EV Evolution: A Talk with Peter Bernard

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The Future of Electric Vehicles: Challenges and Opportunities

In this episode of the 'Open Forum in the Villages, Florida' podcast, hosts Mike Roth and Peter Bernard explore the current state and future potential of electric vehicles (EVs) in America. Discussing challenges such as reduced range in cold weather and the logistics of charging infrastructure, the episode delves into the technical nuances of various EV models, including Tesla and Mercedes, and tackles common misconceptions about EVs. The hosts share personal insights and experiences, emphasizing the environmental benefits and maintenance ease of EVs over traditional internal combustion engines. Additionally, the episode features discussions about upcoming classes on artificial intelligence in The Villages and includes a segment with Dr. Craig Curtis on Alzheimer's treatment advancements. The episode is part one of a two-part series that continues to delve into the evolving landscape of electric vehicles.

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
01:05 Support the Podcast
01:54 Electric Vehicles: Winter Challenges
03:40 Planning for EV Road Trips
04:36 Charging Stations and Infrastructure
12:20 EVs and Fire Risks
14:45 Advantages of Electric Vehicles
15:56 The Thrill of Driving an EV
16:49 Tesla Service Experience
18:20 Alzheimer's Treatment Insights with Dr. Curtis
19:58 Tesla Club and Community Support
21:59 Challenges in the EV Market: The Fisker Story
23:22 The Future of Electric Vehicles
24:10 Hyundai's EV Journey
26:05 Tax Credits and EV Affordability
27:28 Concluding Thoughts on EVs

Season 8 Introduction

Transcript

Peter Bernard on EVs Part 1 

[00:00:08] Donna: Welcome to the Open Forum in the Villages, Florida podcast. In this show, we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs, and interesting folks who live here in the villages to get perspectives of what is happening here in the Villages, Florida. There will be shout outs for supporters in episodes.

In Season 6, we will continue making substantial improvements to the podcast. 

[00:00:31] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth. And, listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast, which is my passion project for you. This podcast brings me joy, brings you knowledge, and Inspiration and a lot of things that people need to know about the villages and the people living here.

Be sure to hit the follow button to get the newest episode each week. Creating this podcast is a labor of love, even though it demands more time than I can easily spare. Now, here's where you come in. You can help us keep the podcast alive and thriving. How? By becoming a supporter, the easy way for you to support us is to visit our podcast web page, openforuminthevillagesflorida.

com, and click on the supporter button at the top of the page, or the purple supporter box on the right side of the page. Even a small donation of three to ten dollars a month is appreciated. Makes a big difference. And guess what? You can cancel your subscription at any time. No strings attached. Your support means the world to us.

Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep those headphones on. I hope everyone enjoys today's show.

This is Mike Roth and Peter Bernard on Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. 

This is part one of a two part series on the future of electric vehicles.

[00:02:00] Peter Bernard: Good to be with you again, Mike.

[00:02:02] Mike Roth: Today we decided we're going to talk about the topic of electric cars and will electric cars ever replace gasoline cars here in America? Last winter here in America, there were a lot of reports of people.

Getting reduced range from their electric vehicle. And that was the thing that I think began a snowball effect intended, which reduced the sales of electric vehicles. What do you think really happened on what's going to happen this winter with electric vehicle? 

[00:02:31] Peter Bernard: EVs in general are susceptible to cold weather.

Now the question begs, is it enough to matter? And in my opinion, no. You might get about 15 20 percent less range if caught in cold weather on an interstate. Plenty if you've charged your car to 100%, which you should have done if you're gonna go out on the road for a road trip. Yes. Cold weather is not good for EVs.

It has a hard time. And then when you have your heater going in the car, it does reduce your range slightly. There's a sweet spot between 50 and 85 where the battery is swimmingly. It loves it there. But when you get above 90 and you get a below say 28, it does not like it at all. And you'll get some reduced range, but it's a non issue for EV drivers.

[00:03:18] Mike Roth: My car, a Mercedes EQE 350 +, I see a 20 percent variation. Okay, in the colder weather, 305 mile range. 

[00:03:26] Peter Bernard: No big deal. Especially going around here in The Villages. I don't care. 

[00:03:29] Mike Roth: On the interstates, another story. Okay, where, are you picking up speeds of 70 miles an hour? Or for some people, 70 miles an hour plus, the range might go down to 340 from 370. 

