Elon Musk owes Consumer Reports a debt of gratitude after it weighed in on last week’s controversial east coast Model S test drive.
Regularly regarded as an unbiased source of consumer-oriented information, the publication buys every car it tests. That came especially in handy last week when the New York Times published an article slamming the Model S. In it, writer John Broder suggested the Model S he borrowed couldn’t complete an advertised drive down the east coast of the U.S. solely powered by Tesla’s high-speed “Supercharger” charging network.
But what he wove unraveled quickly after Musk pulled driving data from the car — standard company procedure for all media loans. Did Broder know he was being watched? Should that matter? Maybe not, but Tesla spokesperson Shanna Hendriks said in an email that “it wasn’t a secret.”
SEE ALSO: Tesla CEO Releases Official Rebuttal to NY Times Story
A story Consumer Reports published on February 15 backs the Model S, saying their car suffered from a shorter range in cold weather, but that the car achieved its reported range. In fact, the magazine repeated its test and found in both cases that despite cold temperatures, the car met its projected range.
That report did, however, also point out that in both of those test, the car managed to travel 176 miles in winter weather, which falls far short of the EPA-rated 265 mile range and Tesla’s claimed 300-mile range in optimal conditions. Then again, that’s to be expected from a battery-powered car in cold weather.
Discuss this story at GasStinks.com