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Comment by greendestiny | Hacker News Reader

I don't know that this is quite the refutation that everyone is saying it is. I'm not sure what a reviewer driving in circles at a charging station proves? I imagine he wanted to find out what would happen - after all he was at the station anyway. Also he clearly does start to turn down the climate change about 20 miles or so after he claims - not sure why Tesla is really fighting on that one.

There is no denial of the Tesla losing 60 miles range overnight. There isn't a denial of Tesla telling him that the battery would regain its charge and range when it warmed up in the final leg. *Edit: Although it does certainly say they told him not to stop charging on that final charge.

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Broder actually had an ok story to begin with, with a number of facts that are review-worthy. The cold weather energy loss is certainly one of them. Also, the Supercharger stations are not close enough together, admitted by Musk. Their customer support gave them incorrect instructions to use cruise control to preserve energy, which raises questions about how knowledgable their staff really is if it could leave you stranded. And electric cars use electric heaters, and you might be forced to pick some combo of heat and miles on freezing days. Most importantly, you still need to constantly be thinking about range.

But Broder pushed it. Trying to get the battery to die in his first Milford stop is an obvious one. But when he failed to do that, he got a second chance by leaving Norwich without possibly being able to make it back to Milford. Both Broder and Musk agree that the car showed 32 miles of range, and that the car had made it 51 miles. But he would have known, before he left Norwich, that the distance to Milford was 61 miles. How Broder reasonably expect he would get there?

As a result, he gets his dramatic photo of the Motor Trend Car of the Year, helpless on a flatbed truck.

> As a result, he gets his dramatic photo of the Motor Trend Car of the Year, helpless on a flatbed truck.

As they say a picture is worth a thousand words. I can't help but think all the author wanted is that photo.

Exactly like Top Gear set it up.

Face it, he's biased. Even if he made every effort to be honest in the review, in the end, he's true to himself and his own ideals.

If I was a car reviewer and rocked up at a charging station with 0 miles range showing, I'd want to know what happens if you push it for a little bit more. It would definitely be an exaggeration for the story but we're talking about half a mile out of 200. He might have even been completely honest deliberately going the extra half mile if there had been some catastrophic result - a review isn't just a real drive, it has to be part simulation.

As for driving that final stretch with 30 miles range showing - his story is that Tesla told him it would be fine because it would be regained through the battery conditioning. Tesla says that they told him not to stop charging. Well there is a lot of wiggle room for both those statements to be true.

> I'd want to know what happens if you push it for a little bit more.

Well, that should be obvious: the car stops. But even if that's what he wanted to do, he should have acknowledged it. At the end of the day, there's lots of reasons to not buy a Tesla or an EV in general. But this is a question of integrity, and when it starts to sound like the reviewer didn't provide a fair review, it brings a lot of collateral damage to the entire organization.

> Well there is a lot of wiggle room for both those statements to be true.

Agree. I went back and read that portion again. It's possible that he was falsely told that the range would be greater than indicated. Or he was told that a few minutes of charging would help the range, and simply assumed that what he did was enough, while ignoring the actual displayed range.

Clarification on this point is important because that's the headline and lead photo of this article -- that he was completely stranded.

>Well, that should be obvious: the car stops.

Yeah but does it stop on zero? Does it brick the car?

As it turns out Tesla knows what they are doing, and there is a reserve, probably that's pretty disappointing as a car journalist. But hey, when did we think car journalists were on the side of car manufacturers?

I think this is totally fair thing to try out.

But, then Broder should have mentioned it in his article, like: "I drove around for a few minutes on empty while right in front of the charging station to see what would happen. But Tesla's battery outlasted my patience and I decided just to charge instead."

What reason besides stupidity would explain a reviewer intentionally bricking the car? It would be like putting vodka in the gas tank "to find out what happens".

How about to expose the stupidity of a car bricking under normal use (if it indeed would have bricked)?

@tatsuke95 normal use being continue to drive in circles after the car flashes "0 miles" and "recharge immediately" in your face for minutes? Besides, it turns off before the battery is depleted for that exact reason, it won't be bricked unless you try really hard.

"Normal use" being "I forgot to get gas last night, I wonder if I have enough to make it to work and stop on the way home". Less likely for a car that gets plugged in every night and has enough range for 3-4 days, but more severe since you'd be at least 30 minutes late instead of 5 minutes.

