hey everybody how's it going i hope
you're having a great day so in the last
video that i did i expected there to be
some pushback on a number of things but
the statement that really got the most
pushback that i was very surprised at
was the statement that we don't have
affordable electric vehicles yet and i
was very surprised given the landscape
of the general market now to realize
that a lot of people
disagreed with me when i made that
statement and i wanted to go over that
in this video to be clear i just want to
discuss a few points before i get into
the topic of today's video the first is
that yes i am an electric vehicle fanboy
i'm not a fanboy of any one particular
custom company i just like electric
vehicles whether it is a phase runner
from ebikes.ca and a bbs hd motor that i
put on my bike or a sabaton controller
with a cyclone motor on my bike or a
zero motorcycle or a ford machi or a
tesla model 3 i find electric vehicles
to be interesting and excited so i do
have a bias there the second is that i'm
not very knowledgeable when it comes to
cars and automobiles so if i get
something wrong a i'm not claiming i'm
an expert i'm just trying to come at
this from the standpoint of your average
everyday consumer and b if i do get
something wrong when it comes to
automobiles please do correct me and i
will pin the comment with the
corrections so what i want to do here is
i really want to try and get inside the
head of somebody that's looking to
purchase a car that is either poor or
lower middle class and i want to show
you why it is i stand by that statement
i made when it comes to the
affordability of electric vehicles i
like electric vehicles and i'd like to
see them get more adoption the problem
is you're not going to get people to
adopt something or agree with you or be
open to what you're saying if they feel
like they're being gaslit so one example
when inflation is increasing the cost of
housing rent all these things that are
like really matter to people
and the white house had a choice you
know they could tweet out this is an
issue i get it here's what we're doing
to address it or they could tweet out
cheese is like one percent cheaper this
year than it was last year
you understand
it's important to not gaslight people so
i just wanted to give you a basic idea
of the way that i see it and you tell me
how you see it now i have a friend who
is a multi-multi-millionaire this guy's
way more successful than i am when it
comes to finances and he still drives a
volkswagen jetta he will replace his
jetta a little more often than your
average person but he still drives a
nineteen thousand dollar car because he
i don't know he's a giant fanboy of the
jetta he loves his jetta he says that it
almost never breaks down in the rare
case it does need service he's able to
get service very quickly and affordably
he just likes his jetta so i decided to
use that as a starting point as an
affordable vehicle again you can see
here starting msrp of 18995
and if we do just a little bit of basic
research on it how many miles you get a
gallon and looks like you get an
approximate let's just say 29 miles a
gallon it has a 13.5 gallon gas tank
let's just lower that down on 13 just to
make it round so 13 gallons of gas times
29 miles per gallon you get 377 miles of
range in this vehicle approximately 377
miles of range for 18 995
now let's look at many of the major
automakers and let's just see what it
would be like if you were to use the car
for a something like a cross-country
road trip i did not get a car because i
want to drive around new york city that
is hell i can take my e-bike and i can
get anywhere in the city faster than
anybody with a car because i can get
around traffic in a way that you can i
got a car because i wanted to explore
the rest of the country wanted to
explore wisconsin tennessee florida
south dakota new hampshire and i wanted
to be able to drive around a little bit
now there is a website called
plugshare.com which is really cool
because this website allows you to check
out different types of chargers so that
you can get an idea of where you can go
and where you can't go it allows you to
see all the different types of chargers
it allows you to choose the minimum
power of these chargers so i decided to
set my threshold at 50 kilowatts
anything under 50 kilowatts in my
opinion you are gonna have a very very
very painful time doing a road trip
because
if we're talking about like a six
kilowatt or a four kilowatt or an eight
kilowatt charger you're going to be
staying overnight i don't consider that
to be viable for a cross-country road
trip at least with 50 kilowatts and
above you have the option at that point
to be able to wait for an hour or two
hours and then get back on your trip and
with tesla with 120 kilowatt and 250
