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Many websites make the claim that Albert Einstein never learned to drive. For example, this website claims:

Did Albert Einstein have a car? Albert Einstein had no car of his own and he also never learned how to drive. If he had to, he was driven by friends and relatives or their chauffeurs.

The TV show The Big Bang Theory also makes the claim, in which:

In "The Euclid Alternative", Sheldon bemoans, "I just don’t see why I need a driver’s license, Albert Einstein never had a driver’s license." Howard quips, "Yeah, but Albert Einstein didn’t make me wet myself at 40 miles an hour." Penny also snaps and replies, "Yeah, and I never wanted to kick Albert Einstein in the nuts."

Did Albert Einstein learn to drive, or obtain a driver's license, considering he stayed in the USA for a significant proportion of his career?

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March Ho
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  • This might not be as notable as it seems. I live in the UK and have never had my own car despite being 26, and that's probably on par with the rest of Europe. The US is different, but if he was wealthy enough, then like many of the wealthy, he may have simply had a driver. In addition, personal vehicles would have been less common back then. – PointlessSpike Aug 16 '16 at 13:21
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    Isaac Newton also never learned to drive. Nor did Aristotle. – gerrit Aug 16 '16 at 15:13
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    @gerrit The point is that almost everyone is *expected* to know how to drive in 20th century USA, unlike the "counterexamples" provided. – March Ho Aug 16 '16 at 17:49
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    @MarchHo Einstein lived 1879–1955. I don't know from when almost everyone in the USA was expected to drive, but certainly Einstein was an old man by then. – gerrit Aug 16 '16 at 18:12
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    In 1950 (the year of Einstein's 71st birthday) there were only 25 million registered cars in the USA against a national population of 150 million. For pretty much his entire life, it wasn't at all unusual not to drive your own car. – arboviral Aug 17 '16 at 08:23
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    This is remarkable for modern-day Americans. It is not remarkable for a German émigré who permanently moved to the US in 1933, when he was already 54 years old. (Indeed even today, a migrant who moves to the US at that age will probably not bother learning to drive.) –  Aug 17 '16 at 09:17
  • @arboviral: Still, I would venture to guess that proportion was a lot higher among Einstein's demographic of white male professionals in the top few percent of earners who lived far from a major city. – Nate Eldredge Apr 21 '21 at 03:40

2 Answers2

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According to Walter Isaacson's biography, His Life and Universe

(Szilard, like Einstein, did not drive)

Source: Chapter 21

Also,

"The professor does not drive," Elsa [Einstein's wife] often said. "It's too complicated for him."

Source: Chapter 19

David Mulder
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  • Can you provide a link to and preferably a screenshot/photo of your citation? – March Ho Aug 16 '16 at 13:52
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    -1 As His Life and Universe was published in 2007 and could thus just perpetuate common myths. – David Mulder Aug 18 '16 at 07:06
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    @DavidMulder It's a bit harsh to dismiss the biography because of its publication date. Do you know it wasn't well researched and simply rehashes common myths? My understanding is that this was the first biography written after Einstein's personal documents were made publicly available. The book contains copious footnotes referencing early 20th century personal letters and other documents. – ghoppe Aug 19 '16 at 19:18
  • @DavidMulder I've read the book, and did not get the impression that it was a mythological retelling of Einstein tropes. It seemed well-researched and substantial to me. – ghoppe Aug 19 '16 at 19:20
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    @ghoppe: if those footnotes are so good then it should be more than easy enough to quote the original source for this claim. Not saying in any way it's a bad book, just a bad final reference imho for skeptics.SE . – David Mulder Aug 21 '16 at 07:45
  • For someone who was born in 1879 and therefore was in his 20s during the 1900s I suspect the majority of Europeans did not learn to drive at this age / period. I think it was not until at least the inter-war years that driving became commonplace by which time he would have been 40 to 50 and working on probably more important things. – If you do not know- just GIS Aug 30 '16 at 04:49
  • A search for the Elsa quote on Google Books turns up nothing pre-Isaacson, and in Isaacson it seems to be unsourced. The next endnote, which is in the following paragraph after a lot of unrelated information, is "Bucky, 25", where Bucky is *The Private Albert Einstein* by Peter Bucky. [The edition on archive.org](https://archive.org/details/privatealbertein0000buck) has the relevant info on page 43, not 25, but I see nothing about driving there or elsewhere. The parenthetical comment in chapter 21 is also nowhere near an endnote, and I suspect it's just a callback to the quote from Elsa. – benrg Jul 10 '22 at 00:19
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I know this is an old question1, but I couldn't resist mentioning another source that was published a few years ago2, and shows actual evidence of Einstein driving a car. Here is the link:

Newly Unearthed Footage Shows Albert Einstein Driving a Flying Car (1931)

Quoting a part of the explanation:

During his lifetime, Albert Einstein apparently never learned to drive a car–something that also held true for Vladimir Nabokov, Ray Bradbury, Elizabeth Bishop, and Jack Kerouac. But he did manage to experience the thrill of getting behind the wheel, at least once. Above, watch a newly-discovered home movie of Einstein and his second wife, Elsa, visiting the Warner Bros. soundstage on February 3, 1931. The following day, The New York Times published this report.

So it seems Albert Einstein did drive a car at least once in his life, but driving wasn't among his interests.

1. Today, April 18th, is the 66th anniversary of this great man's death.
2. The publication date is two years after posting the accepted answer.
  • If you watch the embedded video it's hard to conclude he's "driving" at all, let alone a "flying car." "Sitting in a car in front of the 1930s equivalent of a green screen" is probably more accurate. – Mike G Apr 26 '21 at 21:01
  • @MikeG : That's why I added the explanation part. Actually, I thought the matter is too obvious and a bit of humor wouldn't do much harm. –  Apr 27 '21 at 02:37