8 ms·

Tesla sues Top Gear for libel re Roadster review

83 points by grannyg00se 16y ago

marcamillion 16y ago
What a perfect way to give something legs. I had never seen this Top Gear episode, but I am definitely going to watch it now! This is a tough spot to be in. Sue BBC and try and get a correction (and give it publicity) or ignore it and risk reputation damage silently with fewer people.
RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
Same story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386692 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386692 There are probably more. This one has lots of comments.
- sambeau 16y ago
  News is not a bug report. History repeats itself.
VladRussian 16y ago
following this logic it is time for Russia to launch a nuclear war against Great Britain. (note: Lada Kalina is the newest and most advanced Russian car and the producer of the car is heavily supported and promoted by government:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGs_5gDXFn8&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGs_5gDXFn8&feature=relat...
redthrowaway 16y ago
Top Gear doesn't get a pass here for being a comedy show. There's a difference between satire and making false claims about a product with the intention of tarnishing it and the company that produces it. That's precisely what libel laws exist to protect against. Viewers of Top Gear understand that the challenges and races are staged, but there isn't a similar understanding that the car reviews are staged, and that the presenters will claim cars have defects that they don't have for the purposes of entertainment. If the claims made by Tesla are true, then Top Gear doesn't have a leg to stand on.
- bdfh42 16y ago
  If you watch the show and listen to what is said you will see that there was no libel. Tesla are wrong and probably just hungry for some publicity - they have not been getting much of that recently - the "saviour" of the US car manufacturers have found you have to ship a quality product in volume and thats hard. The program clearly says that it was their "calculation" that on the Top Gear test track the car would only manage 55 miles. The other "issue" is that J.C. said on the show that the brakes had failed on one of the test cars - I suspect that was not something they made up but was a real (perhaps transitory given how the braking system works) problem.
  - redthrowaway 16y ago
    It's been a while since I've seen the episode in question, but who's in the right depends entirely on whether the claims were falsified. If the brakes did fail and the motor did overheat, then it doesn't make much sense for Tesla to sue. Either way, I suspect we'll find out.
    - eli 16y ago
      UK's libel laws are infamously plaintiff friendly. Tesla may well prevail in court even the review was truthful. Not sure it'll help their public image any, though.
      - electromagnetic 16y ago
        It won't stop the episode airing, the retraction will likely be released on the BBC website, there'll be a press release but even BBC news won't cover it and there'll probably be a mention in an upcoming top gear, which will likely have Clarkson just take the piss out of Tesla for being little bitches that can't take a review. I don't even know why Tesla would want their vehicle reviewed by Clarkson. He's brutal on Diesel vehicles, even when they compare on-par with gasoline. From what I remember, Clarkson was incredibly pro-tesla as I half expected him to say "It's electric," look at another camera and carry on the show like they'd just asked him to test out a golf cart. > The company says that if the episode had been broadcast in 2008, and not rebroadcast repeatedly it would not have sued. Are these people complete utter retards, what fucking planet do they live on that they don't understand that TV episodes rebroadcast repeatedly. Reruns of friends episodes 17 years after their initial run doesn't give someone a clue that TV has reruns? I wouldn't buy a roadster simply for the utter idiocy of this comment from the company. I'd question whether they have a simple employee capable of fastening a damn nut to a bolt because their management can't comprehend that TV shows have reruns. It's not like there's entire TV stations based around reruns... oh wait, but there is!
gamble 16y ago
Did they file in the UK? British libel laws are so bad that the BBC is doomed, if they did.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  Take a look at the Simon Singh vs British Chiropractic case for a good idea of how bad it is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh#Chiropractic_lawsuit_and_backlash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh#Chiropractic_lawsui...
