Tesla Motors Sues Top Gear
Demanding Unobtanium: Cars We Want, But Can't Have
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Back in 2008, the television show Top Gear ran a feature on the world's first mass-produced electric sports car. Enthusiastically praising the car's acceleration--though somewhat underwhelmed by its handling--Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson went on to deride the Tesla Roadster for its lack of driving range.
In the review, Clarkson cited Tesla as claiming the car will go 200 miles on a single charge, even when driven quickly. He then stated, based on Top Gear's calculations, the car would go but 55 miles on a charge--the way they were driving it.
And while Clarkson never verbally stated the Tesla Roadster ran out of electricity during their testing, the way the footage was shot and edited made the car appear to do so. The car is depicted slowing and stopping on the test track, presumably because of charge depletion. This is followed by a shot of four men pushing a Tesla Roadster into a hangar.
In the lawsuit, Tesla alleges the show ran false and exaggerated criticisms of the Roadster.
Ricardo Reyes, Communications VP at Tesla, acknowledging the filing of the lawsuit in a statement on the Tesla Website's enthusiast blog says; "Over the last several months, we have written to the BBC, asking them to stop repeating the serious and damaging lies on the show."
According to Reyes, neither of the cars provided for testing ran out of charge. Reyes states a review of the onboard diagnostic systems of both cars used for the show revealed the state of charge of neither car's battery pack ever dropped below 25 percent. Reyes statement also alleges Top Gear scripted the review before they ever got into the car and because the show continues to rebroadcast the alleged erroneous information to hundreds of millions of new viewers across the globe damage is being to the reputation of EVs in general, as well as Tesla's Roadster.
SCM test drove the Tesla Roadster recently. In our highly spirited drive of the car, we determined it to be capable of a range of approximately 171 miles when driven the way a sports car enthusiast would on winding mountain roads (cornering briskly, braking repeatedly and accelerating frequently with considerable enthusiasm). We covered 143 miles on our test. Our test Tesla's onboard system reported 28 miles of range in reserve at the end of our drive.People Who Read This Article Also Read
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By Andrew Posted: 4/3/2011 3:41pm PDT
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