Will California ban internal combustion-powered cars?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to Car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben. We are
joined by our super producer, Casey Pegrim and you are
here as well. Thanks for dropping by, Scott. Today's episode

(00:26):
is UM. This is a pretty fascinating one and it's
a it's it's about the future, right, it's about politics,
is about the unintended at times, ramifications, sweeping decisions, consequences.
You might say, yeah, there's a few, there's a few,
and uh. Before we really dig too deep into today's topic, though,

(00:47):
I do want to bring up something I guess you
know what. This is kind of related. It's a listener
mail that we received and it was about um the
evacuation in Florida during Hurricane Irma. And listener wrote in,
and this is again TAN generally related, I guess because
it has to deal with with Tesla and that that's
part of what we're gonna talk about today. But it
comes from a listener named Ben Are And Ben writes

(01:09):
in and says, hey, Scott and Ben, I like the podcast.
It's one of only two on my subscriptions list. Ben's yeah,
all right, well, thanks Ben, he says. Anyway, I just
wanted to throw in my two cents your way about
Tesla's model. Um. Essentially, your perspective was similar to the
ones I had to play Devil's advocate here for our
four here at work. My favorite line to dish out was,
I would like you to give me the name of

(01:30):
a modern internal combustion automaker who does not use the
same motor with different software and power outputs. Is a
great point, well, that is, but that's a little bit
different than what we were talking about, I think, because
we were talking about hardware in particular. This is this
is a software difference, right, all right, so you know,
of course his coworkers couldn't and he said, he said,
maybe you guys can. You probably know more about cars.

(01:52):
But the point is Tesla went out of its way
to make sure that did what it could to help
its customers in time of need. Well, we totally we
agree with that. Yeah, we thought that was really nice. Um.
Not a point of contention there, I guess on that one. Um,
instead of positive PR, it gets spun into negative PR
because Tesla is keeping me from my motor's real power
and range. I didn't know that they did that. Well,
we did say that we didn't. We did mention that.

(02:15):
Um well they do. But uh they, he says, so
does every other automaker, which wasn't mentioned by you or
the articles I've seen online. This extends beyond ECUs and
TCUs as well. Okay, I'm gonna pause here for a
minute because I don't think that we're doing an apples
to apples comparison here. I think what we're talking about
is the hardware is installed, the software is they're they're

(02:36):
just not turning it on. I understand about the software
and ECUs and TCUs that can be upgraded up you know, uh,
I guess souped up a little bit. You know, you
can trick a car into thinking that it's a police
version of that car with a little bit of greater output,
you know, etcetera. There's a lot of changes you can do,
and tuners know all about this. What we were talking about,
I think is the hardware is there. They actually put
a a seventy five kilowatt hour battery into the car

(02:59):
and then depro GRAMMT so that it only provides s power,
and that's the difference. I think that it's more like, Um,
I'm trying to think of an example. But let's say
that you've got a car with a V eight engine
and the dealer, the manufacturer said, you're only out allowed
to use six of those cylinders, you know, and we're
we're gonna turn off two cylinders somehow in your car,

(03:20):
and that's all you're gonna get. And unless you come
back to us and pay us ten thousand more dollars
or five thousand more dollars. Uh, we're not going to
activate those those two extra cylinders. So you're carrying around,
You're you're in a car with a V eight, but
you're only getting V six power. And that's that's kind
of the thing that I'm thinking of. Or maybe a
fuel tank or something like that. That fuel tank might
be a better comparison, right, Like the fuel tank maybe

(03:41):
is built with let's just say twenty gallon capacity, but
you unless you pay a premium, you can only use
fifteen gallons. Yeah, that's itays, Yeah, that's what we're talking about.
It's something similar to that. I guess, and I mean
I guess. I hope it didn't get too confused for
for a lot people, but that that was more what
we were talking about. Um. But but Ben goes on

(04:04):
to say that he says, he wonders if if automakers
like the Big Three were somehow put an article Oh boy,
here's a look bit of conspiracy men, somehow putting money
behind getting articles out there that highlighted the negative of
the story and not the positive. Because of course Tesla
did help out. I mean, that was that's something inarguably
admirable to do. I mean, to flip a switch and

(04:24):
give them, you know, the extra power, the extra range,
I guess, to get to get out of there, um
as fast as possible. Um, But I don't. I don't
think there's any kind of conspiracy there, Ben, Um. But
he says, you're you're the company is squarely between you
and your cargument doesn't stick either, But I think it
does unless you're telling me that I can't. I can
modify my VW to my heart's content without voiding my warranty. Well, okay,

(04:47):
Another point I guess is that we weren't saying that
anything about voiding warranty or any kind of hacks, because
right now, hacks aren't really available for a Tesla. It's
strictly manufacturer determined you know what kind of power output
you're getting from that battery? What this point? Yeah, updates
that are sent you know, you know to Tesla owners automatically.
You know it's it's it's really a pretty slick system.
But you right now can't really modify you or Tesla

(05:10):
that I know if I haven't heard of any hacks
that that provide more power or um, you know, additional range,
that kind of thing right in and let us know
if you have heard of one, because I would be
fascinated to learn about this. There's another point we have
to make care Scott, which is that in our previous
conversation we had we have paid due diligence. I think

(05:31):
to the notion of streamlining manufacturing. There is a compelling
economic reason to simplify the manufacturing process for the batteries, right,
just make one kind of battery and then fix it
with software afterwards. And I would say that this is
even more important in the case of Tesla, because in

(05:52):
many ways they're trying to transform an entire industry so
that they I don't know if they have the more
urgen two at this point, make a bunch of different
physically different batteries of that range. It seems like a smarter,
more efficient answer for them to just manufacture the one

(06:14):
physical type and then uh, change the settings, streamline the
process a bit, right, And and I don't think that's
necessarily villainous or a conspiracy on their part, But I do.
I do completely see how any Tesla owner could be like,
what the heck? Yeah, why that's the same battery? Why

(06:36):
are you Yeah, well, I understand that, and and and
then I also understand your point. And you're saying that,
you know, a lot of manufacturers do give you the
same engine with different outputs, and that's again programming issue.
It is a software issue, modifications that are done at
the factory, if you want to call it that. Really
it's from the factory. So you know, it's the difference
of you know, getting the SS model versus the standard model,

(06:57):
you know, that kind of thing. Um. But but Ben
concludes here by saying it may sound like it, but
I don't own an electric car. I rock an APR
Stage two, Mark seven golf our manual transmission UM And
now the S line in VW skin pretty slick. I
imagine these folks with S three's don't know. I'm rocking
the same power train for discount or more nice car. Yeah,

(07:20):
all right, well, Ben, thanks for the note. I appreciate it.
And uh, um, I'll say hope, I mean, don't take
this the wrong way. I mean, we're just making our
counterpoint that we were talking more about a hardware thing
than a software thing. Really, I think, Um, it's just
frustrating that they equip it with the same hardware and
then you know, change it from the factory. Only you
can't change that on your own. You can't take it
to a you know, a tuning shop and have that done. Sure,

(07:42):
it's just a frustrating situation all around. Well, that's sort
of also, that's a that's a larger trend, a c
change in car ownership in general, and it's accelerated in
the past few years for sure, the idea of making
a car that will forever be served by the manufacturer
rather than the consumer. Yeah, that's a problem. Well, I

(08:05):
guess the problem for a lot of people of other
people doesn't really matter. They're going to take it to
the dealership anyways, they're gonna take it to the local mechanics.
They're not gonna even attempt to fix anything on their own.
But but the ones that do. That's really an that's
an issue, I mean, because you're just unable to do
it now. And it reminds me of when we looked
at the cost of the McLaren and how so much
of that cost comes from McLaren's very strict rules about

(08:29):
how the vehicle maybe service. And now that we're talking
about strict rules, I gotta tell you, man, California, California
beautiful place, right, Yeah, you've been there a few times. Yeah,
I went recently to Anaheim for a conference. I've never

(08:52):
been in Anaheim before. I had no this is this
is weird. But I had no idea that Disneyland was
also there until the coworker told me. And I just
sort of took it for granted that I was in
a town that have fireworks every night, I like nine pm,
because I thought that's what people did in California. That's

(09:12):
all California, and it was just like every town. No,
I didn't think it was that that I probably should
have clocked to that. Uh so beautiful place, beautiful weather,
huge state, and a very a varied state as well.
It turns out that California is also an economic giant.

