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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.
Top Gear allows us nobody/poor sods the vicarious thrill of watching a sports car race a fighter jet. I for one praise them for it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
... high up in the food-chain at Telsa Motors should read this wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Indeed. They are in great danger of making Jeremy an authority on the weaknesses of their product.
Anyone remember how poorly Chevrolet handled a minor handling problem with the Corvair and virtually made Ralph Nader?
*knock* *knock* Hi, History here, I'm repeating!! Hello?!? Anyone home?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
They did. That's why they're claiming outright fraud with respect to the "the car is dead" segment - according to the car's logs, the car never ran out of power.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
There is no profit shark at the government, they have no interest in turning a profit, being efficient or saving money, if it's not efficient so what? The government can't go broke they just tax, print, borrow. Look up "base line spending" if you don't agree. The government has trillions of dollars in debt and is taking in less tax revenue but in the last 5 years has increased spending by 33%. If a private business behaves like the government for too long it will cease to exist.
If a private company had a 401K plan like the government has social security, and the CEO borrowed money from the 401Ks like the government constantly borrows from SS, the CEOs would be in federal prison for a very long time. The government has no metric for success, they do stuff just because. It doesn't matter if people actually benefit from what the government does, they get paid anyway. Not the case with private business. It doesn't matter if it's a total abject failure that kills people and brings misery, it's still "a good thing" because the government is doing it, the "war on drugs" is a wonderful example of this. If it took too long for the pizza to get to your house do you get your money back? (yes) If it took too long for the cops to get to your house when you dial 911 do you get your taxes back? (no). If a private person or business wrongs you there is recourse in the courts. If the government wrongs you, you're just fucked (sovereign immunity)
So ya, huge difference.
I've worked in many jobs over the years, mostly private sector, some public sector. In my experience the private sector is far less efficient than the public sector. Your misconception is common and comes from confusing efficiency with making a profit.
The private sector's objective is to make a profit, and they'll tend to limit themselves to those activities that can make a profit. The public sector deals with those things that still need doing regardless of whether there's money to me made.
The more significant thing is that they can charge it in a few hours on household current.
The roadster has a 53kWh battery. Thus to charge it in a "few", (say, 3) hours will need ~17kW, which is 70A at 240V, assuming you have 240V, which is not the standard voltage in the US, I know. I don't know many homes that would be capable of handling that amount of current, so the claim looks unreasonable.
More realistically, if you had a 240V/35A supply, you'd be looking at 6-7 hours charging. Not so bad, but that's still a very hefty current you're pulling- it's like having an electric oven on full blast for 7 hours. Your bills are going to go through the roof, though I guess it could still work out cheaper than petrol.
A 240V/13A supply will need 17 hours to recharge. That's a typical "household current" socket in the UK, Europe and Australia, but I don't really call that a "few" hours.
Top Gear used lies to tell the truth.
Tesla used the truth to tell lies.
This whole thing is ridiculous.
It wasn't just what Clarkson said, it's also what was shown: a Tesla being pushed into a garage, ostensibly running out of power mid-test. I was very disappointed with Aunty when I learned this was staged*. Between that, the overly farcical "accidents" and a dearth of tests on normal cars I could ever buy I just stopped watching.
*I'm not a complete idiot; I know batteries run out, but was an accurate portrayal of the car's range really too much to ask?
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
He also said some downright false things, for example that it had run totally flat and had to be pushed back into the garage by the crew to be recharged before they had finished filming when in reality the car had 20% charge at minimum, as logged by the onboard computer - in other words, they didn't manage to run it flat during the shoot, but the script (which Tesla saw) called for the ending of the piece to show the car "limping" off the track under human propulsion.
I saw the piece when it originally aired (I'm a Top Gear fan), but they really went for the throat at the end. The review was reasonably fair up to that point - they had a lot of positives to say about the car, along with some downsides. There was no need for them to lie at the end.
They did something similar in the latest electric car piece (with the Leaf and some other car [possibly a Peugeot]) where they "comically" ran out of juice in the middle of a town with nowhere to recharge after "setting off for a day's driving" - it was revealed that they set off with low charge in the cars to begin with.
Their position on electric cars seems to be "say some nice things, but then make sure we ram home the point that they have batteries that need to be charged, herp derp!".
Like I say, I'm a fan of the series and have been since before the current Clarkson/May/Hammond setup, but the stuff about anything that runs on alternative fuels is just getting tiresome.
I saw the episode when it first aired. He said "[we wanted to do some more shots] but look what happened" in the VO that showed the car being pushed into the garage by hand, strongly implying that the battery was flat when it could easily have driven off the track under its own power, since it had 20% left.
They faked the battery being flat, in other words. They just didn't *say* "the battery went flat", which seems to be have all they needed to do to ensure they were legally "not lying".
I saw the episode when it first aired. He said "[we wanted to do some more shots] but look what happened" in the VO that showed the car being pushed into the garage by hand
I saw the episode when it originally aired as well, and I quite distinctly recall mentioning to my buddy that it was silly to estimate the range by the usage on a race track, since nobody would, or should, drive like that on public roads.
I think you're mixing it up with the part that comes a bit later, where he says
And it appears you don't get much in the way of reliability either.
[Shot of Tesla driving slowly along track] Oh I don't believe this, the motor's overheating and I got reduced power.
[Exterior shot] While it cooled down we went to get the silver car out again.
[Shot of silver Tesla in garage with doors open] Only to find that while it was being charged it's breaks had broken. So then, with the lights fading, we had no cars at all.
I haven't followed the case closely, I have no idea how this specific segment holds up.
They know they produce an inferior car to most well below their price points in terms of performance...
Any car that costs more than about $50,000 is well into diminishing returns on the price. Nobody buys a $100,000 car because it is a rational economic decision. You are well into conspicuous consumption territory which has nearly nothing to do with any reasonable evaluation of performance per dollar.
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.
I have a truck that is geared to do about 125mph but I'm pretty sure it won't beat a Viper in any race. Fact is that electric motors should be very good at drag races and the Tesla bears this out. And frankly who the hell cares if a car can go 180mph? You will never, ever drive it that fast. In fact I'd wager to say that close to no one who reads this has been much over 140mph unless they actually race cars or live in Germany. I guess it makes for good marketing but it's a retarded statistic. Like buying a first generation Hummer when you live in the suburbs - it makes no sense whatsoever.
Reviews that lie about a product can be slander. Let's say you own a restaurant. I don't like you, so I buy a few cockroaches, smuggle them in, plant them in the meal I order, and then film myself "finding" them in my food, and post the results for millions of people to see.
That's not a negative review anymore. That's slander and fraud, and you have every right to sue me to make up for all the business you lose. You can't "swallow your pride and make improvements" on a problem that doesn't actually exist.
That's what Top Gear did. They faked serious problems to discourage people from buying the car. I like the show, but what they did was inexcusable.
Top Gear USA can't piss off their (car company) sponsors *too* much. Top Gear UK is funded by the BBC, so they don't give a rat's ass about making fun of or otherwise demeaning the car companies. It's what gives them their power.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Score one for publicly funded broadcasters (also known as "damn left-wing, socialist, state-controlled media" to the Murdoch media empire and those who share their views).