0:00
/
0:00
Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor - August 23, 2025 - Hour 2 - The EV Future
Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor - August 23, 2025 - Hour 2 - The EV Future
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
About this episode
Ron Ananian welcomes back Mark Mills to discuss the future of electric vehicles (EVs) and the implications of recent policy changes, including Germany's decision to drop EV subsidies. They delve into the complexities of EV production, including the environmental costs of battery manufacturing and the challenges posed by government mandates on internal combustion engines. The conversation highlights the potential rise in insurance costs for EVs, the economic sustainability of current subsidies, and the broader impact on the automotive industry. Mark shares insights on the mining industry's role in battery production and the long-term feasibility of transitioning to electric vehicles.
Topics:
ev subsidies
battery production costs
insurance costs
government mandates
mining industry impact
internal combustion engine bans
environmental costs
electric infrastructure
Cars:
Porsche Cayman
EV Mandates, Appliance Bans & the Hidden Costs of Going Green | The Car Doctor Podcast
Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor, sits down with energy expert Mark Mills for a wide-ranging discussion on EVs, government mandates, and the future of car ownership. Together, they break down:
-
Why Washington’s appliance bans mirror EV mandates.
-
What Germany’s sudden end to EV subsidies really means.
-
The hidden costs of EV ownership—insurance, repairs, and batteries.
-
Why trillions in infrastructure may never materialize.
-
How mining, energy policy, and subsidies shape the real future of electric cars.
From cow methane to insurance companies pulling out of Florida, this episode looks beyond the showroom and into the economics, politics, and realities shaping your next vehicle.
- Grab your Car Doctor gear – T-shirts & more at CarDoctorShow.com
-
Follow the wrench – Instagram @ronananian for shop life & behind-the-scenes
-
Watch & learn – Auto repair tips & videos on our YouTube Channel
-
Got a car question? Call the Car Doctor Hotline 24/7 – (855) 560-9900
-
Join the conversation LIVE – Saturdays 2–4 PM Eastern
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Filter:
|
Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Porsche Cayman
".... I read about this guy who bought a 2020 Porsche Cayman that was well-loved. I mean, there are plenty of ..."
Car
Cayman Porsche Cayman Gt
"...red. Like this guy I read about who bought a 2020 Porsche Cayman GT for on eBay, it was well loved."
Select text to request an explanation
This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.
Early birds always rise to the occasion for summer vacation planning, because early gets you
closely to the action, so don't be late.
Book your next vacation early on Verbo and save over $530 on week-long stays.
After saving $550, select home's only minimum seven-day stay required.
The worst part about loving cars might just be buying them and all the parts.
But on eBay, behind every car and part is a story waiting to be shared.
I read about this guy who bought a 2020 Porsche Cayman that was well-loved.
I mean, there are plenty of Caymans in great condition on eBay, but this one needed some
work.
This guy buys it and rebuilds the whole thing, all with parts he found on eBay, and now that
nearly-scrapped Cayman is out tearing up the track.
From Toyota's to Aston Martin's, eBay has thousands of cars and the largest online
selection of vehicle parts and accessories.
eBay.
Things.
People.
Love.
You're listening to Ron Ananian, the car doctor, nationally recognized auto expert, trusted
by mechanics, weekend wrenches, and vehicle owners alike.
Ron brings over 40 years of hands-on experience and deep industry insight to help you understand
your vehicle.
Join the conversation live every Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. eastern by calling 855-560-9900.
That's 855-560-9900, your direct line to honest answers and practical advice.
Looking for more?
Visit cardoctorshow.com for past episodes, repair tips, and Ron's latest insights.
And be sure to subscribe to the Car Doctor YouTube channel for exclusive videos, real
repair footage, and more.
Now, start your engines.
The car doctor is in the garage and ready to take your call.
Welcome to the center.
It's good to be here with you today.
We're going to dive right into it.
Once again, we welcome back Mark Mills, and we're going to be talking electric
vehicles, so sit down, stay tuned, and get ready for a shock.
So pun intended.
Mark, welcome back, sir.
Great to be back.
Great to be back.
Yes, sir.
Thank you very much.
All good.
Good to have you.
Yep.
Let's dive right into it.
You know, in the news recently, well, two things I want to talk about in the news.
Keep in mind, I want to talk a little bit before the end of this hour with you.
Germany just did something very interesting with EVs, right?
They dropped the subsidies, I think it was, but I also want to talk a little
bit about, you know, I keep reading how coming out of Washington the government
is trying these mandates on appliances, and I know that's not necessarily a car
show story or an EV story, but that appliance mentality about trying to make
all the appliances green, there's an EV guideline to that also.
Is there not?
I mean, don't they tie them together?
Well, they're tied together first philosophically in the sense that we have
Washington bureaucrats mandating what kind of products you can use or have, not regulating,
if you like, their physical safety, you know, like underwriters' labs, but mandating
what you're allowed to buy, banning your ability to purchase certain kinds of
products.
