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[PA Comic] Friday, February 15, 2013 - Blackbox
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Posts
EDIT: My bad wrong link
http://www.examiner.com/article/cnn-journalists-prove-john-broder-wrong-by-driving-tesla-model-s-over-same-route
It's the Examiner so...yeah.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/15/autos/tesla-model-s/
...goddammit.
I suppose that depends on what you are trying to accomplish. It depends on the cost of charging the car versus the cost of gas. It depends on how highly you value progress toward green tech.
Regardless, the story in question is not about the value of the car for what it is. That is for the market to decide. The story at hand is about a journalist allegedly manipulating facts to create a hit piece on a companies product. This is unethical on multiple levels. It's a person in a position of trust abusing that trust and lying. It's a person slandering a product and negatively tainting it's image. It's a person misleading consumers so they cannot make an informed decision with honest facts. I've even heard this piece may to be to blame for a dip in stock prices for Tesla.
Then there is the secondary moral question, the fact that this hit piece was directed at a technology intended to better our world. The reporter allegedly has ties to oil companies and a history of anti-green bias.
The actual value of the car isn't the point. Whether you think a Tesla vehicle is a poor investment or not, if the allegations against this reporter is true than what he did is unethical and he should be fired.
"Well, if he had just turned off the heat and driven 15 mph below the limit, then our $100,000 high-performance luxury sports sedan totally would have been fine."
Like the bit where the battery was empty and he drove around in circles in a desperate bid to deplete it? The guy had a clear agenda against them and I think it's hilarious that they've been able to systematically rip his article to pieces with actual evidence. The way Top Gear screwed them over was also bad, so I'm glad they've started doing this.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
People should read the article. If Broder "drove around in circles in a desperate bid to deplete it", why didn't it make it into the article? Why did he stop? Why did he try at all, instead of just lying and saying it did? Broder driving around the service plaza looking for the charging station at night makes a lot more sense than doing donuts for no reason, to create an effect that he didn't report happening.
The only actual relevant discrepancy between the data and the review is Broder saying he set the cruise control to 55 and the data showing him travelling at 60. Which is hardly damning in itself, can be explained by the fact the the car was delivered with 19in wheels instead of the stock 21s.
Elon Musk's baby got a bad review and he took it personally. Now he's hurting his brand is likely to get sued to boot.
It's the perfect crime.
Torque. The Tesla has the most amazing acceleration ever. Pedal to the metal and its like a rolercoaster.
Really, did you read the CNN article quoted above, where they drove the same route with very different results?
Did you read Mr. Musk's blog here, where he talks about the data recorder they put in the car and how the data shows that Broder did his best to make the test drive fit his agenda that he clearly had going into this article. I imagine Telsa's PR people are fine with what he is doing, and Tesla's corporate attorneys are salivating at the thought of a lawsuit, because there is enough clear evidence out there that Tesla would destroy the NYT and Broder in court.
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive
Read Mr. Musk's blog entry hear
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive
This, plus CNN's recreation of the test with vastly different results, creates a fairly clear picture that this journalist went into the story with an agenda, and did his level best to try to create facts to fit it.
That said, the NY Times reporter lied in his story. He should be fired. The NY Times already has a history of major "made-up" stories, and the reporter should be bounced with a call of, "Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out."
Hardly. The only criticism the review makes is that the range estimates, both from Tesla and from the car itself, are unreliable (at least in cold weather). The data Musk released supports that claim 100%. If there was no review, and you just used the data to look at the trip, you would come to exactly the same conclusions that the review did.
And Musk's counterclaim, that the range estimates are fine so long as you drive the car like it was a vespa scooter, is probably not the pitch he wants to make when trying to sell a $100,000 high-performance luxury car.
I don't even care whether the Tesla is a good car. I care that the reporter lied about his test conditions in a way that appears to have been deliberate.
People in here aren't saying the Tesla is awesome. What is being said is that Broder was given specific instructions (like charge the car to 100% at such-and-such location) and ignored those instructions in order to make the test drive fit into his predetermined narrative.
Where does he lie?
He omits critical facts from his piece that affected the car's performance. If you don't think that's lying because he didn't specifically tell an untruth, I think you're splitting hairs over what constitutes lying.
Look, we've all been there.
You order the frosty, and drive off. You begin to hear the sweet mistress' siren call from the cup holder. You steal a few glances at the cup, a few seductive drops of condensation are already running down the side. A bead of sweat runs down the side of your head, your face begins to feel warm and flushed. You stop at a red light, and look at the frosty again. It's all glistening wet and cold, drawing you into the honey pot. "I need to be in that!" you think to yourself, but you can't... you're in traffic. Eventually you dip two fingers through the lid, and almost lose it right then and there. Finally you just pull into the nearest parking lot and go to town on the thing. Goddamn sexy ass frosties...
