Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and I'm an
Speaker 1: editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting across from me,
Speaker 1: as usual, is senior writer Johnathan Stricklin. Hey there, so, Chris, um,
Speaker 1: let's let's think back about a century or so, actually
Speaker 1: a little bit more than that. Did you know that
Speaker 1: one of the more popular ways of getting around in
Speaker 1: the earliest days of the horseless carriage was in an
Speaker 1: electric vehicle? Yes? But I actually had a course in
Speaker 1: college where we studied that, so I'll pretend no, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Well, Chris, you ignorant man. I'm
Speaker 1: going to enlighten you. Now, if only you had spent
Speaker 1: some hard earned cash on a on an education, then
Speaker 1: you would know that that that. Yeah, the electric car
Speaker 1: is nothing new in a sense. We've had electric cars
Speaker 1: for quite some time. They in fact pre date the
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine car. Yeah. They It's funny to look
Speaker 1: at the alternative methods for powering a car, uh these days,
Speaker 1: because in of course, electric is one of the more
Speaker 1: common ways to talk about it. Or hybrids. Again, not
Speaker 1: new um, but this is UH. There are other things too,
Speaker 1: like talking about uh ethanol and and plant based fuel.
Speaker 1: These kinds of things were talked about at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the whole car thing when people were saying, you know, oh, well,
Speaker 1: what what would we used to power an engine or
Speaker 1: or power a motor to make this happen? And and
Speaker 1: they ran through these things. Eventually petroleum one out. And
Speaker 1: the reason this is so challenging now is because the
Speaker 1: petroleum UH infrastructure is so well established. But um, but
Speaker 1: it's amazing to to think about because we think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know electric cars, well they're new. Well not really.
Speaker 1: The problem is the technology uh hasn't been worked on
Speaker 1: and and so long, at least by as many people. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: When you go back to the earliest electric vehicles, they
Speaker 1: were very limited. You could not go very far because
Speaker 1: the batteries would run out of charge. They were not
Speaker 1: necessarily rechargeable. You had massive batteries, so that meant that
Speaker 1: it added to the overall weight of the vehicle itself.
Speaker 1: They didn't go very fast. They seem to be all
Speaker 1: right for getting around uh like a city UH in
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century, but any difficult terrain it would
Speaker 1: start to have problems. Uh. The steam powered cars actually
Speaker 1: ended up being more popular than electric ones because they
Speaker 1: could go much faster, and uh, they were not necessarily
Speaker 1: the best choice either, because they were not terribly efficient.
Speaker 1: You had to, you know, get the boiler heated up
Speaker 1: before you could go anywhere. You had to actually start
Speaker 1: generating SAM before you could make the vehicle go, And
Speaker 1: there's always the possibility that it could blow up real good,
Speaker 1: which not not not something you necessarily want when you're
Speaker 1: gonna take a little trip down to Grandma's is to
Speaker 1: have the steam boiler explode on the way there. That's
Speaker 1: that's generally what we consider a bad thing. It's productive
Speaker 1: trans But gas powered cars they had the power and
Speaker 1: the versatility that people wanted in those early days of travel.
Speaker 1: And because of that, and because we did build this
Speaker 1: huge infrastructure to support those sort of cars, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of momentum built up. Right. Yeah, Yeah, to use
Speaker 1: a term in a way that I wasn't intending, but
Speaker 1: they're exactly. They had built up a lot of momentum,
Speaker 1: and it meant that any new quote unquote new developments
Speaker 1: in uh this technology was going to be met with resistance,
Speaker 1: not necessarily you know, something that people were consciously trying
Speaker 1: to resist, but just from the very nature of how
Speaker 1: the industry developed. So resistance, oh man, I am no.
Speaker 1: I just can't get away from it, so I'll embrace it.
Speaker 1: So the electric car is making kind of a comeback,
Speaker 1: depending upon who you ask, whom you ask, yes, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there it's been in the news a lot, especially during
Speaker 1: the election cycle here in America. Um, but do you
Speaker 1: want to go back and start talking about some of
Speaker 1: these early vehicles first, and we can kind of talk
Speaker 1: about where we are now? Sure, if you've got some
Speaker 1: information on early vehicles, I'd love to hear it. Okay, Well, Um,
Speaker 1: I found a very interesting timeline that that suggested that
Speaker 1: it was a Scottish inventor, Robert Anderson, who came up
Speaker 1: with a a very very basic electric car with non
Speaker 1: rechargeable batteries. It seems like a problem especially in eighteen
Speaker 1: somewhere in the early eighteen thirty ease as when he
Speaker 1: started working on that, and uh, you know they kept
Speaker 1: working on that. Uh. I also have a Gaston Plante,
Speaker 1: a French physicist who in eighteen fifty nine had a
Speaker 1: rechargeable lead acid battery actually the lead acid battery has
Speaker 1: been sort of the staple for electric cars for a while. Um,
Speaker 1: but they're extremely heavy, probably because of the lead relate
Speaker 1: and just a guess um um, but also a camille
Speaker 1: of it doesn't have the accident on it far Uh.
