Is the legacy of the mighty USPS at stake in a world teeming with private delivery giants? With a rich history dating back to the days when mail was delivered by horseback, we trace the transformation of America's postal service, revealing Benjamin Franklin's pivotal influence and the current crossroads between government service and private-sector efficiency. Our guest, an expert in postal history, helps shed light on the unique challenges faced by the USPS, including its self-funded structure and fierce competition from companies like UPS and FedEx.
Are electric vehicles truly the environmental saviors they're touted to be? We scrutinize the lifecycle of EVs from the mining of their batteries to the complexities of disposal, unmasking the less-than-green aspects that often escape the limelight. The conversation pivots to dissect the high-stakes rush to market faced by models such as the Cybertruck, where the pursuit of innovation sometimes skirts quality control. Join us as we question the prevailing narrative on clean energy, discussing not just the emissions, but the hidden costs of sustainable transportation.
Looking towards the horizon, we ponder the future of transport: will EVs ascend as the rulers of the road, or will alternative fuels steal the throne? We compare the burgeoning EV market to the historical railroad tycoons, speculating on the potential for hydrogen to disrupt the status quo and the possible resurgence of hybrid vehicles as a practical bridge to the future. The episode culminates with a glimpse into the potential for flying cars to leave the realm of science fiction and enter our everyday lives, contemplating a future as unpredictable and exciting as the past. Join us on this thought-provoking ride through time, technology, and the open road.
Are electric vehicles truly the environmental saviors they're touted to be? We scrutinize the lifecycle of EVs from the mining of their batteries to the complexities of disposal, unmasking the less-than-green aspects that often escape the limelight. The conversation pivots to dissect the high-stakes rush to market faced by models such as the Cybertruck, where the pursuit of innovation sometimes skirts quality control. Join us as we question the prevailing narrative on clean energy, discussing not just the emissions, but the hidden costs of sustainable transportation.
Looking towards the horizon, we ponder the future of transport: will EVs ascend as the rulers of the road, or will alternative fuels steal the throne? We compare the burgeoning EV market to the historical railroad tycoons, speculating on the potential for hydrogen to disrupt the status quo and the possible resurgence of hybrid vehicles as a practical bridge to the future. The episode culminates with a glimpse into the potential for flying cars to leave the realm of science fiction and enter our everyday lives, contemplating a future as unpredictable and exciting as the past. Join us on this thought-provoking ride through time, technology, and the open road.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
And I'm joined as always by my co-host.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Katie Mode.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
And today we're going to talk EVs electric vehicles.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
But before we start Katie, I think you had some- yes
, we have some housekeeping weneed to get out of the way
before we jump in.
So, as some of you hopefullymany of you know we do a segment
at the end of all of ourpodcast episodes that's John's
pick of the week where we talkabout some really cool
innovative products, and so whatwe've done is we've added a
(00:31):
place on our website, innovatethe ordinarycom where you can
explore more about theseinnovative products.
So if you are listening to anepisode and one of these
products piques your interest,you want to go learn more head
over to InnovateTheOrdinarycomforward slash podcast, or you
can just go to our homepage andnavigate using the toolbar and
(00:53):
you can check out all those coolproducts.
They're linked on our site aswell as the most recent episode
of our podcast.
So bookmark that and go checkit out.
We'd love to see you on ourwebsite.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Very cool.
So in order to talk EVs, I feellike we need to talk the US
Postal Service first.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Because that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, so well, the why is because I personally feel
like we are in this interestingboom where we've got this thing
that looks like the future ofeverything.
This looks like the future ofpersonalized transportation and
I think if we look back tohistory, we have several moments
where we've had this thing thatseems like the future.
(01:37):
So the United States PostalService opened its very first
post office in 1639 inMassachusetts.
We are still a 13 colonies.
We're still.
It's kind of a way for Englandand the colonies to communicate,
to receive mail, and between1639 and 1775, there are some
(02:03):
very slow expansions just tokind of get information
throughout the colonies.
You've got Ben Franklin who'sthe assistant postmaster general
.
Then he's fired for leakingmail to kind of out the British.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Wait, wait, wait, wait, pause.
He leaked the first leak.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, Benjamin Franklin was our first national
leak, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
And then, once the Constitutional Congress takes
over, ben Franklin's turned tothe Postmaster General again,
because he was on our side andwe won.
So it's not treason if you win.
So from 1775 to about 1901, wehave this massive expansion
where the post office goes fromPony Express and Congress allows
(02:45):
steamboats and it's truly abranch of the federal government
.
Around 1901, they hit theirabsolute peak of 76,945 post
offices across the United Statesof America.
But if you are a follower ofhistory, something else
interesting happens.
Right around 1901.
A gentleman by the name of JimCasey starts thinking to himself
(03:09):
you know what, maybe there'sbetter, there are other ways to
get these packages around.
And so in 1907, jim Casey andhis I believe it's his brother
take their first $100 loan andthey start UPS right, which it
wasn't called UPS at the time,but they start what will become
UPS as an alternative means toshipping packages.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
What did they call it ?
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It was called the American Messenger Company.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That's cute, I like that.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, which was the very first kind of rival that
mattered at least to the UnitedStates.
Postal Service and UPS growskind of slowly and steadily up
until the early 80s and then itexplodes.
But something else interestinghappened in the early 1980s.
In 1971, fred Smith writes acollege paper about overnight
(04:01):
package delivery and his teachercalls him crazy, tells him
it'll never take off.
And in 1973, mr Fred Smithstarts the Federal Express
Company, so FedEx, and they gettheir first profits in 1975.
And by 1978, they go publiclytraded company and then by 1983,
(04:24):
they become the first companyto reach a billion dollars
within a decade.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
That is quite the growth trajectory for a startup.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So, but something else interesting happens between
the early 1980s and the early2000s, fedex and UPS become the
dominant player in the postalservice and then, in about 1970,
the federal government quoteunquote, stopped funding the
post office.
I use quotes because the postoffice since then has been
(04:55):
defunded.
No, it has been, and I quotegenerally self-funded.
And what that means is thatthey take, quote unquote, no tax
dollars to keep the lights onin the facilities across the
country, but the governmentstill, even though they're not,
quote unquote, funded by thegovernment.
They are considered a privatebusiness, but their postal
(05:31):
inspection officers are federallaw enforcement.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So they're considered a private branch.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
A private business.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I'm sorry, a private business of the federal
government.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Nope, a private business.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Do you remember?
This riddle that we had as kidsWas like you get to a four-way
stop.
There's you, there's a policeofficer, an ambulance and a
postal worker.
You all get there at the sametime.
Who has the right of way?
Do you remember this riddle?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
No, okay, I ran into this all the time as a kid and
the first time it totallystumped me.
I was like the ambulance, ofcourse, and I was told I never
verified this, by the way, but Iwas told the answer to the
riddle is the postal worker,because they're a federal
employee.
But are they a federal employee?
I wonder if that riddle isstill the answer A.
(06:21):
If that is true I don't know Ifyou are listening and you know
please email us, Let us know.
But if it is true, if it wastrue, is it still true today if
it's considered a private?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
business.
Well, it's an interesting kindof amalgamation of things right.
You've got this company who isconsidered a private entity, not
a government business, but it'skind of funded by the
government.
They have federal employees.
It's a very interesting thingand my personal argument is the
(06:56):
US Postal Service would havebeen out of business in the
1970s as soon as FedEx and UPStook off, because when you think
of the post office now, youdon't think of the way to ship
mail, you think of the peoplewho bring you bills and junk
mail.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That's a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Right, and what I think is interesting is so we're
talking 80s to early 2000s, soin 2004,.
I mean, this is after the USPostal Service has fully whipped
.
I mean they have not been.
They're not even in this raceanymore.
At that point it was FedEx, dhland UPS.
The US Postal Service was kindof on its way out of the people
(07:31):
you use to ship almost anything.
In 2004, they come up with agreat idea that maybe they
should have had years and yearsand years before they come up
with a flat rate box which now,ironically, has all kinds of
rules associated with it, itused to.
At the time they released it itwas if you can fit it in that
box, I don't care how heavy, howheavy it is, it ships for the
price that the flat rate boxbuys.
(07:52):
Now it's got all kinds of rulesand regulations and there's a
whole bunch of mess.
But ironically, in 1991, theyintroduced the flat rate
priority envelope, so theyalready had this idea of flat
rate.
They just didn't extend it to abox, so they were still not
(08:12):
super worried about theircompetition.
And so I look at this companythat was at one point the height
of mail shipping.
In the early 1900s I bet you noone could see any world in
which the US Postal Service wasnot by far and away the only
person you're shippingeverything with.
In the future, this company'sonly grown, it's only going to
(08:33):
get bigger and bigger and bigger.
And right in that moment,someone thinks of something
different.
And so I wonder, with EVs, withelectric vehicles, if we are
kind of in that moment.
Right, everyone, every majorcorporation, every, you know,
all these big automakers are alltrying to jockey for who's
going to grab as much marketshare as they can from EVs.
(08:53):
Every major automaker, it hasan EV plan, right, seemingly
except for Toyota.
Toyota has been famous forconsistency.
Toyota has a mantra or abusiness practice within their
company.
Because they're Japanese, theyhave this thought process of we
need to think for a very longtime and make the right decision
(09:17):
, and then to think on thatdecision for a while and then
enact it very quickly.
So we come up with our plan andthen we think about our plan,
we try to poke holes in our planand then when we enact our plan
, we enact it very quickly.
So we come up with our plan andthen we think about our plan,
we try to poke holes in our planand then, when we enact our
plan, we enact it very, veryquickly.
