Westwood2006

iTrader: (1)

Thought this was interesting... IIRC Tesla came out OK in the show?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...66142220110330

Electric car company Tesla is no stranger to lawsuits, and is now involved in yet another one that could end up being pretty high-profile. On Tuesday, Tesla slapped the BBC show Top Gear with a lawsuit for libel and malicious falsehood.

There was a lot of controversy over Top Gear’s show on the Roadster when it came out two years ago and featured the crew of the show pushing a Roadster by hand into a hangar and ended the segment by saying the Roadster didn’t seem to work in the real world.

Tesla says in its suit that Top Gear‘s show about the Roadster inaccurately portrayed the Tesla Roadster as having a 55-mile battery range (it’s got a 200-mile range); that Top Gear falsely showed the Roadster having to be pushed into a hangar by people after the battery was drained (Tesla says it wasn’t out of power); and Top Gear incorrectly said the brakes of one Roadster were broken while the other Roadster overheated (Tesla says neither of those things happened). Tesla specifically names Top Gear executive producer Andrew Wilman, researcher Gavin Whitehead, and presenter Jeremy Clarkson, in the lawsuit.

You’re probably wondering why Tesla took two years to go to the courts over the issue. On Tesla’s website, it says: “Tesla reluctantly took legal action after its repeated attempts to contact the BBC, over the course of months, were ignored.” In a blog post, Tesla’s VP of communications, Ricardo Reyes, writes, “At the time, we were good sports. Tesla was a young start-up company, having delivered 140 cars to customers in the United States,” and adds, “Yet the show continues to air. . . The programme’s lies are repeatedly and consistently re-broadcast to hundreds of millions of viewers on BBC channels and web sites.”

The show is wildly popular. Just last week, when I was at Tesla’s Model S alpha build tour, an auto reporter did mention the Top Gear Roadster show. Reyes didn’t look happy.

At the same time, Tesla has been involved in more lawsuits than most Silicon Valley firms I’ve written about in my career. There was the lawsuit Tesla filed against competitor Fisker for allegedly stealing its design ideas and trade secrets. There was a suit filed by Magna accusing Tesla of two counts of breach of contract for allegedly failing to pay Magna for transmission work. There was a class action suit from former employee David Vespremi against Tesla for breach of contract, libel and slander. And there was the high-profile suit that Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard’s filed against Tesla, and its current CEO, Elon Musk. Tesla’s lawyers are busy.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Not sure about the other stuff, but they're on a hiding to nothing on the battery range point. EVERY car they take round the track comes out with massively worse mpg than published by the manufacturer, so why would an electric car be any different?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Lawsuits are a sign of desperation IMO. Seeing this company have a whole line of them loaded up it doesn't bode that company is as bonafide as it tries to appear.

Granted TG took the preverbial about the battery life. But I feel that is an exageration of point posed about the restrictions relating to the time it takes to charge up a electric car so it could be put to full use again.

The other faults, can't comment. Did the cars break down or not?

dpb

Doubtless theyll be some toings and froings , maybe even some cash exchanged and then theyll feed us next mini series some concocted diatribe about how well tesla are doing , inbetween driving thro the congo in an e type , or other such tosh

95turbowagon

iTrader: (17)

Theyr based a couple of miles from my house, see them going out on test drives all the time. Have tried to keep up with a few of them but they're a little bit quicker off the mark.

chrisowe

I thought they were based in the US?

tony de wonderful

Yeah if they were busy designing and selling profitable cars they would not have time.

joz8968

iTrader: (13)

lol

95turbowagon

iTrader: (17)

There's a a business estate near me, with a building with tesla on it and they come out with film covering all of the body panels, and do lots of test drives in the area. Maybe it's where they are delivered to in this country.

Delivered mail to there for a couple of weeks seeing lots of cars outside, so assumed that's a base for the uk. probably wrong on that .

95turbowagon

iTrader: (17)

Looked it up and i think it's a dealership, doesn't look like a dealership more like a factory looking type place.

what would scooby do

Top Gear is a fun entertainment program - not factual and nothing is ever presented as a fact, so the court case is probably just a PR/marketing stunt..

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I remember seeing that episode and did think that they were being a bit harsh on the Tesla. However, they are probably onto a hiding to nothing. I would have thought they would have sued much sooner if they were actually serious about doing so...

Leslie

It is a TV show on public view. If they are stupid enough to publish false facts then they deserve what they get from the courts. It would be down to Tesla to show that what TG said was wrong of course. TG does act in a "tabloid" manner and they would be in trouble if they were unable to corroborate those statements.

Les

Westwood2006

iTrader: (1)

Ha. So allegedly it never ran out of charge!!

http://www.reghardware.com/2008/12/2...op_gear_tesla/

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/03/3...or_defamation/

Top Gear - Bringing you red top style tabloid motoring news!

Westwood2006

iTrader: (1)

Just found this link written by Tesla

http://www.teslavstopgear.com/

I reckon it is fair enough!

SpecDscooby

[quote=ALi-B;9962852]Lawsuits are a sign of desperation IMO. Seeing this company have a whole line of them loaded up it doesn't bode that company is as bonafide as it tries to appear.
quote]


100% agree.
This is a publicity stunt, from a struggling car makers, clutching at anything that might have spoilt their "great idea"

Show aired 2 years ago, law suit yesterday....what a crock....plus on the other side Top Gear on THE BBC, the bbc is one of the worlds largest, most powerful and richest broadcasting corporations; heavily financing the government year in year out VS a 2 bit car maker with no pedigree.......this will go no where....

Suresh

Tesla in publicity stunt shocker. Battery-powered cars have no future unless battery technology jumps forward to be able to compete with petrol on range.

StickyMicky

Tell that to Nissan and Renault, they are building a massive new battery plant next door to us to provide the battery's for the new Leaf.

They must think its going to take off to stump up the cash (more than £200 mill) to build all that ?

dpb

Funnily enough i saw my first leaf this arvo on the way back from the Post office

its a micra from the front i think

tony de wonderful

Yes there are lots of pslewis types who will probably go battery next time they buy a new car. I hear electric has big torque also!

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

True; If we struggle to get a smart phone to last a day (where a Nokia 8310 will last a whole week), what hope is there for a car?


The Chevy Volt gets my thumbs up; Pure electric driven hybrid with a backup generator combustion engine, the range of a normal car and no silly drivetrain like the Pruis. However it really needs to be a diesel, like the Prius...it'd make ALOT more economical sense if hybrids ran on diesel.