[00:03:40] Peter Bernard: Yep. , you know what I'll tell you, Mike, is, Owning an EV is not like owning an ICE car. ICE meaning Internal Combustion Engine. It takes a little pre planning. I look at it this way. I'm a private pilot. I would never think of flying to St. Petersburg without calculating how much fuel is on board, how much weight I have on board, and alternative airports.

So owning an EV, now some people claim it's a hassle. I say it's fun because it's unique. You have to do some planning, especially if you're going to take a cross country flight, or drive, in this case. I do sometimes fly with my car, but it takes some planning. You have to think about it a little bit. For some motorheads, they don't like that.

[00:04:15] Mike Roth: On the Mercedes, the built in navigation app tells you where the rechargings are. Yeah, same with Tesla. It will calculate. Where you should stop. Okay. And there's an app called a better route planner. Yep. Very familiar. Okay. 

[00:04:30] Peter Bernard: It's an alternative to what you have in your car as far as Navigating to charging stations in the Tesla world.

We have superchargers. There's more than 50, 000 of them now and they're adding them all the time And as you mentioned earlier, in the case of Tesla, it will route me to the nearest supercharger if I'm going cross country. If you decide that you're not going to use superchargers, or perhaps you've got a car that cannot take advantage of superchargers, and there are some still out there, you would take advantage of an app like A Better Route Planner, and it will route you.

Very simple, you can just mount that phone on A system in your car and it'll tell you various plug types at charging stations because there's several.

[00:05:10] Mike Roth: And what I like about that particular app is you tell the app what your level of comfort is. 

Start what your battery charge level is. In route, how low do you want your battery to get before you go to a recharge?

And when we went to New York, Long Island, We set that to, 35%. We never wanted a battery below 35%. 

My theory is, when you get to the next Electrify America charging station, they may not work. Only 50 percent of the plugs will actually work. And Then they'll be operating at 50 percent of capacity, but so I can include other brands of charges along the route.

[00:05:48] Peter Bernard: And you probably have a J1772 connector, right? 

[00:05:51] Mike Roth AI 9-11-24: That's correct. I also bought the adapter for destination chargers so I can plug into 240 volt AC, lower charge where it's a Tesla without this. Good. And Tesla's been dragging their feet. About opening up their charging stations to Mercedes and Ford. It's happening.

Tesla laid off, what, half of the employees in the Almost all of them, actually.

[00:06:13] Peter Bernard: Almost all. Yeah. 

[00:06:15] Mike Roth: How are they building new stations if they've got rid of all their employees? 

[00:06:18] Peter Bernard: Beats the heck out of me. But they are following through on the contracts that were ready to go. They are building new ones. I'm not sure what's going on with Tesla.

Elon Musk does a lot of crazy things. He does not Even have a public relations department. So when someone like me used to be in the news business, if I wanted to call Tesla and get their side of things, because there's always two sides to a story or Tesla just didn't have anyone to answer news media now, when they call.

To Tesla, they don't get anyone and there'll be a little blurb on the bottom that says Tesla famously does not have a PR department. So we couldn't get their side of thing. I always think it's incumbent as a news media to get both sides, but you can't do it with Tesla. They just threw in the towel. 

[00:06:57] Mike Roth: Have you ever tried to call Elad personally?

[00:06:59] Peter Bernard: No, I worked for him. I was a Tesla advisor for four months, and I was told that on occasion he would call our store and ask us why we did a particular thing. And one of my other Tesla advisors said that he raised cane with him about something. During COVID, we weren't allowed to get people in the car because we didn't want to transmit disease.

People would walk into our showroom, try to open the door locks, and they were always locked. And I felt bad because when you're gonna buy a car, or at least consider a car, You want to get inside and see what it feels like. We didn't allow that. It was frustrating for me. Sometimes when people weren't looking, I would open them up.

[00:07:34] Mike Roth: I noticed in your new car, a Tesla model three performance 2024. And it's got much better seats than I've seen in a Tesla. Feels good. Like getting into a two seat sports car. 

[00:07:44] Peter Bernard: That's the performance seats more bolstered. And so supposedly when you go around turns fast, it keeps you centered. And so you're not sliding around.

[00:07:50] Mike Roth: That's right. Mercedes and other brands have been using bolstered seats for many years. Yep. Very comfortable too, especially on long drives, but the idea that I had in using a better route planner was to make sure that I had enough charge to get to the next charging station, which was probably 70 miles down the highway.

