Tesla sues Top Gear over 'faked' electric car race

Electric sports car maker Tesla Motors is sueing the BBC's Top Gear TV programme for allegedly faking a scene showing the company's Roadster car running out of electricity and slowing to a halt in a race.

The legal move is the culmination of a row that has rumbled on between the show and Telsa since the episode was first broadcast in 2008. Specialist libel law firm Carter-Ruck issued the writ on behalf of the firm on Tuesday at the high court because the scene was still being shown on worldwide repeats and was available on DVD, and the BBC had failed to correct it. The firm expects to recover not more than £100,000 in damages.

In the race with a petrol-powered Lotus Elise, the £87,000 electric car was shown having to stop for a recharge. But the car never ran out of electricity.

Tesla said after the race aired that neither of the two Roadsters that it loaned Jeremy Clarkson's team had gone below 20% of charge.

Earlier in the same episode, Clarkson had praised the Tesla: "I cannot believe this – that's biblically quick. This car is electric, literally. The top speed may only be 125mph but there's so much torque it does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. Not bad from a motor the size of a watermelon and which has only one moving part."

Tesla is sueing the show for libel and malicious falsehood, and says the show misrepresented the car's true range – claiming 55 miles rather than 211 – and that claims a second Roadster on loan had broken brakes was untrue.

In a statement, the California-based company, whose first cars were based on British-made Lotuses, said: "Tesla simply wants Top Gear to stop rebroadcasting this malicious episode and to correct the record, but they've repeatedly ignored Tesla's requests."

A Top Gear spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that we have received notification that Tesla have issued proceedings against the BBC. The BBC stands by the programme and will be vigorously defending this claim"

On Monday Tesla, which plans to introduce a cheaper "Model S" car next year, said the 1,500 Roadsters it had sold since 2008 had collectively saved over 2,404 tonnes of CO₂ emissions. Top Gear magazine, which is separate from the TV show, has also been critical of previous electric cars, and in 2007 released shocking images of a G-Wiz crash-tested at 40mph.

But analysts have predicted 2011 will be a "breakthrough" year for the vehicles, which became eligible a £5,000 government grant in January. Last week, the first few hundred Nissan Leafs, the UK's first mass-produced electric car, were delivered to customers. Unlike the Tesla Roadster, the Leaf is limited to around 110 miles and 90mph. A new generation of around 10 different electric and plug-in hybrid cars are expected in the UK by the end of 2012.

Separately on Wednesday, green group WWF released a report warning that the UK will needs millions of electric vehiclesto meet its carbon targets. Around 1.7m will be needed by 2020 and 6.4m by 2030, it said, in an echo of calls by government watchdog the Committee on Climate Change for a similar number to meet the target of cutting greenhouse gases emissions 80% by 2050.

4 April update: Andy Wilman, executive producer on Top Gear, has responded to the claims on his blog, writing: "We never said that the Tesla's true range is only 55 miles, as opposed to their own claim of 211, or that it had actually ran out of charge. In the film our actual words were: "We calculated that on our track it would run out after 55 miles". The first point here is that the track is where we do our tests of sports cars and supercars, as has happened ever since Top Gear existed. This is where cars are driven fast and hard, and since Tesla calls its roadster "The Supercar. Redefined." it seemed pretty logical to us that the right test was a track test. The second point is that the figure of 55 miles came not from our heads, but from Tesla's boffins in California. They looked at the data from that car and calculated that, driven hard on our track, it would have a range of 55 miles."