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Speaker 1: The following program has been pre recorded.

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Speaker 2: Ron an Inians.

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Speaker 1: My wife forgot the charge your car overnight, meaning she

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Speaker 1: didn't plug it in, So I just plugged it in

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Speaker 1: at forty eight percent. It needs three hours and fifteen

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Speaker 1: minutes to fully charge. We won't be able to use

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Speaker 1: it for all our driving. Today's planned. There's a candid

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Speaker 1: on us response from an electric vehicle owner, the car Doctor.

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Speaker 1: The operator of New England's power grid said it could

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Speaker 1: be forced to shut off power if there is a

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Speaker 1: long period of very cold temperatures this winter. If New

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Speaker 1: England has a prolonged cold snap, the operator of the

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Speaker 1: grid warn they may have to shut off the power

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Speaker 1: to homes and businesses.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the radio home of ron Ananian, the Car Doctor.

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Speaker 2: Since nineteen ninety one, this is where car owners the

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Speaker 2: world overturned to for their definitive opinion on automotive repair.

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Speaker 2: If you're a mechanics giving you a busy signal, pick

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Speaker 2: up the phone and call in The garage doors open.

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Speaker 1: But I am here to take your call at eight

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Speaker 1: five five five six nine nine hundred.

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Speaker 2: Running.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: We've got a great hour of radio for you here.

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Speaker 1: It's I've had so much fun. Already talking to our

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Speaker 1: guest pre show, just just listening and I know where

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Speaker 1: this conversation is going to go. But you guys are

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Speaker 1: going to love this. And actually I have to thank

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Speaker 1: all of you the listenership, because you sent in more

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Speaker 1: than a few emails showing me his recent interview. Well

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Speaker 1: maybe it's not so recent, but some of his other

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Speaker 1: interviews Mark Mills from the Manhattan Institute with John Stossel

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Speaker 1: among other people, and talking about electricity and electric cars.

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Speaker 1: And we reached out to Mark. He got right back

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Speaker 1: to us, and we're so thrilled to have him here.

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Speaker 1: He is, his reputation precedes him. Mister Mills, are you there, sir.

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Speaker 3: I'm here. Thanks for having me on.

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Speaker 1: You're very welcome. We're so glad to have you. I

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Speaker 1: you know, I just want to I'm going to start

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Speaker 1: at the beginning, Mark, because you and I have already

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Speaker 1: had half the interview.

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Speaker 3: And we'll just go home and have a drink.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're done. You know, full disclosure. So you know,

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Speaker 1: tell us about yourself. You know what, why did I

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Speaker 1: pick you? Why are you the guy that everybody seems

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Speaker 1: to be talking to when we're talking about electricity? And

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Speaker 1: energy because this is a car repair show. But you know,

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Speaker 1: this electric car thing is just the tip of the

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Speaker 1: iceberg of what they want to do and how they

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Speaker 1: want to change the way energy is in this country.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I could first say it's not my fault.

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Speaker 1: Well that's good to know, but I'm hoping you're the

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Speaker 1: guy that fixes it.

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Speaker 3: No, you know, it's funny. I I studied my degrees

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Speaker 3: in physics. I quick graduate school because because well I

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Speaker 3: would like to work, and I was building semiconductors. My

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Speaker 3: first job was in a manufacturing plant for semiconductors. But

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Speaker 3: from very early in my life I liked how things work.

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Speaker 3: They like building things. I you know, worked on engines.

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Speaker 3: I worked at motorcycles. I raced one summer in Grand

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Speaker 3: Prix in Canada, and I, you know, I'm Canadian. I

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Speaker 3: like engines, I like electric motors, I like semiconductors. I

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Speaker 3: like how stuff works. And that's why in part I

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Speaker 3: study physics. And then I ended up getting a job

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Speaker 3: as an engineer and semiconductors and missile guidance and stuff

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Speaker 3: like that, and I got sort of dragged in the

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Speaker 3: back door to the energy domain simply because nothing's possible

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Speaker 3: without energy. So it doesn't matter whether you're trying to

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Speaker 3: figure out how to make cars go fast or be

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Speaker 3: more efficient, depends what your proclivities are, or rockets fly,

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Speaker 3: or make semi conductors more powerful, computers faster, everything everything redowns.

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Speaker 3: Ultimately they're figuring out both the materials and the energy

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Speaker 3: energetics of things. So yeah, that was sort of intellectual part,

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Speaker 3: but the practical part was very real for me in

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Speaker 3: jobs I had in my hobbies. And then you know,

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Speaker 3: we got the energy debate started. As you know, we

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Speaker 3: had oil embargos and a couple of them that the

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Speaker 3: people have forgotten. The people of a certain age will remember.

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Speaker 3: Oil prices went up four hundred percent overnight in seventy

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Speaker 3: three seventy four, then they went up more than two

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Speaker 3: hundred percent again in seventy nine. These are shocking events.

