Electric Vehicles are a growing trend in automotive tech. Is your house ready for one? How about two? We take a deep dive into trucks that you might want to use for A DIY project, take the family around, or just drive to work. How can you make it work with your lifestyle? We chat with one of the nations premier auto experts, Nik Miles from Our Auto Expert. https://ourautoexpert.com/

Nik has been a staple of the American broadcasting scene since the early 90s. Nik Is best known nationally for his Fox Sports and NBC Sports, TV show and locally for his Morning show segments on 50 local stations. Nik also has a daily Radio News segments that reach a million Americans every day. With 32 years experience as a radio and TV host and 14 years as an automotive journalist, Nik has a witty and informative automotive perspective. Nik got his start in Radio as the #1 Portland and Seattle afternoon show. Nik was an early adopter of digital media and has been part of the YouTube landscape since 2006.

Born in England, Nik has worked for the BBC, Tribune Broadcasting, CBS, Entercom, and many more major broadcast network companies. Nik has five dogs, Porsche, Samwise, Joey, Bhel, and Arwen and has spent many years rescuing animals in need. Nik spends any free time he has at his house in Portland Oregon, Riding his Motorcycles and working will local charitable organizations. Whenever Nik appears on TV he wears Union Jack socks. This is his tribute to his homeland.

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[00:00:07] Nik Miles: . First of all, depending on what you buy, um, public charging is actually often a better way to do it when you're out, because a home, the best you can do is, um, AC charging, which depending on the charge you get at home, um, there are charges out there like, um, juice, um, that that can give you up to 40 amps.

[00:00:53] Nik Miles: It gives you the true 40 amps. It comes to remodeling and renovating your home. There is a lot.

[00:01:05] Eric Goranson: Welcome to around the house with Eric G N Caroline, be your source for home improvement every single week. Thanks for joining us, Carolyn, we got a special guest in the studio today. This is going to be a lot of

[00:01:29] Caroline Blazovsky: And so I'm nuts for our guests. So let's introduce him.

[00:01:40] Nik Miles: I am thrilled to be here, Eric. Um, I get to listen to your show every week with our own. One-to-one not because you come on after me on the radio. So as I'm packing up, I make way for a show, which is clearly more important, better than me and has a nicer time.

[00:02:08] Nik Miles: life, isn't it? That, um, I'm probably in my situation more than your situation, but we call each other for advice all the time.

[00:02:40] Nik Miles: And I'm not sure what to use and this sort of thing. So we probably talk more about our personal projects than we do actually about our professional lives, which is of course radio and television. Um, it's quite comical that we spend a lot of the time, um, picking each other's brains for our specialty projects.

[00:03:09] Eric Goranson: I, I know the door code, I think, to your house and, and you're right. That's the crazy part. That's the crazy part. So Caroline, what I want to make you feel ganged up on here? Cause we've got old history here, but uh, Nick goes way back with me on the radio days.

[00:04:03] Nik Miles: I think, um, trucks have evolved definitely north America, of course is really the only country that has pickup trucks in the way that it does the bestselling, um, three vehicles in north America, uh, pickup trucks. The F-150 has been the number one vehicle in the United States for over 40 years. Period. Um, followed now by the Ram 1500, uh, used to be the Chevy Silverado is number two.

[00:05:00] Nik Miles: When you look at somewhere, let me just take you like China or Europe, a city, and I'm going to throw out a number here. Let's just say a city of 5 million people, a city of 5 million people in Europe would actually. Be contained in a third of the space, um, as it would in the United States. So it's a third of the size of landmass that the United States is.

[00:05:58] Nik Miles: So you'd get [00:06:00] geographical understand. Right now you have a geographical understanding of how big the United States is, and that's why we need such big vehicles because we travel such huge distances. And that's why our pickup trucks are about four times the size of anybody else's. And so we need big vehicles and pickup trucks are important to hold big loads and to do things like being, take those loads out of.

[00:06:46] Nik Miles: pressed.

