Slashdot Mirror
Tesla Sues BBC's Top Gear For Libel
thecarchik writes "About two years ago BBC's Top Gear aired a test drive of the then relatively new Tesla Roadster. In the particular episode, Tesla Roadsters are depicted as suffering several critical 'breakdowns' during track driving. Host Jeremy Clarkson concludes the episode by saying that in the real world the Roadster 'doesn't seem to work.' Tesla claims that the breakdowns were staged, making most of Top Gear's remarks about the Roadster untrue. Tesla also states that it can prove Top Gear's tests were falsified due to the recordings of its cars' onboard data-loggers. What's Tesla asking for in the lawsuit? Tesla simply wants Top Gear to stop rebroadcasting the particular episode and to correct the record."
This may or may not be an uphill battle for them.
Under track conditions (with one of those jackasses pushing the pedal to the floor), yeah, the mileage on the Tesla is probably going to be atrocious.
As for the rest, not sure who exactly takes Top Gear seriously. It's a fun show, but I don't really look at it for good car facts. Nor should anyone else.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Between all the quadrillion-dollars-demanded-lawsuits and shut-down-everything C&Ds, it's nice to see a lawsuit that simply wants a little justice. No big demands, just a "stop lying about our product" and "say sorry". It even looks like they have a good amount of evidence, unlike many recent suits on /.
Even if they turn out to be wrong, Tesla just got a small point of favor with me for that. It's kind of sad that "not being evil" is noteworthy in a lawsuit nowadays...
Tesla simply wants Top Gear to stop rebroadcasting the particular episode and to correct the record ...and pay them £100,000 in damages
Fixed that for you!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/30/tesla-sue-top-gear
and that his sweat can be used to clean precious metals... all we know is, he's called the Stig.
Top Gear is entertainment. You don't generally watch Top Gear for information, as the vast majority of cars that get time on there are well beyond what >99% of drivers can ever reasonably expect to purchase in their lifetime. Rather, you watch Top Gear because it is entertaining. You can see them driving cars you will likely never get to drive, often in ways that you would never get to drive them.
That said, Tesla recently entered some kind of agreement with Toyota, IIRC. Being as Toyota is known to be a company with no personality - or at the very least a company who makes cars with no personality - it is no surprise that now Tesla has no sense of humor or entertainment.
Thankfully Tesla doesn't have much to loose on the matter, since there is almost no overlap between Top Gear viewers and potential Tesla customers. For that matter, there is also almost no overlap between slashdot readers and potential Tesla customers, either.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I think Tesla should drive over and deliver the lawsuit to Top Gear in person. Or perhaps they have tried already.....
Is there anyone on the planet that hasn't realised that Top Gear (UK) is just for entertainment purposes and not a serious car review. They come up with so much crap that the show is more in the realm of fiction than reality.
Tesla probably doesn't want to go that route, because truth is an absolute defense against libel (except in Massachusetts).
And the Roadster wasn't shown having technical problems, it was shown running out of power. They were using the thing on the track and running it at high speed. It ran out of power part way through.
And then they realized it would take 18 hours to recharge. So instead they switched to the other car to test that.
And it ran out of power fairly shortly afterwards.
They estimated that on the track it got something like 50 miles to a charge. They never argued about its performance in the hands of a hyper-miler, only that the Tesla Roadster's 200 mile range was something that no one would ever be able to obtain on the track, when driving it like one would, say, a roadster.
The whole thing about the car not working in the real world is about that 18 hour charge time for a measly 50 miles on the track. Which is, frankly, pathetic.
So while Tesla might be able to argue that driven conservatively on city streets they get a better range, that has absolutely nothing to do with comparing it other, well, roadsters.
It irritated me at the time.. they made the thing seem like a poorly-designed money sink that barely worked. It really makes me wonder, though, what would they get out of saying stuff like that if it weren't true? If Tesla has the records and they really did stage breakdowns and dead batteries, to what purpose? It's a show about ridiculously expensive cars that most of us ill never even see, much less drive. Tesla is definitely in that category, and considering the drooling they do over some pretty ridiculous (and ugly) cars.. why pick on them? They made plausible claims, mostly, but the one where they ran out of power after 55 miles I thought was weird. The others (overheating, brakes) could have happened, but there seemed to be a LOT of problems for what is basically a straight-from-the-factory Lotus with an electric drivetrain. (In the show they raced it against a Lotus, you can barely tell the cars apart without looking at the badges).
Anyway, just makes me wonder if they made it seem like crap (assuming Tesla is telling the truth) in order to appease the old-school dream car companies so they'd keep sending them toys to play with, or maybe Tesla was being a pain in the ass and they wanted to tweak them, or if they just thought it's be funnier.
Evil will always win, because Good is DUMB
don't they get it? Clarkson is going to lambast them now, anyone who has ever complained to that show has been ridiculed for months
Jeremy Clarkson was testing the Tesla roadster and did mention the problem with the short range and long recharge cycles.
What Tesla failed to "get" is that Jeremy was testing the car and commenting on what would happen to someone who bought one. Not two. It really doesn't matter if on that day at that track Top Gear had two cars and could play with one while the other recharged. The problem is that I/you/us probably wouldn't buy two of those and we would get stuck waiting for the damn car to recharge.
That's all. BBC is right to defend itself.
Also, since this is the net picked up the story, two things are guaranteed:
1. Top Gear ratings (this episode in particular, but the show in general) will go way up.
2. Streisand effect will work against Tesla big time.
How old are you? 14? Can't you come up with anything new? You must be around 14 because that about the only age range that is still amused by Tub Girl.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfHyGD7_pM
Staged? Top Gear always stages things. How else could they compare a Ferrari to a bicycle or a jet plane to a car. It's entertainment, folks. If Tesla thinks that Top Gear unfairly cost them sales then they are just plain stupid.
I watched that episode. IMO they showed the strengths and weaknesses of the car. The idiot, Clarkson, claiming that 55 miles of pedal-to-the-metal driving is "real world" is no more ludicrous than Tesla claiming that their roadster is a competitive sports car.
That Tesla CEO douchebag should just take his lumps and go racing if he thinks he thinks he has the car for it.
This isn't the first group that has gotten upset at Top Gear. They have a pretty long list. The BBC goes to bat for them almost without fail, not surprising since the show has an estimated viewing audience of 350 million worldwide.
It also should be noted that in the episode in question, they also feature a test drive of the Honda FCX Clarity, Honda's hydrogen powered car. And they liked it a lot.
Electric cars just plain suck. They are to expensive and impractical.
It is clear from the episode that they were highlighting the issue of charging. 16 hours from a wall socket and a 200 mile range. As noted, it would take days to go from one end of the country to another.
It is a fact therefore, that the car does not really work in any practical sense.
It could only be corrected, by having pre-charged battery packs at every filling station along the route. That would make it just as, or more, expensive than petrol.
