This Tesla-related story is now bordering on the absurd. In November the New York Times trashed Tesla in a much criticized article by Randall Stross (now retitled and rewritten, trying to get a copy of the original). In “Only the Rich Can Afford It. Should Taxpayers Back It?” Stross attacks Tesla for requesting government loans along with the rest of the car industry, saying “Can you conceive any way that federal dollars could be put at greater risk — and for no equity in return, keep in mind — to benefit fewer people?”
The article had significant factual errors, most of which were called out by Jason Calacanis and myself. Stross ignored Tesla’s goal of trying to build a low cost all electric car, focusing only on the pricey $109,000 Tesla Roadster, their first effort. The fact that the government loan was being requested in order to build the manufacturing plant for their second model, the $50,000 Model S, wasn’t mentioned. Or even a token gesture towards the nobleness of the attempt to build a green car for the masses after that. The story was subsequently rewritten with most of the offending incorrect language removed, but the damage was done.
The story re-appeared last week when Tesla CEO Elon Musk, speaking candidly on camera to our own Sarah Lacy, called Stross a “a huge douchebag…and an idiot” for the tone and inaccuracies of his story. He adds “What is he doing picking on an electric car company? Why would he pick on the little guy who is trying to do good when you’ve got egregious waste of money in the tens of billions occurring in Detroit?”
So Musk calls Stross and the New York Times to the mat. What did New York Times editor Tim O’Brien do to uphold the dignity of the venerable newspaper? He hired a mercenary. To shoot the messenger.
Enter the snarky and often vicious New York Observer, who’s always ready for a wrestle in the mud. In an article today by John Koblin called “Silicon ‘Valley Girl’ Gets Tough With Times” O’Brien says “I still stand by Randy’s column” (presumably the current rewritten version) and attacks Lacy for not calling him for his side of the story.
“You can’t help but watch that interview and marvel at the squishy familiarity between Lacy and Musk,” he said. “And I wonder whether or not some journalistic blinders had popped off.”
Then Koblin goes on the attack against Lacy directly, using every weapon at his disposal. He reminds readers of the Lacy/Zuckerberg interview in 2008 without mentioning that many, including us, thought criticism was unfairly pointed at Lacy.
Koblin also says “Ms. Lacy spent years as a Business Week reporter, but now she spends her time doing videos for Yahoo, serving as editor at large for TechCrunch—a Web site that very much played up Ms. Lacy’s “douche bag” scoop—and doing other contract jobs” which trivializes her Yahoo TechTicker job and doesn’t mention that she still writes two monthly columns for Business Week. And no mention of her recently published book.
You Are A Coward, Sir
If O’Brien and Stross want to defend their atrocious work, the place to do it is at the New York Times, not some other publication. And they should aim their arguments at Elon Musk and Tesla, not the journalist who got Musk to talk on camera. Lacy, a hugely respected journalist in Silicon Valley, has no need to defend herself for getting a scoop like this. I’m appalled at what the NY Times has done here, and it won’t soon be forgotten.
The correct course of action would be to update the story, not quietly change the language, and then take their lumps when called out by Tesla directly. Only a coward would ignore the actual story and go on the attack against the journalist who pushed the story further. So roar all you want, NY Times. We know how frightened you really are.
“Enter the snarky and often vicious New York Observer, who’s always ready for a wrestle in the mud. In an article today by John Koblin called “Silicon ‘Valley Girl’ Gets Tough With Times” O’Brien says “I still stand by Randy’s column” (presumably the current rewritten version) and attacks Lacy for not calling him for his side of the story.”
Everyone seems to enjoy wrestling in the mud online, in print and on t.v. — you all get more eyeballs — Techcrunch, The Observer, the NYT and Musk.
agreed. i dont want to be an arse…but the only emotion this brought out of me was “blah.”
I was tempted to be “shocked at the gambling going on” heh.
Well, I think to Mike’s point, at least he didn’t go to another blog to talk about this. He at least used his own publication to do it.
But on the other hand, that seems to be one of the bones of contention here.
Some (readers) are annoyed that TC would even write about this (not directly tech news), which seems to be NYT position to use some other outlet to vent, rather than muddy their own with a fight.
Personally, I respect Mike for sticking up for one of his own, now that Sarah writes at TC, it makes sense for him to post about it here.