So it's exactly the same.
The idea, many states have tried this, a number half, certain California, I
think Maine's going to do it next, is make it illegal for you to purchase a gas
water heater or a gas furnace or a gas appliance or stove for your home.
So a product that is in widespread use for, well, we'll call it centuries,
and globally in widespread use, it will now be banned.
And it's not like banning cigarettes.
I mean, the people, and we didn't, by the way, not to use a
hand-handed analogy, cigarettes are not banned, even though either
probably isn't a single listener listening, who doesn't think, even if they're
smokers, the cigarettes don't hurt you.
I mean, come on, you could do lots of things that hurt you, that you enjoy.
I get that for a human, but the government has long held that
cigarettes are dangerous, and we didn't ban cigarettes, which
affirmatively hurt people and cause insurance costs to go up in the
health industry, health care industry.
So here we come along and for the putative assumption that some small
incremental benefit to the far future from not burning natural gas in your
home and emitting carbon dioxide, we should ban a product.
I mean, never mind the motivation, the idea behind it is really offensive.
So it's safe for cars.
We're going to ban the sale of internal combustion engines.
So far in 12 states, DC is just getting ready to do it next and at least
a dozen countries have stood up to do that.
And the EPA's new rule would effectively ban internal combustion
sales for sort of 70, 80% of all vehicles by 2032, I think it is.
So this is a phenomenal overreach.
The only time we've had bans at this scale was one time in American
history, which is, of course, the ban on alcohol consumption.
You know, I think about that.
Not that I'm not a huge drinker, but I remember that, you know, you
start making the comparison that, yeah, we had prohibition.
And that didn't end too well, because here we are.
It's available again, right?
Not available again.
What it did, I don't love on the consequences about laws.
Well, you try to ban something that's widely consumed and used.
You create all sorts of unintended consequences, not least the
criminality that surrounded everybody still consuming alcohol and
trade it on the ground industry.
The other ban, by the way, which is relevant to the EV domain or cars in
general, was the ban on driving quickly in 1973, when we banned
ability to drive at normal speeds, i.e. over 55 miles an hour.
And what that did is it, it was even more, even a more widely flouted
to law than the ban on consuming alcohol, because people simply ignored it.
And, you know, a lot more speeding tickets, a lot of cops just ignored it.
Some didn't, but it really is a very dangerous thing to ban
things that are silly to ban that people will ignore and create
under, you know, all kinds of unintended consequences.
Anyway, the ban on appliances is no different than the ban on cars.
It's motivated by the same thing, the same bad instincts to have
status control over consumer choices that are, you know, convenient and sensible.
I think the sad thing about the appliance ban and what they're
trying to take away from this is they might be able to achieve it
because, you know, I can get this, but I can't get that.
The problem is going to be, you know, if you don't have, you know,
the electric cost, right?
We're back there because they want to convert every appliance to electric
something or an electric water heater or minimize the amount of natural gas
flowing through the natural gas device and like the EV situation.
And this is where I think the analogy in my mind where I was trying
to put the two together is we don't have the resources.
It's not, you know, it's like we keep saying we want to go back
in time out of the 18 again.
It just it just can't happen.
It's not, it's not physically possible.
Well, if you shift, if you shift that much energy demand from gas to electric,
which is what the goal is, then you're right.
You have to build electric infrastructure to handle it.
And we're not just flat.
And they, and to do it takes time and also costs money.
And of course you've now, you've increased the risks to society.
One of the benefits of having two fuels to your house when there's
power outages that you still have hot water, you still have stove that works.
Fireplace it could use.
That doesn't happen in the electric world, which is, which is high risk by definition.
You know, when are they going to, when are they going to prevent
us from lighting fires in the fireplace?
Well, that, you know, well, Colorado, a long, long time ago,
banned new house construction with, with, with, with fireplaces.
Yeah.
Really?
I didn't know that.
Get ready.
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
That just bring up, but another thing to mind, I was watching this show on Netflix
the other day, they were talking about food and beef and, and cows and how
cows emit, I don't know if this is true or not, but it must be true.
I saw it on TV, you know, cows emit the current population of cows in the
United States emit more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation industry.
It was some astounding claim that cows are more deadly to the environment
than the automobile.
And they want to, they want to ban milk and beef.
So what they're referring to is the fact that the ruminant bacteria in the
cows got the digestion of grasses by cows and all, all, all that class of
creatures emits methane.
Methane is a more, a more powerful in the greenhouse lexicon, more powerful
greenhouse gases CO2 by, by depending how you measure by a fact for 20.
So, you know, a pound of methane emitted is like 20 pounds of carbon dioxide.
It's shorter lived in the atmosphere, but it's, that's what it does.
So that's some of the, the rules that are being promulgated are directed
not just the carbon dioxide emissions from combustion.
And it's not from Cal Farts, it's just commonly that's that smell of
sulfur dioxide for the college kids that remember what the misbehaviors
and enjoyment they had at the, the flatulence, but it's methane burps.