  - dhimes 16y ago
    It looks like the right team won here. I wouldn't bet on that in the US.
    - derleth 16y ago
      In the US, the suit would have been thrown out without needing a full trial.
- vessenes 16y ago
  This was my thought as well -- nobody's mentioned the Britain libel angle yet. On the other hand, who would you guess has the largest libel lawyer team and budget in Britain? Other than the Sun, I mean.
  - ZoFreX 16y ago
    I would guess Private Eye rather than the BBC.
- mhd 16y ago
  Isn't it just England, not the UK? And the amount of lawyers you can field still makes a difference, even in the UK. So I guess the ol' boys at the BBC won't be shaking in their Savile Row suits. Just a few weeks ago a reform of the libel law went one step further, although I don't know if that would apply here. As far as I remember it was mostly to prevent suing people who weren't UK residents, which certainly won't help the BBC.
initself 16y ago
I wish I could do the same to all my reviewers for my iPhone app.
zumbojo 16y ago
I am a fan of both Top Gear (seen every episode, save for the most recent series) and Tesla (would kill for a Roadster or Model S). The Tesla Roadster review seemed to be fairly typical of Top Gear; with Jeremy Clarkson pointing out his likes and dislikes in fairly equal proportion. Clarkson in fact seemed very impressed with the Roadster’s performance and I believe the official lap time placed it somewhere around a comparable Porsche 911. The breakdowns seemed believable, especially for a supercar; as Richard Hammond pointed out in a later episode within that series (wherein a Pagani Zonda breaks down within the first few test laps on the Top Gear track) that it’s the nature of supercars to "explode immediately" on use. Tesla didn’t seem to receive a harsher treatment than any other car manufacturer. The Tesla Roadster is an amazing product, but it -like every machine made before it- has a few bugs to be worked out. Nothing out of the ordinary.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- heyitsnick 16y ago
  - What innovation are we talking about in this case? - They are suing, it doesn't mean they have succeeded. You can't start blaming libel law in the UK quite yet.
  - sbierwagen 16y ago
    - I don't see any other shows like Top Gear on the air. - They've got enough of a case to spend lawyer time on it, and they're confident enough to run a press release about it. If the test for libelous speech was tougher, then they would have done neither.
mrschwabe 16y ago
Good on Tesla for having the balls to stand up for what's right (and for their company). Innovation requires courage. Especially in their industry.
jrspruitt 16y ago
I just watched the video, and can't figure out where the malice is. Its a relatively new build of car, and a car based on a Lotus, the chances of there being reliability issues are pretty good, this type of car isn't built for being the go to commuter car, its built to zoom around in. As far as the vastly less miles per charge claim, they were running it on a race track, take any car you want, under any form of power you want, and drive it hard like that, its not going to get best case efficiency. This sure seems like a lot of noise, about nothing surprising. I think I agree it might be for publicity or inspired by some other rationale than just libel.
nickpinkston 16y ago
- You use Top Gear reviews as a major factor to buy a +$100K electric sports car. - You haven't seen their show enough to know what Clarkson's views of green-tech are. - You haven't looked at corroborating evidence on forums a real drivers, etc. You probably aren't good at this car buying thing.
oldstrangers 16y ago
I'm rather excited to see how hard it is for Jeremy Clarkson to refrain from making light of this situation. I love the man, should be entertaining. Also, the BBC has an enormous amount of money and power (not to mention it operates under a Royal Charter), I don't imagine this lawsuit being very easy.
jrockway 16y ago
That's the end of caring about Tesla for me. Resorting to a lawsuit over a comedy program means your company's ethics are out of touch with reality, and it's time for you to die. It's the adult equivalent of bringing your guns to school and killing everyone because some kids made fun of you at lunch. Yeah, they shouldn't have done that, but your solution was worse than the problem. Why must Tesla murder schoolchildren?
- bugsy 16y ago
