After Tesla Motors share price fell 2 percent, company co-founder Elon Musk angrily went online Monday to slam as "fake" a recent
New York Times' review of Tesla's Model S that claimed the electric car stalled out during a road trip.
John Broder, a reviewer for the auto section in the Times, wrote on Feb. 8 that the Model S ran out of power during his test drive from Washington, D.C. to Connecticut.
Broder said he was forced to turn down the heat and drive below the speed limit to conserve battery power, but the car eventually stalled out and had to be towed to a charging station.
Musk, a billionaire inventor who also founded electronic funds transferal service PayPal and space transport company SpaceX, said Broder couldn’t possibly have charged the car fully, otherwise it would have fulfilled its 265-mile range promise, according to the
BBC.
Musk also mentioned that Broder took a "long detour."
Tesla's share price fell 2 percent after the Times article ran but has soared 23.5 percent overall in the last 12 months, the BBC said.
The Model S is Tesla's first affordable model and is crucial to the success of the startup based in Palo Alto, Calif. The car is expected to pull in big profits this year, the New York Post said.
In a statement responding to Musk's tweets, The Times said Broder's review "was completely factual, describing the trip as it occurred. Any suggestion that the account was 'fake' is, of course, flatly untrue."
Musk also announced on Twitter that he's gathering a group of journalists to do the same test drive that will show "what actually happened" during Broder's trip.
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