kilowatts those you can often just
charge for 20 minutes and then go back
on your trip
so let's just take a look over here
let's say i wanted to travel i don't
know let's say from sydney to bozeman
montana something like that so if i
wanted to travel from sydney
montana and i wanted to go to bozeman
montana let's just get an idea of how
far that is i'm going to do that on this
little map and as you can see this is a
411
mile trip and one of the things that
you'll notice over here is that if you
do want to take that type of trip you
are
stuck either carrying a gas powered
generator with you that you're going to
use which nobody's going to do that or
you are going to be stuck staying at
some place overnight to charge because
you have to lower this to zero and then
you get
more much more places but they're all
slow or you need to buy a tesla because
again if i once i add tesla charging in
here you'll see that
you can actually make it that 400 miles
you can charge here here here when you
take out tesla charging doing a
cross-country road trip in many parts of
the country becomes impossible due to
how sparsely laid out the other electric
vehicle charging stations actually are
now i know what you're saying you're
thinking well tesla's opening up their
superchargers to everybody else
at a couple of pilot locations in the
netherlands and if you follow elon
musk's timelines for when he says
something will be done and when it
actually gets done um you're probably
not holding your breath any time soon so
if you wanted to do a cross-country road
trip
let's say this section of the country at
this point you are essentially locked
into
either a
waiting overnight
been stopping along the way which i
think for most people is going to be
unacceptable or b buying a tesla so if
we take a look at tesla's website and
you check out something like the model 3
which is their most affordable vehicle
and you click order now
let's just try and configure this so
let's say i don't want the long range
let's say i'm willing to stop and charge
more often you're still looking at a car
that's forty thousand dollars again i
don't count the potential savings thing
in the very beginning but even if you do
that's still
forty four thousand dollars over here in
contrast to a vehicle that starts at
eighteen thousand dollars if we're
talking about something that's
affordable if you're poor if you're
lower middle class if you're looking to
save money a savings of 20 000 plus
dollars probably really really matters
to you again i'm not in the same place
now that i was in 2009 in 2009 when i
started this business i had 268 bucks i
think approximately like 600 or a
thousand or so something like that in
total debt across credit cards and i
made a few hundred dollars a week i was
broke i'm very far from being there but
i still remember what that was like and
i guarantee you that that amount of
money is an amount of money that
actually matters now let's say that you
are actually willing to wait overnight
you are actually willing to not
supercharge along the way like you can
when you're using tesla's network you're
willing to just deal with okay i'm gonna
have to find a hotel let's say we reduce
minimum power to zero i'm gonna i'm
gonna be willing to i don't know go here
wait overnight here wait overnight here
wait overnight here wait overnight and
so on and so forth let's just take a
look at the other brands and again i
don't think most people are going to
want to do that i think the availability
of tesla's charging network is why it's
one of the most popular electric
vehicles on the road but let's just get
an idea let's just go over other brands
so let's say that we take a look at
nissan now nissan has an electric
vehicle the leaf and it says starting
msrp is 27
400 let's try building it and pricing it
to get an idea of what the options are
that are available with the leaf now if
you get
the cheapest leaf the twenty seven
thousand four hundred lease uh leaf
let's just see what what range do you
get because uh tesla does this deceptive
thing where they will show you the speed
of their fastest one but also the range
of the slower one all on the same page i
hate that [ __ ]
if you if you so i always kind of wary
when i'm when i'm going through car
websites you see this they show you the
speed of the performance model over here
but they show you the range of the long
range model the range of the performance
model is lower than this it's closer to
320 something and the speed of the one
that has this range is closer to 4.2
seconds so again car websites are just
something else so let's just so i
clicked on this model and let's see if
it will tell me the range on this one
model once i click through next and
everything because i just want to make
sure what i'm getting for the 28 000.
