January 25, 2024 • 51 mins
The new product reveals are coming hot and heavy in the days after CES, with World of Concrete happening and the new Tier 5 emissions standards coming online driving innovation in ag and construction – but the big news is the all-new Volvo VNL line of Class 8 commercial trucks. Mike and Jo talk it all out, and throw in some suggestions for how to win a new Paccar Kenworth, too!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Whether we're exploring the latest in trucking
technology, talking about thetrends that propel the industry
forward, or uncovering storiesabout the dedicated individuals
who keep the wheels of Americaturning, this is where the roar
of the engines and pulse ofprogress come together.
It's sublime, it's surreal.
That's the Heavy EquipmentPodcast with Mike and Joe.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome back to another episode of the Heavy
Equipment Podcast.
I'm your host, joe Boris, hereas ever, with Mike Switzer and
Mike's on the road today.
How are you doing, man?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm doing good, just running from one site to another
.
I don't have all the you know.
I don't have all the studiosStaff to annoy me all the whole
time when we're recording andyell at me because I go off
script.
So I think we're all right.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's good.
It'll be interesting to seewhether we stay on script more
without the support staff.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
The Late Late Show used to have Biff Henderson
right, david Letterman had him.
He got off track.
I don't even know what theguy's name is outside the booth,
but I call him Biff.
I think he doesn't like it, somaybe, maybe I'm being set up
for failure sometimes.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, I think there's some of that for sure.
Last week we were just gettingback from CES Las Vegas and
we're talking about all thegreat cool technology that's
there.
One of the things that wasthere that kind of got lost in
the shuffle, do say in Bobcatthey unveiled the AT450X.
It's an industry firstautonomous electric articulating
(01:46):
tractor.
This is really something for Iwould say it's a consumer model.
It's about the smallest thingthat you would get if you had a
real farm, but it's probably thebiggest thing you would get if
you were not an actual farmer.
It's like a hobby farm kind ofsize thing.
In the world of computers andphotography you'd call it a
prosumer model.
It's not consumer professional.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Prosumer.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
You're a prosumer.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, you're a pro at spending money.
Exactly what I really likeabout this thing obviously the
electric power.
It's great there's so manynoise regulations now,
especially in these niceneighborhoods up in like
Barrington and Naperville inIllinois, you can't really get
started on stuff like this.
If you're mowing a big yard oranything, you can't get started
until 9.10 in the morning.
(02:31):
There's going to be a couple ofthese landscaping companies
that are going to buy these.
They're going to get started at7.00 and 8.00 AM.
They're going to avoid the heatand they're going to just be
fine.
I think it's going to be a muchbetter work environment for
them early in the morning ifthey can avoid those noise
regulations.
The other thing I like aboutthis is the remote control.
They're calling it autonomous,but basically it's remote
(02:53):
control where you can train themachine to like.
If you're pulling a mower orsomething, you can train it on
your yard or on your field andjust hit repeat and it will go
do the exact same path that youtaught it to do.
I think that's going to be huge.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I think it's amazing.
I mean Bobcat we've talkedabout Bobcat before.
Bobcat is industry leader ininnovation.
Some people say Caterpillar is,but equally both of them are
working on stuff together intheir own world.
This is a huge thing.
I mean to be able to havesomething that's remote control.
It learns.
You can train it.
(03:31):
The other thing I was lookingat this and going over the specs
on it earlier today.
I immediately thought of golfcourses.
Yes, I was like you.
Put a real mower on this thing,teach it what it needs to do,
set it loose.
You've already got theboundaries set up for the carts
and everything.
Give it a good pattern.
That's kind of a weird industrytoo that has a hard time with
(03:52):
stuff.
So again, I thought that wouldbe a good fit for it.
Like you said, the farmerthat's out there and he's got
some manicured pasture land thathe wants to mow down or keep
something tidied up, why not letit go out there and do what you
needed to do while you're offbusy doing something else?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
That's exactly right.
The other neat thing about thisis you can do a lot more than
just mow with it.
I mean you can set up precisionweeding, you can do spraying,
you can just do materialtransport, like if you've got
hay bales that you need to movefrom one part of the farm to the
other.
You just put them in, load itup and tell it take this back to
the barn.
(04:29):
It drives itself back, there'ssomebody there unloading it and
you can have two or three ofthese things running on a big
enough farm to just have themgoing in continuous operation
without the need, most of thetime without the need to have a
driver in there.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
No, I totally agree.
Listen, I feel and I'm going touse this term we are on the
cusp of something massive.
Yes, part of this is thistechnology because, to be
totally serious and notsarcastic, we need as much of
this as we can stand and we canhave.
There's no reason that at thisday and age, we can't get
(05:05):
something that we can train andwe and it'll learn what we
needed to do it.
Like you said, spraying andweeding, even if you're trying
to do some cultivating whereyou're trying to tear up some
ground and reseed.
That's right.
I think it's awesome and I'mglad they unveiled it at CES.
Bobcat had a whole bunch oflike whisperings of stuff they
(05:26):
were going to drop and we talkedabout this offline the other
day.
And CES is turning into its ownlittle equipment show and its
own right.