I mean... we've all been there, right?
>.>
<.<
.........
ME EITHER!
*Skull2185 has logged off*
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive
This seems to be one major point of contention. The charts show that at Norwich, he only charged it up to 28%, and it only showed 32 miles left. He even confirms this in the article when he states "the displayed range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford..."
So either he's lying about Tesla experts clearing him to leave Norwich with only 28% charge and 32 miles estimated, or Tesla is.
He describes what he did, and what the results were, and makes conclusions on the basis of those actual results.
He charged the car to a 242 mile range, and it just barely made it 200 miles, showing zero when it reached his destination.
He charged it to 185 miles for a 160 mile round-trip, and the car only made it about 110 miles before needing to be recharged.
He recharged for an hour and tried to make it the rest of the way, on the advice of Tesla, and the car ran out of juice.
That's what he described, and that's what the car's data shows. He was also hardly driving like a maniac the whole time, also according to the data.
You can claim that if he had done differently, then the results would have been different. That's almost certainly true!
You can claim that he didn't act reasonably. Which is true if trusting what the car and tesla were telling him was unreasonable.
But neither of those is the claim. The claim is that the story is a fabrication. Which Musk's data does not show, at all.
*hopes everyone else thinks of that I AM LORD VOLDEMORT scene when they read this, too*
Whether it ever ran out of energy is irrelevant as it's range went to zero (twice) and the car shut off (once). The tow truck driver confirmed that they couldn't get the car started even to disengage the parking brake.
The 5mph cruise control discrepancy is actually a discrepancy, but not much of one. Maybe it can be explained, maybe it can't.
The data shows that he did set the temperature control to low during the leg of the trip he described. The "he turned it up instead" is deliberately misleading (as a lot of Musk's response is, including "he drove most of the trip between 65 and 81mph, and the "tiny, 100 space parking lot" bit). He adjusted the temperature several times during the trip. For roughly 100 miles, during the period he described, it was set to low.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
That's the point. The data doesn't contradict Broder (except for the cruise control thing). The data doesn't support Musk's claims.
http://jalopnik.com/tow-truck-driver-at-center-of-tesla-controversy-unaware-202391288
Here's an article that interviewed the tow truck company, and also has this little tidbit:
http://jalopnik.com/towing-company-the-nyt-tesla-model-s-was-dead-when-it-196100064
A big problem with Broder's article is that he appears to have been inexact in some of his statements. He did turn down the climate control at some points during the drive, yes. However, he writes "At 68 miles since recharging [At Delaware]...I began following Tesla’s range-maximization guidelines, which meant dispensing with such battery-draining amenities as warming the cabin and keeping up with traffic. " Now, it does look like he set the cruise control at this point, but he didn't turn down the cabin temp until nearly 80 miles later. His phrasing made it seem like he turned down the temp at that 182-mile mark when he turned on cruise control, which he didn't. The same is with the cruise control speeds, which Borden reported as being 5mph slower than the Tesla data shows (54 vs 60, and 45 vs 50). For a cynical mind, it could seem like Borden was exaggerating in order to put the Tesla in a worse light.
At the 2nd Supercharger, he left without a full charge. On the one hand, when he stopped charging the estimated miles were enough for the remainder of the trip (at least until the cold snap sapped away some energy). On the other hand, he didn't charge it for as long as he said he did, or as long as Telsa claims they wanted him to, and had he let it charge to full here, he likely wouldn't have encountered the problems he had later.
Then there's this: The Tesla data confirms that it was about half charged when he reached Delaware, and that the car estimated about 242 miles after he finished charging. However, Tesla's data shows that he stopped charging at 90%. Again, it's unclear if this was a problem with the way the Tesla was showing data to Broder, or with Broder deliberately providing misleading info.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Also the other test by CNN which basically canceled broder's experience out.
There's a lot of "I did exactly what Tesla told me to do" even when he acknowledged it defies common sense or even conflicts with other Tesla instructions.
Which is at least a justifiable thing for someone who is doing a consumer report of a car to do.
Tesla's comments on the the review amount to "well if he had just done what he is supposed to do", whereas Broder's argument is "I did what Tesla TOLD me to do"
I say advantage Broder, here. Unless Tesla feels like releasing audio tapes of the customer service calls.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
The biggest question for people I thinkWhat the data does or doesn't say hasn't been very clearly covered so far is whether any reporting/data was faked altogether, in a way that suggests the NY Times reporter had it out for this car. I’d like to see some verification and examination of the data Broder has, which he hasn’t played openly yet, to see whether Broder is weasel wording his way out, or whether the reporter was malicious in his misleading statements.
Overall, I’m not impressed with anyone, the car or the NY Times.
Also apparently musk had a run in with top gear uk prior to this?