The idiot, Clarkson, claiming that 55 miles of pedal-to-the-metal driving is "real world" is no more ludicrous than Tesla claiming that their roadster is a competitive sports car.
Fairly sure clarkson never claimed that, he did claim (correctly) that a real world problem is that it would take days (given 16hour charge time and ~200 mile range) to cross the country.
Tesla is about to learn a very hard lesson about Top Gear. Just from a clout standpoint...they've got to *think* real hard about this move. Top Gear has more clout in the auto industry than anything short of gasoline. Bugatti/Audi/VW/etc let all three hosts drive the Veyron and even Captain Slow took the thing to 250+ mph on a $2millionUSD(to buy)/$5millionUSD(to build, they take a huge loss) car. You don't do that with people-with-no-influence, no matter how good their insurers are. Top Gear also regularly rakes much bigger auto manufacturers over the coals when they don't play by Clarkson's rules.
In a recent episode, Bentley (iirc) refused to lend a car for a road test segment Top Gear did in Albania. In it's place they bought a dirt old Yugo for probably on the low side of $500 and proceeded to call it a Bentley for the rest of the segment, piling on withering criticism the entire time. Chrysler refused to provide a test vehicle for a trip to Bonneville, so Top Gear just went and *bought one* (charger)....and proceeded to make fun of Dodge the rest of the show.
Tesla is about to find out what it's like to be the heckler in a club with a good comedian. Think Ru Paul v. Milton Berle. Are they gonna get high fives from their buddies or is Don Rickles about to tear this company a new asshole?
This is one of my favorite shows of all time, and I think that is partly because of the idiotic and insensitive nature of the hosts. It is entertaining because they are not afraid to make fun of each other or anyone else on the show; and they certainly never hesitate to point out their own perceived shortcomings of certain vehicles. Without being able to do this freely, the show would certainly be far less amusing.
Yeap I'm betting they do one of there epic races from the south of Italy to the north of England against the Tesla to show how long it would take everytime they have to beg for electricity when the battery dies.
I hate how Top Gear is so against ANY electric or hybrid car. Yes, some hybrid and electric cars are weak, but that doesn't mean they all are. Good hybrid cars are often better then their gas counterparts in turns of performance. And if you've ever seen a Tesla, it's a kick-ass car!
Yeah, tubgirl is not even shocking anymore. These need to be renewed. They are merely "meh images" now.
So here's what clarkson had to say at the time. From the times online:
Phone calls were made. Editorial policy wallahs were consulted. Experts were called in. No “i” was left undotted. No “t” was left uncrossed. No stone remained unturned in our quest for truth and decency.
Tesla could not complain about what was shown because it was there. And here’s the strange thing. It didn’t. But someone did. Loudly and to every newspaper in the world.
..
This was weird. Tesla, when contacted by reporters, gave its account of what happened and it was exactly the same as ours. It explained that the brakes had stopped working because of a blown fuse and didn’t question at all our claim that the car would have run out of electricity after 55 miles.
You would figure that if these claims were so outrageous, tesla would have contradicted them at the time.
top gear is worthless anyway ... they just advertise for whoever pays them the most ... or in this case advertise against alternative fuel cars because someone with interests in petroleum paid em to. that show is nothing but a glorified op-ad
All spammers are Vietnamese, now? Wtf?
The subject pretty much sums it up.
Except Top Gear is entertaining, at least the Brit version. The US version is more like Jackass, i.e. a bunch of annoying shit-kickers. And yes even the Tanner seems to have turned into a shit-kicker; I guess it was the time he spent as a stunt driver on the Dukes of Hazard.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I don't know what they are, but I swear that of all the things on the net that I will *never* come to tolerate it's spammers. I wish merciless cancer and white-hot AIDS upon all their families. That, or 80s slasher film style hatchet murders. Your pick.
Being politically incorrect and making fun of things they don't like regardless of established fact is part of what makes the show a success.
For those who have seen it: the "Cool Wall" : decisions are sometimes made as to where a car goes simply because Clarkson is taller than Hammond and Hammond can't take one down.
This is childish and often hilarious stuff here. And that is part of what makes it successful.
As for Tesla: you make yourselves look far worse pursuing this lawsuit than Top Gear did lampooning your car, first off.
If you lose you will look even worse!
And you may:
If a brake fuse blew and caused a brake issue- yup, that right there counts as broken brakes, does it not?
My car gets about 22mpg average. On a track day I can expect 8mpg or less.
14x22=308
14x8= 112
That sorta makes the fuel/electric consumption look realistic for a hard used track day, does it not?
So let's see here:
*Tesla is suing a company that is unlikely to settle or retract their statements for an amount of money likely to be less than the cost of legal action and even IF they win and force retractions will guarantee that they are made fun of at every opportunity by the entertainment show concerned. (Another show where Bentley was supposed to supply a car and did not- a Yugo was driven instead but referred to as a Bentley for the entire episode.)
*The show concerned is an entertainment show that expresses the hosts opinions of cars and many other aspects of life, and occasionally purports to be stating facts.
*At least some of the claims made by the show would appear to have some basis in reality although it is easy to believe many or all were magnified. It is possible that some false claims were made on this entertainment program and mis-represented as fact.
Seems to me that Tesla would be better off re-thinking the lawsuit....
Linux computers, watercooled, photography
So... Tesla waited 2 years before doing this when it could have set the record straight the moment it happened?
From:
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=13250247
"When the White House announced the federal government would loan $465 million to Tesla, a California start-up company with plans to develop an all-electric sedan, President Obama called it an "historic opportunity to ensure that the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks are made in America."
The loan also represented a lucrative opportunity for Steve Westly, a major investor in the car company who had raised more than $500,000 for the president's campaign."
I don't know if there's more to the article as the "Next" link seems broken at the moment. Is the story about the Tesla/BBC suit coming out now in order to bury this story? I'm not a conservative, Republican, conspiracy theorist or someone with an agenda against Obama but this seems very coincidental...
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
My recollection of the show is that the Tesla is OK-ish but not earth shattering or ground breaking. The lap time wasn't bad but certainly not impressive which is most likely affected by the weight of the batteries. In the same episode the Honda FCX Clarity is featured which has a fuel cell and behaves exactly like you'd expect from a Honda sedan. This impression is probably what most viewer remember.
Tesla were probably thinking that being featured on Top Gear would have resulted in a free commercial. Very naive. And suing after more than two years after the first broadcast won't do them any favours. The Streisand effect will be limited by their sort-of reasonable demands but they show themselves as a bunch of sorry sulking kids.
As said many times before, Top Gear is a show and not a car review programme.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
By total coincidence I was watching that episode of TG on Netflix when I can across this post. I thought the overall impression was fairly positive for Tesla. They kept emphasizing how great the car was to drive (especially as opposed to other electrics). Since the show is so oriented towards track performance, this seemed like high praise in the forum. It just looked like an early model had a few problems and that they once again proved that driving hard reduces efficiency. Tesla would have faired better in the public opinion battle by just moving on and claiming improved reliability over time. Now they just look a bit petulant.
