December 25, 2022 • 19 mins
This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend edition. I'm Oscar Ramirez,
and every week I explore the top stories making waves
in the news and some that are just playing interesting.
I'll connect you with the journalists and the people who
know the story and bring you news without the noise
so you can make an informed decision. You can catch
a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday,
and it's ready where you wake up. On the weekend edition,
(00:27):
I'll be bringing you some of the best stories from
the week. Throughout the pandemic, Americans went on a fast
furniture buying spree, and very soon it can all be
going in the trash. Fast furniture is mass produced and
relatively inexpensive. Think of something you might find it at
Kia or Wayfair. Each year we threw out more than
twelve million tons of furniture, and some of the materials
(00:48):
and fast furniture don't break down or biodegrade. These items
are only meant to last about five years or so,
so the next spot for them is the landfill. For
more on what to know about fast furniture, will speak
to Deborah came In, contributor to The New York Times,
a lot of people think of fast furniture as only
coming from stores like Ikea or Wayfair Amazon. You think
(01:09):
it the stuff that comes in the flat pack and
you've got to put it together, you know, with the instructions.
I don't have any words. And that is all true.
But according to some environmentalists, even the nicer stuff that
some of us consider pretty expensive, like Create and Barrel
or Seaton two or west Down even are considered fast
furniture because of the environmental impact of the way it's manufactured.
It's made in a factory, mass produced, so a lot
(01:30):
of carbon emissions, a lot of waste. They also call
that fast furniture. As I mentioned that five year thing.
You know, some of this stuff they say, you know,
it's not gonna last that long, and we're looking for
sturdier pieces. Maybe they can last a decade or longer.
That's the more sustainable stuff. It's just gonna not gonna
be thrown away as easily. So what's the worry now?
Obviously it's going to clog up landfills, and you, as
(01:52):
you mentioned, the process behind making them obviously is wasteful too, right,
So we're buying a ton more furniture and the furniture
we're buying is not made as well. It's made from
material of it don't break down and in essence, because
we're putting it together in our homes, it doesn't last
as long. So as it falls apart, what do you
do with it? You throw it away. You're not going
to take a lack table from Ikea and sell it
on Craigslist for twenty bucks. It's not worth your time.
(02:13):
I mean, you walk on the streets of New York
City at the end of the month, you see furniture
on the curb everywhere. That stuff ends up in landfills,
and it's further than fifty percent more than it has
been a couple of decades ago. We are throwing away
so much furniture. A lot of Americans don't realize that
the way that we furnish our homes now is having
a huge impact on the environment. Each year, Americans are
throwing out more than twelve million tons of furniture, and
(02:37):
the e commerce furniture market is worth twenty seven billion dollars.
This is from you know, a lot of people don't
obviously look into how the stuff's made, and you know
the after effects. But people love this the fast fashion stuff,
you know, is a comparable thing that a lot of
people point to. But the fast furniture stuff, I mean,
it lets a lot of people really design their homes,
furnished their homes at a really good price point, and
(02:58):
obviously that's what a lot of people are looking into. Yeah,
I mean, that's actually a key issue here, and I
really wanted to emphasize this in the story that I wrote.
This is not anybody's fault, and you shouldn't feel bad
if you have fast furniture in your home. I have
a wayfair desk that I said at that I wrote
this article at. The problem is that furniture the way
it's manufactured now, it's so expensive to buy the good
stuff that most people just can't And we also move
(03:19):
so frequently in our lives that it doesn't make sense
to buy a ten thousand dollar couch for most of
us if we're going to have to move on from
our apartment in six months. So we're all kind of
trapped in this cycle where we have no choice except
to buy stuff that is really not good for the environment.
And you mentioned buying that big couch, right, So even
throughout the pandemic, a lot of people who were making
some of those purchases know the pains of trying to
(03:42):
get furniture right. Some of this stuff was you know, say, hey,
I want to buy a couch, Well it's going to
be seven eight months maybe, And so the fast furniture
category really filled that whole. You know, you maybe take
you a couple of weeks still or a few weeks
to get something, but at least you can get something
that you needed immediately. And even with people that landlord
words and stuff, people with the short term rentals all
(04:02):
that stuff really look to this category to fill their stuff. Yeah,
there are other options on the market. Increasingly, a lot
of new companies are being founded that are trying to
solve this problem and also fill the gap. So there's
lots of new options to purchase furniture second hand or
to refurbish it. And I would really encourage people if
they are concerned about fast furniture but don't want to
drop ten k on a couch, to look into those
(04:22):
options in these new companies where you can buy things
that maybe are gently used but are still in really
good condition. And the best thing about them is they're
in stock. They don't have to be manufactured when you
buy them. Yeah, let's focus a little bit more on
though so too that you mentioned in the article. One
is Kyo and there are market Polace for pre owned furniture.