It's the burping of cows, the bio digestion by bacteria of grasses.
And of course, termites, forget meat and beef, the termite, termites emit
methane as well.
And the, one of the largest sources of methane emissions globally are
from termites.
We don't count them because we don't eat termites.
We don't grow termites.
So they're irrelevant, but yet we want to regulate cows because, you know,
we grow cows.
I mean, it's, the passes, you know, I would use the word and saying,
because it's probably the right, the right word to use this path towards
trying to find every possible source of human emissions of greenhouse gases
and regulator.
It's really, it's not going to end well because you can't do it.
I mean, it's just a, no matter what people are saying, it just can't be done.
So does, you know, going back to where we started our conversation,
does the appliance controls we see currently being applied by Washington?
Is that a reflection of the mentality of what they expect from the electric
vehicle? And that's why they're dragging us.
I mean, you, in that direction, I mean, you just said another, you know,
Washington DC is going to add the ban or Washington is going to add the
ban. I don't know if you meant DC or the state, but, you know, we're,
we're again, and yet some states are saying, Hey, we can't do this.
It's not going to work.
Right.
Well, if you, the number states are, they're not all on board, but
Washington DC is de facto banning convert internal combustion engines
through the EPA's proposed rule.
And that will, that's being challenged, but that'll, you know, we'll see how it
goes. You never know, governments can do a lot.
This, the, the district of Columbia itself has joined California,
New York, Maine, other states in banning the, the ability as a
resident of that state to purchase an internal combustion engine by the
year 2032, I think it is.
So, you know, long before we get to that point in time, if those laws and
ban stay on the books, long before we get to that period, which is only,
only eight years out long before then automakers, if those bands stay in
place, we'll have to think about whether they shut down a lot of
factories because they'll be overproducing internal combustion engines.
And those decisions will have to be made a few years from now, not,
not seven or eight years from now, but a few years from now.
You have to get ahead of that curve.
So they really think those bands will stay in place.
Then you'll begin to see auto industry production ramping down because
you won't be able to sell the products.
And you've got to start thinking strategically about what you can close
and quickly can close it.
And of course, the effect of that will be to raise the cost of vehicles.
There'll be fewer vehicles available preemptively and will raise the
cost of used cars, as we've talked about before, and raise the
cost of repairing used cars because people are going to keep the
cars longer.
And it's going to be a very vicious downward spiral of high costs
and inconveniences that will begin.
Again, not in 2032 when the bands are proposed, but before it by years.
So unless we, unless we come back to the same side of the coin, so
makes this election year very, very interesting.
You're listening to Ron and Annie and the car doctor.
I'm talking to Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
And we're chatting away about EVs and a bunch of other topics
this hour, so stay put.
Mark, stay on the side there.
I'm Ron and Annie and the car doctor.
We'll both be back right after this.
Don't go away.
Lately, car buying has become a pretty dull experience.
But on eBay, behind every car and part is a story waiting to be shared.
Like this guy I read about who bought a 2020 Porsche Cayman GT for
on eBay, it was well loved.
I mean, there are plenty of Caymans in great condition on eBay,
but this one needed some work.
That's just the start of the story.
So after this guy gets a great deal on his dream car, he rebuilds the whole
thing with all these parts he found on eBay.
Performance brakes, suspension, body panels, the works, guaranteed to fit.
Next thing you know, this nearly scrapped Cayman was out
there on the track as a full blown race car.
You're ready to go daily driver, your next resto mod.
Hello, Lotus Elon and the parts to finish it.
eBay has thousands of cars and is the largest online
selection of vehicle parts and accessories.
eBay, things, people love.
Gas prices, screen time, electric bills.
Some things are better lower, especially bad cholesterol.
Even if you're on statins, dieting and exercising,
you might need more to get to your goal.
That's where Lekvio can help.
Lekvio or Euclisarine is an injection given by a doctor
to help lower bad cholesterol, along with diet and exercise.
Lekvio is the only bad cholesterol lowering medicine
that's two doses a year after two initial doses.
Do not use if you've had an allergic reaction to Lekvio or any of its ingredients.
Common side effects were injection site reaction,
including pain, redness and rash, joint pain and chest cold.
You've done your part.
Ask if Lekvio can take you further.
If your bad cholesterol is still high, ask your doctor if just two
doses of Lekvio a year after two initial doses can help.
Learn more at Lekvio.com or call 1-833-537-8462.
That's L-E-Q-V-I-O.com.
Welcome back, listeners.
Ron and Amy, the car doctor, are here with the often
imitated, never duplicated, underappreciated Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
Or you're hanging in there, Mark.
I had to give you that one, right?
That was good.
You know, it's good.
I do. I'll take it all.
I do have to go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I want to correct one thing I should have told you at the outset.
First of the year, I left the Manhattan Institute.
My beloved Manhattan Institute where I'm supposed contributing editor
to its great city journal.
But now I am a distinguished and you'll have to treat me with more respect.
