Chelsea's opinion

[vfx]

Here's MT's reason for Engineering:

When you talk about engineering excellence, it’s a seven passenger vehicle. Five adults and two children can fit and it has an amazing amount of cargo space. It has a front trunk and a rear trunk. It’s a great driving car. There’s no penalty here. It’s the fastest American built sedan based on our numbers. 0-60 in under 4 seconds for the signature Performance model and it also handles really well. And on top of it, it has this fantastic electric technology. Well you look at the criteria, it’s all of these that hit it out of the park.

Why Tesla Cleantech News and Analysis

[woof]

These types of issues very rarely crop up with mature car companies.

Have to disagree there. When the 2005 Acura RL came out, it was a technological marvel, and had a ton of "first model year" issues. I had the XM Radio subsystem replaced 5 (yes 5!) times for various software bugs and glitches. The RL was recalled twice, and the nav system would crash at least once a month. However, I loved that car, even moved into the 2008 RL when my lease was up. Amazing the differences the 2008 had after 3 years of bug fixes in what was essentially the same car. That experience showed me "beta testing" a car can be fun, and has prepared me for driving the BMW ActiveE as a real beta tester. The troubles reported against the Model S so far are minimal compared to those reported against the ActiveE (which, admittedly is a beta car).

So yes, mature car companies do have these type of issues, and many more.

[Arnold Panz]

I think the whole point, for me, is given her husband's past situation with Tesla, the author should have found a more impartial person to quote, or if he wanted to quote her, provided a standard disclaimer or explanation about her possible bias w/r/t Tesla. The whole point of such disclosures is that it puts in context a quote from someone and the reader has the necessary information to give the quote its proper weight and credence.

Her quote might be totally fine (or not), but the point is that a typical reader would want to know what happened to her husband and how it might affect her feelings about Tesla before giving credence to her quote, and if that's the case then they should have erred on the side of disclosure.

[drees]

Have to disagree there.

My point was - aside from the technical issues (which may or may not be in-line with other cars - I know that I'd certainly be less willing to be a "beta" tester for Acura than Tesla) - there are features which are completely missing with no ETA which are hyped.

A couple examples:

1. Auto extending door handles.
2. Jump seats.
3. Charge timers.

Look - I completely understand why Tesla is pushing forward - getting a car into production is HARD. But that doesn't mean that describing the Model S as being in it's infancy is not accurate.

[strider]

I don't think she meant anything pejorative by "infant program"... Just another way of saying "in it's infancy", aka "new/emerging".

But the implication of her message is that somewhere there is an EV program that is not in its infancy and to that I say, please show it to me. The Leaf is still in its infancy - witness battery degradation problems, optimistic range estimates, etc. Just because it's coming from a "mature" car company doesn't mean they know anything about EVs and can do anything better than an upstart. ALL EVs on the market today are infant programs. I hope that the reporter took her statements out of context or asked an odd question as the way it appears in the article it's definitely a backhanded comment.

The other way to look at her statement was that an ICE should have won since it's an established technology. Well, duh. Like others it just hit me the wrong way, like she'd rather see an ICE win than Tesla. My wife and I both loved her in WKTEC and ROTEC but lately it seems like she's been in a dark place. I'll try to listen to she and Evan's podcast.

[Norbert]

1. Auto extending door handles.
2. Jump seats.
3. Charge timers.

Those of us (on this forum) who are interested in these details already know that. You might as well mention remotely controlled pre-heating and pre-cooling. Jump seats are apparently a supplier issue, and the others are resolvable by software updates, AFAIK.

Look - I completely understand why Tesla is pushing forward - getting a car into production is HARD. But that doesn't mean that describing the Model S as being in it's infancy is not accurate.

The point in question is not the accuracy. Imagine there is an interview about an actress receiving an Oscar the day before, and some movie expert (who is usually flirting with competing actresses) says nothing much more than "that's a huge achievement, but I think she is old". And then you defend that by saying "yeah, but she really *is* old, and she has wrinkles to prove it". While others say she is the best actress in the world.

[JRP3]

My wife and I both loved her in WKTEC and ROTEC but lately it seems like she's been in a dark place.

I think she'd be amused that we are 4 pages deep discussing a single quote from her. She does seem to have a different view than many of us regarding what is needed for EV's to take hold and she may have some personal animosity against Tesla but I can't say I'd characterize anything about her as "dark". She seems to want cheap EV's using a single standard connector with little regard for fast charging, the exact opposite of Tesla. I think we first need expensive, desirable EV's before we get to the less expensive ones, that having a single charge connector is not yet a big deal, and that fast charging is important for perception, if not so much for actual use.

[brianman]

She seems to want cheap EV's using a single standard connector with little regard for fast charging, the exact opposite of Tesla.

Knowing the challenges (past, present, and future) of EV social adoption by the mainstream, in the face of that the best answer is something like "That's great for Tesla. It's great for EVs. I want to see ___, but that takes nothing away from the accomplishment of the Tesla team with the Model S."

That's it. Simple, sweet. Your point is made, nobody upset.

Sometimes it's best to hold back a little in public commentary: Think Romney regarding London Olympics. (IMO) His facts were right, his manners were the problem.

[DrComputer]

After speaking with Chelsea many times at several events, as many people here have said she does have a specific perspective on how she thinks the EV movement should progress. Only history will show us if her views are correct or Elon had it right. Either way, I tend to agree more with Elon's approach. The simple thing that I think she sometimes overlooks is that "perception is reality" for most of the car buying public. Just like it didn't work for Ross Perot, you can't keep showing people graphs and charts telling them that the average person only drives 32 miles per day and that they only need an electric car that can travel 75 miles on a charge. The reality is people currently drive ICE cars that can get 300+ miles on a tank of gas. Since you can't easily change people's perception of the limitation, I agree with Tesla's stance of meeting their perception with a reality of a car than can go 300 miles on a charge and fill up quickly at a SuperCharger station. Is it a waste of time for Tesla to invest money in such an infrastructure? Chelsea says it is. On paper it probably is a bad investment. But, if it can shift the perception that EV's can never compete with ICE cars then I think the investment will pay off in the end by changing the perception to meet reality.

[Arnold Panz]

The reality is people currently drive ICE cars that can get 300+ miles on a tank of gas. Since you can't easily change people's perception of the limitation, I agree with Tesla's stance of meeting their perception with a reality of a car than can go 300 miles on a charge and fill up quickly at a SuperCharger station.

This is, by far, the biggest selling point when I talk to people about the car. Once I say "300 miles" for the range, the whole tenor of the conversation changes and people are absolutely blown away that it gets that kind of range. Not having to think about or worry that you're going to run out of battery, even if it would rarely happen, is peace of mind that is needed to get this disruptive technology to be accepted with the wider public.