00:00SPEAKERIs Captain Crunch a General Mills cereal, even?
00:02SPEAKER[SQUEAKS]
00:03SPEAKERDoesn't matter. Probably not.
00:06SPEAKERActually, in episode three, you said that Captain Crunch was a General Mills cereal,
00:11SPEAKERand in fact it's made by Nabisco.
00:13SPEAKERThat's good errata for the next one.
00:14SPEAKERYeah.
00:15SPEAKERHow do we start this? We haven't talked about that.
00:18SPEAKERBecause I think I say "Welcome, everybody,"
00:21SPEAKERand that's what I say for "Still Untitled," somebody pointed out.
00:24SPEAKERWe could just start with "Hey, everybody, welcome to--"
00:26SPEAKERWe could just do theme music and then "Hey."
00:28SPEAKERIt doesn't have to be the same every week.
00:30SPEAKERDid I pick the wrong tense for that when I made that?
00:32SPEAKERI feel like it should be "make." I say "make" every single time.
00:35SPEAKERI think that ship sailed.
00:36SPEAKERYeah, I know.
00:36SPEAKERI think a number of ships have sailed already.
00:38SPEAKERWell, we can always change the name.
00:40SPEAKERI guess that's true.
00:40SPEAKERWe're in charge here. Nobody can tell us what to fucking do.
00:42SPEAKERWas it Wes Fenlin or somebody?
00:44SPEAKERIt's like Sweatpants is a really good name.
00:46SPEAKERThot Sweatpants Tacko is a really good podcast name.
00:48SPEAKERI assumed I would change that before we went live, and then I didn't, so...
00:52SPEAKERI mean, at some point we'll talk for a minute, like we are right now,
00:55SPEAKERand then we'll just stop talking.
00:57SPEAKERAnd then the music.
00:59SPEAKERI think it just happened.
01:00SPEAKERDid it just happen?
01:01SPEAKERIt might have just happened.
01:02SPEAKERDid you just cue the music?
01:03SPEAKERI don't know. You do the music. I don't do the music.
01:05SPEAKERIt's true, I do.
01:06SPEAKERYou're in charge of the music. This is all on you, man.
01:07SPEAKERIt's true. Crap.
01:27SPEAKER[music]
01:33SPEAKERHey, everybody. Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.
01:36SPEAKERWe did make a tech pod.
01:37SPEAKERI'm Will.
01:38SPEAKERThis week I am confident...
01:39SPEAKERYeah, it's a pod.
01:40SPEAKER...that in the past tense we made a pod.
01:42SPEAKERPeople know about it.
01:43SPEAKERYeah.
01:44SPEAKERA lot of people know about it.
01:45SPEAKERThank you all for listening. Welcome, everybody.
01:46SPEAKERAll of them hated it.
01:47SPEAKERI don't think, look, you always focus on the haters.
01:50SPEAKEREverybody always focuses on the haters.
01:52SPEAKERThere were a lot of people that were really excited.
01:53SPEAKERIt's true.
01:54SPEAKERThey were like, "Oh, my God, I've been waiting for this forever.
01:55SPEAKERI didn't even know I wanted this."
01:56SPEAKERI'm one of them.
01:57SPEAKERYeah, we're really excited you all are here.
01:58SPEAKERYeah.
01:59SPEAKERLearn about the most exciting topic on the planet.
02:01SPEAKERHold on, but first, errata.
02:02SPEAKEROkay.
02:03SPEAKERI made a mistake two weeks ago.
02:04SPEAKERWhat?
02:05SPEAKERYep.
02:06SPEAKERI thought this was a mistake-free podcast.
02:07SPEAKERI thought we agreed.
02:08SPEAKERWe're trying.
02:09SPEAKERIt's an aspiration.
02:10SPEAKERYou know what they say about fact-checking and corrections.
02:12SPEAKERWell, the mistake was...
02:14SPEAKERI don't think it's a real mistake, but I'm calling it out just so I can make fun of it,
02:18SPEAKERis that the Amiga was a preemptive multitasking operating system in, like, 1986.
02:23SPEAKERYou're scoundrel.
02:24SPEAKERI know.
02:25SPEAKERI accidentally threw shade at the Amiga community, and for that, I am very sorry.
02:28SPEAKERThat's actually pretty early for that.
02:30SPEAKERTen years before anybody else.
02:32SPEAKERYeah, right?
02:33SPEAKERThe only problem was that the CPU was, like, a half megahertz or something, so it couldn't
02:36SPEAKERreally do anything.
02:37SPEAKERI don't know.
02:38SPEAKERI'm not an Amiga guy.
02:39SPEAKERI didn't have a million dollars in 1986.
02:41SPEAKERLet's talk more about the Wang.
02:43SPEAKEROh, man, people love to hear about the Wang.
02:45SPEAKERThat's true.
02:46SPEAKERI wish I had a Wang.
02:47SPEAKERI wonder why.
02:48SPEAKERYou know, if we get to the point where we're doing merch, the first one we're going to
02:51SPEAKERdo is a Wang microcomputer t-shirt.
02:52SPEAKERCan we get away with that?
02:53SPEAKERI don't care.
02:54SPEAKERWhat are they going to do?
02:55SPEAKERIs Mr. Wang out there?
02:56SPEAKERNo.
02:57SPEAKERIs he going to be upset?
02:58SPEAKERThey're not going to come after us.
02:59SPEAKERThe Wang people, the people who own the Wang IP, they've long since moved on.
03:01SPEAKEROh, we should look that up.
03:03SPEAKERMaybe we can print more a Wang t-shirt.
03:05SPEAKERMaybe we can get that ID.
03:07SPEAKEROh, man, we could just call this the Wang podcast.
03:09SPEAKERI think that was already taken, though.
03:12SPEAKERBatteries, Brad.
03:13SPEAKERYeah.
03:14SPEAKERBatteries.
03:15SPEAKERBatteries.
03:16SPEAKERThat's everybody's favorite material science.
03:17SPEAKERLook, we said we were going to go deep on topics that you hadn't heard people go deep
03:21SPEAKERon a podcast before.
03:22SPEAKERElectrolytic chemical reactions?
03:23SPEAKERYeah.
03:24SPEAKERThat's exactly it.
03:25SPEAKERDid I get that right?
03:26SPEAKERYeah.
03:27SPEAKERSo next to nothing about the chemistry of batteries, which is I guess why we're here.
03:29SPEAKERI took a class.
03:30SPEAKEROkay.
03:31SPEAKERTell me everything.
03:32SPEAKERAnd then I failed the test twice.
03:33SPEAKERI had to take it two times.
03:34SPEAKERThey were like, "You clearly had a bad day on this one, Will.
03:37SPEAKERSo we're going to let you take this class again."
03:39SPEAKERHow?
03:40SPEAKERMy advisor was the professor.
03:43SPEAKERBenevolence.
03:44SPEAKEROkay.
03:45SPEAKERYeah.
03:46SPEAKERSo it was in his interest in getting rid of me so he didn't have to talk to me anymore,
03:49SPEAKERI think.
03:50SPEAKEROkay.
03:51SPEAKERDid you pass the test?
03:52SPEAKERNo, barely.
03:53SPEAKEROkay.
03:54SPEAKERI just squeaked one by like a D-plus, probably.
03:55SPEAKEREverybody says chemistry is the hardest subject.
03:57SPEAKERThat's not true.
03:58SPEAKERNo?
03:59SPEAKERNo, biophysical chemistry was the hardest subject.
04:00SPEAKERWell, it's still chemistry.
04:01SPEAKERI mean, I guess that's true.
04:02SPEAKERI think at my school, organic chemistry is the one I always heard was the widow maker.
04:05SPEAKERI took organic chemistry twice too.
04:07SPEAKERI liked it so much.
04:08SPEAKERWow.
04:09SPEAKERI was really bad.
04:10SPEAKERI was a bad student.
04:11SPEAKERMe too.
04:12SPEAKERThat's why I switched to English.
04:13SPEAKERIt's a good choice.
04:14SPEAKERSo batteries, it turns out, we use batteries in everything.
04:17SPEAKERYeah.
04:18SPEAKERThey are ubiquitous now.
04:19SPEAKERThey power everything from our phones to our game controllers, to our cars, to our vehicles,
04:26SPEAKERdrills, like power equipment, drones, drones, I hadn't thought about drones.
04:30SPEAKERDrones is a good one.
04:31SPEAKERNo 3D printer.
04:32SPEAKERNo battery powered 3D.
04:33SPEAKERI have a scanner that's battery powered though.
04:35SPEAKERIt's like a little pocket scanner.
04:37SPEAKERWhy would you?
04:38SPEAKERSometimes you want to scan stuff when you're out.
04:40SPEAKERI just bought a keyboard that takes batteries.
04:43SPEAKERWow.
04:44SPEAKERLike a piano keyboard.
04:45SPEAKEROh wow.
04:46SPEAKERReally?
04:47SPEAKERSit in the subway station and busk.
04:48SPEAKERReally?
04:49SPEAKERYeah.
04:50SPEAKERI'll come down.
04:51SPEAKERI'll chuck a buck in your hat.
04:52SPEAKERI haven't even started trying to learn.
04:53SPEAKERYeah.
04:54SPEAKERWhat kind of hat are you going to wear?
04:55SPEAKERI don't know.
04:56SPEAKERWhat kind of hat are you going to use to busk into?
04:57SPEAKERHmm.
04:58SPEAKERI feel like a lot of hats carry a certain amount of baggage these days.
05:00SPEAKERYou can't do a fedora.
05:01SPEAKERNo.
05:02SPEAKERNothing with a rounded brim, I'd say.
05:04SPEAKERLike there was a fashion article that said there's only one person that's allowed to
05:06SPEAKERwear a fedora now and I know him.
05:08SPEAKEROkay.
05:09SPEAKERYeah.
05:10SPEAKERWell, I'm going to guess I'm not him.
05:12SPEAKERYou're not him.
05:13SPEAKEROkay.
05:14SPEAKERI'm sorry.
05:15SPEAKERYeah.
05:16SPEAKERYou, sir, are not the fedora wearer.
05:17SPEAKERI'll have to come up with a different hat.
05:19SPEAKERYeah.
05:20SPEAKERSo busking.
05:21SPEAKERThat's what we're talking about this week.
05:22SPEAKERBusking and batteries.
05:23SPEAKERNo.
05:24SPEAKERSo.
05:25SPEAKEROkay.
05:26SPEAKERSo batteries.
05:27SPEAKERIt's pretty.
05:28SPEAKERBatteries have been around for a really long time.
05:29SPEAKERLike people invented batteries hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
05:30SPEAKERWait.
05:31SPEAKERWhat?
05:32SPEAKERYeah.
05:33SPEAKERWe were using.
05:34SPEAKERSpeaking of batteries.
05:35SPEAKERThat's at 656.
05:36SPEAKERThat's okay.
05:37SPEAKEROh, you just leave that one in.
05:39SPEAKEROkay.
05:40SPEAKERYeah.
05:41SPEAKERBatteries.
05:42SPEAKERWe've, we've, we've known about the electrolytic chemical reaction that causes an electric
05:47SPEAKERcurrent to happen for longer than we really understood electricity.
05:49SPEAKERLike we, they use that to do electroplating and stuff like that in, in, in olden times.
05:54SPEAKEROkay.
05:55SPEAKERHow old are we talking about?
05:56SPEAKERI don't remember.
05:57SPEAKERI didn't look that up before we started the podcast.
05:58SPEAKERWhat form would a primordial battery have taken?
06:01SPEAKERAcid lead and nickel in the same vat would cause weird things to happen to the, like
06:07SPEAKERyou can, you basically, you put, you dissolve copper or something in the acid and then you
06:10SPEAKERput nickel and iron or something in there and magic happens as the copper comes out.
06:16SPEAKERWhat was the practical use for like metallurgy or something like that?
06:19SPEAKERIf you wanted something to be shiny and calm.
06:20SPEAKERI don't know what they used it for.
06:21SPEAKERThis is all stuff I vaguely remember from college 30 years ago, Brad.
