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."
FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:5, Insightful)
This may or may not be an uphill battle for them.
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.
As for the rest, not sure who exactly takes Top Gear seriously. It's a fun show, but I don't really look at it for good car facts. Nor should anyone else.
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You mean that greyhound (top speed:45mph) didn't really beat a car?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM8ArZ3o8qE [youtube.com], for those who missed it.
Don't tell that to my sweet rescued "needle nosed" hound, it'll hurt his pride!
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:4, Insightful)
an extremely narrow track covered in very loose dirt, and you don't think a car would have significant trouble getting to any speed and keeping it?
i think the dog winning that race is a lot more likely than you believe it to be -- i'm honestly a bit impressed he didn't lose it around one of those corners
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Completely plausible for a short race on a dirt track. Certainly, the dog would have no chance on a paved track, but the car is at a huge disadvantage on the dirt.
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:5, Informative)
The dog accelerates to top speed very quickly. Using the speed you give for the dog (45 MPH) and assuming 1 second to reach top speed, the dog could do a straight quarter mile in under 21 seconds.
According to Mazda, an MX5 can do a straight quarter mile in just over 15 seconds.
Now change it from a straight course to an oval. The dog is likely to get much better traction in the turns, so won't have to slow down as much as the car does. The dog slows down quicker when it needs to, and gets back up to speed quicker. Net result is the car is going to lose significantly to the dog in and around each turn.
On the first straightaway the car may or may not be able to gain time on the dog. Since they start in the middle of the straightaway the car doesn't have a lot of time until the first turn. On the back straightaway it is room to gain time. Then coming out of the second turn it is another half-straightaway to the finish so may not be able to gain much.
The net result is that the car is going to be slowed down more by the turns and the track conditions than the dog is. If the dog loses 40% due to turns and track conditions and the car loses 60% (both compared to what they can do in a straight quarter mile), the dog will win on the track.
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I'm sorry, but no. Heh, no.
Your brother destroyed his clutch for some other reason, but most certainly it had nothing to do with the beach. I've grown up on dirt roads, and beaches my entire life. 90% of my driving has been on dirt/sand, and a considerable amount on beaches.
I'm not even sure why you think one would need special tires, weights in the trunk, and so on. I've driven all manner of car, from absolute crapbox to turbos in these environments. I've had bald tires, winter tires, performance tire
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. That would be almost as stupid as looking for tech news on slashdot.
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Top Gear is for cars, what Slashdot is for tech.
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, it's more entertainment than information, but outright lies about a car on their test track will have a very real impact on the sales by that car's manufacturer. It sounds like a valid lawsuit to me.
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.
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this is our MS troll again
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Jeremy Clarkson is awesome. So is Simon Cowell.
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually I would say that Top Gear is NOTHING LIKE Fox News (which still tries to cast itself as serious, and more importantly have viewers who genuinely think its serious).
Top gear prides itself for being brash, corney and the viewers over here in the UK fully understand that. Even my wife, who is about as serious about documentries and facts, love the show. She sees it as greatly humourous and entertaining. We think the three are huge cocks, and totall idiots.. But we love em for it! And both of us are immensly jealous, and would love to have their jobs!
The only people that really complain about Top Gear, dont really watch, nor understand it.
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WIN! I will bow to you, Sensei. You actually understand the show!
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess TG crossed from Informative to Infotainment to Entertainment over the years, as the stunts and big "races" drew more and more audience response. Clarkson & Co. obviously had an opinion about the Tesla prior to receiving the car for testing, and they didn't let the actual car influence them into changing it.
They used the Tesla to give an opinion, not a report - if you remember the episode, you'll recall the point they were trying to make was that Hydrogen was the better alternative fuel/power source for the future of cars, and demonstrated it with the Honda FCV. The main issue is that the "reviews" are presented as factual, whereas we see now an agenda is being pushed - and yeah, I agree, that makes me angry. Angry to think Clarkson & Co. are letting personal views influence ostensibly objective reviews. I don't agree with Clarkson's politics, but I expect at least that the car reviews aren't influenced by it. It's a slippery slope from scripting a review against a car to scripting a review for a small cash payment.
