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Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor - December 27, 2025 - Hour 1 - EV's Past and Present
Ron Ananian, The Car Doctor - December 27, 2025 - Hour 1 - EV's Past and Present
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About this episode
Ron Ananian hosts Mark Mills from the Manhattan Institute to discuss the complexities and realities of electric vehicles (EVs) and their impact on energy consumption. Mills highlights the significant resource demands of EV batteries, including the extensive mining required for materials like lithium and cobalt. He argues that while EVs will become more prevalent, the transition will not eliminate internal combustion engines as quickly as some predict. The conversation delves into the physics of energy storage, the challenges of scaling up EV production, and the potential for backpedaling on aggressive EV mandates due to resource limitations.
Topics:
BMW
cells
cooling systems
copper bus bar
electric motor
electric vehicles (EVs)
EV
internal combustion engine
Jaguar
lithium-ion battery
While Ron and crew are making the trip back from the North Pole, having helped Santa with another Christmas Eve, here is a "Best Of" show.
Ron sat down with industry icon and physicist Mark Mills to talk about EV's from multiple views a few years ago. Its a great flash from the past and interesting to note as many of the predictions and directions are happening now.
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Filter:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Delorean DMC-12
"...ome back, maybe we'll talk about time travel in a DeLorean. Ron and Amy and the car doctor here"
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a unique car famous for its role in the 'Back to the Future' movies. It has cool doors that open upwards and is made of shiny metal, making it look very different from most cars.
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a sports car that became iconic largely due to its appearance in the 'Back to the Future' film series. Known for its distinctive gull-wing doors and stainless steel body, the DeLorean represents a unique moment in automotive history, blending innovative design with a cult following.
Car
DeLorean
"...maybe we'll talk about time travel in a DeLorean. Ron and Amy and the car doctor here..."
The DeLorean is a unique car that has a shiny metal body and doors that open upwards. It's famous for being featured in movies where it travels through time.
The DeLorean is a sports car manufactured by the DeLorean Motor Company, famously known for its distinctive stainless steel body and gull-wing doors. It gained iconic status as the time machine in the 'Back to the Future' film series.
Car
Bricklin SV-1
"... you could pick the Laurean, if you like, and the Bricklin. Okay, yeah."
The Bricklin SV-1 is a unique car from the 1970s that was designed to be very safe. It has a special look and was one of the first cars to have features that protect drivers better in case of an accident.
The Bricklin SV-1 is a sports car produced in the 1970s, notable for its safety features and distinctive design. It was one of the first cars to incorporate safety innovations like a reinforced body and impact-resistant bumpers, making it a significant model in automotive history.
Company
Tesla
"...at a price over 90,000, so 85, 90,000 range, are now Tesla's. Wow."
Tesla is a car company that makes electric cars. They are known for their high-tech features and have become very popular, especially for expensive cars.
Tesla is an American electric vehicle and clean energy company known for its innovative approach to automotive design and technology. It has become a leader in the electric vehicle market, particularly in the luxury segment.
Brand
BMW
"What's his why, Mayor Sadie's and Jaguar and BMW are all making EVs in that price range"
BMW is a well-known car brand from Germany that makes luxury and sporty cars. They are now producing electric cars too.
BMW is a German automotive brand known for its sporty and luxury vehicles. They are also expanding their lineup to include electric vehicles (EVs) as part of their commitment to sustainability.
Brand
Jaguar
"What's his why, Mayor Sadie's and Jaguar are all making EVs in that price range"
Jaguar is a car brand from the UK that makes luxury cars. They are now also making electric cars to keep up with trends.
Jaguar is a British luxury vehicle brand known for its performance-oriented cars and elegant design. They are increasingly focusing on electric vehicles (EVs) to compete in the modern automotive market.
Term
electric vehicles (EVs)
"But here's, this is the knob of the problem, and it's not that electric cars"
Electric vehicles, or EVs, are cars that run on electricity instead of gasoline. They are becoming more common because they are better for the environment.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are cars that are powered entirely or partially by electricity instead of traditional gasoline or diesel. They are becoming increasingly popular due to their lower environmental impact and advancements in battery technology.
Term
cells
"It has 7,000 cells. He's hoping to get the next generation designed down to a few thousand cells."
Cells are the small parts inside a battery that hold energy. More cells usually mean more power and longer driving range for electric cars.
In the context of batteries, cells are the individual units that store and release electrical energy. The number of cells in a battery can affect its overall capacity and performance.
Term
mining
"...requires mining a variety of minerals to make the battery."
Mining is when people dig into the ground to find valuable materials like metals and minerals. For electric car batteries, special materials are needed, and mining is how we get them.
Mining refers to the process of extracting valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth. In the context of electric vehicle batteries, it involves obtaining essential minerals like lithium, nickel, and cobalt, which are crucial for battery production.
Term
lithium-ion battery
"...but you need nickel and manganese and cobalt, lithium, you know, the, the melange of minerals that go into a battery."
A lithium-ion battery is a special kind of battery that can be charged and used again. It's important for electric cars because it holds a lot of energy and helps the car go far without needing to be recharged too often.
A lithium-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery commonly used in electric vehicles (EVs) due to its high energy density and efficiency. It is made from various minerals, including lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt, which are essential for its performance.
Term
internal combustion engine
"...electric car uses three times more copper than internal combustion engine. That should be unsurprising considering..."
An internal combustion engine is what most cars use to run. It burns fuel inside the engine to create power that makes the car move.
An internal combustion engine is a type of engine that generates power by burning fuel, such as gasoline or diesel, inside the engine's cylinders. This process creates combustion, which pushes pistons and ultimately drives the vehicle.
