Clarkson Ignores BBC's Carefully Worded Response, Responds To Tesla On His Own

When Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson reviewed the Tesla Roadster he was shocked to have the brakes fail on him. Tesla protested, saying it was just a fuse, and drew the ire of Clarkson.

British motoring show Top Gear's Tesla review seemed rather positive, commending the car's speed and design. Not surprisingly, Jeremy Clarkson found the car's charging requirements onerous and the review featured a clip of Top Gear staff having to push the car into a building because, the viewer assumed, it ran out of power. He also complained of the brakes randomly failing.

Tesla quickly responded, claiming the two cars they provided never lost more than 20% of their power and the brake issue was merely the result of a fuse a technician quickly replaced. The video of the car being pushed into the shed, therefore, was faked.

The BBC offered an even quicker response, saying their premier show was merely trying to indicate what someone would have to do if the car was out of juice with the now infamous push. They stood by the statements made in the review, namely the claim the car would run out of juice after 53 miles of track driving.

Clarkson, speaking to The Telegraph, offers a slightly different and more colorful explanation:

We never said once that the car had run out of power. The car had to be pushed into the warehouse because you are not allowed to drive cars into a building. 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."

This seems like a fair point, but the statement appears to differ from the BBC's claim about why the car was pushed into the shed.

His statement about the brake failure, however, is classic Clarkson:

"Nobody gives a flying **** how the brakes failed. Whether it was a blown fuse or not, they were still not working."

Clearly, it's impossible to imagine the Tesla Roadsters having any build-quality issues given CEO Elon Musk's recent statements. Maybe an evil genius Tesla engineer went back in time and cut the brakes, hoping to kill off Clarkson before the review could run.

[The Telegraph]