That's it? 70? When driving cross country on 95 or 75. You can be sure that there's another charging station every 75 miles. Electrify America, they're located in Walmart parking lots.

[00:08:23] Peter Bernard: Can you be seen there? One thing that I think is going to be exciting 

[00:08:26] Mike Roth: I bought more from Walmart walking into the store.

[00:08:29] Peter Bernard: I was going to say the NACS stands for North American Charging System, the Tesla plug. Subaru, Volkswagen, Ford are going to go to NACS.

So we won't have this hodgepodge of J1772. There's another one out there called the C Connector, the Combo Connector. Oh, it's huge and bulky. That's the one that was on the leaf. And down at Costco in Claremont, which we go a lot, there's some great looking charging stations there. They're combo plugs. I can't use them.

There is a adapter, but it's two or $300, which I'm not gonna spend. I'd rather spend that on eating out. That plug's probably gonna go away. It's huge. It's not good. 

[00:09:04] Mike Roth: I have a friend who has a Mustang EV and two or three months ago he placed the order for the Ford converter from the Mustang plug. J 7 1 7 7 2 to the Tesla plug, NACS and hasn't got it. 

[00:09:19] Peter Bernard: New chargers in America have a magic dock, so depending on what your car requires, you will either get the NAC plug when you pull it off, or a J1772 plug. They're implementing these in certain areas as we speak. Yeah, magic dock. 

[00:09:34] Mike Roth: Now, one of the big differences between a Tesla charging station and The charge point or Electrify America.

[00:09:42] Peter Bernard: Blink. There's a bunch of them. 

[00:09:43] Mike Roth: A list longer than my arm. Depends on the region. There's a Duke charging station down here at 75 and 301. 

[00:09:50] Peter Bernard: Years ago, Volkswagen got caught with a defeat mechanism on their exhaust. There's a millionth Duke. was the recipient with the proviso that they install charging stations all over the place.

So that's the history behind that. 

[00:10:02] Mike Roth: Electrify America today. Charging stations is poor relative to others.

[00:10:06] Peter Bernard: I agree. They're crap. They sometimes work, sometimes don't. It gives EVs a bad name when somebody pulls up and they want to charge and maybe they're down to 15 percent and the thing doesn't work. The anxiety lEVel just goes up.

You're hoping, oh god, I hope the one next to me does or Because I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it to the next. 

[00:10:20] Mike Roth: Even Tesla charging stations are designed wrong. 

There's no standard queuing arrangement. At a gas station, you drive up to the pump, you drive through, and then out.

Okay, and then the queue for a line of cars to get refueled is in a single file line behind the pumps. With EV stations, it's random. 

[00:10:39] Peter Bernard: I agree. One thing nice about Tesla charging though, there is an automatic electronic handoff or handshake. When I pull up to a supercharger, it knows who I am, what credit card to charge, so there's no swiping of a card.

I just plug in and go. And when I leave about, Five minutes later, I get a notification on my phone that they charged me for the kilowatt hours that I just put in. 

[00:11:00] Mike Roth: That's true with Electrify America ChargePoint. I know at ChargePoint, I have a little app that I hold up and I plug my car into a ChargePoint.

It recognizes the car, it knows that I have a credit card on file, and away we go. Great. And in the case of going to another one of the 38 brands of charging stations, Who don't know me, and I need to put a credit card in or tap a credit card. Those charging stations have screens and card readers. Both can fail.

Because if it's rated as low, that's unfortunate. Not owning a Tesla. I've never seen a card reader. Or a screen, which I was told in New York by a vendor of charging stations that was an absolute requirement in New York. If you're gonna put a charging station in, you have to have a screen, you have to have a card reader, you also have to have a restroom facility.

[00:11:48] Peter Bernard: The problem with the screen and the card reader is you have to make them bulletproof, weatherproof. So many things that can go wrong, people take their bubble gum and throw it in there, the rain comes in, the sun beats down and now you can't read it. I think a screenless process is the way to go.

[00:12:02] Mike Roth: I agree with you. I hate it when I'm pulled into a place where you just got a screen, and the sun is behind me. I'm trying to shield myself on the screen from the sun so I can actually read what's on the screen. Screens have to go away. And the charging station itself has to recognize the call by the VIN number.

[00:12:17] Peter Bernard: And let's go with a universal plug, and that'll be NACS. 

