They also tried to sue Top Gear for criticising them, and had a massive battle with the New York Times, because the NYT instead of publishing a puff piece published an article critical of Tesla's Model S.

It is just a company (and a CEO) that doesn't like criticism and doesn't handle it at all well. They overreact and you don't want to be on the receiving end of that.

And let's talk about the specific case: Tesla started an event either 1.5 hours late or 1 hour late (depending on who you believe), didn't apologise, and then when someone criticizes them for it the CEO cancelled their pre-order and "banned" them from owning a Tesla.

All of the Tesla fans love to blame all of this stuff on everyone else (the person who got banned, Top Gear, NYT, etc) but ultimately the point still stands that Tesla actively goes after people who offend them. My only point was that it could happen to YOU or ME if we're not careful.

> They also tried to sue Top Gear for criticising them

Considering Top Gear[1] scripted it out to make the car seem shitty why would you be surprised that they tried to sue?

> had a massive battle with the New York Times, because the NYT instead of publishing a puff piece published an article critical of Tesla's Model S.

Um, yeah, the review wasn't good from a review-standing-on-its-own standpoint. There was much back and forth but ultimately the review was inaccurate / imprecise in many areas[2].

> All of the Tesla fans love to blame all of this stuff on everyone else (the person who got banned, Top Gear, NYT, etc) but ultimately the point still stands that Tesla actively goes after people who offend them. My only point was that it could happen to YOU or ME if we're not careful.

Yup, fair enough. But also keep in mind that, as an owner of a company, you have the right to "fire the customer". After working in retail there were plenty of times when a customer, even rightly so, criticized things you do but ultimately you can't just keep them around because they're disrupting others (one reason among many, many reasons). I'm not sure if there was ever more to the story than was published or not (I've seen plenty of people tell a completely different story after leaving our store to other people). It didn't seem like a nice thing to do but I also don't care that much that Musk did it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_controversies#Tesla_R...

[2] http://www.poynter.org/2013/elon-musk-on-new-york-times-tesl...

> Considering Top Gear scripted it out to make the car seem shitty why would you be surprised that they tried to sue?

Top Gear is a scripted comedy show. Tesla thought (and you seem to think) that Top Gear is a serious car review program, it hasn't been that for at least twenty years.

Of course Top Gear are going to make a joke about an electric car running out of juice, that's the obvious go to joke to make. You cannot sue someone because you don't find them funny.

It just comes across as petty or out of touch on Tesla's part.

> Um, yeah, the review wasn't good from a review-standing-on-its-own standpoint. There was much back and forth but ultimately the review was inaccurate / imprecise in many areas[2].

There was a lot of back and forth, follow up articles, a rebuttal, a Tesla piece. But even after all of that a lot of the issues still remain. The way Tesla reacted to the article was completely over the top however, that was more the issue, they could have issued a rebuttal but instead they went nuclear right out of the gate.

> It didn't seem like a nice thing to do but I also don't care that much that Musk did it.

I don't care either, I just don't like what it represents. Tesla does something wrong (which even they admit they did), someone criticizes them, and they're banned from buying a Tesla.

You can argue there is more to the story, but Musk/Tesla never said there was and the blogger directly said there wasn't. They just said they got a call notifying them to the ban/cancellation out of the blue. Boom, done. Musk hasn't gone on record saying he was rude on the call, or whatever, people just make that up to justify why Tesla/Musk is right.

It's obvious that Top Gear has some intentionally funny parts, but it's not obvious that they actually lie in order to support that. I didn't realize it until this Tesla thing blew up. Top Gear certainly doesn't broadcast that fact. I think it's reasonably misleading.

Have you looked at the NTY piece? They flat out lied about a ton of things(which is why Tesla added logging after the TopGear incident).

> Have you looked at the NTY piece?

Yes, and the rebuttal, and the follow up. Have you?

> They flat out lied about a ton of things(which is why Tesla added logging after the TopGear incident).

I suggest you go back and look at it. It isn't as black and white as you seem to believe. Tesla muddied the water, in particular as few read the rebuttal or follow up, but ultimately the original article is still an interesting look at what owning a Tesla was like in 2013.

