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Top Gear Fights Back At Tesla
An anonymous reader writes "Top Gear's producer Andy Wilman responds to Tesla's lawsuit: 'We never said that the Tesla's true range is only 55 miles, as opposed to their own claim of 211, or that it had actually ran out of charge. In the film our actual words were: "We calculated that on our track it would run out after 55 miles."' Interesting points, and as far as I can remember also correct. But I'm assuming Tesla is going the get the PR they want on this regardless of any court rulings."
A lot of the reporting seems to focus on claim it would only go 55 miles. As far as track cars go, that's pretty good. The Ford GT would only go about 60 before it would empty it's tank. A series earlier, they figured a Ferrari 599 only got 1.7 miles per gallon on the track.
Apart from reliability issues (both Tesla cars broke in various ways), the biggest flaw the cars had was that while the range was on par with regular track cars, when you ran out of fuel in the other cars, you took a few minutes to fill up and could go back out. The Tesla, on the other hand, was done for the day as it took something like 12 hours to recharge.
That was the damning conclusion of the Top Gear episode, and it was entirely accurate. Even if Tesla has improved the recharge time, it's still hours long. Tesla is just trying to distract from that fundamental fact - despite the fact it's marketed as a sports-car, it's not suited to track use. Even if people have no plans on taking it to the track, it's allure is tarnished by that fact.
I would not expect the normal consumer experience to mirror that of the drivers on the TG track. I also would not expect published petrol MPG figures to match the MPG TG gets on their track.
L.V.X., brother mouse
Rubbish. They've "reviewed" plenty of TDi cars over the year, and raced them too. The reality is most diesels are dull old man cars, whereas top gear concentrates on fast sport and supercars. And yes, they did take the piss out of BP's mess. You're a deluded fool if you think BP are behind Tesla's shit. The reality is their car is rubbish, and they tried to sell a rich boy's toy in the middle of a global recession. Had they built it from scratch and not used an old Lotus design, then tripled the price, they may have head some credibility. As it is, they're just a bunch of weenies crying because they have a failed product.
If fools like you thing Tesla got a bad "review", just wait until the court case is over and Clarkson does a real number on them. 350 million views are going to be pointing the finger at Telsa and laughing.
In Tesla's defense, it's not like actually driving the 55 miles would have taken that long. An hour, tops.
What?!? What are you talking about?
FTFA:
The second point is that the figure of 55 miles came not from our heads, but from Tesla’s boffins in California.
Top Gear said that it would run out after 55 miles according to the way they were driving it.; which, Tesla gave them that figure.
So, you're defending Tesla's obfuscation and attempt to hide the truth?
The GP is right: they're suing to shut up the Top Gear people. But, it's just going to be the Streisand effect and it's really going to bite Tesla in the ass.
I'd like to point out that Tesla was founded by PayPal's founder, Elon Musk - I'll leave it at that.
This: "The second point is that the figure of 55 miles came not from our heads, but from Teslaâ(TM)s boffins in California. They looked at the data from that car and calculated that, driven hard on our track, it would have a range of 55 miles."
So they are suing the BBC over a claim they themselves fed to the Top Gear producers which was only relayed in the show.
Yeah, really, I can see how Top Gear acted in bad faith here. How dare they trust the information from the manufacturer!
If Tesla wants to be innovative then they damned well better appeal to a broader audience rather than calling Coca Cola champagne.
Tesla is like Segway. They create a luxury product because that makes money and they use the income to scale up and create more mainstream products, like Tesla's upcoming consumer grade sedan. They are the closest thing to an innovative car company the US has left and to my mind instead of bailing out the big players we should have taken the public share in them after the unions refused to take control and handed it over to Tesla and let someone actually doing something smart have a shot at turning the US auto industry around.
No it was not. They clearly said, that this would be the range interpolated from their driving test on their track. Anyone who has ever watched this show knows how they drive on their track and that this can't be a realistic range. I vaguely remember the episode and I believe the "on our track" part was even emphasized.
I don't know your mental capacity, but I am sure that most people got that right.
