NYT article: Stalled on the EV Highway

[brianman]

The gauge indicates RATED range (range if driven the same as the EPA test conditions), and IDEAL range (range if driven @ 55 mph under ideal conditions). Virtually never are either of these estimates of "whether you can make it", because it all depends on many factors as we've all noted. It's never "miles remaining". It never is in a gas car either.

A bit of a nitpick and another vote for bringing Projected back to the under-the-speedometer indicator...


Reporter A in September, with 1.15.x firmware, driving the vehicle for a couple days and recognizing that "the bar under the speedometer" (Projected) being "fairly accurate".

Reporter B in February, with 1.19.42 firmware, driving the vehicle for a couple days and watching "that bar under the speedometer" (Rated).

If Reporter B had a conversation with Reporter A prior to test driving, it's totally reasonable for him/her to have the expectation that the range is a good measure of whether "you can make it."

- - - Updated - - -

Regarding Elon's commentary...

I understand why he responded as he did (Elon being Elon) and I think a response is warranted. But as someone interested in the company's future health, I with he toned it back a bit. Language more along the lines of "the Model S generally doesn't have this behavior, either some 'off-article' additional events occurred or something unusual happened with the test vehicle and we'll follow up with that. We have telemetry data showing that the former is what happened, and more will be coming on that front in a future blog post."

That said, the "army of other reporters doing the same run" is a great idea. In addition to (hopefully) refuting the claimed issues in the article, it should be quite the media spectacle -- which is a great marketing opportunity.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Any idea when the blog post that details Broder's trip will be posted? Devil is in the details on this one and unlike people, car logs don't lie.

I'm waiting on that myself. My guess is that Elon is negotiating with NYTimes before releasing his data.

But based on what the reporter wrote, we know he wasn't fully charging the car, and if he had been there wouldn't have been any problems at all. As the NY Times said, his report is factually accurate.

The problem is that he is leaving the impression that he was fully charging the car when he wasn't. The precision of his report is obfuscating the simple truth that he caused all of his own problems by not charging the car. It's all literary handwaving.

 

[Grendal]

If he had done an article on range anxiety but didn't stage events then there really wouldn't be a problem with it. Range anxiety happens. It often happens when a novice like himself to EV driving gets behind the wheel. He didn't write an article like that. If he had, say written an article where he says "I want to see what this car does if I treat it like I do a gas car. I'm going to drive, as a lot of you do, above the speed limit, be sloppy in my charging because I'm busy, and take little side trips here and there, just to see what happens." That's would have been reasonable and truthful. He didn't write it that way. He could have used the article as an opportunity to compare and contrast the differences between how you operate a gas car and an electric car. He didn't write it that way either. Tesla and Elon have a legitimate beef with this writer.

If Mr. Broder had written the article about range anxiety and summarized it with "electric cars work different from a gas car, you should educate yourself on them before you buy one" then there would be no problem. There are a lot of ways he could have written the article to point out the differences between gas cars and electric cars. He didn't do those either. Instead he chose to write an article that played up his and the general publics fears of electric cars by conveniently having a series of events happen. It was more like a Top Gear episode than a news article. The problem is that it is published in the NYT, a newspaper, therefore it is regarded as news. If it was staged, as it appears to be, then it should not be put out as a news article. That's my problem with it. I want my news to give me facts and my entertainment to entertain me. It's already hard to judge between the two in modern times.

Sorry for the speech...

 

[Objective1]

But based on what the reporter wrote, we know he wasn't fully charging the car, and if he had been there wouldn't have been any problems at all.

The reporter parked the car after the first day with double the rated miles showing that he needed in order to get back to the Supercharger the next day. But he awoke with less than the number of miles needed.

As far as we know, Tesla Motors did not tell him to plug in over night. And Tesla Motors did not warn him how much power would be lost if the car was left out in the cold.

Tesla Motors bears a lot of the blame for not properly educating owners and drivers, including the NYT reporter.

 

[Todd Burch]

A bit of a nitpick and another vote for bringing Projected back to the under-the-speedometer indicator...


