December 18, 2021 • 35 mins
Ron discusses the electric infrastructure in the US and how that impacts the electric future with Manhattan Institute Fellow Mark Mills,
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following program has been prerecorded. Ronanian, my wife forgot
to charge her car overnight, meaning she didn't plug it in.
So I just plugged it in at twenty eight percent.
It needs three hours and fifteen minutes the fully charged.
We won't be able to use it for all our driving.
Today's planned. There's a candidate, honest response from an electric
vehicle owner, the car Doctor. The operator of New England's
(00:31):
power grid said it could be forced to shut off
power if there was a long period of very cold
temperatures this winter. If New England has a prolonged cold snap,
the operator of the grit And warn they may have
to shut up the power to homes and businesses. Welcome
to the radio home of Ron and Anian, the Car Doctor,
since this is where car owners the world overturned to
for their definitive opinion on automotive repair. If you're a
(00:54):
mechanics giving you a busy signal, pick up the phone
and call in The garage doors are open, but I
am here to take your calls. At eight five five
s now he running. You know, we've got a great
hour of radio for you here. It's uh um, I've
(01:15):
had so much phone already talking to our guest pre show.
Just just listening and I know where this conversation is
gonna go, but you guys are gonna love this. And
and actually I have to thank all of you the listenership,
because you sent in more than a few emails showing
me his recent interview. Well maybe it's not so recent,
but some of his other interviews Mark Mills from the
Manhattan Institute UM with John Stossel among other people, and
(01:38):
talking about electricity and electric cars. And we reached out
to Mark. He got right back to us, and we're
so thrilled to have him here. He's his reputation precedes him.
Mr Mills, Are you there, sir? I'm here. Thanks for
having me on. You're very welcome. We're so glad to
have you. I uh, you know, we I just want
to I'm gonna start at the beginning, Mark, because you
and I have already had half the interview and we'll
(02:01):
just go home and have a drink. We're done. Um uh,
you know, full disclosure, So you know, tell us about yourself.
You know what, Why did I pick you? Why are
you the guy that everybody seems to be talking to?
Um when we're talking about electricity and energy because this
is a car repair show. But you know, this electric
car thing is just the tip of the iceberg of
(02:22):
what they want to do and how they want to
change the way energy is in this country. Yeah. Well,
I could first say it's not my fault. Well that's
good to know, but I'm hoping you're the guy that
fixes it. Uh. You know, it's funny. I I studied
degrees in physics. I quick graduate school because because well
I would like to work, and I was building semi conductors.
(02:44):
My my first job was in a manufacturing plant for
semi conductors. But from very early in my my life,
I liked how things work. They're like building things. You know,
worked on engines. I worked on motorcycles, raced one summer
in Grand Prix in Canada, and you know, I'm Canadian.
Like engines, like electric motors are like semi conductors. I
(03:08):
like how stuff works. And that's why the part I
study physics. And then I ended up getting a job
as an engineer and semi conductors and missile guidance and
stuff like that, and I got sort of dragged in
the back door to the energy domain simply because nothing
is possible without energy. So it doesn't matter whether you're
trying to figure out how to make cars go fast
(03:29):
or be more efficient, depends what your proclivities are. Our
rockets fly, or make semi conductors more powerful, computers faster.
Everything everything redounds ultimately to figuring out both the materials
and the energy energetics of things. So yeah, that that
was sort of the intellectual part, but the practical part
was very real for me and jobs I had in
(03:51):
my hobbies. And then you know, we've got the energy
debate started. As you know, we had oil embargoes and
that a couple of them to cause the people have forgotten.
The people of a certain age will remember oil prices
went up overnight in then they went up more again
in seventy nine. Uh, these are these are shocking events.
(04:14):
They really changed how the Western world thought about energy,
and people thought we were running out of energy. So
I ended up getting evolved in energy issues, probably because
of the silliness of the idea that we were running
out of energy, running out of oil. And then now
we have another silly idea that we should never use
oil and gas again. Well let me stop you right there, Mark,
are we are we running out of oil. No, that's
(04:37):
the right, I mean the nuances. Can you can you
exhaust an oil field? Uh? That uses technology you have
available today to deliver oil at a price you're willing
to pay. Yes, that's a that's a form of running
out of oil. The geophysical question is a different one.
(04:58):
Is there enough oil we are aware of as a
resource to fuel society for centuries? Yeah? Easily centuries. Centuries
is essentially forever. The availability of oil or natural gas
or any frankly, any mineral, any resource in the Earth
is dictated not by this physical quantity but the kind
(05:20):
of technology we have to find it and extracted at
a price. Yeah, and that so that's it's a technology question.
That's the key question is what kind of technologies are there,
how do they change, and what are their limits? So
you know, we're not running out of oil, but you
can run out of the capacity to produce it at
(05:42):
the volumes and prices the markets will need and will pay.
And governments can cause that to happen, not just engineers.
Governments banned things that you can't drill here um. Governments
can pass regulations that are punitive oil or gas or
any mineral to expensive. So the when I start up,
(06:03):
I say no, I mean, I'm answering that your physical question.
But obviously governments can do really dumb things, and they
have and they will continue to do that. I guess
that's what makes them politicians and governments do a degree. Well,
the good news is, you know, not to go politically.
I would, I would really have democracies that do dumb
(06:24):
things and dictatorships. Well, there's always that, Yes, I agree. Well, listen,
I gotta tell you we're gonna get political comments after
this conversation. I know I'm going to get because I
already get hate email that i'm trying to ben Do
you know that I single handedly am trying to eliminate
the electric car industry if you believe some of the listeners. Um,
and I just keep trying to point out. You know,
(06:45):
as I said in our pre interview interview, you know
one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies,
Hitting Figures, math doesn't lie to and two has to
before Um, where are we gonna get the electricity from? Well,
like Dr Carwin is it is actually a terrific example
of two two domains at fascinating. One. One is sort
of a law called misdirection of interest in the future.
(07:08):
I've got a new book out as you as you
probably know. But when one writes a new book, one
is not an obligated but eager eager to promote it.
And I write about cars and transportation. In the book.
It's called the Cloud Revolution. As you can guess for
the title, it's not about cars. It's about computing and
technology for the future. Cars. Cars are interesting new kinds
(07:33):
of fuel for cars, using batteries instead of gasoline. It's
a portant. You know, that's a very interesting option, and
it will be lots more of it. But the idea
that that's revolutionary in the same sense the invention of
the cars revolutionary is profoundly misguided. It's would be equivalent
in the nineteenth century of coming up a new way
(07:53):
to feed horses and imagining that you had a revolution.
You know, the be winners and losers. If you change
what you feed, the horse says, it's still a horse.
A car with a battery is still a car. Is
different food that is meaningful. The real question you'd want
to know is can we make enough of that food?
And by that I mean, you know you're referring to
electricity electricity is the least of it. That's not the problem. Obviously,
(08:17):
you have to charge an electric car with electricity equally.