06:24SPEAKERYou're, we're down the wrong rabbit hole here, man.
06:26SPEAKERIt's a fact check.
06:27SPEAKERAm I exposing the boundaries?
06:29SPEAKERWe are way beyond the boundaries of my knowledge here.
06:32SPEAKEROkay.
06:33SPEAKERUm, they, uh, so yeah, you have two half cells.
06:36SPEAKERThere's there's a, an acid, there's a cathode and an anode.
06:43SPEAKERAnd basically what happens is you get electrons to move from one side of this one side of
06:48SPEAKERthat one half cell to the other half cell and you can put something between those two
06:52SPEAKERthings to capture the electrons and those electrons will make things happen.
06:56SPEAKEROkay.
06:57SPEAKERSo all electricity is, is electrons moving through wires.
07:00SPEAKEROkay.
07:01SPEAKERThat's where we start.
07:02SPEAKERWell, DC electricity, I'm about to ask questions that go in three different directions.
07:08SPEAKERIt's fine.
07:09SPEAKERThey're exploding electrons, those are not peeling off from where they are.
07:13SPEAKERI guess that's part of the reaction.
07:15SPEAKERYeah.
07:16SPEAKERThe reaction knocks them loose from the thing and makes them go to the other thing.
07:19SPEAKERI see.
07:20SPEAKERSo, so yeah, the electrons travel through the wire.
07:22SPEAKERIf you put something in between the cathode and the anode of the battery, you know, the,
07:27SPEAKERwhere electrons are at point A, they want to be at point B. If you put something between
07:31SPEAKERpoint A and B, then they'll do whatever electrons do to that thing.
07:34SPEAKERSo if it's like a incandescent light bulb, it runs up the wire, it hits a piece of tungsten
07:39SPEAKERthe tungsten gets hot from the resistance of the, of the filament gets excited and then
07:43SPEAKERlight comes out.
07:44SPEAKEROkay.
07:45SPEAKERThe, the, some of the, some of the electrons turn into photons or they make the tungsten
07:49SPEAKERturn.
07:50SPEAKERLook, that's a different topic.
07:51SPEAKERI don't know that stuff.
07:52SPEAKERFair.
07:53SPEAKERUm, the electrons come back in, they deposit, they end up in the, in the, in the, hold on,
07:58SPEAKERcat is positive.
07:59SPEAKERThey end up in the cathode, which is the positive end.
08:02SPEAKERYou can remember cat because a cat's eyes are pluses.
08:05SPEAKERThat's how I always remember that.
08:06SPEAKERThat's a great mnemonic, um, and they're coming out of the negative end of the battery and
08:11SPEAKERgoing into whatever the thing is that they're supposed to juice.
08:14SPEAKERI think usually we actually label the batteries backwards, so I'm not sure about that because
08:18SPEAKERyou think it's, anyway, it doesn't matter yet.
08:20SPEAKERSo you're actually recapturing some of that energy on the other end?
08:24SPEAKERNo, because what you're, that's exactly.
08:27SPEAKERSo what you have is a potential energy.
08:29SPEAKERDo you remember potential energy?
08:31SPEAKERMy engineering experience is incredibly thin.
08:34SPEAKERAnd you, the concept is fairly self evident.
08:39SPEAKERThis isn't easy to explain.
08:40SPEAKERI remember this.
08:41SPEAKERStored energy versus this kind of practical.
08:43SPEAKERSo you have, yeah, kinetic energy is like the energy of something that's physically
08:46SPEAKERmoving.
08:47SPEAKERYou throw a tennis ball, that ball has kinetic energy.
08:50SPEAKERIf you put a tennis ball on the ground, it has no kinetic energy and no potential energy.
08:55SPEAKERBut if you put the tennis ball at the top of a big ramp, it has no kinetic energy, but
09:00SPEAKERa ton of potential energy because when it goes down that ramp, it'll, it will turn the
09:03SPEAKERpotential energy into it.
09:05SPEAKERJust like fossil fuels have a bunch of stored potential energy.
09:08SPEAKERExactly.
09:09SPEAKERSo with the battery, you have chemical energy stored as potential energy.
09:14SPEAKERAnd when those electrons move from the one end to the other of the battery, you're turning
09:20SPEAKERthe chemical stored potential chemical energy into kinetic electrical.
09:25SPEAKERYou're actualizing the potential.
09:26SPEAKERYou're actualizing the potential of the energy and turning it into something that you can
09:30SPEAKERuse for other things.
09:31SPEAKERBut when the electrode, when the electron gets to the other end of the battery, the
09:35SPEAKERpotential energy is gone.
09:36SPEAKERIt's exhausted itself.
09:38SPEAKERSo you can, you can make the, you can make the electrons go back the other way on some
09:42SPEAKERkinds of batteries.
09:43SPEAKERIt's one of the things we'll talk about, the difference between rechargeable and single
09:47SPEAKERuse batteries.
09:48SPEAKEROkay.
09:49SPEAKERSo like on a double A Duracell, the non rechargeable kind, you use that thing once and it's done.
09:55SPEAKERYou have to send it off.
09:56SPEAKERSure, sure, sure.
09:57SPEAKERI think I was envisioning like excess energy, like more than is required to power whatever
10:00SPEAKERdevice you've got, whether it's like through motion or emitting light or whatever.
10:04SPEAKERThe thing about the DC electricity in this case, and in most of like the things that
10:08SPEAKERyou're talking about, like a light bulb, there's no smarts.
10:10SPEAKERIt doesn't turn off when it's not needed unless you physically disconnect the wires, right?
10:15SPEAKERWith like a phone, it's only pulling current when it needs it, right?
10:20SPEAKERSo the, so the potential stays there until the draw.
10:23SPEAKERSo there is no excess current flowing.
10:25SPEAKERThere's no excess current flowing.
10:28SPEAKERThere's like smoke drifting out of your ears.
10:34SPEAKERI'm sorry.
10:35SPEAKERI feel like I've derailed this in five directions.
10:38SPEAKERNo, it's okay.
10:39SPEAKERSo that's a simplification.
10:41SPEAKERYeah.
10:42SPEAKERThere's always excess energy.
10:43SPEAKEROf course.
10:44SPEAKERYeah.
10:45SPEAKEROkay.
10:46SPEAKERBut we're not getting into like metaphysical thermodynamics here.
10:47SPEAKERBut that's what I'm here for.
10:48SPEAKERPractical understanding.
10:49SPEAKERI'm here for metaphysical thermodynamics.
10:51SPEAKERThat's next week.
10:52SPEAKERWe're doing metaphysical thermodynamics next week.
10:54SPEAKEROkay.
10:55SPEAKERSo two types of batteries, non-rechargeables primary batteries is what they call those,
11:00SPEAKERand secondary batteries, which are rechargeable.
11:04SPEAKERAt this point in the year 2019, don't use, like there's some places you have to use one-use
11:10SPEAKERbatteries.
11:11SPEAKERLike my daughter has toys that only work with alkaline batteries.
11:13SPEAKERYeah, I was going to ask like outside of your kind of off the shelf average disposable like
11:17SPEAKERdouble A's, are the primary type batteries even used anymore, anywhere?
11:23SPEAKERProbably not in mobile devices or cars or any of your kind of big consumer applications
11:29SPEAKERthat I can think of.
11:30SPEAKERI mean, it's, it's, it's toys and flashlights and all the things you put double A's, triple
11:34SPEAKERA's.
11:35SPEAKEROh, flashlights don't like rechargeables?
11:36SPEAKERSometimes they do.
11:37SPEAKEROkay.
11:38SPEAKERI mean, you, you, you, I'm just, I think there are a bunch of weird exotic battery types
11:41SPEAKERout there, right?
11:42SPEAKERYeah.
11:43SPEAKERYou can get, well, you can get flashlights that only lithium ion.
11:45SPEAKERRight.
11:46SPEAKERI had a, I had a surefire flashlight that only took a weird, oh, like an LR 122 or something
11:51SPEAKERlike that.
11:52SPEAKERIt was kind of really lithium ion battery that wasn't rechargeable probably.
11:55SPEAKERYeah.
11:56SPEAKERSo for the most part, when we're talking about single use batteries, it's, it's those it's,
12:02SPEAKERit's specifically like triple A, double A heavy lifting kind of C and D cell batteries
12:08SPEAKERyou buy at the grocery store.
12:09SPEAKEROkay.
12:10SPEAKERUm, as well as like watch batteries, those are those, even though they're lithium in
12:14SPEAKERa lot of cases, they're still not rechargeable.
12:16SPEAKERThey're single use.
12:17SPEAKERUm, mainly because I think we don't have infrastructure to recharge them.
12:20SPEAKERLike you don't have lithium ion battery recharges.
12:23SPEAKERUm, but the, the, the, and the reason we don't use those, the reason you shouldn't use those
12:29SPEAKERis it takes about 50 times as much energy to make a double A battery as is contained
12:34SPEAKERwithin that battery.
12:35SPEAKERI'm not even going to feign surprise at that because you told me that figure before this,
12:37SPEAKERbut that's shocking.
12:38SPEAKERLike that's insanity to me to think about.
12:42SPEAKERThat's notwithstanding like the materials that go into it, like the chemicals that go
12:45SPEAKERinto it and the other kind of material costs, heavy metals, lead, acid, like all sorts,
12:51SPEAKERlike they're, they're, they're an environmental nightmare and they use a ton of energy to
12:56SPEAKERpower your kid's toy.
12:58SPEAKERYeah.
12:59SPEAKERThat's ridiculous.
13:00SPEAKERWell, and, and like it wouldn't be ridiculous if there weren't an alternative that's available
13:04SPEAKERthat's actually really good.
13:06SPEAKERSo for consumer stuff, nickel metal hydride batteries, uh, Sanyo famously popularized
13:12SPEAKERthese with the Eneloop, but they also powered like old, uh, general electric, electric cars,
13:18SPEAKERlike the EVs, EV1.
13:19SPEAKERYou remember the red, the red electric car from the nineties, the general motors one.
13:23SPEAKERIf I say mills, I meant motors.
13:26SPEAKERI'm sure what captain crunches electric car.
13:29SPEAKEROkay.
13:30SPEAKERThere we go.
13:31SPEAKERNow we have an episode title.
13:32SPEAKERYeah.
13:33SPEAKERRight down.
13:34SPEAKERGreat.
13:35SPEAKERUm, um, no.
13:36SPEAKERSo general motors in the nineties made an electric car that was only available in California.
13:38SPEAKERWhat was it called?
13:39SPEAKEREV1 or EV0, EV1, I think maybe EV0.
13:43SPEAKERIs it like experimental?
13:44SPEAKERYeah.
13:45SPEAKERThey actually sell it.
13:46SPEAKERDid they actually put it in dealerships?
13:47SPEAKERSo you know, it's an experimental car when the manufacturers only lease it.
13:51SPEAKERAnd th uh, there's a movie about it called, uh, who killed the electric car, which is
13:55SPEAKERabout the, the big three making GM stop making this car basically.
14:00SPEAKERAnd they, they canceled the lease.
14:02SPEAKERThey recalled all the cars.
14:03SPEAKERThey destroyed them all.
14:04SPEAKERI think there's one in the Peterson automotive museum in LA, but yeah, it's, it's, uh, before
14:09SPEAKERthey destroyed the economy, they had to destroy the electric car.
14:11SPEAKERIt wasn't a good car.
14:12SPEAKERI believe it.
14:13SPEAKERIt only had like 60 mile range or something like that.
14:14SPEAKERNot much related to a car development was great in the nineties.
14:18SPEAKERYeah, that's right.
14:19SPEAKERFrom my memory.
14:20SPEAKERWell, I mean, did you ever see a bag phone?
14:22SPEAKEROh, I had a bag phone.
14:23SPEAKERYeah, totally.
14:24SPEAKERMy parents rented one for like a couple months.
14:26SPEAKERWell, my, my dad had a bag phone cause he needed it for work cause he traveled a lot.
14:31SPEAKEROkay.
14:32SPEAKERAnd legitimate use, legitimate use, but when I would go on dates, he would make me take
14:35SPEAKERthat phone.