okay so again it says 226 miles on the
main page but that's if you get the
upgraded one with the 62 kilowatt hour
battery the 40 kilowatt hour battery is
only giving you 149 miles of range which
even if you're willing to wait overnight
to charge is going to be really really
painful on a route like this you're not
going to be able to get much of anywhere
if you actually want to get the one that
has a little bit more range you're going
to need the 62 kilowatt hour battery and
when we do the pricing over here again
the the 28 000 the 28 000 those are not
the ones with the bigger battery you're
going to need to spend 32 400 or above
and again even if you do spend over 32
000 on a leaf you're still getting a
range of 226 miles assuming that they're
accurate and do keep in mind that when
tesla claims that their range is 358
miles you'll be lucky to get 310 or 320
if that in the real world as opposed to
what it says on the website so god only
knows if you're actually going to get
226 miles out of a leaf but to get 226
miles out of a leaf you're going to be
looking at
over 32 000 and again that is
considerably less range than you get on
this vehicle which costs
over 13 thousand dollars less so that is
something to keep in mind now we go over
to ford so let's check out ford so we're
gonna go and check out their electric
vehicle over here so mustang mock e
order now
um
i don't know what it is i i genuinely
prefer the web some sometimes i really
yearn for the web of the late 90s and
early 2000s i know that sounds
ridiculous but i really miss
when websites just loaded instantly like
this is a this is an amd threadripper
with fios and it still takes this long
to load a website because they have to
make it look all fancy and stuff and at
the end of the day it really doesn't
look much better than what the web used
to look like small round so let's just
say that we take a look at this so let's
say we select their cheapest electric
vehicle this is it says the newest order
delivery okay firstly again you're
waiting 20 weeks to get the car that's
not exactly something i would say is
is great but let's say i get the
standard one right so the standard one
gets you 247 miles
247 miles for 43 000
now if you were to just take a look at
some of their other vehicles if we were
to look at something else like i don't
know an escape or a bronco or literally
explorer or pretty much any other
vehicle that they offer you'll see that
all of their ice vehicles which again
all of these cars are going to get well
over 300 miles of range they will beat
that mock eon range
are
in their anywhere from six thousand
dollars cheaper ten thousand dollars
cheaper
like fourteen fifteen thousand dollars
cheaper all of these vehicles are way
more affordable again this this is
almost twenty thousand dollars cheaper
and this car is going to get you
better range than the ford maki let's
move on to another company let's just
check out something like chevy so let's
go vehicles let's go cars
okay so let's see what here we go
electric for some reason i thought spark
was electric because spark kind of
sounds like something that happens with
electricity but
not great branding there so let's say we
get something like the bolt
i personally wouldn't want a bolt
because they it seems like you know they
they claim they bought their batteries
from lg but it seems like they're
getting them from unit pack power from
from what's been happening with some of
their bolts which just kind of they have
a tendency to go on fire in the in your
driveway okay so you have epa estimated
range of 251 miles starting at 31 000
and again i just want them it gets as
shown 34 000 so i just want to get an
idea of whether or not this range is
actually accurate because again they'll
post the lowest price on the home page
with the highest range without telling
you you've got to pay extra to get that
range so let's just say i'm in
i'm here and let's see yes so epa
estimated range 251 259 miles for 31 000
again this is not enough range for you
to be able to make this road trip
without sleeping overnight if you wanted
to do this road trip you are going to if
you want to be able to make this road
trip in a similar fashion that you would
to an internal combustion engine vehicle
you are going to need to have a tesla or
again a internal combustion engine
vehicle until the charging stations are
better
you know people are going to say like
it's not why are you using rural montana
as an example
because it's a road trip you know again
if you want to claim that it's it's just
as affordable for everybody in the
nation then you really have to consider
the use cases and a cross-country road
trip
through a very very beautiful and remote
area of the nation is
is most certainly a valid use case and
again when we're talking about the
options if you want to buy a car from
chevy you can buy a malibu which is
considerably cheaper than the bolt you
can buy a camaro if you want something
fast which is cheaper than the bolt you
can buy a truck which is cheaper than
the bolt and
every single one you can buy a spark and
every single one of these is going to