This is mind-boggling, it's like every comment starts a new, out-of-context discussion. The context here is someone purposedfully continuing to drive the car after it's empty and the "car bricking under normal use" comment. In your example it wouldn't be bricked.

why would it be unreasonable to test that in a review?

it's not, but it is unreasonable to not mention it if you did it.

Both Broder and Musk agree that the car showed 32 miles of range, and that the car had made it 51 miles. But he would have known, before he left Norwich, that the distance to Milford was 61 miles. How Broder reasonably expect he would get there?

Broder claims: "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."

In other words, it sounds like he thought that the 65 miles of range he lost overnight would be restored by charging it a little bit more at Norwich. He says he just couldn't make it to the next charging station by the time he realized this clearly wasn't going to work.

I imagine Tesla weren't terribly keen to press the point when he left Norwich because a journalist having to stand around for several hours in the freezing cold whilst the Tesla Model S charged wouldn't look that much better in print than the same journalist running out of power and having to be towed.

It would have taken him, oooh, about 8 hours to do a full charge at Norwich. What actually seems more likely - Elon Musk's insinuations that the only reason he didn't charge up fully there was because he was deliberately trying to run the car flat, or the journalist not wanting to hang around for an entire day in a small town in freezing weather?

He did not have to sit around 8 hours for the full charge, just enough to have the estimated range match how far he needed to drive. Then if it did not make that range, he could truthfully say that the car missed fell short of its estimate. As it is, he left on a 61 mile trip with the car telling him he only had 32 miles left.

And then Elon Musk would have again blamed him for not charging up fully there. He's already insinuating that the only reason not to do a full charge was because he wanted to run out: "On the third leg, where he claimed the car ran out of energy, he stopped charging at 28%. Despite narrowly making each leg, he charged less and less each time. Why would anyone do that?"

(Also, looking closely at the graphs I think I underestimated the charge times. It'd be more like 10 hours, which would basically wind up adding another day to the trip - after which Elon would presumably have written a blog post complaining that he could have just charged enough to get to the Supercharger and done the journey much faster, and use that as evidence he was maliciously trying to discredit Tesla. It's lose-lose for the unlucky journalist.)

Well that's a straw man. You have no idea what Elon Musk would have done.

If he'd charged enough for his final trip, he would have arrived without problems. Why do you think Elon would be blaming anyone in that situation?

Eight hours is the time it takes to charge on a home outlet, not a charging station.

There's a business opportunity there though - food and entertainment and lodging for the few hours to charge a car.

The charging stations take one hour to fully charge the 85 Kwh Model S that was test-driven. A 30-minute charge would give the vehicle enough juice for 150 miles of travel.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/77299.html

Those are the Supercharger stations. The Norwich one, that Tesla directed him to, wasn't a Supercharger. It took an hour to do 19->32.

So there's one damning thing in Broder's review: the confirmation of his range anxiety as the Model S sits on a flatbed.

Tesla explicitly refutes that point by saying Broder ignored warnings against leaving Norwich. Also, I mean, come on: range says 30 and you have to go 60 miles so...you...disconnect the power? Interesting, especially since it's not the first time he tried to kill the car (see "driving around parking lot for 5 minutes with zero range").

But then again...look at the battery chart just before the Norwich charge. You see zero increase in distance, and a large (=60-70 miles) drop in range. That's the evening where he lost a bunch of power. That's a problem for Tesla.

Anyway, Broder has a rebuttal to Musk's initial claims here [0]. I'm curious to see how he responds to this blog post, especially what seems to be a deliberate attempt to kill the car's power before recharging at Milford the second time.

[0] http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-f...

It's not JUST that he drove in circles near a charging station. It is that he had initially charged it for LESS than the recommended charge for the rest of his journey, then when he made the journey (even though the car was saying that he should recharge immediately), to get it to shutdown he drove in circles for a while to try and get it to shutdown.

It's not JUST that he drove in circles, that takes it out of context. It is within the broader narrative that you realize how sinister that action really was.

The reporter was blatantly trying to drain the battery to get a story. They were, in no way, behaving like any half-ways rational person would, and they were absolutely not behaving the way anybody driving a Tesla would

Zero doubt in my mind this was a pre-scripted hatchet job. The only question in my mind was whether the deception rises to the level of termination.

>"They were, in no way, behaving like any half-ways rational person would"

I know, right? No rational person would put the cruise on 60, sometimes do 80, and expect the cabin temperature to be a balmy 75 degrees.

