Tag Archives: Tesla Model 3

Electric Cars, Part 2

Electric Cars, Part 2 – Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane

This week, how electric cars can contribute to the sanctions against the Russian government.

A few weeks ago, I released an episode about my first road trip in an electric car, and I was surprised to see that it topped the charts in terms of listener numbers for the next few weeks. Maybe it’s the topic, people just like electric cars. Maybe it was the picture I used that week of me looking like an executive standing in front of my Mom’s Tesla and a private jet at Kansas City’s Downtown Airport. Either way, you guys liked that one so here’s a sequel: Electric Cars, Part 2.

Today I want to talk to you about one idea I had of how we the United States, and our allies around the globe, can respond to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and move ourselves closer to carbon neutrality at the same time. Russia is one of the planet’s biggest oil producers, in fact I’d go as far as to say that oil is the backbone of Russia’s economy today, maybe not quite like Saudi Arabia or the UAE but on a similar vein. Here in the US, we’ve seen gas prices, which were already high, rise to levels unknown since the darkest days of the Great Recession. Gas prices here in Binghamton, New York range from $4.12 a gallon to as high as $4.35 a gallon right now. It’s likely that price is just going to keep rising, especially as our political leaders have decided to cut off Russian exports into the global petroleum market as a part of the wide-ranging sanctions levied against the Russian government and the ruling elite of that country in response to the Ukrainian War.

This morning I found myself thinking about the trips I have planned in the coming weeks. I knew that my usual $25 per tank of gas wasn’t going to get me nearly as far as I’m used to, and I’ve even gone as far as to cut some weekend day trips around Upstate New York and northern Pennsylvania from my schedule as a result of the rising fuel prices. Yet as I thought about my own trips I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of my Mom in her Tesla, one driver who wouldn’t be impacted by the rising fuel costs to the same degree. After all, Russia may be one of the great oil producers of our time but the electricity powering her Model 3 is locally sourced.

With this in mind I have a small suggestion: let’s use this moment of crisis globally and take the step to really begin transitioning wholesale our automotive industry from gas-powered cars to electric cars. We have the technology, which continues to improve day by day, and we know how to build the infrastructure for it, so why not take a moment of what could lead to great internal crises of long lines at the pumps and offer even greater incentives for people to trade in their internal combustion cars for EVs? We could even say it’s the humanitarian, or in the very American case that we like in this country the “patriotic thing” to do. The greatest innovations of our past have been born out of moments of crisis and trouble.

One big concern I know I’ll hear from the naysayers is that big oil won’t go for it, after all they have too much to lose in electric vehicles. To them I say, big oil would be idiotic to not see the potential in electric vehicles and start making the switch themselves. The easiest way for things to change is if we frame the change in dollars and cents, in profits. Greed, as a certain TV bartender would say, is the way to people’s hearts. 

Of course, there are some issues with this particular idea. For one we have other shortages of raw materials needed to make the batteries and computers used in electric vehicles. And even then, the mining of those materials isn’t terribly green. In the short term though, one way we could begin to threaten the aggressors in Moscow with long term trouble would be to deny them their greatest source of wealth.

I for one look forward to the day when I won’t have to fill up gas on a weekly basis. The potential changes to how our society functions through the economic changes imposed by this switch to EVs, which guys is likely going to happen anyway, are likely to be one of the core things that define the current twenty-first century as distinct from the twentieth.

Electric Cars

Electric Cars – Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane

This week, I'm talking about my first road trip in an electric car. For my sources see: [1] 7-Eleven Corporate, "7-Eleven Charges Forward with Installation of 500 Electric Vehicle Ports by End of 2022, Providing Convenient Charging Options that Drive a More Sustainable Future," (1 June 2021), https://corp.7-eleven.com/corp-press-releases/06-01-2021-7-eleven-charges-forward-with-installation-of-500-electric-vehicle-ports-by-end-of-2022-providing-convenient-charging-options-that-drive-a-more-sustainable-future [2] Statista, "Number of 7-Eleven Stores in the United States from 2017 to 2020," (July 2021), https://www.statista.com/statistics/1130946/number-of-7-eleven-stores-us/

Last week I got the opportunity to ride along with my parents in my Mom’s Tesla on a cross-country road trip for the first time. We traveled across Missouri the 3.5 hours from Kansas City to St. Louis to visit relatives, many of whom we hadn’t seen in nearly 2 years because of COVID. When they were first looking at buying an electric car it was understood that because of battery range limitations those vehicles would make good city cars but wouldn’t be nearly as good for any long trips between cities. So, when Tesla announced their Model 3 would have an option for a 300-mile range and would be priced low enough that they could be more likely to be affordable in the long term, my Mom jumped at the opportunity. In many ways, while the electric car market was quietly growing before Tesla, with models like the Nissan Leaf driving the way forward, Tesla has in its own way revolutionized the speed at which electric cars are growing in the American automotive market.

In ideal conditions, at 248 miles, St. Louis is within the range for the Model 3 to make it without stopping to recharge. That said, generally it’s a good idea to stop and recharge in the middle. Yet as much as Tesla has revolutionized electric cars, the batteries are still susceptible to range fluctuations depending on the weather. In this case, we left Kansas City on a blistering cold day, and were lucky to make it as far as the supercharger at a Holiday Inn on the eastern side of Columbia, MO where we could recharge. Superchargers have the benefit of fast charging; it only takes 30 minutes or so for the batteries on a Model 3 like ours to fully recharge at a supercharger. Still, the idea that we were making a “refueling stop” that would take longer than 5 minutes, my usual stop length when I’m driving my Mazda, seemed a little bizarre. Still, the rare moment where we didn’t really have anything to do gave us the opportunity to stand around and chat.

Developments are being made in terms of making electric car charging stations more common across the country. 7-11 announced in June 2021 that they were beginning the process of installing charging points at 250 of their 9,522 stores in the United States. Meanwhile, cities like Kansas City, MO have long had partnerships with their local power companies to provide electric car charging stations at businesses and institutions throughout the city. Going forward, I think it would be well within the best interests of gas station chains like QuikTrip, BP, Speedway, Shell, or Mobil to invest in electric car charging at their locations around the US and globally.

In my own case, I plan on my next car being electric, whether that’s in five years or seven. I currently drive a 2014 Mazda 3, a wonderful sporty car that has proven itself time and again on my long drives between Kansas City and Upstate New York four times a year over the last four years. As much as I love that car, I fully recognize the need to move off fossil fuels and internal combustion in favor of vehicles and other transportation modes that aren’t as harmful to our environment. Thus, my interest in an electric car.

While my ideal would see the United States moving toward more public transit, better electrified rail networks, including a national high-speed rail system, and less car ownership all around, we live in a country rebuilt after the Great Depression and World War II with the car in mind. Here in Kansas City, I’m lucky to live in a neighborhood that is walkable, and that has regular bus service to Midtown and Downtown. I could conceivably even take the city buses as far as KCI Airport and not worry about driving up there at all, though the way the local public transit system is currently set up, connecting buses is more challenging than it needs to be.

As it stands, the US is going to remain a car-dependent country. Better to drive cars that are more sustainable, quieter, and safer. Progress means we continue innovating and moving forward. Let’s do it in electric cars!