Now, Ron, I'm a distinguished, distinguished senior fellow
with the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
I've changed courses because they made me an offer
to come and play with them, but especially to help build out
a new national energy initiative and think tank of some kind
based in Washington, not a Texas-based activity,
but a Texas-sponsored activity because, well,
Texas is the energy giant of America and, in fact, of the world.
And they realize what's at stake.
They do, right.
One last thing from our last conversation.
And by the way, congratulations for that.
I don't want to just ignore that.
That's kind of neat.
You know, about two weeks ago in the news,
Germany decided to do away with the incentive for purchasing
or supporting EVs. What was that about?
Money. Fairly money matters.
What a shock.
Yeah.
I mean, you can't subsidize everything forever.
And what it was all about is the it made a lie
of the trope that if you subsidize EVs,
the volumes will go up and they'll get cheaper.
And EVs are inherently more expensive than conventional cars,
except for in the luxury market, which is functionally irrelevant
to most of the world.
So for the everyday car, EVs are inherently more expensive
and they are now being produced at scale.
We're no longer talking about a nascent industry.
There are millions of them being manufactured.
Tesla did it over a million a year themselves last year.
It's a mature, a large industry and it still requires
massive subsidies to get people to buy them,
which means governments are facing the prospect
if they push EVs as the only vehicle you're allowed to buy
is subsidizing every car everybody buys.
So it's unsustainable.
You can't do these kinds of things.
And the lie that they get cheap is not true.
So, wait, you're telling me that Germany woke up and said,
wait, we can't afford to continue in this path.
Let's just let's eliminate it and stop it here.
Yeah, they did other things.
Remember, they are pursuing this aggressive wind
and solar path in their grids and there's a sense we know.
I believe last year there was no net new orders in Europe
for turbines, wind turbines, and they are reactivating
coal plants in Germany, digging up more coal.
And the cost of natural gas is soaring
because of the understandable policy
to deal ink from Russian gas.
But that means instead of the geopolitical discounts
Putin was giving Germany, they're gone.
So energy got more expensive and their economy is shrinking
and they're deindustrializing.
And so all of this on the backs of bad energy policy,
that's where all came from.
It all comes back to bad energy policy
being mandated by the government, unaffordable.
So the next domino is the one that just fell,
which is knocking out EV subsidies.
So when does that fall here now?
And that's a good question.
I mean, if it takes as long to happen here
as it did there for a few more years,
I think fiscal sanity will rather than somebody deciding
that folks who are wrong, we don't like EVs.
That's not going to happen.
I like EVs, as you know, we've talked about before.
Performance opportunities and different kind of flexibility for nice.
They're great, fun.
But that's not the same thing as mandating everybody have one
and subsidizing it.
So I think fiscal reality will come back into play here
faster than it did in Germany for a whole lot of reasons.
And so if I were picking it, if we want to take it over underbent,
I'd say two years, I'd say two years, the subsidies go away.
Even if there's a, even if even the Democrats have the White House,
I think it's going to be financially unsustainable.
That's what I think will happen.
All right, well, I'll take that prediction.
We'll talk again in two years.
Personally, I think it's going to be 11 months, but we'll kind of take that.
We'll kind of take that as it comes.
Setting aside who wins the election in 11 months,
even if the red team instead of the blue team wins, there's a lag.
Because we got then not till a year from this January before the next inauguration.
And then you have spool-up time, which takes six months.
But, you know, a president could end by executive order, the subsidies.
Sure, I get it.
They could try, but I don't know if they could get away with it
because it's legislation depends who has a House and Senate.
It's messy. I guess my point is it becomes political.
Mark, let's pull over.
Take a pause.
I'm Ronan Aining, the car doctor here with Mark Mills.
We'll both be back right after this.
Don't go away.
Lately, car buying has become a pretty dull experience.
But on eBay, behind every car and part is a story waiting to be shared.
Like this guy I read about who bought a 2020 Porsche Cayman GT4 on eBay.
It was well loved.
I mean, there are plenty of Caymans in great condition on eBay,
but this one needed some work.
That's just the start of the story.
So after this guy gets a great deal on his dream car,
he rebuilds the whole thing with all these parts he found on eBay.
Performance brakes, suspension, body panels, the works, guaranteed to fit.
Next thing you know, this nearly scrapped Cayman was out there
on the track as a full blown race car.
You're ready to go daily driver.
Your next resto mod, Hello Lotus Elon, and the parts to finish it.
eBay has thousands of cars and is the largest online selection
of vehicle parts and accessories.
eBay, things, people love.
Have heart disease and diet and exercise
are not enough to lower bad cholesterol?
Ask your doctor if Lekveo and glycerin can help.
Prescription Lekveo is the only bad cholesterol lowering medication
that's two doses a year after two initial doses.
Do not use if you've had an allergic reaction
to Lekveo or any of its ingredients.
Common side effects were injection site reaction,
including pain, redness and rash, joint pain and chest cold.
