Hacker News Reader

Car journalists are liars but the CEO of a car company isn't?

In various forums with Tesla owners in similar climate conditions, people agree with Broder's observations. He didn't "lie" about what happened. It's something they noticed as well.

Now you can carp on petty points like him using common sense, but when a car company lets you test drive a car and they give advice, you should follow said advice. I understand crying foul if he did something ill-advised, but Musk did not refute the fact that they gave him what seems to be poor advice. And I don't blame Broder for following what Tesla said, even if it ended up with a picture of a Tesla being towed away.

I'm very surprised Tesla hasn't released the call logs, to be honest. And I suspect, if you saw them, you would agree that Broder's actions are in line with what Tesla told him while he was in the car

"And your log data makes me want to buy one of your cars. Thanks for that marvel of engeenering."

P.S: I recommend you read some of the comments here. The data is in-line with Broder's account.

but Musk did not refute the fact that they gave him what seems to be poor advice

This is active disagreement over whether Broder was cleared to make that last trip. Musk says it was obviously no, Broder says yes.

What I wrote: "I'm very surprised Tesla hasn't released the call logs, to be honest. And I suspect, if you saw them, you would agree that Broder's actions are in line with what Tesla told him while he was in the car"

That is a very simple way of resolving this. And completely within Tesla's and Musk's ability (and if Broder really was authorized to do so, he'd let them release the call logs)

You fanboys' response to this is so laughable and such a good example that there truly is less and less a difference between this community and reddit with each passing day. So Musk makes rockets that go into outer space, is it so unfathomable that he might also make a shitty car?

For values of "shitty" that include "runs out of power when it runs out of power"?

By all reasonable accounts it is a very nice car. What this is all about is allegations of dishonest journalism and bad PR. Who exactly is saying the car is shit?

Are the accounts reasonable because they say it's a very nice car or is it a very nice car because reasonable accounts say so?

It is a very nice car because reasonable accounts have said so.

The limitations of the battery technology, primarily the long time to charge, are acknowledged by everybody as far as I can tell, and emphasized by most. Most reviewers have nevertheless not found the car to be "shit" because of that. Hell, not even Top Gear called the Roadster shit (and I, unlike Musk, would classify the Top Gear review of the Roadster as "reasonable").

WHy are they reasonable and NY Times is not?

Did the NYT review conclude the car was "shit"?

No, at least they certainly did not use that word however it was a negative review. Let me rephrase: Why is the NY Time review "unreasonable" because it was negative?

From HN Guidelines:

> If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)

Just b/c the account is new doesn't mean I haven't been reading HN for a much longer than that. I'd argue it's a semi noob illusion to assume otherwise :)

It's also idiotic to compare HN to Reddit, but I was being nice.

Is this what you want to talk about today? You must not be very busy :)

And yet, here you are.

Musk says Broder was deliberately driving in a place where there was no easy access to a charging station. Yet Broder focuses on the fact that during their phone call Musk did apologize and offer to do a second test. But he's not addressing the fact that Musk clearly writes out that Broder did purposefully pick a spot where he couldn't easily charge the car.

When you say "deliberately driving in a place where there was no easy access to a charging station", are you referring to Broder choosing to use the Milford CT Supercharger station, or the choice of an East Coast route?

Because if you are referring to the former, the Milford station is the only choice along the route if your ride is restricted to Supercharger networks (as was the entire basis of the article): http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

If you are referring to the idea to test drive the car along the Northeast Corridor relying on only Supercharger stations, the idea was proposed by Tesla to the New York Times.

>I don't think that a journalist who hates Porsche 911 (one of the Top Gear guy) should be allowed to test 911 just as I don't think that guy who hates electric cars (Broder) should be allowed to test an electric vehicle.

Why not? You're depriving your company of getting the best PR possible: A positive review from a reviewer that is known to hate your stuff.

You can't get that story if you don't let people who you don't like get in a review. And a negative review from a reviewer who's biases are widely known won't hurt at all.

> Top Gear's first review of the Tesla was "faked"

Didn't they (Top Gear) win the libel suit?

Edit: http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2012/02/23/tesla-libel... seems to indicate they did.

A funny artifact of Tesla's reaction to the NYT piece is that people are reviewing the Top Gear claims (this time with much more credibility lent to Top Gear).

Top Gear filmed themselves pushing a fully working vehicle, while pretending that it was dead. In court, they claimed they never actually said the vehicle was dead, and that what they did was merely for entertainment value.

There seriously cannot be any credibility lent here, regardless of anything else Top Gear did or did not do.