WSJ Journalist Trials and Tribulations During Model 3 Drive

[SageBrush]

It has been widely reported that the journalist was unable to shift from Park into Drive, and only succeeded after the car was 'rebooted' twice. Tesla looked at the car logs afterwards and found that the journalist was pressing the Park button while attempting to shift, thus the problem.

You might think that the Journal would post an update to the car review, but the current WSJ is not the newspaper of yore.

 

[Rockster]

There's a reason my friends and I call it The Wall Street Urinal.

 

[outdoors]

Would not paper train my dog with the WSJ.

 

[SteveG3]

WSJ has very consistently shown a quite strong negative bias re Tesla for years, including putting out articles devoted to taking shots on those who say positive things about Tesla and its cars (i.e., Jay Leno and Consumer Reports).

 

[int32_t]

Good to know. I do like how Tesla gets such sweet revenge with the vehicle logs every.single.time.

 

[purplewalt]

WSJ is inept.
At reporting.
The Facts.
And Truth.

 

[octoad]

I routinely see sponsored posts in my Twitter feed from the WSJ linking to articles that bash Tesla.

 

[McRat]

Funny. I scolded somebody for reviewing an EV on here before reading the manual. Guess I should have been scolding the WSJ reporter instead. Sadly, it all too common for auto 'journalists' today to skip doing their homework before testing a car.

 

[MXWing]

Is there a link to this story?

 

[MP3Mike]

Is there a link to this story?

Here is what I found: Tesla Model 3: The Test Drive

Start listening at about 4:00. (He covers that Tesla identified the issue.)

 

[gaswalla]

Aw geez...I have to say it.. FAKE NEWS!

 

[jbcarioca]

Funny. I scolded somebody for reviewing an EV on here before reading the manual. Guess I should have been scolding the WSJ reporter instead. Sadly, it all too common for auto 'journalists' today to skip doing their homework before testing a car.

Actually I reported on a test drive dealer demo, consequently the car as presented. You said I should have studied the manual prior to the test drive and alleged that most people do that.

Reporters might be held to a higher standard, or not.

 

[Cosmacelf]

That's just pathetic. So far the best, and frankly only real review has been the Motor Trend one. Spoiler: they loved it.

 

[voip-ninja]

Funny. I scolded somebody for reviewing an EV on here before reading the manual. Guess I should have been scolding the WSJ reporter instead. Sadly, it all too common for auto 'journalists' today to skip doing their homework before testing a car.

It's 2017, nobody should have to read an owner's manual before driving a car.... if anything, a high tech car is supposed to make these things easier.

Do you have to read a manual to use an iPhone?

If pressing the park button while trying to shift into drive caused a problem for this guy it will cause problems for others. Software could detect what is going on and alert the person on-screen "you're doing it wrong".

And.... I also hate the WSJ.

 

[McRat]

Actually I reported on a test drive dealer demo, consequently the car as presented. You said I should have studied the manual prior to the test drive and alleged that most people do that.

Reporters might be held to a higher standard, or not.

Just reading the 'getting started' and what the instruments mean is a good start. Cars today have so many bells and whistles, the most basic of operations can be hidden. Luckily, most cars have manuals online.

In your case, it was not knowing the brake pedal regens, or that there were also other ways to turn on regen. The car had tons of regen, but because you did not understand what the gauges meant, you reported the regen was weak when it's about the strongest of any EV.

What sucked was hopping in a debadged car as a focus group participant and trying figure out what everything was, and where everything was, and what it was saying on a test mule. Got a lot of it wrong probably, but all they wanted was my answers, right or wrong, then I was supposed to drive it correctly and report what the cluster was really telling me. Cryptic would be a good way to describe that effort at an interface.

But yeah, I read the basic controls and instruments before I test a car or motorcycle. Can you imagine guessing at what the P modes are while tracking a car?

 

[McRat]

It's 2017, nobody should have to read an owner's manual before driving a car.... if anything, a high tech car is supposed to make these things easier.

Do you have to read a manual to use an iPhone?

If pressing the park button while trying to shift into drive caused a problem for this guy it will cause problems for others. Software could detect what is going on and alert the person on-screen "you're doing it wrong".

And.... I also hate the WSJ.

Luckily most cars default to 'easy' mode and can be driven right way. However, if you're testing a car, you should know where operational controls are. I know at least one car that if I didn't read where the parking brake was hidden, I'd have never found it.

And to make me the perfect fool, I locked myself in a car and could not get out for 30 minutes until someone came looking for me.
Reading that one little page about where the emergency door release was located would have saved some trouble. The door releases were all electric, and the 12v battery was too dead to release the door. I hopped in, closed the door, hit START, nothing. So I pushed the button to open the door, nothing. Tried to roll down the windows, nothing. Finally my wife went online and found where the release was.

 

[jgillispie]

It happens on many cars. I have to tell people to hit the brake pedal to start my car with push button.

 

[jgillispie]

Just listened to the article. Really seems fine, not sure what the fuss is about. He made a user error which is not far-fetched after having watched Tesla newbies take test drives. Still kind of scary their "Tesla" guy didn't know how to use the shifter which is essentially the same as the S.

 

[yesup]

Actually I reported on a test drive dealer demo, consequently the car as presented. You said I should have studied the manual prior to the test drive and alleged that most people do that.

Most people don't. And that's why many dealerships have someone going through many features and functions when you pick up a new car.

Reporters might be held to a higher standard, or not.

Yes, they should, and quite rightly so.
If I don't know about something and did something wrong, I would just say "Oops!" when I found out.

But if a reporter wrote an article wrongly accusing the car manufacturer just because he/she was ignorant of how a car operated, many readers would be misled.

It's 2017, nobody should have to read an owner's manual before driving a car.... if anything, a high tech car is supposed to make these things easier.
Do you have to read a manual to use an iPhone?

I disagree. For example, the BMW's turn signal - for someone who have only known the traditional mechanical turn signal, they maybe totally confused how the BMW turn signal works. It is much easier if they are shown how it works by the dealership, or if they read the manual.

As for iPhone, again if you come from other smart phone or Android, you can probably navigate around without reading the manual.
But for someone who came from a dumb phone, and never knew about gesture (like my mom), they would have a hard time if they didn't know anything about swiping the screen etc.

If pressing the park button while trying to shift into drive caused a problem for this guy it will cause problems for others. Software could detect what is going on and alert the person on-screen "you're doing it wrong".

Tesla shift stick is OEM from Mercedes. Haven't heard many complaints about Mercedes control. The reporter has probably never driven a modern Mercedes before.
And there is so much the car can "guess" what the driver is trying to do. When you press "Park", or like the "Off" button in an electronic appliance, it is not easy for the software to know that you really did not mean that when the car is stationary.

 

[kort677]

It has been widely reported that the journalist was unable to shift from Park into Drive, and only succeeded after the car was 'rebooted' twice. Tesla looked at the car logs afterwards and found that the journalist was pressing the Park button while attempting to shift, thus the problem.

You might think that the Journal would post an update to the car review, but the current WSJ is not the newspaper of yore.

typical clueless journalist