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Poor representation of the electric highway and an unrealistic view of electric cars and all i8 owners have lost a load of cash!
Fairly standard Top Gear Numptiness, I thought, although I have to admit I struggled about the same the first time I used one of the electrocity chargers – the gotcha being the Ok/cancel buttons arn’t next the the icons on the screen like the rest of them.
JC seemed impressed by the remote control – did refrain from waving my phone about and shouting “mine does that”.
What I did think though was that the i8 is a very complicated car compared to an EV which is basically just a battery, speed controller and a motor….actually you can see EVs killing off programs like Top Gear when the reviewer can no longer talk about engine size, cylinders, twin turbos and inter coolers when all the cars just have a battery, speed controller and a motor…. 🙂
It does highlight how bad hybrids are. I’m glad olev are changing the funding for them. Auto car magazine just did a long term test on the outlander and averaged 42mpg with 33mpg worst figure recorded. I’d liked to have seen a tesla p85d put alongside the i8. It would have wiped the floor with it.
i took my anger to twitter at the point where JC was being a numpty…
have a search and retweet! lol
also not sure if any of you seen the episode where they had a leaf – that was an absolute debacle.
Top Gear is an entertainment show rather than a serious car program.
I do wonder sometimes how manufacturers let them review their cars – they can sometimes be quite daming in their reviews with the build up as to how great it is then and a ‘but I wouldn’t one because….’ and come up with quite a good point.
Presumably the manufacturers take it all with a pinch of salt, knowing having Clarkson, May and the other one chuck their car about on that airfield in front of millions of viewers gets them more advertising than money can buy.
I did find the Tesla blog from when they reviewed the Roadster and pretended it ran out of charge quite amusing – they’re somewhat defensive about their baby; They obviously hadn’t head of Top Gear on the antics they get up to.
I am not sticking up for my pall Jeremy Clarkson (Yorkshire lads say it as it is) but after driving the i8 for two hrs last December I agreed with all he said apart from the Wayne Mark Rooney dig (hes a lovely lad as you would find out if you ever met him) , with out doubt BMW are on the right track but the car was a hybrid and not a Zoe
I did think he over acted the part with eccotricty on the A1 but I think that has to do with them not paying for lunch
Happy days
I must admit that when I saw the position of the charging socket on the i8 it looked like the lead was always going to be difficult to plug in. I’m surprised we didn’t see him moving the car to make the point that the lead only just reached. Read the clear instructions on the screen of the Ecotricity chargers and it’s hard to see how you could get it wrong. JC missed out the check the car’s charging stage that we all do.
I’m sure the M3 driven in the same way he drove the i8 would have delivered a worse MPG especially if he had plugged the i8 in correctly. I agreed with his comments about the small fuel tank. Virtually every ICE car has a 400 mile range, I’d have thought the combined electric and engine range should be around this distance.
My point was that olev are currently funding cars that do less real world mpg than most family hatches. In my opinion, only bev’s should be eligible for olev funding. And electric highway should Ban them from charging.
I am with you Samsam
Happy days
The whole charger thing kind of implied Mr Clarkson did not know how to use a socket. The DBT menus are difficult the first time but Jeremy struggled to actually plug it in. But it’s an entertainment show. The MPG quoted for the I8 is like any car. That MPG is done in a lab, under controlled conditions. In the real world, with someone like Jeremy Clarkson driving, it won’t be achieved. My former Prius had a quoted MPG of 75. I got this one time in Italy doing a 130km journey in 22 degrees weather on a motorway on a slight downhill. I averaged 58MPG on my commute. Lower in winter. Still miles better than my Ford Focus which only managed to do about 30MPG. It also did it with far less CO2 coming out of the exhaust (Anyone remember their car having one of them??) and therefore better for the environment. I would much rather see a hybrid, even a ludicrously expensive one like the I8, then a normal ICE and therefore incentives are welcome.
After seeing the way the roadster was “reviewed” Tesla took Top Gear to court but sadly got thrown out. There is a reason why the Model S P85D has not appeared on the show. I would love to see the Stig take that round the track!
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