14:37SPEAKERAnd he tried like, I'm not sure if that's working in your favor or it was not a good
14:41SPEAKERthing.
14:42SPEAKERNo, it did not help.
14:43SPEAKERWas that one of the ones with the big magnetic antenna you had to plunk on top of the car?
14:46SPEAKERThat was an optional accessory you could add on.
14:48SPEAKERYes.
14:49SPEAKERUm, I, I remember one time he was like, you have to carry this, you can't leave it in
14:52SPEAKERthe car.
14:53SPEAKERCause we had, I had a station wagon, I had the old station wagon was my car and I was
14:57SPEAKERlike, dad, I'm not going into the fucking movie theater with this ridiculous phone on,
15:01SPEAKERon a date.
15:02SPEAKERHe was like, it's like the size of a handbag.
15:03SPEAKERYeah.
15:04SPEAKERIt was, it was big.
15:05SPEAKERAnd it probably had, it was probably a nickel metal hydride battery, if I had to guess.
15:10SPEAKERSo the benefit of nickel metal hydride is that they don't discharge their long low discharge
15:15SPEAKERbatteries.
15:16SPEAKERSo they'll stay charged for a long time.
15:17SPEAKERThat's a generalization.
15:18SPEAKERI mean, I assume they do just very, very slowly discharge.
15:21SPEAKERIt's, they, they, they drain at a rate that is worse than an alkaline battery, but comparable
15:28SPEAKERlike in the same ballpark as opposed to like Nycad, which were the first generation.
15:32SPEAKERThose, the awful ones from the nineties that I put into my disc man.
15:36SPEAKERYeah.
15:37SPEAKERThe memory effect.
15:38SPEAKERYeah.
15:39SPEAKERIf you, if you didn't discharge them fully and recharge them fully every time, then basically
15:41SPEAKERthey would be like, every time you didn't discharge them fully, they would have, that
15:45SPEAKERwould be the new ceiling of their capacity.
15:48SPEAKERAnd all of that happens because of the chemical reactions inside the battery.
15:51SPEAKERSo like, you know, basically in that one, you had to get all of the, all of the ions
15:55SPEAKERfree in order to, to, to maintain the, keep the memory from happening.
16:01SPEAKERNickel metal hydride doesn't suffer from that.
16:03SPEAKERThey're low discharge, so you can charge them up, put them on the shelf and they'll be good
16:06SPEAKERfor like a year or two.
16:08SPEAKERAnd they'll still have some charge left when you need to use them.
16:12SPEAKERThat's why we use that.
16:13SPEAKERWe used, they used to use them in stuff like the Prius, like the first few generations
16:16SPEAKERof Prius were nickel metal hydride batteries.
16:19SPEAKERSome of the early pure EVs were now that Tesla has moved their lithium polymer factories,
16:25SPEAKERlike the capacity for lithium polymer batteries has gone way up in the last few years, partly
16:29SPEAKERbecause of Tesla's gigafactories, but partly because of other, you know, increased consumer
16:34SPEAKERdemand on laptops and phones and all that stuff.
16:39SPEAKERSo we don't use those.
16:41SPEAKERNickel metal hydride isn't really used in new cars anymore, just in older cars.
16:46SPEAKERAnd Sanyo with the Eneloop started selling those probably about 10, 12 years ago.
16:50SPEAKERYeah.
16:51SPEAKERI think we talked about this when we were in the basement once, as I recall back in
16:54SPEAKERthe day.
16:55SPEAKERBut the nice thing about them is they're more expensive than AA alkaline batteries, but
17:00SPEAKERthey're not super duper expensive.
17:01SPEAKERThey're not that bad.
17:02SPEAKERYeah.
17:03SPEAKERThey hold a lot of charge for a long time, like you said.
17:04SPEAKERLike they were fantastic for, let's say, video game controllers that you went through batteries
17:10SPEAKERrapidly on.
17:11SPEAKERI would happily, like they paid for themselves very quickly.
17:13SPEAKERIf I could get a DualShock that I could just jam those things into, I would be all about
17:16SPEAKERthat.
17:17SPEAKERAbsolutely.
17:18SPEAKERAnd I'm still using, I'm still using the same batteries that I bought for 360 controllers.
17:21SPEAKERWow.
17:22SPEAKER10 plus.
17:24SPEAKERSo when do they, I forget when they entered the market.
17:27SPEAKERWe probably bought yours in like 2010 or 2011 because that's when Vinny bought them all
17:30SPEAKERfor the studio.
17:31SPEAKERYeah.
17:32SPEAKERWhiskey.
17:33SPEAKERI forget how many charge cycles they get, but I think it's in the hundreds.
17:35SPEAKERIt depends on the battery.
17:36SPEAKERSo they have different chemistry profiles because they have, Sanyo at least does three
17:39SPEAKERdifferent colors.
17:40SPEAKERThey do white, green and black.
17:43SPEAKERThe green ones are like lots and lots of cycles, but the chemistry is, means that there's less
17:48SPEAKERcurrent per, uh, per, per charge and the black is high current but fewer cycles.
17:55SPEAKERSo I think the blacks are 500 charge cycles.
17:57SPEAKERThe whites are 1500 maybe or 1200 and the greens are 2000 or $3,000.
18:01SPEAKERStill, I mean, if you're charging in like once or twice a month, I mean, yeah, that's
18:05SPEAKERstill a long time.
18:06SPEAKERWell, we use them, like they work with RC cars.
18:09SPEAKERIt's like my daughter has an RC car.
18:11SPEAKERIt's, it's powered entirely by those things and it works great.
18:14SPEAKERAnd like once you buy them, they're good for a really, really long time.
18:18SPEAKERThere's no reason not to use them.
18:20SPEAKERThere are a handful of things in my house that just refuse to work.
18:23SPEAKERUm, hatchimals because they have motors apparently.
18:27SPEAKERGreat.
18:28SPEAKERGood news.
18:29SPEAKEREveryone.
18:30SPEAKERUm, actually real quick is that, uh, is the weird chemistry inside those why, um, I found
18:36SPEAKERlike controllers, like the, the controllers that come with my windows mixed reality headset
18:40SPEAKERand like the 360 control, like the third, the ability of the software to gauge the charge
18:45SPEAKERlevel in the battery is terrible.
18:47SPEAKERYeah.
18:48SPEAKERLike completely inaccurate.
18:49SPEAKERYeah.
18:50SPEAKERIt's, it's because they're using a profile based on alkaline batteries.
18:53SPEAKERSo I figured it was something like that.
18:55SPEAKERUm, like it's just, just, just completely misleading at all times.
18:58SPEAKERSo yeah, alkaline and zinc carbon cells, uh, produce basically a 1.5 volts of that's the,
19:05SPEAKERthat's.
19:06SPEAKERSo if you think about, um, in electricity, volts is basically like the difference between
19:10SPEAKERthe, uh, maximum potential energy and minimum potential energy.
19:15SPEAKERSo that's the amount, that's the speed at which the current will go.
19:18SPEAKERLet me make sure that's right.
19:20SPEAKERYeah, that seems right.
19:22SPEAKERI did bad on this test.
19:23SPEAKERI'm going to like, anyway, uh, that's the speed that you go between the two places.
19:29SPEAKERThat's like the amount of total, the amount of potential energy that you have, uh, and,
19:34SPEAKERuh, nickel metal hydride and nikad batteries are only about 1.2 volts.
19:40SPEAKERSo if you have something that's voltage dependent, it's not going to work quite right.
19:44SPEAKERAnd also if, if, if, so like in the case of the Xbox controller, if it's, if it's judging
19:50SPEAKERbattery capacity by the decline of the voltage that's coming out of the cell as it gets discharged,
19:55SPEAKERwhich happens, it's going to start from a bad place since it's already starting three
20:00SPEAKERtenths of a volt below what the baseline is comparing it against a standard that it's
20:06SPEAKERnot running at.
20:07SPEAKERExactly.
20:08SPEAKERUm, now there are also in that same form factor, there are also lithium batteries you get for
20:11SPEAKERthings like smoke detectors and stuff like that.
20:13SPEAKERUm, a lot of like a, like a double A shape yet.
20:18SPEAKERSo you'll see, those do not work in consumer electronics.
20:20SPEAKERIt depends.
20:21SPEAKEROkay.
20:22SPEAKERIs that it's just even more randomness or more of a guesswork kind of situation.
20:26SPEAKERPeople don't buy them by accident often cause they're pretty expensive.
20:30SPEAKERUm, but they're, like I said, they're pretty, they need to be very long lasting stuff like
20:33SPEAKERa smoke.
20:34SPEAKEROkay.
20:35SPEAKERYeah.
20:36SPEAKERSmoke detector.
20:37SPEAKERUm, some flashlights use those.
20:38SPEAKERUh, a lot of smart home stuff does.
20:39SPEAKERLike I have a motion sensor in my living room that uses those batteries and it only works
20:42SPEAKERwith the 12.
20:43SPEAKERI like, I would have totally not bought that sensor if I'd realized that it was a $12 battery
20:48SPEAKERrecharge, but it's only once a year.
20:50SPEAKERSo it's not, you know, it could be worse, I guess.
20:53SPEAKERSo yeah, that's, that's, that's cells.
20:57SPEAKERWe were worried we weren't going to have enough material for this episode and I can just keep
21:01SPEAKERasking and name questions.
21:02SPEAKERI look, I named questions that, that, that should have been the name of the podcast.
21:05SPEAKERHoly crap.
21:06SPEAKERYikes.
21:07SPEAKERI feel, I feel judged.
21:08SPEAKERNo, no, no.
21:10SPEAKERYou feel seen Brad.
21:11SPEAKERIt's true.
21:12SPEAKERUm, so I had a battery experience this week or last week, I guess.
21:18SPEAKERI think I'm, you know, I'm sure most people listening to this, uh, their primary experience
21:21SPEAKERwith batteries these days is in mobile devices and maybe laptops.
21:25SPEAKERYeah.
21:26SPEAKERAnd, and the, so we should start with the important thing.
21:29SPEAKERIf you want to make the battery in your phone and your laptop last longer, there's some
21:33SPEAKERsimple stuff you can do.
21:35SPEAKEROkay.
21:36SPEAKERThis is useful.
21:37SPEAKERThis is good.
21:38SPEAKERThis is actionable information.
21:39SPEAKERRight.
21:40SPEAKERBecause I feel like everybody, even, even I still have, you know, the wrong idea about
21:44SPEAKERcertain things.
21:45SPEAKERYeah.
21:46SPEAKERMistaken impressions, like, you know, memories of those batteries with the memory effect
21:49SPEAKERstill linger.
21:50SPEAKERYeah.
21:51SPEAKERYou know, charge it all the way up every time.
21:52SPEAKERYeah.
21:53SPEAKERIt turns out that's a bad idea.
21:54SPEAKERYeah.
21:55SPEAKERLike now that is actually, that is a worst practice now.
21:56SPEAKERRight.
21:57SPEAKERSo with lithium ion batteries and lithium polymer batteries, which are chemically more or less
22:01SPEAKERthe same, the differences that polymer uses a polymer and lithium ion is just a gel for
22:06SPEAKERthe material that's in between the cathode and the anodes, um, with those batteries,
22:11SPEAKERyou, you can charge them up to 80% kind of with reckless abandon, fast, furious, whatever
22:18SPEAKERyou use.
22:19SPEAKERIt doesn't matter.
22:20SPEAKERIf you charge your battery at, when you go above 80%, you start reducing the number of
22:24SPEAKERcharge cycles.
22:25SPEAKERSo if you charge your phone up to a hundred percent and let it come down to like 95 and
22:30SPEAKERthen charge it back up to a hundred percent again, you, that was one chart that was one,
22:34SPEAKERone notch off the charge cycle.
22:36SPEAKERSee, I was horrified to learn this because my phone sits in a wireless charger all day
22:40SPEAKERwhere it is presumably repeatedly going between like 98 and a hundred percent.
