Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And today we're looking at a classic
Speaker 1: episode of tech Stuff. We're not just looking at it,
Speaker 1: we're listening to it too, because it turns out, just
Speaker 1: look at an audio file, not much happens. This original
Speaker 1: episode published November twenty one, two thousand twelve. It is
Speaker 1: titled Tex Stuff Rides in Electric Cars. Bet you can
Speaker 1: guess what's about. Let's listen in. 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 now, Johnathan,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Well, Chris, you a written man.
Speaker 1: I'm going to enlighten you. Now. If only you had
Speaker 1: spent some hard earned cash on a on a education,
Speaker 1: then you would know 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 new, um,
Speaker 1: but this is UH. There are other things too, like
Speaker 1: talking about UH ethanol and and plant based fuels, biodiesel shore.
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, well,
Speaker 1: what what would be used to power an engine or
Speaker 1: or power a motor to make this happen? And they
Speaker 1: ran through these things. Eventually Patroley one out. And the
Speaker 1: reason this is so challenging now is because the petroleum
Speaker 1: UH infrastructure is so well established exactly. But but it's
Speaker 1: 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: added to the overall weight of the vehicle itself. They
Speaker 1: didn't go very fast. They seem to be all right
Speaker 1: for getting around, uh, like a city uh in the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, but any difficult terrain that would start
Speaker 1: to have problems. Uh. The steam powered cars actually ended
Speaker 1: up being more popular than electric ones because they could
Speaker 1: go much faster. And uh, they were not necessarily the
Speaker 1: best choice either, because they were not terribly efficient. You
Speaker 1: had to, you know, get the boiler heated up before
Speaker 1: you could go anywhere. You had to actually start generating
Speaker 1: steam before you could make the vehicle go, And there's
Speaker 1: 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 things productive transport.
Speaker 1: But gas powered cars they had the power and the
Speaker 1: 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 turn them in a way that I wasn't intending,
Speaker 1: but 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. Yes, um, But do
Speaker 1: you want to go back and start talking about some
Speaker 1: of these early vehicles first, and we can kind of
Speaker 1: talk about where we are now. Sure, if you've got
Speaker 1: some 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 us oddish inventor Robert Anderson who came up
Speaker 1: with a a very very basic electric car with non
Speaker 1: rechargeable batteries. That seems like a problem, especially in eighteen
Speaker 1: Somewhere in the early eighteen thirties as when he started
Speaker 1: working on that, and uh, you know they kept working
Speaker 1: on that. Uh. I also have a Gaston Plante, a
Speaker 1: French physicist who in eighteen fifty nine had a rechargeable
Speaker 1: lead acid battery. Actually, the lead acid battery has been
Speaker 1: 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, H. William Morrison came up with
Speaker 1: an electric car in the United States here um, and
Speaker 1: uh you know they were working on those. They even
Speaker 1: had a fleet of electric taxis in New York. Yes,
Speaker 1: because the first first pedestrian fatality in the Western hemisphere.
Speaker 1: As I recall, now you're just being you know, am
Speaker 1: I not? Am I not correct? Wasn't there someone who
Speaker 1: stepped off a trolley and then was hit by an
Speaker 1: electric taxi? Okay, well I don't have that in my notes,
Speaker 1: So that's possibly that's possible trivia that may live somewhere
Speaker 1: in Jonathan's head. And could have possibly been made up entirely. Well,
Speaker 1: let us know, send your email to tech stuff at
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com. True enough, the yeah, they had, they
Speaker 1: had about sixty of them in New York. Um back
Speaker 1: in 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, this had I found a really cool
Speaker 1: timeline on NPR, which is National Public Radio here in
Speaker 1: the in the United States. Um, that said that at
Speaker 1: the turn of the century, twentie century, there were about
Speaker 1: four thousand cars on the road and at that point
Speaker 1: it was split about thirty three pc each steam, gasoline
Speaker 1: and electric cars. Um. Basically they were clean. But um,
Speaker 1: cold weather and batteries don't get along. If, yeah, lead
Speaker 1: acid battery gets really cold, it's harder to get that
Speaker 1: juice flowing. The electrochemical reactions that need to take place
Speaker 1: are are slowed down by the cold. That's one of
Speaker 1: those things where you know, I've heard people say that
Speaker 1: in order to preserve your batteries you should put them
Speaker 1: in some place cold, like a freezer refrigerator. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: It actually makes it much more difficult for those electrical
Speaker 1: electrochemical reactions to take place. So it you might think, oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's slowing it down. So therefore the juice will
Speaker 1: last longer even when I'm not using it in a
Speaker 1: in a UM device, But it's not going to work
Speaker 1: very well when you plug it back in. So uh,
Speaker 1: the same sort of thing is true in cold weather.
