Isra-Mart srl:Tesla sues Top Gear after losing patience with Clarkson

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Electric car manufacturer Tesla has slapped the BBC with a lawsuit following a damning review of its Roadster sports car on Top Gear. The company says it was forced to take action after the BBC failed to respond to its complaints.

The company is suing the BBC for libel and malicious falsehood over a show that was first broadcast in December 2008. Tesla wants £100,000 in damages, along with an injunction preventing the BBC from broadcasting the show again.

According to Tesla, the show, presented by TV celebrity Jeremy Clarkson, misrepresented the Roadster by adding artificial sounds to make it seem as though the electric motor was dying, and claiming that the car's true range is only 55 miles per charge. Tesla claims the vehicle can travel 200 miles on a full charge.

Tesla added that the show claimed that the brakes on a second Roadster were broken, when this was not the case.

The company also accuses the BBC of pretending that a motor overheated on one of the vehicles, completely immobilising it.

However, perhaps the most damning accusation is that the show had already scripted the Roadster being pushed into the Top Gear hanger by four men before the test drive had taken place.

"Each of the falsities was incorporated within the item for a dominant improper motive, namely to bolster a prejudged, predetermined and pre-scripted adverse verdict on the Roadster that 'in the real world, it absolutely doesn't work'," the complaint added.

The controversy over the offending Top Gear episode erupted a couple of weeks after the show first aired. The BBC admitted that the car still had power left, and said that the hangar scene was filmed to show what would have happened if the battery had been run down.

This is the latest in a series of controversial incidents involving Clarkson who has in recent years has been accused of offending Germans, Mexicans, South Koreans, the Welsh, gay rights campaigners, environmentalists and Gordon Brown.

Tesla has hired well-known libel lawyer Carter Ruck to represent it in the High Court.