WEBVTT - TechStuff Rides in Electric Cars 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:05.360 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:13.560 stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, and welcome to 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:15.520 tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and I'm an 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:17.840 editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting across from me, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:22.880 as usual, is senior writer Johnathan Stricklin. Hey there, so, Chris, um, 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.760 let's let's think back about a century or so, actually 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.040 a little bit more than that. Did you know that 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:31.720 one of the more popular ways of getting around in 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:36.200 the earliest days of the horseless carriage was in an 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.600 electric vehicle? Yes? But I actually had a course in 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.280 college where we studied that, so I'll pretend no, Jonathan, 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:46.120 I had no idea. Well, Chris, you ignorant man. I'm 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.320 going to enlighten you. Now, if only you had spent 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.959 some hard earned cash on a on an education, then 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.680 you would know that that that. Yeah, the electric car 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:01.680 is nothing new in a sense. We've had electric cars 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.360 for quite some time. They in fact pre date the 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.920 internal combustion engine car. Yeah. They It's funny to look 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:14.600 at the alternative methods for powering a car, uh these days, 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.000 because in of course, electric is one of the more 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.800 common ways to talk about it. Or hybrids. Again, not 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.040 new um, but this is UH. There are other things too, 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:30.280 like talking about uh ethanol and and plant based fuel. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.800 These kinds of things were talked about at the beginning 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:38.040 of the whole car thing when people were saying, you know, oh, well, 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.240 what what would we used to power an engine or 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:42.640 or power a motor to make this happen? And and 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.280 they ran through these things. Eventually petroleum one out. And 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.520 the reason this is so challenging now is because the 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:54.040 petroleum UH infrastructure is so well established. But um, but 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.800 it's amazing to to think about because we think, oh, well, 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.520 you know electric cars, well they're new. Well not really. 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:05.000 The problem is the technology uh hasn't been worked on 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.760 and and so long, at least by as many people. Right. Yeah, 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:11.480 When you go back to the earliest electric vehicles, they 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.240 were very limited. You could not go very far because 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.440 the batteries would run out of charge. They were not 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:23.920 necessarily rechargeable. You had massive batteries, so that meant that 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.440 it added to the overall weight of the vehicle itself. 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.079 They didn't go very fast. They seem to be all 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.760 right for getting around uh like a city UH in 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:38.679 the late nineteenth century, but any difficult terrain it would 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:43.480 start to have problems. Uh. The steam powered cars actually 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:48.000 ended up being more popular than electric ones because they 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:52.160 could go much faster, and uh, they were not necessarily 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.200 the best choice either, because they were not terribly efficient. 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.440 You had to, you know, get the boiler heated up 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.200 before you could go anywhere. You had to actually start 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:04.120 generating SAM before you could make the vehicle go, And 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.560 there's always the possibility that it could blow up real good, 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.480 which not not not something you necessarily want when you're 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.480 gonna take a little trip down to Grandma's is to 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:19.000 have the steam boiler explode on the way there. That's 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.760 that's generally what we consider a bad thing. It's productive 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:29.760 trans But gas powered cars they had the power and 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:33.760 the versatility that people wanted in those early days of travel. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.480 And because of that, and because we did build this 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.680 huge infrastructure to support those sort of cars, there's a 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.560 lot of momentum built up. Right. Yeah, Yeah, to use 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:46.520 a term in a way that I wasn't intending, but 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.200 they're exactly. They had built up a lot of momentum, 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:55.560 and it meant that any new quote unquote new developments 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.960 in uh this technology was going to be met with resistance, 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.600 not necessarily you know, something that people were consciously trying 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:06.080 to resist, but just from the very nature of how 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:11.920 the industry developed. So resistance, oh man, I am no. 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.520 I just can't get away from it, so I'll embrace it. 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.480 So the electric car is making kind of a comeback, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:23.479 depending upon who you ask, whom you ask, yes, well, yeah, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.080 there it's been in the news a lot, especially during 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:31.640 the election cycle here in America. Um, but do you 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:33.640 want to go back and start talking about some of 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.280 these early vehicles first, and we can kind of talk 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:38.320 about where we are now? Sure, if you've got some 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.760 information on early vehicles, I'd love to hear it. Okay, Well, Um, 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.479 I found a very interesting timeline that that suggested that 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.960 it was a Scottish inventor, Robert Anderson, who came up 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:53.320 with a a very very basic electric car with non 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:58.000 rechargeable batteries. It seems like a problem especially in eighteen 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.000 somewhere in the early eighteen thirty ease as when he 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.560 started working on that, and uh, you know they kept 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:08.440 working on that. Uh. I also have a Gaston Plante, 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:10.960 a French physicist who in eighteen fifty nine had a 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.640 rechargeable lead acid battery actually the lead acid battery has 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:19.520 been sort of the staple for electric cars for a while. Um, 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.599 but they're extremely heavy, probably because of the lead relate 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:28.880 and just a guess um um, but also a camille 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:33.000 of it doesn't have the accident on it far Uh. 