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High Court Rules In Favor of Top Gear Over Tesla Remarks
esocid writes "In 2008, BBC's 'Top Gear' aired an episode featuring the Tesla Roadster. One of the show's car reviewers, Jeremy Clarkson, gave a less-than-flattering analysis of the vehicle, sparking a legal case with the automaker that doesn't seem to be working out in Tesla's favor. Now, it looks as though Tesla is losing this battle after a full-day hearing yesterday at the high court in London. 'In my judgment, the words complained of are wholly incapable of conveying any meaning at all to the effect that the claimant [Tesla] misled anyone,' said [Mr. Justice] Tugendhat. 'This is because there is a contrast between the style of driving and the nature of the track as compared with the conditions on a public road [...] are so great that no reasonable person could understand that the performance on the [Top Gear] track is capable of a direct comparison with a public road.' The hearing now continues on Tesla's claim that 'Top Gear' made five other false accusations about the Roadster. Tugendhat has postponed judgment on Tesla's malicious falsehood claim, and is expected to deliver a verdict in the coming weeks."
Don't seem to realise that Top Gear is a comedy show.
... high up in the food-chain at Telsa Motors should read this wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
So Jeremy said some unflattering things - take those and use them the make improvements, or at least perceived improvements.
Buick made a car, about 25 years ago that had buckets of power but handled like a cow - they still sold them out. How? General Motors appealed to the emotions and egos of would-be drivers, not their rational minds.
Tesla would do well to take a page from that book. Their car doesn't need to be perfect, just satisfy the ego-massage of would be owners.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I thought the problem was that the script was written, in which the car ran out of power, before the episode was actually shot. In other words, it was a prefabricated lie. No?
1. Receive half a billion dollars in federal grant money.
2. Spend it on expensive lawyers to defend your "brand" overseas in the UK despite having sold less than 2000 cars in the whole world since the company started.
3. ???
4. Er, profit? It will take off any minute now. I promise.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I don't know if Tesla submitted the vehicle to Top Gear themselves or if Top Gear sought one from an intermediary, but anyone building an automobile must expect that television shows that review automobiles will probably review theirs, in their own way, and will probably state exactly how they feel about it. Top Gear in particular won't hold anything back if they don't like a vehicle, and are known for being biased, usually in a humorous, way, but still biased.
If Tesla wants positive reviews, they need to build a car that gets those reviews from testers. For the most part Top Gear uses the types of tracks that are available to companies that build cars, so if they want to excel at a specific type of track they have the option to engineer with that in mind.
If not, there's always Motor Week...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I've watched that segment of Top Gear numerous times, can anyone actually point out and quote any specific statements made that were lies? I can't find any.
anyone that might not have a nothing but praise opinion, you should work on the faults. Then maybe your cute little wanna be race car wont shit out on the track.
Koenigsegg put a super car on Top Gear. It was not good enough. There was not enough down force in the rear, the car lost control, and it crashed. Top Gear said, "This thing REALLY needs a spoiler."
Koenigsegg sued Top Gear. Just kidding, they put a spoiler on it and sent it back to Top Gear. They took it around the track again and it got an amazing time. No crashes.
No, I'm not saying that Top Gear can instantly diagnose car problems and their words should be heeded at all times. What I'm saying is that Koenigsegg made off with massive good PR by taking criticism from some of the most watched television personalities in the world, improved their car, and, showing no hard feelings, gave the car back to them. They didn't call mommy and daddy claiming their driver crashed their car. They didn't claim slander. They knew that they had the opportunity to show how dedicated they were to making an amazing car and took it.
Tesla, well... We breed them litigious here.
After this, I won't be buying one.
What assholes.
Top Gear used lies to tell the truth.
Tesla used the truth to tell lies.
This whole thing is ridiculous.
... is how the electric grid can't handle more, and how it's under-delivered now. This has been talked about for decades, especially in places with poor infrastructure like California. Is the free market really incapable of delivering a solution to this problem?
I'm convinced that Tesla is run by weasels.
They know they produce an inferior car to most well below their price points in terms of performance, but instead of being honest and working hard to improve the car or lowering the price, they sue those that call them out on it.
As far as I have seen, their strongest ad campaign has been through drag races against the Dodge Viper and the Porsche GT and those are very apples-to-oranges races. The Porsche and Viper are 180mph+ cars and are geared to do so; the Roadster is geared to do about 125mph.
Low gearing will allow many weak cars get to 60 quickly, and the motor's weak performance really shows in the quarter mile (12.7s@104mph <Viper is 12.9s@113mph first gen, 10.92@127mph current gen>).
Its no surprise that the rest of the car is lackluster as well, but a lot of their problems could be solved if they lowered their profit margin a bit (or raised the price) and created a product that stood on its own without the smoke and mirrors tactics.
Being thin-skinned is an understatement. In my opinion, they go out of their way to be liars and cheats and it seems they will do anything to hide that behavior.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
They liked some things about the vehicle, and not others. It doesn't matter if they drove it differently, because at least a certain proportion of real-world drivers are going to do the same. Tesla needs to swallow their pride and take criticism as an opportunity to improve the product.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I don't really think 'reasonable people' are Tesla's main market.
Tesla should fight back saying stupid people are their primary market.