Speaker 1: You get in the car and you turn it on,
Speaker 1: you just barely creeping along because that electrochemical reaction is
Speaker 1: taking place so slowly you're not getting the juice you
Speaker 1: need to get get moving now. It's you know, we
Speaker 1: we've made some advances since then, so there have been
Speaker 1: some more electric cars and we don't necessarily use lead
Speaker 1: 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 every where
Speaker 1: that would have you know, batteries who had to buy
Speaker 1: a new battery every time your car was running out
Speaker 1: of juice. You know, I'd switch them out and that
Speaker 1: would not be very economical, and it would also take
Speaker 1: up I mean a ton of space. Yep yep. Now,
Speaker 1: of course some you might say, well, what what happened? Uh,
Speaker 1: Henry Ford happened? He Boy did he happen? Well? He
Speaker 1: and and from what I've read about him, uh, he
Speaker 1: was 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 then the Model T was released in forty dollars um.
Speaker 1: Basically that that you know, it was affordable for so
Speaker 1: many people, and his production system made these cars so
Speaker 1: easily available. Um that they were you know, they we're
Speaker 1: undercutting the prices of electric cars and they were far
Speaker 1: more available. So it took off. And uh then like
Speaker 1: you know, the infrastructure gets built around it, and then
Speaker 1: we're kind of not stuck so much as committed to
Speaker 1: a particular type of vehicle. And it takes a lot
Speaker 1: of effort to change that. And the reason for the
Speaker 1: effort behind changing that is largely through an environmental concern,
Speaker 1: but it goes beyond environment too, But we'll cover all
Speaker 1: of these things. So you know, if you if you
Speaker 1: just think about it from a very basic point of view, uh,
Speaker 1: and you're and you're really oversimplifying things, it'd be easy
Speaker 1: to say, oh, electric car makes sense because it does
Speaker 1: not produce pollution the way a gas powered car does.
Speaker 1: It's not emitting uh you know, any sort of uh
Speaker 1: gas that could could pollute the environment. You're not worrying
Speaker 1: about all the the particles that would come out of exhaust,
Speaker 1: all of that sort of stuff, um applies. And so
Speaker 1: there is that part of the argument where if you
Speaker 1: were to just look at that part of the equation,
Speaker 1: it would be very easy to say, ah, well, electric cars,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's better for the world, so we should
Speaker 1: we should totally switch to that. But you should know,
Speaker 1: of course, that nothing is ever that simple to to
Speaker 1: take in other considerations. You have to think, well, how
Speaker 1: was the electricity generated? The electricity that is charging those
Speaker 1: batteries in that electric car, which you know you have
Speaker 1: to recharge. Most electric cars have well around forty to
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 to drive back,
Speaker 1: you've already gone further than what your car can accomplish
Speaker 1: on its own. YEA. Thomas Edison was working on that
Speaker 1: problem in he came out with a a nickel steel
Speaker 1: battery that would last for about six miles according to
Speaker 1: the NPR timeline. Um and uh you know that would
Speaker 1: that would make it far more appealing for reasonable commutes.
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, back at that time, people were not
Speaker 1: driving the distances they do now released here in America.
