“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!
Tesla is a cult. If it talks like a cult and acts like a cult, then hey, it’s a cult! And when the cult acolytes could not reach the level of purity of the Dear Leader, they were dismissed. And the cult continues on. And people still buy their crap.
And I thought workplace yelling wasn’t common! Yelling is unfortunately the norm for some people where I work. I once found myself in the awkward position of talking to a vendor after one of our managers berated the poor guy in front of our production area over the quality of the product. This vendor had driven a couple of hours out of his way to personally address a product issue, and here he was being verbally assaulted by a guy with anger issues. (Spoiler: there was nothing wrong with the product, it was just the way we were testing it.) I’ve also had to apologize to a salesman at a large motor manufacturer after one of my company’s sales guys completely lost his mind over an incorrect order. (Again, it was my company’s fault; the person who entered the order left out some critical instructions.)
🙁 Well, it shouldn’t be common. Sorry you’re having to deal with that kind of toxic behavior.
Agreed! I think the manager gets away with it because of his extensive knowledge of some critical systems…no one wants to do anything that might prompt him to leave. I have no idea why anyone puts up with the sales guy.
I work in PR.
This “Juno” character is an idiot. It’s an unbreakable rule that’s so obvious that hardly anyone ever actually needs to say it, but you never, ever scream at a journalist, especially not as an opening move. You’re gonna need that guy next week when you pitch whatever your client is up to.
Hell, I’ve had journalists write inaccuracies that had the potential to cost a client millions before, and because I treated the journalist like a human, we ended up getting the correction and everything worked out.
I’ll also say that I work at an agency, and we have had people who run in the same political mudmire as Musk approach us to rep them, and we’ve turned them away. People like that are assholes to such a degree that the best case scenario in working for them is that you only temporarily burn your contacts and they’ll talk to you again at some point down the road.
It would be about the 9th level of hell to work in-house somewhere like Tesla. Companies like that have absolutely no interest in not being ethically bankrupt which means you have a PR crisis every 5 minutes. Draining and impossible to achieve desired results.
I understand that the job could be frustrating and overwhelming, but to yell at an unrelated 3rd party about where a 2nd party got a car from is wild.
David is “horse-loving”?
Just once in my life, I aspire to have as much fun as whoever makes the header images on this site. (My guess is Torch.)
I am a sucker for an attractive woman wearing glasses. Except when they’re yelling at, presumably me over the phone. Especially for something I didn’t do.
“Where is it from?” Um, Tesla? Juno you’re an idiot when you ask where your own car is from.
PR is a tough job. It’s a difficult balance between trying to maintain the reputation of the company and put on a good face regardless of what’s actually happening. And sometimes journalists don’t make it easy. I worked in corporate marketing for years doing case studies with companies that used our products and then promoting these carefully researched stories for inclusion in the trade press. But no matter how much control we and the subject company tried to exert over the final copy, sometimes the trade press just did what they wanted to. As in one time when they decided the approved headline for the story we gave them wasn’t exciting enough and published “Smith & Wesson Blasts Rampant Scrap Rates”. S&W was NOT pleased.
A huge amount comes down to how well staffed and organized a corporate PR department is.
A company that’s hung up on cost cutting will slash the headcount to the bone on the theory that consultants can do the work on an as-needed basis. If there’s a major product launch, execs say just bring in some launch specialists for a few months. If there’s a crisis, bring in the crisis management consultants.
But the obvious problem is that most companies take time and expertise to understand. And building relationships with internal people takes time too.
Outside consultant companies inevitably overpromise results and underestimate costs in order to win contracts with cost-conscious execs who lack a firm grasp on their own companies. And it’s only when deadlines are looming that all of the fault lines emerge.
PR is especially tough if you’re in marketing. A lot of execs think those positions are the same, but they’re not. Miata gave us the perfect example – trying to “exert control” over a journalist’s final copy.
I was a journalist before I decided maybe money wasn’t such a bad thing to earn and flipped to PR. Any time some PR dude tried to exert control over my copy, they immediately went on my shit list and their pitches went automatically into the garbage from then on.
Your point on crisis is particularly true. So many companies are floating through business-life, with absolutely no crisis comms plan in place. Then something bad happens and they fart around for a few months doing all the wrong things before they finally call us in. We still make it better than it would have been but, man, they should be calling in a crisis comms team the minute they find out somethings up.
And they should also hire a crisis team to help them create a template crisis response plan because if you can have that in place before the shit hits the fan, you’re in a much better position.
“sometimes the trade press just did what they wanted to.”
Isn’t what the press is supposed to do?
.
Only when they do the reporting. The trade press (publications written for a business/industry audience only) today largely subsists on submitted articles that are 100% written by the companies themselves. The implicit agreement is if we are doing your reporting for you, you either accept the article as written or pass on it and we take it to a different publication.
I dunno, publishing unfiltered company information doesn’t sound like “reporting”, but as “shilling” to me.
Yeah, no. Earned is still earned even if you write it. The outlet doesn’t get to edit it only if it’s a paid placement and the contract stipulates that they can’t change it without your OK.
“If you cannot read this article, please consider becoming an Autopian member today. The future of car journalism may depend on it!”
Okay…. I am a member but am too dumb to know where to go to read this.
Reach out to Matt and he’ll get your account fixed up.
It looks like the member tag has not been applied to your account yet. I’ll tell Matt to spin a wrench or two!
Am I the only one surprised DT could actually hear Juno, considering she appears to be missing the half of the phone that contains the microphone?
She was yelling loud enough that it wasn’t a problem.
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.
Oh you have no idea. David’s response was professional and exactly how to handle it, but I completely see why Juno (not her real name) was reacting that way.