Obviously the electricity you use is determined by when you
charge the car and where you charge it. I mean
by that is most people probably know. If you happen
living a part of the world of a country where
there's lots of wind and solar and it happens to
be funny or a lot of windy at that very moment,
(08:38):
if you charge your car, you're probably using a lot
of electrons made with wind and solar. And if you
happen to charge a car when it's cloudy or be cobbed,
which happened for roughly two weeks in northern Europe this
last month, as you know, then you're you're charging your
car with natural gas and coal dominantly, which is what
happened in Germany and England when they fired up whole
(09:00):
plants that they fortunately still had around. So that that's
a factor. The bigger factor that is profoundly absent from
this whole trope that we're going to eliminate the use
of internal combustion engines by virtue of electric cars being better.
We could talk about whether they're better or not. That's
(09:21):
a different subject, and whether they become cheaper another subject.
But the idea that electric cars will eliminate the need
to have oil internal combustion engines is just arithmetically silly.
It's not not happening, and it won't happen for two reasons.
One the scaling up that people imagine that is we're
(09:43):
going from a world today tenllion electric cars in the
world today, which is a lot considering there were a
decade ago not even a million, so it's a big deal.
But it's in a world that has over a billion
cars on the roads. So you know, again, if you
do your math, you're not you're out. You're now approaching
one percent of all vehicles. The optimists believe that there
(10:05):
will be hundreds of millions of electric cars within the decades,
say three or four. That would be an astonishing increase
in the physical infrastructure that would at that point in
time eliminate roughly of world's oil use. So let me
say that again. If we get the optimist vision happening
in the next decade, and we get four million or
(10:29):
so electric vehicles on the roads, the reduction of world
oil demand would be about that's it. That's it. So
how does that an existential threat to anything? If you're
in the oil business, what do you care? In fact,
I would say the opposite. If I'm a consumer, Let's
hope there's that many electric cars, because the competition will
help keep the price of gas laying down for everybody
(10:50):
else that doesn't want to pay high price for gas.
You want competition, absolutely, Hey, Mark, let me pull over
and take a poise. But let me just say this.
You just convinced me you must be a physicist. Then
you really do have a degree. I used to be one.
I don't practice anymore. I just talk like one on
TV and radio. You sound you sound pretty good to me.
You got me convinced. When I come back, maybe we'll
talk about time travel and a DeLorean ronating of the
(11:12):
car Doctor here with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
We'll both return right after this. Don't go away for
the best in car advice. Give Ron a call eight
five five five six zero nine zero zero. Now back
(11:34):
to Ron. Hey, thanks for staying with us. We're here
today with Mark Mills. He is a senior Fellow with
the Manhattan Institute. He's a faculty fellow at Northwestern University's
McCormick School of Engineering, and he's just a whole lot
of fun to talk to. I think he's like my
new best buddy. UM. We we we could talk. Probably
we need it. We need at least, you know, I
think I need like an eight hour show here, Mark. Um,
(11:55):
so let me let me recap the first segment, all right,
just so I can for those that are just is
joining us. We we've you know, you've made your case.
Obviously you're a physicist. You've got some really great knowledge
as far as uh, you know, energy application, the theories
of the future, use where it came from. Um, you've
convinced this of that. Um, you've written more than more
(12:16):
than just a recently, you've written a few books, the
most recent being The Cloud Revolution and that just came
out this year and it's a fascinating read. Um. You
were sort of talking about electric cars, trying to keep
us about electric cars, but then the whole energy issue
comes into play. So so when you look at I'm
gonna pick on a state, when you look at California,
(12:40):
by this must make your hair spin. By twenty five,
there they've banned the internal combustion engine vehicle? Can they
do it well? Like governments can do almost almost as
we've discovered recently, almost anything you want to do. So
I'll make a I'll make a prediction in two parts
about californ s will be true for England, which has
(13:01):
made a similar declaration. The bands, if if they stay
in place, will result in extraordinary escalation and the value
of used cars. First, right, imagine because not every way
is gonna be able to buy an expensive electric car,
because the electric car will still by then be more
(13:22):
expensive than an internal combustion engine, which we can talk
about it that that will that will boost the number
of years use cars stay on the market, on the road,
and the value of them. But will more likely happen
is the bands will be softened or ignored, or just
abandoned entirely because the whole world, in fact, just the
(13:44):
country that are now in states that are now proposing
to do that, can't all do it and have enough batteries,
never mind manufacturing cars. The central problem that's being ignored
here is not whether the electric car is nice and
tussles are nice. Of course, you're nice, pressive car are
incredible company and kudos to somebody building a car company
(14:05):
that's successful by all measures, even counting you know, some
help from subsidies. That doesn't explain it. It's a successful
car company. Absolutely achievement. In fact, the most impressive engineering
of a battery probably on the planet. Without being hyperbolic.
It deserves enormous credit. Really something. The last guy to
try and do it, yeah, was Tucker exactly, or you
(14:31):
can pick the Lorian if you like, in the Brooklyn
total total, total failures, hard, hard to build a car company,
even with help, and he's done it. And look, if
you think about this, I mean, what an incredible achievement.
I believe the last I checked that something on the
order of six of all automobiles sold in the Western
(14:54):
world at a price over th range are now testless.
He's utterly dominated that market. Watch is why Mercedes and
Jaguar and BMW are all making e v s and
that price range because he just ate the lunch. Uh.
And that's that's not nothing. That's not the whole car
market obviously, but it's it's not nothing, and it's very impressive.
(15:17):
But here's this is the nub of the problem, and
it's not that electric cars are profoundly useful vehicles and
having niches bigger than now exists. So if I were
predicting another sort of future snapshot, there's ten million electric
cars today, it will be unsurprising if there were hundreds
(15:39):
of millions, at least a hundred million in the next decade.
There will be a lots more electric cars. The problem
is that the batteries are not these simple things that
I think are many people's had. They think the electric
cars quote simple and simpler to build than the internal
combustion engine, because you have this engine, which you know
better thiing to have taken a few engines a part
of my life, but not recently. The engine has got
(16:01):
a lot of parts in it, and it's all I'm
moving parts and it can wear out. And you have
so you have a simple fuel tank, and it's a
complicated engine, maybe a thousand parts. And the trope is
we have replaced a simple engine with the complex engine
with a simple motor with two moving parts, maybe two
motors two parts each. But the battery, the swap is
(16:23):
for complexity in the fuel system. The battery has thousands
of welds in it. Tesla battery has fourteen thousand welds
in it. It has seven thousand cells. He's hoping to
get the next generation designed down to a few thousand cells.
That has a cooling system, a heating system, a structural system,
and it has electronic control systems in it to keep
it from the keep it from self immolating, the burning
(16:44):
up to maximize its performance. Is an extraordinary complex electrochemical machine.
And the engine that we're replacing it with this very
complex electro chemical mechanical machine. Rather so you're swapping complexities,
you haven't eliminated complexity. More importantly, the materials the battery
(17:07):
made from the minerals cobalt, the lithium, nickel, manganese, those
those minerals. The quantities of the metals you're required to
make a battery are roughly over the life scent of
a car. If you count count apples to apples, you
increase the quanty materials you need to drive a vehicle
over to in your life by tenfold. But think about this,
(17:31):
a thousand percent increase, and the quantity materials have to
extract from the Earth to have to make a vehicle.
