Tesla Motors Loses Appeal Against BBC's Top Gear 385
TrueSatan writes "In a highly detailed decision, the UK Court of Appeal has rejected Tesla's appeal against an eartlier ruling by a lower court that, too, rejected Tesla's case. Reading through the decision it is clear that the judge saw Tesla's case as lacking sufficient detail and specific instances of proof to support each claim. The judge stated that that Tesla's chances of a successful appeal, should the case have gone to trial, were insufficiently high to justify holding a trial. He stated that Tesla's case had no real chance of success and in many notes picked appart Tesla's legal team's arguments. That said, he did not say that Top Gear were right or justified in portraying Tesla's vehicle in the way they did — merely that there wasn't a legal case for an appeal. One of the key flaws in Tesla's case, according to the judicial decision, was Tesla's inability to show that actual pecuniary harm, with detailed financial figures, had occurred."
Lots of cheap publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
With some of the costs paid by the UK taxpayer and the BBC license fee payers, Tesla really got lots of mileage (see what I did there?) out of this one.
I agree that the amount of pecuniary harm this did them is probably zero - they were already selling out their full production capacity of Roadster vehicles. Top Gear was not limiting their profits, their production capacity was.
But now their product and brand has had a great deal more exposure.
Re:Lots of cheap publicity (Score:5, Interesting)
With some of the costs paid by the UK taxpayer and the BBC license fee payers *snip*
Top Gear is fully funded from its own revenue streams, such as live shows and sales to syndication - its a huge profit center to the BBC, and funds itself rather than needing funding from the BBC license fee.
Re:Lots of cheap publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you want to go down that road, do you really think current profits can't ever offset older expenditures?
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No, but just becasue they are profitable now doesn't mean we shouldn't overlook the fact that they wouldn't exist without taxes.
We also shouldn't overlook that they use other BBC resource, which are also taxpayer funded.
Personally I think it's disingenuous to excuse away massive faults becasue NOW they are a profit center.
I am an American, and I wish, very much, we had a BBC like service here.
The federal government used to pay station to have news shows in the US. That was the hey day of journalistic integr
Re:Lots of cheap publicity (Score:4, Interesting)
Like PBS?
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No, but just becasue they are profitable now doesn't mean we shouldn't overlook the fact that they wouldn't exist without taxes.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Okay, so Top Gear had some indirect taxpayer seed money to get off the ground. And now they're doing so well they pump a ton of money back into the organization that fed them the seed money, subsidizing other programming, even. Sounds like an extremely successful case of government investment spending, there.
We also shouldn't overlook that they use other BBC resource, which are also taxpayer funded.
I can't think of any major American product or service offered today that did not, ever, rely on taxpayer dollars in some way, even indirectly.
Amazon? Internet ->
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James May probably would have given the Tesla a much more positive review,
And that's why Clarkson didn't let him review it. His bias against anything green is far stronger than his integrity.
(And yes, I know in most shows it's the producers that decide, I have no doubt that all Top Gear decisions are subject to approval by Clarkson.)
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I still watch the show, because it's still funny.
It's always been obvious they fake various things. It's never an accident when a caravan gets destroyed. The presenters don't really go out and buy the cars they use for the various cross country in a second hand car challenges. Etc.
However, since the Tesla episode I now know that there is literally nothing that they won't fake. And nothing they won't lie about.
Despite the fact that I do find it funny and still watch, I think it hurts the credibility of the B
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What amazes me is that manufacturers/dealers keep giving them cars to review. Nissan gave them Leaf EVs to "test" and predictably they did a hatchet job on them. The even lied outright about the battery pack only lasting 7 years when at the time of broadcast Nissan were offering an 8 year warranty on it.
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Re:Time to read the NYT review (Score:5, Informative)
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but one car stubbornly refused to top off at a Delaware Supercharger....After about an hour of troubleshooting, Tesla pushed a firmware update to the vehicle, found and diagnosed another bug and got the car back on the road."