Speaker 1: Um to do different things and uh so, so that
Speaker 1: was an improvement. But um, I think another um peg
Speaker 1: on the side of the gasoline car was Charles Kettering
Speaker 1: who came out with the electric automobile starter. And you know,
Speaker 1: so rather than getting out and cranking your car up
Speaker 1: with crank in the front to get it started, that
Speaker 1: made the gasoline engine easier to start. And when you
Speaker 1: had the combination of that and the lower prices of
Speaker 1: the gasoline powered cars and the infrastructure. I think that
Speaker 1: helped make a serious difference on the in in the
Speaker 1: in favor of gasoline power cars, right right, And so
Speaker 1: I mean, of course it's a totally different world than
Speaker 1: the one we have today where we're looking at the
Speaker 1: various uh impact of the gasoline cars out there on
Speaker 1: the street. But getting back to the idea of the
Speaker 1: environmentally friendly, if your electricity is being produced by coal
Speaker 1: uh power power plants, then there's pollution going out into
Speaker 1: the environment on behalf of the electricity you're using, so
Speaker 1: you're not you know, the car is not as clean
Speaker 1: as you would first think necessarily. Now if you're if
Speaker 1: your electricity is coming through other means, like you have
Speaker 1: a huge solar panel farm attached to your house, and
Speaker 1: you might then that's much more clean. I mean, you
Speaker 1: still have to consider things like what materials went into
Speaker 1: producing both the car and the solar panels, because than
Speaker 1: we might get into rare earth minerals. But we did
Speaker 1: an entire episode of tech stuff on rare earth minerals,
Speaker 1: and I suggest you go back and listen to that
Speaker 1: right now, we'll wait. So anyway, now you know I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you're all on the honor system that you did listen,
Speaker 1: but 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. They
Speaker 1: will eventually run out of enough of the chemicals to
Speaker 1: make that electrochemical process happen, and you'll have to change
Speaker 1: them out, and they can be really expensive, so I
Speaker 1: can add to the price of an electric car. Uh
Speaker 1: And and price is another one of those issues, like
Speaker 1: if you look at how much does it cost to
Speaker 1: drive an electric car versus a gas powered car, and
Speaker 1: you have to take into consideration everything like not just
Speaker 1: the fuel prices and the electricity prices. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that would be easy to compare because I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: in almost every case the cost of electricity is going
Speaker 1: to be lower than the cost of gas. So from
Speaker 1: that perspective, they're the same. But then you have to
Speaker 1: think of things like, all right, well, replacing batteries you've
Speaker 1: got to 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 you'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 were 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 you know, there's is also a matter
Speaker 1: of shipping costs to m because parts for some of
Speaker 1: these these things, um have to come from different places
Speaker 1: and so um. You know, I know that a few
Speaker 1: years ago they were talking about the early hybrid vehicles
Speaker 1: and people were buying them because they used less gasoline
Speaker 1: because they were you know, like a mixture of of
Speaker 1: battery 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 oka. Yes, it gets an oily tin
Speaker 1: was I was waiting. I was just waiting because I
Speaker 1: was like, I was staring at Chris, thinking where's this going?
Speaker 1: But I get it. I get it. It's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: definitely a complex issue. And and on top of that,
Speaker 1: you know, you might say, well, 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, then
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 helps
Speaker 1: bring the overall price of the vehicle down closer to
Speaker 1: within the range of other cars in that class. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: Jonathan from two thousand nineteen, I'm here to pump the
Speaker 1: brakes a little bit on this classic episode for us
Speaker 1: to take a quick break. A lot of complex issues here.
Speaker 1: Some of them are economics, some of them are environmental,
Speaker 1: some of them are political. And that's why it's really
Speaker 1: been kind of a hot button issue. I mean, particularly
Speaker 1: that political part with the the tax credits. I've seen
Speaker 1: I've seen praise for that where where people have said,
Speaker 1: because of this, you have put electric vehicles within the
Speaker 1: grasp of more more folks than otherwise would have that
Speaker 1: opportunity because otherwise it would be too expensive for them
Speaker 1: to buy. On the flip side, there are people saying,
Speaker 1: this is our tax money. You're giving credits to other
Speaker 1: people with my money. Uh. I think that's a very personally,
Speaker 1: this is my opinion. I think that's a fairly short
Speaker 1: sighted view saying that my money is going to give
Speaker 1: someone else a break when you're thinking, okay. Ultimately, the
Speaker 1: idea here is that we're trying to get ourselves off
Speaker 1: a dependence on oil and gasoline as much as we
Speaker 1: possibly can, and in that sense, it is a benefit
Speaker 1: to me even if I never go out and buy
Speaker 1: an electric car, to help reduce that dependency on oil,
Speaker 1: particularly when you get into global politics where you have
Speaker 1: to worry about who is it that owns the oil
Speaker 1: that we are getting, and what is our political relationship
Speaker 1: with them, what's our political relationship with the country surrounding
Speaker 1: that one, what's that country's political relationship. It gets so thorny.