[00:12:20] Mike Roth: EVs getting submerged in salt water and catching fire. Is there any truth to that, Peter? Yes. Yes. Unfortunately, but the good news is, it's few and far between. Just before I came up here to talk to you, I saw a video online about this very subject.

With the recent storms, Helene, and recently the one we just got over, there's been a number of EVs, specifically Teslas, submerged in salt water. Salt water conducts electricity better than Fresh water, 

pure fresh water does not conduct electricity. 

[00:12:52] Peter Bernard: If submerged for a long period of time, there have been a few cases where they have caught fire.

There's a famous case in St. Petersburg where a car caught fire and they had it on a camera and you can see the explosions occurring. And when they do catch fire, they're hard to put out. Now, just car fires in general, the odds of having a car fire with a gas car in internal combustion, way higher than a Tesla or any other EV.

EVs don't catch fire like that all the time. I will caution folks that have e bikes or Ryobi tools that have the same lithium components in their batteries, and they can catch fire also. I, I give a personal, an announcement to folks that don't charge your tools for your yard in your hot garage, bring them in so you can monitor them.

Don't plug them in and then go out to dinner and then have them all charged when you come back. If you've got an EV and a storm is approaching, move it to higher ground. It's as easy as that.

[00:13:51] Mike Roth: I was talking to one of the Mercedes EV mechanics and he said that, The cars can be, Even when they take the batteries out in the training, they can put them in water and they don't catch fire or explode.

The cell must be sealed in some way. 

[00:14:06] Peter Bernard: It is sealed. My theory is maybe the connectors are not. I'm not sure exactly what's going on. It is an issue that needs to be solved so that we can restore confidence in EVs and specifically Tesla. 

[00:14:17] Mike Roth: Mercedes had at least one fire. I think it was in Seoul, South Korea.

Yeah. The idea of parking your electric vehicle outside or charging it outside, I think it's a superfluous idea.

[00:14:28] Peter Bernard: It can be done. 

[00:14:29] Mike Roth: I get it. Not that it can't be done, but it's not necessary to be done. Oh, you mean as far as to reduce the fire risk? 

[00:14:35] Peter Bernard: Oh, no. It's not necessary to reduce the fire risk at all. As a matter of fact, your car will be happier in a garage that the sun is not beating down on it because thermal management is important for EV battery charging.

[00:14:45] Mike Roth: What particularly sets an EV apart from a ICE car, internal combustion engine, that make them more desirable than ICE cars?

[00:14:55] Peter Bernard: Mike, where do I start? I have to say that I am an apologist for Tesla. I own the stock. I have now recently purchased my third one. I find that EVs in general are essentially maintenance free.

You rotate the tires, change windshield wiper blades or fluid. No regular maintenance, period. There are some filters that need to be changed. It's the cabin filter. That's about it. There's none of this. They have fewer parts. They are a simple machine. There's no transmission per se. There's no valves.

There's no timing belt. There's no exhaust. There's no none of that stuff. And those are rare items on an ICE, an internal combustion engine. With a electric car, you just go when Tesla started, they thought everyoneoneone would have to bring in their car everyoneone year for a checkout and they found that it was just not worth it in a waste of time.

They come in and get under the undercarriage and look around. They say cars looking good, maybe rotate tires, but no reason to do it. An EV is just a simple driving machine. Oh my goodness, the torque is out of this world. If anyone out there is listening and they've never driven an EV, and any, I don't care which one, if you're going to drive a Mercedes or a Tesla or a Solterra, pick one and take it for a spin.

Your eyes are going to pop out and you're going to say, why have I ever driven an ICE car all this time? They are like night and day. 

[00:16:18] Mike Roth: 100 percent torque at zero RPM. 

[00:16:20] Peter Bernard: Yeah, a car can't do that Even with a turbocharger. It's exhilarating. My car now, 0 to 60 in 2. 9 seconds, 510 horsepower. I know some s people are gonna scoff and say, Why do you need it?

I don't need it. I like it. It's fun. That's why I need it. I'm not gonna race my car. There is a track mode I can put on, and it'll go Even faster. I'm worried about cracking it up. I'm very careful with it. I go the speed limit maybe a tad over, but 0 to If I'm the first one at the light, I look in my rearview mirror, and everyoneoneone's still sitting there.

[00:16:48] Mike Roth: Yeah, I've had that same experience. If you were gonna, Need service on your Tesla, where would you have to take it? 

