Tesla Driving Logs Contradict NYT Claims

It was driving in circles in the parking lot to try to get the battery to die, then leaving the quick charger without a full charge. It was also claiming that Tesla told him to leave the L2 charger without a full charge, when they told him to wait. Why would you try to go 60 miles on a charge that reports 32 miles? Answer you want to call a tow truck, and don't realize the car is monitering its charge.

Really what owner other than Bob Wilson tries to go further than the gas tank says it will go instead of filling up? Bob is honest about it being an experiment. This reporter was dishonest about it in the article. That is unethical and misleading. The reporter turned the heat up when he wrote he turned it down. He wanted the story to be that EVs won't work. He wanted controversy. I'm sure he was not expecting to get caught.

Do you think Clarkson was being honest pushing the Tesla to the garage with a full charge? Its not liable since its a dramitization, but it was dishonest and unethical to not label it a dramitization.

Wow. Please read the blog and get the facts. The reporter even admitted to leaving the L2 charger without enough of a charge in his reply to tesla. He did not admit to not fully charging it. He claimed he did, which would be a he says she said, except the car was logging the lie.

 

OK, he wasted a mile. Big F'g deal.

I don't know the details of the L2 charge, but at that point Tesla's attempt to show that the two QC chargers on the reporter's route were enough was not correct. Probably correct for spring time, but not for winter. Tesla keeps saying that the car will travel ~ 3 miles/kwh. That is simply not ballpark in the winter. Tesla's claim that the reporter mishandled the car by not sitting for hours at an L2 charger is disingenous; he was not supposed to have to use one at all.

You can play apologist and nitpicker until you are blue in the face; and Tesla can play corporate bully until their name is trashed, but the reporter drove the car the way many an owner might including silly slow speeds some of the time and less cabin heat than he wanted -- and still ran out of fuel. Or at least acted reasonably by pulling over when the car said "get fuel NOW."

I'd like Tesla to post a mileage log that correlates reported range remaining, distance drove, and charges en-route. I'll think we'll see that the range meter is no better than the guess-gauge so many report for the LEAF.

 

After Top Gear's Clarkson debacle, I'd guess he did know the telemetry/moniters were watching ... and that's why the tester only gamed it a little ... short charge ... run the heater extra high (4kw's-5kw's) while driving in circles in a parking lot ... speeding a bit, but not too much. I'm guessing that's the very reason he'd do "just a little" ... but just a little in every way he could.
Our culture's acceptance of "almost the truch" is acceptable as truth. Gone are the principals that an almost perfect counterfiet $100 bill are just as wrong as Monopoly money. In fact, it's the best fakes that are the most dangerous. But like i said ... not any more.

.

 

I'll get the popcorn...

 

If he had fully charged at the superchargers, as instructed, it would have been enough.

 

In aviation, have a special name for pilots who lie . . . 'the dearly departed' . . .

Bob Wilson

 

It was done in the grand tradition of William Randolph Hurst. If you don't think the real story will sell papers, make the news you think will. Who cares if assault weapons were not used at sandy hook? Talk as if they were then get some celebrity, say Silvester Stalone to say they should be restricted. We all know it was about the type of gun right? Well maybe not, get Chuck Norris to say he could just kick an intruder but he'd rather shoot him. And soon the news doesn't matter anymore if the news seemed to say assualt weapons were used when they weren't. All that matters is which action hero you like better and selling the news. I mean didn't most of the 911 hijackers come from IRAQ

 

I know one pilot that ran out of gas and was able to safely make an embarrassing emergency landing. The fuel gauge was wrong, but had he done a proper pre-flight he would have known this, so even in his opinion it was pilot error. Being a private pilot, I take the Broder drama probably as more of a negative than some here. I mean he is at the L2 charging station, and leaves early while his instruments tell him he doesn't have enough fuel. Clearly he has learned in the Quick Charger parking lot that there is a safety measure. He could have like any owner would have properely filled it up, and written how it sucks to wait to charge these things on a road trip. Or he could have written the gauge said 32 but I pushed it, and got 51 miles and had to call a tow because I wanted to find out how much safety margin was on the gauge. Instead he seemed to want to pretend it was the cars fault. In most cases its pilot error.

 

Scroll down and look at charts in this thread - miles driven vs. rated miles driven.

How to plan a road trip - how long will it take?

 

Like the regional commuter airline back East that was fudging some weight and balance sheets before takeoff, for a while, until one fell out of the sky. First Officer - 'Captain, we're too heavy'. Capt - gimme that log ... (signs off) ... 'problem solved'.

Airline started with a C, forgot the name.

