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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."
You're driving it wrong.
So, nobody can read NYT's article (without registering/logging in), but everyone can read Musk's rebuttal. That's going to make the debate fairly one-sided in the public's mind.
WTF? Isn't it common sense to fully charge an electric car before embarking on a journey to test the car's range? This guy should be fired from the NYT.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
I hadn't read the review until Musk started talking about it. This alone made more news than the article. In the end I don't think there will be a large effect on sales; those who can afford to buy a Tesla will buy one whether or not it runs a little shorter in the cold. That said, if the logs reflect that the car wasn't fully charged, then Musk does have a valid reason to complain.
This was on boing boing a few days ago and one conclusion was that the Tesla charging stations are spaced at almost the maximum range of the car but the car can't get that range in cold weather when the cabin heater is being used. In an electric car there is not enough parasitic heat loss to heat the cabin so the energy comes from the batteries.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
In the actual interview, Elon Musk mentioned the NY Times reporter failed the following three things:
1) Didn't have a full battery
2) He took detours
3) He went above the speed limit
And gee surprise, your battery ran.
A car (or any high tech product) designed and built by engineers is not suitable for the masses, at least on the first revision. You need a bunch of "real people" using it before you can figure out all the "user interface issues". And I'm not trying to be an elitist; it's just that everyone does "think different(ly)", so this needs to be taken into consideration, which doesn't usually happen when there's only a like-minded group of people working on the project.
Have you ever read how EPA estimates are done? You put a car on a dyno and run it through some fanciful schedule for what a "trip" should consist of. Too many hills, some extra wind, or a heavy foot will heavily skew real-world numbers. If your car gets 50mpg, what sane person would pump one gallon of gas and set out across the desert for the next gas station, 50 miles away. I get the iPhone joke, but if you're trying to max the car's economy, you very well could be driving it the wrong way.
There are always at least two sides to every story... To wit: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/
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.
So the Tesla is only suitable for people who:
1) can be certain of a full charge every time they leave the house; 2) never take detours, or get forced into detours by road construction; 3) never go above the speed limit;
Given that, I'm absolutely shocked that this isn't already a mass-market blockbuster - it's clearly suitable for all the common use cases!
To be fair, if you do start with a non-full tank, drive longer distances or raise the RPM (by driving it at higher speeds) to a fuel-driven car engine, you can expect that you may not be able to reach the next petrol station (i.e. what you describe is, in principle, not specific to electric cars). The difference is in the advertised range.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
This isn't about your daily car usage, it's a test to verify the car's range, and failing to do all three should have one marked as an idiot (or malicious).
The battery array in a more standard electric car are far more than $2k. Closer to $12-20k.
We may not be there yet for individuals, but there is at least one taxi company doing this, swapping out batteries.
To be fair, you're never more than about 5 miles from a gas station in most areas of the northeast - can't say the same of EV charging stations.
To be fair, refueling your gas/diesel engine takes about 10 minutes - can't say the same of EV charging stations.
To be fair, running the heater in cold weather will not trash your gas engine's range - can't say the same of EV charging stations.
To be fair, leaving your internal combustion engine out in cold weather overnight won't cause you to lose approximately 2/3 of your remaining fuel - according to the article, can't say the same of EVs.
These are all engineering, infrastructure, and design problems that ARE specific to electric vehicles, and which need to be solved if they want their products to catch on in the mass market and compete with gas-powered vehicles. If they want them to be the exclusive toys of the rich who have time & money to waste, then great, keep telling people "you're driving it wrong." If you want to challenge the existing motor vehicle industry, you have to offer a compelling reason to buy your alternative product. So far, other than "wow it's super expensive," there doesn't seem to be too much to recommend the Tesla.
nor do I own a car with a battery.
Do tell? Do you have to start it lawnmower style?
So reviews should verify theoretical device usage instead of real device usage? Why doesn't Elon Musk write his own reviews then? Oh wait, he's trying to do that now.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Let's consider this...
NY Times has a flawless ride, everything goes well, the result? An article like all the rest...nothing noticeable. It's not like the Tesla S is unknown anymore.
NY Times can push things hard to try to make for a failure, now we have a controversial article on a new technology. That'll sell. And that's really all those old paper rags care about.
The fastest way to look overly-sensitive and closed minded is to blame the press. It's just about the worst PR move you can make.