Speaker 1: So in my in my view, the in the long
Speaker 1: term game, uh, this incentive to go out and get
Speaker 1: electric car could be of great bennet fit to everyone.
Speaker 1: But again you have to be able to take that
Speaker 1: long term look and just uh suppressed that that initial
Speaker 1: urge to say this isn't fair because my money is
Speaker 1: going to help someone else and I don't see, like
Speaker 1: I'm not buying an electric car, so I don't see
Speaker 1: why I have to pay this this tax money. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And now, of course, um, whether or not you agree
Speaker 1: with it, it's it's easy to at least understand that point.
Speaker 1: I mean, not all not all politics are understandable, but
Speaker 1: it's understandable to say, hey, you know, I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: paying taxes. I want to see something for my money.
Speaker 1: And well, the thing the easy argument for that is
Speaker 1: we'll go buy an electric car, dude. UM. But no,
Speaker 1: that that's that's oversimplifying the argument that the thing is
Speaker 1: because they're so expensive, they're not affordable for everyone. UM.
Speaker 1: Perhaps somebody particularly likes their car. There. Car enthusiasts are
Speaker 1: very passionate about certain vehicles. UM. And you know, for
Speaker 1: a long time we've had gas powered vehicles that people
Speaker 1: have fallen in love with, so you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: going to be people who still love that UM, which
Speaker 1: in my personal opinion is understandable. But I also would
Speaker 1: like to uh see electric car succeed because I do
Speaker 1: think there are um, you know, better for the environment
Speaker 1: in the long haul, uh, at least in the immediate sense. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a lot as we were talking about, this isn't
Speaker 1: something that's going to happen overnight. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: work that has to be done. One company that I
Speaker 1: think UM is interesting to to follow is a company
Speaker 1: called Better Place, which is UM I believe, uh an
Speaker 1: Israeli company, and they have been working with organizations all
Speaker 1: over the world to test out there uh their systems. Now,
Speaker 1: why are Magazine had an article about them and UM
Speaker 1: their founder I don't know if I'm pronouncing his his
Speaker 1: first name writer not shy Agassi UM and UH. Basically
Speaker 1: they have their Their website is very informative about the
Speaker 1: different kinds of technologies that they are looking at. But
Speaker 1: they're working on ways to convert uh more typical cars
Speaker 1: rather than building them from scratch to UH to electricity
Speaker 1: and and uh basically creating the infrastructure that would be
Speaker 1: necessary to power these vehicles. UM, which I mean no
Speaker 1: pun intended power UM. But yeah, I mean it's some
Speaker 1: it's I think that you know, if you poke around
Speaker 1: on the website they have, at least they give you
Speaker 1: an idea of what it's the kind of work it's
Speaker 1: going to take. And it's not going to be UM.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be one company or
Speaker 1: one person or one country around the world. It's going
Speaker 1: to take many people in many countries, you know, working
Speaker 1: on the problem to generate a real solution to it.
Speaker 1: Because you know, frankly, if you look at the timeline
Speaker 1: on NPR there there, it goes from the downfall of
Speaker 1: the electric car in basically all the things we were
Speaker 1: talking about before to and that's because people just weren't
Speaker 1: working on the problem them in between. I mean they were,
Speaker 1: but they were It was more of a I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say hobby. It was something where they were testing ideas.
Speaker 1: More so than we're going to build a fleet of
Speaker 1: electric cars. We're gonna take it back from these, uh,
Speaker 1: these gasoline powered ideas. We're gonna we're gonna completely revamp that.