[00:07:15] Nik Miles: Back in the gas shortages of the seventies and the eighties. Um, they went out of style, but they've come back. The Rangers come back. So we have these, what they used to call half-ton. Now they're called sort of the mid size pickup trucks. They're Tacoma's those sorts of things against the full size pickup trucks, like the 1500 and the one 50, but now we've got this even smaller class of pickup trucks and we're getting, we now almost have four classes of pickup trucks.

[00:08:12] Nik Miles: So you're getting sizes from. Very small, starting at $20,000 all the way up to your $40,000, the traditional ones, like the F-150 that you own, Eric.

[00:08:29] Caroline Blazovsky: talk about a little bit, Nick, these prices of these trucks have gotten astronomical.

[00:08:50] Nik Miles: You got to wake Carolyn, you go away very cheaply. Um, you can pay astronomical prices for them.

[00:09:34] Nik Miles: And they, I have one

[00:09:49] Nik Miles: people will spend two, $300,000.

[00:10:09] Nik Miles: I don't know if you've seen those type of things. People will spend huge amounts of money on, but trucks have become a lifestyle thing. They've become a massive icon of how much money you have and, and what you're saying about yourself. And they've also started to make them from the factory as family vehicles, where, you know, you got in that pickup truck and I don't know what style of pickup truck you bought.

[00:10:58] Nik Miles: I mean, these competing [00:11:00] with full luxury cars.

[00:11:20] Caroline Blazovsky: So looking towards the Chevy and I fell in love with it. I mean, it was a sharp looking truck. Amazing.

[00:11:42] Eric Goranson: Uh, you mean like your Ford Bronco that's in the driveway and Jor Mach II.

[00:11:49] Nik Miles: yeah, I mean, I'm not necessarily a Ford guy. No, not at all. It's come out. I put money down on it and two years later it comes time to order it and, and, you know, I have to make a call out on it. I would put [00:12:00] money down on the Fisk, uh, when that was announced and this sort of thing. And, but it works because you're one of the first to get it.

[00:12:22] Eric Goranson: Well, in, in your car reviews that you do out there, Nick, you've got a car carrier out in front of your car.

[00:12:32] Nik Miles: Yeah. Yeah. So I own, um, five cars and then I have at least two or three testers a week. Um, I have three motorcycles. Um, and you can imagine the test is I'm constantly driving on the weekends when I'm home and filming. My personal cars get driven very little.

[00:13:21] Eric Goranson: so you can get into it.

[00:13:33] Nik Miles: I have an X four M a BMW brand, new BMW, X four M I think I, I haven't taken out for a month. I am.

[00:13:57] Caroline Blazovsky: And I'm like, oh, something's wrong. Cause I'm [00:14:00] not a bitch. And for something new now, and

[00:14:08] Caroline Blazovsky: They offered me a, yet two days ago to trade it back in. They're going to the dealer wants to buy it from me and for, you know, I won't be upside down in it at all.

[00:14:39] Nik Miles: So, um, that it's almost good to reserve vehicles right now. And as long as you do a deal that you pay MSRP for them, you're, you're usually on the top side of getting money. That's great.

[00:15:00] Eric Goranson: And I think you've driven probably all of them at this point. Haven't you?

[00:15:32] Nik Miles: It flips into multiple different positions. It can be a step, it can have different load positions. It can be a desk. It folds in multiple different positions. It comes in half. It does multiple different things. Um, Ram has the barn door style tailgate where the tailgate splits in a, to a 60, um, a 60, 40, and you can open it sideways or you can open it traditionally to go flat, which is great.

[00:16:16] Nik Miles: So you can pull yourself up and step into the tailgate, which is they've had for a number of years, which is clever. Those things, um, agreed talking about vehicles themselves. I really, um, am a fan of diesel. I think these all is underrated right now. We're all electric, electric electric, but there are so many Swayze, um, so many swaths of the country that don't have the capability of recharging vehicles.

[00:17:13] Nik Miles: Um, out of, out of a vehicle. So these are still a great option and the talk and the towing and the load is usually so much better out of a diesel vehicle. Um, one of my favorite vehicles is the power boost from Ford. And that is what Ford give their name to their plug-in hybrid version of their F150. The reason that the, uh, Ford is just so brilliant is their, um, their onboard power pro system, where you have all of this onboard generator, you can plug in so much to the bag.

