[Chhanda Das]

"I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped" says Sir Rowan Atkinson

Sadly, keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV. There are sound environmental reasons not to jump just yet.

Electric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems. Combine this, perhaps surprising, academic pathway with a lifelong passion for the motorcar, and you can see why I was drawn into an early adoption of electric vehicles. I bought my first electric hybrid 18 years ago and my first pure electric car nine years ago and (notwithstanding our poor electric charging infrastructure) have enjoyed my time with both very much. Electric vehicles may be a bit soulless, but they’re wonderful mechanisms: fast, quiet and, until recently, very cheap to run. But increasingly, I feel a little duped. When you start to drill into the facts, electric motoring doesn’t seem to be quite the environmental panacea it is claimed to be.

As you may know, the government has proposed a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. The problem with the initiative is that it seems to be largely based on conclusions drawn from only one part of a car’s operating life: what comes out of the exhaust pipe. Electric cars, of course, have zero exhaust emissions, which is a welcome development, particularly in respect of the air quality in city centres. But if you zoom out a bit and look at a bigger picture that includes the car’s manufacture, the situation is very different. In advance of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, Volvo released figures claiming that greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are nearly 70% higher than when manufacturing a petrol one. How so? The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all electric vehicles: they’re absurdly heavy, huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they are estimated to last only upwards of 10 years. It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile’s fight against the climate crisis.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of effort is going into finding something better. New, so-called solid-state batteries are being developed that should charge more quickly and could be about a third of the weight of the current ones – but they are years away from being on sale, by which time, of course, we will have made millions of overweight electric cars with rapidly obsolescing batteries. Hydrogen is emerging as an interesting alternative fuel, even though we are slow in developing a truly “green” way of manufacturing it. It can be used in one of two ways. It can power a hydrogen fuel cell (essentially, a kind of battery); the car manufacturer Toyota has poured a lot of money into the development of these. Such a system weighs half of an equivalent lithium-ion battery and a car can be refuelled with hydrogen at a filling station as fast as with petrol.

If the lithium-ion battery is an imperfect device for electric cars, concerns have been raised over their use in heavy trucks for long distance haulage because of the weight; an alternative is to inject hydrogen into a new kind of piston engine. JCB, the company that makes yellow diggers, has made huge strides with hydrogen engines and hopes to put them into production in the next couple of years. If hydrogen wins the race to power trucks – and as a result every filling station stocks it – it could be a popular and accessible choice for cars.

But let’s zoom out even further and consider the whole life cycle of an automobile. The biggest problem we need to address in society’s relationship with the car is the “fast fashion” sales culture that has been the commercial template of the car industry for decades. Currently, on average we keep our new cars for only three years before selling them on, driven mainly by the ubiquitous three-year leasing model. This seems an outrageously profligate use of the world’s natural resources when you consider what great condition a three-year-old car is in. When I was a child, any car that was five years old was a bucket of rust and halfway through the gate of the scrapyard. Not any longer. You can now make a car for £15,000 that, with tender loving care, will last for 30 years. It’s sobering to think 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. Yet we’d be enjoying the same mobility, just driving slightly older cars.

We need also to acknowledge what a great asset we have in the cars that currently exist (there are nearly 1.5bn of them worldwide). In terms of manufacture, these cars have paid their environmental dues and, although it is sensible to reduce our reliance on them, it would seem right to look carefully at ways of retaining them while lowering their polluting effect. Fairly obviously, we could use them less. As an environmentalist once said to me, if you really need a car, buy an old one and use it as little as possible. A sensible thing to do would be to speed up the development of synthetic fuel, which is already being used in motor racing; it’s a product based on two simple notions: one, the environmental problem with a petrol engine is the petrol, not the engine and, two, there’s nothing in a barrel of oil that can’t be replicated by other means. Formula One is going to use synthetic fuel from 2026. There are many interpretations of the idea but the German car company Porsche is developing a fuel in Chile using wind to power a process whose main ingredients are water and carbon dioxide. With more development, it should be usable in all petrol-engine cars, rendering their use virtually CO2-neutral.

