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."

Comments

Re:Finally, a reasonable lawsuit

[justin12345]

I think the difference is that while Top Gear does insane stunts and paints them as "reviews" in the case of the Tesla Roadster they pretty much just took it out and said it was junk. It's been a while since I've seen the episode, but I seem to remember that they claimed Tesla had given them multiple cars, none of which worked for more then a few minutes. It wasn't like they were out running a Corvette with a Fiesta in a shopping mall. It wasn't presented as comedy. It was if what Tesla says is true, just libel.