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:5, Insightful)
Clarkson is a twat.
He's an opinionated, loudmouthed, immature cock. This makes him and his cohorts highly entertaining. And that's what top gear is, entertainment.
Clarkson also writes for the papers and whilst he, very occasionally, says some of the sort of "nobody else is daring to say it so I will" stuff, most of what he says is tripe, IMHO.
I still watch and enjoy top gear, it's funny and has fast shiny things. But I wouldn't consider much of what they do to reflect reality very well, not least because it's pretty bloody unlikely I'll ever drive (let alone own) one of the shiny things they play with. And any time he goes off-message from light entertainment and petrol and starts giving opinions (especially if globabl warming is involved in said opinions) it breaks the mood and just annoys me.
Right, there' s my two cents. I do also find it highly amusing that a british show about three muppets and some big engines is now one of the world's most popular tv shows!
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Top Gear is a slightly more intelligent version of an automotive-based Jackass program.
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If that is what you want, watch fifth gear, much more about cars, but also way more boring.
As for Vicki, she lost all credibility the moment she started doing toyota adds, and please dont get me started on the aygo Vs alfa Romeo Giulia "comparison" commercial, it makes me want to drop her in a vat of acid just watching what she does with the alfa..
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All car shows are boring. No exceptions. Top Gear is fun because it's not really a car show. It's entertainment featuring cars. Maybe it's a parody of a car show.
Everybody knows that their reviews, track tests etc are heavily biased. But still, outright lies and fabrications is going too far.
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It's a show for adult boys; sportscars, bantering, destruction, adventure, roadtrips... I love it!
Lets face it; do you really want to watch a serious review of the latest Suzuki middle-class sedan or do you want to see them racing around some insane Zonda sportscar?
It does have very good production value though; camera work, postpro, editing. Other car shows try to mimick the visual style but all fail miserably.
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:5, Informative)
The BBC keep repeating the episode with the lies intact so Tesla are going for the only avenue left open to them.
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That is unless the computer failed to record the fail?
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TFA also points out that the cars' computer proves that the test was staged.
My computer proves you're gullible and jump to conclusions, and computers don't lie, right?.
Re:FIRST LAWSUIT! (Score:4, Informative)
Define "actually ran out of battery power". In the default mode, the Tesla Roadster stops running well before the battery is empty. Now, the exact level at which this happens doesn't seem to be documented anywhere official, but it appears to be about 10% full [teslamotorsclub.com]. You can disable this, but Tesla Motors advise against it because it reduces battery lifespan.
The other catch is that the car apparently reduces performance to encourage you to recharge even before this. Now, again the level at which this happens isn't documented anywhere, but if the battery really was at 20% then it's entirely possible the Top Gear team were experiencing loss of power and battery warnings.
The "20% battery left" statement by Tesla's PR department is very misleading.
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Clarkson doesn't just drive aggressively when testing cars on their track, he often thrashes them. The Tesla is a sports car, but it wasn't designed to be constantly power-slid around corners etc.
The hell it isn't. The Tesla is marketed and priced as an exotic sports car and should be held to that standard.
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If everyone charges their cars at night, it's not going to be "off-peak" any more.
Also, electrical vehicles only make sense for very short commutes - in my metro area (Detroit) a typical commute is 30 miles on the highway, and our highways actually allow traveling close to the posted speeds of 70mph. A typical vehicle is going to dissipate something like 10-15kW at 70mph; over half an hour, that's about 5-8 kW-hr, one-way. So the round trip would use 10-20kW-hr (rounded for simplicity) per day.
To put that
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Finally, a reasonable lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they turn out to be wrong, Tesla just got a small point of favor with me for that. It's kind of sad that "not being evil" is noteworthy in a lawsuit nowadays...
