Elon Musk has shed light on the controversy surrounding Tesla’s lawsuit against the BBC, sparked by a 2008 episode of Top Gear. The episode, hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, portrayed Tesla’s Roadster in a negative light, with claims that it ran out of battery after just 55 miles on the track—far less than Tesla’s advertised range of 200 miles.
In addition to showing the car being pushed into a hangar to recharge, Clarkson remarked, “If it does run out, it is not a quick job to charge it up again.”
The portrayal prompted Tesla to file a lawsuit, citing $171,000 in damages and alleging the episode cost the company 200 Roadster sales and impacted investor confidence. Musk described the review as “messed up” during an interview with Joe Rogan, claiming Tesla engineers discovered a pre-written script that included a staged breakdown of the car.
Musk said:
The car never broke down. They just pretended that it did, and they wrote the script.
Despite Musk’s objections, the case was dismissed in 2013, with Appeal Court Judge Lord Justice Moore-Bick ruling that Tesla couldn’t prove quantifiable damage to its reputation or sales.
Although the lawsuit did not succeed, Musk emphasized the significant risk such misrepresentation posed to Tesla at the time, when it was still a small company with limited resources.
