Blended Braking & One-Pedal Driving with Bruce Wilson
Kilowatt: A Podcast about Electric VehiclesFebruary 07, 2024
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00:35:1732.32 MB

Blended Braking & One-Pedal Driving with Bruce Wilson

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[00:00.000 --> 00:30.000] Welcome to your 2023 work recap. This year, you've been to 127 sync meetings. You spent 56 minutes searching for files and almost missed eight deadlines. Yipe. 2024 can and should sound different. With Monday.com, you can work together easily, collaborate and share data, files and updates. So all work happens in one place and everyone's on the same page. Go to Monday.com or tap the banner to learn more. [00:30.000 --> 01:00.000] Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I'm proud to offer premium wireless for just $15 a month. And I'm proud that we have thousands of five-star reviews from customers like Dan D in New York who writes, I am satisfied customer. How can this only be $15? He wrote it in all caps. I needed you to feel it. Like he feels it. I hope I did that justice, Dan. And I hope that you try Mint 2 at Mint Mobile dot com slash Switch. Up front came in at $45 for three months required. New subscribers only for new for 12 months to lock in savings. Additional taxes fees and restrictions apply. The Mint Mobile dot com. [01:00.000 --> 01:29.680] Hello, everyone and welcome to Killawat, a podcast about electric vehicles, renewable energy, autonomous [01:29.680 --> 01:39.600] vehicles and much, much more. My name is Bodie and I am your host. And on today's episode, I sat down with Bruce Wilson. And we discussed [01:40.000 --> 01:46.320] misconceptions when it comes to EV braking systems. We talked about one pedal driving versus blended [01:46.320 --> 01:52.320] braking. It's a great conversation. I had a lot of fun hanging out with Bruce. If you're not familiar, Bruce is a member of our [01:52.320 --> 02:00.880] community. And in February of 2022, Bruce actually was on this podcast talking about his Kia Nero, which is [02:00.880 --> 02:05.840] episode 283. I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to go back and listen to that. It's a [02:05.840 --> 02:13.840] really good episode. But Bruce just isn't a podcast listener and EV owner. He's also a scientist. He's [02:13.920 --> 02:21.280] written several articles for Allison Sheridan's website at pod feet.com. He's a friend to the [02:21.280 --> 02:27.600] Killawat community. And he really just in general has a very inquisitive mind and wants to know how [02:27.600 --> 02:33.280] stuff works, which I would imagine is an occupational hazard if you're an actual scientist. So join me [02:33.280 --> 02:39.120] and welcoming Bruce to the show. Thanks, Bodie. I'm glad to be here. Appreciate it. I am very [02:39.120 --> 02:44.560] excited. We are going to be talking about braking systems and more specifically EV braking systems. [02:44.560 --> 02:50.960] But before we jump into that, could you just kind of give us a breakdown, just automobile braking [02:50.960 --> 02:56.480] systems in general? Sure. I've spent more time looking at a few of them. So there's things that [02:56.480 --> 03:01.840] I know less about. But we can start with the one that we're all used to seeing, which I'm going to [03:01.840 --> 03:08.640] call a friction brake. You've got a drum in older cars or discs in something new, and then you've [03:08.640 --> 03:16.000] got something that clamps a pad against that drum, against that disc. It slows the car down by friction. [03:17.520 --> 03:24.720] And that's what was on cars kind of since they were first made. The more you use them, we got to go [03:24.720 --> 03:30.720] in for a brake job, get the pads replaced, maybe get the rotors resurfaced, all of that sort of stuff. [03:31.440 --> 03:40.400] That evolved in the world of hybrids to this idea of using a generator. Because when you [03:40.400 --> 03:46.400] do friction braking, you're going to lose 100% of the energy. It gets dissipated as heat to use some [03:46.400 --> 03:55.120] fancy words in the deformation of the rotors and so forth. But they developed this blended [03:55.120 --> 04:00.240] braking system where you could use a motor running in reverse, which is a generator, [04:00.240 --> 04:05.520] and put some of that energy back into a battery. And now you could pull that energy back out [04:06.160 --> 04:13.120] and use it to move the car. And that's how those original hybrids were worked. There's certainly [04:13.120 --> 04:19.920] some other things around long enough that I can use a transmission and downshift and slow a car down. [04:19.920 --> 04:25.760] And we've all heard the trucks using a Jake brake or compression braking. Not going to get into [04:25.760 --> 04:32.640] that. But it's more this, what