Biased article. I'm going to choose to believe one of the foremost innovators of our time over someone who had a vested interest in manufacturing a story. It sounds to me like the Model S merely requires a semblance of human intelligence to drive, which is not remotely surprising. Here is a reddit AMA by a Tesla owner which is a lot more objective than the so-called journalism in the article above. \\ All that said, you're right that Musk needs to bury this story. Best way to do that is to offer a whole bunch more test drives to other newspapermen, bloggers, and everything in between.
I just looked at the post and realized that I had not "quoted" the text I provided. That was directly from the article, I hadn't written it to be clear. I would tend to agree with Musk on this too. The guy seems far too savvy to "pick a fight" when he doesn't know for certain he is in the right. There is a guy a few houses down that just got a model "S". It arrived on a large truck carrying it directly to his home. I don't know the guy, but now I want to introduce myself just so I can check out his ride :)
Oh, those quotes makes some difference. It does seem odd to me that he is "reticent" to release full details; why'd he pick the fight? He knew it would come to that eventually. The Times isn't just going to publish a full retraction without a lot of back-and-forth.