Term
electric motor
"...you're replacing, you know, steel engine with, you know, a copper wound electric motor and a lot of electric bus bar. But the 300% increase is not nothing."
An electric motor is what makes electric cars move by using electricity instead of gasoline. It's different from regular car engines that burn fuel to create power.
An electric motor is a device that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy, commonly used in electric vehicles to drive the wheels. Unlike internal combustion engines, electric motors are typically more efficient and have fewer moving parts.
Term
copper bus bar
"...a copper wound electric motor and a lot of electric bus bar. But the 300% increase is not nothing."
A copper bus bar is a piece of copper that helps carry electricity in electric cars. It connects different parts so that power can flow smoothly.
A copper bus bar is a conductive material used to distribute electrical power in electric vehicles and other electrical systems. It helps connect various components and ensures efficient power flow.
Term
electric cars
"Batteries in electric cars today, 60 to 70% of the cost of making the batteries just the raw minerals, materials."
Electric cars use electricity to run instead of gasoline. They have batteries that store energy, which helps reduce pollution and can be cheaper to operate than regular cars.
Electric cars are vehicles that are powered entirely or partially by electricity, using batteries instead of traditional internal combustion engines. They are becoming increasingly popular due to their environmental benefits and advancements in battery technology.
Term
manufacturing machinery
"...the remaining 30%, which is the manufacturing machinery and labor, and electronics and the cooling system..."
Manufacturing machinery includes the machines used to make products. In this case, it's the equipment that helps build batteries for electric cars.
Manufacturing machinery refers to the equipment and tools used in the production of goods, including the assembly of electric vehicle batteries. The efficiency and cost of this machinery can significantly impact the overall cost of battery production.
Term
cooling system
"...and electronics and the cooling system, and make that half as expensive..."
A cooling system keeps things from getting too hot. In electric cars, it helps keep the battery and motor at a safe temperature so they work well.
A cooling system in electric vehicles helps manage the temperature of the battery and electric motor. Proper cooling is essential to maintain performance and extend the lifespan of these components.
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Ron and Anian.
My wife forgot to charge her car overnight
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So I just plugged it in at 48%
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There's a candid, honest response
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You can't see it.
It's electric.
You gotta see it.
It's electric.
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It's electric.
The car doctor.
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The car doctor.
Since 1991, this is where car owners
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And now, here's Ronnie.
You know, we've got a great hour of radio for you here.
It's a, I've had so much fun already
talking to our guest pre-show just listening
and I know where this conversation is gonna go
but you guys are gonna love this.
And actually I have to thank all of you
the listenership because you sent in
more than a few emails showing me his recent interview.
Well, maybe it's not so recent
but some of his other interviews,
Mark Mills from the Manhattan Institute
with John Stossel among other people
and talking about electricity and electric cars.
And we reached out to Mark.
He got right back to us and we're so thrilled
to have him here.
His reputation precedes him.
Mr. Mills, are you there, sir?
I'm here.
Thanks for having me on.
I'm delighted.
You're very welcome.
We're so glad to have you.
I just wanna, I'm gonna start at the beginning, Mark,
because you and I have already had half the interview.
We're done.
We're done.
We'll just go home and have a drink.
Yeah, we're done.
You know, full disclosure.
So, you know, tell us about yourself.
You know, why did I pick you?
Why are you the guy that everybody seems to be
talking to when we're talking about electricity
and energy because this is a car repair show
but you know, this electric car thing
is just the tip of the iceberg of what they wanna do
and how they wanna change the way energy
is in this country.
Well, I could first say it's not my fault.
Well, that's good to know.
But I'm hoping you're the guy that fixes it.
I know.
Well, you know, it's funny, I studied my degree in physics.
I quit graduate school because, well,
I liked to work and I was building semiconductors.
My first job was in a manufacturing plant
for semiconductors.
But I, from very early in my life,
I liked how things worked.
They liked how building things, you know,
worked on engines, I worked on motorcycles.
I raced one summer in Grand Prix in Canada
and I, you know, I'm Canadian.
I like engines, I like electric motors,
I like semiconductors, I like how stuff works
and that's why, in part, I studied physics
and then I ended up getting a job as an engineer
and semiconductors and missile guidance
and stuff like that.
And I got sort of dragged in the back door
to the energy domain simply because nothing's possible
but energy, so it doesn't matter
whether you're trying to figure out how to make cars go fast
or be more efficient, depends what your proclivities are.
Or rockets fly or make semiconductors more powerful,
computers faster, everything, everything redounds
ultimately like they're figuring out both the materials
and the energetics of things.
So yeah, that was sort of the intellectual part
but the practical part was very real for me
in jobs I had in my hobbies.
And then, you know, we got the energy debate started.
As you know, we had oil embargoes
and that couple of them that caused the people forgotten.
The people of a certain age will remember.
Oil prices went up 400% overnight in 73, 74.
Then they went up more than 200% again in 79.
These are shocking events.
They really changed how the Western world
thought about energy
and people thought we were running out of energy
so I ended up getting involved in energy issues
probably because of the silliness of the idea
that we were running out of energy, running out of oil.
And then now we have another silly idea
that we should never use oil gas again.
Well, let me stop you right there, Mark.
Are we running out of oil?
No.
That's the story, I mean, the nuance is
can you exhaust an oil field
that uses technology you have available today
to deliver oil at a price you're willing to pay?
Yes, that's a form of running out of oil.
The geophysical question is a different one.
Is there enough oil that we are aware of
as a resource to fuel society for centuries?
Yeah, easily.
Centuries is essentially forever.
The availability of oil or natural gas
or frankly any mineral, any resource in the earth
is dictated not by the physical quantity
but the kind of technology we have to find it
and extract it at a price.
And utilize it.
