tool - The Environment Report

Mechanic Mike Beukema just opened his own shop, Enviro Auto Plus, after working as a Toyota mechanic for 18 years. He specializes in fixing hybrids. He says there's a pretty big learning curve, especially when it comes to dealing with the high voltage battery. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
High voltage lines are usually encased in orange plastic in hybrid cars. (Photo courtesy of Macomb Community College)
Working on hybrids means using high voltage-rated gloves, like the kind linemen use when working on electric lines. It's also advised to wear leather gloves on top of the high voltage gloves. (Photo courtesy of Macomb Community College)
Automotive technology instructor Dan Claus teaches mechanics and emergency responders how to handle hybrid batteries safely. (Photo courtesy of Macomb Community College)

These days, hybrid gas-electric vehicles make up just a tiny fraction of total car and truck sales. But that’s expected to change. With higher gas prices…
demand for hybrids is
going up. And car companies are stepping up their hybrid production. But there’s a shortage of people who know how to fix hybrids. Rebecca Williams reports some mechanics are getting a crash course in hybrids:

Transcript

These days, hybrid gas-electric vehicles make up just a tiny fraction
of total car and truck sales. But that’s expected to change.
With higher gas prices… demand for hybrids is going up.
And car companies are stepping up their hybrid production. But there’s
a shortage of people who know how to fix hybrids. Rebecca Williams
reports some mechanics are getting a crash course in hybrids:

Mike Beukema’s been a mechanic for more than 18 years. So he’s seen
cars change a lot. But opening the hood of a hybrid car… that pretty
much changed his life:

“This car just fascinates me altogether so that was the perfect fit.
When it came out, I says this is what I want to be all about!”

He loves the technology. He loves that every time you hit the brakes
you recharge the car’s battery. He loves all the little computers that
tell him exactly what needs fixing.

But there’s one thing that took some getting used to:

“The whole issue of safety was freaky at first because you almost
didn’t dare work on them because they were letting you know exactly how
dangerous it was.”

It’s dangerous because you can get zapped by the high voltage battery.

“These have circuit fuses in ’em at 15 amps – there’s plenty of power
there. Not something you want to mess with.”

You can actually get electrocuted.

Mike Beukema’s got experience with hybrids. He worked at Toyota when
the first generation Priuses came out.

Beukema says the high voltage batteries are pretty intimidating for the
professionals, let alone backyard mechanics. And to really know what’s
wrong with a hybrid system, there’s a big thick manual you have to
read. And c’mon, who wants to read the manual?

Beukema says all this means working on hybrids is a pretty big shift
for mechanics. He says at this point most people who know how to fix
hybrids work at dealerships. There aren’t a whole lot of independent
shops that can fix them. That could be a problem if you like to shop
around to save money on car repair. Or if you break down in the
middle of nowhere.

That’s why, here and there, hybrid classes for independent mechanics
are popping up.

Kurtis LaHaie teaches auto tech classes at Macomb Community College in
Michigan. He recently started hybrid classes here. Today, he’s got a
room full of high school auto tech teachers.

He’s holding their attention… even after lunch.

“Too many volts, too many amps, you’re being cooked, literally inside.”

Then he pulls out the face shield and the big orange gloves.

“Now, as a technician, we’re going to need some new tools. These are
lineman’s gloves – people up on telephone poles? That’s what they wear.
That’s what we’re going to wear, same thing.”

LaHaie says electricity can get through even a tiny pinhole in the
gloves… so you have to be careful.

There’s also a big shepherd’s hook you’re supposed to have on hand.
Just in case you have to save your buddy from being electrocuted by a
live battery.

Joe Hart had his eye on that shepherd’s hook. It’s not the kind of
thing that helps sell a guy on hybrids:

“I’m an internal combustion guy, a technician, but you’ve gotta embrace
change and you’ve gotta accept the fact that we’re going to move from
an oil society at some point and I want to be there when it happens, I
want to be ahead of the game rather than trying to catch up.”

Hart might not have much of a choice.

Instructor Kurtis LaHaie says even new internal combustion cars are
getting more complicated. Let alone hybrids:

“If you don’t keep up, you’re going to fall by the wayside. The old
backyard mechanics, they’re very hard to maintain these cars, they’re
very sophisticated. This is just the next level for them to get into.
There’s room for everybody but I think the guys who take the lead in
this, especially now, will take the lead in the future and will do very
well.”

