a) They implied it ran out of battery, they did not actually say it was out of battery: Tesla complained about a passage of Clarkson's commentary in which he said: "Although Tesla say it will do 200 miles, we worked out that on our track it would run out after just 55 miles and if it does run out, it is not a quick job to charge it up again." Clarkson and others are then shown pushing the Roadster into the Top Gear hangar and recharging it. Note that he says "worked it out", indicating calculations. They then reinforced the viewer's natural misconception by pushing the car (unnecessarily) to the charger.
b) Appeal court judge Lord Justice Moore-Bick ruled that the programme did not libel Tesla.
c) Everybody except Tesla knows Top Gear is an entertainment show that uses cars as props, just like Mork and Mindy was an entertainment show poking fun of human foibles, not a show about aliens.
a) The point was made very plainly regardless of how implied it was. I don't think the pedantic details of it really matter.
b) I care less about the legality of it and more about the ethics of it
c) Literally the first sentence of each Top Gear presenter on Wikipedia labels them as a journalist. Make whatever label you want for the TV show, the content is largely journalistic. The segment about the Roadster was largely journalistic. The can hide behind the "it's just entertainment" veil as much as they want, but it's a huge grey area at best. Regardless of this, you can still libel and be damagingly deceitful even without being a journalistic program - as far as morals go, it is only slightly less shitty.
I'm not sure appealing to Wikipedia mentioning the word journalist is going to win you any points.
If you watched Top Gear even occasionally you'd know how rediculous it is claiming that Top Gear is serious news rather than an opinion-based entertainment show.
I actually remember a banter they did about the Ford GT that Jeremy owned having to stop at every gas station just to have enough gas to get to the studio. It's not like they're picking on Tesla, exaggeration is a form of comedy and they regularly exaggerated everything in the show.
I don't see why it shouldn't. Claiming Top Gear is completely devoid of any journalistic content is absurd, and the fact that it is presented by three journalists drives this home. Being on is Wikipedia is irrelevant, the point is they are all journalists and widely accepted and labeled as such.
On the show they are presenters in a comedy driven magazine-style opinion show.
That they are journalists elsewhere is utterly irrelevant, also they would more properly be called columnists these days rather than journalists as their work in print now is usually opinion based and presented as such.
Even wikipedia splits up James May's journalistic career and his Top Gear presenting:
b) Appeal court judge Lord Justice Moore-Bick ruled that the programme did not libel Tesla.
c) Everybody except Tesla knows Top Gear is an entertainment show that uses cars as props, just like Mork and Mindy was an entertainment show poking fun of human foibles, not a show about aliens.