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 plenty on Twitter and the Hacks On Tap podcast. So I would like to do something a bit different and interesting on Substack, and 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.

This is my first such musing. Recently I had an unexpected discovery. I bought an electric car. (Not a Tesla; while I love the engineering spirit of Tesla, I’m 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 locked into 70’s visions of Hemi V8’s and old school automotive 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 such firmware firmly implanted in my head, it is no surprise I snorted contemptuously at EVs for years. “Imagine, I would joke, “a car that runs on hubris.”

Cue the drummer.

Still, for all my eye-rolling I’ve remained an auto tech obsessive and I couldn’t resist keeping a secretly curious eye on EV developments. It was my dirty engineering secret. Meanwhile as CA gas prices crept up and up, the House of Saud continued to disappoint and having a daughter made me think far more about the impact of CO2 emissions during her next eighty years on our planet.

Increasingly I could feel the irksome but relentless pull of Electric propulsion tech. (And yes, I know all the contrary if stale winger anti-EV arguments, coal fueled electricity, rare minerals from African child mining etc. Most are exaggerated or simply do not hold up.)

I finally cracked. $6.00+ California gas was the final straw. I drove a few electrics and settled upon the BMW iX. The tech was cool; twin motors (without permanent magnets), big battery, long range, lots of carbon fiber. A great interior. I was had. I traded in a Porsche Macan GTS, which I loved. It wasn’t easy.

Guess what? I love my EV. It is pure joy to glide by a service station, trying to remember what it’s like to pump gas. And this techno crate 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 how that story ends, but still…)

But fear not. I’m not writing this to sell you an EV. (Still, go here to learn more if you are interested.)

The real story that caught my attention is a second order revelation I 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 challenge of creating more publicly accessible level 2 home chargers. (There is a great nerdy guy who thoroughly tests those chargers in his garage with a nifty YouTube channel called State of Charge which I love to watch. It’s hypnotic.) The geek fest part of this EV stuff 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 saw upon something quite fascinating that I did not expect.

We already have a vast Happiness Industry in America; gurus, self-help authors (not to mention, um, Pharma). It is a massive marketplace. No surprise that, we all know this is a not a time of great happiness in America. Politics is grim, a gloomy trench war. Our pop culture is relentlessly coarse and getting coarser. (Far better commerce to sell Real Housewives Mugs and Cruises than run a classical music radio station, believe me.). The average corporate drone job is too often bleak and soul crushing.

So what did I learn? These EV people, from grinning auto company engineers to peppy battery scientists, to excited podcasters, to the guy vigorously testing home EC 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, and useful progress for all of us. They are solving tough 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 my generation 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 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. Joining this happy mob has given me a lot of needed relief from politics, way too often pure drudgery these days.

My happiness advice? 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 while you re at it, get an EV. You will smile, trust me.