February 26, 2025 • 47 mins
Oilstainlab is an innovative automotive company founded in 2019 by twin brothers Nikita and Iliya Bridan, both alumni of ArtCenter's Transportation Design program. Based in Signal Hill, California, the company has evolved from a design consultancy to a boutique automotive manufacturer, focusing on creating unique and boundary-pushing vehicles.
The company's tagline, "Where the past overtakes the future," encapsulates their approach to automotive design and engineering. Oilstainlab gained notoriety with their Half11 prototype, a striking orange and white race car that blends retro aesthetics with modern engineering.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
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Speaker 3 (01:14):
Welcome back to the show. Today, we have Nikita and
Ilya Bryden, cofounders at OilStain Lab. Guys, welcome to the
show.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Thank you for having us. Yeah. Happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah. I'm excited to have you guys on the show. I I
think what you guys are doing isactually really innovative and
cool, but maybe before we diveinto that, let's get to know
each one of you a little bitbetter. Nikita, do you wanna go
first, and then I'll let yourbrother go?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Sure. Yeah. I'll I'll, I'll start us off. We're
twins, so there's gonna be someoverlap.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
And Very cool. Very cool.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
So, yeah. Originally born in Ukraine and moved to
Canada when we were about two orthree. Grew up there, with a big
passion, obviously, for for forhockey, skiing, and
Speaker 3 (02:04):
and Whereabouts in Canada?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Halifax, Nova Scotia. Very far on the East East Coast.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Okay. I'm I actually live in Edmonton. So
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Okay. Yeah. So A little bit colder.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Nice area, though. It's a beautiful area. Okay.
Keep going. Sorry to interruptyou.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Yeah. No worries. And, so, yeah, I grew up in
Halifax, and then at 14 years ofage, decided, drop out of high
school and move to Italy, studycar design, and had, you know,
some some very nice parents thatsupported that crazy dream,
moved with us, let it happen.And then at 17, moved to
(02:41):
California to study car design.So that's kind of our our back
story before, sort of theprofessional career, where we've
been working for, yeah, last tenten or so years in California.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Okay. So how did how does that work, though, to go to
be so young and go study? Like,how did that work?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
So yeah. I mean, it's interesting. Right? Technically,
yeah, high school dropout, so nono high school diploma. You
know, going to our college isnot, let's say, the most
academically strenuous thing todo.
Right? Like, there's not a hugeamount of requirements other
than being able to draw well.So, yeah, I mean, it's it's
(03:28):
bizarre. It's strange. I thinkwithout our parents, we we
definitely wouldn't have beenable to do it, obviously, with
their without their support oranything.
But, yeah, we we actually gotaccepted into a different school
in The UK, Coventry, and theythey denied us as soon as they
found out how old we were, whichwas Oh, interesting. It was
heartbreaking. So we ended up inItaly instead.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Okay. Ilya, do you wanna give us a bit of a
background of yourself?
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Yeah. I mean, very, very similar, I guess. I'll I'll
I'll parlay it, until yeah.After Italy, we basically ended
up, coming to California,Pasadena, to to art center and
college of design, and, yeah,finished up our our college
degrees. After that, basically,yeah, we graduated and started
(04:14):
working professionally.
I worked at, Honda, or,actually, Toyota first. Spent, I
think a year, year and a halfthere, and then, Honda for
something like seven years.Worked on tons of production
cars, concept cars, race cars.Yeah. Our Acura DPI won two
world championships there, whichis super cool.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Mark, congrats. That's huge.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Yeah. That that's kind of yeah. Like, I don't
know. That's that's that'sthat's, like, peak. You know?
Production cars are cool, but,like, yeah, world championship,
like, one problem, and Toyotadriving your car, it's it's
pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
And then Yeah. No. %. That's really cool.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
And then after that, yeah, ended up going to a
Chinese brand. Actually, Istarted a brand new studio in,
Newport Beach and spent a fewyears there. Worked again on on
some concept car stuff, someproduction programs, and then
ended up going to, another startup, a company called Canoo. The
(05:21):
these the Porsche electricvehicles, and it has since gone
bankrupt. But, yeah, that was avery interesting time.
And and then, obviously, duringthis whole time, building and
developing, our our designstudio brand, Oil Stain Lab,
kind of on the side and theneventually jumping full time as
well. So yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Got it. Nikkita, do you wanna give us a bit of your
kind of career history aftergetting out of school?
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Yeah. Totally. So me and my brother went to together
to Toyota, like you said, andthen we both moved on to Honda.
So at Honda, I stayed there forthree years. And after those
three years, I moved on toHyundai and was part of the team
that was sort of helping launchGenesis as a brand.
(06:10):
And Okay. Four four months, Iquit. That was a very miserable
experience for me. I did not didnot like the work culture there
at all. So I quit after fourmonths and moved on to General
Motors Advanced, where we workedon really crazy stuff, flying
cars, all sorts of stuff, reallyadvanced things.
(06:33):
And after General Motors, Ijoined my brother at the Chinese
company for about a year, atGAC. And then after that, moved
on to kind of oil stain lab fulltime, working with a lot of
startups. So doing everythingfrom, you know, energy grid,
battery charging, to electricvehicles, to hydrogen vehicles,
(06:57):
to movie stuff, space stuff,just all over the place. And
that was sort of the heyday, Iguess, of Oil Stand Lab as a
design studio, and now it'schanged into a boutique
manufacturer of of vehicles.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Okay. So walk us through that journey, and and
why did you you make that switchto, you know, manufacturing
vehicles now?
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think we've we've always
had this passion for, you know,building real things. And
throughout our careers, I mean,luckily, we did build, you know,
show cars. We're involved inreal physical things, but 90% of
the work you do gets, you know,thrown out or trashed or never
seen. And, you know, I thinkanyone who anyone who likes real
(07:51):
things, who lives in the realworld wants to, you know, have
an impact on that.
And so we decide, okay. Like, wecan sketch, and we can render,
and we can do this. But,ultimately, we wanna build
something without other people'scompromises, like our vision.
What we Right. Would be, youknow, a a proper sort of vehicle
(08:14):
without, you know, guys fromfinance or guys from engineering
telling you you can't be donebecause we need to save, like,
2¢ on a door handle.
Right?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
So it's a very, you know, it's we call it the no
excuses project, and it's, youknow, it's been three years in
development. And, yeah, it'sbeen it's been a lot of fun, but
a lot of challenges, but it'sit's gonna be real very soon.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Okay. So walk us through kind of coming up with
the idea and and kind of whereit is today, and and when can
people actually, like, drive it?
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Sure. I think it's, yeah, it's a it's a long story.
I think I'll I'll try and take aa quick stab at this. But,
essentially, when we started OilStain Lab as the design
consultancy, one of the firstthings we wanted to do was to
build a visual business card, sothat people Okay. Kinda knew
what we stood for.
(09:11):
And so that's essentially whenwe started building our first
prototype, which was theoriginal half 11 vehicle. And
that one basically had kind of afake history. It was kind of
inspired very much by the pastand and Can Am Racing and Le
Mans and sports prototypes fromthe late sixties. And that
(09:35):
vehicle basically did did, yeah,I mean, it it did its job,
right, as a visual businesscard. People approached us.
We, you know, opened a lot ofdoors, for for our studio. But
at the same time, somethingkinda strange happened, and the
car started to develop, like, acult following. And as that kind
(09:57):
of following grew and the cargot invited to go to places and
events and stuff, there was alsopeople reaching out and asking,
like, well, can I buy one? Can Ido this? Can I do that?
And it was very much a handbuilt, one off vehicle. It was
never intended to bemanufactured or anything. And
so, yeah, that that that was thegenesis, I guess, to to create
(10:21):
the production program. And so,yeah, three and a half years
ago, four years ago, whatever itis now, we started the the
production, kind of design forthe vehicle. But, yeah, looking
at it from, modern engineering,modern design, modern technology
point of view, so almost kind ofrecreating that vintage feel for
(10:45):
for today's world.
And so, yeah, our firstprototype, I think we're we're
looking at, trying to get it upand running, I would say, like,
late April, May.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Okay. Interesting. So, like, I I don't know very
much about the car business,but, obviously, building a one
off is not without itschallenges, and it's not
challenging and time consuming.But making one vehicle is gonna
be a lot easier than, you know,making dozens or hundreds or
(11:19):
thousands of these things. Sohow did you kind of ramp up from
basically building somethingyourself to now trying to get,
like, an assembly line?
Or or how does that kind ofwork? Like, walk us through that
journey of actually turning itinto a production car that
people can buy.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Yeah. You've pretty much hit it, you know, the nail
on the head there. You know,anyone can build one thing.
Right? That's relatively easy.
It just takes, you know, a lotof elbow grease, some ingenuity.
I think, yeah, with cars,there's this interesting sort of
dilemma as it also requires aninsane amount of capital. Right?
(11:59):
Yeah. You know, this isn'tsomething you can sort of, you
know like, software isrelatively less capital
intensive, for example.
