If it really turned out to be a fuse (it's not like PR reps are known for truth telling) that still doesn't mean Clarksons comment was wrong or even meant to make it seem worse.
Sounds much worse to me. If I review a car, it blows a fuse and I say "the car is broken", I technically am correct. For the uninvolved bystander however, this sounds much more severe than it actually is.
Put the car on the charger and go to turn it on and the car gives "brake error", that's a brake problem. How long did it take to fix the fuse? Did Clarkson even see them fix it?
Do we know if they even tried?
And I don't know how an electric car shorting is a minor problem. That's why fuses blow, it's not like an air filter that needs to be changed over time.
Fuses blow. I've had fuses blown on cars where nothing was wrong. Just replaced it, and it worked properly. Maybe they made a mistake when they plugged the Tesla in, and they blew the fuse by themselves. Who knows?
The PR lady is disagreeing with both Clarkson and the Tesla owners manual, Tesla's own #'s support Clarkson's claim not hers.
How so? She said it can be done in 3,5h from dead to full charge on a high power socket. Clarkson said it takes 16 hours on a normal socket (without mentioning other options), their manual - according to you - says 18 hours from a 16A socket. Where did the lady contradict anyone here?
They're calling Top Gear liars with nothing to support it, and to make it worse it's coming from a PR lady from the other side of the world, not the mechanics that repaired the car and not a rep that was at the filming.
Again, how would a journalist that gets a car to review know more about it than a PR lady that works for the company that only makes that one car? How does the fact that the lady is from the US make her statements less reliable? And how does the Top Gear crew, who is known to heavily edit its bits and pieces for entertainment purposes, have any more credibility than her?
He said 16a, 13a would be even further away from the PR ladies 3.5 hours.
No, he said 13A, I just watched it again.
EDIT: I looked it up on Wiki. The normal British power outlet has 13A.