Road tests that criticize a car’s performance have caused many motoring journalists that are worth their salt problems with the car’s PR machine at some point in time. The problems or differences are usually only a line of strong e-mails and even a heated telephone conversation or two and even cancelled contracts for advertising have known to happen but a media company being sued over a car review is unheard of.
Well now there has been one and it is BBC’s Top Gear TV show. High end electric car manufacturer Telsa Motors from the USA has sued TG because of an episode that was aired in December 2008 where a Lotus Elise, petro-powered, was raced against a Telsa Roadster.
After just 88km the action ended due to the Telsa car running out of charge but Telsa says the car’s batteries never died and TG’s response was they were only trying to show what could happen and Telsa also states that the claim the brakes broke is false as well. Telsa asked for a retraction but when that never came and the showed continued airing on a DVD and as repeats, Telsa decided to file their lawsuit.
