Where is the evidence that Mr Broder understood the requirement to use range mode and keep the car fully charged at all times? Where is the evidence that he was not following Tesla's telephone advice at all times?
You can keep trying to hammer your version of the 'facts' over and over but that doesn't change the 'facts' as some other people see it.... the Model S AND the driver both had problems and that was enough for the car to run out of charge.... you don't need a conspiracy here just new technology (with some issues) and a novice EV driver.
There isn't necessarily evidence that he understood the range charging requirement (ignoring his responsibility to do any basic research, or report the trip as it would be for most drivers). For the phone advice, let's just look at Broder's version of the "facts" for a minute and assume there was no conspiracy. Broder has admitted, or at least said "I simply can't explain..." the exaggerations and inaccuracies in his account of the 'facts' that resulted in needing a flatbed. How then are we supposed to believe his version of the phone conversations? Broder was caught lying and every time he exaggerated, omitted facts, misrepresented details like speed, charging times, and cabin temps, it was
always damning against Tesla. Why don't you think that's evidence that he also misrepresented the phone conversations?
why is a driver who runs out of charge "incredibly stupid"? Do you think this will be the first or last EV driver to run out of charge?
I'd like to address this as a valid question (ignoring whether it's provocative). Suppose you're driving along for many, many miles, continually receiving "increasingly dire warnings" (Broder's words) that your car is dangerously low and needs to charge. Then you get louder and more frequent warnings for many more miles that it's so bad the car is about to shut down, and you just continue to drive and ignore all those warnings, mile after mile, long after your last phone call to Tesla Support. I think that qualifies as incredibly stupid. Sorry. And his behavior can't be explained away by saying "Tesla support told me to do this." I've heard lot's of stories of EV drivers running out of charge, but this is the first one that qualifies for "incredibly stupid" IMHO. It was so bad that even the NYT Public Editor described it as an especially bad error in judgement.
There is another explanation, other than stupid. Perhaps as a seasoned reporter he was under pressure to create a sensational story. His allegiance to his boss was greater than his allegiance to factual reporting.
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Significant range drop overnight in cold weather. No range recovery despite battery 'conditioning'.
You have a point but he didn't follow directions on how to condition it (plugged in) and the car has enough of a margin of safety built into it that even this problem or novice mistake wouldn't have prevented finishing the trip if he hadn't made multiple other errors in judgement that went beyond simple 'novice" mistakes.
The only thing turning off drivers to EV's IMO is the witch hunt against Mr Broder and the NYT. The facts speak for themselves IMO and even Mr Musk has said that SuperChargers should be closer together. IMO this trip was a PR disaster waiting to happen because nobody expected anything to go wrong despite the freezing temperatures, long range, novice driver, car issues, and questionable telephone support (who knows the truth about this one).
IMO the best outcome for everyone would have been for Mr Musk to follow up his call to Mr Broder by accepting that something went wrong and a promise to get to the bottom of it by working with the NYT and the running the trip again. Tweeting 'fake' simply set us all on the roller-coaster ride which undermined the credibility of the electric car for "road trips" which IMO was going to happen sooner or later anyway with SuperChargers more then 200 miles apart.
I agree that Musk wrote his original blog very poorly. He should never have made ANY accusations against Broder such as 'fake' and 'doomed to fail..." and instead just reported the facts from the log plus the obvious omissions from the article such as never charging full, etc. He should have let the readers make their own judgements.
To describe this as simply a "disaster waiting to happen" because of a novice driver and a couple of problems hardly seems fair. The guy was a reporter for a large national publication. You don't think that gave him some responsibility to do even a minimal amount of research about new technology with which he was completely unfamiliar? Since this kind of thing almost never happens to other novice drivers of EVs, it doesn't represent an honest reporting of what the public should expect on a trip like this. And since most EV drivers are NOT novices, it's fair to argue that he should have reported the trip as it would be for most EV drivers (who would know how to range-charge).
When the Times tries to defend things like not charging full by saying it requires "fiddling and faddling with buttons on the screen" and he was just a novice and couldn't be expected to do that, and then further using that as a reason that EVs are less convenient, is flatly untrue and misleading at best. There is one button, right in your face on the screen, and the whole process is a lot easier than finding the lever to open your gas port, not to mention unscrew the cap, swipe your credit card, insert a hose, etc. I'm sorry but I can't buy the whole "he was just a novice - it was to be expected" excuse. He had some responsibility to his readers to do at least a little basic research.
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how about trusting (if Tesla's advice was to ignore the instrumentation because the car would recover the range lost overnight)?
I know one of the support people he spoke with. She is very professional and knowledgeable. Technically I don't know what she told him but who should we believe here? A man who has been proven to fabricate the truth, always against Tesla, or a person who has given me accurate information every time I've spoken with her? Personally I think he was feeling pressure to come up with a sensational story and found a convenient way to misinterpret something he was told. A novice EV driver would be much more careful and err in the other direction.
