You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access
to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our community, at no cost, you will have access to start new topics, reply to conversations, privately message other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is free, fast and simple, so please join RX8Club.com today!
When most automakers get a bad review, they shrug it off and look for the silver lining. However, Tesla is suing the BBC over Top Gear's 2008 review of the Roadster.
In a 13 page brief filed with Britain's High Court, the company contends that the review was full of false and libelous statements. To this end, Tesla says they provided two cars to the program and neither of them suffered any mechanical difficulties despite the "staged" breakdowns shown in the episode.
Additionally, Jeremy Clarkson said the Roadster only managed to travel 55 (89 km) miles on the track. Tesla contests this statement as libelous because the car can travel 211 miles (340 km) on a single charge. Furthermore, the company says this statement has "severely damaged" their reputation.
According to Tesla, the company "simply wants Top Gear to stop rebroadcasting this malicious episode and to correct the record."
In response, a Top Gear spokesman said the BBC would be "vigorously defending" the claims made against them.
They also contest Tesla's belief that the Roadster can travel 211 miles (340 km) regardless of conditions and aggressive driving.
This ad is not displayed to registered and logged-in members. Register your free account today and become a member on RX8Club.com!
WHY sue.. 3 Years Later???...don't you just love the old suing routine.
IMO another "reason" why we no longer SEE Reviews on Top Gear (UK) with everyday new cars and models, again IMO Car Manufacturers don't want TG abusing their cars and then give them a crap review..
After all, since these 3 guys have gone from Joe Blow "personalities" with moderate incomes to "cult" like status with high incomes, they think they have the god given right to car knowledge, when in fact they are just immature little nobodies...lol...joke guys!!..
BASTARDS...I am just jealous.
Plus, they have gone from personally owning old cars to the Toys they always wanted..
"Gives us a good review and we will give you a good price"...NO that would NEVER happen on the BBC would it now???
They also contest Tesla's belief that the Roadster can travel 211 miles (340 km) regardless of conditions and aggressive driving
I also agree here with TG and BBC, are Tesla trying to tell us that you can DRIVE hard and aggressive and it would have no influence on the batteries holding charge or Miles per *spark*!..
I say BS..
So it makes NO difference if you nanny or abuse a Tesla, you will still get 211 miles out of a full charge...BS
Tesla's been out of the news for a while. The legal fees are probably coming out of their PR budget.
and if thats true then regardless of the outcome they are going to suck out every ounce of publicity they can get... and I bet thats all this lawsuit is about
You may know that Tesla has issued a writ against Top Gear for defamation and malicious falsehood over the road test that we broadcast of the Tesla Roadster in December 2008. The normal procedure for the BBC in a legal case is to acknowledge receipt of the other party’s claim, and then say no more and get on with preparing its defence for court.
Tesla, however, doesn’t seem content to wait for the legal eagles to settle matters. On the contrary, it’s been very busy promoting its side of the argument through the media. Why even last night the Top Gear office accidentally received an email sent from a Public Relations firm to The One Show, asking if it would like to have the Tesla spokesperson on their programme to talk about the case. It says: “PHA Media represent Tesla and this could make for a fantastic interview.” And the PHA man’s not finished there. “The presenters could have some fun with this.” He adds. “Matt and Alex could even take the Tesla for a spin and test it out, reaffirming its virtues?” Plenty of respect for editorial independence in that last line there and I wish the chaps from PHA Media all the best in their crusade.
However, back to Top Gear, and yes, normally we would follow the pre-legal etiquette of keeping schtum until we get our day in court, but since the other side are being quite noisy with their views on how we conduct ourselves, I just would like to point out one or two things to Top Gear viewers:
1. 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”. The first point here is that the track is where we do our tests of sports cars and supercars, as has happened ever since Top Gear existed. This is where cars are driven fast and hard, and since Tesla calls its roadster “The Supercar. Redefined.” it seemed pretty logical to us that the right test was a track test. The second point is that the figure of 55 miles came not from our heads, but from Tesla’s boffins in California. They looked at the data from that car and calculated that, driven hard on our track, it would have a range of 55 miles.
2. 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.
3. 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.
The above points will be argued over in the near future by brainy people wearing wigs, but in a layman’s nutshell, this is where we stand on the matter. Before I finish though, I must clear up one important issue: scripting. It’s alleged by Tesla that on the day of filming one of their employees caught sight of a script that had been written, before the car had even been driven, already containing the verdict that in the “real world” the Tesla doesn’t work. This, they say, proves our guilt, because we’d condemned the car in advance. May I just say in reply:
a) The truth is, Top Gear had already driven the car prior to filming, to enable us to form a view on it in advance
b) Our primary reasoning behind the verdict had nothing to do with how the Tesla performed; our conclusion was based mainly on the fact that it costs three times more than the petrol sports car upon which it’s based. It takes a long time to recharge, so you can’t use it as easily for the carefree motoring journeys that are a prerequisite of sports car driving. You can actually reach that conclusion without driving the car. As it happens, when it did come to the subjective area of how the car drove on the track, we were full of praise for its performance and handling.
c) Just so you understand there’s nothing devious going on, you need to know how this filming business works. When you film a car review, the reviewer is only the tip of the iceberg. Behind the lens is a film crew, and only a day’s worth of light to shoot the eight minute film. This means we have to prepare in advance a treatment – a rough draft of a script so that the director and film crew can get to work right away, knowing what shots they will need to capture. It will contain the facts about a car, and what we think of its looks and so on, but how well the car actually drives is added on the day. If we’ve driven it ahead of filming, as we do with most cars, we will also have an idea how it feels to drive. But, and this is crucial, as we uncover fresh information about a car whilst filming it, it is entirely normal for the treatment to be modified as the day unfolds. Jeremy is always tweaking the scripts to reflect what his driving experience has actually been on the day.
There you go. I’ve said my bit, and now we’ll hopefully shut up and prepare for our day in court.
PS: As this is going through the courts right now, we’re afraid we’ve had to turn off comments on this one, but we wanted to let you all know how we see it.
...and here I was almost going to rubber stamp this as a repost!
I find it very interesting (as well as humorous) that Tesla is trying to have their cake and eat it to with this lawsuit. It seems to me they are expecting to have it thrown out of court because otherwise they would have kept their mouth shut about the lawsuit.
There is much about Top Gear the public is not aware of (or at least I'm not) regarding the show's relationship to car manufacturers in regards to reviews. It's obvious that Top Gear gets their supply of cars from a variety of sources. Some have been provided by the manufacturer as in the case of the Tesla, some are privately owned cars, and some have been bought either by the show's hosts or BBC.
It does not make much sense for Top Gear to engineer a script for the cars they review because the hosts (seem to) have plenty of latitude to inject their personal feelings about the car with little to no restriction. So if you can trash a car on camera what is the need for a scripted problem?
Any coincidence that Tesla is ready to push out their more affordable 4-door vehicle soon? It does sound like they are using this to drum up media attention to their products.
Of course Top Gear like any TV programme is Scripted...how naive does Telsa (and it appears others) have to be..
It perhaps says more about Tesla and 'how' the company is really going both financially (profit) and sales, perhaps not going the way they wanted??
Outside of the US the rest of the world laughs at some of the suing that goes on in America, really it is pathetic....anything/anyone for "free" money!
It is also pretty obvious that TG does not have as many car manufacturers on-side supplying cars for reviews...I wonder why.
Tesla sues Top Gear for libel and malicious falsehood
Linear Mode