But hard goods, they requiretooling and manufacturing and,
you know, sophisticated sort ofengineering. So I mean, part of
part of it was figuring out,okay, how do you go about
raising the capital, to do this?So that was the first sort of
(12:23):
initial hurdle to clear. Andthen once that sort of sorted
itself out, it was assembling,you know, a world class team of
of engineers that understoodalso, again, that they're not
working for a huge company andthat budgets are tight. And how
do we go about creating a worldclass product without, you know,
(12:44):
spending a billion dollars?
So it's it's a very dauntingtask. I think many, many days
and many nights, we would sitand just be like, what the how
how are we gonna do this?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. So so I'm curious, though.
Are you using, like, parts fromother, like, manufacturers?
Are you building everythingyourself, a bit of both? How
does that kinda work?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah. Yeah. So the approach has been from the very
start to, again, be veryintelligent with budgets and
engineering, you know, timeframes and everything. And and
because of that, we are not ableto completely engineer
everything ourselves. Ourselves.
So there are items sense. That,for example, like, it it's gonna
(13:35):
be the items that really no onethinks about, an air
conditioning vent, for example.You know, you turn the knob, it
closes, it moves the air around.To reengineer, to do that from
scratch, to do 25 units makesabsolutely zero financial sense.
Right?
And it's already a good productthat's been engineered, and a
(13:56):
company like Ford or Hyundai orRolls Royce or whoever have
spent, you know, $2.03,$45,000,000 on this one vent. So
it'd be Sure. Sure.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah. Interesting. Right? Okay.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
And yeah. So it's it's these really small but
complicated items that we usestrategically that don't really
affect the user experience. ButRight. They they they add to it
in a way that it's veryprofessional and that it works.
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
No. Makes a lot of sense. And then I'm assuming
it's not hard to get some ofthose parts, whether you need,
say, 25 or, you know, 200,000kinda thing.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Yeah. I mean, you know, there's there's obviously
parts availability. Again, ifyou're intelligent about it, you
know, if if a part breaks onyour car, you can go buy it on
eBay or wherever. Right?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Right. I see. Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
If you're smart enough, you can you can sort of
design it so you don't reallyneed to sign a contract with
that company.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Interesting. Yeah. Okay. No. That makes sense.
So maybe walk us through some ofthe specs of the car. I know
it's kinda hard to talk aboutlike, visualize the car when
it's audio only, but can youmaybe try? Of course. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think as we've kinda
mentioned, it's it's nineteensixties inspired. So it's it's,
sort of romantic surfaces, not alot of lines or breaks, very
smooth.
And underneath, and and, youknow, is where all the
aerodynamic performance is.Right? So if you're familiar
(15:34):
with sort of high performancecars, there's always big
spoilers and things sticking offthe car. So we've eliminated all
that. We use kind of a what'scalled ground effect, so a big
diffuser underneath the car thatkinda sucks it down at high
speed.
And then on terms of the chassisside underneath, it's a carbon
fiber monocoque. So that'srelatively cutting edge these
(15:55):
days, with, front and rearsubframe. And for powertrain, we
use, we have two options. So youcan use either a combustion gas
engine, which is a flat six thatrevs to 12,000 RPM, makes a lot
of noise. It's a very nostalgicextreme sort of race motor
(16:17):
experience.
And we've also got the option ofa cutting edge electric power
train that is projected rightnow to be lighter than
combustion. So it's it's reallyrevolutionary stuff. It's paired
with a six speed manual. Itmakes noise. It's unlike any
other EV, basically, in theworld.
(16:38):
And so we've got these two veryextreme cutting edge powertrain
options. So, yeah, that's that'skind of the brief disturb of the
the project, I guess.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Okay. Very cool. So how like, is there kind of price
ranges for these things yet? Isthis still kind of too early?
Like, are you taking preorders?
Like, where are you kind of inthat in the sales process?
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Yeah. So we launched publicly in October. But prior
to that, we've been in reallyclose communication with a lot
of collectors and enthusiastsand, obviously, gathering
feedback. So we've got a prettylarge network of of individuals
that have been interested, haveknown about it. So, yeah,
(17:26):
pricing on the cars is, 1.8,with a single powertrain and
then 2.35 with both powertrains,and then client can basically
choose between the two.
So yeah. And
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Interesting. I mean Okay. No. Go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Yep. One thing to add that, I think he has mentioned
is between the two powertrainsis there's actually the
swappability aspect of it. So ifa client was to buy the two
engine options, we're basicallydesigning the car so that one
engine can get swapped in, and,for the other one in around an
(18:04):
hour, two hours, something likethat just by themselves. So,
that's kind of
Speaker 3 (18:08):
That's cool.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Very revolutionary kind of, yeah, aspect.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah. That that's actually really quite
fascinating because and this isprobably, like, a terrible
comparison, and maybe you have abetter one. But it's it's almost
like the right to repairbecause, like, people have been
complaining about that with,like, their iPhones for decades
now. Right? But the fact itsounds like your car, if I know
what I'm doing, I could do a lotof this stuff myself.
(18:36):
That fair to say?
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think that's a that's a
perfect that's a perfectexample. And, you know, I think
there's a lot of concern evenamongst, like, sports car
enthusiasts with EVs thatthey're not really able to
modify them or get into the codeor anything. So it's it's all
becoming very sealed and veryproprietary, and, you know,
(18:59):
that's not really what sportscar guys want.
They wanna tune their cars. Theywanna modify them. They wanna,
you know, be a part of thatmaintenance repair improvement
experience. So no. You you'reyou're absolutely a % correct.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Okay. So I wanna talk a little bit about the interior.
And I know maybe it's differentkind of in the the people you're
targeting, but are they are,like, your customers wanting,
you know, the touch screen kindof experience? Are they looking
for more the traditional analogkind of buttons and knobs, a
little bit of both? Maybe walkus through that.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Yeah. Yeah. So from a user sort of experience or
expectation, we're very muchtrying to be I guess, an analogy
would be like a time machine,you know, like, to go back into
it without necessarily losing alot of the functions. But the
way that you access them or theway that you use them, we want
(19:57):
them to be not modern. We wantthem to be very analog.
We want them to be very, youknow, button heavy, and sort of
physically intuitive rather thanscreens, which isn't to say that
we don't have modern amenities.It's just the way you interact
with them is is not not a touchscreen, not a and I think part
(20:18):
of it is, you know, at thatprice point, screens become I
mean, every car has a screen.Right? And the user Yeah. Yeah.
Isn't special enough. Right? Andso, you know, it it becomes the
analogy of, like, the AppleWatch versus a Rolex. Right?
Which one will retain value?
Which one is collectible? Whichone? And so it's a bit maybe old
(20:42):
fashioned, but that's where kindof the market expectations at.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
No. That makes sense. Well, I I think there's been
such a big resurgence of kind ofsome of the analog stuff. I
think the most basic examplethat people would probably
relate to is just, like, therecord like, records coming back
and, like, vinyl. And and then Ithink even a lot of people hate
the touch screens in their carbecause they have to go three or
four screens deep just to, like,you know, turn of their heat or
(21:10):
something, where some of the ifyou just had a button on there
that you you would just handleit, you know, like, kind of the
old school cars had.
Right?
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Yeah. Exactly. I think, Honda famously got in
trouble with their volumebutton. Right? They removed that
and then, like, three threemenus deep.
So,
Speaker 4 (21:28):
yeah,
Speaker 5 (21:28):
I I think the the challenge really is, you know,
how many buttons do you reallyneed in a car. Right?
Speaker 4 (21:35):
And Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
Certain features don't necessarily require a
button. They can be three, fourd, but it's just how do you
decide the kind of theorganization of all that? And, I
think every brand obviously doesit their own way. We for our
vehicle, we're trying tosimplify everything as much as
possible. So we we do havephysical buttons, but the amount
(21:59):
of controls and and and stuffthat you actually need, for
driving pleasure and and andeven going to a track day is is
kept to a minimum, you know.
So, it's it's bare necessities,and that's that's it kinda
thing.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah. I mean, to add, like, we're very, very
motorsport derived, and there'sno touchscreen motorsports
because when you're driving 200miles an hour at a track, like,
you can't look down at thescreen. Be like, oh, I gotta go
over here. It's all gotta beintuitive, physical, and, you
know, easy easy to adjust on thefly.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Fair enough. And I'm assuming you're kind of
targeting people that this thisisn't their, like, everyday
driver to and from the office.Like, they might take it on
certain days, but, like, it'smade for to have fun, basically.
Is that fair?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I mean, it's, we we, you know, jokingly refer to all
our clients and internally ourteam as well. Like, we're all
maniacs. You know? We're allthese
Speaker 3 (22:56):
crazy gearheads.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
And, you know, ideally, they would use this
every day. I mean, it it isrelatively comfortable, but we
don't expect everyone,obviously, to use it every day.
Only a true maniac would.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Fair enough. No. Okay. Cool. So I I'm curious,
though, is it connected to theInternet?
Because, obviously, like, ifit's the EV version, just
knowing where a charging stationis, or do I have to get it home?
Or or how does that kinda work?