Yeah, it used to be Hitachi andthey talked about technologies
and I would bop up the CES for aweek after a week of being at
different shows and I would goout there for a single day or
two.
It was a lot of consumerelectronics, obviously that's
(05:48):
its name.
But now we're getting into thisequipment realm where the OEMs
are.
They're throwing their electricand non-electric and any kind
of software out there.
I think it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
This is exactly right and this was really put out
there by a group called Agtonomy.
Agtonomy is kind of what thename implies.
They're trying to developautonomous agriculture.
Their goal is to have a fullyautonomous robotic farm
happening by 2035.
I think they're going to getthere.
They've got a really greatquote in this release from
(06:21):
Bobcat.
It says by digitallytransforming the equipment
farmers know and trust, we canhelp them combat the daily
challenges they face, such aslabor constraints and the ever
increasing demand forsustainable farming practices
and specialty crops.
That's Tim Bucher.
He's the CEO of Agtonomy and Ithink this it's called the
AT450X Definitely check it out.
(06:43):
I think this is going to go along way towards getting those
hobby farms, those vineyards,those small organic farms that
have such a hard time hiringpeople.
I think this is going to helpthem really operate and really
grow their business.
This is great stuff.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
We need to push this technology out there's many
people in as many ways aspossible, because a lot of
people have a lot ofmisunderstandings about all of
it.
They don't know how it fits,they don't know where it's going
to fit, they're afraid of it,they want to dabble in it.
They're not sure and when weneed that.
So, whether it's CES, world ofConcrete, which is currently
going on, there's the trucks.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh, World of Concrete's a wild show too.
They have wild tech happeningout there right now as well.
We'll get to that soon enough,but I mean there's a lot of
really good stuff coming out ofthere.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, you know.
And then the truck shows comingup.
There's a whole bunch oftechnology and autonomy to be
released.
I heard at the IndianapolisTruck Show in March.
I just started working a day.
I haven't even told you thisyet I'm going to be going out
there.
I got to figure that out.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So we'll do something live on the floor.
That would be a good one.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Why not why not we?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
got to keep the curbs up.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You know what?
They're going to see a studentup when we launch heavy
equipment video channel, the Hev.
That's going to be wild.
It only airs after 1 AM for 13minutes.
You got to be on live to catchit, otherwise you just get the
scrambled version like the oldPlayboy channel, you can hear
(08:13):
what's going on, but it's justmulti-colored bars across your
TV.
I mean, isn't that better?
Wasn't it always better when itwas left to the imagination?
You couldn't see the C-sectionstars 100%.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I remember the old days that you'd have oh, who was
his name?
Oh, howard Stern.
Did they hit a movie?
Yeah, so Howard Stern wouldhave these women on there after
night and then they'd be ontheir shoot in Ping Pong Balls
across the studio.
So I think you do the samething.
It's CES 2025.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
We'll do that off the hood at the Duke Kenworth at
the truck show.
Hey, she makes it into the fishbowl, you get a free truck.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
She makes it yeah.
The guy from Packard's going tobe like.
I didn't sign up for this.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
She's too good.
She's too good.
She got three in a row.
Our dog broke out.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Take her home.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
We didn't the longest time.
In Packard Kenworth, theyannounced today that they have
an OEM level agreement with WaveCharging.
That's our buddy that was onthe show with the wireless
charging Congrats.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
So they are now the first Well, their product makes
too much sense.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
The government's going to buy them and they're
all going to move away.
That's what's going to happenJust here.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We're just going to have wireless charging on
military bases.
Nobody else is going to have it.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
But that's a big move because now I mean, if Kenworth
really wanted to, they couldcome out right now and say, look
, we're the only truckmanufacturer, the only heavy
truck manufacturer, that you canget full warranty and wireless
charging right now, and nobodyelse has that.
So I mean, even if you buy thestuff and put it on, now, you're
dealing with aftermarketinstallation, dealer installed
(10:01):
options, this, that and theother.
This is fully OEM supported.
It's supported by not onlyPackard and Kenworth but also by
Dana, which is Dana.
Obviously Dana Axels is thesupplier there.
So everybody's on board withthis.
They're all high-fiving eachother, and good for them, man.
I think it's a solid productand it's good for them to have
it.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So you know, down in Australia they're looking at
this.
They got the welder all chargedup and ready to rock.
They're getting ready to plugit right into the truck and then
the guy from Wave is like no,you don't need that, it's
wireless.
The guy, how the hell does itget in there?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
What are you doing Magnet?
What are the?
What are the jug of the loavesMagnets?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Oh God, yes, it's funny, though the drive Packard
products.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I'm sure there are, will make them the official
cover photo of this this week'sepisode as we go on the quest to
discover the fifth loco.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I remember the jeans Geez.
I had three people in those.
They were walking around.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yes, yeah, somebody else who likes the wired stuff
and gets into some pretty wildstuff is the Swedes and Volvo.
Yeah, volvo has been going nuts.
This week they got two newcompact excavators.
These are diesel excavators,pretty conventional stuff, but
obviously you know increasedoperator comfort, better
filtration, better fuelefficiency, better stability,
(11:23):
the things are on, you know, alittle bit different shocks and
obviously better software andoperating software.
And you know this is supposedto be a revolutionary thing.
