Is Clarkson beginning to see the light?

A small start but I will take it.

Jeremy Clarkson is a character played by Jeremy Clarkson; he's deliberately oafish and stubborn, but he doesn't believe everything he says, he's an entertainer more than a car critic. He doesn't write much of the stuff he says; there's a team of writers for that. If everyone around him is saying something that his writing team can disagree with in a critical manner, they will act against this until the opinion change is too great. See: opinions on Tesla, Fisker, EVs, diesels, hybrids, etc. The last two have changed in recent years, with him supporting diesels and performance hybrids. Hopefully, he'll see the light with pure EV's. I'd like to see TG take on the Rimac Concept_One and the Model S. I know they'll find -something- to complain about - but I hope it's something silly like the styling or the touchscreen, rather than the EV powertrain (which seems to be the most sensible future propulsion technology for many years to come.)

While I agree that Clarkson does play Clarkson in TopGear, he has his own column in the sun newspaper. And from that recent piece you can see how he is stuck in the 20th century.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Clarkson stung after bank prank

Clarkson also tested the P1 which also has a small hybrid and he loved it the future is finally being seen by Clarkson

I personally think that the model s needs a test on top gear but I know it never will happen after the lawsuit

Once a douchebag, always a douchebag. There is no there there. [I could go on].
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Top Gear have tested cars before when they've been banned, that isn't going to stop them. I think they'll review Model S if it starts making headlines elsewhere.

VolkerP said:

While I agree that Clarkson does play Clarkson in TopGear, he has his own column in the sun newspaper.

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For our American members: 'The Sun' is a British version of 'The National Enquirer' with soft porn pics. The term "newspaper" can be only loosely applied. ;-)


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It's compromise he doesn't like, so a performance hybrid would always have been fine.

NigelM said:

For our American members: 'The Sun' is a British version of 'The National Enquirer' with soft porn pics. The term "newspaper" can be only loosely applied. ;-)


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To add some more context: According to Wikipedia, in terms of circulation, The Sun is the second largest daily newspaper in the UK (a close second) behind The Daily Mail. The Sun is owned by News Corp through a wholly owned subsidiary. And that’s the News Corp that also owns Fox News for instance. News Corp also owned News of the World – another UK tabloid newspaper you may have heard about, since it ended its publication after a certain phone hacking scandal… And News Corp in turn, is owned by Rupert Murdoch (Executive Chairman).

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Reason for editing: Clarified that 'News of the World' also was a UK tabloid & corrected some kind of erroneus edit, which I don’t know the origin of – Meaning that I don’t think I made it, but I guess I cannot say for certain…

ItsNotAboutTheMoney said:

It's compromise he doesn't like, so a performance hybrid would always have been fine.

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For many of us "hybrid" is a compromise almost by definition.

I don't know if Clarkson is beginning to see the light, but I had a dream last night where he and Hammond were riding in the backseat of my Model S when I ran the battery out three miles from the next supercharger.

They were critical.

Amazing car:

Stoneymonster said:

I don't know if Clarkson is beginning to see the light, but I had a dream last night where he and Hammond were riding in the backseat of my Model S when I ran the battery out three miles from the next supercharger.

They were critical.

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LMAO

GenericSpoon said:

It dawned on me today that Jeremy Clarkson might be seeing the light... somewhat. You see, in episode 01 of season 21 of Top Gear, during 'The News' segment, he asked Hammond and May if they would like to see BMW's new hybrid, to which Hammond says no(as you'd expect). But then, Clarkson quickly defends it and shows a picture of the i8 and everyone's impressed. Now I get it's only a hybrid, it's useless and expensive, but this is Jeremy Clarkson(!), explaining to the two others that the electric motor and battery working in tandem with a small gas engine is 'the future', etc., etc.

What do you guys & gals think?

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I think he won't change his tune until a production electric car sets a 'Ring lap record. But when there are performance hybrid platforms like the Porsche 918 that have all the advantages of an electric car with none of the disadvantages, there's little reason for some to go all-electric, unless it's just for the novelty factor.

If anyone remembers the "Cool Wall" from Top Gear's earlier days, it made little to no sense. Cars were uncool if they were popular, or unpopular, cars which were useless cool, and cheap cars cool and uncool. My point? Zero logic.

The same applies to a lot of their car reviews. Especially those involving Clarkson.

I think Elon got it right when he said Tesla are cursed for a positive review from Jezza being an American electric car company (two things Clarkson likes to poke fun of most).

I think you'll see the Model S show up in a review next series/season. The right hand drive model will be roaming around their streets in short order. It will be too tempting not to have it on the show.

As far as the review they'll give it? It will be as predictable as the Cool Wall, however, I will guarantee they will run it ragged, and if it develops a fault, they focus on it, and then speak about it's lack of range and the length of time it takes to recharge from the slowest charging option available. Why? Because it won't compare favourably to the existing infrastructure and energy replenishment times ICE's enjoy.

Thus, proving their point that EV's are "stupid".

...and I'm a fan of the show.

Stoneymonster said:

I don't know if Clarkson is beginning to see the light, but I had a dream last night where he and Hammond were riding in the backseat of my Model S when I ran the battery out three miles from the next supercharger.

They were critical.

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Very clever of you: having two BBC presenters in the car that bring qualified experience pushing a Tesla when that happened.

Hopefully when the Model S is on the show it gets a more favourable review than that Danish supercar on Sunday's episode. Broke down, went up in flames and then set a laptime worse than a BMW M5 (which is terrible for a >1000hp supercar). LOL