5 Things You Need to Know About Electric Vehicles

With gas prices still trending high, it felt like the right time for us to give you a long-requested conversation about electric vehicles and our experience with them.

1. Electric vehicles have been in development for more than a century.

2. Government-supported research and private innovation made practical mass-market EVs possible.

3. Yes, EVs really are better for the environment than gas-powered vehicles.

4. It's going to take some work to scale up EVs.

5. Owning an EV requires manageable planning.

Thank you for being a part of our community! We couldn't do it we do without you. To become a financial supporter of the show, please visit our Patreon page, subscribe to our Premium content on Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, purchase a copy of our book, I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening), or share the word about our work in your own circles.

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EPISODE RESOURCES

EXCITING PROJECTS AT PANTSUIT POLITICS

• Get tickets to our live show in Waco, Texas on April 30th with Clint Harp!

• Pre-Order our new book Now What?

• Join the launch team for Now What?

• 5 Things You Need to Know Spotify Playlist

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• H.R.8800 - Electric Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act (Congress.gov)

• The History of the Electric Car (Energy.gov)

• VETO OF THE ELECTRIC AND HYBRID VEHICLE RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND DEMONSTRATION ACT OF 1976 (Senate.gov)

• Worth the Watt: A Brief History of the Electric Car, 1830 to Present (Car and Driver)

• Electric Vehicles (U.S. Department of Transportation | Federal Highway Administration)

• Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Electric and Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles (U.S. Department of Energy | Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy)

• Electric Vehicle Myths (United States Environmental Protection Agency)

• Are electric cars ‘green’? The answer is yes, but it’s complicated (CNBC)

• How Does the Federal Tax Credit for Electric Cars Work? (J.D. Power)

• Policies to promote electric vehicle deployment (IEA)

• The road to an EV future still has a few potholes. Here's how to fix them (World Economic Forum) 

• Plug-in cars are the future. The grid isn’t ready. (The Washington Post)

TRANSCRIPT

News Caster [00:00:00] President Biden celebrated the move by an Australian electric vehicle charging company to build its first factory on US soil. Joining us now to talk more about this Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. So is this  opening the door to more, Secretary Pete? 

Pete Buttigieg [00:00:18] We think so. We're really encouraged to see not only more and more manufacturing of electric vehicles here in the US, but also of the chargers that you're going to use to fill them up. You know, when we talk about US auto and auto related manufacturing, it's not just about nostalgia for the old days, it's about getting into the future. 

Sarah [00:00:40] This is Sarah Stewart Holland. 

Beth [00:00:42] And this is Beth Silvers. 

Sarah [00:00:44] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. 

Beth [00:01:00] Hello and thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics where we try to take a different approach to the news. One way we take that different approach is by prioritizing curiosity. Every month or so, we like to focus on a specific topic and break down some things that we think everyone should know about it, but perhaps none of us have had time to look into. Today, by very popular demand, we are sharing five things you need to know about electric vehicles. 

Sarah [00:01:25] Before we get started, we've been talking a lot about our upcoming book and how much it means to us for you to preorder it. There's a link to do that in the show notes of this episode. And another great way to get the book, in your hot little hands before it actually comes out, is to come join us in Waco for our live show on April 30th. It's going to be so fun. We're going to be with HGTV and Magnolia Network star Clint Harp. So if you haven't bought your tickets to Waco already, make sure and follow the link in the show notes and do that today. The VIP experience is already sold out, I'm sad to say, but we're going to have a lot of fun in there. But you can still get seats for the show and come live all your magnolia dreams in Waco with us on April 30th. We are less than a month out. So you want to lock down your tickets while you can. 

Beth [00:02:20] Usually in our five things episodes, we're trying to understand a topic that is outside of our day-to-day experience. So you can hear episodes from us about the Federal Reserve or abortion law or parliamentary systems. We have a whole playlist filled with these episodes that will link in the notes. Today is different because this topic is not outside our everyday experience. Sarah, we both own electric vehicles. So let's start by talking about that. When did you buy your Tesla and why did you get it? 

Sarah [00:02:49] Well, I have to say it was very informed by your experience with your Tesla because you were super skeptical when your husband got your Tesla. And I was too. I hope Chad doesn't listen to this. We both rolled our eyes. 

Beth [00:03:04] He's aware. 

Sarah [00:03:06] He knows. But it won you over and then you won me over. And my husband was driving what we lovingly called the Tic-Tac. It was just a Nissan Versa. It was a stick shift. It had manual doors and windows, like, you had to get out and use the key to unlock the trunk, which is fine. Nothing wrong with any of those things, except for it wasn't really functional as a second family car. Like, if I wanted to take it, like, I was going flying out of Nashville, I was not going to drive the Tic-Tac to Nashville, you know. So we really needed a more fully functional second family car. And I was so impressed by your experience of the Tesla, and I thought, I like to diversify. I like to have lots of options in my portfolio, including my transportation portfolio, which I'm feeling very good about right now, considering the price of gas. 

