Hacker Cinema
Top Gear
2002 · TV series · 60 min episodes · 33 seasons
Created by Andy Wilman, Jeremy Clarkson
This fast-paced and stunt-filled motor show tests whether cars, both mundane and extraordinary, live up to their manufacturers' claims. The long-running show travels to locations around the world, performing extreme stunts and challenges to see what the featured cars are capable of doing. The current hosts are Paddy McGuinness, Chris Harris and Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff.
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154 comments on Hacker News
"I'm casting around in my head for someone to blame, and it's just... me, keeps coming back at me."
- Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear, series 14 episode 5)
James May did a car "review" with Margaret Calvert years back in an episode of Top Gear. Was a bit of a departure from regular Top Gear but certainly interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTDB3dpe3eg
> It is also a very robust vehicle capable of withstanding elemental and physical extremities, as shown on the British TV show “Top Gear.”[6]
If you haven't ever watched Top Gear, this is definitely one of the standout bits they did - putting that truck through absolute hell, and watching it continue to start up.
I highly recommend it, even if you don't think of yourself as a Car Guy. It's basically a comedy show that just happens to use cars.
I get the impression that what the Chinese want out of a car is different and, realistically, a bit more aligned with the trajectory of human progress as well.
I remember the (UK) Top Gear episode, which I'd guess must be at least 15 years old now, where they were talking about Chinese car brands, like Roewe, and they were ripping on them for being a bit crap in various ways (performance, not that fun to drive, etc.), but they also highlighted that what's important to Chinese car buyers is equipment level and having the latest tech[0] so, even though the cars at the time weren't the best, they were packed with gadgets and creature comfort.
Add 15 years of rapid progress onto that and it's not surprising that China is dominating in the EV space, because it aligns so well with what Chinese buyers might be looking for in a vehicle.
[0] And having seen what traffic jams in Chinese cities can look like it entirely makes sense to optimise for comfort and engagement whilst sitting still or in stop go traffic, than for driving experience when you're never really going to experience the handling anyway.
This reminds me:
When I was at a newish job (like 2 months?) my manager said I "speak more in a Brittish manner" than others. At the time I had been binge watching Top Gear for a couple weeks, so I guess I picked it up enough to be noticeable.
Of course I told him I'd been binging TG and we discovered a mutual love of cars. I think the Britishisms left my speech eventually, but that's not something I can figure out for myself!
> The number of cities where a subway is consistently faster than a skilled motorcyclist who can lane-split is very small if not zero
I'd hazard a guess that an experienced cyclist would be able to beat most subway journeys too
Top Gear "London Race" episode: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1140803
I don't think Borat works as well for this. Borat was made for an international audience, including many Americans, and involved Sasha Baron Cohen meeting Americans in person to wind them up, so there had to be an element of accuracy in his satire. Top Gear, on the other hand, was made primarily for a British audience, so the jokes in that episode are very much lazy stereotypes that the British have about Americans without having to be too rooted in reality. I imagine that the production crew spent some time looking for a filling station where they could provoke the 'throwing rocks' incident, for example.
If you're an American and don't know what it's like to have your country and culture reduced to about three wildly inaccurate stereotypes, I think the Top Gear USA Special episode may enlighten you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNrybXt-_J0&list=PLWpVvJ8o7wzwBGp24A2V6gcXTaKS_Ypmo
That said, this kind of thing doesn't come from a position of racism or malice. The writers of these films have a story they want to tell, and taking the time to portray a given country accurately might very well hinder that storytelling.
It may be worth articulating the Bluetooth headset specifically as the one-ear little clip headset executives and IT staff seemed to use to answer calls.
Remember companies like jawbone?
I vaguely remember a cultural stereotype of bmw drivers driving aggressively and wearing Bluetooth headsets. [edit: this is the clip https://youtu.be/UqfAMvXpSw4?t=25 from top gear of jeremy clarkson wearing a bluetooth headset in sunglasses in a bmw, supposedly from topgear season 10, episode 10]
Submarines are a popular choice but expensive. It's been done once in trucks (the Top Gear episode that I linked to earlier). People fly to the South Pole every year.
For many people of my rough age and hobbies (cars/motorsport), Top Gear and other British motoring shows and podcasts have had a massive impact. We had virtually nothing good in the way of TV shows about cars in the 90s/2000s, which meant that anyone watching World Rally Championship and F1 were downloading clips or torrents of them. That, in turn, led straight into finalgear.com in the mid 2000s, before the BBC finally had the sense to bring Top Gear to BBC America, which led to another huge uptick in popularity.
>I cannot honestly say anything on YouTube comes close to the production in an episode of Top Gear or Game of Thrones.
>Content on YouTube is terrible in new and terrifying ways.
Most of the YouTube's content is amateur UGC(user generated content) and it works pretty well for what it is.
Well hey, I'm on the same page. I don't pay for cable these days, nor put up with adblockless YouTube in the first place. But content on YouTube - particularly popular content - is a race to the bottom worse than Keeping up with The Kardashians ever was. I've watched Mr. Beast videos (at the behest of my ex) and haven't found anything except hyperactive filmmaking married to absurd and ill-considered ideas. It's deconstructed short-form entertainment in ways that TikTok is probably envious of. Truly, they've cracked the marketing code for an ADHD-addled era of content consumption.
And therein lies "the problem" - this shit is garbage. I like some YouTube content too, but holy fucking cow is it worse than everything that came before it. TVFilthyFrank was just doing the same thing Jackass did with fewer safety considerations and lower production value. Historians making documentaries are basically recouping the task of The History Channel on a smaller budget with fewer regulations on construing truth. At the end of the day, as much as I hate cable television, I cannot honestly say anything on YouTube comes close to the production in an episode of Top Gear or Game of Thrones. It's garbage all the way down, supported by marginal advertising, kept out of Google's Graveyard by horrific levels of rentseeking and AdSense monopoly abuse, and ultimately propelled by sensationalist and meaningless content tailored to offend as few people as possible. Content on YouTube is terrible in new and terrifying ways.
> 12 episodes total
I read John Cleese’s autobiography long ago and he mentioned the very different economics of TV in the UK vs the US.
I think it was either the lack of money going into UK TV shows or the lack of a profit motive that led to ridiculously short runs like that.
Fawlty Towers and Yes Minister are top quality shows that should’ve run for 10 seasons.
Luckily their system did better with this when Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear came around and we got a lot of that.
I was just watching an old episode of Top Gear that had Steven Tyler as a guest. He mentioned a quote that his mom said, "The ark was made by amateurs while the Titanic was made by professionals". I found it amusing.
>No wonder Japanese cars were so much better
Heh, this reminds me of an episode of Top Gear I was watching years ago about quality of British cars. They said something along the lines of "The manufacture sais 'eh, good enough' the moment the car is able to move under its own power.
> "I think there is a very distinct “lightning in a bottle” component to great and/or successful companies."
Watching The Grand Tour[1] season 1 it feels stilted, awkward, like they are reciting their lines for some forced humor while Amazon showers cash and flashy cars all around trying too hard. If it was like this with three unknown people I wouldn't bother - I'm only watching on the hope that the lightning in a bottle sparks up again as they settle in, because the highs of Top Gear were good - friends messing about for a laugh, daring bold ideas, beautiful filming and settings.
e.g. scaling the Guallatiri volcano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOcJOn0nxnU
Crossing salt flats in Botswana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OETj9aTYO2Q
Driving to the North Pole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNkvASxfEWQ
Driving the Bolivian Death Road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daQcxVqQJsI
Building their own amphibious cars and crossing the English Channel in them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTVPPTV-bQM
Trying to run out of fuel before arriving at the Chernobyl exclusion zone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YtVV1VJ4f8
Getting lost trying to leave a traditional Italian city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_eLViH7_YI
Budget Italian Supercars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCff8nCxBU
[1] When they stopped Top Gear, Amazon snapped up Clarkson Hammond and May to make a Top Gear knockoff for Amazon Prime, that's The Grand Tour.
That sounds like the old advertising idiom, “Half of all advertising works, but you will never be certain which half,” or something similar anyway. I think there is a very distinct “lightning in a bottle” component to great and/or successful companies. Combinations of effective teams, aligned motivations, good timing, a leader who can identify and leverage all of those elements to great effect, and some X factors that are simply unknowable. That may be just a slightly more nuanced way of saying they’re lucky, but also good fortune in externally changing scenarios is certainly one of those unknown factors. I think the ability to recognize, organize, and effectively leverage all of the elements such that a company is well-positioned if/when the external factors line up in their favor is what defines a great CEO. I think that ability is akin to naturally talented musicians. Most people can, with enough time and effort, learn to play a guitar very well. They still won’t be Jimi Hendrix. The downside is, you can’t force it or fake it (at least not for very long). I think of parallels with the difference between the British and American versions of the TV show “Top Gear” that was being produced in the mid ‘00s. The original British show was the lightning in a bottle, and became one of the most successful TV series on the planet. The lifeless copy they attempted in the US followed the recipe meticulously, and was cringeworthy.
(Edit: Missed the word “never” up top)
what do you mean used to?
Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear fame has a 2-season show about his farm. In the first episode, he buys a Lambo tractor because "of course he does" type of logic.
Top Gear had a few episodes with old vs new comparisons. Needless to say the not-so-old classics were destroyed by average modern cars quite often [1].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw-zCsybNtg
Sure they can. Someone who sells you a used car ends up blacklisted as well; people who own high end / collectable Ferraris wouldn't dare risk being blacklisted.
They famously blacklisted Top Gear for revealing that Ferrari was 'cheating' in their evaluations by arriving with an army of technicians and tuning the car to the Top Gear test track before allowing TG to review it, and delivering the car with tires much stickier than they came from the factory and so on. Every other journalist was gladly hiding all this bullshit because they didn't want to lose access to press cars.
Top Gear hosts said "if you happen to have one of the ____ models and would let us drive it, let us know" during an episode and someone took them up on it.
Ferrari blacklisted the owner for doing so.
Suddenly I remember a Top Gear episode where Nick Mason drops off his F1 (maybe it was a Ferrari Enzo?) at the test track, then his personal helicopter lands on the strip, picks him up, and flies him out of the scene, all while "Money" by Pink Floyd plays in the background.
I can't vouch for the historiography, but Top Gear's account of why Saab went wrong is worth watching.
"At one point, a GM accountant went over to Sweden to see why Saab was costing them so much money. And he got into the new 9-3, turned on the satnav, and thought "Wait a minute. That's not one of our systems." And he was right; it wasn't. Saab had developed -- at vast expense -- their own system because they thought GM's wasn't good enough."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iBgVUDUdqE
Especially in the UK, motoring is extremely political. The TV show Top Gear was politically formative fir a lot of people here.
Smart motorways are unpopular because they typically include a lot of speed enforcement cameras and lower speed limits, so you can no longer zig zag through traffic at 90 miles an hour.
