When TG did the report on the Chevrolet Aveo i got given one as a courtesy car a few weeks later (100miles on the clock, 1 day old), my findings compared to what they said:

Like a IT supervisor wearing an 'If your mother was any fatter' T-shirt, the Aveo manages to be impossibly dull yet slightly offensive at the same time.

It was very dull, to the point of slitting your wrists, but something made you want to kick it everytime you walked passed it.

There are two petrol engines: a slow 1.2-litre with 83bhp or a 95bhp 1.4-litre. If you really, really have to choose, go with the more powerful engine. It’s a relative description: it’s still woefully slow and noisy

Mine was 1.4, it was shit, no power, gutless, and chances are a hamster in a wheel would generate more torque.

Law 276 of The World According to Top Gear: any car that has obviously had its badge stuck on as an afterthought cannot be considered cool.

It looked as if it had slipped off the bonnet.

The suspension handles ruts OK, but the Aveo doesn’t really like corners. There’s too much lean and not enough grip.

Less said the better, managing to lose control and spin on a large dry roundabout at 30....

If you washed it or it rained a bit heavy the engine warning light came on, call to the AA to get it switched off.

2 weeks after I handed it back it was involved in a front end car crash, door pillars and roof had caved inwards, front doors overlapped the back by a fair few inches.

Overall I fully agree with what they said, it was really really shit, but Chevrolet knew this and didnt bother suing :lol:

TBH I've found most top gear reports to be pretty spot on. Just that this time Tesla are a bunch of whinny kids.

Edited 4 April, 201115 yr by Cymro

Top Gear response: http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2011...t-legal-action/

You may know that Tesla has issued a writ against Top Gear for defamation and malicious falsehood over the road test that we broadcast of the Tesla Roadster in December 2008. The normal procedure for the BBC in a legal case is to acknowledge receipt of the other party’s claim, and then say no more and get on with preparing its defence for court.

Tesla, however, doesn’t seem content to wait for the legal eagles to settle matters. On the contrary, it’s been very busy promoting its side of the argument through the media. Why even last night the Top Gear office accidentally received an email sent from a Public Relations firm to The One Show, asking if it would like to have the Tesla spokesperson on their programme to talk about the case. It says: “PHA Media represent Tesla and this could make for a fantastic interview.” And the PHA man’s not finished there. “The presenters could have some fun with this.” He adds. “Matt and Alex could even take the Tesla for a spin and test it out, reaffirming its virtues?” Plenty of respect for editorial independence in that last line there and I wish the chaps from PHA Media all the best in their crusade.

However, back to Top Gear, and yes, normally we would follow the pre-legal etiquette of keeping schtum until we get our day in court, but since the other side are being quite noisy with their views on how we conduct ourselves, I just would like to point out one or two things to Top Gear viewers:

1. 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.

2. We never said that the Tesla was completely immobilized as a result of the motor overheating. We said the car had “reduced power”. This was true.

3. Tesla claims we were lying when we said the brakes were “broken”. They now say that all that had happened was that the fuse to the vacuum pump had failed, which meant that the brake just had to be pushed down much harder than usual. Well – to my mind, if the brakes are broken, then they’re broken, and if this happened to your car, you’d take it to the garage to get it fixed. Odd it seems so trivial to Tesla now, because on the day of filming they insisted on repairing the fuse before we could carry on driving the car.

The above points will be argued over in the near future by brainy people wearing wigs, but in a layman’s nutshell, this is where we stand on the matter. Before I finish though, I must clear up one important issue: scripting. It’s alleged by Tesla that on the day of filming one of their employees caught sight of a script that had been written, before the car had even been driven, already containing the verdict that in the “real world” the Tesla doesn’t work. This, they say, proves our guilt, because we’d condemned the car in advance. May I just say in reply:

a) The truth is, Top Gear had already driven the car prior to filming, to enable us to form a view on it in advance

b) Our primary reasoning behind the verdict had nothing to do with how the Tesla performed; our conclusion was based mainly on the fact that it costs three times more than the petrol sports car upon which it’s based. It takes a long time to recharge, so you can’t use it as easily for the carefree motoring journeys that are a prerequisite of sports car driving. You can actually reach that conclusion without driving the car. As it happens, when it did come to the subjective area of how the car drove on the track, we were full of praise for its performance and handling.