[00:03:57] And so I said, "Nicholas, let's get a Tesla." And he scoffed so hard. And this is my moment to just really luxuriate in how right I was about it because I had to fight him. Like, we actually got in a fight when we went in Test Drive 1 because he's a six, and so he just wanted to be like, worst case scenario, this is going to be great, this is too much money. We got it. He freakin loves that car. He gets to drive it every day after being such a punk about not wanting to get it. But that's okay. So we got ours almost a year ago, Father's Day of last year, and we both stinkin love it so much. 

Beth [00:04:33] Well, here's the difference between Nicholas and me. I can have a what are we doing opinion without arguing about it?

Sarah [00:04:43] Can you teach him how? 

Beth [00:04:44] I have learned over time that Chad knows what he wants. He likes technology. He likes being an early adopter. He is often right; although, we do have some pretty dumb things sitting around our house that we don't need, but most of the time he's right. And so here's what happened. Chad bought stock at a very low price in Tesla early on because, again, he is a tech person and he is an early adopter, and he believed in what they were doing. And then when they announced the Model Three, he reserved one. 

Sarah [00:05:17] Was that offered to people who own stock or just anybody? 

Beth [00:05:20] I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that we waited 900 days to get the car. 

Sarah [00:05:28] I do remember that. I remember the Tesla was on order for a very long time. 

Beth [00:05:33] Yes. So he watched how the technology was progressing. He felt really good about it. And then we got the car and he absolutely loved it. He loved how fast it accelerated. 

Sarah [00:05:45] It goes so fast. 

Beth [00:05:45] He loved all the tech in the car. We both learned to love the fact that we got an update for the car the same way we get updates on our phones. It's really fun to drive. So it did rapidly won me over. I went from thinking this was the dumbest. Waiting 900 days for a car seemed like the dumbest to me. And the price seemed like the dumbest. But I quickly came to see that this was a great investment for us because we've had it now. It's a 2018 model. It's one of the first Model 3s that was made, and it's just good as new. It's a fantastic car. So let's talk about the five things we want you to know about electric vehicles in general. And the first thing is that this isn't all as novel as it seemed to me when Chad made that order. Electric vehicles have been in development for more than 100 years. 

Sarah [00:06:35] Yeah, this really surprised me. The story of electric cars has a lot of stops and starts. There are more. Prepare yourself. So it goes back to the 1800s, inventors in Hungary, the Netherlands and the U.S. had been working on small scale electric cars. Robert Anderson, a Scottish inventor, developed an electric carriage around this time too. Now, batteries can recharge, obviously, in the 1800s. So as car and driver put it, this was more a parlor trick than transportation. Like, look, no horse or ox and yet it moves all the same. 

Beth [00:07:11] I'll tell you what, Chad Silvers would have had that carriage if we had lived then. Wouldn't care. Look how neat this is, we got to try it. 

Sarah [00:07:18] So Robert Davidson, also Scottish, built a prototype electric train. By 1841, his version could go up to 1.5 miles at four miles per hour, towing six tons. But some people are not early adopters. Some people's jobs depend on taking care of steam engines like the railway workers, and they destroyed his model. I don't want to know any more details about that, it's sad enough as it is. 

Beth [00:07:45] Can I tell you just one though? When I was reading about this, I learned that they called it the devil machine. 

Sarah [00:07:52] Oh! Crass. 

Beth [00:07:53] There's nothing new under the Sun. 

Sarah [00:07:55] That's right. 

Beth [00:07:55] The first successful electric cars were built by French and English inventors. In the United States. A Des Moines, Iowa, chemist named Williams Morrison, also of Scottish descent, built a six passenger electric car in 1890. Its top speed was 14 miles per hour. That got the wheels turning in the US, Hong Kong, and by 1900 electric cars accounted for one third of all vehicles on the road. This took my breath away that we had a real surge of electric cars alongside internal combustion engines powered by gasoline and steam. New York City even had a fleet of 60 electric taxis and electric cars were selling well. Porsche developed an electric car called The P1 in 1898. Now, why were electric cars popular? They didn't have the issues that steam and gas powered vehicles had. Gas powered vehicles especially were noisy, and they admitted really gross exhaust. 

[00:08:55] There are lots of stories about this time period saying that women especially liked the quiet and clean power of electricity for short trips around the city. These were city vehicles. This was not happening in rural areas. More people were gaining access in cities, though, to electricity in the early 1800s, so charging cars got easier. And fun historic political fact, President William McKinley was rushed to the hospital in an electric powered ambulance after he was shot during a tour of the Temple of Music in 1901. He survived that gunshot wound, but then died of an infection eight days later. 