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Yeah. I we're working on effectively having it connect
to your phone. So it's not we'retrying to, yeah, disconnect the
car from the grid or disconnectit from anything that could slow
it down or cause issues. I mean,obviously, we can do updates
(23:43):
over the air, but that would bedone in, for example, in a
garage, not at, like, aStarbucks parking lot or
something. So
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Right.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
It it's it's going to depend on the infrastructure
that already exists, likephones, etcetera, for data
transfer instead of having thosethings built into the car.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah. No. That's smart. That makes sense. So I'm
curious, like, maybe we we kindaskipped over it a little bit.
So you launched it to the publiclast October, and when are you
hoping to have it in your firstkind of early adopter's hands?
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Sure. Basically, start of production is going to
be like, the first customervehicles will be '26. So
Speaker 3 (24:33):
So not that long.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Yeah. Twenty five is essentially a year of
development for us of of thephysical first prototype, which
should be complete, late April,early May.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Right. Right. Okay.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
And then, basically, we go and we we test it. You
know? We take it to to tracks.We take it to proving grounds.
We do all the, typical stuff.
We do vibration tests. We dohigh speed testing. We do hot
weather testing, and just makesure everything is good, from
all our kind of virtual,planning, so to speak. And yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah. Okay. That's cool. So I'm curious. Are you
building your own manufacturingfacility to build the cars?
Are you outsourcing that tosomebody else? Like, walk us
through that.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah. It's, yeah, like I said, you know, it's been
a long three years of a lot ofplanning. You know? Think people
think of all the legalrequirements and the physical
and the supply chain andeverything. So, yeah, we've been
slowly building that out overthe last three years.
The vehicles will be, finallysort of assembled in in Canada.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Before we're home, we certainly wanna go back there.
And, do we so we use a number ofpartners for a lot of the
components. So, for example, thecarbon fiber monocoque chassis,
that's going to be built by a,you know, a group or a
manufacturing group, ascontract. And it's such a
(26:16):
specialized thing that there'sreally only, like, 10 shops in
the world or 10 manufacturersthat can do that. And it doesn't
make sense to sort of developyour own team, educate
everybody.
Nobody does that internallyexcept some of the biggest
automotive manufacturers in theworld. So usually, it's all sort
of contract manufactured bythese carbon fiber, you know,
(26:39):
factories, let's say. And so fora number of components like
that, obviously, we're notmaking our own brakes or brake
calipers. We use, you know,Brembo as a supplier, you know.
And so Right.
A lot of parts are gonna bebrought in. And then, you know,
we do manufacture a lot of sortof on the subframe stuff, like,
a lot of the stuff on theinterior. That's all
(27:02):
manufactured in house, through,you know, robotic machinery,
CNC, or, you know, carbon fibermolds, but less sophisticated
than what's required for a acarbon tub.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I see. Interesting. Okay. So where like okay. So
you're you've been building thisfor a number of years.
You're gonna, you know, startkind of test this. How do you
kind of iterate on this asyou're going forward? Because if
you're I guess, if you'rebuilding it in a way that it's
relatively easy to swap thingsout and people can kinda modify
(27:39):
it as needed, then you almosthave, like, the community
iterating with you and making itbetter. Is is that fair to say,
or does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, I understand the
sentiment. Certainly, the cars,one of our key goals was a a
modularity, simplicity to sortof repair, modify, etcetera.
We probably wouldn't wannaencourage a lot of modification
from the clients just from alegal point of view.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Okay. Fair enough.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
But certainly, yes, we can evolve the cars over
time, and depending on clientwishes. So, like, in in this
market segment, you know, aclient could say, hey. Listen. I
really wanna focus on trackdays. I wanna have more
performance.
Can we improve the cooling? Canwe improve the downforce? Can we
improve the mechanical grip? Canwe lose some weight here and
(28:37):
there? And so we would work withthem to improve those components
and those, you know
Speaker 3 (28:44):
I see.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Areas. And so it it's a little bit different where
it's, yeah, not someonenecessarily doing it in their
backyard, but they're doing itwith our team of, you know,
global experts and so we canmake sure everything is still
safe. Because the theperformance envelope is so high,
someone can get into, you know,a lot a lot of hurt really
quickly.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah. No. That makes sense. It's cool that you can
basically like, somebody couldget something so custom though.
Right?
Like, I don't know very manyother manufacturers that do that
much custom or am I am I missingthat?
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Yeah. I mean, it's certainly very, very, you know,
sort of rarefied air, let's say.Yeah. Okay. Ferrari will build
you a one off, but it's, youknow, 20,000,000.
So.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Right. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. So you guys have
obviously both been doing this along time, and and building and
designing things in the physicalspace is actually really
challenging.
What advice would you give topeople that are whether they're
building a car or not, justthings to think about and do
(29:50):
that you maybe wish you knewearlier on before you were kind
of in the middle of this?
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Oh, great question. Yeah. I think I think building
cars is one of the mostcomplicated things in the world.
I think, you know, probablyairplanes and and spaceships are
a little more difficult.Granted, I think they have a
little less stylisticinvolvement,
Speaker 3 (30:14):
or emotional
Speaker 5 (30:15):
conflict to them. But, I I think no matter what,
we were very lucky, andprivileged to work for OEMs.
Right? And there, you're exposedto all the facets of the
business. And I think if you oneday want to do whatever it is,
(30:36):
architecture, airplanes, cars,products, whatever, the best
thing you can do is essentiallygo to the most successful
places, the biggestcorporations, and and like a
sponge, eat up all theinformation you can from every
different department.
Just pick the brain of all thegeniuses and smart people, and
(30:59):
basically absorb it. Right? I Ithink at the end of the day,
you're just a reflection ofeverything you've been exposed
to, essentially, and what you'vebeen able to absorb. So, yeah,
my biggest advice is just justbe, like, a sponge for
information. In terms of, like,on our particular project, what
(31:25):
I wish gosh.
That's that's a great question.You have anything to add while I
think?
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Yeah. No. I mean, I I would say, you know, the
advantage of, or sort of notbeing afraid to make mistakes, I
think that's, you know Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
That's really good advice.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Whenever things get physical, I think people
realize, like, if you make amistake as it has a, you know, a
monetary cost, a a a time cost.Right? Because it's a physical
product. You know? For example,if you're if you're just doing
some code or you're drawing inPhotoshop or you're doing
something digital, like, you canstart over.
Like, yeah, there's some sunktime, but there isn't a physical
(32:06):
cost. So it's like once youstart prototyping, you know, and
and I think that leads to a lotof paralysis. It leads to a lot
of people sort of freaking outand but nothing is ever perfect,
you know. And and the cars fromand, you know, other products,
they're never perfect. And, youknow, if you go talk to those
teams, they're like, oh, I wishwe could've done this.
(32:27):
Wish we could've fixed that. Andso, yeah, being being we I think
we are both of us are areperfectionists, but also we have
a a really good ability to justpivot when something's messed up
and just be like, alright. Wegotta embrace that. Like, let's
keep moving. You know?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah. No. I I think that's that's actually really
good advice. You guys mentionedsomething maybe earlier on in
the interview. Obviously, you'vehad some probably challenging
days, weeks, maybe even months.
How did you guys persevere anddecide not to quit? Because I
think a lot of times people arejust about to the, you know, the
(33:08):
top of the mountain, and theygive up before they really give
it a good shot. So advice forkind of keeping with it?
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Gosh. There's been so many times I thought I was at
the top of the mountain. I mean,the mountain is 10 times taller.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Fair enough.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
We're very I I think we're very lucky that there's
two of us. You know, so it'svery rare for both people, as
cofounders and basically thelead motivators. And it's very
rare for both of us to be downat the exact same time. Right?
So Right.
I I think that's a hugeadvantage. You know? I think
having just the team that cansupport you.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Yeah. I I think exactly that. I I think we call
each other, each other'senabler, basically, and it's,
you know, when when
Speaker 3 (33:57):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Gets down
Speaker 5 (33:58):
or someone doesn't someone thinks it's like, oh,
that's a that's a bad idea. Theother guy is just like, oh,
like, what's the worst thathappens? Like, let's just try
it. You know? And so, yeah, itis it is definitely an
advantage, having kind of thatthat that twin, kind of, yeah, I
don't know, mentality, I guess,or whatever.
(34:19):
So yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I'm curious advice for working together with, you
know, siblings or familybecause, obviously, you guys
have done that for so long. Itseems to be working really well
for you you two.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Yeah. I don't I don't know how relevant our our, our
situation is for for family orsiblings. I I feel like twins
are a little bit unique. They'rethey're very, I mean, you grow
up with someone, for, you know,gosh, for us, it's like thirty
plus years, whatever. You'vebasically done everything
together.
(34:52):
And so there's, like, yeah, verymuch in in unspoken, like,
understanding that is justborderline unnatural. So, I
mean, obviously, conflicts.Obviously, there's conflicts,
and and I think think we we dohave different, mindsets,
approaches. And, you know, forthe most part, I I think, you
(35:14):
know, good dialogue and andtalking through things and and
being open minded, has helpedus, yeah, get over any hurdles
and and, yeah, kinda get across,yeah, the difficult touch
points, I guess.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
It's it's that, but also, you know, coming from sort
of the creative industry whereeverything's subjective. Right?
