Plus the real negative part of the article that Musk is glossing over is, having to turn off heat in a vehicle just to get somewhere, got to be loads of fun in the summer too.
So what we have is possible confusion on part of the reporter or bad UI design. Either way it only points out that a 100k electric car is not a road trip car. Its a trip for suburbanites or similar. Sure you "can" do a long trip but you don't have the range of alternative a normally fueled vehicle has.
battery powered cars are an interesting technology, I am not quite in agreement they are ready for prime time. Considering the range limits of the top of the line I doubt many would be satisfied with the entry level model.
The big automakers are investigating many different fuel systems simply because they know any replacement to truly take hold has to be simple enough for anyone. It just has too work, there is no place for a list of "buts"
You "have" to do the same thing in a gas powered car if you don't fill up the tank when given the chance.
www.sae.org/events/aars/presentations/2004-hill.pdf
Interestingly, the graphs on pages 14 and 15 of the linked report don't appear to support your point. That is, the green curve is strictly less than the blue curve at all investigated speeds.
It typically does (though not as much as the chiller would).
There's two costs to using the heater:
1. The electricity to power the fan comes from the engine. I'm not sure how much of an impact this actually is (depends on the power the fan needs) but there's something there.
2. The heat from the heater comes from the engine block, which cools the engine. On cold days (<15 F) this can have a huge impact on the engine's temperature and will often cool the engine well below it's most efficient operating temperature.
The alternator (or really any electric generator) has a magnetic field, and a lot of coiled up wire. Moving the wire thru the field generates electricity, the faster the wire moves the higher the voltage is. But the more current is moving thru the wire (more load, more things using the electricity), the more it pushes back against the magnetic field (because that current in the wire generates its own field) and so the harder it is to make it move.
That being said the amount of electricity, and thus the load on the belt, to run the fan is very very tiny compared to the energy required to heat the air. In an ICE, the heat energy is literally free. You were going to dump it anyway, might as well be into the cabin.
Since engine speeds vary greatly, having a dumb alternator that provided power scaled in proportion to RPM would be a disaster.
First, the power the run the fan is minuscule. On the order of a few Watts. Maybe a few tens of Watts at most. It's an order of magnitude less than what is needed to run seat heaters (and those have almost no measurable effect on a Model S's range, which is why "range mode" uses seat heat in favor of air conditioning). The energy use you're talking about is enough to move the car an extra few hundred feet after a multi-hundred mile drive.
Second, every ICE has a thermostat on the radiator. It greatly reduces coolant flow to the radiator when the car is warming up, or any other time that the coolant is below optimal temperature. I spent many years in the northern (continental) United States and never encountered a situation where the coolant temperature gauge on an ICE car failed to show normal operating temperature after 10-20 minutes of warm-up time.
The cold-weather fuel economy difference in a conventional car mostly comes down to greater air density.
The sparse atmosphere robs the engine of power, just as it reduces your body's ability to gather oxygen.
The engine's preferred operating temperature is much higher than any reasonable air temperature, and until that point is reached the engine oil will be less lubricative and the fuel (particularly in the case of diesel) less inclined to combust. It will naturally take longer to reach that preferred temperature when it is cold outside, because not only is the air cold but the engine is also this big lump of cold metal, absorbing the heat of combustion and pulling it away from the cylinder where it is needed.
Personally, high altitude driving helps my fuel economy -- I would speculate that it's due to decreased air resistance and the lack of power forcing me to drive a little more conservatively.
The extra fuel comes automatically because modern EFI (electronic fuel injection) motors use several sensors in a feedback loop to ensure that the air:fuel ratio is 14.7:1
There is an air temp sensor and compensation that adds roughly 1% fuel for every 10F drop in temperature. Then the oxygen sensor in the exhaust system measures whether combustion is hitting the 14.7:1 target and adds or subtracts fuel accordingly.
Go further North. I have not seen the temperature gauge on my car move since about October, and I have a huge piece of cardboard blocking the entire radiator to stop air flow.
This won't make any difference unless the thermostat is open. If your temperature gauge is on "cold", you're not even close to the point where the thermostat will open if it's operating normally. Which raises the question: have you had your thermostat checked to make sure it's not stuck open?
Actually, it makes a huge difference as it stops an enormous amount of very cold air going through/around the radiator onto the engine. Everyone up here does it, else cars would not be warm enough to run properly.