Thus, smart motorways, pollution enforcement zones, and neighbourhood traffic charging schemes are very controversial. The same people who got exercised about face masks will cross the country to protest them.
These people are the base of the current government, which needs a culture war as the real issues look unwinnable right now so the civil service are under pressure to find a reason to roll this stuff back.
This was about 15 years ago, definitely before when VPNs got popular… Clarkson was still hosting Top Gear. I seem to recall getting so irked that BBC America was something like 6-12 months behind current Top Gear episodes that it lead me down this path of ‘stealing’ iPlayer. It actually opened the door for me to content that I would have otherwise seen or known about, like obscure comedy shows on Channel 4 or the much better UK version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.
The shell provider I used was Phurix, not if they are still around or not.
The milestones (from the source code):
//<10 seconds 'A single frame of a film': 100ms, 'It would take light to go around the Earth': 133ms, 'A blink of an eye': 400ms, 'The time it takes light to reach Earth from the moon': 1255ms, 'The fastest Formula 1 pit stop': 1820ms, 'The fastest 1/4 mile drag race time': 3580ms, 'The fastest Rubik\'s cube solve': 4221ms, 'The fastest 40-yard time at the NFL Combine': 4240ms, 'The fastest 1 liter beer chug': 4370ms, 'A skippable Youtube ad': 5000ms, 'A full bull ride': 8000ms, 'The fastest 100m sprint': 9580ms, //10 Seconds 'The Wright Brothers first flight': 12000ms, 'The fastest 200m sprint': 19190ms, 'The fastest 50m freestyle swim lap': 21300ms, 'The Westminster Kennel Club dog agility record': 28440ms, 'A typical television ad': 30000ms, 'The fastest NASCAR lap at Daytona': 40364ms, 'The fastest 400m sprint': 43030ms, 'The fastest NASCAR lap at Talladega': 44270ms, 'The fastest 100m freestyle swim lap': 47050ms, //1 Minute '"Just a minute"': 60000ms, 'The fastest Formula 1 lap at Monaco': 74260ms, 'The fastest Formula 1 lap at Monza': 81046ms, 'The fastest 800m sprint': 100910ms, 'The fastest 200m freestyle swim lap': 102960ms, 'The fastest Kentucky Derby time': 119400ms, 'An NHL penalty box time for slashing, tripping, or holding': 120000ms, 'How long it takes to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge (without traffic)': 135000ms, 'The duration of the "Millenium Force" roller coaster': 140000ms, 'The longest Super Bowl national anthem': 156000ms, 'One round of a boxing match': 180000ms, 'The average song length on Spotify': 183000ms, 'The fastest 1,500m run': 206000ms, 'The song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley': 215000ms, 'The fastest 400m freestyle swim lap': 220140ms, 'The fastest 1 mile run': 223130ms, 'The duration of the "Steel Dragon" roller coaster': 240000ms, 'The duration of "The Beast" roller coaster': 250000ms, 'The song "4:33" by John Cage': 273000ms, 'The longest sky diving freefall': 276000ms, 'The Any% speedrun of Super Mario Bros for NES': 294948ms, //5 Minutes 'An NHL penalty box time for fighting': 300000ms, 'The average duration of a typical sky dive': 330000ms, 'The average time for a drive-thru order': 356800ms, 'The time it takes Jeff Bezos to make $1 million': 402000ms, 'The fastest race car lap around the Nurburgring': 403300ms, 'The time it takes light to reach Earth from the sun': 500000ms, 'The time it takes a rocket ship to reach outer space': 510000ms, 'A typical marching band show': 515000ms, //10 Minutes 'The length of the first space walk': 600000ms, 'The longest a human has held their breath (non-oxygen assisted)': 695000ms, 'The average duration of popular Youtube videos': 702000ms, 'The time it takes an average human to walk 1km': 710000ms, 'The fastest 5K run': 757350ms, 'The average time to bake a pizza': 810000ms, '1% of the entire day': 864000ms, //15 Minutes 'A typical commute in the United States': 960000ms, 'The fastest superbike lap of the Isle of Man TT': 1002778ms, "MLK's \"I Have A Dream\" Speech": 1020000ms, 'An average baseball inning': 1200000ms, 'The song "2112" by Rush': 1233000ms, 'The first angels to appear in the movie "Angels in the Outfield" (1994)': 1275000ms, 'An episode of The Office, Seinfeld, or Rick & Morty': 1320000ms, 'The time it takes to drive the entire Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel': 1380000ms, 'The song "Octavarium" by Dream Theater': 1440000ms, 'A typical Super Bowl halftime show': 1500000ms, 'The fastest 10K run': 1584000ms, 'It takes for Bobby Boucher to get his first game snap in the movie "The Waterboy" (1998)': 1719000ms, //30 Minutes 'The average time to bake a cake': 1950000ms, 'The time it takes until the launch in the movie Apollo 13 (1995)': 2081000ms, 'It takes WALL-E to arrive at the Axiom in the movie "WALL-E" (2008)': 2164000ms, 'The shortest war in history (Anglo-Zanzibar War)': 2280000ms, 'It takes Harry Potter to arrive at Hogwarts in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer\'s Stone" (2001)': 2381000ms, 'The album "Thriller" by Michael Jackson': 2539000ms, 'The album "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd': 2589000ms, 'An episode of Breaking Bad, House, or Firefly': 2640000ms, 'The boot camp sequence in the movie "Full Metal Jacket" (1987)': 2730000ms, 'The album "Abbey Road" by The Beatles': 2823000ms, 'It takes Simba to become an adult in the movie "The Lion King" (1994)': 2849000ms, '10% of a typical work day in the United States': 2880000ms, 'The album "Kid A" by Radiohead': 2996000ms, 'The time limit for the essay portion of the SATs': 3000000ms, 'The time it takes a standard ice cube to melt at room temperature': 3150000ms, '0.01% of an entire year': 3155692ms, 'The album "Fearless" by Taylor Swift': 3221000ms, 'The time it takes for the basketball game to start in the movie "Space Jam"': 3222000ms, 'An episode of Game of Thrones, True Detective, or The Sopranos': 3300000ms, 'It takes Harry and Lloyd arrive in Aspen in the movie "Dumb and Dumber" (1994)': 3394000ms, 'The album "Jagged Little Pill" by Alanis Morissette': 3443000ms, 'The fastest half-marathon': 3451000ms, //1 Hour 'An episode of Top Gear': 3600000ms, 'The inception of Robert Fischer begins in the movie "Inception" (2010)': 3847000ms, 'Riding the longest subway line in NYC from Queens to Inwood': 3900000ms, 'The time it takes Jeff Bezos to make $10 million': 4017600ms, 'It takes before Sean Connery says "Welcome to the Rock" in the movie "The Rock" (1996)': 4022000ms, 'A flight from Syracuse to New York City': 4140000ms, '5% of the entire day': 4320000ms, 'The album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John': 4580000ms, 'The album "Scenes From A Memory" by Dream Theater': 4626000ms, 'The movie "Primer" (2004)': 4740000ms, 'It takes to fully charge a Tesla (at 440V)': 4788000ms, 'The ferry duration from Long Island, NY to New London, CT': 4800000ms, 'The movie "Toy Story" (1995)': 4860000ms, 'A drive from Syracuse, NY to Rochester, NY (87.5 miles)': 4920000ms, 'The movie "The Lion King" (1994)': 5280000ms, 'The longest State of the Union address': 5280000, //Duplicate time... //1.5 Hours 'The movie "Mony Python and the Holy Grail" (1975)': 5460000ms, 'The movie "Monsters, Inc." (2001)': 5520000ms, 'An average duration of a soccer game': 5700000ms, 'The movie "Reservoir Dogs" (1992)': 5940000ms, 'The longest Innaugural address': 6300000ms, 'A drive from Orlando, FL to Tampa, FL (84.6 miles)': 6660000ms, 'An SR-71 flight from New York City to London': 6896400ms, 'The movie "Alien" (1979)': 7020000ms, //2 Hours //'25% of a typical work day in the United States': 7200000ms, 'The average duration of an NCAA basketball game': 7200000ms, 'The movie "Star Wars: A New Hope" (1977)': 7260000ms, 'The fastest marathon time ever ran': 7299000ms, 'The time it takes to listen to every studio album by Nirvana': 7667000ms, 'The movie "Dogma" (1999)': 7680000ms, 'The average duration of an NBA basketball game': 7860000ms, 'The movie "The Matrix" (1999)': 8160000ms, 'The movie "Fight Club" (1999)': 8340000ms, 'The movie "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)': 8520000ms, 'The movie "Forrest Gump" (1994)': 8520000ms, 'A drive from New York City to Philadelphia (94.6 miles)': 8520000ms, '10% of the entire day': 8640000ms, 'The movie "Inception" (2010)': 8880000ms, 'The movie "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018)': 8940000ms, 'The movie "Pulp Fiction" (1994)': 9240000ms, 'It takes Voyager 1 to travel 100,000 miles': 9360000ms, 'The movie "Avatar" (2009)': 9720000ms, 'The average duration of an NHL hockey game': 9750000ms, 'The movie "Saving Private Ryan" (1998)': 10140000ms, 'The movie "The Godfather" (1972)': 10500000ms, 'The movie "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001)': 10680000ms, //3 Hours 'The average duration of an NFL football game': 10800000ms, 'The total time limit of the SATs': 10800000ms, 'The movie "Avengers: Endgame" (2019)': 10860000ms, 'The average duration of an MLB baseball game': 11280000ms, 'The time it takes for a standard ice cube to freeze in a freezer': 11700000ms, 'The movie "Titanic" (1997)': 12600000ms, 'A drive from Boston to New York City (215.9 miles)': 13560000ms, 'Alex Honnold\'s free solo climb of El Capitan': 14160000ms, //4 Hours 'Half of a typical work day in the United States': 14400000ms, 'The flight time from New York City to Los Angeles': 19800000ms, 'The time limit of one session of the Bar exam': 21600000ms, 'It takes Voyager 1 to travel 250,000 miles': 23400000ms, 'The fastest swimmer to cross the English Channel': 24900000ms, //>8 Hours 'A full typical work day in the United States': 28800000ms, '0.1% of an entire year': 31536000ms, 'The time it takes Jeff Bezos to make $100 million': 40173000ms, 'The time it takes to assemble a car': 57600000ms, '1% of an entire year': 315360000ms, 'It takes for the Lōʻihi volcano to rise above the surface of the ocean becoming a new Hawaiian island': Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER //285,616 years
The Citreon Ami was featured on a recent episode of Top Gear, along with 2 other similar vehicles. They drive them around Paris doing various challenges. Link (if you're in the UK or have access to a VPN): https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001f0wl/top-gear-series-33-episode-2
if there's an exception that proves this rule, it's gotta be top gear. I know plenty who have watched every episode with the Clarkson gang and not sat through a whole episode of the American port.