22:44SPEAKERWell, if, if, um, your phone is, has a smart, the caveat for all of this is that lithium
22:51SPEAKERion batteries and lithium polymer batteries need, um, something intelligent controlling
22:56SPEAKERtheir charging.
22:57SPEAKERCause likewise, if they discharge too much, that's bad.
23:00SPEAKERYou don't want to like turn your phone, your, your phone will turn off before the battery
23:04SPEAKERis fully discharged so that you don't damage the battery, right?
23:07SPEAKERIf your phone turns off because the battery is discharged, you don't want to hit the button
23:12SPEAKERto turn it back on again like 10 times to try to get that one last text out, unless
23:15SPEAKERit's a real bad emergency.
23:17SPEAKERYeah.
23:18SPEAKERUm, you also don't want to operate that battery outside of the normal operating temperature.
23:23SPEAKERSo you don't want to be much above 90 degrees, 95 degrees.
23:26SPEAKERUm, definitely don't want to be above 120 degrees and you don't want to be below, uh,
23:31SPEAKERyou know, stop using your phone around freezing, right?
23:34SPEAKERLike you don't want it to be too much colder than, than freezing and you definitely don't
23:38SPEAKERwant it to be below zero.
23:39SPEAKERI knew about the heat cause I've run into that problem, but I didn't realize the cold
23:42SPEAKERwas equally a problem.
23:43SPEAKERWell, it's a chemical reaction and chemical reactions are dependent on temperature.
23:48SPEAKERSo if it's colder, the electrons move slower and there's less of the reaction happening
23:51SPEAKERinside the battery.
23:53SPEAKERSame thing if it's too hot, there's too much happening at one time.
23:55SPEAKEROkay.
23:56SPEAKERSo don't, don't let your devices run all the way down if you can help it.
24:00SPEAKERTry to avoid letting them run all the way down.
24:01SPEAKERI mean all the people's phone screenshots that I see on Twitter that are like 4% battery.
24:06SPEAKERI can continue silently judging.
24:08SPEAKERI mean, absolutely, but they're probably okay.
24:11SPEAKERYeah.
24:12SPEAKERLike the phones, cars, laptops, phones, smartwatches, all of that stuff.
24:18SPEAKERLike are Android and iOS just smart enough to kind of manage this?
24:22SPEAKERIt depends.
24:23SPEAKEROkay.
24:24SPEAKERUm, the, the battery, the phone, like I said, the phone will turn off before the battery
24:29SPEAKERdamages itself from under, from discharging too much.
24:33SPEAKERIf you are storing the battery, one last thing, if you're storing the battery for a long time,
24:37SPEAKERstore it around half charge.
24:39SPEAKERDon't store it at a hundred percent.
24:41SPEAKERDon't store it at 0% because you don't want to, it's going to keep discharging even if
24:44SPEAKERit's not turned on.
24:45SPEAKERSo you don't want to discharge all the way.
24:48SPEAKERAnd likewise running it at a hundred percent is, is, you know, it, it doesn't need to be
24:53SPEAKERstored at a hundred percent.
24:54SPEAKERStored at half, half health is where you want to be.
24:56SPEAKERUm, let's see, there was one other thing.
24:59SPEAKERIf you're talking about drone batteries.
25:01SPEAKERSo the phones in the batteries on our phones and laptops and cars have battery controllers
25:05SPEAKERattached to them that monitor the health of the battery, they keep the cells even and
25:09SPEAKERall the things that like lithium batteries have to do to stay safe and good.
25:13SPEAKERSo like defragging for a battery?
25:15SPEAKERKind of is.
25:16SPEAKERYeah.
25:17SPEAKERLike, like, uh, if you think about a lithium battery, it's a lot of times it's a lot of
25:21SPEAKERlittle cells.
25:22SPEAKERSo it's like 20, 20 little cells inside of one big battery.
25:25SPEAKERAnd each of those cells has to be maintained at the same voltage or else weird stuff happens
25:29SPEAKERand then they poof up and catch on fire.
25:30SPEAKEROh, okay.
25:31SPEAKERAre we going to get to swelling?
25:32SPEAKERWell, that's, yeah, that's coming.
25:34SPEAKEROkay.
25:35SPEAKERUm, drones, drones don't have a lot of drone batteries, especially the cheap ones that
25:41SPEAKERyou buy that are just like a box with, um, you know, with a couple of wires sticking
25:45SPEAKERat it and like some foil wrapped around the outside of the battery cells and they feel
25:48SPEAKERsquishy like, like plastic explosive or something.
25:52SPEAKERThose don't have battery controllers on them.
25:53SPEAKERThe battery controller is on the charger and on the drone.
25:56SPEAKERSo you're in charge.
25:57SPEAKERYou have to monitor those and be very careful.
26:00SPEAKERLike they'll stop charging the battery control.
26:02SPEAKERThe charger will know, Hey, this is full.
26:04SPEAKERI should stop charging.
26:05SPEAKERThis is at 80%.
26:06SPEAKERI should slow to a trickle, which is what, what you do when you get to 80% on a lithium
26:10SPEAKERbattery.
26:11SPEAKERBut you don't want to leave those unattended.
26:14SPEAKERYou don't, you gotta be real careful with drone batteries.
26:17SPEAKERWhy does this one category of device lack this safeguard?
26:20SPEAKERUm, well, some of the more commercial drones do use batteries that have a battery controller,
26:26SPEAKERbut they're expensive.
26:27SPEAKERThe battery controllers are expensive.
26:29SPEAKERSo like if you can use the battery controller and the charger and use the battery controller
26:32SPEAKERand the device, then the manufacturers can save 10 or 20 or 50 or a hundred bucks or
26:36SPEAKERwhatever it costs on the individual batteries.
26:39SPEAKERCause most drone operators use more than one battery.
26:42SPEAKERLike if you're going out and shooting video all day, you need 20 batteries to do that.
26:46SPEAKERYou can't just do it with one or two or three.
26:48SPEAKERUm, so it adds up over time.
26:50SPEAKERAre there professional drone based camera operators now?
26:52SPEAKEROh God, there's tons.
26:53SPEAKERAre there professional dronesmen out there?
26:55SPEAKERSo there's a lot of, uh, there, there are a lot of people who shoot, who like their
27:00SPEAKERjob is to be a drone camera operator in the same way that there's people whose job was
27:03SPEAKERto be like a jib operator.
27:05SPEAKERYeah, that's fair.
27:06SPEAKERThat was a, that was a pretty obvious question in retrospect.
27:09SPEAKERSo, so yeah, be careful with drone batteries.
27:12SPEAKERUm, now when lithium ion batteries fail, they can fail in a bunch of interesting ways.
27:17SPEAKERIt's really good.
27:18SPEAKERI've seen this happen in person.
27:19SPEAKERWe were at BattleBots years ago and somebody had punctured a lithium ion battery and they
27:24SPEAKERdidn't realize it until they got it out of the chamber where the smoke, like, like when
27:29SPEAKERBattleBots now, since it's all lithium ion batteries happens in a sealed chamber with
27:34SPEAKERa huge vent on the top so they can suck all the air out and blast it out into the sky.
27:37SPEAKERI was going to say, there's probably a lot of smoke of indeterminate origin happening
27:42SPEAKERin the BattleBots arena.
27:43SPEAKERWell, if you see white smoke, that means lithium ion fire and uh, they, lithium, lithium burns
27:50SPEAKERwhen exposed to water and air and a spark.
27:53SPEAKERSo you can make horrible white smoke that's really toxic and super bad for you and burns
27:58SPEAKERreally hot and will light a bunch of other shit on fire.
28:01SPEAKERIt's a chemical fire, so you, you can't, you can't use an A, B or C fire extinguisher.
28:05SPEAKERIt has to be a class D, um, to put it out.
28:09SPEAKERUh, so it has to be like a foam, a powder or something that smothers it.
28:13SPEAKEROh wow.
28:14SPEAKERLike the one in the hall of the apartment building here is probably not, probably not.
28:18SPEAKERUm, this is why if you, if you fly drones, you want to be super careful cause these are
28:21SPEAKERessentially the same batteries that are in drones.
28:23SPEAKERGod, when they say not to puncture the battery in these devices, they're really serious,
28:26SPEAKERhuh?
28:27SPEAKERI was shocked.
28:28SPEAKERI, my, I woke up the other day and I was like, wow, that's weird.
28:31SPEAKERThe edge of my phone screen is sticking out above the case.
28:33SPEAKERI thought this went below the case and I opened it up and I, the, the fun at the top of the
28:37SPEAKERphone squished.
28:38SPEAKERI was like, oh crap, this is bad.
28:40SPEAKERApple store.
28:41SPEAKERThis thing is a ticking time bomb.
28:42SPEAKERYeah.
28:43SPEAKERAt noon I was at the Apple store that day and I was talking to the genius as one does
28:48SPEAKERand I was like, oh, so like what, what's the process?
28:50SPEAKERDo I like take my phone for a couple hours and then I go walk around the mall and, and
28:55SPEAKERyou give me a new battery.
28:57SPEAKERThey're like, oh no, we don't do the battery swaps in stores anymore.
28:59SPEAKERAnd I was like, why not?
29:00SPEAKERAnd it's like, we don't talk about that.
29:03SPEAKERBut um, she's like, it's a little too dangerous.
29:05SPEAKERYou know, you don't want to, if, if you Nick the, so when the batteries puff up, it means
29:09SPEAKERthat the reaction has gone a little haywire inside and it's making gas, which I think
29:13SPEAKERis hydrogen gas, but not like, not like a Hindenburg amount of hydrogen gas, just enough
29:18SPEAKERthat it poofs up the little pouch the batteries in.
29:20SPEAKERUm, and yeah, so they don't do that anymore cause the danger of nicking the battery while
29:25SPEAKERthey're scraping it off the glued back of the phone is such that it's better to just
29:29SPEAKERdo it in a facility that has like presumably hoods and stuff like that where they can do
29:34SPEAKERit safely.
29:35SPEAKERSo they just gave me a new phone, which was nice.
29:37SPEAKERI was very excited about that.
29:39SPEAKERYeah.
29:40SPEAKERIt seems safe.
29:41SPEAKERSo what happened with the BattleBots?
29:42SPEAKERUh, the BattleBots, somebody had punctured the battery and they didn't realize until
29:44SPEAKERthey got it.
29:45SPEAKERIt hadn't caught on fire.
29:46SPEAKERIt caught on fire while they were, they luckily instead of going back into the pit, which
29:50SPEAKERis inside the building, they'd gone out into the yard out back and, um, it caught on fire
29:56SPEAKERas Norm and I were interviewing the drivers.
29:58SPEAKERJust spontaneously?
29:59SPEAKERYeah.
30:00SPEAKERHuh.
30:01SPEAKERYeah.
30:02SPEAKERIt made an unbelievable amount of white smoke, like terrifying amount of white smoke.
30:04SPEAKERUh, and everybody had a really bad cough for a couple of days and then they're fine.
30:07SPEAKERI'll get lung cancer in like 10, 20 years.
30:09SPEAKERSounds like a great time.
30:10SPEAKERYeah.
30:11SPEAKERIt was good times.
30:12SPEAKERIt's good times, but don't mess the, the takeaway is lithium ion batteries, you know, batteries
30:19SPEAKERhold a lot less energy than say fossil fuels, right?
30:21SPEAKERLike if you talk about potential energy stored in a gallon of gas versus in six pounds of
30:26SPEAKERbattery, the gas wins every time.
30:29SPEAKERSo you're saying we should just hook an administrator generator up to every iPhone.
30:32SPEAKERWhat could possibly go wrong with that?
30:34SPEAKERA little red wagon behind you.
30:35SPEAKERYeah, exactly.
30:36SPEAKERPull it around town.
30:37SPEAKERI didn't say that at all.
30:39SPEAKERUm, but yeah, be careful with lithium ion batteries.
30:42SPEAKERIf they fail, if your phone says, hey, something's wrong with my battery, go get it serviced.
30:46SPEAKERDon't try to fix it yourself.
30:47SPEAKERUm, be good to your batteries and yourself.
30:50SPEAKERExactly.
30:51SPEAKERSo that's all you need to know to take care of the batteries.