Speaker 1: In eighty one improved upon that idea, and then in
Speaker 1: in Des Moines, Iowa. Uh, William Morrison came up with
Speaker 1: an electric car. In the United States here um and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they were working on those. They even had
Speaker 1: a fleet of electric taxis in New York because the
Speaker 1: first first pedestrian fatality in the Western hemisphere. As I recall,
Speaker 1: now you're just being you know, am I not? Am
Speaker 1: I not correct? Wasn't there someone who stepped off a
Speaker 1: trolley and then was hit by an electric taxi? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I don't have that in my notes. So that's possibly
Speaker 1: that's possible trivia that may live somewhere in Jonathan's head
Speaker 1: and could have possibly been made up entirely. Well, let
Speaker 1: us know, send your email to tech stuff at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com. True enough, the yeah, they had, they had
Speaker 1: about sixty of them in New York. Um. Back in
Speaker 1: the about the turn of the twentieth century and um, yeah, gosh,
Speaker 1: that's right. I have to say, I have to specified
Speaker 1: turn of the century. Yeah, it just shows that I'm
Speaker 1: still not thinking in the twenty century frame of mind. Yes,
Speaker 1: but in this case it was a New York state
Speaker 1: of mind. Yes, it was so. Yeah. They as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, Um, this I had. I found a
Speaker 1: really cool timeline on NPR, which is a national public
Speaker 1: radio here in the in the United States. Um, that
Speaker 1: said that at the turn of the century twentieth century,
Speaker 1: were about four thousand cars on the road, and at
Speaker 1: that point it was split about thirty three pc each, steam,
Speaker 1: gasoline and electric cars. Um. Basically they were clean. But um,
Speaker 1: cold weather and batteries, Yeah, don't get along. If yeah,
Speaker 1: lead acid battery gets really cold, it's harder to get
Speaker 1: that juice flowing. The electrochemical reactions that need to take
Speaker 1: place are are slowed down by the cold. That's one
Speaker 1: of those things where you know, I've heard people say
Speaker 1: that in order to preserve your batteries, you should put
Speaker 1: them in some place cold, like a freezer refrigerator. Don't
Speaker 1: do that. It actually makes it much more difficult for
Speaker 1: those electrical electrochemical reactions to take place. So it you
Speaker 1: might think, oh, it's it's slowing it down. So therefore
Speaker 1: the juice will last longer even when I'm not using
Speaker 1: it in a in a UM device, But it's not
Speaker 1: going to work very well when you plug it back in.
Speaker 1: So uh, the same sort of thing is true in
Speaker 1: cold weather. You get in the car and you turn
Speaker 1: it on, you just barely creeping along because that electrochemical
Speaker 1: reaction is taking place so slowly, you're not getting the
Speaker 1: juice you need to get get moving now. It's you know,
Speaker 1: we we've made some advances since then, so there have
Speaker 1: been some more electric cars and we don't necessarily use
Speaker 1: lead acid batteries and all of them anymore either. Um No,
Speaker 1: but that was that was state of the art and
Speaker 1: then not terribly distant past. Um. You know, there are
Speaker 1: there are other types of rechargeable batteries, and of course
Speaker 1: they do need to be rechargeable. It's very important, of course,
Speaker 1: otherwise we would have to have these stations everywhere that
Speaker 1: would have, you know, batteries, you have to buy a
Speaker 1: new battery every time your car was running out of juice.
Speaker 1: You know, you'd switch them out, and that would not
Speaker 1: be very economical and it would also take up I
Speaker 1: mean a ton of space yep yep. Now, of course
Speaker 1: some you might say, well, what what happened? Uh, Henry
Speaker 1: Ford happened? He Boy did he happen? Well? He and
Speaker 1: and from what I've read about him, uh, he was
Speaker 1: a convert to the idea of using petroleum based cars. Um.