> The biggest problem keeping Americans from watching UK TV is access
I love British TV. I would happily pay for a UK television license if I could access iPlayer/Channel 4/etc from the US. I don’t get why they are so hell bent against making more money and insist on region locking content. Instead I have to resort to pirating it or buying import DVDs/BluRays.
A long time ago I used to pay for a Linux shell account on a UK provider so I could access iPlayer via a SOCKS proxy. (This was long before VPN providers were popular.). It was awesome to see the latest Top Gear or Kitchen Nightmare episode. It’s a shame we’re locked out of such wonderful content.
Every car engine loses gradually power with wear. Top gear famously showed this multiple times with their older car episodes. Usually it was in 20-30% range.
Basically new car is a 100% system and from first kilometer / month of ageing and exposition to elements various items go down the hill. Each car type had its own set of reasons for that, but result was +-same.
Sure, but again, think of the relationship with furniture and fashion like the typical male relationship with cars. Magazines, movies, celebrities, blogs, shopping way outside your price range without any intent to buy when you have nothing to do... I imagine all these things apply. Most guys I know learned about cars from hours of Top Gear, and drive used Honda Accords. I'll bet there's an equivalent for learning and caring about fabrics, furniture, and clothing.
Horsepower is different though, you have imperial horsepower and metric horsepower (and many more). Both are not the same and neither is a round 750 watts.
For the last years I’ve mostly seen watts being used in NL, but it’s been ages since I saw a fast and furious movie or a top gear show. The car sellers use kW and often also, I assume metric, horsepower.
For crying out loud… I thought that “Now, clearly this is intended to be offensive and not something that I genuinely believe…” (emphasis added) would be sufficient to avoid this. Likewise in another response where I am asked: “You don’t see a difference in authoritarianism [between this British behavior and that of the Nazis?]”, clearly I do.
The joke – regardless of whether it is to your liking – uses the ingredient of the high degree of pride many British still take in (rightfully) standing up against the Third Reich and defending liberal values; contrasts this using a massively exaggerated satirical equivalence to the failure to stand up for what I believe to be those very same values in the present day. As another poster pointed out, the fact that this is an obvious exaggeration is precisely why it is a joke and not an attempt at a political essay.
I am reminded of how at the end of Stewart Lee’s wonderful satirising critique of the culture of the TV show Top Gear, where he faces the camera and explains that, no, he in fact does not wish that Richard Hammond would be dead [1,2].
[1]: https://youtu.be/K7CnMQ4L9Pc?t=752
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hammond#Vampire_dragster_crash
Why is it a problem that she employs people to help with her work? Putting out novel and high quality videos at a constant rate is hard.
Despite a lot of popular youtubers giving off the vibe of being one-person shows, most employ production assistants and editors.
Besides, (old) Top Gear was one of the most beloved shows of all time, which constantly featured segments where the Clarkson-Hammond-May trio was implied to make various contraptions, which were clearly made by the production staff. Not once did I feel like that it detracted from the enjoyment.
So as long she puts out high quality content, no one should mind that what she does is 'movie magic' in part.
For me, as a fan of other kinds of escapist entertainment, the feeling of "ugh why am I not just doing this" is really easy to trigger, and it ruins the immersion and the fun. I need the fantasy to be not just attractive, but also unattainable, so that I don't start wondering, "If I'm so excited about this, why don't I take the relatively straightforward steps to experience it for myself?"
For example, imagine watching a Top Gear episode about the latest Ford Fiesta. Most of the fun of the show is the presenters, how they talk about the cars, and how much fun they seem to be having. I'm sure watching them I could get pretty excited about the Ford Fiesta. It could be a great episode! Except the fact that I could rent one for a day for $35 would force me to think about why I don't actually want to do that, why I would rather watch a TV show about driving it rather than driving it for myself, and the difference between fantasy and reality, and then the excitement evaporates pretty fast.
It absolutely was an accounting trick, done in the name of TV ratings. This is Jeremy Clarkson - he's a TV personality and things done on his TV shows are not to be taken seriously.
The farm had a grain business, sheep, a farm store for veg and stuff, and grants from government for re-naturing part of the property. I have no idea how Clarkson calculated the 144 profit, but I suspect there was a lot of shenanigans do arrive at that number for effect.
Edit - I'll add that I enjoyed the show. While obviously done for shock value (similar vein as as Top Gear and Grand Tour), it did a reasonable job showing how complicated and expensive running a farm can be.
> Musk has a history of going after people who critisize him in public.
Does he? Can you name three cases?
> He (and his staff) have again and again attacked journalists, former employees, and anyone else who said anything bad about Tesla or Musk.
Again, can you name three cases where Musk went after a journalist or former employees, and we know, beyond reasonable doubt, that the victim was right - and not, in fact, lying through their teeth?
I ask because there is documented history of the reverse happening. Consider:
1. Top Gear did a hit piece on their first car, lying about its range (55 vs. 200 miles). This doesn't sound serious until you realize that, back then, people didn't believe in electric cars, mostly because of range worries. This kind of bullshit was arguably life-threatening not just to Tesla, but to the entire EV industry.
Anyway, Tesla sued for libel and lost[0]. Here's a kicker: they lost because the judge deemed Top Gear is an entertainment show and not documentary, therefore they're not obliged to be factually accurate.
2. The incident with Top Gear made Tesla install telemetry in the cars given out for test drives; this came in handy few years later, when John Broder from New York Times decided to publish a hit piece on Model S[1]. Tesla then released data from the logs, directly contradicting the story, and demonstrating that Broder put in extensive effort to fabricate the bad results he then reported on.
I can't blame them from being a bit sensitive after situations like these. For the past decade, there were, and still are, a lot of people standing to make boatloads of money from bringing Tesla and the EV market down.
--
[0] - https://www.wired.com/2012/02/tesla-vs-top-gear/
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/feb/14/tesla-post-data-times-review
I am unsure, but it reminds me of the top gear episode where they intentionally destroyed the tesla for the script...
As in one the Top Gear episodes, where the user manual for S class Mercedes is thicker than a book on English History...
Similarly w.r.t racing - I have no problem with press conferences, but a mandatory press conference isn't really any good. The only time that it's worth watching is when they're all in a good mood and there is some banter.
But then again most of what you hear in a press conference is just useless.
Much of this I believe has to do with the absolutely inane rubbish they are asked (sometimes leads to quite funny retorts - but most of the press conference seems to be garbage) - hence you see people in F1 like Kimi so obviously disinterested in the press conference circus.
On a side note, if I recall correctly the Stig, in Top Gear, was not supposed to speak - because I believe Clarkson said "opinions of racing drivers are worthless".
And with people like Lando Norris gaining popularity due to his direct social media interactions - the press circus seems more irrelevant than ever.
This just seems to be a vindictive attempt by traditional media to keep their hold over the coverage ...
> I watched the sci-fi show "The Expanse" on Amazon Prime Video. Season 4 (the one made by Amazon Prime Video) felt like it had a tenth of the budget compared to season 1 and 2. A completely different show that I found very boring and unwatchable.
Ultimately that's one show though. Amazon have spent BIG on some of their series. The Grand Tour had an enormous, enormous budget compared to Top Gear. They are spending Game of Thrones money on Wheel of Time.
Well said. I’m productive at work 9 hours a day. I sleep 8 hours a day. I do household work 2 hours a day. I raise kids 2-3 hours a day.
The remaining 2-3 hours are mine, I don’t want to spend them being productive. I just want to take a shower, read a book, browse Reddit or watch old episodes of Top Gear.
> The fact that people think of it is a documentary despite that is also concerning.
That's why I don't like entertainment that stylizes itself as factual. For general audience, there are only two modes of understanding: either something is obviously fiction, or obviously reporting. There's no middle line.
From the shows that try to blend the two, you get things like people believing fictionalizations in HBO's Chernobyl and then becoming opinionated on nuclear energy; people learning history from docudramas; people thinking Top Gear is factual and not staged; people thinking all those performers on talent shows are actually doing these things for real...
You're right about cars, but I'm unsure whether that's from ads or not. I rarely if ever see advertisements for cars, unless you consider TV shows like Top Gear/Grand Tour to be advertisements for cars.
I think the difference is that I live in a different country. I don't consume much local media and even if I did there are few enough local products that you would've heard of all of them by word of mouth. Take the soda as an example. I've certainly seen Coke and Pepsi ads, but I've not seen (or at least can't remember) ads for about half the sodas in my local supermarket. Even when Coke released Coke Zero the first time I found out about it was seeing it on a shelf in a store.
But let's say that all of what you're saying is true. The effect from it seems quite small. I'd estimate that I spend at least 5 minutes a day seeing ads.
>Instead of relying on taxes and fees to make government-approved entertainment why not simply... make content people want to watch?
Because why bother when you get money from free by law through taxes?
Count your blessings, as at least the BBC produces world class content viewed worldwide(former Top Gear, Dr. Who, etc) so you get your money's worth but in Germany, ARF and ZDF receive nearly as much money as the BBC but produce almost nothing worth watching by the Germans, let alone abroad, because why would they give a fuck when than sweet taxpayer money keeps rolling in no strings attached regardless.
Provo is full of overly polite Mormon families and BYU. They chose cartoonish examples of polite conservative locales to make their point.
There are plenty of conservative places that would be upset to see Harris / Biden attire. Look no further than the classic Top Gear episode with the Gay Pride car and the Clinton car driving through the south.
On the basis that it was entertainment and that noone should believe the top gear episode reflective of real world.
You'd need some sort of drogue chute or fins to keep it pointed nose-down, otherwise it'd tumble like the Beetle in the Top Gear episode just posted.
Or maybe being a rear-engined car put the Beetle at a unique disadvantage, and the Camry would orient itself just fine.
Junkyards are easy, who's got a helicopter-pilot friend and some land?
I think you'd have to be kind of nuts (or filming a Top Gear episode, not mutually exclusive) to be driving a Ferrari through an unpopulated desert.
There's a good Top Gear episode where they tried 'cooking' with a car engine (apparently the food tasted awful)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9vhGiSL904
I blame marketing. People will run after every fad as though it is mission critical stuff and will re-tell marketing copy verbatim as though it is their own thoughts. I've seen this with a friend who watches Top Gear a lot, I heard him say something that did not make sense for him to say and tracked it back to a specific episode of Top Gear and confronted him with it. He was surprised himself!
This stuff really works and it gets under people's skins in ways that they are not aware of. If you want to keep an even keel I would like to propose that the only way you will be able to do so is to radically limit your ingestion of any kind of media.
Lots of people saying about moving away from regular TV to streaming, but it depends how I want to watch. Sometimes I want to select an episode and sit down to watch it properly, which streaming is good for. But sometimes normal TV fulfils my needs to drunkenly half-watch a random Top Gear.
When I wrote my original comment I was this >< close to proactively responding to the top gear crap that every fanboy seems to think was handed down from god.
Top gear is automotive themed entertainment not a documentary. Anyone who has ever worked on cars knows this. You can bet there was a lot of off camera hackery to get the truck running each time. It didn't just drive away.
