SXSW: Elon Musk Talks Reusable Rockets, Tesla Controversy

Nerval's Lobster writes "Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, took the keynote stage at this year's SXSW to talk about everything from space exploration to electric cars. Joining him onstage to ask questions was Chris Anderson, the former Wired editor and co-founder of 3DRobotics. Musk used his keynote discussion to show off a video of a rocket test, which he said had taken place earlier that week. In the video, a ten-story rocket takes off from a launching pad and hovers several hundred feet in the air before landing in the same spot, upright. It's an early test of SpaceX's reusable-rocket project. 'Reusability is extremely important,' Musk told the audience. 'If you think it's important that humanity extends beyond Earth and becomes a multitenant species' then reusable rockets will prove essential. Musk also talked about the recent controversy involving his Tesla Motors, which started when a New York Times reporter claimed in a much-circulated column that his electric-powered Model S sedan had ground to a halt during a test drive up the East Coast. 'I have no problem with negative feedback,' he told Anderson, in response to the latter's question. 'There have been hundreds of negative articles, and yet I've only spoken out a few times. I don't have a problem with critical reviews, I have a problem with false reviews.'"

Short term gain

[GeneralTurgidson]

I think the biggest reason he gets so much flak is because no one can figure out how to make a quick buck off his businesses.

Musk still claiming that review was "false"

[metrometro]

The fundamental claim that Musk put out -- that the reporter intentionally drained the battery, and that the towing was faked -- has been completely disproven. The reporter used the car in non-optimal user behavior, and the car failed. This is entirely legitimate reviewing, and Musk called him a liar. '

Re: I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

As head of a company, you have an obligation to your employees and shareholders to defend your brand. Lawsuits are a perfectly acceptable means to accomplish that.

Re:Musk still claiming that review was "false"

[The Wannabe King]

Broder deliberately charged it less than he needed. When he left the last charging station the car very clearly stated that it would not be able to reach the destination. This is not "non-optimal user behavior", but a complete driver failure, except that it almost certainly was intentional to make a "good" story. An ICE car would behave in the exact same way. This is not specific to EVs.

An EV generally gives a lot more warnings before it runs out of charge than an ICE car does before it runs out of gas. You are no more at risk of being stranded with an EV than with an ICE car and probably less. If he wanted to make a legitimate case against EVs he should criticize the charging times instead.

Re:I call BS

[ioconnor]

You have some valid points but it's more a matter of changing your perceptions than a problem with the car. Your first point about charging 4 times to cover 550 miles is valid. However you'd only have to charge more than once while on your trip for a total of about 30 minutes if there was something strange going on. Maybe you ought to mention why you feel the need to charge 4 times? Why do you think 72F is too warm? You realize the cars are made to work in Southern California where he lives and where the temperatures routinely are over 100F. So what made you think 72F is too warm for the car? I share your driving speed preferences and perhaps like to drive a bit faster than you. The Tesla car gives amazing neck straining torqued out acceleration at any speed up to about 130mph. Because of it's low center of gravity due to the battery packs people end up looking for curves to take because it feels so good. So when you say 62 to 81mph is too fast I can only assume you left out a qualifier. Perhaps what you meant to say was too fast for optimal efficiency. Despite the Tesla being the best aerodynamic car on the market and second best in the history of cars you still must take into account how aerodynamic drag increasing exponentially as the speed goes up. Take a BMW out and drive it at 55 and then drive it at 155. You'll notice you get about 1/3rd the mileage or even less at 155. It's physics. As for needing to charge your car in a European winter every 50 to 100 miles. Sure. If you say parked it outside and only drove a mile to 3 miles per day you might have to charge it every 50 to 100 miles. The Tesla keeps the battery packs and such at a working temperature and this drains the batteries slowly. Unlike a gas vehicle. So this may make the car unacceptable in a few strange cases or to the luddites looking for reasons to avoid change. By the way the judge declared Top Gear manufactured the lies but threw out Tesla's lawsuit because it was unclear how much financial damage resulted in the outright lies. I don't know about you but I don't start out a long trip without feeling up my gas tank, especially when the gas light is on, like the NY Times author did. I think Tesla should have blasted the NY Times harder because there are still some nutters out there that apparently don't get what happened.

Re:Short term gain

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is because the entrenched "Complexes" (American Auto Manuf & NASA sub contractors) have no interest in moving the industries forward they just want to keep feeding at the trough. Along comes this guy with the crazy idea of engineering a better machine. In doing so he shows the world that what they were told cannot be done can be. The entrenched complexes then panic as their trough might be taken away and that is where all the hate is coming from.