Thank you early adopters ... for not being me.
Re:Tesla don't deny any of the facts (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you prove harm to reputation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that's all it is really. And to a certain extent I sympathise with Tesla somewhat - Top gear did represent the car as a bit of a dud whereas in fact they weren't 100% truthful with what happened. But then I suppose if you let your car be tested on what is effectively a car based comedy show you shouldn't expect unbiased reviews.
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I think what Tesla did constitutes fraud and libel. Why can't companies be held to libel as easily as individuals?
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Tesla have thrown their toys out of the pram here, and it didn't go in their favour - Top Gear routinely say outrageous things about cars, but I've never seen a Vauxhall Astra blow up (despite Clarkson claiming that as a common fault with them) etc etc etc.
Its an entertainment show, nothing more.
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Re:How do you prove harm to reputation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Top Gear is always far more harsh to American cars then any other countries cars, and they always misrepresent electric cars.
I enjoy the show, but I am sure to have a grain of salt...the size of me head.
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That's not true, they're not entirely generous to Chinese or Romanian ones either.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/HowTo:Tell_the_Difference_between_an_American_and_a_European_car [wikia.com]
Re:How do you prove harm to reputation? (Score:5, Insightful)
The kind of people who buy the cars featured on Top Gear couldn't care less about whether it was panned on Top Gear or not.
Re:How do you prove harm to reputation? (Score:4, Insightful)
I assure you many of The Sun reading muppets who watch the show will have gone out the next morning and gobbed off to their friends about how the car ran out of electricity and sure
The point isn't really whether it did or did not run out of electricity in the particular scene where they pushed it back to the garage. That was staged for dramatic effect, but its not the point.
The point is that the car does not have enough of a charge to last a day at the track. A lot of people who buy the Lotus Elise and Exige buy it, in part, for track days. The fact that the Tesla incarnation of that car will make it less than half a day before needing a lengthy battery re-charge is a valid criticism of the car.
And the best case assumes you show up at the track fully charged, as opposed to driving it to the track and using up a good chunk of its battery just showing up. And we haven't even talked about getting home again afterwards.
In a regular car, you fill up just before you pull into the track; and if you need to fill up during the day, its a 5 minute task, and if you are low at the end of the day you fill up before heading home.
To get a good track day out of a Tesla you'd have to bring it in and take it home on a trailer, and you'd still have a tough time getting a full day out of it, even if you could manage to plug it in while you weren't actually on the track.
Make no mistake, this was Clarkson pursuing his anti-green agenda and nothing else...
Listen to yourself sometime, you sound like a conspiracy theorist crackpot. He doesn't have an 'anti-green' agenda. Sure he likes big noisy powerful v12 engines, but that's not an anti-green "agenda".
I like Porsches, I find them far far more reliable, drivable, and practical than Ferraris. If I were reviewing a Ferrari I'd probably mention the relative maintenance and day to day practicality... but that's not an anti-ferrari "agenda". I'm not in league with my good friends the Germans to perpetrate some sort of anti-Italian conviction. Nor am I a 'cowardly person' seeking to use any opportunity to spread misinformation about Ferrari. That's just ridiculous nonsense.
And at worst anyone interested in actually buying a Ferrari who hears me talk about maintenance will do their own research into what the maintenance will be like. Odds are if you are looking at a Ferrari, the maintenance isn't likely a huge concern and it wasn't going to be your daily driver anyway.
Now watch the Tesla episode again. They liked the car. The only real complaint was that the battery technology is still a significant drawback. The range is only modest (but no worse than a typical sports car), but the recharge time is measured in hours not minutes.
More recently they reviewed a Nissan Leaf; and they were really upbeat about that car too, except for the recharge issue. In that episode they ended up pushing them around too. Was the battery really empty for the scene? I don't know. Does it really matter? No. The point they were making is again, that you have to pay a lot more attention when planning a trip to ensure that you don't run out of juice, and that recharging the battery takes a long time.