The parts of the vehicles that are the same electric
and non electric. You know, the wheels, tires, the frame,
they're all the same, right it seeds the battery. An
electric car weighs about a thousand pounds. The fuel tank
is again you know you and your audience now seventy
(17:53):
pounds maybe the car. So I have a thousand pound
fuel system and it takes five hundred thousand pounds of
materials mine from the earth to make that one battery.
Oh my god, Mark, hold that thought. Let me pull
over and take this pause. When we return, we'll rejoin
us romenading the Car Doctor, Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
Don't go away. We'll be back right after this, coming
(18:37):
by clocome back round naming the car Doctor here today
with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute. Mark, when we
pulled over and took that pause, we were talking in
terms of the impact of what it takes to make
that electric car battery. Can you just recap that for
(18:58):
the listeners real quick? Yeah? I think this this is
the part that's critical perspective. Visions of a magical future
where every car has a battery in it. They won't
be the kind of batteries that we're making today because
we can't make that many batteries because the thousand pound battery,
which is what a battery ways in a car to
get several hundred miles of range, requires mining a variety
(19:21):
of minerals to make the battery. Let's is the scientific term.
No doc you go, you need steel, of course, but
it's you know, aluminum, but you need nickel and maganese
and cobalt and lithium the main launge of minerals that
go into a battery. So a thousand pounds is a
finished the form. But to make the battery you have
(19:41):
to mine pounds of materials rock and process it, turn
it into finished minerals and make a battery that There's
two things about that that matter. First, it takes energy
to do that. It has environmental impacts to do that.
And you want to know how much that you're going
to do If you want to know the total, we'll
(20:01):
call it the energy debt of making the batteries, because
batteries are the form of energy, and obviously they start energy,
so you spend energy to star energy, and you spend
a lot. It takes somewhere between one and three hundred
barrels of oil equivalent of energy. So dred barrels spoil
equivalent of energy to fabricate a battery that could hold
(20:24):
one barrel of oil equivalent of energy. And then you're
doing all this mining and digging and you know, gathering
of rocks to get the material. With these giant machines
that are emitting, well, they burn diesel fuel. Some of
them are electric, but if they're remote, because they have
(20:44):
electric machines and remote minds. But if they're in a
remote mine, not close to a grid, the the generation
of electricity comes from diesel machines using oil. Uh. In fact,
the global mining industry uses almost as much oil as
a global aviation industry. It's much oil. And now now
to fabricate batteries that the scales people are talking about
(21:08):
will require that the largest increase in mining the world
has ever seen. And I'm saying this. It sounds hyperbolic
to say that I'm saying this based on not my research.
My research is finding other people's research. So the U. S.
Geological Survey or the International Energy Agency itself, which is
(21:29):
one of the big advocates for more electric cars. What
what the researchers will tell you who look at the
mineral requirements is that the world today is not mining
nor planning to mind enough copper, never mind everything else,
or not enough nickel, never mind the exotic things like
lithium or cobalt, but just the basic metals to make
(21:52):
the quantities of batteries and electric cars and windmills and
solar solar arrays that are contemplated. An electric car uses
three times more copper than internal combustion engine. That should
be on surprising considering you're replacing you know, steel engine
with you know, a copper round electric motor and a
lot of electric bus bar But the increase is not nothing.
(22:16):
I mean, if you start making millions of vehicles, uh,
with increase in copper per vehicle, you become a significant
consumer of copper. And that's not counting the batteries consumption
of other minerals. So what's the solution. Well, I can
tell you as a as a fact, and this is
easy to find in the magic Google machine, that the
world is not now planning to and no governments are
(22:38):
expanding mining sufficient to make enough cars the banned internal
combustion engines in the next decade or two. So so
are we being you know, California banning sale of internal
combustion engines by thirty five, car companies saying will be
all electric by Are they showing us the extreme and
over the next couple of years, as I've been saying,
(22:58):
are they going to back pedal and all of a
sudden by you know, three or four years from now. Well,
we can't achieve that, But here's what we really want.
I'd take the bet the back they go to backpedal,
it won't take them a decade decade to backpedal. The
backpedal will start sooner, and it'll start when the prices
started going up. I mean, if you put this kind
of demand, the demand on minerals that these green energy
(23:18):
plans have represents a four hundred to four thousand percent
increase in demand for depends on the middle of you pick.
So it's increase in demand for copper, It's a four
thousand percent increase in the demand for cobalt. It's a
thousand percent increase demand for nickel. This is these are
global increases in demand to meet these plans that governments
are proposing. These are these are astonishing increases in demand
(23:42):
in a world where market prices for these minerals rises.
If the demand goes up by ten percent or so.
What will happen is the prices will go up. So
we saw this already this year. The average price for
a battery for electric car has been going down this
leek because Elon Musk and everybody who falls for a decade,
(24:03):
and which is pretty quite remarkable. But this year it
went down. This year, I mean the trailing in twelve months,
it went down by a single digit percentage point, that's
eight percent or something ten percent, which is not a
big decline. Next year, almost all forecasts the battery prices
going up, not down up. The trend will reverse itself
(24:24):
because of the costs of the minerals. Here's here's the
key fact when you when you buy it, when you
buy a car, the materials that are going too the car,
the bill of materials cost something and labor to those
setting aside profits. There's just two things, right. You have
labor for machines and human beings that you pay for,
(24:45):
and you have materials. The same is true when you
build a battery batteries and electric cars. Today, the cost
of making the batteries just the raw minerals materials, and
if I double the price of those minerals, how how
can we possibly say the battery is gonna get cheaper
even if even if I take the remaining which is
(25:07):
the manufacturing machinery and labor and electronics and a cooling
system and make that half as expensive, how is that.
How's that going to get you a cheaper battery when
the cost of the battery, which are the minerals. Everything
that's happening in the world today is leading to those
going up in price. And none of the environmental organizations,
(25:29):
and I say this, I think pretty confidently not a
single environment organization in the world that's pushing to have
more electric cars is supporting more mining to make it
possible to have more electric cars. So it's sort of
like they want us to clean up the environment, but
don't touch the environment to do it. Look, I can't
blame them, they're honestly like you're mining. But let's be
(25:50):
honest about what has to be done. So if you
if you drive a car for a decade, we can
calculate easy to do the total tonnage. Let's just do
it in tons of oil, gas sling you'll need depending
if you're no matter, we know what the number. And
if you do the same ten years for electric car,
you get to another tonnage which in a sence, you
pay for upfront by the battery. Forget how you make electricity,
(26:12):
just look at the car. And if you make those
two comparisons, you get a thousand percent increase in the
tonnage of materials you need to extract from the Earth
to drive a vehicle for ten years. This is this
is consequential economic terms and environmental terms, and it's not sustainable.
Won't it won't emanate. It sounds like I'm being hyperbolic again.