[00:18:11] Nik Miles: Um, and so many people, uh, are under snow. I bet those people today this morning wish they had a, a power boost pro Ford F-150 in the driveway. It would just make sense. You're always, if you're home, if you're without power and your home, your truck is parked at. And then, then for the generators parked at home, right?

[00:18:50] Nik Miles: So it's, the generator goes wherever you are. It's part of the truck just when they Texas had the big, uh, power outages last year, you know, [00:19:00] some people ran their homes with, uh, that in Dallas and it saved lives. I mean, to me, that's just a genius move from Ford, Eric,

[00:19:13] Caroline Blazovsky: So how does that exactly work or what kind of quarter are you using and how do you plug into the truck to your home? Is it an extension cord? How does that.

[00:19:32] Eric Goranson: If you want it to go that route or just grab those heavy duty extension cords and drag them in and plug the stuff in that you want to run.

[00:19:56] Nik Miles: So Ford will sell you the stuff that you do need to plug it [00:20:00] directly into the house. Um, but ultimately if you don't have that, it doesn't stop you putting, um, you know, heavy duty power cables through the kitchen window, you know, it'd be, you know, it's better than having nothing. That's what I have to tell you.

[00:20:37] Eric Goranson: What are your thoughts on that?

[00:21:06] Nik Miles: Sure. And even in problem for reveal and whose truck, first of all, Riverton were the first people to really get their electric truck to market. But there's caveats here. And you really need to pay attention to the caveats. First caveat reveal have not really sold their truck to the public yet it's on sale, but they've only sold it to people at work for Ravion.

[00:21:50] Nik Miles: That's number one. Number two is the long range. Battery has been delayed with Riviera, I believe until 2024. So [00:22:00] it's only the short range battery, which is not much over a hundred miles has been delivered is going to be delivered yet. So there's this caveat. The second thing is when you tow with these vehicles, even the lightning, they can't tell you how well it will.

[00:22:37] Nik Miles: This is how far they see the vehicle will be able to go under the current load. Your so it's weather dependent. So when I charge my vehicle to 100%, a hundred percent might get me 200 miles in the summer, but in the winter, the same a hundred percent. And I go outside might say [00:23:00] 160 miles because batteries do not function well in the winter.

[00:23:23] Nik Miles: So your vehicle may not function the same in different temperatures. And we don't know yet how any of these vehicles will function. They do not function all 12 months the same. So be aware that we don't know any of the math quite yet on any of these vehicles. So we haven't tested any of them. We were, I was supposed to be testing the GMC, um, Homer and the Hummer Hummer truck and the Hummer, um, SUV.

[00:24:18] Nik Miles: Most people aren't going to buy a $40,000 truck, which is a base truck, and they're going to be buying trucking. It's around 70,000. And counting said that right at the beginning that yes, these trucks may start in the thirties, but nobody buys them like that. All right. It's like a Mercedes, the, they say the MSRP, the starting price of these Mercedes, you know, SUV's is.

[00:25:05] Nik Miles: That's why they're number one, because they have huge government and huge contracts. Um, so when, if you take all those contracts away, they're not necessarily the biggest truck in America,

[00:25:25] Caroline Blazovsky: Uh, by New York, we had a lot of trucks that were sitting, waiting for sensors and different parts to come in. Has that improved at all? Is it still the same situation

[00:25:47] Nik Miles: But if you drive into Detroit, you'll find that there are parking lots for our vehicles that are missing mostly the chips. And they're just sitting in parking lots without the chips in there, towed in there after they come out of the [00:26:00] factory. And there are thousands and thousands and thousands of. And we don't know what year designation those vehicles will have because they have everything, but the chip and they're technically not completed until those chips are in.

[00:26:48] Nik Miles: They couldn't have them in the factories. They had to shut the factories down, uh, cause they didn't want COVID to spread. Those factors are back up and working a lot now. And those chips will start to be [00:27:00] produced. Now those chips are being produced again, they'll start to drift in and we're hoping to see them drift in and March, but it'll be a while for those factories to get up and running, but there's a knock on effect, right?

