I've read all the arguments on both sides, and while both have made good points, there is one that stands out.

This reporter clearly barely made any attempt at recharging his empty vehicle in Norwich, and then attempted a drive well beyond the car's capabilities, then made the "running out of fuel" his headline.

If he would have done this on gasoline, the result would have been the same, and I think that is getting lost in the clutter of all of the other points being made on this subject.

I didn't want to take sides either way, because it's obvious that Broder's and Musk's interests are diametrically opposed and so both viewpoints need to be taken with a huge grain of salt.

However, after reading this article it's clear to me that the data shows Broder flat-out lied about several things (like turning down the heat or setting cruise control to 54 MPH). He also clearly did not just use one of myriad charging stations on the way, even when it was apparent that the car would run out of juice soon. He chose not to recharge. He also chose not to charge the car fully at any of his other stops. While it's fine to play fast-and-loose with your "gas tank" like that (heck, I've done it with normal cars), it's another thing if you do it deliberately to write an "out of gas" headline.

It doesn't matter if the author finds several of these points convincing or not. If the log data is to be believed, it shows that Broder did several things that actively contributed to his running out of energy, and then he lied about doing them.

> It could just be that this is his big project and he is overly sensitive to (some of it admittedly unfair) criticism to the point where he'll see malice where there is none.

This is obviously the case. Musk overreacted and will end looking like a fool.

But he has a lot of goodwill; he can afford to spend a little.

I don't think Broder was violating his journalistic integrity but I do think he fell into the confirmation bias trap. He took the car for a test drive with the preconceived judgement that electric cars are not ready yet esp. in cold weather conditions. Then he subconsciously starts doing things to support his hypothesis, hiding behind his flawed reasoning that this is what any common person would do. The experiment was doomed to fail from the start. I can very easily create a similar situation with a gas-powered car -- it really isn't very hard to run out of gas if you are not vigilant about how much gas is left and where the gas station is located. In this case the charging stations are no where as widespread as gas stations are.

Musk doesn't show any smoking gun, and blows a lot of smoke. Methinks he doth protest too much.

Musk comes across more as a Preston Tucker or a John DeLorean than a Henry Ford.

You are misquoting the interview. Basically, he said "Tesla is not doing hybrids because we think that hybrids cannot be as efficient as pure electric or pure gasoline cars". He never said that hybrids are a dead end, just that he and his team think that they cannot be pushed to the same level of efficiency.

The lawnmower comment is out of context and the link you provide misquotes it as much as you do. Specifically, "And then when you have consumed your 40 miles, which is not going to happen every day, but maybe every third day, you are going to have an engine that is really underpowered. It's kind of like a lawnmower engine trying to power my sedan. So it's going to be running at very high RPM, it's going to be working really really hard..." (with some stuttering taken out).

You can in fact question a lot of what he said. The Chevy Volt does not have two drive trains. The engine does not power the wheels directly, but is connected a generator which powers the electric motor. The gas engine in a Chevy Volt spins at three very comfortable RPM levels, and I believe the highest is 4500 RPM or so. I think what he did is slyly switched the topic from the Volt to other plug-in hybrids like the Prius, where I can see some of these problems being an issue. In other words, you are right, he definitely is trying to downplay any competition. However, he did not say that the Volt is a lawmower.

I am also somewhat confused as to why a 40 mile powerpack needs to exert 5x the power of a 200 mile powerpack, though this may be my own lack of understanding.

This. I wonder how much of the controversy comes down to left vs. right brain, East vs. West Coast, liberal arts vs. engineering discipline thinking. Are we just siding with our "team" here?

Your mistake was assuming that anyone could be immune to persuasion or ideology.