Reporter A in September, with 1.15.x firmware, driving the vehicle for a couple days and recognizing that "the bar under the speedometer" (Projected) being "fairly accurate".

Reporter B in February, with 1.19.42 firmware, driving the vehicle for a couple days and watching "that bar under the speedometer" (Rated).

If Reporter B had a conversation with Reporter A prior to test driving, it's totally reasonable for him/her to have the expectation that the range is a good measure of whether "you can make it."

- - - Updated - - -

Regarding Elon's commentary...

I understand why he responded as he did (Elon being Elon) and I think a response is warranted. But as someone interested in the company's future health, I with he toned it back a bit. Language more along the lines of "the Model S generally doesn't have this behavior, either some 'off-article' additional events occurred or something unusual happened with the test vehicle and we'll follow up with that. We have telemetry data showing that the former is what happened, and more will be coming on that front in a future blog post."

That said, the "army of other reporters doing the same run" is a great idea. In addition to (hopefully) refuting the claimed issues in the article, it should be quite the media spectacle -- which is a great marketing opportunity.

I agree with you on all points, brianman.

This whole thing is silly. Clearly mistakes were made on both sides. The reporter was wrong. Tesla, if they did in fact give him incorrect advice, was wrong. Yes, Tesla needs to improve it's cold weather range algorithm.

But in the end, if the reporter gave a damn, why didn't he debrief with Tesla before publishing the article? That would've cleared this all up, and the whole thing would've been avoided.

 

[palmer_md]

this whole thing just reminds me of when a reporter purposefully drove the Leaf in a manner that the car was not designed and there was an explosion of outrage by owners. Nissan responded by "hiding" 20% of the battery capacity below the empty line, so when you run out, you have enough power to get somewhere. Now owners complain of not enough miles to empty. Mistake on Nissan's part for over-correcting to a situation created by the newspaper reporter. Tesla is smarter than that, and this will all blow over. The car is just too good to be taken down by silly reporters.

My Nissan Leaf Forum View topic - Barrons' reporter runs Leaf flat in Manhattan

 

[brianman]

One more point...

I hope the telemetry data includes subtleties such as vehicle load. I'm confident that future reporters (if not this one) "have some fun" loading bricks into the back and hatch to curtail the effective range.

 

[Krugerrand]

Regarding Elon's commentary...

I understand why he responded as he did (Elon being Elon) and I think a response is warranted. But as someone interested in the company's future health, I with he toned it back a bit. Language more along the lines of "the Model S generally doesn't have this behavior, either some 'off-article' additional events occurred or something unusual happened with the test vehicle and we'll follow up with that. We have telemetry data showing that the former is what happened, and more will be coming on that front in a future blog post."

Disagree. I'm so tired of the general beating around the bush and PC schpeel. Say what you think, mean what you say. In the telephone interviews I heard, Elon was calm and clear. Someone has just tried to derail one of his companies by blantantly ignoring the information given to complete the trip and you want Elon to play a game of patty-cake of niceties? I want Elon to throw him under the bus and drive back and forth over the body a few times so it doesn`t happen again. Not for a second do I believe Mr. Broder had 'good' intentions. People want to belly ache that Mr. Broder was uninformed, therefore it's Tesla's fault for not holding his hand, I say if you're that much a babe in the woods with a product, and you're being entrusted to write a story about it, best you listen carefully to your instructions:

1) FULLY charge before you begin
2) Do NOT take any side trips, detours etc...
3) Drive at a `reasonable`speed; ie the posted speed limit

 

[jcstp]

I think reacting immediately to the article by Elon was a good choise!
Even if the ways and reasons can be debated!

When this same situation happened with the TOP GEAR debacle they played nice, and it was completely contraproductive! People still believe the roadster got out of juice that day!
By reacting immediately people will be aware there is something fishy!
Up to them to decide who is wrong, but at least they are aware!