The ONLY thing I didn't like about the Nissan Leaf segment is that while they remarked that it would take 12+ hrs to fully recharge it, they didn't talk about the time to reach a 50%/ / 75% / 90% charge. These numbers are typically much lower, and while still too long to be at all convenient, at least don't require a hotel.
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Tesla admitted the 55 miles of track time was correct. They tried to argue libel by claiming that viewers would falsely believe it was incapable of more than 55 miles on the road too, but failed to convince any of the judges.
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Exaggerations (Score:5, Insightful)
The people at Tesla should have watched an episode of Top Gear before they let those guys drive their car. Clarkson trashes anything he disapproves of -- that means most American cars, Japanese cars, and anything 'eco-friendly.' It was obvious they were exaggerating when it came to the Tesla but they had a valid point. You can't drive that thing balls-to-the-wall around the track without running out of juice super quick, and it takes a long time to recharge. That makes it a no-go for track enthusiasts, precisely the crowd it could appeal to.
For most people, going to the track is an expensive and time-consuming activity. They don't have time to wait for their electric car to recharge, they want to get the most out of their weekend at the track as possible. A muscle car or Italian super car may go through fuel like mad, but filling it up takes mere minutes. That's the point Top Gear was making, they were just being real mean about it. Anyone who thinks that Clarkson and the boys don't bullshit for the sake of entertainment just haven't seen the show. It's pretty obvious when they are exaggerating or staging something. In the end, the opinions they give are genuine, however full of bias they may be.
Re:Exaggerations (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Exaggerations (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it will leave me stranded more than a gas car will - with an electric car, I have to plan my journey well ahead of getting into the car, while with a petrol or diesel powered car I can make sudden, unplanned 300 mile journeys without thinking about it.
That might change in the future, but right now its the balls bare reality of electric car ownership.
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But you could not have done that when petrol cars where new either.
Also, super charging station are being put through the UK, and on the West cost of the US. That means a full chard in an hour. So it's getting their.
All that is besides the point. The CLEARLY implied the car was out of juice when it wasn't.
For the VAST majority of car drivers, not being able to take a 300+ mile road trip without stopping does not apply to them.
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Petrol cars aren't new though. Thus the contrast.
There were no charging stations in the UK when the programme was made. Can you point at a single "super" charging station now?
That model had a 200 mile claimed range, not 300. You've just added 50% because, bawww, that's why.
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Oh yay, I only have to hang around somewhere for an hour to get it charged so I can move on.
So what if super charging stations are being put in throughout the UK - how long will it be until I don't have to treat an electric car any more differently than my current vehicle? You can make a point about "but electric vehicles are new, just you wait, all the infrastructure will magically appear!" all you want, but I have a perfectly usable form of transport right now and the suggested replacement DOES NOT MATCH
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With an atomic weight of 1.00794 u (1.007825 u for hydrogen-1), hydrogen is the lightest element and its monatomic form (H1) is the most abundant chemical substance, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's baryonic mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen [wikipedia.org]
Where I live, electricity comes from burning coal, which we get by sending men deep in the earth where their health and lives are greatly at risk. I gotta say, that's a pretty fucked-up view of 'cost.'
I have no problem replacing fossil fuels, I just have a problem with replacing fossil fuels with something stupid like electricity, which is most commonly produced by burning fossil fuels. Your war sentiments are completely off-topic.
Re:Exaggerations (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, does it really matter that it didn't actually run out of power? Should the Top Gear production crew have driven the car around the track for another 30 minutes just to get it to die, so they could get the shot legitimately when the point was the same?
Re:Exaggerations (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes.
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Why?
Re:Exaggerations (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I dunno...honesty?
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No one said they lied about 55 miles. They lied about running out of power.
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The point that if you run out of gas the car won't go anymore?
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It is a TV show. They fake lots of stuff. They test cars, then report on that in a very subjective way. Anyone can see that.
All Tesla are essentially claiming is that it is the wrong subjective way. It's a stupid and empty claim. You might as well sue Sesame street for portraying people as having spherical orange and yellow heads.
