4 ms·

"So you'd be interested to see the Tesla compared to a WRC car, and you would find it useful to hear that the Tesla can pull higher g's on an asphalt skidpad an

by jlgreco 13y ago

"So you'd be interested to see the Tesla compared to a WRC car, and you would find it useful to hear that the Tesla can pull higher g's on an asphalt skidpad and has a nicer interior?" Sure, I'd read that article. Throw the Tesla onto a dirt track too, I'd read that as well. Hell, I want to know if it can go upside-down in a sewer tunnel. I don't see the problem here.

sliverstorm 13y ago
It might be interesting out of sheer bemusement- especially if they take the Tesla around a WRC track- but it's ultimately a meaningless comparison. Oh, the Tesla has a nicer interior than the stripped Subaru racing shell? Count me impressed! (said no one)
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Admittedly I am more in the market for being entertained than impressed. Unfortunately I would be very surprised if Top Gear touches a Tesla car again with a 10-foot pole (and I can't say I blame them).
  - kbenson 13y ago
    Same here. I would also be very surprised if Tesla touches Top Gear again with a 10-foot pole (and I can't say I blame them, either). I think they both had wildly different expectations of what was appropriate in that situation. Neither came out looking very good, IMHO.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      It was a clash of TV cultures. In America, there's an implicit expectation that your "sponsorship" will elicit positive things, tit for tat. In the UK, they get away with all sorts of blasphemy- they are free to bash the cars that get provided for reviews. If you watch Top Gear UK much, you'll notice they criticize plenty of cars, even ones that were on loan from the manufacturer. (This is part of why Top Gear America is but a shadow of Top Gear UK)
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        What the hell? Top Gear lied. Tesla wasn't expecting special treatment for sponsorship, they were expecting a modicum of honesty. You don't get to put this down to "culture clash" unless you're defining "ethical" and "unethical" as cultures.
        sliverstorm 13y ago
        I've never heard evidence Top Gear UK lied or slandered Tesla in the review. I believe the contention of the lawsuit Tesla filed was the 55 mile range quote would be misleading to the public because it was based on driving the Tesla around their track at race speeds. (The judge threw it out saying it wasn't misleading at all)
        nknighthb 13y ago
        The range quote wasn't even based on a genuine test. The car was never run down to empty, and yet they showed the car being pushed into the garage as if it were. Judges aren't arbiters of truth, they're arbiters of law. If your standard for truth is "a judge didn't say it was legally defamatory", I hope nobody ever trusts anything you say.
        sliverstorm 13y ago
        They said it was a range estimate. Right there in the episode. Where was the lie? Oh no! They showed a dramatization of running out of power while driving it on their track! How dare they!
        kbenson 13y ago
        From the video[1]: (while driving around the track, cornering) "This car then really was shaping up to something wonderful. But then..." (cut to Jeremy in the Roadster, a musical cue cutting off the soundtrack, signalling a problem. Jeremy pumps his foot, looks down at his foot and back up with a perplexed look on his face, and says "Oh", with backround noise of the Tesla decelerating. Jump to outside view of the Roadster rolling to a stop in the middle of the track, with Jeremy narrating "Although Tesla say it will do two hundred miles, we worked out that on our track it would run out after just 55 miles." During this the scene changes to men pushing the Roadster in a hanger. More narration from Jeremy, "And if it does run out, it's not a quick job to charge it up again." Make of that what you will, I don't think words do it justice, which is why I included the video[0]. The narration is accurate, but the portrayal clearly implies something more than the narration, making it very to misconstrue what the facts are. The facts are, by the way, that the Roadster never ran out of power, they ran it for a few hours, decided they didn't want to wait for it to run out, and staged that portion. Now, Top Gear is clearly an entertainment