Broder's article was a hack job. That's obvious. But I can't come to terms with how a rational person would want to stop every 3 hours to charge a car for an hour. Get yourself a small turbo-diesel and you're doing this trip in probably half the time, thanks to no charging and setting the cruise at whatever you want. Oh, and you can play whatever music and set the cabin temperature to whatever you'd like. And it's 1/5th the price.

I'm not surprised that the Times wrote a shitty article. I am surprised at how bad the Tesla looks as a daily driver.

If your daily drives are three hours, I'm concerned for you.

We don't all live in California and get to bike to work. I have 3+ hour drives twice a week. Sometimes it's very cold.

Granted, I'm not going to buy a Model S to do this sort of commute, but then, what is the article trying to sell me? The idea that you can take a car like this on an extensive trip. And, to me, it looks absolutely terrible in that regard, especially in the winter. Somehow people take that as an affront to climate change, puppies, the internet and Elon Musk himself.

Sure. If you can't stay on the Supercharger network, or can't charge your car where you're going, an electric vehicle is not suitable for your purpose, even if it is in other respects the best car ever built. The infrastructure just isn't there, yet.

But going from that to "absolutely terrible" reads as pretty hyperbolic, and I think that's what you're getting from "people".

>"But going from that to "absolutely terrible" reads as pretty hyperbolic, and I think that's what you're getting from "people"."

Maybe terrible is overstated. But if we're talking about average Joe making a commute between NY and Boston, how does the Tesla make any sense whatsoever? Between the low recommended speeds and charge times, you're looking at increasing the length of the trip by 50%, no? There's a huge loss in efficiency there. We're not even talking about the overnight loss of power, or the discomfort associated with guidelines on cabin temperature and gadgets.

I think it's pretty clear that the EV is still sort of niche. It's a grocery-getter/weekend driver. Definately a nice one, probably a fun one. But they have a ways to go.

I think it takes a very credulous reading of the original article to get that. Here's the trip: http://goo.gl/maps/oUEQV

The charging does add half an hour to a three-and-a-half hour trip, about 15%; maybe a little longer if it's below freezing. That's the price you pay to be off gasoline before it was cool, you know that up front.

But look at the distances: The long leg is only 144 miles, well within Model S range. And Musk has acknowledged that on the east coast, in cold weather, those charging stations should be closer together, which could bring that trip closer to 100 miles per leg, which presumably can be done in comfort even in the cold.

It's totally doable; takes a little longer, but I like to stretch my legs and grab a cheeseburger during that drive anyway. That just doesn't say "niche" to me. The people who are making that trip every day are the niche.

>The charging does add half an hour to a three-and-a-half hour trip, about 15%

This is true. I was considering round trip. The information is from the Wiki:

400 miles @ 65mph ~ 6.5 hours in an ICE, if you have to gas up along the way.

400 miles @ 54mph ~ 7.5 hours + 2.5 hours of charging.

That's quite a difference; one is a day trip, the other is an long day. And it's worse in the winter. Canada is a big place. I regularly drive, 4,5,6 hours without stopping. I have a hard time understanding how people think stopping for an hour every 3 hours of your trip is reasonable. To me, the answer would be to not use the Model S in such a situation, which is fine. But when I have to say, "That trip is too far for my car", and said car approaches 6 figures, it means it's niche, IMHO.

You are correct.

Using the same hyperdriving techniques Tesla is recommending of driving 45mph on the freeway in 80mph traffic, and turning off heat/air conditioning, one can get over 80mpg in a diesel rated 31 city 43 highway.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2012/05...

Obviously the Passat here is not rated to hyperdriving techniques like Tesla Motors is now saying are required to get the stated range in the $101,000 car they lent to the NYT journalist. No one would claim it would be reasonable for Volkswagen to advertise that this car gets 84mpg even though it has been proven to be possible. Likewise, it is not reasonable for Tesla to advertise a range that is based on hyperdriving techniques.

"Average Joe" is not making a commute from NYC to Boston. "Average Joe" is also not buying a Model S.

...or trying to find the charging point, since it was potentially his first visit there? While we're speculating on rationale, why don't we include possibilities fair to both sides?

This is a fair point, but based on this photo [1] of the Supercharger station, and the layout of the service area, it seems unlikely he would have missed it. Google Maps even has the spot marked [2], but the photography has not been updated since December 2012, when they were installed.

That's a very prominent location. I'd have a hard time believing anyone would miss it repeatedly.