happens when I hit the brake pedal? It used to be, we'd put a clamp [04:32.640 --> 04:38.240] up against the disc and pretty friction that would slow things down. That's still the dominant [04:38.240 --> 04:47.200] braking and in hybrids, but you get some of it stored into a battery. But now we come into an EV and [04:47.200 --> 04:54.880] it's got much bigger motors in it. And it's got much bigger batteries. And so one of the [04:54.880 --> 05:01.600] innovations here is, well, hey, we got a whole lot more stopping power now with an EV because the [05:01.600 --> 05:09.760] amount that you can slow a car down with this regenerative braking, this idea of putting [05:09.760 --> 05:16.080] that energy of motion back into a battery, the amount that you can slow a car down is really [05:16.080 --> 05:21.520] related to how fast it can accelerate. So one of the cool things about EVs is they accelerate [05:21.520 --> 05:26.960] pretty quickly. Well, you can use that same thing running in reverse to stop a car pretty quickly [05:26.960 --> 05:33.360] without having to resort to a friction brake. Now every EV's got a friction brake. You need it [05:33.360 --> 05:37.920] for some things. You may need it for that last little bit. You may need it because you really [05:37.920 --> 05:42.960] need to stop in a hurry and you need more stopping power than you can get out of a regenerative braking [05:42.960 --> 05:49.920] system. But most of what they do, you know, where you get the more ranges, use the regenerative [05:49.920 --> 05:57.280] braking as much as you can. Okay. And then from there, let's go ahead and move into the different [05:57.280 --> 06:01.040] type of braking systems that can be found on EVs because a lot of people might think, [06:01.920 --> 06:08.400] including myself, and I've made this mistake several times, is that all of the braking systems are [06:08.880 --> 06:14.400] all the same for EVs. Like you let off your foot and it's not really braking, it's slowing you down. [06:15.280 --> 06:23.440] When I have my Tesla, for instance, and I put my foot on the brake, you had mentioned to me, [06:23.440 --> 06:26.720] now you're applying the friction brake as soon as you put your foot on the brake for the Tesla, [06:26.720 --> 06:33.040] and that's not necessarily the case for all EVs. That's exactly it. I mean, what we have to recognize [06:33.120 --> 06:40.080] is that Tesla in so many ways defined the modern electric vehicle. They were the first to [06:40.080 --> 06:45.680] sell all electric vehicles in any significant numbers. And if you go to Motortrend, for example, [06:45.680 --> 06:52.960] the Tesla Model Y was the fourth most popular vehicle sold in the United States for 2023. [06:52.960 --> 06:58.880] It was buying the Ford F-150, the Chevy Silverado, and the Ram pickup truck. So I put another way, [06:58.880 --> 07:06.080] Tesla Model Y in 2023 was the best-selling car in the United States. Cool accomplishment. [07:06.080 --> 07:11.600] Yeah. But Tesla made some interesting design decisions, and it's this question of what's the [07:11.600 --> 07:19.520] user interface? What happens when I push on the brake pedal? In any hybrid vehicle, [07:19.520 --> 07:25.680] when I push on the brake pedal, I'm going to engage the regenerative braking as much as it can, [07:25.680 --> 07:31.200] and it'll make up the balance with the friction brake. Tesla made a design decision that said, [07:31.200 --> 07:37.360] nope. When you press on the brake pedal in a Tesla, you're just going to get the friction brake. [07:37.360 --> 07:43.520] We're going to tie all of the regenerative braking into the accelerator, and what we sometimes call [07:43.520 --> 07:50.240] or often call one pedal driving. So push on the accelerator, I go faster, lift off on the accelerator, [07:50.240 --> 07:57.200] I go slower, and if you lift off the accelerator completely in a Tesla in one drive, one pedal driving [07:57.200 --> 08:06.880] mode, you're stopping fairly quickly, and it'll bring you to a complete stop. But other automakers [08:06.880 --> 08:12.720] made different decisions, and some made the same decision by that what's true for the Tesla, that the [08:12.720 --> 08:19.520] brake pedal is tied exclusively to the friction brake is true for Rivians, and it's true for Lucids. [08:20.560 --> 08:29.520] It's not true for any of the so-called legacy automakers. So I drive a Kia Niro EV. I've driven it [08:30.320 --> 08:38.320] about 30,000 miles. It does not have what a Tesla owner would call one pedal driving, although I can [08:38.320 --> 08:45.360] put it into a pretty aggressive regenerative braking when I lift off the accelerator, but for a [08:45.440 --> 08:52.960] variety of reasons, I don't use it that often. I drive my Kia Niro EV pretty much the same way [08:52.960 --> 08:59.840] I