Tesla Sues BBC's Top Gear For Libel 547
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."
I remember that episode.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Whatever happened to no publicity is bad publicity (Score:2, Interesting)
Tesla is about to learn a very hard lesson about Top Gear. Just from a clout standpoint...they've got to *think* real hard about this move. Top Gear has more clout in the auto industry than anything short of gasoline. Bugatti/Audi/VW/etc let all three hosts drive the Veyron and even Captain Slow took the thing to 250+ mph on a $2millionUSD(to buy)/$5millionUSD(to build, they take a huge loss) car. You don't do that with people-with-no-influence, no matter how good their insurers are. Top Gear also regularly rakes much bigger auto manufacturers over the coals when they don't play by Clarkson's rules.
In a recent episode, Bentley (iirc) refused to lend a car for a road test segment Top Gear did in Albania. In it's place they bought a dirt old Yugo for probably on the low side of $500 and proceeded to call it a Bentley for the rest of the segment, piling on withering criticism the entire time. Chrysler refused to provide a test vehicle for a trip to Bonneville, so Top Gear just went and *bought one* (charger)....and proceeded to make fun of Dodge the rest of the show.
Tesla is about to find out what it's like to be the heckler in a club with a good comedian. Think Ru Paul v. Milton Berle. Are they gonna get high fives from their buddies or is Don Rickles about to tear this company a new asshole?
Re:I remember that episode.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether or not Tesla is entitled to damages or other concessions from Top Gear/the BBC, I don't know why on Earth they expected a fair review from the show. They obviously didn't watch many episodes before deciding to lend Top Gear a car to trial.
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:0, Interesting)
Top Gear was one of my favorite shows but this made me rethink that. I at first excused the poor mileage as being the difference between flat out and simply driving fast. Remember super cars will drain their tanks in under 20 minutes flat out. Hearing it was all scripting before the cars were even delivered brings into question every single car test they ever did. I Know Clarkson hates electric, I was a massive Clarkson fan until this report, but stacking the deck to get the results you want makes everything you do questionable. I agree the show is mostly entertainment but you expect the car tests to have some legitimacy. I always thought British reality series were "more" real than US ones but I have my doubts now. This was a low blow and for the first time today I found myself changing the channel when a Top Gear rerun came on BBC strictly because of this story. They should have admitted the scripting and revised the episode for reruns. Top Gear no longer has any credibility. It's a funny show but the car tests are completely meaningless and if I continue watching next season I'm likely to mute the car test portions. They screwed up bad!
Re:Some people don't understand entertainment (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Tesla/Obama/Westly connection.. (Score:1, Interesting)
From:
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=13250247 [go.com]
"When the White House announced the federal government would loan $465 million to Tesla, a California start-up company with plans to develop an all-electric sedan, President Obama called it an "historic opportunity to ensure that the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks are made in America."
The loan also represented a lucrative opportunity for Steve Westly, a major investor in the car company who had raised more than $500,000 for the president's campaign."
I don't know if there's more to the article as the "Next" link seems broken at the moment. Is the story about the Tesla/BBC suit coming out now in order to bury this story? I'm not a conservative, Republican, conspiracy theorist or someone with an agenda against Obama but this seems very coincidental...
Why does everyone assume Tesla's claims are true? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Finally, a reasonable lawsuit (Score:4, Interesting)
The car was probably on loan from Tesla, and after such a poor showing on the show Im sure the engineers were interested in figuring out why it underperformed.
The car was theirs, they were trying to fix their car because they were told it had failed.
Its like if you loan your laptop to your buddy, and he infects it with malware... you might just check the logs to see wtf he installed, and if it looked like he installed it on purpose you just might ask him to say hes sorry.
Yes reverse car analogy.
Re:Tesla is misrepresenting the claims made. (Score:4, Interesting)
They ran it on the Top Gear test track, this is notorious for massively reducing the apparant range of petrol/diesel cars, they thrash cars on the track massive acceleration, decceleration, power slides etc ... most normal cars only get 10 mpg (or less) under these conditions, they have driven several cars until empty, so the Tesla's 200 mile range could be nearer 50miles under these conditions, which they could easily have done ...
Also the Tesla did break down, and Tesla do not seem to be disputing this ...?
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
That may be. But the fact remains that the car did not run out of power at any point during their testing. Yet they showed the driver saying "uh-oh" as the car apparently suddenly lost power, and then they showed people pushing it back to the hangar while explaining that it had died on them. The car they were pushing was perfectly drivable at that point, and they represented otherwise with no indication that they were faking it. Sounds like libel to me. Oh, and "you shouldn't take Top Gear seriously" is not an acceptable excuse...although I do very much hope that's the defense they use in court.