What they should have done is issue a press release that they were working closely with the reporter to find out what anomolies may have occured so they can improve the design if needed. They are in serious need of a new PR firm.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
Tesla got a copy of the script for Top Gear - written before they drove the car - and it had pre-planned a battery disaster. That was the major beef - it was a fix, a fraud. (Top Gear is not a auto review show - it is entertaiment) I think that on trial the matter of the fake-drained script simply wasn't considered. The judge simply ruled that the TV show was a known bender of facts and that the show, even doctored as it was, didn't hurt Tesla - no libel, no financial harm. He simply ruled that the audience knew it was fake, more or less.
And here's Jalopnik: http://goo.gl/AdRdN
From Treehugger: http://goo.gl/ILrHB
Ok, so since when did Engineers start trusting users?
Last I checked, the user was the biggest point of failure in any system. Tesla has to account for the fact that people are not going to follow instructions. This is actually a better real-world test than you might think because people don't always read directions.
After making arrangements to recharge at the Norwich station, I located the proper adapter in the trunk, plugged in and walked to the only warm place nearby, Butch’s Luncheonette and Breakfast Club, an establishment (smoking allowed) where only members can buy a cup of coffee or a plate of eggs. But the owners let me wait there while the Model S drank its juice. Tesla’s experts said that pumping in a little energy would help restore the power lost overnight as a result of the cold weather, and after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford.
Looking back, I should have bought a membership to Butch’s and spent a few hours there while the car charged. The displayed range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford, and as I limped along at about 45 miles per hour I saw increasingly dire dashboard warnings to recharge immediately. Mr. Merendino, the product planner, found an E.V. charging station about five miles away.
My questions are:
Unless they completely screwed you over, and you have evidence to prove that.
Being right has nothing to do with [not] being stomped into the mud. One necessary condition here is the ability of the audience to comprehend your proof.
In this case, though, I think Tesla is wrong. The reporter drove the car exactly per instructions, and he was frequently on the phone with Tesla. He charged the car also per instructions. I do not know if he used the mode "Kill my battery but give me 10% more range" - but no sane person would be even trying to find this mode unless it is preset. If Tesla had to use this mode, on a preplanned trip, why didn't they preset it before delivering the car to the reporter?
Tesla is also haggling about a 2 mile "detour" in NYC, about 200 miles away from the failure point and before the last supercharge. This is ridiculous. Tesla instead should explain this:
All in all, I see that the reporter did all that he could to help the car to take this easy trip - but the car still failed. Lame, literally. Nobody should pay $100K for a car that can't take a road trip. EV manufacturers should lower their estimated range by measuring it not in ideal conditions but in real conditions, by physically driving the car - at night, in rain, in snow. Then the manufacturer can stand by these numbers - and journalists wouldn't be using them as an easy punching bag. EV makers are lying, all of them; they think puffing the range up helps them. But in reality the negative PR hurts them more. Be honest, say that the car cannot cover more than $m miles and nobody will take you to court. Those are expensive toys, and people who buy them have resources.
Slipped on the pulldown menu and choose redundant by mistake :P
Since I'm not rich enough to afford one of these, yet I still have two cars, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I wouldn't expect people to use their electric luxury car for long trips. Hell, we take our less-efficient car (minivan) on trips because it is more comfortable. It seems to me that the Times was looking for a way to fail the car to make their story better. Most of us would probably commute in this thing.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I used to have a 2005 BMW. Whenever I filled it up it would show 330 miles to empty. Yet after 200 city miles the tank would be dry. Amazingly the car was not able to see the future and know how many lights I'd have to stop at. What a crap car. I'll write a scathing article about it.
Goodness, that's pedantic. He means "if you AVERAGE up EVERYONE's speed, it will be about 5 over". It's not the most well-constructed sentence, but most native speakers should be able to figure out what he was saying.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Whose fault it is is somewhat irrelevant. Do you want a car that you have to remember to plug-in overnight and which you have to carefully plan your trips to ensure that you can get to the next refuelling station? Even if you fully understand how they work and their limitations you can easily make a mistake by forgetting to plug it in and suddenly you can't drive to work the next day because it takes several hours to charge.
Conventional cars are so well evolved that people have very high expectations. I've had less than one breakdown per 100,000 miles. I can drive almost any car until the "low gas"light turns on, and then have >30 miles range to reach a gas station. When I fill my car at the pump it is filled. No fast fill / slow fill. No trickle-fill. If I somehow don't completely fill it, the gas gage doesn't read full and I can refill a few hours later. Most cars will drive ~400 miles on a tank, and its rare in this country to have to go more than 50 miles to find a gas station.
