Times Reporter Disputes Tesla's Claims, 'Cannot Account' for Data Conflict

New York Times reporter John Broderresponded in detail Thursday to Tesla president Elon Musk's data-driven takedown of Broder's review of the Model S sedan. And it's becoming clear that in the credibility battle between a veteran reporter's notebook and Tesla's hard data, data has the edge.

In Broder's second follow-up piece about his trip, he addresses Elon Musk's blog post point-by-point. He easily dispatches Musk's claim that the Model S never ran out of juice. The Model S logs analyzed by Tesla may have shown that the battery still had some charge in it, but it's undisputed that the car announced to Broder that it was shutting down. As Broder writes, "The car’s display screen said the car was shutting down, and it did." That the battery still had some residual charge left is irrelevant. Score this one to Broder.

But on other points, details in Broder's original article are plainly at odds with Tesla's data, and Broder's explanations are unsatisfying. Take this passage from his review:

I began following Tesla’s range-maximization guidelines, which meant dispensing with such battery-draining amenities as warming the cabin and keeping up with traffic. I turned the climate control to low — the temperature was still in the 30s — and planted myself in the far right lane with the cruise control set at 54 miles per hour (the speed limit is 65). Buicks and 18-wheelers flew past, their drivers staring at the nail-polish-red wondercar with California dealer plates.

Musk disputes that Broder turned down the heat, but as Broder points out accurately, Tesla's logs show that he did just that. But the logs also show that Broder never cruised as slow as 54 miles per hour, nor did he later slog along at 45 miles an hour in a desperate effort to reach a charging station. Broder's response Thursday relies on his memory, and some shoulder-shrugging.

I do recall setting the cruise control to about 54 m.p.h., as I wrote. The log shows the car traveling about 60 m.p.h. for a nearly 100-mile stretch on the New Jersey Turnpike. I cannot account for the discrepancy, nor for a later stretch in Connecticut where I recall driving about 45 m.p.h., but 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. That just might have impacted the recorded speed, range, rate of battery depletion or any number of other parameters.

He goes on:

Certainly, and as Tesla’s logs clearly show, much of my driving was at or well below the 65 m.p.h. speed limit, with only a single momentary spike above 80. Most drivers are aware that cars can speed up, even sometimes when cruise control is engaged, on downhill stretches.

That strains credulity a bit. Modern cruise control systems generally maintain vehicle speed even on downhill slopes. They aren't prone to a 15 mile per hour speed boost.

Tesla's charging data notes that during one of the charging stops, Broder plugged in for 47 minutes, but he claims in his article that he spent 58 minutes plugged in. "According to my notes," Broder writes, "I plugged into the Milford Supercharger at 5:45 p.m. and disconnected at 6:43 p.m."

None of these unresolved discrepancies go to the root of Broder's original article, or the trouble the Model S had on the drive. The root of the problem was that when Broder tucked in for the night in Groton, Connecticut, the car showed it was good for another 90 miles. By morning that number had dropped to 25 miles as a result of nothing more than cold weather.

That's a dramatic loss in range, and in his new response Broder takes Tesla to task for not providing him with enough detail about driving the Model S in colder climes. Tesla spokeswoman Shanna Hendriks disputes that too, and insists the automaker offered to find Broder a hotel where he could charge the electric sedan overnight, which would have started him off with the electrical equivalent of a full tank.

But this grudge match is no longer about the Model S's suitability for road trips. It's about old-school reporting, based on note-taking and memory, peppered with color and craft, versus the precision of numbers and data. And the Times is now obliged to address it on those terms. Because in the end, Broder either set his cruise control for 54, or he didn't.