The TechMobility Podcast
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The TechMobility Podcast
Ford’s $5B EV Gamble, The End of AOL Dial-up, and Geothermal’s Rise
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Remember the distinctive sound of an AOL dial-up connection? After 30 years, this iconic internet service is finally shutting down on September 30, 2025. While most of us have long moved on to lightning-fast broadband, approximately 200,000 Americans in extremely rural areas still rely on dial-up as their only gateway to the digital world. The contrast is stark—today's internet speeds are roughly 18,000 times faster than those early connections, enabling everything from streaming video to sophisticated AI applications that would have been unimaginable in the dial-up era.
Meanwhile, Ford Motor Company is making a $5 billion bet on what they're calling their "Model T moment." Just as Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing with the assembly line in 1913, the company now aims to transform EV production with a completely reimagined manufacturing approach. By dividing production into three simultaneous segments—front sections, rear sections, and batteries—Ford believes they can significantly reduce costs to offer electric vehicles at around $30,000. According to Ford President Jim Farley, this competitive pricing strategy is essential for survival against Chinese manufacturers who have already mastered producing affordable, well-equipped EVs. When Farley test-drove a Chinese EV last year, he was so impressed he didn't want to return it—a wake-up call that drove this aggressive new strategy.
Perhaps most exciting is the emergence of next-generation geothermal energy as a practical, clean power source. Unlike traditional geothermal, which is location-specific, new technologies like Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) and Advanced Closed Loop systems can tap into the earth's heat almost anywhere by drilling 10,000-26,000 feet below the surface. A Department of Energy report suggests these innovations could potentially provide 5,500 gigawatts of capacity—140 times more than conventional geothermal. What's particularly fascinating is that oil and gas companies, with their deep expertise in drilling and geology, are perfectly positioned to lead this transition to clean energy production.
Have thoughts on these developments? Want to share your perspective on the future of technology and mobility? Call or text the Tech Mobility hotline at 872-222-9793, or email talk@techmobilityshow.com. Your voice matters in this conversation about our rapidly evolving technological landscape.
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Welcome to the Tech Mobility Podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm Ken Chester On the docket. Ford's low-cost EV gamble, geothermal energy, has a moment and a Tesla news update To add your voice to the conversation, be it to ask a question, share an opinion or even suggest an idea for future discussion. Call or text the TechMobility hotline, that number, 872-222-9793, or you can email the show directly. Talk at techmobilityshow. For those of you on Substack, you can find me there too. Ken C Iowa. That's K-E-N, the letter C-I-O-W-A From the Tech Mobility News Desk.
Speaker 1:Welcome.
Speaker 2:You've got mail. Do you remember those days, the early days of the Internet? For most of us, if you're a person of a certain age, that is how you logged in. The company was America Online AOL for short and for most of us in the early days of the internet, the mid 1990s, this is what you did, and back in that day it took a while. You heard all the tones and you waited. You went, got a sandwich, grabbed a cup of coffee, do what you were going to do, because it was 56 millibits per minute. It was not very fast, oh my God. You could barely do anything back then. But for most of us that was a brave new world and the reason why I bring this up today. First of all, first shocker for me, I was shocked to find out that the AOL dial-up service still exists, is still active 30 years later. Service still exists, is still active 30 years later, and that some 200,000 Americans, this is their only way into the internet.
Speaker 2:Contrary to public belief, broadband service has not reached every nook and cranny of America. If you are in rural America and I mean really, really, really rural chances are good. This is it. This is it. If you're lucky enough to have satellite service. You're paying dearly for it and not everybody can afford that. The other reason why I bring this up is that do you believe that the average broadband connection now and I'm looking at this 18,000 times faster than what we were dealing with back in the day? It's just hard to fathom. You could not download music and videos. Forget it. That was not even a thing. You weren't doing that, you were barely email.
Speaker 2:For many of us, aol got the nickname of the internet on training wheels because they actually had a wall. You didn't really deal in the real internet when you logged into AOL, they had their own little kind of walled community for the longest. That was the way it was. That is where you live. That is where everything was. Next month, september 30th of this year, 2025, aol will finally turn off dial-up internet service. The AOL dialer and AOL Shield browser will go dark on the same day. How far we've come. I mean nobody hardly, that you probably know. You probably don't know anybody that actually uses dial-up service. And if you do have friends out in the extreme boonies and I mean places where phone wire don't hardly get, let alone internet service this might be the only thing, the only way they get it. They're not getting DSL, which was the forerunner to broadband. It was faster than dial-up, but still slower than what we have today.