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Speaker 3: They really changed how the Western world thought about energy,

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Speaker 3: and people thought we were running out of energy. So

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Speaker 3: I ended up getting involved in energy issues, partly because

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Speaker 3: of the silliness of the idea that we were running

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Speaker 3: out of energy, running out of oil. And then now

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Speaker 3: we have another silly idea that we should never use

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Speaker 3: oil and gas again.

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Speaker 1: Well, well, let me. Stop you right there, Mark, Are

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Speaker 1: we running out of oil?

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Speaker 3: No, that's the story. I mean the nuance is can

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Speaker 3: you can you exhaust an oil field that uses technology

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Speaker 3: you have available today to deliver oil at a price

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Speaker 3: you're willing to pay. Yes, that's a that's a form

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Speaker 3: of running out of oil. The geophysical question is a

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Speaker 3: different one. Is there enough oil that we are aware of?

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Speaker 3: Is a resource to fuel society for centuries? Yeah? Easily?

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Speaker 3: Centuries is essentially forever. The availability of oil, or natural

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Speaker 3: gas or any frankly, any mineral, any resource in the

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Speaker 3: Earth is dictated not by this physical quantity but the

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Speaker 3: kind of technology we have to find it and extract

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Speaker 3: it at a price. Yeah, and that so that's it's

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Speaker 3: a technology question. That's the key question is what kind

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Speaker 3: of technologies are there, how do they change, and what

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Speaker 3: are their limits? So you know, we're not running out

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Speaker 3: of oil, but you can run out of the capacity

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Speaker 3: to produce it at the volumes and prices the markets

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Speaker 3: will need and will pay. And governments can cause that

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Speaker 3: to happen, not just engineers. Governments ban things that you

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Speaker 3: can't drill here. Governments can pass regulations that are punitive,

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Speaker 3: make oil or gas or any mineral too expensive. So

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Speaker 3: the when I start up, I say no, I mean,

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Speaker 3: I'm answering that to your physical question. But obviously governments can

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Speaker 3: do really dumb things, and they have and they will

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Speaker 3: continue to do that.

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Speaker 1: I guess that's what makes them politicians and governments do

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Speaker 1: a degree.

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Speaker 3: Well, well, the good news is, you know, not to

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Speaker 3: go political. I really have democracies that do dumb things

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Speaker 3: and dictatorships.

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Speaker 1: Well there's always that, Yes, I agree, hundred percent. Well, listen,

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Speaker 1: I got to tell you we're going to get political

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Speaker 1: comments after this conversation. I know I'm going to get

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Speaker 1: because I already get hate email that I'm trying to ban.

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Speaker 1: Do you know that I single handedly am trying to

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Speaker 1: eliminate the electric car industry if you believe some of

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Speaker 1: the listeners. And I just keep trying to point out.

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Speaker 1: You know, as I said in our pre interview interview,

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Speaker 1: you know one of my favorite lines from one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite movies, Hidden Figures, math doesn't lie two and

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Speaker 1: two has to be four. Where we're going to get

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Speaker 1: the electricity from?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, doctor Carwin is actually a terrific example

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Speaker 3: of two domains that fascinating one is sort of a

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Speaker 3: law called misdirection of interest. In the future. I've got

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Speaker 3: a new book out, as you probably know. But when

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Speaker 3: one writes a new book, one is not only obligated

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Speaker 3: but eager eager to promote it. And I write about

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Speaker 3: cars and transportation in the book. It's called the Cloud Revolution.

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Speaker 3: As you can guess from the title, it's not about cars.

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Speaker 3: It's about computing and technology for the future. Cars. Cars

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Speaker 3: are interesting new kinds of fuel for cars using batteries

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Speaker 3: instead of gasoline. It's important. You know, that's a very

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Speaker 3: interesting option, and it will be lots more of it.

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Speaker 3: But the idea that that's revolutionary in the same sense

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Speaker 3: the invention of the car is revolutionary is profoundly misguided.

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Speaker 3: In the nineteenth century of coming up a new way

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Speaker 3: to feed horses and imagining that you had a revolution, well,

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Speaker 3: you know, to be winners and losers. If you change

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Speaker 3: what you feed the horses, it's still a car with

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Speaker 3: a battery is still a car. It's different food that

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Speaker 3: is meaningful. The real question you'd want to know is

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Speaker 3: can we make enough of that food? And by that

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Speaker 3: I mean you know you're referring to electricity. Electricity is

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Speaker 3: the least of it. That's not the problem. Obviously, you

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Speaker 3: have to charge an electric car with electricity equally. Obviously,

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Speaker 3: the electricity you're use is determined by when you charge

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Speaker 3: the car and where you charge it. I mean by

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Speaker 3: that most people probably know. If you happen to live

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Speaker 3: in a part of the world of a country where

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Speaker 3: there's lots of wind and solar and it happens to

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Speaker 3: be sunny or a lot of windy at that very moment,

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Speaker 3: if you charge your car, you're probably using a lot

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Speaker 3: of electrons made with wind and solar. And if you

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Speaker 3: happen to charge your car when it's cloudy or be calmed,

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Speaker 3: which happened for roughly two weeks in northern Europe this

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Speaker 3: last month, as you know, then you're charging your car

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Speaker 3: with natural gas and coal dominantly, which is what happened

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Speaker 3: in Germany and England where they fired up coal plants

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Speaker 3: that they fortunately still had around. So that's a factor.