“Lacy, a hugely respected journalist in Silicon Valley”
Please. She would be respected if she didn’t play the girl card everytime she was criticized. “Wow, it’s embarassing that they’d throw me under the bus because I’m a girl. They are so sexist”, “I like to giggle when I interview, I’m a girl!”……..and on and on. Check her twitter for these.
So if anyone criticizes her, it’s automatically because she has ovaries?
Bullshit. Her reporting sucks. Plain and simple. Just LOOK at that elon musk interview for christ’s sake. “Stross is a douchebag!” and Lacy laughs her ass off. no self-respecting journalist would do that. Instead, hard core questions would be fired. That wasn’t an interview, that a was like a reunion of long lost friends.
The best part was when she said “Hey, don’t blame me. Those were his words, not mine.”
What?
She’s the one interviewing him, and didn’t have the balls to ask hard hitting questions and now she’s mad when ppl call her out on her non-existent journalism skills?
p.s. One could say that I’m conveniently glossing over the fact that The Times is equally under fire not having the balls to call her out on their own turf. But since arrington decided to make this a one-sided fight by completely overlooking Lacy’s faults, well, so did I.
The friendly approach to interviewing works too. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
agree – lacy makes kara swisher look like Bob Woodward.
Can we get a journo who doesn’t use interviews as platforms for their own cutesy quirks and clever insights?
To be frank that Zuckerberg was a disaster and with good reason.
But this is definitely stupid and uncalled for. Anyone who has read Calacanis’ article shouldn’t have any doubt regarding who is right and who is wrong.
This is just silly, cheap and pathetic.
You know I’ve heard so much about that Zuckerberg interview, still to this day, so a few weeks ago I went back with a fresh mind and rewatched the entire thing.
There honestly was nothing wrong with it. The whole thing was overdone, I agree with Mike on that point.
what u r missing is that the video feed got heavily edited.. the real thing was terrible.. they removed the worst parts in the video
Lets just build out the entire cast:
Jason = Tinman (no heart)
Sarah = Dorothy (theres no place like my homepage, and my book, any my and my and my)
Wizard = Musk (no explanation needed here)
Feel free to add you own.
You are missing the wicked witch NYT , scarecrow Stross and emerald city of San Francisco (the green city)
What a D!(K….!!!!
He is the Editor? Where is his ethic?
So, the NYT stinks. So what? The fact that he works for such a bag of douche is nobody’s problem! Especially Mrs. Sarah, who was just doing her job (very well, by the way).
DO NOT BUY THE NYT!!! I know I won’t…
Journalists *report* the news. They are not the news itself… When I hear about this it makes me feel like I’m reading someone’s personal blog on myspace or something.
To be clear, I’m not taking sides I’m just saying I could care less. This isn’t tech news.
is the observer reporting the news or opining? they mention “facts” but leave others unmentioned, which slants the story exactly the way they want it. real journalists aren’t afraid to admit their opinion saturates what they write.
You know, no one would have even seen the NYO story had you not pointed it out. Does a controversy that no one knows about make a sound??
And know that we do know, I don’t think anyone cares. I thought Musk’s comments were silly, and the NYO’s are sillier still, and this post is the silliest.
Move on guys. And just because the board will light up woth comments doesnt mean we care.
The video of the Musk “interview” speaks for itself in its awfulness. Who cares what the Observer says.
Its funny to hear non journalists write about journalism… the facts are
Sarah is a good writer
Sarah’s interview style is not professional
NYT fucked up.. soo what
NY Observer – well if you’re not professional you end up being an easy target (just look at the zuckerberg disaster)
At the end who cares.. you all got plenty of publicity… and it will sure benefit everyone including Sarah… there’s no bad news…
i think it’s funnier when journalists write about journalism.
Michael,
Do the taxpayers have to support private businesses? What’s happening to private funding? Once the government start doing that , then they’ll start picking winners only. The state should not provide funding for Tesla. I support the notions of free enterprise & private businesses but the risk must be on them and not the taxpayers.
If the government is picking only the winners to fund, then why not fund all businesses , including those huge number of startups in the Valley?
What happened if the business failed? How is the taxpayer’s money is going to be paid back?
That central control economy failed in the former Soviet Union, where the state’s got involved in running most of the businesses itself. It has never worked and it never will.
totally agree.
http://www.tech...o-bailout-fund/
however, i’d much rather the dollars go to tesla, if they’re spent at all, than to detroit and the unions.
In most cases, I would agree with you.
However, in this case, I see something different.