[00:27:35] Nik Miles: You have to have a temperature take and you have to go through a computer questions about, have you been associated with anybody that's had COVID in the last, since you left the factory yesterday, have you had a temperature? Do you feel well? You know, and if you answer any of the questions out of order, then you have to go to the nurses station and , so it takes a while to get into work.

[00:28:15] Nik Miles: Slower trucks are getting produced slower. So the capacity a hundred percent today is not what it was in 2020.

[00:28:38] Eric Goranson: And I can see you can't do that anymore.

[00:28:52] Eric Goranson: Fascinating fascinating. And I want to step in and I love diesel diesel is something great.

[00:29:18] Eric Goranson: But I tell you what, that does not deter me away from going diesel. And for me, I think it's a smart way to go.

[00:29:44] Nik Miles: And you can go look at the vehicle that you're looking at. Then it tells you on each year what issues people have, and you can look at those years and see what issues they have. And you can have a mechanic check for that issue on your year, which is really good. [00:30:00] The second thing is there are great forums on the internet and you can go to the forums and you can search the forums for the year that you're looking at.

[00:30:26] Eric Goranson: you know, good point, good point. I learned, I learned that lesson, but at the same point, I still love my 1995 F two 50 that I have that is big four 60. It's awesome. I can throw anything in the back of it. If I get a little scratch in the bat, I don't lose sleep over it. You know what I mean? It's just a great, comfortable work truck.

[00:31:16] Nik Miles: And this lady sat next to me from Portland and we made friends, I helped to edit a video for our moms, a hundred of them birthday. Um, and we became friends, Facebook, friends, and she reached out to me the other day and asked for advice on what to buy. Cause she needed to buy a new car. And she was looking at certain vehicles and I said, ah, you know, you'll hate the infotainment in system in that vehicle, you know, think about this.

[00:32:03] Nik Miles: So you and your husband. Have you getting easier. Plus the tech in it is not complicated in a Forester. So you and your husband won't have trouble getting around the infotainment system and the safety systems are all on automatically. So you don't have to turn anything on. So it's great for an older person.

[00:32:42] Nik Miles: I just, it was just one of those things where I realized the generation I was talking to didn't understand what I said when I said it's probably bullet proof. There

[00:33:13] Eric Goranson: What is your thoughts again, versus like Ford versus Chevy? And I don't think Dodge is, you know, Rams come out with anything yet.

[00:33:34] Nik Miles: We know Ram's right around the corner where the electric shop. And by the way, this is the classic mistake. Um, Ram's been Ram and not Dodge for about 10 years. We all want to say Dodge, but they, you know, they separated and became Ram about 10 years ago. Um, the, um, look electrics it's here. It's exciting.

[00:34:17] Nik Miles: Maybe? Um, but it's the new thing. Is it environment is electric environmentally friendly, like electric vehicles are invented to be environmentally friendly. Are they? No. Yeah. Are they close? They're all. No way. How do we get electricity, coal power stations, which is the most environmentally friendly thing out there.

[00:34:59] Eric Goranson: liquid [00:35:00] battery packs, Nick, I mean, look at what they have to pull out of the ground, the lithium, the, all of those things that they have to pull out of the grand just to build the

[00:35:08] Nik Miles: Yeah. W w and the Chinese, uh, the ones that own, those factories that make all that stuff. And, and, you know, the political implications are horrendous, but we got to keep our governments in check to make sure that they are pushing towards these things. And yes, we have to look to the future. And oil only has a certain finite light and it's very politically charged because it is very politically charged in a sense that it's most the oil company is, are mostly right-wing Republicans who own them in those oil companies.

[00:36:13] Eric Goranson: it's not anymore, but it has over time.

[00:36:18] Nik Miles: is the most dangerous thing to do because two things can happen. It's unstable if it's not done properly and if it falls into the wrong hands and, and that that's the difficult thing, right? So we have to keep everybody in check and electricity is new and it's fashionable and it's exciting, but we have to continually push towards making sure that how we source it and how we make it.

[00:37:09] Nik Miles: So we no longer make these things unbiased.