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.

Friends with an environmental conscience often ask me, as a car person, whether they should buy an electric car. I tend to say that if their car is an old diesel and they do a lot of city centre motoring, they should consider a change. But otherwise, hold fire for now. Electric propulsion will be of real, global environmental benefit one day, but that day has yet to dawn.

* This article was amended on 5 June 2023 to describe lithium-ion batteries as lasting “upwards of 10 years”, rather than “about 10 years”; and to clarify that the figures released by Volvo claimed that greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are “nearly 70% higher”, not “70% higher”. It was further amended on 7 June 2023 to remove an incorrect reference to the production of lithium-ion batteries needing “many rare earth metals”; to clarify that a reference to “trucks” should instead have been to “heavy trucks for long distance haulage”; and to more accurately refer to the use of such batteries in these trucks as being a “concern”, due to weight issues, rather than a “non-starter”.

Sir Rowan Atkinson is an actor, comedian and writer

News source : https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...rowan-atkinson

[shamanths3]

The sheer number of amendments itself shows how rushed the article was and how much misinformation was being portrayed.

I won't say he is wrong, but EVs are worth to people who knows their usage and not for everyone. Just blaming the mining of rare earth metals is getting old. This way should we also stop using our smartphones as they also use Li Ion batteries?

Let's think objectively, if we don't adopt now there won't be rapid progress of the technology. Just like the advent of smartphones it needs crazy rate of adoption to make it a success and also think about minimizing the side effects of producing them.

[lapis_lazuli]

Originally Posted by Chhanda Das

"I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped" says Sir Rowan Atkinson

.

Sir Rowan Atkinson is an actor, comedian and writer

News source : https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...rowan-atkinson

Sir Atkinson, is an engineer first. A true Bhpian, actually. So I'm totally in favour of his observations.

[MinivanDriver]

I think Rowan has a point. It is ok to positively incentivise EVs. However imposing more and more impractical and stifling restrictions on ICE while the electric vehicles are yet to mature is not wise in my opinion.

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by Chhanda Das

But let’s zoom out even further and consider the whole life cycle of an automobile. The biggest problem we need to address in society’s relationship with the car is the “fast fashion” sales culture that has been the commercial template of the car industry for decades. Currently, on average we keep our new cars for only three years before selling them on, driven mainly by the ubiquitous three-year leasing model. This seems an outrageously profligate use of the world’s natural resources when you consider what great condition a three-year-old car is in. When I was a child, any car that was five years old was a bucket of rust and halfway through the gate of the scrapyard. Not any longer. You can now make a car for £15,000 that, with tender loving care, will last for 30 years. It’s sobering to think 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. Yet we’d be enjoying the same mobility, just driving slightly older cars.

Mr. Bean is very right, regarding the "Fast Fashion" culture. Indian market is a prime example of this culture, driven by unprecedented materialism and increase in purchasing power specially after Covid pandemic.

Go to your office complex or nearby shopping mall in your 5 year old car, you will feel like you are driving an antique piece. Its a shame how consumers are shedding perfectly running 2-3 year old cars to buy the "latest" in the market. The speed of technological advancements and feature lists (for example ADAS, Panoromic sunroof) im mass market cars means that noone likes to be left out (FOMO).

Social media is also to blame, what with famous Youtubers buying and replacing vehicles like bedsheets every few months.

Originally Posted by shamanths3

The sheer number of amendments itself shows how rushed the article was and how much misinformation was being portrayed.

I won't say he is wrong, but EVs are worth to people who knows their usage and not for everyone. Just blaming the mining of rare earth metals is getting old. This way should we also stop using our smartphones as they also use Li Ion batteries?

I don't think he is blaming EV adapters and the article has nothing to do with the usage pattern or the *financial ownership* or cost of driving of an EV. It has more to do how EV manufacturing process itself is not environment friendly, as of today and the life of EV Battery packs which is a cause of concern.

