So Top Gear lied about Tesla?

Trollbooth said:
The Tesla goes to 55 miles. The time needed between fill-ups for the Tesla and a supercar are about the same, so why take the piss out of the Tesla and not the 599?
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Because it takes far longer to "fill up" the Tesla (even with the recharging port) than it does the 599 (3 hours vs at most 5 minutes)
 
calvinhobbes said:
Remember the S-Type on the N?rburgring? That switched into get-me-home-mode, too, and Clarkson still loved it.
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I remember he didn't love it at all when it switched in get-me-home-mode. He did love the driving though. And he clearly liked the Tesla's driving as well.

I also remember Jeremy didn't like the turbo lag of the S-Type. You see, he was critical of that car as well.

Furthermore, it was Jeremy's own faulty driving what caused the S-Type to switch into get-me-home-mode. Not an almost empty battery in need of a 3+ hour charge. Just think how rubbish the Tesla would have been that day on the N?rburgring.
 
Gyvon said:
Because it takes far longer to "fill up" the Tesla (even with the recharging port) than it does the 599 (3 hours vs at most 5 minutes)
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Indeed! Tesla is trying to deviate us from the main point: the car needs a long charge. Who cares if it was empty or not in the film; it needs a long charge between relatively short drives. Petrol sport cars only need a short charge between relatively short drives. This is what makes electric sport cars pointless at this time.

I mean, every big car manufacturer can put an electric engine in a car. Car manufacturers know this; they are not afraid of Tesla. Tesla is not doing anything special; they just put an electric motor in a Lotus chassis. Big deal. Solving the battery problem is where it gets interesting. And Tesla doesn't do that. And now they try to get extra PR by pointing out some small, totally unimportant details.

The Honda Clarity on the other hand, used actual engaging new technology. Also not ideal at this time, but much more innovative than what Tesla did.
 
What I find funny is this insistence that EV's must be perfect, absolutely without flaw perfect, in order for them to make sense. ICE cars are not perfect either, you know. No option is. The EV solves a lot of the problems of ICE cars, but it has problems of it's own and no one is denying them. It reminds me of those people that expect a car to be super fast, super efficient, super luxurious, super light, and super affordable, all at the same time. Delusional.
 
Agreed. I would gladly trade off the oil changes, head gasket jobs and fuel filter changes and O2 sensor failures for not being able to drive more than ~200 between "fill ups." (especially when I can top it off just about every night at home) If you are looking to drive on a track all day, than this is not the car for you.
 
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the Interceptor said:
As a BBC spokesperson confirmed, the car didn't have to be pushed into the hangar, thus it wasn't out of charge. They merely pushed it to show "what could happen". Therefore, I assume the 55 mile range refers to a 100% to 20% charge, and that the car will still go further in limp-mode. But even if that ain't the case, I seriously doubt they actually drove the car all through the normal mode and the limp-mode until it actually came to a complete halt.
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No, they haven't, you are completely right, but as I see it, the charge is over when the car gets in limp-mode. In fact, in -my- real life, my diesel car's fuel range ends when the reserve tank light turns on. That, for me, is limp-mode, that tells me to refuel my car, and the car doens't force me to slow down.

As I see it, the pushing thing is not important, what I want is to know how many miles I could get before limp-mode. Pushing the car is scenery.

I don't deny that the brakes of the Tesla malfunctioned, and that this would be pretty inconvenient in real life. Thanks to Andy, we now know that the fuse to the vaccuum pump blew, so the brakes still worked mechanically, but you needed to press the pedal much harder. That of course is not acceptable for driving, let alone performance driving and reviewing. The problem I have with this is that despite the Tesla crew fixed this within minutes, the TG crew ran around with their fingers in their ears going "LALALALALA we don't have a car we don't have a car LALALALALA" when the car was available again a cigarette a coffee later.
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Well, a problem is a problem. Tesla was lucky that it was a secondary problem, but was unlucky that it appeared at the wrong time. At that point, when both cars had had their share of electromechanical problems, than it is not a lie to enhance the model's unreliability. Yes, TG chopped in with axes where a suiss knife would have sufficed, but we know who they are, and I'm really happy to know they haven't faked the car's problems, because what is interesting is not whether TG had the chance of finishing the shooting day or not, but whether the Tesla is unreliable or not.