30:53SPEAKERDon't charge them to a hundred percent, you know, more than like once a day, or maybe
30:57SPEAKERthe better way to think about this is every time you charge it to a hundred percent, that
31:00SPEAKERcounts as one of the thousand or 1500 charge cycles that your phone is capable of.
31:06SPEAKERUm, operating temperatures between 14 degrees Fahrenheit and 120 degrees Fahrenheit, 90
31:13SPEAKERis better.
31:14SPEAKERUh, that means think about when you're driving around with your phone on the dashboard on
31:17SPEAKERyour dash mount.
31:19SPEAKERIf it's on a dash mount that's up in the windshield and you're driving around California or Arizona,
31:23SPEAKERthat is definitely going to be 120 degrees.
31:25SPEAKERYeah.
31:26SPEAKERGet one of those ones that goes on the vent, the vent of the car.
31:29SPEAKERIf you're going to drive around with the dash mount, be careful with your phone in Death
31:31SPEAKERValley.
31:32SPEAKERDeath Valley is not a good place for phones.
31:34SPEAKERYeah.
31:35SPEAKERThere's no service there.
31:36SPEAKERLast time I was there anyway.
31:37SPEAKERProbably for the best.
31:39SPEAKERAnd if something starts to go weird, get it serviced.
31:43SPEAKERSo should we take a quick break?
31:44SPEAKERYeah.
31:45SPEAKERLet's maybe go make sure our phones aren't about to explode.
31:51SPEAKERYeah.
31:52SPEAKERHey, Will.
31:53SPEAKERHey, Brad.
31:54SPEAKERUh, why are batteries so bad?
31:58SPEAKERWhy do they continue to be bad?
31:59SPEAKERI thought you were going to ask me about mattresses for a minute there.
32:01SPEAKERWhat do you know about mattresses?
32:03SPEAKERWe're doing the mattress voice.
32:04SPEAKERReally?
32:05SPEAKERThat was the Brad mattress voice.
32:06SPEAKERI didn't know I had a mattress voice.
32:07SPEAKERYeah.
32:08SPEAKERIt was like you say, "Hey, Jeff."
32:09SPEAKERAnd then you guys talk about mattresses for like three minutes and it's back to video
32:11SPEAKERgames.
32:12SPEAKERYeah.
32:13SPEAKERIs that too much?
32:14SPEAKERThat's okay.
32:15SPEAKEROkay.
32:16SPEAKERUm, yeah.
32:17SPEAKERBatteries.
32:18SPEAKERBatteries.
32:19SPEAKERWhy are they bad?
32:20SPEAKERWell, it's not that they're bad in an absolute sense so much as it feels like that they don't
32:22SPEAKERtend to improve very much.
32:24SPEAKERSo here's a way to contextualize it.
32:27SPEAKERYeah.
32:28SPEAKERUm, you know how every year, except maybe not this year, but pretty much every year
32:32SPEAKERfor the last like eight years, every time there's a new iPhone.
32:35SPEAKERYeah.
32:36SPEAKERHey, we've doubled the performance of last year's processor.
32:38SPEAKERYeah.
32:39SPEAKERYou never hear anything even remotely like that with batteries.
32:41SPEAKERLike have we just hit a physical wall with the chemical reactions or like why, why are
32:45SPEAKERbattery, uh, technologies progressing so slowly?
32:49SPEAKERSo part of it is that it's not necessarily the battery technologies are progressing slowly.
32:54SPEAKERIt's that the semiconductor stuff progresses at an exponential rate.
32:57SPEAKEROkay.
32:58SPEAKERSo like our processors are getting, you know, you know Moore's law, it's twice, maybe that's
33:02SPEAKERa bad analogy or bad comparison, but well, but it's not.
33:05SPEAKERIf you think about it, you're packing twice as many transistors every year for half the
33:09SPEAKERcost and, or every 18 months rather.
33:12SPEAKERI mean, that's slowed down in recent years, but, but we're doing way more work with the
33:17SPEAKERsame amount of Silicon and the battery, the same batteries, the chemistry and the batteries
33:22SPEAKERhasn't substantially changed for a long time.
33:24SPEAKERIt's not like the molecules are going to get smaller or something like that.
33:28SPEAKERThere's no, there are not batteries are progressing, but not at an exponential rate.
33:32SPEAKERSo when you're comparing them against something that is getting faster than an exponential
33:35SPEAKERrate and using energy at a close to exponential rate, in some cases, your, your batteries
33:40SPEAKERaren't going to be able to keep up.
33:41SPEAKERSo either we have like the extra battery, the extra energy in the battery has to come
33:45SPEAKERfrom someplace.
33:46SPEAKEREither we have to make the devices bigger, which is what actually they did with the iPhones
33:49SPEAKERthis year.
33:50SPEAKERThey're all a little bit thicker and presumably a lot of that's for battery and I guess camera
33:55SPEAKERbump or whatever, but, but it, the battery technology is limited by, you know, there's,
34:02SPEAKERthere's chemistry happening inside those batteries and it's not like we can shrink the process
34:06SPEAKERtechnology on the chemistry and make it run twice as long.
34:08SPEAKERYeah.
34:09SPEAKERThat's, that's what I meant about the molecules.
34:10SPEAKERBut so, okay.
34:11SPEAKERSo it is, it is your contention that batteries are advancing.
34:14SPEAKERBatteries are definitely like, if you think about what's happened in, I don't, I don't
34:18SPEAKERactually have numbers for this.
34:19SPEAKERI should have gotten numbers for this, but if you look at like the amount of energy stored
34:23SPEAKERin a battery that will fit in my iPhone, the amount of energy that's in this thing is way
34:27SPEAKERhigher than it was a few years ago.
34:29SPEAKERWe have definitely, there've definitely been many incidences of people trying to pack more
34:33SPEAKERenergy into a small lithium polymer battery than they should.
34:38SPEAKERAnd that's resulted in things like the Note 7 being prohibited from flying on aircraft.
34:43SPEAKEROkay.
34:44SPEAKERVape pens exploding on people.
34:46SPEAKERFinally, the mystery can be revealed.
34:48SPEAKERYeah.
34:49SPEAKERLike it's, it's, it's a real fine line between, yes, we could probably make these batteries
34:53SPEAKERhold more energy and make your phone last more than just a day, but also a certain percentage
34:58SPEAKERof them are going to explode because you still have energy in there and it's got to go someplace
35:02SPEAKERor a decent number of people who would take those odds.
35:04SPEAKERWell, or though the other thing is your, your charge cycles may go down.
35:08SPEAKERSo you may go from having 1500 charge cycles on your phone to 500 charge cycles on the
35:12SPEAKERphone.
35:13SPEAKERAnd I don't know about you, but if I'm paying a grand for a phone, 500 charge cycles, not
35:17SPEAKERenough.
35:18SPEAKERLike you, you might be in a position where you need to replace the battery every year.
35:19SPEAKERYeah.
35:20SPEAKERWell, and so then the other thing about phones, especially phones are a weird case, but we
35:24SPEAKERuse them all day and then they sit on a nightstand at bedtime, presumably charging.
35:29SPEAKERSo it's like, I can't go from one day to two days.
35:34SPEAKERHaving a bigger battery on my phone doesn't really help me all that much.
35:37SPEAKERSure.
35:38SPEAKERSo, so there's like a, like there's a design conversation to be had there too in that.
35:42SPEAKERYeah.
35:43SPEAKERIf they could get 36 hours on the battery, that would be a, it's a marketing number that's
35:47SPEAKERreally neat and sounds good on a stage maybe, but is meaningless for most people.
35:51SPEAKERYeah.
35:52SPEAKERAlthough it may, having that extra capacity may put you in a situation where you never
35:59SPEAKERcharge above 80% and thus your battery charge cycles last for 3000 charge cycles instead
36:04SPEAKERof a thousand.
36:05SPEAKEROkay.
36:06SPEAKERWhich is, which is not something that it, you know, it's not to be, that's important.
36:09SPEAKERThat's a good change.
36:10SPEAKERWhat's the, uh, the magic capacity number these days is, is it milliamp hours?
36:13SPEAKERIs that...
36:14SPEAKERSo milliamp hours.
36:15SPEAKERYeah.
36:16SPEAKERSo if you think about...
36:17SPEAKERIs that the thing that you want to look at?
36:18SPEAKERBecause like now that, you know, battery packs are a pretty big industry into themselves
36:21SPEAKERat this point.
36:22SPEAKERThat seems to be the rating they all go with.
36:24SPEAKERSo if you think about, um, milliamp hours are basically the number, the, the, if you
36:30SPEAKERfill a bucket with electricity, the units you use to measure that is milliamp hours.
36:35SPEAKERThe voltage, the number we were talking about before is the potential energy difference
36:39SPEAKERbetween the two sides of the battery.
36:41SPEAKERSo it's like how high up the hill you are pouring the water down.
36:44SPEAKERSo how fast the water will be going down through the sluice, but, but milliamp hours is how
36:49SPEAKERmuch water is in your bucket in that metaphor.
36:51SPEAKEROkay.
36:52SPEAKERWhat do you think the, um, just the kind of R&D investment is in battery tech these days?
36:56SPEAKERLike who are the major players?
36:57SPEAKERI mean, are, are any phone makers making their batteries or are there just kind of shadowy
37:01SPEAKERlike...
37:02SPEAKEROh, wait.
37:03SPEAKERI don't have any idea.
37:04SPEAKERWell...
37:05SPEAKERLike industrial entities that are, that are big in the battery market?
37:06SPEAKERI wonder...
37:07SPEAKERI mean, I know that the car manufacturers are spending a lot of money on battery stuff
37:10SPEAKERnow.
37:11SPEAKERUm, the big...
37:13SPEAKERSo take one, first question first.
37:16SPEAKERUm, the stuff that I read indicated that battery technology is between an 80 and a hundred
37:22SPEAKERbillion dollar a year industry.
37:23SPEAKEROkay.
37:24SPEAKERSo I would expect there to be hundreds and hundreds of millions, like high hundreds of
37:29SPEAKERmillions or low billions of dollars worth of investment.
37:31SPEAKERI mean, again, this is just kind of my layman's perception of, you know, like phone charge
37:37SPEAKERlifetimes or, or the amount of time you can use a device is not necessarily going up significantly.
37:42SPEAKERSo that's exactly right.
37:45SPEAKERYeah.
37:46SPEAKERWell, but actually it is, cause we're getting better at the, the other side of this is that
37:49SPEAKERthe battery controllers are getting smarter.
37:52SPEAKERSo even in like the new iOS, it's smarter about not, not burning your charge cycles
37:58SPEAKERby going from 95% to a hundred percent six times overnight or something like that.
38:03SPEAKERUm, one of the things like there's, there's a ton of research happening and you know,
38:08SPEAKERthis is happening because you see those stories come out every few months that are like, Hey,
38:11SPEAKERbattery breakthrough.
38:12SPEAKERSo-and-so at Lawrence Livermore has discovered this blah, blah, blah.
38:15SPEAKERIt's going to change the way batteries work forever.
38:17SPEAKERAnd then nothing ever comes.
38:18SPEAKERYeah.
38:19SPEAKEROr it takes, I mean, realistically, when you see one of those articles, it's like, Hey,
38:22SPEAKERsome dude in a research lab figured out some cool shit.
38:27SPEAKERAnd it's five years away.
38:28SPEAKERLike at the molecular level, right?
38:30SPEAKERYeah.
38:31SPEAKERLike nobody's figured out how to apply it.
38:32SPEAKERWell, so nanocapacitors are one of those things.
38:35SPEAKERUm, so a battery, a battery uses chemical reaction to store energy nanocapacitors just
38:41SPEAKERuse space, like there's an empty space between two sides of the thing and electricity gets
38:45SPEAKERjammed in there.
38:46SPEAKERAnd then it comes out all at once.
38:47SPEAKERYou can't like trickle it out a little bit at a time.
38:49SPEAKERIt just discharges.
38:50SPEAKERIt just discharges.
