Top Gear Tesla Roadster Lawsuit Dismissed in British Court

Electric car company Tesla Motors has lost its suit against British comedic car show Top Gear, in a final ruling by a British court.

"The court rejected Tesla's appeal of last year's decision to strike out its 'libel and malicious falsehood' case against the BBC. The Palo Alto, California-based company said Top Gear faked a scene that appeared to show a Tesla Roadster running out of power, which led to lower sales," writes Bloomberg.

"The Top Gear review wouldn't have misled 'a reasonable viewer' into thinking the Tesla car's range was less than the company's estimate of '200 miles under normal driving conditions,' Martin Moore-Bick, an appeals court judge in London, said in his decision today."

The Tesla Roadster is rated for a 200 mile range. The Top Gear reviewers ran it hard on their test track and proclaimed on air that the range was closer to 55 miles. They were also accused of running down the battery to try to force the car to run out of charge, and insinuating that the car was less reliable than it actually was, filming reviewers pushing the car into a garage when the vehicle was still fully functional.

The ruling makes no judgment on Top Gear's actions but denies that Tesla suffered monetary losses because of the show.

"The electric car maker claimed that the scene cost it the sale of 200 Roadsters, caused costs of $171,000, damaged investor confidence, and prompted adverse comments on YouTube. Comparing sales of its Roadster to a rival top-of-the-range model, Tesla said it had sold just 7% of what the Lotus Elise had sold in the UK," writes The Guardian.

"But the court of appeal was unconvinced. 'In my view the case pleaded in support of the claim for special damages is, to say the least, very thin on its own terms,' said Moore-Bick. 'Moreover, on the basis of the material currently before the court I do not think that there is any real prospect of Tesla's being able to demonstrate at trial that it has suffered any quantifiable loss by reason of any of the actionable statements.'"

Tesla has been at odds with the media lately, with its CEO and founder Elon Musk engaging in a public debate with the New York Times over a bad review of the Tesla Model S. Further review by the Times concluded the reviewer was less careful than he should have been during the test drive.