236: Matt’s Canada Trip - Everything Electric Show 2024

https://youtu.be/AQqE5UedBPE

Matt and Sean talk about feedback on solid state batteries, and also discuss Matt’s trip to Vancouver to the Everything Electric Show 2024.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Matt Ferrell

Host of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, Still TBD, and Trek in Time podcasts

Host

Sean Ferrell

Co-host of Still TBD and Trek in Time Podcasts

What is Still To Be Determined?

Join Matt Ferrell from the YouTube Channel, Undecided, and his brother Sean Ferrell as they discuss electric vehicles, renewable energy, smart technologies, and how they impact our lives. Still TBD continues the conversation from the Undecided YouTube channel.

Hey everybody, on today's episode of Still to be Determined, we're going to be talking about going through customs. We'll get to that later, but to start off with, hello, I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi, I write some stuff for kids, and I'm just generally curious about technology. Luckily for me, my brother is that Matt from Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech.

And it's impact on our lives. And Matt, how was Customs?

Customs was great, Sean. The trip. Did you have anything to

declare other than my genius?

Um, I forgot to, I forgot to declare that. I'm sorry. I'm going to do that next time.

That explains the lackluster headlines in the Canadian newspapers that I was expecting to see. Sean Ferrell declared genius. Says his brother.

We'll talk more about Matt's trip to Canada, why he was there, and was it just for the maple syrup. But first, we always like to take a look back at your comments on our previous episodes, so let's jump into the mailbag. This comment from Episode 234, which was about compressed air batteries. I started off the episode by saying, normally at the beginning, I make some kind of bad joke or pun, but Matt had used up all the air compression puns in his video.

Well, Aromatic Snail jumped in to say, I feel Sean was feeling a bit deflated with Matt's puns. Yes. Yes. Well done. There was also this about the conversation that Matt and I had about manufacturers bearing some responsibility for ensuring that people don't have to buy this adapter, and this battery, and then this adapter, and then a different battery, and then a third adapter.

As technology continues to add all these little doodads, why can't we find one thing that fits all, maybe a common battery that could be swapped out? John Clausen jumped in to say there is actually EU legislation coming into effect, that means all power tool manufacturers have to use the same standard interface, starting with having to sell adapters for the existing platforms.

That seems to me like a step in the right direction. Matt, do you think anything like that will happen here in the U. S.?

I asked that question with a smile just so that we could

both laugh about it. It's like in, in Europe, they had a standard around EV charging for years before the U. S. finally agreed upon one. And it was not because the government mandated it. It was just like the industry was kind of like, okay, let's just get behind the NACS charger.

So it was. It's going to be the same thing here, unless everybody kind of gets together and agrees. I don't think anybody's going to force anybody's hand. So here in the U. S., nope, don't see it happening. And to be clear, there

are pluses and minuses to both approaches. A mandated governmental approach does not mean that the government mandated approach is in fact the best option.

And you could make that argument about EV charging. The same goes

true with the market. There is, it's always pointed out that, oh, the market will find the best option. No, not always. Like we know, like you just have to go through the history of electrical battery development. There was the AC DC debate, and I'm not talking about whether Angus Young should continue to wear the schoolboy uniform or not.

I'm talking about which was safer and which was better. And there was a lot of chicanery to push one side versus the other. Mm-Hmm . And if you're old enough, you remember a thing called beta max. And the beta max was actually a better product. The market ended up picking VHS instead, which was a substandard option.

And then the same thing happened with Blu ray and the same thing happened with Laserdisc. By the time they started picking up market share, the technology had moved on and we find ourselves leaving the better options in the dust simply because the market doesn't always pick the best option. But the same goes true for governmental policy.

So it's a, you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't. But I find myself thinking there are some places where I think like this, government could step in and help consumers a little bit more in that regard. Yes. Yeah, I agree. Our conversation last time also revolved a bit around batteries. And one of our commenters jumped in to say, Well, you're talking constantly about good news about that battery in your car.

What about the batteries in your flashlight? Talking about AA, AAA. We had a bit of a talk about batteries that are effectively technology that hasn't changed in decades upon decades, but we have a bunch of them in our drawer and they still find use. And J Mac jumped in to say one huge benefit of the AA and AAA batteries,

is the ability to store them long term. When I lived in Southern California, I had multiple packs of these small batteries packed in my earthquake kits. Why? Because they are shelf stable for years. No need to have a charger or access to mains, electricity, or a car to recharge them. I just open the pack of batteries, put them in, and good to go.

