The High end electrical car manufacturer, Tesla, has revealed that they will be taking legal action against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) because of the popular Top Gear television programme’s misinterpretation of their vehicle, the Tesla Roadster, which was tested on the show back in 2008.
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| The Tesla Roadster |
Top Gear showcased the Tesla Roadster in a race in which the car came to a stunning halt half way through, apparently ‘running out of energy’. Oh dear. Tesla believe that the car was misrepresented on the show and said that the episode in which it was tested contained lies and misinformation about the car’s performance, behaviour and reliability.
Tesla argues that the BBC staged breakdowns of the Roadster and that Top Gear misinterpreted the car’s range at 55 miles when its official average test cycle figure is 211 miles.
Tesla is looking to collect around £100,000 in damages, citing the BBC's failure to correct the faulty results. Legal action was recommended for the car manufacturing company last week after a DVD was released and the programme began airing on global repeats.
We found a statement on Tesla’s website explaining the reason for them suing the BBC for libel and malicious falsehood:
'Tesla reluctantly took legal action after its repeated attempts to contact the BBC, over the course of months, were ignored.
'The breakdowns were staged and the statements are untrue. Yet the programme’s lies are repeatedly and consistently re-broadcast to hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide on BBC television and websites, and on other TV channels via syndication; the show is available on the internet, and is for sale on Top Gear DVDs around the world.
'Tesla wants people to know the truth, and correct the public’s misperceptions. The Roadster and its EV technology, as well as EVs in general, have been unfairly and viciously maligned by Top Gear.
'Tesla simply wants Top Gear to stop rebroadcasting this malicious episode and to correct the record, but they’ve repeatedly ignored Tesla’s requests.'
The manufacturer’s communications boss, Ricardo Reyes, says that the company has been left having to explain the misconceptions of electric cars that it has generated as a result. He says that because of the show’s ‘buffoonery’, the test was mistaken as truth from the general public and that the script for Top Gear for the Tesla Roadster segment had been written before the cars were even driven.
The BBC News website report of the legal action has a statement from a spokesman who said: ‘We can confirm that we have received notification that Tesla had issued proceedings against the BBC. The BBC stands by the programme and will be vigorously defending this claim’.
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