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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. |