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No big demands, just a "stop lying about our product" and "say sorry"
The lawyers for Tesla most likely don't watch Top Gear. If they did, they would know about the episode where Clarkson drove a Prius and ranted about how epically slow it was - something along the lines of "it would be useless as a milk delivery vehicle because all your milk would be bad before you reached the first house". Oddly enough, Toyota did not sue over that one.
That said, Tesla is a US company, and Top Gear Is produced by BBC in the UK. So I'm not sure there is much hope for this lawsuit to ac
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Tesla is a US company
Their European HQ is in the UK, so they're probably a registered company there too.
Re:Finally, a reasonable lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
being in a different country doesn't have much of a matter on it. it wouldn't even if tesla didn't market their cars in the UK - which they do.
on your first point, apples and oranges. the prius bit was obvious comic exaggeration stating an opinion. the tesla bit isn't comic exaggeration, it is an alleged misrepresentation of facts. it wasn't the lawyers that decided whether or not to sue; it was the sales executives who got tired of hearing "the most-watched automobile program in the world said that your car breaks down, doesn't do what you're telling me it does, and the technology isn't up to real-world use. who is lying?"
i agree with gp; it's nice to see a lawsuit that is "you are lying and costing me money, please stop," instead of "your product bears a similarity to my product, so now i have to sue you for godzilla dollars, lest i lose my patents."
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Re:Finally, a reasonable lawsuit (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing you haven't heard much about British libel laws.
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Are there any British laws on the use of black box recordings against the "customer"? That could be a hitch.
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.
Tesla is misrepresenting the claims made. (Score:5, Informative)
You should actually watch the review instead of just making stuff up (I can't believe you can get modded informative when you say "It's been a while since I've seen the episode" while the review in question is actually linked to the article. Why not just watch the review, it takes 10 minutes! and you will actually know what you are talking about). They were given two cars, and the point they were making was about the amount of time it takes to charge the cars, and how that made then essentially unusable for long road trips (they suggest that for normal driving you should buy two so you can use one while the other is charging). This is a real concern, and it is not misrepresented. While a normal car takes a couple minutes to fill, the Tesla takes hours. And they did say "We've worked out that it would only get 55 miles in our track driving" they never claimed it actually ran out of charge during testing (which is what tesla is disputing). They showed a simulation of it running out of charge, but they could have easily just run it down! Who would say that they couldn't? That's not the point they were making. The visuals are for dramatic effect. Complaining that it didn't actually run out during testing is just nit-picking. Everyone knows that if you drive a car far enough, it will run out of energy.
As for whether or not the breaks actually broke, or the engine actually overheated, Tesla doesn't seem to be disputing that as far as I can tell.
Re:Tesla is misrepresenting the claims made. (Score:5, Informative)
Except, it didn't run out of power, and in normal driving it wouldn't, hence not needing to buy two, and also not needing to recharge from flat.
I watched that episode, and more so, I've had many many many conversations with people, who believe that the Tesla DID run out of power, and that they'd never buy it because of that. This extremely misrepresents its capabilities, and they likely could have lost money form it.
They don't SAY it ran out, but they do IMPLY it ran out. They go "But then... Oh..." he looks down and it decreases its acceleration.
"For libel in the United States, the person first must prove that the statement was false. Second, that person must prove that the statement caused harm. And, third, they must prove that the statement was made without adequate research into the truthfulness of the statement."
The statement was false, it should last for 200mph (given Tesla aren't lying).
They lost sales (likely).
They didn't actually test it, just said our calculations show.
They've possibly got quite a good case for libel.
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:Tesla is misrepresenting the claims made. (Score:4, Informative)
They don't SAY it ran out, but they do IMPLY it ran out. They go "But then... Oh..." he looks down and it decreases its acceleration.
Or possibly the car deliberately decreased its acceleration [nytimes.com] because the battery was running low. Note that "low" doesn't mean "close to 0%" - it would seem that the car stops running completely at 10% battery left [teslamotorsclub.com] unless you want to reduce your battery life by overriding this. 20% battery when the warnings come on and the car starts reducing its performance to get you to recharge is totally plausible.
