New Geekbits Podcast and Hard Drive failure
The new Geekbits podcast is out. In this episode, we discuss the history of EVs over the last 10 years and some of the challenges that the industry has faced. Then we talk about where we are at now, and where we'll be in 10 years.
Also, Last night - the hard drive failed on my main computer that I do video editing on. Right in the middle of using it. Granted, I was using a 10 year old Mac with a traditional magnetic hard drive. I guess it was just a matter of time.
I had the Amiga 1000 restoration video about 95% finished when this happened. I have all of the source files backed up on my NAS, which is standard procedure for me. But I don't currently have another computer that can run Final Cut Pro. I took this opportunity to buy a new Mac Mini M1, but it will be 2 weeks before it is delivered. So, I'll continue to work on videos such as scripting and filming, but won't be able to do any serious editing for at least 2 weeks.
Actually, I have a Macbook Air that might be able to run Final Cut. It only has 8GB of RAM, but maybe I can finish the last 5% editing I needed to complete the video.. We'll see...
Is it Game Over for Legacy autoMakers? - GeekBits Podcast Episode 9 (The Geek Pub)
Comments (23)
Hey, I've been thing about this podcast a lot. I have a question, can EVs be viable in areas that get really cold? I've seen a lot of reports of EV shutting down up north with how cold it is getting.
I've seen a lot of reports of "what would happen" if all of those people were driving EVs on I95. However, I haven't heard of any actual EV shutting down. I think it is nonsense. Norway is the leading country in the world for EVs and I think it's safe to say it gets really cold there and I haven't heard of any issues with it. Most of these reports are political FUD to attack Biden.
You're right that these aren't Coal powered cars. With the US's current energy mix, they're more likely Natural Gas powered cars. :)
The main issue is repairability. While electric cars are significantly simpler, and the designs should be way easier to repair, they're being built by companies that want to keep you from repairing them. Instead of letting people rebuild them for $1000-2000 or so, they want you to spend $22000 to buy a new battery pack. Instead of putting a new cooling fitting on a battery pack, they want to replace the entire battery pack. It's because Tesla is like Apple, a modern tech company that has shifted to a very repair hostile stance. There was a recent issue where after 10 years the batteries were no longer holding a charge, so the "million mile" or "lifetime of the car" isn't necessarily true, or for a much more expensive purchase the life is going to be shorter. I spent decades driving cars that were 15-20 years old that I could repair myself for the most part inexpensively, and when electric cars are the norm, I'll be at the mercy of the electric car maker to get the schematics to repair them. People who were like me and very poor for that time will not be able to afford these cars even used due to the repair costs if there's a monopoly on repair.) I think my next car will probably be Hybrid though, the plugin hybrids from Subaru would get most of the commutes by electric, but still be able to do long road trips through rural areas, and battery replacement will be much cheaper with a pack that's only 17-20 miles than a 250-300 mile battery. I can't stand the touch screen controls on everything... So that's one thing that hurts any chances of me buying a tesla. Aside from that, maybe in 10-20 years they'll address all of the remaining issues with infrastructure and batteries will be inexpensive enough that it'll be worthwhile. Maybe Tesla will let people have the schematics and service manuals so they can service things. Maybe I'll consider one after all of that is true. Maybe someone will make physical buttons that integrate into the tesla so that I can control things by feel instead of looking down at the center console to hit the on-screen button. There is one thing about Hydrogen cars though, like Electric cars, they use electric motors, and thus all of the performance advantages of Electric exist with those, but it also has all of the disadvantages of electric aside from the cost of batteries. The need to build out a new infrastructure, the likely lack of repairability. If they had built this out before Tesla existed, it may have been useful, but now it's largely pointless.
Also, this one is more of a niche thing, but in the west, there's still a range problem, even with a 300 mile range. There's a gas station at least every 50 miles, and it takes just a minute or two to fill up. There's routes here where there aren't Tesla fast charging stations for 250 miles here. It's different out east, in Europe, or in Texas, than it is in the rural areas of Colorado, New Mexico, or Wyoming. Maybe they'll eventually have enough in places like Dove Creek to put enough superchargers in for these rural areas, but right now that infrastructure isn't in place. (There's a road between GJ and Farmington where there's two super chargers at either end, 270 miles, and no super chargers between. If you have to go 180 miles of that then turn around, you'd have to hit a slow charger, or run out of charge. There's only one slow charger between GJ and Dove Creek, and one slow charger between Farmington and Dove Creek.) I've used this one since it's an example of a drive I might actually do, but I've found even worse ones that are 280+ miles between not just super chargers, but slow chargers that if I lived in different towns I might take. Also, when we're on long road trips, we usually aren't stopping for 20 minutes to get fuel. It's 2-3 minutes, and while I'm filling the tank the other family members go in and grab what we need to eat, then we're back on the road in under 10.
This was a good one. The comparison between CRTs and Gas cars is great. Makes me think. What keeps me away is the charge times I make a lot of 600 mile road trips for work and have gotten it down to needing very few stops. But I feel I am only a few years away from making the plunge.
