Comedian Rowan Atkinson missed the mark with his piece about the electric car

After all these years, a new Mr. Bean?

No – although it does deal with one of the recurring themes of comedian Rowan Atkinson’s most famous character: the green car. With a critical opinion piece in the British newspaper The Guardian This week Atkinson sparked a heated discussion about the extent to which electric cars contribute to solving the climate problem. ‘Should we all buy new electric cars, or are you better off driving your old car for a while?’, was the main question of the piece. Atkinson advises the latter – much to the frustration of many electric driving researchers.

What does Rowan Atkinson actually know about cars?

Quite a bit – as a hobbyist. The actor is known as a great car connoisseur and enthusiast, with a background in technical training in operating systems. He owns an impressive fleet of luxury cars and speed demons with internal combustion engines – the showpiece being a 1997 McLaren F1 worth over £11.5 million. He managed in 2011 on the circuit of car program Top Gear setting the fastest lap time in a Kia Ceed.

What is the core of Atkinson’s argument?

In the opinion piece, Atkinson describes how he was nevertheless early with electric driving. Nineteen years ago he bought an electric hybrid, nine years ago his first fully electric car. After all these years, the actor says he feels “a bit tricked” about how green his electric car really is. True, it does not emit exhaust fumes. But when you look at the bigger picture, Atkinson says, an electric car is more expensive, has a shorter shelf life (see battery life) and is less sustainable. According to him, the latter is partly due to the production of heavy lithium batteries, which require rare earth metals. Instead, it would be a lot wiser to invest in research into hydrogen engines and synthetic fuels, which are already used in Formula 1, writes Atkinson. “Our honeymoon with the electric car is over, and that’s not a bad thing: we realize that we need to look for alternative options to tackle the very serious problem that the car has brought us.”

Does Atkinson have a point?

As far as Simon Evans is concerned, Atkinson has missed a lot of points in particular. Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Carbon Letter, a British website that publishes about the climate, responds to the opinion piece in The Guardian. He is certainly not impressed by Atkinson’s arguments. One by one, Evans takes down Atkinson’s points. Most importantly: although the production of an electric car does indeed require more CO_2-emissions, the electric car makes up for it with every kilometer driven. And a lot faster than the quoted by Atkinson (and according to Evans to the point debunked) research from Volvo suggests. Where Atkinson does not excel in source use, Evans does that a lot better in his reaction piece, by quoting the UN climate panel and Auke Hoekstra, a researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology, among others. Finally, what also does not speak for Atkinson is the long list of corrections and additions under his original piece. One could conclude that the comedian is better off sticking to racing.