It's a new product, it's acomplete update of their
existing line.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, I saw, you know three and a half ton and a four
ton offering, which in the minia lot of people are like what,
what does that mean?
And you know three and a halfton, four ton, does that make a
big difference?
Each one has its own place inthe marketplace.
And you know the 10% more fuelefficiency that they're touting.
That by itself, for a singlelandscaper that may not make one
(11:58):
bit of difference, but in alarge fleet, somebody that's got
100 of these rolling around, orif you're a oil and gas
installation company, oh yeah,it makes a huge difference.
I mean, some of those guys have7500 minis in their fleet.
So you take 10% and knock itright off their budget, you have
something there.
And when dear Hitachi wasimporting, when they were
(12:20):
partnered and they wereimporting the minis, there were
a couple large oil and gasinstallation companies that were
switching to them because oftheir fuel efficiency at the
time and maintenance costs werereduced.
But probably Volvo in NorthAmerica has always been,
depending on where you're at.
For the heavy equipment sideit's been touched and go based
(12:41):
on, you know, dealer support,dealer items, just like anything
.
Caterpillar is strong in onearea.
They're not Deer.
Same thing.
Case case is a huge followingin pockets of the United States
because of the dealers.
The dealers make it.
So if you had a good dealer youcan go out there and try one of
these.
You need to because they have alot of good features on them
and all the way up into theirlarge heavy equipment and then
(13:03):
some of their demolitionequipment that uses a Volvo base
they do a great job.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, I agree fully.
You know we've had Ray on theshow as well, dr Ray Gellant,
who runs Volvo constructionequipment here in the US.
One thing that, because we'retalking about 10% better fuel
efficiency, that's 10% betterfuel efficiency while the engine
is running.
But this has a new featurethat's probably really familiar
to people if they've got a kindof a premium vehicle certainly
(13:30):
if they got a Volvo vehicle butit's probably new to the
construction world and thismeans that their fuel savings
actually gonna be quite a bitmore than 10%.
They have auto shut off.
So that means if you get out ofthe vehicle, there's not a need
for power, the engine shutsitself off.
(13:51):
So, if you like, let go of thecontrols, you stop what you're
doing, you lean over to talk tosomebody, you're off throttle,
it's not gonna run the engine,and then when you get back to
what you're doing, it justcranks over again, just like a
car.
You pull up to a red light, theengine dies.
Red light turns green.
You take your foot off thebrake, the engine cranks itself
back up and starts going again.
And this is kind of the firsttime that it's been used on a
(14:14):
small piece of equipment likethat.
I'm not small, but a compactequipment like this.
It's gonna be something that'sgonna take some getting used to
and it looks like it's easy todefeat.
You can just flip up basicallypress a button and turn it off
for guys that don't like it, butonce you get used to it I think
it's really gonna save a lot ofit, because how much fuel is
spent just idling.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So I can tell you that most fleets and listen, I
talk to a lot of fleet managersand most fleets, a lot of them
try to be within 10% at idletime and it never happens.
A lot of fleets run in that 20to 30% realm, that's it.
And there's a bunch of fleetsthat run in the 30 to 50 realm
(14:58):
because of the type of workthey're doing.
Compact equipment is some ofthe worst Telehandlers, material
handling stuff in what we callsupport equipment.
It gets fired up, it's running,it's sitting there.
There may be a guy with it buthe may have to jump out of it
and give a hand at sitting overthere idling.
I know a lot of the utilitycrews that would do water taps.
(15:21):
When you're trying to tap awater line or fix a broken water
tap, the guy's running.
He doesn't shut it off, hejumps down, he gets down in the
hole.
He's trying to help the guywith the tap because he's got
water blown all over.
They get the thing sealed up,he gets back on the machine and
keeps working.
They never get shut off.
Their productivity rate is onlyabout 50 percent of their
actual runtime.
(15:42):
What happens then is the fleetmanagers look at that and go
well, the hour meter said it raneight hours.
You got it down there for five.
But that project code, phasecode, whatever you want to call
it we're charging that for eight.
Yeah, so internally you've gota bunch of wasted costs.
If you're in a service orientedbusiness and you're billing
(16:04):
clients based off of time andmaterial and machines ran,
you've got some excess billinginvolved and anything you know.
For a long time the argumentbetween auto shutdown was safety
hey, I got a guy doingsomething.
This thing shuts off becauseI'm sitting there for five
minutes, which is extreme.
But that would be the argumentwe would get.
We would demo stuff like this.
(16:26):
What do I do?
The fact that they havestreamlined that, just like a
vehicle, you stop up, stop light, it shuts off.
We all know somebody that stillto this day, turns that off.
But those numbers are dwindlingyear, season after season, year
after year.
So where people are just like,oh yeah, it does everything it's
supposed to and I don't worryabout it.
Yeah, that's what we have to getto with the equipment.
(16:47):
That's what we need to be.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
We will.
And I think, as people come tounderstand it like, I remember
having a conversation with a guyand I said why do you turn that
off?
Like I have a Volvo XC90, whichis kind of a premium SUV.
Right, it's an expensive car,it's a nice car Guy was sitting
in it with me.
He goes oh, I hate that.
And hit the button and I'm likefirst of all, don't hit the
button in my car.