(09:35):
If it were its own country. It currently ranks as
the sixth largest economy in the world, So if it
were its own country, it would be uh. In in
this order, the US, China, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom,
and then California. It's huge, and that means that a

(09:55):
lot of the decisions that California makes as a state
can have a tremendous and often unpredictable effect on the
rest of the US and the rest of the world.
And you hipped me to a proposed drastic change in
California's auto culture. Yeah, California is considering a combustion engine

(10:21):
car ban. And this is something we're gonna talk about
today that will happen likely within the next couple of decades.
It's not something immediate, it's not now, it's not tomorrow,
but it's something that they are seriously considering. I mean,
the state of California is considering banning all combustion engine cars.
And it may sound like it's, you know, some crazy

(10:41):
idea and there's no way that they can possibly get
this through, but as we'll discuss in a moment here um,
it is something that is entirely possible, something that is uh,
we'll we'll get to it. But it's um entirely possible
because of the Clean Air Act of right. Um, so
it's it's a real possibility. UM. Now I may again.
It sounds a little bit. It sounds a little crazy,

(11:02):
doesn't it. The one state out of the fifty would
would ban combustion powered vehicles. But it kind of makes
sense when you look at the strict Uh. Well, the
the restrictions I guess that are on automobiles already in California,
the California Air Resource Board, the Carbon Group, they've already
got some real stringent rules in place for California. In fact,

(11:24):
other states have joined that at this point. Um, I
think there's nine other states that have joined California with
their with their same clean air restrictions, but or our mandates,
I guess. Um. But let's just jump right into it. Um. Alright,
so you know what we should state this first? To um.
This is kind of following in line with um with
other places too. Yes, I'm glad you said that. So

(11:48):
the Chinese government actually took the lead on this. Uh.
The government of China is developing a plan to phase
out all vehicles that use fo uscle fuel, and this
came about pretty recently. On September nine, the Vice Minister
of Industry and I T told this automotive conference in

(12:10):
challenge In that the government was already planning a long
term strategy to eliminate this, to eliminate combustion engines, and
as you can understand, most of the audience was was
pretty skeptical, you know. Uh, Britain and France have also
said that by twenty forty new cars reliant on petrol

(12:34):
or diesel will be illegal. So they're saying they have
to be hybrids or electrically powered or solar power, just
not entirely gas powered or diesel powered, even maybe like
a flintstones thing when you put your feet through the bottom.
And they're not the only ones. I mean, there's also Norway,
there's India. Um, there's even manufacturers that are jumped on this,
manufacturers that are saying they're gonna phase out uh their

(12:57):
their internal combustion powered engines. And one of them is Volvo.
And Volvo is doing this just two years from now.
They're beginning their phase out program. And not only them, Volkswagen.
Volkswagen is saying by you'll be able to get electric
versions of their entire vehicle line by so you know,
they'll be It's not that they're going to completely phase
it out of v W, they say, it's just that

(13:17):
they're gonna have a version of it available if you want,
you know, the gas part version. You could also get
the same vehicle electric if you wanted to. Um. So
it's it's happening. It's it really is happening. And Uh,
the place that I saw this first, I think I
saw it in the Automotive News first. Um, but then
I've also found the same thing in Bloomberg. I'm gonna
follow along with a Bloomberg article here because there are
a lot of good points that are made. Um the

(13:39):
first one here, and boy, this I don't know that
we're talking about who wants this? Who is the one
driving this, Who's the one that's saying this is something
that has to happen. And it's not really right now.
It's not coming from the you know, the populace. They're
not saying like this is something that we need to do. Yeah,
this is the grassroots voter movement. No, no, no, this
is coming from Governor Jerry Brown, and he has expressed

(14:00):
an interest in barring the sale of vehicles powered by
internal combustion engines. And the person that UM this came
through with someone named Mary Nichols. And Mary Nichols is
the chairman of the California Air Resources Board that we
mentioned before, or the CARB Group as he may have
heard it called UM. She didn't. She did an interview
with Bloomberg in New York recently, and of course Bloomberg

(14:22):
is where I'm getting this from. Bloberg dot com where
you can find the article. And UM, I guess Jerry Brown,
I guess is one of the most outspoken electric officials
in the US about the need for policies to compact
climate change, and UM, they're talking about UM replicating the
moves that were made by China and France and the
UK and Norway and India. So you know, the idea was,

(14:43):
if they're doing it, why can't we? And the governor
is really putting the gas on this. According to Nichols,
she'd been receiving messages from the governor say essentially, why
haven't we already done something? And his question seems to be, well,
if China can do this, then why not California. And

(15:09):
from a just a people perspective, number of people. It's
a good question. There are sure, there's sure going to
be over time a lot. There are going to be
less drivers in California than the well in China. That's
just the statistics of course. Um. But as as we'll see,
there are some not quite m night shot Milan level

(15:33):
plot twist. But there are some complicating factors in this idea. Yeah,
there's a few things we'll get to some some restrictions
that are there, and maybe some surprises along the way too,
I think. Um. But but here's the thing. If if
a band were implemented by automakers like gm or or Toyota,
uh to be under new pressure to make electric vehicles
the standard for personal transportation in the United States. Now,

(15:55):
I don't know that's that's something that Mary Nichols had said.
Do you think that if a band were implemented in
California that the the automakers as a whole, I mean worldwide,
would be pressured to change the way they do things
because of just of calip just because of California. Now,
I know that it's coming along with China and the UK,
and I understand that all that's going on too, But

(16:17):
I don't know they're saying that, you know, this is
the most populous US state, right it's it's it's got
the biggest population. It's a huge it's a pretty big
consumer of automobiles, new automobiles. And I'll tell you numbers
in just one second, if patient for just one moment here.
But but they're saying that a move like this would
like cast doubts I guess on the industry and they

(16:37):
would say, oh gosh, if California and China and France
and UK and Norway and India are doing this, and
Volvo's kind of jumped onto this, and you know Volkswagen
has as well, you know, maybe the rest of us
need to get on board as well and do the
same things they're saying about cast cast doubts on the
future of gasoline and diesel power cars everywhere, like all
of cars across the globe. To give you an idea

(16:57):
of you know what a they are large consumer of automobiles.
I guess that's the way I said it earlier. UM.
And of course battery powered and plug in cars are
they've been around since what the eighteen hundreds of late
eighteen hundreds or mid eighteen hundreds, UM, they're from a
sales sense, there's still really in their infancy. Now, this
also comes from another Bloomberg article. Uh, just a quick
take thing, you know, real fast question and answer type

(17:20):
piece that they put together, and it's about batteries and
about um about Tesla model the Tesla Model three, which
of course we'll talk about it too, um. But the
question was where are the other electric vehicles? And one
of the questions here was how many electric cars do
people actually buy today? So you know, they're saying that
that from a sales sense, electric vehicles really still are

(17:41):
in their infancy, even though we're a hundred years down
the road. Kind of kind of strange to think of.
But Chinese consumers bought about two hundred and eighty nine
thousand evs last year, which it's more than any other
market by the way, so less than three hundred thousand UM.
That's according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. And then European
is purchased about two hundred and fifteen thousand, and the

(18:02):
US consumers only bought about one hundred and fifty thousand
new electric vehicles last last year. Now that's compared to
get this, this is where the numbers come in so
we said China is the largest with with less than
three hundred thousand, right in the US is around a
hundred fifty thousand. That's compared with ninety two million internal
combustion vehicles that were sold globally in sixteen and seventeen

(18:23):
point six million of those came from the U s alone.
So that's a huge that's a huge disparity, I guess.
So the thing is that, and that's the point of
this article that I'm looking at, is that, um, it
seems like all you hear about in the press and
and all the talk, I guess, is about electric vehicles.
But the problem is you're not really seeing the same

(18:44):
thing in the showrooms. It's not they're not selling the
way that they're not selling the way that you're your
perception of them might be. This this is a very
important point. So we're talking about some of the ripple
effects here and some of the the facts behind the spin. Right. So,

(19:05):
China is in arguably the world's largest car market. Twenty
five point five three million cars and light vehicles were
sold in the country just last year. Also last year,
for comparison, California still has a growing drivership based the
two million people signed up for licenses to get get
on the road. And this means that this means that obviously,