Sarah [00:09:31] Yeah, the electric car technology was advancing, but we are still pretty behind on germ theory at the time. So people were into it, including Henry Ford. And I guess you mentioned Claire Ford, his wife, who thought that the Model T was dirty and noisy, and so she still drove an electric car. So he partnered with Thomas Edison to explore better ways to build low cost electric cars. But he also caused electric cars to fall out of favor when his company produced the Model T. By 1912, Ford was selling Model T's for about $650, and the electric roadster were selling at the time for about 1750. So the price point drove up the popularity of the Model T. 

Beth [00:10:11] Electric vehicles also struggled because we started building more roads, connecting cities across America, and people wanted to go further distances. And then crude oil gets discovered in Texas, and so gas became cheap and easy to get in rural America, which did not have the kind of access to electricity that was available in cities. And so we start to see gas stations popping up all over the country, and it's that convergence more roads, more gas stations, cheaper gas, convenient gas, that basically caused electric vehicles to disappear by1935. And we see almost no development in this space for the next three decades 

Sarah [00:10:51] Until gas prices go up again in the 1960s. Oil prices skyrocketed. Gasoline was in short supply, and that's when people started pressing for a more concerted effort on EVs. In 1965, Ralph Nader testified before a Senate committee that General Electric could absolutely produce an electric car that would go up to 200 miles on a charge and up to 80 miles per hour. But he was conspiring -- I love Ralph Nader, but he leans heavily on the conspiratorial energy -- with auto and oil industries to hide this technology. Now, GE released an experimental car in 1967 that could go 55 miles an hour for about 40 miles. 

Beth [00:11:27] We're going to link an article from Car and Driver about this history in the show notes, and you should go look at this experimental car. It is very, very, ugly. And that was a problem too. You know, people did not get it excited about it. In 1976, Congress passed the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research Development and Demonstration Act. This bill was sponsored by Representative Mike McCormick, a Washington State Democrat. He introduced it in July 1975. It passed both the House and the Senate, and then President Gerald Ford vetoed it. President Ford wrote a message to the House that said in part, this bill would establish a five year, $160 million research, development and demonstration project to promote the development of an electric vehicle that could function as a practical alternative to the gasoline powered automobile. 

[00:12:15] One of the major objectives of the project would be the development and purchase by the federal government of some 7500 demonstration electric vehicles. Such developments would cover some of the area's private industry stands ready to pursue. So this is the thing, President Ford said the government has a role here, but the role should be on battery research and we should let private industry explore the development of the actual cars. But Congress overrode that veto. 

Sarah [00:12:41] Worth noting that President Ford is from Michigan. But he was right that private industry was working on the problem. GM developed a prototype electric car in 1973. The American Motor Company built electric jeeps that the Postal Service used in 1975 test program. And NASA got in on the action too. The Lunar Rover that drove on the Moon in 1971 was powered by electricity. But all of these cars face challenges. They could only get up to about 45 miles an hour, and they could only go about 40 miles before needing to charge. So we sort of lost interest again, until a very brief moment in the early 1990s when environmental regulation made us think that perhaps this time we could stick with EV development. 

[00:13:20] GM developed its EV1 that could go 80 miles and accelerate up to 50 miles per hour. People got very excited about the EV1, but it was so expensive that GM ultimately discontinued it in 2001. All of this history makes me realize where so much of the animosity and distrust around electric vehicles exists for older generations. Like, sometimes I'm like, "Why are you so down on this?" And then I read this history and like, oh, because you have your formative experiences with electric vehicles is that they didn't go anywhere and they were very undependable and all that stuff. So this makes a lot of sense to me when I think about how my dad talks about electric vehicles. He sent me that Facebook meme the other day of  the gas powered generator powering the electric car that I don't even think is real. 

Beth [00:14:08] Yeah, I think that talking about how ugly that prototype is, is important to understanding this history too because you did have a whole lot of people seeing electric vehicles as basically golf carts, can't go very far, can't go very fast, don't look like something we want on the road.  And the government is like weaving in and out without any sustained results. So I understand how we got where we got. And thinking about the 90s explain some of those attitudes too, because in the late 1990s Americans were just cruising along. 

News Caster [00:14:47] Are you kidding. We've got the [Inaudible] 76 unleaded. And it's the right unleaded for over 90 percent of the cars on the road today. 

Beth [00:14:53] And too comfortable to care about electric vehicles. The economy was doing great. Gas was cheap. The middle class was growing and could afford gas. And we knew that there were some environmental issues, but as a whole we decided not to worry about them. Fortunately, in the background, the energy department and scientists and engineers kept working on electric vehicles and especially as President Ford kind of pointed to in his veto on the battery component. 

Sarah [00:15:21] So this is the second thing you need to know about electric vehicles. It is that government supported research and private innovation, made practical mass market EVs possible. This is a great role for government. Two big events accelerated our interest in EVs. First, in 1997, Toyota released the Prius, the first mass produced hybrid EV. It used a nickel metal hybrid battery, which was technology supported by the Energy Department's research. Did you know that we used to have a Prius? 