Call 1-833-537-8462 or visit Lekveo.com.
Welcome back, Ronan, the car doctor here.
We're talking Mark with Mark Mills.
We're talking EVs and all the peripheral conversations
that go along with that statement and as we roll along.
Mark, you and I could probably talk a lot longer
than the time we always have.
I want to get into insurance costs.
We've never really done a deep dive,
but there's a lot of things that go along with that term.
Insurance costs and EVs, electric vehicles, and lightness.
Yeah, well, the big wildcard here, as you know,
is ensuring the most expensive part of that vehicle,
which is the battery.
And unlike an internal combustion engine car,
there's no single component
that has such a high proportion of the cost of the vehicle.
So roughly speaking, the battery's $15,000.
It could be a smaller car, 10,000.
That's the manufacturer's cost.
So 15,000 and the big ones could be 20,000.
That's a lot of money.
And the battery structure is extremely important
for safety reasons.
So if there's any mechanical damage to the battery pack,
it's a huge thing in the floor.
The pan of the car.
It's a write-off.
The batteries can't be repaired
the way an internal combustion engine can.
It's a very complex machine.
People think it's simple.
It's not a box of goo, it's not an empty tank.
There's thousands of components, thousands of welds,
power electronics, cooling systems, structural systems,
safety systems.
It's more complex than an internal combustion engine.
It made from lots of exotic stuff,
unlike an engine, which is cast iron and steel.
Very easy to fix them, frankly, comparatively.
And you can fix them.
So that cost is not really showing up yet in the data,
except this is my theory.
Generally speaking, overall car insurance costs
have been rising across the country.
It's not just that it's getting more expensive
to repair cars.
I think what's going on is the percentage of cars
that are being totaled for minor accidents
is far higher with EVs.
We know this for a fact.
And that cost is being passed on
to all other insurance payers
because insurance companies gotta put the money somewhere.
So they haven't yet made EV makers, I don't think,
pay the actual underwritten cost of ensuring a vehicle
that gets into an accident
that can be written off much more quickly.
And there's another feature, by the way,
for Tesla's particularly,
and if other automakers follow this,
is that Elon Musk is nothing brilliant,
made it cheaper to make his car
because his frame is a single aluminum casting.
No one else has been able to achieve that.
It's a really incredible engineering achievement
and good on him and his team.
And he really is, it's amazing.
But the problem with that is that aluminum, as you know,
is fragile, relatively speaking to me.
If you get into an accident
and do damage to the frame of a steel car,
you can bend it back, you can replace a part.
You really can't do that to a Tesla.
You're right off the frame.
And that's, so you get two things you're facing
that are changed to insurance underwriting.
And that'll show up, it has to help eventually,
as you get more and more EVs on the road.
And I take what the solution is uncomplicated.
The electric car owner will pay for the insurance,
higher insurance costs, ultimately, that's what will happen.
And then insurance companies will be blamed
for impeding the EV revolution.
For gouging.
And also for gouging.
And also it'll become their fault.
I heard a story recently in the news
that someone with a Rivian vehicle, Rivian truck,
now I think the analogy was the damage,
if it was a gas vehicle would have been half the price.
It was a $26,000 repair.
And the debate was de-affix it.
And it just goes on every day.
I've heard stories where insurance carriers
are pulling out of the state of Florida
because of the cost.
Some of it's obviously due to the losses
they encountered over the last couple of years
with weather and hurricanes and so forth.
But it's also because when an EV,
when a hurricane hits Florida
and how many EVs get wiped out as they did
in the last couple of storms, right?
All of a sudden the losses multiply at such a rate
that the insurance company can't make a rate
of return on their investment.
How does an insurance company make money?
My understanding is obviously
they're taking the money from you and I
and everybody else and then they're investing
they're putting it into the stock market.
They're putting it in places.
And when the market goes down,
so now the market goes down,
the EV cost to repair goes up.
It's like the perfect storm for you.
We don't wanna do this anymore.
Yeah, it's a problem.
And some of it is higher repair costs inherent
in the fact that the parts are more expensive
the less available, the mechanics aren't available.
But to be fair, some of that works out over time
in the sense that the training and availability
of mechanics and parts improves over time.
But it takes a long time.
It's not gonna happen overnight.
And so those are pretty typical features
of any new product.
But the fact is the inherent cost
of so many of the components in an EV or higher
than the inherent cost of a conventional car.
So by definition, it's gonna be more expensive to repair.
And then when you add to that
this other feature I mentioned,
which is there's no single component
that is as expensive in a conventional car
as there is in an EV, as is the battery.
And that's a really big risk.
You got one thing that if it's damaged
in a way that's gonna make it unsafe
you have to write the vehicle off.
And of course that's, I had a friend
whose wife drives a Tesla three.
It's a nice car, I've driven them.
Minor fender bender and they rode it off.
So many minors, nobody was hurt.
But it caused enough potential damage
to the integrity of the battery that,
why is it fender bender?