(19:33):
with its market share, any move by China, especially the
outright ban, is going to have consequences. But it also
makes the California's proposition pretty intrigue game because you have
to wonder how it worre California already uses UM, already

(19:53):
taxes GASH at a higher rate than other states, and
already has some incentives I guess to allow for UM
alternative energy in addition to the federals incentives. And in
addition to the federal incentives. The US carmakers have already

(20:16):
started responding to this move that started in China and
inspired the governor of California. Uh More, GM brand cars,
for example, are sold in China than are sold in
the US, and GM, you know, has they also have

(20:38):
their own offerings in the alternative energy market, like the
Chevy Vault. But they're they're hitting back, and they're saying, look,
it's not it's not going to happen, you know, it's
it's not. It can't happen super quickly. You know. Well,
here's here's the thing, is out of manufacturers they to

(21:00):
be kind of, you know, trying to adjust, trying to
modify what they do, what they produce, what they output.
But the problem is that for firm manufacturers right now
is that essentially they have to give them away to
meet emissions requirements in California. So the California thing is
a real sticking point for them because I think, I
think I read somewhere that GM said that the anticipated

(21:21):
losing losing as much as about nine thousand dollars on
every Chevrolet Bolt that leaves the showroom before the sales
even begin. And uh, and Fiat Chrysler CEO, um, what's
his name, Sergio Marcioni, he said three years ago that
he hoped nobody bought the Fiat Fiat five electric car
because every time he sells one, it costs him fourteen

(21:41):
thousand dollars. They lose fourteen grand for every Fiat electric
car that they sell. So he's he's like, well, here's it.
Here it is. I'm putting it out in the marketplace
because you know what we're doing our part, but please
don't buy it because it's it's tanking our company. And
I feel like there's this I feel like there's this
op position to you know, top down government mandates by

(22:03):
a lot of auto manufacturers. I've got a quote here,
Mary Barra, the chief executive at General Motors, on in September,
reacting to the statements of China, and this is slightly
before the California stuff came out. She said, I think
it works best when instead of mandating, customers are choosing
the technology that meets their needs. So she's thinking this

(22:27):
is more of an argument for a UH buyer's market,
you know, like if electric vehicles are the best choice,
then people will go with them instead of being told
they have to. But of course, you know, without I
don't mean to say this in a derogatory way, but

(22:48):
the Chinese government's relationship with the Chinese citizens is in
many ways based on man dating what people have to do.
Communist nation, that's the way it works. So you know,
for for California to say we're gonna mimic what if
China can't do it? Why can't we? It's because they've
got that that iron fist. I guess right, That's that's

(23:09):
part of the deal, all right. So all right, um,
it's an ambitious goal, really, I mean, the the ambitious
goal is that UM, the car California wants to cut
carbon dioxide emissions from by so that's kind of driving
this whole issue is that, you know, the idea to
reduce UH emissions from on road transportation. So we're not

(23:31):
even talking about UM, you know, the boats in the harbor.
We're not talking about the lawn equipment that people use.
We're not talking about UH, you know, the motorbikes as
the kids ride, you know, the the you know, the
mini bikes and stuff, the A t v S. We're
not talking about UM. Airplanes, we're not talking about any
of that. So we're just talking about on road transportation.
You know, the trucking industry. We're talking about personal vehicles,

(23:52):
we're talking about work trucks and things like that. UM.
But to reach this, they pretty much have to replace
all combustion with some form of renewable energy by around
twenty or even. So they're they're trying to use that
as a UM starting point, you know, as a UM
a way to move the discussion forward. That they have

(24:12):
to do this is because they've set this this this
mandate in place that by again they have to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions from nineteen levels that's that's pretty pretty
tough tough to do now. I know in nineteen ninety
wasn't nearly as clean as it is right now. I mean,
we're we're getting there. It's just, um, I don't know,
that seems like a pretty serious ramp up to me.
It seems pretty difficult to do. Now. The question becomes

(24:36):
is it can the illegally do this as well? And
we had talked about the just for a brief moment,
we talked about the nineteen seventy Clean Air Act, which
actually goes back to nineteen sixty three. I think it
is when the when the first one was enacted, at
least in the United States. Uh, and it has been
you know, updated, it's been changed over the years. But
the rules, um, you know from this nineteen seventy Clean

(24:57):
Air Act are underpinned by waivers granted by the US
e p A. And the thing is that they probably
wouldn't use the waivers that are granted by the EPA
to do this because I think that the um, the
current Trump administration would probably be unlikely to approve one
at this point. Um. But they said they could go
around it. There's another way around it, to use different
authorities to do so. And the idea would be to

(25:20):
use vehicle registration rules or even control the vehicles that
are UM eligible or have access to state highways. So
you know, there's there's ways to enforce this or police
this without necessarily getting the the U. S. Government involved.
There just would do it through uh, the state government.
I guess yea um, but it is I I really

(25:40):
appreciate that you pointed out how it's a um, how
it's a dicey political issue because this, this clean Air
Waiver was already to get an issue before the governor,
the current governor declared his plan, right, so it's no
secret that the current administration, there are members of the

(26:03):
current administration would like to revoke that waiver, which would
have impacts, uh, incredibly significant impacts on California's current plan
for reducing emissions. And because the because the Clean Air
Act is is one of those things that has such

(26:26):
wide reaching effects and has been around for so long.
It it's one of the things that will show up
in the news and then disappear and kind of move
in a cycle. And the big question here is what's
strange to me about this, Scott, is that now we
have to sort of oppositional but both kind of extreme

(26:48):
things that might happen. And it's like, Okay, let's get
rid of this this one uh legal framework entirely. And
it's like no, no, no, let's get rid of every car. Yeah,
you have to stream, isn't it. You're right both sides,
You're right, it actually is it. It's really there's no
in between. There's no gray area here, you know, as
far as they're concerned. And I have a decent uh comparison.

(27:10):
I know from my childhood that I'll tell you right
after this break, Sorry Cliff hanging on an anti climactic
story and I'm on the edge of my chair. Um,
I'll tell you the this sort of stuff like state
by state banning always um, it always makes me think

(27:34):
of fireworks, fireworks because growing up spending time in Georgia,
the good fireworks were banned. You know, you get sparklers
or something, Yeah, they were banned in Georgia. Georgia is
surrounded by other states, Oh yeah that have enormous fireworks warehouses, right,
and they're all directly over the state line, and so

(27:57):
you couldn't legally get firework in Georgia. You could just
drive for an hour or two and then boom. Well,
it used to be that you would have to sign
something that said that you would not light them in
a in a state that wasn't it wasn't allowed, and
I believe something like that. Well, you must have been
going to places on the up and not well you
know what I went to here, Okay, you're in Michigan.
That the difference was you could buy them, you couldn't

(28:18):
own them. So that's a weird rule too, is that
you were able to buy them from these roadside stands
in some areas, and there weren't many around, but you
had to then provide them with your licensed number, your
your driver's license number, and you'd sign something that said,
you know, I'm in possession of these, but I'm not
going to light them in the state, which is a
ridiculous thing to sign. That's that's a weird thing to ask.

