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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 1

by 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.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      I don't think you are familiar with what Top Gear is... You don't think there is any trickery going on here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbpgZ2Dt0A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbpgZ2Dt0A ? Sometimes they fabricate things to make an awesome car look awful, sometimes they fabricate to make a mediocre car look awesome. The common denominator is that they fabricate for the sake of entertainment. Anybody who actually watches the show would know and embrace that.
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        I am well aware of what Top Gear is, and that's why I stopped watching it almost as soon as I started, and wondered why the hell anyone else watches it, either. I don't think establishing a past pattern of lies is an excuse for future lies, nor do I think lies presented as facts are "entertaining" in the least. They're just lies, nothing more, nothing less, and they and their peddlers should be treated as such.
- 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.

by jlgreco 13y ago

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.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    I don't think you are familiar with what Top Gear is... You don't think there is any trickery going on here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbpgZ2Dt0A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbpgZ2Dt0A ? Sometimes they fabricate things to make an awesome car look awful, sometimes they fabricate to make a mediocre car look awesome. The common denominator is that they fabricate for the sake of entertainment. Anybody who actually watches the show would know and embrace that.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      I am well aware of what Top Gear is, and that's why I stopped watching it almost as soon as I started, and wondered why the hell anyone else watches it, either. I don't think establishing a past pattern of lies is an excuse for future lies, nor do I think lies presented as facts are "entertaining" in the least. They're just lies, nothing more, nothing less, and they and their peddlers should be treated as such.
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.