Beth [00:15:50] Did you like your Prius? 

Sarah [00:15:52] We loved our Prius, and Nicolas got rear ended. I loved it so much. I still often call the Tesla the Prius. I loved, loved, loved the Prius. 

Beth [00:16:00] Oh, good. Well, then we get Tesla 2006. As a small startup, Tesla Motors starts producing luxury electric sports cars, and this is a part of Elon Musk's genius. I'm sorry, I know that everybody has feelings about Elon Musk. 

Sarah [00:16:16] You're going to get some emails about that. 

Beth [00:16:17] I'm going to get some emails. And I know people have feelings about him. And I have feelings about him too. But I have to recognize that the idea of an electric vehicle as a sports car really made this happen. You know, this was a shift that was badly needed in terms of just the marketing of what an electric vehicle could be. So in 2008, Tesla releases the Roadster, which could go a range of 200 miles. In 2010, Tesla gets some government money. $465 million loan from the Department of Energy enables Tesla to build a manufacturing facility in California, and that accelerated its growth. It sold more than 2400 cars, despite the price point of those cars being one hundred nine thousand dollars. And Tesla repaid that Department of Energy loan nine years early and has since become the biggest auto industry employer in California. 

Sarah [00:17:13] And it has a presence way outside California now. Texas, a newly opened plant in Germany. Other manufacturers have now -- oh, I don't know, would we say marched onto the highway of innovation? And always great, except we need places to charge these vehicles. So the Department of Energy invested $115 million to build charging infrastructure alongside private businesses. The Energy Department continues to support battery development. Its research helped develop the lithium ion battery used in the Chevy Volt. Its research has helped cut electric vehicle battery costs by 50 percent over four years and helped improve battery performance. 

Beth [00:17:53] We should see more of this public and private interplay over the next few years because the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed last year establishes a National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula program. That program is basically going to provide money for states to build more charging infrastructure and also establish a network nationwide to help with data collection, access and reliability. Why data collection? Well, understanding where people are traveling and where they're charging along the way will help us get better and better at building charging stations in places that make sense. This is part of what Tesla has done really well too. Using the GPS, using these locations, I know there's a creepy side of all of that, but that is the price of getting this infrastructure set up in a way that is really efficient and effective. 

Sarah [00:18:41] It's interesting to me that we had this like take off of private industry when you read the history of gas stations, of private gas station. It's not like the government was out there funding gas infrastructure. I wonder if it's because the gas stations went along with the highway infrastructure, right? Like they were popping up in brand new spots where nothing had been before. You're not going to find that same situation. You know, the populated places that sprung up at the merger of  highways and interstates, they're not the open road that they were in the 50s and 60s. It's like a totally different situation where there's already existing infrastructure, which is why I think you see charging stations in hotel parking lots or restaurant parking lots, not  right next to regular gas pumps at fuel stations. 

Beth [00:19:31] I think it's easy to think about capitalism and feel that demand should always be the first force, that there should be a demand before you create a supply. And I think what's been really smart about Tesla's approach is deciding we're going to get out ahead of the demand. We're going to create the supply and see if the demand follows. And it has worked. It has worked out for them. The third thing that we want you to know is that, yes, electric vehicles really are better for the environment than gas powered vehicles. They are not perfect, but they are better. Lots of people point out that electric vehicles use electricity and that electricity still produces a carbon footprint. And it sure does. And how we produce electricity should get better all the time, and we will more fully realize the potential of electric vehicles when we do a better job powering our electric grid with renewable energy. 

Sarah [00:20:20] Lots of people worry about how the batteries themselves are made. We have to mine lithium and cobalt, which isn't great, takes a lot of energy, and EVs use about six times more mineral inputs than internal combustion engine vehicles. There isn't currently a shortage of those inputs, but there is concern about extracting them sustainably and ethically. EV factories have on average, and depending on the country, about 30 to 40 percent extra in production emissions. I also heard an expert say the other day that electric vehicles are like 75 percent plastic, which means that's oil going into the creation of the vehicle. But I just think when you're talking about the creation versus the ongoing fueling for the life of the vehicle, that's just two different things. 

Beth [00:20:58] That's the thing. The investment in the production and distribution process and powering it on an ongoing basis all pay off fast because when you are driving, you have zero emissions. None. Nothing coming out of the tailpipe. Here's what the Environmental Protection Agency says, "Even accounting for electricity emissions, research shows that an EV is typically responsible for lower levels of greenhouse gases than an average new gasoline car. To the extent that more renewable energy sources like wind and solar are used to generate electricity, the total greenhouse gas emissions associated with electric vehicles could be even lower." There is a beyond tailpipe emissions calculator that the EPA and the Department of Energy have created that will show you how emissions stack up on particular models of vehicles in your zip code versus gasoline. So I use this calculator, and when we are driving our Tesla, our greenhouse gas emissions per mile were about 150 with a brand new gasoline vehicle in my zip code, it would be about 410. So it's a really, really, significant difference. 