EDIT:
The problem is that Jeremy's Tesla film is negative to the point of deliberately constructing happenings when James' FCX film is overly positive while keeping quiet about the downsides of the technology. I agree with their sentiment that a hydrogen fuel cell car is better than a battery-powered car. However, they could easily make that point while remaining factual, which they didn't. I don't mind a bit of bias, I just detest the level they have taken this to.
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Jeremy hit very hard. It was harsh and pityless. But he hasn't faked it: both cars did actually break down, and the range, compared to the time it needs to charge the batteries, is hopeless. And after all, I started watching TG exactly because they aren't all honey and sugar with every car they test.

TomCat said:
What I find funny is this insistence that EV's must be perfect, absolutely without flaw perfect, in order for them to make sense. ICE cars are not perfect either, you know. No option is. The EV solves a lot of the problems of ICE cars, but it has problems of it's own and no one is denying them. It reminds me of those people that expect a car to be super fast, super efficient, super luxurious, super light, and super affordable, all at the same time. Delusional.
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I think the problem with EV is that they still have too many problems. I'd be happy to buy a EV, it would be very nice. But something HAS to change. I will never be wanting to pay more than what I do now to have generally lower performance, less range, mindblowingly higher charging times, reduced handling, and maybe not even getting to reduce my polluting footprint at all (batteries are quite polluting and energy cleanness depends on the source).

We all pray for a sudden advance in battery technology.
 
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SirEdward said:
Jeremy hit very hard. It was harsh and pityless. But he hasn't faked it: both cars did actually break down,
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You see, I think that's where we are all disagreeing. If my car's fuel light pops on, I don't tell people I broke down. And if I'm thrashing my car around a track and the temp gauge starts to rise, which is perfectly normal, I also don't tell people I broke down. Same thing if I blow a fuse, but my car is still perfectly drivable and I can make it home. I don't consider any of those things as "break downs". TopGear attempted to make it seem that way by showing the cars immobile on the track and being pushed into a garage. I think that's stretching the truth too far and seems overly fake and dishonest.



SirEdward said:
I think the problem with EV is that they still have too many problems. I'd be happy to buy a EV, it would be very nice. But something HAS to change. I will never be wanting to pay more than what I do now to have generally lower performance, less range, mindblowingly higher charging times, reduced handling, and maybe not even getting to reduce my polluting footprint at all (batteries are quite polluting and energy cleanness depends on the source).

We all pray for a sudden advance in battery technology.
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Sure, advancing battery technology is key. But current technology isn't bad either. My daily commute is less than 50 miles, so even if TopGear was right about the range being 55 miles, it would still work for me. I can drive it to work and drive it home and plug it in over night. No problem at all. And I wouldn't have to fuck around with gas prices skyrocketing 20% in a week without warning. Of course, the realistic average range for the Tesla is more like 150 miles. Who here drives over 150 miles a day? Very few I'm guessing.

Put it this way, would you rather your cell phone use AA batteries or a more expensive rechargeable battery that you plug in? AA batteries would be pretty nice, you could buy them anywhere and swap them out quickly and easily, no need to plug it into a wall for an hour just to charge it up. But personally, I wouldn't want to spend a small fortune on AA batteries each month for my stupid cell phone. I'd much rather just plug it in each night and let it charge.
 
Rokovak said:
And if a court interprets it the way I did, and that's a very realistic and reasonable conclusion, then Top Gear could be s.o.l. Semantics can be a p.i.t.a sometimes, but sometimes it's all a court has to rely on.
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True, but it's still down to interpretation. Each side can interpret what is said to support their own case - it's the judge's job to decide whose interpretation is correct.
 