Yeah, and that, so that's a technology question.
That's the key question is what,
what kind of technologies are there,
how do they change, and what are their limits?
So, you know, we're not running out of oil
but you can run out of the capacity to produce it
at the volumes and prices the markets will need
and will pay.
And governments can cause that to happen
not just engineers, governments ban things.
They say you can't drill here.
Governments can pass regulations
that are punitive, make oil or gas
or any mineral too expensive.
So the, when I start out by saying no,
I mean I'm answering the geophysical question
but obviously governments can do really dumb things
and they have and they will continue to do that.
And I guess that's what makes them politicians
and governments to a degree.
Well, the good news is that, you know,
not to go political, I rather have democracies
that do dumb things than dictatorships.
Well, there's always that, yes, I agree 100%.
But listen, I gotta tell you,
we're gonna get political comments
after this conversation.
I know I'm gonna get,
because I already get hate email that I'm trying to ban.
Do you know that I single-handedly
am trying to eliminate the electric car industry
if you believe some of the listeners?
And I just keep trying to point out,
you know, as I said in our pre-interview interview,
you know, one of my favorite lines
from one of my favorite movies, Hidden Figures.
Math Doesn't Lie, two and two has to be four.
Where are we gonna get the electricity from?
Well, Dr. Carwood is actually a terrific example of two,
sort of two domains that fascinate me.
One is sort of a lot called misdirection
of interest in the future.
I've got a new book out as you probably know,
one writes a new book.
You know, one is not only obligated,
but eager to promote it.
And I write about cars and transportation in the book.
It's called The Cloud Revolution.
As you can guess from the title,
it's not about cars,
it's about computing and technology for the future.
Cars are interesting, new kinds of fuel for cars,
using batteries instead of gasoline.
It's important, that's a very interesting option.
And there'll be lots more of it.
But the idea that that's revolutionary
in the same sense the invention of the car was revolutionary
is profoundly misguided.
It'd be equivalent in the 19th century
of coming up with a new way to feed horses
and imagining that you had a revolution.
Well, you know, to be winners and losers,
if you change what you feed the horses,
it's still a horse.
A car with a battery is still a car,
it's different food, that is meaningful.
The real question you'd wanna know
is can we make enough of that food?
And by that I mean, you know, you're referring to the electricity.
Electricity is the least of it, that's not the problem.
Obviously you have to charge an electric car with electricity.
Equally obviously, the electricity you use
is determined by when you charge the car
and where you charge it.
I mean, by that is most people probably know
if you happen to live in a part of the world
or a country where there's lots of wind and solar,
and it happens to be sunny or a lot of windy,
at that very moment if you charge your car,
you're probably using a lot of electrons made
with wind and solar.
And if you happen to charge a car when it's cloudy
or be calmed, which happened for roughly two weeks
in Northern Europe this last month, as you know,
then you're charging your car with natural gas and coal,
dominantly, which is what happened in Germany
and England where they fired up coal plants
that they fortunately still had around.
So that's a factor.
The bigger factor that is profoundly absent
from this whole trope that we're going to eliminate
the use of internal combustion engines
by virtue of electric cars being better.
We could talk about whether they're better or not.
That's a different subject.
Right.
And whether they become cheaper, another subject.
But the idea that electric cars will eliminate
the need to have oil and internal combustion engines
is just arithmetically silly.
It's not happening and won't happen for two reasons.
One, the scaling up that people imagine
that is we're going from a world today,
so a 10 million electric cars in the world today,
which is a lot considering there were a decade ago,
not even a million, so it's a big deal.
But it's in a world that has over a billion cars
on the roads, so again, if you do your math,
you're now approaching 1% of all vehicles.
The optimists believe that there'll be hundreds of millions
of electric cars within the decade,
say three or 400 million, 500 million.
That'd be an astonishing increase
in the physical infrastructure.
That would, at that point in time,
eliminate roughly 10% of world's oil use.
So let me say that again.
If we get the optimist vision happening in the next decade
and we get 400 million or so electric vehicles on the roads,
the reduction of world oil demand would be about 10%.
That's it.
That's it.
So, I'll tell you what, let me-
How does that existential threat to anything
if you're in the oil business?
What do you care?
In fact, I would say the opposite, if I'm a consumer,
let's hope there's that many electric cars
because the competition will help keep the price
of gasoline down for everybody else.
It doesn't want to pay high price for gas.
You want competition.
Yeah, absolutely.
Hey, Mark, let me pull over and take a pause,
but let me just say this.
You just convinced me, you must be a physicist then.
You really do have a degree.
I used to be one.
I don't practice anymore.
I just talk like one on TV and radio.
You sound pretty good to me.
You got me convinced.
When I come back, maybe we'll talk about time travel
in a DeLorean.
Ron and Amy and the car doctor here
with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute
will both return right after this.
Don't go away.
Okay, right leg.
Are you with me?
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For the best in car advice, give Ron a call.
855-560-9900.
Now, back to Ron.
Hey, thanks for staying with us.
We're here today with Mark Mills.
He is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
He's a faculty fellow at Northwestern University's
McCormick School of Engineering.
And he's just a whole lot of fun to talk to.
I think he's like my new best buddy.
We could talk probably, we need at least,
I think I need like an eight hour show here, Mark.
So let me recap the first segment, all right?
Just so I can, for those that are just joining us.
We've, you know, you've made your case.
Obviously you're a physicist.
You've got some really great knowledge as far as, you know,
energy application, the theories of the future use,
where it came from.
You've convinced us of that.
You've written more than just a recent book.
You've written a few books,
the most recent being the Cloud Revolution,
and that just came out this year
and it's a fascinating read.