Yeah. And I have to have a thickskin, number one. Number two,
it's you need to have ordevelop.
Certainly, I've developed itover time. The understanding
that any critique or feedback issomeone trying to help you.
(35:51):
Right? A lot of people
Speaker 3 (35:52):
take it. Advice.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
You know? And everyone's like, oh, like, I
hate this. But it's like,they're saying that to try and
help you. Like, they're notsaying that to just, like, you
know, piss you off or something.So having the ability like, this
is just a relationship point ofview.
It's like having the ability toreflect and be like, okay. Well,
he's saying that because hewants it to be better. Like, now
I gotta read in between thelines and figure out what he's
(36:15):
reacting to and how I can sortof improve the product. Yeah.
So, I mean, that helps in in ourrelationship because our
critiques are are brutal witheach other.
Like, they're brutal. They'reunfilled Sure. Because, you
know, we don't have time to benice.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
No. That no. That's good advice. That's that's
actually really good advice. Soyou you mentioned earlier about
you obviously had to fundraisefor this.
Do you have advice for peoplelooking to fundraise? Because
you're you're kind of in a,like, a such a specialty niche
kind of market that fundraisingfor you must have been maybe a
bit challenging, I'm assuming.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah. No. It's you know, fundraising is an
interesting thing. Right? It'slike what works for one person
doesn't work for another.
Someone just gets lucky.Someone, you know, just doesn't
have any luck, doesn't talk tothe right people. You know, for
us, it was probably about twoyears of prep before any
fundraising, just research
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Into business models, into competitors, into
structures, into, you know,putting a team together that can
sort of help with futurefundraising. I think it's
something that's obviously veryintimidating for a lot of
people.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
And, you know, the the the most awkward thing is,
like, you're gonna get so manyno's. Right? Always. Yeah. Like,
you're gonna get hundred no's toevery yes.
And so, again, you just have to,you know, be prepared for kind
of the long haul. But, also, youknow, we see this a lot where,
(37:54):
you know, people come to us now.They're like, oh, well, you did
a fundraise. Like, hey. Can youlook at my deck or can you look
at this?
And, you know, it's the thefundamental thing is, like, you
need to be solving a problem ofsome sort. You know? Yeah. And
it needs to create, like, animpact or somehow help society.
(38:15):
Otherwise, what's the point?
You know? And so, oftentimes, wesee a lot of very, you know,
their decks without anyperspective of, you know, how
someone else would look at it.It's always from, like, the
point of view of the the oneentrepreneur and, like, his
point of view. And so I thinktaking kind of a really big
(38:36):
picture and, you know,presenting it as if no one knows
who you are, no one knows whoyou've done, what you've done,
and no one knows what yourproduct is, and, you know, how
is it gonna be perceived in, youknow, three sentences, right,
which is what a deck is,basically.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Sure.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Sorry. Go ahead. No. Go ahead. Yeah.
I I think, what's interestingabout, you know, any any startup
or anything is you do have towear many hats. Right? And I
think Yeah. With fundraising,you have to be very comfortable
putting on the hat to go andfundraise because you have to
speak in a very differentlanguage, you know. A a deck for
(39:15):
fundraising is different than,you know, a product pitch that
you would do to your friend oror someone else.
Right? And so I think, yeah, Imean, designers, engineers,
other inventors, or whatever.Sometimes they they aren't
speaking the same language. Andso I think, yeah, what what my
brother said was the two yearsof of research was part of that
(39:37):
was actually just learning thelanguage of fundraising and and
the whole systems of that aswell.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Makes sense. I'm curious how much your network
from the past kind of helpedwith with that. And I'm also
curious, I guess it's related,that a lot of the people that
you're probably targeting to buythe car could also potentially
invest in the company that isbuilding their car. Have is that
(40:06):
true? Or or, what are yourthoughts on both those?
Speaker 4 (40:09):
I'll start with the second topic because that's a
very easy one to answer. Yes.Absolutely. %. Right?
A lot of these guys wanna havethe coolest car, and a lot of
these guys wanna be part ofbuilding a car. So, yes, that's
that's easy to answer. Okay. Thefirst part of that question, I
think, is a little bit more,complicated. And the honest
(40:30):
answer to that is, I would say,almost zero in terms of, that
helping us except for some ofthe like, our our contacts from
the OEM space, kind of the thebig manufacturers where we
worked as designers before wedid sort of Oil Stain Lab.
(40:52):
Yeah. Those guys are arguablythe people that doubt you the
most are the people that are theclosest to you in, like, social
economic status, let's say.Interesting. You know? And so
they're like, oh, it'simpossible.
You can't start your own companybecause they're just like you.
They're in the same position asyou. And, yes, that's kind of
(41:15):
true. So so those that was verysort of difficult to deal with,
and I would say very lonely asan entrepreneur. It gets very,
very lonely because people arejust, like, totally doubting
you.
But the people that we know fromOil Stain Lab where we were
building cars outside of the OEMspace, but just like stuff for
(41:37):
fun, incredible fabricators,engineers, and other
manufacturers, they were supersupportive and super, super
useful in this endeavor and sortof putting, you know, teams
together, etcetera. So, yeah,kind of a two sided answer to
that question.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Interesting. Yeah. I I guess that yeah. That that
makes sense. And it like and inpart of their response to you in
some ways is is truthful.
It's like, it is really hard.Like, that's why not everybody's
doing it. Right? And that's whyyou guys chose to do it because
you obviously like thatchallenge. Right?
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Yeah. I mean, it it's, you know, it's the
ultimate challenge in a way.Maybe we were a little bit bored
in the OEM space. But at thesame time, you know, when when
people sort of doubt it, I'mlike, how many other guys are
doing their own car company?Like, maybe there's ten, twenty
around the world.
I like the odds of one in 20 asopposed to, like, trying to make
the one in a thousand. Right?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
That that's actually a really interesting way to put
it because you're right. Like,it would be it's it would be
really hard to be I'm not anElon Musk fan, but everybody
knows Tesla. Right? Like, itit's really hard to be the next
Tesla, but it's a hell of a loteasier to be, like, a like, the
niche kind of car that you guysare building. Right?
(42:57):
That's that's really goodadvice.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Yep. Agreed.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So I'm curious. Is
there any other stuff that wethat you would wanna maybe tell
the listener about Oil Stain Laband and the cars that we haven't
covered today?
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think what's what's
interesting about the cars, Ithink the most most interesting
thing is is just the approach ofsort of you know, we're we
constantly live in a societythat's, you know, trying to make
things better and move on, andthe future's always better, this
and that. And, you know, we arevery much, like, anchored in the
(43:39):
past. And, you know, we trulythink that a a number of things
were better in the the past. Butthat doesn't mean we just, like,
replicate them.
You know? So our approach hasbeen, you know, very different
than the rest of the industrywhere, you know, with electric
cars, they're they're puttingspeakers in them to make them
sound like a V eight engine. Youknow? To to us, that's not
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Right. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah. That that's always kinda funny to me. But
yes. It's like the baseball cardand the bike spokes kinda thing
as a kid.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah. Exactly. And so, you know, we're we're very
much sort of and that that'skinda why we left the big OEM
companies in that space is justwe really genuinely believe that
there's a better way to sort ofbuild these cars. And,
obviously, we do it at a smallscale for now, but, hopefully,
it'll it'll grow over time. And,you know, the the industry will
(44:32):
sort of, yeah, wake up at somepoint.
Because it's just sad how, yeah,the the car industry's really
sort of forgotten what it is andwhat it used to stand for,
especially in the sports carmarket.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
That's fair.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
And
Speaker 3 (44:48):
well and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it
also seems like most cars thesedays, at least new cars, are
basically just you pay a bigprice and then a subscription
every month to have arguablybasic features.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. No. It's it's interesting.
I when I was at General Motors,we worked, it was a program that
I proposed and started. It was,how do we make a car that's
free? Right? Okay. And so howmuch data do we have to to sell?
Like, how, you know, how muchprivacy do we have to infringe
on for you to get a free car?You know? And so that's very
(45:30):
soul damaging even though it wasa project I proposed.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Interesting. Yeah. Okay. No. That's that's really
cool.
But we're kinda coming to theend of the show. So how about we
close with mentioning wherepeople can get more information
about Oil Stain Lab, the cars,and any other links you wanna
mention?
Speaker 4 (45:51):
Yeah. So the website, OilStainLab.com, that's the sort
of most up to date, sort ofpublic facing, avenue that they
can check out. There's gonna bea lot of cool images, some
sound, video, etcetera, allabout the car, a little bit
about us. And then, onInstagram, they can check out
oil stain lab, where we, youknow, kind of do more of a daily
(46:15):
day in the life updates, and,they'll see all the new stuff
that's coming there first,probably.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Very cool. One final question that I just that just
came to me. Is it can peoplebasically will you ship them
basically globally?
Speaker 4 (46:31):
Yes. Yeah. The car is designed to be global. Yeah.
Left and right hand drive,etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Okay. Very cool. Well, guys, I really appreciate
you taking the time out of yourday to be on the show, and I
look forward to keeping in touchwith you and have a good rest of
your day.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Oh, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (46:46):
Yeah. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Thanks, guys. Okay. Bye.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
For more episodes, you can find us on all major
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us next time and keep buildingthe future.