  Do you have a source that it is a comedy show? Their web site seems to be rather misleading regarding this as it appears to be a car review show not a comedy show - http://www.topgear.com/uk/ http://www.topgear.com/uk/ Perhaps you are thinking of some other top gear show which is a comedy revue or variety hour with singing and dancing?
dbuizert 16y ago
How awesome. No option to comment on their website. They could have turned it into an awesome opportunity to talk with the customers. Lets see how far this lawsuit gets. Interested in the development of it.
- forgottenpaswrd 16y ago
  There is. You need to look further.
jacques_chester 16y ago
This will not end well for Tesla. Clarkson is a masterful grudge-holder and nothing they produce will ever receive a fair review ever again.
kristofferR 16y ago
It's one thing to make fun of the Tesla car in a humorous way, it's another thing to write a script (and follow through with it) claiming it broke down, overheated and ran out of fuel before they had even driven the car. "But in the real world, it doesn't seem to work" was already decided before the cars were even delivered. It's cool to make fun of flaws, it's not cool for something perceived as a review show to decide something is flawed and write the script about how flawed it is before they have even tested it.
spencerfry 16y ago
April Fools?
electromagnetic 16y ago
> The company says that if the episode had been broadcast in 2008, and not rebroadcast repeatedly it would not have sued. FYI Tesla, TV has these things called reruns, they've been around forever. Reruns of Three's Company has outlasted John Ritter (sadly). Honestly, if this idiocy is an example of the collective intelligence of Tesla's management, then that comment alone will make me not buy anything Tesla. At least every other American car manufacturer doesn't bitch and moan at a comparably great review from Clarkson (it's an electric vehicle, it's a miracle he even did a segment on it. He rags on diesel even when it's comparable to a gas, and he was actually enthused about the roadster). Honestly, it just shows me that North America will never make another great car, because North America can't get intelligent car manufacturers.
bugsy 16y ago
The show definitely gives a reasonable normal viewer the impression that the car is a dud with a range far less than what is claimed and prone to numerous and frequent breakdowns, and that the failures were so catastrophic they car had to be pushed into the garage. So now the BBC is saying that it was done for effect or some such and is claiming it didn't break down after 55 miles or such. So they are admitting they deliberately made a misleading review which obviously damaged the reputation of the car because of the misleading claims. Whether that is libel, don't know. But it is disappointing. I had not realized Top Gear did this and will no longer take the show seriously. I will also be reviewing my formerly positive opinion of the BBC's credibility given their CYA response.
bugsy 16y ago
In the show, after making the 55 mile range claim and pushing the car into the garage, he plugs it in for a recharge and says that recharges take 16 hours. He then says because of this it would take "more than three days" to get from where he is, Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, to northern Scotland. The furthest point he could go to is the John O' Groats campground in Wick. Google Maps reveals that is 704 miles or 12 hrs and 45 minutes of travel. So let's compare whether he is claiming the 55 mile range or the 211 mile range is the one he accepts for non-track driving. 211 miles on the various roads would take at least 4 hrs, then 16 hours to recharge. Start: 0 hrs Drive to 211 mile pt: +4 hrs Recharge: +16 hrs = 20 hrs elapsed Drive to 422 mile pt: +4 hrs = 24 hrs elapsed Recharge: +16 hrs = 40 hrs elapsed Drive to 633 mile pt: +4 hrs = 44 hrs elapsed Recharge: +16 hrs = 60 hrs elapsed Drive to 704 mile pt: +1.5 hrs = 61 hrs elapsed So that is about 2.5 days, less than the more than 3 days he claims. At 55 mile range though it would be substantially longer than 3 days though. That would be about 17 hours per 55 mile leg, 12 legs at 17 hrs, 204 hours or 8.5 days. So Clarkson, through his claim of more than 3 days to travel to the north of Scotland, is suggesting the range is more than 55 but less than 211 miles.
dman 16y ago
Wonder if future reviewers of tesla products will insist on a legal waiver before touching their products. Also somewhere somethings being lost in translation. Top Gear has been about Three guys getting together for a laugh and doing irresponsible things. If Tesla Co didn't know this when they handed Top Gear the car then they missed out on the due diligence. In car circles this lawsuit is akin to suing Santa Claus.