drive my 2000 and 4 pickup truck, which is, you know, ice vehicle, and that's part of why, [08:59.840 --> 09:06.720] because I don't want to have to change driving modes when I'm changing vehicles. But after 30,000 [09:06.720 --> 09:11.840] miles, I'm nowhere near needing a brake job. In fact, I just took it in for a checkup, and the [09:11.840 --> 09:17.280] mechanics tell them, yeah, you'll probably need a brake job at about 150,000 miles, [09:18.160 --> 09:24.400] which is, I think, consistent with most of what Tesla and other EV owners experience. [09:25.680 --> 09:32.160] But the point is, is the user interface is different. I press on the brake pedal on my EV, [09:32.960 --> 09:39.680] and it's going to use the regenerative braking as much as it can and only apply the friction [09:39.760 --> 09:46.320] braking if it needs more stopping power than what the regenerative system can provide. [09:47.200 --> 09:50.400] I can see that on the dashboard. It'll show me the little lights that say, [09:50.400 --> 09:56.000] here's how much energy you're pumping back into the battery. It's kind of cool, but it's a [09:56.000 --> 10:01.680] different design decision. But what I think that leads to, and I've seen this in a whole bunch of [10:01.680 --> 10:08.080] reviews, it was one I was watching of somebody looking at the Hyundai Onik 5. And he said, [10:08.080 --> 10:15.680] yep, it's got a one pedal driving mode, and you've got to turn the regenerative braking on [10:15.680 --> 10:22.640] with one pedal driving mode. But that's not true. The Hyundai Onik 5, just like every other Kia, [10:22.640 --> 10:32.400] Ford, Chevy, Hyundai, whatever, does this blended braking? You press on the brake pedal, [10:33.200 --> 10:38.640] it's going to engage the regenerative braking as much as it can and only bring in the friction [10:38.640 --> 10:44.880] braking when it's needed. Okay, I think that's a really good way of putting this. [10:44.880 --> 10:49.040] Is there any other type of system that we haven't mentioned out there? [10:51.520 --> 10:58.000] There might be, but there's none that I know of or that I've studied. It's just really this [10:58.000 --> 11:06.640] question of what's the user interface that I ask my car to slow down and how does that car [11:07.280 --> 11:13.840] react to that user interface and which is it using? Is it using a friction brake or is it using [11:13.840 --> 11:21.520] regenerative braking? Okay, and can you think of, and if you can, it's okay, I can cut this part out, [11:21.520 --> 11:24.960] but can you think of any advantages over one system over another? [11:26.960 --> 11:34.080] You talked about a while back about Hertz's experience bringing Teslas into their rental fleet, [11:34.080 --> 11:39.680] and if you're not used to driving something with one pedal driving, it really takes some adjustment. [11:41.600 --> 11:48.320] I think Bart Bouchat's has commented on this. I've spoken with Allison. Most people that I know [11:48.320 --> 11:55.360] that use one pedal driving really like it. Allison talks about it being less fatiguing [11:56.320 --> 12:05.520] to do that, but it's an adjustment. And it's also interesting that same [12:06.560 --> 12:11.440] review about an IONIQ 5, I had to laugh because both the husband and wife that were involved in [12:11.440 --> 12:17.440] the review preferred driving in one pedal driving mode. But the wife made a comment that she said, [12:17.440 --> 12:22.640] actually I know when you're driving, I'd rather you didn't because I feel like the car jerks around [12:22.640 --> 12:29.280] a little bit more, some of that little husband and wife banter back and forth. And there have [12:29.280 --> 12:37.040] been a few articles that want to take potshots at Tesla because everybody wants to take potshots. [12:37.040 --> 12:44.880] Sometimes it, potshots at people who are successful is one way to get attention and use and so forth. [12:47.760 --> 12:55.920] But so in a blended braking system, the driver doesn't have to learn how to do anything new. [12:57.360 --> 13:04.480] So I think that's an advantage. And I think the system like in many of the EVs, [13:04.480 --> 13:10.880] where it's a driver's choice, do I want to be in one pedal driving mode or do I not? [13:10.880 --> 13:19.920] And by the way, the car should remember it. There is also another issue. There's a terrifying, [13:19.920 --> 13:25.200] I think, video the Consumer Reports published where they showed an IONIQ 5, [13:25.920 --> 13:36.560] decelerating in one pedal driving mode. The brake lights never come on. Now, Hyundai has fixed that. [13:36.560 --> 13:45.600] So you know that you're in one pedal driving mode, you're pretty much only using regenerative [13:45.600 --> 13:51.280] braking. So you've got that degree of control. But it's also true that if you're