> Have you had your thermostat checked to make sure it's not stuck open?
Of course. Everything works great in summer when it's ~+25C
To give you a better understanding of how cold -50C actually is, I can drive for an hour, get out and put my hand directly on the exhaust manifold of my 4-cyl East-West engine (exhaust at front for cooling) and it's only just warm to the touch.
It's cold. Very cold.
Ah, that explains it. :-) I used to do cold weather testing when I worked as an automotive engineer; the coldest we ever tested at was -30 C, and there were plenty of test vehicles that didn't fully warm up at that temperature.
In an EV, heat must be generated at a very high energy expense. You can play with the mileage range estimator on Tesla's website. For the largest capacity (85 kWh) batter, heat knocks range down by about 50 miles. Depending on conditions, at 55 MPH, you're talking 350 to 300 or so with heat at 32F. A gasoline powered ICE will likely actually get slightly higher performance due to greater thermal gas expansion at low temperatures, and lower overall cooling demand: while running the cab heater doesn't consume much power, spinning the radiator fan does, and can usually be avoided in cold weather.
1) The nominal amount of electricity used by a heater blower motor is not going to measurably affect the range of your trip (this is most likely the same for the Tesla)
2) The heat from the engine block is waste heat from the relatively inefficient combustion process. This heat has to be actively dissipated in most driving conditions (typically even in winter). It is essentially free to pipe this heat into the cabin. Now contrast this with the Tesla's 400 electrical resistance heater, which has to directly compromise range to generate cabin heat.
My mitsubishi mini-split: 1. Can produce it's full BTU load all the way down to 5F, and 75% BTU load down to -13F. 2. Doesn't bother to blow air until it's warm :)
They aren't even that much larger than a resistance based coil system (though I could imagine the model S may not be able to fit them)
The fan practically never runs in cold weather. The only time it's needed is in hot weather, when you're stopped or at low speed and there's not enough airflow over the radiator and/or condenser. In cold weather the thermostat controls engine temperature, not the radiator, so the fan never gets told to turn on.
The reporter in this article both failed to charge his car as much as needed and took a large detour that took off some range of the car. If you want to drive recklessly, sure, you're going to run into issues. But there is a significant enough Level 2 charging infrastructure already and Tesla's Level 3-ish Supercharger network is going to supplement that entirely. As it is, I can already take long trips. I just have to wait longer for a full Level 2 charge than I will on a Supercharger in the very near future.
3 hours added to the trip - and probably more like 4 hours when you consider that the Supercharger stations are not going to be located right on the main roadways all the time.
A 1000 mile trip in a gas vehicle would require 3, maybe 4 fuel ups. I've timed my fill-ups many times, 7 minutes from off the road to back on (assuming an en-route gas station) is about the average. So, figure 28 minutes lost to fueling, vs. 4 hours. The Tesla will take at least 3.5 hours longer to make the same trip.
1000 miles at an average of 50 mph (seems low, but I've driven 720 mile trips from NH to MI many times) is 20 hours if you drive straight through. 20.5 hours with gas, 24 hours with Superchargers.
I love the Tesla cars, I've seriously considered the Model S, but I don't see how (for me) it is really a viable long-distance driver yet. Yes, you have a better chance of not getting stranded vs. maybe a Nissan Leaf, but it's a suboptimal alternative to gasoline still.
I think it'd be cool to have coffee shops or a lounge setting where you can use your computer in a relaxed environment while you make sure nobody messes with your car.
But honestly, when on a road trip with family, I am lucky to have a stop as short as 1 hour if we are eating a meal.
Rrriiiiggght. No one would ever key the paint work, slash the tires, (attempt to) hack the onboard systems of, or vomit into an unattended luxury car.
A better argument would be that the car is being charged on camera at a human attended station that takes security seriously.
As for "novelty value and thrill" well, yes, it's stupid, pointless, and exactly the kind of dumb arse flash fad that has happened in the past and could well happen in the future - there's no logic to such things.
It's like telling someone that a neighborhood he's thinking of moving into is unsafe without mentioning that your assessment based on the fact that the neighborhood is as likely as any other to get hit by a meteor. That doesn't qualify it as an "unsafe neighborhood" on the scale most people care about.
All those Supercharging stations are going to be located right next to places to eat. With about 4-5 hours between stops, that's right around when my stomach is going to start rumbling and I'll want to take a longer stop anyways.