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.240 In eighty one improved upon that idea, and then in 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.040 in Des Moines, Iowa. Uh, William Morrison came up with 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.880 an electric car. In the United States here um and uh, 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.039 you know, they were working on those. They even had 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:53.360 a fleet of electric taxis in New York because the 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.240 first first pedestrian fatality in the Western hemisphere. As I recall, 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:02.080 now you're just being you know, am I not? Am 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.279 I not correct? Wasn't there someone who stepped off a 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:09.479 trolley and then was hit by an electric taxi? Okay, well, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.440 I don't have that in my notes. So that's possibly 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.520 that's possible trivia that may live somewhere in Jonathan's head 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.880 and could have possibly been made up entirely. Well, let 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.719 us know, send your email to tech stuff at Discovery 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.400 dot com. True enough, the yeah, they had, they had 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.880 about sixty of them in New York. Um. Back in 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.920 the about the turn of the twentieth century and um, yeah, gosh, 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.760 that's right. I have to say, I have to specified 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.400 turn of the century. Yeah, it just shows that I'm 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:42.360 still not thinking in the twenty century frame of mind. Yes, 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.799 but in this case it was a New York state 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.840 of mind. Yes, it was so. Yeah. They as a 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:50.760 matter of fact, Um, this I had. I found a 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.520 really cool timeline on NPR, which is a national public 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.320 radio here in the in the United States. Um, that 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.720 said that at the turn of the century twentieth century, 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.520 were about four thousand cars on the road, and at 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:08.719 that point it was split about thirty three pc each, steam, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:14.880 gasoline and electric cars. Um. Basically they were clean. But um, 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:19.880 cold weather and batteries, Yeah, don't get along. If yeah, 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.000 lead acid battery gets really cold, it's harder to get 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:27.120 that juice flowing. The electrochemical reactions that need to take 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.760 place are are slowed down by the cold. That's one 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.000 of those things where you know, I've heard people say 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.520 that in order to preserve your batteries, you should put 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.800 them in some place cold, like a freezer refrigerator. Don't 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.600 do that. It actually makes it much more difficult for 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:50.800 those electrical electrochemical reactions to take place. So it you 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.320 might think, oh, it's it's slowing it down. So therefore 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.200 the juice will last longer even when I'm not using 0:07:56.200 --> 0:08:00.720 it in a in a UM device, But it's not 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:02.960 going to work very well when you plug it back in. 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.320 So uh, the same sort of thing is true in 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.080 cold weather. You get in the car and you turn 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.600 it on, you just barely creeping along because that electrochemical 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.080 reaction is taking place so slowly, you're not getting the 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:21.040 juice you need to get get moving now. It's you know, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.520 we we've made some advances since then, so there have 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.240 been some more electric cars and we don't necessarily use 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.760 lead acid batteries and all of them anymore either. Um No, 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.840 but that was that was state of the art and 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.600 then not terribly distant past. Um. You know, there are 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:38.760 there are other types of rechargeable batteries, and of course 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.640 they do need to be rechargeable. It's very important, of course, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.440 otherwise we would have to have these stations everywhere that 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.160 would have, you know, batteries, you have to buy a 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.400 new battery every time your car was running out of juice. 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:52.360 You know, you'd switch them out, and that would not 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.240 be very economical and it would also take up I 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.400 mean a ton of space yep yep. Now, of course 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.600 some you might say, well, what what happened? Uh, Henry 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:08.200 Ford happened? He Boy did he happen? Well? He and 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.120 and from what I've read about him, uh, he was 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:15.560 a convert to the idea of using petroleum based cars. Um. 