Speaker 2:And you probably don't remember this is about 20 years ago the big blow up in broadband, everybody was spending money to put in fiber and cable. Most of those companies went broke and in a messed up way. It was good for us because the companies that prevailed bought that for pennies on the dollar. The early investors are the ones that took it on the chin. But because they took it on the chin it made broadband affordable for many people. But broadband had the same problem that regular good old phone service had back when it started in 1930s. When you get out and I mean out where the densities may be less than a person per square mile, where the densities may be less than a person per square mile, the capital expenditure required to bring you even a dial tone is prohibitively expensive, which is why in a big part of the United States, here in the upper Midwest and West, you have what we call mutual telephone companies, owned by the people who use the service. And then, thanks to the federal government and various acts passed in the late 1930s, made funding available for these companies to build out phone service. And the reason why I know this my first job out of college back in the day was working for a phone company in rural America. I ended up in the Midwest, so I know about these two and four party lines and the sparse the sparseness of connection and the value of that money. By the 1990s these phone companies actually ended up becoming cash cows because they could borrow money so cheap. They actually became the hubs of economic development for a lot of these smaller communities because they could hook them up and the phone companies that were out there in front who could get good service usually was able to help the city or town out in rural America land businesses. So there was a whole lot going on. But yeah, yeah, we now, as we are looking at, for a number of people maybe you get one gigabyte. Right now they're talking about 10 gigabytes, which for I don't know about you, but for me that's 10 times what I've got right now Because we got to have it immediately. They talk about this thing called latency and what that means is the time you wait to make a connection and they've got this down to nanoseconds. Our patience is so small. We want it and when we say instantaneously, we mean instantaneously.
Speaker 2:You would have never survived back in the early days of AOL because you're talking minutes to connect with. All that sound that you just heard, was all part of the experience of being connected to the rest of the world and for the first time in your lives. Back then, having the world literally at your fingertips. Of course websites didn't look like what they did today. Back then, having the world literally at your fingertips, of course websites didn't look like what they did today, and in the early days it was barely more than a texting service.
Speaker 2:But as speed increased, sophistication increased and what we could do on the internet increased because you had the internet. And then you had the naming convention that came in in 1993 called the World Wide Web, which gave us com, net and sum of everything and made addresses possible, websites possible and all this other great stuff. And then now, at speed, we've got robotics, we've got AI, all predicated on a fast connection to the rest of the world, a reliable, fast connection to the rest of the world. What we're looking at now is the infusion of AI and robotics into this framework, into this infrastructure. Where are we going next? Well, it's kind of a symbiotic relationship AI and robotics. To do things remotely requires low to no latency and extremely high speeds and the ability to transport large amounts of data.
Speaker 2:10 gigabit is the next threshold and they're trying to get we've talked about it here on this program, not just 5G, but we've talked about, in the next 10 years, 6g, which attacks a lot of this and makes it even more possible. What will we be talking about 30 years from now when we look back at the days when we had all of one gigabit and we thought we were living, we thought this was awesome. So long AOL, it's been fun, but it's time to put the training wheels up and go on and hopefully, for those people that don't, maybe they can afford or there'll be a situation where they can afford satellite service and that's a whole. Nother conversation of the haves and have nots in extreme rural America right now. Hence the importance of broadband for everyone. It has to be, it's no longer a option. Ford is retooling a Kentucky factory and introducing low-cost EV platform to compete for customers. You are listening to the Tech Mobility Show.
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Speaker 2:Social media is the main place to be these days, and we are no exception.
Speaker 2:I'm Ken Chester of the Tech Mobility Show. If you enjoy my program, then you will also enjoy my weekly Facebook videos, from my latest vehicle reviews to timely commentary of a variety of mobility and technology-related topics. These short features are designed to inform and delight. You Be sure to watch, like and follow us on Facebook. You can find us by typing the Tech Mobility Show in the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to our Facebook page.
