Comments on: Tesla vs. The Times: lies, damn lies, and untruths

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 01:54:00 +0000

Indeed!

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:07:00 +0000

Personally I’d be way more concerned with the on ramp myself… But either way is more reasonable than having it just die. Still I get your point, some audible warning that in X time your vehicle speed will be reduced to 35 mph, with only 5 miles remaining would be warranted.

By: Stephen Rice

Stephen Rice — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:44:00 +0000

Yeah! What would a car engineer know about wheels?

By: Stephen Rice

Stephen Rice — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:40:00 +0000

I’d be pretty concerned about it taking over throttle control. I’d hate for it to enter limp mode on an off ramp.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 08:57:00 +0000

Err.. isn’t that akin to sabotage? Withholding information that could save dozen of highly paid hours?

By: Robert Drop

Robert Drop — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:34:00 +0000

I don’t know that Broder did lie about anything. Some of the supposed “lies” that Musk thought he caught him out on are questionable – the logs themselves seem to be misleading (for whatever reason). E.g. we have confirmation that the battery, despite what Musk and the logs indicate, actually was depleted when the tow-truck driver was called. The tow driver has confirmed this. So the logs, rather than the original story, are suspect. The story has its own problems irrespective of the logs, however, and Broder’s recollections aren’t necessarily 100% accurate. His general points about the car aren’t in doubt, however.

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:26:00 +0000

Sometimes yeah. I worked with a software validator who had this parlour trick: he would cause a core dump in our UI with an obscure key combination, but he never raised a bug report for it. That would have spoiled the fun.

By: Warren_Terra

Warren_Terra — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 22:57:00 +0000

I find the 80 mph talking point fairly useful. It’s clear from the logs that the speed very briefly spiked at 80, and there are all sorts of reasons this might have happened: passing, getting away from a reckless driver, curiosity about what it would do to the predicted range, a leg cramp in the “gas pedal” leg while not using cruise control, etcetera. The point being that it was a brief spike, and when a commenter mentions “80 mph” as if Broder was cruising along at that speed at a time when he claimed to be driving slowly and economically, it tells me something about how much attention that commenter has paid to the logs or how fair they’re trying to be.

Again: I’m agnostic about Broder, and Musk, and a little appalled by how much attention is being paid to these two people (and how much unreasoning vitriol heaped upon each), rather than the less-disputed but still interesting issues arising from Broder’s test drive.

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 21:43:00 +0000

Ya, they wouldn’t do anything like that! (Tucker ’48)

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 21:24:00 +0000

I like your description, but not your solution. Journo should drop down to Fox, but Musk should keep right on calling b.s. on cynical and lazy psuedo-journos who are happy to kill technological advances in the crib.

Remember the Tucker ’48.

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 21:18:00 +0000

Ya, because what are the odds that the Tesla engineer would be smart enough to account for wheel size when analyzing the engine data? Everybody knows that engineers never concern themselves with small details. (Sheesh!)

By: Joel Phillips

Joel Phillips — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 18:04:00 +0000

The vehicle might have been calibrated with the wheels (one would hope that it was), but that doesn’t mean that the engineer interpreting the engine logs knew what size they were. It’s entirely plausible that the engine logs are in a raw data format that requires knowledge of wheel size, particularly as it sounds like this was a tool that was hacked together to provide evidence against dodgy journalists.

By: Jonathan Eyler-Werve

Jonathan Eyler-Werve — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 17:27:00 +0000

I believe it is called “passing”. Most $60,000 cars support this feature.

By: Damian Barajas

Damian Barajas — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 17:20:00 +0000

“On the other hand, Musk libelously turned innocent activities such as a couple minutes drive around a parking lot looking for a recharger into some sort of evil conspiracy to run down the batteries”

But Broder brought that on himself didn’t he? once he lies about the data and what he actually did, we’re all left to interpret why he drove around in circles and didn’t write it down… and everything else.
Since he deliberately lied, its easy to view things from Musk’s point of view. You cant say Musk is right with 100% certainty, but you don’t have to since we already know Broder is deliberately telling us things that are not true. We’re only left to wonder why.

By: rocketpjs

rocketpjs — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 17:14:00 +0000

Journo phoned in a crap review thinking that he could get away with it and go home early, as he likely has many times before – nobody reads the paper anyways anymore.

Tech company gets its back up, has data that shows the journo is a lazy ass who didn’t bother to pretend to be a reporter.

Tech company overreacts and ascribes sinister motivations to the journo, who is most likely just cynical and lazy.

All the rest is us just watching a car wreck. Journo should be fired and go work for a pretend news org like Fox. Musk should be muzzled and leave the public speaking to the PR types.

By: C W

C W — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:12:00 +0000

The vehicle was calibrated at the factory with those wheels, the journo is pulling that set of “facts” from his ass.

