[guiambros]

C'mon, the entire response is a joke. The NY Times is just trying to save their face, after precipitously baking Broder without knowing the facts (and knowing that Tesla had that amount of data of the test drive).

Ms. Sullivan herself admits that "Did he [Broder] use good judgment along the way? Not especially." And also that "...Mr. Broder left himself open to valid criticism by taking what seem to be casual and imprecise notes along the journey, unaware that his every move was being monitored." Still, she insists that it was all done in good faith and integrity.

I'm sorry, but this is The New York Times. You can't just say "oh, our journalist just messed up by NOT following common sense instructions, and NOT taking proper notes, and still writing a misleading article [about the wrong topic -- the car -- rather than the super charge stations which was the original intention]. But hey, it was all in good faith, so no harm".

To me this is exactly the opposite of what I'd expect to hear from the editor of the NYT. She missed the opportunity to recognize the flaws of the original article, apologize on behalf of their journalist for not taking proper diligence and care that you'd expect from such publication, and offer readers (& Tesla) to re-do the entire test and publish the results again.

[tlrobinson]

"C'mon, the entire response is a joke."

If Musk could really back up all of his accusations, why would he be "satisfied" with this "joke" of a response?

It seems Musk prematurely accused NYT of "faking" the review, then realized they couldn't back up that accusation, and are taking this opportunity to back down.

[cwp]

Yeah, it looks to me like, after the Top Gear thing, they ascribed to malice what could be explained by stupidity.

But, they made a bunch of noise, got some more headlines, cast doubt on the negative review, and gave their fans a good story to use at the water cooler. Time to declare victory and drop the issue.

[emn13]

Musk comes across as somewhat delusional. Or really dishonest - but I suspect he really sees the world this way.

In no way shape or form did Musk's claim turn out to be true, which indeed is just like the Top Gear thing.

I particularly love how Musk seems to blame the choices of the reviewers - i.e. selective reporting, cherry-picking - for the car's undenied failures. And of course that can be entirely reasonable; if you make the wrong choices things won't work. But then he turns around and does exactly the thing he's accusing the reviewers of: he cherry-picks his data, and selectively interprets it to present it as some kind of conspiracy.

I can excuse an individual reporter for experiencing something in typically human fashion: i.e. colored by preference and ignorance, somewhat muddled and poorly remembered, and certainly not necessarily representative of the experience of others. On the other hand; Musk doesn't have those excuses. He has tons of quantitative data that he can review as often as he likes, in whatever detail he likes. He's presumably an expert on the car and knows of plausible explanations for various observations to be found in that data. He and this team have reviewed such data many times before. And yet, nevertheless, he chooses to cherrypick his observations and read into them what he'd like to see - namely that the failures are entirely the reviewer's fault and in no way the car's. (I mean, that whole driving around in circles thing... or the exact moment the temperature changed...)

Worse, the test occurred in cooperation with Tesla, so they could have predicted at least a few of these issues. Why in the heavens did Musk agree to this review in this form when it was obviously not going to be an easy drive? Didn't they look at the weather forecast and know this was going to be a problem? Isn't it obvious that a reviewer accustomed to convential cars won't be an expert in electrical range-maximization?

I'd love to see electrical cars work. It's a shame that Musk seems to think (self-)deception is the way to convince the world that they're ready for long-haul travel.

[dechols]

> If Musk could really back up all of his accusations, why would he be "satisfied" with this "joke" of a response?

Frankly, he's probably still not satisfied. But he realizes there's no point in trying to slay the New York Times. That's not his dragon to kill.

He's got other things to do, and the NYTimes writing terrible articles is not his interest or priority. Write a witty blog post and declare victory is the right choice here.

[emn13]

Perhaps it's right in the sense of good PR. But is it right in the sense of honest?

[ainsleyb]

As a founder your job is to take the high road as much as possible while still pushing through the strengths of your company. It seems pretty obvious that NYT won't be changing their opinion, and maybe even reached out to Musk to confirm this suspicion. If Musk were to reply to this negatively he'd essentially be feeding an ever-lasting flame. He's taking the best parts, spinning them to those who care about his product, and is continuing on with building out a great product.

Not to mention, he's gotten a lot of good press from other media sources since (as he points out in his blog post).

[cynicalkane]

The record clearly establishes that Broder engaged in unrealistic driving patterns to get the car to run out of juice--stuff like driving around in circles and ignoring range warnings--and then went on to lie and mislead people about it.

There's a good point to be made here about arguing: like baseball, choose the juciest, easiest pitches and then swing for the fences. Don't try to argue every point and stretch the truth to do so, because it damages credibility. Musk tried to argue more than he should have.

So we have a whole lot of people attacking Musk when the NYT did a provably dishonest smear job and is trying not to admit it.

[brown9-2]

How is it we are still debating parts of this which have clearly been settled and which there are clearly logical explanations for?

engaged in unrealistic driving patterns to get the car to run out of juice--stuff like driving around in circles

Broder's response: I drove around the Milford service plaza in the dark looking for the Supercharger, which is not prominently marked. I was not trying to drain the battery.

Musk accused Broder of "driving around in circles" for 0.6 miles. What kind of car would this be if an extra 0.6 miles was sufficient to cross the line into "the battery is now fully drained"?

Occum's Razor dictates that the reason for driving around "in circles for 0.6 miles" is easily explained as being lost while trying to find a location you've never been to before. Someone doing extra malicious driving would probably go further than an extra 3000 feet.