They said they kept more than three point five million
pounds of furniture out of refills. And another one is Furniture.
(04:43):
So this is a rental subscription service. Yeah, it's actually
it's more like a rent to buy. So you can
rent furniture, but at any point you think, wow, I
really love this. Instead of paying you ten dollars or
twelve dollars a month for the lamp or the chair,
you can just pay out the rest at the end.
But if you're locked in a six month lease, then
you don't know if you're going to renew. It's a
good option to buy furniture that maybe is slightly higher
(05:03):
quality without having to pay the full price because they're
not going to be able to use it for an
extended period of time. What have some of these companies
said for their part, at least what they're trying to change,
how they're trying and maybe not to contribute to a
lot of waste. I know you spoke to a Wayfair
and IKEA and got some type of statements from them. Yeah,
so wayfair an Ikea. Both they are aware of the
environmental impact of the work that they do and they
(05:25):
are making efforts to become more sustainable, and I want
to say those efforts really are admirable. As Kea has
a huge sustainability pledge. They're trying to make sure that
they become clebon neutral by twenty thirty. Wafer also has
a lot of sustainability initiatives on their website. They're trying
to use better materials and cut carbon emissions. The bigger
problem is the fact that we are all refurnishing our
homes every time we move. So even if you are
(05:48):
using more sustainable practices, there's still a lot of waste
every time you throw up furniture because there's furnitures on
a product that is very easy to resell. And that's
why these other companies like Kyo and Furnish are stepping
into that middle ground. So if you have a piece
of furniture that you don't want to use anymore, there's
an option for putting it into the circulation for someone
else that doesn't involve just leaving it on the curb.
(06:11):
You spoke to a few people that either out of necessity,
had to go with a fast furniture stuff or there
was also a homeowner that you spoke to that change
his mind about it and actually learned how to make
furniture so that he can furnish his old classic house.
How did those conversations go. Yeah, this was a fun
piece to report because I talked to a lot of
different people about all these different ways that they're living
(06:32):
and how furniture kind of emphasizes their choices. But this
one guy, Doug Green, he bought a two hud year
old house and he renovated day and then he just decided,
I spent so much time making the walls on the
floors of these rooms beautiful, I don't want to buy
cheap furniture to put inside of it. So he actually
taught himself how to make his own furniture. So he
built his own dead and he built his own table,
(06:53):
and he and his girlfriend made this into a project.
This is obviously an extreme example, but I thought it
was a very interesting take on someone saying I don't
want to have materials in my home that don't match
the quality of the home itself. Totally. Yeah, I mean,
but You're right, there's a lot of time that goes
into it, and a lot of people and a lot
of privilege just can't do that. Yeah, exactly. So then
you know, as we mentioned right, some of this fast
(07:14):
furnitures of the materials just don't buy a degrade. They
don't break down the right way. If we're in that
category and we're looking at good price points, is there
something that consumers should be looking at to at least
help with this, Yeah, I mean you can. When you're
looking to purchase furniture. First of all, one thing you
can do is you can check online reviews, especially if
you're buying something that's mass produced, so you can find
out on those reviews how long these products tend to
(07:35):
last and be durable. And if a lot of reviews
are saying this piece broke after a year, or this
really didn't this bunk that I didn't hold up to
my kids jumping on it or whatever, it's probably not
a goal idea to buy that product because chances are
it's also not gonna last for you and you're gonna
end up throwing it out. The other thing is you
can try to find products that are made from solid
materials as opposed to manufacturing materials. The price point might
(07:56):
be a little bit higher, but at least you know
that you're purchasing something that one it's being manufactured, the
production is slightly more sustainable than it would be if
it were something like plywood or manufactured would And the
best thing you can always do is try to shop secondhand,
try to shop by nothing, try to you know, purchase
items that are already in circulation and don't have to
be created. Do And that's that's a sustainability rule for everything,
(08:20):
for the clothes that we wear. We should all be
trying to buy less and reuse more because climate change
is real. Deborah came in contributor to The New York Times.
Thank you very much for joining us, Thank you for
having me. It was fun. Finally for this week, what
does a road trip look like in an all electric vehicle?
(08:41):
For one reporter, it was kind of a nightmare. The
trip did cost less money for fuel, but more time
was spent charging than sleeping. To be clear, this trip
used public charging infrastructure on a trip from New Orleans
to Chicago and back. Not all charges were fast chargers,
and not all of them are created equal charging speeds.