We're sort of talking about electric cars,
trying to keep us about electric cars,
but then the whole energy issue comes into play.
So when you look at, I'm going to pick on a state,
when you look at California by,
this must make your hair spin.
By 2035, they banned the internal combustion engine vehicle.
Can they do it?
Well, governments can do almost as we've discovered recently,
almost anything they want to do.
So I'll make a prediction in two parts about California.
This will be true for England,
which has made a similar declaration.
The bans, if they stay in place,
will result in extraordinary escalation
of the value of used cars.
First, imagine because not everybody
is going to be able to buy an expensive electric car
because the electric car will still, by then,
be more expensive than an internal combustion engine,
which we could talk about,
but that will boost the number of years
used cars stay on the market, on the road,
and the value of them.
But what will more likely happen is
the bans will be softened or ignored
or just abandoned entirely because the whole world,
in fact, just the countries that are now in states
that are now proposing to do that,
can't all do it and have enough batteries.
Never mind manufacturing cars.
The central problem that's being ignored here
is not whether electric cars nice,
and tessels are nice, of course they're nice.
Impressive car, incredible company,
and kudos to somebody building a car company
that's successful by all measures,
even counting some help from subsidies
that doesn't explain it.
It's a successful car company.
Sure, absolutely.
Absolutely.
It's a proud achievement.
In fact, the most impressive engineering of a battery
probably on the planet without being hyperbolic,
it deserves enormous credit.
The last guy to try and do it was Tucker.
Yeah, exactly.
46, 47?
Yeah, or you could pick the Laurean,
if you like, and the Bricklin.
Okay, yeah.
Total failures, hard to build a car company,
even with help, and he's done it.
And look, if you think about this,
I mean, what an incredible achievement.
I believe the last I checked
that something on the order of 60%
of all automobiles sold in the Western world
at a price over 90,000, so 85, 90,000 range,
are now Tesla's.
Wow.
He's utterly dominated that market.
What's his why, Mayor Sadie's and Jaguar
and BMW are all making EVs in that price range
because he just ate their lunch.
And that's not nothing.
That's not the whole car market, obviously,
but it's not nothing.
It's a very impressive.
But here's, this is the knob of the problem,
and it's not that electric cars
are profoundly useful vehicles
and have niches bigger than now exist,
if I were predicting another sort of future snapshot,
there's 10 million electric cars today,
it will be unsurprising if there were hundreds of millions,
at least 100 million in the next decade.
There'll be a lot more electric cars.
The problem is that the batteries are not
the simple things that I think are many people's.
Had they think the electric car is quote,
simple and simpler to build
than the internal combustion engine
because you have this engine,
which you know better than I do.
I've taken a few engines apart in my life, but not recently.
The engine has got a lot of parts in it,
and it's all the moving parts in it can wear out.
And you have, so you have a simple fuel tank
and it's a complicated engine, maybe 1,000 parts.
And the trope is we have replaced a simple engine
with a complex engine with a simple motor
with two moving parts, maybe two motors,
two parts each.
But the battery, the swap is for complexity
and the fuel system.
The battery has thousands of welds in it.
The Tesla battery has 14,000 welds in it.
It has 7,000 cells.
He's hoping to get the next generation
designed down to a few thousand cells.
It has a cooling system, a heating system,
a structural system.
It has electronic control systems in it
to keep it from self-immolating, to burning up,
to maximize its performance.
It's an extraordinarily complex electrochemical machine.
And the engine that we're replacing with is a very complex
electrochemical mechanical machine, rather.
So you're swapping complexities.
You haven't eliminated complexity.
More importantly, the materials, the battery
made from the minerals, the cobalt, the lithium,
the nickel, manganese, those minerals,
the quantities of metals you require to make a battery
are roughly over the lifespan of a car.
If you count apples to apples, you
increase the quantity of materials you need
to drive a vehicle over a 10-year life by 10-fold.
Think about this.
1,000% increase in the quantity of materials
that have to extract from the earth to make a vehicle.
The parts of the vehicle that are the same,
electric and non-electric, the wheels, the tires,
the frame, they're all the same.
Seats.
The battery in an electric car weighs about 1,000 pounds.
The fuel tank is, again, you and your audience know,
70 pounds maybe.
Sure.
That's the car.
So I have a 1,000-pound fuel system.
And it takes 500,000 pounds of materials
mined from the earth to make that one battery.
Oh, my god.
Mark, hold that thought.
Let me pull over and take this pause.
When we return, Willa will rejoin us
from emanating the car.
Dr. Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
Don't go away.
We'll be back right after this.
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertans and Safeway.
The holiday season can be exhausting with all the parties
and the end of year celebrations.
But don't forget to take care of yourself
by stocking up on your favorite nutritional products
now through December 30th.
Shop in the store and online and save on items
like cliff snack bars, luna bars,
boosts nutritional energy drinks,
premier protein shakes, Z-Bar variety packs,
open nature powder, and body fortress protein powder.
Offers end December 30th.
Restrictions apply.
Offers may vary.
Visit Albertans or Safeway.com for more details.
Did you know Microsoft has officially
ended support for Windows 10?
Upgrade to Windows 11 with an LG Gram laptop.
Voted PC Mag's Reader's Choice top laptop brand for 2025.
Thin and ultra lightweight.
The LG Gram keeps you productive anywhere.
And Windows 11 gives you access to free security updates
and ongoing feature upgrades.
Visit lgusa.com slash iHeart for great seasonal savings
on LG Gram laptops with Windows 11.
PC Mag Reader's Choice used with permission.
All rights reserved.
Season two of Unrivaled Basketball is here.
And the talent is unreal.
The best women's players on the planet
are running it back with even bigger moments
and bigger stakes.