38:51SPEAKERA few years ago, somebody had, there was a, there were a bunch of stories about, um, nanocapacitor
38:57SPEAKERbreakthrough where they used nanomaterial, nanomanufacturing stuff to apply bazillions
39:02SPEAKERof little tiny capacitors so they could release them a little bit at a time to mimic the same
39:07SPEAKERkind of discharge that you get from a battery.
39:11SPEAKERAnd the neat thing about capacitors is there's no chemical reaction, so there's no memory.
39:15SPEAKERThere's no like charge time or discharge time.
39:18SPEAKERYou just pour the electricity in there and it's good.
39:20SPEAKERAnd then you pour it out and it's gone and then you pour it back in there again.
39:25SPEAKERIt is an electricity bucket.
39:26SPEAKEROkay.
39:27SPEAKERThat, that would be a radical change, right?
39:29SPEAKERIt would, that would literally change everything.
39:31SPEAKERIf it ever comes to pass, the batteries become based on that tech.
39:33SPEAKERWell, but, but to go from like lab to go from theoretical to working in a lab to being able
39:41SPEAKERto mass produce it on the scale that we need to put in 4 billion phones a year or whatever
39:45SPEAKERit is that they sell.
39:46SPEAKERIt takes a lot of time.
39:47SPEAKERIt takes time.
39:48SPEAKERYeah.
39:49SPEAKERI mean, and, and, and sometimes that stuff happens fast.
39:51SPEAKERSo like with, um, 3d flash memory a few years ago, you know, Intel and Micron I think had
39:57SPEAKERfigured out how to make, how to stack flash cells, which dramatically increased the density
40:01SPEAKERand we're seeing SSDs that use that technology now.
40:04SPEAKERDefinitely four terabyte SSDs on the market and I feel like I've seen six terabyte talked
40:09SPEAKERabout or discussed as a possibility.
40:11SPEAKEREven better than that, you can get SSDs for about a buck a terabyte now.
40:14SPEAKERThey are rapidly becoming very cheap.
40:17SPEAKERActually, like, I don't know if this is a good analogy, but like kind of 10 cents a
40:21SPEAKERgigabyte, not a buck a gigabyte.
40:23SPEAKERLike you remember the kind of almost overnight leap from hard drive to SSD and the absolute
40:28SPEAKERsea change in...
40:30SPEAKERStill took 10 years.
40:31SPEAKERWell, I know, but I mean, I guess what I mean is like the second you got one, you realized
40:35SPEAKERyou were never going to go back.
40:36SPEAKERRight.
40:37SPEAKEROh yeah.
40:38SPEAKERIt was a life-changing...
40:39SPEAKERI'm talking about just the kind of hands-on like change in usability.
40:41SPEAKERYeah.
40:42SPEAKERLike, do you think that we're ever going to see a kind of overnight sea change like that
40:47SPEAKERfor battery tech?
40:48SPEAKERUm, I mean, it'll be like the nanocapacitor stuff you're talking about sounds like that
40:51SPEAKERif it ever comes to market.
40:52SPEAKERWell, and there are probably 10 other technologies that are like in the same kind of like theoretical
40:58SPEAKERspace right now.
40:59SPEAKERRight.
41:00SPEAKERLike I said, we're talking about articles in Scientific American or whatever.
41:03SPEAKERUm, look, Bill Gates once famously said that you're never going to need more than 640 kilobytes
41:08SPEAKERof RAM in a computer.
41:09SPEAKERBill Gates said a lot of things.
41:11SPEAKERRight.
41:12SPEAKERThe point is it's impossible to predict that.
41:13SPEAKERYeah.
41:14SPEAKERI think undoubtedly there's, there's enough people spending a ton of money and dedicating
41:18SPEAKERtheir careers to figuring this stuff out.
41:20SPEAKERSomebody will, somebody will figure it out.
41:22SPEAKERAnd then the ones that, the ones that roll out fast, like the 3d flash memory rollout,
41:28SPEAKERbecause that was able to be built on top of existing manufacturing processes that were
41:32SPEAKERalready in place.
41:33SPEAKERSo like they didn't have to go out and invent a whole new manufacturing technique and build
41:37SPEAKERout new factories and all this.
41:38SPEAKERThey could just make some changes on the existing line, put it in one new machine in the factory
41:42SPEAKERand boom, all of a sudden the flash is stacked up on top of each other and I can buy a two
41:46SPEAKERterabyte drive for like $189.
41:49SPEAKEROkay.
41:50SPEAKERSo the key takeaway sounds like, uh, is that we're not, we're not necessarily stuck with
41:54SPEAKERthe same old chemical reactions forever.
41:56SPEAKERNo.
41:57SPEAKERThat's just, that's just the best way forward as of right now.
42:00SPEAKERYeah.
42:01SPEAKERThat's, I think that's, I think until something better, until we figure out the zero point
42:04SPEAKERenergy stuff and just tap into the quantum foam and suck the juice out that way, stick
42:08SPEAKERa cold fusion reactor in my phone.
42:10SPEAKERGordon Freeman style.
42:11SPEAKERYes.
42:12SPEAKERYeah.
42:13SPEAKERNothing could possibly go wrong with that.
42:14SPEAKERCertainly not.
42:15SPEAKERUm, yeah, so, so batteries, they're great.
42:19SPEAKERYeah.
42:20SPEAKERI guess, you know, you know who thinks batteries apparently are great.
42:22SPEAKERWho?
42:23SPEAKERDaimler?
42:24SPEAKERGerman, German automate.
42:25SPEAKERI think they say ICP.
42:26SPEAKERI think they probably, I thought they hated batteries.
42:28SPEAKEROh yeah.
42:29SPEAKERIt's magnets.
42:30SPEAKERMagnets.
42:31SPEAKERThey love magnets.
42:32SPEAKERIt's all EMF man.
42:33SPEAKERI guess so.
42:34SPEAKERYeah.
42:35SPEAKERWhy does Daimler love batteries?
42:36SPEAKERThey just, I, and I'm not a big car guy by any stretch, but I just happened to see this
42:40SPEAKERnew story come across my feed yesterday.
42:42SPEAKERUm, although it's a little, the wording I guess could be interpreted different ways,
42:46SPEAKERbut essentially they are ceasing internal combustion engine development and like they
42:51SPEAKERown Mercedes and a bunch of, and a bunch of like trucking.
42:54SPEAKERThey used to own Chrysler, but they sold them.
42:56SPEAKERYeah.
42:57SPEAKERI guess they got rid of Chrysler right around 2007 actually.
42:59SPEAKERCan't imagine why.
43:00SPEAKERWhat could have possibly happened in 2007, 2008?
43:03SPEAKERWhat could have spurred that divestment?
43:04SPEAKERUm, but, uh, I mean, like I said, you could interpret that as, what they said is they're
43:10SPEAKERnot going to develop any new internal combustion engines.
43:12SPEAKERI mean, that certainly could mean like, okay, the ones we have are going to carry us for
43:16SPEAKERthe next 10 years.
43:17SPEAKERI think that's, that's, I mean, and then we'll move entirely to electric, but they did say
43:21SPEAKERthey are going to shift their focus solely going forward in terms of engine development
43:27SPEAKERon electrical vehicles.
43:28SPEAKERMan.
43:29SPEAKERSo yeah, that, that to me says, Hey, we have ones that we think are good.
43:32SPEAKERThe ones that we just released are good.
43:34SPEAKERAnd now these people that were doing that are going to do this other thing instead.
43:38SPEAKERBut that's awesome.
43:39SPEAKERThat's good.
43:40SPEAKERAnd like I, it's, you know, the kind of just the cursory glance at the response I took
43:43SPEAKERto that article made it seem like people are generally pretty positive on that news.
43:47SPEAKERLike I saw people straight up saying like, yeah, like of course you would like electric
43:51SPEAKERcars are basically superior to, you know, fossil fuel driven ones at this point, or
43:57SPEAKERwe're getting there.
43:58SPEAKERI mean, we're definitely getting like, it's, it's a, it's like anything, it's like anything
44:02SPEAKERelse.
44:03SPEAKERThere's been a gradual process over the last like 15 years, right?
44:06SPEAKERIt started with that bad General Motors EV1 and, and then the Prius came out and it had
44:12SPEAKERX, you know, it had 25 minutes worth of battery in the first one or something, but that was
44:16SPEAKERenough to, to, to provide your massive gas savings in the times that, that that car was
44:24SPEAKERrunning.
44:25SPEAKERYeah.
44:26SPEAKERThe specific use cases basically.
44:28SPEAKERSo so yeah, I mean, that seems like a good change to me.
44:32SPEAKERI don't know.
44:33SPEAKERWhat are they?
44:34SPEAKERI mean, I, I can't imagine somebody that would be like, oh yeah, we need more.
44:39SPEAKERWe should not be making, we should not be investing in electric motors for vehicles
44:45SPEAKERin 2019 knowing what we know right now.
44:46SPEAKEROh sure, yeah.
44:47SPEAKERBut I think the revelation to me is that they're going to invest solely in that.
44:50SPEAKERWell, but, well, I mean, but you're talking about for that kind of product, I gotta imagine
44:54SPEAKERthat those, those engines are at least billion dollar investments, right?
44:59SPEAKERBecause it's like they've designed an engine and it runs in cars for 10 or 12 years probably.
45:03SPEAKEROh, so that the bet they're making is that by the time that next engine would have reached
45:06SPEAKERits, they'll, they'll be, they'll have missed the boat.
45:09SPEAKERYeah.
45:10SPEAKERIf they, if they don't have something.
45:11SPEAKERIt's not worth getting or staying in that market for that long.
45:13SPEAKERWell, and at the same time, if they're going to spend a billion dollars developing something,
45:17SPEAKERthe thing to spend it on right now is electric, right?
45:19SPEAKERWhich makes sense.
45:20SPEAKERI mean, especially, so it's funny, all of this stuff is tied together, but like the,
45:24SPEAKERthe rise, if you look at what's happening with solar panels now and the efficiency that
45:28SPEAKERpeople get out of them, the output you can get out of like, uh, uh, the solar panels
45:32SPEAKERyou'd put on a 1500 square foot normal ass home, not just in like sunny Arizona, but
45:38SPEAKERlike those are getting more efficient too.
45:40SPEAKERAnd as a result, we're going to need more batteries to, to cover nighttime usage and
45:45SPEAKERthings like that.
45:46SPEAKERSo the capacity is only going to go up to the batteries.
45:47SPEAKERI mean, in terms of like moving into a renewable future, it's like, it is a desirable outcome.
45:52SPEAKERIt's not necessarily the most desirable where people from just a kind of ethical standpoint,
45:58SPEAKERrecognize the necessity and do it voluntarily.
46:01SPEAKERBut it's the next best thing of industry has just gotten to a point where the benefits
46:05SPEAKERare too hard to deny and people just do it automatically.
46:08SPEAKERRight?
46:09SPEAKERSo that's, that's why, that's why Walmart has solar cells on their roof.
46:12SPEAKERTech is just there now.
46:13SPEAKERIt's not, it's not that you have to convince politicians or people have to be told to give
46:17SPEAKERup their lifestyles.
46:18SPEAKERIt's, this is inherently now so appealing that people are just going to gravitate to
46:22SPEAKERit.
46:23SPEAKERLook, the beautiful thing about capitalism is if you make the right thing cheaper than
46:25SPEAKERthe bad thing, then they'll do the right thing.
46:28SPEAKERRight.
46:29SPEAKERRight.
46:30SPEAKERLike I said, it's not, it is not the most ideal way to get there, but look man, it works.
46:33SPEAKERBut if it works, it works.
46:34SPEAKERIf it works, it works.
46:35SPEAKERI'm willing to be pragmatic about this stuff.
46:37SPEAKERBut I guess like, to be fair, I have not been, I literally don't think I have operated a
46:41SPEAKERmotor vehicle in about 10 years.
46:43SPEAKERWow.
46:44SPEAKERReally?
46:45SPEAKERI live in the middle of the city.
46:46SPEAKERNot even go karting?
46:47SPEAKERNope.
46:48SPEAKERWe should go go karting.