Speaker 1: He did like the internal combustion engine, but preferred alternative
Speaker 1: fuels to uh, to gasoline. But the thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: once that the Model T was released in for eight
Speaker 1: fifty dollars um, basically that that you know, it was
Speaker 1: affordable for so many people, and his production system made
Speaker 1: these cars so easily available. Um that they were you know,
Speaker 1: they were undercutting the prices of electric cars and they
Speaker 1: were far more available. So it took off and uh
Speaker 1: then like you know, the infrastructure gets built around it,
Speaker 1: and then we're kind of not stuck so much as
Speaker 1: committed to a particular type of vehicle. And it takes
Speaker 1: a lot of effort to change that. And the reason
Speaker 1: for the effort behind changing that, uh is largely through
Speaker 1: an environmental concern, but it goes beyond environment too. But
Speaker 1: we'll cover all of these things. So you know, if
Speaker 1: you if you just think about it from a very
Speaker 1: basic point of view, uh, and you're and you're really
Speaker 1: oversimplifying things. It'd be easy to say, oh, electric car
Speaker 1: makes sense because it does not produce pollution the way
Speaker 1: a gas powered car does. It's not emitting uh you know,
Speaker 1: any sort of uh gas that could could pollute the environment.
Speaker 1: You're not worrying about all the particles that would come
Speaker 1: out of exhaust. All of that sort of stuff, um applies.
Speaker 1: And so there is that part of the argument where
Speaker 1: if you were to just look at that part of
Speaker 1: the equation, it would be very easy to say, ah, well,
Speaker 1: electric cars, I mean, that's better for the world, so
Speaker 1: we should we should totally switch to that. But you
Speaker 1: should know, of course, that nothing is ever that simple
Speaker 1: to to take in other considerations. You have to think, well,
Speaker 1: how was the electricity generated? The electricity that is charging
Speaker 1: those batteries in that electric car, which you know you
Speaker 1: have to recharge. Most electric cars have well around forty
Speaker 1: fifty miles of range for a full charge and then up.
Speaker 1: You know, you need to have at least that because
Speaker 1: otherwise you would, you know, look, just on a regular
Speaker 1: commute to work, you could end up stranding yourself, because
Speaker 1: on the drive there and then half the drive back,
Speaker 1: you've already gone further than what your car can accomplish
Speaker 1: on its own. Yeah, Thomas Edison was working on that problem.
Speaker 1: He came out with a a nickel steel battery that
Speaker 1: would last for about miles according to the NPR timeline.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, you know that would that would make
Speaker 1: it far more appealing for reasonable commutes. I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: back at that time, people were not driving the distances
Speaker 1: they do now rice here in America. Um to do
Speaker 1: different things and uh so, so that was an improvement.
Speaker 1: But um, I think another um peg on the side
Speaker 1: of the gasoline car was Charles Kettering who came out
Speaker 1: with the electric automobile starter. And you know, so rather
Speaker 1: than getting out and cranking your car up with the
Speaker 1: crank in the front to get it started, that made
Speaker 1: the gasoline engine easier to start. And when you had
Speaker 1: the combination of that and the lower prices of the
Speaker 1: gasolene powered cars and the infrastructure, I think that helped
Speaker 1: make a serious difference on the in the in the
Speaker 1: in favor of gasoline power cars. And so, I mean,
Speaker 1: of course it's a totally different world than the one
Speaker 1: we have today where we're looking at the various uh
Speaker 1: impact of the gasoline car ours out there on the street.
Speaker 1: But getting back to the idea of the environmentally friendly,
Speaker 1: if your electricity is being produced by coal uh power
Speaker 1: power plants, then there's pollution going out into the environment
Speaker 1: on behalf of the electricity you're using, so you're not
Speaker 1: you know, the car is not as clean as you
Speaker 1: would first think necessarily. Now if you're if your electricity
Speaker 1: is coming through other means, like you have a huge
Speaker 1: solar panel farm attached to your house, and you might
Speaker 1: then that's much more clean. I mean, you still have
Speaker 1: to consider things like what materials went into producing both
Speaker 1: the car and the solar panels, because then we might
Speaker 1: get into rare earth minerals. But we did an entire
Speaker 1: episode of tech stuff on rare earth minerals, and I
Speaker 1: suggest you go back and listen to that. Right now,
Speaker 1: we'll wait. So anyway, now you know, I'm assuming you're
Speaker 1: all in the honor system that you did listen. But
Speaker 1: now you know those rare earth minerals, that's a problem, right,
Speaker 1: So that's another thing you have to think about with
Speaker 1: this electric versus gas. Beyond that, you have to think
Speaker 1: about things like the cost of the batteries, because depending
Speaker 1: upon what kind of batteries are in your car there
Speaker 1: electric car, they do eventually have to be replaced, that
Speaker 1: they will eventually run out of enough of the chemicals
Speaker 1: to make that electrochemical process happen, and you'll have to
Speaker 1: change them out, and they can be really expensive, so
Speaker 1: I can add to the price of an electric car.