Don't miss as Paige Becker, Nephisa Collier,
Kelsey Plum, Breanna Stewart, and more,
take the court and redefine the game.
This isn't your regular season.
This is Unrivaled, where the pace is faster,
the energy is higher, and every athlete shines.
Unrivaled Basketball, season two,
sponsored by Samsung Galaxy,
tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max.
Running a business is hard enough.
So why make it harder with a dozen different apps
that don't talk to each other?
One for sales, another for inventory,
a separate one for accounting.
Before you know it, you're drowning in software
instead of growing your business.
This is where Odoo comes in.
Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need.
It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform
that handles everything.
CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more.
No more app overload, no more juggling logins,
just one seamless system that makes work easier.
In the best part, Odoo replaces
multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.
It's built to grow with your business,
whether you are just starting out or already scaling up.
Plus, it's easy to use, customizable,
and designed to streamline every process.
So you can focus on what really matters,
running your business.
Thousands of businesses have made the switch,
so why not you?
Try Odoo for free at odoo.com.
That's odoo.com.
Support for the show comes from Public,
the investing platform for those who take it seriously.
On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio
of stocks, bonds, options, crypto,
and now generated assets,
which allow you to turn any idea
into an investable index with AI.
It all starts with your prompt.
From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow
to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue
over 20% year over year,
you can literally type any prompt
and put the AI to work.
It screens thousands of stocks,
builds a one-of-a-kind index,
and lets you back-test it against the S&P 500.
Then, you can invest in a few clicks.
Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities,
completely customizable, and based on your thesis,
not someone else's.
Go to public.com slash podcast
and earn an uncapped 1% bonus
when you transfer your portfolio.
That's public.com slash podcast,
paid for by Public Investing,
brokerage services by open to the Public Investing Inc.,
member FINRA SIPC,
advisory services by Public Advisors LLC,
SCC registered advisor.
Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool.
Output is for informational purposes only
and is not investment recommendation or advice.
Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures.
Here I come in my 57th cheese field,
little rider,
pink perfection with a custom.
Welcome back.
I'm Danny the Car Doctor here today
with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
Mark, when we pulled over
and took that pause,
we were talking in terms of the impact
of what it takes to make that electric car battery.
Can you just recap that for the listeners real quick?
Yeah, I think this is the part that's critical
perspective, visions of a magical future
where every car has a battery in it.
They won't be the kind of batteries
that we're making today
because we can't make that many batteries
because the 1,000 pound battery,
which is about what a battery weighs
in a car to get several hundred miles of range
requires mining a variety of minerals
to make the battery.
Let's just, as the scientific term, no duh.
You got, you need steel of course,
but it's in aluminum,
but you need nickel and manganese and cobalt, lithium,
you know, the, the melange of minerals
that go into a battery.
So 1,000 pounds is a finished form,
but to make the battery,
you have to mine 500,000 pounds of materials,
raw, you know, rock and process it,
turn it into finished minerals and make a battery.
Now that, there's two things about that that matter.
First, it takes energy to do that.
It has environmental impacts to do that.
And you want to know how much that you're gonna do
if you want to know the total,
we'll call it the energy debt of making the batteries
because batteries are the form of energy.
Obviously they store energy.
So you spend energy to store energy
and you spend a lot.
It takes somewhere between 100 and 300 barrels
of oil equivalent of energy.
So 100 to 300 barrels of oil equivalent of energy
to fabricate a battery that can hold one barrel
of oil equivalent of energy.
And then you're doing all this mining and digging
and, you know, gathering of rocks to get the materials
with these giant machines that are emitting.
Well, they burn diesel fuel.
Right.
They don't own them or electric,
but if they're remote, you know,
because they have electric machines and remote mines,
but if they're in a remote mine, not close to a grid,
the generation of electricity comes from diesel machines
using oil.
In fact, the global mining industry uses almost as much oil
as the global aviation industry, as much oil.
And now, to fabricate batteries
that the scales people are talking about
will require the largest increase in mining
the world has ever seen.
And I'm saying this, it sounds hyperbolic to say that.
I'm saying this based on, not my research,
my research is fighting other people's research.
So the US Geological Survey
or the International Energy Agency itself,
which is one of the big advocates for more electric cars,
what the researchers will tell you
who look at the mineral requirements
is that the world today is not mining
nor planning to mine enough copper,
nevermind everything else, or not enough nickel,
nevermind their exotic things like lithium or cobalt,
but just the basic metals to make the quantities
of batteries and electric cars and windmills
and solar turbines that are contemplated.
Electric car uses three times more copper
than internal combustion engine.
That should be unsurprising considering you're replacing,
you know, steel engine with, you know,
a copper wound electric motor
and a lot of electric bus bar.
But the 300% increase is not nothing.
I mean, if you start making millions of vehicles
with a 300% increase in copper per vehicle,
you become a significant consumer of copper.
And that's not counting the batteries consumption
of other minerals.
So what's the solution?
Well, I can tell you as a fact,
and this is easy to find in the magic Google machine,
that the world is not now planning to,
and no governments are expanding mining,
sufficient to make enough cars
to ban internal combustion engines
in the next decade or two.
So, so are we being, you know,
California banning sale of internal combustion engines
by 35?
Car companies saying they'll be all electric by 2030.
Are they showing us the extreme
and over the next couple of years,
as I've been saying, are they going to backpedal
and all of a sudden by, you know,
three or four years from now?
Well, we can't achieve that,
but here's what we really want.
All right, I'd take the bet, the back to go to backpedal.
It won't take them a decade to backpedal.
The backpedal will start sooner,
it'll start when the prices are going up.