Sarah [00:22:03] And even with some studies showing that making a typical EV can create more carbon pollution than making a gasoline car because, like we said, the energy required to make the batteries over the lifetime of the vehicle, the emissions are significantly lower. One author of such a study said, "Currently, the electric vehicle in the U.S. on average would have made about 200 grams of CO2 per mile. We are projecting that with cleaning up the grid, we can reduce emissions from electric vehicles by 75 percent from about 200 grams today to about 50 grams of CO2 per mile in 2050." I mean, I think that's the thing too, like, you're assuming a static situation with the electric grid, which I hope to God is not the reality. And that the emissions of the electric grid overall will decrease over time. 

Beth [00:22:45] There are lots of places where this can be improved. Recycling batteries helps, and the government is supporting ongoing research about the process and rate of electric vehicle battery recycling. And I think it's just important, like you said, Sarah, not to assume that we're going to stay forever where we are today. This is a step in a long process of doing better. And it is discouraging to me that so many people are ready to write off electric vehicles because they have any carbon footprint at all today. We're going to have some intermediary steps between lots and lots of people driving internal combustion engine cars and not emitting greenhouse gases via our transportation. And so I think this is a really great step forward and we have a long way to go and people are working on it. 

Sarah [00:23:46] So the fourth thing we want you to know is that we do have a long way to go. It's going to take some work to scale up EVs. Now, with gas prices rising, the interest in EVs is revving up. Batteries have a complex supply chain, and we are very reliant on China for batteries. China currently has 93 gigafactories producing lithium ion batteries, and we only have four of these factories in the United States. Extracting the minerals needed to make the batteries takes time, and there is concern about the ability to meet the demand. There's concern that the supply issue could cause manufacturers to use lower grade mineral inputs, which might adversely impact battery performance. 

Beth [00:24:21] We also need more convenient and affordable chargers, both in public and in our homes. We have public and private efforts underway to increase the availability of charging. It's expensive. It's about $2,500 to install a slower charger. It can be up to $35,000 and change for a fast one. And that is not counting permits and regulations and space and the availability of electricity. We also have efforts underway to subsidize and incentivize electric vehicle manufacturing and ownership, but they're a little bit complicated. This also played significantly into Chad Silver's decision to purchase a Tesla when he did. 

[00:24:59] So since 2010, the federal government has offered tax credits for buying new electric vehicles, and those tax credits go up to $7500 with the exact amount dependent on the capacity of the battery used to power the vehicle. The program is structured really to get new electric vehicles off the ground, so it is allocated by car maker. If a car company sells 200,000 eligible electric vehicles, the tax credit starts to phase out. So Tesla and GM have both surpassed that 200,000 car milestone and can no longer benefit from the program. There has been some talk of increasing this to something like 600,000, but Tesla has passed that too. So you're probably not going to get a tax credit. 

Sarah [00:25:45] That was a good call, Chad. We got zero tax credits for our Tesla. 

Beth [00:25:48] Yeah, and we got the full 7,500 when we bought ours. 

Sarah [00:25:51] Now, many countries have pledged to phase out internal combustion engine driven vehicles. Germany announced late last year that the sale of internal combustion vehicles will end in 2030, and it's not alone. 

Beth [00:26:03] Which is great. And, also, we have a very big challenge in the idea of grid overload. Our power grids are already strained. And more people driving electric vehicles means more electricity load. We can help with this problem by charging our electric vehicles late at night and early in the morning when the grid is not at peak demand. 

Sarah [00:26:24] That's what we do. 

Beth [00:26:26] That's what we do as well. But I think it's important to consider this. I was really struck by how Will Englund put it in the Washington Post, he said, "Making America's cars go electric is no longer primarily a story about building the cars. America's electric grid will be sorely challenged by the need to deliver clean power to those cars. Today, though, it barely functions in times of ordinary stress and fails altogether, too often for comfort, as widespread blackouts in California, Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere have shown." There's a study out there that says if we want to handle the volume of electric vehicle people would be driving by 2030, we need to invest about $125 billion in our grid. Congress just spent about five billion dollars on transmission, line construction and upgrades. 

Sarah [00:27:14] So all of this highlights that electric vehicles are not a total solution by any stretch. More than anything, we need to quickly and drastically improve our options for producing electricity. We need to keep the research going to make EVs and their batteries more sustainable and efficient. We need more charging infrastructure, and even if everyone drove an EV, we could do better with just less driving overall. Reducing the number of cars we make and use, reducing how often we drive them are still really important goals for better environmental care. 

