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Atkinson's article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/03/electric-vehicles-early-adopter-petrol-car-ev-environment-rowan-atkinson https://www.t

Atkinson's article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/03/electric-vehicles-early-adopter-petrol-car-ev-environment-rowan-atkinson https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/03/electr...

gray_-_wolf 3y ago
That seems like fairly sober look at the issue. Interesting read.
hasty_pudding 3y ago
Great article! Had no idea he has a Master in electrical engineering!
- Alifatisk 3y ago
  If you didn’t mention this, I don’t think I would ever find out, that’s so cool!
- defrost 3y ago
  and plays a pretty mean church organ to boot. I met him and Ben Elton when they were on some kind of Brits abroad | wife hunting trip in the antipodes - Elton found himself a Jam Tart [1], Atkinson was chasing bigger game whom he once shared an organ with [2] and lucked out. Many conversations about dinner tables were had and at least one book resulted [3] But this was all very much in the early 1980s pre mega stardom days - R.A was introduced to me as an engineer rather than as a comedian. [1] https://freotopia.org/music/jamtarts/index.html https://freotopia.org/music/jamtarts/index.html [2] https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/robyn-owens https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/robyn-owen... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_(novel)
- isthatafact 3y ago
  It mostly reads like a really bad article, disinformation actually, to me. The complaints about the greenhouse emissions during production of an electric car without considering the emission over its lifespan are less than helpful. Then the author claims that cars are "fast fashion" items and seems to not understand the difference between leasing (renting) and owning. Those 3 year old cars are not sent to the junkyard after the lease expires, which the author sort of acknowledges while still insisting that passing your usable car to someone else in order to drive a new one is a terrible thing. Then the implicit suggestion that we should keep old internal combustion cars around in hopes that someone might someday develop a practical synthetic fuel sometime in the future is just weird, even if it might have some validity simply due to the environmental cost of building a new car, but is really just unsupported opinion. It finally closes by recommending that people should simply continue driving their dirty old smoker cars unless "they do a lot of city centre motoring", but does not even mention public transit or bicycles.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pbronez 3y ago
It’s a thoughtful, nuanced take grounded in some reasonable (though imperfect) engineering and economics. He correctly points out that battery manufacturing isn’t an old growth forest and that longer lifecycles for manufactured goods are better for the environment. That’s more complicated than “buy an electric car to save the planet!” but it’s less wrong. His conclusion, in his words: “Increasingly, I’m feeling that our honeymoon with electric cars is coming to an end, and that’s no bad thing: we’re realising that a wider range of options need to be explored if we’re going to properly address the very serious environmental problems that our use of the motor car has created. We should keep developing hydrogen, as well as synthetic fuels to save the scrapping of older cars which still have so much to give, while simultaneously promoting a quite different business model for the car industry, in which we keep our new vehicles for longer, acknowledging their amazing but overlooked longevity.”
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
schiffern 3y ago
Atkinson's very first argument is just citing a Volvo report which has basic math errors in it.[0] Not a great start folks. He then says (no citation) that EV batteries "last only upward of" 10 years, the strange phrasing because British tabloids are shy about actually telling a provable lie. Atkinson knows EV batteries last longer than 10 years, but he wants to make it sound like they don't. He trots out the usual parade of distractions: solid state batteries, hydrogen, and (least practical of all) e-fuel. The obvious implication is that we shouldn't invest in workable EVs now, instead better to wait for some (supposedly) perfect technology someday in the future. Classic 'kick the can down the road.' Using older cars longer sounds good, but eventually it's like an old fridge: more expensive to operate (and dirtier) than replacing it with a newer model. Atkinson never mentions the fraction of pollution that comes from operation vs manufacturing, conveniently pretending the manufacturing is all that matters. He also gives an extremely silly argument that confuses using a car for three years and "selling it on" (ie reselling it used) with junking a car after three years. All in all, I expected more from a nation-duping article. [0] https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1332464525602410498 https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1332464525602410498
- tivert 3y ago
  > He then says (no citation) that EV batteries "last only upward of" 10 years, the strange phrasing because British tabloids are shy about actually telling provable lies. Atkinson knows EV batteries last longer than 10 years, but he wants to make it sound like they don't. What's EV batteries secret sauce then? Extensive over-provisioning? I'm under the impression that pretty much all battery cells used in consumer stuff will wear out after a decade or less of use, and will be much diminished from rated capacity, even if they still technically function. And I'd imagine EV batteries are almost always stored rougher environment, not in a climate-controlled room like most people's stuff.
  - schiffern 3y ago
    In reality it's the opposite. Laptop and phone batteries have limited temperature control, maybe a fan. EV batteries have active thermal control loops that heat and cool the whole battery evenly. The 'exception that proves the rule' is the 1st gen Leaf, which had passive thermal control and poor longevity. EV batteries are slightly over-provisioned (like most devices), but they also provide more tools to manage lifespan. I'm continually shocked how my Apple devices have no ability to limit charging to 80 or 90%. They're just constantly frying the battery.
drewcoo 3y ago
And a debunking by the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/08/fact-check-why-rowan-atkinson-is-wrong-about-electric-vehicles https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/08/fact-che...

gray_-_wolf 3y ago

That seems like fairly sober look at the issue. Interesting read.

hasty_pudding 3y ago

Great article! Had no idea he has a Master in electrical engineering!