No rechargeable battery has that ability. And that's very true. There is a use case which is, heaven forbid, something happens and the grid and everything goes down. Having a bunch of rechargeable batteries is not going to, the ethical and moral high ground that you feel when you buy the rechargeable batteries goes away immediately when you're like, I have no way of recharging this.

There was also a lot of discussion from our long form interview with Dr. Holme, which Matt conducted his interview about solid state battery from QuantumScape, and there was a lot of very positive feedback like this from Ke Huang, who said, A great interview. Dr. Holme is very smart and trustworthy in the field where many people and companies are making a lot of false claims and setting up unreasonable expectations of their work.

Matt, it would be good if you can do more videos like this, interviewing other SSB developers, and then one video comparing the technologies. Many people are skeptical and undereducated in the field of SSBs because there are too many nonsense media headlines. Perhaps you can help us be made more educated.

That's quite the compliment to you, Matt. How do you feel about first the kudos and second of all, are you planning on trying to reach out to more people and do more interviews like you did with Dr. Holme?

Well, first, thank you. Two, uh, I'm a little uncomfortable being in this position a little bit because I am not a, Battery expert.

But yeah, I want to do more interviews like this, talking to the experts to let them explain themselves as to like what the thing they're doing is that makes it special or different. Um, so I do want to do more of that. Um, on that note, what I find interesting about this comment is many people are skeptical and undereducated in the field of SSB and as many people know, the Yoshino battery pack that I talked about, got a lot of views, a lot of skepticism, a lot of anger because it's not solid state.

My investigation on that is still, it's wrapping up right now. Uh, my friend, uh, Ryan over in the UK, his, his team and group over in, um, at the university he works at, I mean, he's a student at, are breaking it down like right now and he keeps texting me updates of we tested this we found this we tested this we found this so i'm getting like live updates from him uh it should be wrapped up this week which means i can get the follow up video out soon but what i found in my entire follow up to the yoshino stuff is I am shocked and surprised at how many people really do just don't understand what solid state batteries are and how what the definition actually is, uh, the variations of solid state that are out there.

Um, I recently heard somebody that I respect that's a very well educated Engineer say something about solid state batteries that made me go, Oh, it was like, it was like of all the people I would have expected to understand the nuance here, he clearly didn't. Um, so it's, it's one of those, I'm stumbling through this and learning on my own.

And part of the way I'm learning is by talking to people like, uh, Dr. Holme, talking to Tim and others. So it's like, I do want to do this because I think education here is key. Like I've learned a lot and I want to share what I'm learning with all of you. And I want to try Kind of get everybody on the same page with these different technologies and what they are.

Didn't you find a tremendous amount of difficulty in even getting that battery pack to your friend who's breaking it down? What was the final result of all of that?

Yeah, so it was the whole, whole thing was I bought my own Yoshino battery to ship to Ryan over in the UK and I packed it up, shipped it UPS.

I thought I had done all this stuff 'cause shipping, lithium-ion batteries is very difficult. Lots of paperwork. I thought I filled everything out correctly. I shipped it, spent a huge amount of money, and then UPS just the next day, it showed up on my doorstep. . Nope. And I called UPS and was like, what's going on?

And you have to have special, uh, certification to be able to ship lithium ion batteries because it's basically proving to the shippers. You know how to pack these things safely. If you don't have the certification, you can't do it. I don't have the certification. They don't want it blowing up in

an airplane.

Right. And it's not a UPS thing. It's just a international shipping regulations thing. So it's, all of them are the same. DHL, FedEx, it doesn't matter. So I couldn't go through those hoops. I tried finding a freight company to get shipped and the amount of money it was going to cost me to freight it.

Because these frieght companies are like a third party. Like you give them the battery, they have people who are certified, they pack it up and they send it for you. It was going to be just like, wait, how much do you want for this? No, I can't, I can't afford that. That makes no sense. So in talking with Yoshino, Yoshino was like, well, we're actually going to be rolling this out in that region soon.

So we might have shipping methods to get it there. So they actually got him a battery for me. Oh, wow. Shipped to the UK. So Yoshino gave, gave him one to break down, which again, shows me, like, Yoshino

That speaks well of, yeah, I was going to say that speaks well of their confidence of the technology. Yes.

That they're like, Oh, you want to do something with this. You want to look into this. Here, here's one you can look into. That actually speaks a lot, unless whoever shipped it to you didn't know what's actually inside it.