It's obviously a little more than that.
But they rode it off
and it would never have been a ride off
if it had been a conventional vehicle.
If you're standing in front of two dealerships,
EV or gas, and you're trying to think
about the cost of ownership,
the gas version, the internal combustion engine,
you're familiar with that.
If you've been driving a while
you know what the costs are.
What are the hidden costs with that EV
that people need to think about
and make a decision based on that?
You know, the things they're not telling us,
insurance is one of them, right?
Cost to repair is the other.
Well, sure, but here's the thing.
In the current environment given what we're doing
and how we're subsidizing EVs
and how we're subsidizing the recharging,
if you have another garage
there's a very compelling argument
being made for your second or third car to be an EV,
frankly, right now,
because everybody else is carrying the cost for you.
And if you're one of the owners
that you're a leaser, not a buyer
and you wanna have a car for a few years,
you know, all of the residual value risk
is taken by the lessor, not you, in the lease.
You get the full credit on the lease.
In the first few years of every vehicle's ownership
is you know, as long as quality control is reasonable,
you don't have high repair costs, not till later.
So you can't have to worry about that.
It's the lease holder's problem
when they take the vehicle back.
So, and the refueling costs are subsidized right now.
You're not paying road taxes,
which you will have to eventually,
but right now you're not.
And if you could charge at home,
your electricity is subsidizing the electricity for you.
Not to be facetious, but it's true.
I've told family members
this is a, if you want a second or third car
to drive around town for convenience,
buy like one of the better quality,
you got Volkswagen or the Tesla three
or the Hyundai's are nice on cue.
They're well made cars,
especially in the first few years of life.
They're not quite as reliable.
You're not driving them as much.
So you don't have to worry about it as much.
You're not driving long distance
because you're just using it for local driving.
But that, what that masks is that,
what we're really talking about
is not whether an individual should buy an EV
for their particular lifestyle choice.
It's when the government is saying to us
that you could only buy an EV
and everybody's going to drive one.
And that's when the hidden costs show up.
If the entire fuel system for vehicles
that switch from gasoline to electric,
we are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars
of infrastructure costs,
which is not being factored in for the charging networks,
hundreds of billions, not billions.
Half a trillion dollars to upgrade the electric grid
to charge all these vehicles.
And another half a trillion dollars
of high speed chargers,
which will be needed on the road.
So the current plan is to spend $7 billion on EV chargers
out of the Inflation Reduction Act.
That's a drop in the bucket.
We're going to need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars
to get enough of them on the road.
Those are where the hidden costs come in
that are being completely ignored.
And that's non-trivial.
We're talking trillion dollars of infrastructure
that needs to be put in place
to have a significant share.
In fact, the majority of vehicles become electric fuel
instead of gasoline fueled.
These are electrical engineering challenges.
They're not amenable to magic waving a wand saying,
oh, it'll get better soon.
We know how to do this stuff now.
We know what it costs now.
And then you have to think about the cost
of what it's going to take to the land,
to the environment, to build these things,
trees, forests that have to be knocked down.
A lot there.
Mark, let's pull over, take a pause for our last break.
I'm Ron Anani and the car doctor.
We're here with Mark Mills.
We'll return right after this.
Lately, car buying has become a pretty dull experience.
But on eBay, behind every car in part
is a story waiting to be shared.
Like this guy I read about
who bought a 2020 Porsche Cayman GT4 on eBay.
It was well loved.
I mean, there are plenty of Caymans
in great condition on eBay,
but this one needed some work.
That's just the start of the story.
So after this guy gets a great deal on his dream car,
he rebuilds the whole thing with all these parts
he found on eBay.
Performance brakes, suspension, body panels,
the works guaranteed to fit.
Next thing you know, this nearly scrapped Cayman
was out there on the track as a full blown race car.
You're ready to go daily driver,
your next resto mod,
Hello Lotus Elon, and the parts to finish it.
eBay has thousands of cars
and is the largest online selection
of vehicle parts and accessories.
eBay, things, people, love.
Have heart disease and diet and exercise
are not enough to lower bad cholesterol?
Ask your doctor if Lekveo in glycerin can help.
Prescription Lekveo is the only bad cholesterol
lowering medication.
That's two doses a year after two initial doses.
Do not use if you've had an allergic reaction
to Lekveo or any of its ingredients.
Common side effects were injection site reaction,
including pain, redness and rash, joint pain and chest cold.
Call 1-833-537-8462 or visit Lekveo.com.
This year, get her the gift she really wants.
Get her a garage door.
Specifically a garage door where she doesn't throw her
back out every time she has to open the thing.
And if you do, go to my friends
at All About Garage Doors.
All About Garage Doors are a three-generation family
owned and operated business.
All About Garage Doors will happily come out
and give you a free estimate.
And if your garage door is one that has trouble opening,
falls off the tracks,
All About Garage Doors is offering $180
winter tune-up special.
So if you're looking for a new garage door,
go to the top dog in the industry,
All About Garage Doors.