The show is from the UK, which is in Europe, which means you do not get a disclaimer or a warning with every little detail. The show pretends to be objective, but is completely fak
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Except the point of contention wasn't subjective. The STRONG implied the car ran out of energy when it didn't. That is not subjective in the least.
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Except the point of contention wasn't subjective. The STRONG implied the car ran out of energy when it didn't. That is not subjective in the least.
They have plenty of flatbeds to haul the thing. The audience knew the pushing of the car was staged b/c those guys wouldn't have pushed it anyway. Their point was valid -- it only got decent mileage if you drove it like a grandma.
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The show is from the UK, which is in Europe, which means you do not get a disclaimer or a warning with every little detail.
Incidentally, there is a US version of Top Gear that airs on the History Channel. It basically removes all the "power lap" times and all the car reviews, and solely does the stunts (like turning an ambulance into a taxi) using three very boring and uninteresting Americans.
It includes warning banners indicating that the stunts are faked.
And is "brought to you by" American car companies, which is probably why they don't do car reviews.
Re:Exaggerations (Score:5, Insightful)
They certainly did have a valid point. They weren't even trashing the car, I've seen that episode half a dozen times and they rave about the acceleration, the quality of the interior, the handling... But, at the very end, they go on to say But! We had all of these maintenance problems. The breaks failed, the charger failed, the battery ran out of juice after 60 miles... etc... I believe he even said "It's just not ready yet" and a truer statement could not have been made. In the future, electric cars will be great. They are not great now. They took the car on a racetrack, that's what they do... this car sucks on a racetrack. This car is priced in the range of Porsche, Mazaradi, etc... it was compared to them and found lacking.
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It was a valid point, and anyways, it was hardly the only problem they had with the car, remember the brake failure? The one that isn't really a brake failure because apparently, having a wheel seize up isn't a brake failure if it's just the fuse. Or some bullshit like that.
And, from what others have done, the battery gauge is just as inaccurate as in any other device, remember the other feud that Tesla is having with the NYT over its review of the car?
The point is, that it was Tesla's figures that estimate
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They said they worked out that on their track the car would be out of juice after 55 miles (or whatever). That was the point. After that they'd have to put it away. They never drive cars of any type into their garage. They're always pushed in. This was simply demonstrating that without going through the unnecessary step of actually running it out.
They didn't have a fast charger. So that wasn't an option. They did note that they could charge it but it would take something like 16 hours with their outl
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It's not the warning, it's the *penalty* faced for ignoring those warnings. Say you ignore them and are stranded on the track.
In a petrol car, you can call the garage, and they will send some one with a can of petrol, and within five minutes, you are good to go.
In a Tesla, you have drag the car back, and start a *lengthy* recharge process, since it's unlikely a random given track will have the super-charger. But say they do, even then, a) there is a drag back involved; and b) the recharge time is *still* mo
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They didn't have a valid point. The car did not run out of power. The show portrayed the car begin pushed, as i if it actually had. That may not have been an explicit lie (i mean, you can push a car that's full of gas, too), but it sure as shit is a misleading, asshole move. The car, fully charged, will get you over 300 miles, as I understand it, though less so at very high speeds. It can fast charge in an hour or so to 80%, which isn't so bad, even long distance. In a pinch you can charge it off a regular power outlet, though that takes a lot longer. The point being that unless you're trying very hard and ignoring the car's very clear warnings, it will not leave you stranded any more than a gas car will.
So your point is that because they didn't actually run the car's batteries down they can't draw attention to the car's batteries running down very quick in track environments and having to wait 40-200x longer then a gas vehicle to recharge it. It would have been nice to see the track day range of the Tesla I'm guessing 60-80 miles but I have yet to see any creditable numbers on it.
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Only with 110 octain, which is kind of pricy for the commuter but would work.
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Statistically, most people do not run out of fuel within walking distance of a petrol station. And you should be able to recharge a Tesla with jumper cables, using the battery of another car.
