The global automotive industry is debating how to proceed.

China is going all-ahead on electric vehicles. Other regions are going in that same direction. The United States lags because the administration of President Donald Trump is skeptical of EVs.

One cultural figure not associated with EVs is James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming (1908-64).

In Fleming’s original novels, his British secret service agent drove Bentleys and other sporty cars. In Fleming’s seventh novel, Goldfinger, Bond drove an Aston Martin DB3 with a few extras.

When the 1959 novel was made into a wildly successful 1964 movie, the car was updated with the Aston Martin DB5. The cinematic version had an ejector seat, machine guns and other gadgets. The DB5 appears in multiple Bond films, most recently with 2021’s No Time to Die.

Fleming, however, is almost forgotten more than six decades after his creation became a movie icon.

YouTube creator Roland Hulme, in a 2023 video, uncovered a 1959 interview with Fleming .

Shortly after the 25:00 mark, Fleming had the following observations:

“Our present internal combustion engine is a ridiculous steam-age contraption which turns only a modest proportion of fuel into energy and spews the rest out in the form of petrol vapor of a more or less solid consistency…The petrol engine is obviously a noxious, noisy machine. I would gradually abolish is and replace it with some form of electric motor.”

In the movies, there has been no indication of an EV Bond car.

No Time to Die was the most recent 007 film. It was the final entry with Daniel Craig as Bond. Since then, Amazon acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $8.45 billion.

Amazon is on the look for a new Bond actor. The studio is preparing a new 007 film, to be directed by Denis Villeneuve.

It remains to be seen who the new Bond actor will be, much less what James Bond’s new ride will be.