New Geekbits Podcast and Hard Drive failure

I've seen a lot of reports of "what would happen" if all of those people were driving EVs on I95. However, I haven't heard of any actual EV shutting down. I think it is nonsense. Norway is the leading country in the world for EVs and I think it's safe to say it gets really cold there and I haven't heard of any issues with it. Most of these reports are political FUD to attack Biden.

The 8-Bit Guy

Hey, I've been thing about this podcast a lot. I have a question, can EVs be viable in areas that get really cold? I've seen a lot of reports of EV shutting down up north with how cold it is getting.

You're right that these aren't Coal powered cars. With the US's current energy mix, they're more likely Natural Gas powered cars. :)

Kaz Redclaw

Yeah, 15 years minimum is about how long before I expect it to be viable in rural areas. I think the repair problem is still more that Tesla is hostile to repair. If we can't get the social norm back for right to repair, then we'll probably be going more towards it being impossible to repair even if there were enough volume to justify them gaining the skills to fix it, because Tesla will disable the car if you try to repair it, which has been threatened with people who have done their own repairs. With gasoline cars, we've gotten that written into law, so it would be a lot harder for them to make it impossible to repair. They're slipping unrepairability in the back door by making cars into rolling smartphones. (Of course, there's also the situation where if you're going to a super rural area where there's only dirt roads and no gas stations for long distances, with Gasoline cars you can still strap a bunch of gas cans to the car, while with electric cars you'd probably need the gas cans, and a generator strapped to the car, and would have to stop for long periods of time to run the generator.)

Kaz Redclaw

The case of the 10 year old batter was old chemistry (obviously, since it was 10 years old) New chemistries are expected to last much longer. That being said, the repair won't be that much of an issue for used cars once there are enough of them on the road, which are out of warranty, that independent mechanics believe it is worth their time to start learning and working on them. Anytime you have a niche vehicle, you have to go to the manufacture for repairs. But in 10 years time, it won't be that way. Also the charging infrastructure is growing rapidly. Places like Love's and Buc-ee's are now committed to installing fast chargers. So you'll have travel stops along with all of the other existing companies that are expanding infrastructure. Within 15 years, I suspect there will be more charging stations than gas stations. As for the concern over the charge times. I won't worry too much. They are continually getting faster. Some experts have said they expect charging times to be down to under 10 minutes in the next 5-10 years. Eventually, it won't be any longer than what you are used to with gasoline.

The 8-Bit Guy

Also, this one is more of a niche thing, but in the west, there's still a range problem, even with a 300 mile range. There's a gas station at least every 50 miles, and it takes just a minute or two to fill up. There's routes here where there aren't Tesla fast charging stations for 250 miles here. It's different out east, in Europe, or in Texas, than it is in the rural areas of Colorado, New Mexico, or Wyoming. Maybe they'll eventually have enough in places like Dove Creek to put enough superchargers in for these rural areas, but right now that infrastructure isn't in place. (There's a road between GJ and Farmington where there's two super chargers at either end, 270 miles, and no super chargers between. If you have to go 180 miles of that then turn around, you'd have to hit a slow charger, or run out of charge. There's only one slow charger between GJ and Dove Creek, and one slow charger between Farmington and Dove Creek.) I've used this one since it's an example of a drive I might actually do, but I've found even worse ones that are 280+ miles between not just super chargers, but slow chargers that if I lived in different towns I might take. Also, when we're on long road trips, we usually aren't stopping for 20 minutes to get fuel. It's 2-3 minutes, and while I'm filling the tank the other family members go in and grab what we need to eat, then we're back on the road in under 10.

Kaz Redclaw

The main issue is repairability. While electric cars are significantly simpler, and the designs should be way easier to repair, they're being built by companies that want to keep you from repairing them. Instead of letting people rebuild them for $1000-2000 or so, they want you to spend $22000 to buy a new battery pack. Instead of putting a new cooling fitting on a battery pack, they want to replace the entire battery pack. It's because Tesla is like Apple, a modern tech company that has shifted to a very repair hostile stance. There was a recent issue where after 10 years the batteries were no longer holding a charge, so the "million mile" or "lifetime of the car" isn't necessarily true, or for a much more expensive purchase the life is going to be shorter. I spent decades driving cars that were 15-20 years old that I could repair myself for the most part inexpensively, and when electric cars are the norm, I'll be at the mercy of the electric car maker to get the schematics to repair them. People who were like me and very poor for that time will not be able to afford these cars even used due to the repair costs if there's a monopoly on repair.) I think my next car will probably be Hybrid though, the plugin hybrids from Subaru would get most of the commutes by electric, but still be able to do long road trips through rural areas, and battery replacement will be much cheaper with a pack that's only 17-20 miles than a 250-300 mile battery. I can't stand the touch screen controls on everything... So that's one thing that hurts any chances of me buying a tesla. Aside from that, maybe in 10-20 years they'll address all of the remaining issues with infrastructure and batteries will be inexpensive enough that it'll be worthwhile. Maybe Tesla will let people have the schematics and service manuals so they can service things. Maybe I'll consider one after all of that is true. Maybe someone will make physical buttons that integrate into the tesla so that I can control things by feel instead of looking down at the center console to hit the on-screen button. There is one thing about Hydrogen cars though, like Electric cars, they use electric motors, and thus all of the performance advantages of Electric exist with those, but it also has all of the disadvantages of electric aside from the cost of batteries. The need to build out a new infrastructure, the likely lack of repairability. If they had built this out before Tesla existed, it may have been useful, but now it's largely pointless.

