Top Gear Controversy




The hosts of the popular BBC program Top Gear are developing a reputation for saying and doing controversial stuff.

Nissan is calling foul after a Top Gear episode featuring their vehicle led show host Jeremy Clarkson to proclaim that electric cars “are not the future.”

The car manufacturer has accused the car show of deliberately misleading viewers by only partly powering up their battery-powered Nissan Leaf before test driving it on a 60-mile trip.

Clarkson and co-host James May tested the Leaf along with a Peugeot iOn by driving them from London to Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, until Clarkson’s Leaf started running out of power en route.

The pair diverted to Lincoln in an attempt to find a charger for the Leaf but Lincoln lacks the infrastructure needed for electric vehicles. May was left to push Clarkson’s $40,000 vehicle to a standard plug were the duo waited for hours as it charged.

But Nissan says they have looked at data from the car used by Clarkson that shows the battery was more than half empty when Clarkson set off on his journey. Nissan says they dropped off the car at the Top Gear studios with a fully-charged battery that would take it 100 miles.

“Pictures rarely tell the whole story, as is the case here. Top Gear has confirmed to us that the crew intentionally drained the battery to inject suspense into the mission of finding a public charge spot,” Nissan said in a statement.

Injected suspense, eh?