have longer range than the bolt now a
lot of you have likely been screaming at
your screen at this point saying louis
poor people are not going to buy new
cars they're going to buy a used car
100
let's continue with that so if we were
to continue just checking out used cars
let's say we check out a 2013
something like a 2013 toyota corolla
toyota crawl is a common car for
somebody you want to get in the used
market buy something that's close to 10
years old you save a little bit of money
you could pay 10 eleven thousand twelve
thousand and you can have a vehicle now
let's say you wanna buy a used electric
car right let's just say you wanna get
something used electric save some money
something similar to that toyota corolla
which by the way that toyota corolla is
gonna get at least 350 miles if you've
got a full gas tank in a eight-year-old
toyota corolla 350 miles is probably a
conservative estimate now if you want to
buy a used electric car about nine years
old or so take a look at this you could
get a nissan leaf for 11 or 12 thousand
dollars that's affordable right well you
got 350 miles of range with the other
one how much range you think you're
going to get with this if we're talking
about a 300 or a 2013 or a 2014 model
nissan leaf this vehicle is likely to
have a range that is so low that they
are not actually going to advertise it
you're looking at somewhere around
approximately 75 miles to 100 miles of
range on these older vehicles let's just
see will it will it actually advertise
it
so if you type in the word mile
mile okay it says how many miles they're
on the vehicle but it won't tell you
that they're they're not going to tell
you that because one of those things
like comcast and their internet speed
they're not going to tell you what the
upstream is unless you call them here we
go so range 75 miles battery only and
that's assuming we have zero battery
degradation i'm going to assume right
there that
that that battery has not degraded at
all let's just assume it's full battery
75 miles that is functionally useless to
people in so many parts of the country
even if charging we're literally instant
let's just assume that every charger
station you don't have to wait you plug
it in and within five seconds the
battery is full 75 miles of range in so
many parts of the country
is a toy
my electric bike which i have three
batteries in parallel on will give me
90 miles of range even if i drive it a
little crazy 90 i'll get 90 miles out of
my bike this is 75 out of a car and you
know if that battery is nine years old
that's degraded to a considerable point
let's look at something like a tesla
because teslas are one of the more
popular electric vehicles so what i've
done here is i've told ebay motors i
only want buy it now and i want between
five thousand to fourteen thousand just
to get rid of you know the really the
car parts and stuff like that and to see
what's available in this approximate
range so you have a battery pack not a
car
the battery pack
a battery you have a drive unit from
what looks like a semi-totaled car over
there
and you get parts again like the idea
that you are going to get a used
electric car in the you know the 11 to
15 000 range the same way that it's
standard and common for people across
the country to purchase an internal
combustion engine vehicle used for 5 000
15 000 if they can't afford new that is
just not available to you unless you
want what is in my opinion a toy car a
car that is over eight years old with a
degraded battery that gave you 75 miles
when it was new
in my opinion that's a toy car you can
say what you'd like i think once you get
above 170 200 miles you have something
that's usable and once you get over 350
miles you have something that's
comparable to the technology that we've
all been used to this entire time which
is being able to get 350 miles out of a
car in one go but yeah they use the
market for electric vehicles is
virtually non-existent at that bottom
rung that is essential to get many
people in the country to adopt them as a
viable option and that is completely
left out of the discussion now i know
what many people are going to say well
lewis that's not fair electric vehicles
haven't been around that long obviously
tesla's from 2013 and 14 have been for
sale they're just way more expensive
than that let's see if they haven't been
around that long it's new with
technology it's not fair to compare that
but fairness doesn't enter the
conversation here at all we're talking
about whether or not they are affordable
we're not talking about whether it's
fair that they're not affordable i'm
confident that people who were lower
middle class or poor because insurance
didn't cover a medical bill or insurance
didn't cover a disaster that happened to
their house or something horrible
happens to them or whatever it is i'm
sure that a lot of poor people out there
probably don't think it's fair that
they're poor but if they go into a
dealership or they go into a tesla
showroom and they say i want that
long-range model 3 it's not fair that i
can't afford it can you make it 11 000.