c) Just so you understand there’s nothing devious going on, you need to know how this filming business works. When you film a car review, the reviewer is only the tip of the iceberg. Behind the lens is a film crew, and only a day’s worth of light to shoot the eight minute film. This means we have to prepare in advance a treatment – a rough draft of a script so that the director and film crew can get to work right away, knowing what shots they will need to capture. It will contain the facts about a car, and what we think of its looks and so on, but how well the car actually drives is added on the day. If we’ve driven it ahead of filming, as we do with most cars, we will also have an idea how it feels to drive. But, and this is crucial, as we uncover fresh information about a car whilst filming it, it is entirely normal for the treatment to be modified as the day unfolds. Jeremy is always tweaking the scripts to reflect what his driving experience has actually been on the day.

There you go. I’ve said my bit, and now we’ll hopefully shut up and prepare for our day in court.

nice reply.

Look, for example, I drove the Nissan Leaf yesterday. Another EV. I wrote in my review that the steering and suspension are too soft, which I think they are, and that the range won't suit everyone. These are my opinions, not cold hard facts. If I said I'd got 200 yards from the start of the test route and the motor had exploded, so go and buy a diesel Golf instead, I think Nissan would be similarly unhappy.

Did you get to put some decent mileage on it to get a feel for its true range?

I got to take one out for 30 mins around Geneva when I was at the motor show last month. I'd been spending most of the time giving test drives in our EV, or being the tech geek on our stand, so it was a nice change to try someone else's product. They've done a very good job of building a proper EV, though I definitely agree on the steering.

We did a test route of about 50-60 miles, and neither of us were driving gently. We returned it with about 35 miles left.

I'm not saying we thrashed ten shades out of it, but the reality is people will go full throttle and won't drive it like it's made of eggshell fragments so we were curious to see how a slightly enthusiastic drive would drain the batteries.

Overall we were both really very impressed. The steering and suspension won't bother most people who buy it, but compared to say a Golf/Astra/Focus they're too soft. It's a Japanese market thing though, I think. The Cube is exactly the same.

Aveo is absolute guff though. It was one of the first press cars I had, and usually I'd have used whatever I was given to save running up miles on the Polo. That weekend, I dumped the Chevy in the garage and took the G40 home.

Regarding the TG reply, it sounds like they've got a good case the other way. I haven't watched the Tesla report, but going on what I've read this could be an interesting fight.

Tesla have got to stick up for their products though, if there are false accusations being made. The Aveo stuff is all opinions, some people obviously like them because there are a few about. Cringe.

Edited 4 April, 201115 yr by Alex

Aveo is absolute guff though. It was one of the first press cars I had, and usually I'd have used whatever I was given to save running up miles on the Polo. That weekend, I dumped the Chevy in the garage and took the G40 home.

I should add, 'home' in this case is Cardiff and 'work' is Peterborough.

So I made a half hour detour back to my shared house to deposit said Korean shitbox and pick up my car for the 400 mile round trip back to Wales.

It even looks depressed:

And I've just realised it's a Kalos, not an Aveo. They're the same car though, just with different headlights.

i dont understand why people are nailing top gear over this. Top gear is an entertainment program. If I'm honest i dont think it was fixed its all about principle, for example. if you use your mobile phone more often than usual the battery life decays quicker so its gonna be the same in a car after all this is a race where the care is going to be "driven aggressively".So in my opinion telsa have no grounds at all to sue on

We did a test route of about 50-60 miles, and neither of us were driving gently. We returned it with about 35 miles left.

Hopefully we'll be getting one soon to benchmark, so we'll get a proper go over a variety of drive cycles to really see what it can do - using the PTC heater on any EV has a significant effect on the range as does driving style. Was just interested to see whether you had it long enough to do a few charge cycles in it!

I hope Top Gear get a bit of a beating in this court case. The programme's got too fucking silly lately, just seems to be a few fuckwits smashing stuff up. At least in the earlier days of 'new' Top Gear it was genuinely witty and was doing some fairly new stuff.

We did a test route of about 50-60 miles, and neither of us were driving gently. We returned it with about 35 miles left.

Hopefully we'll be getting one soon to benchmark, so we'll get a proper go over a variety of drive cycles to really see what it can do - using the PTC heater on any EV has a significant effect on the range as does driving style. Was just interested to see whether you had it long enough to do a few charge cycles in it!

I hope Top Gear get a bit of a beating in this court case. The programme's got too fucking silly lately, just seems to be a few fuckwits smashing stuff up. At least in the earlier days of 'new' Top Gear it was genuinely witty and was doing some fairly new stuff.