(28:39):
But also, how many people did you know that you know,
had a neighbor who was a truck driver and they
would often go through Tennessee and they would pick up,
you know, a couple of bricks of firecrackers and uh,
you know, some bottle rockets and you know whatever else.
They had M A. D s and to bring them
back to the kids in the neighborhood and distribute them.
They'd solve them and probably make a profit. But you know,
it's always somebody who's driving through those states that would
do that. Did you have the same experience in your

(29:01):
neighborhood growing up? Uh? Yeah, anybody that was a an
enabler provider? Oh sure, yeah, someone that fed your habit. Yes,
someone who kept me hooked up to the uh the
gunpowder smack, that's what we called it. Be. You know,
this has reminded me of something. I don't know how
I'm thinking about this right now, but were you when

(29:22):
you were younger? Did you watch the Prices right ever
or any of the game shows? I guess that that
will give away a car occasionally. Yeah, I saw parts
of it, all right. I feel like we've discussed this
years ago on this podcast, but it seems to me
that every time they would give it that away. Of course,
a lot of these game shows were coming from California
right there on the West coast, and a lot of
times they would say, you know, here's a Toyota Celica

(29:45):
GT with California missions, and they would always mention California
missions in the in the description of the vehicle, and
that was probably the first time, you know, I'm in
Indiana or something, and I'm thinking, what the heck is
California missions? Why is it different for every you know,
for every car building California. And it turns out, you know,
manufacturers had to um increase or had to change or

(30:06):
modify altar in some way the vehicles that went to California,
that were shipped to California because they had stricter emissions
controls than every other state. And now I guess nine
states have joined in, so it's not just California that
have jumped on the uh oh yeah, the nineteen seventy
Clean Air Act bandwagon with them the carb restrictions. I
guess Georgia is one, Pennsylvania is another. Right, It's more

(30:29):
than just Pennsylvania and Georgia, though, right, Yeah, I think
I think there's around nine. There might be more at
this point, but I think it's around nine. So, you know,
they've I don't know if we want to say they
jump on the bandwagon or not, but uh but you know,
they're they're on board with with the California missions thing.
Now so you can't just say California emissions. No, No,
I guess not. And I've watched a game show in

(30:49):
a long time, and maybe the plan is one day
for those California emissions to just be emissions in general,
just emissions. Yeah, just like in France, they're just called fries.
I've that's not true. And if we have any Belgium,
the Belgian based listeners, apparently the Belgians claim to have
invented French fries. Do you know that? No, I did
not know that they called French fries. I don't know

(31:11):
what they call him. I guess I don't know. I
don't know. I guess, uh, they don't call freedom fries. Yeah,
make up a name for them. Whatever happened to that
trend freedom fries, that's gone. I guess just took longer
to say. You know, if you're hungry, you don't want
to waste the time. So I don't know. We're talking
about looking up. It's ridiculous, it's a weird one. So

(31:32):
let's say, let's do a little bit of a thought
experiment here. Alright, Let's say that this does go through right,
that they and they being the government government of California,
do put in on the books a plan two remove

(31:57):
all combustion engines. First, we have to think of a
couple of immediate questions that spring to mind. Does that
mean preventing similar to the UK. Does that mean preventing
the sale of new I see cars? Or does that
mean does that also factor in taking the used cars

(32:19):
off the market. Well, to me, it seems that right
now would have to be restricting the sale of new
vehicles because you can't register a new vehicle without going
through you know, a government agency, is some some sort
of state agencies. So there's a gate. That's the gate,
and that's saying they're saying, well, I'm sorry, if it's
not an e V and or or hybrid as you said, um,
if it's if it's a straight combustion powered engine, um

(32:42):
it is is something that is, we're not going to
register this vehicle for use in the state. Now, if
you were to have one already and you had to
go back and register again, I wonder if they were
going to have well, of course you have to be
grandfather did. Because they can't expect everybody to buy a
new car within a year. That's something. And even when
they phase out helmet laws or something like that. There's
a there's a window where you know, if you if

(33:02):
you don't have one, you've got six years to get one,
you know, in a helmet hundred bucks or whatever, You've
got six years to save up a hundred dollars to
get a helmet, Which means if they want to hit
something in the next decades, you know, twenty anywhere from starting,
they're going to need to make those laws quickly. Well,

(33:23):
my helmet, you know, example, is a little bit silly.
And I know that the dollar amount is probably a
little low. It's probably more like three hundred four hundred
bucks for a good helmet. But um, to get a car,
I mean to get an all new car, you know,
with a new power train. For a lot of people,
that's that's a pretty tall order. And even in as
you said, you know, a decade or so, UM, I
still feel like that's a pretty short ramp up time

(33:46):
for something like this. Uh an average not embarrassing to drive,
but not super impressive. I see sedan is what little
over thirty two dollars. Yeah, I think it's above that
at this point north of there somewhere, it's north of there,
it's it's not forty yet, but it's north at thirty two. Yeah,
and okay, and here's the other thing. If we're talking
about UM and an alternative drive train vehicle, you know

(34:08):
something that has hybrid or you know, fuel cell or
you know, whether it's an all electric vehicle. These are
more expensive vehicles to begin with. I mean, they cost
more than their internal combustion counterparts. So that's gonna be
an issue as well. And I'm really glad you mentioned this,
because of course it's tempting for people to say, well,

(34:29):
this is uh, you know, this economy is scale. Of course,
these cars are gonna be more expensive because the big
manufacturers just really started making them. UM with of course,
hats off in a moment of silence for Saturn's EV program.
But but he has a short moment of silence. I
broke it with laughter. Sorry, that's probably the way to Saturn.

(34:54):
But the but you know, the idea is valid and
on the surface would make sense to say, well, there's
gonna be a huge drop in price when there are
a lot more cars made, right and when the uh,
the more uh. I don't want to say low end.
I don't want to say that they're low quality, but
the more affordable car manufacturers make electric versions. The problem

(35:21):
with that is that there are other inherent cost factors
in electric vehicles that are that don't have much wiggle
room to change, and as a matter of fact, become
more expensive as we build more vehicles, and especially as
we build more batteries. Now you're talking about metals, right,

(35:44):
Oh yeah, okay, so the production of metals, and this
is something that a lot of people really don't think about.
You know who does think about it, though, investors, So
people are already investing in the precious metals that that
are required to create electric vehicles. Now, I mean, just
for an example, I've read this somewhere and I don't
know where my note is, but I think a standard,

(36:05):
you know, a standard. I shouldn't say standard, but I
guess an electric vehicle requires three times the amount of
copper that a standard internal combustion powered engine requires. And
that's just one example. Now, think about the batteries that
we're talking about for e vs. They require cobalt and lithium, copper, aluminum, nickel,
they require a lot of a lot of um. I guess, well,

(36:26):
not only those, but also some rare earth metals, rare
earth elements. I guess that that happened to be metals
um that are pretty expensive at this point um and
and the problem, I guess really comes down to getting
those metals out of the ground fast enough. It's not
that global reserves aren't there. We have the material, it's
just it becomes a mining issue, and a lot of

(36:47):
people don't consider the mining factor in all this. Right,
and mining companies, global mining companies are some of the
largest companies you've never heard of. You know, these are
these companies are moving millions of tons and billions of dollars,
it's probably the best way to say it. And the
markets are responding to this. Cobalt, for example, right cobalt

(37:11):
in just one year has uh. In two thousand and sixteen,
the price of cobalt rose thirty seven percent this so far.
In two thousand and seventeen, it surged seventy percent on
the London Medal Exchange. So it's if that kind of

(37:33):
trend continues with all of the medals required for this,
including the rare earth materials, then what that means is
regardless of how efficiently and inexpensively a manufacturer can make
you know, just like a bargain basement economy minded electric vehicle,

(37:56):
they're still going to be paying so much for these
other materials that the EV is still going to be
more expensive than an icy Yeah, and now you're mentioning,
you know, the I guess, relatively low cost vehicle. In
a moment, let's talk about the Tesla Model threes. That
sound good, That sounds great, all right, So before before
we do this, be already talk about the Model three.

(38:16):
I want to say that I watched an interview with
someone named Julia Atwood, who is um. She was out
of London, but she was with the Bloomberg New Energy
Finance Group and she was talking about It was an
interview about the medals and do we have enough? And um,
you know, just what's happening with the prices, mainly because
again Bloomberg's a financial site and they're they're talking about
the finances. So they're talking about the spike and cobalt,

(38:37):
as you mentioned, the spike in lithium and other medals
as well. Um, But the question came up, do we
have the materials necessary for the battery production that's going
to be required if they do decide to ramp up
electric car production like they're talking about, because again, right
now they're just not producing the number that you would
perceive they're producing based on what you hear in the press,

(38:57):
based so what you you see and hear every day
in the popular media. So for now, her answer was,
for now, yes we haven't we have even in long term.
The question is is um, you know, the question isn't
rather do we have enough global reserves? The question is,
you know, how again do we ramp up the mining production?
How do we get the demand you know for um,

(39:18):
you know, the the cobalt and the copper in the
lithium and all that. How do we how do we
get that demand to match? Uh? The amount of her
as shouldn't say demand to match? We say, how do
we get the production to match the demand for e
v s? I guess if if that happens, you know,
if people are demanding evs, let's say even by the midwies, Uh,
they're going to be some bottlenecks. You know, they're gonna
be some production bottlenecks that'll occur that where you know,