83 points by grannyg00se 16y ago

What a perfect way to give something legs. I had never seen this Top Gear episode, but I am definitely going to watch it now! This is a tough spot to be in. Sue BBC and try and get a correction (and give it publicity) or ignore it and risk reputation damage silently with fewer people.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

Same story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386692 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386692 There are probably more. This one has lots of comments.

sambeau 16y ago
News is not a bug report. History repeats itself.

VladRussian 16y ago

following this logic it is time for Russia to launch a nuclear war against Great Britain. (note: Lada Kalina is the newest and most advanced Russian car and the producer of the car is heavily supported and promoted by government:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGs_5gDXFn8&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGs_5gDXFn8&feature=relat...

redthrowaway 16y ago

Top Gear doesn't get a pass here for being a comedy show. There's a difference between satire and making false claims about a product with the intention of tarnishing it and the company that produces it. That's precisely what libel laws exist to protect against. Viewers of Top Gear understand that the challenges and races are staged, but there isn't a similar understanding that the car reviews are staged, and that the presenters will claim cars have defects that they don't have for the purposes of entertainment. If the claims made by Tesla are true, then Top Gear doesn't have a leg to stand on.

bdfh42 16y ago
If you watch the show and listen to what is said you will see that there was no libel. Tesla are wrong and probably just hungry for some publicity - they have not been getting much of that recently - the "saviour" of the US car manufacturers have found you have to ship a quality product in volume and thats hard. The program clearly says that it was their "calculation" that on the Top Gear test track the car would only manage 55 miles. The other "issue" is that J.C. said on the show that the brakes had failed on one of the test cars - I suspect that was not something they made up but was a real (perhaps transitory given how the braking system works) problem.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  It's been a while since I've seen the episode in question, but who's in the right depends entirely on whether the claims were falsified. If the brakes did fail and the motor did overheat, then it doesn't make much sense for Tesla to sue. Either way, I suspect we'll find out.
  - eli 16y ago
    UK's libel laws are infamously plaintiff friendly. Tesla may well prevail in court even the review was truthful. Not sure it'll help their public image any, though.
    - electromagnetic 16y ago
      It won't stop the episode airing, the retraction will likely be released on the BBC website, there'll be a press release but even BBC news won't cover it and there'll probably be a mention in an upcoming top gear, which will likely have Clarkson just take the piss out of Tesla for being little bitches that can't take a review. I don't even know why Tesla would want their vehicle reviewed by Clarkson. He's brutal on Diesel vehicles, even when they compare on-par with gasoline. From what I remember, Clarkson was incredibly pro-tesla as I half expected him to say "It's electric," look at another camera and carry on the show like they'd just asked him to test out a golf cart. > The company says that if the episode had been broadcast in 2008, and not rebroadcast repeatedly it would not have sued. Are these people complete utter retards, what fucking planet do they live on that they don't understand that TV episodes rebroadcast repeatedly. Reruns of friends episodes 17 years after their initial run doesn't give someone a clue that TV has reruns? I wouldn't buy a roadster simply for the utter idiocy of this comment from the company. I'd question whether they have a simple employee capable of fastening a damn nut to a bolt because their management can't comprehend that TV shows have reruns. It's not like there's entire TV stations based around reruns... oh wait, but there is!

gamble 16y ago

Did they file in the UK? British libel laws are so bad that the BBC is doomed, if they did.

