Finally watched it by going to final gear, but then it's also on youtube now.
Some spoilers below and sorry for long post:
For the positive things, it did start off quite positive, showing off the performance and engineering triumphs (also didn't make a big deal over the top speed). Overall I felt satisfied with the lap time, given it was wet, and they did mention the eco-tires which might have affected the lap time, but still a good lap time.
Negative thing was they had that "long tailpipe" argument which even showed the path to the power plant. Wouldn't mind it so much if they made the same point of the Clarity, but they didn't (if they did, ironically the tailpipe would have traced the hydrogen to an electrolyzer installed in the LA hydrogen station, and then through the same path to the power plant, which meant it would have been drastically less efficient).
Then there was the issue of the charge time and renewable energy. They made the issue with the small windmill, and of course ignored other sources of renewable energy. Then also no mention of rapid charging, but of course since they aren't a green program, don't expect them to know that (I wonder if they will review the Lightning GT which does focus on rapid charging).
Overall the end segment made it seem like the Clarity was the way to go, and the Tesla Roadster was "irrelevant" as they said (as many anti-Tesla people say, so now more of the viewers of Top Gear will now echo this position, judging by responses in the Final Gear forums). I will concede that the Clarity is attractive for it's fast refueling, but besides from that, it really isn't as viable. None of these negatives for hydrogen were mentioned (though they hit all the negatives basically for BEVs): the Clarity costs 5-10x more to make than even a Tesla Roadster (which they made a point of saying how expensive it was, but notice no mention of price of Clarity), same long tailpipe & even less efficient, and expensive cost to build basically non-existent infrastructure for refueling.
The initial very positive showing of the Tesla and then the subsequent piling on of the negatives made the Tesla segment seem balanced, and it would be if that was the end of it. However, the Clarity part which focused basically on ALL positives with NO negatives or even simple questioning of viability like they did with the Tesla, made it completely biased. Yet most normal viewers would not pick that up, because they don't know as many of the facts of hydrogen, & the first segment seemed balanced given their hatred of EVs before.
Edit: more to tack on: The reliability bit is kind of bad because sites like TTAC will make a big deal of it. I know the overheating part was just standard stuff, but how the brakes were broken seemed kind of like it could have been avoided. On the Final Gear forums I already saw a comment saying "reliability my *ss" in regards to the Roadster. It is a blow to Tesla's push to show the reliability of an EV & more of a blow toward the public's image of the company (esp. the "vaporware" view).
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Last edited by stopcrazypp; 12-15-2008 at 01:12 AM..
Sorry this took so long. It took 4 attempted uploads - Youtubes's new uploader was not playing ball at all - I've been sneaking out of bed all night to try to get this uploaded...
Thanks for going without some sleep to get this up David. Much appreciated.
Just a shame the Roadster's debut was overshadowed by hydrogen nonsense and a mechanical glitch.
And now I think about it, given Top Gear's widely-known habit of thrashing cars, why didn't Tesla think to provide three or four of them? Just in case.
Motor overheating is a known issue, after all.
Plus a fast-charger with IC-driven generator. Not very green I know, but would help to keep the cameras rolling.
Worth remembering for the future, assuming they get invited back with Model S.
Thanks David for all your effort. I don't really have much to add to what's already been said. The first part was fairly positive, but the negatives were pretty much exactly as predicted. I'm annoyed with how they chose to end the review. The last line of the taped review was, "It's just a shame that in the real world, it doesn't seem to work." And the end of the segment Clarkson referred to the Roadster's lap time as "completely irrelevant." Irrelevant why?? Because the hydrogen Honda Clarity would perform better?? Utterly ridiculous.
Putting that silliness aside... the car looked pretty good on the track. Any idea which cars they were using? Seemed to have a custom interior. Anyone know when the segments were taped?
I definitely agree. In fact, I am thinking about sending an email to Ofcom about the bias in the reviews (How to complain | Ofcom) - maybe other UK viewers should too. If the BBC really feels the need to harpoon a product, it should be getting its facts straight.
Are they really saying it ran out of "juice" just like that? Of course it didn't, unless Tesla have disabled the limp home mode when the battery is low.
As for the cars, the silver one is VP19 (as seen outside the Prime Minister's house recently).
The second, darker one is completely new to me. Have they made a replacement marketing car for the crashed one? I doubt it would be this colour, as it was previously said they wanted bright, shiny marketing cars. I'm not aware of a grey one in the UK - could it be a customer car?
The studio segment would have been filmed this week, but the track stuff probably earlier in the autumn. James May mentioned he drove the Tesla in his FCX piece (although that was a voice over), and we know he went to California a couple of months back for that.
Regarding the FCX Clarity side of this debate - from statements made by Honda, that car is costing them $750k dollars to make at the moment. Even mass production is not going to reduce that to Accord prices yet.
Data from the hydrogen lobby indicates that for low volume operations (10s of cars per day), stations will cost around $500k per pump. However, the cost of a "normal size" station built in Berlin that could serve 100 cars per day was €33m (~$50m). You can install an awful lot of rapid chargers with associated high voltage grid connections with that money.
I think it would be a good idea for Tesla to demonstrate the technical feasibility of safe high power charging and provide a rough cost. Then they (and Lightning Car Company and everyone else) can work on the regulatory aspects.
I think that the show is too mainstream to be up to date, they're still thinking as though it was 2005 and Fuel Cells where our savior.
Both technologies face obstacles; The difference is that the battery problems are largely understood; there are no Eureka moments needed anymore, the problems like swapping batteries can be taken to a student to complete; "Build me a machine that sits under the filling station forecourt and drops the battery out of my car and swaps it for a charged one." It's just mechanics and scale. It isn't "Come up with a chemical process to create Hydrogen in my garage, cheaply".
As for Top Gears bias; well, yes, irritating; the shot of the power station to leave an image of pollution, the assumption that we'd all charge from a regular outlet and we all get 55 mile range when we drive it hard then the walk of shame at the end of the shot that was not afforded to the Bentley that blew up its tires or the many other cars that break on the track (especially the Chevy) but to end on that made exciting television. It set the BEV movement back again, grrr.
Something else I've just noticed. On the Stig's lap, on the straight before he gets to the follow through, you can see that for 2 or 3 seconds the tacho isn't at max revs and isn't climbing. Did they hold off a bit?
You will also notice that the Exige is two places above it on the lap times board.
The Elise it was compared to is a Europe only version. It says S but is not supercharged. It is a (S)pecial 40th anniversary edition with some special features, a cheaper price tag, and 134 horse power. That is why they say you can buy 3 of them for the cost of the Tesla. Or 4 of them for the special buy it now with immediate delivery Teslas being discussed in the for sale section.
I'm sure the Teslas for the show have the same tires all the other teslas come with. The same ones as the Elise. Quick serch of Google shows them to be Yokohama Advan. They would not modify and give the car to a racing show to go on a race track with a tire that gets less traction than all the cars that leave their showroom. If anything they would outfit it with a better traction tire for that kind of show.
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Utterly ridiculous.
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