High Court Rules In Favor of Top Gear Over Tesla Remarks 328
esocid writes "In 2008, BBC's 'Top Gear' aired an episode featuring the Tesla Roadster. One of the show's car reviewers, Jeremy Clarkson, gave a less-than-flattering analysis of the vehicle, sparking a legal case with the automaker that doesn't seem to be working out in Tesla's favor. Now, it looks as though Tesla is losing this battle after a full-day hearing yesterday at the high court in London. 'In my judgment, the words complained of are wholly incapable of conveying any meaning at all to the effect that the claimant [Tesla] misled anyone,' said [Mr. Justice] Tugendhat. 'This is because there is a contrast between the style of driving and the nature of the track as compared with the conditions on a public road [...] are so great that no reasonable person could understand that the performance on the [Top Gear] track is capable of a direct comparison with a public road.' The hearing now continues on Tesla's claim that 'Top Gear' made five other false accusations about the Roadster. Tugendhat has postponed judgment on Tesla's malicious falsehood claim, and is expected to deliver a verdict in the coming weeks."
Re:Tesla (Score:3, Informative)
Don't seem to realise that Top Gear is a comedy show.
Yes, but you don't seem to realise that the Brits take their humour *very* seriously.
Re:Citation (Score:5, Informative)
They did. That's why they're claiming outright fraud with respect to the "the car is dead" segment - according to the car's logs, the car never ran out of power.
Re:Your tax dollars at work (Score:4, Informative)
If a private company had a 401K plan like the government has social security, and the CEO borrowed money from the 401Ks like the government constantly borrows from SS, the CEOs would be in federal prison for a very long time. The government has no metric for success, they do stuff just because. It doesn't matter if people actually benefit from what the government does, they get paid anyway. Not the case with private business. It doesn't matter if it's a total abject failure that kills people and brings misery, it's still "a good thing" because the government is doing it, the "war on drugs" is a wonderful example of this. If it took too long for the pizza to get to your house do you get your money back? (yes) If it took too long for the cops to get to your house when you dial 911 do you get your taxes back? (no). If a private person or business wrongs you there is recourse in the courts. If the government wrongs you, you're just fucked (sovereign immunity)
So ya, huge difference.
Re:A bit thin-skinned... (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong, clarkson does not hate electric, he actually likes the idea of them. He has pointed out this in many places, just google it.
His problem is:
The batteries are currently bulky yet have poor range.(he has concerns on the safety of Li.ion in huge sizes in a car)
And...
It takes too long to charge
So short range with ages to charge means its not practical for many uses, except in town for short journeys.
This is also why he likes hydrogen fuel cell, because it's still electric, but the "capacity" is greater, and filling up is quicker, making it more practical.
Re:Your tax dollars at work (Score:4, Informative)
The roadster has a 53kWh battery. Thus to charge it in a "few", (say, 3) hours will need ~17kW, which is 70A at 240V, assuming you have 240V, which is not the standard voltage in the US, I know. I don't know many homes that would be capable of handling that amount of current, so the claim looks unreasonable.
More realistically, if you had a 240V/35A supply, you'd be looking at 6-7 hours charging. Not so bad, but that's still a very hefty current you're pulling- it's like having an electric oven on full blast for 7 hours. Your bills are going to go through the roof, though I guess it could still work out cheaper than petrol.
A 240V/13A supply will need 17 hours to recharge. That's a typical "household current" socket in the UK, Europe and Australia, but I don't really call that a "few" hours.
Re:What Tesla doesn't get is Marketing (Score:5, Informative)
He also said some downright false things, for example that it had run totally flat and had to be pushed back into the garage by the crew to be recharged before they had finished filming when in reality the car had 20% charge at minimum, as logged by the onboard computer - in other words, they didn't manage to run it flat during the shoot, but the script (which Tesla saw) called for the ending of the piece to show the car "limping" off the track under human propulsion.
I saw the piece when it originally aired (I'm a Top Gear fan), but they really went for the throat at the end. The review was reasonably fair up to that point - they had a lot of positives to say about the car, along with some downsides. There was no need for them to lie at the end.
They did something similar in the latest electric car piece (with the Leaf and some other car [possibly a Peugeot]) where they "comically" ran out of juice in the middle of a town with nowhere to recharge after "setting off for a day's driving" - it was revealed that they set off with low charge in the cars to begin with.
Their position on electric cars seems to be "say some nice things, but then make sure we ram home the point that they have batteries that need to be charged, herp derp!".
Like I say, I'm a fan of the series and have been since before the current Clarkson/May/Hammond setup, but the stuff about anything that runs on alternative fuels is just getting tiresome.
Re:What Tesla doesn't get is Marketing (Score:4, Informative)
I saw the episode when it first aired. He said "[we wanted to do some more shots] but look what happened" in the VO that showed the car being pushed into the garage by hand
I saw the episode when it originally aired as well, and I quite distinctly recall mentioning to my buddy that it was silly to estimate the range by the usage on a race track, since nobody would, or should, drive like that on public roads.
I think you're mixing it up with the part that comes a bit later, where he says
And it appears you don't get much in the way of reliability either.
[Shot of Tesla driving slowly along track] Oh I don't believe this, the motor's overheating and I got reduced power.
[Exterior shot] While it cooled down we went to get the silver car out again.
[Shot of silver Tesla in garage with doors open] Only to find that while it was being charged it's breaks had broken. So then, with the lights fading, we had no cars at all.
I haven't followed the case closely, I have no idea how this specific segment holds up.