What is more realistic than driving around lost?

[kayz]

I found it extremely hard to believe that is the case based on 3 things:

1. I've seen many comments suggesting that the parking lot is well lit in the night and the Supercharger is especially easy to spot and hard to miss, which directly contradicts to what Broader claims: "dark, unlighted, not marked". [1](http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-data-w...)

2. Here is a video of how well-lit and easy to spot: [2](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3fO_OHpyYw)

3. Here is the Google map: [3](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Milford,+Conn.,+supercharger&#...) If Google's data is to be trusted, each loop is less than 100m, and 0.6miles is roughly 10 laps.

Realistic scenario for driving around and lost? I think not.

[eli]

So... He drove around in circles for five whole minutes as part of conspiracy to run down the battery? Five extra minutes of driving has a material impact on the range car? It is not more likely that he was simply lost?

I think you're looking at the wrong thing in the video you linked to. Those bright, well-lit things are gas pumps! The superchargers are the hard-to-see things the driver pulls up to at the end. I'm pretty sure I would have driven past them and I'm absolutely certain I'd have driven more than half a mile if I were intentionally trying to run down the battery.

[ash]

2. Is it really easy to spot? Note that Superchargers are at the very end of the video. No signs, no marks, no lights, just a few white columns near plain looking parking spots.

3. I've just measured with Google Maps ruler. It takes about 0.3 miles to drive all the ways on the parking lot and around the gas station (just near the Superchargers). So it's about 2 laps really. He could also drive another 0.2 miles if he mistakenly went around nearby McDonald's.

[brown9-2]

I think the Youtube video makes it look easier than it might be in real life since the driver goes directly to the Supercharger station (or what I assume is the station).

The rest area looked rather large and in the video I didn't see any signs directing the driver which path to take through the parking lot to get there. I could see someone who might be slightly distracted (or not yet familiar enough with the landmarks) driving through the gas station instead of turning right and missing the whole thing, and having to circle back around.

[hotpockets]

I don't think its been settled. Mr Broder lost a lot of credibility when outright lying about how fast he was going for the entire trip. Why wouldn't he lie about whether he saw the charging station. Since we don't have any data about what was going through his mind, Broder knows he can say anything in order to defend himself.

[emn13]

But the thing is - I don't care about Broder. We wouldn't be seeing these posts if it were just about Broder. This story is about Tesla's car!

I'd say it's undisputably true that Broder comes across as lacking professionalism. So sure, his review embellished the truth. But what exactly were you expecting?

The whole review set up is designed to be personal. It's not a scientific experiment with hundreds of trials, decent statistics, reproducible environments; it's not about the truth; it's about communicating with human beings: how does it feel to actually drive the car? It's an anecdote - and that includes all the good things (empathy, personal interest, real-life) and the bad things (non-reproducible, not your life, colored by that drivers opinion). Tesla knew this - but people make choices not just for purely rational reasons, so the human connection is one they wanted. They agreed to this test knowing full well that the range involved was going to be tricky at those temperatures, especially for a driver that doesn't have a clue about electrical cars. They also knew that the point of a review is to see what a car can do; so it's not unexpected for the reviewer to push the car a little further that you'd normally risk it.

And at the end of the day - I don't know Broder, I don't care about Broder - I don't really care about Tesla. I care about the future development of electric cars. And whatever Broder did or didn't do, the car didn't fare particularly well, and in a situation a normal car (and certainly a diesel) would have been able to do without any refill at all. Sure, you could have avoided the complete breakdown by not finishing the trip on schedule, but that's not a great alternative.

From my point of view it was never about Broder, it was about Tesla's car being put through a somewhat unfair test - but even taking into account the test's flaws, the car just doesn't come out looking good. Put it this way - I wouldn't have wanted to be Broder.

[cynicalkane]

My view was that the unrealism of these assertions have been established in this and previous threads. Now they've also been established in replies below. Also, when he was driving around in circles--in a tiny lot--with a clearly marked charger--he was at 0 range, consistent with someone trying to drain the battery.

There's also the matter of him being wrong about speed and cruise control and temperature settings and range. There's also the matter of Broder being wrong in his broad thesis (testing the supercharger network) since he refused to charge when he needed to.

I should have edited support for these things things in, but had to catch a plane, and now other people have already done it in this thread. But I thought true, and discussed, and re-discussed, statements would not be judged so harshly by the mob. My mistake.

We call these sorts of things lies when they're said on Fox News--but defend distortions when the NYT does them against such an important cause and such an admirable company?

[eli]

This has turned into a political argument. We might as well be arguing vim vs emacs. But I don't see any evidence that the review was intentionally dishonest or intended to be any sort of smear. Driving around for ~5 minutes in a giant parking lot doesn't seem especially unrealistic to me (if it was intended to run down the battery, it was a pretty weak attempt). The advice he says he received may sound made up to you, but that's certainly not proven (And shouldn't it be? Tesla doesn't tape its customer service calls?).

[doktrin]

Have you never missed an exit, or attempted to find your way in an unfamiliar area? Half a mile is trivial.

Perhaps I'm outing myself as a klutz of a driver, but just this week I missed an exit and ended up on the Bay Bridge to Oakland (ta-da, 20 mile detour).

If I were actively trying to burn through mileage I could probably do a fair bit better.

[taligent]

You have no facts to back anything of what you said up. And that "driving around in circles" bit is debatable when you actually see the chargers in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3fO_OHpyYw

Oh and that giant, lit up structure is NOT the chargers.