Kaz Redclaw

This was a good one. The comparison between CRTs and Gas cars is great. Makes me think. What keeps me away is the charge times I make a lot of 600 mile road trips for work and have gotten it down to needing very few stops. But I feel I am only a few years away from making the plunge.

Thanks for your answer Dave. Nevertheless, we are hearing exciting examples of good hydrogen applications. In Switzerland, for example, there is a completely energy-autonomous house that works with solar power and hydrogen electrolysis as storage. A fuel cell then generates electricity for the house in the winter months. On the other hand, I am also hopeful that lithium ion batteries are not the end of the line. The advances in sodium-ion batteries are promising. We’ll see where the future takes us! ;) All the best to you in 2022!

Alexander M. Korn

Some of these questions would fall under the 100 myths that need busting about EVs, especially the energy production and the mining, etc. Like I said in the video, just not enough time to cover all of those. As for your concept of hydrogen production, I'm afraid it isn't as simple as you think. Producing hydrogen from electricity is pretty expensive and complicated on a large scale. It's much cheaper to get it from natural gas. That's where most of it is made today, and you can bet that is where most of it will be made from in the future just due to costs.

The 8-Bit Guy

Interesting and good discussion, but what I'm missing a lot are the cons of battery driven cars that come in the future. Where to get all the energy to charge the cars, the problem with mass battery manufacturing (for the environment) and so on. An in this way your view to hydrogen is really to on-sided. Hydrogen driven cars ARE EV's and hydrogen itself isn't a replacement of gasoline for the oil companies. The nice thing of hydrogen is that it can be produced locally and don't have to transported. What’s simply needed is water and electricity. No gas station can be simply fueled by hydrogen instead of gasoline. That’s not possible. I believe that the more or less far future is the electric generation in the vehicle itself. The con of hydrogen and fuel cells are just, that they aren’t efficient as gasoline or batteries. But atm in Europe we are driving cheaper with hydrogen as with gasoline. And we have to think what happens with the price for electricity if more battery driven cars are on the road and more and more electric energy is needed overall in the future. It will rise massively, I promise you. ;)

Alexander M. Korn

Thanks for that resource as I have bookmarked it! I do wish that Chrysler / Jeep / Fiat would have put slightly larger battery capacity in the vehicles and I feel like they switch to gas too quickly when it is cold out but overall I am quite happy with them and I do enjoy driving them. It also seems like a lost opportunity to have some method of increasing battery capacity that is not a hack and also some kind of solar panel, even a tiny one, for when you are sitting in a parking lot for 8 hours in a day. Even a small one would potentially give you a mile or two, if my calculations were correct. I'm sure they have their reasons.... I also found this an interesting resource which would be VERY interesting to hear the 3 of you talk about for the future of combustion powered vehicles. https://www.treehugger.com/electric-vehicle-ev-conversion-companies-85249 Sure, it is quite expensive but it gets you thinking, for sure. It does tell you that there is future for any vehicle that is structurally worthy of it. I have a DeLorean I enjoy driving but someday, if I can't get fuel for it or it becomes unsustainable to do so, this would be a good future modification, I think. After all, it is a car that looks to the future, does it not? :)

CubicleNate

I'm not sure what part of the country you live in. But I'm sure if you go to www.plugshare.com you'll be able to find some charging stations. I still drive a Chevy Volt myself, so I'm in the hybrid camp too. But I've found that I rarely charge outside of the house. It's just not worth the hassle unless the charging station is literally at my destination, such as a movie theatre or shopping mall, for example. Otherwise, if I have to go out of my way somewhere, I'd usually prefer just to switch to gas. Of course, that's partly due to the fact that my car doesn't support CCS fast charge. If I could stop by a CCS charger for a few minutes like a person fills up with gas, then maybe it would be worth it.

The 8-Bit Guy

I have purchased, this year an EV Hybrid Jeep and Chrysler Pacifica. I love the electric ability. I enjoy that I can do short distances on battery but longer distances, so across the state without the inconvenience of having to charge. My issue is, I have yet to find a charging station anywhere that I can use outside of my home. I guess I need to find adapters for my J1772 port or something. I just bought into a solar electric system for my home as well. I am more interested in the greater independence than the environmental, but I am also interested in caring for my environment and especially in practical ways. Now if we can make trash waste process more efficient....

CubicleNate

This was another great GB podcast. It very much brings to mind William Gibson's quote, "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."

Pete Doherty

Maybe a proxy workflow will get you going? https://support.apple.com/guide/final-cut-pro/create-optimized-and-proxy-files-verb8e5f6fd/mac

Jim Leonard

Back in 2010 I had backed up my computer to an external USB drive so that I could wipe it and install a fresh OS as I do from time to time. Then the backup was knocked off a table while actively restoring the data, losing everything that hadn't been restored yet. As for EV, I love my Chevy Spark EV. It doesn't go too far on a charge, but it is a great commuter car.