Why wasn’t this included in his article? It definitely fits as an issue with driving electric.
I’ll tell you my guess: He probably felt it would be a cheap shot at Tesla. (“Had I been a touch more attentive, I might have seen the charging station the first time. I’m reluctant to hold this against them.”)
This kind of restraint, by the way, makes Tesla’s lame nitpicking look all the more desperate in comparison.
Out of curiosity, do you pull your car over and call a tow truck when your gas light first turns on?
It wasn’t simply a matter of the gas light coming on. From the original article:
"The displayed range never reached the number of miles remaining to Milford, and as I limped along at about 45 miles per hour I saw increasingly dire dashboard warnings to recharge immediately. Mr. [Ted] Merendino, the product planner, found an E.V. charging station about five miles away.
But the Model S had other ideas. ‘Car is shutting down,’ the computer informed me. I was able to coast down an exit ramp in Branford, Conn., before the car made good on its threat."
The product planner was a Tesla employee. In other words, he was on the phone with Tesla employees who were advising him how much further he could drive. Would you expect to have to be on the phone with someone from General Motors if your car was running low on gas?
I’m kind of loving this.
I have no idea who to believe! I keep flip flopping on this one. Right now the person I want to hear from is the tow truck guy who was on the phone with Tesla for 20 minutes. Now I’m on NYT’s side.
Your move Tesla.
When gas gets low enough, my car displays a warning message and the expected remaining driving range (when that range drops to lower than 20 miles, the display reads ***). If I was driving an unfamiliar car and the message displayed was SHUTTING DOWN, I’d find the side of the road damn fast.
Eh, to be fair, we don’t need to call GM regarding fuelling conventional vehicles because we’ve all been surrounded by internal combustion engines since birth. In an alternate universe where people were first exposed to internal combustion engines at age 40, I doubt that would be true (especially since conventional fuel gauges are baffingly inaccurate for a device that’s had a century of development behind it.) I don’t think its unreasonable that new drivers need advice from Tesla when trying to figure out how the car works.
That said, it does sound like the range estimates on the Tesla are pretty off. They should’ve either fixed this or at least made it more clear to the driver that he’d need a large buffer.
Here’s the thing – look at the log. The speed is never as low as 54 miles per hour until the car has gone 400 miles. Unless he was circling around New Jersey, it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t driving at the speed he claims. Besides 00 that stretch (which correlates with where hed be at that point) is the only part that has the stability you’d expect from cruise control. Everyplace else the speed has spastic noise all over it.
But, again, what’s your point? For most of 400 miles his speed is 60 miles per hour or higher – going to 70 and above for not-insignificant portions. They told him to keep it to 55. He didn’t.
Hmmm – so now you DO think it was in that stretch. No, when I said “usually faster” I was referring to that 400 mile stretch. And I’m not exaggerating 00 look at it.
No gas car, perhaps. I don’t know what the requirements are for an electric car.
Sultry, indeed. That you could say "he only lowered it to 72-74 with a straight face (I’m assuming it’s straight) tells me that you probably haven’t really thought about what you’re saying. Lowered to 74? That’s pretty damned hot. If he really were lowering it to 74 he would have been far out of line, using his electrical power on excessive heating. In fact, 74 was about as hot as he got it. But I notice that, even after he let it drop down to 64 (where my house is normally set), he STILL let it go up to 74 two mor times.
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But the real issue is, driving the car under realistic conditions, even making some, if imperfectly observed concessions to range-maximization efforts, this car just is not ready foe prime-time. Not at $15 thousand and definitely not at $100 thousand.
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I don’t know if they claimed prime-time status for it. My understanding was that they were showing off the availability of charging stations, and the ability of the car to travel reasonable distances. Which is why they were so pissed about the article. They feel that ability was mistrepresented.
Well after reading that, I may have to switch teams.
CNN Money decided to drive the same route and had no issues.
And I find it hilarious that after reading that, my co-worker who spent all day yesterday badmouthing Tesla and the car is suddenly claiming that “no one is badmouthing the car”.
I didn’t see any mention of the weather during that trip (supposedly a big issue with the car’s range was its marked decrease in cold winter driving).
But you expected that, in February, it was no longer cold? :dubious:
From the article:
“I was given battery-conservation advice at that time (turn off the cruise control; alternately slow down and speed up to take advantage of regenerative braking) that was later contradicted by other Tesla personnel.”
(my bolding) If someone from Tesla really told him that, they’d better find the guy and terminate him with extreme prejudice. Even electric cars have to follow the laws of thermodynamics. I hope the advice was actually something like “brake gently and with plenty of space, so you can take advantage of regenerative braking, and not use the friction brakes.” (Teslas have friction brakes, don’t they?)
What Broder has proven is what a lot of EV aficionados have been saying all along: Battery EVs are still ill-suited for long road trips.
What Elon Musk has proven, once again, is that he is a thin skinned jerk, who does not take criticism very well.
Personally, I’m curious if he left the car outside overnight. Isn’t that what caused a big drop in battery efficiency with the NYT writer?
Here’s what he said in yesterday’s blog post, “Since 2009, I have been the Washington bureau reporter responsible for coverage of energy, environment and climate change. I have written numerous articles about the auto industry and several vehicle reviews for the Automobiles pages. (In my 16 years at The Times I have served as White House correspondent, Washington editor, Los Angeles bureau chief and a political correspondent.)” So, no, he doesn’t normally review cars, but has done so in the past. And I’m curious what sort of “agenda” you think he had.
He said in the article that it was 10 degrees warmer than during the NYT test.
But the CNN guy just made the same trip no problem.
Your post and that test seem to be in contradiction.
I don’t think anyone has said that EV’s don’t require a little more forethought, but the argument is that it’s not really that much more trouble. If you plan your routes and think ahead you’ll be just fine.
As other posters have said, my biggest issue with the NYT article is that the author gave the impression that he was doing everything possible to maximize his mileage when he didn’t. This may have been due to a lack of knowledge and may not have been malicious, but at the very least he chose not to inform himself.
Could Tesla have done a better job holding his hand? Yes. Should they have? Probably. Though, I might argue that it’s a journalists responsibility to fully research and understand whatever they are reporting on, including a new technology like this one.
CNN guy gave himself a 70 mile buffer, 35% of the expected trip length, and wound up with about 30 miles of range left when he was done. NYT guy had a 42 mile buffer, 20% and wound up with 0 miles left. In both cases the car claimed about 40 miles of range that it didn’t deliver on.
Considering that one of the biggest issues with EVs is range, requiring a 35% buffer when planning a trip is a major problem. If I MUST have the car 100% fully charged to reliably take a 200 mile trip, the car’s range is 200 miles, not 270.
You can’t plan to use those 70 miles, because you might not get them, and you have to plan your route if you’re going anywhere near 200 miles.