Tesla Sues Top Gear For Libel, BBC Quickly Counters

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Something of a donnybrook getting ready over in London, as three of our favorite things–cars, green tech, and high-def television–get ready to launch a smackdown of epic proportions. The folks out at Tesla have filed a libel suit against the BBC, producers of the legendary car show Top Gear.

For those of you not already familiar, Top Gear may well be the king of all car shows, having run for over ten seasons, many of which are currently on DVD. Top Gear‘s specialty is not only telling you about cars, but making you laugh about cars, often by staging clever antics having to do with them, such as turning a van into a hot air balloon. Anyway, host Jeremy Clarkson took a Tesla car out onto the show’s test track, complaining about the car’s short 55 mile range, before showing a scene involving the Tesla being pushed into a garage, implying that it had run out of charge.

Tesla, meanwhile, took offense, pointing out that it had 1. sent a pair of cars for Top Gear’s use, one of which was always kept charging (which sounds like stacking the deck to me) and 2. knowledge that neither of the two cars had ever dropped below 25 percent charge, which means the pushing into the garage was, in turn, staged.

Tesla is suing the BBC for both libel and “malicious falsehood”, and the BBC has promised a “vigorous defense”, and frankly, I don’t even want to contemplate what that would be (would their lawyers have spoilers on their briefcases?). Still though, I wouldn’t think it looks good for Tesla–based on what we know so far, Clarkson didn’t say he ran out of charge, they just implied that the car did. But I’m neither English nor an attorney, so I can’t say what the standard is over there. Still though, hopefully this will get resolved soon.