They'd likely need more charging ports, though, in the long term.
On a trip that long, my wife is generally along as we'll, so we can trade off shifts driving. We will usually bring some snacks to eat along the way as well.
So, my numbers are still pretty accurate. You can go farther between fill ups on gas, and you can refuel (you, and the car) in less than 30 minutes ( or 45-60 minutes of you need more than a top-off, based on accessories use in the vehicles).
To establish a frame of reference, this means SF <-> LA would take ~7 hours instead of 5.5. SF <-> San Diego would be just shy of 10 hours.
I just drove from San Francisco to San Jose yesterday with my family, had to stop twice along the way for near-emergency bathroom breaks. 45 minutes every 4 hours sounds like NO PROBLEM.
I think we can safely conclude that unless there is going to be a huge breakthrough in battery technology really soon, EV's that run on batteries alone are not going to be a success for anything but short-distance commutes.
I'm still hoping for breakthroughs in other technologies that would make generating electricity so cheap that we can afford to waste a lot of it producing hydrogen. That would instantly obviate the need to lug around heavy batteries that take long to recharge, run out fast, require a lot of energy to produce, and are full of nasty chemicals that pollute the areas where they are mined.
Battery-powered EV's simply aren't all roses and sunshine, and I'm frankly quite amazed how easy the negatives are papered over.
From Google Maps, the Harris Ranch location is presently a single charging station. That is something which should be readily scalable as demand rises.
Your usage pattern at a given Supercharger station would be a factor of total traffic on nearby highways, Tesla ownership, and recharge needs. Present stations are at highway plazas -- not necessarily in high-ticket areas (hello, Harris Ranch and Barstow), but given the vehicle owner demographics and minimum 30 minute linger time, they'll likely offer typical captive-audience amenities, so the time won't be a total loss.
And charging is possible from other outlets, though at 5 miles/hour from 110AC, that's a good (or bad) 60 hours to recover full range. More likely you're getting sufficient charge to get to a higher-rated output.
Further though: so long as queuing depth is one vehicle (that is, you arrive, all chargers are filled, and there are no vehicles in front of you), the mean wait time assuming a 50% charge is 30/n, where n is the number of stations. So, 6 stations, queue depth of 1, you'll wait on average 5 minutes for someone to pull out, extending your total recharge time to 35 minutes. If Tesla strives for this as a 95%+ level of service, it should be tolerable, though high-travel periods (holiday weekends in particular) would tend to be worst-case scenarios.
I don't think that's the only option, battery swapping springs to mind as an alternative to beat the problem.
Family of four with a baby or two, and a trunk / roof rack full of luggage? Transferring between cars would be a bit of a PITA. I'd opt for the swappable battery in that case (or a liquid-fueled vehicle).
Changing it takes seconds, the entire operation more or less like going to the gas station to fuel a conventional car.
You would lease a battery for 3 or 5 years from a company, and then swap at that company's swap stations. They would bill you on something like total miles put on the vehicle or total miles delta put on at swap stations. You would have exactly one entity with which you would interact in case of battery issues: the company.
"Only a four hour difference for not using gas? Sign me up!"
I see what you mean about convenience, but a lot of people will forgo that. Besides, if you're traveling 1000 miles, why does 4 hours matter unless you have a hard deadline and need to travel straight through?
Anyway, the whole discussion is silly, no one buys a $45,000 car with a less than 200 mile range for the practicality of it.
On the other hand: you'll be shelling out about $60 for each gas station stop; and $0 for each Supercharger stop. That adds up too, you know.
> 3 hours added to the trip - and probably more like 4 hours when you consider that the Supercharger stations are not going to be located right on the main roadways all the time.
On the other hand, with normal commuting patterns you have to refuel your gasoline car about once every two weeks or month depending on the car and your driving habits. With an electric car, you just plug in every night and never stop at a smelly gross gas station again.
I don't know why people complain that when you use a product for what it's not designed for, it's bad at it. Electric cars are bad for road trips. If you're going 1,000 miles, use an airplane or at least a train.
an image: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AnwyDQUET2I/T6dyawydsqI/AAAAAAAAAG...