And Toyota actually their CEO,stepped down not so long ago
because he was a little oldschool and he wasn't really on
board with this EV revolutionthing so maybe I'm too old
(09:38):
school for this right.
And this CEO steps down and nowwe're looking at Toyota.
Who's about a year ago thishappens.
You think, oh my gosh, they'regoing to jump all over this EV
thing and they still haven't.
It's still less than 1% oftheir sales.
All their new vehicles comingout are hybrids and Toyota has
come out now that they've hadsome time to sit and think about
(09:58):
it for a while before theyimplement.
And they've said EVs are not asefficient as people think they
are.
Evs are not as efficient aspeople think they are.
Evs are not as safe and happyfor the environment as people
think they are.
Matter of fact, in most of thestates our power is generated by
coal and they're using, they'redirtying up the environment.
(10:19):
If your goal is to clean theenvironment, you're dirtying it
more with EVs.
And so Toyota's kind of takinga step back and saying, well, we
can make like 14 or so vehiclesfor the same level of carbon
footprint as you are forprinting one EV, and they're
looking at the math and sayingit doesn't make a whole lot of
sense.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Right.
I mean, let's talk for a minuteabout how we make EV batteries
right, a process called stripmining.
And, to your point, this issomething I think consumers are
starting to realize and it'sbecoming more mainstream how
these products, these vehicles,are being manufactured.
(11:00):
But strip mining is notoriouslybad for the environment.
I mean, what is it?
It's removing surface materialfor access to minerals in the
ground that are essential forelectric vehicle batteries like
lithium, cobalt and nickel.
Primarily, they have to clearout all the vegetation and
(11:20):
topsoil from an area before theycould dig down and remove the
mineral.
And once it's extracted andthey transport it away, they
then do their best to restorethe area by refilling the pit,
replacing topsoil, plantingvegetation, et cetera, which I
think has been a bit of a facadefor a while, like, okay, sure,
(11:44):
we're deforesting, we'reremoving all the vegetation,
we're pushing out wildlife, butthen we're going to restore it,
right, so it's fine, it'ssustainable, because we're going
to plant forests and put thetopsoil back.
But in reality, it's nearlyimpossible to restore an area, a
habitat, back to its originalstate after strip mining,
(12:06):
because the topography isforever changed.
You've already destroyedbiodiversity in that area, so
having animals come back intothe area is going to take a long
time.
Vegetation takes a long time toregrow.
Also, I would be this is my ownpersonal bias willing to argue
that you have a team on sitedoing strip mining and part of
(12:28):
their process is to do landrestoration.
How well are they doing?
Their goal is to get theseresources out of the ground.
It's part of their process toput topsoil back and maybe put
some seeds down, but they needto move on.
They're going to move on to thenext site.
I just have little faith inthat part of the process because
it's almost like a must do not.
(12:50):
What drives, you know, actuallygetting these resources out of
the ground?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I've always thought to myself humans as a whole are
very high and mighty, right?
We know the answer, right, butif you want to talk climate
change, so let's for a second.
I'm not going to get into thepolitics of climate change, but
let's assume that climate changeis real, and climate change is
a real thing, that's happeningand that we have any kind of
(13:16):
impact on that.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Okay, or that we have any control.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Or that we have any control, right.
And so, if that's the case, andwe're looking, looking at fossil
fuels and we're looking at, oh,we're adding carbon to the
atmosphere, we're looking atmicroplastics, we're heating up
the ocean by creating this solarblanket that sits over top of
the ocean in certain spots, andwe didn't know about these
things?
Right, there are DDT andaerosols and all these things
(13:41):
that we slowly learn as we go,oh, these seem to have some kind
of impact.
Well, we live on a rock with agiant magma-filled core, with an
incredible amount of magneticfields that do a lot of
different things on this planet.
Animals and plants haverecorded instances where they
use Earth's magnetic field to docertain things.
(14:05):
So we're taking all the theferrous and ferromagnetic metals
out of the ground in this bigstrip mining campaign, these
huge spots, and then we're justlike putting the top soil back
on and putting the plants backon and assuming that the animals
and the plants are not going toneed those or that's not going
to change how the earthinteracts with that particular
location.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Right.
The assumption that there's noeffect after everything is put
back nicely.
It's not that simple, goingbeyond just getting the
resources out of the ground.
The electric vehicle buy-in isthe foundation.
There is sustainability, right?
And when I say, why do you?
If we were to poll any electricvehicle driver about why they
(14:47):
chose that vehicle if theirdrive was the environment,
they're not going to say,they're not going to talk about
this aspect.
They're going to talk aboutemissions.
Right, that is a big driver ofadoption is low or no emissions
of these vehicles?
And I think it's interestingbecause we're missing the mark
(15:09):
entirely when it comes to themarketing statement of no
emissions, because we're toldit's end-to-end clean energy,
when in reality theenvironmental cost for mining
these resources I mean, you'retalking about massive, heavy
(15:31):
petrol-trugging machineryrequired to move this earth and
get these elements out of theground and that's not something
that is presented to theconsumer, obviously, and
something the consumer isn'tgoing to think about.
Right, we're not going to thinkabout how this is done.
Their battery is cool, they useelectricity, better for the
environment, but in reality, howmuch fossil fuels are we
(15:52):
burning?
Just getting the material outand then, on the far end,
disposal what a nightmare.
I mean, disposal of theseelectric batteries is not good
and I know there's lots ofcompanies looking at recycling
and doing more with that, butit's challenging.
They're full of highly toxicmetals and materials and
(16:14):
improper disposal can lead topollution of our atmosphere,
water, soil, I mean, you name itand then the landfills.
We're overburdening ourlandfills.
It's a lot of material to thenhave to go into a landfill, so
there's a big recycling issue.
These are toxic.
It takes a lot of fuel toextract them.
So show me really, at the endof the day, how this is
(16:38):
sustainable compared to atraditional vehicle.
I think that's an interestingthing that we can get into this
later in the episode, like theconsumer perspective of it, like
it's being affected by peoplerealizing maybe it's not as
sustainable as I was told it wasin the beginning.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, and there's a lot of marketing, right?
So if you're trying to convincethe masses, it's been proven
that the most effective meansright is pick an enemy, right?
So emissions is the easiestenemy, right?
So you start with there's aresearcher that finds little
bits of soot on on arctic icecaps and goes, oh, it's the
diesel vehicles.
It's definitely not the giantfreight liner that's going by
(17:18):
right now pumping, you know,exhaust straight into the air.
Right, granted, they did goafter those as well.
There's like reclamations andthings, but you still see a
pillars of black smoke's coming.
Black smoke coming out of theships.
Right, and, and it must be theelectric, you know the, the
diesel vehicles.
It's those, those nasty dieselvehicles.
So we come up with, you know,egr systems and we come up with
with def systems and things toto reduce the amount of soot
(17:40):
that's in the environment, whichmakes the vehicles inherently
less efficient, which makes themuse more fuel, more fuel, and
on and on and on, we go.
Yeah, and so we pick an enemy,right.
So emissions is the enemy, andso we use emissions as the enemy
.
Sugar is the enemy, fat is theenemy.
We pick the easy target ofwhat's going to be the
(18:01):
categorical, easy thing to lookat and say, well, if we just
change this one thing, x willhappen.
But in our craze, in thisalmost hysteria, this fadness of
EVs, we've got this electricvehicle that's popular now, and
so we go to the business side ofit.
Everyone's trying to get thecoolest, best, biggest, baddest
(18:23):
vehicles out there of it.
And everyone's trying to getthe coolest, best, biggest,
baddest vehicles out there.
And then comes the cyber truck,right.
The cyber truck was elon musk'syou know napkin drawing of a
vehicle that turns into thislittle trash.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Origami, beautiful work craftsmanship origami on
wheels, right.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So elon musk comes with this idea.
He's like this thing's going tobe stainless steel, it's going
to be bulletproof, all thesethings going to be the ultimate,
you know, apocalypse machine,whatever, as he as he, you know
marks it.
And so, okay, now we've gotthis apocalypse machine.
It's a very popular, trendything on the internet right now
is the cyber truck, and we startto see as people break down the
(18:59):
cyber truck.
Okay, that bulletproof glassthing you talked about, where
you threw the ball into thewindow.
It went viral, right.
Well, in order to get thatpackage, the windows don't roll
down, right.
And then you go okay, it'sstainless steel, but in coastal
environments it's alreadyrusting.
The thing's been out for sixmonths, maybe.
It's already starting to haverusting issues.
(19:19):
You have the gas pedal of thevehicle, the little plate that
covers the gas pedal pedal.
When you had the gas pedaldepressed, it was coming loose,
the glue was breaking off and itwas sliding down and getting
stuck in the floorboard andcausing your accelerator to
smash to the ground.
And, as all companies do, theyissue a recall.
And the answer to the recall isdrill a hole in the gas pedal
and stick a rivet in it, right,we didn't have enough time to
(19:42):
test these things.
We didn't find that in ourquality control because we're
trying so hard to get thisvehicle out quickly.
Do you know what the Cybertruckcar wash mode is?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
No, I don't.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Okay.
So the Cybertruck has a featureon the screen that you press,
called car wash mode, and whatit is is when you wash your
vehicle, drive it through a carwash or wash it with a hose.
If you don't put it in car washmode, the water will interfere
with the charging port and freakit out.
So you put it in car wash mode.
(20:14):
It knows there's supposed to bewater.
Then it shuts down certaincomponents to protect itself.
The steering has an audibleclunk to it.
Right, there's all these issueswith the Cybertruck because
this thing was maybewell-engineered but not
well-tested.
We pushed it to market.
We tried to get it out as fastas we could.
We want to stay relevant.
The car industry, with EVs, isstarting to become your cell
(20:37):
phone.