It sounds like the electric car works as designed when used by a knowledgeable person. The problem is that people don't need to be knowledgeable about conventional cars. If you buy a new car it just works.
So while I don't think the Tesla car is in any way bad, it just doesn't meet the exceptionally high expectations for usability that Americans have come to expect.
Drive the car in only the optimum temperature for the batteries and engine; preferably at a high enough altitude to minimize drag; have it driven by someone of the stature of a Thoroughbred jockey, who provides their own light weight thermal compensation to eliminate heater/AC use, and, of course, their own sound system; turn off the lights; always drive down hill and with the wind.
Using these techniques, it is likely you will achieve the advertised range, otherwise, much, much less. Top Gear had the same issue with the sports car (drive it "fun" and the range is nearly nothing) and prevailed.
These work as well for liquid-fueled (gasoline, diesel, alcohol) automobiles and motorcycles, but, for those, you can carry extra fuel in case you're really going to be a long way from one of the much more plentiful liquid fuel stations.
What Top Gear does can hardly be considered serious reporting, or even serious car reviewing.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
you should read some more.
1) Didn't have a full battery
he charged until the car told him "charge complete", which was 90%. you can then "overcharge" but tesla themselves state that this reduces battery life. overcharge is supposed to add 25 miles to the range.
2) He took detours
which amounted to a total of 2 miles.
3) He went above the speed limit
at some point he hit 75. for the majority of the trip, he was going 55, which around here is 10MPH under the speed limit. if you are going 55 in CA, even in the slow lane, you'll get your ass ran into the ditch.
Let's spell it out:
Car has theoretical maximum range. This range assumes driving optimally (meaning within certain speeds) and assumes you start with full charge. For internal combustion engine, they have similar maximum range, that also includes certain driving speeds, which is usually FAR more constrained then on electric engine based vehicle due to severe torque penalty on ICE when running in non-optimal RPM range for that specific engine - if you wonder why, look up why internal combustion engines need multi-speed gear box while electric engine on tesla only needs one speed for optimal performance.
So the claim is that guy who was supposed to test theoretical max range:
1. Didn't top off the tank
2. Drove at speeds significantly higher then optimal for fuel consumption
3. Chose a longer route
4. Did a lot of stop-and-go during the trip
Do find me even one vehicle of any kind on the market that would manage to keep its theoretical maximum range with this kind of driving? Because internal combustion engine's energy consumption would actually increease from this kind of driving style far more then electric engine with regenerative breaking both due to no capture of energy on breaking (it's dissipated as heat on brake pads/drums) and due to engine working in non-optimal RPM ranges for much longer periods in case of ICE.
All in all, if Musk's claims hold, reporter was either very stupid (which could be true - he claimed that he thought that constant stop-and-go would not impact his range) or was intentionally trying to get advertisement for his story.
Either way, we'll find out when full logs are released.
I agree in the so far precondition. Now, imagine a time of $10/gallon gasoline price, with the current average wage. You think such a situation is improbable/impossible in the near future?
okay ... then i'll buy an electric car when that happens? and you know what? i bet in 5 years or whenever your prediction comes through, electric cars will have better range, fewer quirks, and they'll be more charging stations.
I still don't understand why I see so much hatred towards the exciting advancements of electric cars on a technology web forum. Everyone is quick to point out that it can't make long distance trips, but the average person rarely does that. Hell, I own a car with an ICE and I still rent a car when going on long trips because I don't want the extra mileage put onto my car and I can rent a car with nearly double the fuel economy of my own car, so it practically pays for itself. Instead of looking at the limitations of electric cars, let's look at the advantages:
- Charging the car can be three times cheaper than refueling a car that runs on decaying fossils
- You don't need to go out of your way every few days to find a gas station and refuel (especially nice if you live in an area that has cold weather)
- In the near future, you will be able to get a wireless charger that precludes you from having to plug in anything
- The electric car is likely quieter inside and outside of the cabin
- Your car isn't constantly spitting out pollutants and ruining our air
Not to mention that many American families have two cars. Make your next car an electric car and keep the gas guzzler for those long trips you claim to be constantly taking.
RTFA from CBS. The guy didn't charge the car to full, he then deviated from the projected routes which the system calculated for him.
It's like putting just enough gas in your car, calculating the route on GPS based on the consumption rate of the fuel, then deciding to deviate from the route and expect to get to your destination thinking god will save you.
Sad because I'm pretty sure the reviewer didn't expect the fact that when he drove a computer car it kept logs of his dickheadedry right?