Top Gear caught red-handed downplaying Model S vs. Taycan race stats, Musk calls the show ‘Low Gear’

The world went head over heels with the Porsche Taycan when it defeated the Tesla Model S Performance ‘Raven’ on the dragstrip in a popular car entertainment program BBC Top Gear — but since the host of the YouTube channel DragTimes made some revelations about the results, the internet went haywire on this race.

According to the DragTimes analysis, the results that Top Gear showed on the screen after the race ended were not from the current race, rather from a race that was done a long time ago against a Mercedes E63.

Also the Top Gear video does not clearly show if the Tesla Model S Performance is in Ludicrous+ mode, the screenshots taken from the video display that the Model S is in ‘Range Mode’, which is the opposite to the Performance mode, optimized for best range not power output.

When the Tesla Model S P100D is in ‘Ludicrous+’ mode, the car’s display on the instrument cluster changes from normal to transparent and it displays the front and rear motors inside the car illustration.

Top Gear’s Response to the Situation

The amount of shame Top Gear received last week throughout the electric vehicles and Tesla communities around the world forced them to post a response to the situation, and this made things shadier as Top Gear claimed that they actually ran the drag race between the Model S Performance and the Taycan Turbo S at least 5-times and the Model S performed worse in every attempt, so they used a historical number from a 2017 drag race (what?).

The Top Gear PR team posted the following on their website:

There have been some questions about the performance figures we posted in our recent Porsche Taycan vs Tesla Model S video. Time for some clarification. First things first, we ran the drag race five times and the Porsche won every time by a small but increasing margin with each subsequent race.

The best figures we recorded for the Taycan Turbo S were:

0-60:       2.610-100:     6.12

¼ mile:   10.69s @ 131.6mph

The best figures we recorded for the Tesla Model S Performance were:

0-60:       2.830-100:     6.64¼ mile:   11.23s @ 123.2mph

The numbers we posted in the video for the Tesla were:

0-60:       2.680-100:     6.46¼ mile:   11.08s @ 124.0mph

These were numbers we recorded in a Model S on a previous occasion. We ran them because these are the best figures we’ve achieved in a Model S to date so we know that’s what the car is capable of.

And just to be clear, the Tesla was in Ludicrous+ mode, the battery was pre-conditioned and both cars had around 85 percent charge before the first run.

Our friend Sean Mitchell took further deep dive into this controversy and presented a great analysis in his latest video on the issue, Top Gear certainly has lost much credibility here and does not seem to be seriously pursuing to restore the trust with their audience.

Let us know your thoughts on this mess that Top Gear has created in the comments section below.

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