Speaker 1: Ah And and price is another one of those issues,
Speaker 1: like if you look at how much does it cost
Speaker 1: to drive an electric car versus a gas powered car,
Speaker 1: and you have to take into consideration everything like not
Speaker 1: just the fuel prices and the electricity prices. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that would be easy to compare because I'm guessing
Speaker 1: that in almost every case the cost of electricity is
Speaker 1: going to be lower than the cost of gas. So
Speaker 1: from that perspective, they're the same. But then you have
Speaker 1: to think of things like, all right, well, replacing batteries,
Speaker 1: you've gotta factor that into the cost. You know that's
Speaker 1: going to happen, so that drives the electric prices up.
Speaker 1: But then you think, well, gas powered cars tend to
Speaker 1: require more maintenance because they have more moving parts, they
Speaker 1: have fluids that they have to handle like the gasoline
Speaker 1: and things of that nature. So we've got tubes and
Speaker 1: pipes and stuff that you don't have an electric cars.
Speaker 1: They don't they don't have those those things. There's the
Speaker 1: only fluids you have to worry about, things like break
Speaker 1: fluid and uh, when should wiper fluid and of course
Speaker 1: headlight fluid. Um well, but otherwise, yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: so what I'm trying to get at is that this
Speaker 1: is a really complex issue, and it's really really really
Speaker 1: tricky to do a direct comparison between the two in general. However,
Speaker 1: most the information I see shows that in the long run,
Speaker 1: being five years and longer, an electric car properly maintained
Speaker 1: versus a gas powered car properly maintained is a better deal.
Speaker 1: But it does take a few years for that to
Speaker 1: kick in. Yeah, I do feel compelled to point out
Speaker 1: that most automobile manufacturers believe that their batteries well outlast
Speaker 1: the life of the car, so it is unlikely that
Speaker 1: you will have to replace the array of batteries in
Speaker 1: a battery powered vehicle. Unlikely, And it also depends on
Speaker 1: how long you keep the vehicle too. I mean, most people, uh,
Speaker 1: the the lifespan of of cars has been increasing here
Speaker 1: in the United States. UM. Where once it was in
Speaker 1: the single digits, it's now you know, in the double digits. UM.
Speaker 1: But of course you do, as Jonathan said, need to
Speaker 1: take care of your vehicle in order for that to happen. UM.
Speaker 1: And there's also, uh, you know, there's there's also a
Speaker 1: matter of shipping costs too, UM because parts for some
Speaker 1: of these these things, UM have to come from different
Speaker 1: places and so UM. You know, I know that a
Speaker 1: few years ago they were talking about the early hybrid
Speaker 1: vehicles and people were buying them because they used less gasoline,
Speaker 1: because they were you know, a mixture of of battery
Speaker 1: power and gas power. But they said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: the thing is, the parts come from so many different
Speaker 1: places that it takes fossil fuels to you know, to
Speaker 1: be burned, to get those parts to one place to
Speaker 1: have them assembled and then take them to the place
Speaker 1: where you buy the vehicle. And some of the uh,
Speaker 1: the green hue that you're either partly or completely battery
Speaker 1: powered vehicle has is sort of tinged by um, the
Speaker 1: offset of the yes, it gets an oily tinge. I
Speaker 1: was just waiting because I was like I was staring
Speaker 1: at Chris, thinking, where's this going. So, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: can get its green usual they say it is. It's yeah.
Speaker 1: It's definitely a complex issue. And and on top of that,
Speaker 1: you know, you might say, all the the cost of
Speaker 1: an electric vehicle often right now as we're recording this
Speaker 1: podcast anyway, tends to be more expensive than a comparable
Speaker 1: vehicle that is gas powered. It's been improving, right, And
Speaker 1: it's one of those things, like any technology, where the
Speaker 1: earlier versions tend to be more expensive, and as we
Speaker 1: improve our manufacturing techniques and and everything around that, than
Speaker 1: the prices can come down. On top of that, we
Speaker 1: have to remember the political side of this, where in
Speaker 1: the United States, there are especially within particular states we're
Speaker 1: talking about both federal and state level here. Um, there
Speaker 1: are incentives in many places to purchase an electric car
Speaker 1: where you can get tax credits or rebates, and that
Speaker 1: helps bring the overall price of the vehicle down closer
Speaker 1: to within the range of other cars in that class.
Speaker 1: A lot of complex issues here. Some of them are economics,
Speaker 1: some of them are environmental, some of them are political.
Speaker 1: And that's why it's really been kind of a hot
Speaker 1: button issue. I mean particularly that political part with the
Speaker 1: the tax credits I've seen. I've seen praise for that,
Speaker 1: where where people have said, because of this, you have
Speaker 1: put electric vehicles within the grasp of more more folks
Speaker 1: than otherwise would have that opportunity because it otherwise it
Speaker 1: would be too expensive for them to buy. On the
Speaker 1: flip side, there are people saying, this is our tax money,
Speaker 1: You're giving credits to other people with my money. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think that's a very personally, this is my opinion.