Welcome to Building the Future with your host, Kevin
Horrick. Get ready to explorethe cutting edge of innovation
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we're bringing you thevisionaries shaping tomorrow.
With listeners in over 150countries, we're one of the
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(00:31):
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Building the future starts now.
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Speaker 3 (01:14):
Welcome back to the show. Today, we have Nikita and
Ilya Bryden, cofounders at OilStain Lab. Guys, welcome to the
show.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Thank you for having us. Yeah. Happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah. I'm excited to have you guys on the show. I I
think what you guys are doing isactually really innovative and
cool, but maybe before we diveinto that, let's get to know
each one of you a little bitbetter. Nikita, do you wanna go
first, and then I'll let yourbrother go?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Sure. Yeah. I'll I'll, I'll start us off. We're
twins, so there's gonna be someoverlap.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
And Very cool. Very cool.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
So, yeah. Originally born in Ukraine and moved to
Canada when we were about two orthree. Grew up there, with a big
passion, obviously, for for forhockey, skiing, and
Speaker 3 (02:04):
and Whereabouts in Canada?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Halifax, Nova Scotia. Very far on the East East Coast.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Okay. I'm I actually live in Edmonton. So
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Okay. Yeah. So A little bit colder.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Nice area, though. It's a beautiful area. Okay.
Keep going. Sorry to interruptyou.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Yeah. No worries. And, so, yeah, I grew up in
Halifax, and then at 14 years ofage, decided, drop out of high
school and move to Italy, studycar design, and had, you know,
some some very nice parents thatsupported that crazy dream,
moved with us, let it happen.And then at 17, moved to
(02:41):
California to study car design.So that's kind of our our back
story before, sort of theprofessional career, where we've
been working for, yeah, last tenten or so years in California.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Okay. So how did how does that work, though, to go to
be so young and go study? Like,how did that work?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
So yeah. I mean, it's interesting. Right? Technically,
yeah, high school dropout, so nono high school diploma. You
know, going to our college isnot, let's say, the most
academically strenuous thing todo.
Right? Like, there's not a hugeamount of requirements other
than being able to draw well.So, yeah, I mean, it's it's
(03:28):
bizarre. It's strange. I thinkwithout our parents, we we
definitely wouldn't have beenable to do it, obviously, with
their without their support oranything.
But, yeah, we we actually gotaccepted into a different school
in The UK, Coventry, and theythey denied us as soon as they
found out how old we were, whichwas Oh, interesting. It was
heartbreaking. So we ended up inItaly instead.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Okay. Ilya, do you wanna give us a bit of a
background of yourself?
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Yeah. I mean, very, very similar, I guess. I'll I'll
I'll parlay it, until yeah.After Italy, we basically ended
up, coming to California,Pasadena, to to art center and
college of design, and, yeah,finished up our our college
degrees. After that, basically,yeah, we graduated and started
(04:14):
working professionally.
I worked at, Honda, or,actually, Toyota first. Spent, I
think a year, year and a halfthere, and then, Honda for
something like seven years.Worked on tons of production
cars, concept cars, race cars.Yeah. Our Acura DPI won two
world championships there, whichis super cool.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Mark, congrats. That's huge.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Yeah. That that's kind of yeah. Like, I don't
know. That's that's that'sthat's, like, peak. You know?
Production cars are cool, but,like, yeah, world championship,
like, one problem, and Toyotadriving your car, it's it's
pretty awesome.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
And then Yeah. No. %. That's really cool.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
And then after that, yeah, ended up going to a
Chinese brand. Actually, Istarted a brand new studio in,
Newport Beach and spent a fewyears there. Worked again on on
some concept car stuff, someproduction programs, and then
ended up going to, another startup, a company called Canoo. The
(05:21):
these the Porsche electricvehicles, and it has since gone
bankrupt. But, yeah, that was avery interesting time.
And and then, obviously, duringthis whole time, building and
developing, our our designstudio brand, Oil Stain Lab,
kind of on the side and theneventually jumping full time as
well. So yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Got it. Nikkita, do you wanna give us a bit of your
kind of career history aftergetting out of school?
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Yeah. Totally. So me and my brother went to together
to Toyota, like you said, andthen we both moved on to Honda.
So at Honda, I stayed there forthree years. And after those
three years, I moved on toHyundai and was part of the team
that was sort of helping launchGenesis as a brand.
(06:10):
And Okay. Four four months, Iquit. That was a very miserable
experience for me. I did not didnot like the work culture there
at all. So I quit after fourmonths and moved on to General
Motors Advanced, where we workedon really crazy stuff, flying
cars, all sorts of stuff, reallyadvanced things.
(06:33):
And after General Motors, Ijoined my brother at the Chinese
company for about a year, atGAC. And then after that, moved
on to kind of oil stain lab fulltime, working with a lot of
startups. So doing everythingfrom, you know, energy grid,
battery charging, to electricvehicles, to hydrogen vehicles,
(06:57):
to movie stuff, space stuff,just all over the place. And
that was sort of the heyday, Iguess, of Oil Stand Lab as a
design studio, and now it'schanged into a boutique
manufacturer of of vehicles.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Okay. So walk us through that journey, and and
why did you you make that switchto, you know, manufacturing
vehicles now?
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think we've we've always
had this passion for, you know,building real things. And
throughout our careers, I mean,luckily, we did build, you know,
show cars. We're involved inreal physical things, but 90% of
the work you do gets, you know,thrown out or trashed or never
seen. And, you know, I thinkanyone who anyone who likes real
(07:51):
things, who lives in the realworld wants to, you know, have
an impact on that.
And so we decide, okay. Like, wecan sketch, and we can render,
and we can do this. But,ultimately, we wanna build
something without other people'scompromises, like our vision.
What we Right. Would be, youknow, a a proper sort of vehicle
(08:14):
without, you know, guys fromfinance or guys from engineering
telling you you can't be donebecause we need to save, like,
2¢ on a door handle.
Right?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
So it's a very, you know, it's we call it the no
excuses project, and it's, youknow, it's been three years in
development. And, yeah, it'sbeen it's been a lot of fun, but
a lot of challenges, but it'sit's gonna be real very soon.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Okay. So walk us through kind of coming up with
the idea and and kind of whereit is today, and and when can
people actually, like, drive it?
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Sure. I think it's, yeah, it's a it's a long story.
I think I'll I'll try and take aa quick stab at this. But,
essentially, when we started OilStain Lab as the design
consultancy, one of the firstthings we wanted to do was to
build a visual business card, sothat people Okay. Kinda knew
what we stood for.
(09:11):
And so that's essentially whenwe started building our first
prototype, which was theoriginal half 11 vehicle. And
that one basically had kind of afake history. It was kind of
inspired very much by the pastand and Can Am Racing and Le
Mans and sports prototypes fromthe late sixties. And that
(09:35):
vehicle basically did did, yeah,I mean, it it did its job,
right, as a visual businesscard. People approached us.
We, you know, opened a lot ofdoors, for for our studio. But
at the same time, somethingkinda strange happened, and the
car started to develop, like, acult following. And as that kind
(09:57):
of following grew and the cargot invited to go to places and
events and stuff, there was alsopeople reaching out and asking,
like, well, can I buy one? Can Ido this? Can I do that?
And it was very much a handbuilt, one off vehicle. It was
never intended to bemanufactured or anything. And
so, yeah, that that that was thegenesis, I guess, to to create
(10:21):
the production program. And so,yeah, three and a half years
ago, four years ago, whatever itis now, we started the the
production, kind of design forthe vehicle. But, yeah, looking
at it from, modern engineering,modern design, modern technology
point of view, so almost kind ofrecreating that vintage feel for
(10:45):
for today's world.
And so, yeah, our firstprototype, I think we're we're
looking at, trying to get it upand running, I would say, like,
late April, May.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Okay. Interesting. So, like, I I don't know very
much about the car business,but, obviously, building a one
off is not without itschallenges, and it's not
challenging and time consuming.But making one vehicle is gonna
be a lot easier than, you know,making dozens or hundreds or
(11:19):
thousands of these things. Sohow did you kind of ramp up from
basically building somethingyourself to now trying to get,
like, an assembly line?
Or or how does that kind ofwork? Like, walk us through that
journey of actually turning itinto a production car that
people can buy.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Yeah. You've pretty much hit it, you know, the nail
on the head there. You know,anyone can build one thing.
Right? That's relatively easy.
It just takes, you know, a lotof elbow grease, some ingenuity.
I think, yeah, with cars,there's this interesting sort of
dilemma as it also requires aninsane amount of capital. Right?
(11:59):
Yeah. You know, this isn'tsomething you can sort of, you
know like, software isrelatively less capital
intensive, for example.
But hard goods, they requiretooling and manufacturing and,
you know, sophisticated sort ofengineering. So I mean, part of
part of it was figuring out,okay, how do you go about
raising the capital, to do this?So that was the first sort of
(12:23):
initial hurdle to clear. Andthen once that sort of sorted
itself out, it was assembling,you know, a world class team of
of engineers that understoodalso, again, that they're not
working for a huge company andthat budgets are tight. And how
do we go about creating a worldclass product without, you know,
(12:44):
spending a billion dollars?
