Guys, you have just totally fallen for Clarkson's straw-man. The problem is not that the 55-mile claim is inaccurate. The problem is that they showed the car dying when it didn't and would not have even if they had run it down. They showed people pushing a perfectly drivable car! Defamation!

...what is the real difference between claiming that you calculated that on your track it would run out after 55 miles, and saying that it's range is only 55 miles?

Wrong question. There's no difference there that matters. But Tesla's complaint is not with them saying that it would have run out after 55 miles. Their complaint is that they showed it "dying" and being pushed off the track, when neither of those things actually happened. And furthermore, neither of those things would have happened if they had run the battery down...the car would have warned them and reduced power, and they would have puttered around the last lap (or another 30 miles if necessary) to the hangar. Please...go watch the clip. They really do act like it totally failed on them. And that never would have happened.

Name one time government did any good.

Rural electrification. Interstate highways. Public education. The Civil Rights Act of 1964. THE FUCKING INTERNET.

When you look at the history of the American automobile, the "driving force" has always been the mass-matrket car.

Get your history straight. The Model T was not the first automobile. There were a lot of cars for a long time that fit the "too expensive for the mass market" description. And eventually we got a Model T. This will happen again.

The trick with the 211 miles the tesla promises is that it is at 35 MPH, Or was it 30?

Actually, it's on the EPA combined cycle...the same test that gives us the MPG ratings on every other car. Next...

Everybody points to the fact that they didn't SAY it, however it was implied...

No, dammit, it wasn't just "implied." They showed it happening. That's every bit as explicit as saying it. If I'm watching a video and some guy gets shot in the head and falls down dead, his death was not "implied" just because the narrator didn't say, "that guy just died."

My guess is that it did run out at some point in the day.

Good guess. Completely wrong. Both Tesla and Top Gear agree that it never ran out. Therefore the rest of your post is bunk.

I won't excuse GP; I'm unaware of any really portable charger that would get your Tesla Roadster home. But when you say, "EVs are bad because they are completely impractical for many situations." you've gone way too far. They are impractical for about 5% of the driving public, and that in no way makes them "bad." Then you compound the situation with "they cost way more than an IC to own." which is just total nonsense. The beauty of EVs is that they cost next to nothing to maintain and fuel. You absolutely can't find an IC car with performance anywhere near the Roadster's with a total cost of ownership that can touch it. Once the Model S comes out this will be even more apparent...it'll likely have a TCO about the same as a Ford Taurus.

First, saying "that's what could have happened" doesn't excuse them from lying about what happened. But more importantly, this statement: "...they were demonstrating what actually would happen to you..." is false. Because that's not what would have happened to you. You'd drive it like hell for about 35 miles on the track, and then the computer would warn you that you were low and reduce power, and you'd go, "hey maybe I shouldn't strand myself like a dumbfuck" and drive home. Which is another way of saying that even playing by Top Gear's own rules ("we can say anything happened if it theoretically could have") they are liars. It wasn't even a correct representation of what would have happened if they had driven it until it complained.

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. They could have (and in fact did) note that the car would only go 55 miles the way they push it on the track. That much is fine. But in this case they didn't just note that...they pushed it off the track after showing it "dying." Which of course never happened.

...suing makes Tesla look guilty as hell, and every news outlet will now cover the tesla-looks-guilty lawsuit...

Er...maybe being sued would make them look guilty. Not sure I see how filing a civil lawsuit as a plaintiff makes one look guilty...

Make an excuse and let them test again with a car that does get 200+ miles per charge.

The car they were driving does get 200+ miles per charge...on the EPA combined cycle. Which is exactly what Tesla claimed. No car Top Gear has ever driven achieved the rated miles-per-tank or miles-per-gallon numbers. This is really basic.

Unless you were standing there with video cameras (like top gear was) to prove the car lasted more than 55 miles or the brakes didn't fail, I'd say Top Gear probably has this one in the bag.

Perhaps if Top Gear was denying the facts you'd be right. As it stands, they admit that the car never died during their testing. That is to say, they admit to staging the scene where Clarkson says "uh-oh" as the car "dies" and then staging the scene where a bunch of guys push the car back to the hangar! I'm sorry, but if you don't call that misrepresentation, I don't know what else to say.

Just read another article on the subject and apparently I was mistaken about the brake "breakage" ...Tesla claims that never happened either.

Actually, Top Gear does not claim otherwise. Shortly after the show aired Tesla made these complaints in a non-legal setting (although at the time they acted like they weren't that broken up about it and said Top Gear was welcome to drive it again any time) and the response from Top Gear was not a denial, but rather that it was just a "dramatization" of what "would have happened" if it had run out of charge. Of course they didn't give any indication whatsoever that it was a dramatization...

The Roadster has regenerative (motor) braking as well as perfectly normal friction brakes. You use the former by simply letting off the gas as you would in a manual-transmission gas car; you use the latter by pushing the brake pedal. I don't know much about their comment on the brakes "breaking" but it would be something exactly like any other car. In any case, that doesn't seem to be Tesla's beef with the segment...the problem is that Top Gear straight-up lied and said the thing died on the track when it absolutely didn't.

Under track conditions (with one of those jackasses pushing the pedal to the floor), yeah, the mileage on the Tesla is probably going to be atrocious.

That may be. But the fact remains that the car did not run out of power at any point during their testing. Yet they showed the driver saying "uh-oh" as the car apparently suddenly lost power, and then they showed people pushing it back to the hangar while explaining that it had died on them. The car they were pushing was perfectly drivable at that point, and they represented otherwise with no indication that they were faking it. Sounds like libel to me. Oh, and "you shouldn't take Top Gear seriously" is not an acceptable excuse...although I do very much hope that's the defense they use in court.