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by taligent 4873 days ago
> someone who has no education in comprehending quantitative

You need to a degree to understand a pretty basic line graph ? Give me a break.

People on here (and in the article's comments) need to stop acting like sanctimonious assholes. Electric cars are not some advanced technology that only the precious genius of Musk and IT nerds can comprehend.

The fact is that the truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle here. Big surprise.
2 comments
JPKab 4873 days ago
I get why you're irritated, but when I say "education" I don't mean necessarily a degree. I mean just some fundamental, working knowledge, whether that's from a degree, course, autodidactic, whatever. I did sound sanctimonious, but you know what? I didn't write a critique of someone's data dependent analysis. And if I lacked quantitative analysis experience, I wouldn't try to.

But to be fair, I have no way of knowing the author lacks this experience. My intuition told me this with the numerous mistakes made in the article.

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achompas 4873 days ago
What mistakes? I work with data for a living, and I agreed with The Atlantic's points (having reached the same conclusions last night when the story broke).

The particular mistake you cite results from a lack of domain knowledge, not analysis skills. The chart says "rated range remaining." If you're not familiar with EVs, you'd think that means the car will not move anymore. That assumption has zero to do with chart-reading abilities.

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dfxm12 4873 days ago
It is unreasonable for someone to expect the truth from a journalist? This is an issue about integrity. If the truth does, in fact, lie in the middle, it doesn't matter if the NYT author had a hidden agenda or not, it matters that the NYT author did not tell the truth.

I expect Tesla employees to be biased toward Tesla. I expect journalists to tell the truth.

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