The problem is that most Private (American) businesses and investors look for short term returns in the next year or in the current climate, the next quarter. They’re easily spooked and very unreliable.
For the problem that Tesla is trying to solve, it requires a heavy, long term investment to make it happen. Therefore, the government is going to be the most reliable source of funding.
While Tesla may only support a small percentage of the population right now, the knowledge and technology gained will help the masses in the future.
So yes, government should not be the main patron of private businesses, unless it has a considerable return in the future.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen this all before. Just look at the last Oil scare of the 1970’s when electric was all the buzz… let’s just hope that history doesn’t repeat itself again.
I’d feel ok (not great, but ok) about the feds adding tax dollars to Tesla’s efforts if they were building technology to be leveraged by the rest of the industry. If it’s proprietary, then forget it. The point of tax dollars is to support the common good, not Musk and his VCs.
Oh come on, NYO is about as much news journalism as TechCrunch is tech journalism.
Molehill, you are now a mountain!
What constitutes a “real” journalist these days?
I would argue that there’s a place for opining, and a place for a more “objective” sort of writing. While it’s true that no reporting is truly objective, some pieces will be more overt about delivering their opinions.
Not that I think TechCrunch should or shouldn’t be a forum for either. I like reading different types of tech news. Saying it “should” be about this or that implies some sort of moral judgment, which doesn’t make sense here.
for some odd reason you seem to take a wierd sense of pride in consistently pointing out that ‘all journalism is biased; you can’t NOT have your opinion cloud the facts’
yes you can. just because you don’t do it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
I just picked up a copy of a new book by Ira Glass called “The New Kings of Non-Fiction 2008″ and read the introduction. I never read introductions, but Ira Glass’ work on This American Life is superb so I read it. Read it. It has a lot of interesting things to say about the line between journalist and story.
“a huge douchebag…and an idiot” says it all – about the journalists that screwed up and the organization that employs them and doesn’t set them straight.
This ‘evaluation’ is 20% based on the screw up itself and 80% on not having the chops to set it straight and apologize through the same channels that the screw up came through.
Musk is silly. He wants special treatment because his product is “green” and he is “trying to do good”, and resorts to childish name calling.
I would instead like him to adress the greeness of the waste his batteries will produce, and the greeness of the nuclear waste that will be produced charging those batteries.
If not, I just wish he would stop being such a douchebag.
Mike,
You’re personal and, frankly, irrational, hatred of the Times clouds your judgment. Your reporter embarrassed herself and, by extension, TechCrunch, with this one. If the story was such BS, why is she asking questions about it still? It was just a softball lobbed at Musk to show him that she’s on his side. Real hard-hitting journalism. I know it was for Tech Ticker, but let’s face it, it’s the same brand of garbage she’s feeding your readers.
Musk is correct, but it is clear that Lacy is totally on his side. She gets off on mingling with and pretending to be of the same stock as tech entrepreneurs.
i don’t hate the NY Times at all. I just think they need to be called out when they do something really dumb like this.
Agreed. But Lacy needs to called out when she does dumb things, and unfortunately, that happens often.
exactly like lacy needs to be called when SHE does something just as dumb.
NYTimes stuck up for their own just like you’re doing now.
I realize that $50,000 is less than $109,000, but come on. Fifty grand for a car is not low-priced by any means.
Leave funding for those who can’t afford it, not the people who can afford a $50,000 car. I realize that Musk wants to build a cheaper version still, but this should not be at our expense. That’s what capitalism rewards – risk accepted by early-stage investors, not a gov’t (read: its tax-payers).
Not saying what NYT and TC have done is correct, but it is incorrect to portray Musk as a victim wanting to make cars that are Ta-Ta cheap.
What’s the difference between a $50,000 Tesla and a $50,000 Suburban? Detroit is getting federal money, why shouldn’t the forward-thinking and GREEN Tesla? Because Detroit spends millions in the pages of NYT and Tesla does not? It’s a bullshit stance.
i think the point of the auto bail out was that the detroit auto industry directly and indirectly employs 3,000,000 americans. and the opinion is that it is not a good time to send them all to the unemployment line.
I understand your point, and it’s certainly not in anyone’s best interest to let that happen, but Detroit WILL be doing more downsizing (bailout or not), and these people will need somewhere to work. Why not Tesla? I can think of a thousand worse places for my tax money to go than green-tech. I’ve made a lot of money working with Detroit manufacturing, but they made their bed. NYT should not be blasting entrepreneurial companies. If it’s not a good use of taxpayer money, fine – the government can shoot down the loans.