[00:37:32] Nik Miles: Yeah. I mean, look at the new Mercedes Q uh, EEQ execs that came out at, um, CES. The seat material was made from mushrooms, which is grown in two weeks. You know, there's those types of things that are coming. The city carpets are made out of bamboo, as long as we keep forging this path. And we don't forget that that's where we need to gate be.

[00:38:14] Nik Miles: I mean, Ford have been using soy. And then

[00:38:24] Nik Miles: it was at CES? Um, I didn't taste it. I think, I think it's, I think it's a great idea, but you also have thinner and this is a Carolyn, this is a thing that, um, I don't know what the cost is.

[00:39:03] Nik Miles: So I have to say, this is the right idea, these ideas of the ride. So

[00:39:29] Eric Goranson: Are we going to see that? I wonder down the road, those are those things that I always scratch my head and go, ha I wonder if, cause there's been some problems with certain vehicles out there that they've been replacing wiring harnesses, because if they've got rats, mice around that they love to consume

[00:39:45] Nik Miles: Um, well, this is, this has to be right. They have to be eaten by things when they're thrown away. Just not, when they're not thrown away, that's something we have to make sure that they doesn't happen. Um, you want, when these things are put on, you know, in a [00:40:00] garbage tip to them to be consumed by bacteria and consumed by animals and, and, you know, eaten and destroyed, that's the whole idea of things when they get thrown away.

[00:40:48] Nik Miles: Um, you have to make the, the, you have to find, uh, the balance and the balance is don't have them eat it, but you don't want to poison the rats either. So that's, [00:41:00] you know, it's hard, it's hard, but you have to do it somehow. I mean, when people look there's a whole BMW and especially Ford have a whole department.

[00:41:34] Nik Miles: That's not used in the coffee making process and use it to something to make something into that can be used in car parts. Um, there are certain parts in cars now that are made from discarded mushrooms. Um, you know, pressed into air filters. There's, you know, bamboo that now makes the carpets in, in vehicles.

[00:42:22] Nik Miles: In, in things the same as the challenge with your house is how do we make things like the catalytic converter not have valuable metals in, and there is companies that are doing those sorts of things now. Um, how do you make things in the car? So people don't want to steal them, but so they, they can actually still do the same job.

[00:42:43] Eric Goranson: That's great. I got a baited question for you, which I think I already know the answer. What do you think of the Tesla

[00:43:11] Nik Miles: We know that it's ramping up to new model wise, but the Tesla truck is not even on the horizon. Um, they keep changing the specs. It, uh, they added three wheel steering and just for SRE a rear wheel steering. And as far as I know, that will take several years to add, uh, they added, um, several other things into the truck, which is going to delay its production.

[00:44:00] Nik Miles: We know it's a, maybe a couple years away from coming to market. It looks like Ford lightening will be here in this spring to some of this year. It looks like Chevy will have the Silverado Evie probably early next year, maybe late next year. At the worst case scenario, it looks like Jeep will announce an electric truck or still Lantus will for Ram allowance and electric truck in the next year or so.

[00:45:00] Nik Miles: It, my head scratcher is this for Tesla. They're the biggest head-scratcher is Tesla shares are worth more than general motors, Ford, and still antice, which is, is what Chrysler used to be called still auntie's shares combined. All three companies come fine yet. They're nowhere close. To the value of the output of all those companies.

[00:45:55] Nik Miles: Yeah. So

[00:46:19] Okay.

[00:46:46] Nik Miles: Um, um, so they've only sold one GMC Hummer truck. The others are being produced at the factory, but I don't think they've delivered any yet. And I could be wrong because I haven't looked yet, [00:47:00] but they are imminently being delivered. So the Hummer is imminently being delivered. Um, they promised us 350 miles minimum.

[00:47:34] Nik Miles: Yep. Um, it's so heavy because of the battery, but it's ranges around 3 27. So I think 300, um, is about the low end of what we're seeing for these trucks. Maybe 200 for some of them the reveal. And I'm not sure what the mileage range of that is. It may be less, um, Chevrolet is promising 400, I think, for the Chevy Evie.