I'll tell you right now, just to not to like I'm not gonna undercut my upcoming video, but it's along the lines of what Yoshino claims is inside. When you look at all their claims, it's looking like everything is in there that they're claiming. It's a matter of definition. What are the definitions of the terms, right?

Correct. How you define solid state is where the argument is, which is where my vote video is gonna be focusing on. Yeah. So it's, So Yoshino is standing behind what they were claiming because what they're claiming appears to actually be in the cell. So, but again, my friend's study is not finished yet. Yeah.

So I'm waiting for him to come back going, yes, it actually, this thing is actually in there. That thing's actually in there. I'm still waiting for that confirmation from him.

Interesting. Interesting. Looking forward to that video. And I had some follow up questions that I will hold for when that video actually drops and then we'll have that conversation at that time.

Because as you just said. If we just have a conversation now that undercuts that entire video, then what are we doing here?

Also, a couple of responses that indicated a bit of conversation about your video on solid state batteries in the interview with Dr. Holme was actually spilling over into a Reddit community. And to be clear, this is not a Reddit community that Matt or I are associated with, but it was a, uh, an interesting

uh, flag to have waved at us from the comments. Tamanda jumped in to say on the QuantumScape Reddit channel, we are trying to find out when this interview actually took place. It seems this interview may have been shortly after the VW licensing deal. Can one of the producers please let us know? It was also followed up by a comment from Adam, who said, Great video.

Sounds like good progress on tech. Curious to know when the interview with Tim actually took place. So, yeah. A couple of follow up questions on this, Matt. First, this did take place shortly after the VW licensing deal, correct?

Yes. That's part of the reason I talked to Tim was this news came out and I was like, Oh, I, whenever there's like a big update on these kinds of technologies, I like to follow up and this I thought was a very sizable update.

So I was like, I'd like to talk to them. This happened right at the beginning of August. I think it was August 7th and it was shortly after this news broke. So, yeah.

And then my follow up on the making of the video itself. Do you think you might, for future videos, embed a timestamp or something in the video or maybe have a context setting

opener where you can kind of like blast it out to the viewers. Like this took place on this date at this time. And because of recent news, things like that might be helpful because especially in this, uh, the web sphere, somebody might stumble upon your interview three years from now, and if they don't know when the interview actually took place.

It could create some question marks that could keep resurfacing. So maybe that's something to do in the future. So back to customs, and I don't mean what sort of porcelain you use in your tea ceremony. I mean, what do you declare at a border when you're trying to get back into your home country? Matt recently went to Canada.

And I know Canada was excited to have him. In the US we were in a brief period of mourning, but he did return. And I can tell you that he did return because, uh, in the video, that is actually his home, unless he is doing a mayor of Springfield from the Simpsons and a person with a kettle drum is about to walk by in the background.

So Matt, why did you go to Canada?

I went to Vancouver for the Everything Electric show, which is kind of the fan expo conference that the YouTube channel Fully Charged Live runs. Um, so that's a show with like dozens and dozens of EVs that you can check out what's coming, what's new. Uh, you can even test drive some of them.

Things like there were electric planes on the harbor that you could go see. There were, um lots of solar businesses, uh, battery companies, EV charging companies. It's like, it was just, it's everything electric. It's like, they're, they're broadening the show. This is the second year it was done. And so it's like, it's, it was over double the size that it was last year.

So it's like, it's, it's, it's kind of a lot larger. What did it start at? It was started with EVs? It was, it was EVs and some of the EV charging stuff, like what was there this year, but the size, the number of, um, exhibitors and the number of cars that were on display, it was about half the size. And what I heard was there was like a little over 17, 000 people came last year.

And this year it was around 38, 000 I think it was, so way more people, way more exhibitors, way more space. And it sounds like next year, maybe even bigger than that. Um, they do this all over the world. They do it in Australia. They do it in the UK. So it's like, and the UK show is like massive, just absolutely massive.

But it was fun being there. I got to moderate five different panels. Uh, some of the panels were like, uh, home energy hacks. I was actually on the panel of home energy hacks, uh, induction cooking, uh, everything you needed to know about batteries was one of the panels I moderated, uh, solar wind and renewable energy, like how it's evolving was another panel I was in charge of.

So it's like, I got to host a bunch. I got to be on the panel or two. And I also got to meet a bunch of people that listen to this podcast and watch the channel, which is always fun to kind of meet people that watch the videos because it's just me alone sitting in this room. I see the comments, but it's like seeing comments is like, you know, it's one step removed.