What's the newest, mostinteresting feature I can push
out that makes you want toparticipate?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Well, because so much of the EV now is software.
You have the electric vehicle.
The bones are generally thesame, I would assume, but then
your differentiator in the EVmarket is the software right,
and that's constantly changingbecause it's software.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, more or less.
And you're at this moment aswell where all EVs have a look
when you see a car, you knowit's an EV.
They've kind of developed thiskind of look to it, this super
futuristic vibe to it.
So everyone wants to stick withyou know, be as futuristic as
they can.
Lots of LEDs, screenseverywhere, make goofy seats.
They just do all these thingsto show you the future is here,
(21:25):
things to show you the future ishere.
And let's talk about thebusiness side of that, right.
So everyone's jumping at youknow, chomping at the bit to get
to these EV markets.
And you've got Ford, who openedan entire plant just to build
the Ford F-150 Lightning andsame thing, rushed it to market,
ran that thing out the door asfast as they possibly could to
be the first EV truck.
This thing you can plug yourhouse into it.
(21:45):
It'll generate for your houseall these cool features they
wanted to put on there.
And as soon as car and drivergot a hold of it, they towed a
trailer for the first time andfound that thing could only go
like 50 miles with any kind ofload towing behind it.
The business piece of this, thebusiness element of this, this
machine.
This desire to be part of thisfad kind of seems to be on rocky
(22:09):
footing.
So Ford has this new plant.
Originally, when they launchedthe F-150 Lightning, they sold
out.
I want to say the reservationswere like two and a half years
capacity was how many F-150Lightnings they sold After the
news came out and people startedcanceling their reservations.
I think they'll make you oneright now.
So this thing's been out forless than a year and they'll go
(22:32):
ahead and fire one up in 12weeks or whatever.
It is.
That the normal F-150 lead timeand we're talking the most
popular vehicle in the US period, the F-150.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
That's interesting.
Yeah, I think personal opinionis that the EV market is
teetering and we're at a sort ofcrossroad or I guess a
crossroads it's definitelyteetering.
I think there's still a lot ofhope for the EV market.
I think it could be the way ofthe future.
I like the idea of EV, despiteeverything that we have talked
(23:04):
about already aboutsustainability and how it's not
really up to snuff.
I think it's a great idea and Ilike the concept.
But something has happenedrecently with Tesla specifically
, that is shifting or causingripples in the market, and that
was the layoff that they had May1st, I believe, or right around
(23:27):
there, where they laid off 10%of their workforce, which is a
lot, and a majority of them wereteams working on the
supercharger grid.
And this is not just big newsfor Tesla I mean, it's huge news
for Tesla and their stock tooka hit but it's also a big deal
for electric vehicles at large,because they're very much the
leader in the charginginfrastructure and we're kind of
(23:50):
positioned to continue to bethe leader for charging or are
soon and when I say soon I meanlike within the next year or two
planning to switch to Tesla'scharging infrastructure.
So it's a big deal for thisnews to break that they're kind
(24:14):
of deep.
It seems like they'redeprioritizing their
supercharger grid and thislayoff also isn't isolated to
Tesla.
Other EV startups like Rivianand Lucid and Polestar are
laying off workers and facingproduction challenges, which
could indicate even more troublewithin the EV market.
So I think that's reallyinteresting because you've got
(24:36):
widespread consumer adoption forthe most part, like you just
said, they're here, peoplegenerally like them.
They're at least in our part ofthe country.
They've permeated, like they'reeverywhere.
But then you have this weirddisruption happening where
there's deprioritization of thegrid and that's going to ripple
through the whole entire marketand consumer adoption is
(24:58):
definitely slowing.
I was doing a little bit ofreading about this.
The other day, surveys showedthat most eb shoppers actually
want a vehicle priced below the$30,000 mark, which is why the
Tesla Model X, model Y, rightwhen those came out, that helped
permeate the market.
But a lot of EVs, especially bythe competitor manufacturers
(25:20):
like Rivian and especially Lucidthese vehicles are expensive.
You're talking $100, thesevehicles are expensive, you're
talking $100,000-ish mark.
So that's interesting.
There's a disconnect betweenconsumer appetite and price
compared to what themanufacturers are really
bringing to market and there's,as always, a concern over the
vehicle range and anxiety aboutcharging and the infrastructure,
(25:45):
which is only going to increasewith this news of Tesla, so I
think that's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
All right, John and Katie, you guys are getting me
all kinds of worried about.
What does this mean?
What are EVs going to be?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
doing and we don't dislike EVs.
We're looking to get anelectric vehicle potentially, so
this is not a don't do EVs kindof episode.
It's just looking at how whatyou think is definitely going to
be the way things go.
It may not always pan out likethe railroads.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah.
So where do we think it's goingto be in 10 years?
We're looking at the EV marketand we'll get to the railroads
in just a second.
I love that you pointed outrailroads.
That's interesting, but whereare the EVs in 10 years?
So let's look at the EV market.
So you've got two differentsegments.
You've got the attempt betweenthe Chinese and Tesla and Kia
(26:36):
and a few others and Ford to tryand appeal to the $30,000 and
under market that are tryingreally desperately Now.
Evs are incredibly expensive tomake versus a traditional
automobile, and so your typical1.3 liter three cylinder engine
with some sheet metal wrappedaround it isn't quite as easy to
(26:57):
do right.
Your Nissan Versa is a lotharder to make as an EV because
there's so much more expenseinto making EVs.
You also have charging, yourgrids, your slightly more
expensive insurance.
There's a lot of pieces to anEV that makes it much more
expensive as total cost ofownership, and so what you see
(27:18):
is removal of features.
Take the self-driving featureaway, take the quad motors away,
give it less motors, give itmore, you know, less range.
There are things you can do tocheapen that car.
So I think, personally, in 10years, I think there's a gap to
be filled.
There's a gap to be filled inthis market, and I think what
you're going to see are increasein hybrids, plug-in hybrids.
(27:38):
Probably You're going to see anincrease in, possibly, hydrogen
.
So your typical electric vehiclefans right, your typical
especially the smart onestalking points they get to with
EVs versus hydrogen or somethingelse, is the efficiency of an
electric vehicle.
You can go 98% or so of what youplug in gets put back out to
(28:01):
move the vehicle, but you got tolook at convenience as part of
that, that talking point.
So, humans, overall, youraverage driver, is looking at
this thing and saying, well, mygas car is only about 40%
efficient.
I don't really care necessarilyabout efficiency as much as I
care about cost and speed anddistance I can go and the speed
(28:22):
to fill it right.
So if we're looking at that,hydrogen is an interesting play
there because you can, withscalability, get hydrogen down
to about the cost of diesel.
You're taking care of emissions, which everyone seems to care
about.
That's the buzzword.
Right, it takes two, threeminutes to fill it, just like it
does a gas car, and you have arelatively unlimited range.
If you can keep filling the carup, you get that quick stop and
(28:45):
go, you get the road tripoption, you get those heavier
vehicles that can stop moreoften to fill.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Is the range for a hydrogen car the same as a fuel
car?
Like?
Speaker 1 (28:57):
for a tank.
Yeah, they're about the same,okay.
Okay three to three to 500miles or so, depending on how
big your car is, not that thetank is and all that but it's
comparable but it's comparable.
Yeah, and it's also arelatively easy adoption.
Right, I'm not sitting in aparking lot of a same type of
gas station experience?
Yeah, fill up experience andactually you can retrofit gas
stations very easily toaccommodate.
(29:18):
You just swap the tanks out forcompressed hydrogen tanks and
and you move, so no consumerchanges needed not really.
I mean there's a.
There's a slight difference inhow it plugs into the car and
all that type of stuff, butgenerally speaking of the
consumer experience is very,very similar.
So increase in hybrids, makinghybrids more efficient.
I mean you've got hybridminivans that are almost 50
miles to the gallon my dream carand so you've got this, you've
(29:42):
got these options.
Where efficiency is there,convenience is there.
So maybe that's your yin to EV'syang, but EV will still be
there, right?
You're still going to have yoursupercars, right, your Porsche
Taycans that are these EVabsolute monsters because they
can go super fast, they're allkinds of tech and whatnot.
You'll still have your $100,000range and and whatnot.
(30:06):
You'll still have your, youknow your hundred thousand
dollar range and I think you'llstill have your cheaper evs.
But I think you're what you'regoing to see is kind of a switch
between evs being a luxurycomponent where they, where they
go five, six, seven hundredmiles in a single charge, but
you're going to pay 150 000 todo it.
And then you're going to haveyour low cost, low tech commuter
cars that are designed toreplace kind of that smart car
(30:28):
and that Nissan Versa that aregoing to be these cheap electric
cars that they're making inChina that can just do your
day-to-day, you know 100 milerange type situations, and so I
think you'll see kind of atransfer into that.
That's my personal opinion, butit's interesting that you
brought up the railroads.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, I brought them up because I think it's an
interesting industry to compareto EV, just because, while the
railroad industry still remainsa really important part of our
transportation infrastructure inthe US, it no longer holds the
same value or level of influenceand dominance that it did
(31:09):
during the late 19th century.
So I was kind of nodding tothat as like an example and we
can unpack that just how thingshave changed.
And I'm sure if you could jumpin a time machine and go back to
the, you know, the late 1800s,mid 1800s, you would definitely
bet for the railroad industrynot changing for a very long
(31:31):
time because it was such adominant industry.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, and I think I mean you're talking about it was
such a popular industry, it wassuch a huge push that at the
time it was a full-on monopoly.
You had all the richest peoplein the world dominating building
railroads.
