Clueless NYT reporter manages to get stranded in Model S

OK, show me where the Tesla website informs how winter affects range. Say, a tool, that estimates the effect of wind, snow, ice, rain and ambient temperatures working in concert.

Somehow I have missed it.

 

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I am afraid some of the things you asked for are not there.
However, as I said, it is far more specific than any other company's I am aware of.
And yes, it could be better, but my comparison isn't against perfection, it is that it is better than anyone else's.

 

Yep, that is the only point I wish to make; it is IMO the only point Broder was making in his article; and moreover, the asinine sniping from EV fanboys here that Broder deserves character assassination because he drove at 82 mph for a few seconds, or drove around a parking lot for 0.5 miles looking for the charger is as foolish as Tesla trying to cover up a poorly conceived PR gig.

I do not fully 'define my terms' as you put it, because that would once again be missing the point. No two roads are exactly the same, or be likely to have the same elevation change, or have the same wind or have the same congestion. On any one day adverse road conditions like e.g. snow, ice, or rain that easily eat up the 18 mile reserve Tesla thinks the car starts with in otherwise non-defined ideal conditions leave open not just the possibility, but the likelihood of failure to drive 200 miles on a single charge in the winter. I do find it funny that the fanboys are tying to use the CNN success story as 'proof' that Broder misrepresented the car's range. First off, they drove slower, and on a warmer day. Second, this is not a question of whether the car can make that drive. Clearly it can if it is charged more often, or the driver takes more time, or conditions are favorable. The only real point, as E Fusco posted here in regards to his Tesla S, is that he will not take his family on a ~ 200 mile journey in the winter because he cannot be sure of success in his family's range of comfort and speed demands.

Fanboys should face up to a simple reality: winter is something of an achilles heel for EVs

All this is true before I even mention the *very* debatable practice of Tesla in using a 100% DOD for range estimates when that behavior accelerates early battery degradation.

 

No other EV company is foolish enough to represent their EV as something more than an extended range commuter car.

To paraphrase, "extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary evidence."

 

I don't think anyone really expects tesla to know how well the car does in a blizzard. I think its perfectly acceptable that if an owner misjudges their range they need to wait the storm out, hopefully somewhere where the car can be plugged in, but that isn't what this thread is about.

It is about a reporter getting stranded and needing a tow truck because he purposely under filled the car. He even now admits to under filling the car, with some very lame excusses. He thought max charge might take too long an extra 30 minutes. He thought he only needed 72% of the charge, and the biggest lamest one is tesla only told me I needed to charge for an hour, so I went off with 32 miles of range and the car would only go 50 miles. We can assume now from looking at the charts and the responses that he under charged so that he could write a more exciting story that drew readers in.

 

Are you really an engineer ??

Forget the extreme case of a blizzard,
Try wet roads and a 7 mph headwind.

 

The Tesla Superchargers are built with solar arrays, so no CO2 emissions.

 

I can't fault your logic there. This is why I think Tesla has lost this battle and should not say another word on the issue. The data doesn't free them from the facts of cold weather on battery.

However, since you threw that last one in. Maximum horsepower and torque are reported at their peaks and at high rpm. Driving in this manner would accelerate engine failure. I don't particular like advertising maximum range when the manufacturer doesn't recommend it. But these specifications are true.

 

I agree, which is why I wrote 'debatable' rather than 'wrong' or 'negligent.'

Still though, I'd say two differences set these examples apart: first, max HP and torque are IMO published for comparison purposes, not because the cars are being marketed for the race track. Second, EV range is a central issue for buyers that can affect their daily driving -- it deserves to be framed within the context of reasonable use.

 

Nobody is arguing that winter is one of the toughest aspects for EVs.
I will be the first person to tell someone not to buy an EV if they need more than 1/2 the EPA range in winter. And they would need to consider it carefully for any range between 1/2 and 2/3.
And people are not on this guy's case over his fast driving. We are on his case because put forth data as fact, when they were not.
Bottom line, if you don't fill a tank, you can't test the range of the tank.
And if you say you set the cruise control at 54, when you really set it at 60, 62 and 64, why shouldn't I question what other information is 'in error'.

 

I have an engineering degree, but don't work as an engineer, and would not use that as a credential on this. I am also a private pilot, which gives me my negative views of someone that does not fill up on purpose, then blames the vehicle. It is that experience that overwelms in this discussion.

If you want to plan your trip for a head wind simply increase the vehicle speed and distance. That should give a pessimistic estimate. Wet roads should not greatly effect distance, but hard rain, snow, hail, and climate control will. Typically in hard rain I slow down. If I were going on a trip in hard rain I would give myself a 50% safety margin. Now if you only charge it 72%, because you want to reduce your safety margin as the reviewer did, you get rid of any right to criticize range. You will also note to maximaize range that page only goes to 65mph, and the reviewer clearly greatly exceeded that. you won't get maximimum range if you decide to drive 15 mph over the speed limit even if it is only for brief periods of time. But that wasn't broder's problem. He lied about how cold the car got and how slow he had to drive on that leg. He would have been fine if the car was just charged to 100%. Then all you can legitimately complain about is how long it took to charge.