TomCat said:
You see, I think that's where we are all disagreeing. If my car's fuel light pops on, I don't tell people I broke down. And if I'm thrashing my car around a track and the temp gauge starts to rise, which is perfectly normal, I also don't tell people I broke down. Same thing if I blow a fuse, but my car is still perfectly drivable and I can make it home. I don't consider any of those things as "break downs". TopGear attempted to make it seem that way by showing the cars immobile on the track and being pushed into a garage. I think that's stretching the truth too far and seems overly fake and dishonest.
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To be honest, both Tesla actually broke down. Overheating in one case, a fuse in the other. Nothing unsolvable, probably, but you can't do like nothing happened. A friend of mine had a horrible Renault that looked more like a christmas tree than like a car because of the lights turning on on the dashboard. The car was mostly drivable every time, but he was quite enraged. Or me. at 600 kms from home, at the second day of a 7.000+ kms vacation, I was in a very, very dark mood when my car told me that it had broken down, even if that wasn't true at all. A car can break down, that's normal, but reliability is vital, even for such minor things.

I can see TG pitylessly crushing Tesla, but I still can not see them strictly lie. I wouldn't want a car that prone to problems.

Sure, advancing battery technology is key. But current technology isn't bad either. My daily commute is less than 50 miles, so even if TopGear was right about the range being 55 miles, it would still work for me. I can drive it to work and drive it home and plug it in over night. No problem at all. And I wouldn't have to fuck around with gas prices skyrocketing 20% in a week without warning. Of course, the realistic average range for the Tesla is more like 150 miles. Who here drives over 150 miles a day? Very few I'm guessing.
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My daily commute is less than 55 miles too (it hasn't always been the case, though), but I sometimes have to drive around more, even more than 200 miles (yes, quite rare), and I want to do all in one day. Also, 16 hours to charge the batteries (that's the amount required for the Tesla with standard line, for example) is way too much. I could perhaps live with a 200 miles range if the charging time was 2-3 hours or less on a standard socket that I could find everywhere. But this is not the case. Also, I would have problems with my favourite kind of vacation.

Put it this way, would you rather your cell phone use AA batteries or a more expensive rechargeable battery that you plug in? AA batteries would be pretty nice, you could buy them anywhere and swap them out quickly and easily, no need to plug it into a wall for an hour just to charge it up. But personally, I wouldn't want to spend a small fortune on AA batteries each month for my stupid cell phone. I'd much rather just plug it in each night and let it charge.
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I think cell phones are a great example. The battery in my actual, cheap (very important point), cell phone lasts 4-5 days, and takes less than two hours to recharge. That's great, and I'm perfectly fine with this. What if it lasted 4 hours and took 8 to recharge? I would clearly use AA batteries.
 
SirEdward said:
To be honest, both Tesla actually broke down. Overheating in one case, a fuse in the other. Nothing unsolvable, probably, but you can't do like nothing happened.
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I still can't agree. As far as I can tell, the car that overheated never actually broke down, it just got hot, which is logical since the car has neither a transmission nor a liquid cooling system and was being thrashed around a track at 10/10ths at the time. It's like living in Alaska and getting upset that it snows occasionally. Reality check on isle 1 please. The blown fuse was a bigger issue, but it didn't make the car undrivable. A puncture would have been far more damaging. I even wonder if the parts that malfunctioned were Tesla's stuff, or if they were actually Lotus equipment. Either way though, none of the problems TopGear depicted actually prevented the cars from continuing on to their intended destinations, assuming they weren't expecting the cars to circumnavigate the globe on a single charge.

To me, "breaking down" means your car broke so bad it stopped immediately and was completely inoperable, leaving you stranded. That's what TopGear depicted, but that's not what actually happened. That's why I think it was dishonest.
 
From personal experience, my TT600 gets 160 miles or so to a tank ridden on the road. On a track? A full tank minus 20 miles to get there in the morning and three 20 minute trackday sessions flat out will have me heading down the road at lunchtime to fill up. I imagine a 200 mile range electric car in the hands of the Stig on a track might easily only do 55 miles...

So if you buy it as a trackday toy, it's only going to last the morning before it is out of juice and you won't be recharging it over lunch even if you can find a socket. Plus you'll need to trailer it to and from the track... Not a problem for an Elise...
 
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Really should have ended the Porsche 959/Ferrari F40 review with "These cars broke and are shit, dont buy one".
 
