TM will have a hard time spinning this one. That's just about the worst-case scenario I can think of: an S, driven by a journalist, dead on the side of the road because Tesla failed to prepare the author for the realities of cold-weather driving. Sounds like he never used Range mode to lower climate control loads and he never mentions using the seat heaters. Had he completed a Range mode charge at the Newark supercharger, rather than a Standard mode charge (did he even know Range mode charging is a possibility?) the cascade of circumstances that left him stranded in CT might have played out differently. Along the way he got some bad advice from Tesla (turning off cruise control, for instance) instead of a potential lesson in EV-think. Twice he left superchargers without a full pack and he didn't plug the car in overnight when the temperature was forecast to fall into the low teens. Even after experiencing the way range drops in cold temperatures, he left the low-power charging station without waiting long enough to compensate with enough of a margin.
Which is not to say that this kind of report has no value: it serves as a reality check as to the sorts of issues people who aren't attuned to the realities of EV driving will face. The author clearly knew to slow down to reduce kWh/mi, and to turn down the climate control as well, so he wasn't totally unprepared when he saw the car's range fall below distance remaining. But he was still struggling with interpreting the changing, real-time situation and making prompt, effective decisions to eke out a save, something a more experienced EV driver would likely have managed to do.
All in all, this account bolsters the argument for why the 85kWh pack is the better choice for folks who are on the fence when deciding which pack to purchase, 60 or 85. It also argues, strongly, for Tesla to stick with their announced intention of locating Superchargers about 150 miles apart.
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Update, February 24: The NY Times published
an article on their website on February 22 that quoted a portion of this post. I found their use of my words objectionable and wrote a letter to the NY Times Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, the text of which I posted
here. The Times has since changed the online article to link to this original post as well as a
follow up I posted late on the 22nd, after reading the article. As of this update I have still not been contacted directly by anyone at the Times.