Auke Hoekstra, a program director at Eindhoven University of Technology and a passionate debunker of misinformation around EVs, took to Twitter to explain in a long thread just why Atkinson’s article isn’t very truthful. These batteries would significantly cut down on that pollution.ĭon’t just take it from us, though. Solid and semi-solid state batteries are being explored by many EV companies. Aside from that, there is a lot of progress being made to mitigate the production pollution that Atkinson is so concerned about. It’s not incorrect, but it is heavily biased.Ī 2020 study by Transport and Environment found that the life cycle pollution output - or the overall pollution produced by an EV across its entire lifespan - is, on average, almost three times less than that of a vehicle that runs on gasoline. The argument is often the same - the production of electric vehicles produced almost 70% more pollution than the production of traditional vehicles (that’s a fact from Volvo, by the way). Unfortunately, the facts he is wanting to drill into are widely from pro-dirty energy groups that have a financial interest in gasoline vehicles sticking around. When you start to drill into the facts, electric motoring doesn’t seem to be quite the environmental panacea it is claimed to be.” “But increasingly, I feel a little duped. “Electric vehicles may be a bit soulless, but they’re wonderful mechanisms: fast, quiet and, until recently, very cheap to run,” he wrote.

He voiced these concerns in an opinion piece published in The Guardian, in which he argued that the pollution tied to mining and manufacturing behind EVs is more harmful than the pollution released by gasoline vehicles. Bean) is the latest to fall prey to the misleading idea that EVs are more harmful to the environment than gasoline vehicles. But after his latest antic, in which he claimed electric vehicles (EVs) aren’t better for the environment than gasoline vehicles, we kind of wish he would have stuck to the jokes.Īctor Rowan Atkinson (aka Mr. Bean and his hijinks are always a delight to watch on screen.

Mr bean actor