I used to pull these trucks (well, all sorts of vehicles) apart for a living. If you pulled the same stunt 10x with 90s Hiluxes and 90s Rangers you'd have more Rangers driving away in one piece because they have a better (taller web specifically) frame and that was the the weak point (at least in topgear's test it was).
There is literally a war named after the Hilux because it was such a combination of cheap and super reliable despite the terrible conditions that it’s what all the local warlords used. There is a top gear episode where they roll over one with a monster truck several times and it refuses to stop working. Toyota doesn’t need any lessons from us manufacturers about reliability.
Along those lines:
Lyons CO, a town along the highway from Denver to Rocky Mountain National Park has a section where the speed limit drops from 55 to 25 within about 1/4th mile. Cops sit there all day long just fining tourists.
Kingman AZ is essentially a speed trap with more steps.
Just about any village on I-50 in Nevada does the speed step down too, typically from 75 to 35, as the highway goes through the village. The cops are typically not very well hidden either. As is similar to the Rome OH situation, if you are within sight, you are getting a fine. Top Gear ran into this issue in Season 12, episode 2 [0] and Clarkson was quite irrate on screen. Fortunately, I-80 is a much better and faster way across Nevada.
[0] https://www.topgear.com/show/series-12/episode-2
While I don't doubt the Hilux is likely a reliable vehicle, let's not forget it would have made for terrible television if it hadn't survived these seemingly impossible challenges. Top Gear hasn't exactly developed a reputation for being a factually accurate documentary series with many of the challenges being staged etc, so I'd take "literally couldn't" with the large pinch of salt it deserves.
I'd also applaud the efforts of the mechanics who worked on this episode, it was great entertainment if nothing else!
The entire decades-long overseas diversion saga surrounding American Toyota pickups has always fascinated me.
Top Gear did an episode [0] trying to destroy a Toyota Hilux (similar to the Land Cruiser) and literally couldn't, which explains why it's so popular with terrorists. It's a worthwhile watch if you want to see truck survive after being drowned in water, fire, and the rubble of a demolished skyscraper. Say what you want about Toyotas, but that's quite the engineering feat in my opinion!
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk
America attracts innovators. They do it in America because they can’t do it at home. Whether it’s true or not, for immigrants, there’s a sense that upward mobility is possible in America.
There was an old episode of Top Gear where Clarkson was driving around an exotic car in America. He noted that Americans were super excited about the car, giving him complements, posing for pictures, saying that one day they’ll own one and generally being positive and optimistic.
In contrast, he reflected that if he did the same thing in the UK, he’d either get insulted for “showing off” or people would be generally negative/pessimistic because they could never afford one.
Clarkson and co haven't been involved with Top Gear for a while now - even before that though, the Top Gear website has always been much more "sensible" than the TV show. TBH, it always felt completely separate.
Despite popular opinion, I like the new Top Gear (once they got rid of Chris Evans). The last two series with Matt LeBlanc was really good.
Will reserve judgement on the new-new line up with McGuinness and Flintoff [1]. McGuinness used to be funny, and Flintoff's podcast [2] is/was brilliant.
* [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45937945
* [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08fr7t1/episodes/downloads | https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/flintoff-savage-and-the-ping-pong-guy/id1201798262
It's 2:40 AM, I open Hacker News because I couldn't sleep and notice this is on top of the page. I have no words.
I didn't really know Alex from his work at Automattic, I knew him as the guy who ran the fan website for "Top Gear". I don't have any numbers how many people he helped to get access to the episodes, but I'm absolutely certain the show would have never gotten as popular without his contribution.
Thanks and sorry.
Tangenital, but your comment reminded me of a Top Gear episode where a car acted as a Faraday cage. Perhaps putting any vulnerable electronics inside your car would be sufficient?
I've seen a number of projects already for self-driving supply trucks, and even walkers from Boston Dynamics. There's a (probably highly scripted) one featured in a later episode of Top Gear, for example.
A better comparison is Top Gear, the BBC show that was essentially the same as The Grand Tour. At it's absolute peak Top Gear drew live audiences of ~8 million people. When the BBC cancelled it (after Clarkson hit a producer) it was getting audiences of ~5 million. I'm sure you could double that number including on-demand and foreign audiences. It was a popular show.
To me these numbers show that Amazon have managed to compete reasonably favourably with the BBC, which is famous for being really good at making TV shows, within 5 years of starting to make their own content, they've built a platform that people are willing to use to watch that content, and they've developed a model that audiences are willing to pay for. That's huge.
Clarkson's Top Gear is not a movie where the story has military elements, so that's not quite the same (for example Independence Day is about the US military fighting aliens, so they do need military elements).
For (old) Top Gear I wonder if they have some sort of patriotic elements, because Clarkson is a friend of David Cameron. Maybe the government/military offered them access to make a boys' show, with the unmentioned quid-pro-quo of making the show a bit of propaganda for the UK government/military.
This reminds me of a segment on Top Gear (the BBC TV show for those unaware) in which Jeremy Clarkson is lamenting that having a pickup truck in the UK would result in your belongings in the bed being stolen when stopped.
For what it's worth, I have ordered many online items (100+) over the last several years, and every one has been left on my doorstep by USPS or UPS. The only time I have had a package stolen was during a summer I spent in a notably dangerous area. The rest of the orders were safely delivered, in my case to a college-town apartment or a suburban family home.
I remember the Top Gear episode in Myanmar where Jeremy and gang played soccer on the highway. It was that empty, and that huge.
As an Indian, China's influence scares me a bit. They've got us surrounded
I have heard this was a problem for Top Gear. They'd include a music clip like The A Team jingle in a clip because the BBC would have a licence to broadcast that. And when they want to show that episode outside the UK, they need to patch the show to use different music instead that they have a licence to.
I certainly didn't find it unwatchable, but I agree with your sentiment. It's a little rough around the edges, especially with pacing and tone. It's kind of the uncanny valley of Top Gear. Something isn't quite right. That said, I still found most of the episodes entertaining, and there are a few great moments.
One thing I wonder is why Top Gear (the old one) / Grand Tour never has the tesla in it's episodes or drag races?
Especially the latest episode of Grand Tour did some kind of road test with a hybrid car and made a laughing stock of it. And they laughed about the "future of cars" if it would be like that (they used some ridiculous bmw hybrid). Driving very slow to preserve electricity and long charge times every 40 miles or something like that. Why didn't they test with a Tesla to give a realistic picture of "the future"?
It includes "production" cars, which are vehicles offered for sale to the public, legally able to drive on public roads, and typically mass-produced identical items rather than one-offs for each customer (though this may be only a few dozen vehicles).
It does not include dragsters or other custom vehicles, which may be equipped with nitrous injectors, non-street-legal equipment, or other major concessions to daily driving.
This was apparent in Friday's episode of <strike>Top Gear</strike> Grand Tour where Hammond raced a Porsche 918 hybrid supercar against the Bugatti Veyron, and then against "some old Nissan van." Which (as you may have guessed, sorry for the spoilers ahead) happened to be souped up with a 1900 HP engine, and easily beat the supercar.
It's also apparent when looking at this electric project car: https://phys.org/news/2016-06-electric-car-world.html which, at 1.5 seconds, seems likely to approach the limit of wheeled vehicles.
> it reminded me of something I heard about car platforms, years ago. Back in 2002, GM introduced a pair of cars in the European market both based on the same platform: the Vauxhall Vectra and the Saab 9-3.
Your comment actually reminded me of an old Top Gear episode [1][2] where they described how Saab were instructed by GM to change only the body and the badges of a Vauxhall Cavalier when producing the Saab 900, but they ignored them and modified so much that the two cars only shared 1/3rd of the parts [2, 03:59]. The same thing happened again with the Vauxhall Vectra and the Saab 9-3, but to an even greater extent.
It certainly sounds like Saab didn't want to be associated with GM or Vauxhall or use any of their inferior technology or parts.
[1] http://www.topgear.com/videos/jeremy-clarkson/tribute-saab-part-12-series-18-episode-5
[2] http://www.topgear.com/videos/jeremy-clarkson/tribute-saab-part-22-series-18-episode-5
Part of it is acknowledging that the Top Gear show was truly awful though. It was unfair for sure, and I can see why someone who was only familiar with the blatant anti-Tesla Top Gear episode would be distrustful of these sorts of arguments.
Yes, there was an anti-Tesla conspiracy going on a few years ago. But I don't think we're at that phase anymore. Certainly not with these Consumer Reports surveys or Edmund's tests, which seem to check out as legitimate.
> Does that include the episode on Top Gear that was scripted into breaking their Tesla down in the middle of a test run?
Edmunds is a serious car site, and not an entertainment show like Top Gear.
The statistics include Consumer Reports, who surveyed over 1400 Tesla S owners and have come to the same reliability issue as Edmunds. http://www.consumerreports.org/cars/tesla-reliability-doesnt-match-its-high-performance/
---
And unlike Top Gear, which seems to be an anti-Tesla idiotic entertainment show. Consumer Reports was pro-Tesla until the survey came in.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/27/teslas-p85d-is-the-best-car-consumer-reports-has-ever-tested.html
Unfortunately, Consumer Reports does not do long-term reliability tests (see Edmunds for that sort of stuff). Instead, Consumer Reports has a very robust survey methodology. They rely upon a survey conducted at a later date. So when their survey results came in that documented the large number of Tesla problems, they had to retreat from their superb rating.
A 103 out of 100 by Consumer Reports (initially). And even then, the Consumer Reports guys could not refute the reliability concerns.
Does that include the episode on Top Gear that was scripted into breaking their Tesla down in the middle of a test run?
According to your logic, 3 percent of scientists deny global warming, so that is a statistic we should take seriously as well. I don't care what denialists say because I can appreciate the fundamental science behind global warming.
You seem to lack the vision to see that simplicity in design always wins out. It does so in nature, and it will do so in our automobile engines long-term.
You are suffering from an extreme case of cognitive dissonance my friend.
In a world of 7 Billion people, every anecdote has become a statistic. Figure it out or get left behind.
There was an episode of Top Gear where the 3 presenters drove 3 supercars to a drag race. They've lost to everything there including a truck. I believe a used Civic and a few hundred/thousand dollars in parts will give you a car, which will also beat any BMW/Mercedess/Audi in acceleration.
> Plus the Top Gear thing was OBVIOUSLY comical. Since Top Gear is a comedy show after all.
This is not obvious to a casual viewer of the show. I've watched a few episodes from time to time and it seemed like a show about reviewing cars to me.
Some of these Chinese kids also come with an incredible amount of money. I look around our local campus and see kids driving McLarens, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Bentleys, Audi R8s, it's like the set of a Top Gear episode and without exception the drivers are young Chinese.
You've always seen the occasional BMW or Merc at the Greek houses but these cars are insane.
