Back when I owned one of the original Honda Insights, it became very obvious that I would need to adjust my driving habits to fully take advantage of the car's enormous driving range.<p>If I drove like a typical New Jersey-ian then my range would have been somewhere around 450 miles. With some adjustments (namely going around 65mph at most), I could regularly attain 700+ range. This is an adjustment many people absolutely refuse to make. Once I really learned how to get the most out of my car the milage numbers were unbelievable. When I sold the car my lifetime milage was 68 mpg over 130,000 miles (in nj climate).<p>I can see why Musk is so frustrated... he gets a reviewer that has no interest whatsoever in understanding the vehicle's prime operating conditions and instead is driving the car like a Hertz rental. When going on a long range trip, it should be obvious that you need to drive conservatively. Use the car's incredible performance for shorter trips so that you are not at risk.<p>I have no problems with these limitations, and I think they are acceptable. I was quite impressed that the range numbers for Tesla were over 500 miles... my current kia rio can't touch that despite getting nearly 50mpg. I have a feeling the media is never going to "get" electric cars because they don't get conservation.
This isn't a deeper look. It's a shallower look. Didn't Musk say that the estimated range is dependent on speed, and that Broder sped illegally fast for part of the trip? There are other factors, as well.<p>There may well be something to say about Tesla's estimations being off, but this isn't it.
What the article is explaining can be summarized in this chart: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/mNcGdfS.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/mNcGdfS.png</a><p>But I think this is incorrect:<p>> In nearly every case, the Tesla gets about 20% fewer miles out of each charge than it estimated.<p>Musk and Broder 'agree' that the vehicle's actual range was greater than it estimated. Musk's wrote,<p>> Then he bizarrely states that the screen showed “Est. remaining range: 32 miles” and the car traveled “51 miles," contradicting his own statement... The car actually did an admirable job exceeding its projected range.<p>As an aside, please disable Tynt on your blog.
While the term estimation is by definition not exact, I challenge anyone to find a car on sale that has 100% accurate estimation. It's just not possible.<p>The point, imho, is that the press is always trying to find a story also where there isn't. Sad for them, this time there's the hard data to support Tesla's facts.