Claim #1 is questionable. How does one really compile such a statistic?
Claim #2 is also questionable. A Tesla uses a helluva lot more juice than a normal car. A normal car requires most of its juice for the start -- once it's started so little energy is used the alternator charge the battery back up. Unless there has been some breakthrough in generator technology, I sincerely doubt jumping a Tesla from another car would do you any good. It would take all the juice from the regular car battery to go a few bl
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You should be able to do 30 laps in an hour in a reasonably priced car.
In a fast car, 45 minutes tops.
Going faster as you burn off fuel, in the Tesla slower and slower as the voltage drops.
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Re:Exaggerations (Score:4, Insightful)
The Stig.
And people who buy cars because they're fast.
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Who drives a thing balls to the wall around a track though?
Top Gear presenters.
Re:Exaggerations (Score:4, Informative)
Anybody who buys a 'track day car'. Top Gear was evaluating the Roadster as a 'track day car'. It was right in the introduction. Did you watch the show or get all your information from Tesla's shysters?
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That makes it a no-go for track enthusiasts, precisely the crowd it could appeal to.
This is where you fell on your ass. This is not a car for track enthusiasts, who are willing to spend a lot more. Because you can't afford one, you think that all the people who can afford one are in some sort of mystical class that doesn't exist.
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Utter hogwash.
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Top Gear was evaluating the Roadster as a 'Track Day Car'. It was in the introduction.
You are right, the Roadster is unsuitable as a track day car. It's range on the track makes it useless. It's tires and battery pack make it handle like a container ship. Unbalanced, pushes bad. This was in the Top Gear show. Did you watch it or get all your information from Tesla's shysters?
For much less money then a Tesla a 'driver' can have himself a Ariel Atom or Lotus Elise (the roadster is basically a ruined Elis
It could only do 55 miles on the track (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not an exaggeration, it is the exact fact, the figure of 55 mile on the track came from Tesla themselves.
The claim from Tesla came from a willful misinterpretation of the *FACT* Clarkson stated. The claimed that Clarkson had implied that the car would only go 55 miles on the road.
The judge look at it and said no. 55 miles on the track is not 55 miles on the road and nobody would confuse the two.
They had no case, the lawsuit was simply to attempt to suppress bad reviews. Top Gear won and would never have lost.
To Gear response to Elon Musks attack on them:
http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1057825_top-gear-responds-to-tesla-lawsuit
" 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”."
Elon Musk had tried to raise a straw man to knock down.
"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."
Indeed it was true.
"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."
You know, many of you swallow the straw man arguments Elon Musk puts forward as if they are true. They're not, he *pretends* a critic has made claim X, because claim X is easier to knock down, than the unpleasant truth they actually said.
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I don't get this at all. An electric car makes no sense to me for track enthusiasts. I'm not one, but if I were, I think I'd want something that goes really fast, sticks to the ground through the turns like it's on rails, and yes, refuels quickly if I want to play for a long time. I can't think why I'd want an electric for this purpose.
It's like reviewing the world's best dump truck. Tesla's not building a track car any
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Tesla knew it was being evaluated as a 'track day car'.
hurray for objective analysis (Score:2)
If only the same decision was made when consumer reports told us that the Suzuki was unsafe to drive. Gain, an objective but not necessarily unbiased publication that stated the test methods a
Bah (Score:2)
Mixed feelings (Score:3)
Tesla is getting the shaft. They're doing some interesting things, and there was a point I could actually afford and want one of their cars... but I live in an area without lots of charging options.
On one hand, that newspaper review was borderline libel. They have the records backing them up and proved the newspaper reporter was a liar... though somehow the writer is trying to defend himself.
