Top Gear UK show caught by Nissan rigging electric cars trial

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So having an electric car is great for commuting to work and back, that's indisputable assuming you live within the range of the car. But what if I want to take my family to the seaside, or drive to my parents house in another state. A fully electric car with no sort of petrol generator is only viable as a second car for A LOT of people, not everyone is a 20 something living in the city.

Should they have been more transparent, definitely, but the point the segment was making is still valid, and it's a point often kept quite by the manufactures and politicians.

Battery tech right now is SHIT. Better battery tech seems as far off as hydrogen being a genuinely viable alternative to petrol.
 
markot said:
It may not be the future, but at least give it an honest review? Dont use your bias and bs to try and spin results in your favour?
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They made it clear from the start that the car was not fully charged when we joined them on their journey. They also planned it so that they would need to recharge at the university. They could have just continued their journey until the car broke down in the middle of nowhere but it would have been much more inconveniant and i'm sure Nissan would have been even less happy about that.
 
Sapiens said:
The fact of the matter is that people need to be educated on the limitations of an EV, and Top Gear is doing that in a very bad way, IMO.
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....but that was what the segment was about. How something everyone has to do with their car right now - refueling - is a completely different animal, and you can't just take off for a fun little road trip on a random weekend without being completely prepared. And even if you are, your choices in your destination are now severely limited.

But not the town they went to - they're getting two charging stations out of this. So their hypothetical trip just got a heckuva lot easier, but hopefully they planned to stay overnight there.
 
I would only consider an electric car at this moment if I used it exclusively for small commutes in the city. I would never be able to visit my parents and brothers, which live 500 miles away and get the there in anywhere close to the same amount of time compared to a petrol car. Batteries and the charging stations aren't there yet, they may be at some point, but not yet.
 
I just have a problem with him saying electric cars are not the future. It struck me as incredibly ignorant. Yeah there are a lot of improvements to be made but the same is true for any new product. And to say that while praising hydrogen cars? lol. If electric cars aren't the future hydrogen cars sure as fuck aren't either. I guess we're stuck with petrol then?
 
Salacious Crumb said:
So having an electric car is great for commuting to work and back, that's indisputable assuming you live within the range of the car. But what if I want to take my family to the seaside, or drive to my parents house in another state. A fully electric car with no sort of petrol generator is only viable as a second car for A LOT of people, not everyone is a 20 something living in the city.

Should they have been more transparent, definitely, but the point the segment was making is still valid, and it's a point often kept quite by the manufactures and politicians.

Battery tech right now is SHIT. Better battery tech seems as far off as hydrogen being a genuinely viable alternative to petrol.
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To you parents house in another state is indeed too far for the current electrics (though if you're driving that far, usually you're staying overnight, so you can then plug in there....that is, if a single charge will get you there). But going to the seaside and back is not usually a 200+ mile trip, so a Tesla will get you there and back, if you need.


But, yeah, as it is, electric cars are local drives and should always be approached as such.
 
Treefingers said:
I just have a problem with him saying electric cars are not the future. It struck me as incredibly ignorant. Yeah there are a lot of improvements to be made but the same is true for any new product. And to say that while praising hydrogen cars? lol. If electric cars aren't the future hydrogen cars sure as fuck aren't either. I guess we're stuck with petrol then?
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The advancements required to make purely battery powered electric cars comparable to combustion engine cars seems as far off as hydrogen being a viable alternative. Electric is definitely the future, batteries as we know them now are not.
 
I saw the show last Sunday. I just re-watched the segment.

I don't really have a problem with Top Gear's take on the Leaf, and I thought they totally screwed over the Tesla. I was very critical of that.

About Top Gear being scripted: It is. Very much so.

Really, nothing is improv except for the interview segment of "Star in a Reasonably-Prices Car," (which they do a pre-interview for and which is also often very edited,) as Clarkson is said to be uncomfortable with improvisation. For example, when he came down to watch the original Top Gear USA pilot with Adam Carolla, Clarkson told Adam, "I can't do what you do" regarding improv, telling him he has to write everything first. Adam basically told him, well, "I can't do what you do either," as Adam told him he can hardly read!

I understand the same goes with the current incarnation of the US show. They do a lot of stuff on-the-fly and just edit it down. One of the producers that works on both shows commented about this in an interview sometime last year. They barely spend any time writing the US show compared to the UK show, but they shoot a lot more footage with the US guys just riffing.

It really is a testament to the quality of the UK cast's writing, and their chemistry with each other, that it comes off as naturally as it does. My mom, for example, loves the UK show, and has no idea it is all scripted. I'm not about to tell her either!
 
I can't see why anyone would have a problem with the show being scripted.

