I drove a Tesla on an autocross track. It lost about 5 miles per 60 second lap (don't know the distance) and on the way home it was right on track with miles. I also had about 5 people at the track tell me something like "Did you see that top gear? You're gonna run out of charge on track and we're gonna have to tow you off!"

I finished my runs and then drove 80 miles home.

Technically speaking, the reduced mileage was on par with what Top Gear saw on their track. But the perceptions that people had, shaped in large part by that episode, was much worse. Top gear said "Tesla says it will do 200 miles but we worked out that on our track, it would run out of charge after just 55 miles." What they did there was compare two different things: normal road driving (they said 200) and track driving (we say 55) as though they were comparable. It's not a solid legal argument, but they conveyed the message that Tesla was wrong about the 200 mile thing. People got the impression that it would run out of charge, possibly at random, and only after a few miles. Real, reasonable people that I talked to.

Cable news does this shit all the time. It's not technically lying, it's not illegal, but its dishonest and unfair to both the viewers and the subject of the show. Should they have sued? Maybe not, but maybe that was the best way to call them out on it.

/rant