Actually seeing somebody face to face and get to talk to them is always a lot of fun.

Yeah. I just had that experience myself yesterday. I had a reading I went to and it was a nice reminder that readers exist. Sitting, you know, sitting in a room with my book by myself and like, well, this exists. And then you go into a room and there's a bunch of people and they're like, Oh, I want to read that.

And you're like, Oh, that, that's why I do this. This is, this is interesting.

It's also weird though. Cause it's like, there's that parasocial relationship where like the people that watch my videos on a regular basis probably feel like they know me a little bit and I have no idea they exist. And then I meet them for the first time.

And sometimes the way they're talking to me, it's like a very familiar way of talking to me. And I'm like, I'm just getting to know you now. And so it's like, it's, there's always this weird kind of the parasocial thing. It's always kind of funny.

Yeah. It's very unique. So if you took anything away from your trip, like, uh, something surprising, an element at the show that kind of made you stop and take a second look.

Was there anything that jumped out at you?

Well, one of the things that jumped out at me was, it's not a sexy topic, but like EV charging. There was a bunch of companies that were there. Um, I got to talk to one, uh, the, the founder of it, his name was, uh, the company's name was Teal. Got to talk to him for a while about what they're doing with EV charging.

It's like, you think, ah, EV chargers are EV chargers. What kind of innovation can happen there? And it's like, no, there's a lot of innovation that can happen around EV charging to make it more affordable or reliable, work in more conditions. Cause like a lot of chargers, like, if it gets cold enough, a charger can stop working.

Right. It's like, if it gets cold enough, your battery gets so cold, it can't charge. So it's like, there's There's areas like, imagine being like in Minnesota in the middle of winter or Michigan in the middle of winter and like it's 20 below and the charger just won't charge because the charger itself just can't push those electrons to the cable.

Right. This guy, their, their, their company had a charger that works to extremely cold conditions. It was like, that's really cool. And it looked really robust and it looked very simple and it looked Like, a lot of Electrify America chargers have this reputation of always being, like, broken down. You go up to them and they're running on a version of Windows, so you'll go up to them and there'll be, like, a blue screen of death on the screen that's like, you gotta be kidding.

It's not functioning. And, like, their chargers were, like, bare bones. No screen. There was a card reader so you could use your credit card, and that was it. Like, they made it simple. And like bulletproof is they can make the system to, it just is going to work. So it was fun talking to companies

like that.

It's refreshing in an era where even gas pumps feel overengineered at this point, walking up to a gas pump and being like, now, where do I put my card? And why is that screen talking to me? And why am I getting advertising before I've even started anything? It's yelling at me about Pepsi and I still haven't put my card in.

And then the buttons are always in a different place, depending on which company you're at. It's nice to know that somebody is out there saying like, you want to take the thing from the thing and put it in the other thing and that this is what it does. One of the

other things that jumped out at me was there was a, uh, on, cause it was split on two floors.

The bottom floor had all the cars and down there they had heavy industry stuff. So they had gigantic semi trucks and stuff like that. And one of the companies that was down there blanking on their name, Oh man, I'm so sorry. But, uh, what they've done is they're creating a hybrid system for semi trucks. So imagine like, You're a lumber company and you're, you're cutting timber and you're having to load your trucks with massive weights of timber and having to take it to the, you know, drive it hundreds of miles.

Electric semi trucks do exist, but it's like, there's not a charging infrastructure when you're out in the middle of a forest, cutting down trees or you're in a mine. It's like, so limits to where you can charge make pure EVs not a really good option there. So what they have is they have this modular system they've designed for the semi truck where, where the engine would be.

It's a, it's a diesel generator and the diesel generator runs and charges the battery pack that's in the, that's under, that's on the side of the cab. Right. And then it's battery, it's battery driven because the, the, what makes the wheels go are electric motors. Electric motors are like the most efficient way to make something move.

Like it's way better instantaneous. It's instantaneous. It's just the amount of energy that goes into it that gets turned into kinetic motion. It's just the most efficient way that you can move something. So you'd think, well, it's still got a diesel generator, so it's still spitting out fumes. The amount of diesel you need to run this vehicle.

I can't remember what it was. It's a fraction of the amount of diesel, it would take for a regular truck to run an engine, right? So it's like, so it's like this is a massive step in the right direction. I was like, well the way you've got this, could you like swap that diesel generator out at some point for maybe like a hydrogen fuel cell or something like that?

