Gadgetory

it seems like we're hearing about electric cars more than ever and you know what why not gone are the days when TVs were just weird concepts that looked utterly ridiculous now you can go down to your local dealership and buy one just like you would any other vehicle and I mean they basically dominate the automotive industry headlines courtesy of one mr. Elon Musk but hold on a minute despite all the hype you still don't see them zipping around on the roads very much in fact come to think of it we've been hearing a ton about mainstream electric cars for years now so why aren't there entire fleets of them driving around well brace yourself for the huge shocking twist here because as it turns out media coverage is one thing but getting people to actually plunk down their hard-earned money on a TV is quite another now it is cheaper to plug in and charge an electric car than it is to fill a traditional vehicle with gasoline but the higher upfront costs of electric cars have led to some serious cases of sticker shock now part of the reason that electric cars continue to be expensive is the ever pervasive early adopter tax you see the research and development that has gone into roadworthy electric cars is not only quite expensive but much of it has taken place relatively recently meaning that car manufacturers both large and small are still trying to recoup their investments plus the batteries themselves aren't exactly cheap for an IC e or traditional car the upfront cost of the fuel system is what a fuel pump and a metal cannister and some tubes by contrast modern electric car batteries are large and heavy and they're manufacturer requires a number of resources that are fairly hard to extract this is made more difficult by the fact that some countries with large deposits of important materials like lithium want to protect their rights to those resources not to mention that some mining locations are in rather unstable countries and although electric cars are commonly billed as part of a solution to an energy crisis that can hopefully be adopted by a majority of consumers well they're still positioned to a large extent as luxury goods for example Eevee's tend to offer much quieter rides than their gas-powered counterparts which is a selling point that allows dealers to charge quite a bit more but ok let's say you have the cash to go buy a test lower failing that a Nissan Leaf is there anything that would stop you from having the automotive experience you've always wanted well yes and I'm not just talking about the fact that they aren't all equipped with racing engines a big issue with many electric cars is the range that is how far they can get on a single charge while pricier Tesla's can get over 300 miles on a single fill-up similar to some gas-powered sports cars many of the cheaper EVs are limited to less than 200 miles and while the vast majority of car trips in the u.s. anyway are well under this range limit people still get anxious about having such a short battery life and it's understandable because even if you have a car that can get 400 miles to a tank you have still probably found yourself at least once or twice frantically searching for a gas station as the needle approaches the e which leads me to the next hurdle where exactly do you charge an electric car obviously they aren't difficult to plug in at home but if you're driving out on the open road somewhere to see where life leads you and you find your battery running low your options might be pretty limited while governments and car manufacturers are both working to build out their infrastructure of charging stations this is both a time consuming and expensive endeavor and it's also much slower to fully charge an IV than it is to fill up a 60 to 80 litre gas tank however just because electric cars aren't everywhere yet doesn't mean it'll stay that way forever not only is research still ongoing into replacing lithium-ion batteries with solid-state altern that could hold more energy other innovations like transmissions designed for EVs could increase both the range and performance of electric cars simply by using gear ratios so one day in the near future worries about running out of juice may be a thing of the past researchers are also working on new power delivery mechanisms that could reduce charge times to as little as 10 minutes by using direct current at higher voltages and as charging stations become more common we should see prices start to fall especially since governments around the world have already begun instituting bans on the sales of new gasoline-powered cars which should incentivize larger scale cheaper production of electric alternatives at the time we shot this video 11 countries had such bans including France China and the UK with them taking effect anywhere between 2021 and 2040 so a mostly electric future might not be too far off but that's not to say that convincing John to get rid of his gas guzzling Mustang is going to be an easy task speaking of easy tasks are you interested in computer science well why not check out brilliant a problem solving website that takes large concepts and breaks them down into little easy tasks that teach you to think like a computer scientist instead of passively listening to lectures with brilliant you get the tools and the framework that you need to tackle daily problems that are both fun and challenging and they're thought-provoking content which is based around breaking up these complexities into bite-sized understandable chunks will lead you from curiosity to mastery and you'll be in the company of over five and a half million members who share your curiosity and love for math and science so what are you waiting for you can support tech quickie and learn more about brilliant by clicking the link in the video description or going to brilliant org slash tech quickie and signing up for free the first 200 people to go to that link will get 20% off the annual premium subscription so be sure to check it out so thanks for watching guys like just like check out our other videos don't forget to leave us joshan if you have an idea for a future fast as possible that you'd like to see and as always subscribe to tech wiki always do it even if that means half the time your unsubscribing wait