That quoted sentence includes the interesting phrase "Tesla's spokeswoman at the time," seemingly implying that the company has a new spokesperson in just the last few days. Who speaks for the company to the press now? It appears that Christina Ra used to work for Honda
http://automobiles.honda.com/2012/cr-z/blog.aspx?Author=5
and LinkedIn suggests she works for both Tesla and SpaceX
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinara
with the title "senior manager, communications" for Tesla.
"I spoke at some length with Mr. Straubel and Ms. Ra six days after the trip, and asked for the data they had collected from my drive, to compare against my notes and recollections. Mr. Straubel said they were able to monitor “certain things” remotely and that the company could store and retrieve 'typical diagnostic information on the powertrain.'
"Mr. Straubel said Tesla did not store data on exact locations where their cars were driven because of privacy concerns, although Tesla seemed to know that I had driven six-tenths of a mile 'in a tiny 100-space parking lot.'"
So just what is the spatial resolution of the data stored by Tesla? Who can speak for the company on that exact issue, for the record?
I'm amazed, by the way, that commenters here and elsewhere claim that something is easy to see because it can be seen in a Google aerial photo in broad daylight in the summer, when the actual visibility issue is seeing the same thing from a car, while driving, at night in winter. I know lots of drivers who can drive right past things without seeing them, even while looking for those things, if they are driving in an unfamiliar location at night.
AFTER EDIT: Thanks for the several interesting comments in reply to this comment. I'll use my edit window to dump in some links from earlier threads on HN. There was an extensive, and on the whole rather favorable, review of the Model S from The Verge
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/12/3969260/going-the-distance...
submitted to HN while most participants were discussing the John Broder New York Times review. (Most participants missed the discussion on the article from The Verge, which is too bad, as the article has interesting photographs of the car and a lot of thoughtful commentary about its trade-offs as a vehicle for regular use.)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5208154
The author of the report in The Verge takes care to mention, "Tesla hopes for its first quarter of black ink this year after a decade of operation, but make no mistake, it’s still in the throes of startupdom. Much of its working capital has come from nearly half a billion dollars in low-interest rate government loans. It has just a few dozen dealers around the world."
ONE MORE EDIT: Reasonable taxpayer and consumer minds can differ, and the differing opinions are widely expressed here on HN, but on the issue of the data-logging, I trust Tesla LESS after the back-and-forth about how Tesla thinks the reporter drove than I did before I saw Tesla's response. Tesla has HUGE taxpayer subsidies keeping its business afloat. Its response to questions about its technology's actual usefulness seems to be to go into attack mode whenever a reporter raises questions about the Tesla driving experience after driving a Tesla car. That doesn't make me think I want to drive a Tesla car. If the cars are really great for driving in places that have snow in winter, word of mouth should be able to tell that story, without any corporate P.R. spin. I note that there are many other news stories out right now, some of which have already been submitted to HN or mentioned in comments, in which onlookers express their opinion that Elon Musk has come out of this looking defensive. The product seems to be lacking in basic features I would need where I live, namely reliable estimates of remaining driving distance in winter, and that seems to speak for itself.