And so when you look at, yousay, well, the richest people in
the world are involved in thisright, the elon musks and the
jeff bezos's are in evs, I meanin oops, I'm sorry, in railroads
(31:59):
is that a Freudian?
slip.
So so you've got the.
The richest people in the worldare all hyper-focused on this
one thing.
It must be the next big thing.
But along comes Henry Ford anddisrupts the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Right, so let's highlight some of these tycoons
really quickly and what theyowned and what happened to their
businesses, and then we cantalk about how it changed a
little bit.
What happened that made eventhese very successful railroads
that are still in existencetoday go from being the dominant
(32:35):
industry to not essentially?
So we've got a couple ofplayers.
Cornelius Vanderbilt he ownedthe Well, he still technically
owns, his sons still own the NewYork Central Railroad, but he
owned it specifically from 1867to 1877.
And what he did with thiscompany is he consolidated
(32:57):
smaller railroads into a singleefficient system to help lower
costs and increase profitability.
So all good things and, like Isaid, his empire.
We all know the Vanderbilt name, so no surprise, his empire
remains intact and his sons arecontinuing to control the New
York Central Railroad.
Then we have Jay Gold.
He owned the Erie Railroad,union Pacific Railroad and
(33:21):
Missouri Pacific Railroad from1836 to 1892.
He doesn't have quite theglamorous story as Vanderbilt.
He was engaged in somefinancial speculation, corporate
raiding, manipulation of stockprices all the things that you
shouldn't be doing to amassgreat personal wealth.
And it did begin to crumbleafter he handed off to his sons
(33:43):
and they failed to maintaincontrol of those railroads.
We have James Hill.
He was the owner of the GreatNorthern Railway from 1878 to
1916.
He built the TranscontinentalRailroad System very efficiently
without government subsidies,which is amazing and he focused
a lot on freight transportation.
(34:04):
The Great Northern Railwayremains a successful and
profitable company to this dayand it has eventually merged
with other leading railroadcompanies, and this is my last
one I'm going to cover.
There's definitely more tycoonsthan this, but these are just
the top ones I wanted tohighlight today.
Henry Huntington was the ownerof Pacific Electric Railway and
(34:26):
Los Angeles Railway from 1850 to1927.
And he developed an extensiveelectric railway system in
Southern California connectingurban centers to the suburbs.
It was eventually sold off anddismantled by the 1940s due to
the rise of automobiletransportation.
So, just to set the stage,these were some of the early
(34:49):
tycoons of the railway systemsand there was a couple things
that I think we could talk aboutthat shifted the tides for
these industries.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Combination of regulatory changes, economic
shifts, demographic trends allall had to had a part to play in
the dismantling of these, thesehuge empires yeah, and I think
during times of of great marketshift and this is one of the
(35:25):
reasons that I that we look atthis during times of great
market shifts you get a lot ofreally, really rich people doing
a lot of acquisitions, right.
So right now you're looking atI mean, signa just got purchased
by by healthcare systems group,which is a barclay company.
You've got BlackRock acquiringeverything.
(35:45):
Macy's is getting acquired by acapital management company.
One of the Coca-Coladistributors just bought a
window company down here inSouth Florida.
You're seeing a lot of mergersand acquisitions where there's a
consolidation of companies andit's a way to to invest wisely
(36:06):
and to try and and take somemarket share during during
periods of uncertainty.
So if we're, if we're in thismajor acquisitions moment and
you've got companies like lucidthat are coming out and saying I
know we lost a lot of moneylast year, but we lost less than
we said we were going to lose,so that's a win right.
You've got this EV market thatappeared to be so dominant.
(36:27):
I mean, at one point Tesla wasvalued at a higher valuation
than Toyota, ford and, I think,chrysler combined.
So Tesla had this massivevaluation because EVs were.
That was it man.
Tesla's going to own the world.
Right, and you're starting tosee some acquisitions, you're
starting to see some slowing,you're starting to see some
things changing and I only haveone question Are we missing the
(36:51):
flying cars?
I mean growing up everybody.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
This is going to be a long episode.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
No, no, I'm almost done.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Oh, I think we have to jump in.
Flying cars are so much to talkabout.
I know so.
No, but all.
Oh, I just I think we have tojump, but it's flying cars,
there's so much to talk about Iknow so.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
No, but but all growing up.
If you ask anybody in the last50 years what what the next 30
years look like, they'd beflying cars right, that was the
we've all seen flubber all right, exactly right.
So so you've got aeromobileehang holdings, archer aviation,
terra f, terrafugia, evtl,kitty Hawk, airbus, athena, aero
(37:27):
, alif, aeronautics, volocopter.
I mean you've got dozens anddozens of companies out there
right now making flying cars.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Sustainable flying cars.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Sustainable flying cars and we're on the ground
with EVs.
So I think that's theinteresting piece is that it's.
Are these flying cars going totake over and dominate the
landscape, or are they still apipe dream that they've always
been right?
That's the funniest part to meis, when you think of the future
, you think of flying cars, oryou always have historically.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Well, that's what we were told.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
That's what we were told.
That's what we were told.
That's what we were told,that's what we were promised
right?
We've been programmed to thinkof flying vehicles and, and here
we are looking at evs thatdrive themselves.
Right, and it's justinteresting to look at that
market.
The flying cars are there.
I mean, heck, they've got fourpassenger flying cars with wings
, and, and two three passengerflying cars with, with
(38:23):
quadcopter blades and all kindsof cool stuff out there, but
they're not dominating themarket.
It's in existence, it's part ofsomething that we are currently
achieving as a human race, butthey're not nearly as popular,
not dominating the market share.
So I just think it'sinteresting.
I'm not saying that EVs are notgoing to become what everyone
seems to think they are.
I just don't personally thinkthey are.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
We can agree to disagree on that.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, so it's an interesting market segment.
It's an interesting thing towatch and I'm looking forward to
seeing where it goes.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Let's get into your picks of the week.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
John's pick of the week.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
We do need a jingle.
Your mom's been asking for ajingle.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
My mom has been begging.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
We hear you, mom.
We're going to have a jinglesoon.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
All right, mom.
Well, we're going to keeptalking directly to my mother,
who's my number one fan, so I'llaccept she is.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
That's why she gets a weekly call out.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
She does get a weekly call out.
Okay, so let's talk aboutJohn's first pick of the week.
Summer things are getting hotwell, depending on where you are
, I suppose, well, I think downhere things are getting hot and
either way, we're leading intosummer, so I thought I would
pick a very interesting summeroption.
Now we have small children andwhen you're trying to put
(39:36):
sunblock on your small children,there's a bit of a wrestling
match.
There's a smearing on theirface, trying to get things in
their eyes.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
There's this whole process whole process, this
whole patches of skin.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Whole patches of skin .
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Eager to go and get in the water.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
So what if there was a way?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Oh, tell me.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
What if there was a dry sunblock, a powder-based
sunblock that was all thehealthiest ingredients, that you
want a sunblock zinc, and justsay, just think, um, but so, so
you just want that zinc to blockthe sun, but you don't want to
put a bunch of nasty stuff onyour skin.
There is a company called brushon block and what it is and the
(40:16):
best way to describe it is likeone of those little foundation
puff brushes that inside of ithas this zinc and you brush it
on the skin, wait a few minutesfor it to kind of settle, and
then it's waterproof, just likeany other sunscreen, and all you
do is brush it on and you'redone.
It takes, it, removes all thenasty stuff.
That paste sizes and spraysizes, all the all very
(40:39):
technical terms like very thegreasiness I hate when you're,
you get it all like it's on yourhands.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I don't like the spray because I miss, but then
the alternative is a lotion andthen you just feel like cakey
yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
So this is, this is a dry, easy to apply, very, very
neat little thing.
I'll post a.
We're gonna do a little minivideo, a little reel on our
social medias about it.
Then it'll be on ourInnovateTheOrdinarycom slash
podcast Go check it out.
So that is first brush on block, and then second is something
(41:12):
that we own.
It's in our garage right now.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Also great for summer .
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Cooling it down.
We're cooling it down.
It's the icy breeze.
When you think of the icybreeze and you see the icy
breeze, it looks like a cooler,like just a regular cooler.
You would put ice and drinks in.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
No, it looks like a shop vac to me.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Okay, a very small shop vac.
Cooler shop vac combo.
Okay, I'll give you that.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
It doesn't look anything like a cooler.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
But it's got a vent on top and when you turn this
thing on either plugged in orbattery I have the battery
option.
When you turn it on, it runsthe air conditioning right.
So it takes the ice inside thecooler and it converts it into
cold air that blows out of thisvent.
Now, what I love about the IcyBreeze, and the reason it has
(41:56):
made an appearance on John'sFinds of the Week, is because
the Icy Breeze is not what youtypically think of.
Most people say, oh, that'sjust, all they're doing is
blowing air across the ice andspitting on cold air.
But what the icy breeze hasdone is a very simple but very
effective radiator systemsimilar to your car that cools
your car.
It sucks up cold water from thebottom of the cooler.
(42:16):
It needs a little bit of waterto operate and it runs it
through a radiator system.
So it's blowing out cold butdry air.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Dry.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
That's key, especially when you live in
South Florida, ladies andgentlemen yeah, because the
worst thing you could possiblydo.
So let's say you have thisthing inside your tent and
you're blowing cold air insidethe tent at night.
Well, if you're blowing a swampcooler and you're blowing water
across ice, you're addingmoisture to that air.
So when that AC finally turnsoff, your tent inside is now
wetter than it was before.
Your humidity is probably 80%instead of 50%, leaving you
(42:49):
muggy and disgusting.
So the icy breeze is brilliantin the sense that it's much more
efficient because it's notmelting the ice as fast, because
we're running through aradiator and keeping that
environment closed and notletting warm air inside the
cooler, but it's also keepingthat air dry, which I think is
really important.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
And let me tell you, it works.
