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Nissan Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson on Nissan electric car row: 'That's how TV works'

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

August 3, 2011 | 2 min read

Jeremy Clarkson has dismissed Nissan's claim that he misled Top Gear viewers by deliberately getting himself stranded in an electric car by running down the battery.

Sunday's episode of the BBC motoring show saw Clarkson's test drive of the Nissan Leaf end in disappointment when it ran out of power in Lincolnshire.

But the car company accused the controversial host of deliberately draining the battery to engineer a situation in which he would get stuck.

Clarkson admitted to the Times that the programme makers had let the battery run low but said this was to illustrate the difficulties of charging electric cars in general and not to disparage the Leaf.

He told the paper: "They had to be low on charge once we arrived in Lincoln. That's how TV works.

"The piece was about the difficulties of recharging the electric car. At no point did we mislead the viewers. Top Gear's job is to say to everybody, 'Just a minute, do not believe [electric cars] can be run as simply as you have been told."

In a lengthy post on the Top Gear website, the show's producer Andy Wilman also hit back at reports the show had misled viewers.

He wrote: "We never, at any point in the film, said that we were testing the range claims of the vehicles, nor did we say that the vehicles wouldn’t achieve their claimed range. We also never said at any time that we were hoping to get to our destination on one charge."

Nissan Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson

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