hitting the brake [13:51.280 --> 13:57.840] pedal at all, your brake lights are on. So if you're in one pedal driving mode, you don't have [13:57.840 --> 14:03.600] control over what you're signaling to the drivers behind you about whether or not you're [14:03.600 --> 14:10.640] accelerating or decelerating, sorry. I don't think I'm worried about that today. [14:11.600 --> 14:19.520] I dug into that as part of researching this. And again, while Tesla has made some design [14:19.520 --> 14:24.560] decisions that I don't think I'll ever buy one, I have to also acknowledge that they've done a [14:24.560 --> 14:30.640] great job with a bunch of the engineering things and what I'm reading and with the acceleration stuff [14:30.640 --> 14:36.080] and sort of what I've observed, it can be pretty comfortable in most electric vehicles, [14:36.080 --> 14:42.320] certainly Teslas and with what Hyundai and Kia have fixed. And there's that if you're decelerating [14:42.320 --> 14:46.960] significantly with one pedal driving, your brake lights are going to come on. [14:47.760 --> 14:53.600] Based on our test on the street, I don't remember my house, even if you lift off a little bit, [14:53.600 --> 14:58.720] the brake lights do come on on a Tesla. I don't know about Rivian or Lucid, but I would imagine there's [14:58.720 --> 15:05.920] probably some sort of law or if there's not, there should be regulation that actually has to take place. [15:06.640 --> 15:12.160] There should be and Kia's response and that puts some numbers in it is that they're turning on [15:12.160 --> 15:21.600] the brake pedal if there's more than 0.13 Gs of deceleration. And 0.13 Gs I did the math is [15:22.480 --> 15:30.480] stopping from 0 to 60 in about 30 seconds, not real fast. I mean, not a lot of deceleration. [15:31.840 --> 15:42.560] Tesla is apparently more nuanced than that. So if you're at slow speeds, less deceleration will [15:42.560 --> 15:50.880] cause the brake lights to come on again, making sense. So it's not a simple formula in those cases. [15:50.880 --> 15:57.040] I think there's also an interesting question. There's a lot of people who firmly believe that [15:57.040 --> 16:02.880] one pedal driving is more efficient. A couple of people who groups that I've read have tried [16:02.880 --> 16:11.120] to study it and nobody has presented any evidence that's conclusive. There was a study in the [16:11.120 --> 16:16.800] laboratory where they're putting up, you know, on one of these laboratory things with the rotors [16:16.880 --> 16:24.400] and so forth. And they saw a significant difference in that environment. But when they tried to [16:24.400 --> 16:31.520] replicate that experiment out in the real world, if anything that their data said maybe one pedal [16:31.520 --> 16:37.840] driving is a little less efficient than a blended braking because there's a little bit of movement [16:37.840 --> 16:43.760] and you're kind of constantly oscillating back and forth a little bit between accelerating decelerating [16:44.640 --> 16:53.200] depending on how you're doing it. So my conclusion is it doesn't make a big difference in the efficiency. [16:53.200 --> 16:58.880] Again, I'm driving a vehicle that doesn't really have it. I actually get pretty close to the EPA [16:58.880 --> 17:04.960] numbers for my Keanuero. Over 30,000 miles, I've averaged four miles to the kilowatt hour, [17:07.280 --> 17:12.320] which is a pretty good number. So at least I can be efficient without it. [17:13.040 --> 17:21.840] So it really should just be as a driver, what do I like? What's best for me in this situation? [17:23.200 --> 17:29.760] The current Kia's and Hyundai's, again, I've looked at those because they had some things that I [17:29.760 --> 17:36.560] particularly like and an update to mine. I've actually got automatic mode, which if there's [17:36.560 --> 17:46.000] nothing in front of me has a fairly light lift off deceleration. But if I lift off the accelerator [17:46.000 --> 17:52.240] because I'm moving over to the brake and there's something in front of me, it's going to apply a [17:52.240 --> 17:57.600] much more aggressive deceleration. I happen to like that mode a lot and that's actually [17:57.600 --> 18:06.080] normally where I leave my car. Okay, what happens? I'm going to assume this is the same for all [18:06.080 --> 18:12.480] electric vehicles. When I charge my Tesla up to 100% and then I leave, there's no [18:13.280 --> 18:16.640] regenerative braking whatsoever. That's 100% friction. [18:17.520 --> 18:24.480] It's probably not for the first little bit, but probably get a mile or two down the road [18:25.360 --> 18:33.120] and you've got some buffer left in your battery and you're going to get regenerative braking. [18:33.920 --> 18:38.320] Again, it depends on what kind of battery you've got. If