jokermatt999 16y ago
Take a look at the Simon Singh vs British Chiropractic case for a good idea of how bad it is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh#Chiropractic_lawsuit_and_backlash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh#Chiropractic_lawsui...
- dhimes 16y ago
  It looks like the right team won here. I wouldn't bet on that in the US.
  - derleth 16y ago
    In the US, the suit would have been thrown out without needing a full trial.
vessenes 16y ago
This was my thought as well -- nobody's mentioned the Britain libel angle yet. On the other hand, who would you guess has the largest libel lawyer team and budget in Britain? Other than the Sun, I mean.
- ZoFreX 16y ago
  I would guess Private Eye rather than the BBC.
mhd 16y ago
Isn't it just England, not the UK? And the amount of lawyers you can field still makes a difference, even in the UK. So I guess the ol' boys at the BBC won't be shaking in their Savile Row suits. Just a few weeks ago a reform of the libel law went one step further, although I don't know if that would apply here. As far as I remember it was mostly to prevent suing people who weren't UK residents, which certainly won't help the BBC.

initself 16y ago

I wish I could do the same to all my reviewers for my iPhone app.

zumbojo 16y ago

I am a fan of both Top Gear (seen every episode, save for the most recent series) and Tesla (would kill for a Roadster or Model S). The Tesla Roadster review seemed to be fairly typical of Top Gear; with Jeremy Clarkson pointing out his likes and dislikes in fairly equal proportion. Clarkson in fact seemed very impressed with the Roadster’s performance and I believe the official lap time placed it somewhere around a comparable Porsche 911. The breakdowns seemed believable, especially for a supercar; as Richard Hammond pointed out in a later episode within that series (wherein a Pagani Zonda breaks down within the first few test laps on the Top Gear track) that it’s the nature of supercars to "explode immediately" on use. Tesla didn’t seem to receive a harsher treatment than any other car manufacturer. The Tesla Roadster is an amazing product, but it -like every machine made before it- has a few bugs to be worked out. Nothing out of the ordinary.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

heyitsnick 16y ago
- What innovation are we talking about in this case? - They are suing, it doesn't mean they have succeeded. You can't start blaming libel law in the UK quite yet.
- sbierwagen 16y ago
  - I don't see any other shows like Top Gear on the air. - They've got enough of a case to spend lawyer time on it, and they're confident enough to run a press release about it. If the test for libelous speech was tougher, then they would have done neither.

mrschwabe 16y ago

Good on Tesla for having the balls to stand up for what's right (and for their company). Innovation requires courage. Especially in their industry.

jrspruitt 16y ago

I just watched the video, and can't figure out where the malice is. Its a relatively new build of car, and a car based on a Lotus, the chances of there being reliability issues are pretty good, this type of car isn't built for being the go to commuter car, its built to zoom around in. As far as the vastly less miles per charge claim, they were running it on a race track, take any car you want, under any form of power you want, and drive it hard like that, its not going to get best case efficiency. This sure seems like a lot of noise, about nothing surprising. I think I agree it might be for publicity or inspired by some other rationale than just libel.

nickpinkston 16y ago

- You use Top Gear reviews as a major factor to buy a +$100K electric sports car. - You haven't seen their show enough to know what Clarkson's views of green-tech are. - You haven't looked at corroborating evidence on forums a real drivers, etc. You probably aren't good at this car buying thing.

oldstrangers 16y ago

I'm rather excited to see how hard it is for Jeremy Clarkson to refrain from making light of this situation. I love the man, should be entertaining. Also, the BBC has an enormous amount of money and power (not to mention it operates under a Royal Charter), I don't imagine this lawsuit being very easy.

jrockway 16y ago

That's the end of caring about Tesla for me. Resorting to a lawsuit over a comedy program means your company's ethics are out of touch with reality, and it's time for you to die. It's the adult equivalent of bringing your guns to school and killing everyone because some kids made fun of you at lunch. Yeah, they shouldn't have done that, but your solution was worse than the problem. Why must Tesla murder schoolchildren?

bugsy 16y ago
Do you have a source that it is a comedy show? Their web site seems to be rather misleading regarding this as it appears to be a car review show not a comedy show - http://www.topgear.com/uk/ http://www.topgear.com/uk/ Perhaps you are thinking of some other top gear show which is a comedy revue or variety hour with singing and dancing?

