特斯拉召回事关重大

    身为年轻的电动汽车制造商特斯拉汽车公司（Tesla Motors）的首席执行官，埃隆•穆斯克根本无暇休息。

    去年年初，特斯拉遭到《纽约时报》（New York Times）一位作者的抨击。这位作者指责特斯拉的车无法经受住美国东北部冬季恶劣天气的考验。随着公司股价因这篇报道大幅下挫，穆斯克开始公开谴责《纽约时报》有意歪曲报道该公司的试驾过程。

    几个月前，三辆特斯拉电动车在发生碰撞后分别起火。由于这几起事故间隔时间很短——只有两个月，因此美国国家公路交通安全局（National Highway Traffic Safety Administration）开始介入调查。

    因此意料之中的是，本周特斯拉因为召回事件再次深陷舆论漩涡。这次召回（从技术上说，就是一次无线软件升级）涉及到29,000个2013款Model S电动车的充电适配器。这些设备的主要风险在于可能引发火灾。

    尽管这件事三天前就已经公之于众了，但媒体直到今天才抓住它大做文章，因为今天正好是底特律北美国际车展正式开幕的第二天。所以就有了现在这出戏：关于特斯拉深陷危机的报道铺天盖地，哪怕这次升级实际上影响到的特斯拉电动车似乎还不到3%（不过这一次，这家公司的股价没有受到冲击。召回事件见诸媒体后，它反而带来了远高于预期的销量，并有望推动销量迅猛增长）。

    五年来，穆斯克和他的公司一直在打一场持久战——不是为了汽车动力系统的未来而战，而是为了掌控公司在媒体上的形象而战。事实上，这是穆斯克成为汽车业媒体宠儿时所签下的魔鬼契约的部分后果：在媒体上频频露面并不总是好事。

    问题在于：特斯拉公司与媒体爱恨交加的关系绑架了人们围绕电动汽车的整体讨论。很多人对电动汽车的担忧是实实在在的，因为这种车的性能现在确实不如汽油车。它们开着开着就会没电，把乘客们撂在路上。一出事故它们就会起火，甚至充电时也会起火。

    但多数人所不知道或故意忽视的是，汽油车也会动力不足，没油或是起火。而且每年都会有一定数量的汽油车出现这些情况。

    这种情况穆斯克当然心知肚明。他对人们对电动汽车先入为主的成见很在意——撇开原则不说，它会直接影响他生意的成败。最近，通用汽车公司（General Motors）刚刚召回了37万辆汽油皮卡，因为这些车的软件可能引发自燃，而且确实发生了至少八起自燃事件。尽管如此，真正站在媒体聚光灯下遭到千夫所指、满头大汗的却还是特斯拉公司。通用召回的汽车数量是特斯拉2014年预期销量的十几倍，但通用及其汽车在购车者心目中却不太可能和自燃风险扯上关系。这就是为何特斯拉的召回规模虽小，影响却极为重大的根本原因。

    不过请注意，不是说因此就要和通用汽车大干一场。我们只是呼吁大家对特斯拉及其电动汽车同行要高抬贵手一点，不要那么苛刻。考虑到发生故障车辆的实际数字，这种请求并不过分。

    特斯拉第一辆电动车下线时，它并不需要费劲气力向第一批来自硅谷的富豪买家证明，电动汽车才是未来交通工具的代表，因为这些买家早就对此深信不疑。不过如果特斯拉想要最终征服大众市场，它就必须让大家相信，它现在的这些技术故障实属平常，而且实际上它的故障率已经优于行业平均水平。（财富中文网）

    译者：清远   

    Elon Musk, chief executive of the young electric automaker Tesla Motors (TSLA), can't catch a break.

    Early last year, Tesla came under fire by a New York Times writer for producing vehicles that weren't up to the difficulties of driving in a winter in the northeastern U.S. With his company's stock slipping, Musk took the Times to task publicly for misrepresenting its test drive.

    Several months ago, three separate Tesla vehicles caught fire after involvement in a collision. The brief window in which they occurred -- just two months -- spurred the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to open an inquiry.

    So it comes as no surprise, then, that the company is in hot water again this week for issuing a recall (technically, an over-the-air software update) concerning 29,000 charging adapters for its 2013 Model S electric cars. The risk?Potential fire hazard.

    Though the issue was first made public three days prior, the press latched onto the news today, one day after the official opening of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. And so it goes: wall-to-wall coverage of Tesla's troubles, even though the update appears to affect fewer than 3% of its vehicles. (This time, the company's stock remains unaffected. It helps to post higher-than-expected sales and promise "reckless growth" shortly after making a recall public.)

    For five years, Musk and company have been waging a war not over the future of the automotive powertrain but control over the company's narrative. It's a part of the devil's bargain Musk struck when he became the industry's media darling: lots of press doesn't necessarily guarantee that it will be good.

    Here's the problem: The company's love-hate relationship with the press is hijacking the conversation around electric vehicles as a whole. For many people, fear about electric cars is real: They can't perform as well as gasoline-powered vehicles. They'll run out of charge and strand their passengers. They'll catch fire when involved in an accident. They'll catch fire when they're charging.

    What they don't know or choose to ignore: that gasoline-powered cars can be underpowered, under-fueled and catch fire, too. And a small number do, every year.

    Musk knows this. He's sensitive about the preconceptions people have about electric vehicles -- principles aside, it directly affects the success of his business. Yet it's still his company sweating in the limelight, even as General Motors (GM) works its way through a recent recall of 370,000 gasoline-powered trucks for a software-derived fire hazard blamed for at least eight known fires. That's more than 10 times the number of vehicles Tesla hopes to sell in 2014, though it's unlikely that GM or its vehicles will be closely associated with risk of fire in the minds of buyers. Which is why Tesla's tiny recall really matters.

    This isn't a call to arms against GM, mind you. It's a suggestion to be a little easier on Tesla and its electric-powered peers. Based on the numbers, it's only fair.

    When its first vehicles rolled off the production line, Tesla didn't need to make a strong case to its initial well-heeled, Silicon Valley-based customers that electric cars were the future; they were already converts. If Tesla hopes to succeed as an eventual electric automaker to the masses, it must convince people that its technical troubles are not unusual, but in fact better than the industry average.