Anyway I doubt that anyone who was going to shell out for one of these has been disuaded by the show anymore than Piganni lost sales when one of their Zondas broke just before a track run with the Stig.
The small amount of money raised (not given) by that donor pales in comparison to the massive amounts of bribes that oil companies donate to politicians of both parties.
That story is worth noting, but considering that the Supreme Court just legalized unlimited bribery from corporations directly to politicians it really has no comparison to the real corruption that plagues our government.
Most of the highly rated comments are assuming that all Tesla's claims are true.
Having just watched the segment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfHyGD7_pM
The review starts off really quite positive.
Tesla claims that Top Gear misrepresented the company along these following points:
1. The Roadster ran out of charge and had to be pushed into the Top Gear hangar by four men.
4:56 - Top gear doesn't actually state that they ever ran out of battery. They simulated it ("and if it does run out") as an illustration that driving the car as marketed (As a sports car) gives you a much smaller range than the quoted figure. They could have done it for real by driving it around the track for hour, but what does this gain exactly?
2. The Roadster’s true range is only 55 miles per charge (not 211).
This is a blatantly false claim by Tesla. Jeremy stated that they worked out that the range "around their track" is 55 miles, while also mentioning the 211 mile claimed range by Tesla. When he later calculated the time to drive to Scotland, with the 16 hour recharge rate from a normal electrical socket, it was obvious he was using the 211 mile figure. (It's a trip of @700 miles)
3. One Roadster’s motor overheated and was completely immobilized as a result.
The motor did overheat (6:48), but Jeremy stated that he had "reduced power", not "no power". There was video showing that the car was continuing at a reduced speed, followed by a shot of the car parked forlornly on the track, but I seriously doubt this is sufficient for a libel suit.
4. The other Roadster’s brakes were broken, rendering the car undriveable.
If I remember correctly there _was_ a problem with the brakes at the test track. Something to do with a fuse on the regenerative braking system. Top Gear never stated that car was undriveable, only that they couldn't use it (It either was suitable for track work/filming, or Tesla were attempting to fix the issue). This appears to be a strawman argument.
5. That neither of the two Roadsters provided to Top Gear was available for test driving due to these problems.
This is a nice case of weasel words. This doesn't say that neither car had troubles, only that both cars didn't have troubles _at the same time_.
Additionally I'll also note that this lawsuit is a change of tune from their previous comments, where a PR person spoke to the press immediately after the review:
"She said the company would not be pursuing the matter with the BBC. "We would love to have them drive it again whenever they want.""
"But she said she was generally happy with the overall tone of the review. "I thought it was a positive piece for Tesla by Top Gear standards. I personally like the show – it savages cars in a very entertaining way.
"My concern was with American viewers who were tuning in for the first time and might not understand the whole angle of the show. We wanted to make clear that range was not a concern over the entire time of the [Top Gear] test.""
More info:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/24/jeremy-clarkson-top-gear-tesla-electric-car
http://jalopnik.com/#!5118465/clarkson-ignores-bbcs-carefully-worded-response-responds-to-tesla-on-his-own
http://jalopnik.com/#!5112828/tesla-issues-response-to-top-gear-review
This smells like a marketing exercise.
"In one instance, Clarkson states that Roadster would only be able to drive for around 55 miles on the Top Gear track, far short of the claimed 211 miles."
If Clarkson really said "would only be able to drive" it sounds to me like he is estimating based on shorter runs around track.
"Tesla points out that its test cars on the day never ran out of battery power as simulated on the show, and that its Roadster has been certified under UN ECE R101, the EU regulation for measuring electric vehicle range, at 211 miles."
None of Tesla's claims is contradictory to Clarkson's statement. Clarkson's claims are about driving on a Top Gear track and Tesla talking about driving according to ECE R101 standards.
This is pure publicity stunt to make it clear to the general public that Top Gear test and conclusion are extraordinary. I bet they will settle out of court for "unspecified amount".
It costs too much for most people, and it does have a short range and it takes
a hell of a lot longer to "refuel" than is acceptable for anything other than a short
daily commute.
Some of you Slashdot people are entranced with Tesla because you love technology for
technology's sake. When you increase your knowledge of the real world you will learn that things which might not seem
as "cool" but which actually WORK are superior to things which seem cool but aren't actually suited to use in the real world.
They say both cars broke down in the end: http://www.spike.com/video-clips/c3neux/top-gear-reviews-the-tesla-roadster
Am I the only one reading this and remembering Quiz Show? Exact same sort of thing (imo).
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
They got a rather positive review, as far as Top Gear reviews go. They didn't go to the show room undercover to buy a car, only to demolish it outside of the show room the minute they picked it up. They didn't substitute it with a 20 year old clunker because Tesla refused to give them one for testing and still rate the clunker as it. Every manufacturer knows that Top Gear reviews are never ever fair, balanced or can be bought. Top Gear is never ever serious about it's reviews since the "new" Top Gear. Give your car to Top Gear and they'll make fun of it and trash every aspect about it they can find something negative about.
By the way, no brakes when a fuse blows? I wonder how they got road approval with that? If Toyota did that, they'd be in a lot more trouble than they are now.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
You are a lot more offensive than any spam ever spammed in the history of spamming. God, why am I talking to a fukcing troll?
Top Gear is for cars, what Slashdot is for tech.
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
it's already 2 years since that episode aired, why they waited 2 years to file a lawsuit?
looking for a job
You should actually watch the review instead of just making stuff up (I can't believe you can get modded informative when you say "It's been a while since I've seen the episode" while the review in question is actually linked to the article. Why not just watch the review, it takes 10 minutes! and you will actually know what you are talking about). They were given two cars, and the point they were making was about the amount of time it takes to charge the cars, and how that made then essentially unusable for long road trips (they suggest that for normal driving you should buy two so you can use one while the other is charging). This is a real concern, and it is not misrepresented. While a normal car takes a couple minutes to fill, the Tesla takes hours. And they did say "We've worked out that it would only get 55 miles in our track driving" they never claimed it actually ran out of charge during testing (which is what tesla is disputing). They showed a simulation of it running out of charge, but they could have easily just run it down! Who would say that they couldn't? That's not the point they were making. The visuals are for dramatic effect. Complaining that it didn't actually run out during testing is just nit-picking. Everyone knows that if you drive a car far enough, it will run out of energy.
As for whether or not the breaks actually broke, or the engine actually overheated, Tesla doesn't seem to be disputing that as far as I can tell.
Clarkson is an ass and Tesla is a tax farm. Scroom, both.
However, the dignified party in this particular action is Tesla. Clarkson, being an ass and a blowhard, cannot possibly be dignified.
