
Top Gear responds to Tesla - vaksel
http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2011/04/02/tesla-vs-top-gear-andy-wilman-on-our-current-legal-action/
======
cormullion
I'd forgotten just how much Clarkson sings the praises of the Tesla in the
first half of the review. The electric Tesla thrashes the petrol Lotus Elise
in a drag race. Clarkson is obviously amazed - "God almighty:, "this is
biblically quick!" - "this car is electric, literally!". "Wave goodbye to
dial-up, welcome to broadband motoring!". Then he says how much torque it
produces, how quick it is from 0 to 60, and then: "it's even more 'not bad'
when you start looking into the costs": £40 to fill the petrol Elise,
electricity just £3.50. Wind noise is a problem, but "a small price to pay
when you consider the upsides". "And I haven't even got to the big upside yet:
200 miles between trips to the plug." Some adverse comments about the
handling, but then he waves goodbye as "the volt head" cruises past the
"petrol head". "It is snowing in hell!". "This car was shaping up to be
something wonderful..."

After a pretty positive first half, Clarkson does indeed go on to make fun of
the car's electrical problems, and then is unimpressed by the practicalities
and ecological claims of electric vehicles. Even with a range of 250 miles,
and a 16 hour recharge cycle (if you're not throwing it around a track), it's
just not - yet - a practical car for many people, or a supercar to compete
with the likes of Ferrari or Porsche.

Clarkson's final words on the Tesla: "Incredible - but irrelevant [in the
light of the hydrogen car reviewed later]".

As Top Gear and Clarkson reviews go, I thought it wasn't overly biased. I
mean, he could have dropped a piano on it, or set it on fire...

I suspect Tesla are just in the need for some publicity at the moment.

~~~
jimmyjim
The video in question is here: [http://www1.peteava.ro/id-641316-top-gear-uk-
season-12-episo...](http://www1.peteava.ro/id-641316-top-gear-uk-
season-12-episode-7-part-1-of-2) Tesla's review starts at about 17:29.

The episode seems to be centered around contrasting the Tesla with Honda's FCX
Clarity. Here is the 2nd part: [http://www1.peteava.ro/id-641379-top-gear-uk-
season-12-episo...](http://www1.peteava.ro/id-641379-top-gear-uk-
season-12-episode-7-part-2-of-2) At about 21:10, James reviews/introduces
Honda's FCX Clarity and finishes by calling it "The car of the next 100 years"

James doesn't stop with the praises; and I think he was perhaps disingenuous
in glossing over big details.

The processes for getting Hydrogen to be in usable form requires energy by
itself. Whereas Tesla's batteries directly give it electricity, there is a
system present in the Clarity that converts the hydrogen fuel into
electricity. The only emission is... water. Fantastic, rainbows all around.

Hydrogen is indeed abundant throughout this universe, but it is mostly found
in compound forms - water, natural gas, etc. There is a certain ratio 'EROI'
-- (Energy return on investment) -- which is defined to be: (quantity of
energy supplied / quantity of energy used in supply process.)It turns out that
in summing the energy required by the very initial processes of getting
Hydrogen to be in usable form, packaging it, and delivering it to the user,
the EROI for Honda's FCX Clarity is VASTLY higher than it is for electric
vehicles, like the Tesla's.

If the episode's central critique was in the basis of comparing the Tesla's
efficiency vs. Clarity's (which, to me, felt that an element of it in fact
was), it was dishonest of James to gloss over the known inefficiencies of
hydrogen fuel cells. As hard as it is for me to say it, as I'm about the
biggest James' fan, but I really do think this episode was a little iffy for
more than a few reasons.

~~~
6ren
Well, the marketing ploy got me to watch the review, anyway...

The massive fuel savings makes me think a shorter-range, lower performance
vehicle would be more popular (for city commutes). But I'm guessing the real
problem Tesla faced was that the batteries would be ridiculously expensive
even for that - so targeting a premium performance, upscale market, where
other qualities of an electric car (torque) can come into play. Presumably,
they would go down market over time, as battery technology improves. Which
seems to be on an extraordinarily slow trajectory (esp. in the context of
silicon).