It was only a day launch, so we had a test route of about an hour and a half before lunch. I'd love to have one on long term loan to really see what it's like to live with. They reckon if you've got an off-peak electricity plan you'll get 72 miles to each pound you spend charging it.

TBH my job and being split between Cardiff and the East Midlands doesn't really suit having one as a day-to-day car, but I think it's a viable solution to petrol. Well, it is if you can afford to buy it. They're a tenner short of £26,000 even with the government grant, which is going to be a major stumbling block.

Unfortunately, let's face facts here, petrol is running out and even the battery-hating Clarksons of this world will have to accept that we've got to look for alternatives. Poking fun at it doesn't make the problem go away.

Realistically, and I know the sort of backlash this'll get from the "well it's just entertainment..." people, programmes like Top Gear should be educating viewers about the potential of electric cars rather than the usual sneering and giggling. I'm a petrol-loving car enthusiast like the rest of you but I'd rather have an electric car than not drive at all.

Remember, it's not that long since mobile phones were impractical, inordinately expensive and the reserve of well-paid businessmen. Now they do almost everything, I know only a handful of people who don't have one. Once the technology gets more widespread, more capable, has a better infrastructure (charging stations everywhere) and economies of scale kick in then it'll be very practical to own and run one.

Ignoring it just makes you look like a dinosaur.

Aveo is absolute guff though. It was one of the first press cars I had, and usually I'd have used whatever I was given to save running up miles on the Polo. That weekend, I dumped the Chevy in the garage and took the G40 home.

I should add, 'home' in this case is Cardiff and 'work' is Peterborough.

So I made a half hour detour back to my shared house to deposit said Korean shitbox and pick up my car for the 400 mile round trip back to Wales.

It even looks depressed:

And I've just realised it's a Kalos, not an Aveo. They're the same car though, just with different headlights.

Hahaha. I would love to see the views of others who have had the unfortunate chance to drive these.

It was only a day launch, so we had a test route of about an hour and a half before lunch. I'd love to have one on long term loan to really see what it's like to live with. They reckon if you've got an off-peak electricity plan you'll get 72 miles to each pound you spend charging it.

TBH my job and being split between Cardiff and the East Midlands doesn't really suit having one as a day-to-day car, but I think it's a viable solution to petrol. Well, it is if you can afford to buy it. They're a tenner short of £26,000 even with the government grant, which is going to be a major stumbling block.

Sounds about right, ours has a range of 100 miles and costs me about £1.50 to charge it on our tarrif. Had a proper EV charge socket installed on our driveway with a timer so I can use cheap rate electricity. Aim of the game is to charge it at work though!

Just checked the Nissan website, as I thought they were £28,000 minus the government grant - but you're right, looks like they've tweaked the pricing again! Ours needs to be cheaper given the features and the badge on the front, but it's still going to be expensive. And I'm sure that even Nissan aren't making any money on any of the cars they sell!

We're leasing some as part of a local scheme for £190pcm including insurance. Probably the cheapest EV motoring this side of a deathtrap micro-milkfloat G-Wiz. I wasn't going to sign up though - it'd have been a 4th car for us, and that £190 a month buys a reasonable amount of petrol! That and I end up with engineering cars fairly frequently anyway.

I'm still not convinced that EVs are the way forward, but we've got to try and see how it works out. They currently are only a financially viable option for a few people, but with some development and cost reduction they start to have a more universal appeal.

Leafs seem a little hit and miss, however it is to be expected from such new technology I guess http://ca.jalopnik.com/5780215/nissan-elec...tranding-owners

Hammerhead iEagle thrust chaps, its the future.

i completely agree on the alternative fuels.

ultimately i feel hydrogen is the way forward but although its the most abundant gas in the universe, its bloody hard to harness economically.

damned difficult gas!

http://www.cellaenergy.com/

Leafs seem a little hit and miss, however it is to be expected from such new technology I guess http://ca.jalopnik.com/5780215/nissan-elec...tranding-owners

And the fact that people are thick as shit. If we'd just invented the petrol engine there'd be a similar article as drivers got to grips with the fact that when the computer said they had 20 miles to go it meant 20 miles as long as the driving conditions remained the same. Problem with an EV is that the range is so short that you're more likely to want to push the boundaries of the range all the time, whereas most people won't habitually drive around with less than a gallon of fuel in their tank.