(Sound of grandfather clock chiming)

Mechanic Mike Beukema is hoping that’s true. After a long career at a
dealership, he’s just opened his own shop specializing in hybrids.
Right now, it’s a little lonely for him.

“I’m the service writer, the person that answers the phone, the person
that fixes your car, and person that collects your money – so I am, I
guess, everything here right now.”

Beukema says with any luck, that won’t last too long. He sees his shop
getting big enough that he can quit fixing cars himself. His dream is
to hire guys fresh out of trade school and train them to be experts on
hybrids and other cars of the future.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Transcript

This dump truck is getting ready for a load of salt for a coming
winter storm. Salt helps make icy roads safer. It helps prevent
people from slipping and falling on sidewalks. And… it’s pretty
cheap. But there are problems with salt. Salt pollutes and salt
corrodes.

Mark Cornwell has spent a good deal of his career trying to convince
highway crews that there are better ways to keep things safe and reduce
how much salt is dumped on roads and sidewalks:

“Salt basically damages just about everything it comes in contact
with. Salt moves through concrete and attacks structural steel,
bridges, roads, parking structures; it eats the mortar out of bricks
and foundations. It damages limestone, you know, just on and on and
on.”

So, even though salt is cheap, the damage it does costs a lot. It’s a
hidden cost that’s seldom calculated. Imagine the cost of having to
replace a bridge five years early because the structure is weakened by
salt. And then there are your direct costs: trying to keep salt
washed off your vehicle, and still seeing rust attack your car.

Cornwell says there are some cities and road commissioners working to
reduce the amount of salt spread on the roads. But in most places, the
political pressure to get the salt trucks out early, and laying it on
thick to keep drivers happy, outweighs any concerns about trying to
reduce the salt:

“I’m sure the public expects full attention to snow and ice. And they
have absolutely no understanding, however, of what it costs to provide
that.”

Nobody thought a lot about the damage salt was causing until the last
couple of decades. In a few places, the people responsible for keeping
the roads and walkways safe have been trying to reduce the amount of
salt they use and still keep public safety tops on the list of
concerns:

“So, this is our shops. The brine-maker is right here.”

Marvin Petway is showing me some of the tools in his arsenal to reduce
how much salt is used and still keep things safe. He works at the
University of Michigan, where there’s a goal to cut the amount of salt
used in winter in half. What they’ve learned is using innovative ways
of putting down salt can actually help melt snow and ice faster. One
way is to mix it with water to get the chemicals in salt working
a little more quickly:

“Why use 5 pounds of rock salt when you can use 2 gallons of liquid
salt? We’re able to get better coverage, quicker, better cost, and
we’re putting the material that is effective in reducing ice build-up
directly to the area where we don’t want ice located.”

The crews trying to reduce salt use computer assisted spreaders to
measure out only the salt needed, they mix in less corrosive chemicals
that make salt brine more effective, and even just wetting the salt in
dump trucks with chemicals all help to melt snow and ice faster and in
the end use a lot less salt.

Nothing is going to replace salt altogether, but those efforts can add
up to a lot less salt. That means less destruction of infrastructure.

But there are more reasons for reducing salt than the damage to
roadways and parking decks. Salt also damages the environment:

Mark Cornwell first noticed the effects of salt because he was a
horticulturalist. He’d work all spring, summer and fall planting
shrubs, make the grass green, tending beds of flowers. Then the winter
would come:

“Unfortunately what we were doing in six months of winter was
undoing everything we did in the other six months of the year.
If you’re going to get ahead, you’ve got to solve the problem
and in my mind, that was misuse of salt.”

Use too much salt and it kills plants. And it turns out the cost of
using all that cheap salt could be even greater than anyone guessed.
For decades, it’s been assumed that rain washed away most of the salt, but
studies in Ontario find that a lot of the salt doesn’t get washed
away.

Instead, a good deal of it is percolating down into shallow aquifers.
Researchers predict that in the future we’ll start find salt is getting
into the groundwater that supplies many of the wells where we get our
drinking water.

For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Tag: tool

High Tech, High Voltage Cars

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Road Salt Damage

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