Tesla sues Top Gear. Oh, dear. +video

Jeremy, Tesla and Lotus

Just over two years ago Top Gear took a Tesla Roadster to Dunsfold and played. And Tesla got the arse because Top Gear ‘staged’ the Tesla running out of juice.

Jeremy Clarkson subsequently defended what they did – pushing the Tesla in to a garage – to demonstrate the biggest drawbacks of an electric car, like lousy range and refuelling measured in hours rather than minutes.

What was actually said was that using the Tesla round the Top Gear track would mean a 53 mile range and then up to 20 hours to refuel. All true, and all valid. We say much the same all the time.

The other contentious issue was a claim that the brakes failed. That is something we can’t comment on, but at the time Jeremy said:

“Nobody gives a flying **** how the brakes failed. Whether it was a blown fuse or not, they were still not working.”

All of which was two years ago. Now, for some strange reason, Tesla has decided to sue Top Gear, claiming defamation and malicious falsehood and that the scenes we referred to above were faked.

Which is a very odd decision. It’s already clear that the ‘Running out of Electricity’ bit was a visual demonstration of what would happen after just 53 miles. As for the broken brakes, how on earth are Tesla going to prove they didn’t malfunction?

What’s also been missed is the good stuff. The fact the Tesla mashed the Lotus in a drag race. The fact it went round the Top Gear track as quickly as a Porsche 911 GT3. The fact that Jeremy called it ‘Biblically Quick’.

That Top Gear called out the failings of all electric cars – too expensive, lousy range, useless refuelling, soggy handling – they must have expected before they lent them the cars. The compliments they couldn’t have expected.

For a car making minnow which has sold fewer cars than DeLorean (thank you, Jalopnik, for that fact) to sue Top Gear – with a global audience of hundreds of millions – is barking mad. Surely you don’t bite the hand that feeds?

It just makes Tesla look stupid.

Update: We thought you might like to see Tesla’s claim against the BBC court papers.

By Cars UK