 

he drove 5 minutes in the parking lot... 5 minutes.

as to the little over legal speeds, probably just going with the traffic.

story was sensationalistic but so were hundreds if not thousands other similar articles about Prius, Volt and others.

 

TESLA is really grasping for straws here.. nothing I read suggests the reporter was lying.. going 60 instead or 54.. whatever... but to turn off the cabin heat!! that's a major fail.

like I said EV is not ready for prime time. in another video on the previous thread (i think it was called Tesla in the real world) on the drive from LA to SF the reporter was pissing in his pants about making it to the next charger spot... so much so the on board dash went out just before he got there.

some folks blindly liked the video.. but if you actually watched it.. it was pretty damming... Tesla has built a nice commuter car that needs to be plugged in every night. that's the bottom line.

trying to convince folks it's a long range road trip car. that's the FAIL cause it isn't and that's the point

 

do any of you who are arguing read the entire article?

he wasn't given the car to test the car... he was given the car to test the chargers. so, that basically limits his reporting to how easy it is to plug in (or not) and charge times... even commenting about remotely monitoring the charge times or anything along those lines.

he was given the car to drive at a controlled speed and temperature to get it to the destination and see how the charger performs or doesn't perform. this would include error codes or shut offs from the charger or car while charging, instead of him pulling the plug.

driving the car in circles with the heat on burns a lot of "fuel".. he was trying to get a real "dead on the side of the road" story going...

If he didn't want to abide by the rules, he should have handed the job off to someone else to do a writeup.

fyi, cabin temp difference makes a huge difference. I have a scangauge in my prius and the difference between setting the temp at 70 and 74 on a cold day pulls a lot of electricity (not to mention ICE heat). even a prius sitting Idle pulls a lot of electricity from the system. Doing circles below 15mph... forget about it.. your average MPG would drop like a rock.

As for the short peak above 85mph... any clue how much extra power that pulls? if you're not an electrical engineer or smart enough to pull the numbers then shut your mouth. as people stated here for mpg... as you go faster, the consumption tends to skyrocket since drag basically multiplies with speed increases.

 

I haven't had a chance to read the Wired article and need to go but did you actually look at A Most Peculiar Test Drive | Blog | Tesla Motors (that I posted over 12 hours ago in the other thread)? Assuming Musk's assertions and log data are all true, the reporter was lying.

What is it with you and your anti-EV stance and pro-FCV stance? As stated at Nissan LEAF® Electric Car Charging & Range | Nissan USA "The average American drives less than 29 miles per day." They cite "Source: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS)" which is probably NHTS Publications. Plenty of folks get by fine w/EVs w/far less range (e.g. Leaf w/73 mile EPA rated range vs. the 265 mile range of the 85 kwh Model S) as their primary vehicle.

I think we need to start a separate thread about EVs vs. FCVs (or add to an existing such debate thread) and lay it all out on the table. It seems you have some MAJOR misconceptions and misinformation about each.

 

Agreed. The damage is done...

I have seen at least 5 other articles including Forbes and Reuters that have referenced the original NYT article.

 

the reporter was not lying... Tesla is nit picking with the data.. and guess what? life does not happen as scripted.. sometimes you have a detour.. sometimes you go over the speed limit with traffic.. sometimes you miss an exit.. sometimes it's really cold... sometimes the car will show a certain number of miles of range.. and the next morning it shows another (read the Tesla thread.. many owners report serious reductions in range when parking in the cold)

instead of dealing with the issues Tesla is more interested in shooting the messenger.

it's a commuter car that needs to be plugged in every night.

it is not a long range road trip car.. that's more than evident from this episode.. not that the reporter was somehow lying.

 

Tesla Nightmare Shows Problem With All-Electric Cars - Business Insider

NYT just exposed the Achilles heal of EVs.

these are for short range trips.. and need to be plugged in every night.

Tesla's problem is that it's trying to sell it as a long range car when it's not.

 

You are making one big a## assumption with that last one. Tesla is working to make Model S a road tripping car. We know, we know it doesn't refuel as quick as an ICE car even with supercharging.

The crux of the stink to me is Broder said 'Tesla clear me to leave Norwich (with 32 mi on gage). ....

Musk says Broder left with 32 on gage expressly against Tesla's advice (which implied Tesla told him this right before he left Butch's Luncheonette.

That said, I'm not worried if this will sink Tesla. If Model S is good, it can stand on its own, no matter what the armchair opinion is.

 

Henry Blodget should be sitting in a jail cell. He is a known criminal.

Complaint: Henry Mckelvey Blodget

If Henry is involved in this, there is a fraud being perpetrated.

 

I heard you were all into FCEVs. Did you find your way to Gov. Brown's plan to include FCEVs with PEVs for the 2025 goal?