(39:40):
supplies simply won't be there. And she makes a point
by saying, you know, by just to supply the ev
market alone. That means lithium production would have to increase
by three hundred percent, you know, based on the numbers
that we have today. So UM increase by and that's
kind of difficult to do. Um, that's a total production
for you, that total production for everything, I mean, you know,

(40:02):
all types of lithium batteries that we require, not just
evs but UM and oh you hang on, that is
just revs. It's just the eating market rather. UM and
cobalt production would have to increase by something like a
hundred and twenty seven. So there's gonna be nothing but
more demand for these these medals as time goes on.
If if the market still wants evs as we predicted,

(40:23):
they will you know, in the next ten years. There's ten,
fifteen years maybe. UM. So really, I mean you're you're
I guess you're you're banking on the idea that that
it's going to continue this ramp up. Really, and that's
pretty much the thrust of the whole thing. UM. Now,
of course, automobile companies they have to um understand that
there's a major, massive technical shift ahead of them. You know,

(40:45):
that they have to do things differently, and of course
you know what the price going up and everything that
they're they're finding it difficult right now to invest in
that when they're not seeing the sales numbers that they
were hoping to see out of the vehicles at this point,
I think that you know, they were, um, well, maybe
not hoping to see. Let's let's put it a different way,
because as as Fiat CEO said, you know, and he

(41:07):
loses money every time one goes out the door. But um,
they're still having to produce the eagles in order to
stay competitive in the marketplace. Um. And by the way, China, Um,
China is said to have a monopoly on the rare
earth elements, but that's not necessarily true. There are other
minds around. In fact, there's one in America called the
Molly Corp minor or Mining Corporation or something like that,

(41:29):
and Linus Corporation in Australia. I hope I didn't get
the Molly Corps name too wrong, but Molly Corp and
Linus and again in Australia. And that that Forbes article
I was telling you about it kind of um uh
dispels the idea that that China has a monopoly on
this on this area, these these rare earth elements and
and by rare earth, we I guess we've said this

(41:50):
a few times now, but there's about seventeen elements that
are considered rare earth and a few of the most
of those are metals, I believe, things like scanned scandium
and landing them. Uh, there's syrium, there's neurodymium. There's a
bunch of them, Europium. Yeah, yeah, there's a huge list
of them. But um, the truth is that right now
the US and Australia producing more than ten percent of

(42:10):
the global UM. Well, I guess the global the current
global consumption of those rare earth metals and elements. Sou know,
we're kind of holding our own. I guess China does
not have a complete monopoly on the rare earth metals. No,
but in two thousands and ten, based mostly on their
work their resources of mongolia, they were producing a lot,

(42:34):
but they have smaller proven reserves. And and also this
can be um, this can have environmental ramifications depending on
how people extract the materials. Sure, and it might take years,
you know, to to to get this. I guess ramp up.
Can you know completed, I think, someone said, and I again,

(42:56):
I'm I'm missing my note for this, but it might
take a mind in new mine. It might take them
between two and fifteen years to even bin pregin production.
So you know, if your answer is to just start,
you know, a new mind right now, well you're looking
at if you started it today, you might have to
wait two to fifteen years in order to get any
kind of you know, any kind of volume out of

(43:16):
that mine, and any kind of um profit I guess
to come out of that area. And the last little
bit that I want to mention here about prices. She
was asked again. This is Juliettwood. She was asked for
for now, how does the spike in these metal prices
affect the price of batteries, because you would think that,
you know, while the while the production numbers the cars
aren't necessarily going up maybe a little bit um, you know,

(43:39):
the price of the metals is going up. And what
does that do to the cost of the batteries that
go into these vehicles? And she said that, in short,
it's really not going to matter a lot. The metals
um in the batteries are really only present in a
very small amount so you know, you think that you know,
price spike like what you've talked about for cobalt and
for lithium, would have a tremendous effect on a on
a battery price. But the problem is or that the

(44:01):
I guess the good thing is really um is that
you know, they've done some analysis on this, and they
say the price of lithium, even if it quadrupled, would
only raise the price of a battery by about two
um in the overall price. So it's not a tremendous
increase so um, because it's such a small amount. Again,
and the price of cobalt, however, has a little bit

(44:22):
more of an effect. But I'll tell you that it
doesn't really matter in a second, because even if even
if that metal doubled or tripled in price, it's still
um it would it would increase the price of battery
by less than ten percent. And everything else that goes
into a battery right now is dropping in price so much,
so fast that it would probably just be completely absorbed,
you know, in the in the cost of the battery

(44:42):
as a whole. So um. You know, don't look at
the pipe price pike right now as a contributing factor
to battery price. It's it's just not working out that way. Yeah,
I think that's really I think that's a really good
point there. Um, you also have to wonder what the
fate of used I C cars would be, you know,
as like as they're getting out of the grandfather in phase.

(45:06):
Because California is home to a lot of classic cars.
You know, that's true, a lot that people wouldn't want
to let go of, of course. I mean people don't
want to let go of their their daily driver. You know,
if it's an internal combustion engine. Um, it's it's a
tough thing to do. I mean a lot of people
just simply, I mean, believe it or not, a lot
of people still aren't buying into the electric car thing.

(45:27):
I mean I get it, I understand because it doesn't
meet everybody's needs. They're not they're not for everyone. I
mean we've we've talked many times about you know, who
it works for and who it doesn't work for. And
for a lot of the United States it doesn't work.
You know, unless you're in a congested metropolitan area. UM
an e V you're even a hybrid in some cases, well,

(45:48):
I guess maybe a hybrid a little less. But an
e v UM has a limited number of people that
it really fits with, you know, people that that really
could use one. UM and I know that Tesla has
kind of broken that that model little bit because remember
when we first started talking about these cars, when back
when we started the show, UM was that two thousand
eight or something like that, It was a long time ago.

(46:09):
We were talking about cars that had ranges in you know,
fifty six seventy miles maybe at the most. I think
the greatest range was one that it was like eighty miles.
And now we're talking about cars that have two fifty
miles range. So that that that opens the opens the
market quite a bit, you know, for people that can
use one. So it's not necessarily just a city commuter
car anymore. It does appeal to a few more people.

(46:31):
But UM, anybody that's going to be making a cross
country trip, you know that they know that it's just
difficult once you get outside of the coasts, I think,
and the major centers, you know, the major major cities,
you have a hard time finding the infrastructure to to
allow a trip like that to happen. And not only that,
it adds so much time when you have to um,
you know, stop to charge your vehicle for four or

(46:52):
five or six hours. That doesn't necessarily play into a
UM a smoother or quick road trip for somebody, right,
It's difficult. And then there are other other places where
UH an e V makes sense, like, just like you said, Scott,
in densely populated generally smaller areas, by which I mean

(47:14):
areas with less distance between point a point b, so
like a lot of europe areas in Europe would be
great for this. And I mean, okay that we mentioned
a long charging times, right, and also I mean you
gotta think about this too. A lot of people would
be UM or would have a harder time I guess
maybe uh charging their car, you know, in a public
location rather than you know, pulling it into their own

(47:36):
garage and you know where they have a uh you know,
a dedicated charger installed. Not everybody has that, you know,
um um ability to do that. They don't have the uh,
you know, the place to do it. They don't have
a garage that can be locked up. They don't have
a place that they feel secure about leaving the car
overnight while it's charging. That's also an issue. There's also
the factor of low gasoline prices. You know, oftentimes we'll

(47:58):
see a spike in intric vehicle sales when gasolene prices
go up to you know, four dollars or five dollars
a gallon. Um, But right now, I mean in for
a long time, gasoline prices have been low again, and
people have been buying trucks and SUVs and and bigger cars.
So um, it kind of depends on the market as well.
So uh, I don't know, it just seems like, um, oh,

(48:20):
you know, one more thing I want to mention here,
and this is this is also from that that quick
take article UM on the Tesla Model three that we'll
talk about California. California regulators recently reported this is just
in January, that more than three quarters of survey respondents
had yet to seriously consider a plug in vehicle. That's California.

