Mr Bean actor Rowan Atkinson blamed for slow electric car sales

He suggested solutions like drivers keeping the same car for longer periods of time

That's what i have been doing... Is that wrong, or just too much anti-consumerism to be presented as a good thing in our society?

Seymour Skinner 'Am I out of touch?' meme:

• top panel caption: are EVs too expensive and not practical enough yet?
• bottom panel caption: No, it's Mr Bean's fault

On what the article touches, he is not wrong. Buying a new car, even if it's an electric one, will have more impact than a lot of time using a gasoline one, especially if the country doesn't produce electricity in a sustainable way.

Also, if you want to help the environment, you shouldn't be replacing cars, but removing them, public transportation, and walkable cities are so much better in this regard.

The rule of thumb is: if your ICE car is still in working order, it's less damaging to the environment to just keep driving it. If you absolutely must buy a new car, get an electric. That being said, I don't trust that Rowan won't be "Mr. Car Guy" and promote his bias towards ICE cars due to his extreme wealth and love of exotic whips.

Similar to the theory that The Simpsons made a generation not trust nuclear power.

Well, Mr. Atkinsons stance is not really off. EVs are still in their infancies, and need to get out of puberty before they are really useful and affordable.

Here’s Rowan’s original article since I couldn’t find a link in the actual article.

All of the points he makes are good ones, IMHO. The one about three year leases is especially good, and something the government could act on right now. There’s no reason to ditch a car after three years. Both of my cars are almost a decade old and will probably keep running for another decade with good maintenance.

Just paid £650 out to get my 2007 Astra hatchback through an MOT.

It doesn't get driven much so it makes zero sense to replace it. Even if I'm spending double that in a year to keep it on the road it's still waaaaay cheaper than me paying for a "new" one. It's got bodywork rust now though and it's apparently really hard to find a place that'll do repairs like that :(

Call it a hunch, but I think it's got less to do with the opinions of a celebrity and more to do with the fact that a large portion of the population can't afford the high price of an electric car.

Well they don't make anything even remotely like my R55 Mini Clubman anymore so I'll probably be keeping it forever. That's my effort to save the environment!

I wish I had enough money to afford to buy a new car, I probably wouldn't do it because affordable would still mean living paycheck to paycheck. Not sure why I would want a second mortgage on something that depreciates that quickly.

Public figures should be held accountable for false statements.

Mr Bean made me buy a Morris Mini

It's cute how they blame Rowan Atkinson, when we all know who's fault this really is... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkrcxLgHn-w

I'm not one to side with a bigot, but this is just pathetic.. He makes perfectly valid points, if EV manufacturers want to prove him wrong, maybe they should be doing a better job (or admitting that shifting from one type of car to another isn't the solution to all of our problems, but simply a way for the auto industry to continue to make profits off of "solutions" to the destruction they've had a massive part in creating).

Many people I know actually are back on fossil fuel cars, just because no one has the time to wait for hours till they're loaded again, sadly there's no battery quick change system around. And till then, I haven't got the time either. That's just the reality, I cannot afford to lose any more customers just because we're not there on time.