Varied every time. For more on her four day EV
(09:02):
road trip, will speak to Rachel Wolf, consumer trans reporter
at the Law Street Journal. Yeah, it was, you know,
to put it mildly, a road trip from hell u
we The headline of the story is we spent more
time charging than we spent sleeping. I went with my
friend Mac and you know, wouldn't wouldn't do it again
(09:22):
anytime soon. I think a lot of it was traveling
through the South, where public charging infrastructure is particularly lacking,
and you know, it's really exciting all the planned investments
and there's promise of things getting a lot better, but
for now we were stuck with um really slow with
(09:42):
chargers and not a whole lot of options, especially between
New Orleans and or first stop with in Nashville. We
also drove back from Chicago because we had to return
the rental car, and between Memphis and New Orleans was
also pretty dicey. You know, if one charger was out
of warror, which thankfully they weren't, we really would have
(10:03):
been even even more screwed. Are eighteen hours was, you know,
having things go about as well as they could have,
aside from this true weather we experience, but Um, you know,
it's I think, and the weather and all that stuff.
I mean, those are all things that are going to
experience on a road trip. But the particulars are having
(10:24):
to deal with not stopping at already readily available gas
station and filling up and going in a matter of minutes, right,
having to stay there in charge on these chargers that
sometimes aren't fast chargers. So let's talk a little bit
about the parameters of everything. As I mentioned, you guys
were in a Kia e V six. It was a
two thousand mile road trip. You use the plug share app,
(10:45):
which has kind of a map of public chargers. Tell
us how that worked out. Still, the plug for app
helped you every place that you could possibly charge, uh,
you know, in the whole country. Um, and we sorted
by fast chargers are actually they're a different color on
the map. And so you know, we understand, as somebody
(11:08):
who reports on electric cars, although I don't own one,
the difference between a fast charger which offers charge and
speeds up to three and fifty kill a lots, which
is super fast. Most most cars cann except that much power.
But there's a big range of bigger range that I
knew going into the trip and all of my reporting.
You know, I just knew that there were these three
(11:29):
levels of chargers, um, and I never really thought more
about it because I had never charged a car myself,
and I think that that would be a pretty you know,
it's pretty typical thing to expect the fast charger is fast. Um.
We learned that that is not necessarily the case. There
is this huge range and fast chargers start at about
twenty four kill lots, which the difference between twenty four
(11:50):
and three fifty uh is huge. The difference of spending
three hours walking downtown to Meridy in Mississippi because we
don't want to stay at the Keya dealership where our
car is plugged in. You know, that charger had trouble
even cracking twenty kill lots, super super slow. Um. We're
(12:11):
also we ended up meeting to use a level too
charger at one point because we just didn't make it
to our next fast charger. And where the fast, where
the true fast chargers are, they're great. Um. We had
some really positive charging the experiences as well, which I
read about in the piece. You know where it works,
It really does work, and we didn't mind the half
(12:32):
hour stops. You know, we would have lunch struct our legs.
That wasn't the issue. You know, stopping for half an
hour really it isn't going to be what changes your
whole stay. So if you're planning a trip that's seven
hours and it takes eight whatever who planning trip that
takes that's supposed to be seven hours and it takes fifteen, uh,
(12:53):
which we experience, so you know, that's a little bit.
So some of these fast charging stations, they'll say, you know,
you can get sent charge in about twenty thirty minutes.
As you mentioned, a lot of these along the way
sometimes are these lower level two charges, so that's like
an eight hour charge, eight hours for a full charge.
And you made mention in the article, right, so that's
easy if you're staying somewhere overnight, that's a overnight charge,
(13:15):
and you're totally cool. But you know, as you keep
going along the road, yeah, you're gonna have to make
these pit stops for some of them, and you know,
if it's not going to be that thirty minute charge,
it's gonna take three hours. And you mentioned in the
article some of them took that long. That's when you
start really pushing back the overall trip exactly. UM. And
that's when you start really wondering what you're gonna do
(13:39):
for three hours in a place that you did not
expect to be second, um and so and your car
list and so you know, we end up getting a
really nice new in Murty in Mississippi. UM, but we
hadn't planned for it and had to walk the thirty
minutes downtown because our car was charging. So you know,
the charging stop might up where you want to hang out.
(14:02):
You ran into a lot of people obviously along the
way who were also charging. How did some of those
conversations go because a lot of them overall still had
pretty positive experiences, especially when you're seeing gas prices tick up.
You know, they appreciated some of those things, but you know,
maybe they weren't on a two thousand mile road trip
like you were. But at least phillis in on some
of the conversations you were having with other electric vehicle owners.
