The company that has sued Top Gear is Tesla, the guys that make the electric Elise. They are saying that Top Gear lied about the car in the review of the Roadster. They say that Top Gears claim about the car running out of battery after 56miles and says that the car still had 20% of its charge left. Even if that is true, about TG lieing, then TGs point is still valid. Tesla say that the Roadster can do 200 miles on one charge. If the car still had 20% of its charge left at 56 miles then it doesn't take a mathematical genius to work out it's not going to do another 144 miles.
Even so, it's not like the review was that bad. It shows the car clearly beating a Lotus Elise in a drag race, shows it being good in the corners and Jeremy says that it's the first electric car you'd actually want to buy. When it comes to electric cars that's about as good a review as you're going to get from Top Gear. What's odd is that a spokeswomen for Tesla said, at the time, that Tesla was happy with how the car came accross.
I hear that Andy Wilman, the programs director, was planning to use that statement against Tesla if the issue does go to court. What seems certain is that the chummy relationship between the press and manufacturers is going to be tested. The theory being that manufacturers could start demanding good reviews or they will take the journo to court. It would certainly be a departure from the days when manufacturers took bad reviews on the chin and worked to improve their cars for the next one. In fact, I believe that bad reviews are necessary for a car to improve. If you got the G Whizz in for review and lied about it having tons of room for fear of being sued that'd be no good for anyone.
In any case, I hope Top Gear wins this arguement. Then again, I would say that, since I write about cars.
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