Speaker 1: I think that's a fairly short sighted view, saying that
Speaker 1: my money is going to give someone else a break
Speaker 1: when you're thinking, okay. Ultimately, the idea here is that
Speaker 1: we're trying to get ourselves off a dependence on oil
Speaker 1: and gasoline as much as we possibly can, and in
Speaker 1: that sense, it is a benefit to me, even if
Speaker 1: I never go out and buy an electric car, to
Speaker 1: help reduce that dependency on oil, particularly when you get
Speaker 1: into global politics where you have to worry about who
Speaker 1: is it that owns the oil that we are getting,
Speaker 1: and what is our political relationship with them, what's our
Speaker 1: political relationship with the country surrounding that one, what's that
Speaker 1: country's political relationship it gets so thorny. So in my
Speaker 1: in my view, the in the long term game, uh,
Speaker 1: this incentive to go out and get an electric car
Speaker 1: could be of great benefit to everyone. But again you
Speaker 1: have to be able to take that long term look
Speaker 1: and just uh suppressed that that initial urge to say
Speaker 1: this isn't fair because my money is going to help
Speaker 1: someone else and I don't see, like I'm not buying
Speaker 1: an electric car, so I don't see why I have
Speaker 1: to pay this this tax money. Yeah. Yeah, And now,
Speaker 1: of course, um, whether or not you agree with it,
Speaker 1: it's it's easy to at least understand that point. I mean,
Speaker 1: not all not all politics are understandable, but understandable to say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm i'm I'm paying taxes, I want to
Speaker 1: see something for my money, and uh, well the thing
Speaker 1: the easy argument for that is we'll go buy an
Speaker 1: electric car, dude. Um, But no, that that's that's oversimplifying
Speaker 1: the argument that the thing is because they're so expensive,
Speaker 1: they're not affordable for everyone. Um, perhaps somebody particularly likes
Speaker 1: their car. There. Car enthusiasts are very passionate about certain vehicles. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, for a long time we've had uh,
Speaker 1: gas powered vehicles that people have fallen in love with,
Speaker 1: so you know, they're they're gonna be people who still
Speaker 1: love that UM, which in my personal opinion is understandable.
Speaker 1: But I also would like to UH see electric car
Speaker 1: succeed because I do think there are UM, you know,
Speaker 1: better for the environment in the long haul, uh, at
Speaker 1: least in the immediate sense. Now there's a lot as
Speaker 1: we were talking about, this isn't something that's gonna happen overnight.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of work that has to be done.
Speaker 1: One company that I think UM is interesting to to
Speaker 1: follow is a company called Better Place, which is UM.
Speaker 1: I believe UM uh an Israeli company, and they have
Speaker 1: been working with organizations all over the world to test
Speaker 1: out there uh their systems. Now Wired magazine had an
Speaker 1: article about them and UM their founder, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm pronouncing his his first name writer not shy
Speaker 1: Agassi UM and UH basically they have their Their website
Speaker 1: is very informative about the different kinds of technologies that
Speaker 1: they are looking at. But they're working on ways to
Speaker 1: convert UH more typical cars rather than building them from
Speaker 1: scratch to UH to electricity and and UH basically creating
Speaker 1: the infrastructure that would be necessary to power these vehicles, um,
Speaker 1: which I mean no pun intended power um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's some it's I think that you know,
Speaker 1: if you poke around on the website they have at
Speaker 1: least they give you an idea of what it's the
Speaker 1: kind of work it's going to take. And it's not
Speaker 1: going to be Um. I don't think it's going to
Speaker 1: be one company or one person or one country around
Speaker 1: the world. It's going to take many people in many countries,
Speaker 1: you know, working on the problem to generate a real
Speaker 1: solution to it. Because you know, frankly, if you look
Speaker 1: at the timeline on NPR there there um, it goes
Speaker 1: from the downfall of the electric car in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: basically all the things we were talking about before to ye.