[00:16:53] Peter Bernard: Claremont. It's 22 minutes south of my house. It's a 1. 50 toll on the If it's a minor issue, they come to my house. I've had Tesla here in my village's house three times. For one time I had my, let's see, what was it?

There was a recall, a cable that mounts, that's in the back for the camera. If you open and close it too much, it frays. And so there was a recall on that. He changed it out in my garage. I've had other things, just minor, stupid things. And I call, I don't call them, use your app and they schedule an appointment.

And if it's simple enough, they say, we'll have someone come to your house. So a guy pulls up and he does this thing in your garage and away you go down to Claremont, they have a service center, just over a year old, fairly new. Otherwise you had to go to Eatonville, which is a suburb of Orlando, which is an hour and some minutes down.

Now it's 22 minutes. I make a day of it. Go to Costco, eat out, go to Portillo's. I love Claremont. It's nice. 

[00:17:42] Mike Roth: In almost two years, the only issues have been software related. Some that push over the air. The Dolby Atmos update was a big update. A little troublesome to get it to go over the air because of conditions.

Before the software update will load, the car has to be off insight of a satellite. 

[00:17:58] Peter Bernard: Oh, it's coming via satellite. Mine come via Wi Fi. I get updates about average six to eight weeks with two cars. One's coming in everyoneone other week. It's like a Christmas day. I know what's coming because I read about what's happening.

There's a thing called NotATeslaApp. com that kind of spills the beans on everyoneonething. I go out and try it out. Sometimes they do a total remake of the screen or how it operates and, oh, it's fun. I love it. 

[00:18:20] Mike Roth AI 9-11-24: And now let's hear from Dr. Craig Curtis with an Alzheimer's tip. Dr. Curtis, what do you think the future looks like Alzheimer's treatment here in America? 

[00:18:29] DR. Craig Curtis: I think the future looks very good. I think that these blood tests are going to make a significant difference in our ability to detect someone who's developing Alzheimer's disease. before symptoms. A person who develops memory loss due to Alzheimer's disease, we know that that disease actually started approximately two decades or 20 years prior.

We know that amyloid starts building up for approximately 20 years, 15 to 20 years, which then initiates other brain cells to die off essentially, which leads to Alzheimer's disease. So we're trying to remove that amyloid Um, prior to that, so we can prevent Alzheimer's disease. And we're also attempting to, once somebody already has the cognitive changes or memory symptoms, we're trying to figure out if reducing that amyloid really slows the disease.

We now have, of course, the world's first medicine on the market that is slowing Alzheimer's disease by removing amyloid from the brain. And we're looking at newer, more advanced forms of those medications that remove the amyloid much more quickly in a matter of months. So, that's very exciting. 

[00:19:42] Warren: With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate the Villages community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, CraigCurtisMD. com or call 352 500 5252 to attend a free seminar.

[00:19:58] Mike Roth: Now how does that affect our more senior listeners who aren't as computer literate? I've had people describe a Tesla as a computer with wheels.

[00:20:07] Peter Bernard: That's exactly what it is. Since I've been in The Villages, I'm a member of The Village's Tesla club. They're proud of The Villages. They had to get special dispensation from the Morse family. We meet at Odell first Wednesdays. There are a lot of seniors that buy a Tesla and they are enjoying their cars, but they don't know about them.

I offer a free service to the Tesla club and anyone else. I have sat in someone's garage and we go over screen by screen exactly how everything operates. I've had about, I think, 14 or 15 people take advantage of this. Or they'll call me and they say, hey, my phone won't connect to Bluetooth. It's a little persnickety.

[00:20:42] Mike Roth: You should teach a course at the Enrichment Academy. On Tesla's. It's a joke to myself. I've been using AI to create these podcasts. A lot of AI. There's no Enrichment Academy course on AI. I've put together an application for an AI course, Enrichment Academy, to teach at least five AIs.

I'll probably teach six. First courses. This October we'll probably do another one. What's the cost, do you know? 60 bucks plus 15 bucks for the handout. Yeah. And I talked about it at the Enrichment Academy show about two weeks ago, on the 18th of last month. They started taking registrations. The first 25 seats sold out for the day. . So I said to the folks at the Enrichment Academy, okay, add 10 more seats. All 10s were sold the next day. 

[00:21:25] Peter Bernard: You don't want to get too crazy because you want to have some one on ones with folks, right? 

[00:21:29] Mike Roth: We have 35 people in the class. 