Right, Justyn. Ad buys also get the Big 3 unquestioning support from the NYT while it unfairly goes after Tesla. Conspiracy theories always sound nice, but they’re usually wrong.
http://bit.ly/3zDRs
http://bit.ly/Y2BO5
http://bit.ly/22wUfb
Man this is a fun season to watch the Goliaths come down.
naah
It’s also rad to see Execs using the DB term! Oh, Rick Wagoner, if you had only used zeitgeist terms that your tweeps appreciate, maybe you’d still be at the helm…
This mimics the way politics has been played for most of the last decade.
The facts have had little to do with anything… as long as a good attack can be launched at someone or something.
I’m glad to see bloggers standing up for the little guy and for what’s right.
It always the same story, anytime somebody tries to change something, they face some kind of opposition from morons who have nothing else to do other than trying to teach others what to do and how to do it… “Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Can’t, Teach”.
If he can do, then why doesn’t he, instead of asking for handouts. That is a definate can’t do effort.
Michael when did you become Lacy’s big brother?
I’m sure she can defend herself. And I believe you should have let her responded to the guys at the Times.
You take away from her by responding on her behalf
TechCrunch loves Tesla. Calacanus talks about his Roadster routinely. $50,000 = affordable? Lacy interview with Zuck was a total bomb and it was her fault. I was at SXSW 2008 live when it happened. Way too familiar during the interview. This whole story by arrington is absurd.
Agreed, and it’s a total flamewar. Mike, Jason, and Sarah, all need an ego check! AFAIK the NY Times’ facts weren’t that far off, and they made a great point. Just because they are on the other side of the fence doesn’t mean they should be demonized. And why is everyone sticking up for Musk? Dude seems to be a big douche himself.
This whole “going green” initiative is BS anyway. It is just a way to get more money, Tesla is not in this to save fookin trees alright. They sure can sell an expensive ass car to rich yuppies like Calacanis, gg.
The problem with the Silicon Valley brand of journalism exhibit here by Lacy is that is equates asking questions with being mean. Musk is a fool to respond the way he does and look so petty, but when the person who’s supposed to be interviewing him is so clearly on his side and egging him on in his feud with the Times, it’s hard to blame him.
Hey I sat down on my computer, turned on Tech Crunch and proceed to watch what I would call a a web 2.0 soap opera.
move on…
In what world is a $50,000 car something for the “masses?” Anyone who defends Tesla as the little guy should maybe spend a day outside of Silicon Valley.
People often forget that Detroit automakers almost singlehandedly created the American middle class 75 years ago, and they’ve been paying for it ever since. Certainly the “Big 3″ have suffered from a lack of innovation — Silicon Valley’s currency of choice when actual dollars are nowhere to be seen — but their legacy with respect to the quality of life for millions of people more than overshadows anything Tesla will ever do.
The article and comments are actually quite entertaining from across the Atlantic in Germany.
Remember when NYT was a respectable publication? Rebranding = successful.
You guys soo rok !
That’s just it….they (NY times) are the dodo media…and they just don’t realize how irrelevant they truly are….guess the dodo didn’t realize it either till it was too late….
Rok on Tech crunch!
Tesla is a “BAD THING”, feel free to repost this:
• Marty, the founder of Tesla, has said that Musk is a “liar”, “cheat”, “manipulator” and has “no idea what he is doing”
• Musk abandoned his wife and kids for a teeny bopper actress and cheated on his marriage vows
• Musk blew tens of millions of dollars on wasted engineering and office fluff that has never been, and never will be, used in the car and that has been proved to be wrong by the new engineering staff.
• Tesla has sent a pitch letter to almost every VC on Earth and not a single one of them will invest in Tesla because their investigations in due diligence showed the company to be so poorly managed and to have one of the worst debt and financial structures in industry.
• Musk had his PR liaison pay GQ magazine to write an article about him about what a stud muffin he was so he could get more dates.
• The company has increasing numbers of lawsuits against them and most of those are for ethics issues.
• The company needs to sell 1000 cars per day to even come within a hair of meeting their investor, financial and operational costs. They are barely within 5% of that figure.
• Now that so many people have quit or left GM , they have revealed that the EV1 (Who killed the electric car) was recalled and crushed because the battery pack was shown to cause cancer. When Musk was told the Tesla battery pack could also cause cancer, he told the engineers to “not dwell on non-issues”.
