Tesla CEO charged up over press review Accused of lying during a negative review of the Model S electric car from Tesla Motors, New York Times reporter John Broder answered Thursday with a detailed rebuttal that boiled down to one basic point: The spat between Tesla and the Times has been simmering ever since Broder published an account last weekend of an ill-fated road trip up the East Coast in the Model S. The car's battery pack, he wrote, drained far faster than expected in cold weather. Tesla CEO Elon Musk immediately slammed the review as fraudulent, going on CNBC and Fox News to accuse Broder of writing a hit piece. Broder had been so intent on killing the battery, Musk said, that at one point, he drove circles around a parking lot that held one of Tesla's charging stations, plugging in only after driving more than half a mile on a seriously depleted battery.