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Speaker 3: The bigger factor that is profoundly absent from this whole

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Speaker 3: trope that we're going to eliminate the use of internal

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Speaker 3: combustion engines by virtue of electric cars being better. We

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Speaker 3: could talk about whether they're better or not. That's a

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Speaker 3: different subject, and whether they become cheaper another subject. But

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Speaker 3: the idea that electric cars will eliminate the need to

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Speaker 3: have oil internal combustion engines is just arithmetically silly. It's

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Speaker 3: not not happening. It won't happen for two reasons. One,

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Speaker 3: the scaling up that people imagine that is we're going

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Speaker 3: from a world today. It's about ten million electric cars

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Speaker 3: in the world today, which is a lot considering there

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Speaker 3: were a decade ago not even a million, so it's

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Speaker 3: a big deal. But it's in a world that has

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Speaker 3: over a billion cars on the roads. So you know, again,

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Speaker 3: if you do your math, you're not approaching one percent

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Speaker 3: of all vehicles. The optimists believe that there'll be hundreds

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Speaker 3: of millions of electric cars within the decade, say three

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Speaker 3: or four hundred million, five hundred million. That'd be an

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Speaker 3: astonishing increase in the physical infrastructure that would at that

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Speaker 3: point in time eliminate roughly ten percent of world's all use.

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Speaker 3: So let me say that again. If we get the

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Speaker 3: optimist vision happening in the next decade, and we get

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Speaker 3: four hundred million or so electric vehicles on the roads,

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Speaker 3: the reduction of world oil demand would be about ten percent.

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Speaker 1: That's it.

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Speaker 3: That's it.

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Speaker 1: So I'll tell you.

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Speaker 3: Let me how is that an existential threat to anything?

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Speaker 3: If you're in the oil business, what do you care?

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Speaker 3: In fact, I would say the oppostate. If I'm a consumer,

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Speaker 3: Let's hope there's that many electric cars because the competition

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Speaker 3: will help keep the price of gas laying down for

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Speaker 3: everybody else who doesn't want to pay high price for gas.

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Speaker 3: You want competition?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, Hey, Mark, let me pull over and take

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Speaker 1: a poise. But let me just say this. You just

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Speaker 1: convinced me you must be a physicist. Then you really

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Speaker 1: do have a degree.

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Speaker 3: I used to be one. I don't practice anymore. I

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Speaker 3: just talk like one on TV and radio.

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Speaker 1: You sound you sound pretty good to me. You got

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Speaker 1: me convinced. When I come back, maybe we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: time travel and a Dolorean. Ron and Andy and the

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Speaker 1: car doctor here with Mark Mills at the Manhattan Institute.

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Speaker 1: We'll both return right after this. Don't go away for

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Speaker 1: the best in car advice.

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Speaker 2: Give Ron a call eight five five five six zero

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Speaker 2: nine nine zero zero.

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Speaker 1: Now back to Ron. Hey, thanks for staying with us.

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Speaker 1: We're here today with Mark Mills. He is a senior

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Speaker 1: fellow with the Manhattan Institute. He's a faculty fellow at

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Speaker 1: Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering. And he's just a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of fun to talk to. I think he's

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Speaker 1: like my new best buddy. We we could talk. Probably,

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Speaker 1: we need it. We need at least, you know, I

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Speaker 1: think I need like an eight hour show here, Mark.

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Speaker 1: So let me let me recap the first segment, all right,

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Speaker 1: just so I can for those that are just joining us.

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Speaker 1: We we've you know, you've made your case. Obviously, you're

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Speaker 1: a physicist. You've got some really great knowledge as far

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Speaker 1: as you know energy application, the theories of the future, use,

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Speaker 1: where it came from. You've convinced us of that. You've

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Speaker 1: written more than more than just a recent book. You've

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Speaker 1: written a few books, the most recent being The Cloud Revolution,

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Speaker 1: and that just came out this year and it's a

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Speaker 1: fascinating read. You were sort of talking about electric cars,

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Speaker 1: trying to keep us about electric cars, but then the

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Speaker 1: whole energy issue comes into play. So when you look

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Speaker 1: at I'm going to pick on a state, When you

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Speaker 1: look at California, by this must make your hairspin. By

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Speaker 1: twenty thirty five, there, they've banned the internal combustion engine vehicle?

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Speaker 1: Can they do it well?

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Speaker 3: Like governments can do almost almost as we've discovered recently,

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Speaker 3: almost anything they want to do. So I'll make a

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Speaker 3: I'll make a prediction in two parts about California that's

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Speaker 3: will be true for England, which has made the similar declaration.