But there was a tremendous amount of interest. And one of the surprising things that you get to see as an instructor. Is the age of the enrollees. But there were quite a few that were over 80 years of age. Oh. Very interesting, it's gonna be a great course.

I'm sure I'll offer it again. A course on how to use the computers in a Tesla might be a great course for you to fall for. , 

[00:21:51] Peter Bernard: I'll consider it. I've always prided myself as liking to help people with their home automation or their Teslas and I just do it because I'm retired. 

[00:21:59] Mike Roth: Why was the Fisker electric car doomed to death?

[00:22:04] Peter Bernard: Fisker launched with great fanfare and they had a car. That was called the Ocean, and it was made by a company in Europe. 

[00:22:13] Mike Roth: Magna built the Chrysler Crossfire and other specialty vehicles.

[00:22:17] Peter Bernard: Fisker was underfunded, understaffed, and outgunned by major EV makers. They launched, they had Magna build a few cars. They've had nothing but trouble with them. People have had issues with software, and they're supposed to be updated over the air. Fisker's gone belly up, so no fixes.

The NTSB has launched an investigation into some of the problems with Fisker. I was all gung ho when I first heard about it. I thought about buying some stock, getting in on the ground floor. I'm really glad I didn't, because now the stock is worth zero. The guy who, I think his name is Heinrich Fisker, had grand dreams of another car besides the ocean.

I think the Ocean is a fine looking car. You've seen them. They look nice. I saw one here about four months ago, and I wanted to ask how they liked their car. That was a loaded question, because they're probably gonna say this, that, and the others.

[00:23:02] Mike Roth: I had one of the owners, with a Fisker, come to the Cars and Coffee.

During the , last Saturday of the month, from 9 to 10 a. m., we have Cars and Coffee behind Fidelity Investments Sumter Landing. . That's a one entrance parking lot that between 20 and 50 cars show. Nice. There's always a couple of weird ones. Fisker. There was a Fisker. DB 9,

[00:23:21] Peter Bernard: sorry to see Fisker go. I'm a huge proponent of electric cars. Teslas or Chrysler. They're still making the Pacifica a \.Plug in hybrid. The Solterra. Toyota has a full electric SUV. The BZ. They need to change that name. I think, , the more the merrier. General Motors has been dabbling in electric cars for a long time.

They have versions of the Blazer and a couple others. They bring out an electric Hummer. 105, 000 for those with deep pockets. I think it's great. More the merrier. The future is electric. Tesla can't be the only maker out there. It dominates. I think they sell, like, 52 percent of all electrics. When I started at Tesla, we were 3 percent of the market, and I think we're up to maybe 6 percent or 8 percent now.

So the adoption rate is getting better. There are some folks out there, for whatever reasons, have decided that electric's not for them. Usually I can turn them around if I sit and talk with them for about 10 minutes. 

[00:24:10] Mike Roth: And what do you think of the Hyundais and the other South Korea.

[00:24:13] Peter Bernard: I used to own a Hyundai Ioniq 5. Okay. And I loved the car, I loved the styling, I loved the pickup. I had a problem with it, and I had to lemon law the thing, and Hyundai bought it back for me. And I found out later what probably was the issue. For my utility, I get a credit on my bill if I promise to charge during off peak times, and the way the company knows, in my case, Duke, is they inquire.

I give them the credentials for my sign on, and they inquire every now and then to see if I'm charging. And it's my understanding in the case of this, a third party that does the inquiry, that they just kept doing it over and over again. And it kept running down my 12 volts. So the battery was dead.

Hyundai didn't know the problem and changed the components after I got my payout, they said, we think we've finally nailed down what the problem is, and it ends up being that. Now, my Teslas don't have that problem. I've never had a problem with it. 

[00:25:00] Mike Roth: Why do you leave it plugged in? 

[00:25:02] Peter Bernard: For charging. 

[00:25:03] Mike Roth: Here in The Villages, I maybe plug in once everyoneone two to three weeks.

[00:25:07] Peter Bernard: I charge everyoneone night. In the Tesla world, it's ABC, always be connected or always be charging. Keeping the battery cool requires juice, so I take it off the grid. 

[00:25:15] Mike Roth: I don't have that issue for Mercedes. When I unplug it and turn it off, there's almost zero electricity. Being used, the only time the electricity comes on is when I get near the car and the door handle is open or I use the remote.

