Damn, I assumed they were making me smarter.

Murder 102: Disposing of bodies is difficult. Buried bodies can be exhumed. Bodies at the bottom of a river may float up and be discovered. Bodies underneath the floorboards smell funny.

This is why you must eat the entire body. All of it.

Because you have a small charged battery which is used to start the car.

Run the radio for a while without starting the car, and your battery dies, and needs to be jump started.

The ice is melting. It’s not a reasonable debate that should leave you confused. Go look at a graph of annual ice thickness. Go look at a graph of CO2 or methane levels. The ice is melting.

!remindme 10 years “make fun of this guy”

I heard the bot is actually aliens

Fast forward 8 billion years. Earth heroically united to survive humanities existential crisis. Technology progressed until humans are cyborg gods. We are a many planet, post scarcity civilization.

A few million light years from earth, there is a galactic zoo planet called “Burf.” Burf was formed by humanity a couple billion years ago, as a sort of nature retreat. It was set to a nice temperature, seeded with some basic life, and left to sprout.

Burf is a wonderful planet. Life forms like to warp in, and work remote from its many beautiful vantage points. They watch waterfalls, and arctic storms. Float above the primitive ape cities, and casually follow their emerging stories.

Of course, we keep an eye on the apes to see if they will pass the great filter. After all, we don’t want to rescue a malevolent dying race and start an intergalactic war. Again.

If the primitive apes can realize that they are all stuck on the same lifeboat and come together for future generations, we will happily accept them into the galactic fold. If they succumb to violence and greed, we will let nature take its course, and perhaps help Burf recover from whatever stain they leave behind.

Sometimes our kind interacts with the apes. Frequently, it’s by accident, by getting too close. Sometimes, it is avid fans of the Ape Story, deliberately interjecting themselves to warn the apes that they’ll go extinct if they aren’t careful, or floating above their nuclear weapons, shining a bright red light on them to say “this is a bad idea.”

We’ve even had a few accidents out around Not Vegas involving intoxicants and bright neon lights. But we are not supposed to interfere, and to let the great filter do it’s work on Burf.

I’m sorry if I’ve rubbed you the wrong way! I’m not trying to put anyone down, just explain the situation, and why things are the way they are, along with where they will be going.

It is currently a privileged point of view to talk about EVs like I am. Most people cannot afford an EV with a large range, or the ability to supercharge. Most people have trouble charging at home or at work. I’d guess driving an EV will be a privilege for another 3-10 years.

But what is a privileged experience for me today is going to be average pretty quick here. The tech is improving, and all major manufacturers are leaning almost exclusively towards EV now. Give it 5 or 10 years, and 300+ miles + supercharging + charging at home will be uninteresting. If we can manage to build, maintain, and refuel gas stations across the world, we can add some power outlets in parking lots.

Sooo the summary of my many paragraphs: battery swaps on cars probably won’t be a thing, since they aren’t necessary in real life experience, and they hurt design/range. We will see more charging pop up around residential and commercial, and most EVs will have the ability to supercharge. That is the end of all charging problems. Charge them with gasoline if you need to—gas in a large generator is more efficient than gas in an internal combustion engine.

Charging anxiety is mostly a thing for people who haven’t driven EV. When you have one, you see it’s already not a problem.

It’s a nice idea, and works with bikes. Less practical for cars.

The battery is the heaviest part in the car, it is massive in size, and it carries more than enough power to turn you into an exploding lightbulb. It is a big deal to swap it out.

Additionally, batteries last long enough that the design of cars is changing to build the battery into the frame, as part of the car. It’s analogous to either trying to fit a fuel tank into the wing of a plane, or simply making the entire wing a fuel tank.

It’s a big win from a design perspective, helping push towards 600+ mile ranges, but the battery cannot be swapped out, only recycled at the end of the car’s life.

For cars, battery swapping is not necessary. The expectation is to wake up at full battery every day, with more than enough for daily commuting and living. For big drives, the car automatically plans charging stops, and supercharging only adds about 10-20% travel time if you’re going 500+ miles in a single day.

Any concerns about EV charging are completely fixed by adding charging stations at home or at work, which is exactly as difficult as adding adding a standard washer/dryer outlet.

Oh shit, jobs! I haven’t heard of those before.

Thank you educating me.