But Top Gear... I only watch it every now and then and it's pretty clear that a lot of their "reviews" are a bit sensationalized / comedic / petty. My "favorite" was when they found out the Cadillac CTS-V was actually a decent sports car... so they had to harp that the bell constantly chimed when the door was open. He showed the bit like 5+ times throughout the review and whined that "yes we know the door is open." Yet they failed to mention they left their KEYS in the ignition so the bell/chime was really saying "dude you left your keys in a car with an open door" At least the guy had to say "I can't believe I am going to say this, but this car is actually decent"
There have been others. The guys often have their minds made up about how much they dislike a car/company early on and decide to do comedy bits about this-or-that.
So really, you can't really be surprised that Top Gear decided to mock the Tesla for no reason. It's like if you decided to appear on on one of those old day talk shows like "Jerry Springer" and are surprised they decided to hit you with a "gotcha" or surprise pregnancy... what did you THINK was going to happen?
Tesla/Musk went after more journalists? (Score:2)
I see a pattern here. Poor Tesla; such bad luck that journalists always pick on them.
Looking forward to Consumer Reports (Score:4, Insightful)
According p. 67 of the auto issue, "Look for a full test [of the Tesla Model S] in a forthcoming issue." Their test track is in Connecticut, and hopefully they will have done some tests in chilly weather.
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Re:Irrelevant (Score:5, Informative)
RIAA has never to my knowledge filed a libel suit. Their suits are about copyright infringement, which is neither the same thing nor relevant to the conversation.
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It's no wonder no one buys their cars.
Son, you did not just go there. I'm so going to sue you. I'm logging this exchange.
E. Musk
Re:Tesla need to stop being such girls (Score:5, Insightful)
Use "girls" as a pejorative? Really?
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Use "girls" as a pejorative? Really?
Really. Get over it.
She can't. Women do not just "Get over" things.
Re:Tesla need to stop being such girls (Score:5, Funny)
The funny mod of parent is sadly indicative of how little experience mods here have with women.
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She was a breeze next to the short man.
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Well, this counts as free advertising, however, I totally agree, companies like Tesla should stop trying to legislate their profits, which just makes them look like dicks, and put in the work to make the product better.
--
Fire all the lawyers.
My god. Try visting reality. (Score:2, Interesting)
Where, precisely is this "legislate their profits" coming from?
Someone makes shit up (faked, lies, whatever you want to call it) to pretend a car is less useful than it is.
And you think stopping lies is "legislating their profits2??? Sorry, unless Tesla are making you BUY their cars by having it mandated by law, they aren't doing that. They're trying to get redress for lies against them.
Is the problem that they don't burn petrol?
Re:My god. Try visting reality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever watched Top Gear.
This is not a show like Motor Week. Their testing is stupid, pointless and very funny.
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Yeah. Top Gear is about cars in the same way that MTV is about music.
Re:My god. Try visting reality. (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair, Top Gear still is about cars... just not about fair an unbiased bench marking. And as far as I know, that's the way it's always been. Not like they used to be a reliable source for carefully researched data, then switched to something completely different.
They'd just rather see if it's possible to peel out in a Tesla, rather than clock it's median driving distance under optimal conditions. Or see how fast you have to be going to roll a Robin Reliant. Speaking of rolling cars, has Michael Gambon been back recently?
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Gambon tried to roll, but failed.... but he did get a corner of the Top Gear test track named after him.
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As the AC's pointed out, the gripe was more about recharge time than range alone. Going 50 miles on a charge/tank isn't crippling if there are recharging stations (aka gas pumps) every few miles.
They addressed the point in more detail during a different episode, where they took a road trip in a Leaf and some other car with a funny name. A quick google search tells me it was Series 17 ep 6, and the funny named car was Peugeot iOn (AKA Mitsubishi i-MiEV, AKA Citroën C-Zero.) They were actually fairly
Re:Tesla need to stop being such girls (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who has watched more than half an episode of Top Gear knows exactly what Top Gear is. It's something, and it's interesting, and it's highly entertaining, but you certainly wouldn't use it as a major contribution to your vehicle purchase decision unless you're into supercars (in which case you probably could).
