Last week, The New York Times published a damning story that lampoons the real-life range of the all-electric Tesla Model S. The basic gist of the story is that the Model S is meant to get 265 miles on a single charge, but the NYT’s hapless John Broder only got around 200 miles before running out of juice and calling a tow truck. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has now gone on the record to say that the NYT story is “fake,” and that Broder lied about his journey to smear the Model S.

The foundation of Broder’s story is that the Tesla S misreports its estimated driving range. In multiple cases, Broder says that the car’s actual range drops much faster than the car’s estimation. For example, Broder starts with 242 miles of range, but after 68 miles the car’s range estimate has dropped 85 miles. In a second instance, the range readout says 79 miles, but with 20 miles left to the destination only 10 miles of charge remained. Eventually, Broder’s battery runs out and he has to be towed to a charging station.

Elon Musk (who co-founded PayPal and is also the CEO of SpaceX) responded quickly, issuing a series of tweets that called the NYT story a fake, and then fleshing out his claims in an interview with Bloomberg:


I do not think this is a he said, she said situation. It is really black and white. The facts are the facts. He did not charge the car to full capacity, not even close. He then took an unplanned detour through downtown Manhattan, through heavy traffic, instead of going on the interstate to the charging station. He also exceeded the speed limit quite substantially, which decreased his range.

If you do all those three things, which we were clear should not be done and obviously common sense suggests should not be done, then you will not be able to go as far.


How does Musk know all this, though? Well, that’s the interesting bit: It turns out that Tesla has the option of logging everything that goes on in your vehicle, including your speed and GPS coordinates. In the case of normal consumers, Musk stresses that logging is only enabled if the owner explicitly asks for it — but for reviewers, thanks to some Top Gear chicanery involving the Tesla Roadster’s battery life (pictured right), the logging is always turned on. Elon Musk says that an official Tesla blog post is on its way, with the telemetry data that proves that The New York Times is lying.

The NYT, for what it’s worth, has issued the following statement: “The Times’s February 10th article recounting a reporter’s test drive in a Tesla Model S was completely factual, describing the trip in detail exactly as it occurred. Any suggestion that the account was “fake” is, of course, flatly untrue.” For the time being, then, we just have to wait and see what Tesla’s blog post says. For what it’s worth, the NYT does admit that it didn’t plug the car in overnight, while the Model S’s guide clearly states that it should be plugged in to preserve the battery’s charge.


An unhappy John Broder of NYT, recharging his Tesla Model S

The Tesla Model S is generally considered the forerunner of all electric vehicles — we even crowned it the ExtremeTech Car of the Year for 2012. Despite its technical excellence, though, the Model S is still an electric vehicle, and thus its performance is inexorably linked to the performance of lithium-ion batteries. Put simply, lithium-ion batteries discharge over time, and they don’t perform very well in the cold. Furthermore, the discharge-over-time is exacerbated by cold weather, and charging is slower in cold weather (especially with the US’s puny 120-volt supply). Even so, though, Tesla maintains that the Model S being tested by Broder — on a cold day on the Eastern Seaboard — should’ve performed better than reported.

For what it’s worth, Broder’s stomping ground for the The New York Times is oil — with the dramatic exception of two recent, negative stories about electric vehicles. We can only guess at why NYT’s usual car guy, Lawrence Ulrich, didn’t do the Model S road test. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.

So when The New York Times took a Tesla Model S for a spin in freezing temperatures -- which ended with the vehicle out of juice on a flatbed -- it was almost to be expected.

What was not expected was Tesla's response.

On his Twitter feed, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk described the newspaper's Feb. 8 account as "fake" and said that data-loggers on the car's computer will "tell true story that [the reviewer] didn't actually charge to max & took a long detour."

Musk said Tesla would publish what technically happened on the drive in a blog on the company Web site, a transcript which, as of this afternoon, has yet to be posted.



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He did not charge the car to full capacity, not even close. He then took an unplanned detour through downtown Manhattan, through heavy traffic, instead of going on the interstate to the charging station. He also exceeded the speed limit quite substantially, which decreased his range.

If you do all those three things, which we were clear should not be done and obviously common sense suggests should not be done, then you will not be able to go as far.

Regardless of this particular story, Musk needs to learn that you cant afford to make enemies in the media.