But that's a different question.
(17:09):
And I said why?
Why don't you like that?
And he's like well, it's justburning up your starter.
And I was like, well, no, it'snot.
He's like what do you mean?
It's not burning up yourstarter.
And I was like no, it doesn'twork that way.
It like stops it just like onedegree or two degrees past top
dead center with a charge offuel in there and it's good for
(17:29):
X amount of time.
And it's going to hit it withthat spark plug and it's just
that that's just going to carryit over and it's going to rev
over.
It doesn't even run the starter.
And he was like it does whatnow?
And I explained it to him againand he was like that's really
cool.
I thought it was like burning upmy starter.
I was going to have to replacemy starter.
Like no man like this is this?
We're way beyond the old.
(17:50):
You know Cadillac or Buick, youknow eight, four, six deal.
We're like into some real smarttechnology now.
So it's good to see that and Ithink you know what you said was
exactly right.
There's going to be guys whoturn it off and every year
there's going to be fewer andfewer of those because they're
just going to get used to it.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You brought up a very good point with that eight,
four, six deal and some of theother platforms that took that
technology, but I think that theOEMs are doing a disservice to
the purchasing base by notexplaining how some of this
works.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
No, you can't do that .
We have a country that does notunderstand how a four cycle
engine works.
The average consumer in thiscountry has no conception of how
anything in their automobileworks.
It's not like it was back inour day where you had drivers,
ed, and they taught you about.
You know, suck squeeze bang allthat.
(18:48):
None of that exists.
Think of the nightmare thatNissan had rolling out CVTs in
this country and it was 100percent based on people not
understanding what was happening, and it was so bad.
It was so bad, michael, thatwhen Honda in 2014, when they
announced their CVT, they putfake stops in it where it would
(19:10):
just stop doing its CVT thingfor a couple of seconds so that
it would feel like it wasshifting gears, because
otherwise the Americans wouldcomplain.
It don't do that in Europe, itdoesn't do that in Japan,
because those are just educatetheir consumers.
But we can't educate theconsumers on that level If you
started explaining to them howauto stops start work, if you
(19:33):
started explaining to them.
I mean, we're now 30 years intoV tech and I know guys who are
car guys who couldn't tell youhow V tech works.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
No, they believe it's some some way that the oil
pressure holds the valve openinstead of like.
But anyways, that's actually agood point.
I didn't think about it thatway.
And the other thing that youknow, we always seem to run into
the whole four cycle thing andthe CVT thing is spot on,
because I remember the Hondaexperience and guys yelling that
(20:06):
they have a belt in theirtransmission and it's going to
break and there's no way tochange it.
And then you're like what areyou talking about?
You know what I'm saying, likeI do.
You could have the same thinggoing on in the heavy equipment,
you know, whether it's compactor large.
By educating them, you couldinadvertently scare them off.
I suit your saying.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, you could make it worse.
You know it's like if youstarted talking about so I'll
give you a good example.
In this press release, volvo istalking about how they've
optimized the hydraulics to usefewer parts and therefore have
fewer failures.
Because most failures in ahydraulic system happen at
couplings right.
They happen where one piececonnects to another.
(20:49):
It's not so much like in themiddle of the line.
It doesn't really work that way.
It happens at the couple.
So if you can remove three orfour components, for every
component you remove, you removetwo couplings right, because
there's inflow and outflow.
So every component you take out, you're removing two failure
points.
So if they can take six orseven components out of that
(21:12):
system, they can eliminate 15failure points, kind of right
off the bat.
So they've done that.
But if you start explaining toa lot of people hey, we've been
able to integrate this componentwith this component, so that
now there's only two things thefirst thing they're some of
these guys are going to say isoh well, now if it breaks, I got
to replace them both instead ofjust one, and it's like yeah,
(21:34):
but that's not what fails, dude.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
No, and I think a lot of people don't understand.
Well, first of all, OK, we'renot all engineers, so thank God
for that.
We're getting into an era ofoperators and construction
people.
It happened before with theskid steers, but it happened
very quietly.
A lot of technology wasintroduced into skid steers.
(21:58):
A lot of things were rolled outquickly.
You have to get to a pointwhere the operator just accepts
the training and what themachine is going to do and you
need to have people that theolder generations and the guys
that were forced to work on whatthey ran, so that it made it
throughout the day, depending onwhat you were doing.
(22:20):
There's a lot to that.
I think now you're in a totallydifferent era.
Vehicles vehicles went throughthis.
What 30, 40 years ago you know?
40 years ago you were workingon your stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, if you had a car, I mean, and you could see
it in the owner's manuals.
The owner's manual used to be,you know, full of how to change
spark plugs and what kind ofspark plugs to buy.
And now you don't have anowner's manual anymore.
You have like an operatormanual that teaches you how to
operate the radio.
And part of that is because thevehicles are better now.
(22:51):
They're just built better, theydon't require as much
maintenance.
Used to be that if you didn'tchange the oil every 3,000 miles
, you'd have a real problemafter a couple of years.
Now, 10,000 miles, if that, youknow.
That should be fine.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
The only thing left anymore that has a technical
guide on it is the heavyequipment.
Heavy equipment has greasepoints.