(26:37):
It won't happen. It just it won't happen because it
can't happen. So we're not going to get there. But
we will have more electric cars because you could get
to I don't pick a number, ten percent of the
fleet being electric or but we're not gonna We're not
gonna get to fifty or sixty or a hundred. Hey,
Mark called that thought. Let me let me pull over
and take this pause. I'll run any of the Car
(26:57):
Doctor here today with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
Will both be back right after this. Don't go away,
Welcome back. We're on any of the Car Doctor here
today with Mark Mills, of the Manhattan Institute. He's also
an accomplished author, has written more than a few books,
his most recent being The Cloud Revolution, talking about the
(27:18):
convergence of new technologies and the next economic boom. And
I think part of that is some of the conversation
we're having here today, right Mark, with regard to electric
vehicles and the electric vehicle future. Yeah, I think, you know,
let's let's talk about the future. The idea that I
don't think electric cars are going to take over the
world has a lot of people saying to me, well,
(27:39):
you know, you're not a technical, you're not an optimist.
You don't understand how technology changes and the future is
going to be better and the better batteries. Look, uh,
I'm I'm really probably over the optimist what technologists can
do when engineers, the innovators can do. But I also
know what the physics limits are and things that can't
be done. With the physics and the engineering. We know
how to use. Cars in the future are going to be,
(28:02):
as you know, more reliable, safer, more comfortable. All these
things are coming from credible advances and engineering and technology.
The automatic safety systems that are emerging, and not talking
about self driving. But the you know, let's call them
self stopping technologies that are emerging prevent us from doing
bad and stupid things. This is, this is very exciting.
(28:23):
It's a great stuff. We're going to reduce the carnage
on the road, so we're gonna make driving more comfortable.
How we change how we fuel a car. Really it's
a small ball stuff. I mean, it's really it's not
very imaginative. The revolutions that are going to be exciting
it will be in things like robotics and manufacturing and
you know, how we how we how we do medical diagnostics,
(28:45):
and how we train people, how we learn how to
repair a car. That's but back to the car here.
Let me let me calibrate a core physics point to
make it clear to people who say and when I
when I talk about the difference between electric car it's
battery and the gasoline power car battery ways of thousand
(29:07):
pounds you fuel tank weighed seventy pounds, and you have
to mind five thousand pounds of stuff to make the
one battery the one battery, So a half ton battery
two fifty tons of stuff dug out of the earth today.
In the future, it will be five hundred tons, because
you know we're chasing lower grade ores. The answer is
(29:27):
it'll get better. My technology will get better. Well, of
course it will get better. Internal combustion edgines can get
better too, but they can't get better than the underlying
physical chemistry of the materials that you're using to create energy.
So put put this way. Everybody who has electric car,
who has heard of electric cars knows you measure the
storage of electricity in kill one hours, the same things
(29:49):
you pay for with your house. So what you'd want
to know is if you have a car, what you
care about is the power to weight ratio. What you
know what gearhead doesn't care about power to weight? What
I care about what I raised motorcycles. So the physical
chemistry of the all aviated chemicals from which we make
a battery, not the battery's power to weight ratio, but
(30:10):
it's underlying chemistry. Maximum of the chemicals that we use,
alleviated cost of chemicals per kilograms, that's what you can
you can that's what the energetics of the chemistry is.
The battery is realized in the tesla is about a
hundred fifty per kilogram. By the way, So it's a
lot less because it build things around machinery, hardware, controllical existence,
(30:34):
but the physics limits. So what you want to know
if you were designing a fast car or say a drone,
is what's oil because that's when you start with, when
you convert it in, it's twelve thousand wat hours per kilograms,
that's what oil is, what the oil contains, and that's
(30:54):
what's available. Now can you get twelve hours out of it? No?
But I get half out? And what I ever get
half of the energy out of the pilogram and let's
get a chemisture. Yeah, but theoretical you know best best
the prototype batteries can do that already, So now I'm comparing.
We can do the arithtic here. It's not complicated. A
six thousand one protelogram in total combustion capability versus a
(31:17):
two battery capability. These are extraordinary differences. So can you
make electric cars or electric drones and airplace? Sure, But
if you want to go real fast and carry heavy
loads for long distances, you can be burning oil and
the long time and that's the bottom one, hey, mark
our our our time is just about up. Um. Can
(31:40):
I shamelessly plug you as there are website the listeners
can go to from information lay it on us. You
can do the tech hyphen pundit dot com mill and
so it's a tech pundit with a hyphen. And the
Manhattan Institute website. If you use a magic Google machine,
just type in Mark T. Mills Manhattan Institute. They'll they'll
get you to the web page. You can use the
(32:01):
Amazon Magic machine to type in my name, Mark P.
Mills and you'll get my book. And that's what we
want everybody to do because they need they need this information.
They really do. And you know, and you'll find a lot.
They're about the change, the materials, materials revolution, the change
and in virtual reality it will help us to learn
how to repair vehicles, change jobs, and about how to
(32:23):
I think drones are coming big time, not for people soon,
but but not not not too far in the future. Well,
you know what we're gonna do. We're gonna bring you
back after the first of the year. I'm I'm asking
you and telling you after the first of the year,
off the new year with some exciting Look all want
to talk about cars and a little bit further into detail.
(32:44):
I gotta run Mark, but listen. It was an absolute pleasure, sir.
You uh, you kind of lit up everybody's world today.
No pun intended with electric cars. So you have yourself
for good rest of the holiday season. You have a
great have a great Thank you, Mary, thank you, Marry
Christmas to you. Yes, sir, I'm running any of the
Car Doctor. We'll be back right after this bucko back
(33:06):
round name of the Car Doctor. You know, the mistake
I made Tom was I should have asked Mark that,
you know, if we could invent the flux capacity, would
we then have because he's right. You know, he started
talking about the comic book magic, and I saw in
one of his interviews he talks about comic book magic
that everybody thinks all of this technology is gonna fall
out of the sky, and it's just not going to
(33:26):
What do you mean if we if you go to
the Oreilly website, they're already advertising it. They're waiting for
them to come in a flux capacity. I know that
is actually that is actually there on the Rally website.
But I could listen to him for hours. He just
makes so much sense. It was just a great interview.
You know. It's I don't see how anybody could argue
(33:46):
his points. I just don't because you know, two and
two has to be four. Two and two is never seven.
And you know his commentary and one of his other
interviews that I saw him do, he also talks about
how okay, so now you've got this electric car future
on the table. The amount of transmission lines and towers
(34:08):
and cables that you have to run in order to
support this this grid that everybody is talking about building,
and the support to the infrastructure, it's all got to
be put somewhere. The material has to be found somewhere. Uh.
You know, they also talked about solar. We didn't we
have so much to talk about with him. Um, with
(34:28):
regards to the way solar and renewables and and and windmills. Listen,
I'm not saying we're not going to have electric cars,
and and Mark certainly proved that point tonight today that
we're gonna have electric vehicles in the future. It's just
not at the volume they're predicting. Um. You know, we're
(34:48):
not gonna have transporters like Star Trek in the next
ten to fifteen years. A hundred baby two hundred probably,
but not in the next ten to fifteen, and we're
not gonna see a massive amount of electric cars by
five like they're predicting either, so the back pedaling will
begin soon. I'm ron Anadi in the Guard Doctor, reminding
you this time, like every time, for a great time.