46:49SPEAKERSo I'm just trying to give an indication of how disconnected I am from cars generally.
46:52SPEAKERBut like, I guess I was surprised to hear that, you know, like range and I guess power
46:56SPEAKERfor lack of a better term are there.
46:58SPEAKEROh God.
46:59SPEAKERHave you, oh man.
47:00SPEAKERI've never, I've never ridden in a Tesla.
47:01SPEAKERSo I don't have a lot of, except maybe the odd Uber that is an electric car.
47:05SPEAKERI just haven't been in a lot of vehicles of that type.
47:09SPEAKERI have a family member who has one of the original Tesla Roadsters, the one that was
47:13SPEAKERa Lotus chassis with an electric body, electric motor and drive train.
47:18SPEAKERAnd that thing is like a rocket, right?
47:22SPEAKERIt is it, when he, when he got in it the first time, he was like, this, this thing accelerates
47:27SPEAKERlike a blender.
47:28SPEAKERCause it's basically like electric motors.
47:30SPEAKERIt's just, you hit the button.
47:31SPEAKEROh, like literally a blender.
47:32SPEAKERLet's see.
47:33SPEAKERLike you hit the button on a blender and it goes straight from zero to full speed.
47:36SPEAKERYeah.
47:37SPEAKERSame thing.
47:38SPEAKERWow.
47:39SPEAKERLike the, the, the car manages the acceleration so you don't leave tire on the road.
47:42SPEAKERBut other than that, like it's, it accelerates like nothing I've ever seen.
47:46SPEAKEREven even.
47:47SPEAKERZero to 60 is not a useful metric anymore.
47:48SPEAKERI mean, there's a reason that the model S was beating all of the really expensive cars
47:53SPEAKERexcept for like Veyron's and stuff like that.
47:56SPEAKERUm, it's because electric motors have fewer moving parts, so they're more efficient and
48:01SPEAKERthey don't, you don't have to gear an electric car cause the electric motor can spin it three
48:05SPEAKERRPMs or 30,000 RPMs.
48:07SPEAKERIt doesn't care.
48:08SPEAKERRight?
48:09SPEAKERSo, so when you're, you know, when you're in a normal car, you lose a lot of energy.
48:14SPEAKERA gas car, you lose a lot of energy cause like the gas, the gas motor is always running.
48:19SPEAKERYou want to run it like 2000, 3000 RPMs, right?
48:21SPEAKERAnd then the transmission converts that into the speed that you want to go, which end and
48:26SPEAKERthere's energy loss when the transmission shifts and it kachunks and kachunks and kachunks
48:30SPEAKERand the friction of those gears in the transmission also eat a ton of energy.
48:34SPEAKERThe electric car, you don't have that.
48:36SPEAKERYou just stick the wheels on the motors and let her rip.
48:39SPEAKERAnd then as a result, even like a $10,000 Nissan leaf, like a used leaf accelerates
48:45SPEAKERlike a, like a fucking rocket.
48:47SPEAKERIf you're not careful.
48:48SPEAKERI mean, those cars, the ones that are built for fuel economy, like the, I, uh, BMW used
48:53SPEAKERto let you borrow an i3 for a weekend if you think about buying one.
48:57SPEAKERSo I took one home one weekend.
48:58SPEAKERAnd that thing had had tires, like a go-kart almost.
49:02SPEAKERThey were like four inch wide dyers or something, but it's still, it's just terrifying.
49:07SPEAKERAnd also you get regenerative braking and stuff like that.
49:10SPEAKERSo like in some cases the cars even drive differently.
49:12SPEAKERSo like you can, you can set them in a mode, most of them can set in a mode where like
49:16SPEAKERyou push down on the gas and accelerates and you let off the gas and it will break.
49:20SPEAKERSo you have to like ride the gas at the speed that you want to go rather than accelerating
49:24SPEAKERto go faster.
49:25SPEAKERYou know, like there was no coasting, I guess, um, which, which required some, like it meant
49:31SPEAKERbasically if you think about it, every time you hit the brakes, you're turning your kinetic
49:36SPEAKERenergy into heat, right?
49:38SPEAKERBecause the pads are matching up against the discs, friction, and then that goes off someplace.
49:42SPEAKERIf you use the motor to slow it down by not putting current into it, it puts energy back
49:46SPEAKERinto the system and, and you're being more efficient, massively more efficient across
49:51SPEAKERthe board then, or significantly, I mean, like my understanding is that the regenerative
49:57SPEAKERstuff is not like early on Priuses and stuff, they made a big deal of that and it turns
50:02SPEAKERout the math doesn't necessarily work that well, but it's better than nothing, more of
50:06SPEAKERa nice to have than a, like a game changer.
50:08SPEAKERYeah.
50:09SPEAKERAnd it's better than bleeding off that energy into the, into heat in the air, right?
50:12SPEAKERLike it's, at least you're doing something with it rather than just throwing it away.
50:16SPEAKERSo yeah.
50:17SPEAKERAnd I mean, yeah, electric cars, electric cars seem good.
50:20SPEAKERI don't own an electric car.
50:21SPEAKERI almost bought one and then I started working at home and didn't need a car anymore.
50:24SPEAKERSure.
50:25SPEAKERYeah.
50:26SPEAKERUh, what was the deal with, um, I feel like I've heard a fair amount about like Tesla
50:29SPEAKERkind of pushing car battery tech forward and there were like subsidies from the government
50:32SPEAKERinvolved and I'm not sure what that situation was.
50:35SPEAKERSo they built, um, five...
50:36SPEAKEROr was that an economy of scale situation of...
50:39SPEAKERSo it's definitely an economy of scale situation where like they looked and said, Hey, we,
50:44SPEAKERif we want to sell a million model threes in a year, there's not enough people making
50:49SPEAKERbatteries to sell us the batteries to do this because I think they were buying Panasonic
50:52SPEAKERbatteries back in the day.
50:55SPEAKERUm, so they built this factory outside in Nevada, outside Carson city, I think, or Reno.
51:01SPEAKERUm, they call it the Gigafactory.
51:02SPEAKERIt's really, it's an enormous interior space where they basically turn, you know, they,
51:07SPEAKERthey assembled shitloads of batteries.
51:10SPEAKERUm, and these are reminding me kind of the lithium polymer, I believe, but they might
51:14SPEAKERjust be lithium ion.
51:15SPEAKERI can't remember.
51:16SPEAKERIt's the same, same basic chemistry.
51:17SPEAKERIt's just the internal construction is different.
51:20SPEAKERUm, and, uh, yeah, and they, they, if you look at their whole, we'll talk about supply
51:26SPEAKERchain in the future because it turns out supply chain is the secret superpower of all of the
51:32SPEAKERworld right now.
51:33SPEAKERIf you're good at supply chain stuff, look, kids, if you're listening to this and you're
51:36SPEAKERdeciding what to major in, go do logistics because it turns out if you understand supply
51:40SPEAKERchain and you can see the future, if you can make things happen, then you become indispensable.
51:46SPEAKERTim Cook's in charge of Apple now.
51:48SPEAKERPretty quickly.
51:49SPEAKERUm, but yeah, so they were looking, the reason the model S, the reason they started with
51:53SPEAKERthe model S instead of the model three, so the reason they started with a hundred thousand
51:56SPEAKERdollar car instead of a $40,000 car is because they couldn't make enough batteries to, to
52:01SPEAKERmeet the demand on the, on the $40,000 car.
52:04SPEAKERSo they let the rich people buy the expensive car and used the increasing sales of that
52:09SPEAKERover a period of four or five years to increase the supply of, of those batteries to the point
52:15SPEAKERthat they could justify building their own factory and manufacturing themselves and doing
52:19SPEAKERall that stuff.
52:21SPEAKERSo yeah, it's, it's, it's straight up, it's straight up like economics one-on-one supply
52:24SPEAKERand demand.
52:25SPEAKERThe world did not make enough of the thing that they needed, so they figured out a way
52:28SPEAKERto get the world making enough of the stuff that they needed.
52:30SPEAKERWe might not have to do supply chain up, so that's the gist of the whole thing.
52:34SPEAKERThere you go.
52:35SPEAKERWhat could be simpler?
52:36SPEAKERYeah.
52:37SPEAKERMake, if you want, make, if you want more, make people buy the thing that needs you,
52:40SPEAKERthat gets you the more that you need.
52:41SPEAKERWords.
52:42SPEAKERUm, what other battery stuff is there to talk about?
52:46SPEAKERI don't know.
52:47SPEAKERShould we cover most everything?
52:48SPEAKERShould I just fill the rest of this episode with purchasing advice about a UPS?
52:52SPEAKERYeah.
52:53SPEAKERYou want to buy a UPS?
52:54SPEAKERI need to buy a UPS.
52:55SPEAKERI actually think about buying like three different UPSs.
52:56SPEAKERWhy do you need so many UPSs?
52:57SPEAKERBecause I got different pools of electronics in different parts of the house.
53:00SPEAKERWhat do you, do you need them on?
53:02SPEAKERI mean, my router is in one room and my wifi is in another room, so it would be nice to
53:06SPEAKERhave both of those things survive a brief power outage.
53:09SPEAKEROkay.
53:10SPEAKEROkay.
53:11SPEAKERI can see that.
53:12SPEAKERDo you ever consider just moving in the same room and plugging them into the same one?
53:15SPEAKERNo.
53:16SPEAKEROkay.
53:17SPEAKERWell, fiber comes in at one end of the apartment.
53:18SPEAKEROh.
53:19SPEAKERAnd then the other end is dead.
53:20SPEAKERMost of the living happens closer from the other end, so that doesn't make a lot of sense.
53:24SPEAKERYeah.
53:25SPEAKERYeah.
53:26SPEAKERUm, yeah, so UPSs use lead acid batteries like are in your car.
53:28SPEAKERYeah.
53:29SPEAKERI was, so I, I've, obviously UPS, this is an uninterruptible power supply for anybody
53:33SPEAKERwho doesn't know.
53:34SPEAKERHome UPSs use lead acid batteries.
53:36SPEAKERYou can get a UPS for your house that's a lithium ion battery, lithium polymer battery,
53:40SPEAKERthat's like in your Tesla, Tesla sells them.
53:42SPEAKERThat's basically like a glorified generator almost at that point, right?
53:46SPEAKERYeah, pretty much.
53:47SPEAKERUm, well, I mean, it's still a battery, but people, people buy those, charge it off the
53:53SPEAKERgrid or does it have solar cells or what's the deal?
53:55SPEAKERTheoretically you charge it off of solar cells and then you use it at night or Jerry Brownouts
53:58SPEAKERor whatever, or it lets you sell energy back to the grid when you, you know, when you have,
54:02SPEAKERwhen there's demand or whatever.
54:04SPEAKERUm, the data centers use lithium ion batteries for that kind of stuff as well.
54:10SPEAKERFor home use.
54:11SPEAKERYou're talking about lead acid batteries.
54:12SPEAKERYeah, so that was kind of a shocking fact that I absorbed as I was starting to look
54:16SPEAKERat what to buy is that they all still essentially use car batteries.
54:19SPEAKERWell, the price is right.
54:20SPEAKERIs that what it is?
54:21SPEAKERYeah.
54:22SPEAKERThey're cheap.
54:23SPEAKERUm, they're like, it's lithium polymer.
54:24SPEAKERA lot of times your battery use is determined by the use case.
54:27SPEAKERSo like you wouldn't want a lead acid battery in your phone because it would weigh 35 pounds.
54:30SPEAKERIt'd be like five times this size.
54:31SPEAKERIt would be a bag phone.
54:32SPEAKERGet a good workout though.
54:33SPEAKERYeah.
54:34SPEAKERI mean the pros and cons, I guess.
54:37SPEAKERUm, but for something that sits under your desk plugged into the wall and never moves
54:40SPEAKERand maybe your cat sits on cause it's nice and warm.
54:43SPEAKERLead acid's fine.
54:44SPEAKERI see.
54:45SPEAKERYeah.
54:46SPEAKEROkay.
54:47SPEAKERUm, I always bought APC.
54:48SPEAKERI don't know.
