Clarkson goes way out of the way to stage cases where electric cars fail. Then he gets caught red-handed. The guy has no responsibility to the truth. His program is pure entertainment, not a scientific case study, and should be enjoyed as such.
Oh, I know he's anti-electric, anti-environment, pro-seal clubbing, etc. That doesn't detract from the fact, however, that he has a point about charge times.
Also, Tesla complained about that episode, and Top Gear responded that everything shown was an accurate portrayal of how it went. Who you choose to believe, I suspect, has a great deal to do with the distance between one's home and SV. As for me, I imagine the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Top Gear regularly embellishes for the purposes of entertainment, but I find it highly unlikely that they would flat-out make shit up just to slag a particular company.
Well, considering Tesla engineers showed that the battery levels never dropped below 20% for the duration the cars were on loan, I think it's a pretty open and shut case?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/aug...