The Secret to Happiness

...Seems to Involve High Voltage

I’m still trying to decide what I want to do with Substack. I already bloviate about politics endlessly on Twitter and on the Hacks On Tap podcast. But I would like to do something a bit different and interesting on Substack, so for now I’m going to feel my way along and try posting a few hopefully interesting and off-beat things here. More personal stuff. Which may bore you political junkies to death. But life should be experimentation right? We’ll see.

So here is the first such musing. Something happened to me recently which led to an interesting and unexpected discovery. I bought an electric car. (Not a Tesla; love the engineering spirit of Tesla, just not so crazy about Elon.)

It wasn’t easy. As a soon to be geezer who grew up in Detroit, my headspace on cars is very locked into 70’s visions of Hemi V8’s and old school muscle. My high school years were full of serious debates over Chryco, Ford and GM performance cars. My friend Phil and I even wrapped his uncle’s 1970 Chevy Monte Carlo with a 350 V8 around a light pole one rainy night. Gas was cheap and heavy iron was the thing, along with Linda Vaughn, Miss Hurst Shifter (see above). With that firmware firmly implanted in my head, it is no surprise I’m been snorting contemptuously at EVs ever since. “They are incredible”, I would joke, “imagine a car that runs only on hubris.”

Cue the drummer.

Still, for all my eye-rolling I’ve remained an auto tech obsessive and I couldn’t resist watching EV developments. I just kept is my dirty engineering secret. Meanwhile gas prices crept up and up, the House of Saud continued to disappoint and having a daughter made me think a lot more about the impact of CO2 emissions in twenty-five years on our planet.

I could feel the irritating but relentless pull of Electric propulsion tech. (And yes, I know the contrary arguments, coal electricity, rare mineral child mining etc. I’ve got a solve for coal BTW: smarten up America, learn science and understand modern nuclear plants are a great clean energy answer!)

Uneasy, yet very intrigued, I finally cracked a few months ago. $5.50 CA gas was the final straw. I drove a few electrics and settled upon the BMW iX. The tech was too cool; twin motors (without permentant magnets), huge battery, long range, carbon fiber. I was had. I traded in a Porsche GTS, which I loved so it wasn’t easy.

And I found I love the damn thing. Just love it. It is pure joy to glide by a service station these days. And the thing can move; EV’s are loaded with torque. Plus the electonics are creeping right up on the HAL 9000 and I love that stuff. (OK, I do know who that story ends, but still…)

But fear not. I’m not writing this to sell you an EV.

The real story that caught my attention is the second order revelation I soon stumbled upon. I am a research obsessive — something I learned from running political campaigns — so after I bought the EV I dove deeply into many blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels… anywhere I could to learn more about EV tech, charger engineering, in fact the whole EV industry. I have a particularly fascination with charging tech; both “fast'“ DC chargers (full of tricky challenges both regarding engineering, business strategy and public policy so I cannot get enough of it) and the world of more publicly accessable level 2 home chargers. (There is a maniacal guy who thoroughly tests those chargers in his garage who has a nifty YouTube channel called State of Charge which I hypnotically love to watch.) And the geek fest part of all this is great fun; I know just enough about electronics to find myself really enjoying a good Munro Associates tear down video.

Watching these experts and industry people and all the rest, however, I stumbled upon something quite fascinating that I did not expect.

We already have a vast and happiness industry in America; gurus, self help authors, it is a massive marketplace. No surprise that, this is a not a time of great happiness in America. Politics is a grim, gloomy trench war, our pop culture is relentlessly coarse and center stage in an endless “I’m right, you’re evil” Armageddon and the average corporate drone job is often soul crushing.

So what did I learn? These EV people, from auto company engineers to battery scientists, to podcasters, to the guy vigorously testing charger cables on YouTube in his garage for their low temperature flexibility, are all very, very happy. It is infectious! And wonderful. Everyone I saw or heard on these podcasts and videos and industry conferences are super happy to be part of the EV world. They are contributing. They are part of something important; helping make exciting, practical, useful progress for all of us. They are solving engineering problems. They are, to use the horrible cliche but it fits here, changing the world.

It reminds me — I am that old — of the Space Program. When we were kids we all built rocket models and cheered our scientists and engineers on to the moon.

I’m sure the folks who were part of earlier technology crusades had the same excitement as they pioneered skyscrapers and aviation and silicon based electronics, computer languages, biotech and much more. A purpose greater than yourself, as my old friend John McCain often said, is a wonderful thing. It gives one purpose and a better life.

That’s what I see that in the EV world. People with a purpose that gives them joy. Such is a useful and important thing. I suggest you check it out. Sign up for something big you believe in. I’ll bet a million kilowatt hours you too will find a needed and delicious dollop of joy and happiness.