(14:26):
One HED owner who has a Ford Mustang Mackie and
he travels a lot for work and he drives his
Boster car all the time. UM, and it's had a
super positive experience and you know, so that he feels
a little bit smug with the gas prices up so much.
But the Midwest, the charging infrastructure is a lot better
(14:47):
than it is in the South. Um, and he wants
that he has more oftens. He still has to plan
it's route really carefully. He was telling me that, uh,
maybe he wouldn't want his wife growing on a long
road trip with the car because you know, he'd be
worried about her having the plan uh and you know,
not making it and um, but he used a strategy
and it really works for him. You know, he has
(15:08):
to put a little bit more thought into it. But
he saved He says that, you know, he saved thout
rods of dollars on gas. So it's awesome. So it's
another woman who also really loves her electric car. But
she was driving from her home uh in St. Louis
to Colorado for her daughter's wedding and had to be
towed because she ran out of juice on the highway twice.
(15:31):
She had to be to two different times. And you
know that was that was a fewer ours during the
too was having to be towed. There was one moment
where we thought we might have to be outside of Sikes.
Students are very thankfully we made it the gas station
on zero person art to the charging station on zero
person of the charging station was actually out of gas station.
But um, you know, I don't want to be the
(15:53):
person who's stranded because he can't just you know, you
could bring back a fuel tank, but you can't you
a whole a generator to your car. What was the
worst part of this whole experience? It could have been
hitting that gas station, that charging station at zero percent,
but was that the worst thing that happened on this
journey with regards to the charging and all that. You know,
(16:14):
what was the worst part? I think that was the
most nerve racking was being at zero percent. Um. You know,
the conditions were so bad and we were kind of
in the middle of nowhere um, and we really didn't
want to have to call a tow truck. Um. And
that was we had been on this trip forever at
that point, you know, felt like we were never going
to get home. So that was that was a real
(16:35):
low point at the trick. I think that another low
was just realizing, uh, in Meridian that we might not
make it to Chicago. Um, you know, we kind of
felt just seated by that. Three were charging time where
we were like, I guess we're not you know, exploring Nashville. Um,
you know, I just felt I felt guilty. I felt
(16:57):
like I had really uh over promised my friend. I
was like, it'll be so fun and all these cities
we did not hanging out in the city. You mentioned
in the story she had to get back for a
shift at her job and that, you know, it's getting
very iffy if you'd even make it back for that
part of it. It was. It was really tight. I
(17:17):
love this story for a lot of different reasons, but
it's kind of a story of a typical person. Let's say, hey,
I wanted to rent an electric vehicle. Let's try this
road trip out any per normal person who's going to
pull out an app just like you did and say,
let's map this trip along our charging stations and uh,
you know. So in that sense, it's it's a very
typical type of story. I know you received a lot
(17:38):
of feedback for this story. A lot of people may
be saying, why didn't you rent a Tesla, why didn't
you use the Tesla network. That's all well and good,
but that's not really the point, right. I love the
point of that. This is our public infrastructure, of these
public charging stations that we have right now, and that's
such an important thing when we're talking about putting money
into this and yeah, exactly, So how do you respond
(18:00):
to that? Yeah, I mean we intentionally did not rent
a Tesla because Testlas. Testlas can charge with public charging infrastructure,
but only Testlas can charge using Tesla charges, And so
the Kia is more affordable for multi sumers UM. And
(18:23):
you know, it's one brand versus you know, potentially like
any any and every brand of electric car. So all
Tesla's makeup a percentage of the electric car market right
now when we're thinking about the future of electrification. You know,
it's not just one company. So I didn't I can
(18:43):
retriten to Tesla. I don't have any experience, like nothing
against Tesla UM. But uh, it was intentional that we didn't.
We been used to Tesla for this trip um and
you know, probably I believe the owners would say would
have been would have been easier with one. But that
was the point, you know, so that we would have
(19:04):
a bad time. It was to see, you know, can
you do it? You know, car these class are getting
so much more popular so it's writing. But you know
what would happen if you try to drive to Chicago.
Nothing good. Rachel Wolf, consumer trends reporter at The Wall
Street Journal. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks
so much for having me. That's it for this weekend.
(19:26):
Be sure to check out The Daily Dive every Monday
through Friday. Join us on social media at Daily Dive
Pod on Twitter and Daily Dive Podcast on Facebook. Leave
us a comment, give us a rating, and tell us
the stories that you're interested in. Follow The Daily Dive
and I Heard Radio or subscribe wherever you get your podcast.
