Wrongly Blamed

Drive Time, Eco-Crap

Oh, this is rich:

Rowan Atkinson has been blamed by the House of Lords for the plunge in sales of electric cars.  The Mr Bean actor, 69, described the green machines as ‘a bit soulless’ in a comment piece he penned in June last year. 
The Lord’s environment and climate change committee has since been told the actor was partly to blame for ‘damaging’ public opinions on electric vehicles (EVs).

Not that the opinions of the House of Lords should be taken seriously — on just about any topic — but it’s ridiculous to blame Atkinson for a sales slump of cars that are manifestly not fit for purpose (in so many ways).

“Soulless” is the least of the reasons why not to buy a fucking Duracell car, and most certainly so when one recalls Mr. Bean’s habitual choice of vehicle:

And lest we forget, he was also an “early adopter” of the EV type:

…and by the way, it was to this thing he was referring.

No man should.  Not even Mr. Bean.

9 comments

  1. The decline of EV sales and such can’t be pinned on one person. I’m sure quite a few bought them and once they started using them, have discovered their needs unmet by these glorified golf carts.

    Limited range
    Lengthy refuel time
    randomly bursting into flames
    inconvenient recharging station locations
    High price even with a subsidy from tax payers
    Made with metals whose mining destroys the environment
    High price of battery replacement
    Short life span

    That’s plenty of reasons to reject these glorified golf carts

    1. Not glorified golf carts; Overgrown golf carts. For sustainability impact, to name the one thing we are supposed to consider now, there’s a lot of extractive cost and effort.
      For cost and range, time to recharge, and even carrying capacity, the electric cars for the masses have to come down drastically in size, power and carrying capacity to be useful for the hoi polloi, who cannot afford a Tesla AND rent, and food, insurance, and all the other things modern society requires people to buy. Besides, it will get the working class back on the commuter trains where they can be controlled more easily.

  2. Atkinson’s automotive “Expertise” is based primarily in his ability to write large checks to the people who pull his F1 out of a ditch. He’s not wrong – just not my idea of an expert. But the House of Inbred twits might also consider that soaring eclectic power rates in Britian might also be having an impact. And as I understand it, hasn’t the group responsible for building the large wind farms also just realized that building giant wind turbines in the North Sea wasn’t such a good idea after all. Yes, there is a lot of wind in the North Sea but it’s not as much of a feature as they thought , more like a problem.

    2. He’s not an expert — but he loves his cars and the driving thereof, and is a featured driver of several of them at the Goodwood Revival races each year.

      1. Besides, for decades, the best advice for someone considering a big purchase has been, as the owner of Packard Motors said when asked about his automobiles, “Ask the man who owns one.”

  3. He should immediately have one of his assistants compile a list of how many of these “lords” actually own and use an EV car. Publish that list on the front page of the papers to tell the House of Lords exactly what they can do with their blaming him for EV’s sucking at what a car is supposed to be.

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