Tesla’s Elon Musk fires back at The New York Times

Dana Hull
Mercury News
February 14, 2013

Tesla Motors (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has fired back at The New York Times, releasing vehicle logs that contradict the Times’ recent story about a road trip in a Model S Sedan and calling on the venerable news organization to “investigate the article and determine the truth.”

Last week, New York Times reporter John Broder published a lengthy account of his trip from Washington, D.C. to Connecticut in a Model S that ended with the electric vehicle being loaded onto a flatbed truck. Broder reported that the car’s range fell far faster than he expected, forcing him to turn down the heat and set cruise control to just 54 miles per hour. Broder says the car ultimately “shut down,” forcing a tow truck to rescue him from a Connecticut exit ramp.

Musk, who is livid about the article, published a lengthy blog post late Wednesday titled “A Most Peculiar Test Drive.” Based on data pulled from the Model S’s onboard computer, Musk writes that Broder never ran out of energy during the drive, never set the cruise control to 54 miles per hour and kept the heat on. He also writes that Broder took a detour through downtown Manhattan to give his brother a ride, drove the car in circles in a small parking lot and didn’t allow the vehicle to fully charge.

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This article was posted: Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 12:28 pm

Tags: energy, science

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