"In early October 2012, Agassi resigned from his role as worldwide Better Place CEO, and was replaced by Evan Thornley, CEO of Better Place-Australia. Briefly, Agassi remained on the company board, but a week later he resigned from that position as well. A few days after Thornley's appointment, Better Place asked its investors for a round of emergency funding, totaling about $150 million.[8][9] On October 11, 2012, Haaretz reported that Better Place might lay off up to half its staff of several hundred employees.[10] On October 29, 2012, Ynet reported that Better Place would that week lay off 150 to 200 people out of its 400-person staff in Israel as it seeks financing to combat its cash-flow problems.[11] In late January 2013, Thornley resigned, and Dan Cohen was named acting CEO by the board.[12]"
Of course there is! Here are some example buts for ICEs:
Gasoline is a dense energy source, but...
it stinks.
it's toxic.
it's too noisy.
its price is too determined by foreign politics.
it puts high stress and heat on the car, requiring constant maintenance.
it's not shelf stable.
its performance is dependent on altitude.But from an engineering point of view, I just don't find ICEs elegant. Too many moving pieces, and all that for about 30% efficiency (the remaining 70% is lost as waste heat). Good thing gasoline is so energy-dense, because when you're wasting 70% of your energy, you need that.
I would argue that efficiency and low emissions do not preclude something from being elegant. Steam plants can also be elegant, and they can be extremely efficient and low-emissions, but a steam plant cannot be bolted onto a motor car or a small aeroplane for which a turbine would be inappropriate. All forms of heat engines have their upsides and downsides.
Anyway, at the end of the day, consumers don't care one iota about engineering elegance.
The real question is where that fuel will be sourced.
I'd like to see efforts at using energy sources to manufacture gasoline from environmental sources of carbon, making the fuel carbon-neutral. How does that compare to electric vehicles?
There have been efforts to do this; basically any form of biodiesel that is produced by bacteria can probably be considered carbon-neutral.
I address issues of alternate fuels in a prior post, and suspect we'll see liquid hydrocarbons, of some stripe, for quite some time.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204104
Edit: speling
A fair number of people can't put it together. The fact that we've extracted and re-released to the atmosphere a significant fraction of the hydrocarbons which have been sequestered via biological activity over a ~260 million year period, within a century, seems to escape a lot of folks.
As does the distinction between energy sources and energy media. And while technically fossil fuels are themselves a medium for sunlight, humans don't have to drive that particular conversion.
Besides, pedantism is one of the rare pleasures of old age.
While I see us moving from fossil fuel, I still see liquid fuels playing an important role in mechanized transit (ground, water, air) for as long as we're technologically capable of doing so.
For the average consumer of automobile technology, these are non-issues. Logistical and pricing issues are moderated and subsidized by governments and car manufacturers. From the consumer's point of view, you go to a gas station once a week, and the car "just works."
As superior as an electric system may be technically, economically, environmentally, etc, if you want it to take off, the UI and logistics need to be smoothed over until you get a similar level of "it just works" which matches the consumer's experience with gasoline.
> it stinks. > it's toxic. > it's too noisy.
These three points affect anyone who lives near heavy automobile traffic. Just because it's an externality doesn't mean it doesn't exist!
> its price is too determined by foreign politics.
When gasoline prices doubled from $2/gallon to $4/gallon, people certainly thought that was relevant. The price spike is partly responsible for the rise in hybrid vehicles.
> it puts high stress and heat on the car, requiring constant maintenance.
Oil changes every 5k miles and major services every 15k don't qualify as "just works" in my book.
> it's not shelf stable.
I'll grant you this one is irrelevant to consumers.
Not if I want to put my car in long-term storage. Then this, too, becomes quite relevant.
I live near a heavily trafficked road. To be honest these aren't problems; the noise issue is far outweighed by a) people playing uber-loud music on their car stereo (not any different with electric cars) and the noise of the electric train (BART) that runs above the road.
And we don't even know about all the external effects that gasoline cars have; there was this article in Mother Jones [1] recently that correlated leaded gas to the crime rate, owing to the detrimental effects lead has on the human brain.
[1]: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...
There are few items in this day and age that don't require owners to perform periodic maintenance. Tesla cars aren't immune from requiring annual inspections (http://www.teslamotors.com/service) either.
And the externalities of electric cars matter quite a bit to the people who live next to coal-fired power plants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/your-money/11shortcuts.htm...
Newer cars require oil change/service every 30000 km / 2 years. That would be ~20k miles.