 

[ElSupreme]

Disagree. I'm so tired of the general beating around the bush and PC schpeel. Say what you think, mean what you say. In the telephone interviews I heard, Elon was calm and clear. Someone has just tried to derail one of his companies by blantantly ignoring the information given to complete the trip and you want Elon to play a game of patty-cake of niceties? I want Elon to throw him under the bus and drive back and forth over the body a few times so it doesn`t happen again. Not for a second do I believe Mr. Broder had 'good' intentions. People want to belly ache that Mr. Broder was uninformed, therefore it's Tesla's fault for not holding his hand, I say if you're that much a babe in the woods with a product, and you're being entrusted to write a story about it, best you listen carefully to your instructions:

1) FULLY charge before you begin
2) Do NOT take any side trips, detours etc...
3) Drive at a `reasonable`speed; ie the posted speed limit

PLUS ONE FOR THIS!

4) Plug the car in!

 

[Seegem]

Disagree. I'm so tired of the general beating around the bush and PC schpeel. Say what you think, mean what you say. In the telephone interviews I heard, Elon was calm and clear. Someone has just tried to derail one of his companies by blantantly ignoring the information given to complete the trip and you want Elon to play a game of patty-cake of niceties? I want Elon to throw him under the bus and drive back and forth over the body a few times so it doesn`t happen again. Not for a second do I believe Mr. Broder had 'good' intentions. People want to belly ache that Mr. Broder was uninformed, therefore it's Tesla's fault for not holding his hand, I say if you're that much a babe in the woods with a product, and you're being entrusted to write a story about it, best you listen carefully to your instructions:

1) FULLY charge before you begin
2) Do NOT take any side trips, detours etc...
3) Drive at a `reasonable`speed; ie the posted speed limit

totally agree!!! Particularly over the number of times the bus is to be driven over the body

 

[vfx]

Originally Posted by cdabel
I wonder if this kind of thing could be ameliorated somewhat by having the deafult display show percentage of charge rather than a guestimate of available miles. Most other chargable devices don´t show an estimate of hours remaining...too many variables. I could image the crap Apple would get if the iPad displayed available hours and people didn´t those ideal numbers.

Tesla is far ahead of other EV makers in this regard. The leaf has what owners refer to as a Guess-o-meter. Tesla has the best system out there.

1st 99 percent of the people would not want a percentage meter only. They want real world units.
2nd It's there. Tesla has again with this 2nd car included a graphic readout of a battery with a green percentage readout.
3rd. No manufacturer including Tesla gives a precise readout to the end. Gasoline cars too. Most simply stop showing range numbers with about 20 miles left. Way too many unknowns for them to take on that responsibility.

And lastly, what Tesla does right is give the driver TWO readouts of remaining range. One based on the EPA ideal driving situation and a 2nd range number based on how the car has been driven in the last 5 or 40 miles (Roadster, user set-able) After time you get really good at knowing what you have left since you can see how the range changes based on how you are driving. The writer obviously did not have the benefit of experience.

I do think they could add in some temp losses to the 2nd readout

 

[hj-45]

Elon on Bloomberg

Musk: Tesla to publish car logs from NYT test drive - The Washington Post

 

[vfx]

...

Todd, you are right of course, but the range estimate invites literal interpretation in a way a gas gauge does not. The car collects lots of data that could helpfully improve range estimates, and I hope Tesla improves its approach.

The Prius reads out in miles. The Infiniti has a "miles to empty" screen (goes blank around 15 to 25 miles)

 

[Arnold Panz]

The truth is, none of us knows what exactly was said between Tesla and the reporter. Maybe Tesla said one thing and he heard another, so both could pass a lie detector test. And could the reporter have done his own planning? Sure, but I think his point was to rely on what Tesla was telling him, and we really don't know what he was or wasn't told.

I think the bigger story here is that Elon reacts quite vociferously and strenuously to these types of articles because Tesla is much more reliant on free media than almost any other company of its size, and particularly a car company. Tesla's marketing budget is close to nil (certainly for paid advertising it seems to be nil), so to get the message out about Tesla to the masses who don't follow this stuff, they are almost completely dependent on free media. When you rely so heavily on free media, one of the huge risks you take is that you can't control the message the same way you can when you are paying to tell your story exactly as you want it told. The NY Times (and WSJ and most other publications) have been extraordinarily kind to Tesla in the past (n.b. with good reason because the car is awesome!). I think it's very smart of Elon to attack any negative articles like this one, especially where he has some basis to do so, because the "story" is now the dispute between Tesla and the NY Times, not that the NY Times trashed Tesla and people can just assume it's true.