The problem lies in when the show delivers false or misleading segments. Or setting up comparisons with them intentioally making a car fail. Complaining that electric cars aren't suited for lengthy road trips is like complaining that the Bentley Mulsanne performs like shit on the track.
 
Ponti said:
Since I'm curious and it hasn't really been answered yet. Why do you think Top Gear are rigging 'tests' with electric cars?
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The same reason a lot of their stuff is very contrived right now, that's the direction they want to go in. I get that staging a fire in a caravan that's been converted to a train car isn't going to attract as much attention(or be as damaging to some brand name), but the idea is the same.

The producer's response should have been much simpler than what was posted, "there's no pretense of consumer advice and never has been on Top Gear". Maybe they should have a warning screen or something in the credits like other shows do. Would that stop some of the whining and moaning?
 
"a sensible test" "a perfectly ordinary run to the seaside"

They should see what they claim as a range, 100 is the bold number before the details. 70 is the more real world and summer highway drive range they state. It is fair to try and do that like a Top Gear viewer would. AC on and up to 70 on the highway.

Miles may vary graph on Nissan site.
qQLqY.jpg


Clarkson also went through the fuel cost scenario from what they did 2.34 and focused on the worst case for the electric, 8.30.
 
I just watched this episode today after reading this thread so I had the complaints in mind. I really did not see a problem with the segment. Their point was that, currently, there are very few charging stations around so if you forget to charge or don't plan out exactly where you will be at a certain time you could be in trouble. This is compounded by a very long charge time.

I drive to Seattle very often which is about a 2 hour drive. I don't have to do any planning at all, or make sure I've gassed up the night before as I know that there are gas stations everywhere.

They even said in the segment that other than the battery charge problems and price they are perfectly fine cars. I happen to agree with them that electric cars are not a viable option for your average person right now. I think battery technology has a long way to go before they can have mass appeal.
 
Wormdundee said:
I just watched this episode today after reading this thread so I had the complaints in mind. I really did not see a problem with the segment. Their point was that, currently, there are very few charging stations around so if you forget to charge or don't plan out exactly where you will be at a certain time you could be in trouble. This is compounded by a very long charge time.

I drive to Seattle very often which is about a 2 hour drive. I don't have to do any planning at all, or make sure I've gassed up the night before as I know that there are gas stations everywhere.

They even said in the segment that other than the battery charge problems and price they are perfectly fine cars. I happen to agree with them that electric cars are not a viable option for your average person right now. I think battery technology has a long way to go before they can have mass appeal.
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The car tells you you need to recharge when you are about to get out of range of a station. It's impossible to run out.
 
Top Gear is the best thing to happen to motoring since the internal combustion engine. The Nissan Leaf is not. Top Gear wins.

(Why isn't there a picture of Clarkson doing the 'loser' L on Google?)
 
Salacious Crumb said:
So having an electric car is great for commuting to work and back, that's indisputable assuming you live within the range of the car. But what if I want to take my family to the seaside, or drive to my parents house in another state. A fully electric car with no sort of petrol generator is only viable as a second car for A LOT of people, not everyone is a 20 something living in the city.

Should they have been more transparent, definitely, but the point the segment was making is still valid, and it's a point often kept quite by the manufactures and politicians.

Battery tech right now is SHIT. Better battery tech seems as far off as hydrogen being a genuinely viable alternative to petrol.
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My aunt and uncle rented a car when they drove to new york from southern tennessee despite have two decent cars.

How cost efficient is it when you consider wear and tear?
 
They only wanted to prove what a huge hassle it is to charge up an electric car when it runs out of juice. Their statement 'they are not for the future' was based on the long wait to fully charge a battery that has a life span of 5-10 years and only 60mile range from fully charged. The breakdown adds to the comical entertainment, would it have made a difference if they started off with a fully charged battery and chosen a finishing point 60 miles away from the starting point?
 
Angry Grimace said:
Gasoline isn't under pressure the way hydrogen would have to be. And again, where's this magic source of fuel ready hydrogen?


Yeah, except getting hydrogen from water isn't a free action. You have to burn non-renewables to obtain hydrogen from water, and in the end it neither frees you from by-products nor reduces your dependance on non-renewable resources.
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LPG is under pressure though. It's used quite alot for cars over here. And it shows the infrastructure can be changed for an alternative fuel source.

When it comes to production of H, I'd say let existing sources keep doing their stuff and create new sources dedicated to H. Every time I go to Germany, I'm taken aback by how many people have put solar panels on their roofs. That's because the government is making it very attractive to do so. Afaik, excess power can be fed back into the grid. Let's invest in personal H generators to store it at home. Or do the same on a larger level. Create H from the overproduction of the grid. It might not be the most reliable way to get a constant amount of it but it could be used to considerably up the production.
 
rezuth said:
Ugh, people defend them obviously trying to misrepresent the car. Just give it in already.
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Yeah. Would they deliberately leave a car with little fuel so it ran out during the show? No, they did it on purpose simply because of their agenda against electric vehicles. They never complain that supercars get shitty mpg because you accept and expect it, same as you would from an electric car. IMO they made an issue out of a non-issue.
 