I mean, if you put this kind of demand,
the demand on minerals that these green energy plans
have represents, say, 400 to 4,000% increase
in demand for, depends on the mineral you pick.
So it's 400% increase in the man for copper.
It's a 4,000% increase in the man for cobalt.
It's a 1,000% increase in the man for nickel.
These are global increases in demand
to meet these plans that governments are proposing.
These are astonishing increases in demand
in a world where market prices for these minerals
rises if the demand goes up by 10% or 20%.
So what will happen if prices will go up?
So we saw this already this year.
The average price for a battery for electric car
has been going down famously
because Elon Musk and everybody falls for a decade,
and which is pretty quite remarkable.
But this year, it went down,
this year, I mean, the trailing 12 months,
it went down by a single-digit percentage point,
that's like 8% or something, 10%,
which is not a big decline.
Next year, almost all forecasts see
battery prices going up, not down.
Up, the trend will reverse itself
because of the cost of the minerals.
Here's the key fact, when you buy it,
when you buy a car, the materials that go into the car,
the bill of materials costs something and then it's labor.
So those setting aside profits,
there's just two things, right?
You have labor for machines and human beings
that you pay for and you have materials.
The same is true when you build a battery.
Batteries in electric cars today,
60 to 70% of the cost of making the batteries
just the raw minerals, materials.
And if I double the price of those minerals,
how can we possibly say the battery's gonna get cheaper?
Even if I take the remaining 30%,
which is the manufacturing machinery and labor,
and electronics and the cooling system,
and make that half as expensive,
how's that gonna get you a cheaper battery
when the 60 to 70% of the cost of the battery,
which are the minerals,
everything that's happening in the world today
is leading to those going up in price
and out of the environmental organizations.
And I say this, I think pretty confidently,
not a single environmental organization in the world
that's pushing to have more electric cars
is supporting more mining
to make it possible to have more electric cars.
So it's sort of like they want us to clean up the environment,
but don't touch the environment to do it.
Yeah, you know, I can't blame them.
They're honest about what you're mining,
but let's be honest with what has to be done.
So if you drive a car for a decade,
we can calculate easy to do,
the total tonnage, let's just do it in tons,
of oil or gasoline you'll need,
depending if you're diesel or diesel, no matter.
We know what the number.
And if you do the same 10 years for electric car,
you get to another tonnage,
which in a sense you pay for up front,
you buy the battery.
Forget how you make electricity, just look at the car.
And if you make those two comparisons,
you get a 1,000% increase
in the tonnage of materials you need
to extract from the earth
to drive a vehicle for 10 years.
This is consequential in economic terms
and environmental terms, and it's not sustainable.
It won't, I even it sounds like I'm being hyperbolic again,
it won't happen, it won't happen
because it can't happen.
So we're not gonna get there,
but we will have more electric cars
because you could get to, I don't know,
pick a number, 10% of the fleet being electric or 50.
But we're not gonna get to 50 or 60 or 100.
Hey, Mark, hold that foot.
Let me pull over and take this pause.
I'm Ron Anani, the car doctor here today
with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
We'll both be back right after this.
Don't go away.
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertans and Safeway.
The holiday season can be exhausting
with all the parties and the end of year celebrations,
but don't forget to take care of yourself
by stocking up on your favorite nutritional products.
Now through December 30th,
shop in store and online
and save on items like cliff snack bars,
Luna bars, boost nutritional energy drinks,
premier protein shakes,
Z bar variety packs,
open nature powder and body fortress protein powder.
Offers end December 30th.
Restrictions apply offers may vary.
Visit Albertans or Safeway.com for more details.
Did you know Microsoft has officially ended support
for Windows 10?
Upgrade to Windows 11 with an LG Gram laptop.
Voted PC Mag's Readers Choice top laptop brand for 2025.
Thin and ultra lightweight.
The LG Gram keeps you productive anywhere
and Windows 11 gives you access to free security updates
and ongoing feature upgrades.
Visit LGUSA.com slash iHeart for great seasonal savings
on LG Gram laptops with Windows 11.
PC Mag Readers Choice used with permission.
All rights reserved.
Season two of Unrivaled Basketball is here
and the talent is unreal.
The best women's players on the planet
are running it back with even bigger moments
and bigger stakes.
Don't miss as Paige Becker's,
Nefisa Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart and more,
take the court and redefine the game.
This isn't your regular season.
This is Unrivaled where the pace is faster,
the energy is higher and every athlete shines.
Unrivaled Basketball, season two sponsored by Samsung Galaxy
tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV and HBO Max.
Running a business is hard enough
so why make it harder with a dozen different apps
that don't talk to each other?
One for sales, another for inventory,
a separate one for accounting.
Before you know it, you are drowning in software
instead of growing your business.
This is where Odoo comes in.
Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need.
It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform
that handles everything.
CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR and more.
No more app overload, no more juggling logins,
just one seamless system that makes work easier.
And the best part,
Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms
for a fraction of the cost.
It's built to grow with your business
whether you are just starting out
or already scaling up.
Plus, it's easy to use, customizable
and designed to streamline every process
so you can focus on what really matters,
running your business.
Thousands of businesses have made the switch
so why not you?
Try Odoo for free at odoo.com.
That's odoo.com.
Support for the show comes from Public,
the investing platform for those who take it seriously.
On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio
of stocks, bonds, options, crypto
and now generated assets,
which allow you to turn any idea
into an investable index with AI.
It all starts with your prompt
from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow
to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue
over 20% year over year.
You can literally type any prompt
and put the AI to work.
It screens thousands of stocks,
builds a one of a kind index
and lets you back test it against the S&P 500.
Then you can invest in a few clicks.
Generated assets are like EFTs
with infinite possibilities,
completely customizable and based on your thesis,
not someone else's.