and comedy program, but to act like that's the end of it is also clearly ignoring the reality of the situation. Top Gear is less like SNL than The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. Viewers expect it to not be too serious, but right or wrong, they also expect to be able to get some information from the show, knowing that they'll need to sort through the context to determine whether it was a joke or not. Keeping all that in mind, to me Top Gear seems to have overstepped slightly here. Then Tesla overreacted with a lawsuit. That's why I said neither seems to have come off well. [1]: http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/electric-shocker http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/electric-shocker, start at 4:17 for the relevant scene.
    - bcaulf 13y ago
      I think Musk is in need of some good advice on PR strategy. He started public battles with Top Gear and the NY Times over inaccuracies. I think it's more than likely he was right in both cases--those are not the homes of highly objective and sophisticated auto journalism. Top Gear is just entertainment, and the NY Times doesn't bother including the weight of a car in a review, which says something about their thoroughness. Autocar.uk in contrast is extremely respected and diligent. But engaging the press in a press release war creates the wrong image for the company. Who will hear about it? Viewers of Top Gear and the NY Times. And they won't be likely to guess their beloved news source is in the wrong. You can't win that kind of fight and he should have known better than to try. I can't believe it has been good for Tesla on balance.
      - bhauer 13y ago
        You think so? I see it the other way. Top Gear is the Daily Show of automobile journalism. Although it's entertainment, a surprising number of its viewers would cite it as their primary source of auto news. Just as with the Daily Show audience, the Top Gear audience isn't thinking very critically about every subject presented. With that kind of audience, it's all about appearances. Merely having heard that there has been a kerfuffle over their prior coverage of Tesla is sufficient for viewers to think, "well, perhaps what I saw about Tesla on Top Gear wasn't quite accurate." In other words, since loud and silly is all that this audience can perceive, I think Musk did the right thing. I was skeptical of Musk's reaction to the Times, but in net, I think Tesla came out of that looking seriously intolerant of journalistic hijinks. And many people respect that.
        sliverstorm 13y ago
        loud and silly is all that this audience can perceive Jesus, is there some bad blood between HN and Top Gear? Or is this the bad blood, the Tesla thing? On second thought, I could see that being it. HN pretty much idolizes Musk after all.
        bhauer 13y ago
        I love Top Gear. I love it for being loud and silly. But, whether you and I see it as entertainment is somewhat moot when, like the Daily Show, much of its audience actually gleans the totality of their auto news intake from this entertainment show. Because, frankly, many are not interested in watching the serious news shows, automotive or otherwise.
- plorkyeran 13y ago
  The reason these articles are interesting is because they're talking about the Tesla doing well when compared on the other cars' strengths, where you would expect the cheaper car focused on something different to do worse. Obviously an article about how the Tesla is better at something than a car which is very bad at that thing would not be very interesting.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Acceleration isn't really an important strength of the Aston's, and Tesla gets applauded for its acceleration all the time. So which is the one that we expect to do worse?
    - umsm 13y ago
      I wouldn't buy a sports or GT car without acceleration being it's "strength"...
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        Then you probably wouldn't be interested in an Aston Martin. If acceleration is your top priority, you can always buy an STI for a third as much, boost the snot out of it, and leave the Rapide in your dust. The Rapide is no slouch, to be sure, but acceleration falls somewhere in the middle of a larger spectrum of goals for that car.
      - lttlrck 13y ago
        So you can race between the lights? There is a lot more to it than that.

