Tesla Model S Owners Crowdsource Trip To Counter NY Times Report
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Add to circle![2013 Tesla Model S before DC-to-Boston road trip, Feb 2013 [photo: Aaron Schildkraut]](http://images.thecarconnection.com/med/2013-tesla-model-s-before-dc-to-boston-road-trip-feb-2013-photo-aaron-schildkraut_100419337_m.jpg "2013 Tesla Model S before DC-to-Boston road trip, Feb 2013 [photo: Aaron Schildkraut]")
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It's been a week of Tesla Model S hullabaloo, centered around last Sunday's critical New York Times road test, Stalled Out on Tesla's Electric Highway.
Now a set of defiant Tesla Model S owners are setting out to prove Times reporter John Broder wrong.
They will replicate his trip from Maryland to Connecticut, fully recharging their electric luxury sport sedans to show that the cars are quite capable of making the trip he couldn't.
Three cars will set off at about 11 am tomorrow from the Tesla Service Center in Rockville, Maryland.
Two hours later, they'll arrive at the Delaware SuperCharger site and connect with three additional Model S drivers, setting off fully charged by 3 pm or so.
They'll stop again at the Milford, Connecticut, SuperCharger and recharge their cars to full.
Three drivers will even stay at a hotel in Groton, Connecticut, just as Broder did--returning the next morning to the MIlford SuperCharger to recharge once again.
After that, all the drivers will head home.
"We are trying to replicate the trip as closely as possible," said driver Aaron Schildkraut, "but showing that with proper full charges (and even not plugging in overnight at the hotel) that the trip can be made."
The owners have asked Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] for access to their cars' data logs afterward, to provide the same level of detail that Tesla offered in Musk's rebuttal post, A Most Peculiar Test Drive.
A Twitter account, TeslaRoadTrip, has already been set up so that team members can post regular updates during the weekend. Perhaps Tesla's tweet-happy CEO, Elon Musk, will RT some of their updates.
The plans stemmed from various discussions on the Tesla Motors Club forum. The plan to crowdsource drives that will ostensibly disprove Broder's reporting grew over just a few days.
We'll bring you more details on Monday about how the trip played out.
Meanwhile, for more details on the spat, read our full account of the discrepancies between the Times and Tesla accounts as of yesterday morning.
What do you think? Will the Model S owners make it?
Leave us your thoughts in the Comments below.
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![2013 Tesla Model S electric sport sedan [photo by owner David Noland]](http://images.thecarconnection.com/tmb/2013-tesla-model-s_100421975_t.gif)
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http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/15/autos/tesla-model-s-lessons/
Perhaps "laneing" could be defined as trashing EV's based on someone brodering with a single datapoint
Gas, electric, CNG, Propane, whatever ... the results would end up the same. Cars need fuel to run and when they run out of it they stop.
And technically, even with a remote connection to the car, there is no way the rep could have predicted there was 60 miles of rated range in the car. The car itself was reporting SOC consistent with 30 miles of range according to the logs.
And even assuming there was voltage sag from a cold battery, 30 minutes of "conditioning" unplugged, 11 miles of driving, and 1 hour of charging certainly would have warmed up the battery already at the point he left.
1)A small-volume luxury car built with the latest equipment and technology that was specifically chosen to be test-driven by a journalist from one of the best-known news organisations in the world was a lemon.
2)A journalist with a well-demonstrated negative bias towards electric vehicles failed to complete a trip that should have been well within the car's capability despite advice from manufacturer's tech support and availability of charging points and in apparent contradiction to the car's data logs.
Which is more plausible?
I suspect the reporter may have gotten bad info from the CSR or misunderstood. I can also see the CSR didn't have all the info provided to make a correct decision. For whatever reason there seems to have been communication issues. I suspect take some from column A and some from column B and you'll probably end up with the truth.
When your name becomes a verb, your either in the hall of fame or the hall of shame.
"Broder" is in the hall of shame.
>Meanwhile, for more details on the spat, read our ...<
This is not a little spat. No, many of the anti-EV media outlets have weighed in supporting the NYC writer or are using this as yet another reason to not drive a plugin.
People, there is a lot of Big-Money that is Oil and Auto vested that has been, and will continue to fight plugin vehicles (EVs, and plugin hybrids).
The plugin community has to continue to do what these drivers are doing to debunk them. It will be a continuous effort, but it will pay off (it is worth the fight).
Sadly, this is the same thing drivers had to do to continue the good-fight against Big-Money back in the 1990's ... Deja-vu
{brucedp.150m.com}
The slower the average speed, the better the BEV will perform. In fact, the most efficient speed for ANY vehicle is between 25-45 mph. Radio and A/C impact the range very minimal. The largest impact on any battery ranges are high speed, electrical heat and temperature.
EV's are definately the way to go unless of course you're a travelling sales person who drives 2/300 miles each day.
leaving from the Tesla showroom in DC, not Rockville, try and maintain a decent speed, 65 MPH, and try for a cold day just like when the reporter did.
Doing the max range charging should be the only allowed difference
People like me have been driving EVs/PHEVs for a while now without any need for battery switching. Going forward, with more charging stations and better range, the need for battery switching will decrease even further.
Perhaps there are markets somewhere for battery switching, but they are not in N. America.