In this circumstance, when people search Tesla or read this story, they will inevitably see the Tesla response that the Times rigged the story or whatever, and that's probably enough to neutralize much of the negative effect of the story. Until Tesla has enough revenue and profit, and a demand problem (as opposed to a supply problem) that would necessitate advertising, these types of things will occasionally pop up. Frankly, it's amazing that Tesla hasn't had more negative press than they have, and it's really a testament to how great the car is that almost everything you read in the free media is positive to glowing about the car.

 

[evchels]

I'm curious to see the logs too but as others have mentioned, we're never going to know exactly what was said in however many conversations occurred between Broder and Tesla in the planning of this trip. And the reality is, it doesn't really matter.

This article and its aftermath isn't going to damage Tesla, or EVs. But it's a reminder to EV proponents and the industry regarding how EVs are positioned and marketed. Broder had a story only because the Model S- enabled by the SC network, has been promoted for its ability to do road trips. For now, that remains a counterproductive approach. Yes, experienced EV drivers (some of whom are also writers) could and have made similar - and even longer - trips with sufficient planning. But that's not what "road trip" conjures in the average American's mind; culturally, we think "Vegas on a moment's notice". Even with SC (and certainly not at its current stage of deployment on the east coast), no EV currently fits that image. And the moment Elon made the argument about whether Broder had followed the Tesla staff's multiple instructions, he lost footing imo. I'm not saying the guy didn't make a bunch of mistakes, intentionally or not. But that an automaker had to issue multiple careful instructions to ensure a journo would get to the destination in the first place, and was even worried enough to call him to check-up, means that this was an ill-advised endeavor by the Tesla PR team from the start. Even if he had an agenda, it was just gravy at that point.

Sure, he could have charged on 120v. Maybe he was told to. But the promise of the SC network is no longer having to scrounge for an "average" outlet at a motel. He could have driven at 45 (and very curious to see if we get full logs of his "excessive" speed). But it defeats the purpose to hand someone a Tesla and then tell them to drive it like his grandmother if he hopes to reach his destination. Or to freeze his toes off along the way. And even if he'd made it using these techniques, he still would have written a "not ready for prime time" story because he had to do these things that no one would have to in a gas car. Because we keep giving in to the perception that EVs should deliver the same experience as a gas car- which only shortchanges Tesla and EVs, because 99% of the time, they're sooo much better. For road trips? They're just not the right tool for most people, for that one thing, today. And trying to prove otherwise only invites these sorts of stories, and regardless of whether Tesla eventually proves the guy deviated intentionally from their instructions.

Instead, Elon should have been in a position to say "guy's a nimrod; we told him not to take that trip, but he did it anyway. You should ask him why." But even if he's within his rights to do so, Elon can only cry "fake" so many times before people hear "wolf".

(And yes, they also need to address whatever overnight range loss occurred, be more forthcoming about effects of climate, etc.)

 

[buzzbuzz]

While I personally am happy to see Elon's response to this article and am very interested to see what the logs will show, I think there is a bigger point that has to be made, which was touched on by Todd Burch:

The battery gauge never, ever indicates whether you can make it. A fuel gauge never, ever indicates whether you can make it either.

To paraphrase a post I made elsewhere regarding range, many people seem to be taking the range indicated as gospel. It's a best-guess (just like a range-to-empty on an ICE) and, while Tesla's is very good (IMO), 242 miles on the battery range DOES NOT mean that you are GUARANTEED 242 miles. The best indicator that we have available to us is the Wh/mi on the last charge. As I said in a previous post, whether you are driving a gas car or an electric car, you only have a certain number of Joules in the "tank." Your burn rate (MPG or Wh/mi) is what will tell you your range. If you notice you are burning more Wh/mi than will allow you to make it to your next charging station, then you need to stop and charge, just like if you notice your MPG is suffering due to current conditions, you have to stop and get gas. And, as VFX said:

No manufacturer including Tesla gives a precise readout to the end. Gasoline cars too. Most simply stop showing range numbers with about 20 miles left. Way too many unknowns for them to take on that responsibility.