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Speaker 3: The bands, if, if they stay in place, will result

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Speaker 3: in extraordinary escalation and the value of used cars. First, imagine,

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Speaker 3: because not everybody is gonna be able to buy an

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Speaker 3: expensive electric car, because the electric car will still by

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Speaker 3: then be more expensive than an internal combustion engine, which

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Speaker 3: we could talk about, but that will boost the number

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Speaker 3: of years used cars stay on the market, on the road,

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Speaker 3: and the value of them. What more likely happened is

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Speaker 3: the bands will be softened, or ignored, or just abandoned entirely,

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Speaker 3: because the whole world, in fact, just the countries that

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Speaker 3: are now in states that are now proposing to do that,

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Speaker 3: can't all do it and have enough batteries, never mind

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Speaker 3: manufacturing cars. The central problem that's being ignored here is

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Speaker 3: not whether electric cars nice and Tussels are nice. Of

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Speaker 3: course they're nice, pressive car, incredible company, and kudos to

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Speaker 3: somebody building a car company's successful by all measures, even

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Speaker 3: counting you know, some help from subsidies. That doesn't explain it.

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Speaker 3: It's a successful car company.

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Speaker 1: Sure, absolutely achievement.

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Speaker 3: In fact, the most impressive engineering of a battery probably

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Speaker 3: on the planet. Without being hyperbolic. It deserves enormous credit.

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Speaker 3: Really something.

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Speaker 1: The last guy to try and do it, yeah was

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Speaker 1: Tucker Yeah, exactly in forty six, forty seven, or.

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Speaker 3: You could pick the Delareate if you like, in the Brickland.

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Speaker 1: Ok.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, total failures, hard to build a car company, even

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Speaker 3: with help, and he's done it. And look, if you

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Speaker 3: think about this, I mean, what an incredible achievement. I believe.

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Speaker 3: The last I checked that something on the order is

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Speaker 3: sixty percent of all automobiles sold in the Western world

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Speaker 3: at a price over ninety thousand, So eighty five ninety

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Speaker 3: thousand range are now testless. Wow, he's utterly and they

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Speaker 3: did that market, which is why Mercedes and Jaguar and

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Speaker 3: BMW are all making evs in that price range. Because

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Speaker 3: he just ate the lunch. And that's not nothing. That's

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Speaker 3: not the whole car market obviously, but it's not nothing,

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Speaker 3: and it's very impressive. But here's This is the nub

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Speaker 3: of the problem. And it's not that electric cars aren't

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Speaker 3: profoundly useful vehicles and have a niche is bigger than

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Speaker 3: now exists. So if I were predicting another sort of

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Speaker 3: future snapshot, there's ten million electric cars today, it will

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Speaker 3: be unsurprising if there were hundreds of millions, at least

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Speaker 3: one hundred million in the next decade. There'll be lots

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Speaker 3: more electric cars. The problem is that the batteries are

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Speaker 3: not these simple things that I think are many people's head.

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Speaker 3: They think the electric car is quote simple and simpler

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Speaker 3: to build than the internal combustion engine, because you have

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Speaker 3: this engine, which you know better than I do. I've

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Speaker 3: taken a few engines apart in my life, but not recently.

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Speaker 3: The engine, it has got a lot of parts in it,

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Speaker 3: and it's you know, all the moving parts and it

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Speaker 3: can wear out. And you have so you have a

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Speaker 3: simple fuel tank, and it's a complicated engine, maybe a

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Speaker 3: thousand parts. And the trope is we have replaced a

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Speaker 3: simple engine with the complex engine with a simple motor

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Speaker 3: with two moving parts maybe two motors, you know, two

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Speaker 3: parts each, but the battery. The swap is for complexity

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Speaker 3: in the fuel system. The battery has thousands of welds

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Speaker 3: in it. A Tesla battery has fourteen thousand welds in it.

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Speaker 3: It has seven thousand cells. He's hoping to get the

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Speaker 3: next generation designed down to a few thousand cells. It

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Speaker 3: has a cooling system, a heating system, a structural system,

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Speaker 3: and it has electronic control systems in it to keep

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Speaker 3: it from to keep it from self immolating, the burning

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Speaker 3: up to maximize its performance. Is an extraordinarily complex electro

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Speaker 3: chemical machine, and the engine that we're replacing with is

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Speaker 3: a very complex electro chemical mechanical machine. Rather, so you're

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Speaker 3: swapping complex cities, you haven't eliminated complexity. More importantly, the

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Speaker 3: materials the battery is made from. The minerals, the cobalt,

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Speaker 3: the lithium, the nickel, manganese, those those minerals. The quanities

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Speaker 3: of the midtals you require to make a battery are

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Speaker 3: roughly over the life cent of a car. If you

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Speaker 3: count apples to apples, you increase the quantity materials you

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Speaker 3: need to drive a vehicle over a ten your life