We went down to Key West as afamily.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
In July.
What was this?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
last year.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Maybe the year before the Key Lime Pie Festival.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yes, in the middle of July.
Remind me to write a letter towhoever runs that event and ask
them to move it to, not in themiddle of summer To December.
Yeah, we went as a family thekids are really little and John
was helping a buddy who had apop-up booth at the event who
was selling some products fromhis booth, and he brought the
(43:35):
Icy Hot and I'm pretty sure youIcy Breeze Sorry, I said Icy Hot
, icy Breeze and I feel likeyour booth was one of the most
popular ones because peoplewanted to get a little blast of
fresh air.
Also, the kids just hung aroundit like all day, blowing it in
their faces, putting it in theirshirts.
It was just so nice to havethat little reprieve from the
(43:57):
heat for a minute and your boothwas definitely very busy.
I think that might have helpeda little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Well, when you bring innovative products to the booth
, people tend to want to seethem.
Yeah, so that's John's Finds ofthe Week.
They will be onInnovateTheOrdinarycom slash
podcast if you would like toview them, and thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Bye.
And I'm joined as always by my co-host.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Katie Mode.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
And today we're going to talk EVs electric vehicles.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
But before we start Katie, I think you had some- yes
, we have some housekeeping weneed to get out of the way
before we jump in.
So, as some of you hopefullymany of you know we do a segment
at the end of all of ourpodcast episodes that's John's
pick of the week where we talkabout some really cool
innovative products, and so whatwe've done is we've added a
(00:31):
place on our website, innovatethe ordinarycom where you can
explore more about theseinnovative products.
So if you are listening to anepisode and one of these
products piques your interest,you want to go learn more head
over to InnovateTheOrdinarycomforward slash podcast, or you
can just go to our homepage andnavigate using the toolbar and
(00:53):
you can check out all those coolproducts.
They're linked on our site aswell as the most recent episode
of our podcast.
So bookmark that and go checkit out.
We'd love to see you on ourwebsite.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Very cool.
So in order to talk EVs, I feellike we need to talk the US
Postal Service first.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Because that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, so well, the why is because I personally feel
like we are in this interestingboom where we've got this thing
that looks like the future ofeverything.
This looks like the future ofpersonalized transportation and
I think if we look back tohistory, we have several moments
where we've had this thing thatseems like the future.
(01:37):
So the United States PostalService opened its very first
post office in 1639 inMassachusetts.
We are still a 13 colonies.
We're still.
It's kind of a way for Englandand the colonies to communicate,
to receive mail, and between1639 and 1775, there are some
(02:03):
very slow expansions just tokind of get information
throughout the colonies.
You've got Ben Franklin who'sthe assistant postmaster general
.
Then he's fired for leakingmail to kind of out the British.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Wait, wait, wait, wait, pause.
He leaked the first leak.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, Benjamin Franklin was our first national
leak, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
And then, once the Constitutional Congress takes
over, ben Franklin's turned tothe Postmaster General again,
because he was on our side andwe won.
So it's not treason if you win.
So from 1775 to about 1901, wehave this massive expansion
where the post office goes fromPony Express and Congress allows
(02:45):
steamboats and it's truly abranch of the federal government
.
Around 1901, they hit theirabsolute peak of 76,945 post
offices across the United Statesof America.
But if you are a follower ofhistory, something else
interesting happens.
Right around 1901.
A gentleman by the name of JimCasey starts thinking to himself
(03:09):
you know what, maybe there'sbetter, there are other ways to
get these packages around.
And so in 1907, jim Casey andhis I believe it's his brother
take their first $100 loan andthey start UPS right, which it
wasn't called UPS at the time,but they start what will become
UPS as an alternative means toshipping packages.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
What did they call it ?
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It was called the American Messenger Company.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That's cute, I like that.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, which was the very first kind of rival that
mattered at least to the UnitedStates.
Postal Service and UPS growskind of slowly and steadily up
until the early 80s and then itexplodes.
But something else interestinghappened in the early 1980s.
In 1971, fred Smith writes acollege paper about overnight
(04:01):
package delivery and his teachercalls him crazy, tells him
it'll never take off.
And in 1973, mr Fred Smithstarts the Federal Express
Company, so FedEx, and they gettheir first profits in 1975.
And by 1978, they go publiclytraded company and then by 1983,
(04:24):
they become the first companyto reach a billion dollars
within a decade.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
That is quite the growth trajectory for a startup.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So, but something else interesting happens between
the early 1980s and the early2000s, fedex and UPS become the
dominant player in the postalservice and then, in about 1970,
the federal government quoteunquote, stopped funding the
post office.
I use quotes because the postoffice since then has been
(04:55):
defunded.
No, it has been, and I quotegenerally self-funded.
And what that means is thatthey take, quote unquote, no tax
dollars to keep the lights onin the facilities across the
country, but the governmentstill, even though they're not,
quote unquote, funded by thegovernment.
They are considered a privatebusiness, but their postal
(05:31):
inspection officers are federallaw enforcement.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So they're considered a private branch.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
A private business.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I'm sorry, a private business of the federal
government.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Nope, a private business.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Do you remember?
This riddle that we had as kidsWas like you get to a four-way
stop.
There's you, there's a policeofficer, an ambulance and a
postal worker.
You all get there at the sametime.
Who has the right of way?
Do you remember this riddle?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
No, okay, I ran into this all the time as a kid and
the first time it totallystumped me.
I was like the ambulance, ofcourse, and I was told I never
verified this, by the way, but Iwas told the answer to the
riddle is the postal worker,because they're a federal
employee.
But are they a federal employee?
I wonder if that riddle isstill the answer A.
(06:21):
If that is true I don't know Ifyou are listening and you know
please email us, Let us know.
But if it is true, if it wastrue, is it still true today if
it's considered a private?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
business.
Well, it's an interesting kindof amalgamation of things right.
You've got this company who isconsidered a private entity, not
a government business, but it'skind of funded by the
government.
They have federal employees.
It's a very interesting thingand my personal argument is the
(06:56):
US Postal Service would havebeen out of business in the
1970s as soon as FedEx and UPStook off, because when you think
of the post office now, youdon't think of the way to ship
mail, you think of the peoplewho bring you bills and junk
mail.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That's a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Right, and what I think is interesting is so we're
talking 80s to early 2000s, soin 2004,.
I mean, this is after the USPostal Service has fully whipped
.
I mean they have not been.
They're not even in this raceanymore.
At that point it was FedEx, dhland UPS.
The US Postal Service was kindof on its way out of the people
(07:31):
you use to ship almost anything.
In 2004, they come up with agreat idea that maybe they
should have had years and yearsand years before they come up
with a flat rate box which now,ironically, has all kinds of
rules associated with it, itused to.
At the time they released it itwas if you can fit it in that
box, I don't care how heavy, howheavy it is, it ships for the
price that the flat rate boxbuys.
(07:52):
Now it's got all kinds of rulesand regulations and there's a
whole bunch of mess.
But ironically, in 1991, theyintroduced the flat rate
priority envelope, so theyalready had this idea of flat
rate.
They just didn't extend it to abox, so they were still not
(08:12):
super worried about theircompetition.
And so I look at this companythat was at one point the height
of mail shipping.
In the early 1900s I bet you noone could see any world in
which the US Postal Service wasnot by far and away the only
person you're shippingeverything with.
In the future, this company'sonly grown, it's only going to
(08:33):
get bigger and bigger and bigger.
And right in that moment,someone thinks of something
different.
And so I wonder, with EVs, withelectric vehicles, if we are
kind of in that moment.
Right, everyone, every majorcorporation, every, you know,
all these big automakers are alltrying to jockey for who's
going to grab as much marketshare as they can from EVs.
(08:53):
Every major automaker, it hasan EV plan, right, seemingly
except for Toyota.
Toyota has been famous forconsistency.
Toyota has a mantra or abusiness practice within their
company.
Because they're Japanese, theyhave this thought process of we
need to think for a very longtime and make the right decision
(09:17):
, and then to think on thatdecision for a while and then
enact it very quickly.
So we come up with our plan andthen we think about our plan,
we try to poke holes in our planand then when we enact our plan
, we enact it very quickly.
So we come up with our plan andthen we think about our plan,
we try to poke holes in our planand then, when we enact our
plan, we enact it very, veryquickly.
And Toyota actually their CEO,stepped down not so long ago
because he was a little oldschool and he wasn't really on
board with this EV revolutionthing so maybe I'm too old
(09:38):
school for this right.
And this CEO steps down and nowwe're looking at Toyota.
Who's about a year ago thishappens.
You think, oh my gosh, they'regoing to jump all over this EV
thing and they still haven't.
It's still less than 1% oftheir sales.
All their new vehicles comingout are hybrids and Toyota has
come out now that they've hadsome time to sit and think about
(09:58):
it for a while before theyimplement.
And they've said EVs are not asefficient as people think they
are.
Evs are not as efficient aspeople think they are.
Evs are not as safe and happyfor the environment as people
think they are.
Matter of fact, in most of thestates our power is generated by
coal and they're using, they'redirtying up the environment.
(10:19):
If your goal is to clean theenvironment, you're dirtying it
more with EVs.
And so Toyota's kind of takinga step back and saying, well, we
can make like 14 or so vehiclesfor the same level of carbon
footprint as you are forprinting one EV, and they're
looking at the math and sayingit doesn't make a whole lot of
sense.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Right.
I mean, let's talk for a minuteabout how we make EV batteries
right, a process called stripmining.