Beth [00:27:43] You know, we've been doing these like dad joke puns throughout because our language is so informed by metaphors about driving. Like, driving is a big part of American identity and lots of parts of the country. Not the same everywhere, but certainly where I live, driving is a huge part of everyday life. And even if everybody were driving electric vehicles, we would still need to scale back the number of cars we own and how far we drive them, and how often that we drive them to make really meaningful change. But, again, we're not going to let perfect be the enemy of the good here. We are making progress. So the fifth thing we want you to know, is that owning an electric vehicle requires some planning, but it is manageable planning. 

Sarah [00:28:30] So let's just talk about our practical experience here. What you need to charge the car will depend on where you live. If you live near a charging station, maybe you don't need to charge at home at all. And I am jealous of those people who live near Superchargers. But we both wanted the option to charge at home, obviously, because we do not live super near Superchargers. So you don't have to have a special outlet for charging. There is an adapter and you can just plug it into a regular electric outlet. I have done that during travel. I have just plugged in to a regular electric outlet. But Chad and other well-versed Tesla owners will suggest that you have at least 30 amp circuit for charging in your garage in somewhere that's very easily accessible to the car. 

[00:29:13] Now, you guys got a 60 amp circuit for your car to max out at about 45 miles of range increase per hour, so it charges faster, basically. We got really lucky. We had a like -- it's basically a dryer plug, is what I call it. I don't know the official electric term, but it's what you plug a dryer into. And we had one there. I don't know why the people who built our house put it there, but it's like in the perfect spot to charge the Tesla now. We had to have it turned on, but it was already there, which is very nice and very convenient.  

Beth [00:29:41] So the cost that you're going to incur setting your home up for the optimal charging for you will vary by a ton of factors. We can't even begin to give you a range on that, but it really just depends on how fast you want the the vehicle to charge. The other thing that you need to plan for are road trips. Tesla makes this so easy that we don't even think about it anymore because we set a navigation point in the car's GPS and it tells us when we need to stop and where we need to stop to charge. And if we follow the GPS plan, it will condition the battery for faster charging as we're driving. So everything is really optimized. 

[00:30:18] And as we were talking about, you know, you always have a charging kit available for travel. So when we visit my parents who are in a very rural area, we use their dryer plug as well and use that adapter and charge while we're on the road there. Before we wrap up this five things episode, we want to do some questions from listeners about electric vehicles. Maggie ask on Instagram what questions people have and assemble these questions. Chad came in with a very strong assist in helping us answer them. Let's do a little Q&A, Sarah. The first thing people wanted to know is how do our Teslas perform in cold weather? 

Sarah [00:31:04] Well, I mean, I don't understand the physics, but I do know that physics apply and that when it's colder the batteries aren't as efficient. I've only got that warning one time and it was like 20 degrees when it was like, "Hey, your battery is going to not last as long as you thought it was, but I just plugged it in and it's still charged and I still had plenty of battery and it wasn't a big deal. 

Beth [00:31:24] We were also asked how it's different to drive compared to a regular car. I feel like I'm inside a video game when I'm driving it. There's just a big computer screen instead of a normal dashboard and it is so sensitive. You tap the accelerator and you are off. Now, Chad tells me this is because 100 percent of the talk is available immediately. I don't know what that means, but I believe him. And then when you take your foot off the accelerator, you're stopping fast. 

Sarah [00:31:53] Yeah. Well, this is what's so wild to me. So you can actually change the setting. So you can make it feel like a normal car where  if you're sitting at a stoplight and you take your foot off the brake, it will sort of roll like a regular car does. But it's a setting. You can also just turn that off. Like I remember one day I went out and I was driving around and doing errands, and I felt like I didn't press the brake the entire time because I would just take my foot off the gas and it would stop at the stoplights and then I would accelerate. But I never really pressed the brake that much. I mean, we have it set to the Tesla settings not to make it feel like a regular car because I like driving like that. 

Beth [00:32:34] I do too. I like almost never using the brake, which I don't when I drive either. It's really quiet. You never turn it on or off. 

Sarah [00:32:41] That's weird. 

Beth [00:32:42] It connects with your phone, so it knows when you're showing up to use the car and turns itself on, it turns itself off when you walk away. 

Sarah [00:32:48] That's important, though, because like if your phone dies, people always ask, "Well, what if your phone dies?" Well you get a card which you also give it to like valets if you need somebody else to be able to try to drive it. And did you know that there's like a little -- I don't know if your model has this. Surely does. Like, there's buttons to press. There's like an electric button you press on the door handle to open the door, but there is a thing underneath the handle should your battery die, so you can actually get out of the car without the electric button. But, yeah, it's so fun. I mean, my family owns a used car dealership, so I do like cars. Nicholas doesn't like cars. He's always like, "What's the big deal?" And even he acknowledges it's very fun. 

[00:33:26] And there are a million like, silly, fun options. Yes, you can make it fart. They just added it so you can make it fart on the outside of the car too. I really like the outside speaker options. You can change your horn. So my horn is La Cucaracha, so it honks and then it plays La Cucaracha, which is a very fun party trick if you're out and about with friends. And there are video games and Netflix and all that. You can't do any of that if you're driving.The car has to be in park. 

