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Tesla Motors Battles the New York Times
redletterdave writes "Days after the New York Times released a brutal review of Tesla's electric Model S sedan, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired back, claiming the Times article was completely bogus and misleading. In the article in question, Times writer John Broder took the Tesla Model S on a test drive from Washington to Boston, stopping at various service plazas in Delaware and Connecticut well within the projected 265-mile range of the car, as rated by the EPA. However, Broder's Tesla Model S, despite a heftier 85 kilowatt-hour battery for an extra 100 miles of range in 'ideal conditions,' died shortly before reaching its final destination. Broder blames the cold weather and heating issues for his abridged trip; Musk, however, claims the driver did not follow Tesla's instructions, which is why his trip was cut so short. 'We've taken great pains to ensure that the car works very well in the cold, which is why we're so incensed by this ridiculous article,' Musk said."
Delete your nytimes cookies and then you should be able to read the article.
Lithium batteries really don't handle cold temperatures very well at all -- one of the many reasons that aircraft have continued to use good old fashioned Nickel-cadmium or lead-acid batteries (until the Dreamliner came along).
When they're too cold, they neither take a full charge, nor do they deliver their rated capacity or maximum current.
I would say that, given the weather on the East Coast of the USA during the drive, this played a significant factor in the lack of range encountered -- but I acknowledge that it may not be the only factor.
Perhaps another factor is the enhanced need to heat the passenger compartment. Unlike a regular IC-powered car, there's very little "waste heat" in an EV so perhaps over-zealous use was made of the electric heating - thus producing further heavy drain on the battery and reducing range.
The problem (for Tesla) is that people don't want an EV that comes with a long list of "don'ts" and "cautions" in respect to power management and the effects of low/high temperatures on range. They just want a car they can unplug, jump in and drive -- with an unqualified guarantee of a known range. That's effectively what they get now with their IC-powered cars and that's what they want from any replacement.
Mr. Musk has referred to a “long detour” on my trip. He is apparently referring to a brief stop in Manhattan on my way to Connecticut that, according to Google Maps, added precisely two miles to the overall distance traveled from the Delaware Supercharger to Milford (202 miles with the stop versus 200 miles had I taken the George Washington Bridge instead of the Lincoln Tunnel). At that point, I was already experiencing anxiety about range and had called a Tesla employee from the New Jersey Turnpike to ask how to stretch the battery. She said to shut off the cruise control to take advantage of battery regeneration from occasional braking and slowing down. Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage.
Before I set out from my home in suburban Washington, I informed Tesla that I intended to make a brief stop in New York and that I would spend the night in the vicinity of Milford rather than attempting to make it to Boston, which was theoretically possible with a full charge at Milford, although it was a bitterly cold night — and that clearly affects the car’s range. I added 185 miles of range at Milford, knowing that I wouldn’t need 242 or 265 miles before recharging the next morning.
When I parked the car for the night at a hotel, the range meter showed 90 miles remaining, and I was about 45 miles from the Milford Supercharger. As I recounted in the article, when I awoke the next morning the indicated range was 25 miles. The rest of that story is told in the article, including a Tesla official’s counsel, which I followed, that an hour of charging at the Norwich, Conn., utility would restore much of the range lost overnight, which had disappeared because of what he called a “software glitch.”
I don't see where the actual size of his detour (2 miles) or style of driving, as he described it, should have had a dramatic effect on the vehicle's range. It doesn't seem like the problem, at least according to his account, is between the seat and the steering wheel.
Based on that advice, I was under the impression that stop-and-go driving at low speeds in the city would help, not hurt, my mileage.
He's thinking that repeatedly cycling between 0 and 10 is going to help his mileage. Do you really think that anyone driving a hybrid would think this is the case?
Why does a reporter get an exemption for being an idiot? Driving in NYC for 2 miles is a massive detour when you consider the weather - not only was he losing lots more charge in those 2 miles than in the next 50 of cruising with gradual changes in speed, he also likely had the heat on, which is just going to drain the battery even faster than before.
Two miles in Manhattan probably took him an hour to an hour and a half. Look at the Google estimates for the Delaware to NYC (2 hours 26 minutes) and NYC to Milford (1 hour 26 minutes) legs of the trip - it totals under 4 hours. He left Delaware at 12:24pm, and arrived in Milford at 5:45pm - that's more than 5 hours, and almost 5 and a half. He spent more than an hour in NYC, probably an hour and a half, with at least 30 minutes in pure stop-and-go hell, since he's in midtown right around the time traffic starts to build up.
Right, the power needs to come from somewhere. But electricity transmission is significantly more efficient than gas transmission, there's the difference. A non-trivial amount of gas is used to drive gas to a station so you can get it. Last time I checked, the EPA estimates that electrical transmission is 10% more efficient than taking gas to a gas station.
Doesn't change the fact that coal is shitty, but you can't really polish a turd.