They say the cars didn't break down. Take note: cars. Top Gear claimed on-air that not only did both require recharging (Tesla also says neither ran out of charge), but that they both broke down. Tesla says that's a fabrication.
One car's motor overheated and basically shut down, "reduced power" was what Clarkson said when it happened. The other car's brakes failed.
Those are failures, regardless if they were temporary or not.
The problem is, Top Gear tests cars as though they are going to be driven on "track days" which are basically amateur racing where the cars are pushed hard for a long time - totally unlike the real-world road driving most people do. Most mass-market cars would suffer brake failures or other problems when used this way.
Frankly, given that Top Gear tests cars on their track the way they do, the review was pretty balanced. They showed that although the Tesla didn't handle quite as well as the Lotus that it's based on, it could out-accelerate the Lotus on the straights.
On almost every episode of Top Gear there is a multi-hundred-thousand dollar (up to millions of dollars) car sliding around the test track, being pushed to its limits in ways that no street driven car would be. The Tesla, like many cars, isn't built to take it. Would you be upset if your $2,000,000 Bugatti suffered the same problems? Yes. Would you even be surprised if a $20,000 Honda's engine overheated or brakes failed when driven that way for an extended time? No. The issue is that the "real world" Clarkson was talking about was on their track, not on public roads.
The Tesla is built to be a sporty car, but not a race car. There are some cars that can take abuse all day long and do just fine, and some that can't. There's nothing wrong with that. When I owned a Porsche I was able to drive the car very hard all day long and then drive it home as though nothing had happened. My V8 Camaro could beat the Porsche in a drag race (wouldn't come close on a corner though) but it would have ended up ruined given a day of the same treatment the Porsche took.
Top Gear has also driven a Prius around their track as fast as possible, with a V8 BMW M3 following it to prove that hybrids aren't the end-all of fuel economy (the BMW got far better gas mileage because the Prius was never designed to be driven on a track). The same type of driving is a recipe for using up 100% of an electric car's charge pretty quickly, and given that type of usage, the comments about recharge time are valid. But, if you just want to drive sedately to work and back, the Prius is going to get much better gas mileage than the M3.
Sending a "performance" car to Top Gear that isn't designed for the rigors of track use is guaranteed to result in a bad review. It's not like they're doing bland consumer reviews of family cars like PBS' Motor Week.
Sometime the Tesla guys should watch the review of the Bentley where one of the rear tires explodes, and think themselves lucky. Heck, the seats in one Mercedes-Benz (an AMG Black model) were compared unfavorably to a pile of rocks. You don't see M-B complaining.
Putting moderation advice in your
There were a few misleading claims. There were a few damaging claims.
I suspect Top Gear's defence will be that the misleading claims weren't damaging and the damaging claims weren't misleading.
It didn't run out of power on the track. Misleading. But damaging? It would have done.
The breakdowns were staged. However, these were breakdowns that actually happened. Once again not damaging.
Will only manage 55 miles. Potentially damaging, But since it's actually true, not misleading.
Honestly, a to of this seems pretty weasely from Tesla. They claim it will manage 211 miles in a verified test. That's fair enough. You don't buy a Tesla as a commuter car though. You'll probably want to go to a track day or two. There may well have always been a car available but there was only one available for a lot of the time and they didn't have one available with good charge at all times.
Honestly, how people's bullshit detectors didn't go off with this show from day one I'll never understand. Now this show has ascended the ranks of the virtueless as a scripted pile of deceitful posers, to their official seat among the evil people. Falsifying the failures of the Tesla Roadster!? For dramatic effect or politics? Who cares! It’s equally depraved and boring TV. What's clear is that the show's vehicular criticism is unreliable - because it is a STAGED FICTION that fools people into believing they're getting honest discourse. Yes. It makes people into fools! Why have I chosen to rail against Top-Gear and not The Bachelor? But I haven't! My points and opinions are actually baseless musings, merely presented to you in an informative journalistic style for entertainment value.
November 2009 : Telsa Roadster drives 501Km (311miles), World Record for an EV.
55miles is absolute horseshit.
http://www.impress.com.au/press-releases-mainmenu-1/internode-mainmenu-48/737-hackett-smashes-ev-world-distance-record-with-tesla.html
Honestly, how people's bullshit detectors didn't go off with this show from day one I'll never understand. Now this show has ascended the ranks of the virtueless as a scripted pile of deceitful posers, to their official seat among the evil people. Falsifying the failures of the Tesla Roadster!? For dramatic effect or politics? Who cares! It’s equally depraved and boring TV. What's clear is that the show's vehicular criticism is unreliable - because it is a STAGED FICTION that fools people into believing they're getting honest discourse. Yes. It makes people into fools! Why have I chosen to rail against Top-Gear and not The Bachelor? But I haven't! My points and opinions are actually baseless musings, merely presented to you in an informative journalistic style for entertainment value.
> When he later calculated the time to drive to Scotland, with the 16 hour recharge rate from a normal electrical socket, it was obvious he was using the 211 mile figure. (It's a trip of @700 miles)
Don't be daft. The whole island of Britain is only ~500 miles long. London to Edinburgh is 330 miles. Edinburgh to manchester is only 200 odd miles. The Tesla could make it on 1 charge.
Remember that the distance from England to Scotland, seeing as they share a land border, is 0 (zero) miles. More's the pity.
...they also dubbed in a sample of a turbine shutting down during the the sequence where the power "runs out". If that isn't enough to suggest that the viewer is being misled, then what is?
Given the fact that BP sponsors the "Top Gear Festival", I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume ties between Top Gear and BP. Call me cynical, but Top Gear's BP buddies wouldn't exactly be happy with a glowing review of an electric car...
...lots of jokes at Tesla's expense.
And... on that bombshell...
Both are as factual as The Onion, and as unbiased as the Daily Mail.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
And add to that the fact that unless they are total morons, they had to have watched Top Gear and thus be aware they are goof balls. I mean these are the people that did a beach assault with the Royal Marines using a sedan.They do silly things with cars, they rip on shit that doesn't matter at all to normal people. Also any sort of performance car tends to get reviewed by Clarkson who (at least on camera) is a complete speed freak and doesn't like any car that can't go 200mph+.
If they didn't expect a review like this, they either didn't do due diligence in checking out the show, or were idiots. If they didn't want a review like this, they shouldn't have submitted it to Top Gear.
The whole reason I (and plenty of others) watch Top Gear is how silly it is. I don't want to see a factual review on a super car I will never own. I want to see Clarkson tear ass around their track, spin out, and complain about trivialities. It is fun to watch.
I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter
Er, try again.
London - Edinburgh is 400 miles.
Dover - Wick (ie. going straight up the country) is 750 miles.
If you want to go 'end to end' (which maybe doesn't qualify for how long the country is, but is still a single road journey) it's 840 miles. Whichever way you look at it, the whole island of Britain is somewhat more than 'only ~500 miles long'.
-Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience-
It's about time someone took those guys down a notch. The scenarios are so contrived that the draw such huge conclusions off of the smallest unimportant decisions. Then they claim that certain cars are crap because they don't compare to those 3x their price. It pisses me off how much they do for the entertainment value rather than trying to actually fairly depict the car they are testing. There certainly are plenty of defamatory statements that get made all of the time on the show.
Maybe they really just didn't drive it around so much, and since they wanted to get a shot of the car running out of batteries, they staged it.
They've staged quite a few more things on that show. Cars spontaneously catching fire. Piano falling from the sky. James supposedly died in Albania (was back the next show). Hey, they just do that. We know it.
Did you guys think that all the contests they showed were really such a close finish every bloody time? Wake up.
I think Tesla makes a mistake with this lawsuit. I do not believe that Top Gear plainly lied about the car. But they more than likely staged some things. They might say sorry publicly, but they'll do it in such a way that they make Tesla look silly. They have a habit of making fun of America anyway... and to get sued - a lawsuit is quite an American habit actually. I think it'll backfire.
Well, I think complaining about mileage for an electric car, but not for gasoline cars _on a track_ is stupid, because it's unfairly complaining about a car not having a never-ending supply of fuel in one type, and not the other.
If you really want that to be the complaint, please for every car you put on the track, measure the mileage you get on the track, let's see how many yards you get from a zonda or bugatti.
The complaint is that it takes a long time for the battery to recharge, just framed stupidly to ask the question again.
If Tesla is sure that they have a good car that can go 211 miles per charge, I'd throw up a challenge to Top Gear, Make the challenge be that they use the car as their normal car for a week, see how it goes.
the problem will still be slow recharge time, like everyone knows, but it would be interesting whether the capacity of the cars is enough for their day-to-day driving or not.
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1. The Roadster ran out of charge and had to be pushed into the Top Gear hangar by four men.
4:56 - Top gear doesn't actually state that they ever ran out of battery. They simulated it ("and if it does run out") as an illustration that driving the car as marketed (As a sports car) gives you a much smaller range than the quoted figure. They could have done it for real by driving it around the track for hour, but what does this gain exactly?
Credibility. Proof. Ultimate defense against a libel suit.
So 2 years after the show aired they suddenly have evidence in the form of on-board computer records? Records that anyone here on slashdot could easily forge not to mention the programmers at tesla. The idea that they have a an electric car that has a massively larger range than any other electric in the world is implausible enough, but the fact that its a sports car should be the nail in the coffin. Anyone that's ever raced electric RC cars knows that acceleration is the bane of battery life.
With what I know of batteries and electric motors, my guess is they are both correct. Teslas purported range is probably taken from doing 25mph (or less) on a closed track with no stops. I saw the top gear episode and there's no doubt that they hammered that car just like they do every other car they put on their track. If tesla really wants to argue their point they should ask a simple question... what was the range/fuel economy of the lotus while they were pounding it just as hard? Those super cars usually get as low as 1 or 2 miles per gallon while their being raced... and they have a 20 or 30 gallon tank on them at most? So it's likely it had even LESS range than the electric under the same conditions.
55 miles ROUND A TRACK /= 311 miles driven to get as much range as possible.
idiot.
Suing just for the publicity, as the website name 'teslavstopgear' clearly points out. Might as well go all in and have Judge Judy officiate.
I'm kind of confused, why is everybody talking as if Tesla had been proved right in any way? They've made a claim in a lawsuit. They haven't proved it, or even given any real information about it.
Top Gear's claim about range specifically states that they calculated the range on the track to be 55. They didn't state the method of calculation. Did they drive it until the gauge read half full and double it? Then if their calculation is incorrect, then Tesla's gauge is incorrect, not their calculation. Unless there's proof that you can flog a Tesla on a track and get significantly more mileage out of it, then Top Gear's claim is valid and correct. Note that Tesla does not give a fuel economy estimate for driving their sports car agressively on a track, just that driving carefully can increase the range by 50%. I know I've driven my car carefully on the highway and gotten 28MPG, but on a track I get a little less than 4MPG.
This doesn't require a lawsuit. It requires an independent race car driver, one Tesla, a track, and a video camera. They've had two years. If they haven't done this, then their claim is BS.
There doesn't seem to be any dispute that the brakes stopped working on one and the engine overheated in the other. Claiming the engine overheating is not a breakdown is ludicrous, if the car stops running on it's own (or slows down enough that it's obviously having a problem), it's a breakdown, even if the solution is just to let it cool down. It would definitely count on a gasoline car, why anyone would think it doesn't on an electric is beyond me.
As far as the car being shown to coast to a stop on the track, unless they specifically pointed out each one as a breakdown, there's nothing libelous about it.
They are entirely accurate in their claim that it doesn't work in the real world. If it did, why did Tesla feel the need to give them two so one could charge while the other was running? Is there any other real world car that you'd need two of for a day's driving?
This sentence no verb.
Holy Cr@p! Did no one think this through? Fuses pop all the time! I assume when they say fail they mean "not work as well" but still.
kdawson is Hammond
CowboyNeal is Clarkson?
This is purely a marketing play. Tesla want to get their product into everyone's heads again, and what better way than piggyback onto Top Gear - an instant 350 million readership. Anyone with half a brain knows that nothing that Top Gear showed was provably libellous or even cast the Tesla in a particularly bad light, and by launching this lawsuit they get to remind their potential customers that they exist, and an opportunity to show how much the car has improved over the past 2 years. The great news for Tesla is that because of Top Gear's edginess, there is enough to launch a lawsuit and that forces the BBC to either apologise (which is win) or defend (which keeps them in the news which is also a win).
Ferrari: The test was staged, the car could not have broken down because our data loggers show the tank was never empty.
Fandroids hate facts.
Unfortunately Top Gear is not only very popular , but also still believed to have elements of factual content by many people. So naturally anything that trashes their car on the show is going to adversely affect Tesla's reputation and sales.
Personally I think they have a sound case for this legal action. Top Gear faked events and then presented them as fact. Claiming afterwards that they were simulations of what might happen is total BS. Any other car they test might spin off the track and kill Clarkson in a fossil-fuel fed explosion. But you don't see them simulating that.
I can't even count how many other cars have been verbally ripped to shreds by Clarkson. Everyone knows that his reviews are supposed to be funny, so I'm not sure why anyone would take them seriously. I've always wondered how they've stayed out of legal hot water with regard to not getting sued by manufacturers whose cars get poor reviews. I always assumed that the BBC ran the episode by them before airing it to get their blessing, but I guess that's not the case. At any rate, Top Gear is some damn fine television, in particular Clarkson's over the top sarcasm is wonderful. Without it, I'm not sure they'd have a watchable show. The cars are just supporting characters IMHO.