Speaker 1: And that's because people just weren't working on the problem
Speaker 1: in between. I mean they were, but they were it
Speaker 1: was more of a I wouldn't say hobby. It was
Speaker 1: something where they were testing ideas. More so than we're
Speaker 1: going to build a fleet of electric cars. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take it back from these uh, these gasoline powered ideas.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna completely revamp that, and it goes
Speaker 1: from when uh, General Motors came out with the e
Speaker 1: V one UM, which it's sold at Saturn dealerships. I
Speaker 1: remember because I have a SAD and I saw one
Speaker 1: every once in a while. You joined the cult. I
Speaker 1: did join the cults. We also had a Saturn, So
Speaker 1: I can't I can't criticize UM, which is now an
Speaker 1: orphan car. Um. But there have been others, of course,
Speaker 1: you know recently, um, that are all electric. Tesla Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Tesla's famous and in fact, Automobile magazine named the Tesla
Speaker 1: Model S as its two thousand car of the Year,
Speaker 1: keeping in mind we're still in twelve and car years
Speaker 1: make no sense to me. But no, they named the
Speaker 1: Tesla Model SUH the car of the year and said
Speaker 1: that it was, um uh, a very impressive ride, a
Speaker 1: very quiet, very fast car. And they and apparently we're
Speaker 1: all endangering their driver's licenses by driving far too fast.
Speaker 1: And well, the Tesla Roadster UM, which was its first yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a sports car, was its first car out there. UM,
Speaker 1: I understand has a whiplash in ducing acceleration. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where just it's an incredibly
Speaker 1: fast acceleration, like just the it's it's a really powerful vehicle.
Speaker 1: And we should also say that according to the Energy Collective,
Speaker 1: there's been a two increase in sales of electric vehicles
Speaker 1: from eleven. But if you want to know that what
Speaker 1: that is in real numbers, you know, you're two percent more.
Speaker 1: That sounds incredible when you get down to real numbers,
Speaker 1: that's around thirty eight thousand cars. So that's about the
Speaker 1: same number of cars in the entire year that some
Speaker 1: of the more popular models sell in a month. So
Speaker 1: you know, you've got to take keep your perspective on there. So, yes,
Speaker 1: the the industry is growing, which is good, but it's
Speaker 1: still very tiny in comparison to the traditional gasoline powered
Speaker 1: cars and even to hybrid vehicles which have had they've
Speaker 1: they've had a few more years to uh to really
Speaker 1: start hitting the market, at least in the United States.
Speaker 1: Um and I want to talk really briefly, just explain
Speaker 1: very quickly the what makes electric cars work, because we
Speaker 1: talked about how in the gas engine you have all
Speaker 1: these tubes and pipes and stuff you've got you're using
Speaker 1: combustion to help drive pistons. Um, you know, expanding gases,
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff. That's that's what's providing the
Speaker 1: the energy you need to make the cargo. But with
Speaker 1: an electric car, you're talking about batteries, a controller, and
Speaker 1: electric motor, and the electric motor is what's generating all
Speaker 1: the energy to make the cargo. And the basics of
Speaker 1: an of an electric motor are pretty simple, and that
Speaker 1: comes down to, uh, two magnets. How do they work?
Speaker 1: We actually have an article on it if you want
Speaker 1: to know. But all right, so imagine that you have
Speaker 1: this is a very super simple electric motor. Let's say
Speaker 1: that you have, um, you have a magnet and it's
Speaker 1: uh and sort of a semicircle uh shape, and you've
Speaker 1: got a north end of the magnet on one side
Speaker 1: and the south end of the magnet on the other side. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's think of it like an arc. So you've
Speaker 1: got the south end on one side, the arc in
Speaker 1: the north end on the other side of the arc.
Speaker 1: In between, like mounted on a on a pole, you
Speaker 1: have a rotor that can spin freely around in a circle.
Speaker 1: And then you have mounted on that rotor and electro magnet. Now,
Speaker 1: when you run a current through that electromagnet, it creates
Speaker 1: a magnetic field, and uh it magnetizes this electromagnet. So
Speaker 1: you have a north pole in the south pole. Now,
Speaker 1: when the north pole in the of the electromagnet and
Speaker 1: the north pole of that permanent magnet that's mounted in
Speaker 1: an arc are close to one another, they repel each
Speaker 1: other and Santa Claus flies off. And then when the
Speaker 1: north pole of the electro magnet gets close to the
Speaker 1: south pole of the permanent magnet, they attract one another.
Speaker 1: So whist the penguins. If you just have the current
Speaker 1: run I'm ignoring Christopher when you when you if you
Speaker 1: just have the current running through one direction in this electromagnet,
Speaker 1: it's going to align itself so that the north pole
Speaker 1: of the electromagnet is pointing at the south pole the
Speaker 1: permanent magnet, and and the south pole of the electromagnets
Speaker 1: point where the north pole of the permanent magnet. But
Speaker 1: then if you were to reverse the current, that would
Speaker 1: also reverse the polarity of the magnet itself. The electromagnet,
Speaker 1: the poles would switch, which would mean that now suddenly
Speaker 1: it would be pushing away from the the permanent magnet.
