The Expert Podcast

Well, one of our favorite subjects—electric vehicles—are not having a good week. Look, in the long run, EVs might become a thing; it might be the thing that takes over all cars. But this week, not so much.

First, we have a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal which says the best way to put out a fire on an EV is to let it burn. Doesn't sound like putting out the fire—it sounds like just letting it run out of steam. These vehicles have very high potential energy stored in the batteries, and if there's any kind of short, sometimes if it gets wet, they can catch on fire.

I thought this was kind of a joke, where the fire department says, "Let it burn." But I can remember a few months ago attending a board meeting for a municipal fire department. Somebody asked a question: "Are you accounting for the additional risk of electric vehicles in your district?" They said, "No, there's no more risk. We just let it burn." I thought it was half a joke, but according to the Wall Street Journal, it's not really that much of a joke.

Also, if you buy an electric vehicle, it's possible they might hit you up for more fees. Some proponents of taxation are starting to say that electric car drivers should pay more for the damage they're doing to the roads because they're heavier and they do more wear and tear on streets. So, even if you save money on gas—or save money, you're not saving money buying the car—but on maintenance, they might hit you up for more money for repairing roads.

Another potential problem is the security concerns for the chargers. All of these EV chargers, in addition to being hooked up to electricity for the volts to charge the car, are also hooked up to computer networks to control the charging, to turn it off when it's full, maybe sometimes to do billing if it's part of a network. These can be hacked, and there's very little cyber security on some of these networks.

One of the things they're worried about is voltage vulnerability. What it says in the article is that there's not enough regulation for keeping the power grid safe and that somebody could hack into the network, crank up the voltage, and burn the car, destroy the car, and also short-circuit the network.

A lot of dealerships and factories are starting to see that fewer people are wanting to buy these cars, so they're starting to add more rebates and cut prices because not as many people are buying into the EV message. Even with that, the transition is slowing. Inventories are backing up. Whether it's because of fire, road damage, or safety concerns, it's unknown. Either way, there are hurdles.

I know you have an opinion about that. Let us know in the comments what you think, and we'll see you on the next video.