Late Wednesday night, Tesla Motors (TSLA) issued its much-anticipated response to a scathing New York Times review about its all-electric Model S sedan. In a blog post, Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, used data logs gathered from the car to accuse reporter John Broder of outright lies. Broder, for example, complained about freezing inside of the car, since he had to turn the heating system off to save electricity and keep driving. Balderdash, says Musk. The data show the cabin had an average temperature of 72F for the majority of the trip.
Broder, in a series of posts, has argued that he followed Tesla’s instructions and that the car simply did not handle the cold weather of the Northeast well. He also claims to have been testing not really the Model S itself but rather the network of free, super-fast charging stations Tesla has started putting up around the country. This is how Broder explains away the baffling circumstances in which he didn’t charge the car while spending the night at a hotel.
The tit-for-tat squabble is entertaining. Musk’s data-heavy beatdown, especially, is great reading.
To me, the real takeaway here is that we’ve reached a moment when the car has turned into a gadget and are seeing the good and bad that comes with that. A lot of the flaws that Broder brings up—discrepancies about the car’s estimated range versus the actual range and the like—come down to software issues. The same can be said for many of the gripes about the Model S from owners of the car who have seen their 17-inch touch-screen display act funny or their motorized door handles not work quite right.
Tesla’s software is good, but it’s not working perfectly. The company is issuing over-the-air updates that fix many of these problems. One day your door handle doesn’t work. The next day it does. It’s also been issuing updates that, for example, suddenly allow the cars to charge much faster than they could before by taking advantage of new Tesla supercharging technology. This is a strange new world for car owners.
Guys like Broder and many of the Tesla owners obviously want to see the Model S act as billed. And Musk has said the car is not meant to be some grand beta experiment in which people pay $100,000 to serve as Tesla’s guinea pigs.
But let’s be clear. The Model S has pushed automotive innovation forward by leaps and bounds. It offers space, speed and safety in a package that outstrips rivals while also introducing a whole new set of computing and fuel technology. You don’t have to stretch to compare the Model S to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone in terms of a device changing the rules of engagement in its respective field. And let’s all remember that the iPhone has come with its antenna, map, screen and other fundamental issues.
We’re used to buying cars that at best stay static over time but usually get worse. The Model S seems more similar to something like the iPhone. It has the chance of getting better (at least for a while) as flaws get fixed and new features arrive.
Some people are willing to live in this fast-moving imperfect world. Here in Palo Alto, the Tesla Model S has become a common sighting. This is a place full of early adopters who don’t mind paying extra for the latest and greatest gadget even if it has some glitches. Tesla only needs to sell about 20,000 or so people on this premise for the Model S to be wildly successful.
Moving forward, though, the company will have to do much better if it’s to make follow on vehicles like the Model X mainstream. The public wants amazing gadgets, but is less tolerant of the types of issues the Model S has seen to date. So here’s Tesla’s real moment to prove it’s more Apple and Silicon Valley than Detroit—and to show the world what technology mettle it’s really got.