So it's it's a very dauntingtask. I think many, many days
and many nights, we would sitand just be like, what the how
how are we gonna do this?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. So so I'm curious, though.
Are you using, like, parts fromother, like, manufacturers?
Are you building everythingyourself, a bit of both? How
does that kinda work?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah. Yeah. So the approach has been from the very
start to, again, be veryintelligent with budgets and
engineering, you know, timeframes and everything. And and
because of that, we are not ableto completely engineer
everything ourselves. Ourselves.
So there are items sense. That,for example, like, it it's gonna
(13:35):
be the items that really no onethinks about, an air
conditioning vent, for example.You know, you turn the knob, it
closes, it moves the air around.To reengineer, to do that from
scratch, to do 25 units makesabsolutely zero financial sense.
Right?
And it's already a good productthat's been engineered, and a
(13:56):
company like Ford or Hyundai orRolls Royce or whoever have
spent, you know, $2.03,$45,000,000 on this one vent. So
it'd be Sure. Sure.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah. Interesting. Right? Okay.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
And yeah. So it's it's these really small but
complicated items that we usestrategically that don't really
affect the user experience. ButRight. They they they add to it
in a way that it's veryprofessional and that it works.
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
No. Makes a lot of sense. And then I'm assuming
it's not hard to get some ofthose parts, whether you need,
say, 25 or, you know, 200,000kinda thing.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Yeah. I mean, you know, there's there's obviously
parts availability. Again, ifyou're intelligent about it, you
know, if if a part breaks onyour car, you can go buy it on
eBay or wherever. Right?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Right. I see. Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
If you're smart enough, you can you can sort of
design it so you don't reallyneed to sign a contract with
that company.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Interesting. Yeah. Okay. No. That makes sense.
So maybe walk us through some ofthe specs of the car. I know
it's kinda hard to talk aboutlike, visualize the car when
it's audio only, but can youmaybe try? Of course. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think as we've kinda
mentioned, it's it's nineteensixties inspired. So it's it's,
sort of romantic surfaces, not alot of lines or breaks, very
smooth.
And underneath, and and, youknow, is where all the
aerodynamic performance is.Right? So if you're familiar
(15:34):
with sort of high performancecars, there's always big
spoilers and things sticking offthe car. So we've eliminated all
that. We use kind of a what'scalled ground effect, so a big
diffuser underneath the car thatkinda sucks it down at high
speed.
And then on terms of the chassisside underneath, it's a carbon
fiber monocoque. So that'srelatively cutting edge these
(15:55):
days, with, front and rearsubframe. And for powertrain, we
use, we have two options. So youcan use either a combustion gas
engine, which is a flat six thatrevs to 12,000 RPM, makes a lot
of noise. It's a very nostalgicextreme sort of race motor
(16:17):
experience.
And we've also got the option ofa cutting edge electric power
train that is projected rightnow to be lighter than
combustion. So it's it's reallyrevolutionary stuff. It's paired
with a six speed manual. Itmakes noise. It's unlike any
other EV, basically, in theworld.
(16:38):
And so we've got these two veryextreme cutting edge powertrain
options. So, yeah, that's that'skind of the brief disturb of the
the project, I guess.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Okay. Very cool. So how like, is there kind of price
ranges for these things yet? Isthis still kind of too early?
Like, are you taking preorders?
Like, where are you kind of inthat in the sales process?
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Yeah. So we launched publicly in October. But prior
to that, we've been in reallyclose communication with a lot
of collectors and enthusiastsand, obviously, gathering
feedback. So we've got a prettylarge network of of individuals
that have been interested, haveknown about it. So, yeah,
(17:26):
pricing on the cars is, 1.8,with a single powertrain and
then 2.35 with both powertrains,and then client can basically
choose between the two.
So yeah. And
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Interesting. I mean Okay. No. Go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Yep. One thing to add that, I think he has mentioned
is between the two powertrainsis there's actually the
swappability aspect of it. So ifa client was to buy the two
engine options, we're basicallydesigning the car so that one
engine can get swapped in, and,for the other one in around an
(18:04):
hour, two hours, something likethat just by themselves. So,
that's kind of
Speaker 3 (18:08):
That's cool.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Very revolutionary kind of, yeah, aspect.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah. That that's actually really quite
fascinating because and this isprobably, like, a terrible
comparison, and maybe you have abetter one. But it's it's almost
like the right to repairbecause, like, people have been
complaining about that with,like, their iPhones for decades
now. Right? But the fact itsounds like your car, if I know
what I'm doing, I could do a lotof this stuff myself.
(18:36):
That fair to say?
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think that's a that's a
perfect that's a perfectexample. And, you know, I think
there's a lot of concern evenamongst, like, sports car
enthusiasts with EVs thatthey're not really able to
modify them or get into the codeor anything. So it's it's all
becoming very sealed and veryproprietary, and, you know,
(18:59):
that's not really what sportscar guys want.
They wanna tune their cars. Theywanna modify them. They wanna,
you know, be a part of thatmaintenance repair improvement
experience. So no. You you'reyou're absolutely a % correct.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Okay. So I wanna talk a little bit about the interior.
And I know maybe it's differentkind of in the the people you're
targeting, but are they are,like, your customers wanting,
you know, the touch screen kindof experience? Are they looking
for more the traditional analogkind of buttons and knobs, a
little bit of both? Maybe walkus through that.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Yeah. Yeah. So from a user sort of experience or
expectation, we're very muchtrying to be I guess, an analogy
would be like a time machine,you know, like, to go back into
it without necessarily losing alot of the functions. But the
way that you access them or theway that you use them, we want
(19:57):
them to be not modern. We wantthem to be very analog.
We want them to be very, youknow, button heavy, and sort of
physically intuitive rather thanscreens, which isn't to say that
we don't have modern amenities.It's just the way you interact
with them is is not not a touchscreen, not a and I think part
(20:18):
of it is, you know, at thatprice point, screens become I
mean, every car has a screen.Right? And the user Yeah. Yeah.
Isn't special enough. Right? Andso, you know, it it becomes the
analogy of, like, the AppleWatch versus a Rolex. Right?
Which one will retain value?
Which one is collectible? Whichone? And so it's a bit maybe old
(20:42):
fashioned, but that's where kindof the market expectations at.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
No. That makes sense. Well, I I think there's been
such a big resurgence of kind ofsome of the analog stuff. I
think the most basic examplethat people would probably
relate to is just, like, therecord like, records coming back
and, like, vinyl. And and then Ithink even a lot of people hate
the touch screens in their carbecause they have to go three or
four screens deep just to, like,you know, turn of their heat or
(21:10):
something, where some of the ifyou just had a button on there
that you you would just handleit, you know, like, kind of the
old school cars had.
Right?
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Yeah. Exactly. I think, Honda famously got in
trouble with their volumebutton. Right? They removed that
and then, like, three threemenus deep.
So,
Speaker 4 (21:28):
yeah,
Speaker 5 (21:28):
I I think the the challenge really is, you know,
how many buttons do you reallyneed in a car. Right?
Speaker 4 (21:35):
And Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
Certain features don't necessarily require a
button. They can be three, fourd, but it's just how do you
decide the kind of theorganization of all that? And, I
think every brand obviously doesit their own way. We for our
vehicle, we're trying tosimplify everything as much as
possible. So we we do havephysical buttons, but the amount
(21:59):
of controls and and and stuffthat you actually need, for
driving pleasure and and andeven going to a track day is is
kept to a minimum, you know.
So, it's it's bare necessities,and that's that's it kinda
thing.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah. I mean, to add, like, we're very, very
motorsport derived, and there'sno touchscreen motorsports
because when you're driving 200miles an hour at a track, like,
you can't look down at thescreen. Be like, oh, I gotta go
over here. It's all gotta beintuitive, physical, and, you
know, easy easy to adjust on thefly.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Fair enough. And I'm assuming you're kind of
targeting people that this thisisn't their, like, everyday
driver to and from the office.Like, they might take it on
certain days, but, like, it'smade for to have fun, basically.
Is that fair?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I mean, it's, we we, you know, jokingly refer to all
our clients and internally ourteam as well. Like, we're all
maniacs. You know? We're allthese
Speaker 3 (22:56):
crazy gearheads.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
And, you know, ideally, they would use this
every day. I mean, it it isrelatively comfortable, but we
don't expect everyone,obviously, to use it every day.
Only a true maniac would.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Fair enough. No. Okay. Cool. So I I'm curious,
though, is it connected to theInternet?
Because, obviously, like, ifit's the EV version, just
knowing where a charging stationis, or do I have to get it home?
Or or how does that kinda work?
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Yeah. I we're working on effectively having it connect
to your phone. So it's not we'retrying to, yeah, disconnect the
car from the grid or disconnectit from anything that could slow
it down or cause issues. I mean,obviously, we can do updates
(23:43):
over the air, but that would bedone in, for example, in a
garage, not at, like, aStarbucks parking lot or
something. So
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Right.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
It it's it's going to depend on the infrastructure
that already exists, likephones, etcetera, for data
transfer instead of having thosethings built into the car.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah. No. That's smart. That makes sense. So I'm
curious, like, maybe we we kindaskipped over it a little bit.
