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FWIW, Mercedes & Toyota license Tesla technology "Electric car maker Tesla Motors helped Mercedes develop and is manufacturing parts of the new car's electric

• tehwalrus 13y ago
  very very interesting. Top Gear is scathing of Tesla cars, and yet they raved about the new electric version of the Mercedes. (Admittedly, they did still take the piss out of its range...)
  • adwf 13y ago
    Top Gear are only scathing of Tesla due to being sued by them over a joke. Prior to that, they were actually being quite fair and reasonable from what I could see. So in exchange for a failed lawsuit, Tesla lost the backing of the largest motoring TV show in the world. Probably the biggest mis-step they've made so far.
    • jonknee 13y ago
      > Top Gear are only scathing of Tesla due to being sued by them over a joke The "joke" being that the car doesn't have the range that Tesla claims and that you're likely to be stranded as a result. Top Gear is a joke.
      • ecopoesis 13y ago
        Your right: Top Gear is quite literally is a joke. They make absurd claims about cars all the time in the interest of humor, because at the end of the day, they are a comedy show that occasionally talks about cars. Tesla should have realized their car was going to be the butt of some joke: it's what the show does. If Tesla can't handle being made fun of, then they shouldn't have given Top Gear a car to test.
        • johnward 13y ago
          It wasn't a "joke" it was a lie.
        • alex-g 13y ago
          It depends what the joke is. The joke about the DB9 and the Veyron is that they are ridiculously cool. The joke about Teslas is that the battery runs out.
        • toomuchtodo 13y ago
          Don't lie on your "show" about a product that is somebody's baby and not expect the claws to come out because you lied.
        • pkulak 13y ago
          I must have missed the laugh track running behind them slowly wheeling a dead car into their garage. What a riot! Did you hear the one about the electric car? It ended up getting half it's promised range. HAHA!
        • ImprovedSilence 13y ago
          I agree here. Anyone who has ever seen more than 15min of Top Gear knows that it is not what you would call "journalism", but more "entertainment". What's more, they are not like those American car shows, which get their revenue from ads, and thus never have anything bad to say about any car review ever, and thus the programming is just drab and droll... edit: I also enjoy the fact that top gear is much more opinionated and un-PC than anything else out there. It's keeps it interesting. Yeah, so Clarkson hates EVs, hates Ford, and hates "caravans". Once you can get past this and accept you and him very well may have different viewpoints, he's hilarious.
          • kbenson 13y ago
            so Clarkson hates EVs, hates Ford... It's a love/hate relationship. He bought a GT40 (and then had many problems with it, but loved it, from what I remember). From what I can gather from the series, Ford is fairly popular in the UK (with the Mondeo?), so it's an easy target.
    • reaperhulk 13y ago
      I love Top Gear, but you're getting your timeline mixed up. It went like this: 1) Tesla loans Top Gear a Roadster' 2) Top Gear does a show showing it running out of power and being pushed back into the garage at the track and they state that its range is comically low. 3) Tesla claims it was all staged Whether or not you believe Tesla or Top Gear (and it seems relatively clear that Top Gear probably did stage it) the timeline does not show a shift in attitude from Top Gear regarding Tesla. They've always made fun of it.
      • adwf 13y ago
        Oh absolutely, I don't deny that Top Gear almost certainly staged it for comic effect. But I thought it was a decent review of the car upto and including that point. The one major concern that almost everyone has about electric cars is to do with the range anxiety and I thought they demonstrated that well. Sure, it was staged; but staged to demonstrate the point in an entertaining way (well, the amount of entertainment is personal preference I guess).
      • e40 13y ago
        All this was before the Model S, too. It's interesting that their series 20 just finished up and they didn't include a whisper about the Model S, either. Too bad, because I think if Tesla had ignored the joke, they'd have had some good press from TG.
      • cube13 13y ago
        >2) Top Gear does a show showing it running out of power and being pushed back into the garage at the track and they state that its range is comically low. Comically low on the track, going full out. Which seems to be a pretty reasonable claim. Also consider that Tesla didn't sue for over 2 years after the episode first aired. The episode was in late 2008, and Tesla sued in March 2011.
        • jlgreco 13y ago
          > Comically low on the track, going full out. Which seems to be a pretty reasonable claim. Well, except for the part where apparently they didn't actually manage to run it dry on the track. This said, it's fucking Top Gear. Their idea of a "serious" car review of the Renault Twingo is seeing if a car (undoubtedly not stock) can do a flip in a sewer tunnel. Their review of the Reliant Robin was only about how the car (again, modified), only flips. Somebody should have clued Tesla in.
    • e40 13y ago
      Agreed. I think they would have reviewed the Model S favorably, since the range is much further than the previous models.
    • mncolinlee 13y ago
      It was hardly a joke on Top Gear's part. They have been ridiculously antagonistic to electric cars over the years. Top Gear staff pushed a Tesla Model S during an episode, falsely insisting to their audience that it was out of juice when it still had many, many miles of range remaining. They deserved the lawsuit and it should never have failed. Top Gear is a joke.
      • umsm 13y ago
        I've read many complaints by EV owners that state the range really isn't nailed down... it's usually "it depends". Something as simple as temperature changes can cause the car to lose many miles range. That being said, the problem is that EV battery technology is still young: Most manufacturers state the upper-limit instead or something realistic. For an example: smartphones nowadays usually go past their claimed battery life despite that before it was hard for them to stay on for an entire day.
        • mncolinlee 13y ago
          Top Gear drastically misrepresented the Tesla's range. It wasn't particularly funny, comedic, or for educational effect. It was simply misleading. I own a Nissan Leaf and am well aware that range depends upon a series of conditions like weather, excessive acceleration and braking, and climate control. THIS IS TRUE OF ALL CARS, but matters more in EVs. That does not mean that anyone would be well-served by an automotive review that lists towns and distances traveled, but which then misrepresents the car's state of charge to pretend its battery is completely discharged when it's actually over one-third full.
          • umsm 13y ago
            I think you are taking this personally when you really shouldn't. I love Top Gear, and I watch it purely for entertainment value. I doubt anyone purchased any car based upon their recommendations or takes them seriously when they "review" cars.
• robterrell 13y ago
  The RAV4 was appealing to me, but I've watched the forums and there seems to be an ongoing spate of serious problems with Toyota and Tesla pointing fingers at each other. The forum moderator has had his RAV4 in the shop a number of times for non-trivial things.
  • umsm 13y ago
    I think this is true for most new tech. Being an early adopter means that you will encounter SOME problems that will be fixed later on.