it's not going to help them what people
do is they don't the fairness has
nothing to do with the equation when
we're talking about purchasing a vehicle
what matters is reality what people do
is they look inside of their wallet
they look at what it is they need and
then they look at the landscape of
everything that's available and they
make the best possible decision they can
with what is in their wallet what their
needs are and what's available what's
fair really doesn't enter into that
equation because it doesn't change
what's in their wallet it doesn't change
the price of what they're purchasing and
it doesn't change what they need the end
of the day it doesn't matter if it's
fair or it's unfair what matters is
reality and at the end of the day as
much as i love electric vehicles as much
as i think that they are cool that
doesn't mean that for people who are
broke they are just as affordable as
internal combustion engine vehicles
there is a tax that you pay when you
purchase an electric vehicle as an early
adopter and yes they've been around for
over 10 years at this point but ice cars
have been around for over 100 so you are
kind of an early adopter there is an
early adopter tax that you are paying
and that makes them fundamentally less
affordable are they more affordable now
than they were 10 years ago absolutely
are they going to continue to become
more affordable as battery technology
becomes cheaper as it has over the past
30 years 100 they're definitely going to
become cheaper technology always gets
cheaper as time goes on but to state
that at this point in time
that somebody who's complaining about
the affordability of an electric vehicle
is being ridiculous because you do have
affordable electric vehicles look look
louis i looked one up there's a vehicle
over there that's only 35 000
yes and it has lower range than a car
that costs 14 000 less than that and
that matters to people who are poor
it does
to pretend that the affordability
problem doesn't exist
it gaslights people who are actually
poor and what it does is it makes them
less likely to ever want an electric
vehicle because then you have this
little culture war associated with it
which is like what wait a second so you
think having to pay 14 000 extra for a
vehicle is doesn't make it affordable
what are you poor that's how it comes
off as when somebody says when somebody
makes a comment when somebody over here
says i don't believe you've done any
research in this topic not knowing
anything about you based on the fact
that i found three on the market for
less than forty five thousand dollars in
less than two minutes of research when
you make a comment that is so ignorant
so as to suggest that simply because a
car exists at thirty five thousand
dollars that that fixes the problem
that's ridiculous you're gaslighting
poor people and you're gaslighting
people that simply may actually be
affluent like my friend that still drive
a jetta because at heart they're just
cheap [ __ ] and i respect them and i
love them for it but this makes no sense
oh okay so congratulations it exists at
35 000
that doesn't make it affordable if an
internal combustion engine vehicle with
similar interior trims some of similar
features and functionality exists for
fifteen thousand dollars less
when you can show me a vehicle that
costs eighteen thousand dollars
that has a decent charging network that
has over 350 miles of range when you can
then show me a used vehicle that costs
between five to fourteen thousand
dollars that has over 350 miles of range
that is electric then at that point i
think we can start to have the
discussion about the
real affordable electric vehicle options
but as long as that lower rung just
fundamentally doesn't exist in a
practical way i think it is really
disingenuous to say that electric
vehicles are now affordable and i think
it really is just kick and dust in the
face of people who don't have that extra
money to spend to people to whom an
additional 10 or 15 000
actually makes a real [ __ ] difference
in their yearly budget or dare i say
maybe even their decade-long budget and
i think it's something to consider and
i've spoken about the cars that i like i
will leave a link down below to a very
long video that i did what matters here
is not just thinking about the
decision-making process that you make
from your perspective but also thinking
about it from other people's perspective
there are many problems in the world
that are solvable but they're only
solvable if we admit that they're
problems and we don't just pretend
they're not because it doesn't affect us
let me know what you think in the
comments down below and if any of my
terminology here has been off when it
comes to automobiles have gotten
anything blatantly obviously wrong
because again i am not pretending to be
a car guy here please do let me know and
i will include a pin comment that
clarifies anything that i got wrong i'll
see you all in the next video bye now