How is that UK libel law punishes people making actual true claims, but doesn't punish people making false insinuations and incorrect math?
c) Top Gear's audience doesn't. It's the _Sun_ of TV shows.
a) The point was made very plainly regardless of how implied it was. I don't think the pedantic details of it really matter.
b) I care less about the legality of it and more about the ethics of it
c) Literally the first sentence of each Top Gear presenter on Wikipedia labels them as a journalist. Make whatever label you want for the TV show, the content is largely journalistic. The segment about the Roadster was largely journalistic. The can hide behind the "it's just entertainment" veil as much as they want, but it's a huge grey area at best. Regardless of this, you can still libel and be damagingly deceitful even without being a journalistic program - as far as morals go, it is only slightly less shitty.
The Top Gear thing was a very stupid move that will cost BBC millions.
Top Gear was a very popular TV show and BBC sold licenses around the world.
Top Gear will not be earning them much anymore - Clarkson, Hammond and May have left. They went to Amazon, to produce an original auto tv show there.
from here: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/panic-at-the-bbc-as-revamped-top-gear-descends-into-crisis/news-story/33cba811632fbc24c6bc0bc1ff03f5f0
"Maintaining an international foothold is vital for Top Gear, which is the BBC’s biggest global brand with sales of the TV show, DVDs, books, live shows and other merchandise worth more than £50 million ($101 million) a year. BBC sources fear Evans is a complete unknown outside the UK. Top Gear’s former three stooges are settling in well at Amazon."
"Clarkson, Hammond and May may no longer be on Top Gear, but they are still vying for the same viewers. While Top Gear’s schemes play out in public, they are busy preparing their new rival big-budget show for Amazon — and crowing about how little interference they get from their latest masters. Along with the lack of outside pressure, the team also has cash, and lots of it, with a budget reported to be at £4 million ($8.1 million) an episode — ten times that of Top Gear’s."
So the BBC will be losing all that Top Gear money too.
According to Wikipedia he "is best known for co-presenting the BBC TV show Top Gear", not punching a producer.
I thought licensing music wasn't an issue with many BBC shows as long as they could be fairly categorized as Documentary.
Eg Top Gear got away with using music from many famous films in almost every show, I thought this is how they were allowed to do that. And their "documentary" status is questionable.
Wow! That's great!
Had hoped that Netflix would sign them, but Amazon must have given them a better offer and/or better work conditions, where they have more freedom on what they do.
Nevertheless it's going to be great to see the three guys again! Loved Top Gear, and have watched every single episode, so if the new show will be just half as good, it's going to be great!
"Interestingly, they re-added the original tints to the remaster, as what's not commonly known is that many "black and white" films were projected through a coloured glass slide, in order to either give the entire scene a hue, or even to make the ground red/brown and the sky blue."
I'd always wondered where Top Gear gained its impressive cinematic style - they must have happened upon a treasure trove of those two-color filters, and asked what it would feel like applied digitally to every other scene with the saturation pumped up.
Top Gear Burma special:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uwTnP8ioiU
Empty 20 lane highway in the [Burma] nation's brand new capital.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10678667/Top-Gear-episode-6-review.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_(series_21)
@downvoters: what's wrong? watch the video it's rather on-topic and interesting!
It's not? Seriously I worked NASA and that episode was entirely plausible (except for the explosion after effects), and not as expensive as other things Top Gear has done. Why are you saying it was faked?
Since we're talking about road space, check out the 20 lane highway in Burma. It has a lot of soaking up to do.
http://i.imgur.com/DKRsGZ4.png
It was on an episode of Top Gear. It's typically empty, and in the above image you have government officials going to work.
This would have made a great episode of "Top Gear: Russia". I imagined an excited Clarkson narrating this.
I'm reminded of an example of this - read the Lethal Car Decorating:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear:_US_Special
If you can't get hold of the episode, they essentially paint pro-homosexuality slogans on the side of their vehicles and drive through an Alabama town.
It's scary to think that even in this day and age there are people who will react in such a fashion. And if you think this is bad, driving through the town... imagine living there as a gay man.
PS: I'm aware that Top Gear is an entertainment show and not everything may be exactly as it appears, but I believe this was legit in this case.
Anyone ever played the SWAT series? I've only played SWAT 4, but I've put several hundred hours into it. And the gentlest thing you can do is arrest someone (after tazing them, or hitting them with pepper spray or beanbags or flashbangs, or even shooting them). Even the civilians get handcuffs. And it came out in 2005!
All media mimics real life. However, games let people live in a fantasy world. Battlefield Hardline isn't the first or only game that lets you blur the lines between good and bad, and games are not the only media that offers that viewpoint. Dirty Harry, anyone?
The only reason this is newsworthy is because of the coincidence of current events. It reminds me of the Top Gear episode about the tragedy of car-train accidents that had to continue being delayed due to the multitude of car-train accidents. Wouldn't want to seem insensitive due to incidental timing.
Like most Top Gear episodes, it's the story not the car that makes viewers tune in. Everyone knows that the races are scripted.
Not at all; it's just a matter of dwelling on a subject long enough to begin attaching aesthetic notions to it, I think.
For instance many car buffs have well-developed notions of when a car's handling or responsiveness is 'beautiful' (see any car review or episode of 'Top Gear' if you don't believe me) which I also find preposterous! But I bet if I spent nearly as much time as the Top Gear people dwelling on car stuff, I would grow a similar aesthetic appreciation for how the drive handles some curve or whatever they are moaning about in those reviews.
I recently watched an episode of Top Gear where Clarkson was driving a Ford Mustang and used the odd-number ending frequencies on the radio as a part of his never-ending "American cars are weird" joke.
You left out Tesla suing television show Top Gear for libel. (Which they lost despite the UK's infamously plaintiff-friendly libel laws.)
Well, new episodes of Top Gear are still on a multi-month delay, aren't they?
We used to have that problem with Dr. Who, but I think that's now a day-after thing.
It was hardly a joke on Top Gear's part. They have been ridiculously antagonistic to electric cars over the years. Top Gear staff pushed a Tesla Model S during an episode, falsely insisting to their audience that it was out of juice when it still had many, many miles of range remaining. They deserved the lawsuit and it should never have failed.
Top Gear is a joke.
>2) Top Gear does a show showing it running out of power and being pushed back into the garage at the track and they state that its range is comically low.
Comically low on the track, going full out. Which seems to be a pretty reasonable claim.
Also consider that Tesla didn't sue for over 2 years after the episode first aired. The episode was in late 2008, and Tesla sued in March 2011.
Top Gear are only scathing of Tesla due to being sued by them over a joke. Prior to that, they were actually being quite fair and reasonable from what I could see. So in exchange for a failed lawsuit, Tesla lost the backing of the largest motoring TV show in the world. Probably the biggest mis-step they've made so far.
Forgive me reposting (with some ammends) what I posted above, but I think it's relevant...
The BBC runs the worlds largest news broadcasting organisation. It has 3,500 staff, has 44 foreign news bureaux, has correspondents in almost every country, produces 120hrs of radio and television output each day, is the largest news room in europe and runs on £350 million a year.
The BBC Natural history Unit produces 100 hours of television and 50 hours of radio every year, and is the largest wildlife production house in the world. It's work is watched by audiences around the globe and has won Emmys, BAFTAs and Prix Italias. It's sports coverage (when it can get the rights) is second to none. The most long lasting and iconic comedies and dramas in British culture were created by and housed at the BBC.
The BBC runs for £4.8 Billion a year. Compare that with sky that runs at £5.9 Billion a year. Everything on the BBC is free to licence payers. To get the complete sky Package would cost you £66 per month AND you have to watch adverts AND they still have Pay Per View for anything worth watching AND they produce next to nothing original. The vast majority of it;s content is bought in from the states. Neither ITV, Chanel 4 or 5 offer anything near the quality and quantity that the BBC offer (Although Chanel 4 news is my second choice). And every other digital channel is basically endless reruns of BBC programming (Switch on Dave, $5 says it's a Top Gear rerun).
The BBC runs the worlds largest news broadcasting organisation. It has 3,500 staff, has 44 foreign news bureaux, has correspondents in almost every country, produces 120hrs of radio and television output each day, is the largest news room in europe and runs on £350 million a year.
The BBC Natural history Unit produces 100 hours of television and 50 hours of radio every year, and is the largest wildlife production house in the world. It's work is watched by audiences around the globe and has won Emmys, BAFTAs and Prix Italias.
It's sports coverage (when it can get the rights) is second to none. The most long lasting and iconic comedies and dramas in British culture were created by and housed at the BBC.
The BBC runs for £4.8 Billion a year. Compare that with sky that runs at £5.9 Billion a year. Everything on the BBC is free to licence payers. To get the complete sky Package would cost you £66 per month AND you have to watch adverts AND they still have Pay Per View for anything worth watching. Neither ITV, Chanel 4 or 5 offer anything near the quality and quantity that the BBC offer (Although Chanel 4 news is my second choice). And every other digital channel is basically endless reruns of BBC programming (Switch on Dave, $5 says it's a Top Gear rerun).
I'll forgive them a few hiccups, and I expect a few hiccups considering it's size and reach. Overall, I think they're doing a sterling job.
Nothing too see here. This is totally acceptable behaviour globally - if you have money, do whatever you want, then pay. The most popular TV show on the globe is Top Gear where 3 middle aged assholes with pockets full of greasy money do exactly that all the time - buy, demolish, destroy, whatever, then pay. And as this is the most popular TV show - we all like such assholic behaviour.
I actually just watched those back episodes of Top Gear two days ago. I thought they conveyed most of the things said by your parent fairly well. They expressed extreme disgust with the gearbox, demonstrating clearly how non-functional it was, and showed comparisons with cars in the same price range in which it had much more body roll and braking distance.
I put on Netflix on the background (iPod). Play tv series. Currently watching Top Gear and The Wonder Years.
Every movie available has at the very least Spanish and Portuguese subtitles, and most have dual audio as well.
Much better than a DVD actually :) and a LOT better than cable (I strongly dislike dubbed movies), no stupid messages at the beginning, and can I usually listen to English audio with Spanish subtitles (my family does as well, we all learnt English).
The downside is that the movie selection is even more limited than in the U.S. - but since I'm not a movie buff, it's more than enough for me. And they have a lot of shows that aren't otherwise available (like Top Gear, which I needed to download from the net since it wasn't legally available in my country before).
Does the onboard computer report that the airbags have deployed?
Yes the ECU has a state that detects airbag deployment but even the airbags can have a false deploy (see the most recent episode of Top Gear for a prime example).