So you launched it to the publiclast October, and when are you
hoping to have it in your firstkind of early adopter's hands?
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Sure. Basically, start of production is going to
be like, the first customervehicles will be '26. So
Speaker 3 (24:33):
So not that long.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Yeah. Twenty five is essentially a year of
development for us of of thephysical first prototype, which
should be complete, late April,early May.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Right. Right. Okay.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
And then, basically, we go and we we test it. You
know? We take it to to tracks.We take it to proving grounds.
We do all the, typical stuff.
We do vibration tests. We dohigh speed testing. We do hot
weather testing, and just makesure everything is good, from
all our kind of virtual,planning, so to speak. And yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah. Okay. That's cool. So I'm curious. Are you
building your own manufacturingfacility to build the cars?
Are you outsourcing that tosomebody else? Like, walk us
through that.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah. It's, yeah, like I said, you know, it's been
a long three years of a lot ofplanning. You know? Think people
think of all the legalrequirements and the physical
and the supply chain andeverything. So, yeah, we've been
slowly building that out overthe last three years.
The vehicles will be, finallysort of assembled in in Canada.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Before we're home, we certainly wanna go back there.
And, do we so we use a number ofpartners for a lot of the
components. So, for example, thecarbon fiber monocoque chassis,
that's going to be built by a,you know, a group or a
manufacturing group, ascontract. And it's such a
(26:16):
specialized thing that there'sreally only, like, 10 shops in
the world or 10 manufacturersthat can do that. And it doesn't
make sense to sort of developyour own team, educate
everybody.
Nobody does that internallyexcept some of the biggest
automotive manufacturers in theworld. So usually, it's all sort
of contract manufactured bythese carbon fiber, you know,
(26:39):
factories, let's say. And so fora number of components like
that, obviously, we're notmaking our own brakes or brake
calipers. We use, you know,Brembo as a supplier, you know.
And so Right.
A lot of parts are gonna bebrought in. And then, you know,
we do manufacture a lot of sortof on the subframe stuff, like,
a lot of the stuff on theinterior. That's all
(27:02):
manufactured in house, through,you know, robotic machinery,
CNC, or, you know, carbon fibermolds, but less sophisticated
than what's required for a acarbon tub.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I see. Interesting. Okay. So where like okay. So
you're you've been building thisfor a number of years.
You're gonna, you know, startkind of test this. How do you
kind of iterate on this asyou're going forward? Because if
you're I guess, if you'rebuilding it in a way that it's
relatively easy to swap thingsout and people can kinda modify
(27:39):
it as needed, then you almosthave, like, the community
iterating with you and making itbetter. Is is that fair to say,
or does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, I understand the
sentiment. Certainly, the cars,one of our key goals was a a
modularity, simplicity to sortof repair, modify, etcetera.
We probably wouldn't wannaencourage a lot of modification
from the clients just from alegal point of view.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Okay. Fair enough.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
But certainly, yes, we can evolve the cars over
time, and depending on clientwishes. So, like, in in this
market segment, you know, aclient could say, hey. Listen. I
really wanna focus on trackdays. I wanna have more
performance.
Can we improve the cooling? Canwe improve the downforce? Can we
improve the mechanical grip? Canwe lose some weight here and
(28:37):
there? And so we would work withthem to improve those components
and those, you know
Speaker 3 (28:44):
I see.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Areas. And so it it's a little bit different where
it's, yeah, not someonenecessarily doing it in their
backyard, but they're doing itwith our team of, you know,
global experts and so we canmake sure everything is still
safe. Because the theperformance envelope is so high,
someone can get into, you know,a lot a lot of hurt really
quickly.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah. No. That makes sense. It's cool that you can
basically like, somebody couldget something so custom though.
Right?
Like, I don't know very manyother manufacturers that do that
much custom or am I am I missingthat?
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Yeah. I mean, it's certainly very, very, you know,
sort of rarefied air, let's say.Yeah. Okay. Ferrari will build
you a one off, but it's, youknow, 20,000,000.
So.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Right. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. So you guys have
obviously both been doing this along time, and and building and
designing things in the physicalspace is actually really
challenging.
What advice would you give topeople that are whether they're
building a car or not, justthings to think about and do
(29:50):
that you maybe wish you knewearlier on before you were kind
of in the middle of this?
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Oh, great question. Yeah. I think I think building
cars is one of the mostcomplicated things in the world.
I think, you know, probablyairplanes and and spaceships are
a little more difficult.Granted, I think they have a
little less stylisticinvolvement,
Speaker 3 (30:14):
or emotional
Speaker 5 (30:15):
conflict to them. But, I I think no matter what,
we were very lucky, andprivileged to work for OEMs.
Right? And there, you're exposedto all the facets of the
business. And I think if you oneday want to do whatever it is,
(30:36):
architecture, airplanes, cars,products, whatever, the best
thing you can do is essentiallygo to the most successful
places, the biggestcorporations, and and like a
sponge, eat up all theinformation you can from every
different department.
Just pick the brain of all thegeniuses and smart people, and
(30:59):
basically absorb it. Right? I Ithink at the end of the day,
you're just a reflection ofeverything you've been exposed
to, essentially, and what you'vebeen able to absorb. So, yeah,
my biggest advice is just justbe, like, a sponge for
information. In terms of, like,on our particular project, what
(31:25):
I wish gosh.
That's that's a great question.You have anything to add while I
think?
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Yeah. No. I mean, I I would say, you know, the
advantage of, or sort of notbeing afraid to make mistakes, I
think that's, you know Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
That's really good advice.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Whenever things get physical, I think people
realize, like, if you make amistake as it has a, you know, a
monetary cost, a a a time cost.Right? Because it's a physical
product. You know? For example,if you're if you're just doing
some code or you're drawing inPhotoshop or you're doing
something digital, like, you canstart over.
Like, yeah, there's some sunktime, but there isn't a physical
(32:06):
cost. So it's like once youstart prototyping, you know, and
and I think that leads to a lotof paralysis. It leads to a lot
of people sort of freaking outand but nothing is ever perfect,
you know. And and the cars fromand, you know, other products,
they're never perfect. And, youknow, if you go talk to those
teams, they're like, oh, I wishwe could've done this.
(32:27):
Wish we could've fixed that. Andso, yeah, being being we I think
we are both of us are areperfectionists, but also we have
a a really good ability to justpivot when something's messed up
and just be like, alright. Wegotta embrace that. Like, let's
keep moving. You know?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah. No. I I think that's that's actually really
good advice. You guys mentionedsomething maybe earlier on in
the interview. Obviously, you'vehad some probably challenging
days, weeks, maybe even months.
How did you guys persevere anddecide not to quit? Because I
think a lot of times people arejust about to the, you know, the
(33:08):
top of the mountain, and theygive up before they really give
it a good shot. So advice forkind of keeping with it?
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Gosh. There's been so many times I thought I was at
the top of the mountain. I mean,the mountain is 10 times taller.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Fair enough.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
We're very I I think we're very lucky that there's
two of us. You know, so it'svery rare for both people, as
cofounders and basically thelead motivators. And it's very
rare for both of us to be downat the exact same time. Right?
So Right.
I I think that's a hugeadvantage. You know? I think
having just the team that cansupport you.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Yeah. I I think exactly that. I I think we call
each other, each other'senabler, basically, and it's,
you know, when when
Speaker 3 (33:57):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Gets down
Speaker 5 (33:58):
or someone doesn't someone thinks it's like, oh,
that's a that's a bad idea. Theother guy is just like, oh,
like, what's the worst thathappens? Like, let's just try
it. You know? And so, yeah, itis it is definitely an
advantage, having kind of thatthat that twin, kind of, yeah, I
don't know, mentality, I guess,or whatever.
(34:19):
So yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I'm curious advice for working together with, you
know, siblings or familybecause, obviously, you guys
have done that for so long. Itseems to be working really well
for you you two.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Yeah. I don't I don't know how relevant our our, our
situation is for for family orsiblings. I I feel like twins
are a little bit unique. They'rethey're very, I mean, you grow
up with someone, for, you know,gosh, for us, it's like thirty
plus years, whatever. You'vebasically done everything
together.
(34:52):
And so there's, like, yeah, verymuch in in unspoken, like,
understanding that is justborderline unnatural. So, I
mean, obviously, conflicts.Obviously, there's conflicts,
and and I think think we we dohave different, mindsets,
approaches. And, you know, forthe most part, I I think, you
(35:14):
know, good dialogue and andtalking through things and and
being open minded, has helpedus, yeah, get over any hurdles
and and, yeah, kinda get across,yeah, the difficult touch
points, I guess.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
It's it's that, but also, you know, coming from sort
of the creative industry whereeverything's subjective. Right?
Yeah. And I have to have a thickskin, number one. Number two,
it's you need to have ordevelop.
Certainly, I've developed itover time. The understanding
that any critique or feedback issomeone trying to help you.
