- Ready? - Yep.
- At super-car speed, our camera isn't ready.
The kick? In a pickup.
The party?
In Dearborn, Michigan, where Ford is rolling out
an all-electric version of its F-150,
the best-selling vehicle in America.
- Right now, the world needs zero-emissions vehicles.
And more importantly, it needs us
to bring them to the many, not just the few.
- It may be that kind of moment, when electric vehicles -- EVs --
go from eccentric to everywhere.
- We're going all electric!
- They filled the airwaves during the Super Bowl.
And charging stations
are starting to pop up in more places.
- This moment is every bit as important to this company
and to this country as when the Model-T first
started rolling off the assembly line.
- Yes, this Model-T from 1914,
when mass production gave the automobile mass appeal.
That may now happen with EVs.
- If they do, then there's no doubt
that's going to be one of those important milestones
in the evolution of the automobile in the United States.
- But getting here is not a sure thing.
It will be expensive -- from building cars
that cost more to building charging stations
where electricity may already be iffy.
For consumers, it may be a long wait to charge up
or actually buy one.
For the believers -- -They're just better cars.
- And in a time of almost-$5-a-gallon gas --
-256 miles of range.
That's about what my gas car used to get --
256 miles to 300 miles.
To fill a tank like that right now costs about $50, right?
If I charge this at home, it costs $10.
50. - EV sales are rising,
but they're still far behind gas-powered vehicles
at about 6% of sales.
But Cadillac is going all EV.
So is Buick.
The lineup is broadening to SUVs.
See those E's?
There are start-ups and new companies.
Even GM has changed its logo to look like a plug.
By 2030, just 8 years away,
the government wants half of all cars sold to be electric.
But everything old is new again.
- We're looking at a 1901 Columbia Victoria
electric car here.
- Electric cars were at the birth of the auto industry.
Here's a map of charging stations in Manhattan from 1923.
But these cars had limited range,
good for only city driving,
at a time when electricity did not reach everywhere.
- The technology for gasoline- powered cars became so prevalent
and so well-developed that the prices just kept falling there
and electric cars couldn't fall fast enough to keep up.
- Later models looked like this. - Really it's not much more
than a glorified golf cart, to be honest.
- But today's EVs are not some strange-looking creation.
They look like cars.
- At a meeting of EV owners in suburban Washington,
a chance to show them off
and maybe hook a prospective buyer.
- It's both having something that's an eco-friendly vehicle
and also an economical vehicle.
- Of course, these cars are different.
Starting with maintenance --
a lot less than a gas-powered car.
There are just fewer moving parts.
The vehicles are like a skateboard --
four wheels with the batteries as the deck.
Inside, the floors are flat.
No need for a drivetrain hump.
The dashboard is a screen.
Pop the hood, and the only thing mechanical you see
is a place for windshield wiper fluid.
In place of the engine, a "frunk" -- front trunk.
- And hell, you tell me how many beers you'll be able
to fit in that frunk during your tailgate.
- This charger we actually installed in 2012,
and we use it to charge both EVs now.
- Ron Kaltenbaugh is president of EVADC,
an association of EV owners in Washington.
It puts out an information sheet
of EV models for buyers that keeps growing.
- What got me started was addressing climate change
and then what hooked me was the performance.
EVs are, you know, computers on wheels.
When I hit the turn signal,
I now have my camera on that side that I'm turning to
is showing me what's in the lane beside me.
That didn't exist, this car didn't have that feature
three months ago.
That was a new feature with an over-the-air software update.
- But making it all go takes power.
Electrify America is building an ultra-fast charging network,
going from 800 sites to 1,800 by 2026.
- You're seeing vehicles come into the market
that can charge faster,
and there's kind of a race to increase charging speeds
and reduce dwell times at public charging locations.
- At Electrify America, new EV models are brought here
to be tested with the company's chargers.
- Really make it as seamless and simple experience as possible.
- This operation center
in northern Virginia monitors each one.
Charging stations can be put more places than a gas station.
No need for tanks, pipes and pumps, just power.
This was a gas station until it went all EV in 2019,
the first in the country to make the switch.
At RS Automotive in Takoma Park, Maryland,
there's a different rhythm to filling up -- powering up.
- A 30-minutes break that you wouldn't normally get
at a normal gas station.
- That break?
Depending on your vehicle and its battery.
- Get a burrito from the stand over there, look at some cars,
talk, meet people, listen to the birds
and look at the sky for a few minutes.
- Just feet away -- -Please buy electric car.
- A recommendation of a no-maintenance car
from the owner of a garage?
- I know, I know, yeah, no, that thought is there.
It is going to hurt us auto mechanics, auto tech in here.
But I'm sure there'll be something else, you know,
and anything man-made,
even though it's hardly any maintenance,
but there's always some issues.
- Electric vehicles are remaking the corner gas station.
And even part of a city.
Corktown is Detroit's oldest neighborhood.
These days, everywhere you look,
something is under construction or getting rebuilt.
- The area we're gonna go into now
will end up becoming the shop.
So we split them up in woodworking and metalworking.
- The centerpiece is Michigan Central,
Detroit's grand old train station,
for decades a symbol of the city's decay.
- We had to touch every one of those tiles
that are in the ceiling.
There's about 29,000 of them.
There's a little over eight miles of grout
that needed to get redone.
- Now it will be a campus
for transportation innovation and 5,000 people.
- It's electrification, it's autonomy, it's multi-modal,
it's the first and last mile challenges
that every community is facing.
- Some of the nearby streets will be embedded with technology
that charges vehicles as they drive.
Nearby, this parking garage is a sort of living lab for things
like wireless charging as you park and go to work.
- This street had vacant houses on it.
Every single house along my block now is occupied.
That helps keep a community vital
when you have people in houses as opposed to empty houses.
- Change also visible from Sheila Cockrel's back porch.
- And they showed a sensitivity to not trying
to take over the neighborhood, which was deeply appreciated.
- The Motor City becomes the Electric Motor City.
The Mobility City.
- We're really focused on how do we drive mobility innovation
in a community-based setting.
It puts us in a real-world environment
to be able to learn a lot about how these new technologies
are gonna change people's lives, right.
And also how to get people to change their behaviors
to adopt some of these new technologies.
- They're fun. They're fun to drive.
You ready for a second? - Yeah.
- Okay.
- But accelerating into this future may not be so fast.
On average, EVs cost $10,000 more than comparable gas models,
but that's expected to drop.
The question is, will there be enough?
Enough capacity on an already fragile electric grid?
Enough raw materials
like lithium and nickel for batteries?
And enough vehicles?
Ford has sold out, not taking any more F-150
Lightning orders.
- Can a truck change everything?
- The future may be electric, you'll just have to wait for
Lightning to get delivered.