Beth [00:33:55] I love Santa mode at the holidays. 

Sarah [00:33:57] Santa mode is a blast. 

Beth [00:33:59] When you turn signal is used, it sounds like sleigh bells. It plays Run Rudolph Run and you look like you're in the sleigh on the display in the car. It is constantly getting better at self-driving. Now, there are times when we use a certain beta mode when I feel like the car is trying to kill us, so we had to be very careful. But self-driving on the highway is fantastic, so it really fun to drive. 

Sarah [00:34:23] But I will say too, it's not all perfect. Right now it has a little bit of a glitch that's getting some reporting that it'll just break. Has yours been doing that? And we're like, Why are you mad? Why are you breaking? What are you doing? 

Beth [00:34:34] I mean, you have to pay attention. Whenever I read about critiques of it, I think, we'll you do still have to be present as a driver in the car. And you do have to have some patience and realize like you're part of a new technology that's going to evolve significantly. Ours has changed so much since we bought it, but it's so cool to be able to experience those changes instead of feeling like my car is depreciating from the second that I roll it off the lot, which is how we've always felt about other cars. 

Sarah [00:35:03] I do want to tackle the Tick Tock rumor. No, if you go to a cemetery, you do not see people on the camera in front of you. Have you seen that tick tock? 

Beth [00:35:12] No. 

Sarah [00:35:13] Well, because the Tesla will show you trashcans, objects when the camera, like, on the screen around your car. And there's like a famous tick tock where they go to a cemetery and you see all these people walking around and they're like, "The Tesla can see the ghosts." But we tried it, and it's not true. 

Beth [00:35:29] Maybe you were at the wrong cemetery. I'm not ready to write that off just yet. 

Sarah [00:35:33] Maybe. 

Beth [00:35:33]  We were also asked if we actually save money or if your electric bill just goes up by what you were spending on gas. And trust me when I tell you that I am married to a person who knows the answer to this, it is big time saving. So in our area, where Chad and I live, filling the battery is about$7.50 For 300 miles of range. A similar amount of gas right now, it'd be about $48. Also, we don't do much maintenance. You don't change the oil. You don't have to flush transmission fluid. Brake pads last longer because, again, we're not breaking very often. We've had ours for three and a half years. We have spent zero dollars on maintenance. 

Sarah [00:36:11] That's amazing. 

Beth [00:36:13] Chad is ready new tires because they wear a little faster. The car's pretty heavy. And he does drive with vigor, and so he's ready for new tires. But other than that, it's been... 

Sarah [00:36:21] We have not noticed a difference in our electricity bill. We just haven't. Like, it does not seem to have impacted us. It's not like we got the first one where we're like, dang owning a Tesla. Or even when you got like $7.50. But we never spend that. Well, you guys are lucky. This is another early adopter thing. You got free superchargers for the life of the car, so we have to pay when we go to a supercharger, but we're never like, "filling up the entire car" it's usually like three to four dollars to get the energy we need to continue. And we often stay at hotels that have charging, which is just the best feeling. It's like you're filling your car up for free at the hotel. It is the best. 

Beth [00:37:01] Someone ask if they hold value as a used car. And so far they're doing better than internal combustion engine model cars. We were also asked what to do if the power grid fails? Well, you can't charge it if the power thread fails. You also cannot pump gas into your car when the power grid fails because those pumps typically run on electricity as well. 

Sarah [00:37:22] Yes, so a problem all around. A problem all around if the electricity power grid fails. But it's worth noting that like I know the new Ford F-150, the electric version, is like a generator. Like, you can use it to power your house should the like if your truck is charged and you want to plug it in and use it as a generator to power your house, you can, which is amazing. 

Beth [00:37:45] And you know we're just at the beginning of those kinds of ideas and adaptations. 

Sarah [00:37:50] I like this question. Why aren't there family EVs? I don't know. And I want one. Nicholas keeps going. Be patient. Be patient. Because I do think there's coming. There are SUVs. Like, Tesla has the Model X and the Model Y. Audi and VW both have an SUV, and the Ford Mustang Mach-E is an SUV CUV. But I want what's coming soon, which is the Rivian. I want one of those. It's like the outdoorsy Tesla. I love their car. Like, VW just announced their minivans is going to be electric. They're bringing it back and it's going to be like driving a [Inaudible]. It's so cute. But I agree. I mean, that's what I want. My minivan probably has about 50,000 more miles on it, maybe a little bit more. And I really need them to, like, get me some options. So I'm ready because I definitely want to buy another electric car. 

Beth [00:38:37] And I know that these are expensive. They are really expensive. Then you have to look at what am I saving on gas? What am I saving on maintenance? How is it holding its value over time? And as that research comes through and the the cost to make up battery decreases, they will become much more affordable, I think, over time. 