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.520 He did like the internal combustion engine, but preferred alternative 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.960 fuels to uh, to gasoline. But the thing is, you know, 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:28.840 once that the Model T was released in for eight 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:34.480 fifty dollars um, basically that that you know, it was 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:39.559 affordable for so many people, and his production system made 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:44.920 these cars so easily available. Um that they were you know, 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.679 they were undercutting the prices of electric cars and they 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.679 were far more available. So it took off and uh 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.200 then like you know, the infrastructure gets built around it, 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:58.280 and then we're kind of not stuck so much as 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:02.679 committed to a particular type of vehicle. And it takes 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.160 a lot of effort to change that. And the reason 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:10.600 for the effort behind changing that, uh is largely through 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.600 an environmental concern, but it goes beyond environment too. But 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.320 we'll cover all of these things. So you know, if 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.560 you if you just think about it from a very 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.040 basic point of view, uh, and you're and you're really 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:28.320 oversimplifying things. It'd be easy to say, oh, electric car 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.319 makes sense because it does not produce pollution the way 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:37.360 a gas powered car does. It's not emitting uh you know, 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:43.800 any sort of uh gas that could could pollute the environment. 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.280 You're not worrying about all the particles that would come 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.840 out of exhaust. All of that sort of stuff, um applies. 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:53.840 And so there is that part of the argument where 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.200 if you were to just look at that part of 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.840 the equation, it would be very easy to say, ah, well, 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.000 electric cars, I mean, that's better for the world, so 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:05.240 we should we should totally switch to that. But you 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.280 should know, of course, that nothing is ever that simple 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.400 to to take in other considerations. You have to think, well, 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.720 how was the electricity generated? The electricity that is charging 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.400 those batteries in that electric car, which you know you 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:23.680 have to recharge. Most electric cars have well around forty 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:28.079 fifty miles of range for a full charge and then up. 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:30.800 You know, you need to have at least that because 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.640 otherwise you would, you know, look, just on a regular 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.800 commute to work, you could end up stranding yourself, because 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.000 on the drive there and then half the drive back, 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.680 you've already gone further than what your car can accomplish 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.240 on its own. Yeah, Thomas Edison was working on that problem. 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.760 He came out with a a nickel steel battery that 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:56.360 would last for about miles according to the NPR timeline. 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:59.280 Um and uh, you know that would that would make 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.760 it far more appealing for reasonable commutes. I mean, uh, 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:06.280 back at that time, people were not driving the distances 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.880 they do now rice here in America. Um to do 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.160 different things and uh so, so that was an improvement. 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:18.760 But um, I think another um peg on the side 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:24.559 of the gasoline car was Charles Kettering who came out 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:28.800 with the electric automobile starter. And you know, so rather 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.079 than getting out and cranking your car up with the 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.760 crank in the front to get it started, that made 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.720 the gasoline engine easier to start. And when you had 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.079 the combination of that and the lower prices of the 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:44.760 gasolene powered cars and the infrastructure, I think that helped 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:46.960 make a serious difference on the in the in the 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:51.439 in favor of gasoline power cars. And so, I mean, 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.160 of course it's a totally different world than the one 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:57.400 we have today where we're looking at the various uh 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.640 impact of the gasoline car ours out there on the street. 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.440 But getting back to the idea of the environmentally friendly, 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:10.280 if your electricity is being produced by coal uh power 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:16.440 power plants, then there's pollution going out into the environment 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:20.160 on behalf of the electricity you're using, so you're not 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.920 you know, the car is not as clean as you 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.319 would first think necessarily. Now if you're if your electricity 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.680 is coming through other means, like you have a huge 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.840 solar panel farm attached to your house, and you might 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:39.040 then that's much more clean. I mean, you still have 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:43.240 to consider things like what materials went into producing both 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.600 the car and the solar panels, because then we might 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.120 get into rare earth minerals. But we did an entire 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.679 episode of tech stuff on rare earth minerals, and I 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:54.559 suggest you go back and listen to that. Right now, 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.160 we'll wait. So anyway, now you know, I'm assuming you're 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:01.480 all in the honor system that you did listen. But 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.240 now you know those rare earth minerals, that's a problem, right, 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.679 So that's another thing you have to think about with 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.760 this electric versus gas. Beyond that, you have to think 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.280 about things like the cost of the batteries, because depending 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.000 upon what kind of batteries are in your car there 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.360 electric car, they do eventually have to be replaced, that 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.920 they will eventually run out of enough of the chemicals 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.720 to make that electrochemical process happen, and you'll have to 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.200 change them out, and they can be really expensive, so 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.240 I can add to the price of an electric car. 