The question isn't whether Top Gear lied - they did. Top Gear showed the battery running down and the car coming to a stop, which never actually happened because Tesla checked the car's computer and showed that the battery was never run down. The only question is whether Top Gear should be financially liable for damaging Tesla's reputation.
With all due respect to Mr. Justice Tugendhat: was Sir Topenhat not available to rule that day?
Beeb, are you listening?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdOpKv9D7rA
Tugendhat - is he related to Tophamhatt? Together, they seem to have cornered the ground locomotion market. The barons are back!!!
shows how a good PC liberal can be simultaneously funny and scathing taking on Jeremy Clarkson.
For the same money you could actually go out and buy a lotus elise, not just a car that looks like one.
And in doing so end up with a car that is a FAR less interesting than the Tesla. Not like the Lotus is a practical vehicle either.
Our $$$ at risk with Tesla and another $0.5 Billion at risk with Fisker supporting offshore jobs in Finland.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
While I realize the cars Tesla are selling are supposed to be more high-end/performance cars, what the world really needs is a $20k electric car. $40,000 buys a LOT of dead dinos.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Top Gear: Series 12, Episode 7 is the one this happened on, in case anyone cares. I just went through the 2008 eps at epguides.com. Many seasons are on DVD and streaming from Netflix.
"In my judgment, the words complained of are wholly incapable of conveying any meaning at all."
Dear Tesla,
Your roadster is a pile of cunt.
What are you going to do about it, eh?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Sorry kid, fiction is fiction no matter what is possible.
The battery was not flat so it was not flat.
It could've, might've, maybe is completely irrelevant when people pretend something is true but it is not.
Why do I even have to tell you this? Have bad examples in politics poisoned things so much that deliberate lies are seen as being normal and far fetched excuses are thought of in attempt to make it look as if the lie was an accident?
He works for the Sun. Does more need to be said? Anyone with a working brain cell knows he is a total jobbo. Both in the act he performs on TV and in real live. He is amusing to watch BUT a lot of people take him serious.
You can read the sun for comedy effect but when you realize readers of the Sun who believe every word in it got the right to vote, you feel more like crying.
The problem is that the Sun and Clarkson don't bother with facts, they use/twist them as needed when it suits their agenda and ignore or outright lie about everything else while demanding their opposition be absolutely 100% correct about the tiniest detail. This makes reasonable debate very though.
It is like watching QI or Have I Got News For You. Anytime the shows are in danger of getting a tiny bit to deep, Alan Davies or Paul Merton go into dumb comedy mode to avoid the audience having to think. Sometimes it is funny but sometimes you just want them to shut up and let more intelligent people finish their sentences.
Clarkson does the same on his own show. His co-hosts are often simply out shouted when they try to reason with him. Great TV as long as you don't take it as fact. But a lot do.
For instance, there is an old small tiny car that has the door in front. Clarkson's great proof it is crap is that if you drive it against a wall, it can't open the door anymore...
How many of you reading this need it pointed out that ANY car where you drive the door against the wall can't have it opened anymore? Am I the only person to have had trouble getting out of a normal car because a parking space was not wide enough? The car in question is tiny and meant for warm climates for poor people. How likely are they to have a garage?
It is a classic british jobbo thing to do such a stupid comparisson. What next? Push over a motor bike to show how easy they can be pushed over compared to say a tank? Well, yes. And?
Again, if the show was seen by all as a comedy show, there would be no problem. But right wingers have no sense of humor and take Clarksons word as gospel.
This kinda thing has ruined products and brands before, some comedian thinks he is being funny and a brand is ruined no matter what the facts are. I don't find that funny. But I don't think a British judge will find a brit guilty. They are far to isolated from the real world.
in that home-made electric car.
Newer ones being built have 100A, some even 200A. You can of course forget this on older homes, which often have only 60A. US homes also have 240V, which is usually used to run the water heater (if electric), the oven and the clothes dryer.
But think if half the homes in an area get electric cars. The grid itself in many places couldn't handle that load, even if individual homes could. As it is, some places get brown outs when everybody runs their A/C units at the same time.
It's a car show. Not a Hydrogen production showcase. From their end, hydrogen fueled cars are the solution. How the hydrogen is produced, transported and stored is Somebody Else's Problem, and that's a perfectly fine position to take when you're a car show and you're reviewing a car.
Didn't you notice them pushing the car in to be charged when it was not necessary to do so? That's what this whole thing is about!
Also why is this argument style of pretending to be too stupid to survive to a reading age becoming popular on this site? Are you all catching it off people that are acting stupid to get attention and be noticed more than other political canditates?
Look, just go read my first post above enough times until you work out that it says no more than it says instead of trying to hang extra meaning that doesn't exist on top of it.
Didn't work? Ok, I'll try again:
The difference between this incident and the Koenigsegg one is that one actually happened and the other was scripted. Pretty simple isn't it? Whether that makes it worth a legal penalty or not is up to the court and you should have noticed by now that I didn't actually write anything about that one way or the other.
DoD spent $1tn in 2010, or $2.74bn a day. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Department_of_Defense#Expenditures)
Even the people who think the US DoD is spending too much don't realise how much it actually spends.
Which of course means that I do not think the comparison the above poster used is valid and I'd go as far as saying it was misleading noise. That is why I posted.