Going by what Jeremy Clarkson says (the reviewer who did the Tesla piece, for those that don't know), I'd think every car manufacturer would have claims against Top Gear. Most BMW's are described as rubbish. Audi's are for male-roosters. French cars are all crap. Porsche 911's were designed by Hitler, nor have they changed since 1938. Most American cars are dreadful. Ford Mustang's have the rear suspension of an ox cart (true, that...). The old Saab 9-5 had enough torque to change the rotation of the earth. And on, and on, and on. It's what Top Gear does. The Tesla Roadster wasn't singled out.
Top Gear is 20% car information and 80% entertainment. Jeremy's work in particular is overwrought with irony and sarcasm. That's the way he is, and I and many others love it.
The piece on Tesla did nothing more than point out the "range anxiety" problem. That shouldn't have been unexpected. The fact is, Top Gear presents cars in a way that many people (350 million or so?) find entertaining. IIRC, they did have a few positive things to say about the Tesla while it was working. The handling and acceleration was good. But they did point out that after a thrashing on the track, they ran out of juice after ~55 miles. And then just like the battery-powered R/C cars of my youth, you're stuck inside for the next X-hours while the thing charges back up. That is the #1 problem with electric cars, and Top Gear did nothing more than to play on that issue.
Bottom line, if Tesla had wanted a rainbows-and-unicorns review of the Roadster, they should have called MotorWeek.
It does not go out to scientifically evaluate the technical specifications of a vehicle, but merely to provide entertainment. The meta-narrative underlying this particular feature is as follows: "Environmentalists are all loonies, electric cars are crap and are a nasty foreign invention, petrol cars are much better, particularly British ones."
It's about conforming to people's pre-conceived ideas, rather than finding out the actual truth.
I found the article difficult to read. Can someone give me a computer analogy to help me understand it more clearly?
Edison's machine is a love song. I'm no Mama's fool. Call it what you want, the way it is you're caught in a dream.
Kriston
the Tesla is an American car. Top Gear has always made fun/trashed of American cars because of their poor handling, cheap quality, under-engineering, crappy mileage, etc.
I don't understand the summary at all!
Could someone please provide a simple car analogy?
So what's Jeremy really like in person?
Don't be an ugly jackass troll. Top Gear is crossing the line if they truly did sandbag the Roadster in review and publicly called it a POS. Your dislike or their car or Elon has nothing to do with TFA or Tesla's right, as a company, to not be slandered in a TV broadcast. Can somebody here please mod this jerk-off the troll that he is?
There was one episode where the Stig drove a Koenigsegg around the track. It was squirrely around the corners and actually veered off into a tire wall. They said that if there was a spoiler on it, it wouldn't have had that problem.
So did Koenigsegg sue? No. They know that Top Gear is 50% fun and 50% PR, so they took the car back to the shop, slapped a spoiler on it, and sent it back. How cool is that?
What Tesla should have done is say, "Thanks for giving our car a good thrashing. We're working on some modifications to improve track performance and we'll send you that car when it's ready." And then actually do so. That way, Clarkson has no choice to say, at the very worst, "Tesla may make eco-cars, but they're a hell of a lot of fun and I think they may be on to something..."
To answer the question posed by the subject line of your comment: Everyone is assuming that Tesla's claims are true because Tesla makes electric cars, which are a Good Thing (TM) and therefore to be lauded regardless of reality or any quest for truth. People believe what they believe and automatically support anything that looks like what they believe, making ad hominem attacks when they run out of points they thought were rational in favor of their positions. That's just human nature, no different in politics than it is when talking about cars.
Well... it is no secret that the British Top Gear tends to dislike American car companies and their products.
Going to Top Gear for accurate car information is like going to uncyclopedia to do an accurate thesis on Oscar Wilde.
I have to agree, at least to a large extent. Sure, Top Gear is an entertainment show -- not "Consumer Reports TV for vehicles". But what's so "invalid" about showing the Tesla only goes 55 miles on a charge, with pedal to the metal driving? That's one of the realities and weaknesses of electric cars that it's worth noting Tesla hasn't been able to overcome either.
It's probably telling that Tesla Motors isn't even attempting to sue for anything more than getting the episode pulled from television. I mean, if they've got such a strong case of this being inaccurate and damaging information, why not sue for monetary damages while they're at it? Surely the legal fees are somewhat substantial....
And in a more general, overall sense? I think Clarkson and co. are absolutely right in giving the Tesla roadster a hard time. What niche does the car really fill? It's not suitable for any real racing, because it's not comparable enough to the competition to even be allowed to enter it in many formal racing events. It's WAY too expensive and out of reach for the very audience who is concerned that high gas prices are hammering their pocketbook. It seems to be little more than a way for the uber-wealthy to buy yet another high dollar "exotic sports car" while trying to say they're "environmentally conscious" at the same time. I bet in any exhaustive analysis of the total environmental impact of owning such a car, it wouldn't fare that well against a gasoline-powered counterpart anyway. (Consider the whole process of making its batteries and environmental impact disposing of them will have, whenever they wear out. Consider the environmental impact of generating the electricity used to recharge the car all the time. Are its owners going to exclusively connect them up to wind farms?)
"Top Gear" - even the name indicates they have no intention of driving the car around town for a week. Also, the Tesla Roadster is a $100,000-plus sports car. Nobody is buying it for day-to-day driving.
1. The Roadster ran out of charge and had to be pushed into the Top Gear hangar by four men.
4:56 - Top gear doesn't actually state that they ever ran out of battery. They simulated it ("and if it does run out") as an illustration that driving the car as marketed (As a sports car) gives you a much smaller range than the quoted figure. They could have done it for real by driving it around the track for hour, but what does this gain exactly?
To be fair, they absolutely were not driving the car as a "sports car." They were driving the car as a race car. Tesla never asserts their vehicle is the least bit fit for racing. In fact, their claim to fame is its an electric sports car capable for daily commute. Which, by all accounts, less Top Gear, it is. So while you do comment on the 211 mile trip, that in no way has anything to do with a daily commute, even for American drivers which are well known for having commutes roughly double that of European drivers.
So placing this into perspective, assuming your place of business is at the end of a race track, where you can drive your Tesla like its a race car, for the average European, even at a limited 55 miles, its up to the task. For Americans, even 55 miles is close to allowing a daily commute. Now then, in the real world, no one drivers a race track to get to work every day. As such, even when driving as a sports car, the Tesla is very capable at providing a daily commute.
4:56 - Top gear doesn't actually state that they ever ran out of battery. They simulated it ("and if it does run out") as an illustration that driving the car as marketed (As a sports car) gives you a much smaller range than the quoted figure. They could have done it for real by driving it around the track for hour, but what does this gain exactly?
All cars run out of energy; be them electric, gas, or diesel. When's the last time they went to great effort to show a Ferrari or Lamborghini running out of gas? It was a stunt engineered for the sole purpose of being turds.
