Rowan Atkinson or as many of us know him: “The guy who played Mr. Bean,” has more experience with EVs than most.
As an avid car owner and enthusiast, an early adopter of electric vehicles, and having previously studied electrical and electronic engineering (before his entirely unrelated career in entertainment), he surely has an informed opinion.
He explained in The Guardian newspaper that he feels increasingly duped by EVs and that they are “not the environmental panacea [they are] claimed to be.”
Well, if he has been told that EVs are a panacea—a single solution for the apparent environmental impact of fossil fuel vehicles—then he surely has been duped!
Electrifying vehicles are considered, even by their proponents, to be at best one part of a larger solution.
If we were to focus only on “what comes out of the exhaust pipe,” then of course EVs would be a panacea.
After all, they don’t have exhaust pipes, so they have “zero” emissions when they drive! But the bigger picture is important. Climate change, if it is a problem at all, is a holistic problem. Any meaningful solution must also be holistic.
Mr. Bean says that the manufacturing of an EV, its battery, and all the required charging infrastructure involve the use of energy and materials. And unless that energy and material are renewable, there is a bigger cost that must be subtracted from the benefits of EVs.
This point is half-valid.
It is valid in the sense that it indeed shows that EVs are not a panacea. They are part of, and dependent on, a network of industries that together form the fabric of modern civilisation.
Electrifying vehicles will not singlehandedly eliminate all atmospheric emissions from the vehicle industry. EVs are made from materials, and those materials in turn require energy and materials from the planet to make them.
The point is invalid, however, in the sense that the same is true of petrol cars, and so it’s hardly a point of comparison. Any engineer conscientious about climate change will reasonably argue that we have to start somewhere.
The more important point, which Mr. Bean glances at, but does not confront, is the question: where does the electricity come from?
If the electricity is from fossil fuels, which most electricity is, then an EV simply exchanges the car’s exhaust pipe for the power station’s exhaust pipe. It is still using fossil fuels.
So EVs are only as renewable as the electricity used to charge them, which is … a bit renewable.
Is the Cost of EVs Worth It?
In comparison to petrol and diesel vehicles, EVs can offer “climate change” benefits in two categories.First, by using renewable energy.
Second, by using less energy (keeping in mind that one has to account for all the energy loss transferring energy from the power station to the car).
If EVs are more efficient in this second way, then in the end they will likely become more cost-effective and everyone will adopt them voluntarily—no government policies needed.
A second issue that the climate-change conscientious person should consider (holistically) is where our climate response efforts would be most efficient.
This gets less attention because most climate change modelling is alarmist and the associated responses and rhetoric are reckless. Rather than prioritise the most beneficial climate responses, they intend to do everything, everywhere, all at once.
But this question is an important one to the pragmatic among us; that is, those of us who read net-zero models for science fiction and are more imminently worried about sinking the economy than the Pacific islands.
Current EV adoption policies will require the rapid building of infrastructure from coast to coast in every country. Moreover, it requires an astronomical increase in battery manufacturing.
Yet, for many personal-vehicle drivers, those batteries will spend a lot of time doing nothing, as their vehicle only gets driven twice a day for a relatively short distance.
Climate policymakers have targeted personal vehicles for the electrification effort, but is this sector the best to overhaul?
The Question of Other Fuel Sources
Atkinson goes on to raise another perspective. Is there a more cost-effective way than electrification to make personal vehicles renewable?His argument that “we need also to acknowledge the great asset we have in the cars that currently exist” is well made.
It would be counterproductive to destroy old cars when they still have good life in them, merely because we want to replace them with new electric cars.
As he said, those existing cars have already “paid their environmental dues”—which really just means that we have already, irreversibly, used energy and materials to make those cars and we might as well use them.
On this basis, he argues that we should seek to get the greatest ongoing environmental performance out of our existing fleet of cars, which is why he discusses various alternate fuels—synthetic and hydrogen. He should probably have included “biofuels” in the mix.
Many people will argue, based on the current state of technology, that he is too optimistic about alternate fuels. Most of these fuels are difficult to make efficiently and in the case of hydrogen, would require even more extensive infrastructure.
Personally, I am optimistic about biofuels in the long run, and this is again due to a holistic perspective. There are so many possible ways of making biofuels that have not been explored.
An unexpected counter-argument made by a well-informed Twitter user against synthetic fuels was that they still emit pollutants.
This is true, and a common objection to biofuels and other renewable fuels. But it is generally not a reasonable argument because, again, it only focuses only on the exhaust pipe.
Further, while alternate fuels emit CO2 and other “pollutants”—looked at holistically, a car would only be returning CO2 back to its original source, the environment.
Regarding pollutants such as NOx (nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide)—yes, these are emitted by synthetic fuels and biofuels—but those pollutants are not at problematic levels!
With catalytic converters, such pollutants can be controlled. In fact, the same process that breaks down these pollutants also removes methane from the atmosphere, which is good according to climate change research.
What About Changing the 3-Year Leasing Model?
There is one other weakness to Atkinson’s article, which otherwise was an interesting contribution to public discourse.He argues against the “fast fashion” culture of car ownership pointing to the three-year leasing model.
Yet I don’t quite agree here. We aren’t destroying cars that still work, in the UK most cars end up in the second-car market where another purchaser will buy them.
What matters then is whether our cars are built to last or not.
Apparently, electric cars are quite good on this front. Online sources vary in comparing the longevity of EVs to traditional cars, though I can see from a mechanical perspective why electric technology might have less wear and tear and hence could last longer.
Ultimately, it depends on design, usage, and maintenance, but in any case, some EVs have driven up to 300,000 miles, so there are signs of good longevity.
On the whole, what EVs contribute to reducing climate change or not is debatable. And whether that matters or not is also debatable!
What matters, is what effects we will inadvertently cause by forcing people to buy them, rather than letting the EV market plot its own course.