Speaker 1: And it goes from six when UH, General Motors came
Speaker 1: out with the e V one UM, which it sold
Speaker 1: at Saturn dealerships. I remember because I have a Saturn
Speaker 1: and I saw one every once in a while. You
Speaker 1: joined the cult. I did join the cult. We also
Speaker 1: had a Saturn, So I can't I can't criticize UM,
Speaker 1: which is now an orphan car UM. But there have
Speaker 1: been others, of course, you know recently, UM that are
Speaker 1: all electric. Tesla, Oh yeah, Tesla's famous and in fact,
Speaker 1: Automobile Magazine named the Tesla Model s as its two
Speaker 1: thousand Car of the Year. Keeping in mind we're still
Speaker 1: in twelve and car years make no sense to me,
Speaker 1: but no, they named the Tesla Model s uh the
Speaker 1: car of the year and said that it was, um
Speaker 1: uh a very impressive ride. A very quiet, very fast car,
Speaker 1: and they and apparently we're all endangering their driver's licenses
Speaker 1: by driving far too fast. And it well, the Tesla
Speaker 1: Roadster um which was its first which is a sports car,
Speaker 1: was its first car out there. Um I understand, has
Speaker 1: a whiplash inducing acceleration. Yeah, it's it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where just it's an incredibly fast acceleration, like just
Speaker 1: the it's it's a really powerful vehicle. And we should
Speaker 1: also say that according to the Energy Collective, there's been
Speaker 1: a two increase in sales of electric vehicles from eleven.
Speaker 1: But if you want to know that what that is
Speaker 1: in real numbers, you know, you're two percent more. That
Speaker 1: sounds incredible when you get down to real numbers, that's
Speaker 1: around thirty thousand cars. So that's about the same number
Speaker 1: of cars in an entire year that some of the
Speaker 1: more popular models sell in a month. So you know,
Speaker 1: 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. UM,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk really briefly, just explain very
Speaker 1: quickly the what makes electric cars work. Because we talked
Speaker 1: about how in the gas engine you have all these
Speaker 1: tubes and pipes and stuff. You've got you're using combustion
Speaker 1: to help drive pistons, UM you know, expanding gases, all
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. That's that's what's providing the the
Speaker 1: energy you need to make the cargo. But with an
Speaker 1: electric car, you're talking about batteries, a controller, and electric motor.
Speaker 1: And the electric motor is what's generating all the UH
Speaker 1: energy to make the cargo. And the basics of an
Speaker 1: an electric motor are pretty simple, and that comes down
Speaker 1: to UH two magnets. How do they work? We actually
Speaker 1: have an article on it if you want to know.
Speaker 1: But all right, so imagine that you have this is
Speaker 1: a very super simple electric motor. Let's say that you
Speaker 1: have you have a magnet and it's uh in sort
Speaker 1: of a semicircle UH shape, and you've got a north
Speaker 1: end of the magnet on one side and the south
Speaker 1: end of the magnet on the other side. Okay, so
Speaker 1: it's think of it like an arc. So you've got
Speaker 1: the south end on one side of 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 an 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 and 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 electromagnet gets close to the south
Speaker 1: pole of the permanent magnet, they attract one another, so
Speaker 1: which disturb all the penguins. If you just have the
Speaker 1: current run I'm ignoring Christopher when you when you if
Speaker 1: you just have the current running through one direction in
Speaker 1: this electro magnet, it's going to align itself so that
Speaker 1: the north pole of the electromagnet is pointing at the
Speaker 1: south pole of the permanent magnet and and the south
Speaker 1: pole of the electromagnets point where the north pole of
Speaker 1: the permanent magnet. But then if you were to reverse
Speaker 1: the current, that would also reverse the polarity of the
Speaker 1: magnet itself. The electromagnet, the poles would switch, which would
Speaker 1: mean that now suddenly it would be pushing away from
Speaker 1: the the permanent magnet UH as it is currently um aligned,
Speaker 1: So it would move and rotate so that the polls
Speaker 1: were again attracted to the opposites. So by switching the
Speaker 1: current the direction of current inside the electro magnet at
Speaker 1: a particular rate, you can get that rotor to turn.