Jeremy suggests two Teslas (while one's charging), but you just need two
batteries. Reminds me of early razor technology (before Gillette's safety
razor), when sending in a razor to be sharpened was a popular option - but you
needed to have two.

Fun fact: electric cars were fairly popular over 100 years ago (for trucks
mainly IIRC), with batteries being the problem even then. Edison worked on
their batteries for a while.

btw: the caravan jump is at 12:05 in part 2
([http://www1.peteava.ro/id-641379-top-gear-uk-
season-12-episo...](http://www1.peteava.ro/id-641379-top-gear-uk-
season-12-episode-7-part-2-of-2))

------
CoffeeDregs
Seems as though a better plan would be to challenge Top Gear to a rematch of
some sort. Make something fun out of this and get the auto enthusiasts
cheering.

Southwest did this perfectly: got sued, took it to the ring, arm wrestled over
it, got crushed, paid the other guy, laughed all the way to the bank and
everyone cheered them on.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwU9m4oCtRE&](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwU9m4oCtRE&);

~~~
Klinky
Suing over a stolen slogan is a bit different than suing over slander/libel.
When you read this excerpt from the article it does sound like Tesla is trying
to either force Top Gear to give a better review or give them more publicity:

 _Why even last night the Top Gear office accidentally received an email sent
from a Public Relations firm to The One Show, asking if it would like to have
the Tesla spokesperson on their programme to talk about the case. It says:
“PHA Media represent Tesla and this could make for a fantastic interview.” And
the PHA man’s not finished there. “The presenters could have some fun with
this.” He adds. “Matt and Alex could even take the Tesla for a spin and test
it out, reaffirming its virtues?”_

------
olivercameron
I just can't see how Tesla can win this case in court. As anyone who has ever
watched Jeremy Clarkson will tell you, you know he would rather resign from
Top Gear than apologise for this.

~~~
dman
I think any victory in courts is going to be a pyrrhic one. Ive said it before
on earlier threads and I will say it again here - Tesla is alienating a large
section of auto enthusiasts by going after Top Gear. It might be that some
marketing guru has figured out that suing Top Gear is a cheaper way to get
headlines than running a campaign. But they have picked the wrong target - Top
Gear is at the heart and centre of Auto culture worldwide. Also not a good
sign when a tech company starts using the courts instead of the market and
their product to win points.

~~~
machrider
I don't know, I think if you're an enthusiast who cares about the environment,
Clarkson isn't your favorite guy ever. I felt like the piece on the Tesla was
pretty offensive in how biased it was, and I normally like the guys on Top
Gear.

~~~
estel
I genuinely didn't feel as though the piece on Tesla was particularly biased
though? Sure, they pointed out the flaws inherit to the car (recharge time)
and filmed the car being pushed in for entertainment, but overall the piece
still came across as pretty positive about the car: at times he was gushing
about its performance and how enjoyable it could be to drive.

I'm sure if I were invested in Tesla it's easy to feel that they're "biased"
against me, but the review didn't come across as any more negative than 90% of
car reviews on Top Gear.

~~~
Retric
They took a worst case mileage and recharge time and said a specific trip
would take you 3 days. Without saying if you actually drove that distance and
used a larger power source than a normal wall outlet it would take a few
hours. They also pretended one of the cars ran out of power which did not
actually happen.

Now, I don't mind making fun of actual issues. And they had some things that
actually broke, but making shit up crosses a line IMO.

~~~
SwellJoe
Have you seen Top Gear?

The Reliant Robin, while obviously a horrible design, does not roll over every
time you drive one a half mile (and it is not the primary reason for the
decline in population in the Sheffield region in the decades since its
release). The Stig is not really "half man, half machine with petrol running
through his veins". And a race against a jet or helicopter is not a realistic
test of auto performance.

The Tesla episode was cheeky, but no more cheeky than many episodes. It's not
a "straight" review show. It is a comedy that happens to have a lot of cars in
it. If it is occasionally true, that's just a bonus.

~~~
jedsmith
> The Reliant Robin, while obviously a horrible design, does not roll over
> every time you drive one a half mile

But it is absolutely _hilarious_ when it does.

~~~
nikster
Reliant Robin show was epic. Only in England.