TomCat said:
I still can't agree. As far as I can tell, the car that overheated never actually broke down
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It's a roadster that is supposed to be compared to a Lotus. It has no other function than to work on a track. It's not a family car. It shouldn't overheat on the track. It broke down. Other modern cars don't overheat on the track, the Tesla shouldn't as well.
 
"It's a roadster that is supposed to be compared to a Lotus."

I don't think so. It's difficult to compare it to any gas/diesel powered vehicle. It's something completely different.

"It has no other function than to work on a track."

Sports cars are not track cars. Ever seen a real track car? Road going cars can't compare. Brakes, cooling systems, clutches, etc, none of it is near the heavy duty strength of true track cars. Ever wonder how it's possible for multi-million dollar formula 1 cars to break down? Yeah...

"It's not a family car."

Well fuck me, learn something new everyday.

"It shouldn't overheat on the track."

Correction, it started to overheat (remember, no cooling system), so the car restricted revs to prevent the engine from breaking down.

"It broke down."

Nonsense. I suppose you consider stopping for a car wash to be a "break down" as well.

"Other modern cars don't overheat on the track, the Tesla shouldn't as well."

Again, I call nonsense. Most cars tend to run alittle hot when you're really pushing them to the limit. It's just the way it is. But most cars have geared transmissions to keep the revs down, as well as, a multitude of radiators to help keep the engine, transmission, and even the diff(s) from overheating. This first generation Tesla doesn't have those luxuries... yet.

And yes, I know I'm a dick. :p
 
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NecroJoe said:
Agreed. I would gladly trade off the oil changes, head gasket jobs and fuel filter changes and O2 sensor failures for not being able to drive more than ~200 between "fill ups." (especially when I can top it off just about every night at home) If you are looking to drive on a track all day, than this is not the car for you.
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Maybe, but where I work at, I'm sure my boss would have issues with me parking close enough to the main lobby to drag an extension cord in through the place...

And I live in a town home with no garage, so I simply have no place to charge it even at home. That's my main beef with electrics. Until they find a way to refill the tank, so to say in a reasonable amount of time..they're just not a real alternative to most people out there.


If every time I wanted to fill the tank of my regular car...I had to go and refine the crude and make gasoline right then and there...I'd scrap it too.
 
Do you guys seriously make 50 mile one way commutes to work where this range thing would be an issue? Nobody i know drives more than 5 or 10 miles. 200 mile range is way way more than i'd ever need in a non-roadtrip situation.

I live like a mile and a half from my job. I only drive so i can get a few extra minutes of sleeping time in in the morning.
 
I don't know why but this topic has stuck in my head all day and it has occurred to me that if everyone starts using electric cars the power grid in going to crash big time. We have a nuclear power plant nearby that sells electricity to calif. ( I have never figured out how they can do that) There is no way a car that has to be recharged freq from the grid is ever going to be the way of the future.

It also occured to me that when we play with my dad's golf cart. no he was not a golfer, I can run it all day on one charge, but if my son is driving it, it runs out of juice a lot faster.

Also, Tesla is complaining about a review from 3 years ago. Surely they have improved the car since then. Maybe they can give it to TG US and see how they fair with it now.

And one last thing, yes my commute to work is 50 miles. Well 47, but it takes over an hour. So when you think about it, the charge equals almost hour per hour driving to charging. Not a good ratio at all. When I get home I pull in the drive way and go in. I am not having to lug a cable out to my car so it will be available the next time I need to use it.
 
skylock said:
I don't know why but this topic has stuck in my head all day and it has occurred to me that if everyone starts using electric cars the power grid in going to crash big time. We have a nuclear power plant nearby that sells electricity to calif. ( I have never figured out how they can do that)
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Your concern and question have the same answer: Our power grid is capable of producing much more power than we use, and on a local level there is often "extra" power capability available.


Hopefully this japan situation doesnt scare stupid people (and the stupid politicians they vote for) away from nuclear power, and we're golden.
 
calvinhobbes said:
Remember the S-Type on the N?rburgring? That switched into get-me-home-mode, too, and Clarkson still loved it.
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IIRC, Clarkson said that was his fault because he incorrectly downshifted into a much lower gear than he needed, or something to that effect where the engine would have gone horribly wrong had it not switched into get-me-home-mode.
 
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