They have service points.
They talk about how to preparefor transport when you get into,
like great example, the MacVolvo operators manual for a new
semi truck.
It's a phone book, yeah, but ittells you everything you can do
(23:28):
to set up the dash the way youwant it.
Over speed alerts, this, thatwhatever Dude does, everybody
read that.
No, but the ones that are savvydo, and that truck works for
them at the end of the day, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You know you made a really good point.
You've got to have a generationof operators that just accepts
the training and just kind ofgoes, ok, that's how you do it,
and then they will adapt thetruck or the vehicle to do what
they need it to do.
A lot of the older guys and I'mincluding myself in this they
don't really do that.
They try to adapt the vehicleto do what their old vehicle did
(24:05):
100% sense.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
It's not a Swiss Army knife.
It's built for a purpose.
I think that's always the bigmisconception too.
You know the next thing we'regoing to talk about, that that
purpose it's specifically builtfor what it does Exactly Right.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So what?
What Mike's alluding to here?
This is the new.
Again a new thing from Volvo.
This is an electric materialshandler.
This is their first electricmaterial handler.
It's called the EW 240.
This is a really neat thing.
It kind of exists to do reallyrepetitive tasks and kind of
exists to not move around awhole lot.
(24:41):
And so, instead of beingelectric in what has become the
conventional sense of it, has abattery and, you know,
alternator and all this otherstuff.
They just plug it into the grid.
Yep.
So I mean, there's a cab, it'sa big cable, it's a big DC cable
that runs out of this thing,but they just plug it into the
grid and you know they can keepthis thing running 24 hours a
(25:05):
day.
And whether it's loading up,you know, scrap iron into a haul
truck, or whether it's pullingup, you know, rocks and stones
from a quarry or a mining rig,or or it's just, you know,
picking up containers and movingthem around a yard, it doesn't
have to move around too much todo what it needs to do.
So being able to plug it intothe wall, basically, I think
(25:25):
that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
And here's the other thing.
So Centabogon years ago, theycame out with an electric
material handler, freakedeverybody out.
It was like no, you hardwarethis in to your service.
This is the power you need.
You don't need to worry aboutdiesel fuel.
Grease it like a normal machine.
It's going to be great.
Those that are in the South saygrease, grease.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
But I digress Grease lightning.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Why is grease lightning Grease lightning?
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So, and then to take it a step further, centabogon,
and I think there was anothermanufacturer around the same
time, fuchs, I think it was.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
They had a pedestal machine.
That's a truly dedicated piece.
It doesn't even move around butdoes the same thing.
It just handles material withan operator in it and all it
does is sort and categorize andthrow it in the shredder based
on what it is.
It just feeds that.
So when you have a materialhandler on wheels and you're
trying to traverse the wholesite and separate things and
move materials around, you knowthat are getting dropped off.
(26:37):
Electric is kind of a weirdoption, but not really when all
the guys doing is just trying toreposition to help unload a
truck or you know, or put it ona conveyor belt or anything like
that.
Yeah, I look forward.
I hope Volvo continues withthis.
I hope they get into somepedestal mounts or something
like that.
The industry needs solidplayers in this.
Centabogon is a solid player.
Volvo is in there, exodus,which is bought by Caterpillar.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Caterpillar has their own, you know, just like any
market.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
I'm for anybody that's going to build a solid
product and throws another hatin the ring Anytime a purchasing
guy's got to go out and get aquote on something.
Yeah, so it was Fuchs.
I'm almost positive it wasFuchs.
They still make a stationarypylon on pedestal mount pylon
mount material handler like this.
There's just a little bitdifferent just in terms of the
shape and the way it looks.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
It's a little bit different, but it's very simple.
It's got, you know, a.
It's got like almost a 40 tonoperating weight rating.
It's got 132 kilowatt electricmotor.
I think the real difference hereis that theirs have kind of
always been electric, so theycan't beat that drum, they can't
put it in the engine, theycan't put it in the engine.
(27:46):
They can't put it in the engine,they can't put it in the engine
.
I think the real differencehere is that theirs have kind of
always been electric, so theycan't beat that drum.
They can't pound thatsustainability drum in the same
way that Volvo is doing and thatCaterpillar is doing and that
Kamatsu is doing.
(28:07):
So they're saying look, we'vegot an electric option now.
Look how cool we are, we'resaving the planet, we're cutting
back diesel emissions, we'remaking it so that you don't have
to worry about fuel costs whileyou're, you know, or worry less
about fuel costs while you'repricing out this job.
And for these guys that havebeen doing electric for a really
long time, they don't reallyhave the ability to go pound
(28:29):
that drum as a new thing.
But you know, we'll do that forthem.
Well, we'll tell them they'vebeen doing a great job all this
time and you know we're glad tohave more players in it, but
just shows that they had a goodidea all along.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yeah, and Fuchs Fuchs is another one, you know, when
they were bought by Terax andTerax brought them into their
family of companies.
That's a major player.
They created and invented quitea bit.
Terax is a you know, everybodyknows Terax for their huge
ability to buy up companies.
They take them, they refinethem a little bit, sometimes
they go back out on their own,but Terax has always been that
(29:02):
way in the industry.
