“Hi David, this is Juno from Tesla. I’m seeing this Munro article. Why didn’t you call me. I’m five days late to respond on this piece now!” began a rant from Tesla’s PR person (whose name isn’t really Juno). From there, the conversation started to become a complete disaster, forcing me to firmly shut it down. But this was the Tesla PR department in a nutshell: overworked, paranoid, and oftentimes just unpleasant.
Welcome new members to our regular “Exhaust Leaks” member-only feature in which we tell you an “inside baseball” story about the car journalism world. This time, we’re talking about the now-defunct Tesla PR department, which was in place when I started as a journalist back in 2015, but was — in an industry-first move — dismantled in 2020.
If you cannot read this article, please consider becoming an Autopian member today. The future of car journalism may depend on it!
You guys finally guilted my Inner Yankee Cheapskate into giving you monthly money with that recent begging e-mail. Congratulations, that is QUITE an accomplishment! Please keep up the very, very good work here.
As for this article, I can’t even imagine what it is like to work for or anywhere near that petulant manbaby. But that is some seriously unprofessional behavior on Ms. Juno’s part. Terrible. Well handled, David.
Great read, I always enjoy the human aspect stories the most and the Autopian has a staff of writers that is above the rest when writing these types of stories. I have to admit the technical ones are usually over my head.
Hopefully none of my colleagues will disagree with me, but demanding information from a journalist is not PR and gives PR a bad name. Public Relations implies exactly what we’re trying to – forge relationships. I never expect a journalist to share that kind of information and if I ask, it’s going to be nicely – and if I get a “no” that’s ok.
I’m a proponent of PR accreditation, which carries with it a code of ethics. This kind of behavior drives me bonkers because it gets associated with the term “PR” and gives the profession a black eye. Even if your boss is mean and your office is a pressure cooker, you don’t yell at a journalist – even a hostile one. This is definitely an industry where being a friend gets you further than being rude.
Then again, I guess Tesla is gonna Tesla. There’s a reason I don’t work there. Besides that they would never hire me.
Why is Tesla shit? Well my daughter, who is wiser than me, has this to say: dad, it doesn’t come from the wind. Now, since I have a sense of humor about myself, I take that at face value and concur that she is correct. Leon Musk has no sense of humor about himself. Like the Orange pile of merde, thin skinned and narcissistic to the end. So the takeaway fro me is not to purchase a Tesla, (also his fascist Nazi salute didn’t go over well with Jewish me), and so I will wait for the Ionic 5 with the rear wiper to come off lease sometime soon and think seriously about giving up petrol for the primary vehicle in the stable.
Thank you for continuing to use this recurring thread as a way to remind us all that Subaru cannot design a skid plate, and that they’re still in denial about it.
I was at a Subaru dealer last week helping a friend look at a used Golf, and while chilling in their showroom I saw a display with a tiny little skidplate and a blurb about how they can provide and install one for you. The denial is baffling.
It’s about the image and promise of capability, not the actual capability. Subaru drivers may go hiking and camping more than the average consumer, but they buy Subarus in large part because they project adventurousness, not because they’re much better than the normal car or crossover with AWD. I honestly believe that some people with Outback Wilderness think they have a 4Runner or something close. All I’ll say is I have yet to meet anyone with a 150k+ mile Toyota with even a fraction as many issues as every person I know with 100-150k mile Subaru.
Hey I’ll have you know that Subaru skid plate can handle anything a paved grocery store parking lot will throw at it. Except maybe running over a grocery cart, or a cement block, but hey you run over an employee gathering carts no problem.
Yelling at a journalist for writing a story about another party pointing out your product’s numerous and obvious flaws is…well…bad PR.
You were a lot nicer than I would have been
This is a good story. And if it wasn’t this one, then it was another in J-nik that tuned me into Munro’s teardowns and other vids. I could watch that stuff all day, and it can take all day to watch, so I don’t watch as much as I might like. I find electricity so hard to grasp. Did anyone see a recent one in which an engineer explains how an inverter works by making a rudimentary mockup? Gold, I tell you!
The opening of this piece makes me think of a friend. He used to respond to telemarketers and the like by repeatedly pressing one of the dialing buttons and saying “Sorry, the bullshit detector on my phone is going off.”
I like it!
Not as good or effective as an air horn but definitely adds that human touch that so many things seem to have lost.
Oh man. That takes me back to my days as a service writer.
“Sir, if you can’t stop cussing at me, I’m going to have to end this call.”
*&&$&(*(&^$^%#$^*((&
“Sir, as I said, due to the cussing, I’m going to have to end this call. Goodbye”
He skidded to a stop about 15 minutes later, jumping out of the car before it was fully stationary.
I talked him down, but I was glad I had warned one of the guys working on a car to be nearby and on alert.
I think you were more polite about it than I would have been, David.
One “This conversation is over” and then the shiny red button is deployed.
Oh man, I haven’t logged into Twitter in forever. One of my joke accounts claimed to be Tesla’s PR Department. It only posted snark, bad jokes, and promises regarding fully-autonomous robocars.
It stopped being funny because reality became even stranger than my troll accounts.
Back then my opinion of Tesla was fairly neutral, but I still would have greatly enjoyed shutting down Juno. The kind of approach she had is completely unacceptable to me no matter who you are, and I would have happily told her to pound sand and perhaps find a new career.
As a person who works at a place that involves the unpleasant task of dealing with people I learned it is easier to go from nice to asshole than asshole to nice. And frankly the worst people get more upset when you are calm and pleasant.
I’m genuinely surprised to learn that Tesla had a PR Department at all, but I’m not surprised it was immolated seeing as how Herr Elmo can’t think before speaking/tweeting, cannot be told anything and refuses to stay on script…
…which is easily worth a Trillion Dollars, Right?
Tesla had a Puerto Rican department?
Damn racists. Put them all in one department then got rid of them.
Couldn’t afford to pay Americans.
They were the kind of racists who forgot Puerto Ricans were Americans, and then thought they could pay them less as a result.
Aren’t Puerto Ricans Americans? I seem to have lost my racist who we hate list from Hamas
Yes, it was total mierde.
Ouch that’s gonna cost you like the Seinfeld PR Day parade episode.