There are numerous smart phone apps available which the writer could have downloaded for free that provide driving directions to available stations (ChargePoint, Blink, EV Charger Locator, etc.)
Supply and demand drives up the price of gas, that's simple economics. Therefore, the more EV's, natural gas vehicles and those driven off of hydrogen increase, the less gasoline will go up, and at some point may come down in price. Pollution is reduced from a small amount to a dramatic amount depending on the generation mix. In both cases these benefit you, too. To trash EV's when you obviously do not own or desire one is unreasonable and childish.
You, someone who seems to have zero understanding of how EVs operate, actual costs, how clean the energy sources are, etc... Or, an actual Tesla driver who knows far more about EVs than you do.
Not really a tough choice at all. But I'll help you out again, since you clearly need help... Now that CNN has easily done the same drive as Mr. Broder and made it, where's your admitting that Mr. Broder was wrong and dishonest.
When these Tesla owners do the same trip, again easily, what's your excuse going to be then?
I wrote that the writer owns a Tesla, not me. If even something that basic is beyong you, you're not worth the time.
My energy grid isn't high in coal at all, but again, don't let the facts confuse you since you get confused very easily.
Here is another blog on what can go wrong (little things such as ill-prepared adopters) that would ruin a long trip.
http://andwediditourway.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-not-so-ev-life.html
Extreme cold ruins range and we don't have enough infrastructure to make it happen yet. That is why EREV makes more sense now and it is the bridge to the future. Or at least stay in Sunny locations such as California.
First, you are aware that 78% of U.S. cars travel 40 miles a day or less--and 95% travel 100 miles a day or less. Right?
Second, you have now left a total of 50 comments on two Tesla articles in three days. That is coming close to comment spam.
We welcome comments that advance the discussion--PREFERABLY WITH LINKS to support the argument. But 50 comments that repeat the same unsupported opinions, without supporting data, is not helpful.
Please dial it down.
Some of your arguements are valid. But many of your assumptions are totally wrong.
1. DTS is a good car and the latest series does NOT use Northstar engine. Even with that engine, the Tesla S power train is more than 3x more efficient than that DTS powertrain. In that 1000 miles cruising, you have burned 3x more energy than the Tesla would. That is efficiency that you won't get it back any way. Any person with half brain would know that efficiency is important in any technology.
2. 1,000,000 EVs driving 40 miles per day would ONLY add less than 0.38% to our grid. 2% would be able to fund up to 6 million EVs per day. That is over 6 million gallon of gasoline per day saved. 75% of people drive less than 40 mi/day.
Meanwhile, you haven't provided a single link to back up any of your assertions. So here's a challenge:
Please post FIVE separate links to online sources where Tesla buyers describe their "horrible experiences".
That way, the rest of this community can assess what you're basing your rather shrill and highly repetitive claims on. I look forward to seeing your links.
Each gallon of gas costs about $15/gallon, yet you are only paying $4 or less...we, the taxpayers, are subsidizing about $11 per gallon.
The roads and bridges that you are driving on? You are paying a tax towards the cost, but has never been anywhere near enough money. Our roads and bridges need massive spending to make up for the decades of neglect due to a lack of funds due to inadequate taxes at the pump.
So, be glad that the government is subsidizing your fuel and your roadways to such a massive extent. Even I don't want to see these subsidizes stop, as $15/gallon of gas would cause massive, negative short-term problems.
What you say is simply not true.
Are you confusing it with the bi-fuel version of the Silverado that can run both on gasoline and compressed natural gas?
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1080377_chevy-gmc-bi-fuel-natural-gas-pickup-trucks-now-in-production
Believe me, you will NOT be able to buy a GM factory-built vehicle powered by a hydrogen fuel cell any time soon. Where would you fuel it?
The problem is that large amounts of energy are needed to do so. H2 bonds very strongly to other elements e.g. in hydrocarbons, and it takes lots of energy to break those bonds. That's why H2 is a good energy carrier.
So where are you going to get all that energy to make the hydrogen? Electricity, perhaps?
But it's FAR more efficient to use that power to charge a battery to run a car ... versus using it to make hydrogen that you then transport to a filling station, put into a car, and convert (at no more than 50% efficiency) right back into electricity to run the car.
Yes, I'm a journo writing about energy storage products. And?
And I don't need to Google 'hydrogen fuel cell vehicles,' because I track every announced hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle, both test programs and future "production" cars.
Hidden in the Daimler-Ford-Nissan announcement, for example, was Daimler delaying for two years--from 2015 to 2017--the launch date for its supposed H2FC production vehicle.
Jan 25, 2013 – First Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle delivery, ... BMW plans to begin developing a hydrogen-powered car in 2015, using fuel-cell .... 22. 5. Zero-Emission 2014 Chevy Silverado Model Now Available ...
It was a spoof.
Here, read it now, then click on the link to see what it's about:
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1082326_zero-emission-2014-chevy-silverado-model-now-available
Tesla time? maybe 10 days... 200 miles, then stop overnight to charge it back up. And it is 200 miles from Fargo to Bismark. At 85 MPH and -20F, that Tesla will probably not make it.
Side trip to Yellowstone? Not in a Tesla. The Model S is a nice toy for wealthy people who want to show off. Not a general purpose automobile.
Tesla was a genius and a crackpot. Great guy to name this car after.
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