54:49SPEAKERI was looking at them and CyberPower seems to be kind of a, yeah.
54:52SPEAKERDoes Wirecutter even cover those?
54:53SPEAKERSix of one half a dozen of another.
54:55SPEAKERYeah.
54:56SPEAKERThey've got recommendations.
54:57SPEAKERYeah.
54:58SPEAKERThere you go.
54:59SPEAKERThat's, that's nine times out of 10 my recommendation is what does Wirecutter say?
55:00SPEAKERYeah, that usually works.
55:01SPEAKERYeah.
55:02SPEAKERThey like CyberPower.
55:03SPEAKEROkay.
55:04SPEAKERYeah.
55:05SPEAKERAnything with solar cells worth talking about that you know about?
55:07SPEAKEROh, we should do an episode about solar cells.
55:09SPEAKERIs that a whole separate camera?
55:10SPEAKERI have an expert for solar cells.
55:12SPEAKERWhoa.
55:13SPEAKERYeah.
55:14SPEAKERWe can get an expert interview.
55:15SPEAKERI have a cousin who designs, uh, works on a team that makes 3D three dimensional, geez,
55:21SPEAKERjust some things that capture the sunlight and turn it into electricity.
55:25SPEAKERI didn't know we had gotten there yet.
55:26SPEAKERWow.
55:27SPEAKERLook, everything's 3D now.
55:28SPEAKERBut as far as batteries go, I mean, is there anything to talk about there?
55:30SPEAKERLike obviously, I don't, I mean, look, if you go camping a lot, you can buy one of those
55:34SPEAKERthings, you dangle off the back of your backpack at night and it'll charge your phone during
55:37SPEAKERthe night.
55:38SPEAKERLike seriously, those things are basically like a little photovoltaic cell with a battery
55:43SPEAKERon it.
55:44SPEAKERYeah.
55:45SPEAKERAnd it gives you just enough juice to, you know, do whatever you do on your phone.
55:47SPEAKERI don't, I haven't been camping since, uh, I've been camping once since I had a phone.
55:52SPEAKERI don't know.
55:53SPEAKERMaybe twice.
55:54SPEAKERI don't know what I would do with it.
55:55SPEAKEROther than maybe listen to music.
55:56SPEAKERI forgot what the outdoors is.
55:59SPEAKERIt's that way.
56:00SPEAKEROh, I don't go that way much.
56:01SPEAKERYou should go that way.
56:02SPEAKERIt's nice out there.
56:03SPEAKERYeah.
56:04SPEAKEROkay.
56:05SPEAKERUm, I'll take my batteries with me.
56:06SPEAKERSo what are we going to talk about next week?
56:08SPEAKERShould we tease next week?
56:09SPEAKERI don't know.
56:10SPEAKERWe haven't decided.
56:11SPEAKERWe haven't decided what the mechanics of this show.
56:12SPEAKERI mean, I just want to say one more time, I'm, I've been, it's been lovely seeing the
56:16SPEAKERoutpouring of excitement and enthusiasm for this.
56:20SPEAKERIncredibly gratifying that anybody wants to listen to this thing.
56:23SPEAKERWe've been talking about doing this for a really long time and like getting, like getting
56:27SPEAKERto the point that we're actually ready to do it took, I don't know, six months probably.
56:31SPEAKERYeah, seems like there were a lot of moving parts involved.
56:34SPEAKERIt was complicated, but we're there.
56:35SPEAKERYeah.
56:36SPEAKERAlso, uh, I think we intended to kind of quietly soft launch it for a handful of episodes just
56:41SPEAKERto get our feet wet and then the soft launch got real hard and populate all of the relevant
56:45SPEAKERfeeds.
56:46SPEAKERYeah.
56:47SPEAKERBut then it got out there pretty quickly.
56:48SPEAKERSo I guess here we are.
56:49SPEAKERYeah.
56:50SPEAKERUm, but yeah, so, uh, feedback.
56:52SPEAKERWe would love, uh, feedback.
56:53SPEAKERYou can hit both of us on Twitter.
56:54SPEAKERI'm Will Smith.
56:55SPEAKERBrad's.
56:56SPEAKERYeah.
56:57SPEAKERUm, uh, I guess if people, maybe we'll set up a discord or something if that's something
57:03SPEAKERpeople are into.
57:04SPEAKERI don't know.
57:05SPEAKERDown for something like that.
57:06SPEAKERUm.
57:07SPEAKERI like to chat.
57:08SPEAKERYeah.
57:09SPEAKERI owe my entire, my entire career to internet chat.
57:10SPEAKEROh wow.
57:11SPEAKERYeah.
57:12SPEAKERIRC.
57:13SPEAKERI owe IRC everything.
57:14SPEAKERMan.
57:15SPEAKERI would not be here if I had not ended up on IRC in high school.
57:19SPEAKEROh my God.
57:20SPEAKERYou're looking, you're not a fascist, Brad.
57:22SPEAKERTalking to who turned out to be the right people and not the wrong people.
57:25SPEAKERYeah.
57:26SPEAKERDon't talk to the wrong people.
57:27SPEAKERTalk to people who can help you get a job, not people who can, nevermind, let's move
57:33SPEAKERon.
57:34SPEAKERWell, no.
57:35SPEAKERSo we're, we're, um, we're blowing through our hosting allotment right now, which is,
57:38SPEAKERI guess, a good problem to have, um, but it's nothing unmanageable at this point, it seems
57:44SPEAKERlike.
57:45SPEAKERBut we'll see where that goes.
57:46SPEAKERYeah.
57:47SPEAKERAnd, uh, and thanks for supporting us and listening to the show.
57:49SPEAKERAbsolutely.
57:50SPEAKERLet us know what you think.
57:51SPEAKERWe'd love to have feedback.
57:52SPEAKERThat's, uh, it means the world.
57:53SPEAKERSince this is the first kind of real episode, I guess.
57:54SPEAKERYeah.
57:55SPEAKERThe deep dive.
57:56SPEAKERYeah.
57:57SPEAKERLike we've batted around a bunch of, we've got a Google doc full of half-baked tech ideas
58:02SPEAKERfor different episodes.
58:03SPEAKERWe'll hop on a call maybe and talk about it later this week.
58:05SPEAKERWe don't want to tease on any of those on here right now.
58:07SPEAKERYou don't have to supply chain.
58:09SPEAKERI can below.
58:10SPEAKERI don't have to supply chain right now.
58:11SPEAKERI love to supply chain.
58:12SPEAKERAfter, after, after 20, what are we at, 50, 50 some minutes, 50 something minutes of battery
58:18SPEAKERtalk.
58:19SPEAKERI don't know if we can go straight into supply chain.
58:21SPEAKERLet's, let's, we'll, we'll do, um, let's see.
58:23SPEAKERI feel like electric cars, maybe we hit kind of the high points on this week, you know,
58:29SPEAKERI don't know.
58:30SPEAKERMaybe we should just do this offline.
58:31SPEAKERWe should take this conversation offline.
58:32SPEAKERYou're probably right.
58:33SPEAKERYeah.
58:34SPEAKERI got, I got a ways down the rabbit hole of why all home routers use the 192.168 subnet
58:40SPEAKERover address space for everything.
58:42SPEAKERThat's topical too.
58:43SPEAKERIs it?
58:44SPEAKERYeah.
58:45SPEAKERCause somebody, somebody was the, the, the people in charge of doling out IP addresses
58:49SPEAKERare suggesting that maybe we can use 127.0 point something, something, you know, 127.0.0.1
58:57SPEAKERis your local host, but they're like, there's another like few hundred thousand addresses
59:02SPEAKERin that range that we could presumably be using.
59:04SPEAKERAnd they're thinking they're going to dole them out, but that's a bad idea.
59:07SPEAKERShould we just move to IPV6 instead?
59:10SPEAKERThat's way easier.
59:11SPEAKERShould we do an episode about IPV6?
59:13SPEAKERLet's do an IP episode.
59:14SPEAKEROkay.
59:15SPEAKERLet's just do how internet works.
59:16SPEAKERI like internet protocol.
59:17SPEAKERI like talking about routing.
59:18SPEAKERRouting is cool.
59:19SPEAKERYeah.
59:20SPEAKERI just, I changed my subnet recently.
59:21SPEAKERYeah.
59:22SPEAKERDid it feel good?
59:23SPEAKERYeah.
59:24SPEAKERYeah.
59:25SPEAKERDo you feel, which, how did you go on with 10.15?
59:26SPEAKEROh no, I'm on, I'm on 192.168.7.
59:28SPEAKER.7?
59:29SPEAKERYes.
59:30SPEAKER.0/24.
59:31SPEAKERThat's madness.
59:32SPEAKERYes.
59:33SPEAKERMad.
59:34SPEAKERI was 10.15.something.something for a long time.
59:35SPEAKERThat's a lot fewer numerals to type in.
59:38SPEAKERI should have done something like that.
59:39SPEAKERWell, the problem is a lot of ISPs use that as their like private IP address for the router.
59:45SPEAKEROkay.
59:46SPEAKERSo if you're double, anyway.
59:47SPEAKERI had to change mine cause I set up a VPN.
59:48SPEAKEROh yeah.
59:49SPEAKERSo if, if you VPN to from a LAN to another LAN that's using the same subnet, it becomes
59:56SPEAKERvery problematic.
59:57SPEAKERYeah.
59:58SPEAKERIt turns out.
59:59SPEAKERBut, uh, yeah, I've been, I've been deep down a home networking rabbit hole for a while.
1:00:02SPEAKERIf we want to.
1:00:03SPEAKERYeah.
1:00:04SPEAKERYou've got, you've got the fancy, you've got the fancy routers, right?
1:00:06SPEAKERI've got an edge rabbit for switches or cheapo, whatever.
1:00:11SPEAKERI mean they're disposable, but the router does a lot of fun stuff.
1:00:14SPEAKERMaybe we'll talk about internet stuff.
1:00:16SPEAKERHey, let us know what you all think.
1:00:18SPEAKERYeah.
1:00:19SPEAKERYeah.
1:00:20SPEAKERWe've got the whole list of stuff, but we are super open to suggestions.
1:00:22SPEAKERYeah.
1:00:23SPEAKEROkay.
1:00:24SPEAKERI think that's a good place for me to end it.
1:00:25SPEAKERAll right.
1:00:26SPEAKERThis podcast is over.
1:00:27SPEAKERYeah.
1:00:28SPEAKERHey, um, we had a bunch of people leave out reviews on iTunes, which was really nice.
1:00:30SPEAKERAwesome.
1:00:31SPEAKERThank you.
1:00:32SPEAKERAnd that's helpful.
1:00:33SPEAKERSo please continue doing that if you like the show.
1:00:34SPEAKERAnd if you, I mean, if you don't like the show, you can leave reviews too.
1:00:36SPEAKERThat's fine.
1:00:37SPEAKERI don't care.
1:00:38SPEAKERBut just leave reviews.
1:00:39SPEAKERContent.
1:00:40SPEAKERComment is good.
1:00:41SPEAKERAll feedback is good feedback.
1:00:42SPEAKERYeah.
1:00:43SPEAKERAnd no such thing as bad publicity.
1:00:44SPEAKERSo we're on iTunes, Google, Spotify, pocket cast, overcast, all the places that scrape
1:00:50SPEAKERoff of any of those places.
1:00:52SPEAKERIf there's someplace that we aren't and you would like us to be, I don't think we're on
1:00:55SPEAKERStitcher because I had to sign a contract for that.
1:00:57SPEAKERI didn't feel like that was like, I didn't feel like contract kind of had space fit in
1:01:02SPEAKERwith your posse lifestyle.
1:01:03SPEAKERNo, I'm anti-contract these days, but yeah, if you, if there's someplace else you'd like
1:01:07SPEAKERus to be, let us know and we'll see if we can add it there.
1:01:09SPEAKERAnd thanks.
1:01:10SPEAKERYeah.
1:01:11SPEAKERThanks for listening.
1:01:12SPEAKERWe'll see you in the next one.
1:01:15SPEAKERBye.
1:01:16SPEAKERBye.