Top Gear and Tesla Motors face off in court over the Roadster

TopGear is once again in the dock over its caustic comments and staged stunts in a 2008 episode, in which it ridiculed a Tesla Roadster for being left with flat batteries, during a comparison test with a Lotus Elise.

What was meant to be a comparison of two very similar cars ended with the TopGear presenters pushing the Tesla into a hangar, while the Lotus kept moving. The Clarkson line that capped the scene was: it’s a shame that in the real world, this isn’t going to work.

If anyone in the car world thought they were used to the antics of Clarkson and company, think again. More than two years after the episode aired, Tesla Motors has sued the BBC and TopGear for ridiculing the Tesla Roadster. It has even emerged that the famous scene was filmed according to a prepared script, designed to make the electric roadster look bad.

Another gem for TopGear, though it has to be said that Clarkson’s show likes a bit of controversy every now and then, since it’s one of the things that keeps them in business and draws the audience, both for the programme itself and for the BBC.