Jeremy Clarkson has been left "wound up rotten" by former Top Gear host Chris Harris’s recent claims about the show's treatment of Tesla.
Harris, who recently told the BBC he had warned them that “someone is going to die” months before Freddie Flintoff’s near-fatal crash, hinted that a review of Elon Musk’s electric car during Clarkson’s era was staged.
Appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience, Harris responded to Rogan’s accusation that Top Gear had done “Elon dirtier than anybody ever did” when Clarkson, alongside Richard Hammond and James May, were presenting.
Rogan claimed the show falsely portrayed Tesla’s car as malfunctioning for dramatic effect. “They pretended that his car died and they did it for a sketch," Rogan said, adding that Musk was "furious" at the time.
“They did a terrible thing. I talked to him [Musk] about it and he was furious,” the American podcaster claimed. “They pretended that his car died and they did it for a sketch. And this was the early days of Tesla.”
Harris, who joined the show after Clarkson's departure in 2016, seemed to support Rogan's claim, saying Top Gear producers would sometimes “reverse engineer an outcome” for the presenters to act out.
The Grand Tour star Clarkson denied faking the Tesla review, writing in his column in The Sun: “But then talk turned to the story that I wrote a road test of the first ever Tesla before I’d driven it. And that the breakdown we showed on television was fabricated.
“Joe and Chris perpetuate the myth that my Tesla road test was unfair. On Top Gear we cocked about and upset a lot of people over the years. But our road tests were always scrupulously fair.”
Musk sued the BBC following Top Gear's 2008 review of the Tesla Roadster, in which Clarkson claimed the car's brakes failed, the engine overheated, the battery died after 88 miles, and it took over half a day to recharge.
The tech entrepreneur argued that these scenes damaged Tesla’s reputation, but he ultimately lost the case. In 2013, a UK appeal court dismissed his complaint.
In response, Top Gear's executive producer Andy Wilman said at the time: "I am pleased that the appeal court has upheld the previous ruling and the case has been struck out.
“I’d also like to apologise to the judges for making them have to watch so much Top Gear.”
