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NY Times' Broder Responds To Tesla's Elon Musk
DocJohn writes "NY Times' John Broder responded to Elon Musk's blog entry. Accused of driving around a parking lot for no reason, for instance, Broder notes he was simply looking for the poorly marked charging station. Worst of all, much of Broder's behavior can be attributed directly to advice he received from Tesla representatives — something Musk fails to mention."
There is another reporter duplicating this exact run.
Open the window and turn up the heater. Drive in circles in a parking lot.
Use the advise from Tesla motors in an odd way to maximize drain.
I await the other reporters story not this con job.
A charging station he had previously been to...which makes his claim seem pretty suspect to me.
Also, Musk did say this: "The final leg of his trip was 61 miles and yet he disconnected the charge cable when the range display stated 32 miles. He did so expressly against the advice of Tesla personnel and in obvious violation of common sense."
That was the most damning accusation, and on that note, Musk refutes the claim that he was told by Tesla employees to act as he did.
Maybe because they're not yet ready for prime time? Seemed to me the biggest problem in the article was the battery charge dropping overnight in the cold weather. Elon Musk forgot to rebut that. Maybe if global warming is real, that won't be a problem. Eventually. Oh, and an hour and a half to refuel at supercharged station? I can't be the only one who sees a problem with that.
They clocked the speed he was driving at because the tires were a different size? There's some mysterious huge downhill on the new jersey turnpike that caused him to hit 80 despite setting his cruise control to 54? Really? Is that the best he can come up with?
The model S may or may not be a good car. It sure seems like it's a pain to charge up on long trips. But this guy Broder sounds like he's full of it.
The log does show that rated range remaining dropped at the 400 mile mark very sharply. I wonder what happened. Did Broder just park the car and leave it on overnight? The battery charge did drain quite a bit without making any distance. Since the log's x-axis is distance based, it doesn't show how fast the battery charge is used up while the car is not moving.
I once had a signature.
I don't think mine sucks. I love it. Chevy Volt. Has a fanboy webpage, not GM sponsored. gmvolt.com. We talk about the others, many of us either wish we had a Tesla - or DO. Funny thing - the least little thing wrong with any of our cars gets discussed. And we here almost nothing bad about Tesla, even though we're not his fan-group. What cold hard facts? People who, unlike this reporter, have some brains, and enough money to buy an electric almost universally love them. I prefer the mixed-hybrid Volt, as it can be an only car even if you do like to take long trips, and don't want to wait for even a super-charger to fill it back up. Guess what Bob Lutz (the guy who influenced GM to make the Volt) says? They'd never have made this great car if Elon hadn't prodded them in the ass with his.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Is there anyone outside of Tesla that can independently verify that the logs actually recorded what Musk says they recorded? Why is there an automatic assumption by some that what Musk is publishing is what the logs actually recorded? How would we know if Musk is falsifying what's in the logs?
Telling people they are ignorant yahoo buffoons is not pedantic. It may be rude.
I knew enough about Tesla cars, or so I thought. I always figured they were impractical for me because their price puts them at a sole-car position for a person, and for long trips there was nothing that could be done about not being able to reach places > 300 miles away.
The scandal actually gave me a second or third look at them and let me see that the supercharger network is coming along. I also thought that the supercharger network was dumb, reasoning that I wouldn't want to wait 50 minutes to recharge my car in the middle of a trip. The article made me rethink that as well. On a drive of >300 miles I almost always stop somewhere for lunch. Basically the cars range just enforces a break every few hundred miles.. not that bad a thing.
There are still problems unspoken by this article. What if multiple cars are ahead of you and it takes 2 hours to charge? You can't really plan those delays into a trip, not a business one at least.
I'm still a big fan of the Chevy Volt for being 100% electric, with the backup gas engine if needed. And it doesn't look completely ridiculous like the nissan leaf, nor does it require new infrastructure like the Tesla.
Tesla has the benefit of being the first ones out there with a real EV that works, so they have an opportunity to set the standard. They need to put as much as they possibly can into getting supercharging stations at every rest stop, restaurant, and hotel in and around population centers. You're going to spend 45 minutes eating at Denny's (or wherever) anyway. If you can plug in your Tesla and charge to nearly full while you do it? That's brilliant.
Once they have critical mass of infrastructure in place, they can charge a very small licensing fee to other EV manufacturers for the interface technology and set the major standard for the next couple decades while practically printing money along the way.
As for the Volt, it can't be "100% electric" if it has a gasoline engine. Just like the Prius and others, it's an EV until it isn't. That entire time, it's an overcomplicated bit of machinery trying to be all things to all people. I just hope Tesla manages to get their next model out soon since it's targeting under $30,000 with specs comparable to the Model S. That, I think, is where they have the opportunity to get huge.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."