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No, I believe Top Gear has since admitted that it hadn't ran out of power, but they just put on that show, to show what it would be like if it did lose power. So, it wasn't due to it running low or similar.
Re:Tesla is misrepresenting the claims made. (Score:5, Informative)
On the second note, if Tesla's claim that they can prove their disputes with the data logging on the roadster proves true, than Tesla's going to win (IANAL, muchless a British one). Disputing your argument above, no where in the segment did they say they were simulating the car running out. From the episode, "...but then, although Tesla say it'll do 2 hundred miles we worked out that on our track it would run out after just fifty-five miles." This is definitely a case of inferred versus implied, as the way it was represented definitely implied to me that they weren't simulating.
Furthermore, in the very article where you found the link, it states that Tesla is disputing the claims about both the brakes (please use the right brake, it makes so much more sense) breaking (point number four in the article), and the engine overheating (point number four). And furthermore, the video cuts before it can get to point number five. "That neither of the two Roadsters provided to Top Gear was available for test driving due to these problems." (Again, FTA).
So, sorry fanboy, but you're too quick to defend and too quick to skip over the details.
Also, I guess it's prudent to note that I have no affiliation with either group, nor do I have any true interest in this at all. As of today I have watched more Top Gear than I have in the rest of my life.
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Suppression of a bad review by lawsuit is reasonable?
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"This car sucks" is different from "this car broke down twice while we were testing it", when the latter didn't even happen.
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The cars did break down, but so would many cars (Score:4, Insightful)
They say the cars didn't break down. Take note: cars. Top Gear claimed on-air that not only did both require recharging (Tesla also says neither ran out of charge), but that they both broke down. Tesla says that's a fabrication.
One car's motor overheated and basically shut down, "reduced power" was what Clarkson said when it happened. The other car's brakes failed.
Those are failures, regardless if they were temporary or not.
The problem is, Top Gear tests cars as though they are going to be driven on "track days" which are basically amateur racing where the cars are pushed hard for a long time - totally unlike the real-world road driving most people do. Most mass-market cars would suffer brake failures or other problems when used this way.
Frankly, given that Top Gear tests cars on their track the way they do, the review was pretty balanced. They showed that although the Tesla didn't handle quite as well as the Lotus that it's based on, it could out-accelerate the Lotus on the straights.
On almost every episode of Top Gear there is a multi-hundred-thousand dollar (up to millions of dollars) car sliding around the test track, being pushed to its limits in ways that no street driven car would be. The Tesla, like many cars, isn't built to take it. Would you be upset if your $2,000,000 Bugatti suffered the same problems? Yes. Would you even be surprised if a $20,000 Honda's engine overheated or brakes failed when driven that way for an extended time? No. The issue is that the "real world" Clarkson was talking about was on their track, not on public roads.
The Tesla is built to be a sporty car, but not a race car. There are some cars that can take abuse all day long and do just fine, and some that can't. There's nothing wrong with that. When I owned a Porsche I was able to drive the car very hard all day long and then drive it home as though nothing had happened. My V8 Camaro could beat the Porsche in a drag race (wouldn't come close on a corner though) but it would have ended up ruined given a day of the same treatment the Porsche took.
Top Gear has also driven a Prius around their track as fast as possible, with a V8 BMW M3 following it to prove that hybrids aren't the end-all of fuel economy (the BMW got far better gas mileage because the Prius was never designed to be driven on a track). The same type of driving is a recipe for using up 100% of an electric car's charge pretty quickly, and given that type of usage, the comments about recharge time are valid. But, if you just want to drive sedately to work and back, the Prius is going to get much better gas mileage than the M3.
Sending a "performance" car to Top Gear that isn't designed for the rigors of track use is guaranteed to result in a bad review. It's not like they're doing bland consumer reviews of family cars like PBS' Motor Week.
Sometime the Tesla guys should watch the review of the Bentley where one of the rear tires explodes, and think themselves lucky. Heck, the seats in one Mercedes-Benz (an AMG Black model) were compared unfavorably to a pile of rocks. You don't see M-B complaining.
