In a week full of high-profile brawling, the fight between Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and the New York Times has captured a lot of attention.
It’s got it all – visionary CEO, upstart company, allegations of media bias, a trove of highly detailed data and a passionate audience. As the saga continues to rage, Musk looks like he might have overstated his case against the Times, but it’s still early to draw conclusions. Even if Musk is not the wounded hero he presents himself to be, the controversy is a good thing for him and his company.
The tussle began with a negative review of Tesla’s Model S all-electric vehicle by New York Times reporter John M. Broder, which prompted an emotional and detailed response from Musk, to which Broder responded earlier today. In between, everyone seems to have been talking and blogging about it – Wall Street investors, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Detroit car guys, environmentalists, Washington policy wonks.
From a communications perspective, there’s plenty of fault to be found: Musk fired back too quickly and might have colored his facts to suit his argument. He also personalized the dispute unnecessarily (although that’s common among company founders) and has hesitated so far to release the full data set on which he based his accusations.
What’s more, by accusing the Times of bias, Musk is caught in the difficult position of trying to prove something that’s very hard to pin down. What exactly is conclusive proof of bias? The Times, on the other hand, is mainly saying that the Tesla ran out of juice, which is easy enough to show with a photo of the car on a tow truck.
For its part, the Times won’t look good when this is done, either. It will have to deal with questions about its editorial process, particularly when it comes to things that are inherently subjective, like car reviews. The Times’s ombudsman, Margaret Sullivan, is on the case, so this issue will run for several more days at least.
And that’s the real lesson here. This controversy has put electric cars at the top of the news agenda, and a lot more people are hearing about them. That’s a big win for a small company that’s running against a half-century of entrenched consumer and business habits.
The controversy has revealed some interesting things.
First, the electric future is a lot closer than many realize. Yes, there are problems but it’s remarkable how many have been solved already. I’ll bet few realized a ride in the Model S could reach speeds of 80 mph or more.
All-electric cars aren’t a West-Coast fantasy, suited only to techie billionaires zipping down sunny, wide-open highways. Thanks to the Times (and now CNN), we know they work here in the congested, snow-battered Northeast. Like Drew Barrymore famously says in ET: “They’re heeeeere.”
And it’s not just the cars themselves that are coming of age. The infrastructure is falling into place, too, though much more slowly than all would like. Sure, the New Jersey Turnpike needs charging stations, but that seems pretty easy (put them where all the phone booths used to be!). Certainly that’s much easier than big energy projects like offshore wind farms and oil pipelines.
I’m betting that Musk and his team will want to keep this issue alive for a while, even if it means more criticism of his PR approach. Anything that moves the conversation about electric cars into the mainstream is good for Tesla.