However, it occurs over such a timespan that the immediate effects are a non-issue, just long-term. The average person does not take into serious consideration the 30+ year effect of a decision, but a more near-term one.
The rest is mainly a cost issue. Conventional cars have 100 years of mass production advantage.
It will take some time until price goes down, and catch gasoline. Electronics, batteries and electric engines are way easier to mass produce than thermal engines.
quiet - one of the selling points of expensive cars are how great their engines sound.
beautiful - I don't think it's look compare to an Aston Martin or Maserati. Maybe that's just me.
high status - mostly because they are so new and rare at this point.
I can't commen on the others because I honestly don't know.
It's not a sports car, luxury cars pride themselves on what you can't hear.
Well, the best performing option does have excellent acceleration (4.4s to 60) - but they aren't actually that fast in terms of top speed - 130mph. Of course, that is pretty irrelevant to most of us who don't have unrestricted Autobahns to drive on.
Are you saying people buy a maserati for what they can't hear?
I'm not arguing that it is a bad car. I just don't think we can say it blows away all cars on its luxury and performance.
In other words its not the end all be all of cars.
And having to take extreme care to look after the battery is not low maintainance.
If you want a beautiful machine with US style handling buy a Shelby Mustang (though they have now seen sense and make them with a non live back Axel)
The countries that do not have enough of it have to invent stupid excuses for invading the countries that do have, incurring in high costs while killing millions, because if not transportation halts and the economy nukes.
It is a highly pollutant for cities, specially diesel particles that are carcinogenic, while on electric generation plants you could use particle filters that are very efficient and cheap, and also far from where most people lives.
It is very complex and things breaks a lot. You need to change the oil frequently, drive belts and also the brakes while with regenerative braking they last forever.
Many of the other issues with gasoline- smell, toxicity, stability- have been largely addressed by the distribution infrastructure.
Oh, by the way, gasoline isn't all that toxic. It is more hazardous for its volatility rather than any poisonous properties for humans.
Last thought- one of the two things that are still an obstacle (performance at extreme altitude) is firstly always going to be an obstacle for any type of combustion engine and secondly addressable with a turbocharger if you care enough.
"Inhaling or swallowing large amounts of gasoline can cause death." http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tf.asp?id=467&tid=83
I'm not saying don't buy one, but don't expect electric vehicles to be as reliable as ICE vehicles for at least another decade. Maybe two or three.
Electric vehicles using software "clutches" are to ICE-powered cars as SSD is to HDDs - at first, there will be downsides and only the adventurous will get to showboat, but in several generations the only reason you don't get an electric car (SSD) is if you really need the range (storage space using our analogy) or can't afford the upgrade.
Gasoline vehicles have gone from being absolute pains in the ass to maintain (I've worked on and rehabbed many an old vehicle, including mid 80's Oldsmobiles, 70's era air cooled VWs, and mid to late 90's GM vehicles) to significantly less pains in the ass, but still finicky creatures. 4 or 5 years in on modern ICE vehicles, you're going to start seeing problems that can often be expensive. If its not the electrical, it will be failed pump on the cooling system, or even a cracked impeller (now that they are made of plastic).
Can you prevent this all with regular maintenance? Of course, but let's not pretend like this isn't much more complicated than it needs to be. An electric vehicle isn't going to have tubes, pumps, fans, impellers, thermostats, spark plugs, valves,cylinders, ignition coils, injectors, oxygen sensors!!! ($10 part with several hours of labor to replace), catalytic converters... and my god how many other expensive, prone to breaking moving parts can I name.
And then you are sitting there talking about turbochargers? Really?? Do you have any idea what kind of maintenance is required, and oh wait, now we can up our octane to 93, pay out the ass for gasoline, and deal with all the extra wear an tear high compression turbo engines deal with......
Thanks, glad to see we have a stage of mutual respect established.
Gasoline doesn't even come close to winning internal combusion category. Diesel blows it away in reliability
Ah, I see, only the most reliable thing can be considered reliable? More importantly, gasoline engines can be designed like diesels. We have direct injection for gas engines. We have low-rpm torquey gasoline engines (see the slant-6). A key reason diesel engines tend to be more reliable is because diesel engines are often used in applications that demand reliability, while gasoline engines are often used in applications that are willing to sacrifice some reliability for extra performance. Which, mind you, is not something electric vehicles will be immune from.