This episode of The Daily Dive has been engineered by
(19:46):
Tony Sargentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and this
was your Daily Dive weekend. A vision
Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend edition. I'm Oscar Ramirez,
and every week I explore the top stories making waves
in the news and some that are just playing interesting.
I'll connect you with the journalists and the people who
know the story and bring you news without the noise
so you can make an informed decision. You can catch
a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday,
and it's ready where you wake up. On the weekend edition,
(00:27):
I'll be bringing you some of the best stories from
the week. Throughout the pandemic, Americans went on a fast
furniture buying spree, and very soon it can all be
going in the trash. Fast furniture is mass produced and
relatively inexpensive. Think of something you might find it at
Kia or Wayfair. Each year we threw out more than
twelve million tons of furniture, and some of the materials
(00:48):
and fast furniture don't break down or biodegrade. These items
are only meant to last about five years or so,
so the next spot for them is the landfill. For
more on what to know about fast furniture, will speak
to Deborah came In, contributor to The New York Times,
a lot of people think of fast furniture as only
coming from stores like Ikea or Wayfair Amazon. You think
(01:09):
it the stuff that comes in the flat pack and
you've got to put it together, you know, with the instructions.
I don't have any words. And that is all true.
But according to some environmentalists, even the nicer stuff that
some of us consider pretty expensive, like Create and Barrel
or Seaton two or west Down even are considered fast
furniture because of the environmental impact of the way it's manufactured.
It's made in a factory, mass produced, so a lot
(01:30):
of carbon emissions, a lot of waste. They also call
that fast furniture. As I mentioned that five year thing.
You know, some of this stuff they say, you know,
it's not gonna last that long, and we're looking for
sturdier pieces. Maybe they can last a decade or longer.
That's the more sustainable stuff. It's just gonna not gonna
be thrown away as easily. So what's the worry now?
Obviously it's going to clog up landfills, and you, as
(01:52):
you mentioned, the process behind making them obviously is wasteful too, right,
So we're buying a ton more furniture and the furniture
we're buying is not made as well. It's made from
material of it don't break down and in essence, because
we're putting it together in our homes, it doesn't last
as long. So as it falls apart, what do you
do with it? You throw it away. You're not going
to take a lack table from Ikea and sell it
on Craigslist for twenty bucks. It's not worth your time.
(02:13):
I mean, you walk on the streets of New York
City at the end of the month, you see furniture
on the curb everywhere. That stuff ends up in landfills,
and it's further than fifty percent more than it has
been a couple of decades ago. We are throwing away
so much furniture. A lot of Americans don't realize that
the way that we furnish our homes now is having
a huge impact on the environment. Each year, Americans are
throwing out more than twelve million tons of furniture, and
(02:37):
the e commerce furniture market is worth twenty seven billion dollars.
This is from you know, a lot of people don't
obviously look into how the stuff's made, and you know
the after effects. But people love this the fast fashion stuff,
you know, is a comparable thing that a lot of
people point to. But the fast furniture stuff, I mean,
it lets a lot of people really design their homes,
furnished their homes at a really good price point, and
(02:58):
obviously that's what a lot of people are looking into. Yeah,
I mean, that's actually a key issue here, and I
really wanted to emphasize this in the story that I wrote.
This is not anybody's fault, and you shouldn't feel bad
if you have fast furniture in your home. I have
a wayfair desk that I said at that I wrote
this article at. The problem is that furniture the way
it's manufactured now, it's so expensive to buy the good
stuff that most people just can't And we also move
(03:19):
so frequently in our lives that it doesn't make sense
to buy a ten thousand dollar couch for most of
us if we're going to have to move on from
our apartment in six months. So we're all kind of
trapped in this cycle where we have no choice except
to buy stuff that is really not good for the environment.
And you mentioned buying that big couch, right, So even
throughout the pandemic, a lot of people who were making
some of those purchases know the pains of trying to
(03:42):
get furniture right. Some of this stuff was you know, say, hey,
I want to buy a couch, Well it's going to
be seven eight months maybe, And so the fast furniture
category really filled that whole. You know, you maybe take
you a couple of weeks still or a few weeks
to get something, but at least you can get something
that you needed immediately. And even with people that landlord
words and stuff, people with the short term rentals all
(04:02):
that stuff really look to this category to fill their stuff. Yeah,
there are other options on the market. Increasingly, a lot
of new companies are being founded that are trying to
solve this problem and also fill the gap. So there's
lots of new options to purchase furniture second hand or
to refurbish it. And I would really encourage people if
they are concerned about fast furniture but don't want to
drop ten k on a couch, to look into those
(04:22):
options in these new companies where you can buy things
that maybe are gently used but are still in really
good condition. And the best thing about them is they're
in stock. They don't have to be manufactured when you
buy them. Yeah, let's focus a little bit more on
though so too that you mentioned in the article. One
is Kyo and there are market Polace for pre owned furniture.