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Top Gear has also driven a Prius around their track as fast as possible, with a V8 BMW M3 following it to prove that hybrids aren't the end-all of fuel economy (the BMW got far better gas mileage because the Prius was never designed to be driven on a track).
Not just that. The BMW was slipstreaming behind the Prius. That saves quite a bit of fuel. (Also, BMWs are actually pretty efficient.)
The same type of driving is a recipe for using up 100% of an electric car's charge pretty quickly, and given that type of usage, the comments about recharge time are valid.
Comments about recharge times are perfectly valid. Claiming it ran out of power at 25% of the claimed range when it didn't, isn't.
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Tesla thinks they can prove it didn't. So, assuming they actually have the proof they claim to, then the claim that the car broke down twice is a lie. And I agree, if it's a lie, then that's libel, and I think their request for damages is perfectly reasonable, pull the episode containing the lies off the air forever, and pay about as much as 2 or 3 Tesla's cost in damages.
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Re:Finally, a reasonable lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
"bad" is not equivalent to "factually incorrect"
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Home Delivery (Score:4, Funny)
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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.
Re:I remember that episode.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or it could be that Clarkson has such a big stick up his ass about "ecomentalists" that Top Gear will bash anything that doesn't burn fossil fuels, even if that thing is a sports car.
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I keep reading misinformation like this and I am starting to wonder if there is some central source where it comes from?
Anyways, transmission lines losses are at most 10%, usually 5%. A giant power plant is vastly more efficient than what you have in your car. That is why important buildings like hospitals will have diesel generators as backup rather than as the primary source, because getting power off the grid is cheaper (more efficient) than generating your own from a tiny truck size generator.
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.
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They do tend to make fun of a lot of cars and have had gags with cars breaking down. Some bits are obviously staged. The show is a mix between an auto-review show and a comedy. So it sounds plausible to me that they blurred the line between the two a bit too much in this case.
Personally I just fast forward through the auto bits to get to the parts where the hosts do something stupid.
Re:I remember that episode.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
My intuition tells me Top Gear will turn out to be right.
When an overhyped product gets a bad review and the maker threatens to sue, you know which way it usually turns out. I'm going with the odds, until the evidence says otherwise.
If they do in fact have evidence, they're welcome to present it.
California company is acting. What a surprise. (Score:3)
Staged? Top Gear always stages things. How else could they compare a Ferrari to a bicycle or a jet plane to a car. It's entertainment, folks. If Tesla thinks that Top Gear unfairly cost them sales then they are just plain stupid.
I watched that episode. IMO they showed the strengths and weaknesses of the car. The idiot, Clarkson, claiming that 55 miles of pedal-to-the-metal driving is "real world" is no more ludicrous than Tesla claiming that their roadster is a competitive sports car.
That Tesla CEO douchebag should just take his lumps and go racing if he thinks he thinks he has the car for it.
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The idiot, Clarkson, claiming that 55 miles of pedal-to-the-metal driving is "real world" is no more ludicrous than Tesla claiming that their roadster is a competitive sports car.
Fairly sure clarkson never claimed that, he did claim (correctly) that a real world problem is that it would take days (given 16hour charge time and ~200 mile range) to cross the country.
I don't see much happening with this (Score:4)
This isn't the first group that has gotten upset at Top Gear. They have a pretty long list [wikipedia.org]. The BBC goes to bat for them almost without fail, not surprising since the show has an estimated viewing audience of 350 million worldwide.
It also should be noted that in the episode in question, they also feature a test drive of the Honda FCX Clarity, Honda's hydrogen powered car. And they liked it a lot.
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 regu
Two years later... (Score:5, Informative)
So here's what clarkson had to say at the time. From the times online [timesonline.co.uk]:
Phone calls were made. Editorial policy wallahs were consulted. Experts were called in. No “i” was left undotted. No “t” was left uncrossed. No stone remained unturned in our quest for truth and decency.
Tesla could not complain about what was shown because it was there. And here’s the strange thing. It didn’t. But someone did. Loudly and to every newspaper in the world.