(35:09):
Good mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless. See you
The following program has been prerecorded. Ronanian, my wife forgot
to charge her car overnight, meaning she didn't plug it in.
So I just plugged it in at twenty eight percent.
It needs three hours and fifteen minutes the fully charged.
We won't be able to use it for all our driving.
Today's planned. There's a candidate, honest response from an electric
vehicle owner, the car Doctor. The operator of New England's
(00:31):
power grid said it could be forced to shut off
power if there was a long period of very cold
temperatures this winter. If New England has a prolonged cold snap,
the operator of the grit And warn they may have
to shut up the power to homes and businesses. Welcome
to the radio home of Ron and Anian, the Car Doctor,
since this is where car owners the world overturned to
for their definitive opinion on automotive repair. If you're a
(00:54):
mechanics giving you a busy signal, pick up the phone
and call in The garage doors are open, but I
am here to take your calls. At eight five five
s now he running. You know, we've got a great
hour of radio for you here. It's uh um, I've
(01:15):
had so much phone already talking to our guest pre show.
Just just listening and I know where this conversation is
gonna go, but you guys are gonna love this. And
and actually I have to thank all of you the listenership,
because you sent in more than a few emails showing
me his recent interview. Well maybe it's not so recent,
but some of his other interviews Mark Mills from the
Manhattan Institute UM with John Stossel among other people, and
(01:38):
talking about electricity and electric cars. And we reached out
to Mark. He got right back to us, and we're
so thrilled to have him here. He's his reputation precedes him.
Mr Mills, Are you there, sir? I'm here. Thanks for
having me on. You're very welcome. We're so glad to
have you. I uh, you know, we I just want
to I'm gonna start at the beginning, Mark, because you
and I have already had half the interview and we'll
(02:01):
just go home and have a drink. We're done. Um uh,
you know, full disclosure, So you know, tell us about yourself.
You know what, Why did I pick you? Why are
you the guy that everybody seems to be talking to?
Um when we're talking about electricity and energy because this
is a car repair show. But you know, this electric
car thing is just the tip of the iceberg of
(02:22):
what they want to do and how they want to
change the way energy is in this country. Yeah. Well,
I could first say it's not my fault. Well that's
good to know, but I'm hoping you're the guy that
fixes it. Uh. You know, it's funny. I I studied
degrees in physics. I quick graduate school because because well
I would like to work, and I was building semi conductors.
(02:44):
My my first job was in a manufacturing plant for
semi conductors. But from very early in my my life,
I liked how things work. They're like building things. You know,
worked on engines. I worked on motorcycles, raced one summer
in Grand Prix in Canada, and you know, I'm Canadian.
Like engines, like electric motors are like semi conductors. I
(03:08):
like how stuff works. And that's why the part I
study physics. And then I ended up getting a job
as an engineer and semi conductors and missile guidance and
stuff like that, and I got sort of dragged in
the back door to the energy domain simply because nothing
is possible without energy. So it doesn't matter whether you're
trying to figure out how to make cars go fast
(03:29):
or be more efficient, depends what your proclivities are. Our
rockets fly, or make semi conductors more powerful, computers faster.
Everything everything redounds ultimately to figuring out both the materials
and the energy energetics of things. So yeah, that that
was sort of the intellectual part, but the practical part
was very real for me and jobs I had in
(03:51):
my hobbies. And then you know, we've got the energy
debate started. As you know, we had oil embargoes and
that a couple of them to cause the people have forgotten.
The people of a certain age will remember oil prices
went up overnight in then they went up more again
in seventy nine. Uh, these are these are shocking events.
(04:14):
They really changed how the Western world thought about energy,
and people thought we were running out of energy. So
I ended up getting evolved in energy issues, probably because
of the silliness of the idea that we were running
out of energy, running out of oil. And then now
we have another silly idea that we should never use
oil and gas again. Well let me stop you right there, Mark,
are we are we running out of oil. No, that's
(04:37):
the right, I mean the nuances. Can you can you
exhaust an oil field? Uh? That uses technology you have
available today to deliver oil at a price you're willing
to pay. Yes, that's a that's a form of running
out of oil. The geophysical question is a different one.
(04:58):
Is there enough oil we are aware of as a
resource to fuel society for centuries? Yeah? Easily centuries. Centuries
is essentially forever. The availability of oil or natural gas
or any frankly, any mineral, any resource in the Earth
is dictated not by this physical quantity but the kind
(05:20):
of technology we have to find it and extracted at
a price. Yeah, and that so that's it's a technology question.
That's the key question is what kind of technologies are there,
how do they change, and what are their limits? So
you know, we're not running out of oil, but you
can run out of the capacity to produce it at
(05:42):
the volumes and prices the markets will need and will pay.
And governments can cause that to happen, not just engineers.
Governments banned things that you can't drill here um. Governments
can pass regulations that are punitive oil or gas or
any mineral to expensive. So the when I start up,
(06:03):
I say no, I mean, I'm answering that your physical question.
But obviously governments can do really dumb things, and they
have and they will continue to do that. I guess
that's what makes them politicians and governments do a degree. Well,
the good news is, you know, not to go politically.
I would, I would really have democracies that do dumb
(06:24):
things and dictatorships. Well, there's always that, Yes, I agree. Well, listen,
I gotta tell you we're gonna get political comments after
this conversation. I know I'm going to get because I
already get hate email that i'm trying to ben Do
you know that I single handedly am trying to eliminate
the electric car industry if you believe some of the listeners. Um,
and I just keep trying to point out. You know,
(06:45):
as I said in our pre interview interview, you know
one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies,
Hitting Figures, math doesn't lie to and two has to
before Um, where are we gonna get the electricity from? Well,
like Dr Carwin is it is actually a terrific example
of two two domains at fascinating. One. One is sort
of a law called misdirection of interest in the future.
(07:08):
I've got a new book out as you as you
probably know. But when one writes a new book, one
is not an obligated but eager eager to promote it.
And I write about cars and transportation. In the book.
It's called the Cloud Revolution. As you can guess for
the title, it's not about cars. It's about computing and
technology for the future. Cars. Cars are interesting new kinds
(07:33):
of fuel for cars, using batteries instead of gasoline. It's
a portant. You know, that's a very interesting option, and
it will be lots more of it. But the idea
that that's revolutionary in the same sense the invention of
the cars revolutionary is profoundly misguided. It's would be equivalent
in the nineteenth century of coming up a new way
(07:53):
to feed horses and imagining that you had a revolution.
You know, the be winners and losers. If you change
what you feed, the horse says, it's still a horse.
A car with a battery is still a car. Is
different food that is meaningful. The real question you'd want
to know is can we make enough of that food?
And by that I mean, you know you're referring to
electricity electricity is the least of it. That's not the problem. Obviously,
(08:17):
you have to charge an electric car with electricity equally.