They said they kept more than three point five million
pounds of furniture out of refills. And another one is Furniture.
(04:43):
So this is a rental subscription service. Yeah, it's actually
it's more like a rent to buy. So you can
rent furniture, but at any point you think, wow, I
really love this. Instead of paying you ten dollars or
twelve dollars a month for the lamp or the chair,
you can just pay out the rest at the end.
But if you're locked in a six month lease, then
you don't know if you're going to renew. It's a
good option to buy furniture that maybe is slightly higher
(05:03):
quality without having to pay the full price because they're
not going to be able to use it for an
extended period of time. What have some of these companies
said for their part, at least what they're trying to change,
how they're trying and maybe not to contribute to a
lot of waste. I know you spoke to a Wayfair
and IKEA and got some type of statements from them. Yeah,
so wayfair an Ikea. Both they are aware of the
environmental impact of the work that they do and they
(05:25):
are making efforts to become more sustainable, and I want
to say those efforts really are admirable. As Kea has
a huge sustainability pledge. They're trying to make sure that
they become clebon neutral by twenty thirty. Wafer also has
a lot of sustainability initiatives on their website. They're trying
to use better materials and cut carbon emissions. The bigger
problem is the fact that we are all refurnishing our
homes every time we move. So even if you are
(05:48):
using more sustainable practices, there's still a lot of waste
every time you throw up furniture because there's furnitures on
a product that is very easy to resell. And that's
why these other companies like Kyo and Furnish are stepping
into that middle ground. So if you have a piece
of furniture that you don't want to use anymore, there's
an option for putting it into the circulation for someone
else that doesn't involve just leaving it on the curb.
(06:11):
You spoke to a few people that either out of necessity,
had to go with a fast furniture stuff or there
was also a homeowner that you spoke to that change
his mind about it and actually learned how to make
furniture so that he can furnish his old classic house.
How did those conversations go. Yeah, this was a fun
piece to report because I talked to a lot of
different people about all these different ways that they're living
(06:32):
and how furniture kind of emphasizes their choices. But this
one guy, Doug Green, he bought a two hud year
old house and he renovated day and then he just decided,
I spent so much time making the walls on the
floors of these rooms beautiful, I don't want to buy
cheap furniture to put inside of it. So he actually
taught himself how to make his own furniture. So he
built his own dead and he built his own table,
(06:53):
and he and his girlfriend made this into a project.
This is obviously an extreme example, but I thought it
was a very interesting take on someone saying I don't
want to have materials in my home that don't match
the quality of the home itself. Totally. Yeah, I mean,
but You're right, there's a lot of time that goes
into it, and a lot of people and a lot
of privilege just can't do that. Yeah, exactly. So then
you know, as we mentioned right, some of this fast
(07:14):
furnitures of the materials just don't buy a degrade. They
don't break down the right way. If we're in that
category and we're looking at good price points, is there
something that consumers should be looking at to at least
help with this, Yeah, I mean you can. When you're
looking to purchase furniture. First of all, one thing you
can do is you can check online reviews, especially if
you're buying something that's mass produced, so you can find
out on those reviews how long these products tend to
(07:35):
last and be durable. And if a lot of reviews
are saying this piece broke after a year, or this
really didn't this bunk that I didn't hold up to
my kids jumping on it or whatever, it's probably not
a goal idea to buy that product because chances are
it's also not gonna last for you and you're gonna
end up throwing it out. The other thing is you
can try to find products that are made from solid
materials as opposed to manufacturing materials. The price point might
(07:56):
be a little bit higher, but at least you know
that you're purchasing something that one it's being manufactured, the
production is slightly more sustainable than it would be if
it were something like plywood or manufactured would And the
best thing you can always do is try to shop secondhand,
try to shop by nothing, try to you know, purchase
items that are already in circulation and don't have to
be created. Do And that's that's a sustainability rule for everything,
(08:20):
for the clothes that we wear. We should all be
trying to buy less and reuse more because climate change
is real. Deborah came in contributor to The New York Times.
Thank you very much for joining us, Thank you for
having me. It was fun. Finally for this week, what
does a road trip look like in an all electric vehicle?
(08:41):
For one reporter, it was kind of a nightmare. The
trip did cost less money for fuel, but more time
was spent charging than sleeping. To be clear, this trip
used public charging infrastructure on a trip from New Orleans
to Chicago and back. Not all charges were fast chargers,
and not all of them are created equal charging speeds.