you've got an LFP battery, [18:38.320 --> 18:43.120] sure, charge it up to 100%. That's what it wants. If you've got one of those [18:44.160 --> 18:50.640] the regular lithium ion, like is in most Tesla's and in my Kia, I almost never charge more than 80%. [18:51.440 --> 18:58.880] So I've always got some buffer. If you're at real low speed, the regenerative braking might [18:58.880 --> 19:06.400] not give you much. I know on my car that last little stop is always with the friction brake from [19:06.400 --> 19:12.640] like two miles an hour to zero or something like that. I've read whether or not that's true for [19:12.640 --> 19:19.280] Teslas. I don't find any consistent. So it's probably possible that that last little, you know, [19:19.920 --> 19:25.520] from two miles an hour to zero might be engaging a friction brake behind your back, but [19:26.480 --> 19:31.120] you're not going to get much regenerative energy out of it. And it's not really spending [19:31.840 --> 19:38.080] that much off the friction brake, which is why EVs were using regenerative braking, [19:38.800 --> 19:47.120] you know, 100 to 150,000 miles for a brake job is not unusual as opposed to 10 or 15,000 miles [19:47.120 --> 19:53.120] for a brake job on a typical ice vehicle. And maybe you got to get the rotors done at 30 or 40,000 [19:53.120 --> 20:00.160] miles pulling on this one pedal driving. You know, so there is one thing that isn't a real high [20:00.160 --> 20:08.160] risk for you or for me, but if you really love one pedal driving, don't buy a Porsche. Porsche [20:08.160 --> 20:12.880] for whatever reason is, nope, we're not doing one pedal driving, not a feature on our vehicles. [20:15.200 --> 20:19.920] So they just use blended braking or the use of towels? They just use the blended braking mode. [20:20.720 --> 20:24.400] So, you know, there's the full spectrum. [20:25.600 --> 20:30.480] Well, if you have those beautiful red calipers, you have to use them, I guess. [20:31.440 --> 20:32.640] That's what they are. [20:32.640 --> 20:38.320] I mean, they're still using the regenerative braking, but they just said, nope, we don't [20:38.320 --> 20:43.680] think one pedal driving is efficient. So there's so many of some of these things that are, [20:44.800 --> 20:49.360] I guess I would kind of say, emotional perspectives are people stake at a particular [20:49.440 --> 20:52.400] position, and they're just going to hammer on that. [20:53.680 --> 21:01.200] Nope, that's 100%. And that goes back to overall, you should buy the car that speaks to you the [21:01.200 --> 21:05.200] most. So if you don't like the way a Tesla drives, maybe it's because of one pedal driving, [21:05.200 --> 21:07.840] and you don't know how to articulate that because you don't know the difference, [21:07.840 --> 21:13.120] or maybe it's just because of the way the car drives in general, then fine. That's fine. [21:13.120 --> 21:19.360] There's the F-150 Lightning. There's the Mustang. There's all of the Hyundai and Kia, [21:19.360 --> 21:25.200] which they're knocking it out of the park with their EVs. There's so many different places you [21:25.200 --> 21:28.320] can go to and Polestar being one of them as well. [21:29.520 --> 21:37.440] Polestar is also one that does either. It'll do blended braking. So Polestar is the only one of the [21:38.400 --> 21:45.040] EV-only manufacturers that I'm aware of that doesn't insist that you have to use one pedal [21:45.040 --> 21:50.240] driving to get regenerative braking. So it's just a question to ask. [21:51.600 --> 21:58.240] I think Bart mentioned that when you save it, it stays there. It doesn't reset when you get back [21:58.240 --> 22:05.920] in the car. And that is a knock. I've been out and out driven the IHONIC 5 and the IHONIC 6. [22:05.920 --> 22:13.600] I like them, but they won't stay in one pedal driving mode. You have to turn it on every time [22:13.600 --> 22:17.920] you turn the vehicle on if that's what you want. They'll stay in this automatic mode, [22:17.920 --> 22:23.520] but they won't stay in one pedal driving mode, which I think is frustrating. [22:25.280 --> 22:31.040] Sure. That seems to be if you're going to offer the choice and somebody picks it, [22:31.040 --> 22:32.800] they're going to want to pick it every single time. [22:33.600 --> 22:38.560] Yep. Or tie it to which key got used or whatever have you. I mean, sure. [22:39.440 --> 22:45.280] My Ford knew that if this key got used, put the driver's seat in this position and if that key [22:45.280 --> 22:52.880] got used, put it in the position where my wife likes the seat. I did have to laugh. I test driven [22:52.880 --> 22:59.280] F-150 because one and two and it was cool. And I'd been out and done the loop. And again, I didn't [22:59.280 --> 23:04.000] have it in one pedal driving mode, but I pulled