After reading John Broder's response again (see OP), I feel like commenting on several paragraphs. Not everything is quoted, but everything that belongs together (in my mind), and only complete paragraphs, though occasionally in distinct parts:
I was not directed by anyone at Tesla at any time to then switch to the Max Range setting and wait to top off the battery. If I had, I might have picked up an additional 25 or so miles of range, but that would have taken as long as 30 additional minutes.
This avoids the question of whether he was explicitly asked to do a "maximum charge". He only says he wasn't instructed specifically to switch the "setting" needed for that. He does imply that he (at least now) understands that he didn't obtain a maximum charge (as Tesla says he was asked to do). If so, then the fact that it would have taken more time, is no excuse, given the actual consequences in comparison.
The very fact that he mentions the time needed, indicates that he was reluctant to follow advice if it meant charging longer. (Which was mainly what caused his problems.) It doesn't seem clear whether he knew about the "Max Range" setting, he just says he wasn't instructed to use it.
I was at that point 200 miles from the other East Coast Supercharger outlet in Milford, Conn., which I barely reached by driving 10 m.p.h. below the speed limit and turning off the battery-draining cabin-heating system.
(Mr. Musk’s logs may show I hit 75 m.p.h. for a mile or two during my trip, although it was likely before, rather than after, the Newark stop. The car’s power-usage meter clearly shows the major penalty driving at 75 inflicts on battery charge, discouraging any temptation to hooliganism in this 416-horsepower, $101,000 car. I drove more than 100 miles below 55 on cruise control to conserve power.)
This contradicts the report in his own article. There he writes that he "began following Tesla’s range-maximization guidelines" only after driving 68 miles (of that leg of the trip) and losing a range of 85 miles.
Tesla may contend that had I added the extra 25 miles of range, I would have been able to drive the speed limit (65 miles per hour) with a comfortable cabin temperature for 200 miles in 30-degree outside temperatures. Based on the rate at which the charge level was declining, I’m skeptical.
It would certainly have kept him from getting the heater turned off and reaching zero miles range. Otherwise, nothing wrong with being skeptical as such.
Mr. Musk has referred to a “long detour” on my trip. He is apparently referring to a brief stop in Manhattan on my way to Connecticut that, according to Google Maps, added precisely two miles to the overall distance traveled from the Delaware Supercharger to Milford (202 miles with the stop versus 200 miles had I taken the George Washington Bridge instead of the Lincoln Tunnel).
We'll probably better wait for Tesla's log before discussing this point.
At that point, I was already experiencing anxiety about range and had called a Tesla employee from the New Jersey Turnpike to ask how to stretch the battery. She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down. Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage.
This doesn't really make sense to me. It sounds more like she was telling him to use regen instead of the brakes, but as if he might not have understood it (thinking that braking causes regen), and might have used the brakes nevertheless !!! (Causing loss of range, of course.)
Before I set out from my home in suburban Washington, I informed Tesla that I intended to make a brief stop in New York and that I would spend the night in the vicinity of Milford rather than attempting to make it to Boston, which was theoretically possible with a full charge at Milford, although it was a bitterly cold night — and that clearly affects the car’s range. I added 185 miles of range at Milford, knowing that I wouldn’t need 242 or 265 miles before recharging the next morning.
So by now, he knew that cold affected the range relative to the displayed range? The distance he intended to drive (Milford - Stonington - Groton - Milford) is 141 miles (according to dpeilow and google) or 143 miles (according to me using his numbers including that in an email to dsm363). A charge of 185 miles does not have enough margin for that, in the first place. It needs a margin including for cold, in general speed, error, unforeseen circumstances, and random additional possibilities such as headwind or elevation changes. Reminder: he did not deny begin asked to obtain maximum charges, which would mean at least a full standard charge of 242 miles, in case he didn't know about the "Max Range" setting.
When I parked the car for the night at a hotel, the range meter showed 90 miles remaining, and I was about 45 miles from the Milford Supercharger. As I recounted in the article, when I awoke the next morning the indicated range was 25 miles. The rest of that story is told in the article, including a Tesla official’s counsel, which I followed, that an hour of charging at the Norwich, Conn., utility would restore much of the range lost overnight, which had disappeared because of what he called a “software glitch.”
This actually sounds different than in the article, in that it sounds like he was given the advice to charge "an hour" in advance of the charging, and that the charging itself was expected to restore the needed range. However, he started driving (according to the graphic in the article) with a rated range of 32 miles on a drive of 58 miles (google maps) or even 64 miles (his email to dsm363). I hope Tesla's upcoming blog will provide additional insight into what happened in the morning, as this sounds like a grave error.
While Tesla officials and many armchair experts have said I should have accepted the time penalty to top off the battery in Delaware at the Max Range setting, Tesla warns specifically that this shortens the battery’s life.
This sounds like a lame excuse to me, and in fact there is nothing wrong with using the "Max Range" feature once in a while. That's why it exists. It is in general used before starting the trip, not when ending up in an emergency.
Virtually everyone says that I should have plugged in the car overnight in Connecticut, particularly given the cold temperature. But the test that Tesla offered was of the Supercharger, not of the Model S, which we already know is a much-praised car. This evaluation was intended to demonstrate its practicality as a “normal use,” no-compromise car, as Tesla markets it. Now that Tesla is striving to be a mass-market automaker, it cannot realistically expect all 20,000 buyers a year (the Model S sales goal) to be electric-car acolytes who will plug in at every Walmart stop.
Whatever the original intention of the test, the author made the overnight experience the most significant part of his story. So this is another lame excuse, just as the "Walmart" comment. In any case, had he made a maximum charge at the Supercharger, it appears to me it would not even have been necessary (though surely advisable).
It appears there would have been at least three practical ways to avoid the flatbed truck (maximum charge at the Supercharger, plugging in overnight, larger Level 2 charge in the morning).
Knowing then what I know now about the car, its sensitivity to cold and additional ways to maximize range, I certainly would have treated the test differently. But the conclusion might not have been any better for Tesla.
Why not? To me it seems obvious it would have been quite positive, instead of very negative (waiting times aside, which can be used to do meaningful things such as reading the New York Times, hopefully in a warm coffee shop).
One final note. Mr. Musk called me on Friday, before the article went up on the Web, to offer sympathy and regrets about the outcome of my test drive. He said that the East Coast charging stations should be 140 miles apart, not 200 miles, to take into account the traffic and temperature extremes in this part of the country.
Everyone agrees with this, and in fact, Tesla already plans to add Superchargers to achieve this on the East Coast as well.
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In summary, his response only further supports the interpretation that he himself made several substantial errors, and that his difficulties were avoidable with basic knowledge of the car, even if the range loss overnight was not to be expected without former experience of a similar situation.