Nissan are in the wrong here, they're being a bunch of vaginas thinking they were going to only get a thumbs up from the top gear guys aka great marketing. Top Gear said they liked the cars but it's the engine tech that holds them back. They fairly explained the ups and down of the current electric cars in an entertaining way and honestly the negatives are huge. The future of cars isnt gasoline even top gear admits that, however nissan thinking the leaf is the answer and top gear would reciprocate that is just foolish.

Yeah. Would they deliberately leave a car with little fuel so it ran out during the show? No, they did it on purpose simply because of their agenda against electric vehicles. They never complain that supercars get shitty mpg because you accept and expect it, same as you would from an electric car. IMO they made an issue out of a non-issue.
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it's likely they ran the cars at half charge to cut down on filming time. they could have made the road trip longer and been able to make the same point. electric cars have dink mileage, there's not many places to quick charge them and it takes a long time to do so.
 
Who cares?

The show has always been primarily about entertainment. The points they made still stand anyway, whether they travel 30 or 60 miles, 8 hours (or whatever it was) to charge is beyond impractical for most motorists.
 
I don't think the people calling for TG's heads really understood the film, or even watched it.

It was about what would happen if your car ran out of electricity, and for that they had to make the car run out of electricity.

I don't see a problem.
 
nib95 said:
That actually pisses me off. They should offer a public apology to Nissan and to it's audience.
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rezuth said:
Ugh, people defend them obviously trying to misrepresent the car. Just give it in already.
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PumpkinPie said:
Yeah. Would they deliberately leave a car with little fuel so it ran out during the show? No, they did it on purpose simply because of their agenda against electric vehicles. They never complain that supercars get shitty mpg because you accept and expect it, same as you would from an electric car. IMO they made an issue out of a non-issue.
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I take it all of you watched the episode in question, right?
 
Typical BS from Top Gear.

People are not dumb, they understand the limitations of electric cars at the moment before purchasing such a vehicle - there's no need to pull such immature tricks.

I hate these but-what-if-I-want-to-travel-1000-miles-with-an-electric-car-complaints.

If you get such a car, you will use it to drive to work, to the shopping centre etc etc. and in no time you will get used to recharge it at nights. Everybody will be happy with it.
 
PumpkinPie said:
They never complain that supercars get shitty mpg because you accept and expect it, same as you would from an electric car.
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They totally made fun of fuel consumption (and very small fuel tank) of Clarkson's Ford GT on several of their segments - specifically they pointed out that Clarkson can't get to their test track from his home on a full tank.

They also did a lot fuel efficency tests (with saloon bmw iirc).

EDIT:
modulaire said:
If you get such a car, you will use it to drive to work, to the shopping centre etc etc. and in no time you will get used to recharge it at nights. Everybody will be happy with it.
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So you agree with the segment, this are not cars for anything else then driving to work or shopping, right?
 
People here seem more annoyed than Nissan. They're downplaying their supposed RAGE AT CATCHING THEM OUT.

http://www.nissaninsider.co.uk/nissan-press-officer-on-tweaking-clarksons-tail/

It’s been an interesting week in the Nissan press office. The episode of Top Gear featuring the LEAF means the car has been talked about more in the past few days than it has been since it was first launched.
Some of the chatter is good, some bad. Some true and some false.
We also seem to have tweaked Jeremy Clarkson’s tail, which is never a good thing. He’ll always win a shouting match because he’s got a bigger megaphone.
So with my hands cupped around my mouth in a puny attempt to be heard, here’s our side.
The truth is that we did say the LEAF feature contained inaccuracies – but they concerned their conversation about battery life. The presenters’ suggestion that the battery would be scrap after three years is plain wrong. Other than that part we actually quite liked it. They said lots of good things about the LEAF.
But other media – who love to hate Top Gear it seems – leapt on this and said we had been moaning about the whole feature. Then other media did a cut-and-paste with the inevitable Chinese whisper effect.
But now we are stuck in the middle while the pro and anti EV camps lob word grenades at each other. Perhaps we should be glad there is a debate at all.
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What a lot of you fail to understand is that it's possible to do 'entertainment' and also tell the truth. At the same time. Just look at The Daily Show, Charlie Brooker's Newswipe/Screenwipe, etc.

Top Gear should - SHOULD - be getting their entertainment factor out of the bullshit side of the motoring industry. Instead they get it out of the environmentalists who are trying to improve things. Fuck that.