It doesn’t explain why he was lying about being on cruise control when he wasn’t on it.

“In particular,
- 54 mph becomes 60mph”

It doesn’t explain him going up to 80 at one point either.

By: C W

C W — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:10:00 +0000

She doesn’t at all approach the original article critically.

By: C W

C W — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:07:00 +0000

The judge disagreed because Top Gear was not portraying a real “review” but mocking something up. I don’t think this states what you think it’s stating.

By: SeekerLancer

SeekerLancer — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 13:51:00 +0000

Here’s a post I agree with.

By: Crashproof

Crashproof — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 13:33:00 +0000

But when those testers don’t actually tell you the repro steps, or they outright lie about what happens, they are worse than useless.

By: tw1515tw

tw1515tw — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 08:28:00 +0000

The judge in the Top Gear v Tesla case disagreed:

“In my judgment, the words complained of are wholly incapable of conveying any meaning at all to the effect that the claimant misled anyone.

“This is because there is a contrast between the style of driving and the nature of the track as compared with the conditions on a public road […] are so great that no reasonable person could understand that the performance on the [Top Gear] track is capable of a direct comparison with a public road.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/19/top-gear-not-libel-tesla

Tesla had their case thrown out twice.

Car magazines such as Autocar (and presumably Car and Driver) take great pride in their objectivity and independence. Car Magazine famously called the Golf VR6 a lemon, and put that on its front page.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/retromotoring/2373255099/

By: Joel Phillips

Joel Phillips — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 07:20:00 +0000

From:

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-data-what-it-says-and-what-it-doesnt/

” … 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”

If the Tesla engineers didn’t take this into account when analysing the vehicle data logs, this basically explains everything. In particular,
- 54 mph becomes 60mph
- The distance at which the heater is turned down matches what Broder says he did.
- The fact the Tesla engineers think that there was a “big detour in Manhattan” vs “2 miles extra in Manhattan” (they need an explanation for the fact that they measured a 10% longer distance than they expected based on the declared route).

If the vehicle wasn’t set up properly, it could also explain why it failed to predict range properly.

By: Robert Drop

Robert Drop — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 05:41:00 +0000

On the other hand, Musk libelously turned innocent activities such as a couple minutes drive around a parking lot looking for a recharger into some sort of evil conspiracy to run down the batteries (which doesn’t even make sense), and has otherwise exaggerated and misrepresented the logs (or worse, the logs are consistently disconnected from the reality of driving the car, as they were when the power was completely depleted and the logs supposedly indicate they weren’t).
The author took bad advice from Tesla employees and failed to be as cautious and careful as he could have been in having a sufficient charge and driving in a way that maximized that charge (but again, at least some of that is down to bad advice). Sure, the article was rather pointlessly and stupidly pointing out that an electric car, when compared to a gasoline automobile can be a pain in the ass that when treated like a traditional car can fail to meet expectations, but it’s not exactly wrong.

By: Robert Drop

Robert Drop — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 05:25:00 +0000

“ I can’t come up with a good or even innocent reason for some of Broder’s actions (not charging fully, misreporting how long he drove and how slowly)”
The first one is pretty innocent – he recharged until he had (more than) enough mileage to make his intended trip, not wanting to sit around waiting longer than necessary. (Except that he lost a good portion of those miles thanks to the temperature.) As for how long or how slowly he drove, there seems to be a disconnect between the logs and reality. The logs indicate that the battery never ran down completely, whereas when the car had to be towed, and the tow-truck driver has confirmed that the battery was depleted to the point where even the handbrake couldn’t be disengaged.

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 04:47:00 +0000

As opposed to having the car stop driving (or even enter a limp mode of 35 mph for a mile) but leave you with enough power to operate things like the e-brake and hazard lights.

By: C W

C W — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 04:31:00 +0000

The problem here is that I’d expect a CEO to overstate things while I expect something approaching truth from a (supposed) journalist.

By: C W

C W — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 04:28:00 +0000

I pretty much agree with you there.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 04:14:00 +0000

Often both. External testers often do things programmers just wouldn’t, just because they think different and use their computers/software differently.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 04:13:00 +0000

How about sexy engine-revving industry ties? I think many car lovers feel threatened by electric vehicles, not enough growl and shake perhaps

By: TWX

TWX — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 03:52:00 +0000

I would like to agree with you, but the journalist’s lies about things like speed and environmental controls push past, “fudg[ing] the operation of the car for optimum drama,” as a straw-man attack into an outright set of lies.

If I misuse a product and write a review of my misuse and how the product failed in my misuse, then even if I don’t acknolwedge that my use was misuse, I at least acknowledge my true actions. If I claim that I used a product as intended while definitely not using it as intended, and then claim that its failure came about because I used it as intended, that’s lying.