar, given the sort of online media coverage. Certainly, the average customer may not read Musk's blog, but again, given that this story has been picked up by quite a few outlets on the web, I bet customers are reading it.

coffeemug• 13 years ago

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.

I interpreted the blog post very differently. He says that the article is an outright premeditated lie, and presents an overwhelming amount of technical data to back up his claim.

methehack• 13 years ago

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?

rikelmens• 13 years ago

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

revelation• 13 years ago

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.

mafro• 13 years ago

All publicity is good publicity?

damian2000• 13 years ago

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.

kdsudac4• 13 years ago

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

pulledpork• 13 years ago

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.

ANH2• 13 years ago

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.

Charlesmigli2• 13 years ago

Awesome summary! You should love http://tldr.io :)

Charlesmigli2• 13 years ago

I posted it on tldr.io, it's now accessible by everyone at this url http://tldr.io/tldrs/511e2afb84eebe2d69000006/that-tesla-dat...

fuddle• 13 years ago

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

calhoun1372• 13 years ago

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.

electic• 13 years ago

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.

evo_9• 13 years ago

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.

JabavuAdams3• 13 years ago

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.

chm• 13 years ago

> 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?

tunesmith2• 13 years ago

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.

manacit• 13 years ago

Most of this analysis is spot on in my opinion - the one area I disagree with you in is the portion where he allegedly drove in circles. The graph Tesla shows is misleading and completely blown out of proportion.

0.6 miles is not very far to travel, especially when 0.2 miles are accounted for by the offramp. A drive once around an unfamiliar parking lot in the dark, looking for a small charging station can easily account for 4 minutes and 0.4 miles. Every EV charging station I've seen hasn't had any signage or otherwise aside from what's written right on it, You can't assume he'd automatically know where it is.

Regardless of whether Tesla is right or the NYT is right (and I'm inclined to believe both sides are partially at fault), the fact that Tesla took such offense to a measly 0.6 miles I find laughable.

bbatsell• 13 years ago

> 0.6 miles is not very far to travel, especially when 0.2 miles are accounted for by the offramp.

The graph seems to me to clearly account for the offramp. It doesn't start counting the 0.6 miles until his speed has slowed down to "I'm turning in now" conditions (0.1 mi after the origin point), and the graph itself tops off with the y-axis at 30mph—well below interstate offramp speeds—so at least some of the rest of the 0.2 mi long frontage is simply omitted off the left side of the graph.

I agree that this particular complaint is probably the weakest in Musk's post.

tunesmith2• 13 years ago

I generally agree with you, maybe I phrased it badly.

bathat2• 13 years ago

Part of the problem is that in his latest rebuttal, Broder turned off the map layer of the Google image he used. If he had left it on, you would see that many of the "streets" in that rest area are one-way. The only place he could have driven is around the two rightmost rows of parked cars. You really must have a very strong suspension of disbelief if you think he passed the Superchargers five times without seeing them.

What really makes Broder's account unbelievable is that his original story was a review of the Supercharger network. His review completely omitted any mention of the difficulty of finding the charging stations. Why would he do that? As concerned as he claimed to be about not reaching the next charger, why did he never mention that he had to spend precious battery finding the damn thing until Musk accused him of driving in circles? Might it be possible that "searching for the charger" is just an excuse invented after his odious behavior was discovered?

openloop• 13 years ago

I agree. He's willing to lie about how long he was at the Milford supercharger station by reporting 58 minutes while in reality it was 47 minutes. He's intentionally reducing range whilst reporting otherwise so it can't be a matter of time savings. He's trying to vandalize the reputation of the vehicle.

awolf• 13 years ago

The "fundamental attribution error" refers to our tendency to overattribute others' behaviors to their dispositions, while reversing this tendency for ourselves.

From: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hz/correspondence_bias/

Also, this:

We tend to see far too direct a correspondence between others' actions and personalities. When we see someone else kick a vending machine for no visible reason, we assume they are "an angry person". But when you yourself kick the vending machine, it's because the bus was late, the train was early, your report is overdue, and now the damned vending machine has eaten your lunch money for the second day in a row. Surely, you think to yourself, anyone would kick the vending machine, in that situation.

beernutz• 13 years ago

Thank you for taking the time to explain this. I was just about to do the legwork myself!

ChuckMcM4• 13 years ago

I just hate vending machines, the way they stare at you and tempt you with unhealthy treats. Kicking them reminds them they are not yet the dominant species on the planet.

andrewfelix6• 13 years ago

"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.

andrewfelix6• 13 years ago

If you're going to downvote this, at least have the courtesy to respond.

redm• 13 years ago

> 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.

onemorepassword2• 13 years ago

I agree that this is what journalists do. It's also why the public stops trusting journalists, especially after they've personally experienced this. It's what the rest of us calls "lying".

This may not be an example of individual malice, but it is definitely an example of why journalism that still uses practices that pre-date video, let alone the internet, no longer commands any kind of respect.

Broder lied "because that's what journalists do". Think about that.

RyanMcGreal• 13 years ago

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

Fixed. A journalist's job is to present the facts as fairly and accurately as possible, not to massage (and sometimes distort) the facts into a narrative that triggers an emotional reaction. If anything, I expect the CEO of a company to bend the facts into a story, but I expect the journalist covering that company to unbend those facts, not to bend them the other way.

jonob7• 13 years ago

Broder went in with a preconceived notion, and did everything in his power to make that notion come true.

prawks• 13 years ago

> accentuated the overall negative experience to create a better narrative

I think that's pretty much what "stacking the deck" means.

Alterlife• 13 years ago

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

That's what journalists are supposed to do.

Musk on the other hand is expected to defend / market his product as well as he is capable.

petegrif• 13 years ago

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

kingkawn• 13 years ago

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.

gfodor• 13 years ago

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.

horacio• 13 years ago

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.

jusben13692• 13 years ago

"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.

gesman• 13 years ago

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

lutusp2• 13 years ago

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).

infinitivium• 13 years ago

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.

encoderer• 13 years ago

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.

meisterbrendan• 13 years ago

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.

i2oc• 13 years ago

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...

justin_vanw• 13 years ago

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.

ck2• 13 years ago

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

https://twitter.com/PeterDrives

nutanc• 13 years ago

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.

krashidov• 13 years ago

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.

mkhpalm• 13 years ago

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.

Mordor• 13 years ago

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?

knodi• 13 years ago

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.

kevinthew• 13 years ago

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.

Havoc• 13 years ago

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.

jamieb• 13 years ago

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

KRoP• 13 years ago

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.)

That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

Related Stories