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Speaker 3: by tenfold. But think about this one thousand percent increase

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Speaker 3: in the quantity materials I have to extract from the

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Speaker 3: earth to have to make a vehicle. So the parts

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Speaker 3: of the vehicle that are the same, electric and non electric,

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Speaker 3: you know, the wheels, the tires, the frame, they're all

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Speaker 3: the same, right seats, the battery. An electric car weighs

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Speaker 3: about one thousand pounds. The fuel tank is again you

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Speaker 3: know you and your audience now seventy pounds maybe sure

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Speaker 3: the car So I have one thousand pound fuel system

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Speaker 3: and it takes five hundred thousand pounds in the hero

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Speaker 3: of mind from the earth to make that one battery.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, Mark, hold that thought. Let me pull

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Speaker 1: over and take this pause. We're gonna return. We'll rejoin us.

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Speaker 1: Rominading the Car Doctor, Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.

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Speaker 1: Don't go away. We'll be back right after this. Come

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Speaker 1: in by right up. Welcome back, Roninading the Car Doctor

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Speaker 1: here today with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute. Mark,

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Speaker 1: when we pulled over and took that pause, we were

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Speaker 1: talking in terms of the impact of what it takes

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Speaker 1: to make that electric car battery. Can you just recap

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Speaker 1: that for the listeners real quick?

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I think this is the part that's critical. The

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Speaker 3: respective visions of a magical future where every car has

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Speaker 3: a battery in it. They won't be the kind of

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Speaker 3: batteries that we're making today because we can't make that

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Speaker 3: many batteries because the thousand pound battery, which is what

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Speaker 3: a battery weighs in a car that get several hundred

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Speaker 3: miles of range, requires mining a variety of minerals to

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Speaker 3: make the battery. Is the scientific term, no duh. You

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Speaker 3: need steel, of course, but it's aluminum. But you need

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Speaker 3: nickel and manganese and cobalt and lithium, you know, the

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Speaker 3: main lauge of minerals that go into a battery. So

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Speaker 3: a thousand pounds is a finished form. But to make

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Speaker 3: the battery you have to mine five hundred thousand pounds

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Speaker 3: and materials. Rock can process it, turn it into finished

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Speaker 3: minerals and make a battery. Now that there's two things

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Speaker 3: about that that matter. First, it takes energy to do that.

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Speaker 3: It has environmental impacts to do that, And you want

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Speaker 3: to know how much that you're going to do. If

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Speaker 3: you want to know the total, we'll call it the

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Speaker 3: energy debt of making the batteries. Because batteries aren't a

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Speaker 3: form of energy obviously, they store energy, So you spend

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Speaker 3: energy to store energy, and you spend a lot. It

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Speaker 3: takes somewhere between one hundred and three hundred barrels of

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Speaker 3: oil equivalent of energy, So three hundred barrels of oil

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Speaker 3: equivalent of energy to fabricate a battery that can hold

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Speaker 3: one barrel of oil equivalent of energy.

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Speaker 1: And then you're doing all this mining and digging and

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Speaker 1: you know, gathering of rocks to get the materials. With

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Speaker 1: these giant machines that are emitting.

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Speaker 3: Well, they burn diesel fuel. Some of them are electric,

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Speaker 3: but if they're remote, you know, because they have electric

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Speaker 3: machines and remote minds. But if they're a remote mind,

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Speaker 3: not close to a grid, the generation of electricity comes

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Speaker 3: from diesel machines using oil. In fact, the global mining

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Speaker 3: industry uses almost as much oil as the global aviation

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Speaker 3: industry as much oil. And now to fabricate batteries that

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Speaker 3: the scales people are talking about will require that the

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Speaker 3: largest increase in mining the world has ever seen. And

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Speaker 3: I'm saying this. It sounds hyperbolic to say that I'm

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Speaker 3: saying this based on not my research. My research is

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Speaker 3: fighting other people's research. So the US Geological Survey or

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Speaker 3: the International Energy Agency itself, which is one of the

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Speaker 3: big advocates for more electric cars. What the researchers will

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Speaker 3: tell you who look at the mineral requirements is that

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Speaker 3: the world today is not mining nor planning to mind

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Speaker 3: enough copper, never mind everything else, or not enough nickel,

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Speaker 3: never mind the exotic things like lithium or cobalt, but

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Speaker 3: just the basic metals to make the quantities of batteries

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Speaker 3: and electric cars and windmills and solar arrays that are contemplated.

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Speaker 3: And electric car uses three times more copper than an

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Speaker 3: internal combustion engine. That should be on surprising considering you're

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Speaker 3: replacing you know, steel engine with you know, a copper

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Speaker 3: lound electric motor and a lot of electric bus bar

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Speaker 3: But the three hundred percent increase is not nothing. I mean,

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Speaker 3: if you start making millions of vehicles with a three

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Speaker 3: hundred percent increase in copper per vehicle, you become a

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Speaker 3: significant consumer of copper. And that's not counting the batteries

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Speaker 3: consumption of other minerals. So what's the solution. Well, I

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Speaker 3: can tell you as a fact, and this is easy

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Speaker 3: to find in the magic Google machine, that the world

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Speaker 3: is not now planning to and no governments are expanding

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Speaker 3: mining sufficient to make enough cars to ban internal combustion

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Speaker 3: engines in the next decade or two.