Speaker 1: And as the rotor turns, which I think was a
Speaker 1: soap opera, it starts it's doing work. Now you've started,
Speaker 1: you can harness that work to generate electricity. That's the
Speaker 1: basis of the electric motor. So you're using magnets to
Speaker 1: turn a rotor. By the way, that we usually refer
Speaker 1: to that as a a brushed motor, and the reason
Speaker 1: for that is there there are contacts on the inside
Speaker 1: of that rotor UH that when the magnet is spinning around,
Speaker 1: it's what's allowing the the current to change direction. Because
Speaker 1: you're you're getting power from batteries. Batteries are direct current,
Speaker 1: that's e CE, so direct current is always going to
Speaker 1: flow in the same direction. Alternating current is electricity that
Speaker 1: is reversing the flow of current rapidly in cycles pulses UM.
Speaker 1: So in order to convert DC to a C, which
Speaker 1: is what we really need for things like an electric car,
Speaker 1: you would have these um these little they are called
Speaker 1: brushes uh inside the electric motor that once they hit
Speaker 1: certain contacts, that's what would allow the flow of electricity
Speaker 1: to change direction. Uh. There are also brushless electric motors.
Speaker 1: In this case, what you do is you put the
Speaker 1: permanent magnets on the rotor, so the rotor magnets are
Speaker 1: never going to change, and you put the electro magnets
Speaker 1: on the field around the rotor, and you just change
Speaker 1: the the direction of current in the permanent magnets. They're stationary,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to worry about figuring out how
Speaker 1: you're gonna swap the flow of current over and over
Speaker 1: with a move being object, and the rotor itself will
Speaker 1: still spin and generate energy that way. Electricity Jonathan from
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen. Again, we're going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. Now you know, some some
Speaker 1: battery you're charging is accomplished in gasoline power cars through
Speaker 1: the alternator. Um, and uh, you know, they're there're other
Speaker 1: regenerative breaking and some other things that help out with that,
Speaker 1: but of course it's much more of an issue with
Speaker 1: electric cars, um. You know. And then and the distance
Speaker 1: the it's hard to say. It's weird for me to
Speaker 1: say mileage because I always think, you know, miles per
Speaker 1: gallon UM. And also kilometers to people in this is
Speaker 1: an honest question. Kilometers, kilometer ridge, what do you call
Speaker 1: it in Europe? Anyway? Distance distance? Um, yeah, the distance
Speaker 1: you could travel. Let's just say that is and how
Speaker 1: it's being silly, but I really don't know. Um, the
Speaker 1: distance you can travel with an electric car is still
Speaker 1: one of the big issues. It's still a reason why
Speaker 1: people are hesitant to adopt the vehicles, although they're they're
Speaker 1: more likely to these days. Um. But some people have
Speaker 1: tried to get around that with sort of combinations that
Speaker 1: uh seem you know, like they might be more challenging
Speaker 1: than others. Chevrolet here in the United States has the Vault,
Speaker 1: which is primarily an electric car, but it does have
Speaker 1: a gasoline powered engine in it that can take up
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the reverse of a Toyota Prius,
Speaker 1: where you use your your gasoline engine to get from
Speaker 1: like you say, on the highway, and then as you're
Speaker 1: driving in the city where it stopped and go, it
Speaker 1: converts over to electricity. UM. The volt is supposed to
Speaker 1: work primarily on electricity, and when the battery runs down
Speaker 1: and you still need to get somewhere, the gasoline engine
Speaker 1: can help you get the rest of the way better place.
Speaker 1: Um And visions a world in which the batteries are
Speaker 1: not attached to their vehicle itself, so you could pull
Speaker 1: into a battery battery replacement station and somebody will pull
Speaker 1: the battery for you, put in a freshly charged one,
Speaker 1: hook it up, and you're ready to go. Um in
Speaker 1: addition to charging stations, and again that's expensive because that's
Speaker 1: infrastructure that's more than just the car. You've got to
Speaker 1: have the stations available to do that. But I have
Speaker 1: to say that is a pretty practical way of looking
Speaker 1: at it. Yeah, we've also talked about fuel cells in
Speaker 1: the past that are not two different or a hydrogen
Speaker 1: based car and same sort of same sort of challenges.