• Tesla conned the city of San Jose and other politicians to write letters for their DOE loan knowing full well they were never going to put a factory in San Jose because it was too expensive to ever do that.
• Tesla applied for the DOE loaned even though they do not have the viability or debt ratio to qualify. Tesla has worse financials than Chrysler.
• Fisker, Shelby, Bright and dozens of other companies now offer more EV, faster EV, more features in an EV for less money, so there is no reason to buy a Tesla now.
• No customer is going to install a 220V or 440 V extra plug on their house and pay for that and the extra energy in any volume.
• Musk spied on his staff unethically and created a work environment where nobody cares about the company or the car so the quality is in the hole.
• Darryl Sir, Marty the founder, and hosts of famous people have left and blogged or tattled at tech parties on the extreme ills of Musk.
• Musk spends almost 400K per month on PR services to exploit his name instead of his company brand.
• Tesla changed the prices after customers bought cars because they still are too screwed up to figure out how much their only product costs. If they can’t figure out the cost, then they can’t figure out the engineering so expect a wheel to fly off at 70MPH. Look at how many Tesla’s have already been wrecked. Many times more than Fiskers.
• Tesla has wasted so much money that they can never make money so that now Musk funds the company from his PayPal money but it is running out.
• Musk’s ex wife does not want to make direct trouble in order to not screw up the alimony but she writes on blogs as “Nancy” or “Ellie” to reveal the true inside stuff she knows about Musk and it isn’t good.
• If you buy a Tesla you must REQUIRE an audited copy of their financials, signed, if you want to protect your money.
Wow…I wonder if there will be any editorial follow-through on this stuff?
This seems like fabulist posturing to me…
Posts like this remind me of Arianna Huffington’s bio on Mike Arrington last year, saying he’s “easy to irritate and apt to air his grudges in public.” But he’s write — the Tesla piece was crap journalism and the Observer worse.
Remember when TC used to talk about actual tech news? Those days seem to be numbered. Sad to see TC turn into a big soapbox for MA.
Ok, so TC has always been a big soapbox for MA, but at least TC made an effort before to report *some* tech news.
TC is really starting to remind me of the old F*uckedCompany and Michael is PUD.
Who cares, the NYT is dying a slow death.They’re just bitter. Unless the GOV decides to bail them out with our money. That would be unacceptable.
I disagree with your assertion that since Tesla plans to build a $50,000 model, it pokes a factual hole in the “Only the Rich Can Afford It. Should Taxpayers Back It?”. Regardless of the other issues, $50,000 is still an absurdly high-priced car and it is correct to question the federal backing. To be honest, this post describing the $50,000 model as a “green car for the masses” is more misleading than the Times story. I don’t agree with the opinion in the Times article (since new technology is usually created at higher costs that fall over time), but I think it’s a valid point to be made (and don’t think it’s very controversial/inaccurate/slander/etc.)
Mike,
Ever since that one guy spit on you and you had to take a break, your posts have taken on this jaded, negative tone of general disgust that, frankly, isn’t as fun to read as before.
It’s great that you are writing about these issues, but it’s a lot more pleasant to read stuff written by a happy warrior instead of an angry, spiteful one.
Maybe you should get on some antidepressants or at least stop reading the comments?
New York Times Hits an all time low
You think this is worse than Jayson Blair?
atl
None of this changes the fact that $50K and $100K electric cars are not the electric car programs that should be funded. If he doesn’t have a viable business plan for Tesla without government funding how is he any better than GM and Chrysler?
As an auto journalist I can say most in the actual business of cars don’t see Tesla as a serious automaker and won’t until they start producing some type of capacity.
They’ve delivered what? 200 cars so far and are 1,000 behind in orders? And this is of the low volume roadster, not the sedan which could easily sell 1,000 a month at its price point.
Start producing and then perhaps journalists will not be as skeptical.
As for the huff in these other articles, it’s kind of sad on all sides. You don’t really need to report anything but facts for most to see Tesla for what it is. A boutique automaker asking for federal funding.
Also note that Fisker a major competitor did get private funding recently.
Kudos to TechCrunch for standing tall and picking a fight with NYT idiots. Maybe this will have the same effect as Jon Stewart’s fight had on Cramer and David Letterman’s fight on McCain
Just another reminder- reader beware. People are fallible- they can skip research, mix up facts, or spin things to support their perspective. The media is not unbiased.