..
This was weird. Tesla, when contacted by reporters, gave its account of what happened and it was exactly the same as ours. It explained that the brakes had stopped working because of a blown fuse and didn’t question at all our claim that the car would have run out of electricity after 55 miles.
You would figure that if these claims were so outrageous, tesla would have contradicted them at the time.
Re:Two years later... (Score:5, Informative)
That article didn't match my own recollection of the controversy, so I googled "top gear tesla review". I found a good article from Wired [wired.com] and another from The Guardian [guardian.co.uk].
From the Wired article:
- The batteries on the cars "never fell below 20 percent charge".
- "They never had to push a car off the track because of lack of charge or a fault," and it isn’t clear why the segment included footage showing exactly that, she said.
- Recharging in customers homes (albeit with specialized equipment) takes "as little as 3.5 hours".
- The blown fuse that caused the brake failure was replaced, and the car "was back up and running literally within minutes".
From the Guardian article:
So to summarize: Top Gear makes it appear that the Tesla ran out of juice during testing. Tesla called them on it. The BBC claims that despite everyone thinking that is what happened, they never claimed it did. And then, inexplicably, Tesla waits 2 years to sue.
Time gap... (Score:4)
So... Tesla waited 2 years before doing this when it could have set the record straight the moment it happened?
My recollection of the show (Score:3)
Tesla were probably thinking that being featured on Top Gear would have resulted in a free commercial. Very naive. And suing after more than two years after the first broadcast won't do them any favours. The Streisand effect will be limited by their sort-of reasonable demands but they show themselves as a bunch of sorry sulking kids.
As said many times before, Top Gear is a show and not a car review programme.
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.
Ya pretty much (Score:3)
And add to that the fact that unless they are total morons, they had to have watched Top Gear and thus be aware they are goof balls. I mean these are the people that did a beach assault with the Royal Marines using a sedan.They do silly things with cars, they rip on shit that doesn't matter at all to normal people. Also any sort of performance car tends to get reviewed by Clarkson who (at least on camera) is a complete speed freak and doesn't like any car that can't go 200mph+.
If they didn't expect a review
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55 miles ROUND A TRACK /= 311 miles driven to get as much range as possible.
idiot.
I Don't Get It... (Score:3)
I don't understand the summary at all!
Could someone please provide a simple car analogy?
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In Soviet Slashdot, that fixes for you!
There's a big difference between "wants them to" and "expects to get less than". I don't know the details of the Beeb's accounting, but it wouldn't surprise me if they got the car free for what Tesla expected would be a fair review and exposure. That'd be nearly 9/10 of the damages sough
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Tesla simply wants Top Gear to stop rebroadcasting the particular episode and to correct the record ...The firm expects to recover not more than £100,000 in damages
Fixed that for you!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/30/tesla-sue-top-gear [guardian.co.uk]
Fixed that for you! The guardian doesn't say £100,000, it says "up to" In fact the claim lists exactly what the OP says it does and the "value" is not more than £100,000. But nice try.
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£100,000 in damages, considering the typical amounts for this kind of lawsuits nowadays, as well as the type of companies involved, is hardly a dime. It's somewhere along the street value of the car. Are they just charging them for the Tesla they used?
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Tell that to all the people who decline to buy a Tesla because of what they saw on Top Gear...
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Tell that to all the people who decline to buy a Tesla because of what they saw on Top Gear...
Very few Top Gear viewers have that much disposable income, desire for an all-electric two-seater, and would accept without question what they saw on Top Gear. After all, the Tesla Roadster is a very unique car on today's market; if you wanted one and then changed your mind you would not be able to get a comparable vehicle from Toyota, Ford, Honda, etc ... Or even any of the premium brands for that matter because there is no other two-seater all-electric roadster for sale in the US today.
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Very few Top Gear viewers have that much disposable income, desire for an all-electric two-seater, and would accept without question what they saw on Top Gear.
You have the statement reversed. It doesn't matter what the average Top Gear viewer is likely to do. What matters is how likely the average Tesla buyer is to watch Top Gear.
