This is Technology Bytes, episode 104 for March 2nd, 2025.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
Enjoy.
And here we go.
It’s kind of a humorous when I say things happened to me when I was in full control of what was occurring.
And I use those terms when I sometimes question whether I should have done what I just did.
And it often happens when I buy vehicles.
And so this week I bought a new car and for maybe one of the few times in the purchase, I feel like I made a correct choice.
And so why is this technology?
Well, it’s because I bought an electric car and I’ve wanted an electric car for a very long time.
And this weekend, this past weekend, I bought a Kia EV6.
So why an electric car?
Well, it’s a, it’s a good question.
I know if you ask my wife, it’s because I can use the carpool lane here in Arizona, and that actually shaves time off my drive home from work.
My drive to work I do fairly early in the morning.
So traffic is not a concern for the most part at that point, but coming home, it can, it seems to have gotten longer and longer.
And while I may only save 10 minutes, there’s a stress involved in stop and go traffic that you all are aware of.
And even if I’m going slow and the drive still takes a little while, the fact that I’m not stop, go, stop, go, stop, go really reduces the stress of my drive home.
I think I arrive home in a better mood and I am not just dying from the commute.
And I’m hoping that I actually am saving some time and I think I do.
It’s really hard to tell because it tells me this is how long it takes you to get home on, on my Apple maps.
And, and then I get home in a little bit less than that.
Sometimes the first time it was almost 12 minutes, the last few times it’s been more in the seven and eight minute range, which doesn’t sound like a lot of savings, but what I don’t know is if I wasn’t in the carpool lane, would I have met that 47 minute drive home or would it been more like 52 that I did in 40.
And so maybe I’m still saving 12 minutes.
Either way, it’s a much more comfortable drive home in that environment.
And I get that because of an electric vehicle.
But that’s not the only reason there’s something about maybe not purchasing gas, something about the tech that goes into the battery, something about the torque of an electric motor.
Okay.
So I used to drive a Dodge Charger years ago, um, 305 horsepower.
And it was fun car to drive.
And this Kia EV six zero to 60 time is one second slower than that Dodge Charger with the Hemi.
This car is fun to drive.
And then the tech inside it, and it’s tied with Apple CarPlay and, and the applications that you get to use for watching the car charge and for knowing what chargers are available and where and how much they cost, all that kind of stuff is pretty cool.
Um, there were some benefits that I didn’t realize one is there’s a charger at my work that I didn’t know anything about because I didn’t have an electric vehicle, but my boss does.
And he said, those chargers are free.
So all of a sudden I’ve got a free charger at work that I can get my car charged up.
I don’t have anything at home at the moment to do that.
And then the Kia dealership is one mile from my house and they have a free charger as well.
So I can go over there and charge up anytime I want.
And their charger is a fast charger.
So that gets me to 80% and depending on, you know, so the other day it went from 24 to 80% in about 20 minutes.
Um, so very quick.
And then that last whatever takes some time, but when I’m at home driving to work general around town type driving, from what I’ve read, 80% is where you want to stop.
Just charge to 80 and let it go down to 20 and charge it back to 80.
And then if you’re taking a trip, do more.
And so that’s what’s happening this weekend.
My wife and I are driving to California.
It’s a trip we’ve made forever and never really worried about it.
Now we’re all tied up in knots and how do we do this?
And where are we stopping?
And, and the Kia app for navigation says, you don’t have enough battery to get to where you want to go.
Do you want me to add charging stops?
And it did.
And it says, drive from this place to this place.
Here’s your charger charge for 14 minutes.
Your battery will go up this much and then drive from this place to this place and then stay there for 20 minutes and your battery will go up this much and then drive from this place to your destination.
And when you get there, your battery will be at this level.
Pretty neat way to travel.
And the challenge I think is going to be doing it on a weekend where am I going to have to wait for chargers?
Is it going to take me longer?
Because obviously those stops are longer than it would take to fill up with gas.
Overall, I’m super excited.
I really liked the car.
It’s very comfortable to drive.
It’s got great technology in it that I will talk about in the future.
And this car is going to drive many episodes of my podcast about technology.
Well, that is all I have for today.
As always, I want to thank you for listening.
If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, you can send them to technologybitesatmerigfamily.com.
And I look forward to the next time we are together, taking another bite of technology.