Obviously the electricity you use is determined by when you
charge the car and where you charge it. I mean
by that is most people probably know. If you happen
living a part of the world of a country where
there's lots of wind and solar and it happens to
be funny or a lot of windy at that very moment,
(08:38):
if you charge your car, you're probably using a lot
of electrons made with wind and solar. And if you
happen to charge a car when it's cloudy or be cobbed,
which happened for roughly two weeks in northern Europe this
last month, as you know, then you're you're charging your
car with natural gas and coal dominantly, which is what
happened in Germany and England when they fired up whole
(09:00):
plants that they fortunately still had around. So that that's
a factor. The bigger factor that is profoundly absent from
this whole trope that we're going to eliminate the use
of internal combustion engines by virtue of electric cars being better.
We could talk about whether they're better or not. That's
(09:21):
a different subject, and whether they become cheaper another subject.
But the idea that electric cars will eliminate the need
to have oil internal combustion engines is just arithmetically silly.
It's not not happening, and it won't happen for two reasons.
One the scaling up that people imagine that is we're
(09:43):
going from a world today tenllion electric cars in the
world today, which is a lot considering there were a
decade ago not even a million, so it's a big deal.
But it's in a world that has over a billion
cars on the roads. So you know, again, if you
do your math, you're not you're out. You're now approaching
one percent of all vehicles. The optimists believe that there
(10:05):
will be hundreds of millions of electric cars within the decades,
say three or four. That would be an astonishing increase
in the physical infrastructure that would at that point in
time eliminate roughly of world's oil use. So let me
say that again. If we get the optimist vision happening
in the next decade, and we get four million or
(10:29):
so electric vehicles on the roads, the reduction of world
oil demand would be about that's it. That's it. So
how does that an existential threat to anything? If you're
in the oil business, what do you care? In fact,
I would say the opposite. If I'm a consumer, Let's
hope there's that many electric cars, because the competition will
help keep the price of gas laying down for everybody
(10:50):
else that doesn't want to pay high price for gas.
You want competition, absolutely, Hey, Mark, let me pull over
and take a poise. But let me just say this.
You just convinced me you must be a physicist. Then
you really do have a degree. I used to be one.
I don't practice anymore. I just talk like one on
TV and radio. You sound you sound pretty good to me.
You got me convinced. When I come back, maybe we'll
talk about time travel and a DeLorean ronating of the
(11:12):
car Doctor here with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
We'll both return right after this. Don't go away for
the best in car advice. Give Ron a call eight
five five five six zero nine zero zero. Now back
(11:34):
to Ron. Hey, thanks for staying with us. We're here
today with Mark Mills. He is a senior Fellow with
the Manhattan Institute. He's a faculty fellow at Northwestern University's
McCormick School of Engineering, and he's just a whole lot
of fun to talk to. I think he's like my
new best buddy. UM. We we we could talk. Probably
we need it. We need at least, you know, I
think I need like an eight hour show here, Mark. Um,
(11:55):
so let me let me recap the first segment, all right,
just so I can for those that are just is
joining us. We we've you know, you've made your case.
Obviously you're a physicist. You've got some really great knowledge
as far as uh, you know, energy application, the theories
of the future, use where it came from. Um, you've
convinced this of that. Um, you've written more than more
(12:16):
than just a recently, you've written a few books, the
most recent being The Cloud Revolution and that just came
out this year and it's a fascinating read. Um. You
were sort of talking about electric cars, trying to keep
us about electric cars, but then the whole energy issue
comes into play. So so when you look at I'm
gonna pick on a state, when you look at California,
(12:40):
by this must make your hair spin. By twenty five,
there they've banned the internal combustion engine vehicle? Can they
do it well? Like governments can do almost almost as
we've discovered recently, almost anything you want to do. So
I'll make a I'll make a prediction in two parts
about californ s will be true for England, which has
(13:01):
made a similar declaration. The bands, if if they stay
in place, will result in extraordinary escalation and the value
of used cars. First, right, imagine because not every way
is gonna be able to buy an expensive electric car,
because the electric car will still by then be more
(13:22):
expensive than an internal combustion engine, which we can talk
about it that that will that will boost the number
of years use cars stay on the market, on the road,
and the value of them. But will more likely happen
is the bands will be softened or ignored, or just
abandoned entirely because the whole world, in fact, just the
(13:44):
country that are now in states that are now proposing
to do that, can't all do it and have enough batteries,
never mind manufacturing cars. The central problem that's being ignored
here is not whether the electric car is nice and
tussles are nice. Of course, you're nice, pressive car are
incredible company and kudos to somebody building a car company
(14:05):
that's successful by all measures, even counting you know, some
help from subsidies. That doesn't explain it. It's a successful
car company. Absolutely achievement. In fact, the most impressive engineering
of a battery probably on the planet. Without being hyperbolic.
It deserves enormous credit. Really something. The last guy to
try and do it, yeah, was Tucker exactly, or you
(14:31):
can pick the Lorian if you like, in the Brooklyn
total total, total failures, hard, hard to build a car company,
even with help, and he's done it. And look, if
you think about this, I mean, what an incredible achievement.
I believe the last I checked that something on the
order of six of all automobiles sold in the Western
(14:54):
world at a price over th range are now testless.
He's utterly dominated that market. Watch is why Mercedes and
Jaguar and BMW are all making e v s and
that price range because he just ate the lunch. Uh.
And that's that's not nothing. That's not the whole car
market obviously, but it's it's not nothing, and it's very impressive.
(15:17):
But here's this is the nub of the problem, and
it's not that electric cars are profoundly useful vehicles and
having niches bigger than now exists. So if I were
predicting another sort of future snapshot, there's ten million electric
cars today, it will be unsurprising if there were hundreds
(15:39):
of millions, at least a hundred million in the next decade.
There will be a lots more electric cars. The problem
is that the batteries are not these simple things that
I think are many people's had. They think the electric
cars quote simple and simpler to build than the internal
combustion engine, because you have this engine, which you know
better thiing to have taken a few engines a part
of my life, but not recently. The engine has got
(16:01):
a lot of parts in it, and it's all I'm
moving parts and it can wear out. And you have
so you have a simple fuel tank, and it's a
complicated engine, maybe a thousand parts. And the trope is
we have replaced a simple engine with the complex engine
with a simple motor with two moving parts, maybe two
motors two parts each. But the battery, the swap is
(16:23):
for complexity in the fuel system. The battery has thousands
of welds in it. Tesla battery has fourteen thousand welds
in it. It has seven thousand cells. He's hoping to
get the next generation designed down to a few thousand cells.
That has a cooling system, a heating system, a structural system,
and it has electronic control systems in it to keep
it from the keep it from self immolating, the burning
(16:44):
up to maximize its performance. Is an extraordinary complex electrochemical machine.
And the engine that we're replacing it with this very
complex electro chemical mechanical machine. Rather so you're swapping complexities,
you haven't eliminated complexity. More importantly, the materials the battery
(17:07):
made from the minerals cobalt, the lithium, nickel, manganese, those
those minerals. The quantities of the metals you're required to
make a battery are roughly over the life scent of
a car. If you count count apples to apples, you
increase the quanty materials you need to drive a vehicle
over to in your life by tenfold. But think about this,
(17:31):
a thousand percent increase, and the quantity materials have to
extract from the Earth to have to make a vehicle.