by jlgreco 13y ago

sliverstorm 13y ago

It might be interesting out of sheer bemusement- especially if they take the Tesla around a WRC track- but it's ultimately a meaningless comparison. Oh, the Tesla has a nicer interior than the stripped Subaru racing shell? Count me impressed! (said no one)

jlgreco 13y ago
Admittedly I am more in the market for being entertained than impressed. Unfortunately I would be very surprised if Top Gear touches a Tesla car again with a 10-foot pole (and I can't say I blame them).
- kbenson 13y ago
  Same here. I would also be very surprised if Tesla touches Top Gear again with a 10-foot pole (and I can't say I blame them, either). I think they both had wildly different expectations of what was appropriate in that situation. Neither came out looking very good, IMHO.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    It was a clash of TV cultures. In America, there's an implicit expectation that your "sponsorship" will elicit positive things, tit for tat. In the UK, they get away with all sorts of blasphemy- they are free to bash the cars that get provided for reviews. If you watch Top Gear UK much, you'll notice they criticize plenty of cars, even ones that were on loan from the manufacturer. (This is part of why Top Gear America is but a shadow of Top Gear UK)
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      What the hell? Top Gear lied. Tesla wasn't expecting special treatment for sponsorship, they were expecting a modicum of honesty. You don't get to put this down to "culture clash" unless you're defining "ethical" and "unethical" as cultures.
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        I've never heard evidence Top Gear UK lied or slandered Tesla in the review. I believe the contention of the lawsuit Tesla filed was the 55 mile range quote would be misleading to the public because it was based on driving the Tesla around their track at race speeds. (The judge threw it out saying it wasn't misleading at all)
        nknighthb 13y ago
        The range quote wasn't even based on a genuine test. The car was never run down to empty, and yet they showed the car being pushed into the garage as if it were. Judges aren't arbiters of truth, they're arbiters of law. If your standard for truth is "a judge didn't say it was legally defamatory", I hope nobody ever trusts anything you say.
        sliverstorm 13y ago
        They said it was a range estimate. Right there in the episode. Where was the lie? Oh no! They showed a dramatization of running out of power while driving it on their track! How dare they!
        kbenson 13y ago
        From the video[1]: (while driving around the track, cornering) "This car then really was shaping up to something wonderful. But then..." (cut to Jeremy in the Roadster, a musical cue cutting off the soundtrack, signalling a problem. Jeremy pumps his foot, looks down at his foot and back up with a perplexed look on his face, and says "Oh", with backround noise of the Tesla decelerating. Jump to outside view of the Roadster rolling to a stop in the middle of the track, with Jeremy narrating "Although Tesla say it will do two hundred miles, we worked out that on our track it would run out after just 55 miles." During this the scene changes to men pushing the Roadster in a hanger. More narration from Jeremy, "And if it does run out, it's not a quick job to charge it up again." Make of that what you will, I don't think words do it justice, which is why I included the video[0]. The narration is accurate, but the portrayal clearly implies something more than the narration, making it very to misconstrue what the facts are. The facts are, by the way, that the Roadster never ran out of power, they ran it for a few hours, decided they didn't want to wait for it to run out, and staged that portion. Now, Top Gear is clearly an entertainment and comedy program, but to act like that's the end of it is also clearly ignoring the reality of the situation. Top Gear is less like SNL than The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. Viewers expect it to not be too serious, but right or wrong, they also expect to be able to get some information from the show, knowing that they'll need to sort through the context to determine whether it was a joke or not. Keeping all that in mind, to me Top Gear seems to have overstepped slightly here. Then Tesla overreacted with a lawsuit. That's why I said neither seems to have come off well. [1]: http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/electric-shocker http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/electric-shocker, start at 4:17 for the relevant scene.
  - bcaulf 13y ago
    I think Musk is in need of some good advice on PR strategy. He started public battles with Top Gear and the NY Times over inaccuracies. I think it's more than likely he was right in both cases--those are not the homes of highly objective and sophisticated auto journalism. Top Gear is just entertainment, and the NY Times doesn't bother including the weight of a car in a review, which says something about their thoroughness. Autocar.uk in contrast is extremely respected and diligent. But engaging the press in a press release war creates the wrong image for the company. Who will hear about it? Viewers of Top Gear and the NY Times. And they won't be likely to guess their beloved news source is in the wrong. You can't win that kind of fight and he should have known better than to try. I can't believe it has been good for Tesla on balance.
    - bhauer 13y ago
      You think so? I see it the other way. Top Gear is the Daily Show of automobile journalism. Although it's entertainment, a surprising number of its viewers would cite it as their primary source of auto news. Just as with the Daily Show audience, the Top Gear audience isn't thinking very critically about every subject presented. With that kind of audience, it's all about appearances. Merely having heard that there has been a kerfuffle over their prior coverage of Tesla is sufficient for viewers to think, "well, perhaps what I saw about Tesla on Top Gear wasn't quite accurate." In other words, since loud and silly is all that this audience can perceive, I think Musk did the right thing. I was skeptical of Musk's reaction to the Times, but in net, I think Tesla came out of that looking seriously intolerant of journalistic hijinks. And many people respect that.
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        loud and silly is all that this audience can perceive Jesus, is there some bad blood between HN and Top Gear? Or is this the bad blood, the Tesla thing? On second thought, I could see that being it. HN pretty much idolizes Musk after all.
        bhauer 13y ago
        I love Top Gear. I love it for being loud and silly. But, whether you and I see it as entertainment is somewhat moot when, like the Daily Show, much of its audience actually gleans the totality of their auto news intake from this entertainment show. Because, frankly, many are not interested in watching the serious news shows, automotive or otherwise.
plorkyeran 13y ago
The reason these articles are interesting is because they're talking about the Tesla doing well when compared on the other cars' strengths, where you would expect the cheaper car focused on something different to do worse. Obviously an article about how the Tesla is better at something than a car which is very bad at that thing would not be very interesting.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Acceleration isn't really an important strength of the Aston's, and Tesla gets applauded for its acceleration all the time. So which is the one that we expect to do worse?
  - umsm 13y ago
    I wouldn't buy a sports or GT car without acceleration being it's "strength"...
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Then you probably wouldn't be interested in an Aston Martin. If acceleration is your top priority, you can always buy an STI for a third as much, boost the snot out of it, and leave the Rapide in your dust. The Rapide is no slouch, to be sure, but acceleration falls somewhere in the middle of a larger spectrum of goals for that car.
    - lttlrck 13y ago
      So you can race between the lights? There is a lot more to it than that.