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What part of it did you think was misleading? At least according to this article, everything they said in it was true (and was supported by Tesla)

• reitzensteinm 16y ago
  While it didn't directly involve Tesla, what got me about that episode was the claim that battery cars are totally irrelevent because of 'hydrogen power'. They point out that the power for electric batteries has to come from somewhere, and completely gloss over that for hydrogen. Why they didn't go all the way and advocate fusion powered cars is beyond me.
  • dnautics 16y ago
    you can make hydrogen via other means, directly from sunlight, for example, although admittedly that technology is not here yet.
    • borism 16y ago
      you mean the technology where you connect electrodes to solar panel or wind turbine, put them into water and hydrogen and oxygen come out?
      • A1kmm 16y ago
        The energy has to come from somewhere, but it doesn't have to come from electricity (every conversion means energy is lost, and a light -> electricity -> water conversion is potentially less efficient than a more direct conversion). Hydrosol-2 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrosol-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrosol-2) is an example of solar hydrogen production with no electric current intermediate - it involves high temperatures, so I'm not sure how much energy is lost maintaining that temperature compared to captured producing hydrogen, but it could theoretically be more efficient.
    • Retric 16y ago
      His point was Hydrogen was just another form of battery.
      • whatusername 16y ago
        Like Oil.
  • subway 16y ago
    Hydrogen is not an energy source, but a means by which to store energy. You know, like a battery.
    • reitzensteinm 16y ago
      Exactly my point. I've put hydrogen power in quotes in case that was unclear.
    • lancefisher 16y ago
      Like oil stores energy from the sun.
    • mryall 16y ago
      Energy can't be created or destroyed, just transformed from one form to another. So nothing is really an energy source. I'd say "energy source" is the vernacular for stored energy, in terms of where humans source their energy for machinery, electricity, etc.
      • gaius 16y ago
        While you are technically correct, that's not the best model for this. Energy in oil is ultimately stored energy from the sun. But for hydrogen powered cars, we must take one stored form of energy (e.g. fossil, nuclear) and use it to make the hydrogen. Or skip the oil step and use solar. So question is, are we storing new energy, or converting previously-stored energy to a different format? The latter is an externality as obviously oil, uranium etc were around long before humans.
    • ElliotH 16y ago
      It is both. You can use it in a fuel cell form whereby you keep the water produced from its combustion, run electricity through it and get oxygen and hydrogen back. Alternatively though, the way hydrogen is turned into energy works if you just refill the hydrogen and throw away the water.
  • timthorn 16y ago
    The point about hydrogen is that you can fill up in a traditional manner (quickly), rather than having to charge a battery.
    • Samuel_Michon 16y ago
      At battery changing stations, empty batteries can be swapped for fully charged ones. That takes about the same time as it would to fill a fuel tank. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place Israel is the first nation in the world that partnered with Better Place to have an all-electric car infrastructure. Shai Agassi believes that in Israel by 2016, plus or minus a year, more than 50% of cars sold will be electric and that by 2020, Israel will achieve oil independence. The Baran Group signed an agreement with Better Place to build 51 battery switch stations over the course of 2011 to cover all of Israel.
      • CWuestefeld 16y ago
        Meta-comment: Please don't post quotes using pre-formatted text. It forces the browser to use the full width. That, in turn, puts a horizontal scrollbar on my browser, so I have to scroll back-and-forth to read any of the comments. I find it works much better to quote using asterisks. (We could also lobby pg for a BLOCKQUOTE feature)
      • bmelton 16y ago
        That's a brilliant solution to the problem for cars that aren't Teslas, which has something like 1800 batteries lining its cabin floor. I don't think they'd be easily swapped. For cars that don't implement batteries this way, I'm wondering how they allow for non-floor-mounted installations preventing the batteries from destroying their handling. Further, how are the filling stations expected to deal with the variety of non-standard battery types on the market?
  • mryall 16y ago
    > Why they didn't go all the way and advocate fusion powered cars is beyond me. Isn't that what the hydrogen is for? <g>
• kwis 16y ago
  I saw the piece quite a while ago, but I found a bunch of things misleading: 1) The way they quoted the 55 mile range made it sound like the 55 mile range was more representative of normal use than the 200 mile figure. I don't recall them ever saying something like "Toyota claims it gets 20mpg, but we've worked out it only gets 3mpg on our test track". Maybe they have (perhaps they mentioned the Veyron's fuel consumption at full throttle), but it's certainly not a normal part of a review. 2) They quoted the charge time from a standard power socket, when nearly all charges would be done at a higher-power charging station at much shorter time. They didn't quote the faster charge time. 3) While watching, I seriously thought the one Tesla's engine had completely quit. 4) While watching, I seriously thought that the other Tesla's battery had gone completely dead without enough warning for them to drive it into the garage. 5) They implied that the environmental impact from the power plants is roughly the same as the environmental impact of gas anyway. (oddly showing nuclear cooling towers while talking about power plants causing global warming.) Power generation obviously has an environmental impact no matter where it's done, but the nuclear scare plus polar bear mention just felt bizarre. 6) They implied that somehow hydrogen was magical and had no environmental power generation issues. I don't disagree with their defense, but the piece felt very political in that it seemed designed to say things that are technically true, whilst leading viewers to conclusions that are false. All-in-all, I felt like I was watching Clarkson on an anti-environmental soapbox more than I was watching either a piece of entertainment or an automotive review. I love Top Gear, but I was annoyed by the piece, and it won't bother me a bit if Clarkson has a few obnoxious days because of it. The review would've been 1000x better if Hamster or Slow had done it.
  • bcaulf 16y ago
    In their Prius review Clarkson said there was a big gap between Toyota's stated 65 mpg and the 45 mpg they saw with normal driving on roads. So, they have noted manufacturer mpg exaggerations before although they don't do it as a normal practice.
    • schwabacher 16y ago
      Maybe only on environmentally friendly cars? *edit.. don't mean to be a dick, I just don't think this fact helps their case much. I watched the episode, and it irritated me quite a bit even though I think Top Gear is normally pretty fun.