Seeing as Topgear is a BBC production, the show itself doesn't come with sponsorship. The outdoor events, perhaps as they're not run by tax payer's money (see TV License).
Wait, i remember them saying something along the lines it had to be pushed back into the garage due to a dead battery. Perhaps it was not 'real' but it still eluded to it being.
I know they do things for entertainment and there is a LOT of satire on the show, but i do hope they get their hands slapped for this as i have seen them do similar to others and some people actually take it seriously.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Nobody from Top Gear ever said that the battery went flat.
So Jeremy looking confusedly at the dashboard then cutting to a scene of crew members pushing the Tesla off the track was meant to imply what, exactly?
Without any other clues as to what actually happened, it is up to the viewer to infer that the batteries had run flat.
=Smidge=
The Tesla is a "statement car" - it is intended to show that electric power is not just for smug twits who enjoy the smell of their own farts.
Apparently, the people at Tesla have spent too much time with their noses firmly planted between their own butt cheeks.
fucking semantics. what is the real difference between claiming that you calculated that on your track it would run out after 55 miles, and saying that it's range is only 55 miles?
I don't know - is that the same difference as claiming they claimed they calculated it, or that they claim Tesla themselves calculated it?
Fandroids hate facts.
You still didn't answer his question.
Here, I'll repeat it in case you forgot:
You are welcome on my lawn.
In Tesla's defense, it's not like actually driving the 55 miles would have taken that long. An hour, tops.
Too bad that of the two cars, one had an overheating motor and couldn't be tested at anywhere near full speed, and the other one was taken out of the race by Tesla because of a break problem.
Fandroids hate facts.
They don't have to -- with every other car, if it runs out of fuel, someone grabs a gallon canister and trots over, drops in enough fuel to get it off the track, and there you have it.
now, they may push it in to the warehouse regardless.. but running out of gas on the track is not a big issue for an IC car. An electric? Yes, you would need to push it.
There's a huge difference between running out of juice in an IC car and an electric. I've run out of gas before. Hell, I ran out of gas the first time in 1998 -- note the year, cell phones weren't huge. It was a 3 mile walk for me to my buddy's house, but after that -- after they all had their chuckles -- we just nabbed their car and the gas for his lawnmower, threw about a half gallon into my tank, problem solved. Had I been in an electric car, it would have needed to be towed.
It's a not-very-subtle distinction between the two that I think was well-illustrated by the scene in question. What actually happened to them is irrelevant -- they were demonstrating what actually would happen to you, and in THAT light, the whole shebang is accurate.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
A little disclaimer: I'm an environmentalist, I work for an international environmental organization, bicycle commuter, haven't owned a car in over 15 years, and spend my vacations volunteering at animal rescue facilities.
And this is relevant to the rest of your post, how?
Ahh, yes, it isn't, *but*, it does let your stroke your massive, self-righteous ego.
I sincerely disagree with our supposed tree-hugging friend. There was definitely an anti-carbon free energy theme to the show, try starting right after they slam the Tesla for having a long charge time at 5m30s:
"Before people green people say that's a price worth paying, lets not forget where that electric comes form"
- cue ominous music -
-- cut to a picture of a nuclear power plant--
- switch to car parked in-front of an extremely low powered PERSPONAL wind powered electric generator -
"... [condescending remarks]... to charge a Tezla (sic) from something like that would take 600 hours. That's twenty-five days, and that's assuming it's windy, which... it isn't"
Why the ominous music around Nuclear power? Despite Fukushima, it's still safer / cleaner than coal / petrol.
Who in there right mind would hook the Tesla up to a personal wind based generator?! The wind is suppose to augment regular electricity use. The personal generator is just a way to off set one's emissions by trickling power to the grid while the wind is blowing. Given the music and the number crunching, the show clearly is trying to claim that the Tesla isn.'t a green alternative. Whether or not they spent the time to do this for the Honda is irrelevant. The whole excerpt was entirely irrelevant and unnecessary, yet some how this anti-EV pro-oil propaganda message managed to find it's way into a TV program that's funded by British Taxpayers. Simply outrageous!