It's literally about EV range loss in the winter. The journalist put Tesla's advertising to the test and took a drive up the east coast. Experienced massive range loss and had to sacrifice speed and heating. Was not instructed to plug in overnight. When he woke up he was dangerously low and only trickle charging was available at his destination in the country, which couldn't help him.

Musk tried to do damage control by attacking his reputation. For example he claimed "the data showed" the NYT journalist circled one of the charger stops to run down the battery on purpose to make a juicier story. People ate it up. But turns out he just had a little trouble finding the charger in the dark.