Re: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk arguments are pathetic
1.) No, Musk just points out that the car was only charged to 90% at the first supercharger station (I don't think it is disputed that the car readout said "charge complete" at this point) and 72% at the second. By taking advantage of the superchargers, the debacle could have been easily averted, but this alone did not prevent the trip from succeeding.
2.) It was Broder who said that he kept the temperature set low implying he spent much of the trip driving in a cold cabin. Musk shows that the cabin temp was mostly set at typical levels (and for the specific point in time that Broder chronicles was not set to 64; that didn't happen until 70 miles later - apparently the amount of time it took Broder to work out the mental math). This is one way in which Broder's article misleads.
3.) Again, it was Broder who suggested he spent much of the trip driving at 54 mph. This is not remotely true. Musk is simply pointing out that Broder lied about how slowly he drove (or when and how much of the trip he spent going slowly). But this did not cause the trip to fail.
4.) I'm not sure what the contention is with Manhattan. Broder describes it as "After a short break in Manhattan" and Musk calls it "an unplanned detour through downtown Manhattan to give his brother a ride". Petty complaint maybe. Not the reason the trip failed.
5.) The point is that the car gives fairly good information about range and a motorist cooperating with the car would have obviously had a successful trip. If there is a failure on the Tesla's part, it is that it is probably giving range estimates in more typical conditions (I don't know what "EPA Rated Range" is), maybe failing to account for the temperature (both for battery temp efficiency and cabin heater load) or driver behavior. A cooperative driver would have undoubtedly fully charged at the supercharging station in Milford.
The big mistake was not plugging the car in overnight (or an illustration of the weakness of the EV, if you prefer); when parked overnight in very cold conditions, the battery loses charge. Broder didn't account for this when he stopped charging at 73% in Milford (after 47 minutes of charging while writing in his article that he charged for 58 minutes). But once he woke up to find that the car had lost charge overnight, and traveled to the charging station in Norwich, it is inexplicable that he would get back on the road with 32 miles of range for a 61 mile trip. Broder claims "and after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford". But in his response he states, "The Tesla personnel whom I consulted over the phone – Ms. Ra and Mr. Merendino – told me to leave it connected for an hour, and after that the lost range would be restored. I did not ignore their advice." Grammatically, the first claim sounds as if he had a conversation and received "clearance" after charging for an hour (implying they had knowledge that the range estimate was only 32 miles), while the response sounds like he had a conversation before charging for an hour. I do think this is indicative of how the review gets away from itself in conveying truth.
I might agree that Broder wasn't overtly trying to sabotage his trip, but he did do the minimum in operator effort. Why would you, after experiencing what you claimed was a bad experience in cautiously slow driving, cold cabin temps, and actual range underperforming EPA rated range, not charge the car for another 10 or 20 minutes to give yourself a cushion (especially knowing how uncharacteristically cold it was outside - or that you planned to leave it parked not charging in freezing temps overnight)?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
