Motor manufacturer Tesla has failed in its latest attempt to pursue a legal action against BBC2's Top Gear over a review of one of its electric sports cars.

The California-based company has been attempting to bring libel and malicious falsehood actions against the Jeremy Clarkson programme.

The review of the £92,000 Tesla Roadster, which first aired in December 2008, showed the car apparently running out of electricity on the Top Gear track and being pushed into a garage to await recharging.

"Although Tesla say it will do 200 miles we have worked out that on our track it will run out after just 55 miles and if it does run out, it is not a quick job to charge it up again," said Clarkson's commentary.

Tesla said the Roadster shown had not run out of charge and did not have to be pushed back into the hangar.

The car firm claimed that the programme had suggested that Tesla had "intentionally and significantly misrepresented the range of the Roadster by claiming that it had a range of about 200 miles in that its true range on the Top Gear track was only 55 miles".

But Mr Justice Tugendhat, in a ruling handed down at the high court on Thursday, dismissed Tesla's attempt to amend a previous libel claim which was struck out last October.

Tugendhat said Tesla's amendment was "not capable of being defamatory at all, or, if it is, it is not capable of being a sufficiently serious defamatory meaning to constitute a real and substantial tort".

He added that "as any reasonable motorist knows, a manufacturer's statement about the range of a motor vehicle is always qualified by a statement as to the driving conditions under which that range may be expected.

"For example, one range may be given for urban driving, and another for other conditions. But such statements are rarely, if ever, given to the public by reference to racing on a test track."

In a statement following today's ruling, the BBC said: "We are pleased Mr Justice Tugendhat has ruled in favour of the BBC on both the issues before the court, first in striking out Tesla's libel claim against the BBC; and secondly in describing Tesla's malicious falsehood claim as so 'gravely deficient' it too could not be allowed to proceed."

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