Go to public.com slash podcast
and earn an uncapped 1% bonus
when you transfer your portfolio.
That's public.com slash podcast.
Paid for by Public Investing,
brokerage services by open to the Public Investing Inc.,
member FINRA SIPC, advisory services
by Public Advisors LLC, SEC registered advisor.
Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool.
Output is for informational purposes only
and is not investment recommendation or advice.
Complete disclosures available
at public.com slash disclosures.
Welcome back, Ron and Annie, the car doctor here today
with Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute.
He's also an accomplished author.
He's written more than a few books.
His most recent being the Cloud Revolution,
talking about the convergence of new technologies
and the next economic boom.
And I think part of that is some of the conversation
we're having here today, right, Mark?
With regard to electric vehicles
and the electric vehicle future?
Yeah, I think, you know, let's talk about the future.
The idea that I don't think electric cars
are going to take over the world
has a lot of people saying to me,
well, you know, you're not a technical,
you're not an optimist.
You don't understand how technology changes
and the future is going to be better
and there'll be better batteries.
Look, I'm really probably over the optimist
of what technologies can do
when engineers and innovators can do.
But also know what the physics limits are
and things that can't be done.
But the physics and engineering we know how to use.
You know, cars in the future are going to be,
as you know, more reliable, safer, more comfortable.
All these things are coming from
credible advances in engineering and technology.
The automatic safety systems that are emerging.
I'm not talking about self-driving,
but the, you know, let's call them
self-stopping technologies that are emerging.
Prevent us from doing bad and stupid things.
This is very exciting.
It's a great stuff.
We're going to reduce the cartridge on the roads.
We're going to make driving more comfortable.
How we change, how we fuel a car, really,
is a small ball stuff.
I mean, it's really, it's not very imaginative.
The revolutions that are going to be exciting
will be in things like robotics and manufacturing
and, you know, how we do medical diagnostics
and how we train people,
how we learn how to repair a car.
That's, but back to the car.
Let me calibrate a core physics point
to make it clear to people who say,
and when I talk about the difference between electric car,
it's battery and the gasoline power car.
The battery weighs 1,000 pounds.
You fuel tank weighs 70 pounds.
And you have to mine 500,000 pounds of stuff
to make the one battery.
Right.
And that's one battery.
That's one battery.
One battery.
One battery.
Half ton battery, 250 tons of stuff dug out of the earth.
Right.
Today in the future it'll be 500 tons
because, you know, we're chasing lower grade ores.
The answer is, it'll get better.
My technology will get better.
Well, of course it will get better.
But internal combustion engines can get better too.
But they can't get better
than the underlying physical chemistry
of the materials that you're using to create energy.
So put this way.
Everybody who has an electric car
who's heard about electric cars
knows you measure the storage
of electricity kilowatt hours,
the same things you pay for with your house.
So what you'd want to know is,
and if you have a car, what you care about
is the power to weight ratio.
What gear head doesn't care about power to weight ratio.
So what I care about when I race motorcycles.
So the physical chemistry of the elitiated chemicals
from which we make a battery.
Not the battery's power to weight ratio,
but it's underlying chemistry.
Maximum of the chemicals that we use,
the elitiated cost of chemicals,
is 500 watt-hours per kilogram.
So that's what the energetics of the chemistry is.
The battery is realized in a Tesla
is about 150 watt-hours per kilogram, by the way.
So it's a lot less because it built things around it.
Machinery, hardware, you know,
control and cooling systems.
But the physics limits 500.
So what you'd want to know if you were designing
a fast car or say a drone is what's oil.
Because that's what you start with when you convert it.
And it's 12,000 watt-hours per kilogram.
Oh my God.
That's what oil is, what the oil contains.
And that's what's available.
Now, can you get 12,000 watt-hours out of it?
No, but I can get half out.
Right.
And could I ever get half of the energy
out of the 500 watt-hours per kilogram
and let the elitiated chemicals?
Sure, yeah.
But theoretical, you know,
best the prototype batteries can do that already.
So now I'm comparing,
we can do the arithmetic here, it's not complicated.
A 6,000 watt-hours per kilogram
internal combustion capability versus a 250 watt-hours
per kilogram battery capability.
These are extraordinary differences.
So can you make electric cars
or electric drones in airplanes?
Sure.
But if you want to go real fast
and carry heavy loads for long distances.
No.
You can be burning oil.
Right.
And that's the bottom line.
Hey Mark, our time is just about up.
Can I shamelessly plug you as they're a website
the listeners can go to for more information?
Lay it on us.
We can do the tech-pundit.com.
So it's the tech pundit with a hyphen.
Right.
And the Manhattan Institute website,
if you use a magic Google machine,
just type in Mark P. Mills Manhattan Institute,
they'll get you to the webpage.
You can use the Amazon magic machine
to type in my name, Mark P. Mills,
and you'll get my book.
That's what we want everybody to do
because they need this information.
They really do.
And you'll find a lot there about the change in materials,
materials revolution, the change in virtual reality.
It'll help us to learn how to repair vehicles,
change jobs, and about how to...
I think drones are coming big time,
not for people soon,
but not too far in the future.
Well, you know what we're gonna do?
We're gonna bring you back after the first of the year.
I'm asking you and telling you,
after the first of the year.
I'd be delighted.
We'll stick off the new year with some exciting ideas.
We're gonna talk about cars
and a little bit further into detail.
Thank you.
I got to run, Mark.
But listen, it was absolute pleasure, sir.
You kind of lit up everybody's world today.
No pun intended with electric cars.
So you have yourself a good rest of the holiday season.
You have a great holiday.
Thank you, sir.
Merry Christmas to you.
Yes, sir.
