Car Design Dialogues: In conversation with Frank Stephenson

”To tell you the truth, I don’t believe in electric vehicles,” says Frank Stephenson. “There is a lot of environmental damage in producing them, and in reality electric is most likely a stopgap formula.” 

Stephenson was speaking to Car Design News editor James McLachlan at the inaugural Car Design Dialogues event, and, in a wide-ranging conversation that covered everything from air mobility to ideas of beauty, showed that he remains the iconoclast that propelled him to the heights of the automotive design world. Stephenson is one of the few dissenting voices in the design arena that does not believe EV is the panacea. The answer, Stephenson says, lies in cleaner, carbon-friendly fuels. ”You will have to drive an EV between 20,000 to 40,000 miles before it matches the benefits of an internal combustion engine.” 

“There are vehicles operating on hydrogen, which are much cleaner and more efficient than electric,” Stephenson said.