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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."
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...
I think Tesla should drive over and deliver the lawsuit to Top Gear in person. Or perhaps they have tried already.....
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
Topgear is entertainment mixed with factual information. The problem is that the two aren't clearly delineated. Are the challenges scripted as hell? Yes. But other segments can be far more ambiguous. Apparently, I'm crazy for thinking the power-laps and the car reviews weren't scripted in advance, and any problems that crop up legitimately crop up. What Tesla is alleging is no matter how wonderful the car was, Top Gear was going to say it broke. To me, as a viewer, it was definitely not clear the Tesla review was entertainment and not factual.
That said, I still like Top Gear. I'm just going to be way more skeptical about anything they say about a car, ever. Maybe the Morris Marinas is a great car, afterall.
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.
Both Tesla cars given for testing did NOT ever get below 20% charge.
And the onboard data loggers and battery charge indicators (plus a capacity check after the fact,) will show all of that.
No wonder you posted as AC.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Entertainment or not, when you claim that a car broke down a lot and it turns out you were lying about it, there's a problem.
We see a lot of this "Oh, we don't have any responsibility because we're entertainment used to excuse a lot of really reprehensible stuff. Whenever some right-wing turd makes fun of a handicapped person or says something really racist or homophobic, it's always "oh we're entertainment" but then they turn around and tell their viewers how they're serious journalists (I've got a list if you really need examples).
You don't get to have a show that gives opinions about products and then say those products broke when they didn't break, no matter how much "fun" you're having.
You are welcome on my lawn.
One of the cars didn't run out of charge, the brake system failed. Tesla claimed that it was something simple (blown fuse I think) and Top Gear was making it worse than it really was
You know, I don't think it really matters if the problem was a junebug on the windshield if it made the frigging brakes fail.
Or, as Big Mike, my old wrench-monkey buddy put it: when prioritizing motorcycle problems: "Go" is optional. "Stop" is mandatory.
I think that fits just dandy for cages, too.
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.
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.
I would disagree. Such a car works, in a practical sense -- just not for crossing the country.
If you never drive more than 100 miles a day and go home every night and recharge ... it sounds like the car works in a very practical sense.
But you wouldn't use it to drive 3000 miles any more than you'd use it to haul eight kids to a soccer game. (It also sounds like you wouldn't use it on a race track for any race over 40 miles, but most sports cars never make it to a race track either so that's probably fine.)
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.
Who apparently doesn't mind making stuff up.
Companies provide cars to Top Gear. Forget for a moment about the stupidity of lying to make one of your benefactors look worse. If the only way you can make a story compelling, even comedy, is to be fraudulent, then there's a problem.
All they had to do is run a disclaimer saying "The car really didn't break down like we pretended" and it would be OK. Or run a disclaimer saying "The events portrayed are entirely fabricated and are in no way indicative of anything real about the cars' quality". But they would never do that. Why? Because they are trading on the notion that there's something useful buried in what they are doing. My guess is that they're afraid of making it clear that none of what is portrayed on the show is in any way real.
And if any part of what they're doing is supposed to be taken as real, then they've got a responsibility to make it clear when they're making stuff up.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So... Tesla waited 2 years before doing this when it could have set the record straight the moment it happened?
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.
Top Gear is for cars, what Slashdot is for tech.
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
More than 70% of Americans have a roundtrip daily commute of 30 miles. If you're too dumb to buy an electric car and rent a gas car for those few times you're going out of town, then don't be pissed when folks like me speculate on the price of oil to make money off your irrational behavior and poor critical thinking skills.
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.
Maybe the Morris Marinas is a great car, afterall.
Perhaps, but they still seem to attract falling pianos way too often for my taste...
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
You are wrong on several critical points. Tesla is not claiming that the actual breakdowns were scripted. The only thing they are claiming was scripted was the scene where the Tesla runs out of charge. To be clear, the car did actually overheat, and the other car's breaks did stop working. Those were not scripted or false.
The scene of the car running out of charge is a dramatic lead-in to their discussion of the car's major real-world flaw, which is charging times. Watch the clip and you will see that they way they make their claim implies that the car running out of charge was simulated
Realistically, they did not need to simulate this, because they could have actually driven it until it ran out of charge. Of course, it's not surprising that they wouldn't do that, since it's a huge waste of time and the end result is a foregone conclusion. It seems to me that Tesla is really just whining over a technicality, since it's true the car will run out of charge, and that's what they showed.