If its not the electrical, it will be failed pump on the cooling system
And I suppose you think electric vehicles don't have liquid cooling and heating systems? Cute.
Why exactly would an ELECTRIC VEHICLE be less prone to electrical failure, anyway?
talking about turbochargers ... do you have any idea what kind of maintenance is required...
No, I have no idea. In fact, I've never even heard of turbochargers before, I'm not sure why I said that word!
Turbochargers are a trade-off to handle a deficiency. Electric cars make trade-offs too, as they are not perfect either; their deficiencies are simply different.
high compression turbo engines
Who said anything about that?
I still prefer Diesels for my own transport.
Diesel is another but it's a bit smelly although I was behind a Mercedes diesel SUV and didn't realize it until I read the rear badge, no smell at all.
Although bio-diesel or even straight vegetable oil can be burned since Rudolph Diesel intended the diesel engine to run on peanut oil so farmers could afford the fuel.
If that is the negative part then write an article about that and see how many views it gets. Fabricating a bunch of stuff will get more hits.
So, was the 'detour' Musk refers to mixed in with the overnight drop? Or perhaps there was another unreported drain on the battery, overnight?
Looking back at the original article - www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html?pagewanted=all - it seems that at low-power-charge point 6, "after an hour [Tesla] cleared me to resume the trip to Milford". Presumably, that's why the reporter set out on a 118-mile journey (6-7, 7-8) with a car whose self-reported estimated range was only 32 miles.
So some things to look for in Musk's reply: (1) Why the severe overnight range drop? (2) Why the mixed-signals about whether it was OK to depart Norwich (point 6)?
I look forward to their being more information released, but given the above chart, I do not immediately believe that the NYT reporter lied just because the company that was being reviewed says so.
Top Gear already had this exact interaction with Tesla. Either the Times didn't do their homework, or there is a high return on negative Tesla reviews.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203228
for a more detailed discussion in this same thread of the Top Gear review and the litigation surrounding it.
Also, assuming a more 'official' response is in the works, a tweet is still faster so both are probably a decent idea during a time-sensitive event like bad publicity.
Putting the tweets out there ahead of time also changes the conversation's point-of-view. Now the public will demand answers from the NYT along with Musk while everyone waits for the data. Hell, he doesn't even need to publish the data for a while. Everyone can sit back and watch what the NYT does next.
You have something important to say, and you're forced to drop pronouns and abbreviate words and break your message into several pieces. Your response to the world reads like a rushed text I'd get from my little sister.
To me, it just makes the whole thing feel somewhat petty.
But that's probably just me, getting older.
I really hope that this guy gets canned if he wove a narrative that is deceptive and false. Too much is riding on the public impressions. That being said, there are, at least, two Tesla roadsters in my area and they don't seem to have a problem driving around.
Am I the only that likes a good ol' throw-down! Put up or shut up, suckers.
If anything it will ensure others take a more rigorous fact checking process in the future.
If he can't prove it, I'd agree with TylerE.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Consumer Reports bought a Tesla for review, and when they announced it, they mentioned all the hoops they jumped through to prevent Tesla from knowing that they bought one.
Given Musk's tweet about how they always enable data logging for journalists, i'm wondering why it was so important for CR not to let tesla know they bought one.
The most likely reason is that they didn't want Tesla to cherry pick the best unit they had available to ensure a positive review.
It would be an awesomely poor publication that is only willing to report on people and organizations that won't sue the publication when it intentionally misrepresents the facts.
At best what's going to happen here is either a legal suit, or an apologetic exit. It's good that they were storing the logs - machines don't lie.
Unless of course there is legal entanglement.
[1] Tesla vs Top Gear, well documented by Tesla http://www.teslamotors.com/teslavstopgear
[2] NY Times piece in question: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the...
Edit: removed date of lawsuit per comment below
It was in 2011(http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/30/tesla-sues-top-gear-for-l... ), and it was over a largely positive feature on the roadster that aired in 2008.
If tesla is selling the car on the east coast, this is not a "fake" scenario. From a PR perspective, the damage is done. Gotcha;s aside by either NYT or Tesla (whoever is right) it sorta doesn;t matter...
"Tesla data logging is only turned on with explicit written permission from customers, but after Top Gear BS, we always keep it on for media."
It states you have to explicitly sign to have your data logged, and they have it on by default for media reviews due to some incident with Top Gear.