[shamanths3]

Originally Posted by DCEite

I don't think he is blaming EV adapters and the article has nothing to do with the usage pattern or the *financial ownership* or cost of driving of an EV. It has more to do how EV manufacturing process itself is not environment friendly, as of today and the life of EV Battery packs which is a cause of concern.

I do agree that currently the process of mining is not environmental friendly just like petrol. However as many researchers have already pointed out it is still lesser than oil extraction.
Also the life of ev battery pack is a big misunderstanding being portrayed, they are designed like AA battery cells so that replacing damaged parts is easier. With refurbishment an ev battery pack can last for well more than 5 million kms. Everyone is just thinking if the battery draining happens then the entire pack has to be thrown out which isn't the case.
Also the same packs can be utilized as Solar energy storage with the remaining capacity. Only EVs can do that, no other legacy propulsion methods can perform this kind of recycling.

[SKC-auto]

It's pure fun (atleast in this case from a comedian) to see someone saying Hydrogen fuel cell or Synthetic fuels are the future.

Here is the Fact check. This fact check is published in Guardian, which means that even the newspaper does not believe what Mr.Bean said in his article.

A few of Atkinson’s other claims are worth mentioning.

He says EV batteries only last “about 10 years”. Yet “most modern lithium-ion units are likely to last the lifetime of the car”, according to Autocar. Tesla’s batteries are “designed to outlast the vehicle”.

He complains that new cars are only kept for three years before being sold. Yet he does not reference the secondhand market, and the fact that British people are keeping their cars for longer than ever.

He claims that it is better to keep running old petrol cars than to replace them with EVs. Yet a new EV would start benefiting the climate in less than four years, relative to an old combustion engine.

He claims that lithium-ion batteries contain rare earth elements. They do not.

The alternatives he promotes are not yet widely available, are less beneficial for the environment – and are thermodynamically guaranteed to be much more costly.

In contrast, and contrary to Atkinson’s central claim, EVs already offer significant emissions savings – and their widespread use is central to meeting UK and global climate goals.

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ctric-vehicles

Originally Posted by DCEite

I don't think he is blaming EV adapters and the article has nothing to do with the usage pattern or the *financial ownership* or cost of driving of an EV. It has more to do how EV manufacturing process itself is not environment friendly, as of today and the life of EV Battery packs which is a cause of concern.

Mr. Bean completed his engineering some 40 years ago, he never pursued an engineering career, I do not think he understands much about car making, battery recycling, Hydrogen or Synthetic fuels.

The above fact check is from a researcher who works on researching above issues everyday, he has published multiple articles, gave many lectures, spoke about these issues at many seminars.

Now whom do you believe Mr. Bean or Mr. Simon.

2 points I have highlighted regarding what you said above.

[Chhanda Das]

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

Now whom do you believe Mr. Bean or Mr. Simon.

I would still choose to go with Mr. Bean because of what we see around us every day and not what the researcher wants us to believe based on a controlled testing environment. Here is an example :-

https://www.news18.com/auto/this-tat...y-7889983.html

I would choose an internal combustion engined car any day over any EV because being stuck on the road charging late at night in some dark corner does not appeal to me as a female. On paper, the EV batteries may be designed to last 10 years or more but warranties usually are for around 8 years which is not very confidence-inspiring. Additionally, EV batteries are known for their sensitivity to high ambient temperatures which is not uncommon here in India. The records for the longest-running vehicles in the world are still held by vehicles with internal combustion engines and not by EVs. Forget battery recycling/refurbishing in an EV, proper charging infrastructure does not exist even in some of the most developed countries and we live in third-world India. Why would someone pay more money for an EV for increased hassles ? One may argue that EVs are cheaper in the long term but those calculations do not account for most of the ground realities of living in a developing country like ours. Fast chargers often do not work. Even if they do, the output is nowhere even close enough to their claims. Constant worries about range and charging patterns are not my cup of tea

[AirbusCapt]

There is this new industry now. The scare mongering industry. We can call them by their real name: advertising, media and influence optimisation. Vested interests use this industry to play out their own narrative, all to make a fast buck.

