Comment by niggler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by niggler | Hacker News Reader

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You've fallen into the trap of accepting Musk's false dichotomy here. Try to separate your emotions when you analyze what happened here.

What's clear, from an objective point of view, is that there were issues that could be attributed to Tesla. Musk still hasn't refuted the fact that Tesla engineers gave Broder really poor advice during the trip. Musk didn't produce the call logs, and the "data" corroborates most of Broder's claims regarding what happened during the drive.

"Elon Musk cares. He has everything on the line, and everything he's worked for "

Gives him more incentive to fight the NYT and try to paint Broder as an evil man. CEO has billions of dollars on the line, NYT reporter has his career on the line, yet if this were any other traditional company you would side with the reporter.

"To have that put at risk by a lazy/incompetent reporter, who's got nothing on the line but 24 hours of his ass in a car, someone who can't even take his job seriously enough to even attempt to get it right...it's got to be infuriating."

Broder did get it right, and Musk's data and nonsequiturs proved it. The core facts were that Broder followed Tesla's advice and, by following the advice, the car ran out of charge. You are letting your blind faith in Musk cloud your reasoning abilities

"Say, why hasn't Broder offered to repeat the drive? He's probably too busy figuring out how to review rocket technology without learning anything about that either."

Why hasn't Musk revealed the call logs with the advice Tesla gave Broder during the trip? Is it because they would corroborate Broder's story? Most likely.

"Low-grade ethics violation" is an apt description of what occurred, in my opinion.

Musk hasn't painted Broder as evil. Publicity-seeking and/or incompetence aren't evil. It's just amplified by the backdrop of electric cars.

If Musk hadn't called bullshit when he saw it, it would have been open season on Tesla by every copycat hack trying to get a piece of the action.

You can be sure that journalists covering Tesla for publications of record will be quite careful and accurate with their facts, good and bad, from now on.

I don't think Musk can ask for more than that.

"Low-grade ethics violation" is appropriate only if you think the journalist's mandate was to brown-nose.

"Musk hasn't painted Broder as evil."

Musk wrote (source: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive):

     In Mr. Broder’s case, he simply did not accurately capture what happened and worked very hard to force our car to stop running.

I'm sorry, but that's absolutely painting Broder as Evil. I'm going to repeat the claim, because for some reason you don't see this as nefarious: worked very hard to force our car to stop running.

"If Musk hadn't called bullshit when he saw it, it would have been open season on Tesla by every copycat hack trying to get a piece of the action."

Instead, it was open season to attack NYT.

"You can be sure that journalists covering Tesla for publications of record will be quite careful and accurate with their facts, good and bad, from now on.

I don't think Musk can ask for more than that."

What Musk is asking for is the media to be his lapdog. And that's fine. But don't delude yourself into thinking he's asking for objectivity. You are belying your own inability to think.

With a bar for "evil" so absurdly low, it strikes me as rather silly to become so indignant over such labels.

Yeah, so by that standard you are evil.

Here's how you call someone evil:

"You are evil."

There! Massive simplification! We don't need to read between the lines and feed our paranoia.

Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel.

No. The media is simply not going to bother to review the car.

And Musk can't ask for more than that.

That's a great theory, except they've continued to review it.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-reviews/road-tests/road-test...

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/15/autos/tesla-model-s-lessons/

http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-tes...

To think that the media would boycott talking about this car would require a pretty deep misunderstanding of the incentives at play and the structure of the media.

> yet if this were any other traditional company you would side with the reporter.

[citation needed].

Given the claims made and the data provided, I doubt anyone would be so deliberately obtuse as to reach a different conclusion simply because of the company involved.

" I doubt anyone would be so deliberately obtuse as to reach a different conclusion simply because of the company involved."

I thought that too. Then I saw how some people on HN (you can use the search to find some of the posts) were arguing that NYT was lying merely based on the fact that Musk is a scientist or because he was trying to change the world. And frankly, some people really are unable to separate their love for Musk and electric cars from the situation.

I read all of the accounts, starting from the original Broder article, and it's clear that Broder didn't "work[...] very hard to force our car to stop running." (http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive).

What do you mean that "Broder did get it right"?

I thought Broder lied about how fast he was going for the whole trip.

Broder: "I limped along at about 45 miles per hour"

Data: very strange readout at 400 miles (looks like stop and go), followed by period averaging 52 mph

Counterreply: "but it may be the result of the car being delivered with 19-inch wheels and all-season tires, not the specified 21-inch wheels and summer tires. That just might have affected the recorded speed, range, rate of battery depletion or any number of other parameters. "

Verdict: There are three possibilities:

1) Broder thought he was going at 45 mph but in fact was going faster

2) Broder intentionally sped up

3) The instrumentation was off

The car data doesn't reflect what the instrumentation showed, so (3) can't be determined. I personally find (1) much more plausible than (2), especially since I do this as well when test-driving cars I'm not used to driving.

Broder: "planted myself in the far right lane with the cruise control set at 54 miles per hour"

Data: Averaging 60 mph

Counterreply: "I do recall setting the cruise control to about 54 m.p.h., as I wrote. "

Verdict: Tesla should be recording these actions as well. In absence of cruise control data, it's a he-said-she-said.

I can appreciate the argument that Broder was lying if there was a very large discrepancy between the claims and the data. But honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between 40 and 50 mph in my 911, and that's a car I've had for more than a year, so I wouldn't be surprised if he saw the speedometer, thought he was going at a certain speed, and watched the road most of the time. I know I don't spend my driving time with my eyes glued to the speedometer -- I think watching the road is far more important.

Given that even the data corroborates the claim that he was under the speed limit during those times (e.g. averaging 60 in a 65 mph zone is under speed limit), protesting over 5-10 mph comes off as niggling moreso than malice

I dunno man. He set the cruise control for like an hour. And he adjusted it a few times. Sorry niggler, but if you are a car journalist for the ny times and reviewing a car and cant even be bothered to check how fast you are going (forgetting for a moment the safety issues, and potential speeding tickets) then you are a poor car reviewer.

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