Speaker 2:Social media is the place to be these days. And're no exception. I'm ken chester of the tech mobility show. If you enjoy my program, then you will also enjoy my weekly instagram videos, from the latest vehicle reviews to timely commentary on a variety of mobility and technology related topics. These short features are designed to inform and delight. You be sure to watch, like and follow us on Instagram. You can find us by typing the Tech Mobility Show in the search bar. For those of you that listen to podcasts, we have just the one for you. Hi, I'm Ken Chester. Tech Mobility Topics is a podcast where I upload topic-specific videos each week, shorter than a full show. These bite-sized programs are just the thing, particularly if, thank you If we could take you through the plant.
Speaker 1:To show you what is new and let you see what's going on and watch the things we do. If you could see the cars and trucks we're working on for you, you'd say incredible, Ford, that's incredible. If you knew how much money we're spending every day, both factories and people, to help us find the way. If you could see tomorrow the way it looks to us today you would say incredible. For that's incredible.
Speaker 2:For that's incredible, that commercial was introduced in 1977. And I picked it for this segment because it is so true with what Ford is getting ready to do. What Ford has recently announced in the trades and to the world is nothing less in their minds, according to Ford chairman and Bill Ford and Ford president Jim Farley, that this is their Model T moment. And if you're not familiar with corporate history history, henry Ford in 1913 revolutionized the auto industry with the launch of the assembly line. Now, he didn't invent it, but he adapted it actually from the meatpacking industry to work in the automotive industry and every single automaker around the world since then uses it that or some modification of that to manufacture cars. In recent times there was the Toyota lean management system, which took it to another level and introduced what they call Kaizen, which is continuous improvement on the line, and that was efficient, just-in-time manufacturing. Lean manufacturing tweaks on the existing system. Then, a couple of years ago, tesla turned the world upside down and reimagined the whole assembly line and said we can eliminate 25% of the cost of making a car by doing it different. Toyota, not to be outdone and we reported that here has also reimagined the assembly line as they know it, to squeeze out costs. And in the Toyota world they've got a line in Georgetown that can make just about anything they make on one assembly line. Anything they make on one assembly line in just literal, just in time. I mean literally maybe a week to 10 days from the time you order to deliver your vehicle from that plant.
Speaker 2:Now the ford motor company folks who brought this to us is spending a total of five billion dollars of $5 billion. They believe they've cracked the code to compete with the low-cost Chinese EVs. They're going to produce the first vehicle as a battery electric pickup under its new universal electric vehicle platform and they believe that they can generate eight different body styles from this EV platform and that they can keep it to around $30,000. Now Ford calls $30,000 low price. I don't know in whose world $30,000 is low. But okay, ford, okay, let's just say it's not expensive, let's go with that. They plan to fragment. In addition to everything else that they're doing in this new approach, they're going to spend that $5 billion. $2 billion of it is going to basically remodel their Louisville truck plant that's currently making the Ford Escape and the Lincoln Corsair. Those go out of production next year. They're going to retool that plant and spend a whole bunch of money, not to build another assembly line, but to reimagine it into three segments, where the front is built, the rear is built and the batteries are built simultaneously and they're brought together in final assembly.
Speaker 2:Here's one thing this article does not talk about that I am going to talk about. Anytime you simplify in the auto industry and you do things like that, you make more automation possible. Now for the consumer, that's a good thing, because it mitigates price increases and it guarantees continuous quality, each and every job, each and every time, each and every day. If you're an auto worker though not necessarily, because then they won't need as many autoworkers to build it there's no gasoline-powered engine. There's no transmission. The whole undercarriage is different. There's no exhaust system, no catalytic converter, no gas tank, hardly any fluids. There's no oil. There's no lubricants, hardly. There's no antifreeze. There's no transmission fluid's no oil. There's no lubricants, hardly. There's no antifreeze, there's no transmission fluid. All of that has an impact.
