TTAC to Clarkson Re: Teslagate: Stop Digging

by Robert Farago

Published: December 26th, 2008

ttac to clarkson re teslagate stop digging

UK carmudgeon Jeremy Clarkson remains under fire for misrepresenting the Tesla Roadster in his Top Gear test. Initially, when Jezza and his boys were caught pretending that the Roadster had run out of juice by pushing the Roadster into their off-track facility, they claimed dramatic license. If you don’t work for Tesla and live by the words “That’s Entertainment!”, it’s no biggie. But as Teslagate spreads into the MSM, Clarkson’s prevarications grow increasingly… tedious. First, the Torygraph presents Tesla’s side of the story, via spokesperson Rachel “Heart of Darkness” Konrad [sic]: “Never at any time did Clarkson or any of the Top Gear drivers run out of charge. In fact, they never got below 20 per cent charge … they never had to push a car off the track because of lack of charge or a fault. It’s unclear why they were filmed pushing one into a garage in the video.” Unclear my ass. Sigh. Even when they’re right, Tesla can’t help but weasel. But Clarkson’s cantankerous reply was worse.

“Clarkson denied the programme ever showed the car had stopped running.

‘We never said once that the car had run out of power. The car had to be pushed into the warehouse because you are not allowed to drive cars into a building.

‘We calculated that it would have run out of power after 53 miles but they can’t argue with that because that is a fact.'”

It’s a fact that Top Gear ran some numbers, but it’s not a fact that the Tesla Roadster would run out of charge at 53 miles of track work. Of course, Tesla’s Konrad didn’t provide the press with their range calculations in that circumstance. I’m better it would be lower.

Until and unless Tesla provides TTAC with a car for proper evaluation, or Top Gear goes back and does the red mist range test properly, I can’t help but think that Tesla’s getting the press coverage they deserve. Ditto Top Gear.

[thanks to Dutchchris for the link]

Robert Farago

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2 of 15 comments

Landcrusher on Dec 26, 2008

yeediddy, I am not sure how to react to your statement. I suppose the offshore drilling folks have been at it long enough to know what they are doing, but the H suppliers are still a bit inexperienced? At any rate, if it were so easy it would be being done, no? If you can put together a good biz plan, I know some interested venture capital folks. Lastly, your defense of libel is kinda sad. I would make my point by calling you names, but that is not allowed here.

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Davejay on Dec 31, 2008

Here's something interesting. According to their "calculations", the Tesla can only go 55 miles on a single charge when being pushed hard on the track, right? Well, there was an episode where they flogged a Diesel BMW around the track as hard as they could, and got terrible gas mileage (I can't find the specific number online, sadly.) And, as the flogged Prius results showed, any car being driven like that will get the worst possible gas mileage. So with that in mind, how bad is that range really? Let's use a few numbers from their own tests, from the Prius being flogged and the worst/best of the five supercars in the MPG test, to estimate the range when driven flat out: Tesla Roadster: (estimated) 55 miles Ferrari 599: (estimated) 47 miles Audi R8: (estimated) 119 miles Toyota Prius: (estimated) 204.6 miles So put it alongside its own kind, and it's at the lower end of the range scale (although not the lowest), and suddenly the poor Prius mileage doesn't look so bad. Since everyone's talking about the fake pushing and all that, I thought this little tidbit might be lost in the shuffle.

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