dbuizert 16y ago

How awesome. No option to comment on their website. They could have turned it into an awesome opportunity to talk with the customers. Lets see how far this lawsuit gets. Interested in the development of it.

forgottenpaswrd 16y ago
There is. You need to look further.

jacques_chester 16y ago

This will not end well for Tesla. Clarkson is a masterful grudge-holder and nothing they produce will ever receive a fair review ever again.

kristofferR 16y ago

It's one thing to make fun of the Tesla car in a humorous way, it's another thing to write a script (and follow through with it) claiming it broke down, overheated and ran out of fuel before they had even driven the car. "But in the real world, it doesn't seem to work" was already decided before the cars were even delivered. It's cool to make fun of flaws, it's not cool for something perceived as a review show to decide something is flawed and write the script about how flawed it is before they have even tested it.

spencerfry 16y ago

April Fools?

electromagnetic 16y ago

> The company says that if the episode had been broadcast in 2008, and not rebroadcast repeatedly it would not have sued. FYI Tesla, TV has these things called reruns, they've been around forever. Reruns of Three's Company has outlasted John Ritter (sadly). Honestly, if this idiocy is an example of the collective intelligence of Tesla's management, then that comment alone will make me not buy anything Tesla. At least every other American car manufacturer doesn't bitch and moan at a comparably great review from Clarkson (it's an electric vehicle, it's a miracle he even did a segment on it. He rags on diesel even when it's comparable to a gas, and he was actually enthused about the roadster). Honestly, it just shows me that North America will never make another great car, because North America can't get intelligent car manufacturers.

bugsy 16y ago

The show definitely gives a reasonable normal viewer the impression that the car is a dud with a range far less than what is claimed and prone to numerous and frequent breakdowns, and that the failures were so catastrophic they car had to be pushed into the garage. So now the BBC is saying that it was done for effect or some such and is claiming it didn't break down after 55 miles or such. So they are admitting they deliberately made a misleading review which obviously damaged the reputation of the car because of the misleading claims. Whether that is libel, don't know. But it is disappointing. I had not realized Top Gear did this and will no longer take the show seriously. I will also be reviewing my formerly positive opinion of the BBC's credibility given their CYA response.

bugsy 16y ago

In the show, after making the 55 mile range claim and pushing the car into the garage, he plugs it in for a recharge and says that recharges take 16 hours. He then says because of this it would take "more than three days" to get from where he is, Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, to northern Scotland. The furthest point he could go to is the John O' Groats campground in Wick. Google Maps reveals that is 704 miles or 12 hrs and 45 minutes of travel. So let's compare whether he is claiming the 55 mile range or the 211 mile range is the one he accepts for non-track driving. 211 miles on the various roads would take at least 4 hrs, then 16 hours to recharge. Start: 0 hrs Drive to 211 mile pt: +4 hrs Recharge: +16 hrs = 20 hrs elapsed Drive to 422 mile pt: +4 hrs = 24 hrs elapsed Recharge: +16 hrs = 40 hrs elapsed Drive to 633 mile pt: +4 hrs = 44 hrs elapsed Recharge: +16 hrs = 60 hrs elapsed Drive to 704 mile pt: +1.5 hrs = 61 hrs elapsed So that is about 2.5 days, less than the more than 3 days he claims. At 55 mile range though it would be substantially longer than 3 days though. That would be about 17 hours per 55 mile leg, 12 legs at 17 hrs, 204 hours or 8.5 days. So Clarkson, through his claim of more than 3 days to travel to the north of Scotland, is suggesting the range is more than 55 but less than 211 miles.

dman 16y ago

Wonder if future reviewers of tesla products will insist on a legal waiver before touching their products. Also somewhere somethings being lost in translation. Top Gear has been about Three guys getting together for a laugh and doing irresponsible things. If Tesla Co didn't know this when they handed Top Gear the car then they missed out on the due diligence. In car circles this lawsuit is akin to suing Santa Claus.