(35:51):
Right? A lot of people
Speaker 3 (35:52):
take it. Advice.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
You know? And everyone's like, oh, like, I
hate this. But it's like,they're saying that to try and
help you. Like, they're notsaying that to just, like, you
know, piss you off or something.So having the ability like, this
is just a relationship point ofview.
It's like having the ability toreflect and be like, okay. Well,
he's saying that because hewants it to be better. Like, now
I gotta read in between thelines and figure out what he's
(36:15):
reacting to and how I can sortof improve the product. Yeah.
So, I mean, that helps in in ourrelationship because our
critiques are are brutal witheach other.
Like, they're brutal. They'reunfilled Sure. Because, you
know, we don't have time to benice.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
No. That no. That's good advice. That's that's
actually really good advice. Soyou you mentioned earlier about
you obviously had to fundraisefor this.
Do you have advice for peoplelooking to fundraise? Because
you're you're kind of in a,like, a such a specialty niche
kind of market that fundraisingfor you must have been maybe a
bit challenging, I'm assuming.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah. No. It's you know, fundraising is an
interesting thing. Right? It'slike what works for one person
doesn't work for another.
Someone just gets lucky.Someone, you know, just doesn't
have any luck, doesn't talk tothe right people. You know, for
us, it was probably about twoyears of prep before any
fundraising, just research
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Into business models, into competitors, into
structures, into, you know,putting a team together that can
sort of help with futurefundraising. I think it's
something that's obviously veryintimidating for a lot of
people.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
And, you know, the the the most awkward thing is,
like, you're gonna get so manyno's. Right? Always. Yeah. Like,
you're gonna get hundred no's toevery yes.
And so, again, you just have to,you know, be prepared for kind
of the long haul. But, also, youknow, we see this a lot where,
(37:54):
you know, people come to us now.They're like, oh, well, you did
a fundraise. Like, hey. Can youlook at my deck or can you look
at this?
And, you know, it's the thefundamental thing is, like, you
need to be solving a problem ofsome sort. You know? Yeah. And
it needs to create, like, animpact or somehow help society.
(38:15):
Otherwise, what's the point?
You know? And so, oftentimes, wesee a lot of very, you know,
their decks without anyperspective of, you know, how
someone else would look at it.It's always from, like, the
point of view of the the oneentrepreneur and, like, his
point of view. And so I thinktaking kind of a really big
(38:36):
picture and, you know,presenting it as if no one knows
who you are, no one knows whoyou've done, what you've done,
and no one knows what yourproduct is, and, you know, how
is it gonna be perceived in, youknow, three sentences, right,
which is what a deck is,basically.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Sure.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Sorry. Go ahead. No. Go ahead. Yeah.
I I think, what's interestingabout, you know, any any startup
or anything is you do have towear many hats. Right? And I
think Yeah. With fundraising,you have to be very comfortable
putting on the hat to go andfundraise because you have to
speak in a very differentlanguage, you know. A a deck for
(39:15):
fundraising is different than,you know, a product pitch that
you would do to your friend oror someone else.
Right? And so I think, yeah, Imean, designers, engineers,
other inventors, or whatever.Sometimes they they aren't
speaking the same language. Andso I think, yeah, what what my
brother said was the two yearsof of research was part of that
(39:37):
was actually just learning thelanguage of fundraising and and
the whole systems of that aswell.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Makes sense. I'm curious how much your network
from the past kind of helpedwith with that. And I'm also
curious, I guess it's related,that a lot of the people that
you're probably targeting to buythe car could also potentially
invest in the company that isbuilding their car. Have is that
(40:06):
true? Or or, what are yourthoughts on both those?
Speaker 4 (40:09):
I'll start with the second topic because that's a
very easy one to answer. Yes.Absolutely. %. Right?
A lot of these guys wanna havethe coolest car, and a lot of
these guys wanna be part ofbuilding a car. So, yes, that's
that's easy to answer. Okay. Thefirst part of that question, I
think, is a little bit more,complicated. And the honest
(40:30):
answer to that is, I would say,almost zero in terms of, that
helping us except for some ofthe like, our our contacts from
the OEM space, kind of the thebig manufacturers where we
worked as designers before wedid sort of Oil Stain Lab.
(40:52):
Yeah. Those guys are arguablythe people that doubt you the
most are the people that are theclosest to you in, like, social
economic status, let's say.Interesting. You know? And so
they're like, oh, it'simpossible.
You can't start your own companybecause they're just like you.
They're in the same position asyou. And, yes, that's kind of
(41:15):
true. So so those that was verysort of difficult to deal with,
and I would say very lonely asan entrepreneur. It gets very,
very lonely because people arejust, like, totally doubting
you.
But the people that we know fromOil Stain Lab where we were
building cars outside of the OEMspace, but just like stuff for
(41:37):
fun, incredible fabricators,engineers, and other
manufacturers, they were supersupportive and super, super
useful in this endeavor and sortof putting, you know, teams
together, etcetera. So, yeah,kind of a two sided answer to
that question.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Interesting. Yeah. I I guess that yeah. That that
makes sense. And it like and inpart of their response to you in
some ways is is truthful.
It's like, it is really hard.Like, that's why not everybody's
doing it. Right? And that's whyyou guys chose to do it because
you obviously like thatchallenge. Right?
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Yeah. I mean, it it's, you know, it's the
ultimate challenge in a way.Maybe we were a little bit bored
in the OEM space. But at thesame time, you know, when when
people sort of doubt it, I'mlike, how many other guys are
doing their own car company?Like, maybe there's ten, twenty
around the world.
I like the odds of one in 20 asopposed to, like, trying to make
the one in a thousand. Right?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
That that's actually a really interesting way to put
it because you're right. Like,it would be it's it would be
really hard to be I'm not anElon Musk fan, but everybody
knows Tesla. Right? Like, itit's really hard to be the next
Tesla, but it's a hell of a loteasier to be, like, a like, the
niche kind of car that you guysare building. Right?
(42:57):
That's that's really goodadvice.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Yep. Agreed.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So I'm curious. Is
there any other stuff that wethat you would wanna maybe tell
the listener about Oil Stain Laband and the cars that we haven't
covered today?
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think what's what's
interesting about the cars, Ithink the most most interesting
thing is is just the approach ofsort of you know, we're we
constantly live in a societythat's, you know, trying to make
things better and move on, andthe future's always better, this
and that. And, you know, we arevery much, like, anchored in the
(43:39):
past. And, you know, we trulythink that a a number of things
were better in the the past. Butthat doesn't mean we just, like,
replicate them.
You know? So our approach hasbeen, you know, very different
than the rest of the industrywhere, you know, with electric
cars, they're they're puttingspeakers in them to make them
sound like a V eight engine. Youknow? To to us, that's not
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Right. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah. That that's always kinda funny to me. But
yes. It's like the baseball cardand the bike spokes kinda thing
as a kid.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah. Exactly. And so, you know, we're we're very
much sort of and that that'skinda why we left the big OEM
companies in that space is justwe really genuinely believe that
there's a better way to sort ofbuild these cars. And,
obviously, we do it at a smallscale for now, but, hopefully,
it'll it'll grow over time. And,you know, the the industry will
(44:32):
sort of, yeah, wake up at somepoint.
Because it's just sad how, yeah,the the car industry's really
sort of forgotten what it is andwhat it used to stand for,
especially in the sports carmarket.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
That's fair.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
And
Speaker 3 (44:48):
well and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it
also seems like most cars thesedays, at least new cars, are
basically just you pay a bigprice and then a subscription
every month to have arguablybasic features.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. No. It's it's interesting.
I when I was at General Motors,we worked, it was a program that
I proposed and started. It was,how do we make a car that's
free? Right? Okay. And so howmuch data do we have to to sell?
Like, how, you know, how muchprivacy do we have to infringe
on for you to get a free car?You know? And so that's very
(45:30):
soul damaging even though it wasa project I proposed.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Interesting. Yeah. Okay. No. That's that's really
cool.
But we're kinda coming to theend of the show. So how about we
close with mentioning wherepeople can get more information
about Oil Stain Lab, the cars,and any other links you wanna
mention?
Speaker 4 (45:51):
Yeah. So the website, OilStainLab.com, that's the sort
of most up to date, sort ofpublic facing, avenue that they
can check out. There's gonna bea lot of cool images, some
sound, video, etcetera, allabout the car, a little bit
about us. And then, onInstagram, they can check out
oil stain lab, where we, youknow, kind of do more of a daily
(46:15):
day in the life updates, and,they'll see all the new stuff
that's coming there first,probably.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Very cool. One final question that I just that just
came to me. Is it can peoplebasically will you ship them
basically globally?
Speaker 4 (46:31):
Yes. Yeah. The car is designed to be global. Yeah.
Left and right hand drive,etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Okay. Very cool. Well, guys, I really appreciate
you taking the time out of yourday to be on the show, and I
look forward to keeping in touchwith you and have a good rest of
your day.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
Oh, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (46:46):
Yeah. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Thanks, guys. Okay. Bye.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
For more episodes, you can find us on all major
podcasting platforms or visitIambuildingthefuture.com. Join
us next time and keep buildingthe future.
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