Does Telsa Have a Case Against The BBC?

Linkey!

I'm not familiar enough with Libel and Defamation laws in Britain to comment, but here in the US they wouldn't have a case!

If what your quote said is accurate then I'm not seeing how they have a case. Unless they can prove Top Gear sabotaged the cars which I would find highly unlikely.

US law common law is based off english law so they are pretty similar I would think. There are probably statutory differences however. And truth is a defense to defamation so if this stuff is true the case will probably go nowhere.

I seem to remember that some kind of trickery went on in the editing bay.

I think the way it was portrayed on screen isn't actually the way it went down. I seem to remember some Tesla employee calling out Clarkson on her blog.

TopGear is bad for editing in and taking out stuff in an effort to make the program more entertaining. They pretty much even own up to that little 'secret' whenever confronted by it. Look at that episode where they're making ads for VW, and the ad agency accuses them of adding in car engine sound effects. Their tongue-in-cheek reactions tell you everything you need to know.

They edit scenes, add in sound effects, there's more then one Stig.
It's an entertainment show.

So yeah, Tesla might have a case.

You'd think so, but no.

Much more at the link.

What happened was they wanted to show what a bitch it was to deal with an electric car that had run out of "juice" while out and about somewhere. Because Clarkson is a fuel cell fan, people got all upset and claimed that they'd "rigged" the test (never mind that nearly everyone fucks up at some point in time and misjudges how much gas they have left in their car and wind up stranded at least once in their life).

^
According to that Tesla employee though, the car never went under a 25% charge.
And the car was supposedly still charged when they were pushing it into the garage.

So? If you're trying to demonstrate what happens when an electric car runs out of power does it matter what the battery level is at when you push the car? This might come as a shock to you, but TV folks take "shortcuts" all the time. They're kind of forced to when its expected that they pump out shows on a regular schedule. You want to sue the Food Network because the "secret ingredient" unveiled on Iron Chef isn't completely a surprise to the chefs? (They're given a list of potential "secret ingredients" before the show, but have no idea which one will be chosen for the episode they're on.)

The problem lies in that they didn't say it was a demonstration, but they did say the car died after 55 miles - a fact Tesla disputes.
Hence the open door for a lawsuit.

Without seeing the clip, I can't say for certain what happened (been ages since I read articles about it). IAC, as the article I linked to states, UK libel laws are so ludicrously stupid that anything can be seen as an "open door for a lawsuit."