Leafs seem a little hit and miss, however it is to be expected from such new technology I guess http://ca.jalopnik.com/5780215/nissan-elec...tranding-owners

And the fact that people are thick as shit. If we'd just invented the petrol engine there'd be a similar article as drivers got to grips with the fact that when the computer said they had 20 miles to go it meant 20 miles as long as the driving conditions remained the same. Problem with an EV is that the range is so short that you're more likely to want to push the boundaries of the range all the time, whereas most people won't habitually drive around with less than a gallon of fuel in their tank.

Saved me the bother of saying the same thing, almost word for word.

I wonder how many people get stranded because they run out of fuel? Wouldn't make Jalopnik headlines would it. I've run out of petrol in my G40, two or three times. It's user error, I've run it down to the point where the needle stops moving and then eventually it just grinds to a halt. But I think "Alex, you're a retard" not "oh my god, this car has left me STRANDED!"

EVs are an easy target. An easy target for needless ridicule.

whateverrr next?

Holden sueing TG for loosing a race to a transit?

daihatsu sueing TG because a "supercarry" fell over?

ford for the pisstakes at the cars cornering abilty?

911 for the above?

Alfa for all the reliabilty digs?

vauxhall for the Deadly Torque steer video?

Lambo because the fuel filler cap broke?

people need to get a fuckinn life and stop complaining!!!!!!

There appears to be an echo in this thread. I'm not continuing my part of said echo.

In soviet russia...electric car charges you!

http://www.cellaenergy.com/

its says that it is the equivalent to $100 per barrel which coupled with the extra cost of a car like the FCX Clarity(you can't buy it, it has to be leased) means its still not viable for your average joe. which brings me on to the jalopnik doodah, take the i gotta do a 15 mile journey and it says i can do 20. to me thats the equivalent of the fuel light coming on then driving on, i just don't do it as soon as that fuel light comes on i'm looking to refuel. they need to realise that to get more range you need to drive like you would drive a diesel car if you were trying to hypermile (slowly with gentle acceleration). the fact that people on the site are slating it means that they are stupid its like saying my space saver spare wheel destroyed itself after three miles (doing burnouts) these people aren't using the Leaf as it is intended to be used. for that reason their argument is invalid

When petrol runs out and your all buzzing around in your little electric match boxes, i'll still be blasting the shit out of my cooking oil powered jetta

EV isn't the future, finding other shit to burn is. Besides when I was a kid we were told that oil would of run out by now, but thanks to advances in technology making extracting oil in hard to reach places easier and more cost effective we are still pumping the shit out of the ground.

Until the day they produce an EV car that can give the freedom of a petrol car at the.same kind of price then it won't take off, but for that they would have to increase the range massively while decreasing the charging time to minutes, can any one seriously see that happening?

And running out of petrol isn't even on the same level as running out of charge, unless you can walk a few mins to the nearest petrol station and pick up a gallon of charge?

It's all well and good labeling people as idiots if they run their batteries flat, but with limited charging stations and long charge times you can see why people would some times need to push them close to the limits. What are you supposed to do if there's road works or an accident while on the way home from work and your forced into a long detour? Even if there is a charging station near by, how late are you going to be getting him if you have to pull up and charge it enough to guarantee to get home?

yes, quick charge systems are being developed for the new renault EVs to get 80% charge in about 10 mins but the tech wasn't around when nissan was developing the leaf and its batteries are a bit primitive too but again cost is the issue

I know it's not quite as simple as grabbing a few AA batteries, but has the concept of swapping out batteries been looked at? I appreciate that you couldn't take an existing EV and do this without a hell of a lot of retrofit work, but surely it's a possibility for the future, even if it's just a partial "range booster" battery with the main system integral to the vehicle: go to a recharging station en-route, exchange it for a freshly charged one, make it home and give the whole thing a full charge, maybe I'm missing something significant but wouldn't something like swappable batteries give the same benefits as petrol? pretty much instant 'refueling' rather than having to wait for it to charge..

Edited 5 April, 201115 yr by AMD_Man

Until the day they produce an EV car that can give the freedom of a petrol car at the.same kind of price then it won't take off, but for that they would have to increase the range massively while decreasing the charging time to minutes, can any one seriously see that happening?

And running out of petrol isn't even on the same level as running out of charge, unless you can walk a few mins to the nearest petrol station and pick up a gallon of charge?

