By presenting a self-written study as an independent study, the British carmaker Aston Martin wanted to put electric cars in a bad light.
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Aston Martin, the British carmaker who made a name for itself as the purveyor of the James Bond films, is under fire for spreading a study that questions the climate performance of electric cars. The study – which has since been disrupted – concludes that, due to CO2-intensive production (including the battery), electric cars will only become ‘greener’ than petrol cars after a 48,000 kilometer drive and was widely picked up in the British press. Among other The Times, The Daily Telegraph in The Daily Mail reported last week about the study, which was commissioned by Aston Martin, Honda and Bosch, among others, by the ‘independent’ agency Clarendon Communications.
That Aston Martin, which does not yet produce electric models, is ordering such a study, is perhaps not very surprising. But Michael Liebreich, the CEO of Bloomberg NEF think tank, dug deeper. He discovered that the unknown Clarendon Communications had only just been founded and apparently had no staff, except for one director: Rebecca Stephens. Even more: Stephens turns out to be the wife of James Stephens, the communications director of… Aston Martin.
The luxury brand has since admitted that it ‘cooperated’ in the study, which was presented as ‘independent’. The devious lobbying work has meanwhile been given the name ‘Astongate’. The timing of the publication was therefore no coincidence: a week earlier, the British government had announced that it would ban the sale of fossil fuel cars by 2030.
Even before Liebreich made his discovery, the study was already explored by Auke Hoekstra. The Dutch researcher, affiliated with Eindhoven University of Technology, has already built up a solid reputation for refuting similar studies, which often juggle data to inflate the ecological footprint of electric cars. ‘Which does not alter the fact that they do indeed release more CO2 during production,’ he says. “Electric cars are greener than fossil fuels – and we will need them – but they are not a panacea for the climate.”
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