back into the lot. And as I was turning it off, [23:04.000 --> 23:08.960] there was one of these alerts that came up on the screen and said, great job. You got all of your [23:08.960 --> 23:17.200] braking through regenerative braking because I was driving without a lot of harsh acceleration [23:17.200 --> 23:24.160] and deceleration and so forth. So I had to laugh the affirmation for more vehicles. [23:24.880 --> 23:29.600] So I was going to say, it's a nice little affirmation. I would like that in my car. [23:30.800 --> 23:37.440] I don't know how many great jobs I would get based on my driving, but it would be nice to have one [23:37.440 --> 23:44.880] every now and again be appreciated. We have a little bit more time left, Bruce. Do you want [23:44.880 --> 23:50.800] to talk about other EVs that you're looking at and considering for your next EV? I know we've [23:50.880 --> 23:59.440] had this conversation a little bit online. I go back and forth. One of the features that I really [23:59.440 --> 24:07.200] like about the Kia and Hyundai vehicles is that they have paddle shifters. So with the paddle shifters, [24:08.480 --> 24:16.400] I can dynamically control the level of liftoff regenerative braking. How close am I to this one [24:16.480 --> 24:26.480] pedal driving mode? And I do use that quite a bit on my car. I tried to describe it to Allison [24:26.480 --> 24:31.920] at one point and her reaction says, well, that just sounds way too complicated. And maybe it is, [24:31.920 --> 24:38.880] maybe it's fiddly, but it's one of the things that I like. I think that the adaptive cruise control [24:38.880 --> 24:46.000] is important in being able to control from the steering wheel, the steering wheel mounted [24:46.000 --> 24:53.120] controls. What's my following distance? So I'm actually most of the time in no pedal driving mode. [24:53.120 --> 24:59.440] So even in city traffic, I'm just using the adaptive cruise control to set a ceiling for how [24:59.440 --> 25:08.160] fast am I going? And how close am I following behind the vehicle in front of me? And I'll [25:09.280 --> 25:15.920] tighten that spacing up. It still won't go quite as close as I need to be in true stop and go traffic. [25:16.560 --> 25:23.120] But as long as I'm not on an interstate and stop and go traffic, it's still pretty good. And I'm [25:23.200 --> 25:30.080] leaving a little bit more room in terms of what some folks are doing. So I like those [25:30.080 --> 25:38.160] vehicles. I listened to what Bard had to say about the Polestar. That's interesting. I'm a [25:38.160 --> 25:45.680] little bit reluctant about some of these. The nearest Rivian repair location is three hours [25:46.320 --> 25:59.360] from where I live. So that one intrigues me. I've driven the R1T. I could get used to it. [26:01.760 --> 26:08.400] I do have this life where I'm driving the EV and a pickup truck and I wouldn't mind consolidating [26:08.400 --> 26:18.240] to one vehicle. So the Rivian R1T is possible. The IONIQ 5 can actually, in the US, take a trailer [26:18.240 --> 26:24.400] hitch and they'll rate it to pull about 2,000 pounds. So that would give me a way to put a trailer [26:24.400 --> 26:30.480] and a way to haul sheets of plywood and some of the other stuff or a trailer load of mulch or a [26:30.480 --> 26:37.520] trailer load of stone or some of what I'm doing. Right now, mostly what I'm going to do is wait [26:37.520 --> 26:45.200] and see what comes out for the next generation and what are the vehicles that come out with the [26:45.200 --> 26:52.320] North American charging standard connector built into them. I should be able to get an adapter for [26:52.320 --> 27:02.560] my Kia and that'll be fine. But I think I'd like to move when stuff is ironed its way out to something [27:02.640 --> 27:10.800] that has the next standard. I don't road trip a lot in that car. And part of where I go, there's a [27:10.800 --> 27:20.800] 35 mile stretch that has no gas stations, much less no charging station. And when I leave [27:21.360 --> 27:28.320] Knoxville, Tennessee, which is where I live and go to Asheville, there are no charging stations [27:28.400 --> 27:36.480] once I get past Gatlinburg. So that's a 90 mile stretch and you're going up the mountain. [27:37.760 --> 27:46.720] So I think Bart was also talking about range being important for him. I've got about 240 miles of [27:46.720 --> 27:56.720] range with that Kia Niro EV under most circumstances. I think I'd really want to push it to about 300 [27:56.720 --> 28:04.960] because 300 lets me get to Asheville and either home or at least as far back as Gatlinburg. [28:04.960 --> 28:13.280] And I don't have to deal with the limited charging infrastructure in Asheville. That probably also [28:13.280 --> 28:19.520] gives me enough to get to some of the other places that