(48:40):
They're saying that three quarters of the survey respondents had
yet to seriously consider a plug in electric car. I
mean three quarters. It does Again, that doesn't match up
with what you're hearing in the media. That sounds like
it seems like everybody out there and on the West
Coast is driving an electric vehicle. And I know that's
not true, but UM, three quarters haven't even considered it yet,

(49:00):
So the sales numbers just aren't necessarily exactly what we're
we're hearing um again in the popular media. Now, Ben,
I think we should maybe take a little bit of
a break here and and come back. We'll talk about
the Tesla Model three. Has that sound perfect? We're back.
We're back to take a closer look at one of

(49:23):
the newer projects from Old Musky Old Musky, right, so
I'm kidding, no one has called him that, from La
Musk and Tesla. Yeah, So we're talking about the Model three, right,
and this is the UM, I guess, the the cheaper
or I should say, more affordable Tesla, right, and when
it still comes in around thirty five tho dollars, which

(49:45):
is pretty decent, not too bad zero to sixty and
under six seconds, and it's got a range of something
like two fifteen miles per charge, so not bad. And
I believe that at the introduction of this vehicle, you know,
when he came out and did UM they said it
was kind of like a press conference, almost like app
would have. He came out and and kind of grand
standard the vehicle bit and tell all the features and everything,
and it's it's kind of neat what he's doing. Um,

(50:07):
he's a showman, and he he took three hundred and
twenty five thousand orders for the Tesla Model three. Now
that's with a one thousand dollar deposit for each one
of those. So he's got an order of three thousand
and here there's a problem with that, though, Ben, what's that?
The problem is that and most people probably don't realize this,

(50:29):
but Tesla is not right now considered a mass producer
of automobiles. And you never guessed that because you see
Tesla's everywhere, at least we do here in the Atlanta area.
And I would bet that in states that have um,
you know these retail locations that you see a lot
of Tesla's around. It's all over the news. Tesla is
pretty active in California. As a matter of fact, just

(50:50):
past this past week off the air, Uh, there were
some Tesla representatives with a Model X that would just
take it two hour office every day, not like here
physically in the studio, but take it to the premises
of this building and um just like show it off
to people have display it right, just because a lot

(51:11):
of people don't get a hands on experience with a
Tesla unless you know somebody that owns one. UM, So
you know, it's a it's a good opportunity. Right. Well,
the thing is, again, they're not a mass producer of automobiles,
and there's a big, big difference between building let's say,
you know, tens of thousands of vehicles, which they do now,
and let's say building three thousand or more vehicles in

(51:32):
one year. That's really really difficult. So I hadn't really
thought about this. I hadn't thought about all the things
that would be necessary to ramp up production like that.
But I mean, we're talking about ramping up five times
the annual sales volume that it currently has so it
currently delivers. So what's gonna have to happen is they're
gonna have to speed up production. They're gonna have to
have more people. There's gonna be um, you know, more

(51:54):
stations on the assembly line, you know, So it's gonna
be more people doing you know, a smaller part of
the job than right now they've got less people doing
more on the vehicle. Um. And it's also gonna be
a lot more complicated and mistakes are going to happen
along the way. And the thing is that with that
type of production, that level of production, you know, the
number that we're talking about, the frequency and and the

(52:16):
the consequences are going to be greater as you ramp
up that production, as you get you know, the bigger
and bigger numbers. So it's really gonna get difficult. I mean,
it's not something that, um I should be taken very lightly,
and I don't. I know Tesla isn't taking it very lightly,
but the question is, no, I've seen this a few
places that they're they're talking about where he's going to

(52:38):
do this, like how how are he going to make
you know, the current as slumber line work. If if
he can make this assumbly line of work, and I
don't think they can, they're gonna have to have new
you know, tooling in place. He's skipping the pilots. Uh,
He's skipping the pilot stage of this whole thing. So
he's going right into full production, which is a gamble
to begin with, because a lot of the mistakes are
are figured out in the you know, the pilot program

(52:59):
where they build car on a on a maka SUMBI line.
They do it kind of slowly, but you know, they
make sure that everything fits right and everything works right,
and then they do it on a larger scale for
the actual production vehicle. And all that pilot tooling has
been descraped or you know, used again somewhere else. But
it's expensive to do that, and he's skipping that process
in order, you know, for for money and for speed,
I believe. And so that's that's one thing they're talking about.

(53:21):
You know, where is he going to do this, because
you know, they can't figure out where the production facility
will happen. It will be, um, the Bay Area, you know,
San Francisco is not necessarily known as a as a
blue collar manufacturing area. You know, it's more white collar
you know, software developers and things like that, professional I guess,
office jobs. Um. So they're saying, well, he may take

(53:41):
it somewhere else, but would it even be in the
United States because he's been offered locations in uh. I
want to say, France has offered him a location. I
don't know where else in the world he's been offered
you know, UM property that that was at one time
manufacturing it has changed, you know, so it's massive amounts
of land available, but I don't know if he would
take it, you know, overseas or would it remain in

(54:03):
the United States. It seems like it would remain a
US company, but I'm not sure. I'm not you know,
once the numbers come out about what it costs to
build a vehicle like this, and again, you know, there's
this this this trade off, this balance where you know
you have to have you have to invest so much
in order to develop car or to build cars this quick.
You know, all the stuff I talked about, more people,
bigger facility, you know, faster production, you know, five times

(54:26):
the volume that you're currently doing once you start doing that,
and and the cars are considerably less in the cars
that he's producing now. So you know, I think we
saw this, and I read this somewhere. I again, it's
lost in my notes, as everything is. Um they said
that Mercedes kind of learned this when they purchased Chrysler
when it became Diamelar Chrysler, and they found out that

(54:48):
it's a lot different when you're making a smaller number
of you know, luxury or you know, um high He
had luxury and high performance automobiles versus when you're trying
to make you car like a huge number of cars
for the mass market. It's it's a different prospect altogether.
And they learned a lesson there. They learned they can't
do you can't easily do both. I mean, you can

(55:09):
do them separately, but you can't do them together in
the same way. And that's a problem that I think
that Tesla is going to find out, is that or
Ellen Musk is going to find out that, um, you know,
and he I'm sure he knows this. You know, all
the um, all the investigative work that goes into coming
up with these ideas, and he's got to have advisors
that are telling him all this. But um, it's tough

(55:31):
to manufacture a lot of vehicles at a lower price.
It's tougher to do that than it is to manufacture
a smaller number of vehicles at a higher price. Yes,
absolutely agree. That's why economy of scale is something that
if you look over auto motive history, very few car
companies actually achieve. It's just a simple matter of the
attrition level here, like especially the early days of automotive manufacturing. Man, uh,

(55:56):
there are hundreds of car companies you've never heard of
that when belly up quickly because they were facing the
same kind of problem. Now, Tesla is a smart company.
It's already gone much further than many people thought it would.
But the investors are all watching this, this rollout of

(56:17):
the Model three. Also, I have a funny Model three
story for you. Okay, what is it? Okay, So you
know we've covered Tesla in the past. Here, so you know,
there's the models, there's the Model x Alon Musk originally
wanted the Model three to be the Model E because
true story, he wanted them to spell sex. Come on,

(56:39):
I'm telling you, man, I thought it was a rumor.
It is not a rumor. He's like on record saying like, yes,
I think it would be cool if they It's like
the most human thing, this weird, brilliant maybe supervillain has
ever done. Where does the where does the roadster come
in on this? Then I wondered, it's topless. That's pretty good. Yeah, Hey,

(57:04):
you're out here, you're working live. Sometimes you had gold
still still PG by the way, and it is still PG.
So the thing is like, in particular, there's an uh
AN analyst group over at a place called Bernstein, and
they think that they think that Tesla is spending so

(57:28):
much cash on this thing that it's inevitably going to
run out of money. But then other people are saying, no,
this is how you're supposed to play the game for
high growth companies, right, But there's no two ways around it.
This is a this is a real doubling down. Just
it feels to me like this is Tesla's sink or

(57:49):
swim moment, don't you think? Yeah? I mean it really
does feel like. I know there have been other moments
along the way, but I mean, this is, okay, this
is maybe the latest sinker swim moment because you know,
the company has done tremendous It made tremendous end roads.
I guess with at least the US auto buying market.
I don't know how it's doing worldwide, but it is.

