Update:
What follows is my personal opinion only.
So I had a
great call with the NYT reporter. We spoke on the phone for nearly
two hours (really). Covered a lot of ground, got a lot of context, learned a lot -- I suspect both of us; l know I learned a lot. Ivan is a good guy, he's not a bad guy. Suffice to say, he's heard a ton from Tesla owners since the article came out.
No time to write up a longer summary now -- it's midafternoon, I'm starving, and haven't had lunch yet -- but suffice to say there is no great NYT conspiracy to screw Tesla. I just don't see it. There is no Broder, the secret puppeteer, controlling everything from behind the curtain. Hell, these reporters don't even know nor have ever communicated with Broder.
Forget Broder. We really as a community have to put that theory to rest for good. Broder has become to Tesla what Soros is for the GOP: the bogeyman. Same goes for Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of LA Times: he is not dictating what Russ Mitchell or other LA Times reporters should write. These theories are not going to move things forward constructively. Time to retire them.
A lot gets cut from news stories and a lot got cut from this one. He did the EVgo/Chevy Bolt drive from LA->Vegas sometime in April, two months ago. He did not pick EVGo, they reached out to him. They offered the car; he did not pick the car. He rode with EVGo reps in the car, I suppose he thought it was worth a try, he might learn something about the charging infrastructure available to the public. There is so much context that gets lost by what winds up in the few words that survive to print. He did all sorts of research for this story which was ostensibly about charging and charging networks--not about the cars. He covers alternative energy and has an interest in EV charging networks and in battery storage. There was a ton more about Tesla in the article originally that didn't make it into the final piece (Tesla gave him a Model 3 to drive for a weekend--he thought it was a great car, no complaints, though he did have some interesting charging experiences, which is the thing he was mainly interested in). But still, I learned that apparently Tesla's PR team is generally happy with the resulting story, and is not bent out of shape the way many in the Tesla community have been since this story came out. Something to think about.
There is a difference between the individual journalist and the publication or media outlet that puts out the story. We too often forget that. There are also editors, copy editors, headline editors, web producers, and all sorts of other team members who are editing, guiding, cutting, pasting, rearranging, A/B testing of headlines (once again, I learned that the reporter had no say or input or anything as to what the headline of the story was: that's done in NYC, and this reporter is LA based), and packaging the final product that readers see in print or online.
For now I'll just say that I suspect a lot of the dissatisfaction many of us feel in terms of how the EV phenomenon is being depicted and covered in major media actually stems from how the stories are packaged by the publication, not from the reporters themselves. But we tend to direct our unhappiness solely onto the name of the reporter attached to the article. On social media, the reporter gets the brunt of the grief, the attacks, the ad-hominems. If we want to move media coverage of EVs forward we have to figure out a way to constructively engage at the
editorial level; reporters in general are not the enemy. (Yes, yes, there are writers out there who genuinely don't like Tesla, and have a bias, I will stipulate. Ivan isn't one of 'em.) Tweeting flames to NYT editors isn't the answer, unfortunately; I suspect they a) just tune that stuff out and b), worse, it all just fuels a view--deserved or undeserved--that Tesla owners are elitist and reactionary. (Perhaps a bunch of brief, respectful, thoughtful letters to the editor would be a better approach at engaging with higher-ups in the press. If only the New York Times still had an ombudsman/public editor.)
I think the EV crowd sometimes views news articles like this latest NYT piece as massive tsunami waves, wreaking destruction on the public's understanding of EVs. The more I discuss the articles with journalists at these media outlets, the more I start realizing that each article is indeed a wave, but just one ordinary wave, and it is the lapping of many waves over years that will ultimately cause the shape of a continent to change.
One thing that would really help is for the people in the press to begin owning EVs, so they have personal hands-on day-in/day-out experience with them. But realistically the industry isn't quite there yet. Early adopter Tesla owners, of which I am one, often easily forget that. Teslas are still pretty exotic/expensive vehicles, and EVs, be they Tesla or made elsewhere, are still out of reach economically and practically by many people for all sorts of reasons we often don't think about. So sure, there are Tesla superchargers all over, but to the ordinary public who doesn't own a Tesla, they mean nothing. I suspect this reporter was more interested in the state of charging for everything non-Tesla. Furthermore, I suspect EVs in general, and definitely Teslas, are still not even on the purchase horizon of most people who work at news-gathering organizations. As a consequence I suspect editors are cutting stuff from stories that might have helped the overall context, stuff existing Tesla owners would have seen as no-brainers and crucial for increasing the public's understanding. I really think this is where the disconnect is. Sadly it's not going to get fixed overnight, or even in a year. But I am hopeful it is going to get better over time as EVs become more mainstream.
So, I suggest we all take a deep breath and work to find constructive ways outside of swift social media reactions to get better media coverage of the EV revolution. Ideally everyone ought to pitch in: owners, EV-makers, editors, and reporters. I suggested to this reporter that we ought to have a conference and hash these issues out constructively. Maybe that would move the needle forward a little bit. It's a dream, anyway.
