Dude, Where's My Electric Car?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
1,151 words · ~5 min read
0:00
it seems like we're hearing about electric cars more than ever and you
0:03
know what why not gone are the days when evs were just
0:07
weird concepts that looked utterly ridiculous now you can go down to your
0:11
local dealership and buy one just like you would any other vehicle and i mean
0:16
they basically dominate the automotive industry headlines courtesy of one mr
0:21
elon musk but well hold on a minute despite all the
0:25
hype you still don't see them zipping around on the roads very much in fact
0:30
come to think of it we've been hearing a ton about mainstream electric cars for
0:36
years now so why aren't there entire fleets of them
0:40
driving around well brace yourself for the huge shocking
0:44
twist here because as it turns out media
0:48
coverage is one thing but getting people to actually plunk
0:52
down their hard-earned money on an ev
0:56
is quite another now it is cheaper to plug in and charge
1:00
an electric car than it is to fill a traditional vehicle with gasoline
1:05
but the higher up front costs of electric cars have led to some serious
1:10
cases of sticker shock now part of the
1:13
reason that electric cars continue to be expensive is the ever pervasive early
1:18
adopter tax you see the research and development
1:21
that has gone into road-worthy electric cars is not only quite expensive but
1:26
much of it has taken place relatively recently meaning that car manufacturers
1:31
both large and small are still trying to
1:34
recoup their investments plus the batteries themselves aren't exactly
1:39
cheap for an ice or traditional car the
1:44
upfront cost of the fuel system is what
1:47
a fuel pump and a metal canister and some tubes
1:51
by contrast modern electric car batteries are large and heavy and their
1:57
manufacture requires a number of resources that are fairly hard to
2:01
extract this is made more difficult by the fact that some countries with large
2:06
deposits of important materials like lithium want to protect their rights to
2:11
those resources not to mention that some mining
2:14
locations are in rather unstable countries
2:18
and although electric cars are commonly billed as part of a solution to an
2:22
energy crisis that can hopefully be adopted by a majority of consumers well
2:27
they're still positioned to a large extent as luxury goods for example evs
2:32
tend to offer much quieter rides than their gas-powered counterparts which is
2:37
a selling point that allows dealers to charge quite a bit more
2:41
but okay let's say you have the cash to go buy a tesla or failing nada nissan
2:46
leaf is there anything that would stop you from having the automotive
2:49
experience you've always wanted well yes and i'm not just talking about
2:54
the fact that they aren't all equipped with racing engines a big issue with
2:58
many electric cars is the range that is how far they can get on a single charge
3:03
while pricier teslas can get over 300 miles on a single fill-up similar to
3:08
some gas-powered sports cars many of the cheaper evs are limited to less than 200
3:14
miles and while the vast majority of car trips in the u.s anyway are well under
3:19
this range limit people still get anxious about having such a short
3:23
battery life and it's understandable because even if you have a car that can
3:27
get 400 miles to a tank you have still
3:30
probably found yourself at least once or twice frantically searching for a gas
3:35
station as the needle approaches the e which leads me to the next hurdle where
3:40
exactly do you charge an electric car obviously they aren't difficult to plug
3:45
in at home but if you're driving out on the open road somewhere to see where life leads
3:50
you and you find your battery running low your options might be pretty limited
3:55
while governments and car manufacturers are both working to build out their
3:59
infrastructure of charging stations this is both a time-consuming and expensive
4:05
endeavor and it's also much slower to
4:08
fully charge an ev than it is to fill up a 60 to 80 liter gas tank
4:13
however just because electric cars aren't everywhere yet doesn't mean it'll stay
4:18
that way forever not only is research still ongoing into replacing lithium-ion
4:23
batteries with solid-state alternatives that could hold more energy
4:27
other innovations like transmissions designed for evs could increase both the
4:32
range and performance of electric cars simply by using gear ratios so one day
4:37
in the near future worries about running out of juice may be a thing of the past
4:42
researchers are also working on new power delivery mechanisms that could
4:46
reduce charge times to as little as 10 minutes by using direct current at
4:51
higher voltages and as charging stations become more common we should see prices
4:56
start to fall especially since governments around the world have
5:00
already begun instituting bans on the
5:03
sales of new gasoline-powered cars which
5:06
should incentivize larger scale cheaper production of electric alternatives
5:11
at the time we shot this video 11 countries had such bands including
5:15
france china and the uk with them taking effect anywhere between 2021 and 2040.
5:22
so a mostly electric future might not be too far off but
5:27
that's not to say that convincing john to get rid of his gas-guzzling mustang
5:31
is going to be an easy task speaking of easy tasks are you
5:36
interested in computer science well why not check out brilliant a
5:40
problem-solving website that takes large concepts and breaks them down into
5:44
little easy tasks that teach you to think like a computer scientist instead
5:49
of passively listening to lectures with brilliant you get the tools and the
5:54
framework that you need to tackle daily problems that are both fun and
5:58
challenging and their thought-provoking content which is based around breaking
6:02
up these complexities into bite-sized understandable chunks will lead you from
6:06
curiosity to mastery and you'll be in the company of over five and a half
6:10
million members who share your curiosity and love for math and science so what
6:15
are you waiting for you can support techwiki and learn more about brilliant
6:18
by clicking the link in the video description or going to brilliant.org
6:23
techwiki and signing up for free the first 200 people to go to that link will
6:27
get 20 off the annual premium subscription so be sure to check it out
6:32
so thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other videos
6:36
uh don't forget to leave a suggestion if you have an idea for a future fast as
6:40
possible that you'd like to see and as always subscribe to techwiki
6:45
always do it
6:48
even if that means half the time you're unsubscribing wait