Welcome back listeners.
Ron and Amy, the car doctor here with Mark Mills.
Mark, let's go where our original conversation was
at the start of this hour.
We wanted to talk about EV batteries.
And do a little bit of a deep dwell.
I'll tell you, it's, you know, if they gave us 10 hours,
we could talk 10 hours, you know.
Let's talk a little bit about the true cost.
I wanna build an EV battery.
What's it gonna take?
Well, that's the true cost.
The EV cost is entirely about the battery.
It takes a lot of stuff,
a lot of metals and minerals, a lot of chemicals.
And this is what people,
if they do a little research
with the magic Google machine,
they can figure this out.
But the difficult battery weighs a half a ton,
just the battery, they're playing the car,
which is why the EVs weigh more
and why EVs use more aluminum in the frame
to cut down on the weight penalty from the battery.
So to replace about 60 gallons of gasoline,
you know, 60, so 60 pounds of gasoline,
you got a thousand pound battery
in terms of what they're, you know, transporting around.
And that requires digging up somewhere on earth
about 250 tons of the earth, said this before,
to get the metals and materials to make one battery.
That's where the money relies.
It's the digging up all the earth to get the copper,
to get the aluminum, to get the manganese,
to get the graphite, to get the aluminum for the frame
and for the cathode and nanodes.
All that costs money.
All of it costs more than the iron and steel
a dominated regular car.
A regular car, three quarters of its weight,
it's iron and steel.
That's not true for an EV.
For an EV, three quarter of its weight
are exotic metals and minerals that all cost more.
You know, copper, aluminum, manganese, lithium,
cobalt often.
So where will the costs go in the future?
These complex, heavy, you know,
fuel tanks, the battery,
they're not going down significantly.
They crept up and then they crept down.
Right now, they finished their cost curve decline
from invention.
And now the costs are gonna start creeping up
because the marginal cost of the next ton of copper,
the next ton of manganese is rising
as the world's demand starts to rise.
And that's because we're not opening mines fast enough.
This whole thing, everything about the future price
of an EV, the future cost of an EV
can be distilled to a single thing
you wanna try to predict.
How fast will the world's miners open new mines
to mine the megatons of metals
that we need to make EV batteries?
We know the answer to that.
They're not opening them quickly right now.
They're not investing in them.
So my guess is they know something
that the automakers don't know.
So they know the mandates are gonna end.
And they're not about to get out of their skis
with hundreds of billions of dollars of investment
to build mines over the next decade
when the demand for those metals is not gonna appear
because no one is gonna wanna pay the prices
that are gonna be demanded, you know, for the batteries.
So that's just sort of the reality
that we're living with.
And this is a mining question.
This is not a computer technology question.
To understand the future price of batteries
you need to study the mining industry
and the refining industry.
It's an industry dominated by slow cycles,
long times to build things,
billion billions and hundreds of billions
of dollars of investments, mostly foreign.
The mines that are all being expanded
are in Africa, South America and Asia.
Mostly Chinese, China dominates utterly,
utterly dominates the refining of the key battery minerals.
By dominates I mean they have double the dot market share
globally in battery minerals that OPEC has in oil.
Utterly dominate the battery minerals market
and will for a decade.
It sort of sounds like it's all about making money.
Mark, that's about all the time we've got right now.
We can continue this again.
If the listeners want,
where can they follow you in your escapades
and what you're trying to accomplish
and we appreciate that,
is there a website they can go to
and find out more about you and what's going on?
Yeah, I keep archive all my writings and speeches
at tech-pundit.com.
Tech-pundit.com, it's everything's there,
all free, easy to find, except for the paywall stuff.
But you know, I apologize, I can't control that.
I mean like Wall Street Journal op-eds,
those are paywall.
Yep, gotcha.
All right, kiddo.
Hey listen, you be well
and we'll talk again real soon.
Take good care.
Thank you.
You're very welcome.
I'm Ron and Annie in The Car Doctor.
I'm back right after this.
Lately, car buying has become a pretty dull experience.
But on eBay, behind every car and part,
is a story waiting to be shared.
Like this guy I read about
who bought a 2020 Porsche Cayman GT4 on eBay.
It was well-loved.
I mean, there are plenty of Caymans
in great condition on eBay,
but this one needed some work.
That's just the start of the story.
So after this guy gets a great deal on his dream car,
he rebuilds the whole thing
with all these parts he found on eBay.
Performance brakes, suspension, body panels, the works.
Guaranteed to fit.
Next thing you know, this nearly scrapped Cayman
was out there on the track as a full-blown race car.
You're ready to go daily driver.
Your next resto mod.
Hello Lotus Elon and the parts to finish it.
eBay has thousands of cars
and is the largest online selection
of vehicle parts and accessories.
eBay.
Things.
People.
Love.
Have heart disease and diet and exercise
are not enough to lower bad cholesterol?
Ask your doctor if Lekveo and glycerin can help.