[1] http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/tesla-begins-east... [2] http://goo.gl/maps/arrxP

also remember that the tesla dashboard is basically a tablet, and it has charger locations on its maps UI

It wasn't just his driving around in the parking lot - he was deliberately leaving charging locations prior to getting a full charge so as to increase the chances of a discharged battery. That was the entire point of this exercise, and he accomplished it on his first try.

I say, have someone not biased towards big-oil try this road-trip again in similar conditions, and report back with the results. I expect they will have absolutely zero difficulty.

I also thought this at first, but it was his second time visiting that station: there are two stops by Milford's supercharger in the vehicle logs and the claims are about the second, so he is potentially familiar with the area at the time.

I'm pretty sure they were talking about the first visit to the Milford supercharger. In fact, he can't have driven around the parking lot for 10 minutes before charging on the second visit, since the Model S was delivered and initially charged on the back of a pick-up truck - Tesla haven't challenged that part at all.

Why are you commenting from a throwaway account?

I know I often drive around for several minutes trying to find a pump at gas stations I have never been to. Those damn light up awnings are just so hard to find.

Scenario 1:

Article: "The Tesla's range indicator is accurate but to drivers used to having a lot of range when the tank reads 'E' the Tesla's small amount of reserve range may catch them by surprise."

Reality: Author drove until the Tesla read "0 miles remaining" then continued to drive until the battery ran out.

Scenario 2:

Article: "A range estimate misses the mark... the car fell short of its projected range and had to be taken back ... on a flatbed truck."

Reality: Author short-charged the car then pulled off the road when the range meter read 0 and drove around trying to drain the battery.

One is fine, the other is journalistic malpractice.

Yeah, well, none of those two happened, so it doesn’t really matter.

Driving in circles doesn't prove anything. But, he didn't mention it in his original article or the follow-up blog post. In fact, he took great pains to write about all the hardships he endured to maximize the car's range, and how he still ran out of battery. So, one wonders why he would do it. It seems like an awfully odd thing to do, unless you are deliberately trying to run out of charge.

Broder's defense to accusations that he should have charged overnight in Groton is that he was just acting like a regular driver. When you drive a conventional car from DC to Boston, do you pull up to the gas pumps and drive around in circles until you run out of gas? Do you add a few gallons and take off, or do you wait until the automatic shutoff on the pump trips? I think a "regular" driver would charge fully (at least a full "standard" charge) at each Super Charger and then drive directly to the next way-point, not unplug at 75% and pointlessly drive in circles.

> It seems like an awfully odd thing to do, unless you are deliberately trying to run out of charge.

It's exactly what an insufficiently knowledgeable person would do if trying to deliberately damage the li-ion battery.

It's also exactly what a sufficiently knowledgeable person would do if trying to deliberately damage the li-ion battery.

A sufficiently knowledgeable person would have succeeded.

> I'm not sure what a reviewer driving in circles at a charging station proves?

Perhaps that he couldn't find it, since it was his first visit?

Based on the rest of this thread, though, Occam is not going to be making an appearance and we're going to be questioning the journalistic integrity of someone who's worked at the New York Times since most commenters here were in diapers. It totally makes sense that he'd write a completely false story at the behest of big oil. That's the logical explanation.

Yes, yes, but isn't it awfully interesting how with all of Mr. Broder's complaints about the car, he completely forgot to mention just how hard it was to find the Supercharger station? Doesn't that seem like a relevant detail in an article ostensibly reviewing the Supercharger network?

I'm just so upset that I can't help wringing my hands. Just think of all those uninformed citizens. Those poor souls buying this fancy car with the wool over their eyes. So naive: thinking they can just drive right up to a Supercharger station whenever they want with nary a thought. Who is going to tell them that they must not only drive to the station, but commit to a parking lot odyssey? Think of all the electrons that will be burned whilst the good people of this country waste their time searching for a Supercharger! Who? Who, I say, will bring this message to the masses, if not John Broder? And he has failed! For this, I demand the Times investigate his journalistic malpractice at once!

Seriously, though, at what point are allowed to invoke Occam's Razor and admit that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Broder may not have been giving the car a fair shake?

I think you need to wait to hear the NY Times response to the specific accusations from this blog post.

there is only one electron, the chuck norris electron, and it does not burn

A reviewer driving in circles at a charging station _without mentioning it in the article_ and all the other things mentioned here proves that the journalists left out facts in the article.

Why has this been downvoted? greendestiny raises some valid points.

It hasn't. Hackernews is usually pretty good like that.

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