A good friend of mine surprised me the other day. 

We were chatting about electric cars and he expressed doubt about the environmental benefit of EVs. He told me he’d recently read an article written by Rowan Atkinson – the actor and comedian probably best known as Mr. Bean – suggesting that people would be better off holding on to their current gas-powered vehicles, at least for now.  

Turns out Mr. Atkinson, is more than just a talented comic.  His academic training is in electrical engineering and he is passionate about motorsports – both collecting and racing cars.  Apparently, he was even once licensed to drive large trucks. 

Last June he wrote an opinion piece published by the Guardian, criticizing the UK Government’s plan to ban the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles starting in 2030.

Mr. Atkinson criticizes the UK car ban as being only focused on tailpipe emissions and asks us to consider the emissions impact of the full lifecycle of a vehicle  – its production, use, and eventual disposal. 

He also raises the prospect that a better solution is coming soon: carbon-neutral e-fuels being developed by scientists at Formula 1 and Porsche promise to fuel the existing global fleet of cars, eliminating tailpipe emissions, and therefore any need to abandon the internal combustion engine.   

In the moment, I didn’t really know what to say.  These all seemed like reasonable positions, pushed forward by a seemingly well-credentialed celebrity comedian.  

Problem is, with more scrutiny, it becomes clear they are all wrong.  And it struck me that this was a great example of why good people are sometimes confused into inaction on climate issues.  

We get overwhelmed with conflicting information about “the right thing” to do – sometimes the sources are well-meaning, sometimes they are deliberate attempts to mislead – and it can require a considerable effort to sort things out.  With busy lives and so many things competing for our attention, it’s no wonder that we can sometimes be left feeling unsure about the very questions that are so important to saving the planet.

Mr Atkinson’s makes 3 key claims that don’t stand up to scrutiny:

1. EVs do lower emissions on a full lifecycle basis.

Mr. Atkinson criticizes the UK plan to ban the sale of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles as of 2030 as seeming “…largely based on conclusions drawn from only one part of a car’s operating life: what comes out of the exhaust pipe.” 

He encourages us to consider the full lifecycle of emissions involved in the production, use, and disposal of vehicles.  He then quotes a figure released by Volvo, indicating that emissions from the production of its EV C40 model sedan are almost 70% higher than those of its comparable internal combustion engine vehicle – the XC40.

But Mr Atkinson is not considering the full lifecycle of the vehicle, as he urges us to do.  He selectively quotes from the Volvo report, which clearly concludes that when considering all the production, use, and end-of-life phases, its electric vehicle (EV) produces lower emissions compared to its equivalent internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.

How much less depends on where the electricity comes from.

While a dramatic transition to renewable energy is underway globally, in 2022 about 60% of electricity was still generated from coal, natural gas, or oil-burning generating plants. 

In the EU, a greater proportion of electricity is generated from non-emitting sources like wind, solar, and nuclear, but a significant amount still comes from natural gas.  In some areas, like where I live in Quebec, most or all electricity comes from renewable sources – in our case, hydroelectric facilities.

What the Volvo study shows, is that in all these scenarios – the global average, the EU average, and a 100% renewable scenario, the full lifecycle emissions from its EV are lower than the internal combustion engine.  The difference ranges from about a -15% reduction based on the current global electricity mix to a -55% reduction if electricity is sourced from 100% renewable energy. 

It’s not just Volvo that has analyzed this issue.  Other car companies have released similar reports (one report by the management consulting firm Kearney for Rivian and Polestar is summarized nicely here). Independent researchers have extensively studied the full lifecycle emissions profile for EVs and published their findings in peer-reviewed journals (like this one).  Based on the consistent conclusions that EVs lower emissions, even with today’s energy mix, most consider the question to be settled.  

As both battery manufacturing technology and electricity generated from clean renewable sources continue to progress, the emissions advantage of driving an EV will improve even more.  That’s why the EV share of global vehicle sales is skyrocketing and why 57 countries so far have announced or are implementing plans to phase out conventional fossil fuel-burning vehicles.

2. The transition to EVs will not generate more automobile production than the status quo.

Mr. Atkinson claims that cars  today “… with tender loving care, will last for 30 years” and that “if the first owners of new cars just kept them for five years, on average, instead of the current three, then car production and the CO2 emissions associated with it, would be vastly reduced.”  His implication is that it’s better for the environment to hang onto your older fossil fuel vehicle rather than switch to an EV.