Based on the need sometimes hydrogen is good, sometimes petrol is the way to go and the other time : please buy a battery car from China. Goverment "thinktanks" are the other idiot evangalists who come out with hare brained schemes like ban all diesel vehicles, everyone now buy EV and when the grid trips, charge your ev using a kerosene generator.
Laws and regulations will be tinkered to suit the deepest pockets and the tax payers be damned. For every sleazy money making racket a noble cause like save the elephants will be attached to make the gullible public feel good. Meanwhile the honchos will all travel in a fuel guzzling business jet, burning ozone holes into the sky.

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by Chhanda Das

I would still choose to go with Mr. Bean because of what we see around us every day and not what the researcher wants us to believe based on a controlled testing environment.

Thats not how they do research in a "controlled testing environment", they pick real case scenarios and many data points from real world. As with many researchers show EVs are better than ICE, does Mr. Bean know how much energy is spent to extract and refine oil? His thoughts about H2 and synthetic fuels show that he has very little understanding.

I would choose an internal combustion engined car any day over any EV because being stuck on the road charging late at night in some dark corner does not appeal to me as a female.

Yes, there are charging problems, as with any new tech it takes time. 20 years ago there are only few places a mobile signal can be recieved, no mobile internet.

On paper, the EV batteries may be designed to last 10 years or more but warranties usually are for around 8 years which is not very confidence-inspiring.

ICE cars have 3 years warranty, we use for 15 years, any warranty does not last product life.

Additionally, EV batteries are known for their sensitivity to high ambient temperatures which is not uncommon here in India.

Most Indian cars use LFP, these batteries have no issues even at 50°C, just like ICE engines are sensitive to temperature, both batteries and engines are liquid cooled.

The records for the longest-running vehicles in the world are still held by vehicles with internal combustion engines and not by EVs.

Just wait for few more years, I believe there are already EVs running for 5lakh kms.

Forget battery recycling/refurbishing in an EV, proper charging infrastructure does not exist even in some of the most developed countries and we live in third-world India. Why would someone pay more money for an EV for increased hassles ? One may argue that EVs are cheaper in the long term but those calculations do not account for most of the ground realities of living in a developing country like ours. Fast chargers often do not work. Even if they do, the output is nowhere even close enough to their claims. Constant worries about range and charging patterns are not my cup of tea

As said above, Rome is not built in a day. EVs may not work for you, does not mean they don't work for anyone, it works for millions of happy users.

Most Indians don't even do roadtrips, most cars are used within a radius of 200km, that is also the ground reality we often forget living in big cities.

[pgsagar]

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

As with many researchers show EVs are better than ICE, does Mr. Bean know how much energy is spent to extract and refine oil? His thoughts about H2 and synthetic fuels show that he has very little understanding.

Most Indians don't even do roadtrips, most cars are used within a radius of 200km, that is also the ground reality we often forget living in big cities.

Some Teambhpian somewhere on previous pages had put it beautifully. "Yeah, like diesel petrol appear magically from the depths of the Erath/ocean straight at your neighbourhood petrol pump, without causing any pollution."

I have neither expertise nor wherewithal to conduct a study of this magnitude but we would get a true picture, if a competent institute conducts study on pollution caused by battery manufacture vis-a-vis pollution caused by crude exploration, extraction, transportation to refinery, refining, storage, transportation to petrol pump to combustion in car. I am very sure and confident that this study would lay to rest all the speculative theories (that's what they look like to me) being spread around by EV-hate brigade. It's irritating to see people barging in on you and stopping short of admonishing you for buying an EV. Why don't these anti-EV groups write to GoI asking them to ban EVs in India, instead of advicing everyone against buying an EV?