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.480 Ah And and price is another one of those issues, 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:38.320 like if you look at how much does it cost 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:43.040 to drive an electric car versus a gas powered car, 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.120 and you have to take into consideration everything like not 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:48.600 just the fuel prices and the electricity prices. I mean, 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.960 that's that would be easy to compare because I'm guessing 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.920 that in almost every case the cost of electricity is 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.080 going to be lower than the cost of gas. So 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.880 from that perspective, they're the same. But then you have 0:14:59.880 --> 0:15:02.160 to think of things like, all right, well, replacing batteries, 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.800 you've gotta factor that into the cost. You know that's 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.000 going to happen, so that drives the electric prices up. 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.840 But then you think, well, gas powered cars tend to 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:15.960 require more maintenance because they have more moving parts, they 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.120 have fluids that they have to handle like the gasoline 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.000 and things of that nature. So we've got tubes and 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:23.000 pipes and stuff that you don't have an electric cars. 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.680 They don't they don't have those those things. There's the 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:27.680 only fluids you have to worry about, things like break 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.880 fluid and uh, when should wiper fluid and of course 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:36.720 headlight fluid. Um well, but otherwise, yeah, you know, it's 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.200 so what I'm trying to get at is that this 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.880 is a really complex issue, and it's really really really 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:47.280 tricky to do a direct comparison between the two in general. However, 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.480 most the information I see shows that in the long run, 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:56.320 being five years and longer, an electric car properly maintained 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.720 versus a gas powered car properly maintained is a better deal. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.160 But it does take a few years for that to 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.000 kick in. Yeah, I do feel compelled to point out 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:13.360 that most automobile manufacturers believe that their batteries well outlast 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.720 the life of the car, so it is unlikely that 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.560 you will have to replace the array of batteries in 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:23.560 a battery powered vehicle. Unlikely, And it also depends on 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:27.640 how long you keep the vehicle too. I mean, most people, uh, 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.920 the the lifespan of of cars has been increasing here 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.680 in the United States. UM. Where once it was in 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:38.120 the single digits, it's now you know, in the double digits. UM. 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.200 But of course you do, as Jonathan said, need to 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.160 take care of your vehicle in order for that to happen. UM. 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.680 And there's also, uh, you know, there's there's also a 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:50.120 matter of shipping costs too, UM because parts for some 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.680 of these these things, UM have to come from different 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:58.400 places and so UM. You know, I know that a 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.360 few years ago they were talking about the early hybrid 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:05.320 vehicles and people were buying them because they used less gasoline, 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:07.720 because they were you know, a mixture of of battery 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.719 power and gas power. But they said, well, you know, 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.359 the thing is, the parts come from so many different 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:17.439 places that it takes fossil fuels to you know, to 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.359 be burned, to get those parts to one place to 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.399 have them assembled and then take them to the place 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:28.040 where you buy the vehicle. And some of the uh, 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:34.160 the green hue that you're either partly or completely battery 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:40.280 powered vehicle has is sort of tinged by um, the 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:46.159 offset of the yes, it gets an oily tinge. I 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:47.879 was just waiting because I was like I was staring 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.800 at Chris, thinking, where's this going. So, yeah, but I 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.400 can get its green usual they say it is. It's yeah. 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.960 It's definitely a complex issue. And and on top of that, 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.359 you know, you might say, all the the cost of 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:07.199 an electric vehicle often right now as we're recording this 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.760 podcast anyway, tends to be more expensive than a comparable 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.960 vehicle that is gas powered. It's been improving, right, And 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.159 it's one of those things, like any technology, where the 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.640 earlier versions tend to be more expensive, and as we 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:24.440 improve our manufacturing techniques and and everything around that, than 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.199 the prices can come down. On top of that, we 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.560 have to remember the political side of this, where in 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.520 the United States, there are especially within particular states we're 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.680 talking about both federal and state level here. Um, there 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:40.560 are incentives in many places to purchase an electric car 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:45.160 where you can get tax credits or rebates, and that 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.040 helps bring the overall price of the vehicle down closer 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:53.040 to within the range of other cars in that class. 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.600 A lot of complex issues here. Some of them are economics, 0:18:57.680 --> 0:18:59.800 some of them are environmental, some of them are political. 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.120 And that's why it's really been kind of a hot 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.160 button issue. I mean particularly that political part with the 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.560 the tax credits I've seen. I've seen praise for that, 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.760 where where people have said, because of this, you have 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:17.280 put electric vehicles within the grasp of more more folks 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.520 than otherwise would have that opportunity because it otherwise it 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:22.879 would be too expensive for them to buy. On the 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:26.320 flip side, there are people saying, this is our tax money, 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:31.720 You're giving credits to other people with my money. Uh. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.560 I think that's a very personally, this is my opinion. 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.880 I think that's a fairly short sighted view, saying that 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.679 my money is going to give someone else a break 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.720 when you're thinking, okay. Ultimately, the idea here is that 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.360 we're trying to get ourselves off a dependence on oil 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.959 and gasoline as much as we possibly can, and in 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.120 that sense, it is a benefit to me, even if 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.639 I never go out and buy an electric car, to 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.760 help reduce that dependency on oil, particularly when you get 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.320 into global politics where you have to worry about who 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.800 is it that owns the oil that we are getting, 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.680 and what is our political relationship with them, what's our 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:16.440 political relationship with the country surrounding that one, what's that 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:21.119 country's political relationship it gets so thorny. So in my 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:26.000 in my view, the in the long term game, uh, 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.360 this incentive to go out and get an electric car 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.760 could be of great benefit to everyone. But again you 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.159 have to be able to take that long term look 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:41.480 and just uh suppressed that that initial urge to say 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:43.920 this isn't fair because my money is going to help 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:46.160 someone else and I don't see, like I'm not buying 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:47.720 an electric car, so I don't see why I have 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:50.560 to pay this this tax money. Yeah. Yeah, And now, 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:52.959 of course, um, whether or not you agree with it, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.680 it's it's easy to at least understand that point. I mean, 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:01.120 not all not all politics are understandable, but understandable to say, hey, 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.320 you know, I'm i'm I'm paying taxes, I want to 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:07.240 see something for my money, and uh, well the thing 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:09.520 the easy argument for that is we'll go buy an 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:14.320 electric car, dude. Um, But no, that that's that's oversimplifying 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.320 the argument that the thing is because they're so expensive, 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:22.000 they're not affordable for everyone. Um, perhaps somebody particularly likes 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:27.480 their car. There. Car enthusiasts are very passionate about certain vehicles. Um, 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.440 and you know, for a long time we've had uh, 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:32.920 gas powered vehicles that people have fallen in love with, 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.160 so you know, they're they're gonna be people who still 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:39.880 love that UM, which in my personal opinion is understandable. 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:44.000 But I also would like to UH see electric car 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.800 succeed because I do think there are UM, you know, 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.080 better for the environment in the long haul, uh, at 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:52.800 least in the immediate sense. Now there's a lot as 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.280 we were talking about, this isn't something that's gonna happen overnight. 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:57.600 There's a lot of work that has to be done. 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.040 One company that I think UM is interesting to to 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:05.760 follow is a company called Better Place, which is UM. 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.080 I believe UM uh an Israeli company, and they have 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.760 been working with organizations all over the world to test 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:16.359 out there uh their systems. Now Wired magazine had an 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:19.960 article about them and UM their founder, I don't know 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.760 if I'm pronouncing his his first name writer not shy 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:28.520 Agassi UM and UH basically they have their Their website 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.760 is very informative about the different kinds of technologies that 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.000 they are looking at. But they're working on ways to 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:39.200 convert UH more typical cars rather than building them from 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:43.520 scratch to UH to electricity and and UH basically creating 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:48.159 the infrastructure that would be necessary to power these vehicles, um, 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:52.160 which I mean no pun intended power um. But yeah, 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:55.879 I mean it's some it's I think that you know, 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:58.000 if you poke around on the website they have at 0:22:58.040 --> 0:22:59.639 least they give you an idea of what it's the 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.040 kind of work it's going to take. And it's not 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:04.800 going to be Um. I don't think it's going to 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:07.920 be one company or one person or one country around 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.440 the world. It's going to take many people in many countries, 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:14.280 you know, working on the problem to generate a real 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:17.520 solution to it. Because you know, frankly, if you look 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:21.960 at the timeline on NPR there there um, it goes 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:24.280 from the downfall of the electric car in nineteen twenty 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:27.840 basically all the things we were talking about before to ye. 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:32.200 And that's because people just weren't working on the problem 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:34.080 in between. I mean they were, but they were it 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:36.639 was more of a I wouldn't say hobby. It was 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:40.560 something where they were testing ideas. More so than we're 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:43.240 going to build a fleet of electric cars. We're gonna 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:47.400 take it back from these uh, these gasoline powered ideas. 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:50.280 We're gonna we're gonna completely revamp that, and it goes 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:54.560 from when uh, General Motors came out with the e 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:58.919 V one UM, which it's sold at Saturn dealerships. I 0:23:58.920 --> 0:24:01.560