[00:48:21] Nik Miles: How does that change

[00:48:30] Nik Miles: that do a hundred mile range. That's true. You know, the great thing about trucks, the one that had a huge advantage you have about trucks is that trucks are big.

[00:49:06] Nik Miles: And when you have real estate battery, more battery and real estate will give you more mileage. And so you should be able to get 250 to 400 miles in, in something that's four times the real estate of a car.

[00:49:26] Nik Miles: It's a little quarter, maybe less than a quarter.

[00:49:48] Caroline Blazovsky: going to say, because we talk home improvement so much.

[00:50:11] Caroline Blazovsky: And I think about hooking up the two 20, and I think about hooking up the charging station, and then I sort of shy away from it. So both of you, what are the things we can do to encourage all of this to happen? If it can happen logistically.

[00:50:31] Nik Miles: First of all, depending on what you buy, um, public charging is actually often a better way to do it when you're out, because at home, the best you can do is, um, AC charging, which depending on the charge you get at home, um, there are charges out there like, um, Juice, um, that that can give you up to 40 amps.

[00:51:17] Nik Miles: Two gives you a true 40 amps and you can run over with a tank. I have one at my house. Um, you can get them on Amazon, um, and I will send you a picture of it, Eric, so you can use it on the website. It's amazing charger. Um, it truly gives you a true 40 amps out of your dryer outlet. Um, most home charges will give you just, even though they're on a 40 amp system because of safety, we'll give you maybe the maximum of 28, but most of them give you like 21 amp charge.

[00:52:10] Nik Miles: Um, if you're lucky you'll get, um, maybe, um, 40 miles overnight. Um, challenge, um, which is offered your home regular plug, um, which is horrible. Um, so you really need to go to a public DC charger, a fast charger that does 250 amps. You can take something. Um, I know this off the top of my head, I'd have to look up trucks, but you can take a regular charger and plug it in.

[00:53:15] Caroline Blazovsky: I thought, um, an Eric would know this better, but when you run a line and you want to put a charger in, do you have to run that? It was brought to my attention that I thought we had to run an additional, um, two 20 line to that charging station. Is that true? Or can you run a standard align out?

[00:53:42] Eric Goranson: So you get the most power that you have. What Nick was talking about is you could plug into your dryer outlet, things like that, but you want to have that dedicated circuit.

[00:54:06] Nik Miles: Correct? Next year, if you hardwire a charger into your house, uh, I think it goes to ADM, um, legally, but it has to be hardwired into your house, that charger, but that doesn't flip in, I think until 23, it might be this year. It might be 22. Yeah.

[00:54:38] Eric Goranson: That are older homes. Um, most homes are a 200 amp service, but they've, they're filled up with stuff. They've got the, the, the washer. I mean, they've got the dryer, the electric dryer, they've got the water heater, they've got the electric range, they've got the air conditioning unit out there. And so many times you've got 80 or a hundred amps in there of things that could [00:55:00] be on at the same point.

[00:55:20] Nik Miles: Yeah. I mean, it's, it may be regulated by your city may be regulated by your electrical, um, company.

[00:55:54] Nik Miles: Um, and your panel allows you to do safely. And if you're a licensed [00:56:00] electrician, um, doesn't know what he's doing. Um, with an wiring, a electric car, Um, yeah, you have the wrong one. Um, also depending on whether you rent or own, um, if you're in a condo, uh, you have another whole bunch of challenges if you rent or your condo.

[00:56:43] Nik Miles: That it's always a much better bet. Um, just to park your car at a DC charging station, even if you're a work or you're shopping in half an hour, the delivery is so much better and it reduces charging anxiety. Yeah, [00:57:00] that

[00:57:01] Caroline Blazovsky: The thing that always makes me nervous is that I'm the type of person when I need gas.

[00:57:26] Caroline Blazovsky: It's no longer a five minute thing to get gas and go, you've got to sit there, correct for a half an hour until you get enough chart.

[00:57:46] Nik Miles: If you don't, uh, if you, if you rent one, you will see a completely different mental adjustment. It's more like owning a cell phone. The new tears owning, um, owning a [00:58:00] car, Shirley Caroline's

[00:58:08] Eric Goranson: Caroline's phone drops off on me about three times a day and we'll be talking and we'll be going.