And, to your point, this issomething I think consumers are
starting to realize and it'sbecoming more mainstream how
these products, these vehicles,are being manufactured.
(11:00):
But strip mining is notoriouslybad for the environment.
I mean, what is it?
It's removing surface materialfor access to minerals in the
ground that are essential forelectric vehicle batteries like
lithium, cobalt and nickel.
Primarily, they have to clearout all the vegetation and
(11:20):
topsoil from an area before theycould dig down and remove the
mineral.
And once it's extracted andthey transport it away, they
then do their best to restorethe area by refilling the pit,
replacing topsoil, plantingvegetation, et cetera, which I
think has been a bit of a facadefor a while, like, okay, sure,
(11:44):
we're deforesting, we'reremoving all the vegetation,
we're pushing out wildlife, butthen we're going to restore it,
right, so it's fine, it'ssustainable, because we're going
to plant forests and put thetopsoil back.
But in reality, it's nearlyimpossible to restore an area, a
habitat, back to its originalstate after strip mining,
(12:06):
because the topography isforever changed.
You've already destroyedbiodiversity in that area, so
having animals come back intothe area is going to take a long
time.
Vegetation takes a long time toregrow.
Also, I would be this is my ownpersonal bias willing to argue
that you have a team on sitedoing strip mining and part of
(12:28):
their process is to do landrestoration.
How well are they doing?
Their goal is to get theseresources out of the ground.
It's part of their process toput topsoil back and maybe put
some seeds down, but they needto move on.
They're going to move on to thenext site.
I just have little faith inthat part of the process because
it's almost like a must do not.
(12:50):
What drives, you know, actuallygetting these resources out of
the ground?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I've always thought to myself humans as a whole are
very high and mighty, right?
We know the answer, right, butif you want to talk climate
change, so let's for a second.
I'm not going to get into thepolitics of climate change, but
let's assume that climate changeis real, and climate change is
a real thing, that's happeningand that we have any kind of
(13:16):
impact on that.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Okay, or that we have any control.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Or that we have any control, right.
And so, if that's the case, andwe're looking, looking at fossil
fuels and we're looking at, oh,we're adding carbon to the
atmosphere, we're looking atmicroplastics, we're heating up
the ocean by creating this solarblanket that sits over top of
the ocean in certain spots, andwe didn't know about these
things?
Right, there are DDT andaerosols and all these things
(13:41):
that we slowly learn as we go,oh, these seem to have some kind
of impact.
Well, we live on a rock with agiant magma-filled core, with an
incredible amount of magneticfields that do a lot of
different things on this planet.
Animals and plants haverecorded instances where they
use Earth's magnetic field to docertain things.
(14:05):
So we're taking all the theferrous and ferromagnetic metals
out of the ground in this bigstrip mining campaign, these
huge spots, and then we're justlike putting the top soil back
on and putting the plants backon and assuming that the animals
and the plants are not going toneed those or that's not going
to change how the earthinteracts with that particular
location.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Right.
The assumption that there's noeffect after everything is put
back nicely.
It's not that simple, goingbeyond just getting the
resources out of the ground.
The electric vehicle buy-in isthe foundation.
There is sustainability, right?
And when I say, why do you?
If we were to poll any electricvehicle driver about why they
(14:47):
chose that vehicle if theirdrive was the environment,
they're not going to say,they're not going to talk about
this aspect.
They're going to talk aboutemissions.
Right, that is a big driver ofadoption is low or no emissions
of these vehicles?
And I think it's interestingbecause we're missing the mark
(15:09):
entirely when it comes to themarketing statement of no
emissions, because we're toldit's end-to-end clean energy,
when in reality theenvironmental cost for mining
these resources I mean, you'retalking about massive, heavy
(15:31):
petrol-trugging machineryrequired to move this earth and
get these elements out of theground and that's not something
that is presented to theconsumer, obviously, and
something the consumer isn'tgoing to think about.
Right, we're not going to thinkabout how this is done.
Their battery is cool, they useelectricity, better for the
environment, but in reality, howmuch fossil fuels are we
(15:52):
burning?
Just getting the material outand then, on the far end,
disposal what a nightmare.
I mean, disposal of theseelectric batteries is not good
and I know there's lots ofcompanies looking at recycling
and doing more with that, butit's challenging.
They're full of highly toxicmetals and materials and
(16:14):
improper disposal can lead topollution of our atmosphere,
water, soil, I mean, you name itand then the landfills.
We're overburdening ourlandfills.
It's a lot of material to thenhave to go into a landfill, so
there's a big recycling issue.
These are toxic.
It takes a lot of fuel toextract them.
So show me really, at the endof the day, how this is
(16:38):
sustainable compared to atraditional vehicle.
I think that's an interestingthing that we can get into this
later in the episode, like theconsumer perspective of it, like
it's being affected by peoplerealizing maybe it's not as
sustainable as I was told it wasin the beginning.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, and there's a lot of marketing, right?
So if you're trying to convincethe masses, it's been proven
that the most effective meansright is pick an enemy, right?
So emissions is the easiestenemy, right?
So you start with there's aresearcher that finds little
bits of soot on on arctic icecaps and goes, oh, it's the
diesel vehicles.
It's definitely not the giantfreight liner that's going by
(17:18):
right now pumping, you know,exhaust straight into the air.
Right, granted, they did goafter those as well.
There's like reclamations andthings, but you still see a
pillars of black smoke's coming.
Black smoke coming out of theships.
Right, and, and it must be theelectric, you know the, the
diesel vehicles.
It's those, those nasty dieselvehicles.
So we come up with, you know,egr systems and we come up with
with def systems and things toto reduce the amount of soot
(17:40):
that's in the environment, whichmakes the vehicles inherently
less efficient, which makes themuse more fuel, more fuel, and
on and on and on, we go.
Yeah, and so we pick an enemy,right.
So emissions is the enemy, andso we use emissions as the enemy
.
Sugar is the enemy, fat is theenemy.
We pick the easy target ofwhat's going to be the
(18:01):
categorical, easy thing to lookat and say, well, if we just
change this one thing, x willhappen.
But in our craze, in thisalmost hysteria, this fadness of
EVs, we've got this electricvehicle that's popular now, and
so we go to the business side ofit.
Everyone's trying to get thecoolest, best, biggest, baddest
(18:23):
vehicles out there of it.
And everyone's trying to getthe coolest, best, biggest,
baddest vehicles out there.
And then comes the cyber truck,right.
The cyber truck was elon musk'syou know napkin drawing of a
vehicle that turns into thislittle trash.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Origami, beautiful work craftsmanship origami on
wheels, right.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So elon musk comes with this idea.
He's like this thing's going tobe stainless steel, it's going
to be bulletproof, all thesethings going to be the ultimate,
you know, apocalypse machine,whatever, as he as he, you know
marks it.
And so, okay, now we've gotthis apocalypse machine.
It's a very popular, trendything on the internet right now
is the cyber truck, and we startto see as people break down the
(18:59):
cyber truck.
Okay, that bulletproof glassthing you talked about, where
you threw the ball into thewindow.
It went viral, right.
Well, in order to get thatpackage, the windows don't roll
down, right.
And then you go okay, it'sstainless steel, but in coastal
environments it's alreadyrusting.
The thing's been out for sixmonths, maybe.
It's already starting to haverusting issues.
(19:19):
You have the gas pedal of thevehicle, the little plate that
covers the gas pedal pedal.
When you had the gas pedaldepressed, it was coming loose,
the glue was breaking off and itwas sliding down and getting
stuck in the floorboard andcausing your accelerator to
smash to the ground.
And, as all companies do, theyissue a recall.
And the answer to the recall isdrill a hole in the gas pedal
and stick a rivet in it, right,we didn't have enough time to
(19:42):
test these things.
We didn't find that in ourquality control because we're
trying so hard to get thisvehicle out quickly.
Do you know what the Cybertruckcar wash mode is?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
No, I don't.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Okay.
So the Cybertruck has a featureon the screen that you press,
called car wash mode, and whatit is is when you wash your
vehicle, drive it through a carwash or wash it with a hose.
If you don't put it in car washmode, the water will interfere
with the charging port and freakit out.
So you put it in car wash mode.
(20:14):
It knows there's supposed to bewater.
Then it shuts down certaincomponents to protect itself.
The steering has an audibleclunk to it.
Right, there's all these issueswith the Cybertruck because
this thing was maybewell-engineered but not
well-tested.
We pushed it to market.
We tried to get it out as fastas we could.
We want to stay relevant.
The car industry, with EVs, isstarting to become your cell
(20:37):
phone.
What's the newest, mostinteresting feature I can push
out that makes you want toparticipate?
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Well, because so much of the EV now is software.
You have the electric vehicle.
The bones are generally thesame, I would assume, but then
your differentiator in the EVmarket is the software right,
and that's constantly changingbecause it's software.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, more or less.
And you're at this moment aswell where all EVs have a look
when you see a car, you knowit's an EV.
They've kind of developed thiskind of look to it, this super
futuristic vibe to it.
So everyone wants to stick withyou know, be as futuristic as
they can.
Lots of LEDs, screenseverywhere, make goofy seats.
They just do all these thingsto show you the future is here,
(21:25):
things to show you the future ishere.
And let's talk about thebusiness side of that, right.
So everyone's jumping at youknow, chomping at the bit to get
to these EV markets.
And you've got Ford, who openedan entire plant just to build
the Ford F-150 Lightning andsame thing, rushed it to market,
ran that thing out the door asfast as they possibly could to
be the first EV truck.
This thing you can plug yourhouse into it.
(21:45):
It'll generate for your houseall these cool features they
wanted to put on there.
And as soon as car and drivergot a hold of it, they towed a
trailer for the first time andfound that thing could only go
like 50 miles with any kind ofload towing behind it.
