it seems like we're hearing about electric cars more than ever and you
know what why not gone are the days when evs were just
weird concepts that looked utterly ridiculous now you can go down to your
local dealership and buy one just like you would any other vehicle and i mean
they basically dominate the automotive industry headlines courtesy of one mr
elon musk but well hold on a minute despite all the
hype you still don't see them zipping around on the roads very much in fact
come to think of it we've been hearing a ton about mainstream electric cars for
years now so why aren't there entire fleets of them
driving around well brace yourself for the huge shocking
twist here because as it turns out media
coverage is one thing but getting people to actually plunk
down their hard-earned money on an ev
is quite another now it is cheaper to plug in and charge
an electric car than it is to fill a traditional vehicle with gasoline
but the higher up front costs of electric cars have led to some serious
cases of sticker shock now part of the
reason that electric cars continue to be expensive is the ever pervasive early
adopter tax you see the research and development
that has gone into road-worthy electric cars is not only quite expensive but
much of it has taken place relatively recently meaning that car manufacturers
both large and small are still trying to
recoup their investments plus the batteries themselves aren't exactly
cheap for an ice or traditional car the
upfront cost of the fuel system is what
a fuel pump and a metal canister and some tubes
by contrast modern electric car batteries are large and heavy and their
manufacture requires a number of resources that are fairly hard to
extract this is made more difficult by the fact that some countries with large
deposits of important materials like lithium want to protect their rights to
those resources not to mention that some mining
locations are in rather unstable countries
and although electric cars are commonly billed as part of a solution to an
energy crisis that can hopefully be adopted by a majority of consumers well
they're still positioned to a large extent as luxury goods for example evs
tend to offer much quieter rides than their gas-powered counterparts which is
a selling point that allows dealers to charge quite a bit more
but okay let's say you have the cash to go buy a tesla or failing nada nissan
leaf is there anything that would stop you from having the automotive
experience you've always wanted well yes and i'm not just talking about
the fact that they aren't all equipped with racing engines a big issue with
many electric cars is the range that is how far they can get on a single charge
while pricier teslas can get over 300 miles on a single fill-up similar to
some gas-powered sports cars many of the cheaper evs are limited to less than 200
miles and while the vast majority of car trips in the u.s anyway are well under
this range limit people still get anxious about having such a short
battery life and it's understandable because even if you have a car that can
get 400 miles to a tank you have still
probably found yourself at least once or twice frantically searching for a gas
station as the needle approaches the e which leads me to the next hurdle where
exactly do you charge an electric car obviously they aren't difficult to plug
in at home but if you're driving out on the open road somewhere to see where life leads
you and you find your battery running low your options might be pretty limited
while governments and car manufacturers are both working to build out their
infrastructure of charging stations this is both a time-consuming and expensive
endeavor and it's also much slower to
fully charge an ev than it is to fill up a 60 to 80 liter gas tank
however just because electric cars aren't everywhere yet doesn't mean it'll stay
that way forever not only is research still ongoing into replacing lithium-ion
batteries with solid-state alternatives that could hold more energy
other innovations like transmissions designed for evs could increase both the
range and performance of electric cars simply by using gear ratios so one day
in the near future worries about running out of juice may be a thing of the past
researchers are also working on new power delivery mechanisms that could
reduce charge times to as little as 10 minutes by using direct current at
higher voltages and as charging stations become more common we should see prices
start to fall especially since governments around the world have
already begun instituting bans on the
sales of new gasoline-powered cars which
should incentivize larger scale cheaper production of electric alternatives
at the time we shot this video 11 countries had such bands including
france china and the uk with them taking effect anywhere between 2021 and 2040.
so a mostly electric future might not be too far off but
that's not to say that convincing john to get rid of his gas-guzzling mustang
is going to be an easy task speaking of easy tasks are you
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