Tesla vs Top Gear - where is the line between entertainment and misrepresentation?

Clarkson and the G-Wiz

As followers of electric vehicles will be aware, Tesla is suing Top Gear for libel and malicious falsehood. Top Gear allegedly claimed the Tesla Roadster has a range of just 55 miles in a track race against a Lotus Elise, instead of the 211 miles published by Tesla. The programme also allegedly claimed that the brakes had failed on one of the Roadster loan cars.


The show first aired in the UK in 2008 but has been repeated worldwide and is available to view on the internet at youtube and via other social media.

Tesla said it became aware of the staging of the scene when its UK director of sales and marketing saw two scripts before the car had even been driven. One of the scripts concluded with virtually the same pay-off line used by Clarkson. ‘It’s just a shame that in the real world it absolutely doesn’t work,’ it read.

 In response, a Top Gear spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that we have received notification that Tesla have issued proceedings against the BBC. The BBC stands by the programme and will be vigorously defending this claim"

It will be interesting to see what is deemed reasonable in law by a show that claims it is just entertainment, when it looks a lot to me like a specialist and expert automotive programme with a high degree of technical knowhow and influence. The Clarkson brand in particular has apparently been meticulously planned and executed, allowing Mr Clarkson to achieve an unparalleled level of fame and fortune as an automotive journalist, which includes his own brand DVDs, books, specialist car reviews in The Sunday Times and more general opinion piece in the Sun newspaper. Sometimes such power can lead to errors of judgement of course.

As the former managing director of GoinGreen, the company behind the G-Wiz electric vehicle so often mocked by Clarkson and Top Gear, I was always loathe to challenge the programme or Mr Clarkson. Much as I would enjoy going one to one with Mr Clarkson in a boxing ring I am wary of doing so via the media, particularly his media. For five years I have remained silent on the matter.


However, I was interested to read comments made by Mike Boxwell, the founder of the G-Wiz Owners Club, experienced EV owner and driver, author of books on electric vehicles and the chap who liaised with Top Gear and Clarkson's production crew to provide G-Wiz for the programme's stunts and Clarkson's videos. On  gliving.com on March 12 2009, Mike states in reference to the now infamous race on a Clarkson 'Supercar Showdown' DVD between a G-Wiz and a table carried by men in white coats and subsequent crashing of the G-Wiz into the table: 

"That video is...erm...significantly misleading. The table was actually built from one inch thick steel veneered with wood and mounted into the ground with 3 foot long stakes.

The chassis on the G-Wiz was cut in several places in order to ensure it crumpled correctly. How do I know? I met and spoke to the person who engineered the whole exercise. Steve was actually quite impressed at how strong the G-Wiz was. 

The Clarkson video is an entertainment video, not factual."

This is sadly to miss the point. The BBC i-player lists tOP gear under 'factual', not 'entertainment'. Top Gear and Mr Clarkson's own brand DVDs may be entertaining, but they are entertainment disguised as expert opinion and therefore to allegedly cut the chassis of the G-Wiz before crashing it, is in my book at the very least misleading and perhaps something more serious altogether.


Following the crash, Clarkson made reference to acid leaking from the batteries, something that would have been highly unlikely unless the chassis had been tampered with. There are commercial consequences of such 'entertainment' and had I been aware of this alleged tampering at the time (I found Mike's comments on the internet last week while researching for a book I am writing about the G-Wiz), then I may have taken a similar view to the one Tesla is taking now. For all I know retailer GoinGreen, or manufacturer Mahindra Reva, (part of the US$7 billion Mahindra & Mahindra and no longer independent startup Reva Electric Car Company by the way) may have an opinion on this as well.


Following  the portrayal of the G-Wiz and comments made by Mr Clarkson and the Top Gear show and magazine and in Clarkson's videos, G-Wiz sales declined from their rising trend, impacting upon the company's investors and staff and customers. Given that it takes a lot of bravery, money and effort to make a company successful in the first place, it is a great shame that this is the case.

The G-Wiz is what it is - a first generation low speed, lightweight electric quadricycle designed for city commuting and as such it had until Mr Clarkson and the Top Gear franchise's intervention a rapidly growing following and a history of more than one hundred million miles of safe customer usage in more than 20 countries. Today there are still more G-Wiz on the UK's roads than any other brand of EV. The G-Wiz still provides the best value clean commuting on four wheels and I hear that enquiries for the new lithium ion version are on the increase. The Renault Twizzy EV, due to be launched next year is also a quadricycle and I am confident that it will follow the electron trail blazed by the G-Wiz. 


Whatever your personal view of the G-Wiz, for one third of the price of electric cars now coming to market, the G-Wiz has since 2004 demonstrated the viability of electric vehicles to millions of Londoners and visitors on a daily basis.