Now on the trip, broder correctly identified something not on the chart, a cold soak loss of range. Tesla should probably add a tool for that.

 

Zythryn,
Question all you like, but since the reporter errors in data reporting do not change the POINT he is making, I say lets stick to the POINT.

Some wish to judge his errors as malicious; I judge them sloppy, but either way they do not change his POINT. His POINT should be obvious, but if not I have posted it numerous times already, as Broder himself did in the second sentence or so of his article.

I would probably be a bit more lenient than you in matching an EV to winter demands, but then I do not live in MN

 

I don't know if those of you who attack Tesla regarding cold weather read their response. They have a ton of sales in Norway... Also this thread isn't about "fanboys" or the weather, it's more about the disgraceful journalism of a NYT reporter.

Talking about "fanboys", I wonder what some of you posted when the Prius was under scrutiny for brake issues and unintended acceleration, which I believe Toyota later admitted to, to an extent.

 

Good move.

From a Nokian Website FAQs about EU's new tyre label
(my bolding):

Rolling resistance means the energy consumed by the transformation during the road contact of the tyre. The structure of the tyre and material choices can be used to affect the transformation and the energy required by it. For example, tyre temperature, tyre pressure, wheel load, tyre wear, and air resistance due to driving speed are some of the factors increasing energy consumption. A water cushion of 0.5 millimetres can also increase rolling resistance by 50%. Rolling resistance amounts to approx. 20 per cent of the vehicle’s fuel consumption.

 

Huh. Did you read and think about it?
What percentage would wet roads cause at highway speeds for a tesla S. Would that be inside or outside the safety margin? I'll give you a start, the percent of energy going to rolling resistance decreases with speed. If roads are wet but its not raining pooled water is decreased. You may want to start your own thread if you think wet roads will cause huge mpg hits, but I'm kind of done with your silly comments. This a thread about a story of a reporter that undercharged a car in dry cold conditions and needed to be towed. I find your defense of him with this off topic stuff rather telling. If you multiply out your mileage hit from your blurb get an increase of 10%, which should be much lower than any safety margin a driver uses. Since the range meter also should be recording it, a driver would know well before needing fuel.

 

Yes. Now your turn.

Outside

Speed matters little to RR. The fractional contribution of RR to total resistance increases as speed decreases.

No, this story is about the reliability of an 85 kwh, $90k car to travel 200 miles in the winter driven the way many (?most) people would want to drive. I haven't checked yet whether the accusation that the driver only charged up to 90% is correct, but it does not matter because the winter conditions were actually fairly benign, the driver drove slower than the speed limit for a large part of his journey to conserve energy and dropped his climate control setting to a level he was uncomfortable, and STILL could not travel 200 miles.

 

Fully concur on the journalism failure.

Since have bought three Prius's since 2001, this acceleration issues I followed closely. The critical word in your sentence is "unintended". This is the complete opposite of "uncommanded". Toyota has indeed had to deal with a great many cases of unintended acceleration, just as every other car maker must do incessantly. Toyota put out some massive recalls to shorten accelerator pedals and better secure car mats to the floor. (What else could they do. Eliminating loose bear cans and wine bottles rolling around on the floor is hard to do with a recall.) I don't know of any case where they have discovered or admitted to a design issue involving uncommanded acceleration in the Prius. If you do, please let us know.

That issue with uncommanded acceleration does have a lot of similarities to this. All those claims don't match all the hard data.

 

The photo splash of putting the Model S was the reporters main impact, weather or not he says that was his goal.

Tesla itself has said that a higher density of superchargers is needed, and the supercharger network is a work in progress. They plan to install close to 100 in the next few years.

I don't believe anyone critical of the reporter has argued against the fact that cold weather is very tough on EVs, nor that there is loss of energy when the car is sitting unplugged.

The general conclusion of the article seems to be that the Model S couldn't make that trip using the superchargers. Most people are saying it could, under identical circumstances if he had simply filled the tank.

At least one of his statements about what Tesla employees told him to do, he has since backed away from.
His statements of fact regarding speed and HVAC settings have proven to be wrong.

If you operate a vehicle incorrectly, it won't get you where you wanted to go. This is a nuisance in an gas vehicle, a big nuisance in an EV and an utter disaster in a plane.

 

I would agree with the above a lot more if you used the word "suitability" instead of "reliability". Nothing in the car was noted to have failed or not meet the design requirements. Everything you are pointing out has to do with the situational aspects, not design flaws. With that word change, your point is vastly stronger. Without that word change, you are mixing up issues.

 

Your information is way off.
Here are the facts:
At the first supercharger Broder charged to 90%. Not an issue because he made it to the next stop which was the longest. So right here, this answered your original statement in the affirmative. And if he had charged fully he could have made it with energy to spare.

At the second supercharger he charged to 72%!
So even though he had a close call in the first leg of the journey, he charged to only 72% in the next leg.