Tesla is suing BBC’s Top Gear for libel and malicious falsehood. Tesla claims that in December 2008, the show aired a review of the Tesla Roadster and faked a scene where the Roadster was pushed into an airport hangar, making it appear as though its battery had run out of juice. Tesla claims that the Roadster pushed into the hangar was not out of power. According to a transcript of the show also filed, one of the show’s hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, is quoted as saying that “although Tesla says it (the Tesla Roadster) will do 200 miles, we worked out that on our track it would run out after just 55 miles.” Tesla says those comments grossly misled potential purchasers of the Roadster. BBC says it stands by the program.

The court case reveals a thin line between entertainment and factual accounts. Top Gear (like most television programs) is designed to entertain. Top Gear uses over-the-top examples to provide a better understanding of the nuances it finds in the cars it drives. The Tesla Roadster may have never actually run out of battery power and, while pushing the car, Top Gear could have disclosed that this was just a dramatization. But doing that would not make the show nearly as entertaining.

Top Gear has a U.K. audience of around six million viewers and an international audience of 350 million.

[via Bloomberg]

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