Alifatisk 3y ago
If you didn’t mention this, I don’t think I would ever find out, that’s so cool!
defrost 3y ago
and plays a pretty mean church organ to boot. I met him and Ben Elton when they were on some kind of Brits abroad | wife hunting trip in the antipodes - Elton found himself a Jam Tart [1], Atkinson was chasing bigger game whom he once shared an organ with [2] and lucked out. Many conversations about dinner tables were had and at least one book resulted [3] But this was all very much in the early 1980s pre mega stardom days - R.A was introduced to me as an engineer rather than as a comedian. [1] https://freotopia.org/music/jamtarts/index.html https://freotopia.org/music/jamtarts/index.html [2] https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/robyn-owens https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/robyn-owen... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_(novel)
isthatafact 3y ago
It mostly reads like a really bad article, disinformation actually, to me. The complaints about the greenhouse emissions during production of an electric car without considering the emission over its lifespan are less than helpful. Then the author claims that cars are "fast fashion" items and seems to not understand the difference between leasing (renting) and owning. Those 3 year old cars are not sent to the junkyard after the lease expires, which the author sort of acknowledges while still insisting that passing your usable car to someone else in order to drive a new one is a terrible thing. Then the implicit suggestion that we should keep old internal combustion cars around in hopes that someone might someday develop a practical synthetic fuel sometime in the future is just weird, even if it might have some validity simply due to the environmental cost of building a new car, but is really just unsupported opinion. It finally closes by recommending that people should simply continue driving their dirty old smoker cars unless "they do a lot of city centre motoring", but does not even mention public transit or bicycles.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

pbronez 3y ago

It’s a thoughtful, nuanced take grounded in some reasonable (though imperfect) engineering and economics. He correctly points out that battery manufacturing isn’t an old growth forest and that longer lifecycles for manufactured goods are better for the environment. That’s more complicated than “buy an electric car to save the planet!” but it’s less wrong. His conclusion, in his words: “Increasingly, I’m feeling that our honeymoon with electric cars is coming to an end, and that’s no bad thing: we’re realising that a wider range of options need to be explored if we’re going to properly address the very serious environmental problems that our use of the motor car has created. We should keep developing hydrogen, as well as synthetic fuels to save the scrapping of older cars which still have so much to give, while simultaneously promoting a quite different business model for the car industry, in which we keep our new vehicles for longer, acknowledging their amazing but overlooked longevity.”

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

schiffern 3y ago

Atkinson's very first argument is just citing a Volvo report which has basic math errors in it.[0] Not a great start folks. He then says (no citation) that EV batteries "last only upward of" 10 years, the strange phrasing because British tabloids are shy about actually telling a provable lie. Atkinson knows EV batteries last longer than 10 years, but he wants to make it sound like they don't. He trots out the usual parade of distractions: solid state batteries, hydrogen, and (least practical of all) e-fuel. The obvious implication is that we shouldn't invest in workable EVs now, instead better to wait for some (supposedly) perfect technology someday in the future. Classic 'kick the can down the road.' Using older cars longer sounds good, but eventually it's like an old fridge: more expensive to operate (and dirtier) than replacing it with a newer model. Atkinson never mentions the fraction of pollution that comes from operation vs manufacturing, conveniently pretending the manufacturing is all that matters. He also gives an extremely silly argument that confuses using a car for three years and "selling it on" (ie reselling it used) with junking a car after three years. All in all, I expected more from a nation-duping article. [0] https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1332464525602410498 https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1332464525602410498

tivert 3y ago
> He then says (no citation) that EV batteries "last only upward of" 10 years, the strange phrasing because British tabloids are shy about actually telling provable lies. Atkinson knows EV batteries last longer than 10 years, but he wants to make it sound like they don't. What's EV batteries secret sauce then? Extensive over-provisioning? I'm under the impression that pretty much all battery cells used in consumer stuff will wear out after a decade or less of use, and will be much diminished from rated capacity, even if they still technically function. And I'd imagine EV batteries are almost always stored rougher environment, not in a climate-controlled room like most people's stuff.
- schiffern 3y ago
  In reality it's the opposite. Laptop and phone batteries have limited temperature control, maybe a fan. EV batteries have active thermal control loops that heat and cool the whole battery evenly. The 'exception that proves the rule' is the 1st gen Leaf, which had passive thermal control and poor longevity. EV batteries are slightly over-provisioned (like most devices), but they also provide more tools to manage lifespan. I'm continually shocked how my Apple devices have no ability to limit charging to 80 or 90%. They're just constantly frying the battery.

drewcoo 3y ago

And a debunking by the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/08/fact-check-why-rowan-atkinson-is-wrong-about-electric-vehicles https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/08/fact-che...