Speaker 1: Uh as it is currently um aligned, so it would
Speaker 1: move and rotate so that the poles were again attracted
Speaker 1: to the opposites. So by switching the current the direction
Speaker 1: of current inside the electro magnet at a particular rate,
Speaker 1: you can get that rotor to turn. And as the
Speaker 1: rotor turns, which I think was a soap opera, it starts,
Speaker 1: it's it's doing work started. You can harness that work
Speaker 1: to generate electricity. That's the basis of the electric motor.
Speaker 1: So you're using magnets to turn a rotor. By the way,
Speaker 1: that we usually refer to that as a a brushed motor,
Speaker 1: and the reason for that is there there are contacts
Speaker 1: on the inside of that rotor uh that when the
Speaker 1: magnet is spinning around, it's what's allowing the the current
Speaker 1: to change direction. Because you're you're getting power from batteries.
Speaker 1: Batteries are direct current, that's DC, so direct current is
Speaker 1: always going to flow in the same direction. Alternating current
Speaker 1: is electricity that is reversing the flow of current rapidly
Speaker 1: in cycles pulses UM. So in order to convert d
Speaker 1: C to a C, which is what we really need
Speaker 1: for things like an electric car, you would have these Um.
Speaker 1: These little they are called brushes uh inside the electric
Speaker 1: motor that once they hit certain contexts, that's what would
Speaker 1: allow the the flow of electricity to change direction. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are also brushless electric motors. In this case, what
Speaker 1: you do is you put the permanent magnets on the rotor,
Speaker 1: so the rotor magnets are never going to change, and
Speaker 1: you put the electro magnets on the field around the rotor,
Speaker 1: and you just change the the direction of current in
Speaker 1: the permanent magnets. They're stationary, so you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about figuring out how you're gonna swap the flow
Speaker 1: of current over and over with a moving object, and
Speaker 1: the rotor itself will still spin and generate energy that way. Electricity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now you know some some battery you're charging is accomplished
Speaker 1: in gasoline power cars through the alternator um and uh
Speaker 1: you know they're there are other regenerative breaking and some
Speaker 1: other things that help out with that. But of course
Speaker 1: it's much more of an issue with electric cars, UM.
Speaker 1: You know. And and the distance the it's hard to say.
Speaker 1: It's weird for me to say mileage because I always think,
Speaker 1: you know, miles per gallon UM and also kilometers to
Speaker 1: the people in this is an honest question. Kilometers, kilometer ridge,
Speaker 1: what do you call it in Europe anyway? Distance? Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: the distance you could travel. Let's just say that is
Speaker 1: and how it's being silly, but I really don't know. Um,
Speaker 1: the distance you can travel with an electric car is
Speaker 1: still one of the big issues. It's still a reason
Speaker 1: why people are hesitant to adopt the vehicles, although they're
Speaker 1: they're more likely to these days. Um. But some people
Speaker 1: have tried to get around that with sort of combinations
Speaker 1: that uh seem you know, like they they might be
Speaker 1: more challenging than others. Chevrolet here in the United States
Speaker 1: has the Vault, which is primarily an electric car, but
Speaker 1: it does have a gasoline powered engine in it that
Speaker 1: can take up It's sort of like the reverse of
Speaker 1: a Toyota Prius, where you use your your gasoline engine
Speaker 1: to get from like you say, on the highway, and
Speaker 1: then as you're driving in the city where it stopped
Speaker 1: and go, it converts over to electricity. Um. The volt
Speaker 1: is supposed to work primarily on electricity, and when the
Speaker 1: battery runs down and you still need to get somewhere,
Speaker 1: the gasoline engine can help you get the rest of
Speaker 1: the way better place. UM envisions a world in which
Speaker 1: the batteries are not attached to their vehicle itself, So
Speaker 1: you could pull into a battery battery replacement station and
Speaker 1: somebody will pull the battery for you, put in a
Speaker 1: freshly charged one, hook it up, and you're ready to go.