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Speaker 1: So are we being you know, California banning sale and

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Speaker 1: internal combustion engines by thirty five car companies saying they'll

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Speaker 1: be all electric by twenty thirty. Are they showing us

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Speaker 1: the extreme and over the next couple of years, as

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Speaker 1: I've been saying, are they going to backpedal and all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden by you know, three or four years

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Speaker 1: from now. Well, we can't achieve that, But here's what

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Speaker 1: we really want.

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Speaker 3: I'd take the bet the go to back pedal. It

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Speaker 3: won't take them a decade of backpedal. The back pedal

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Speaker 3: will start sooner, and it'll start when the prices start

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Speaker 3: going up. I mean, if you put this kind of demand,

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Speaker 3: the demand on minerals that these green energy plans have

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Speaker 3: represents say four hundred to four thousand percent increase in

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Speaker 3: demand for depends on the middle of your pick. So

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Speaker 3: it's four hundred percent increase in the man for copper,

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Speaker 3: it's a four thousand percent increase in the man for cobalt,

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Speaker 3: it's a one thousand percent increase of demand for nickel,

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Speaker 3: this is these are global increases in demand to meet

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Speaker 3: these plans that governments are proposing. These are astonishing increases

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Speaker 3: in demand in a world where market prices for these

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Speaker 3: minerals rises. If the demand goes up by ten percent

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Speaker 3: or twenty percent, so what will happen is the prices

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Speaker 3: will go up. So we saw this already this year.

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Speaker 3: The average price for a battery for electric car has

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Speaker 3: been going down famously as Elon Musk and everybody who

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Speaker 3: falls for a decade, which is pretty quite remarkable. But

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Speaker 3: this year it went down. This year, I mean the

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Speaker 3: trailing twelve months, it went down by a single digit

435
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 3: percentage point. It's like eight percent or something ten percent,

436
00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 3: which is not a big decline. Next year, almost all

437
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,440
Speaker 3: forecasts see battery price is going up, not down.

438
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:22,880
Speaker 2: Up.

439
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 3: The trend will reverse itself because of the costs of

440
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:30,160
Speaker 3: the minerals. Here's here's the key fact when you buy it.

441
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 3: When you buy a car, the materials that are going

442
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,440
Speaker 3: to the car, the bill of materials cost something, and

443
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 3: the labor so those setting aside profits, there's just two things, right.

444
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:45,679
Speaker 3: You have labor for machines and human beings that you

445
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,440
Speaker 3: pay for, and you have materials. The same is true

446
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:52,120
Speaker 3: when you build a battery. Batteries and electric cars today,

447
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 3: sixty to seventy percent of the cost of making the

448
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 3: batteries just the raw minerals materials. And if I double

449
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 3: the price those minerals, how can we possibly say the

450
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 3: battery's going to get cheaper. Even if even if I

451
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 3: take the remaining thirty percent, which is the manufacturing machinery

452
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 3: and labor and electronics and a cooling system and make

453
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 3: that half as expensive, How's that going to get you

454
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 3: a cheaper battery When the sixty to seventy percent of

455
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 3: the costs of the battery, which are the minerals, everything

456
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 3: that's happening in the world today is leading to those

457
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,399
Speaker 3: going up in price. And none of the environmental organizations,

458
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 3: and I say this, I think pretty confidently not a

459
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 3: single environmental organization in the world that's pushing to have

460
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 3: more electric cars is supporting more mining to make it

461
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 3: possible to have more electric rrs.

462
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:43,640
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like they want us to clean

463
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: up the environment, but don't touch the environment to do it.

464
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I can't blame them. They're honest about right,

465
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,360
Speaker 3: like you're mining. But let's be honest about what has

466
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 3: to be done. So if you if you drive a

467
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 3: car for a decade, we can calculate easy to do

468
00:25:57,880 --> 00:25:59,919
Speaker 3: the total ton of let's just do it in tons

469
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:02,879
Speaker 3: of oil or gasoline you'll need depending on your detail,

470
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 3: no matter, we know what the number. And if you

471
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:07,880
Speaker 3: do the same ten years for electric car, you get

472
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 3: to another tone, which in a sense, you pay for

473
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 3: upfront when you buy the battery. Forget how you make electricity,

474
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 3: you just look at the car. And if you make

475
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:20,679
Speaker 3: those two comparisons, you get a thousand percent increase in

476
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 3: the tonnage of materials you need to extract from the

477
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:27,959
Speaker 3: Earth to drive a vehicle for ten years. This is

478
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 3: this is consequential in economic terms and environmental terms, and

479
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 3: it's not sustainable. It won't. It won't even it sounds

480
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 3: like I'm being hyperbolic again, it won't happen. It just

481
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 3: it won't happen because it can't happen. So we're not

482
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 3: going to get there. But we will have more electric

483
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 3: cars because you could get to I don't know, pick

484
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 3: a number, ten percent of the fleet being electric or fifteen,

485
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 3: but we're.

