Kind: captions
Language: en
I was invited here to Munich by BMW the
sponsor of this video to find out why
the future of cars is electric but
electric cars are actually nothing new
they date back to 1832 well before the
first gasoline-powered car in fact the
first car to go faster than a hundred
kilometers per hour was in 1899 an
electric one called
the Jamaican Talent meaning never
satisfied but people were apparently
satisfied with electric cars by 1910
they were almost twice as common on
American roads as internal combustion
engines but then came the Model T which
at $650 was significantly cheaper than
comparable electric cars and as gas
stations popped up around the country
they could be quickly refueled allowing
you to travel farther faster and cheaper
than electric cars which took a long
time to recharge so by 1935 the electric
vehicle had been commercially
obliterated but electric cars were still
useful for some things in the vacuum of
space an electric vehicle was the
obvious choice for the Apollo lunar
roving vehicle it was a single-use
vehicle due to its non rechargeable
silver zinc potassium hydroxide battery
and it had a range of just 92 kilometers
but the astronauts never needed even
half of this range at the Munich
Olympics in 1972 to lead marathon
runners in their race BMW created an
electric version of its two series car
the car ran on 12 large car batteries
for a maximum range of 60 kilometers or
37 miles this demonstrated the benefits
of electric vehicles they can run
quietly with no emissions but it also
Illustrated their limitations with the
battery technology available at the time
electric cars were expensive and
short-range impractical for everyday use
so why are electric cars the future in
2020 BMW is launching the i-x three
all-electric sport utility vehicle and
they plan to have 25 electrified
vehicles in their fleet by 2023 a lot of
their concept cars like the Vision M
next are electric vehicles and they have
a formula e car which can now run a
whole race on a single battery pack this
is all made possible by developments in
battery technology batteries have gotten
a lot better
particularly with the introduction of
lithium ion batteries first used in
mobile phones about 30 years ago
lithium ion batteries have almost two
times more energy in the same volume
than the next-best battery chemistry
because of their use in many consumer
products like phones and laptops their
manufacturing costs continue to decline
driven by manufacturing and supply chain
optimization over the last three decades
the energy density has increased both
per unit mass and per unit volume while
the price has plummeted this is unlike
internal combustion engines which after
a century of development have few areas
left for improvement and the reality is
you don't really travel that far in a
car the battery is available today are
good enough for all but the longest road
trips in the u.s. 99% of trips are under
160 kilometers or 100 miles and electric
cars are just better vehicles here are
my top 10 reasons why first
more torque from a standstill thanks to
the batteries under the floor they have
a low center of mass and so better
handling since you can drive electric
motors independently you can have
precise control over each wheel for
maximum traction electric cars are
quieter electric cars are cheaper to run
than gas cars because gas is more
expensive than electricity for the same
distance traveled electric cars are more
efficient than gas cars both in
converting stored energy into energy of
motion and in regenerating some of that
energy and braking you never have to
visit a gas station because you can
recharge at home there's less
maintenance fewer moving parts no oil
changes and the brakes wear out less
often
thanks to regenerative braking and
depending on the source of electricity
in my case solar panels electric cars
don't produce any co2 at all so they
don't contribute to climate change plus
as cars become essentially computers on
wheels electric vehicles are leading the
way towards self-driving cars
we're gonna start our ride in an
autonomous vehicle my first time ever
level 4 autonomy once this becomes
commonplace it's likely will change how
we see cars from something we own that
sits idle for most of its existence to
transportation as a service something we
ride in to get from point A to point B
and something we share with others
there are still a lot of details to work
out but it's clear to me that the future
of cars is electric autonomous and
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