Speaker 1: UM in addition to charging stations, and again that's expensive
Speaker 1: because that's infrastructure that's more than just the car. You've
Speaker 1: got to have the stations available to do that. But
Speaker 1: I have to say that is a pretty practical way
Speaker 1: of looking at it. Yeah, we've also talked about fuel
Speaker 1: cells in the past that are not too different, or
Speaker 1: a hydrogen based car, and same sort of same sort
Speaker 1: of challenges applied to that. Where you're talking about, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the hydrogen powered car sounds like a great idea. You
Speaker 1: get heat and some water vapor, which granted is technically
Speaker 1: a greenhouse gas, but it's not. It's not a pollutant
Speaker 1: in in the way that carbon dioxide is. But you know,
Speaker 1: you've you've got uh, you know, when that's your your
Speaker 1: your output and you're using it. Sounds like a hydrogen
Speaker 1: based fleet of cars will be a great idea, but
Speaker 1: then you have to figure out how to support the
Speaker 1: fleet of cars, and that's where we start running into
Speaker 1: problems where you you're looking at a multiple multibillion dollar
Speaker 1: problem with most countries, including places like the United States,
Speaker 1: which are it's a big country with lots of people
Speaker 1: in it. Of course, there are larger countries with even
Speaker 1: more people in it, and for them it would be,
Speaker 1: you know, a significant challenge to switch over. Electric cars
Speaker 1: are not maybe not quite as dramatic a a shift
Speaker 1: in the sense that with the right adapters, you would
Speaker 1: be able to plug your car in UH in to
Speaker 1: any UH outlet that was capable of putting out the
Speaker 1: right amount of power, so you wouldn't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: have refueling stations designed specifically for electric cars, except when
Speaker 1: you're talking about going on a really long trip. If
Speaker 1: you were doing a road trip of any length, then
Speaker 1: you're thinking, well, I definitely need to figure out something
Speaker 1: to supplement the distance this car can go, because otherwise
Speaker 1: I'm never going to get to where I'm headed. But
Speaker 1: you know, they've they've made some pretty strong strides in
Speaker 1: that as well. Tesla reports that it can with its
Speaker 1: vehicles hit two fifty miles on a single charge, which
Speaker 1: is pretty impressive. Yep. Yeah, but there are other challenges
Speaker 1: to UM actually some that are very recent. UM. And
Speaker 1: no jokes please if you know something about Fisker, but
Speaker 1: just just as at the time we're recording this, it's
Speaker 1: very early November. UM. Hurricane Sandy just hit the north
Speaker 1: eastern part of the United States and went into Canada,
Speaker 1: UM and caused quite a bit of damage up there.
Speaker 1: And I found this kind of interesting, UM because I
Speaker 1: found a story about Fisker in which sixteen UM Fisker Karmas,
Speaker 1: which are expensive electric vehicles, UM, were submerged by saltwater
Speaker 1: from the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy, and the saltwater
Speaker 1: affected the cars and they caught fire. Yes, there are
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars apiece, so it's very bad karma UM.
Speaker 1: But basically they were they were apparently stationed in Port Newark,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and when the storm came in, the storm surge,
Speaker 1: you know, caused the tides to swell, they got doused
Speaker 1: in saltwater, and apparently when they got flooded, the systems
Speaker 1: in the car reacted to the saltwater poorly, to say
Speaker 1: the very least, and the cars caught fire. Um, now
Speaker 1: they've been accused of the reason I had said this,
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with them, they have been accused
Speaker 1: of fires before. But I think in general this could
Speaker 1: be a hazard. Um, if you live in a storm
Speaker 1: prone area, this might be something that you have to
Speaker 1: worry about. You might say, well, I have to evacuate,
Speaker 1: not because I think the storm is gonna be bad,
Speaker 1: but there will be flooding, and if it's flooding enough
Speaker 1: for my car will be partially submerged. Um. You know
Speaker 1: people have that problem now with with combustion engines. When
Speaker 1: a gasoline powered car, if the water gets to a
Speaker 1: certain depth, you know your gasoline power car won't work.
Speaker 1: A diesel might sort of depending. Yeah, so there are
Speaker 1: a lot of things to think about. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I think for the general approach your the move
Speaker 1: towards electric cars is I think more positive than not positive.
Speaker 1: I think it could happen. The thing is my will
Speaker 1: the podcast. No, I think it could happen. I think,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna take work and people need to realize that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's going to be more expensive at first, but
Speaker 1: you know, in a long run, the technology will improve,
Speaker 1: the the infrastructure will improve, and and in the long
Speaker 1: run it might be uh, we all might be better
Speaker 1: off for it, even if you don't necessarily believe in
Speaker 1: the human powered part of car global warming. I think
Speaker 1: the air will at least be cleaner. You might be
Speaker 1: able to see outside of l A on a right day,
Speaker 1: So help guys. If that wraps up our discussion about
Speaker 1: electric vehicles, kind of where things stand right now, I
Speaker 1: am curious to see if this trend of people buying
Speaker 1: more electric vehicles, if that does in fact continue, if
Speaker 1: hybrid cars are anything to go by, then that's a
Speaker 1: good indication that we will see more electric cars on
Speaker 1: the road in the next few years as people adopt
Speaker 1: this technology in greater numbers. But if you guys have
Speaker 1: any suggestions or topics you would like us to cover
Speaker 1: in future episodes of tech Stuff, I highly recommend you'd
Speaker 1: get in touch with us right It's at tech Stuff
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Speaker 1: w and Chris and I will talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics.
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