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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."
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
That New Yorker article about Haggis and his changing views of CoS is a hell of a story. There's something about a person who has been buffaloed, flim-flammed, scammed and fleeced finally opening his eyes that makes for a very compelling read.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
The car was probably on loan from Tesla, and after such a poor showing on the show Im sure the engineers were interested in figuring out why it underperformed.
The car was theirs, they were trying to fix their car because they were told it had failed.
Its like if you loan your laptop to your buddy, and he infects it with malware... you might just check the logs to see wtf he installed, and if it looked like he installed it on purpose you just might ask him to say hes sorry.
Yes reverse car analogy.