The business piece of this, thebusiness element of this, this
machine.
This desire to be part of thisfad kind of seems to be on rocky
(22:09):
footing.
So Ford has this new plant.
Originally, when they launchedthe F-150 Lightning, they sold
out.
I want to say the reservationswere like two and a half years
capacity was how many F-150Lightnings they sold After the
news came out and people startedcanceling their reservations.
I think they'll make you oneright now.
So this thing's been out forless than a year and they'll go
(22:32):
ahead and fire one up in 12weeks or whatever.
It is.
That the normal F-150 lead timeand we're talking the most
popular vehicle in the US period, the F-150.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
That's interesting.
Yeah, I think personal opinionis that the EV market is
teetering and we're at a sort ofcrossroad or I guess a
crossroads it's definitelyteetering.
I think there's still a lot ofhope for the EV market.
I think it could be the way ofthe future.
I like the idea of EV, despiteeverything that we have talked
(23:04):
about already aboutsustainability and how it's not
really up to snuff.
I think it's a great idea and Ilike the concept.
But something has happenedrecently with Tesla specifically
, that is shifting or causingripples in the market, and that
was the layoff that they had May1st, I believe, or right around
(23:27):
there, where they laid off 10%of their workforce, which is a
lot, and a majority of them wereteams working on the
supercharger grid.
And this is not just big newsfor Tesla I mean, it's huge news
for Tesla and their stock tooka hit but it's also a big deal
for electric vehicles at large,because they're very much the
leader in the charginginfrastructure and we're kind of
(23:50):
positioned to continue to bethe leader for charging or are
soon and when I say soon I meanlike within the next year or two
planning to switch to Tesla'scharging infrastructure.
So it's a big deal for thisnews to break that they're kind
(24:14):
of deep.
It seems like they'redeprioritizing their
supercharger grid and thislayoff also isn't isolated to
Tesla.
Other EV startups like Rivianand Lucid and Polestar are
laying off workers and facingproduction challenges, which
could indicate even more troublewithin the EV market.
So I think that's reallyinteresting because you've got
(24:36):
widespread consumer adoption forthe most part, like you just
said, they're here, peoplegenerally like them.
They're at least in our part ofthe country.
They've permeated, like they'reeverywhere.
But then you have this weirddisruption happening where
there's deprioritization of thegrid and that's going to ripple
through the whole entire marketand consumer adoption is
(24:58):
definitely slowing.
I was doing a little bit ofreading about this.
The other day, surveys showedthat most eb shoppers actually
want a vehicle priced below the$30,000 mark, which is why the
Tesla Model X, model Y, rightwhen those came out, that helped
permeate the market.
But a lot of EVs, especially bythe competitor manufacturers
(25:20):
like Rivian and especially Lucidthese vehicles are expensive.
You're talking $100, thesevehicles are expensive, you're
talking $100,000-ish mark.
So that's interesting.
There's a disconnect betweenconsumer appetite and price
compared to what themanufacturers are really
bringing to market and there's,as always, a concern over the
vehicle range and anxiety aboutcharging and the infrastructure,
(25:45):
which is only going to increasewith this news of Tesla, so I
think that's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
All right, John and Katie, you guys are getting me
all kinds of worried about.
What does this mean?
What are EVs going to be?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
doing and we don't dislike EVs.
We're looking to get anelectric vehicle potentially, so
this is not a don't do EVs kindof episode.
It's just looking at how whatyou think is definitely going to
be the way things go.
It may not always pan out likethe railroads.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah.
So where do we think it's goingto be in 10 years?
We're looking at the EV marketand we'll get to the railroads
in just a second.
I love that you pointed outrailroads.
That's interesting, but whereare the EVs in 10 years?
So let's look at the EV market.
So you've got two differentsegments.
You've got the attempt betweenthe Chinese and Tesla and Kia
(26:36):
and a few others and Ford to tryand appeal to the $30,000 and
under market that are tryingreally desperately Now.
Evs are incredibly expensive tomake versus a traditional
automobile, and so your typical1.3 liter three cylinder engine
with some sheet metal wrappedaround it isn't quite as easy to
(26:57):
do right.
Your Nissan Versa is a lotharder to make as an EV because
there's so much more expenseinto making EVs.
You also have charging, yourgrids, your slightly more
expensive insurance.
There's a lot of pieces to anEV that makes it much more
expensive as total cost ofownership, and so what you see
(27:18):
is removal of features.
Take the self-driving featureaway, take the quad motors away,
give it less motors, give itmore, you know, less range.
There are things you can do tocheapen that car.
So I think, personally, in 10years, I think there's a gap to
be filled.
There's a gap to be filled inthis market, and I think what
you're going to see are increasein hybrids, plug-in hybrids.
(27:38):
Probably You're going to see anincrease in, possibly, hydrogen
.
So your typical electric vehiclefans right, your typical
especially the smart onestalking points they get to with
EVs versus hydrogen or somethingelse, is the efficiency of an
electric vehicle.
You can go 98% or so of what youplug in gets put back out to
(28:01):
move the vehicle, but you got tolook at convenience as part of
that, that talking point.
So, humans, overall, youraverage driver, is looking at
this thing and saying, well, mygas car is only about 40%
efficient.
I don't really care necessarilyabout efficiency as much as I
care about cost and speed anddistance I can go and the speed
(28:22):
to fill it right.
So if we're looking at that,hydrogen is an interesting play
there because you can, withscalability, get hydrogen down
to about the cost of diesel.
You're taking care of emissions, which everyone seems to care
about.
That's the buzzword.
Right, it takes two, threeminutes to fill it, just like it
does a gas car, and you have arelatively unlimited range.
If you can keep filling the carup, you get that quick stop and
(28:45):
go, you get the road tripoption, you get those heavier
vehicles that can stop moreoften to fill.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Is the range for a hydrogen car the same as a fuel
car?
Like?
Speaker 1 (28:57):
for a tank.
Yeah, they're about the same,okay.
Okay three to three to 500miles or so, depending on how
big your car is, not that thetank is and all that but it's
comparable but it's comparable.
Yeah, and it's also arelatively easy adoption.
Right, I'm not sitting in aparking lot of a same type of
gas station experience?
Yeah, fill up experience andactually you can retrofit gas
stations very easily toaccommodate.
(29:18):
You just swap the tanks out forcompressed hydrogen tanks and
and you move, so no consumerchanges needed not really.
I mean there's a.
There's a slight difference inhow it plugs into the car and
all that type of stuff, butgenerally speaking of the
consumer experience is very,very similar.
So increase in hybrids, makinghybrids more efficient.
I mean you've got hybridminivans that are almost 50
miles to the gallon my dream carand so you've got this, you've
(29:42):
got these options.
Where efficiency is there,convenience is there.
So maybe that's your yin to EV'syang, but EV will still be
there, right?
You're still going to have yoursupercars, right, your Porsche
Taycans that are these EVabsolute monsters because they
can go super fast, they're allkinds of tech and whatnot.
You'll still have your $100,000range and and whatnot.
(30:06):
You'll still have your, youknow your hundred thousand
dollar range and I think you'llstill have your cheaper evs.
But I think you're what you'regoing to see is kind of a switch
between evs being a luxurycomponent where they, where they
go five, six, seven hundredmiles in a single charge, but
you're going to pay 150 000 todo it.
And then you're going to haveyour low cost, low tech commuter
cars that are designed toreplace kind of that smart car
(30:28):
and that Nissan Versa that aregoing to be these cheap electric
cars that they're making inChina that can just do your
day-to-day, you know 100 milerange type situations, and so I
think you'll see kind of atransfer into that.
That's my personal opinion, butit's interesting that you
brought up the railroads.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, I brought them up because I think it's an
interesting industry to compareto EV, just because, while the
railroad industry still remainsa really important part of our
transportation infrastructure inthe US, it no longer holds the
same value or level of influenceand dominance that it did
(31:09):
during the late 19th century.
So I was kind of nodding tothat as like an example and we
can unpack that just how thingshave changed.
And I'm sure if you could jumpin a time machine and go back to
the, you know, the late 1800s,mid 1800s, you would definitely
bet for the railroad industrynot changing for a very long
(31:31):
time because it was such adominant industry.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, and I think I mean you're talking about it was
such a popular industry, it wassuch a huge push that at the
time it was a full-on monopoly.
You had all the richest peoplein the world dominating building
railroads.
And so when you look at, yousay, well, the richest people in
the world are involved in thisright, the elon musks and the
jeff bezos's are in evs, I meanin oops, I'm sorry, in railroads
(31:59):
is that a Freudian?
slip.
So so you've got the.
The richest people in the worldare all hyper-focused on this
one thing.
It must be the next big thing.
But along comes Henry Ford anddisrupts the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Right, so let's highlight some of these tycoons
really quickly and what theyowned and what happened to their
businesses, and then we cantalk about how it changed a
little bit.
What happened that made eventhese very successful railroads
that are still in existencetoday go from being the dominant
(32:35):
industry to not essentially?
So we've got a couple ofplayers.
Cornelius Vanderbilt he ownedthe Well, he still technically
owns, his sons still own the NewYork Central Railroad, but he
owned it specifically from 1867to 1877.
And what he did with thiscompany is he consolidated
(32:57):
smaller railroads into a singleefficient system to help lower
costs and increase profitability.
So all good things and, like Isaid, his empire.
We all know the Vanderbilt name, so no surprise, his empire
remains intact and his sons arecontinuing to control the New
York Central Railroad.
Then we have Jay Gold.
He owned the Erie Railroad,union Pacific Railroad and
(33:21):
Missouri Pacific Railroad from1836 to 1892.