Yeah, and you know, fuchs wasalways a great player.
Yet Fuchs has sent a bow gunVolos getting into it.
This is great, great stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, it's good for everybody.
It's good for the industry.
I don't want to spend too muchtime on this because there's
really really big news fromVolvo that we haven't talked
about yet.
But Volvo has completelyredesigned their VNL the new,
all new VNL line.
They launched that this week.
They've got six cabconfigurations.
They've got four exterior andinterior trim levels.
(29:36):
They have completely redesignedthis thing and, you know, for
the first time since 2007.
So we're talking now about 15plus.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I think it's long overdue.
I can't believe it's been thatlong.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I mean, it just goes to show how much further ahead
of the industry the last VNL waswhen it came out in 2007.
It had, you know, it had a lotof features like ADAS and city
safety and, you know, automaticbraking and lane keeping and
adaptive cruise control that noother truck had back in 2007.
(30:09):
That are now still premiumfeatures, but not totally
revolutionary.
So now they've got a much morerevolutionary system.
They've got a 24 voltelectrical infrastructure
throughout the truck instead ofa 12 volt, which is going to
make it easier to power thingslike autonomous, like cameras,
like communication, internet ofThings, connectivity.
(30:30):
They're going to do a, you know,a fuel cell.
They're going to do a batteryelectric.
They're going to do a hydrogendiesel flex fuel, similar to
like what Cummins has had.
They're really really goingnuts with this thing.
And what's what's really?
I think the most exciting tothis is that on the diesel side
as well as, you know, the CNGside, you've got that I shift
(30:52):
transmission, which nobody evercomplained about at least, not
that I've ever heard no and nowthey're getting 30% faster shift
speeds up to 1,950 pound feetof torque.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Well, here's the thing Remember when that was at
the VNL 860?
And that was when that waslaunched, and that's what we're
talking about in the.
You know, just before 2010,2007 ish, they had the square
nose on it, stuff like that.
That truck was revolutionaryfor its time.
Yes, and that's why I'm sayingI'm blowing it away that it's
been that long for them toredesign it.
(31:25):
But they left off.
Forget that they.
They made a ton of improvementsover 15 years to the older VNL
model and between the iDrive andthe, the Volvo engine
technology, you know, theyredesigned about 90% of it.
They carried about 10% of thethings over from the last era of
the VNL because they hadrefined them moving into this
(31:47):
stage and I one thing I reallylike about this they didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It's not 10% of the 2007 trucks, it's 10% of the
optimized updated VN.
Exactly right Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Yes, and one thing that I like and I think that
it's very important some of thetrucking guys get frustrated
because they can't just go in,grab what they would call the
builder's book and absolutelycustomize a truck exactly the
way that they want it.
Right, yeah, but Volvobasically said here here's four
different versions of this truck, from a day cab to a full on
(32:22):
over the road walking high risesleeper.
But you can still customize alot of things with it.
A couple of nights ago I wentthrough and I built a truck on
their website a couple ofdifferent ways and I was still
impressed at the amount of stuffyou could do.
You could still go through andselect certain features.
They still had a pretty goodcolor palette.
(32:42):
There's a bunch of truckingcompanies that are getting away
from that.
They're shrinking their colors.
I think that's a very goodthing, because, as we and one of
the other things that Volvotalks about is is part of the
redesign reason it was they gotto a point where they needed to
gain arrow efficiency and to getthe arrow efficiency out of it.
(33:05):
They had to basically throw theexisting VNL aside and say
listen, we know what.
We got there.
What do we got to do to getbeyond that, and I think you're
going to see that with everybody.
We you know CES Peter bill hadtheir truck of the future on
there.
That's a huge thing, you know.
I say that a lot about a lot ofthese products, but we're in an
era right now Look at what wetalk about episode after episode
(33:28):
.
We talk about constantly peopledropping new products.
People are always dropping newproducts.
We got major changes, yeah, andI think we're in this cool era
where we're transitioning.
We're transitioning to electric, we're transitioning down the
road, we're positioningourselves into hydrogen.
We are still going to havediesel capability, unlike any
(33:51):
other right now, and every timea manufacturer like Volvo does a
redesign and drops one of theirtrucks, we need to pay
attention to it.
That's why I sat down and Ibuilt a couple off their website
.
It shows you where they'regoing to go, because what
they're releasing now is reallya stepping stone to where we're
going to be.
Every model change is kind oflike that, but I think right now
(34:12):
they're more profound than ever, yeah, and I think you're
making some bigger leaps thanyou ever had.
I mean, look at Peterbilt.
Peterbilt had the 379 for howmany years.
The cab had some tweaks andstuff to it, but that looked
like a classic truck.
When Peterbilt released the 589, everybody completely lost it
because they had a one-pieceraked windshield art to fit the
(34:34):
driver.
It still looks like a classictruck, but not.
The windshield goes up a littlebit higher.
Everybody was like, oh my God,this is the worst thing ever.
And the last 379 build slot Iheard was sold for something
like over half a million dollarsbecause basically people were
taking bids for it.
(34:55):
Ok, get back to the VNL.
These trucks coming out now areway more advanced and we have
to be willing just to accept itand understand that that truck
is going to help you.