TG was being dishonest. They use hyperbole everywhere so Tesla is by no means getting special treatment in that regard. I've seen them trash perfectly good cars because of stupid names and/or because the company CEO looks funny, but in this instance they took an up and coming (read: promising alternative) and kicked it to the curb :
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/22/bbc_top_gear_tesla/
...according to the Top Gear spokeswoman, the tested Tesla was filmed being pushed into the shed in order to show what would happen if the Roadster had run out of charge
Edit: Straight from the horse's mouth...
http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2011/04/02/tesla-vs-top-gear-andy-wilman-on-our-current-legal-action/
This was published when Tesla first sued. And accrording to Andy Wilman, the executive producer :
"Just so you understand there’s nothing devious going on, you need to know how this filming business works. When you film a car review, the reviewer is only the tip of the iceberg. Behind the lens is a film crew, and only a day’s worth of light to shoot the eight minute film. This means we have to prepare in advance a treatment – a rough draft of a script so that the director and film crew can get to work right away, knowing what shots they will need to capture. It will contain the facts about a car, and what we think of its looks and so on, but how well the car actually drives is added on the day. If we’ve driven it ahead of filming, as we do with most cars, we will also have an idea how it feels to drive. But, and this is crucial, as we uncover fresh information about a car whilst filming it, it is entirely normal for the treatment to be modified as the day unfolds. Jeremy is always tweaking the scripts to reflect what his driving experience has actually been on the day."
Crying about Top Gear again.. if they'd left that out, I'd probably have enjoyed the article more! Top Gear is an entertainment show, not a documentary!
> What I'd really love to see is a popular tv show with a loyal fan base but marginal viewers on cable to just switch over 100% to Youtube. Put the episodes in full HD and run regular Youtube ads. Maybe do some in-show advertisement, product placement, that kind of thing.
The budget for one Top Gear episode (for example) is greater then what PSY made from his youtube video with a Billion views.
On top of that, even the smaller networks enjoy a built in audience of hundreds of thousands (if not several million) viewers for each new show they put out there. If you start a show from obscurity it has a much steeper hill to climb.
If you take an already existing show, like you say, it will lose most of its audience because people will think "whatever happened to" and promptly forget about it. That's how good stuff like Firefly gets killed, you move the schedule around a bit and ratings tank because people don't keep up with that.
> Carl Meredith is one local viewer upset about Ovation’s removal from his Time Warner lineup. Meredith and his wife, who live near Clayton, are big fans of Ovation’s reruns of the original British version of “Antiques Roadshow.” Meredith said he had his DVR set to record the episodes during the day, and the couple would watch them together at night. Now, he gets a blue screen telling him Time Warner Cable no longer carries Ovation.
That's a rather left-field choice of show to enjoy, and in most of these discussions reruns (especially esoteric ones) don't get a lot of focus. Pundits tend to focus on the newest episode of, say, Homeland as the item worth buying. The Merediths show us that there is more to that puzzle.
The à la carte selection of and payment for individual shows, as opposed to individual channels, may have some merit after all; if you read between the lines, they don't want Ovation. They want reruns of British Antiques Roadshow, and Ovation just happened to have them. This couple is already down the road toward a different model, too, since they utilize their DVR to time-shift the episodes anyway.
The downside to shifting to paying for shows is (the often useful) local network affiliates, live sports programming, real-time news, and so forth, which are problems yet to be solved. Basically, anything live. I think the generation that's in their 20s and 30s now, though, is more palatable to this kind of model, and we're very likely on the way.
----
Other point I'd like to make here is that British Antiques Roadshow is produced by the BBC, who haven't quite figured out the United States yet. Different legal systems force them to make real bummers, like rescoring Top Gear since they have a very liberal licence to use popular music in the UK and America is a very different picture. In many Top Gear films, the music is half of the equation[1] and its replacement with stock light rock jams is a real shame. Heard some of that in the Best of Top Gear edits that BBC America just aired. That's also probably why they have to be really aggressive on YouTube, and a lot of the unofficial clips of Top Gear on YouTube have been disappearing, replaced by official edits following the same rules.
A lot of Americans, myself included, are chomping at the bit for Top Gear but the BBC finds itself having to edit it to remove British-specific jokes (which I disagree with) or rescoring as mentioned above (which is just unfortunate). They're pretty lax on QI on YouTube, though, which is just great; I've seen all of QI XL Series J so far, not far behind Britain.
[1]: Example from last series, brilliantly written, shot, edited, and scored: http://vimeo.com/40226173
> they aren't always a neutral party.
They are sometimes a neutral party? I always thought Top Gear was a car-themed sitcom...
The use of RF frequencies to broadcast TV content is by far the best way to deliver that content for a certain subset of programs that cover live events for huge audiences[1]. Serving that stuff over IP would be a real challenge. I'd prefer it if we could keep a few RF broadcast channels around but move all the Family Guy and Top Gear re-runs onto on-demand IP based systems.
[1] Things like major sporting events, Saturday night talent show finals, large scale news events e.g. 9/11, Christmas specials and key episodes of certain soap operas.
In case you're interested, here's a quick overview, as it's an interesting and (I think) unique situation.
The BBC is publicly owned, and it's primary source of income is "the license fee". A TV license is required if you watch any live TV in the UK, and costs £145/year ($230). You need a license even if you never watch a BBC channel (there are 100s of channels - our equivalents of HBO, ESPN etc.) however you don't need a license if you never watch live TV (you can watch on-demand TV, for example through BBC iPlayer, and not have to have a license).
BBC also makes money through stuff like DVD sales, both in the UK and all over the world, and by selling shows they own to other countries (e.g. Top Gear).
Most content on the BBC website (news/etc.) is available from anywhere in the world, but if you visit from outside the UK you are shown advertising. Video content (e.g. TV shows on iPlayer) is generally not available outside the UK, however I believe this is soon to change and it will be available for a fee.
Some small amounts of content (for example this "BBC Future", that this article is from) are for some unknown reason created for a non-UK audience and does not allow viewers with UK IP addresses.
(OK, it's not easy to give a "quick" overview of the BBC, my bad.)
This reminds me of the episode of top gear where they paint offensive remarks on each others cars and drive across the southern US.
Actually the BBC had it's remit massively widened by the last government so that it had to fill sections of DAB, a large amount of Radio channels, Freeview, set up iPlayer and run a whole load of channels that aren't even targeted at the UK (such as BBC Persian), largely to meet the FCO's propaganda needs. Additionally, the dodgy dossier episode has emasculated and distorted large chunks of the BBC's programming leading to some completely bizarre side effects[1].
The BBC still does produce a large amount of quality progamming, but budgets and purposes have been affected. Top Gear for example used to be about cars but is now an entertainment show - a wildly successful entertainment show, but no longer something you'd seriously watch to get an idea of what cars to buy and what to avoid. The BBC is also responsible for the One Show, which one day will be recognised by the UN as a crime against humanity. There's also been considerable dumbing down of shows like the Apprentice and Dragon's Den over time, eschewing quality in favour of personalities and entertainment. The natural history unit still put out good documentaries, but even they're not entirely untarnished[2].
The quality of news has also suffered, particularly thanks to spin doctors in previous administrations, the simon gilligan dodgy dossier affair and other stresses on the BBC. When was the last time you saw a proper debate? The other week I saw Alastair Campbell jogging around forests, talking up the end of civilisation through alcoholic poisoning brought on by drinking at home, demanding minimum pricing as the only way out but completely ignoring the impact of the smoking ban as a factor in home drinking increases. It was a terrible attempt at a documentary and a case study in what's wrong with the BBC at the moment.
I do apologise for getting on my soap box about this, you didn't deserve it for pointing out the good stuff. Still, the BBC is not a perfect organisation and the amount of media it has to produce combined with political interference has meant that quality has dropped, perhaps not as much considering the volume of material it puts out, but it isn't immune.
[1] - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/08/today-programme-the-ladykillers-graham-linehan
[2] - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8950070/Frozen-Planet-BBC-faked-polar-bear-birth.html
Oh, I know he's anti-electric, anti-environment, pro-seal clubbing, etc. That doesn't detract from the fact, however, that he has a point about charge times.
Also, Tesla complained about that episode, and Top Gear responded that everything shown was an accurate portrayal of how it went. Who you choose to believe, I suspect, has a great deal to do with the distance between one's home and SV. As for me, I imagine the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Top Gear regularly embellishes for the purposes of entertainment, but I find it highly unlikely that they would flat-out make shit up just to slag a particular company.
This is Tesla's statement on the issue:
"On March 29 2011, Tesla filed a lawsuit to stop Top Gear’s continued rebroadcasts of an episode containing malicious falsehoods about the Tesla Roadster. Top Gear’s Executive Producer, Andy Wilman, has drafted a blog to present their side of the story. Like the episode itself, however, his proclamations do more to confound than enlighten.
Mr. Wilman admits that Top Gear wrote the script before filming the testing of the Roadsters. The script in question, concluding with the line "in the real world, it absolutely doesn’t work" was lying around on set while Top Gear was allegedly "testing" the Roadsters. It seems actual test results don’t matter when the verdict has already been given -- even if it means staging tests to meet those predetermined conclusions.
Now Mr. Wilman wants us to believe that when Top Gear concluded that the Roadster "doesn't work," it "had nothing to do with how the Tesla performed." Are we to take this seriously? According to Mr. Wilman, when Top Gear said the car "doesn't work," they "primarily" meant that it was too expensive. Surely they could have come to that conclusion without staging misleading scenes that made the car look like it didn’t work.
Mr. Wilman's other contentions are just as disingenuous. He states that they never said the Roadster "ran out of charge." If not, why were four men shown pushing it into the hangar?
Mr. Wilman states that "We never said that the Tesla was completely immobilized as a result of the motor overheating." If not, why is the Roadster depicted coming to a stop with the fabricated sound effect of a motor dying?
Mr. Wilman also objects to Tesla explaining our case, and the virtues of the Roadster. Top Gear has been re-broadcasting lies about the Roadster for years, yet are uncomfortable with Tesla helping journalists set the record straight about the Roadster’s revolutionary technology.
Mr. Wilman seems to want Top Gear to be judged neither by what it says, nor by what it does. Top Gear needs to provide its viewers, and Tesla, straightforward answers to these questions."
I hadn't heard that Tesla calculated that range, the direct quote from the show used the pronoun 'we' and I thought part of the suit was because the 55 mile range statement from top gear defamed Tesla and made them look as if they were lying about the range.
Actually, had you bothered to watch to the end of that episode, the point they made was about HOW a car is driven and now WHAT car you drive.
They drove the Prius as fast as it would go, because someone who buys a Prius will do that and at that speed it would be less efficient than an M3 which is the "sports car" you mention.
And I agree with that point. If I flog my Civic, it'll return much smaller mileage than if I drive carefully and efficiently. So, again, Top Gear's point is proven in that, people aren't willing to think critically and live in a reality.
There are two claims in the article that were not made clear in the episode:
1) The Leaf had a full charge when delivered, but it was drained to 40%
2) Clarkson drove around in circles until it died, in Lincoln.
Now I can understand both of these things from a television perspective. Obviously everything in Lincoln was staged, including their arrangement with the university to charge there. Clearly they drained the battery so that it would die in Lincoln, as that's where they had prepared to shoot.