The parts of the vehicles that are the same electric
and non electric. You know, the wheels, tires, the frame,
they're all the same, right it seeds the battery. An
electric car weighs about a thousand pounds. The fuel tank
is again you know you and your audience now seventy
(17:53):
pounds maybe the car. So I have a thousand pound
fuel system and it takes five hundred thousand pounds of
materials mine from the earth to make that one battery.
Oh my god, Mark, hold that thought. Let me pull
over and take this pause. When we return, we'll rejoin
us romenading the Car Doctor, Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
Don't go away. We'll be back right after this, coming
(18:37):
by clocome back round naming the car Doctor here today
with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute. Mark, when we
pulled over and took that pause, we were talking in
terms of the impact of what it takes to make
that electric car battery. Can you just recap that for
(18:58):
the listeners real quick? Yeah? I think this this is
the part that's critical perspective. Visions of a magical future
where every car has a battery in it. They won't
be the kind of batteries that we're making today because
we can't make that many batteries because the thousand pound battery,
which is what a battery ways in a car to
get several hundred miles of range, requires mining a variety
(19:21):
of minerals to make the battery. Let's is the scientific term.
No doc you go, you need steel, of course, but
it's you know, aluminum, but you need nickel and maganese
and cobalt and lithium the main launge of minerals that
go into a battery. So a thousand pounds is a
finished the form. But to make the battery you have
(19:41):
to mine pounds of materials rock and process it, turn
it into finished minerals and make a battery that There's
two things about that that matter. First, it takes energy
to do that. It has environmental impacts to do that.
And you want to know how much that you're going
to do If you want to know the total, we'll
(20:01):
call it the energy debt of making the batteries, because
batteries are the form of energy, and obviously they start energy,
so you spend energy to star energy, and you spend
a lot. It takes somewhere between one and three hundred
barrels of oil equivalent of energy. So dred barrels spoil
equivalent of energy to fabricate a battery that could hold
(20:24):
one barrel of oil equivalent of energy. And then you're
doing all this mining and digging and you know, gathering
of rocks to get the material. With these giant machines
that are emitting, well, they burn diesel fuel. Some of
them are electric, but if they're remote, because they have
(20:44):
electric machines and remote minds. But if they're in a
remote mine, not close to a grid, the the generation
of electricity comes from diesel machines using oil. Uh. In fact,
the global mining industry uses almost as much oil as
a global aviation industry. It's much oil. And now now
to fabricate batteries that the scales people are talking about
(21:08):
will require that the largest increase in mining the world
has ever seen. And I'm saying this. It sounds hyperbolic
to say that I'm saying this based on not my research.
My research is finding other people's research. So the U. S.
Geological Survey or the International Energy Agency itself, which is
(21:29):
one of the big advocates for more electric cars. What
what the researchers will tell you who look at the
mineral requirements is that the world today is not mining
nor planning to mind enough copper, never mind everything else,
or not enough nickel, never mind the exotic things like
lithium or cobalt, but just the basic metals to make
(21:52):
the quantities of batteries and electric cars and windmills and
solar solar arrays that are contemplated. An electric car uses
three times more copper than internal combustion engine. That should
be on surprising considering you're replacing you know, steel engine
with you know, a copper round electric motor and a
lot of electric bus bar But the increase is not nothing.
(22:16):
I mean, if you start making millions of vehicles, uh,
with increase in copper per vehicle, you become a significant
consumer of copper. And that's not counting the batteries consumption
of other minerals. So what's the solution. Well, I can
tell you as a as a fact, and this is
easy to find in the magic Google machine, that the
world is not now planning to and no governments are
(22:38):
expanding mining sufficient to make enough cars the banned internal
combustion engines in the next decade or two. So so
are we being you know, California banning sale of internal
combustion engines by thirty five, car companies saying will be
all electric by Are they showing us the extreme and
over the next couple of years, as I've been saying,
(22:58):
are they going to back pedal and all of a
sudden by you know, three or four years from now. Well,
we can't achieve that, But here's what we really want.
I'd take the bet the back they go to backpedal,
it won't take them a decade decade to backpedal. The
backpedal will start sooner, and it'll start when the prices
started going up. I mean, if you put this kind
of demand, the demand on minerals that these green energy
(23:18):
plans have represents a four hundred to four thousand percent
increase in demand for depends on the middle of you pick.
So it's increase in demand for copper, It's a four
thousand percent increase in the demand for cobalt. It's a
thousand percent increase demand for nickel. This is these are
global increases in demand to meet these plans that governments
are proposing. These are these are astonishing increases in demand
(23:42):
in a world where market prices for these minerals rises.
If the demand goes up by ten percent or so.
What will happen is the prices will go up. So
we saw this already this year. The average price for
a battery for electric car has been going down this
leek because Elon Musk and everybody who falls for a decade,
(24:03):
and which is pretty quite remarkable. But this year it
went down. This year, I mean the trailing in twelve months,
it went down by a single digit percentage point, that's
eight percent or something ten percent, which is not a
big decline. Next year, almost all forecasts the battery prices
going up, not down up. The trend will reverse itself
(24:24):
because of the costs of the minerals. Here's here's the
key fact when you when you buy it, when you
buy a car, the materials that are going too the car,
the bill of materials cost something and labor to those
setting aside profits. There's just two things, right. You have
labor for machines and human beings that you pay for,
(24:45):
and you have materials. The same is true when you
build a battery batteries and electric cars. Today, the cost
of making the batteries just the raw minerals materials, and
if I double the price of those minerals, how how
can we possibly say the battery is gonna get cheaper
even if even if I take the remaining which is
(25:07):
the manufacturing machinery and labor and electronics and a cooling
system and make that half as expensive, how is that.
How's that going to get you a cheaper battery when
the cost of the battery, which are the minerals. Everything
that's happening in the world today is leading to those
going up in price. And none of the environmental organizations,
(25:29):
and I say this, I think pretty confidently not a
single environment organization in the world that's pushing to have
more electric cars is supporting more mining to make it
possible to have more electric cars. So it's sort of
like they want us to clean up the environment, but
don't touch the environment to do it. Look, I can't
blame them, they're honestly like you're mining. But let's be
(25:50):
honest about what has to be done. So if you
if you drive a car for a decade, we can
calculate easy to do the total tonnage. Let's just do
it in tons of oil, gas sling you'll need depending
if you're no matter, we know what the number. And
if you do the same ten years for electric car,
you get to another tonnage which in a sence, you
pay for upfront by the battery. Forget how you make electricity,
(26:12):
just look at the car. And if you make those
two comparisons, you get a thousand percent increase in the
tonnage of materials you need to extract from the Earth
to drive a vehicle for ten years. This is this
is consequential economic terms and environmental terms, and it's not sustainable.
Won't it won't emanate. It sounds like I'm being hyperbolic again.
