In keeping with the use of "General" to discuss personalities and not product or technology, a news article, "ELON MUSK VS ‘THE MEDIA’ – WHO’S WINNING?", led me to this Forbes article: "In Elon Musk Vs. The Media Saga, Tesla Model 3 Wins". Who wins when Musk and the media clash? The Model 3. And likely the Model Y that comes after that. In the end, it's free publicity that just raises the company's profile and drives demand for its cars. As if Tesla needs any free advertising. (It doesn't.) . . . The chasm between negative media coverage and the average Tesla buyer's sentiment gets no wider than on YouTube (as I've written before). There Model 3 owners post overwhelmingly glowing reviews. And even when reviewers do complain, it's typically a brief sidebar amid a long stream of fulsome praise. In the end, owners just want to be assured that Tesla stands behind the car and they'll continue to get OTA updates. What drove this home is the stream of negative threads about Elon Musk with the most recent being: "British rescue diver . . ." I have learned more about Tesla cars than I'd ever had an interest. Tossing firebrands illuminates the subject and researching the facts and data leads to the opposite, more persuasive, positive facts and data. What would have happened if there was silence instead? I would not have looked the worst EV segment, the Little Rock-to-Tulsa leg, on the way to the relatives in Stillwater OK and Coffeyville KS. It turns out a long distance Model 3 with 91-100% SOC could make it after several hours charging at each end. If a SuperCharger station gets installed at Fort Smith, midway between the two, any of the Tesla cars could make the drive. Kicking dirt on Musk and Tesla has had the opposite effect and actually done more to advocate than hinder. Bob Wilson
"In the end, it's free publicity that just raises the company's profile and drives demand for its cars. As if Tesla needs any free advertising. (It doesn't.)" Well, that's an amazingly imperceptive comment, innit? Dare I say clueless? It's precisely this sort of controversy that generates so much of Tesla's free publicity, the media "buzz" that Tesla advertising and sales depends on so heavily. Controversy generates discussion and interest. Tesla is able to continue generating demand despite using almost no traditional mass advertising: no TV, radio, or magazine ads, and very little if any paid advertising on billboards, precisely because it's getting so much free publicity in media -- including coverage in TV news shows -- and articles, blog entries, and opinion pieces published online. Not to mention all the free publicity from social media posts to FaceBook, Twitter and the like. Does Tesla need free advertising? Well of course it does! And Elon Musk has shown himself to be a master at constantly generating that in large volumes.
