If you need catching up, Raikkonen won the 2007 World Driver’s Championship in a Ferrari and switched to the World Rally Championship last year, driving a Citroen. Kimi was most entertaining when he got a podium and sat in on the post-race interviews, where he answered everything with one long run-on, mumbled sentence. He came off sounding like he had sampled a bit of his sponsor’s product, Johnny Walker.
If Kimi starts winning Sprint Cup races in his Jim Beam/Nokian Hakkapeliitta/Valvoline Volvo S60, I might have to start watching the WWF of motorsports.
It would be easier to dismiss Tesla vs. Top Gear, except that when it comes to libel suits, British law is tougher than American law on media. If you need catching up on this one, you can find the full 10-and-a-half-minute Top Gear video clip on YouTube. That’s Tesla’s problem with it. Public relations chief Ricardo Reyes writes at teslavstopgear.com that “If the episode had been broadcast in 2008, and not rebroadcast repeatedly to hundreds of millions of new viewers all over the globe, Tesla would not have sued.”
There’s the slightly early April Fool’s joke; that the fledgling electric automaker wasn’t hurt the first time Jeremy Clarkson & Co. slammed its chief product. Now it is. And we’re going to tell you about it, so you can find it on YouTube and watch it again.
Reyes writes, “Tesla Roadsters in over 30 countries have driven more than 10 million real-world miles. That’s 500,000 gallons of fuel that didn’t burn and over 5.3 million pounds of averted carbon dioxide emissions.”
I’ll give them the 500,000 gallons of fuel, assuming “10 million real-world miles” is anywhere near accurate, but 5.3 million pounds of averted carbon dioxide? Did Tesla subtract upstream emissions, and if so, how did it do the count? As the proud owners of a long-term Chevrolet Volt, Motor Trend would like to know.
Ten million real world miles comes to 3,300+ miles per Tesla Roadster, assuming all 1,500+ have been on the road since 2008, which they have not. Okay, I guess that’s possible, if the owners don’t drive these sports cars the way Clarkson and The Stig tested them.
Tesla alleges Top Gear “misrepresented” that the Roadster ran out of charge and that four men had to push it into the Top Gear hangar, that its true range is 55 miles rather than the advertised 211 miles, that one of the test Roadster’s motor overheated and was immobilized, that the second Roadster’s brakes broke and that neither car was available for test-driving because of these problems.
I guess that means Top Gear wasn’t able to drive either Tesla Roadster on the road, because both broke before they got them off the test track. If you haven’t watched the video by now, be aware that these problems occurred after full track testing. Clarkson in the Tesla handily beat a conventional Lotus Elise in a drag race, and The Stig got some good lap times in it, despite the weight of the batteries and low rolling-resistance tires affecting its handling qualities.
Tesla alleges Top Gear staged the breakdowns, and its suit simply calls for the BBC to stop airing the rerun, “but they’ve repeatedly ignored Tesla’s requests.” It’s kind of like The Detroit News’ recent loss of car reviewer Scott Burgess, when its editors cut his most damning criticisms of the Chrysler 200. Not because of pressure from local employer Chrysler LLC, which had nothing to do with the editing, but because a local dealer pressured the newspaper. (Newspaper management has apologized, and Burgess has returned.)
A real, grown-up automaker wouldn’t try to control the news and criticism like that. (Yes, I know other “grown up” car companies sometimes try, but Chrysler’s not one of them.) A potential Tesla customer, especially one rabidly interested in electric cars, wouldn’t confuse published range with real-world driving range, which Top Gear would admit was severely limited because of the strenuous track testing at high speeds.
The difference, Clarkson noted on TV, is in the refueling. Run a Bugatti Veyron or a Lotus Elise dry on the track? Fill it up in a few minutes. Run a Tesla Roadster dry, and you’re waiting hours – Clarkson said it was 16 – before you can drive it again.
The good news is that Tesla vs. Top Gear, by definition, will be far more entertaining than any April 1 prank, maybe even more entertaining than Kimi in the Sprint Cup winner’s circle. How does Tesla know Top Gear staged the Roadster’s drivability problems? I don’t know. That’s going to be very hard to prove, I hope, at least two years after the show’s production. I do know the suit will lose its entertainment value if it’s allowed to go too far, and puts a chilling effect on Top Gear’s ability to review and criticize new cars.
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