I'd want to get to from here where [28:20.480 --> 28:25.760] this part of the country, electric vehicle charging infrastructure is pretty sparse. [28:27.840 --> 28:35.440] Do you know if Tennessee's working with those federal funds for bolstering the charging [28:35.440 --> 28:46.240] infrastructure in Tennessee? Haven't seen much of an indication in electric vehicles and electric [28:46.320 --> 28:58.000] vehicle infrastructure has unfortunately become political in some of the ways that folks look at [28:58.000 --> 29:06.240] it. And there's a contingent that if one side is arguing for something, the other one's going to [29:06.240 --> 29:11.840] argue against it just on general principles, even if it's something that rational people might [29:12.720 --> 29:19.840] otherwise want to agree on. So I think there's some of that in play. I haven't seen a lot of it. [29:21.600 --> 29:31.600] But it was interesting that on the batteries included Kyle Connor had going down to Rock Hill, [29:31.600 --> 29:38.480] South Carolina, which is a deeply conservative part of the country. And he was talking about [29:38.480 --> 29:44.480] this brand new charger that was in Rock Hill. So there's some of it happening here and there, [29:45.280 --> 29:48.480] but I'm not sure how much is getting driven at the state level. [29:50.240 --> 29:57.520] Well, I will say that I did a little search and on February 1st from the Longview News Journal, [29:58.960 --> 30:06.400] let's see, Tennessee awards $21 million in federal funds for EV chargers that gets 10 applicants [30:06.480 --> 30:11.600] out of 23 that will allow them to build 30 new charging stations in Tennessee. [30:14.640 --> 30:19.920] Oh, excuse me, there's 167 applicants. So, you know, the funds are getting out there. [30:19.920 --> 30:26.480] They received 88 million in federal funding for five years of funding the project. So if 23 gets [30:26.480 --> 30:33.920] you 10, let's see, if 21 million gets you 10, so 40 EV chargers across Tennessee. I don't know if [30:33.920 --> 30:38.160] that's chargers are charging stations. Oh, it's charging stations, charging stations. [30:38.720 --> 30:44.160] So, you know, we'll see how all of that goes and that the whole transition to the Tesla charging [30:44.720 --> 30:52.720] connector, the North American charging standard and how much that opens up the super charging network. [30:52.720 --> 30:58.720] Again, part of what I have to give props to Tesla for the Tesla super charging network is [30:58.720 --> 31:05.840] hands down by a wide margin, the most reliable and widespread charging infrastructure in the United [31:05.840 --> 31:13.760] States. Yeah, I, okay, so I understand that I'm blessed by living in a big city that has a lot of [31:13.760 --> 31:21.120] Teslas anyway, but I had left my house for an errand. I went to the store that I need to go to. [31:21.120 --> 31:24.960] They're like, it's not at the store. It's at the other store. So I went to the other store. They're [31:24.960 --> 31:28.000] like, it's not at the store. It's the other store. I'm going further. I live in the East Valley. I'm [31:28.000 --> 31:33.760] going further and further West. I did not leave my my house. I left my house with about 50% battery [31:34.560 --> 31:38.640] and I was like, man, if they tell me to go to one more store West, I'm going to have to start [31:38.640 --> 31:47.440] looking stuff up. And I get my item that I need to buy. I'm coming back home and I'm on the freeway [31:47.440 --> 31:52.800] and I'm not even looking for a charger, but I am hungry. So I pull over a place that I know that [31:52.800 --> 31:59.760] has some fast food places, get my food, pull out of the fast food place, NAC, like, I don't know, [32:01.040 --> 32:08.240] 12 or 14 Tesla chargers and they're all empty, except for maybe three. And I was like, oh, well, [32:08.240 --> 32:13.840] this is nice. So I charged, I made my lunch, charged up to 200, watch TV. And then what about [32:13.840 --> 32:19.440] my day? It was, it was a nice little happy coincidence. The only thing I did get, this is the opposite [32:19.520 --> 32:24.000] of those affirmations that we were talking about. Affirmations, excuse me, that we were talking about [32:24.000 --> 32:30.320] is the my car was like, Hey, the next time you want to do this precondition, precondition before [32:30.320 --> 32:36.160] coming there. And I was like, I get it, but I wasn't planning on charging the car. So stop yelling at me. [32:36.160 --> 32:48.160] But other than that. And last, we built this house in 2019. So we moved in six months before [32:48.160 --> 32:55.280] COVID. And I knew that this was a direction I wanted to go. So I've got a 50 amp circuit in the garage [32:55.920 --> 33:06.880] that was intended for EV charging. And I've got that charger. I actually