And he was like, 100%. So it's like they've designed something that is, can be plug and play. So at some point it could be a hydrogen system that's charging the battery and then suddenly that goes from being dramatically cleaner to being completely clean. So it's like, it's a very cool system. And because it's this way

these systems, these trucks can drive infinitely because there's diesel everywhere. So it's like they don't have to worry about the range issues. It has all the power and torque that you get from electric motors. So it's getting the best of kind of both worlds for the infrastructure that exists today. I just love the ingenuity, that first principles thinking of kind of going back to square one and going do we have to go all BV battery electric?

It's like, no, we don't. It's like we could kind of do a hybrid right now and do it modular way. So we could swap things out down the road. That really,

it really strikes me as being future proof. And yes, exactly. It makes me wonder, couldn't that have been done with cars

years ago? Well, it kind of was. I mean, if you think about the Prius, You know, that kind of thing.

It's like tiny little battery. It still uses gas, right? But it's, it's miles per gallon is like 45 miles per gallon, 50 miles per gallon at best. So it's kind of like, but the lar is what

I'm thinking about. Like the idea idea of like being able to say, this is like a bunch of Legos. And when the green Legos are no longer needed, we can swap them out for the red ones.

And that's like, that to me is just like, that's pretty cool. That's amazing.

Yeah. I had a similar thought. It's like the Prius, I bring up the Prius because the battery of the pack in the Prius is super tiny. It's like, what if they had just made the battery way bigger than the engine in the front? It's just a generator to charge the batteries.

It's like, why didn't they do that? Eh. You know? Yeah. Sometimes it doesn't happen. Sometimes it doesn't happen.

Yeah. So going full circle, back to, hey Matt, how about these interviews that you do that Do such a great job of informing the public. Did you make any contacts at the show that you were like, I have a YouTube channel.

I like to interview people. Could I interview you? Do you have a bunch of business cards that are working in that direction?

Yeah, I got a pretty thick stack. Um, there's four or five people that I wanna interview that I met umm, that I think would be really interesting. Uh, like that truck company, I wanna talk to somebody from there.

Umm, there's a fellow YouTuber that's building a new electric vehicle charging unit that's meant for apartment areas or condos or homeowners that live in cities where you you know, you have on street parking. It's like, it's, it's, they already do this in Europe. We don't do it here in the US. And so he's designed a system where it's basically just a post that would be out by the curb. And then there's like a big outlet on it. And. All of our EV chargers here in the U. S. have the cable as part of the, like a gas station. It's like you have the big thing and then you have a hose coming off of it with the charger.

His is just like, it's just this tiny post that just has basically an outlet. And then you, the car owner, in your trunk would have the cable. And so you pull up to it and you plug it in and then you plug it in and that's, they already have these in existence in Europe in some places, but it's like, this is the kind of thing you'd expect to see, like where you live, imagine just down the street, you'd have all these like little posts and people can just have

their own cable.

Uh, in Brooklyn and around the city, there have been an increase in charging stations on the street. Yeah. They all have these cumbersome cables. Yeah. That are snaking around, um, and they have to rig up a cable system so that the cable doesn't get like thrown into the street. So it like keeps the cables pulled up in a, in a nice way and it works, but it does raise that question of like, why is this the design?

And I, I. I just imagine it's engineering bias. Somebody's engineering this thing and they can't get a gas pump out of their head. So they just design something with a hose because, well, that's how you charge. You go to a place and there's a hose and you plug it in instead of, as you mentioned, like, well, if your car has the hose and you pull it out, same difference.

Well, I look forward to seeing some of the connections you made at the Uh, Expo start showing up as interviews. I think that'll be very interesting. Viewers, listeners, what do you think? Is there anything about what we've talked about that piqued your interest? Is there any technology that you think Matt should lean into when it comes to these long form interviews?

We'd love to know because your comments not only form the content of this program, But they help shape the content of the mothership, which is of course undecided with Matt Ferrell. Thank you so much for taking the time to watch or listen. If you want to support us, don't forget, you can just leave a like, you can leave a comment, you can subscribe wherever it was you listened to us or viewed us.

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We get a few welts, and then we get down to the business of first putting makeup on the welts, and then Recording the podcast for your enjoyment. We hope you've enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much, everybody, for taking the time to watch or listen, and we'll talk to you next time.