Speaker 1: Applied to that where you're talking about, Yeah, the hydrogen
Speaker 1: powered car sounds like a great idea. You get heat
Speaker 1: and some water vapor, which granted is technically a greenhouse gas,
Speaker 1: but it's not it's not a pollutant in in the
Speaker 1: way that carbon dioxide is. But you know, you've you've
Speaker 1: got UH. You know that's your your your output and
Speaker 1: you're using it. Sounds like a hydrogen based fleet of
Speaker 1: cars will be a great idea, But then you have
Speaker 1: to figure out how to support the fleet of cars,
Speaker 1: and that's where we start running into problems where you
Speaker 1: you're looking at a multiple multibillion dollar problem with most countries,
Speaker 1: including places like the United States, which are it's a
Speaker 1: big country with lots of people in it. Of course,
Speaker 1: there are larger countries with even more people in it,
Speaker 1: and for them would be you know, a significant challenge
Speaker 1: to switch over. Electric cars are not maybe not quite
Speaker 1: as dramatic a a shift in the sense that with
Speaker 1: the right adapters, you would be able to plug your
Speaker 1: car in UH into any UH outlet that was capable
Speaker 1: of putting out the right amount of power, so you
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily have to have refueling stations designed specifically for
Speaker 1: electric cars, except when you're talking about going on a
Speaker 1: really long trip. If you're doing a road trip of
Speaker 1: any length, then you're thinking, well, I I definite the
Speaker 1: need to figure out something to supplement the distance this
Speaker 1: car can go, because otherwise I'm never going to get
Speaker 1: to where I'm headed, right, But you know, they've they've
Speaker 1: made some pretty strong strides in that as well. Tesla
Speaker 1: reports that it can with its vehicles hit two fifty
Speaker 1: miles on a single charge, which is pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: But there are other challenges to UM actually some that
Speaker 1: are very recent UM and no jokes please if you
Speaker 1: know something about Fisker, but just just as of the
Speaker 1: time we're recording this, it's very early November. UM. Hurricane
Speaker 1: Sandy just hit the northeastern part of the United States
Speaker 1: and went into Canada, UM and caused quite a bit
Speaker 1: of damage up there. And I found this kind of interesting,
Speaker 1: UM because I found a story about Fisker in which
Speaker 1: sixteen UM Fisker Karmas, which are expensive electric vehicles UM,
Speaker 1: were submerged by saltwater from the storms urge of Hurricane Sandy,
Speaker 1: and the saltwater affected the cars and they caught fire. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are a hundred thousand dollars apiece, so it's very
Speaker 1: bad karma. Um. But basically they were there, apparently stationed
Speaker 1: in Port Newark, New Jersey, and when the storm came in,
Speaker 1: the storm surge you know, caused the tides to swell,
Speaker 1: they got doused in saltwater, and apparently when they got flooded,
Speaker 1: the systems in the car reacted to the saltwater poorly,
Speaker 1: to say the very least, and the car's caught fire. Um.
Speaker 1: Now 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 they will be flooding and if it's flooding enough
Speaker 1: for my car will be largely 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: Diesel might sort of depending. Yeah, so there are a
Speaker 1: lot of things to think about. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I think for the general approach your the move towards
Speaker 1: electric cars is I think more positive than not positive.
Speaker 1: I think it could happen, the thing as my will
Speaker 1: to 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 the long run, the technology will improve,
Speaker 1: the infrastructure will improve, and and in the long run
Speaker 1: it might be uh, we all might be better off
Speaker 1: for it. I hope you guys enjoyed that classic episode
Speaker 1: of text Stuff. It's always great to listen to Chris
Speaker 1: chat away about anything really, And if you guys have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for future episodes for the show, you can
Speaker 1: email me. The address is tech Stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, or pop on over to our website
Speaker 1: that's tech Stuff podcast dot com. You're gonna find an
Speaker 1: archive of every single episode ever published ever since we
Speaker 1: started this eleven years ago. You will also find links
Speaker 1: to where we are on social media, so you can
Speaker 1: reach out on Facebook or Twitter, and you'll find a
Speaker 1: link to our online store where you can purchase merchandise
Speaker 1: from text Stuff that will make you super duper cool.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, it goes to help the
Speaker 1: show and we greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Text Stuff is a production of
Speaker 1: i Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.