Not everyone that buys a Tesla is looking for only an all-electric two-seater. I've talked to a few people that are in the market for a two-seat sports car in that price range, but they're not sure the Tesla is ready for prime time since it is so new.
If they're on the fence and see that episode, they're likely to go ahead an buy the P
Re:Some people don't understand entertainment (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, I still like Top Gear. I'm just going to be way more skeptical about anything they say about a car, ever. Maybe the Morris Marinas is a great car, afterall.
Re:Some people don't understand entertainment (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the Morris Marinas is a great car, afterall.
Perhaps, but they still seem to attract falling pianos way too often for my taste...
Re:Some people don't understand entertainment (Score:5, Informative)
You are wrong on several critical points. Tesla is not claiming that the actual breakdowns were scripted. The only thing they are claiming was scripted was the scene where the Tesla runs out of charge. To be clear, the car did actually overheat, and the other car's breaks did stop working. Those were not scripted or false.
The scene of the car running out of charge is a dramatic lead-in to their discussion of the car's major real-world flaw, which is charging times. Watch the clip and you will see that they way they make their claim implies that the car running out of charge was simulated
Realistically, they did not need to simulate this, because they could have actually driven it until it ran out of charge. Of course, it's not surprising that they wouldn't do that, since it's a huge waste of time and the end result is a foregone conclusion. It seems to me that Tesla is really just whining over a technicality, since it's true the car will run out of charge, and that's what they showed.
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Then why don't they show other cars "pretending" to run out of gas and having to be pushed, since it's true that other cars will do that?
They have done, for particularly thirsty vehicles. In particular, I remember Clarkson getting ribbed thoroughly for owning a model that was so thirsty under normal driving conditions it couldn't even make it from his house to the TV studio without a fill-up. (I forget which model of car it was; I wasn't thinking about buying a supercar then, and I'm not now.)
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considering in TFA they talk of having to constantly answer questions of potential customers that were raised in that very episode...
Re:Some people don't understand entertainment (Score:5, Insightful)
Entertainment or not, when you claim that a car broke down a lot and it turns out you were lying about it, there's a problem.
We see a lot of this "Oh, we don't have any responsibility because we're entertainment used to excuse a lot of really reprehensible stuff. Whenever some right-wing turd makes fun of a handicapped person or says something really racist or homophobic, it's always "oh we're entertainment" but then they turn around and tell their viewers how they're serious journalists (I've got a list if you really need examples).
You don't get to have a show that gives opinions about products and then say those products broke when they didn't break, no matter how much "fun" you're having.
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You don't get to have a show that gives opinions about products and then say those products broke when they didn't break, no matter how much "fun" you're having.
However, Top Gear doesn't sell itself as a source for information. Hell for a while BBC America was comparing it to Jackass in their own commercials. I'm pretty sure there aren't many people who make purchasing or lifestyle decisions based on Jackass, so why should a niche car manufacturer be worried about people making purchasing or lifestyle decisions based on Top Gear? The likelihood that anyone who watches Top Gear without realizing it is for entertainment purposes would have the money for a Tesla R
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I wouldn't be so sure. Judging from the number of people who have been killed or maimed trying some of those stunts on their own, it appears that there is a certain segment of the population that indeed makes lifestyle decisions based on watching Jackass.
One must never underestimate people's capacity for missing the point.
Re:Some people don't understand entertainment (Score:5, Insightful)
Who apparently doesn't mind making stuff up.
Companies provide cars to Top Gear. Forget for a moment about the stupidity of lying to make one of your benefactors look worse. If the only way you can make a story compelling, even comedy, is to be fraudulent, then there's a problem.
All they had to do is run a disclaimer saying "The car really didn't break down like we pretended" and it would be OK. Or run a disclaimer saying "The events portrayed are entirely fabricated and are in no way indicative of anything real about the cars' quality". But they would never do that. Why? Because they are trading on the notion that there's something useful buried in what they are doing. My guess is that they're afraid of making it clear that none of what is portrayed on the show is in any way real.