This is all coming with time. The infrastructure isn't there yet because the technology is new. More and more recharging points are going to spring up and, as the technology improves, it'll take less time to recharge them. You can charge a Nissan Leaf to 80% in half an hour.

Linking back to my earlier argument about mobile phones, they were prohibitively expensive, heavy and had a short battery life when they first came out. The technology still took off, and look at where we are now. Compare a Nissan Leaf to a G-Whizz, it's a quantum leap!

What I'm saying is EV technology isn't quite there yet but that will come with time. Yes we're still limited by comparatively small ranges and no there aren't enough charging points around at the moment. The roads are geared towards fossil fuel powered cars, which is what almost everyone drives, hence there are petrol stations everywhere.

Once we get long range, affordable batteries (not as unlikely as you think - once the technology improves and becomes more widespread economies of scale kick in and prices come down) and charging stations as frequently as petrol stations why wouldn't this take off?

I know it's not quite as simple as grabbing a few AA batteries, but has the concept of swapping out batteries been looked at? I appreciate that you couldn't take an existing EV and do this without a hell of a lot of retrofit work, but surely it's a possibility for the future, even if it's just a partial "range booster" battery with the main system integral to the vehicle: go to a recharging station en-route, exchange it for a freshly charged one, make it home and give the whole thing a full charge, maybe I'm missing something significant but wouldn't something like swappable batteries give the same benefits as petrol? pretty much instant 'refueling' rather than having to wait for it to charge..

I believe Renault are developing a system whereby you don't own your batteries, but you rent them. So you go to a fuel station, take your car's battery out and swap it for a fully charged one. That could work.

I guess the disadvantage there is you may end up picking up a shagged battery every once in a while.

That sounds like it could work well, I did think it must be something that would have been explored!

It's all very interesting, a team of 10 of us are building a kart to compete in the EV Grand Prix and we'll be relying on being able to exchange the batteries to get the thing moving again quickly, however I appreciate that our charge system and battery-vehicle interface would not really pass the safety standards a road car would be subjected to!

It could be a good compromise until charging and battery technologies advance so as to allow a similar ease of use as a petrol motor vehicle.

Wonder how easy it'd be to book a test drive in one of these when more dealers start getting them in, purely out of interest with no intention of buying it... but they don't have to know that

Edited 5 April, 201115 yr by AMD_Man

Remember, it's not that long since mobile phones were impractical, inordinately expensive and the reserve of well-paid businessmen. Now they do almost everything, I know only a handful of people who don't have one. Once the technology gets more widespread, more capable, has a better infrastructure (charging stations everywhere) and economies of scale kick in then it'll be very practical to own and run one.

Ignoring it just makes you look like a dinosaur.

And remember, there was a lot of 'new technology' that came out to try and replace the good old phone that just didn't off, any one remember pagers?

Just out of interest does any one know how much it costs to charge your average electric car?

branding people a dinosaur because they don't agree with your way of thinking is a little lame tbh. I'm not scared of new technology, I don't think plane's fly by magic and I don't believe in witchcraft, but I also don't believe that this sort of EV is the next step in the history of the motor car. Why does not jumping on the newest bandwagon make me a dinosaur? I actually like the idea of the hydrogen powered car and imo this is the best option we have if they can sort out the obvious problems that come with it, it offers all the flexibility of the cars we use today without the disadvantages of the EV's we are seeing today (including the burden to the national grid that charging all these cars would bring).

One thing that keeps going through my mind with these EV's is the batteries themselves, they are very expensive and if they are any thing like the batteries in my lap top they will only take so many charges before they start to lose charge quicker and then inevitably die. If your lap top is a few years old a lot of the time it makes more financial sense to bin it and buy a new laptop. What's the life expectancy of these batteries and how much would it cost to replace them?

I can also see a massive problem with charging them, I'm fairly lucky and live on a quite street but on a lot of streets around here there's not guarantee that you be able to park any where near your house and for those that can most are parked on the road. This would mean having some kind of extension lead coming out your letter box, Up the garden, over the fence, across a public path (possibly half way down your street) and into the car, is it just me that thinks that isn't very safe, secure or practical?

To me this generation of EV's seems to be taking the car a step backwards in every way bar the dependence on oil, although its only swapping that for a dependence on atomic power

But as long as my local choppy uses cooking oil, non of this shit worries me

Edited 5 April, 201115 yr by McLOVIN