I go back to all the times thatour older drivers get into the
newer stuff and they go.
I didn't think I was going tolike that and it always starts
(35:15):
out the same way.
I didn't think I was going tolike that, but that truck does
this, this and this that my oldtruck would never do.
The other thing I'm going totell you if you've ever been on
a hill, you ever pulled Jellico,you've ever been on 68 going
east, 30% faster shifts on topof a shift.
That's faster than you'll evermake manually, and I know
there's a lot of drivers outthere that say I can outshift
(35:37):
that auto shifting manual.
You can, first of all.
Second of all, the gain 30% ontop of an already lightning fast
speed by coupling yourtransmission shift with the
powertrain that you're using toprovide.
Yeah, that is incredible.
You're talking lightning fastpower changes on something
(36:00):
that's grossing 80,000 or more.
That takes a lot of work.
That's what I'm getting at withthat.
It does a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
There's another aspect, another neat trick that
this VNL does.
This new generation VNL doesthat.
You might not have caughtbecause you're not doing a lot
of over the road stuff, but theyhave what's called the
integrated Volvo parking cooler.
This is a climate controlfeature that will heat or cool
the cab.
It uses the 24 volt batterysystem and it'll allow the
(36:32):
driver of the truck, even ifit's a diesel, to hotel in the
truck without idling.
So you can have your climatecontrol, your air conditioning,
your heat in the truck withoutidling.
So if you're parked in an areawhere idling is prohibited or
you just don't want to be idlingand sitting there with that
noise in those fumes, this issomething that's going to enable
(36:54):
the driver to still becomfortable, still enjoy their
evenings, still sleepcomfortably, without idling the
truck and burning more fuel.
Personally, I think that's ahuge upgrade and something that
a lot of guys are going toreally appreciate once they get
inside of it.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I did see that a couple of months ago when I was
looking at that and I starteddiving into the technology
behind that.
It's crazy to think because Iwould say what?
20 years ago you had the smalltwin cylinder engines that
appeared on every over the roadtruck.
That would allow them to heatand cool the truck without the
engine running.
Remember those kids in theirstore?
After today they're beingupfitted on everything possible
(37:32):
and they work.
At first everybody was like Idon't know, I just let the truck
run, I don't need all thatextra stuff.
Well, when I was a kid andwhether we were doing something
with our race car stuff andpulled into a truck stop late,
or even when we had our own semitrucks, when you parked the
truck and walked up to the truckstop to go in and do whatever
you were going to do, just theoverwhelming rattle and the
(37:57):
parking lot was crazy.
There's jokes from the older oldtimers that then thought that
that was quiet because theywould tell you how in the early
80s and late 70s the louderDetroit diesels of the era and
all that stuff would be in theiridling.
And then God forbid somebodyhits an air starter in the
middle of the morning and wakesup, 17 people Think about how
(38:20):
far we've come with that.
And now we're talking aboutsomething that's going to make
zero noise because the thing isgoing to work off of a battery
reserve 24 volt which gives itmuch longer runtime than a 12
volt.
It's the same principle asrunning 240 versus 120.
And I don't know, I just Ican't get over that.
(38:41):
You're in an era now whereyou're like no, I trucked,
saturn, did everything I neededto do while I took my 10 hour
break, and then make a noise atall.
Yeah, and I think that's runningand other things like that.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
So yeah, and I think that that's where it's going and
I think you're going to have acouple of nights of these guys,
especially when we start gettinginto the hydrogen and into the
electric, when they pull intothe stop and they plug into that
500 kilowatt charging or theypull over their wireless
charging pad and start chargingup, where they're going to
really notice the difference andsomebody's going to pull in and
(39:14):
one of these old pizzas orsomething like that and they're
going to be, you know or not,even that.
I mean, let's just keep it allVolvo.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So I'm going to come in with a previous generation
diesel Volvo and they're goingto keep everybody awake and
everybody's going to look atthem side eye until until that
bright, you know, white orbappears and Terminator walks
away and part of the trucksmelted off, and then the guy
sleeping next to the truck onthe outside.
Actually, if you saw thatbright light, what the hell?
(39:45):
God damn son.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I need your clothes and your motorcycle.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Yeah, close your boots and your motorcycle, oh.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Man well, that's great stuff.
I think we've touched on theVolvo thing.
Let's close off the show herewith Hitachi.
Hitachi has unveiled six new Zaxis, seven excavators and a new
magic wand.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I got enough.
I can't say anything about themagic one.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Let's just talk about the excavators.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
You know let's go back to the zaxis lineup.
So let's talk about the lasttime Hitachi dropped.
How many, how many miles?
We're telling seven, seven, six, six models.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
There's sixes, but they're dash sevens, the zax is
the models of the dash seven.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
I'll get that all mixed up by the time we get them
talking.
Next thing oh, the touchypeople are gonna say I didn't
know, we released 12.
But anyways they.
The last time they dropped thatmuch, I gotta believe, was
somewhere around interim tierfour, when they were when they
were partnered with deer, andall of a sudden they dropped the
G series.
And when deer dropped the Gseries and they dropped the
(41:28):
zaxis dash, I want to say fiveCan't remember which one it was,
but it's interim tier four andthen you had two for a final
right after that.