rarely use the full 40 amp [33:06.880 --> 33:12.800] capability. And again, just a reminder for folks, you know, boaty firefighter, you deal with emergency [33:12.800 --> 33:18.960] situations, you got to have that 20% buffer on the capacity, because you're pulling current for a [33:18.960 --> 33:24.960] long period of time and stuff gets hot. And by the way, I would also argue that if you had an [33:24.960 --> 33:31.840] electrician install your EV charger, bring that electrician back after a year, have them make [33:31.840 --> 33:37.840] sure that the connections are all still solid, because you're pulling a lot of juice through [33:37.840 --> 33:44.240] them circuit. Now again, people pay attention to EV fires and all of that other sort of stuff. [33:44.240 --> 33:49.600] Why do you not read about gasoline fires and so forth in garages? Because it ain't news. [33:51.440 --> 33:59.680] It happened. Yeah, I was on one on it was either on Christmas or New Year's. We were on a right [33:59.680 --> 34:06.160] around that time. We were on a car fire in a garage that was a gasoline car. So I think we're going to [34:06.160 --> 34:10.400] end that here, Bruce, do you have anything you want to promote or a place that you would like [34:10.400 --> 34:16.000] to send people to follow what you do? I think the places I would send folks are to kill a lot [34:16.000 --> 34:21.280] podcast, a great place to listen and to the pod feet. You know, everything good starts with pod [34:21.280 --> 34:26.640] feet, including some pointers back to kill a lot. But if somebody wanted to reach out and got on to [34:26.640 --> 34:32.960] the pod feet slack, I'm there. You can find me probably by searching by name, but I also go by [34:32.960 --> 34:39.600] that handle of use the data. Okay. If you want to go to the pod feet slack, I'll put a link in the [34:39.600 --> 34:46.560] show notes pod feet calm slash lack. Yep, Allison's got a great community of folks over there. [34:48.160 --> 34:52.240] All right, Bruce, thank you so much for coming on and spending your Saturday morning with me. [34:53.040 --> 34:55.200] I appreciate your time and I appreciate all you do, sir. [34:57.840 --> 35:02.640] If there's one thing that my family and friends know me for, it's being an amazing gift giver. [35:02.640 --> 35:08.960] I owe it all to celebrations passport from 1800flowers.com. My one stop shopping site that has amazing [35:08.960 --> 35:14.320] gifts for every occasion with celebrations passport. I get free shipping on thousands of amazing [35:14.320 --> 35:20.080] gifts and the more gifts I give, the more perks and rewards I earn to learn more and take your gift [35:20.080 --> 35:27.840] giving to the next level. Visit 1800flowers.com slash a cast. That's 1800flowers.com slash a cast. [35:27.840 --> 35:33.040] Find your perfect fit with a custom suit from Indochino from timeless classics to bold statements. [35:33.040 --> 35:38.560] You can express your style exactly how you want. Get 10% off any purchase of $3.99 or more at [35:38.560 --> 35:50.320] indochino.com with code podcast. All right, I want to thank Bruce for his time. He's actually [35:50.320 --> 35:56.880] working on an article on this very topic. And once he has finished it, that will be posted on [35:57.520 --> 36:03.120] Alison Sheridan's web page, which is pod feet dot com. And just one more time before we go, [36:03.120 --> 36:08.320] because Bruce is such a nice human being. I want to thank him again for coming on and chatting with [36:08.320 --> 36:14.560] me. If you have questions or comments about today's show, go ahead and email me. It's Bodee B-O-D-I-E [36:14.560 --> 36:22.720] at 918digital.com. You can also find me on Twitter at 918digital. I am actually attempting to get [36:22.800 --> 36:29.440] the show back on track again. I know it's a couple of days slip in terms of when I release the show. [36:29.440 --> 36:36.960] So Friday's show should be a news show. And then next Tuesday's show, we'll talk about Ford's earnings [36:36.960 --> 36:45.760] call. Okay, I hope everybody has a wonderful week. And I will talk to you on Friday. Oh, yeah, and [36:45.760 --> 36:51.600] please check out the show notes if you are interested in joining the pod feet slack channel. [36:51.600 --> 36:55.200] Or if you just would like more information on what Alison's doing. [37:12.480 --> 37:16.400] The Valentine's Wresha is here. If you haven't already ordered a bouquet that's guaranteed to [37:16.400 --> 37:21.840] wow from 1-800-flowers.com, listen up. Right now, when you lock in your order today, [37:21.840 --> 37:26.960] you'll save over 20% off two dozen romantic red roses. Plus, you'll get a free vase. [37:26.960 --> 37:32.000] This offer from 1-800-flowers is only good while supplies last. 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