I'm Ron and Amy, the car doctor.
We'll be back right after this.
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway.
Blue season is here.
And the in-store pharmacy
as you covered with a free flu shot
with most insurance plans
and as a thank you, get up to $20 off your grocery purchase.
Plus it's cough and cold season.
Stock up on all the season's essentials
and get ready for relief
with discounts on items like Hall's menthol cough drops,
Tylenol, cold and flu,
and Mucinex Fast Max products.
Offer ends December 30th.
Restrictions apply and offers may vary by location.
Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
Did you know Microsoft has officially ended support
for Windows 10?
Upgrade to Windows 11 with an LG Gram laptop.
Voted PCMag's Readers Choice Top Laptop brand for 2025.
Thin and ultra lightweight.
The LG Gram keeps you productive anywhere.
And Windows 11 gives you access to free security updates
and ongoing feature upgrades.
Visit LGUSA.com slash iHeart
for great seasonal savings on LG Gram laptops
with Windows 11.
PCMag Readers Choice used with permission.
All rights reserved.
Season two of Unrivaled Basketball is here
and the talent is unreal.
The best women's players on the planet
are running it back with even bigger moments
and bigger stakes.
Don't miss as Paige Becker's,
Nephysite Collier, Kelsey Plum, Breanna Stewart and more,
take the court and redefine the game.
This isn't your regular season.
This is Unrivaled.
Where the pace is faster, the energy is higher
and every athlete shines.
Unrivaled Basketball.
Season two sponsored by Samsung Galaxy
tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV and HBO Max.
Running a business is hard enough.
So why make it harder
with a dozen different apps
that don't talk to each other?
One for sales, another for inventory,
a separate one for accounting.
Before you know it,
you're drowning in software
instead of growing your business.
This is where Odoo comes in.
Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need.
It's an all in one,
fully integrated platform that handles everything.
CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce,
HR and more.
No more app overload,
no more juggling logins,
just one seamless system
that makes work easier.
And the best part,
Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms
for a fraction of the cost.
It's built to grow with your business,
whether you are just starting out
or already scaling up.
Plus it's easy to use, customizable
and designed to streamline every process.
So you can focus on what really matters
running your business.
Thousands of businesses have made the switch.
So why not you?
Try Odoo for free at odoo.com.
That's odoo.com.
Support for the show comes from Public,
the investing platform
for those who take it seriously.
On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio
of stocks, bonds, options, crypto
and now generated assets,
which allow you to turn any idea
into an investable index with AI.
It all starts with your prompt
from renewable energy companies
with high free cash flow
to semiconductor suppliers
growing revenue over 20% year over year.
You can literally type any prompt
and put the AI to work.
It screens thousands of stocks,
builds a one of a kind index
and lets you back test it
against the S&P 500.
Then you can invest in a few clicks.
Generated assets are like EFTs
with infinite possibilities,
completely customizable
and based on your thesis,
not someone else's.
Go to public.com slash podcast
and earn an uncapped 1% bonus
when you transfer your portfolio.
That's public.com slash podcast.
Paid for by Public Investing,
brokerage services by open
to the Public Investing Inc.
Remember FINRA SIPC,
advisory services by Public Advisors LLC,
SCC registered advisor.
Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool.
Output is for informational purposes only
and is not investment recommendation or advice.
Complete disclosures available
at public.com slash disclosures.
Welcome back, we're on The Car Doctor.
You know, the mistake I made, Tom,
was I should have asked Mark
that if we could invent the flux capacitor,
would we then have, because he's right.
You know, he started talking
about the comic book magic.
And I saw in one of his interviews,
he talks about comic book magic
that everybody thinks all of this technology
is gonna fall out of the sky
and it's just not going to.
What do you mean if we,
if you go to the O'Reilly website,
they're already advertising it.
They're waiting for them to come in.
Well, a flux capacitor.
Yeah, I know that is actually,
that is actually there on the O'Reilly website,
but I could listen to him for hours.
He just makes so much sense.
That was just a great interview.
You know, it's,
I don't see how anybody can argue his points.
I just don't because, you know,
two and two has to be four.
Two and two is never seven.
And, you know, his commentary.
In one of his other interviews that I saw him do,
he also talks about how, okay,
so now you've got this electric car future on the table,
the amount of transmission lines
and towers and cables that you have to run
in order to support this,
this grid that everybody is talking about building
and the support to the infrastructure.
It's all got to be put somewhere.
The material has to be found somewhere.
You know, they also talked about solar.
We have so much to talk about with him
with regards to the way solar and renewables
and windmills, listen,
I'm not saying we're not going to have electric cars
and Mark certainly proved that point tonight today
that we're going to have electric vehicles in the future.
It's just not at the volume they're predicting.
You know, we're not going to have transporters
like Star Trek in the next 10 to 15 years.
A hundred baby, 200 probably,
but not in the next 10 to 15.
And we're not going to see a massive amount
of electric cars by 2030, 2035,
like they're predicting either.
So the back pedaling will begin soon.
I'm Ronanini in the car doctor reminding you
this time, like every time, for a great time.
Good mechanics aren't expensive.
They're priceless.
See ya.
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway.
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Visit lgusa.com slash iHeart for great seasonal savings
on LG Gram laptops with Windows 11.
PC Mag Reader's Choice used with permission.
All rights reserved.
Season two of Unrivaled Basketball is here.
And the talent is unreal.
Paige Becker's, Nephizakalier, Kelsey Plumb,
Brianna Stewart, and more are back to redefine the game.
Unrivaled Basketball.
Season two sponsored by Samsung Galaxy
tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max.
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Hi, it's Eva, and I think it's about time
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This is an I Heart podcast.
Guaranteed human.
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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.
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