Every writer, reporter, and editor approaches a subject from the bias of their individual experiences; there is no way to counteract or overcome this. The point is to strive to be objective and unbiased even though you know you can’t achieve.
What scoop are you talking about? Having an executive shill for his company in a video interview isn’t a scoop, it’s a thinly veiled ad. Going out and finding information not in the public domain and getting confirmation by multiple sources and writing about it before anyone else is what’s called a “scoop.”
And btw, $50k is a luxury car, not a car for everyone. $15-$25K is the price of a car for the masses.
Does a tesla failure represent any systemic risk? NO. Does a tesla bailot have any material impact to the economy? NO.
Why should taxpayer money go to a company who’s model is nowhere near proven? They’ve hardly even sold any product! Don’t forget, the energy needed to produce one Tesla car is far greater than that of a gasoline powered vehicle. Oh, and it is powered primarily by COAL (as is any plug-in vehicle). They have far from proven that they are on the right track.
The primary purpose of the bailout is not for “car technology to advance” as Calacanis puts it, or because Tesla “is actually doing something interesting” as Arrington puts it.
It’s sweet, noble even, to want to bail out an electric car company. But this, as Stross alludes to, is not necessarily in the best interest of the taxpayers.
I agree that the NYT piece is clearly an editorial. But this should not be a surprise to anyone who reads NYT Digital Domain.
Whatever.
I still want my Tesla!
I still like Lacy’s posts/articles.
And I still disagree with the NYT piece.
I find it pretty amazing that there are so many people here who claim to be in the technology industry but don’t understand it. The model of building a high-end version that sells for a lot of money and progressively build less expensive versions at the technology progresses.
Tesla has always said the plan was to build something at the $100K price point then the $60k then the $30K. It looks like they’ll get the second one done for less than the original price. Pretty impressive.
The loan isn’t to make the $100K cars happen. In a way, not to make the $50K cars happen (they’ll happen anyway, just slower). It’s to speed things along so we get the $30K car. And, assuming people change at night, the cost of electricity will lead to a lower TCO (I’m not expert enough at electrical cars to know how much but assume it’s 2x as efficient and gas goes back to $4… That’s several thousand $ at least…)
The money it coming from the DOE’s advanced vehicle technology program, something instituted before the bailouts. It is not a bailout.
Now, us libertarian-minded tech folks may see any gov’t loan to a private company as inappropriate, but as these things go, it is one of the less inappropriate ones: The goals of the ATVM are to lower our long-term dependence on imported oil (Defense), cut carbon emissions (cut long-term costs on the environment), and do long-term research (a public good).
A loan program that does those is much better than the auto company bailout or the financial company bailouts.
Now why we spend so much time worrying about what the legacy media thinks…
Reporters and bloggers should not be friends with sources and interview subjects. Period.
It seems pretty amazing the DOE is thinking of giving $400 Million out of $25 billion to this untested outfit. Even during the tech crash the VCs didn’t cry for a bailout.
The business model doesn’t make any sense, they should be licensing the technology not building their own cars. The auto industry is running at less than 50% capicity the way it is.
I still don’t think they deserve a cent of gov’t cash.
One of Elon’s big points in the interview was they deserve the money because their company is more efficient than GM or Chrysler. Big whoop, who isn’t ?
People might be interested in the Carnegie Mellon study that found that the Chevy Volt, another all-electric car, is…
** “not cost effective in any scenario because the batteries cost and weigh too much.”
** “would also be extremely uneconomical traveling fewer miles as it hauls around battery capacity it doesn’t need.”
http://money.cn...rtune/index.htm
Green car: depends on how the electric power is being made.
Moreover the energy conversion can never be efficient:
The energy needs to be converted into electric power at a loss.
The electric power needs to be transported over power lines (small loss)
The electric power needs to be converted to lower power and stored into batteries: at a loss of power.
The stored power will leak away as all batteries do.
The stored power needs to drive the wheels of the car as a loss of power.
A combustion engine drives the wheels of a car directly: less loss
Lacy and NYT aside, I’d have serious concerns if I were an investor about Musk’s behavior. Acting like a hurt child and slinging around terms like douchebag and idiot is not what you want as the public face of your company.
Well it’s still a really great paper
Try another great site about real estate at http://www.insiderater.com
I also think that the real estate market is one of the reasons.