And if any part of what they're doing is supposed to be taken as real, then they've got a responsibility to make it clear when they're making stuff up.
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.
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But when they do review 'everyman' cars, they do a great job. Now I know I can drive a Fiesta off of a Royal Marine landing craft on to a beach with a contingent of Royal Marines in the back seat. But seriously, when they do review an average car, it is a good job.
Now if we could get English Top Gear in Canada on one of the channels that aren't in the added price category that would be great. Unfortunately all we are going to get is the American knock off. Hooray! [/end sarcasm]. Crap.
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Now if we could get English Top Gear in Canada on one of the channels that aren't in the added price category that would be great.
If it makes you feel any better I have to pay extra in the US to get BBC America, which is the only way I can watch the UK version of Top Gear. And for that matter we still have never seen any of the episodes with the Black Stig...
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No shit. They review cars that aren't even and never will be in production, compare/contrast £135,000 sports cars, and then go plow snow in Norway on a combine for fun. If you're taking this shit seriously you are the biggest buffoon.... in the woooorld.
That said, I love watching Top Gear. My DVR usually has at least 6 recorded episodes on it at any given time. For me it may be the single most entertaining show on TV. But I sure as hell wouldn't buy (or pass on) a car simply on what they say about it. I have enjoyed the hell out of cars that they hate; and may never get a chance to drive most of the cars they love.
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Untrue!
Our money overlaps with their interests. And, apparently, their interests overlap with our government.
I sure wish I could make a shit-tastic car that nobody would buy for anything other than a showroom piece and then get a few hundred mil from uncle sam.
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What do you suppose those car-shaped things in their dealership are?
Overpriced Power Wheels (TM)?
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Re:It didn't break down, it ran out of power (Score:5, Informative)
Both Tesla cars given for testing did NOT ever get below 20% charge.
And the onboard data loggers and battery charge indicators (plus a capacity check after the fact,) will show all of that.
No wonder you posted as AC.
Re:It didn't break down, it ran out of power (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the cars didn't run out of charge, the brake system failed. Tesla claimed that it was something simple (blown fuse I think) and Top Gear was making it worse than it really was
You know, I don't think it really matters if the problem was a junebug on the windshield if it made the frigging brakes fail.
Or, as Big Mike, my old wrench-monkey buddy put it: when prioritizing motorcycle problems: "Go" is optional. "Stop" is mandatory.
I think that fits just dandy for cages, too.
Re:This Case Is Going Nowhere (Score:4, Insightful)
It is clear from the episode that they were highlighting the issue of charging. 16 hours from a wall socket and a 200 mile range. As noted, it would take days to go from one end of the country to another.
It is a fact therefore, that the car does not really work in any practical sense.
I would disagree. Such a car works, in a practical sense -- just not for crossing the country.
If you never drive more than 100 miles a day and go home every night and recharge ... it sounds like the car works in a very practical sense.
But you wouldn't use it to drive 3000 miles any more than you'd use it to haul eight kids to a soccer game. (It also sounds like you wouldn't use it on a race track for any race over 40 miles, but most sports cars never make it to a race track either so that's probably fine.)
Re:This Case Is Going Nowhere (Score:4, Insightful)
More than 70% of Americans have a roundtrip daily commute of 30 miles. If you're too dumb to buy an electric car and rent a gas car for those few times you're going out of town, then don't be pissed when folks like me speculate on the price of oil to make money off your irrational behavior and poor critical thinking skills.
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Anyway, since most of that loan was already granted less then a month after Obamas inauguration... http://www.redherring.com/home/25831 [redherring.com]
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I still don't understand why something like the Tesla gets government funding, but not something like the Aptera.
The Tesla is not exactly new thinking, it's just a sportcar with massive amount of power and batteries to boot, plus it costs, what, 100K? Does it even get that much better equivalent mileage compare to other electrics?
OTOH, Aptera is a new way of thinking, would have been perfectly fines as a hybrid with tiny motor charging a battery that drives the wheels, and would have had a smaller footprin