Varied every time. For more on her four day EV
(09:02):
road trip, will speak to Rachel Wolf, consumer trans reporter
at the Law Street Journal. Yeah, it was, you know,
to put it mildly, a road trip from hell u
we The headline of the story is we spent more
time charging than we spent sleeping. I went with my
friend Mac and you know, wouldn't wouldn't do it again
(09:22):
anytime soon. I think a lot of it was traveling
through the South, where public charging infrastructure is particularly lacking,
and you know, it's really exciting all the planned investments
and there's promise of things getting a lot better, but
for now we were stuck with um really slow with
(09:42):
chargers and not a whole lot of options, especially between
New Orleans and or first stop with in Nashville. We
also drove back from Chicago because we had to return
the rental car, and between Memphis and New Orleans was
also pretty dicey. You know, if one charger was out
of warror, which thankfully they weren't, we really would have
(10:03):
been even even more screwed. Are eighteen hours was, you know,
having things go about as well as they could have,
aside from this true weather we experience, but Um, you know,
it's I think, and the weather and all that stuff.
I mean, those are all things that are going to
experience on a road trip. But the particulars are having
(10:24):
to deal with not stopping at already readily available gas
station and filling up and going in a matter of minutes, right,
having to stay there in charge on these chargers that
sometimes aren't fast chargers. So let's talk a little bit
about the parameters of everything. As I mentioned, you guys
were in a Kia e V six. It was a
two thousand mile road trip. You use the plug share app,
(10:45):
which has kind of a map of public chargers. Tell
us how that worked out. Still, the plug for app
helped you every place that you could possibly charge, uh,
you know, in the whole country. Um, and we sorted
by fast chargers are actually they're a different color on
the map. And so you know, we understand, as somebody
(11:08):
who reports on electric cars, although I don't own one,
the difference between a fast charger which offers charge and
speeds up to three and fifty kill a lots, which
is super fast. Most most cars cann except that much power.
But there's a big range of bigger range that I
knew going into the trip and all of my reporting.
You know, I just knew that there were these three
(11:29):
levels of chargers, um, and I never really thought more
about it because I had never charged a car myself,
and I think that that would be a pretty you know,
it's pretty typical thing to expect the fast charger is fast. Um.
We learned that that is not necessarily the case. There
is this huge range and fast chargers start at about
twenty four kill lots, which the difference between twenty four
(11:50):
and three fifty uh is huge. The difference of spending
three hours walking downtown to Meridy in Mississippi because we
don't want to stay at the Keya dealership where our
car is plugged in. You know, that charger had trouble
even cracking twenty kill lots, super super slow. Um. We're
(12:11):
also we ended up meeting to use a level too
charger at one point because we just didn't make it
to our next fast charger. And where the fast, where
the true fast chargers are, they're great. Um. We had
some really positive charging the experiences as well, which I
read about in the piece. You know where it works,
It really does work, and we didn't mind the half
(12:32):
hour stops. You know, we would have lunch struct our legs.
That wasn't the issue. You know, stopping for half an
hour really it isn't going to be what changes your
whole stay. So if you're planning a trip that's seven
hours and it takes eight whatever who planning trip that
takes that's supposed to be seven hours and it takes fifteen, uh,
(12:53):
which we experience, so you know, that's a little bit.
So some of these fast charging stations, they'll say, you know,
you can get sent charge in about twenty thirty minutes.
As you mentioned, a lot of these along the way
sometimes are these lower level two charges, so that's like
an eight hour charge, eight hours for a full charge.
And you made mention in the article, right, so that's
easy if you're staying somewhere overnight, that's a overnight charge,
(13:15):
and you're totally cool. But you know, as you keep
going along the road, yeah, you're gonna have to make
these pit stops for some of them, and you know,
if it's not going to be that thirty minute charge,
it's gonna take three hours. And you mentioned in the
article some of them took that long. That's when you
start really pushing back the overall trip exactly. UM. And
that's when you start really wondering what you're gonna do
(13:39):
for three hours in a place that you did not
expect to be second, um and so and your car
list and so you know, we end up getting a
really nice new in Murty in Mississippi. UM, but we
hadn't planned for it and had to walk the thirty
minutes downtown because our car was charging. So you know,
the charging stop might up where you want to hang out.
(14:02):
You ran into a lot of people obviously along the
way who were also charging. How did some of those
conversations go because a lot of them overall still had
pretty positive experiences, especially when you're seeing gas prices tick up.
You know, they appreciated some of those things, but you know,
maybe they weren't on a two thousand mile road trip
like you were. But at least phillis in on some
of the conversations you were having with other electric vehicle owners.