------
akashs
First, Top Gear is testing on track conditions, and that will certainly give
different results than the 220 mile range found on the EPA's ideal testing
conditions. Top Gear has previously shown that a BMW M3 gets better mileage
than a Prius in track conditions, but I don't think anyone believes this is
representative of the cars on the whole.

Second, there's very few data points on the range aside from Tesla's press
releases that I can find, but the two I can find are much closer to Top Gear's
number and were also from less aggressive testing than what Top Gear did: 93
miles:
[http://www.autoweek.com/article/20080124/green/398811820/163...](http://www.autoweek.com/article/20080124/green/398811820/1636)

95-120 miles (says 105-120, but I think there's a math error on the writer's
part): [http://green.autoblog.com/2008/01/29/so-whats-the-
downside-t...](http://green.autoblog.com/2008/01/29/so-whats-the-downside-to-
the-tesla-roadster-the-range/)

Third, Top Gear says Tesla calculated the 55 mile figure themselves, so not
sure how they can sue them for that claim.

~~~
d2
Tesla's corporate officers have a fiduciary duty to respond to something that
hurts their brand this badly. Top Gear is the most popular car review show
globally with around 350 million viewers world-wide.

Apparently a lawsuit is the best response they could come up with.

~~~
nl
So they'll be suing themselves now? Because this lawsuit is hurting their
brand a lot more than the Top Gear review did.

I remember seeing it when it came out, and thinking how positive it was. Sure,
Jeremy ridiculed it for running out of power, but at the same time he spent a
long time talking about how _fast_ it was. From memory he said something like
"if this is the future, bring it on"

By your logic, what should Audi do when he said (paraphrasing): "All Audi
drivers are cocks"?

------
Cherad
Jeremy Clarkson's column in The Sunday Times shortly after the Top Gear review
is an interesting read and covered most of the points made in this article
back in 2009.

[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/art...](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article5483422.ece)

~~~
Lennie
The article was mostly ok until all the way at the end.

Where he completely messes up and mentioned that hydrogen cars are "completely
green".

Just a few sentences before that he says the car from Tesla is powered by "so-
called green power" (electricity) from "dirty great power station".

Mr. Clarkson where do you think most of the hydrogen comes from ? Or the power
to compress the hydrogen to make it compact enough for use by a car ?

Yes, there is a possibility someone will find a good way to produce to create
hydrogen from algae. Or some breakthrough in the science of nuclear fission.
We really don't know what will happen.

Anyway the real problem is efficient storage of energy and efficient
conversion from storage to action/motion if I can call it that.

Batteries seem to be the current solution. But if we want to talk about
environmentally friendly I don't know if they really are. I just know that
batteries, like hydrogen use materials which come from nature which are just
as finite as oil or matterial needed for fusion for that matter.

Although on Wikipedia it says:

'In addition, new Nickel-metal hydride and lithium batteries are non-toxic and
can be recycled, and "the supposed 'lithium shortage' doesn’t exist"'

I don't know if that is true.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hey, there's another article recently on HN about an MIT professor's
"artificial leaf" meaning a solar cell that produces hydrogen directly. So now
we know when that will happen.

------
d2
This is an incredibly well written blog entry. Having followed the accepted
pre-court etiquette that Andy mentions in the past, this inspires me to take a
different approach next time around and have my say in hopefully as
professional a manner. [...In close consultation with my legal team as I'm
sure Andy did]

------
Joshhannah
The tesla roadster is unfortunately just not competitive with other internal
combustion performance cars if you don't want to give it credit for either (1)
being a super innovative EV or (2) being environmentally friendly.

Top Gear (and all the car mags) basically review it as a cool, fun novelty.
But if you measure on looks + performance, as car enthuiasts do, it's just
fundamentally not competitive in its price bracket.

Suing is obviously a mistake. Hoping Top Gear, Evo, Road & Track will push it
is just naive. Tesla listens too much to their own marketing.

------
jrspruitt
I like what the Tesla company is doing, in regards to attempting to make
alternative fuel cars, I'm all for such things. And yes, its an up hill
battle, which I'm sure the internal combustion engine faced, while trying to
oust horses for a viable mode of transportation. Not only is the technology
not up to par/cost effective on a mass scale, there is the issue of charging
station locations, and the nay sayers like the host of Top Gear, who isn't the
only one that grumbles at the thought of electric or "eco-friendly" read Hot
Rod magazine sometime. Which seems to be what Tesla wants to answer, electric
cars can go fast to. But this lawsuit seems like its disingenuous, more like
they are playing off a couple social issues for their benefit. 1 "Environment"
is an emotional trigger second only to stuff like racism and sexism level
stuff, its got some emotional appeal just by saying the word, either for or
against. So claiming foul on someone who is notoriously pro fast powerful
cars, who inherently isn't going to like commuter based cars, really nails
that emotion. 2 Taking it to the media, to hit a full scale marketing campaign
about it, years after it happened, to help fuel that emotion and go after the
media justice that seems to easy to do, like O.J. we all "know" he did it, but
was proven innocent pretty much. Enough press coverage to one side, and we all
start forming our own judgments. I think these are dirty tricks, that only add
fuel to the opposition's fire. Like the scientists who were busted with bad
data on global warming. Regardless if the position is true, getting caught
doing dirty tricks, is going to make you look bad regardless, doing more harm
than good. Just because I agree with their environmental position, doesn't
mean I have to look the other way, when they break other beliefs of mine. I'm
angered cause of the damage this could do for environmentalism, which I
believe in first, their company second.

------
motters
My question is: how did this get to the top position on HN? I could hardly
care less about Jeremy Clarkson's opinions, or TV shows such as Top Gear.

