From left, Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May of “Top Gear.” “Top Gear,” the British television show about cars, has a flair for the dramatic, but a recent episode featuring a review of the Tesla Roadster electric car has called the show’s methods into question.
In the segment, Jeremy Clarkson, one of the show’s three hosts, flogs a Tesla around a test track – to whoops and hollers – until the car slows down and unexpectedly stops. Mr. Clarkson looks at the camera, seemingly befuddled. He and three others are forced to push the car into a warehouse for a battery recharge. At least that’s what the video seems to show.
“Although Tesla says that it does 200 miles, we worked out that on our test track, it would run out after just 55 miles,” Mr. Clarkson says in a voice-over.
But did the car actually run out of juice?
No, says Tesla Motors, which stores its cars’ driving history in memory sticks. In fact, it didn’t lose its charge at all. According to Rachel Konrad, spokeswoman for the San Carlos, Calif., company, the battery charge of the two cars that Tesla lent to “Top Gear” never fell below 20 percent.
Wired.com first reported the false breakdown on Dec. 16 when it published a response from Ms. Konrad. “They never had to push a car off the track because of lack of charge or a fault,” she said.
A few days later, a spokeswoman for “Top Gear” issued a statement saying the car was “videotaped being pushed to show what would have happened if the Roadster had run out of charge,” according to Edmunds Green Car Advisor.
“‘Top Gear’ stands by the findings in this film and is content that it offers a fair representation of the Tesla’s performance on the day it was tested,” the BBC said.
Mr. Clarkson offered his own statement to the Telegraph.
“We never said once that the car had run out of power,” he said. “The car had to be pushed into the warehouse because you are not allowed to drive cars into a building.”
He added: “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.”
Mr. Clarkson did not explain how “Top Gear” came up with that figure (or why he had said 55 miles during the show’s taping). Ms. Konrad said in an interview that the E.P.A.-certified range of the Tesla Roadster was actually 240 miles, but “if you’re constantly pushing 0-to-60 and running at the top speed of 120 miles per hour, it, like gasoline cars, will have lower range.”
But she said she couldn’t understand how the show calculated 55 (or 53) miles.
The 10-minute review of the Tesla, which will air on BBC America early next year, was generally positive about the performance of the car. In fact, Mr. Clarkson compares it favorably with the Lotus Elise, on which the Roadster is based. During a comparison drive, he storms past the Elise in a straight, amid tire squeals and music, and says in a voice-over: “This car really was then shaping up to be something wonderful, but then…”
His voice trails off. We see a shot of Mr. Clarkson, appearing confused, looking down to the gas pedal. The tire squeals and music dissipate as the car slows to a stop on the test track.
Tara Davies, a spokeswoman for the BBC, said: “We never claim that the car ran out of charge. The voice-over says, ‘If it does run out it’s not a quick job to charge it up again.”
But the sequence of images leading up to the car being pushed into the warehouse is powerful. And the segment ends with Mr. Clarkson walking alone down an empty track under a dark sky with no car in sight:
“So with the light fading, we had no cars at all,” he says.
He concludes: “What we have here then is an astonishing technical achievement: the first electric car that you might actually want to buy. It’s just a shame that in the real world, it doesn’t seem to work.” Fade to black.
Ms. Davies, the BBC spokeswoman, said several times in an interview that “Top Gear” was “an entertainment program.”
Indeed, the episode with the Tesla also included a segment on an attempt to jump an old Jaguar, towing a camper, over several cars.
Asked if “Top Gear” plans to amend the episode when it runs on BBC America to clarify the dramatized sequence, Ms. Davies said it would run “as is.”
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