486
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: Not going to We're not going to get to fifty

487
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: or sixty or one hundred. Hey, Mark called that thought.

488
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:57,919
Speaker 1: Let me let me pull over and fit take this pause.

489
00:26:58,080 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 1: I'm running Ending of the Car Doctor here today with

490
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute. We'll both be back

491
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:12,880
Speaker 1: right after this. Don't go away. Welcome back, Ron Any

492
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: of the Car Doctor here today with Mark Mills of

493
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Institute. He's also an accomplished author. He's written

494
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 1: more than a few books, his most recent being The

495
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: Cloud Revolution, talking about the convergence of new technologies and

496
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 1: the next economic boom. And I think part of that

497
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: is some of the conversation we're having here today, right Mark,

498
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: with regard to electric vehicles in the electric vehicle future.

499
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, let's talk about the future

500
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 3: a little. The idea that I don't think electric cars

501
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:40,360
Speaker 3: are going to take over the world has a lot

502
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 3: of people saying to me, Wow, you know, you're not

503
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 3: a technical, you're not an optimist. You don't understand what

504
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:46,880
Speaker 3: technology changes, and the future is going to be better

505
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 3: and they'll be better batteries. Look, I'm really probably over

506
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 3: the optimisty what technologists can do when engineers and the

507
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 3: innovators can do. But I also know what the physical

508
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 3: limits are and things it can't be done with the

509
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 3: physics and the engineering we know how to use. The

510
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 3: cars in the future are going to be as you know,

511
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 3: more reliable, safer, more comfortable. All these things are coming

512
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 3: from credible advances in engineering and technology. The automatic safety

513
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 3: systems that are emerging. I'm not talking about self driving,

514
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 3: but the you know, let's call them self stopping technologies

515
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 3: that are emerging prevent us from doing bad and stupid things.

516
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 3: This is this is very exciting. It's a great stuff.

517
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 3: We're going to reduce the cartridge on the roads. We're

518
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 3: going to make driving more comfortable. How we change how

519
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 3: we fuel a car really is a small ball stuff.

520
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 3: I mean, it's really it's not very imaginative. The revolutions

521
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 3: that are going to be exciting will be in things

522
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 3: like robotics and manufacturing and you know, how we how

523
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 3: we how we do medical diagnostics, and how we train people,

524
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 3: how we learn how to repair a car. That's but

525
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 3: back to the car here. Let me let me calibrate

526
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 3: a core physics point to make it clear to people

527
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 3: who say, and when I talk about the difference between

528
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 3: electric car, it's battery and the Gassian powered car. The

529
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 3: battery weighs a thousand pounds, your fuel tank weighs seventy pounds,

530
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 3: and you have to mine five hundred thousand pounds of

531
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 3: stuff to make the one battery.

532
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 1: That's one battery, one battery, So a.

533
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 3: Half ton battery two hundred and fifty tons of stuff

534
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 3: dug out of the earth today. In the future it

535
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 3: will be five hundred tons. Because you know we're chasing

536
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 3: lower grade oars. The answer is it'll get better. My

537
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 3: technology will get better. Well, of course it will get better,

538
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 3: but internal combustion engines can get better too, but they

539
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 3: can't get better than the underlying physical chemistry of the

540
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 3: materials that you're using to create energy. So put this way,

541
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 3: everybody who has electric car, who's heard of electric cars

542
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 3: knows you measure the storage of electricity and kill one

543
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 3: hours the same things you pay for with your house.

544
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 3: So what you'd want to know is, if you have

545
00:29:57,400 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 3: a car, what you care about is the power to

546
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 3: weight ratio. What you know what gearhead doesn't care about

547
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 3: power weight? So what I cared about when I raced motorcycles,

548
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 3: So the physical chemistry of the ilviated chemicals from which

549
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 3: we make a battery, not the batteries power to weight ratio,

550
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 3: but it's underlying chemistry. Maximum of the chemicals that we use,

551
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 3: aliceated Costa chemicals is five hundred wat hours per kilogram,

552
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 3: So that's what you can you can, that's what the

553
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 3: energetics of the chemistry is. The battery is realized in

554
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 3: a tesla is about one hundred and fifty one hours

555
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 3: per kilogram, by the way, so it's a lot less

556
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 3: because it built things around it, machinery, hardware, controlling coolingsistence,

557
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 3: but the physical limits five hundred. So what you'd want

558
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 3: to know if you were designing a fast car or

559
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 3: say a drone, is what's oil because that's what you

560
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 3: start with when you may you convert it and it's

