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Tesla Motors Loses Appeal Against BBC's Top Gear
TrueSatan writes "In a highly detailed decision, the UK Court of Appeal has rejected Tesla's appeal against an eartlier ruling by a lower court that, too, rejected Tesla's case. Reading through the decision it is clear that the judge saw Tesla's case as lacking sufficient detail and specific instances of proof to support each claim. The judge stated that that Tesla's chances of a successful appeal, should the case have gone to trial, were insufficiently high to justify holding a trial. He stated that Tesla's case had no real chance of success and in many notes picked appart Tesla's legal team's arguments. That said, he did not say that Top Gear were right or justified in portraying Tesla's vehicle in the way they did — merely that there wasn't a legal case for an appeal. One of the key flaws in Tesla's case, according to the judicial decision, was Tesla's inability to show that actual pecuniary harm, with detailed financial figures, had occurred."
Because that's all it is really. And to a certain extent I sympathise with Tesla somewhat - Top gear did represent the car as a bit of a dud whereas in fact they weren't 100% truthful with what happened. But then I suppose if you let your car be tested on what is effectively a car based comedy show you shouldn't expect unbiased reviews.
The people at Tesla should have watched an episode of Top Gear before they let those guys drive their car. Clarkson trashes anything he disapproves of -- that means most American cars, Japanese cars, and anything 'eco-friendly.' It was obvious they were exaggerating when it came to the Tesla but they had a valid point. You can't drive that thing balls-to-the-wall around the track without running out of juice super quick, and it takes a long time to recharge. That makes it a no-go for track enthusiasts, precisely the crowd it could appeal to.
For most people, going to the track is an expensive and time-consuming activity. They don't have time to wait for their electric car to recharge, they want to get the most out of their weekend at the track as possible. A muscle car or Italian super car may go through fuel like mad, but filling it up takes mere minutes. That's the point Top Gear was making, they were just being real mean about it. Anyone who thinks that Clarkson and the boys don't bullshit for the sake of entertainment just haven't seen the show. It's pretty obvious when they are exaggerating or staging something. In the end, the opinions they give are genuine, however full of bias they may be.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Use "girls" as a pejorative? Really?
Nope, it was one of a long series of programmes that get made because of the licence fee. Some don't make a profit and get canned, some don't make a profit and stick around because the BBC are legally obliged to broadcast them (educational, religious, political and news programming for example), and some are syndicated around the world, or sold for remake under licence (Doctor Who, Top Gear, Red Dwarf's original series etc). The latter subsidises the former - remember, we're only paying about US$150 per household per year, and there is pretty much zero advertising to fund it or get in the way of us actually enjoying a whole episode of something. Pretty good deal really. I'm with Mitch Benn on this.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
No, it's not an exaggeration, it is the exact fact, the figure of 55 mile on the track came from Tesla themselves.
The claim from Tesla came from a willful misinterpretation of the *FACT* Clarkson stated. The claimed that Clarkson had implied that the car would only go 55 miles on the road.
The judge look at it and said no. 55 miles on the track is not 55 miles on the road and nobody would confuse the two.
They had no case, the lawsuit was simply to attempt to suppress bad reviews. Top Gear won and would never have lost.
To Gear response to Elon Musks attack on them:
http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1057825_top-gear-responds-to-tesla-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”."
Elon Musk had tried to raise a straw man to knock down.
"We never said that the Tesla was completely immobilized as a result of the motor overheating. We said the car had “reduced power”. This was true."
Indeed it was true.
"Tesla claims we were lying when we said the brakes were “broken”. They now say that all that had happened was that the fuse to the vacuum pump had failed, which meant that the brake just had to be pushed down much harder than usual. Well – to my mind, if the brakes are broken, then they’re broken, and if this happened to your car, you’d take it to the garage to get it fixed. Odd it seems so trivial to Tesla now, because on the day of filming they insisted on repairing the fuse before we could carry on driving the car."
You know, many of you swallow the straw man arguments Elon Musk puts forward as if they are true. They're not, he *pretends* a critic has made claim X, because claim X is easier to knock down, than the unpleasant truth they actually said.
The funny mod of parent is sadly indicative of how little experience mods here have with women.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Anyone who has watched more than half an episode of Top Gear knows exactly what Top Gear is. It's something, and it's interesting, and it's highly entertaining, but you certainly wouldn't use it as a major contribution to your vehicle purchase decision unless you're into supercars (in which case you probably could).
The review of the Ford Fiesta was a perfect case in point. The car was tested in a shopping mall on marble floors, and in an amphibious landing with the Royal Navy.