(26:37):
It won't happen. It just it won't happen because it
can't happen. So we're not going to get there. But
we will have more electric cars because you could get
to I don't pick a number, ten percent of the
fleet being electric or but we're not gonna We're not
gonna get to fifty or sixty or a hundred. Hey,
Mark called that thought. Let me let me pull over
and take this pause. I'll run any of the Car
(26:57):
Doctor here today with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
Will both be back right after this. Don't go away,
Welcome back. We're on any of the Car Doctor here
today with Mark Mills, of the Manhattan Institute. He's also
an accomplished author, has written more than a few books,
his most recent being The Cloud Revolution, talking about the
(27:18):
convergence of new technologies and the next economic boom. And
I think part of that is some of the conversation
we're having here today, right Mark, with regard to electric
vehicles and the electric vehicle future. Yeah, I think, you know,
let's let's talk about the future. The idea that I
don't think electric cars are going to take over the
world has a lot of people saying to me, well,
(27:39):
you know, you're not a technical, you're not an optimist.
You don't understand how technology changes and the future is
going to be better and the better batteries. Look, uh,
I'm I'm really probably over the optimist what technologists can
do when engineers, the innovators can do. But I also
know what the physics limits are and things that can't
be done. With the physics and the engineering. We know
how to use. Cars in the future are going to be,
(28:02):
as you know, more reliable, safer, more comfortable. All these
things are coming from credible advances and engineering and technology.
The automatic safety systems that are emerging, and not talking
about self driving. But the you know, let's call them
self stopping technologies that are emerging prevent us from doing
bad and stupid things. This is, this is very exciting.
(28:23):
It's a great stuff. We're going to reduce the carnage
on the road, so we're gonna make driving more comfortable.
How we change how we fuel a car. Really it's
a small ball stuff. I mean, it's really it's not
very imaginative. The revolutions that are going to be exciting
it will be in things like robotics and manufacturing and
you know, how we how we how we do medical diagnostics,
(28:45):
and how we train people, how we learn how to
repair a car. That's but back to the car here.
Let me let me calibrate a core physics point to
make it clear to people who say and when I
when I talk about the difference between electric car it's
battery and the gasoline power car battery ways of thousand
(29:07):
pounds you fuel tank weighed seventy pounds, and you have
to mind five thousand pounds of stuff to make the
one battery the one battery, So a half ton battery
two fifty tons of stuff dug out of the earth today.
In the future, it will be five hundred tons, because
you know we're chasing lower grade ores. The answer is
(29:27):
it'll get better. My technology will get better. Well, of
course it will get better. Internal combustion edgines can get
better too, but they can't get better than the underlying
physical chemistry of the materials that you're using to create energy.
So put put this way. Everybody who has electric car,
who has heard of electric cars knows you measure the
storage of electricity in kill one hours, the same things
(29:49):
you pay for with your house. So what you'd want
to know is if you have a car, what you
care about is the power to weight ratio. What you
know what gearhead doesn't care about power to weight? What
I care about what I raised motorcycles. So the physical
chemistry of the all aviated chemicals from which we make
a battery, not the battery's power to weight ratio, but
(30:10):
it's underlying chemistry. Maximum of the chemicals that we use,
alleviated cost of chemicals per kilograms, that's what you can
you can that's what the energetics of the chemistry is.
The battery is realized in the tesla is about a
hundred fifty per kilogram. By the way, So it's a
lot less because it build things around machinery, hardware, controllical existence,
(30:34):
but the physics limits. So what you want to know
if you were designing a fast car or say a drone,
is what's oil because that's when you start with, when
you convert it in, it's twelve thousand wat hours per kilograms,
that's what oil is, what the oil contains, and that's
(30:54):
what's available. Now can you get twelve hours out of it? No?
But I get half out? And what I ever get
half of the energy out of the pilogram and let's
get a chemisture. Yeah, but theoretical you know best best
the prototype batteries can do that already, So now I'm comparing.
We can do the arithtic here. It's not complicated. A
six thousand one protelogram in total combustion capability versus a
(31:17):
two battery capability. These are extraordinary differences. So can you
make electric cars or electric drones and airplace? Sure, But
if you want to go real fast and carry heavy
loads for long distances, you can be burning oil and
the long time and that's the bottom one, hey, mark
our our our time is just about up. Um. Can
(31:40):
I shamelessly plug you as there are website the listeners
can go to from information lay it on us. You
can do the tech hyphen pundit dot com mill and
so it's a tech pundit with a hyphen. And the
Manhattan Institute website. If you use a magic Google machine,
just type in Mark T. Mills Manhattan Institute. They'll they'll
get you to the web page. You can use the
(32:01):
Amazon Magic machine to type in my name, Mark P.
Mills and you'll get my book. And that's what we
want everybody to do because they need they need this information.
They really do. And you know, and you'll find a lot.
They're about the change, the materials, materials revolution, the change
and in virtual reality it will help us to learn
how to repair vehicles, change jobs, and about how to
(32:23):
I think drones are coming big time, not for people soon,
but but not not not too far in the future. Well,
you know what we're gonna do. We're gonna bring you
back after the first of the year. I'm I'm asking
you and telling you after the first of the year,
off the new year with some exciting Look all want
to talk about cars and a little bit further into detail.
(32:44):
I gotta run Mark, but listen. It was an absolute pleasure, sir.
You uh, you kind of lit up everybody's world today.
No pun intended with electric cars. So you have yourself
for good rest of the holiday season. You have a
great have a great Thank you, Mary, thank you, Marry
Christmas to you. Yes, sir, I'm running any of the
Car Doctor. We'll be back right after this bucko back
(33:06):
round name of the Car Doctor. You know, the mistake
I made Tom was I should have asked Mark that,
you know, if we could invent the flux capacity, would
we then have because he's right. You know, he started
talking about the comic book magic, and I saw in
one of his interviews he talks about comic book magic
that everybody thinks all of this technology is gonna fall
out of the sky, and it's just not going to
(33:26):
What do you mean if we if you go to
the Oreilly website, they're already advertising it. They're waiting for
them to come in a flux capacity. I know that
is actually that is actually there on the Rally website.
But I could listen to him for hours. He just
makes so much sense. It was just a great interview.
You know. It's I don't see how anybody could argue
(33:46):
his points. I just don't because you know, two and
two has to be four. Two and two is never seven.
And you know his commentary and one of his other
interviews that I saw him do, he also talks about
how okay, so now you've got this electric car future
on the table. The amount of transmission lines and towers
(34:08):
and cables that you have to run in order to
support this this grid that everybody is talking about building,
and the support to the infrastructure, it's all got to
be put somewhere. The material has to be found somewhere. Uh.
You know, they also talked about solar. We didn't we
have so much to talk about with him. Um, with
(34:28):
regards to the way solar and renewables and and and windmills. Listen,
I'm not saying we're not going to have electric cars,
and and Mark certainly proved that point tonight today that
we're gonna have electric vehicles in the future. It's just
not at the volume they're predicting. Um. You know, we're
(34:48):
not gonna have transporters like Star Trek in the next
ten to fifteen years. A hundred baby two hundred probably,
but not in the next ten to fifteen, and we're
not gonna see a massive amount of electric cars by
five like they're predicting either, so the back pedaling will
begin soon. I'm ron Anadi in the Guard Doctor, reminding
you this time, like every time, for a great time.
(35:09):
Good mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless. See you
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