Speaker 2:But even in the midst of what you believe is going on in the world, ford feels that, in order to continue to be in business, that developing a low-cost EV platform is only the way. And remember, I told you, these automakers are global. They are not pinned in, dialed into just what's going on in one country, namely in the United States. They compete in hundreds of countries around the world and what is being demanded for globally is clean, dependable, lower cost EVs. That is what people want. China and their communist government, who can subsidize industries and basically dictate the way it's going to be, has been subsidizing this industry for years, and the leanest of the lean are now coming outside of China. They're selling in Europe, they're selling in Canada, they're selling in Mexico. Right now, yeah, there's 100% tariff for any Chinese electrics coming in the United States, and why you won't see them. But that doesn't mean that it's not going to impact manufacturers that do business in the United States and around the world, because at some point, things are going to change. If these automakers are going to be in business, they have to do business more than just in the United States, and they all do. They're in multiple countries and what Ford is saying right here and they were very, very specific Multiple countries. And what Ford is saying right here, and they were very, very specific. Jim Farley was very specific If we don't get competitive, the Chinese are going to wipe us off the map and we will not be an automaker anymore. That's the point. Jim Farley goes as far as to say that in the Louisville Kentucky plant this is going to be converted, that this model will be so affordable that the workers that build it will be able to buy it. And this has been going on.
Speaker 2:Ford didn't just start this because, like I told you, the auto industry is long lead times. It's like trying to turn a cargo or a container ship. It don't turn on a dime, it don't stop on a dime, neither does a railroad engine or train. It takes a mile even at low speeds. Auto industry same way. They've been working on this for three years and actually, far from Detroit, long Beach, california, they've been working somewhat in secret to undo the old ways of designing, engineering and manufacturing a vehicle. What drove Jim Farley to this? He drove an Exxon SUV last year. He said it was so enjoyable he did not want to give up the vehicle. Last year, he said was so enjoyable he did not want to give up the vehicle.
Speaker 2:China has figured out how to build low-price, dependable, equipment-laden EVs. We're keeping them out to nurture our own industry anything that any other country would do, but the clock is ticking. It's either get with the program or get run over. Jim Farley sees us at Ford. They've made the commitment. They're rolling the dice to the tune of $5 billion total including a new battery plant. Next-generation geothermal energy may soon be a practical alternative power source in the United States.
Speaker 2:This is the Tech Mobility Show. Do you listen to podcasts? Seems that most people do. Hi, I'm Ken Chester, host of the Tech Mobility Show. If you've missed any of our weekly episodes on the radio, our podcast is a great way to listen. You can find the Tech Mobility Podcast just about anywhere. You can enjoy podcasts. Be sure to follow us from Apple Podcasts, iheart Radio and many platforms in between. We are there. Just enter the Tech Mobility Podcast in the search bar. Wherever you listen to podcasts, social media it's the place to be. We're no exception. Hi, I'm Ken Chester, host of the Tech Mobility Show.
Speaker 2:Several times a week, I post to TikTok several of the topics that I cover on my weekly radio show. It's another way to keep up on mobility technology news and information. Several times a week, I post to TikTok several of the topics that I cover on my weekly radio show. It's another way to keep up on mobility, technology news and information. I've built quite a library of short videos for your viewing pleasure, so be sure to watch, like and subscribe. That's the Tech Mobility Show on TikTok. Check it out.
Speaker 2:As energy demand in the United States grows in an accelerated clip due to electrification, data center load growth and increased demand from the manufacturing sector, utilities are looking at everything within their power generation arsenal to meet the need. Geothermal energy may be a clean, firm, practical option. This is Top topic B. Now let me stop you right there, because if you heard what I said, then I need you to really listen to what I'm about to tell you. If you understand what geothermal is and it's capturing the earth's energy, the earth's heat, to turn water into steam, to use steam to turn a turbine and make electricity. And what you're thinking right now is Ken, hey, it's been around for years. I don't understand how this is all new and everything.
Speaker 2:Conventional, traditional geothermal energy was location-specific, meaning it had to be near outlets where this was already available. Ironically, that's only roughly 3% of the total power generation in the United States, and I need you to listen because I'm not talking about that. The key words is next generation geothermal energy, and to do that means I can drill anywhere, anywhere and make this work. There are a couple ways of doing it. Let me give you the couple of technologies that are going to drive this and then, if we've got time, I'll come back and give you some of the numbers. Next generation geothermal dramatically expands the available resources by engineering fractures in the subsurface, allowing almost anywhere with hot, dry subsurface rock to be a potential source of electricity. Listen to this A US Department of Energy report on next-generation geothermal energy estimates the available geological resources could provide. Get this 5,500 gigawatts of capacity in the United States, just the United States around 140 times as much conventional geothermal. 140 times as much more.
