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Comment by nirvana | Hacker News Reader

The answer is very simple: Brody is lying about what Tesla told him, just like he's told many other lies in his article and in the rebuttal.

Putting it into a "he said / she said" is a smokescreen.

The car might be a lemon but the idea that Tesla told him to run the heater to charge the battery is beyond credulity.

This is not exactly the first time the NYT has told lies for ideological reasons. The paper does it regularly, and really, the idea that it (or any paper in america) is an "unbiased" media is quaint.

The difference is, Elon Musk is willing to stand up to them and call them on it, so they are obfuscating.

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Elon Musk has a billion dollars riding on calling the NY Times a liar and discrediting them.

Here's the thing though: the problem with the Tesla battery is the same problem that every other EV to date has had in sub-zero weather: they lose their charge and the charging meter gets decalibrated.

Tesla's bane is not a biased NY Times reporter. Their fundamental mistake was giving an EV to the NY Times to test drive in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record.

EDIT: Also one of the warmest winters on record in that area of the country, but not during the period of the NY Times' test.

"Elon Musk has a billion dollars riding on calling the NY Times a liar and discrediting them."

No, he doesn't. It's one review out of many, the vast majority of which are far more favorable to the car.

There's some cost to Tesla to letting the review stand, but it's certainly not a billion dollars, or even hundreds of millions.

What is certain to happen now is that some credible auto review magazine is going to take a closer look at the way the car runs in cold weather.

If Musk is lying, he's going to get nailed. That's going to hurt a lot more than the one review.

The reporter, on the other hand, has no choice but to stick with his story now.

I agree, The NYT has global influence and like you say TESLA is in a sink or swim situation.

But I have to ask this: doesn't is take some 30-years to get a technology completely figured out and completely usable with no hassles or bugs and could Tesla be entering the second decade of that process? You mentioned the cold weather and that is definitely a valid consideration that has to addressed.

To use the web as an analogy, it took 12-years to create, 4-years to grow and produce a web-browser. 3-more years to commercialize and another 10-years to become part of everything we do.

With that in mind, perhaps TESLA is reluctant to admit that they are just in the "browser creation" stage and they still have work to do?

Good thing Musk is willing to "stand up to them" given that he's the truly unbiased one in this situation, right? He's playing an angle here too. And the other article (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/elon-musks...) casts some doubt on his loud protestations. And they've only released their summarized charts, not the raw log data, anyway. It's already a "he said / she said" situation, it's just that much of the HN crowd is more apt to be on one side vs. the other.

> it's just that much of the HN crowd is more apt to be on one side vs. the other.

I don't think so, it's just that one part of the HN crowd likes data more than 'someone said'.

So now it is up to Tesla to provide even more data, preferably with an exact re-run of the conditions in the presence of said journalist. That should clear up any kind of difference and would establish whether or not there is either a bug in the system, a bug in the procedures or a systemic problem with the car. If the problem can't be reproduced with proper handling of the car then there should be a retraction. Regardless of which it is the bickering should stop.

Does no one else find it odd that everyone accepts the Tesla-provided data as a given fact, given that they are the only people with access to it?

Can a third party verify the data?

And how do readers know that the data-collection itself works without flaws?

The whole thing hinges on whether you're stupid enough to leave Norwich without sufficiently charging.

Do the same run a hundred more times, and nobody will fail as long as they exercise that basic amount of care. In that sense, reproduction is pointless. We already know the result, within a margin of error.

I just don't think that's fair. If Tesla Engineers tell you "an hour's charge will bring the battery back" then I think many people would just take that at face value.

On the other hand, Brody has known record of exaggeration and distortion of truth. Whereas Musk is an honest, no-nonsense engineer. (Although I'd be interested if you could point me to a situation where Musk was caught blatantly lying about something.)

Musk is a business man and is concerned about marketing as much as anyone else. Here are his comments aimed toward the Volt:

"Yet the state of the electric car is dismal, the victim of hyped expectations, technological flops, high costs and a hostile political climate.”

Not exactly and objective view, or totally fair.

Uh, that was said by Broder in one of his previous articles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/sunday-review/the-electric...

You're right. I was equating that quote and the calling-the-Volt-a-"lawnmower" quote (http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-05-11/green_sheet/2...) together. I was reading about them yesterday. My mistake.

If that is that case, Musk would have known about his alleged "agenda" before handing over the keys for the review and could have acted accordingly. But he didn't.

I don't think Musk has the time to do background checks on every media person who wants to test-drive a vehicle. And the supposedly credible reputation of NYTimes may also have led him to trust Broder. In his blog post however he admits that he made a mistake there.

You're seriously suggesting that Musk is entirely objective here? About a project he has invest millions in?

>> Good thing Musk is willing to "stand up to them" given that he's the truly unbiased one in this situation, right?

Fair enough, but let's not pretend that now that this reporter is in the spot light for possibly fabricating a story, his career isn't on the line. He (also) has every incentive to be extremely unbiased in his own defense.

HN has a deeper problem. I don't think the entire crowd is biased, but due to the karma system a few people have louder voices (their posts show up at the top and stay there for a long time, even when they aren't the best responses). Some of those people are very opinionated and their opinions happen to be sticky. The algorithm should change.

They'll have a good chuckle at the NY Times (and even Fox would have a laugh) when they see you're accusing them of attacking alternative energy for ideological reasons.

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