As a driver, you have to understand the machine you are driving. It is clear from the article that the reporter didn't understand the vehicle but, instead, relied on Tesla to tell him how to drive it.

Finally, I apologize if this point has already been made in this thread (I haven't read the whole thing), but I think it bears repeating. As far as plugging in at night, in the cold, it is very reasonable that Tesla would have assumed he would have figured that out...as it states, very clearly, in the not-very-long-so-take-the-time-to-read-it manual:

Page 16:
"Tesla strongly recommends leaving Model S plugged in when not in use."

Page 25:
"The most important way to preserve the battery is to LEAVE YOUR MODEL S PLUGGED IN when you're not using it"

Parking for the night is clearly "not using it." The reporter failed to follow the instructions in the manual, then faults Tesla in public media for screwing up and fails to recognize any of his own shortcomings. Faulty journalism in my book.

I'll step off the soap box now...

 

[JRP3]

This article and its aftermath isn't going to damage Tesla, or EVs. But it's a reminder to EV proponents and the industry regarding how EVs are positioned and marketed. Broder had a story only because the Model S- enabled by the SC network, has been promoted for its ability to do road trips. For now, that remains a counterproductive approach.

Except for the fact that a growing number of Model S owners are successfully making trips beyond the single charge range. Musk is directly attacking one of the main arguments against EV's, range, and doing so rather well. There has to be some realization by the public that this is new technology with limited charging points at this time, yet even so people can and are using the car for more than just commuting. We know that longer trips are rare in the real world but the public still thinks the ability to make them is important. Musk is saying "We are building a car and a network that will allow longer trips". Overall I think the Supercharger network and the promise of range is going to do more good in the long run, even if there are occasional events such as this one, especially if it turns out the trip could have been completed successfully if the vehicle had been operated properly.

 

[MotoEV]

Shame On NY TimesI shout BS on John Broder and his 'questionable' review. Any reasonable person with a ounce of smarts would locate Tesla AND public charging stations en-route. This is no different than a petrol driver starting a road trip with less than 1/4 tank of gas and the next station is not known to him/her. If this poor excuse for an adult chooses to blame Tesla for his laziness (NOT reading an owners manual, NOT charging overnight in very cold weather, NOT locating all charging points, and NOT keeping to the agreed upon route) he should stick to reviews of toasters or coffee pots. Is he 15 years old with no impulse control or sense of responsibility?

How much effort would it take for this 'journalist to read a brochure or the Tesla website to save himself from utter ignorance? From the Tesla Internet site:

Tesla recommends charging Model S each night or when convenient to maintain optimum driving range and battery health. Model S also comes with a J1772 adapter to be used with public charging stations.

I guess we live in a world where anyone off the street feels free to malign a company and product with misinformation due to their own ineptitude. I don't blame Tesla for tracking every moment of a 'journalist' test drive. Tesla has an obligation to protest their brand from abuse. It is clear John Broder and the NY Times lack integrity, otherwise they would retract the story. Congrats NYT my online IPad subscription to the NY Times is done.... I hope others will follow and not encourage shoddy journalism with a hidden agenda.

 

[carrerascott]

The Ford Model T had a 10 gallon engine with an approximate range of 200 miles. Gas stations were surely few and far in between back then. If the NYT reporter had been reviewing the Model T back in the early 1900s, he would have figured 1/2 a tank was enough to go 300 miles, and have been shocked when he had to be towed... and he would have written a headline that his Model T had to be towed because it just wasn't good enough.

Fast forward 100 years, we have a range we can drive in the Model S and not that many fill-up stations YET. Sure seems like this writer wanted the article to turn out one way and sabotaged it.