[fhdowntheline]

There waa a question posed by a lawmaker in the US- if there is a thunderstorm that knocks out power in an area and an EV runs out of juice in traffic in the same area, how would it be handled by a consumer? The reply given was that the person would have to hitchhike in a ICE powered vehicle. How about that ?

[Chhanda Das]

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

1. Thats not how they do research in a "controlled testing environment", they pick real case scenarios and many data points from real world.
2. Yes, there are charging problems, as with any new tech it takes time. 20 years ago there are only few places a mobile signal can be recieved, no mobile internet.
3. ICE cars have 3 years warranty, we use for 15 years, any warranty does not last product life.
4. Most Indian cars use LFP, these batteries have no issues even at 50°C, just like ICE engines are sensitive to temperature, both batteries and engines are liquid cooled.
5. Just wait for few more years, I believe there are already EVs running for 5lakh kms.
6. As said above, Rome is not built in a day. EVs may not work for you, does not mean they don't work for anyone, it works for millions of happy users.
7. Most Indians don't even do roadtrips, most cars are used within a radius of 200km, that is also the ground reality we often forget living in big cities.

1. If the research is from real case scenarios and all data taken from the real world then why do EVs still face so many issues in developed countries and third-world countries, in cold countries and hot countries alike ?

2. So why should we ignore these problems and buy EVs now ? Let EVs and their ecosystems be more reliable. Then we can consider them as a realistic option exactly as Sir Rowan said.

3. When a new product with a questionable ecosystem has to be pushed into the market/masses it needs to have more than adequate manufacturer support compared to the competition which it seeks to replace. Cars with internal combustion engines have been around for more than half a century and manufacturers provide a warranty of around 7 years in India. A substantially more expensive and risky EV cannot get away with a mere 8 year warranty on the battery.

4. LiFePO4 batteries like all lithium batteries are prone to thermal runaway too. The temperature of a car parked outside under the Sun often exceeds 80 degrees centigrade and reaches 100 degrees centigrade in summer in India. And battery cooling systems do not work when the car is off.

5. Alright, I will wait for a few more years for EVs to become more reliable and long lasting but till then I do not want to hear about them.

6. Rome wasn't built in a day but the empire didn't last either. And that is the problem with EVs. This is exactly why EV users are nowhere near as close to internal combustion engine users in number.

7. Most Indians do not live in big cities and most cars are located outside big cities. Big cities merely seem to have more cars due to their concentration in a small area. Realistically speaking, an average electric car in India barely does 300 plus kilometres with air conditioning which is not enough to cover a radius of 200 kms (400 kms to and fro) in a single charge.

Most EVs in India are getting sold due to policy pressure and not due to financial advantages or bombastic claims. No wonder most people do not choose EVs

Personally, I would be very happy if EVs can coexist with ICE cars and people have the option to choose based on their needs and wants. And neither side should impose their opinion on the other, especially not the government/s

[Mustang Sammy]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

Meanwhile the honchos will all travel in a fuel guzzling business jet, burning ozone holes into the sky.

Anyone remember Al Gore taking private jets and limos to the various climate conferences while showing off his notorious “hockey stick” graph?
I believe he also lives (or lived till his divorce) in a massive mansion with a reasonably sized energy consumption.
Same goes for Obama, Soros, and our own leaders. Do as I say, not as I do.

[RobotMan]

I try to approach the issue from a slightly different perspective. While I agree with some of the points put forward, I don't agree with the mining concerns.<br>
Even if we push EV adoption 50 or 100 years down the line, even then, the minerals would have to be mined out.! <br>
Pushing the adoption now stops investments in ICE research and sends those funds to EV research, which also would've been pushed down.
Focusing on EV adoption now also puts the focus on unethical mining practices.<br>
Since more and more countries are now discovering mineral deposits, the dictators and military rulers can be forced to increase the standards of safety and security for their people.<br>Depending just on electronics industry never gave them the incentive to invest. Now, since minerals are needed at scale, they can be forced to accept international aid in the form of equipment.