Interesting and good discussion, but what I'm missing a lot are the cons of battery driven cars that come in the future. Where to get all the energy to charge the cars, the problem with mass battery manufacturing (for the environment) and so on. An in this way your view to hydrogen is really to on-sided. Hydrogen driven cars ARE EV's and hydrogen itself isn't a replacement of gasoline for the oil companies. The nice thing of hydrogen is that it can be produced locally and don't have to transported. What’s simply needed is water and electricity. No gas station can be simply fueled by hydrogen instead of gasoline. That’s not possible. I believe that the more or less far future is the electric generation in the vehicle itself. The con of hydrogen and fuel cells are just, that they aren’t efficient as gasoline or batteries. But atm in Europe we are driving cheaper with hydrogen as with gasoline. And we have to think what happens with the price for electricity if more battery driven cars are on the road and more and more electric energy is needed overall in the future. It will rise massively, I promise you. ;)
Some of these questions would fall under the 100 myths that need busting about EVs, especially the energy production and the mining, etc. Like I said in the video, just not enough time to cover all of those. As for your concept of hydrogen production, I'm afraid it isn't as simple as you think. Producing hydrogen from electricity is pretty expensive and complicated on a large scale. It's much cheaper to get it from natural gas. That's where most of it is made today, and you can bet that is where most of it will be made from in the future just due to costs.
Thanks for that resource as I have bookmarked it! I do wish that Chrysler / Jeep / Fiat would have put slightly larger battery capacity in the vehicles and I feel like they switch to gas too quickly when it is cold out but overall I am quite happy with them and I do enjoy driving them. It also seems like a lost opportunity to have some method of increasing battery capacity that is not a hack and also some kind of solar panel, even a tiny one, for when you are sitting in a parking lot for 8 hours in a day. Even a small one would potentially give you a mile or two, if my calculations were correct. I'm sure they have their reasons.... I also found this an interesting resource which would be VERY interesting to hear the 3 of you talk about for the future of combustion powered vehicles. https://www.treehugger.com/electric-vehicle-ev-conversion-companies-85249 Sure, it is quite expensive but it gets you thinking, for sure. It does tell you that there is future for any vehicle that is structurally worthy of it. I have a DeLorean I enjoy driving but someday, if I can't get fuel for it or it becomes unsustainable to do so, this would be a good future modification, I think. After all, it is a car that looks to the future, does it not? :)
I have purchased, this year an EV Hybrid Jeep and Chrysler Pacifica. I love the electric ability. I enjoy that I can do short distances on battery but longer distances, so across the state without the inconvenience of having to charge. My issue is, I have yet to find a charging station anywhere that I can use outside of my home. I guess I need to find adapters for my J1772 port or something. I just bought into a solar electric system for my home as well. I am more interested in the greater independence than the environmental, but I am also interested in caring for my environment and especially in practical ways. Now if we can make trash waste process more efficient....
I'm not sure what part of the country you live in. But I'm sure if you go to www.plugshare.com you'll be able to find some charging stations. I still drive a Chevy Volt myself, so I'm in the hybrid camp too. But I've found that I rarely charge outside of the house. It's just not worth the hassle unless the charging station is literally at my destination, such as a movie theatre or shopping mall, for example. Otherwise, if I have to go out of my way somewhere, I'd usually prefer just to switch to gas. Of course, that's partly due to the fact that my car doesn't support CCS fast charge. If I could stop by a CCS charger for a few minutes like a person fills up with gas, then maybe it would be worth it.
This was another great GB podcast. It very much brings to mind William Gibson's quote, "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."
Maybe a proxy workflow will get you going? https://support.apple.com/guide/final-cut-pro/create-optimized-and-proxy-files-verb8e5f6fd/mac
Back in 2010 I had backed up my computer to an external USB drive so that I could wipe it and install a fresh OS as I do from time to time. Then the backup was knocked off a table while actively restoring the data, losing everything that hadn't been restored yet. As for EV, I love my Chevy Spark EV. It doesn't go too far on a charge, but it is a great commuter car.
Yeah... an HDD failure on a drive only NINE MONTHS OLD took out an RPG I was working on back in 2000 which was only two weeks from being done. Even right now, even though I have a really good 1 TB HDD in my main compy, it's approaching nine years old and I really could do with another TB of space, so I'm going to be swapping it out with a 2 TB SSD before the year is over; remove that variable of the video editing / gamedev equation before it becomes a potential point of failure for my work. (Yes, I do keep backups now too; The HDD failure in 2000 prompted our first CD-RW drive purchase.)
I started using CD-R and RW around that time too. But then after a few years I realized most of my backups wouldn’t read because the media was junk. So I switched to PD drives and eventually DVD-RAM since it was more reliable.
Ouch. Sorry to hear about the hard drive. :(
I think as far as EV goes, we really need break throughs in battery technology. Batteries need to become smaller, lighter, and higher capacity if they are ever going to replace diesel in semi-trucks (tractor-trailers / lorries). If memory serves Tesla was supposed to release their EV semi-truck two years ago (back in 2019), plus Nikola Motor Company has been trying to release hydrogen and electric semi-trucks for 8-10 years?
I'm sorry to hear that David, but well, we'll see the Amiga videos coming :-). The Amiga 1000 I also owned, it's special! Wish you nice holidays!
That's exactly why I switched to SSD's years ago. Hard drives die after a while and it can be difficult to recover files. SSD'S simply last longer as they're like USB drives on steroids. In fact, any PC that I have currently has a SSD in it.
Well, as far as desktops and laptops go, that was my last one using magnet storage. So from this point forward everything I own will be SSD. Except, of course, for my NAS drives, which are still magnetic. But at least those have redundant backups.
I look forward to these just as much as regular 8-bit guy videos
Cross-platform accessibility is the only reason I prefer Adobe Premiere. Sorry about the setback, but I think we're all patient here.