Speaker 2:Here are the two next-generation geothermal approaches closest to market. The first one's called enhanced geothermal systems, commonly known as EGS. It uses hydraulic fracking no, don't cuss, yeah that fracking to create subsurface fractures through hot rock 10,000 to 16,000 feet below the surface. Water injected into a well absorbs the heat while traveling through the fractures and exits through another well to the surface, where the heat is converted into electricity. That's the first one. The second one is called advanced closed loop systems, known as ACL. This creates a radiator-like closed-loop system of horizontal wells filled with fluid, meaning this water doesn't evaporate, doesn't go away. You don't need fresh water to make this work. These loops are deeper in the ground, 13,000 to 26,000 feet, potentially increasing the cost relative to EGSs. However, having a closed loop reduces overall water demand, which could boost feasibility.
Speaker 2:In arid regions. These approaches typically dig deeper and through harder rock than where most oil and gas drilling occurs. So drilling for next generation geothermal is currently and that's a key word currently more expensive than for traditional oil and gas. Let me stop right there. It is ironic that the technologies and the folks with the knowledge to do this are the oil and gas companies and, much the same way, they have developed different strategies of getting oil from the ground and using their technologies to drill deeper and actually drill sideways, which is new. They don't just drill down, they drill side to side. Now these next generation technologies being used in oil and gas fields, most likely in shale oil fields, can be applied to this next generation geothermal. It is the oil companies, the exploration and development companies that actually have the skill set and the geologists and the knowledge to work with these new systems, to actually bring this to market, if so desired.
Speaker 2:It won't surprise me at all to see some forward-thinking wildcatters tradition or maybe change from oil and gas exploration to maybe using the drilling knowledge and knowledge of rock formations and how this works to actually get into this next generation geothermal. They've got the knowledge of anybody in America. Right now it's the oil and gas companies, particularly the tip of the spear, literally, if you pardon the pun. The exploration and development companies have that resident knowledge and they can certainly be leaders to transition away from oil and gas. We talked a few weeks ago about the challenges in the shale oil fields. This could be a perfect way for them to transition to cleaner energy using everything that they've already learned about water and about drilling and about rock formations and about all of that stuff because they got to deal with it. Can you imagine?
Speaker 2:This McKinney report estimates that 900 million dollars in private capital has been channeled already towards next generation geothermal technologies and projects over the past five years Not what's going to happen, what's already been spent. Their analysis also suggests that more than 780 megawatts of letters of intent and power purchase agreements have been signed over the past two years and approximately one gigawatt of next-generation geothermal projects are in various stages of development. This is happening in real time now, and why? Because, one, the demand surge is stripping the ability of renewables to step up and, as this paper, as this white paper talks about, even with energy storage systems as they are today, you're looking at hours of available energy, not days, which is good for a spike or a need, a short-term need, but for reliable, consistent, like oil, gas, the stuff that they're moving away from. This is the next best guess.
Speaker 2:Now you might, if you've really been paying attention, you might say, yeah, I can, but what about nuclear? What about nuclear? You've talked about nuclear. Yes, I have. I talked about your small modular reactors, but right now they're still licensing and developing pilot reactors in the United States. We are years away from any commercial application of a small modular reactor. And then you still have less risk than a traditional nuclear plant, but you still do have risks.
Speaker 2:With geothermal you don't have any of that, none of it. It's clean. You're using the earth to generate electricity through steam and water. I mean, how pure can it get? And it's more consistent than the wind or the sun, and it's something they're working on and bringing to market and bringing online right now. It can certainly complement renewables Absolutely and it may be the stopgap until they figure out the nuclear reactor industry and whether or not these SMRs are going to work and are going to work at scale, and where they're going to put them. I thought I'd share Geothermal. It's having a moment and, unlike traditional geothermal, you can put them almost anywhere, depending on how far you've got to drill and how hot it gets down there. Those are two of the main things they look at. So if you're on a hot piece of ground, it's even better. They don't have to drill as deep even better, and that's what you'll be seeing in the years to come.