(14:26):
One HED owner who has a Ford Mustang Mackie and
he travels a lot for work and he drives his
Boster car all the time. UM, and it's had a
super positive experience and you know, so that he feels
a little bit smug with the gas prices up so much.
But the Midwest, the charging infrastructure is a lot better
(14:47):
than it is in the South. Um, and he wants
that he has more oftens. He still has to plan
it's route really carefully. He was telling me that, uh,
maybe he wouldn't want his wife growing on a long
road trip with the car because you know, he'd be
worried about her having the plan uh and you know,
not making it and um, but he used a strategy
and it really works for him. You know, he has
(15:08):
to put a little bit more thought into it. But
he saved He says that, you know, he saved thout
rods of dollars on gas. So it's awesome. So it's
another woman who also really loves her electric car. But
she was driving from her home uh in St. Louis
to Colorado for her daughter's wedding and had to be
towed because she ran out of juice on the highway twice.
(15:31):
She had to be to two different times. And you
know that was that was a fewer ours during the
too was having to be towed. There was one moment
where we thought we might have to be outside of Sikes.
Students are very thankfully we made it the gas station
on zero person art to the charging station on zero
person of the charging station was actually out of gas station.
But um, you know, I don't want to be the
(15:53):
person who's stranded because he can't just you know, you
could bring back a fuel tank, but you can't you
a whole a generator to your car. What was the
worst part of this whole experience? It could have been
hitting that gas station, that charging station at zero percent,
but was that the worst thing that happened on this
journey with regards to the charging and all that. You know,
(16:14):
what was the worst part? I think that was the
most nerve racking was being at zero percent. Um. You know,
the conditions were so bad and we were kind of
in the middle of nowhere um, and we really didn't
want to have to call a tow truck. Um. And
that was we had been on this trip forever at
that point, you know, felt like we were never going
to get home. So that was that was a real
(16:35):
low point at the trick. I think that another low
was just realizing, uh, in Meridian that we might not
make it to Chicago. Um, you know, we kind of
felt just seated by that. Three were charging time where
we were like, I guess we're not you know, exploring Nashville. Um,
you know, I just felt I felt guilty. I felt
(16:57):
like I had really uh over promised my friend. I
was like, it'll be so fun and all these cities
we did not hanging out in the city. You mentioned
in the story she had to get back for a
shift at her job and that, you know, it's getting
very iffy if you'd even make it back for that
part of it. It was. It was really tight. I
(17:17):
love this story for a lot of different reasons, but
it's kind of a story of a typical person. Let's say, hey,
I wanted to rent an electric vehicle. Let's try this
road trip out any per normal person who's going to
pull out an app just like you did and say,
let's map this trip along our charging stations and uh,
you know. So in that sense, it's it's a very
typical type of story. I know you received a lot
(17:38):
of feedback for this story. A lot of people may
be saying, why didn't you rent a Tesla, why didn't
you use the Tesla network. That's all well and good,
but that's not really the point, right. I love the
point of that. This is our public infrastructure, of these
public charging stations that we have right now, and that's
such an important thing when we're talking about putting money
into this and yeah, exactly, So how do you respond
(18:00):
to that? Yeah, I mean we intentionally did not rent
a Tesla because Testlas. Testlas can charge with public charging infrastructure,
but only Testlas can charge using Tesla charges, And so
the Kia is more affordable for multi sumers UM. And
(18:23):
you know, it's one brand versus you know, potentially like
any any and every brand of electric car. So all
Tesla's makeup a percentage of the electric car market right
now when we're thinking about the future of electrification. You know,
it's not just one company. So I didn't I can
(18:43):
retriten to Tesla. I don't have any experience, like nothing
against Tesla UM. But uh, it was intentional that we didn't.
We been used to Tesla for this trip um and
you know, probably I believe the owners would say would
have been would have been easier with one. But that
was the point, you know, so that we would have
(19:04):
a bad time. It was to see, you know, can
you do it? You know, car these class are getting
so much more popular so it's writing. But you know
what would happen if you try to drive to Chicago.
Nothing good. Rachel Wolf, consumer trends reporter at The Wall
Street Journal. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks
so much for having me. That's it for this weekend.
(19:26):
Be sure to check out The Daily Dive every Monday
through Friday. Join us on social media at Daily Dive
Pod on Twitter and Daily Dive Podcast on Facebook. Leave
us a comment, give us a rating, and tell us
the stories that you're interested in. Follow The Daily Dive
and I Heard Radio or subscribe wherever you get your podcast.
This episode of The Daily Dive has been engineered by
(19:46):
Tony Sargentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and this
was your Daily Dive weekend. A vision
The Daily Dive News
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.