Prescription Lekveo is the only bad cholesterol
lowering medication.
That's two doses a year after two initial doses.
Do not use if you've had an allergic reaction
to Lekveo or any of its ingredients.
Common side effects were injection site reaction,
including pain, redness and rash,
joint pain and chest cold.
Call 1-833-537-8462 or visit Lekveo.com.
Finding the right therapist is tough.
Not every therapist is a great fit and that matters.
At Headlight, we take the guesswork out.
We handpick the most qualified, caring clinicians
and match you with someone who fits your needs and schedule.
Headlight has local experts here in PDX who take insurance
and here's the best part.
Most of our clients stick with their therapist long term.
A brighter path forward exists.
Experience lasting affordable care tailored to work for you.
We've got openings now.
Visit headlight.health and get matched today.
High interest debt is one of the toughest opponents
to your face.
Unless you power up with a SOFI personal loan,
a SOFI personal loan could repackage your bad debt
into one low fixed rate monthly payment.
It's even got super speed.
Since you could get the funds
as soon as the same day you sign.
Visit SOFI.com slash power to learn more.
That's SOFI.com slash P-O-W-E-R.
Loans originated by SOFI Bank and a member FDIC terms
and conditions apply NMLS 696891.
Are you tired of the constant rate increases
from the power company?
Then DPI solar is for you.
I'm sick of these price hikes.
And if you're like me and you're sick of them too,
that's why you got to check out DPI solar.com.
Buying from DPI solar will actually add value
to your home unlike these other companies
that just want to lease you the equipment
and it's all going to pay off
because you own your own power plant.
So no more surprise rate increases for no reason at all.
No more worrying about what you're going to do
if the power goes out.
Just reach out to DPI solar.com.
It's time to take your power back.
DPI solar.com.
Tell them Tanner sends you.
That's DPI solar.com.
Welcome back listeners.
You know, Ron and Haney the car doctor.
It's always informative to say the least.
Talking to Mark Mills.
And it's going to be interesting to see
if his two year prediction comes true
about when the financial hardwall
or financial brick wall
that we're supposed to hit with EVs
in terms of unfeasibility actually comes.
And I bet you it does.
All right, Mark's pretty accurate about these things.
He's got a good sense of where this is going.
One of the things he said to me off air was
and we're going to bring him back
to talk about this in the future at a higher level
is that there's no definitive proof.
This is kind of staggering.
There's no definitive proof
that EVs will help reduce CO2 emissions.
And I would like to see it if it's out there
because what he's saying is there's an offset.
We create a vehicle that doesn't burn fuel.
Doesn't, you know, it's an electric vehicle
but the cost to produce that
in terms of the bulldozer that digs up the dirt
that the coal plant that produces the electricity
the way the materials are manufactured
the way, you know, we cut down certain parts
of vegetation and forests and things like that.
You know, there's the offset.
So, you know, it's a wash
and all we're doing is spending trillions of dollars.
And it just makes me wonder.
I know from a mechanical perspective
at a, you know, as a garage mechanic level
as I consider myself to be, you know, street level mechanic
I question who's going to fix all these cars
and the technology that's there
but that's a story for another day.
I've had an absolute pleasure being with you this weekend
and I thank you for being here until the next time.
I'm Ron Anany and the car doctor reminding you
good mechanics aren't expensive.
They're priceless.
See ya.
This is an I Heart Podcast.
Guaranteed human.
Request an explanation for:
1 cars
1 cars featured
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
Help improve this episode
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark. Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.
Report incorrect info
Suggest better explanations
Flag missing cars
More from Ron Ananian The Car Doctor
Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor - Classic Car Doctor - October 10, 2015 - Hour 2 - You Love Your Car More Than You ThinkFrom the Car Doctor archives — originally aired October 2015. In this classic episode of Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor, Ron opens the hour with a thoughtful discussion about the emotional connection we develop with our vehicles—often without realizing just how attached we've become. Whether it's the family car that's been through years of memories or the vehicle that always seems to get us home, cars become more than machines. Ron then helps a caller diagnose cooling system problems on a 2007 Mercury Mountaineer and takes a call from a 2013 Toyota Highlander owner whose wheels were nearly left loose after a routine oil change, leading to an important conversation about trust, quality workmanship, and paying attention after service. Also featured is an interview with Derek Miller from ALLDATA, discussing vehicle repair information, diagnostic resources, and the growing complexity of modern automobiles. Ron rounds out the hour by answering listener emails about choosing the right OBD-II scan tool and diagnosing hesitation and rough idle concerns on a Toyota. A great mix of automotive advice, consumer awareness, and a reminder that our relationship with our cars is often more personal than we think.
Jun 4, 2026
Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor - Classic Car Doctor - October 10, 2015 - Hour 1 - Audi Codes, Airbags & Frozen Custard
Jun 4, 2026
Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor - May 30, 2026 - Hour 2
May 30, 2026
Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor - May 30, 2026 - Hour 1
May 30, 2026