Rowan Atkinson Drives Hydrogen-powered Race Car at Goodwood
Rowan Atkinson recently made a surprise appearance at Goodwood Festival of Speed, turning up in a hydrogen-powered Toyota GR Yaris hot hatch. The British actor used one of the auto industry’s biggest annual events to show his support for hydrogen technology.
Mr. Atkinson is a long-time proponent of renewable energy technology, having been an early adopter of electric vehicles and holding a degree in electrical and electronic engineering. In a recent article in the UK publication The Guardian, Atkinson criticized the battery-electric car industry’s green credentials – and threw his support behind hydrogen technology.
‘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’, wrote Atkinson.
Atkinson also criticized the use of battery electric cars in motorsport: ‘I think particularly for motorsport, electric racing cars are tricky as they sound like a washing machine moving on to a spin cycle. It’s hard but a lot of people are trying to retain the emotion (of an engine) which only a piston-engined car can give you.’
Mr Atkinson – star of Blackadder, Johnny English and Mr Bean – is a well-known car enthusiast, reportedly owning a McLaren F1 supercar, Lancia Delta Integrale HF hot hatch and a Honda NSX. While his current collection includes a standard petrol-powered Toyota GR Yaris, he has plans to expand his car collection with hydrogen-race cars.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRzJ_U-HG-Q and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYvjuGF0S7Q
