Judge Bricks Tesla's Lawsuit Against Top Gear

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Not a good day at Tesla: As if it’s not enough that the blogosphere is aflutter with bricked roadsters and unauthorized GPS tracking, on top of it we have fresh news from England that Tesla’s suit against Top Gear has been thrown out.

In 2008, Top Gear had said that the Tesla Roadster would only get 55 miles instead the 200 miles Tesla had specified. To underscore that point, a Tesla Roadster was pushed into a garage.

Tesla brought suit for libel and malicious falsehood. Last October, British Justice Tugendhat disallowed the libel claim and asked that the malicious falsehood claim should be amended if it were to be allowed to proceed.

Tesla’s lawyers handed in an amendment. Justice Tugendhat read it and ruled today that Tesla’s second attempt to formulate their malicious falsehood case on damage was so “vague” and so “gravely deficient” that “it is impossible to say that it has a real prospect of success or is in respect of a real and substantial tort.”

Which, to use the term du jour, bricked the lawsuit. The incriminated video has been “removed by the user.”

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments
Join the conversation
5 of 20 comments
  • Serothis Serothis on Feb 23, 2012

    Wait, didn't the brake fuse burn out on one of the cars tesla provided and then the engine overheating in the other sending it into limp mode? Isn't that the exact definition of "breaking down"? To add a cherry to the cake, Musk even mentions that "investors kept coming to him asking why their car broke down", not ran out of electricity, which tesla claimed top gear falsely implied. breaking down =/= out of juice. Also asking a show to pull an episode, while technically a simple procedure, is pretty big deal. Certainly not the easy and forgettable action Musk is implying. I have no sympathy for tesla.

  • APaGttH APaGttH on Feb 23, 2012

    And thrown out rightly so. When the lawsuits were initially filed a number of sites connected to the original Top Gear video in question and it spoke for itself. There wasn't a misrepresentation of product when you listen to the wording used. The reality was when driven under track conditions, they could barely eek out 50 miles. Anyone with a few brain cells would add, so what. Give me a Toyota Yaris and have someone with the driving skills of the Stig dujour flog it mercilessly on a race course and it won't even come close to its MPG rating (or if we want to say a Nissan Leaf, not close to its electric range either). You cannot change the laws of physics. I can't "quote" word for word the narration as they pushed the Tesla, but it wasn't such to directly imply that under normal conditions it's range was over stated by 4X. It also doesn't change the fact that without the proper rapid charger, it does take half-a-day to recharge as they observed, and that while trying to charge car number one, the brakes failed on car number two. Tesla was beyond stupid to supply and transport $260K in cars to Top Gear over seas and not provide a $1,000 plane ticket for an engineer and another $1,000 plane ticket for an AR/PR manager to support the Top Gear shoot and observe the activity.

  • Daviel Daviel on Feb 23, 2012

    I think Tesla is a perfect Darwin Award candidate. It sells a high dollar electric car to high minded rich people and does not tell them about a battery that will cost them over 40K to fix. These customers who can throw away the purchase price on the Tesla product can afford to fix it. Tesla prints up so much manual, disclaimer and waiver language to guard against liability that it ought to be a red flag to the customer. Tesla has something wrong with its car - the cell phone and laptop batteries drained of energy will brick the car. It does not tell the buyer that. It just tells the buyer not to do it. Maybe Tesla should have spent more money on battery engineering than on liability. Not telling the whole story is a deceptive sales practice IMO. Any lines forming at the dealerships. Who'd want one of these bricks now?

    • SimonAlberta SimonAlberta on Feb 23, 2012

      I almost agree with you, but.... I used to sell electric mobility scooters and wheelchairs and by far our biggest issue was customers running batteries down/leaving them down to the point of damaging them...then whinging when they started failing. All this in spite of a straightforward owner's manual clearly telling them how to keep them maintained. And in spite of my THOROUGHLY running through battery maintenance needs. And in spite of my always sending purchasers a thank you letter in which I AGAIN reminded them of the battery needs. The TRUTH ABOUT BATTERY CARS is....some people are too damn stupid or lazy too be entrusted to own them so....they just shouldn't buy them. For any normally sane and intelligent human being, in the right circumstances, a battery vehicle COULD be an excellent solution for them. For others, maybe not. BUT...I just don't get this wailing and gnashing of teeth about a vehicle that needs a certain amount of thought put into it's operation and service. If you are too dense to realise NOT to run the batteries down beyond the point of no return, then keep driving a gas guzzler. And NO, I am not saying the Tesla is a great car, or that there may not be some improvement they could make to help prevent battery problems....BUT....AGAIN....I say, it is not that HARD to find somewhere to recharge before the batteries die, surely?

  • Junebug Junebug on Feb 24, 2012

    FJ60LandCruiser = Troll Master

Next