He doesn't have quite theglamorous story as Vanderbilt.
He was engaged in somefinancial speculation, corporate
raiding, manipulation of stockprices all the things that you
shouldn't be doing to amassgreat personal wealth.
And it did begin to crumbleafter he handed off to his sons
(33:43):
and they failed to maintaincontrol of those railroads.
We have James Hill.
He was the owner of the GreatNorthern Railway from 1878 to
1916.
He built the TranscontinentalRailroad System very efficiently
without government subsidies,which is amazing and he focused
a lot on freight transportation.
(34:04):
The Great Northern Railwayremains a successful and
profitable company to this dayand it has eventually merged
with other leading railroadcompanies, and this is my last
one I'm going to cover.
There's definitely more tycoonsthan this, but these are just
the top ones I wanted tohighlight today.
Henry Huntington was the ownerof Pacific Electric Railway and
(34:26):
Los Angeles Railway from 1850 to1927.
And he developed an extensiveelectric railway system in
Southern California connectingurban centers to the suburbs.
It was eventually sold off anddismantled by the 1940s due to
the rise of automobiletransportation.
So, just to set the stage,these were some of the early
(34:49):
tycoons of the railway systemsand there was a couple things
that I think we could talk aboutthat shifted the tides for
these industries.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Combination of regulatory changes, economic
shifts, demographic trends allall had to had a part to play in
the dismantling of these, thesehuge empires yeah, and I think
during times of of great marketshift and this is one of the
(35:25):
reasons that I that we look atthis during times of great
market shifts you get a lot ofreally, really rich people doing
a lot of acquisitions, right.
So right now you're looking atI mean, signa just got purchased
by by healthcare systems group,which is a barclay company.
You've got BlackRock acquiringeverything.
(35:45):
Macy's is getting acquired by acapital management company.
One of the Coca-Coladistributors just bought a
window company down here inSouth Florida.
You're seeing a lot of mergersand acquisitions where there's a
consolidation of companies andit's a way to to invest wisely
(36:06):
and to try and and take somemarket share during during
periods of uncertainty.
So if we're, if we're in thismajor acquisitions moment and
you've got companies like lucidthat are coming out and saying I
know we lost a lot of moneylast year, but we lost less than
we said we were going to lose,so that's a win right.
You've got this EV market thatappeared to be so dominant.
(36:27):
I mean, at one point Tesla wasvalued at a higher valuation
than Toyota, ford and, I think,chrysler combined.
So Tesla had this massivevaluation because EVs were.
That was it man.
Tesla's going to own the world.
Right, and you're starting tosee some acquisitions, you're
starting to see some slowing,you're starting to see some
things changing and I only haveone question Are we missing the
(36:51):
flying cars?
I mean growing up everybody.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
This is going to be a long episode.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
No, no, I'm almost done.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Oh, I think we have to jump in.
Flying cars are so much to talkabout.
I know so.
No, but all.
Oh, I just I think we have tojump, but it's flying cars,
there's so much to talk about Iknow so.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
No, but but all growing up.
If you ask anybody in the last50 years what what the next 30
years look like, they'd beflying cars right, that was the
we've all seen flubber all right, exactly right.
So so you've got aeromobileehang holdings, archer aviation,
terra f, terrafugia, evtl,kitty Hawk, airbus, athena, aero
(37:27):
, alif, aeronautics, volocopter.
I mean you've got dozens anddozens of companies out there
right now making flying cars.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Sustainable flying cars.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Sustainable flying cars and we're on the ground
with EVs.
So I think that's theinteresting piece is that it's.
Are these flying cars going totake over and dominate the
landscape, or are they still apipe dream that they've always
been right?
That's the funniest part to meis, when you think of the future
, you think of flying cars, oryou always have historically.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Well, that's what we were told.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
That's what we were told.
That's what we were told.
That's what we were told,that's what we were promised
right?
We've been programmed to thinkof flying vehicles and, and here
we are looking at evs thatdrive themselves.
Right, and it's justinteresting to look at that
market.
The flying cars are there.
I mean, heck, they've got fourpassenger flying cars with wings
, and, and two three passengerflying cars with, with
(38:23):
quadcopter blades and all kindsof cool stuff out there, but
they're not dominating themarket.
It's in existence, it's part ofsomething that we are currently
achieving as a human race, butthey're not nearly as popular,
not dominating the market share.
So I just think it'sinteresting.
I'm not saying that EVs are notgoing to become what everyone
seems to think they are.
I just don't personally thinkthey are.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
We can agree to disagree on that.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, so it's an interesting market segment.
It's an interesting thing towatch and I'm looking forward to
seeing where it goes.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Let's get into your picks of the week.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
John's pick of the week.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
We do need a jingle.
Your mom's been asking for ajingle.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
My mom has been begging.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
We hear you, mom.
We're going to have a jinglesoon.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
All right, mom.
Well, we're going to keeptalking directly to my mother,
who's my number one fan, so I'llaccept she is.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
That's why she gets a weekly call out.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
She does get a weekly call out.
Okay, so let's talk aboutJohn's first pick of the week.
Summer things are getting hotwell, depending on where you are
, I suppose, well, I think downhere things are getting hot and
either way, we're leading intosummer, so I thought I would
pick a very interesting summeroption.
Now we have small children andwhen you're trying to put
(39:36):
sunblock on your small children,there's a bit of a wrestling
match.
There's a smearing on theirface, trying to get things in
their eyes.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
There's this whole process whole process, this
whole patches of skin.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Whole patches of skin .
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Eager to go and get in the water.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
So what if there was a way?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Oh, tell me.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
What if there was a dry sunblock, a powder-based
sunblock that was all thehealthiest ingredients, that you
want a sunblock zinc, and justsay, just think, um, but so, so
you just want that zinc to blockthe sun, but you don't want to
put a bunch of nasty stuff onyour skin.
There is a company called brushon block and what it is and the
(40:16):
best way to describe it is likeone of those little foundation
puff brushes that inside of ithas this zinc and you brush it
on the skin, wait a few minutesfor it to kind of settle, and
then it's waterproof, just likeany other sunscreen, and all you
do is brush it on and you'redone.
It takes, it, removes all thenasty stuff.
That paste sizes and spraysizes, all the all very
(40:39):
technical terms like very thegreasiness I hate when you're,
you get it all like it's on yourhands.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I don't like the spray because I miss, but then
the alternative is a lotion andthen you just feel like cakey
yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
So this is, this is a dry, easy to apply, very, very
neat little thing.
I'll post a.
We're gonna do a little minivideo, a little reel on our
social medias about it.
Then it'll be on ourInnovateTheOrdinarycom slash
podcast Go check it out.
So that is first brush on block, and then second is something
(41:12):
that we own.
It's in our garage right now.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Also great for summer .
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Cooling it down.
We're cooling it down.
It's the icy breeze.
When you think of the icybreeze and you see the icy
breeze, it looks like a cooler,like just a regular cooler.
You would put ice and drinks in.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
No, it looks like a shop vac to me.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Okay, a very small shop vac.
Cooler shop vac combo.
Okay, I'll give you that.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
It doesn't look anything like a cooler.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
But it's got a vent on top and when you turn this
thing on either plugged in orbattery I have the battery
option.
When you turn it on, it runsthe air conditioning right.
So it takes the ice inside thecooler and it converts it into
cold air that blows out of thisvent.
Now, what I love about the IcyBreeze, and the reason it has
(41:56):
made an appearance on John'sFinds of the Week, is because
the Icy Breeze is not what youtypically think of.
Most people say, oh, that'sjust, all they're doing is
blowing air across the ice andspitting on cold air.
But what the icy breeze hasdone is a very simple but very
effective radiator systemsimilar to your car that cools
your car.
It sucks up cold water from thebottom of the cooler.
(42:16):
It needs a little bit of waterto operate and it runs it
through a radiator system.
So it's blowing out cold butdry air.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Dry.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
That's key, especially when you live in
South Florida, ladies andgentlemen yeah, because the
worst thing you could possiblydo.
So let's say you have thisthing inside your tent and
you're blowing cold air insidethe tent at night.
Well, if you're blowing a swampcooler and you're blowing water
across ice, you're addingmoisture to that air.
So when that AC finally turnsoff, your tent inside is now
wetter than it was before.
Your humidity is probably 80%instead of 50%, leaving you
(42:49):
muggy and disgusting.
So the icy breeze is brilliantin the sense that it's much more
efficient because it's notmelting the ice as fast, because
we're running through aradiator and keeping that
environment closed and notletting warm air inside the
cooler, but it's also keepingthat air dry, which I think is
really important.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
And let me tell you, it works.
We went down to Key West as afamily.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
In July.
What was this?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
last year.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Maybe the year before the Key Lime Pie Festival.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yes, in the middle of July.
Remind me to write a letter towhoever runs that event and ask
them to move it to, not in themiddle of summer To December.
Yeah, we went as a family thekids are really little and John
was helping a buddy who had apop-up booth at the event who
was selling some products fromhis booth, and he brought the
(43:35):
Icy Hot and I'm pretty sure youIcy Breeze Sorry, I said Icy Hot
, icy Breeze and I feel likeyour booth was one of the most
popular ones because peoplewanted to get a little blast of
fresh air.
Also, the kids just hung aroundit like all day, blowing it in
their faces, putting it in theirshirts.
It was just so nice to havethat little reprieve from the
(43:57):
heat for a minute and your boothwas definitely very busy.
I think that might have helpeda little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Well, when you bring innovative products to the booth
, people tend to want to seethem.
Yeah, so that's John's Finds ofthe Week.
They will be onInnovateTheOrdinarycom slash
podcast if you would like toview them, and thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Bye.
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