[00:58:18] Nik Miles: then the 20 minute Caroline, here's the deal. You don't have to have an electric car. And perhaps an electric car is not for you. That's why they make hybrids. Plug-in hybrids, gas, cars, diesel cars, and electric cars, because we're all different as human beings. And perhaps electric is something that you learn about, but don't own, oh,

[00:58:53] Caroline Blazovsky: Right? You hear all this stuff out there is this true? Is that, is this

[00:59:12] Nik Miles: He's not going to be in office. True. You know, Newsome is not going to be in the office by 2025. Um, there, the Mary Barra is not going to be in charge of Chevy by the year that she said we will be all electric by 2028. These guys aren't going to be there. It's easy for them to say we're only going to be producing vehicles by 2050.

[00:59:48] Eric Goranson: by the way, all our, all our, all our younger listeners, MySpace used to be this social media platform that, uh,

[01:00:21] Eric Goranson: Because if we are out of power for five days, yeah. How are you going to be charging that vehicle? Or how are you going to shift your life plan? To make sure during those, you know, like we had our ice storm here in Portland last year, where many of us didn't have power for five days right now. And that included workplaces and everything else.

[01:00:51] Nik Miles: So, I mean, it's just look at this from the other aspect. How do you put gas in your car when there's no power? [01:01:00] True. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, you, you run your car on what gas you have in the tank or what gas you have in a gas canister.

[01:01:31] Nik Miles: I could charge it there. Yeah. Tesla stations have batteries that keep the charge. I mean, Tesla stations don't rely on a live grid. They charge the, they have massive batteries that charge them and then you take it from a battery. So they don't have to have live power. I mean, the, it, it's a huge, it's a big problem.

[01:02:12] Nik Miles: And perhaps if we went pumping so much horrible stuff into the environment, perhaps these weather. These horrible weather things wouldn't be happening. I don't know if that's the answer. Perhaps we should have a horse and a barn full of hay. We should be doing. I don't have an answer for you. And the truth is perhaps you should have a massive diesel tank outside your house, and you should be filling your truck with diesel.

[01:02:49] Caroline Blazovsky: to that. Eric, I see you at horse. Hey guy. I mean, definitely.

[01:03:00] Nik Miles: But ultimately, if you want to think like that, there's this whole thing called being prepared and living off the grid. And you know, there, there is a bunch of answers I have that could answer that question for you. But if you want to live in a world where you're always prepared for us to have no energy and no power, you can prepare in several different ways.

[01:03:39] Eric Goranson: Some of the things we're going to be talking about in that seminar is okay. A lot of people are putting solar in.

[01:04:03] Eric Goranson: Think about when you're putting that solar system in with the battery storage, are you making it sizing it correctly so you could charge a car from it? Could you do some of those things to help give people another option?

[01:04:27] Nik Miles: Um, when, when you think about putting all that solar stuff in the amount of money, I have a friend who lives in Northern California and he has the biggest, most massive electrical system. He has a tiny house. That him and him and his partner live in, uh, um, they have the biggest off the grid system. You could possibly imagine that they could power the power off the grid for, I think [01:05:00] 200 or 300 and like 40 days a year where they don't need anything from anybody.

[01:05:34] Nik Miles: You know, that does the same thing. I mean, for far less money than they spent on burying these huge batteries that are enough to power a small city underneath their property. The truth is that I think it's a huge waste of money that you'll never get back from windmills. And I mean, you can do the same with windmills on your property.

[01:06:09] Caroline Blazovsky: I love that. We prop it up on that one

[01:06:14] Eric Goranson: Well, well said. So how do people track you down other than you being on most everybody's TVs out there, you know, showing the greatest and best automotive. Vehicle news out there. What's the best way for people to find you?

[01:06:38] Nik Miles: Oh, you are. Um, a U T O E X, P E R t.com. And all of the written video and podcast reviews are on there, but the best place of course, to always go and listen to us is, uh, with Eric and Caroline on, around the house. So thank you,