It makes sense from a TV perspective but it's unethical, especially given the direct harm it can have on livelihoods and the effort to transition off fossil fuels. There's no substantive difference between doing what they did, and merely pretending that the car died when it had half a charge left. Top Gear is a comedy show, but it isn't satire. The audience has no reasonable expectation that when the hosts make claims about certain cars, they are being dishonest for the sake of comedy. Sure, we know the challenges are staged, but that's not what this is about. It's as if, in testing the new Ferrari, they replaced the rear tires with winter tires then complained about how the read end was uncontrollable. This crosses the line directly from creating an entertaining narrative to slander. Given JC's very public views on anything to do with the environment, as well as their previous run-in with Tesla, you'd think they would be careful not to give the impression that they will intentionally lie to disparage electric vehicles. With this latest incident, that is exactly the impression they give.
Again, you’re entirely missing the point, namely that they decieved the viewer about how this came to be, not whether it was inconvenient to run out of charge.
No, you're missing the point that it's a television show. As such, things must be done in a predictable, safe, and visually appealing manner. They can't have the crew sputtering to a stop on a blind crest or busy highway.
The show you want would go like this:
Clarkson: "Welcome to Top Gear. Tonight, our challenge is to drive electric cars from X to Y!
hosts climb into cars
May: "Oh, the on-board computer tells me I can't go that far."
Clarkson: "And on that bombshell, thank you for watching!"
That version communicates exactly the same point, but with zero entertainment.
Your SCUBA example is ludicrous, and completely the opposite of what happened here. i.e. increasing danger.
Sorry, but electric cars are not infallible. There are some real issues involved with using them, and people are getting upset because a entertainment show about cars is poking fun at those issues in an exaggerated way.
All this sharpening of the pitchforks over ethics/editorial guidelines/facts is just a red herring to debase a TV show that isn't going to march in lockstep with a car manufacturer's marketing literature, or support the environmentalist's point of view that electric cars are utopia.
Do note this article is in the environmental section of the guardian. Top Gear bashes all cars of all types. They can be downright offensive (there was a somewhat tasteless joke about mexican cars a while back), but when it comes to electric cars, for some reason there is this clamoring for facts/journalistic integrity, etc in the media. These people don't really care for the show, they just care how electric cars are being portrayed in the media.
I like Top Gear when they are funny, not when they're malicious, both episodes (Tesla then, and Leaf now) seems to have malicious intent against electric cars.
A lot of the comments here are saying that Top Gear is an entertainment show, and should not be taken seriously. Yet that seems to avoid the main point of the article which is that it's on BBC, yet not adhering to BBC standards of reporting. The article claims they are not held to these standards because they make entertaining TV that brings in big bucks for BBC. Should Top Gear attempt to follow BBC standards, or should they get away with it because they have a great tv show?
I've watched, and enjoyed, Top Gear for a long time now, since before they introduced the new magazine format.
I saw this episode when it was broadcast and enjoyed the electric car segment. The programme is an entertainment show and part of that entertainment is that the presenters repeatedly experience various 'disasters' during their filming. I didn't take the various incidents involving range particularly seriously at the time.
When they were discussing the cars slightly more seriously back in the studio, they actually acknowledged the inevitability of electric cars and went over the ways in which the technology was improving. They also correctly pointed out that current technology limits the utility of the models available now, and discussed mitigation ideas such as battery exchange. To be honest I was surprised at the maturity of their analysis! Overall, based on what I know about this area from other sources, I would not consider the piece to have been misleading.
Someone has already pointed out that The Guardian is a fairly left leaning paper and this particular article is a comment piece. Personally I think it's a bit silly for people to get so indignant about something so insignificant. They're just having fun. They're not out to get anyone. I don't believe they have a vindictive agenda. The presenters play caricatures of themselves.
Chill the hell out!
Top Gear is an entertainment show with cars as the backdrop. Just like Daily show is a comedy show with political clips.
If you want a car review show, take a look at Motor Week.
I think these claims of "faking" are ridiculous when you have episodes where cast members "die" (top gear apocalypse), and characteristics are emphasized for comedic effect (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8).
This article claims because of Top Gear's antics, the public is being misinformed about the benefits of electric cars. It completely misses the point that 1. it is not a car review show, and 2. there is a major poetical component of the show that celebrates automotive history. They like exciting cars and bash boring uninspired ones (except if its remarkably boring). Their reviews emphasize a car's essence, not necessarily a list of facts.
I think this view is coming from a place that has a vested interest in electric cars, and not anyone who really watches the show. Otherwise they'd be attacking all the claims ("Some Say") made about The Stig.
This is a pretty weak accusation.
It was quite obvious watching the program that they were aware the battery was running low (they commented on the "miles left" meter several times). They more-or-less willfully ran out of juice in a small town. So what.
The point wasn't that the car can only go 60km versus 100km on a charge, or whatever the numbers. The point was that the car has a range limit, that the limit is not terribly far, that the car takes a while to charge when it dies, and there aren't many charging stations.
Perhaps Top Gear was a bit hyperbolic to make that point (Consumer Reports they are not), but these are all fair points.
I'm sorry. I'm all about calling out bias where I see it, but this just smacks of a car maker trying to spin some largely legitimate complaints with their product.
Not many people could get away with owning a plug-in electric as their only car. Even if it were half as much as a comparable gas car (rather than twice as much). As Clarkson said in the episode, the leaf is actually a really nice ca and electric is obviously the future, but today it is just not practical.
I think people can take what they want from Top Gear, it's entertainment, not factual TV.
That episode made me wish I could afford a Leaf, it seemed really well engineered and I knew they were being silly about electric cars on purpose because they are "neanderthal" car dinosaurs that refuse to adapt.
They were trying really hard to find ways to insult the Leaf but fell far short - "range" was all they could come up with. Sad to learn they actually had to fake it though, it's pathetic on their part. I'd still buy it with their demonstrated range - if it was twice that, even better.
But 60mpg+ gas/diesel cars are common in the UK anyway, so the Leaf is less dramatic there. I'd love this one too but they will never let Americans have it:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b4099060491065.htm
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/02/ford-will-give/
Yes we still watch about 30-45 minutes at dinner on the laptop. Usually a show like Dr. Who or Top Gear on Netflix, or Castle when new episodes are on. Some nights we just sit and talk. It's nice.
A laptop is plenty of screen if you're just sitting at the table. Also, if you want to watch a movie and get cozy on a couch, put the laptop on a chair in front of the couch and watch.
Frankly, I can get more work done and spend more time with my family if I don't have a giant HDTV practically begging to be watched. Removing that time wasting magnet makes a much bigger impact than you would realize.
Once you go TV free you start noticing things like how when you visit friends or family TV is almost always on. It's like a buzzing that people get addicted to, but don't realize it. Now I can't even go to many restaurants without there being a TV in there too.
It's like a bizarre form of mind control.
Also, since getting a Nook last year, I read a lot more, which is nice.
Likely, none of us would be able to simply get into an F1 car and even drive it anywhere at all.
There was a Top Gear episode where Richard Hammond tried to drive an F1 car. I figured with his experience he could make a decent go at it, but apparently the cars are so specifically tuned for going fast that it's all-out, or nothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGUZJVY-sHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3po2gdQNgqk
I remember watching the episode of Top Gear where James May drives the new moon buggy, then sits down and talk about the old moon buggy.
[Kind of a spoiler] The old one, which served everyone so well, was left behind to collect dust on the surface of the moon for the rest of eternity. And then, he says, "But if you ask me, it's not half as sad a moon buggy that will never get up there at all." I tear up just thinking about it.
Maybe only on environmentally friendly cars?
*edit.. don't mean to be a dick, I just don't think this fact helps their case much. I watched the episode, and it irritated me quite a bit even though I think Top Gear is normally pretty fun.
Well, the marketing ploy got me to watch the review, anyway...
The massive fuel savings makes me think a shorter-range, lower performance vehicle would be more popular (for city commutes). But I'm guessing the real problem Tesla faced was that the batteries would be ridiculously expensive even for that - so targeting a premium performance, upscale market, where other qualities of an electric car (torque) can come into play. Presumably, they would go down market over time, as battery technology improves. Which seems to be on an extraordinarily slow trajectory (esp. in the context of silicon).
Jeremy suggests two Teslas (while one's charging), but you just need two batteries. Reminds me of early razor technology (before Gillette's safety razor), when sending in a razor to be sharpened was a popular option - but you needed to have two.
Fun fact: electric cars were fairly popular over 100 years ago (for trucks mainly IIRC), with batteries being the problem even then. Edison worked on their batteries for a while.
btw: the caravan jump is at 12:05 in part 2 (http://www1.peteava.ro/id-641379-top-gear-uk-season-12-episode-7-part-2-of-2)
Have you seen Top Gear?
The Reliant Robin, while obviously a horrible design, does not roll over every time you drive one a half mile (and it is not the primary reason for the decline in population in the Sheffield region in the decades since its release). The Stig is not really "half man, half machine with petrol running through his veins". And a race against a jet or helicopter is not a realistic test of auto performance.
The Tesla episode was cheeky, but no more cheeky than many episodes. It's not a "straight" review show. It is a comedy that happens to have a lot of cars in it. If it is occasionally true, that's just a bonus.
So first, the 55 mile claim was one of the 5 main points of the suit, which is why I brought it up.
And while I agree that much of new Top Gear is entertainment, I'm just saying that based on other information available, Top Gear doesn't look so outrageous. Autoweek also stated that their car died down well before the 220 mile range and went into a reduced power mode.
Moreover, Top Gear isn't the first to point out mechanical or electrical problems on a Tesla (couple examples below). The car itself was delayed because of such problems. And I along with most people also be worried if some fuse controlling my brakes was busted.
And in the episode, they don't hail fuel-cells because they go further without a charge, they hail them because they fit with the model of car ownership that we're used to, allowing you to drive however long you want and just fill up intermediately.
Perhaps I had a poor choice of words, but I certainly understand what Tesla is claiming. I'm more just confused that they would file suit like this especially given that from what I can tell, Top Gear's claims seem valid given not only the accounts of the situation, but also reviews from other publications.
[1] http://www.greenpacks.org/2009/05/29/half-of-tesla-roadsters-recalled-for-rear-chassis-problems/ [2] http://www.thestreet.com/story/10877793/1/tesla-initiates-voluntary-recall-after-single-customer-incident.html
Edit: Speaking of fiduciary duty, Tesla's apparently asking for "not more than £100,000" in damages, so I'd say this is a waste of the shareholders' and taxpayer money (given its $0.5B bailout). http://www.motorauthority.com/blog/1057705_tesla-vs-topgear-only-half-of-the-story
My question is: how did this get to the top position on HN? I could hardly care less about Jeremy Clarkson's opinions, or TV shows such as Top Gear.
The video in question is here: http://www1.peteava.ro/id-641316-top-gear-uk-season-12-episode-7-part-1-of-2 Tesla's review starts at about 17:29.