It is an odd leap of logic.  First of all, a car’s lifetime emissions don’t change just because you sell it after 3 or 5 years to another owner.  He’s confounding ownership turnover with the expected lifecycle of a vehicle.

Secondly, cars don’t last 30 years – when was the last time you saw a 1993 Ford Taurus, the top-selling car in America 30 years ago, pull up next to you on the highway?  Or even a 2003 Toyota Camry for that matter?

Car experts agree that today an internal combustion engine vehicle can be expected to last about 200,000 miles or about 320,000 km.  With annual mileage averaging about 13,400 miles or 22,000 km, conventional cars can be reasonably expected to last just under 15 years.   

The average car on the road in the US today is just over 12 years old. With about 5% of vehicles scrapped annually, we can expect that at least half of all cars will be replaced in the next 10 years. It would be a huge help to reducing global emissions if people bought EVs rather than fossil fuel-burning vehicles.

The suggestion that people can reduce emissions by keeping their cars for 30 years is an unfounded distraction.

3. Carbon-neutral synthetic fuels for the general public are not likely to be viable.

Mr. Atkinson’s final point is to suggest that “a sensible thing to do would be to speed up the development of synthetic fuel” such as the one being developed for use in F1 cars as of 2026.  The reasoning is that if the fuel can be made so that it is carbon neutral, it would solve the issue of tailpipe emissions.  After all, it’s not the car that is bad for the environment, it’s just the fuel, right?

Synthetic fuel also known as “e-fuel” and “drop-in” fuel, is not a new concept.  Scientists long ago figured out how to combine carbon and hydrogen in a lab to create a hydrocarbon, which is what gasoline is.  

One problem with the biomass approach is land use.  The world already has a problem with deforestation and maintaining enough arable land for food production.  It does not seem conceivable that we could add on the burden of growing enough crops to make into gasoline to satisfy global energy needs.  Some believe that algae can be used as the biomass source for carbon, but the scale on which you’d need to sustainably farm the oceans also seems like a non-starter. 

EVs are available today and powering them directly with electricity is more efficient and less costly than using synthetic fuel, (which still needs inventing). Rather than capturing, emitting, and hopefully re-capturing tailpipe emissions, electric-powered vehicles don’t emit anything in the first place.   It seems pretty obvious that synthetic fuels will never be viable on a large scale – operationally, financially, or environmentally.

That begs the question, why are F1, oil companies like Aramco and Exxon-Mobile, and car manufacturers like Porsche making a big deal about investing in synthetic fuels?  

It appears to be a strategy to keep the combustion engine car alive, despite plans being rolled out in over 57 nations so far to ban the sale of new internal combustion vehicles.

Sadly, it may be working.  Earlier this year, despite having agreed to phase out the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035, Germany convinced the EU to agree to an exemption to allow the continued production after 2035 of internal combustion engine cars that can run on synthetic fuel.  

The details of how the exemption will work are still being worked out.  Under one proposal new internal combustion engine cars would be equipped with a sensor to detect and only run on synthetic fuel.  But German officials are said to oppose this measure.

That raises the possibility of a future where internal combustion engine vehicles continue to be sold and consumers are offered a choice of gas at the pump: conventional fossil fuel or a more expensive synthetic fuel – much like regular and super gasoline are available today.  The share of people who would choose to fill up with a carbon-neutral synthetic fuel, costing 3 or 4 times the price of regular gas is likely to be very small.

That would be a huge setback in the race to cut emissions to keep global temperature increases from exceeding +1.5˚C.

The Bottom Line

If you are thinking about vehicle choices and are concerned about the environment the guidance is actually quite clear:

• The best option is to reduce how much you drive.  If you can walk, bike, or take public transport, that is always going to be better than driving.

• If you do need to drive, it’s clear that driving an EV is a much better transportation choice.  EVs cut greenhouse gas emissions, and air pollution – even with the electricity mix that is available today.

• As our electricity systems continue to transition to renewable forms of energy generation, the benefits of EVs over conventional vehicles will only grow.

On the surface, ideas like holding onto your car for longer or hoping for a carbon-neutral drop-in fuel to rapidly emerge can seem intuitively sensible – particularly when they are amplified by a celebrity comedian.   

A closer look shows that these ideas are at best a dangerous distraction and at worst a deliberate ploy by oil companies and car makers to derail the transition to EVs.  

If that happens, the joke will be on all of us – and it’s not funny. ■