[00:25:27] Peter Bernard: Teslas have a thing called BMS, stands for Battery Maintenance System, and it monitors the temperature of the battery and if it needs to cool down, it will start up a little recycling of an engine or a remote with a fan. Like there's a radiator on a Tesla and it'll, with ethylene glycol, and it'll circulate it around.

[00:25:42] Mike Roth: Mercedes has two cooling systems for batteries. 

[00:25:45] Peter Bernard: But getting back to Hyundai, I think I was an outlier. I think they make some great cars. The EV6 looks gorgeous. The EV, what is it? There's a couple of new ones that are in the pipeline and they just look great. Their pickup is good. I think their maintenance is negligible like a Tesla.

I think Hyundai is really going to be focused in on EVs in the future. And they have a plant that is being constructed here .

[00:26:05] Mike Roth: That's a problem with the tax credits. 

[00:26:07] Peter Bernard: They have to be here for the tax credits. 

[00:26:08] Mike Roth: Only Mercedes either gets the tax credits, the ones that are built in.

[00:26:12] Peter Bernard: In the case of the Ford Mach E, it's made in Mexico, so I don't think they qualify for the tax credit either. And they have to be under 55, 000, so I got the tax credit because my car was 54, 900. 

[00:26:22] Mike Roth: That's interesting, because I just checked on the IRS website before we did this podcast, and the Mercedes EQE, SUV is close to 80, 000.

[00:26:32] Peter Bernard: And they still get the tax credit? Yes. Double check it. It's on the IRS site. It's qualifying. One reason I got my car is to qualify. If I had changed my color of my car, Yeah. Because my car is the stealth gray. And that's the free color. If I had gone to red, blue, or others, it would have gone over the 55 threshold and I would not get the 7,500 tax credit.

[00:26:53] Mike Roth: So your car is less than 55, 000?

[00:26:55] Peter Bernard: Yep. 54, 900. Wow. I think so, considering in 2019 I paid 3, 000 for a single engine Tesla long range. I've got the performance version for a couple thousand more. It's got two motors. 

[00:27:08] Mike Roth: What's the actual range ? 

[00:27:10] Peter Bernard: I've never checked it out, but the book is about 305.

Okay. Now, if I'm a lead foot, it goes down a tad. Yeah, I find that when I'm driving in The Villages. you're going around a curve at 35 miles an hour. You're speeding. 

 Only till I get down to 44, maybe going to Leesburg and open up to 55 legally. 

That would be a bad idea. Do you have any closing remarks or additional information? I think electric vehicles, EVs are the future. People scoff and say, what about the grid? And where do you think your electricity comes from? And I really have an answer to all that, because I've been studying all this for years.

Yes, EVs require electricity and power generation, but those are done, the power is made at power plants that are under strict federal guidelines for emissions, and I'd rather have The emissions at some faraway plant and not have emissions from everyoneone single tailpipe that goes through my house and goes by the, in The Villages.

every car that you see out there that is an ICE vehicle is spewing all kinds of particulates and pollution into the atmosphere. And I'm no tree hugger, but I know They do. And no one can deny it. And Even, I know here in The Villages, I'd say 85 percent of the golf cars out there are Yamaha Quiet Tecs.

And they are also spewing stuff into the atmosphere. Terrible. Yeah. So that's why I have an electric golf car. Yes, again, the power has to be generated somewhere. I get that. But it's at a central location somewhere far away from my neighborhood and not on the street in front of my house. 

[00:28:37] Mike Roth: They've closed down most of the coal fired plants.

That's generation of electricity, cleaner, in some places they have wind turbines, solar, some be So I invite those that are scoffing about EVs is go in your garage, leave your car on, don't do this, I'm just putting it out as a facetious, and see a half hour later what the air is like. I can leave my car on, giant air quotes, in my garage overnight and there's not one iota of pollution that is spewed into my garage.

 Let's talk about a couple of the other applications of EVs in part two of this episode.

 Thanks for listening to part one. Next week, in part two, we'll be continuing the conversation on electric vehicles and their future with Peter Bernard.

[00:29:20] Donna: Remember, our next episode will be released next Friday at 9 AM. Should you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike at rothvoice dot com. This is a shout out for supporters Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Duane Romick, Paul Sorgin, Kathy Loving, and Dr. Craig Curtis at K2 in the Villages.

We will be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show, contact us at mike at rothvoice dot com. We thank everyone for listening to the show. The content of the show is copyrighted by Rothvoice 2024. All rights reserved.