(58:09):
It is definitely a powerhouse I think in the electric
vehicle market or electric vehicle arena. UM it's it's the
one that we see probably the most of around here.
I mean maybe maybe the Nissan Leaf. We see a
lot of those around there's a ton of but for
an all e V vehicle UM Tesla is a close second,
and we see a ton of them with the Model
X and the Model S right now, I'm guessing that

(58:31):
we'll see a lot of Model threes when that comes out.
But I think that also has something to do with
the UM the availability of the vehicle here. You know,
you can get them here, you can get them service here.
I've seen services centers around two uh separate buildings for
that UM. But you know, I don't think that that's uh,
that's something that is nationwide. True. I think that they
have less than one hundred locations across the United States,

(58:53):
or right around a hundred locations across the entire United States,
and I believe that those are in maybe about half
of the states right now somewhere around there. And you know, again,
a lot of people would have to drive, you know,
hours and hours to even get to get to see one,
you know in their and their mall locations or whatever
they have. You know, like it's not a key ask
at them all, but it's it's close. It's just a

(59:15):
you know, a small storefront. Uh So a lot of
people just haven't it. Some people haven't even seen them yet.
I mean, it's it's just the reality. UM. But but
again here in you know, a major metropolitan center, like
we what we have and what probably a lot of
our listeners are in. You know, if you're in San Francisco,
if you're in New York or Chicago, wherever, I bet
you've seen a lot of Tesla's. But that might not

(59:35):
necessarily be the truth across all of the United States,
or especially well all of North America. Even so, here's
the here's the question I gotta ask. I think we've
done an okay job looking at the situation, the proposals
by the governor of California. Okay, let me ask you

(59:56):
a question. I think we've done a pretty good job
sort of outlining the big picture, right, I think so
so California. Uh, and especially it's governor I really want
to ban I see cars. And we've also shown that
there's a global trend in some other countries. But neither

(01:00:17):
of us have really said I have really answered this
question on air yet. Do you think this will work?
Do I think it will work? Do you think it
will happen? Do you think it will work new No,
I don't think it will work. I think there's gonna
be enough pushback on this that it's not going to
go through. I don't think that And also, you know
the other thing is like, well, if you're gonna ban

(01:00:38):
the on road transportation, you know, if you're gonna restrict
everybody in this way, sure, why would you not target
you know, some of the bigger probably pollutants, I guess,
And I don't I don't have any studies right now
in front of me to back this up. At lawn
equipment and a t V S and you know the
other stuff that people use that use internal combustion engines,
especially the two stroke vehicles, they'll burn oil with the

(01:00:59):
gas time. Yeah. What about cargo ships? Yeah, cargo about
cargo ships that hit the ports in California? Yeah, yeah,
exactly are they gonna I don't think he can make
an e V cargo ship. I don't think that's I
don't think so either. And uh yeah yet, And um,
I don't know, even like you said, boats, you know,

(01:01:20):
even if it's it's a recreation you know, personal personal
boats like personal watercraft. Um, there's there's just so many
other vehicles that use internal combustion that I don't I
don't know if this is going to make much of
an impact and if people are gonna go for it.
I mean, I mean when you're saying like, well, if
China can do it, we can do it. I don't
know if that's a good enough argument for for most people.

(01:01:40):
And now I know that there's a there's there's some
people that's that's perfectly fine for. But I don't. I
don't feel like something is This isn't something that if I,
if I was there, I would push against this very hard.
I I think that at heart it is a good
con accept and I do think that businesses and governments

(01:02:05):
play an important role in encouraging, uh, the evolution of technology. Right.
But also we've seen multiple times, and I know people
can argue back and forth on this, but we've seen
multiple times that when there is an overarching authority that
mandates something from the top down too, you know, the

(01:02:29):
average Jane and John Doe voters, right, Uh, people tend
not to react well to that, especially if they feel
like what they already have is working. You know. Um.
Another example of this, I remember talking about it with
our friend and sometimes guests Jonathan Strickland on his show

(01:02:52):
Tech Stuff. We talked about three D televisions. You remember
these guys, So if years back, a bunch of television
manufacturers said we have decided that home three D television
will be the new thing that everybody's into, and they
put out a lot of expensive TVs, some of which

(01:03:13):
required you to wear special proprietary glasses, some of which
had very specific rules about where you should sit distance
to or from television, and almost universally, these all flopped
because it turned out that it didn't matter if the
technology was objectively better. It mattered what the customers wanted.

(01:03:35):
And in this case, I think this can work. I
think this could be a good move, but only if
the people of California actually wanted to happen, and there
are compelling financial reasons. Look, this is not at this point.

(01:03:56):
I'm not even looking at this as a a matter
of saving helping her harm in the environment. I'm looking
at the likelihood of people to go along with this. Right,
if it happens. If it happens, and you and I
and our superproducer Casey are three guys in California looking

(01:04:18):
for cars, right, Um, first off, we're probably gonna end
up buying unless they're amazing tax credits. We're probably gonna
end up buying a used I C car because that's
that's like reliable it's fairly predictable, and it's probably cheaper.
It's range, it's within the range, and with the other

(01:04:46):
with the other likely priced complications. Right like, there would
probably be more incentives, at least on the California level
to get an electric vehicle or a hybrid, and there
would probably be a dipping costs for some evs, some
new models of evs coming out, but depending on how

(01:05:06):
the mining goes, that could be a very temporary dip UH.
And then eventually if they stuck to their guns with
it as cars aged out and there were more used evs. See,
that's what I feel like is that's what I feel
like would be the crucial tipping point is when there

(01:05:28):
would be a large enough UH population of used electric
vehicles that people could buy and that would operate reliably.
And right now, I don't know we're there, and I
don't know how long it takes to get there, and
it doesn't seem like there's I mean, what if you
look through the classified in any state, any city, it

(01:05:48):
seems like the majority of vehicles are still internal combustion
engines that are that are listed as used vehicles, and
the ones on the lots are Sarah still I see powered.
So yeah, you're right, there's a disparity and the the
amount of evs they're available as used vehicles compared to uh,
you know, the standard cars. I guess the cars that
you know we all know from decades past. Um. But yeah,

(01:06:10):
I you know, one thing I want to make clear
here is I wasn't saying, you know, don't be a
good is it? What steward of the earth? Is that
what they say? You know, of course, keep a clean
of course, but we're not talking about I don't think
we're talking here about even even with California's proposal, we're
not talking about completely removing gas and the equation. We're
talking about just lessening you know, the amount that we
need or the oil that we need. And it's I

(01:06:31):
think it's just a reduction in um, a reduction in
the amount of engines that are out there, you know,
spewing out the carbon dioxide. So it's not completely eliminating them,
it's just reducing them. And I think that's that's a
very good point. You know, large groups of people, large
industries are just like changing their directions, like changing the

(01:06:53):
direction of a large vehicle. You gotta turn wide and slow.
But we said, this is decades away, and I think,
you know, even if this happens in I mean, I'm
gonna be eighty years old, Ben when this happens, if
it if it does happen, um, you know, or if
it happens in seventy years old, I'm still driving probably, um,
you know, if we're talking about something that's that far away. Yeah,

(01:07:14):
something that's probably gonna affect our kids, you know. That's
that's the way I look at it. Um again, A
slow ramp up for this and like you said, a
slow turn, slow turn of a cargo ship or whatever
you want. Yeah, exactly, that's how you have to do it,
because there's just no way you can you can force
something like this on people overnight. Now I gotta say,
would I be Would I be happy living in uh

(01:07:37):
an area where the majority of vehicles were electric, Yeah,
I'd be fine with it. Why not? I wouldn't have
a problem with it. But I don't. While I I
I agree with the noble intentions of doing this sort
of stuff, and while I do think that these alternative
forms of energy are going to be increasingly large players

(01:07:59):
in the field and maybe even one day dominate the field. Um,
I just I don't. It's tough for me to see
how this plan would work out well in the short
term for the average California and of course their entrenched interest,

(01:08:23):
right like the Big Three aren't necessarily falling all over
themselves to stop being able to sell the majority of
their offerings, right. But I think it is. I think
it is a little bit more reasonable to aim for
to to aim for some foot in the door kind
of slow escalation, reduce, reduce, reduce emissions taking telling people

(01:08:50):
what they can't buy is okay, I'm gonna say. I
don't mean this to be controversial. It's kind to like prohibition.
It's prohibition of internal combustion engines, internal combustion powered cars
because of their effects which are real on the environment.