Re:I call BS

[drinkypoo]

you installed blackboxes without telling ANYBODY

It was not necessary to read any further than this to discover that you are either too ignorant to read, or trolling. The car is a black box. Of course it has logging. And you can bet your bunghole that whatever they had to sign to get their hot, lying hands on the car included a clause about being tracked. You are either an idiot or a liar, or both.

Re:Musk still claiming that review was "false"

[Bing Tsher E]

You are no more at risk of being stranded with an EV than with an ICE car and probably less.

That is completely untrue. With an ICE, a handheld tank of fuel can be carried to any 'stranded' vehicle and it can be refueled and the vehicle can immediately proceed on it's way. There is no equivalent (yet) of a mobile recharging device that can be transported to an EV. This fact was shown by the reporter's experience. If anything, the reporter demonstrated that the typical impatient traveler, who might jet off at what they thought was the earliest point after a tediously long recharging period (compared the time to refuel an ICE vehicle) would get in this sort of trouble. In essence, doing all the early adopters a favor, so that everybody could hear about the experience early in a review article, instead of in anecdotes from their early adopter friends.

There is the potential for some really sucky 'stranded on the road' experiences with EVs at the present day, and the reporter did a good job of exploring them.

Re: rocket up and down video

[John Howell]

Flying a rocket like this doesn't make much sense.... Here on earth, but as you can't parachute down to the lunar surface, or rely on chutes on Mars for hopping from place to place, then a reusable VTOL rocket becomes really handy. But it does have to be test flown somewhere, and easier to test here than out there.

Re:Musk still claiming that review was "false"

[drinkypoo]

With an ICE, a handheld tank of fuel can be carried to any 'stranded' vehicle and it can be refueled and the vehicle can immediately proceed on it's way.

Or an hour and a half later, when AAA gets there. At which point you could be towed to a charging station instead, anyway, and then get a quick cjarge.

There is the potential for some really sucky 'stranded on the road' experiences with EVs at the present day, and the reporter did a good job of exploring them.

He did a good job of deliberately causing them, you mean. That's not a good way of exploring the situation. And lying about it later wasn't, either. That was fraud.

Of course, if you trust the NYT you're a stupid fuck anyway. They have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to commit fraud.

Re:Musk still claiming that review was "false"

[The Wannabe King]

Who said anything about stealing? Just ask! Offer to pay! I have had to do that a couple of times and have never been turned down. Then, I live in Norway, perhaps people are nicer here than in the US?

You should read the actual NYT review

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

You should read the actual NYT review and not Musks disingenous claims. The truck driver has confirmed the brakes were locks and charging from his charge would not free them. Musk's claims stem from his logs, and a rather fluffy misinterpretation of them.

"The temperature is irrelevant. The NYT journalist claimed he turn the heat down to extend range, the logs show he increased the temperature from 72F to 74F. The actual temperatures don't matter, it's the lie that matters."

And yet Musks own data shows him dropping it sharply at that time, so the NYT journalists DID drop the temp at approximately the time he said he did. Musks argument is to move the arrow a little to the left and say "this is the exact time he said he lowered the temperature", and look he's raising it, but the graph shows a sharp drop shortly after. Nitpicking.

So the lie is important, the Musk lie, the graph clearly shows the cabin temperature dropping shortly after Musk chose to decide was the exact time the journalist referred to (based on Musks wilful misinterpretation of time).

Musks says he averages 60mph when he said cruise was set to 54. And of course he did. Because he's driving it, like a car! So what! Nitpicking! The rest of the traffic does 75-80 and Musk knows this. He's lucky he wasn't rear-ended at 60!

" It's well know batteries perform worse in low temperatures"
News to me, news to him, news to his readers.

"charged his battery sufficiently then there wouldn't have been an issue"
And there was the lie, the PR man from Telsa told him it would recover charge, if he hadn't lied to the journalist then he would have charged it at Norwich and it would have been enough.

Musks other complains are that he drove for 0.6 of a mile around a car park. And? So what? He quotes the cars rated range, but we know that number is misleading.

Really, they should invest in finding a battery alternative, Musks BS doesn't help Telsa at all.

Re:I call BS

[Mad Quacker]

All true but I don't know why rebuttals have to be so complicated:

Broder didn't charge the car to full, charged it less at each charging opportunity, and didn't bother plugging in overnight, cold night or not. Then he hit the road when the car told him he would not make it.

No one that owns a smartphone can say what he did wasn't moronic or malicious.