Jeremy Clarkson and James May did a biased piece on electric cars, which provided falsified information to try and discredit the technology.
Despite the producers of top gear admitting that the piece was not factual, and there's been nearly two months since the show was aired in England... it's still being promoted worldwide. Monbiot writes:
BBC - Top Gear has presently removed the controversial piece on electric cars from their website. But here it is thanks to CollinsArchive:It's currently being sued by electric car maker Tesla after claiming, among other allegations, that the Roadster's true range is only 55 miles per charge (rather than 211), and that it unexpectedly ran out of charge. Tesla says "the breakdowns were staged and the statements are untrue". But the BBC keeps syndicating the episode to other networks. So much for "acknowledging mistakes when they are made".Now it's been caught red-handed faking another trial, in this case of the Nissan LEAF.Last Sunday, an episode of Top Gear showed Jeremy Clarkson and James May setting off for Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire, 60 miles away. The car unexpectedly ran out of charge when they got to Lincoln, and had to be pushed. They concluded that "electric cars are not the future".But it wasn't unexpected: Nissan has a monitoring device in the car which transmits information on the state of the battery. This shows that, while the company delivered the car to Top Gear fully charged, the programme-makers ran the battery down before Clarkson and May set off, until only 40% of the charge was left. Moreover, they must have known this, as the electronic display tells the driver how many miles' worth of electricity they have, and the sat-nav tells them if they don't have enough charge to reach their destination.
Top Gear Nissan Leaf from CollinsArchive on Vimeo.
