Tesla Motors sues Top Gear over staged Roadster review

Tesla Roadster vs. Top Gear
Tesla Roadster vs. Top Gear

Tesla Motors is taking Top Gear to court. That’s right, on March 29, Tesla sued the BBC television program for “libel and malicious falsehood.”

“When Top Gear reviewed the Tesla Roadster, the episode that aired contained lies and misinformation about the Roadster’s performance, behaviour and reliability,” Tesla Motors said on its website. “Tesla reluctantly took legal action after its repeated attempts to contact the BBC, over the course of months, were ignored.”

In the episode, Tesla Roadsters are shown suffering some critical ‘breakdowns’ during track driving – all of which are staged.

Tesla said that Top Gear misrepresented the following:

  1. The Roadster ran out of charge and had to be pushed into the Top Gear hangar by 4 men.
  2. The Roadster’s true range is only 55 miles per charge (not 211).
  3. One Roadster’s motor overheated and was completely immobilized as a result.
  4. The other Roadster’s brakes were broken, rendering the car undriveable.
  5. That neither of the two Roadsters provided to Top Gear was available for test driving due to these problems.

So what is Tesla asking for in return? They simply want Top Gear to stop rebroadcasting the Tesla Roadster episode and to correct the record. Tesla said Top Gear has declined several requests.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Tesla