The episode seems to be centered around contrasting the Tesla with Honda's FCX Clarity. Here is the 2nd part: http://www1.peteava.ro/id-641379-top-gear-uk-season-12-episode-7-part-2-of-2 At about 21:10, James reviews/introduces Honda's FCX Clarity and finishes by calling it "The car of the next 100 years"
James doesn't stop with the praises; and I think he was perhaps disingenuous in glossing over big details.
The processes for getting Hydrogen to be in usable form requires energy by itself. Whereas Tesla's batteries directly give it electricity, there is a system present in the Clarity that converts the hydrogen fuel into electricity. The only emission is... water. Fantastic, rainbows all around.
Hydrogen is indeed abundant throughout this universe, but it is mostly found in compound forms - water, natural gas, etc. There is a certain ratio 'EROI' -- (Energy return on investment) -- which is defined to be: (quantity of energy supplied / quantity of energy used in supply process.)It turns out that in summing the energy required by the very initial processes of getting Hydrogen to be in usable form, packaging it, and delivering it to the user, the EROI for Honda's FCX Clarity is VASTLY higher than it is for electric vehicles, like the Tesla's.
If the episode's central critique was in the basis of comparing the Tesla's efficiency vs. Clarity's (which, to me, felt that an element of it in fact was), it was dishonest of James to gloss over the known inefficiencies of hydrogen fuel cells. As hard as it is for me to say it, as I'm about the biggest James' fan, but I really do think this episode was a little iffy for more than a few reasons.
The main problem I think is that the episode showed the Tesla apparently out of juice, being pushed into a hanger by the crew. Clarkson's closing comments were along the lines of 'it doesn't work' (before hailing fuel-cell cars as the future because they can go further without a charge).
Tesla are arguing that this event was staged and in the script produced the day before the road test was filmed, that the car didn't actually run out of power on the test track, and that the episode unfairly paints the vehicle in a bad light.
It's worth remembering that the modern Top Gear is an entertainment show that happens to be about cars. It hasn't been about accurate consumer reviews for many years, it's very scripted and not at all unbiased.
It won't stop the episode airing, the retraction will likely be released on the BBC website, there'll be a press release but even BBC news won't cover it and there'll probably be a mention in an upcoming top gear, which will likely have Clarkson just take the piss out of Tesla for being little bitches that can't take a review.
I don't even know why Tesla would want their vehicle reviewed by Clarkson. He's brutal on Diesel vehicles, even when they compare on-par with gasoline. From what I remember, Clarkson was incredibly pro-tesla as I half expected him to say "It's electric," look at another camera and carry on the show like they'd just asked him to test out a golf cart.
> The company says that if the episode had been broadcast in 2008, and not rebroadcast repeatedly it would not have sued.
Are these people complete utter retards, what fucking planet do they live on that they don't understand that TV episodes rebroadcast repeatedly. Reruns of friends episodes 17 years after their initial run doesn't give someone a clue that TV has reruns?
I wouldn't buy a roadster simply for the utter idiocy of this comment from the company. I'd question whether they have a simple employee capable of fastening a damn nut to a bolt because their management can't comprehend that TV shows have reruns. It's not like there's entire TV stations based around reruns... oh wait, but there is!
What a perfect way to give something legs.
I had never seen this Top Gear episode, but I am definitely going to watch it now!
This is a tough spot to be in. Sue BBC and try and get a correction (and give it publicity) or ignore it and risk reputation damage silently with fewer people.
I am a fan of both Top Gear (seen every episode, save for the most recent series) and Tesla (would kill for a Roadster or Model S).
The Tesla Roadster review seemed to be fairly typical of Top Gear; with Jeremy Clarkson pointing out his likes and dislikes in fairly equal proportion. Clarkson in fact seemed very impressed with the Roadster’s performance and I believe the official lap time placed it somewhere around a comparable Porsche 911. The breakdowns seemed believable, especially for a supercar; as Richard Hammond pointed out in a later episode within that series (wherein a Pagani Zonda breaks down within the first few test laps on the Top Gear track) that it’s the nature of supercars to "explode immediately" on use. Tesla didn’t seem to receive a harsher treatment than any other car manufacturer.
The Tesla Roadster is an amazing product, but it -like every machine made before it- has a few bugs to be worked out. Nothing out of the ordinary.
It appears we have a not-argument against a not-argument. I'm not claiming TG fans are interested in electric cars. I'm claiming that TG fans are interested in cars with awesome performance whether they're electric or not. As you correctly pointed out, most TG fans would jump at the chance to own a Tesla. The equation becomes less clear when you thrown a more traditional super car in to the mix, but that's all besides the point, because very few of these people can afford to actually buy one.
I'm rebutting this:
"I think your average Top Gear viewer is as far from a potential customer as you can get given the general stance the show takes on such matters"
Well, come to think of it, you're right in many respects. The average TG viewer simply can't afford a $110k automobile. I think you slightly misinterpret the TG editorial view though. They're not opposed to electric cars. They're opposed to slow, ugly, uninspiring cars. The net effect of environmentalism is that efficiency is put before all of these other factors. There wasn't one jab at the green aspect of the Tesla Roadster in that episode. It was all about the performance and the trade-offs.
I understand what you're saying but IMHO a two year old episode of Top Gear is has literally no effect on any sales problems Tesla may or may not be having.
That's not really true. Toy Story 3 was the highest-grossing film of 2010... so there has to be a segment that would be interested in live-action movies. :)
Basically, Top Gear is popular because it isn't all those other car shows. It's mainstream by popularity, but it's not mainstream in terms of typical car enthusiasts.
I would really like this on top gear and compare it to the other drivers on their closed course. I wonder how well it would do in their celebrity challenge that they do every episode?
Yea, and I also learned how to become a doctor by watching House and ER, fish for Alaskan crab by watching Deadliest Catch, and learned all about how to have relationships by closely studying Friends and Entourage!
So no, that episode of Top Gear does not bring up any "good points" to draw legitimate conclusions about the American South. All it shows is that if you insult the average person enough, they'll get pissed off enough to deliver a few minutes of good footage. Meanwhile, back here in reality (not in TV land) -- if you visited down South you'd find that, given a broad sampling, Southerners are far kinder and warmer than us from New England. (p.s. I'm not from the South).
It gives me great concern that we as Americans assume so much truth from our 30 minute highlight reels.
Not so much. My first thought, after all, was "Hooray, now I can watch Top Gear and Doctor Who episodes which aren't split into six different sections!" I don't really want to watch 60-minute videos of someone's cat.
(Incidentally, before anyone gets on my arse about copyright violation which I usually disapprove of, I feel justified in pirating Top Gear and Doctor Who since they're shown for free on the (Australian) ABC or SBS. I pay Australian taxes despite not being resident there, so I damn well should be able to watch what I've already paid for.)
Top Gear made two episodes on the Indestructible Hilux (episodes five and six of series 3). Worth watching.
I'm not sure about the original hilux on top gear, but I'm pretty suspicious about some more recent episodes. There was an episode in S15 where May drove to the top of a Volcano (in a water/alcohol-cooled hilux). And every shot of the car looked like it had just been freshly polished/waxed.
there is an excellent episode of Top Gear in which Clarkson and co. ride across Vietnam on mopeds. The percentage of the motoring population which use motorcycles, rather than cars, is simply staggering. They throw out some interesting statistics as well (road deaths per capita 4x higher than in the states). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMHVD-gWPDk
see also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaP353v8JWY
For those who find this comment cryptic: Clarkson is one of a trio of presenters on BBC TV show "Top Gear". They do various challenges on their show. Once, in a special where they drove across America, the challenge was to get each other "shot or arrested" by painting slogans on each others' cars. While they were driving across Alabama.
The slogan that attracted most ire was not "Hilary for president" or "manlove rules OK" but "NASCAR sucks!"
And so a mob ran them out of one particular town. Apparently. Incidents on the show have been known to be staged from time to time, so I can't say with complete confidence whether this actually occurred.
> What exactly makes watching a thoughtful, well-crafted drama (for instance, The Wire) on television any less worthy than reading a good back or going to watch a play?
Great question. A few points:
1. A play or movie has a start and end time that is reasonably compressed - you watch Memento or Gattaca, it takes you two hours, you sit and think about it afterwards for a while, and it's done. A high quality program will run for many seasons, taking 30 minutes to an hour of your life times X weeks for however long. Also, being not as compressed, the average quality tends to be lower (with some exceptions of very good programming, though it's rare).
2. Very easy to just keep watching after the high quality program ends, watching the next thing that comes on. Very, very easy to do that. My housemate last year had a TV hooked to a DVD player and Nintendo Wii for parties, but no channels. I did buy him a box set of Planet Earth for his birthday after seeing some of it at a friend's house. But it's like, put on the DVD, watch it, put it away, done. No getting sucked in.
3. Garbage books are no good either - I tend to read books that give me a perspective on another culture (Koda Rohan, Eiji Yoshikawa, or Genji for Japan, for instance), or read business books, technical books, history, economics, finance, etc. I'd classify a lot of fiction as similarly mindlessly-distracting-without-growth too. That's fine for what it is, but I'd rather get the enjoyment while also developing as a person, asking myself tough questions, getting more in touch with another culture, gaining expertise, and so on.
But sure, there's some good TV. I used to go do cardio at the gym whenever a sports match was on that I wanted to watch, for instance, because they had a bunch of TVs, and I'd go during the fifth inning or halftime and watch the end of the game. I might buy a boxed set of DVDs and have a weekend marathon at my place sometime if a show is really good, insightful, and develops the character.
Still, I don't watch television regularly because I think I'll have a healthier, happier, more productive life where I reach more of my goals if it's not part of my life. Perhaps some people have knee jerk anti-TV reactions as a signaling mechanism that they're "unplugged", but that's not it in my case. Some TV is really cool. I watched some Top Gear at one of my English friend's flats in London, and it's just really enjoyable. The question was still - wait, is this what I should be doing with my time? Couldn't I be enjoying myself while also learning, or producing something, or connecting more deeply with someone I like? It's a keenly thought out thing that I made a conscious decision about a long time, but I'm not one of those horrible anti-TV preachy people. If it serves a role in a person's life and they're happy with its effect, then it's a good thing for them.
Its the "oh, this is cool!" design philosophy.
There was a top gear episode, Clarkson was talking about driving...the quote is something like
"THIS, now this is fast driving. Boring, smooth, not a lot of tyres screeching...boring, efficient...
now THIS, this is TELEVISION driving, car going sideways, tyres smoking something furious! WAAAHOOOOOO!!! FUN! See the difference?"
This is like...television design, its fun and loud, but not very effective.
I'm sorry, this makes no sense at all.
Carry On.
yeah Top Gear did an episode on the Tacoma...they dropped one from a 10 story building, drowned it in an Ocean, lit it on fire and they were able to start it afterwards w/o any new parts.
Here is the episode http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc4Ksz3nHM + drop http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZDtC9kjVk