~~~
elvirs
exactly, and why this comment gets downvoted? I dont give a crap, its like
following those lawsuits Calacanis filed against Arrington, and Arrington
filed agains JooJoo guys.

This is soap opera, and you make fun of soap opera when there are is love,
cheating and stuff involved but you discuss it as a serious issue because in
this case the auto show and very techy electric car manufacturer is involved.
feel free to downvote me too but I think smart and talented people of HN
community (which I observed them to be) must have better things to discuss.

cheers

~~~
PagingCraig
People like things you don't. What else is new?

------
bugsy
With this response, it sounds like both sides are now in complete agreement
and there is no remaining dispute.

------
stuhood
Why would Top Gear use a calculated track capacity number (55 miles), given
that they could have measured an actual number? I understand that 30 minutes
of hard driving can be exhausting, but how exactly could they have calculated
an accurate value?

Say what you will about EPA numbers, but at least they involve standardized
measurement.

~~~
dagw
_Why would Top Gear use a calculated track capacity number (55 miles), given
that they could have measured an actual number?_

Probably because they had a show to shoot. They where apparently already
having trouble getting all the shots they needed due to the short battery
life, combined with the break problems. I'm guessing they simply didn't have
the time to take the car out again and run it until the battery died.

------
jrockway
_PS: As this is going through the courts right now, we’re afraid we’ve had to
turn off comments on this one, but we wanted to let you all know how we see
it._

Good thing that you can't comment on articles elsewhere on the Internet. Their
legal strategy is saved!

------
johnconroy
I enjoy Top Gear but their (ie Clarkson's) animosity towards hybrids,
electrics etc. is pretty pathetic, epically antiquarian.

------
CornishPasty
did they deliver the legal case via a tesla roadster? seems that way given how
long it's taken...

------
periferral
ohhhh the tesla jokes on top gear for years to come from jeremy is something
i'll look forward to.

------
rlfromm
So what is the issue? Pure electric is cool in 55 minute segents. ;)

------
rlfromm
I agree with top gear. UK top gear rules, hopefully the US crew can get their
show together.

------
sliverstorm
Considering the tenuous relationship between the presenters and the studio as
portrayed in the show, it's pleasing to see the rest of the company getting
behind Top Gear and providing a united front.

------
cl8ton
Clarkson is a bit of a prick when it comes to favoritism on cars (you know,
kinda like some top tier tech blogs)

He is a 98% octane gear head and will not tolerate electric cars, so his
review did not surprise me much when I watched it.

I'm a long time Porsche owner and will never forgive him on an episode when he
dropped a Piano on an older 911 or when he totally disrespected the Porsche GT
for comparing its composite disk rotors to anti-acid.

Guess I will never get British humor.