2. The Roadster’s true range is only 55 miles per charge (not 211).
This is a blatantly false claim by Tesla. Jeremy stated that they worked out that the range "around their track" is 55 miles, while also mentioning the 211 mile claimed range by Tesla. When he later calculated the time to drive to Scotland, with the 16 hour recharge rate from a normal electrical socket, it was obvious he was using the 211 mile figure. (It's a trip of @700 miles)
You are right in that they didn't claim it. It is, however, clearly implied, seemingly by intent. And while they do use the longer range for their road trip, that too is intended to paint the vehicle in a negative light for the sole purpose of painting it as such. See my comment above to understand why even evaluating the trip on such notions is dishonest to say the least.
3. One Roadster’s motor overheated and was completely immobilized as a result.
The motor did overheat (6:48), but Jeremy stated that he had "reduced power", not "no power". There was video showing that the car was continuing at a reduced speed, followed by a shot of the car parked forlornly on the track, but I seriously doubt this is sufficient for a libel suit.
Again, a clear attempt to misrepresent. The average viewer equates "over heated" with an inoperable vehicle. Showing the vehicle on the sideline clearly re-enforces common perceptions. So while they said one thing, they clearly intended to convey something else entirely.
I've seen the show. After watching the show I commented to my wife what a completely dishonest misrepresentation that show was. She also watched it and asked me why. Her perspective is likely closer to the average viewer. Her perspective is that it was an entertaining review of a bad car. The reality is, the purposely went out of their way to misrepresent the vehicle under negative light.
Now then, I enjoy Top
I'm sure Bentley Motors execs are still losing sleep over all the customers lost thanks to Top Gear.
That Tesla CEO douchebag should just take his lumps and go racing if he thinks he thinks he has the car for it.
That "Tesla CEO douchebag" is the founder of four companies, one of which already reshaped the entire landscape of the industry it was a part of (internet sales), and has since been sold. Another is currently revolutionizing the American launch vehicle (read: rockets) landscape by providing cheaper and (hopefully) more reliable and more frequent access to space than any other company that has come before it. One of which is is actually trying to make some progress into developing a greener society, rather than just blathering on about how evil oil is like many companies in that industry are currently doing. And the final of which is actually trying to develop some inventive, new, efficient methods to make electric cars that people actually want to buy.
While not all of Musk's ventures are currently at the success level of Paypal, they certainly are noteworthy, and they certainly aren't afraid to try something new and better, kind of like how Google provide a new and better search engine that changed the internet forever. So you can piss and moan about how silly it is to sue Top Gear all you want. But referring to Musk as a "CEO douchebag" is inflammatory at best, and downright stupid at worst. That man has stated, in no uncertain terms, that he fully intends to retire on Mars. He has done more for pushing this county's industries into the future than just about any other inventor/engineer/scientist/techie that I can think of in the last decade. So show some damn respect.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Typical of a "green" corporation... They can't really deliver a "useful" vehicle so try to sue anyone that points out how worthless their product is...
It appears that your definition of "marketing exercise" is idiosyncratic. Asking for money in a lawsuit is not the sine qua non of using a lawsuit as a marketing tool. Being reasonable in your demands does not defeat marketing value. The fact that you are so attached to the concept that Tesla is being reasonable and therefore is a good company not just out to gain some marketing exposure itself tends to show that, at least to the extent you represent their target market, the marketing exercise is working.
That Tesla CEO douchebag should just take his lumps and go racing if he thinks he thinks he has the car for it.
That "Tesla CEO douchebag" is the founder of four companies one of which already reshaped the entire landscape of the industry it was a part of (internet sales), and has since been sold. One of which is currently revolutionizing the American launch vehicle (read rockets) landscape by providing cheaper and (hopefully) more reliable and more frequent access to space than any other company that has come before it. One of which is is actually trying to make some progress into developing a greener society, rather than just blathering on about how evil oil is like many companies in that industry are currently doing. And the final of which is actually trying to develop some inventive, new, efficient methods to make electric cars that people actually want to buy.
While not all of Musk's ventures are currently at the success level of Paypal, they certainly are noteworthy, and they certainly aren't afraid to try something new and better, kind of like how Google provide a new and better search engine that changed the internet forever. So you can piss and moan about how silly it is to sue Top Gear all you want. But referring to Musk as a CEO douchebag is inflammatory at best, and downright stupid at worst. That man has stated, in no uncertain terms, that he fully intends to retire on Mars. He has done for pushing this county's industries into the future than just about any other inventor/engineer/scientist/techie that I can think of in the last decade. So show some damn respect.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Using your definition, every law suite is strictly for marketing purposes. that's rediculas and appears to be on the basis of implying the suit is unjust.
If the suite happens to bring to bear the fact the show is of "liablish" and extremely dishonest in nature, there certainly isn't anything wrong with that.
Computers have no incentive to lie. They toil their short lives for just 12V DC, until they burn out from work, or discarded by an ungrateful owner because it can no longer pull malware-loaded Windows + antivirus. Top Gear, on the other hand, has a show to run, so insincere twists for amusement or cash incentives are readily applied.
Tesla is about to learn a very hard lesson about Top Gear. Just from a clout standpoint...they've got to *think* real hard about this move. Top Gear has more clout in the auto industry than anything short of gasoline.
I'm pretty sure that Tesla is well aware of that clout. That clout is exactly why they are proceeding with this motion; that clout has been used injuriously. If Top Gear were watched by only 100000 viewers, there would be no need for a suit.
Further, to the point you make in your subject line, the mere filing of this suit is also publicity for Tesla. Good publicity. They're getting their side of the story out. And as they are not asking for monetary damages, they have very little to lose.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Get over it, failbait.
enters UK...
He is an asshole BUT a sorta likable one. He isn't an evil bastard like say a Glen Beck or the likes but just a guy who does not care a shit about the environment and who thinks road deaths are just a reasonably price to pay for him and his mates to drive fast. Your death child is no concern of him.
Not that he actually says this because he has managed to hide his attacks on road safety behind an attack on environmentalists instead. He is the mouthpiece of all BMW drivers, you know the type. They who floor the car driving it out of the garage, because. Those who bitch about the war for oil but consume it by the truck load.
And he hates electric cars or even just plain sensible cars. That is at least his image and he makes a lot of money with it.
Telling the truth is NOT what he sells. Top Gear has had a rift in the past, were the "serious" car review program split into a review program and the petrol powered entertainment machine that is Top Gear. And Jeremy is the bad boy who always blows away his two co-hosts whenever they even dare to suggest fuel efficiency is not evil. And the audience loves it.
How real is it all? Hard to say, how many actors are the character they play?
Top Gear is about scripted petrol fun. Not reviews but they do pretend to be for real and this time they went to far. It is one thing to dislike small cars and show they are small by putting a tall guy in them, it is another to pretend an electric car is empty when it isn't.
