I have to say following Robert Llewllyn on Twitter is that as befits the man who has fronted scrapheap challenge he does appear to be greeny technophile. Hence I followed his link to this about the last Top Gear of 2008.
The gang were testing the Tesla Roadster the electric sport's car on Sunday night's show and claimed it had run out of power for them on the track, not once but twice. Well as you can read the scenes at the end with Jeremy Clarkson walking along an empty, quiet track claiming that while he expected the electric car to be quieter but actually moving, and the scene of one of the car being pushed back into the garage may have been fabricated.
Now as is well know the gang Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May tend to mock every green initiative in motoring. They are such out and out petrol heads that hybrid and electric heads must at times want to hide their heads in shame. The other week when Kevin McCloud the environmentally aware host of Grand Designs came second in the stars in a reasonably priced car board behind Jay Kay they seemed almost incredulous and mocking of his green credentials.
However, if they have deliberately misrepresented a car, on what is primarily a car show after the various other misdemeanours of this season the BBC may well end up in even more hot water: possibly that produced as emissions from the Teslas in question.
I saw this episode and the points they made about the Tesla were pretty spot on:
ReplyDeleteOnce the battery's dead it takes 16 hours to recharge from a domestic plug socket, trips across the country would overnight stops. Plus they point out that the electricity coming from the national grid isn't exactly environmentally friendly itself.
In the *same* episode they reviewed a hydrogen powered car (well, hydrogen to generate electricity to power a motor) and this has the advantage of taking a few minutes to refill and emitting just water.
The point is that electric cars are bad consumer products, while Hydrogen might actually be able to be a good consumer product, and so they liked it.
Charlotte is right that electric cars have only very limited potential using current (coughs) technology, at least if you're doing anything other than going to the shops once a day.
ReplyDeleteBut Top Gear isn't meant to be taken seriously anyway?
I suppose the point about electricity is who you energy provider is. I suppose have the option of Scottish Hydro isn't open to their tiny minds.
ReplyDeleteAnd while it is still an electirc car are we know how power a straight plug in and drive car can be it is still an advancement on what has gone before.
But then Prius did get there first with some of the conceptual ideas of genetic energy to trasfer into electricity in a hybrid setting before me and my engineering buddy could shore up a patent.
I agree with you Charlotte that Hydrogen is a far better goer that the plug in at the mains car. Onboard generation is the way forward no to get it further afield that just California.
And Stuart I agree sadly the current Top Gear is anything but able to be taken seriously. But withoug Tomorrows World we need some sort of champion for ionnovations.
Charlotte: the Tesla can be charged in as little as an hour, and hydrogen fuel production takes shitloads more electric.
ReplyDeleteIn fact Clarkson really spoke quite favourably about the Tesla - the only big problem being that it ran out of juice & takes 16 hours to recharge (which I would admit is a serious problem).
ReplyDeleteYou are clearly wrong to say Clarkson lied based on your link. When "Tesla's head of spin" says "at no point during the day were the Top Gear boys without a working Roadster" it is quite clear that on at least 1 point of the day at least one of the 2 wasn't.
I think your & Clarkson's reaction points out exactly the difference between reasonable liberal minded people who are perfectly willing to agree that the other side has good points & those eco-extremists who want total censorship over everything said in fear that they cannot persuade people of anything otherwise.