Sarah [00:38:57] I do want to say this, I think people think our Tesla cost $100,000. 

Beth [00:39:02] Oh, you're right. No. 

Sarah [00:39:03] People think that. People still think that's how much Tesla costs. You guys, we're podcasters. Our Teslas did not cost $100,000. Like, it cost about what if you were to get like a nice sedan, like a brand new Camry, that's about what it cost. And if you don't get the -- because they love to charge you for everything on the Tesla, like the paint. And so if you got the white and not the long range, I think the lowest price Tesla has is like $36,000 $38,000 something like that. I do think people still have the the idea that they cost a ridiculous amount of money, and that's just not true. 

Beth [00:39:39] Someone asked if electric vehicles are the future or there's a more sustainable option that we could invest in, Chad said hydrogen fuel cell cars. I don't know what those words mean together. I'd have to do some research to tell you. As I understand it, the truth today is that electric vehicles are our best option, but who knows what the future will bring. I hope it brings us all kinds of options. 

Sarah [00:39:57] Where's my flying car, Beth? Where is it? I want it. 

Beth [00:40:01] And then our last question is, if I want to save the planet, should I get an electric vehicle or solar panels? Well, it depends on how -- 

Sarah [00:40:10] First of all, I would like to have a conversation about how you phrased that question. It's not up to you alone to save the planet, but I take your point. 

Beth [00:40:16] Well, I totally agree. I made this as my last bullet point here. Take some pressure off saving the planet. Because that's an individual endeavor. And I also think that it helps me to just consider like, how do we take one small step at a time. One small step at a time, even collectively to care for the environment more? But if you're making the calculus, I can make an investment in more sustainable living. Do I do an electric vehicle or solar panels? Think about how the electricity is produced in your area, how much you drive, your financial situation. Chad would like you to know there's a 26 percent tax credit in 2022 on solar panels, which is why we are investigating them currently for our home. 

Sarah [00:40:57] Listen, it is an investigation. We have friends at church that got solar panels in like months and months. Like if you have a friend and or a partner or spouse who loves a spreadsheet who just loves digging into the numbers and the research, this is their moment. Let them shine. Let them shine and figure out if it's worth it for you and which solar panels to get and all that. 

Beth [00:41:18] Yes. Chad is doing a lot of that investigation right now, and he's very good at it and I am not saying a word. I think it's a great idea. I'm supportive. 

Sarah [00:41:27] I really would like solar panels, obviously, for sure. 

Beth [00:41:29] We'll get what he would like to get. There also are some credits available for buying new electric vehicles. You just have to figure out which models they're still open on and how much of that up to $7,500 you can get. So you got to do some math on your impact today and cost and see what you can do. But, again, don't feel like you're personally responsible for saving the planet here. We've all got to work together, and I hope that this discussion of five things that you know goes up through and includes the power grid needing to be significantly updated helps all of us take some individual pressure off. 

Sarah [00:42:02] Well, and I just think why Tesla is successful is because they've made it fun. It is fun. You get to feel like you're doing the right thing, you're doing the smart thing financially and it's a really fun car. We need that energy in so many other places when it comes to climate change and taking better care of our planet. 

Beth [00:42:27] And it has such great externalities because now it's not just Tesla. Like, lots of other people have gotten into how can I make a stylish vehicle? How can I make a multifunction vehicle? What other things can a car be to me and what can it do? And so I think whatever Elon Musk is up to on a given day, a lot of credit is due to Tesla for making this such a positive experience and creating an opportunity for lots of other manufacturers to approach it more creatively. 

[00:42:57] Thank you so much for joining us for five things you need to know about electric vehicles. Thank you for hanging with our puns. We like a pun now and then. We don't do this every time, but having a little fun is the name of the game here. And we will have so much fun at our show in Waco, and we'd love for you to join us there. So, again, the link to those tickets is in the show notes. You can also follow the link in the show notes to preorder our book, which is very fun for us and we love to hear on social media from you when you've done that. We will be back in your ears next Tuesday. Until then, have the best weekend available to you. 

[00:43:38] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director. 

Sarah [00:43:43] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

Beth [00:43:49] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:43:53] Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greenup, Julie Heller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Emily Holladay, Katie Johnson, Katrina Zugenalis Kasling, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs. 

[00:44:11] The Kriebs, Laurie LaDow, Lily McClure, Emily Neesley, The Pentons, Tawni Peterson, Tracy Puthoff, Sara Ralph, Jeremy Sequoia, Katie Stigers, Karin True, Onica Ulveling,  Nick and Alysa Valelli, Kathryn Vollmer, Amy Whited. 

Beth [00:44:29] Jeff Davis, Melinda Johnston, Ashley Thompson, Michelle Wood, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nichole Berklas, Paula Brimmer and Tim Miller. 

Sarah [00:44:40] Okay. So, I mean, we need like a little noise here for all our car puns, so like a honk or something. There are more. Prepare yourselves.