561
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 3: twelve thousand wat hours per kilogram. That's what oil is,

562
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 3: what the oil contains, and that's what's available. Now, can

563
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 3: you get twelve thousand what hours of it? No? But

564
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 3: I can get half out right? And could I ever

565
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 3: get half of the energy out of the five hundred

566
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 3: one hours per killogram? And let's get a chemist. Sure, yeah,

567
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 3: but theoretical you know best best the prototype batteries can

568
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 3: do that already. So now I'm comparing. We can do

569
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 3: the arithmetic here, it's not complicated. A six thousand one

570
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 3: hour pro killogram in total combustion capability versus a two

571
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty one hour pipillogram battery capability. These are

572
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 3: extraordinary difference. Is so, can you make electric cars or

573
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 3: electric drones and airplace? Sure, but if you want to

574
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 3: go real fast and carry heavy loads for long distances,

575
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 3: you can be burning oil right in a long time.

576
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 1: And that's the bottom line. Hey, Mark, our time is

577
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: just about up. Can I shamelessly plug you? Is there

578
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 1: a website the listeners can go to more information? Lay

579
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 1: it on us.

580
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 3: You can do the tech hyphenpundit dot com mil so

581
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 3: it's a tech pundit with a hyphen right. And the

582
00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 3: Manhattan Institute website. If you use a magic Google machine,

583
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 3: just type in Marked Mills Manhattan Institute. They'll they'll get

584
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 3: you to the web page. And you can use the

585
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 3: Amazon magic machine to type in my name, Marked Mills

586
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 3: and you'll get my book.

587
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: And that's what we want everybody to do because they

588
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 1: need they need this information, they really do, and you.

589
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 3: Know, and you'll find a lot there about change the

590
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 3: materials materials revolution, the change and in virtual reality it

591
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 3: will help us learn how to repair vehicles, change jobs,

592
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 3: and about how to I think drones are coming big time,

593
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 3: not for people soon, but but not not not too

594
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 3: far in the future.

595
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 1: Well, you know what we're going to do. We're going

596
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 1: to bring you back after the first of the year.

597
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: I'm asking you and telling you after the first of

598
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: the year.

599
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 3: I'd be delighted you kick off the new year with

600
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 3: some exciting is.

601
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about cars in a little bit

602
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: further into detail.

603
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 2: Thank you.

604
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 1: I got to run Mark, but listen, it was absolute pleasure, sir.

605
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: You you kind of lit up everybody's world today. No

606
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: pun intended with electric cars. So you have yourself for

607
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: good rest of the holiday season.

608
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 3: You have a great have a great Thank you, Mary,

609
00:32:58,760 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 3: thank you, Marry Christmas to you.

610
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, I'm running any of the Car Doctor. We'll

611
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 1: be back right after this. Fuck am back run naming

612
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: the car Doctor. You know the mistake I made, Tom

613
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: was I should have asked Mark that, you know, if

614
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 1: we could invent the flux capacitor, would we then have

615
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: Because he's right, you know, he started talking about the

616
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 1: comic book Magic and I saw in one of his

617
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: interviews he talks about comic book magic that everybody thinks

618
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 1: all this technology is going to fall out of the sky,

619
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 1: and it's just not going to What do you mean

620
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: if we if you go to the O'Reilly website, they're

621
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: already advertising it. They're waiting for them to come in. Well,

622
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: a flux capacity. I know that is actually that is

623
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: actually there on the rally website. But I could listen

624
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: to him for hours. He just makes so much sense.

625
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: That was just a great interview. You know, it's I

626
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: don't see how anybody could argue his points. I just

627
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: don't because you know, two and two has to be four.

628
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: Two and two is never seven. And you know his

629
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: commentary in one of his other interviews that I saw

630
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: him do, he also talks about how okay, so now

631
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: you've got this electric car future on the table, the

632
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: amount of transmission lines and towers and cables that you

633
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: have to run in order to support this this grid

634
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:20,279
Speaker 1: that everybody is talking about building and the support to

635
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 1: the infrastructure, it's all got to be put somewhere. The

636
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 1: material has to be found somewhere, you know. They also

637
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: talked about solar we have so much to talk about

638
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: with him with regards to the way solar and renewables

639
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: and windmills. Listen, I'm not saying we're not going to

640
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 1: have electric cars, and Mark certainly proved that point tonight

641
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: today that we're going to have electric vehicles in the future.

642
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: It's just not at the volume they're predicting. You know,

643
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:55,759
Speaker 1: we're not going to have transporters like Star Trek in

644
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: the next ten to fifteen years, one hundred maybe two

645
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: hundred probably, but not in the next ten to fifteen.

646
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: And we're not going to see a massive amount of

647
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: electric cars by twenty thirty twenty thirty five like they're

648
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: predicting either. So the backpedaling will begin soon. I'm running

649
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: eighty in the car, doctor, reminding you this time, like

650
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: every time, for a great time. Good mechanics aren't expensive,

651
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: they're priceless. See you