(01:09:14):
So what if what if people had bootleg I see engines,
it's in their car, and they and they, and let's
say that they hid the tailpipe underneath the vehicles. You
can't see it from the outside. He placed an E
V sticker on the back and then you uh or
you know, decal or whatever and uh and then you
muffle it down to the point where you can't hear
the engine running. But you're still burning gas. But where

(01:09:35):
do you get your bootleg gas from? That's the problem.
I guess you have to go down to the marina
and pick it up. Right, this is getting really go
down to the marina and pick it up because but
it would be more expensive. It would you'd be paying
a premium. But then also people like racing would change, right, Uh,
it might attract a more dangerous element because it's underground

(01:09:55):
when there would be like speakeasies for cars with engines.
I read a long time ago a sci fi story
that addressed the same thing. It was like this utopian future,
near future society where things were much more strictly and
clearly mandated or forbidden. And it was all it's all

(01:10:20):
a mystery. I know it's gonna sound weird. It was
a great read. It was all this mystery about this
investigator who was trying to track down uh, some murders
and then found out spoiler I'm being vague enough, that
doesn't matter if as spoiler, And then found out that
the person who was responsible for the murders was like

(01:10:43):
an engineer in monitoring the city's emissions and had been
covering up the fact that he was driving like this
illegal internal combustion car. It was a very weird twist.
It was very well written. Uh. I don't want to
live in that kind of future. No, no, no, no,
I don't either. I don't either. Where it becomes like

(01:11:04):
an illegal prospect to take your I see powered vehicle
out for you know, a drive in the mountains or
something like that. That would be terrible. But you know,
who knows. Maybe maybe we're getting to that point. It
seems like it could be decades and decades away, but
it seems like there's a push, a move of a
genuine uh title shift to get there. And and it's happening.

(01:11:25):
It's happening around the world. It's happening here in the
United States. I mean, we're seeing it. It's it's it's
happening right now. It could be in our lifetime, it
could be just after a lifetime. Who knows. But um, yourself, well,
I'm a lot older than you, so maybe maybe this
will affect you more than me. I wouldn't be I
wouldn't be one of those people who just keeps like

(01:11:45):
adding mechanical parts to myself as the other ones peter out.
You know what I mean is that bio biomechanical. It's
a term for that I can't remember. Maybe I don't know. Oh,
but I'll have to be I'll have to be e
V cyborg. I can't take gas. But but look at

(01:12:06):
this point, you know, this is all speculation. We've provided
some of the possible complications that a lot of people
don't think about, which would be of course, of course
mining and finding the necessary materials for this is one
of the biggest ones. It also, you know, it calls
to mind this old episode that we did a while back,

(01:12:28):
which was about it asked how much money are you
really saving on a hybrid? Right, and what are the
what are the net benefits of a hybrid? And we
found something that doesn't occur to a lot of people.
When you're driving and an EV, you might still be

(01:12:55):
polluting the environment because it depends on where that electricity
comes from, you know, and here in Georgia, for instance,
like coal plants. Sure, right, so you're really if you're
driving a hybrid in Georgia and you're charging it in Georgia,
you're driving a coal powered vehicle and you're just not
seeing the smoke. And of course manufacturing and cost manufacturing

(01:13:19):
that all plays into it, you know, how how it's manufactured. Um,
I think I think we also did a delve into
is it worth it to buy a hybrid versus versus
a standard vehicle? Yeah, that's the one. There are a
couple that were equal. You know, they were both the
same model. You could, you know, pay more for the
hybrid upfront, but what would you have to pay for
fuel in the other vehicle and in that vehicle? And

(01:13:42):
over time when would it? When would equal out? How
is this long time staggering number. Now that number will
get lower as uh, this technology improves. And to be honest,
like I know, I might sound like I'm dumping on
e v s or hybrids and not. There's some awesome
ones out there, and I would love to, Uh, I

(01:14:03):
would love to take a Tesla first, Bill. There's some
amazing electric vehicles out there. Don't don't get us wrong,
We we like them a lot. It's just I don't
know if the I don't know if we want to
go completely that direction at this point. And again I understand, uh,
I understand the motivation. Ecologically speaking, a lot of places
on this planet are like a dumpster fire right now.

(01:14:24):
Absolutely need evs or just less internal combustion engines, right,
and are some restrictions of some kind. I mean, there's
gotta be something done because I mean it's it's it's
choking you when you go outside, like there's it is
inspiring that China is so aggressively insertively pursuing alternative methods
of energy production. But part of that, the primary part

(01:14:48):
of that is out of necessity. Do you remember seeing
the pictures out of Beijing before the Olympics. Yeah, look
like smog continuously, I mean twenty four hours a day,
uh so so thick that you couldn't see through it
even so. Um, and they've really done a lot to
cut that down. I mean it's been reduced. I don't know.
Maybe it's come back now. I don't know, maybe it's
just you know, cleaning up for the Olympics. But um,

(01:15:08):
it really it was a problem. It's a big problem.
It was like that in California at one time. So
they've done tremendous job in bringing that back down. Look
at some old photos of California back in the days
before you know, the Clean Air act um and some
of them are again shocking. It looks like, you know,
a cloud that's hovering over the city or it's in
the city. And again, some of these old black and
white photographs you can find from that time are just

(01:15:29):
they're shocking to see. UM. So they've done a pretty
good job of this, and they're trying to do even better.
And I guess if this is the way that they
think they can do it, and they're not gonna, you know,
face any kind of um opposition, I guess if if
they're not going to, I think they will. I think
there's gonna be a lot of pushback on this. Um. Also,
this account agricultural vehicles, Scott, think about that. That's true. Yeah,

(01:15:52):
and it was kind of agricultural, huge ranches out there,
cattle ranches that require you know, vehicles to to get
you know, all just all around the ranch all, you know,
all the equipment that they need. Would we live in
it Is it possible that we would live in the
future where like say, you and Casey and I went
on a road trip again, Uh, is it possible that

(01:16:13):
we would get turned away at the border of California
vehicle There's a there's a chance, I think from what
they're talking about it they might restrict you to certain
roads you might not be allowed to travel on the highways.
So that's one of the things. Remember a registration, new
new vehicle registration possibly restricting uh, you know, where you
can travel or how you can travel. I guess, um,

(01:16:34):
kind of like the way that they police the um,
you know, the multi passenger lands right now, the car
pool lanes, they might be able to do that. I
don't know. Strange, it's a weird thought, isn't it. But
but as always, like we like to say every time,
this is really just a starting point for your investigation
if you want to jump into this and read about it,
because you can find all of the all the legislation

(01:16:54):
that they're proposing and all the people they're talking about
this and what they're saying and why they wanted to
happen and uh and and also dig into what's happening
around the world because again China, UM, Norway, India, the UK, France,
there's a lot of places that are doing this, a
lot of manufacturers that are there who you know, doing
this as well. So, UM, it's an interesting trend. We'll see,

(01:17:14):
we'll see what turns out. And of course you can
find the other shows we mentioned at our website Car
Stuff Show dot com. Yes, we want to hear what
you think. Do you own a N E V or
a hybrid? Are are you for this or against it?
And why? Hopefully we've outlined the pros and cons of

(01:17:35):
both sides. We tried, we did something, and we did
we did something for this hour. Welcome to car Stuff.
We did something and we will be back next week.
In the meantime, you can find more car stuff on
Twitter and Facebook. Where your car stuff hs W. I
want to give a I want to give a shout
out to the people who have decided to keep sending

(01:17:58):
me Honda Odyssey pictures on Twitter. I appreciate, I appreciate
your efforts. So far, I'm not into any of them,
but I do I do appreciate that people trying to
convert me. So we're talking about the hot rotted odyssease, right, yeah,
So shout out to shout out to Jonathan for sending that,

(01:18:21):
and let's see, shout out to h j uh well,
j sent this really great Subaru brat and then uh
oh yeah, shout out to Cold Chambers for pointing out
using the Odyssey headlights in conversions. And if you have
an idea that you think your fellow and listeners would enjoy.

(01:18:42):
We'd love to hear that too. You can emails directly.
We are on a car. Stuff at how stuff works
dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is that how stuff works dot com. Let us know
what you think. Send an email to podcas asked that
how stuffworks dot com. Mmmmmmm

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