WEBVTT

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it seems like we're hearing about electric cars more than ever and you

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know what why not gone are the days when evs were just

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weird concepts that looked utterly ridiculous now you can go down to your

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local dealership and buy one just like you would any other vehicle and i mean

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they basically dominate the automotive industry headlines courtesy of one mr

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elon musk but well hold on a minute despite all the

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hype you still don't see them zipping around on the roads very much in fact

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come to think of it we've been hearing a ton about mainstream electric cars for

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years now so why aren't there entire fleets of them

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driving around well brace yourself for the huge shocking

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twist here because as it turns out media

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coverage is one thing but getting people to actually plunk

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down their hard-earned money on an ev

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is quite another now it is cheaper to plug in and charge

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an electric car than it is to fill a traditional vehicle with gasoline

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but the higher up front costs of electric cars have led to some serious

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cases of sticker shock now part of the

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reason that electric cars continue to be expensive is the ever pervasive early

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adopter tax you see the research and development

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that has gone into road-worthy electric cars is not only quite expensive but

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much of it has taken place relatively recently meaning that car manufacturers

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both large and small are still trying to

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recoup their investments plus the batteries themselves aren't exactly

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cheap for an ice or traditional car the

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upfront cost of the fuel system is what

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a fuel pump and a metal canister and some tubes

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by contrast modern electric car batteries are large and heavy and their

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manufacture requires a number of resources that are fairly hard to

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extract this is made more difficult by the fact that some countries with large

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deposits of important materials like lithium want to protect their rights to

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those resources not to mention that some mining

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locations are in rather unstable countries

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and although electric cars are commonly billed as part of a solution to an

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energy crisis that can hopefully be adopted by a majority of consumers well

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they're still positioned to a large extent as luxury goods for example evs

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tend to offer much quieter rides than their gas-powered counterparts which is

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a selling point that allows dealers to charge quite a bit more

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but okay let's say you have the cash to go buy a tesla or failing nada nissan

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leaf is there anything that would stop you from having the automotive

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experience you've always wanted well yes and i'm not just talking about

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the fact that they aren't all equipped with racing engines a big issue with

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many electric cars is the range that is how far they can get on a single charge

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while pricier teslas can get over 300 miles on a single fill-up similar to

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some gas-powered sports cars many of the cheaper evs are limited to less than 200

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miles and while the vast majority of car trips in the u.s anyway are well under

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this range limit people still get anxious about having such a short

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battery life and it's understandable because even if you have a car that can

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get 400 miles to a tank you have still

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probably found yourself at least once or twice frantically searching for a gas

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station as the needle approaches the e which leads me to the next hurdle where

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exactly do you charge an electric car obviously they aren't difficult to plug

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in at home but if you're driving out on the open road somewhere to see where life leads

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you and you find your battery running low your options might be pretty limited

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while governments and car manufacturers are both working to build out their

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infrastructure of charging stations this is both a time-consuming and expensive

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endeavor and it's also much slower to

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fully charge an ev than it is to fill up a 60 to 80 liter gas tank

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however just because electric cars aren't everywhere yet doesn't mean it'll stay

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that way forever not only is research still ongoing into replacing lithium-ion

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batteries with solid-state alternatives that could hold more energy

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other innovations like transmissions designed for evs could increase both the

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range and performance of electric cars simply by using gear ratios so one day

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in the near future worries about running out of juice may be a thing of the past

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researchers are also working on new power delivery mechanisms that could

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reduce charge times to as little as 10 minutes by using direct current at

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higher voltages and as charging stations become more common we should see prices

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start to fall especially since governments around the world have

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already begun instituting bans on the

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sales of new gasoline-powered cars which

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should incentivize larger scale cheaper production of electric alternatives

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at the time we shot this video 11 countries had such bands including

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france china and the uk with them taking effect anywhere between 2021 and 2040.

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so a mostly electric future might not be too far off but

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that's not to say that convincing john to get rid of his gas-guzzling mustang

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is going to be an easy task speaking of easy tasks are you

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