The review of the Ford Fiesta was a perfect case in point. The car was tested in a shopping mall on marble floors, and in an amphibious landing with the Royal Navy.
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The car with the fewest hits obviously was the best. Obviously.
Currently they are putzing around in Africa, trying to find the True Source Of The Nile(which can't be Lake Vicoria since it has already been discovered). Since they have no clue where to look they decided to move away from Gibraltar(since that is where the Nile ends up in the ocean, the Mediterranean just being another lake), find some bit of water and declare it the source
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I actually did buy a Fiesta after watching their Fiesta review. Of course, I was already looking for a small four door hatchback, and I really liked the green color, and I was already looking at the Fiesta, so I probably would have bought one anyway, but I'm sure their show influenced my decision to some extent.
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Re:Tesla need to stop being such girls (Score:4, Insightful)
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Is the Volt worth its price? How long can you go on the battery alone, on your average week?
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Before I moved last year, the Volt would have more than covered my daily commute (and then some) assuming I charged it every day. My commute WAS 20-miles round trip and the Volt gives 30-38 miles per charge. Even with shopping, the battery alone would have covered my daily driving... plus it has the gas generator onboard.
Now my commute is like 45-miles round trip, so I'd have to use a little bit of gas each day just for work.
Personally, I like the concept of the Volt. OK, it's not perfect and not full el
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Say anything negative about them, and they may sue!
I drive a Volt and I've had LEAF people walk up to me in parking lots, unsolicited, to tell me that my car isn't really an electric car or to gloat about their "all electric" car. I'm embarrassed to be part of the "electric car" community.
Point out 2 things -
Manufacturing electric cars creates twice the pollution as manufacturing similar, conventional autos [guardian.co.uk]
and
the "fuel" from their vehicles most likely comes from pollution-belching coal and gas fired power plants.
That should shut them up.
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That article has been completely debunked because of outlandish starting assumptions. The amount of metal they modeled for a car electric motor was orders of magnitude off. Even a brief scan of that study reveals just complete and utter incompetence that I wonder if it was a high school project.
As for electricity generation, the beauty is that the mix of energy sources for electricity generation can change over time. It can be oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear, geothermal, hydro, solar, biogas, tide, wind, or
Re: (Score:2)
That article has been completely debunked
And you can cite a source for said debunking, right?
Or am I supposed to take your word for it?
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Slander/defame anyone, and they might sue! Including you! I bet there are scenarios where you would be willing to go to court for redress. No need to pretend you wouldn't do the same thing in a similar situation.
Your embarrassment and association is completely in your head. Whether or not someone is a jackass is their problem - there are plenty of jackasses out there with any number of issues. It might even be you at times.
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So if you have vested interests (the fossil fuel industry) paying a fortune to defame you it's okay, but if you dare ever spend a penny to counter that you're "nasty"?
Seriously?
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You don't.
You proof that, since the Top Gear review, sales have decreased by a noticeable amount.
Or that some of your suppliers/investors raised concern over the issues presented that might hit upon their bottom line.
Or you interview potential buyers anonymously (e.g. through market research companies) and ask if the episode had affected their buying habits.
Basically, anything except go to a court - as an expensive, paid-for professional lawyer who's been told what they need to prove - and whine that you ar
Re: (Score:3)
Yet the range of Tesla's cars are within what most people use for running errands and driving to work... If you need something for edge case scenarios (driving a 1000 miles in one sitting or towing a boat), you can rent an appropriate vehicle. It doesn't discount the fact that (as of now) electric miles are 1/5th the cost of a gasoline equivalent and are practical for most urban and suburban uses.
Re: (Score:2)
"Never seen such a spoiled brat in business in all my life. Its like he just assumes he has created the best product in the world and then anybody that doesn't think so needs to be sued out of existence."
Yes, except in the cases where he has sued (even in this one where the case was thrown out) it's still cold hard fact that the people he sued were outright lying.
It's one thing honestly reviewing a bad product as bad, but when you have to lie and invent faults for a product then yes, you deserve to be sued.