Musk no longer represents himself and his companies, but he represents a future where we can do things we thought were just dreams (cheap space travel, electric cars that perform better than internal combustion types, ubiquitous solar power, etc). That's a lot of future from just one guy.
He does more than just represent. He makes smart people believe that hard things are possible and that it's going to be worth it to try.
A little bit of reality distortion can be a good thing, especially when reality is tending to suck.
Hyperloop One in particular comes to mind here. Some people say its feasible. Some say it isn't. Both have valid points.
I like his work. I just don't want to see Musk fail due to lack of focus on one particular part of the dream and a lack of people on his team willing to say no.
Subliminal shilling or decent understated joke?
The reviewer called support, and they guessed it was simply out of calibration or something, maybe because of the temperature, but without getting to the conclusion that the batteries had actually been used all night to keep themselves warm. Under that assumption, driving in circles for a couple minutes might warm up the system, then return accurate range estimates.
Anyway, the reviewer went on to try to continue his driving trip, the readings never returned to what he thought they should be, and he drove without heat to try to maximize the range. He then wrote a review based on his experience, and without the knowledge of why the batteries has been drained overnight.
Elon Musk ranted in response about a conspiracy to pan electric cars, and cited GPS readings of him driving in circles. There definitely had been instances of biased and rigged reviews against electric cars, but this was pretty clearly a misunderstanding, and Elon Musk never retracted his criticisms once it became obvious what had happened.
Tesla's unconditional supporters didn't do much to quiet potential worries. What should a mild-mannered prospective buyer think? According to the letter of the contracts with Tesla, even having tires on your Tesla rotated could invalidate the warranty on the batteries that cost tens of thousands of dollars to replace. That gives Tesla a lot of leverage to "punish" customers, and the mob of supporters that would gang up on you if you say anything publicly about what seems unfair gives you less recourse and should make people wary.
I have no interest in this dispute, but it's clear that the conclusion you drew about what the Times piece said is incorrect.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/publiceditor/2013/02/18/pro...
The New York Times is hardly going to come out themselves and admit that they have a problem with integrity are they?
The sheer number of inaccuracies and the fact that they all cast Tesla in a poor light in this case was pretty telling, as were the financial incentives (Big 3 pay NYT's bills, Tesla doesn't).
The journalist who made mistakes resembles customers, and his experience should serve as a warning. The comments under that link are an example of the people who discredit Tesla for prospective buyers. They care about the conflict, and root for their team, without considering what it says about how the car maker would treat them.
I want to buy a good car, I don't want to buy into the experience of dealing with a thin-skinned billionaire on twitter, and his social media hangers-on, if I'm ever unhappy about the product in public.
I suspect more social media shilling is paid for by the big three than by Tesla.
What if Elon starts doing something dumb some day and then when well-informed people try to provide meaningful criticism, they just get criticised and downvoted? I think that could actually undermine support from some of the people that Elon wants it from the most.