Plus the Top Gear thing was OBVIOUSLY comical. Since Top Gear is a comedy show after all. Tesla just had an incredibly thin skin about it or didn't understand what Top Gear was, the segment was entirely predictable.

> Plus the Top Gear thing was OBVIOUSLY comical. Since Top Gear is a comedy show after all.

This is not obvious to a casual viewer of the show. I've watched a few episodes from time to time and it seemed like a show about reviewing cars to me.

> I suggest you go back and look at it. It isn't as black and white as you seem to believe. Tesla muddied the water, in particular as few read the rebuttal or follow up, but ultimately the original article is still an interesting look at what owning a Tesla was like in 2013.

According to the NYT themselves they were imprecise and made mistakes[1]. Considering that I don't know why a flawed review from 2013 would be a good indicator of anything.

[1] http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/problems-wi...

I am talking about Tesla's behaviour. Some of the original NYT article's claims did get knocked down, but many remained. Tesla went full on nuclear against the NYT for the original article calling it "fake" and the writer a "liar" when ultimately most of the article turned out to be largely true and factual.

It is the classical "let me nitpit tiny details and then claim your entire point is wrong" arguing technique. Go look at the original NYT article, then read this rebuttal, and tell me that most of the major complaints in the NYT article don't stand.

Yup, I've read both. He failed to charge multiple times and then even tried to kill the car when it showed zero miles remaining.

There's a huge difference between 60,70 and 80 mph when it comes to efficiency. I can drop from 60-70 and see a 30% increase in my range due to v^2.

I was specifically addressing this: "In particular if it is delayed and you call them out, expect to be removed."

Again, as far as I know that happened exactly once. Are there more examples, or not?

There's an ongoing pattern of behaviour. Tesla gets criticised and Tesla attacks the critics instead of the argument.

That has happened more than once, yes.

Attacking public figures who criticize them is so far removed from canceling the reservations of ordinary customers that I see no reasonable way to make the inference that you can "expect to be removed" if HN readers criticize them publicly.

So what you're saying is that the ONLY difference between Tesla acting right or wrong in that case is if we classify the victim as a "public figure" or not?

First off, they're not a public figure, they were privately buying a Tesla vehicle for private use and posted on a personal Twitter account.

Secondly, that's a really weak line. Why is there even one rule for mistreating "public figures" and another line for everyone else? Why do you assume someone with less social power will be treated better?

Honestly all you just did was admit that Tesla was in the wrong. Claiming they are allowed to act badly because "public figure something something" is nonsensical.

I'm not talking about right or wrong here, that's you. I'm just talking about the possibility that Tesla will cancel your reservation for being critical of the company, which you claim is high, and which I believe is essentially zero.

It's pretty obvious from the conversation here that you don't really care about Tesla canceling reservations, you just have an axe to grind, and saw the cancelled reservation as a wedge you could use to insert yourself into the conversation. You posted under the guise of warning people not to be critical in public, but you don't care about that, you just want to point out Tesla's bad behavior towards the New York Times and Top Gear.

Note: I'm not defending Tesla's behavior towards NYT and Top Gear. I just don't see any justification for your claim that it's "more likely" you'll lose your spot because of public criticism on Twitter, and that you should "expect to be removed" if you complain about delays.

> I'm not defending Tesla's behavior towards NYT and Top Gear. I just don't see any justification for your claim that it's "more likely" you'll lose your spot because of public criticism on Twitter, and that you should "expect to be removed" if you complain about delays.

I do. They have previously done exactly that. That's my only point, Tesla has a history of attacking critics including cancelling pre-orders.

My only "axe to grind" is for Tesla to stop attacking critics and to instead go after their argument. If Tesla disagrees with a negative review/experience, that's fine, but don't try to punish people for raising issues.

They don't have a history of cancelling pre-orders. They have a history of cancelling pre-order, singular.

I get your overall point, I just think you're going too far with it and being rather disingenuous when you warn people that their reservations will be cancelled if they complain.

In summary, you are extrapolating from one invent involving a celebrity.