Meta(
    title: "Electric Cars",
    summary: Some("I give my take on electric cars as they exist today"),
    published: None,
    tags: [
        "automobiles",
        "sustainability",
        "complexity",
    ],
)
---
> But on the other hand, automobiles in general are a disaster, and most people shouldn't have one.
=> gemini://the-brannons.com/ev/

In a lot of ways I agree with this sentiment, even though I love cars. In the US in particular we have created a way of life that revolves around the car. It is next to impossible to be a full citizen without car ownership. We have long ago decided against mixed use neighborhoods and rejected local first supply chains in favor of cheap crap sold in big box store chains that can only be accessed via car, on the outskirts of town, away from where everyone lives. That's one of the most insidious aspects of the corner we have painted ourselves into, but it's not the one that bothers me the most.

## I love cars. Old cars.
Owning a car is a liberating experience. For a few generations now the first car has been a right of passage, and one of the most prominent steps on the road to independence.

That said, I hate modern cars. With a passion.

My dream car is a very simple machine. An inline six cylinder engine is plenty of power and is less complex than any modern engine. One camshaft. One exhaust manifold. Usually a single barrel carburetor. Points ignition. Couple it with a three speed manual shift with overdrive, and let the top cruising speed be about 60mph. But the most efficient cruising speed is 45-50. Roll up windows, with a little vent window in the corner. Manual door locks. A simple three way switch for the windshield wipers - mounted on the dash instead of on a turn signal stalk. Cable operated heater valve and no AC.

I wouldn't mind going even more primitive with the valves in the block and a magneto ignition. Even less moving parts. Simple to understand. Simple and cheap to maintain. Can be kept on the road for decades.

This type of transportation was made for slower speeds. People drive 80-90mph on the freeway regularly today, and that makes it scary to even try to drive an older car except on the backroads. It also leads to a lot of accidents and deaths. We should all slow down a bit.

## I want to like EV's
The EV has the potential to be dramatically simpler than an internal combustion powered car. There's no transmission required because all of the torque is available at any motor speed. No driveshafts, Universal Joints or Constant Velocity Joints because we can build the motors right into the wheel hubs. Eliminating the constraints of a "conventional" driveline also frees up design options that can make better use of space and increase aerodynamics. I'm on board with all of that.

What I don't want is pretty much every other feature they're putting in today's EV's.

We're literally seeing doors without physical handles or locks.

Every one of these cars has more sensors pointing at the vehicle's occupants than at the outside world, recording everything we do or say and selling that data to not just the highest bidder but literally every bidder.

Battery packs are all specific to the manufacturer and never interchangeable.

These cars are all loaded up with backup cameras and self driving / driver assist features that likely cause more accidents than they prevent.

## There are other paradigms worth exploring
One of the biggest issues with the EV has always been limited range. This issue is closely followed by the need to have the car sit immobile in a charging station in order to refuel, perhaps for hours, before being able to continue on a longer trip. Range is improving, as is charging infrastructure. However, it's likely never going to be as convenient as a gasoline powered car.

The cost of replacing the entire battery pack in an EV is a significant fraction of the price of the car when it was new. This is another huge problem that we're not even looking at yet, but is going to be a huge problem for the working class who are not fortunate enough to be the target audience for new cars. Instead, they're going to have no lower cost options.

I want to briefly look at a completely different industry and infrastructure for a moment. That industry, and it's associated infrastructure, is propane fueled barbecue grills. Consider how one re-fuels their grill. You turn the fuel valve off, unscrew the lines and put the propane cylinder into your vehicle. You then drive to a store and exchange your empty tank for a full one. The company that services the tanks owns the tanks, not the consumer. They perform all of the maintenance on the tanks and make sure they are within safe operating specifications. They handle repairs or replacement.

I can imagine a similar system for EV's. Standard configuration battery packs, which are able to be hot swapped quickly from the vehicle. The company servicing the battery swap facility handles maintenance and replacement. Your car is worth the same amount of money whether the battery that's currently in it is new or old. It takes five minutes to drop a battery pack and lift a new one into place, rather than hours sitting in a charging station drinking gas station coffee.

You could still plug your car in at night, of course, making this style of EV perfectly suited to the short commute lifestyle that today's EV's are already suited for. But longer trips would no longer be a problem and the most expensive aspect of EV ownership could be mitigated by providing good infrastructure.

Before dismissing this idea as impractical, let me also point out that when we start seeing large numbers of older EV's out there, their aged battery packs are going to be a liability. Those things aren't going to be properly recycled by cash strapped working class folks who are barely scraping by when they buy a used car with bad batteries, or when they finally have to give up on an older car that can only go five miles between charges and decide to scrap it. Let's be realistic. The batteries are going to be dumped at the back of urban lots, thrown into ravines, left in basements, stacked behind the garage or any number of awful scenarios. Trust a guy who has been poor his entire life - that's what's going to happen. But if, instead, a large energy company is responsible for their maintenance, then when they get caught dumping them (and they likely will), then we'll at least have someone with money to sue in court...