If they're gonna be political, they need to be the right sort of political. It's odd because I always thought James May was a liberal in real life - is he? His personality seems like someone who would be.
 
Your Excellency said:
What a lot of you fail to understand is that it's possible to do 'entertainment' and also tell the truth. At the same time. Just look at The Daily Show, Charlie Brooker's Newswipe/Screenwipe, etc.

Top Gear should - SHOULD - be getting their entertainment factor out of the bullshit side of the motoring industry. Instead they get it out of the environmentalists who are trying to improve things. Fuck that.


If they're gonna be political, they need to be the right sort of political. It's odd because I always thought James May was a liberal in real life - is he? His personality seems like someone who would be.
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What? Your changes would effectively destroy what makes Top Gear, well Top Gear.
 
TomServo said:
ITT, a lot of non-gearheads express rage at show targeted towards gearheads.
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if Top Gear is targeted towards gearheads, they're doing a terrible job. Of the friends I know that watch the show, none can probably do anything more advanced on a car than filling gas.
Top gear is pure entertainment targeted towards a broad majority of the people.
 
king picollo said:
Top Gear is as real as WWE wrestling.

Watch it for the entertainment value not for the informational content.
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I wonder how many of the 150 million viewers, who base their opinion on this show, know this.
 
Clarkson & James: In this challenge, we get two electric cars and drive to somewhere.
- Challenge start -
Clarkson: This is the Nissan Leaf and bla bla bla stuff about it
May: This is the Ion and it looks like this and does this and that
- Destination reached -
Clarkson: And so, we've reached our destination even on this electric motor. And that is everything you need to know about electric cars.
- End -

Is that what you guys wanted to see?
 
PumpkinPie said:
Yeah. Would they deliberately leave a car with little fuel so it ran out during the show? No, they did it on purpose simply because of their agenda against electric vehicles. They never complain that supercars get shitty mpg because you accept and expect it, same as you would from an electric car. IMO they made an issue out of a non-issue.
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Okay first of them all, I believe they did have a segment to find which supercar has the best real world mileage, I think the Audi R8 won.

But seriously, nobody who actually uses a car would think that the range of an electric car is a non-issue. If you normally get around everywhere by public transportation and want a car ONLY to cut your commute time, then of course having 100 mile range/8 hour charging time isn't considered a big compromise compared to 300 miles/5 minute refuel as you're used to not needing a car for all your random traveling.

For people actually own a regular gas-powered car, these electric cars have huge trade-offs and consumers have to be aware that the electric car will not be a solution for all their driving needs. It doesn't matter what agenda anybody has, a Nissan Leaf is pretty useless as far as weekend road trips or for days where you just have a lot of errands to do. Range is going to be the number one thing that any potential electric car buyer would consider so it's completely necessary that Top Gear get that point across.

Your Excellency said:
What a lot of you fail to understand is that it's possible to do 'entertainment' and also tell the truth. At the same time. Just look at The Daily Show, Charlie Brooker's Newswipe/Screenwipe, etc.

Top Gear should - SHOULD - be getting their entertainment factor out of the bullshit side of the motoring industry. Instead they get it out of the environmentalists who are trying to improve things. Fuck that.


If they're gonna be political, they need to be the right sort of political. It's odd because I always thought James May was a liberal in real life - is he? His personality seems like someone who would be.
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A while ago, they tested out the FCX Clarity, a hydrogen car, which they loved and said it would legitimately replace all the things people use their cars for. The only problem at the moment is that hydrogen powered cars are way too expensive for regular consumers so it'll be a few more years before we see them offered in the Nissan Leaf price range.

The TRUTH is that the only practical difference between the Clarity and the Leaf is their range and convenience. The hard-to-accept-if-you-want-everybody-to-only-love-currently-available-"green"-cars-truth is that most people can't replace one gasoline car with one electric car. The only time they ever mention environmentalism is when they do the occasional mileage tests with real-world, practical cars and even then they're never serious. If they're going to spend 0.5% of their show being political, then nobody should watch the show for the politics.
 
To be fair wasn't Clarkson practically masturbating on-camera over a recent road test of one of Nissan's gas/petrol sports cars?
 
Cereal KiIIer said:
The car tells you you need to recharge when you are about to get out of range of a station. It's impossible to run out.
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So, it tells you when you have to recharge - fine. But what if you don't have the time to wait for a 14-something hour charge? Or if you actually have to go somewhere that's out of range of a station? You have to have a damn structured life to never find yourself in a situation where the car won't put limits in your life.

This is what the show was trying to highlight, admittely in a very Top Gear way but still. It wasn't a review of the Nissan Leaf, it was entertaining consumer information on the state of electric cars today.
 
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