I hope Top Gear loses. Jeremy needs to be reminded he is a joke, not a reviewer. He gets payed well for a joke but he needs to know his place. And to be fair, He does know EXACTLY what he is. Just some people take him serious. Clarkson ain't the real issue, it is his followers who swallow his entertainment as truth.
When did I say that this lawsuit is strictly for marketing purposes?
So, the thing that makes top gear entertaining is believing that they are actually doing the things that they are depicted doing--that there is some authenticity to their tests and competitions, and that there are real stakes for the presenters under certain situations. But this is a false belief. The show is staged and the outcomes of their "testing" and "competitions" are scripted. The stakes are artificial. And there is no real information or knowledge value in any content the show presents because it'a all made up. Fiction is entertaining but this fiction is presented in a documentary journalistic style that the producers defend as authentic. This makes the show immoral. False facts and conclusions are presented as real information. The show is taking advantage of the respect we have for journalism and the documentary form, and filling that respect with illusory hogwash. It creates false beliefs about the world, and that is something that none of us needs. It makes the world we live in a nastier place. Take this seemingly innocent bit of dishonesty surrounding the Roadster; well with millions of sheep watching the show, that false presentation stands to negatively influence the way millions people feel about the viability of alternative energy and locomotion -- things we need in order to make the world a better place so that we aren't choking on the air we breath. You see, nothing good comes from presenting falsehoods as fact or well founded conclusions.
Re:Why does everyone assume Tesla's claims are true?
Because The show Top-gear lies to it's audience on a regular basis. It presents itself as real journalism by using a documentary form, but the whole thing is scripted hogwash. It's competitions are scripted it's tests are scripted, there are zero stakes for the presenters and none of the supposed information the show presents to you as interesting, is REAL! That's why everyone is assuming Tesla's claims are true, because it is an inherently more honest endeavour than Top-Gear by miles. Top-gear cannot be trusted on any contest of authenticity or integrity because it is built on denying its audience these things regularly. On the contrary, it is built on filling it's audience with beliefs about cars.
All cars run out of energy; be them electric, gas, or diesel. When's the last time they went to great effort to show a Ferrari or Lamborghini running out of gas? It was a stunt engineered for the sole purpose of being turds.
I would suggest that if a Ferrari or Lamborghini took more than a couple minutes to fill up the tank, they would.
But overall, it's always been obvious they hate electric cars as well as american cars. And you're right, it was definitely slanted to make Tesla look bad.
You are wrong, the "mileage" DOES matter, I own a sports car and I do track days, I get around 8mpg when I'm going around the track, if I show up with a full tank, I can just about make it all day without having to refuel.. but it has happened that I needed more gas during the lunch break.
If I owned a Tesla, I would have ran out of 'juice' around luch, and not been able to get on the track due to the recharge time. So while that doesn't matter to probably 95% of people who own sports cars, it *does* to me.. I love the lotus chassis and I would LOVE to own a Tesla, but that's a dealbreaker for me, I would have to own a separate trackday car..
Waiting two years to sue is not odd if journalists were lawyers. Sadly they never are, so to explain this Tesla is suing Top Gear & the BBC because that episode cost them sales theoretically. Usually a modicum of time must pass before one can sue. Thus two years later they feel Top Gear cost them sales by showing that faked breakdown. Nowhere doeds Tesla claim this lawsuit is about the staged claims so much as about the loss of sales due to it. Since it makes some rather unfair statements about range & a staged breakdown I agree that they have a case. Now they need to prove lost sales were caused by Top Gear which will be harder but not impossible. Clarkson is a known conservative and shuns most enviromentalist/alternative fuel ideas on principle.
I think that's what they are doing.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I would find Tesla's case a lot more convincing if they had something more than computer logs. Perhaps they should get some of the BBC employees who were there at the track that day to give sworn statements as to their perception of what happened.
(Not that human testimony is all that reliable, but corroboration with some other source would seem necessary.)
At the moment it's a he-said-she-said argument. The BEST approach would be for Tesla to offer a rematch, and to have a couple of Tesla-certified technicians on hand to diagnose any problems, lest some idiot jump to the wrong conclusion on account of some idiot light on the dashboard lighting up at an inopportune time.
After all, that's the scientific method, isn't it? When you have a dispute, run the test again, and verify the results.
Surely nobody objects to the scientific method *here*.
Pick One: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~stremler/sigs/sigs.html (Note - disable Javascript first!)
When a broadcaster decides not to show some episodes of the Simpsons for some time because of jokes about nuclear meltdown, its censorship, when Tesla demands that an episode of Top Gear will not be shown anymore, it's not censorship.
Fandroids hate facts.
No match there. Like most of the poster's have said, Top Gear is entertaining, but the three buffoons on this program are definitely mental midgets who will do anything - short of suicide - to get ratings. Scratch that part about suicide - they have tried that too. Take Top Gear for what it is: entertainment and nothing else. It is definitely not a car enthusiast show.
When will we, as Americans, ever learn? The ONLY people who gain anything at all from a lawsuit, or any legal action for that matter are the attorneys. This little poke, which seems to be purely in fun, will get at least two attorneys a seat in the Congress of California or possibly even one of them in the US Congress. When we pass a constitutional amendment that prohibits attorneys, paralegals, chiropractors, judges, sheriffs, police chiefs or any other professional legal leech from running for public office, we will once again see a government of the people and by the people. Until then, just try to keep enough KY jelly in stock and hope the medical profession is able to maintain enough practitioners to treat the hemorrhoids which are the inevitable result of our failure to act on this problem. Shoot, even the Egyptians, Libyans, Syrians, Jordanians and heaven only knows how many other Islamic countries are rising up against the Evil of Attorneys. When will the people of the USA find the courage to rid ourselves of the menace that they pose. The folks at Tesla are a daring lot, and have fearlessly ventured where no-one had ever gone. Of course they're going to have some "teething" issues. But cut them some slack! They have accomplished an amazing feat of engineering, they don't need two British "hayseeds" to validate it. These guys have had the good sense to find a way for themselves to drive the finest "motorcars" on the planet and get paid for doing it. I say "Good job guys!" Ferrari hasn't brought me a car to play with for a few weeks, and I'll bet if you're reading this that the Ferrari dealership in your area won't even let you sit in the showroom model. I can absolutely certify that Tesla hasn't provided ME with a car to test. I'd write an honest review of it and shoot some HD footage of the amazing problem they have faced and the amazing ingenuity they have consistently demonstrated.
I went back and watched this review, and at NO POINT did anyone say anything not factually negative except that they didn't appear to work (in the real world), which is the exact experience they had. They in fact gave it a good review. What is the problem? I for one want one even more. Who buys a Tesla as a daily driver anyway?
The show was not in any way objective or factual. The show host, for unexplained reason, was totally against everything that the Tesla car has to offer. I guess the only way for the BBC to make their story straight is to pay a big fine. The fines should be punitive and imposed in the court of law as an example to all of those involved in the media slander.