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.
I would argue that all industries benefit from cooperation.
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.
Please please please tell this to my girlfriend. She vehemently insists that all my data, all my being steeped in car culture for a decade+, the issues I’ve seen and fixed *personally* on Subarus in my life (exes, siblings, friends), are just me being a naysayer and that they’re just as good as any other brand. She’s a smart lady but the image of going outdoors being equivalent to, uh, durability and reliability is cultivated strong and deep.
If you are selective and know the years to get/avoid, some older Subarus are just as good or better than most other brands (Toyota isn’t the only other brand in the automotive space. . . remember you are on a site with writers who own old BMWs and VWs). You can avoid the head gasket issues of the EJ25 by picking one of the better versions and, since they are all used cars now, making sure either It’s gotten a MLS replacement already (one time fix and the engine is good essentially forever) or bake it into an offer price.
EJ22s were pretty bulletproof. Getting old now, though, and age does nothing mechanical any favors. Or me, for that matter.
My girlfriend (now wife ) had a 1995 manual EJ22 (the rounded legacy before all was Outbacked). Had a few small issues, including cv joints all around, the valve cover gaskets couldn’t keep oil in. But despite being starved for oil (2 quarts down and that engine takes less than 4) multiple times, we sold it at 280k miles still on original engine and clutch. That car was gutless, stank, and the seats were awful, but the AWD was great even with bad tires. Currently dealing with a 2008 outback (85k miles). It was my mom’s last car. Shocking as it may seem, the cv boots are failing and it has an external HG leak….
A lot of times with the valve cover leaks, it was too much torque on the bolts. The bolts are something like 6 ft/lbs, which feels insanely loose, but that does work. IDK if people go by what feels more appropriate or the common Hanes/Chilton is wrong (they are VERY wrong about the crank pulley bolt torque–it’s much higher), but that’s from the factory manuals. For the CV joints, if you catch them before they throw grease all over, what I did was just get new boots (maybe even generic repair kits), cut them down one side, then zip tie them over the old ones with zips between the pleats. I never had that repair fail.
Mine was manual FWD, which was a much better driving car and performer, closer to the turbo than the regular AWD. It ran a 16.3 @ 86 mph, which was very respectable for 1990 and that was the heavier wagon. I stopped buying Subarus when they went AWD-only.
Can’t say that I’ve had any notable issues with my older (which I prefer) Subarus over 33 years of combined ownership. Currently on an 11k-mile road trip in my 2003 Legacy manual wagon that I have zero concerns about, but I know it completely DIYing almost all the wrenching. I did drive it 7kish miles on a 2x cross continent road trip when I bought it sight unseen in 2019 though. I know that the Gen 4 Legacy /Gen 3 Outback (2005+) quality declined significantly from the previous one, so not completely discounting other peoples’ experiences.
Funny listening to yesterday’s Car Talk rerun from 1999 where they were taking about Toyota’s 4Runner head gaskets recall. Don’t forget Toyota had to recently recall the Tundra and replace 100,000 engines for manufacturing debris. . .
Oh, I was a Gen 3 Toyota Prius owner and know that S.F. shops were filled with bays of Pruises all getting head gasket replacements starting at 100,000-150,000 miles.
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.
…As well as errant tumbleweeds.
Or a frantic Coyote with an Acme catalog.
TFL also got the Subaru ban too… so maybe it’s a badge (skid plate) of honor for The Autopian?
They should just go with “scuff plate”. Sounds close enough to “skid plate”, but is actually accurate.
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 you got an annoying telemarketer on the phone?
Lenny! There’s a call for you!
(Lenny is a bot “driven by sixteen pre-recorded audio clips, spoken in a soft and slow Australian accent in the manner of an elderly man. The bot’s original creator stated on Reddit that in building the character he asked himself the question “What would be a telemarketer’s worst nightmare?” He answered with this being a lonely old man who is up for a chat, proud of his family and can’t focus on the telemarketer’s goal. There is no speech recognition or artificial intelligence, and the bot’s software is simple and straightforward. The first four clips are played sequentially in order to grab the telemarketer’s interest and begin their sales pitch to Lenny, then the remaining twelve are played sequentially on loop until the telemarketer hangs up. The program waits for a gap of 1.5 seconds of silence before playing the next audio clip, to simulate natural breaks in the conversation. The messages are purposefully vague and open-ended so they can be applied to as many conversations as possible. They include references to Lenny’s children, the state of the economy, and being interrupted by some ducks outside.
According to research into the bot, around 75% of callers realise they are talking to a computer program within two minutes; however, some calls have lasted around an hour.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_(bot)
My dad used to do something similar.
I grew up in a small town in Northwestern Ontario, back when long distance calls (at least in Canada) cost actual money. My dad would get these calls on occasion, and he would work these guys for sport, racking up 15 or 20 minutes with them, costing them plenty of money, only to say “not interested” and hang up.
Me, I just do my “Welcome to Moviefone!” routine. And if it’s a duct cleaning service, I go on about how ducks are waterfowl, are inherently clean, and how dare they imply my ducks are dirty.
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
Sorry, it was a joke referencing idiots who think Bad Bunny shouldn’t play the Americans-Only Super Bowl Halftime Show because he is not an American, despite being born in a US territory.
TIL Bad Bunny is from Puerto Rico and was going to play the halftime show and that there’s been controversy over that. Also just found out that the solution to the controversy is apparently to add an additional concert by Sting, who is English, soo…
(Checks picture) Looks old and white, so all good!
Yes, it was total mierde.
Ouch that’s gonna cost you like the Seinfeld PR Day parade episode.