That's when they had a fullmodel release like that sweet,
it's all the way through right.
I'm very curious to see howthis plays out, and touchy has
talked about tier fivetechnology for years.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Well, that's what I was getting is.
This is all their tea, this isall of their zaxis lineup, but
now with some upgraded controlsystems, some better, you know
aerial what they call peripheralvision camera, so it's like
that 360 degree Parking camerathat you've gotten your cars
have got a couple of newconnectivity things, but this is
really all about tier five.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Yeah, and tier five to a lot of people are like, oh
my god, really like we just gottier four, we didn't get, just
get tier four.
Tier four has been out for avery long time.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Tier five is that for emissions 2008?
I was thinking of 15, it lookslike 2008.
Yes, whoa.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Well, 2008 was interim tier four.
Yeah, because tier four wasjust a little bit too aggressive
.
They're having a hard time.
So they got lobbied, theyworked with interim tier four,
then they went to tier four andI want to say there was a lot of
tier four technology dropped inthe 2005 is be.
(42:50):
Would it be 2015?
Speaker 2 (42:53):
2015 knows when you had to be on tier four.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
That's when a lot of the manufacturers all were like,
hey, we're dropping tier four.
It was the last time you'veseen a major update like this
and I I think that a lot of themanufacturers they're gonna be
scratching their heads abouttier five.
Same thing is tier four some ofa running from it, some of her
hit and a header on.
Hitachi has always been outfront Working on technology with
(43:19):
the powertrain and, if Iremember right and if I was
reading the article on this, Ithink a lot of this is still a
suzu powered.
The suzu has been out front ofthe Emissions technology.
Yeah, since, since thebeginning, they were like you
need us to make this thing.
All right, we're gonna work onit a little bit more.
Here you go.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
No, and I think that that's what you're starting to
see is the global brands and notthat caterpillars not a global
brand.
Obviously, caterpillar operatesthe world?
Speaker 3 (43:48):
No, but there are a lot of brands that drop the same
product across the globe.
Languages in it.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Exactly, and Hitachi is one of those companies and I
think those global guys BecauseChina, because Europe is already
in tier five or already instarting to implement tier five.
This is where their majormarket is.
You know, you look at Singaporeand things like that.
So these companies that aredoing business there already
have tier five figured out andthey're just rolling it out now
(44:16):
and you know we're gonna be.
I'm worried and I'm gonna saythis this is not a political
show and I'm not Suggesting thatone candidate is better than
the other.
I'm.
You know, that's not what thisis meant to say.
What I'm gonna say is that I'mconcerned that whoever gets
elected next, whoever is runningthis country two years from now
, if they don't pay attention,if they listen to their
(44:39):
lobbyists and they listen tothese corn huskers out here in
the middle of fly over nowhereand Allow themselves to be
lobbied out of tier five andallow themselves to be lobbied
out of electric vehicles andHydrogenization and all this, we
are going to fall way behind asan industrial nation.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
We talked about that I don't know if it's two
episodes or three episodes agoOne four-year administration
change could put us back and Idon't think I'm exaggerating at
all 20 years.
I think that's right, becausethe other thing that's going to
happen the US doesn't lead theway on this.
First of all, we are a veryclose second in a lot of ways on
(45:23):
Emissions technology andemissions mandates.
You're up in the UK, everybodyknows, pushes this, leads the
way, makes it work, and Then theUS will be able to pick up from
that.
And the only thing that I thinkis going to be slightly
different and might skew my20-year projection if we falter
(45:44):
for four years is that the OEMslooking at it from a global
basis are going to say, no,we're building in any ways and
it's coming.
And I think.
I think you're gonna see a lotof that.
You already see it with thetrucks.
The trucks already are set upin such a way where there's some
(46:05):
fine-tuning and some tweaksthat are done for North America.
Other than that, no, you know,you're getting the same truck
and a lot of cases.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
If you look Historically, you look at the
last 40 years, and you say, yes,I think Europe is leading the
way.
But if you remember how bad theair pollution was in China in
2014, 2015, where they hadbillboards of blue skies to
remind everybody what the worldused to look like before all of
their heavy industrialization,they have really clamped down on
(46:35):
that, and the way that theyhave just 180 degree turnaround
on that is really shocking.
And I saw something the otherday that you know General Motors
is selling more cars in Chinathan they are in the United
States, and a lot of people, alot of people are always
carrying that China Bandwagonand it comes from Beijing right
(46:56):
for the Olympics.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yes, and that really that really like open that up to
everybody's eyes saying wait aminute, how are they doing this?
People walking around withmasks?
They had to shut down work andproduction for I don't remember
the days Prior to the Olympicsto let the air clean up.
Let's not forget that theUnited States was not far away
(47:18):
from that, you know, when wewere going through our
industrial age and ourindustrial revolution in this
country.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Oh, in the 70s, there in the set, michael in yes,
smog and LA was so bad.
They had days that they saiddon't go outside where you live,
where you are right now inCleveland, the GD River caught
on fire.
Michael yes, hi, over there wason fire.
Do you know how bad Pollutionhas to be for the water to be on
(47:49):
fire?
And this is the problem.
That happens, and this happenswith every issue with every,
whether your left, wing, rightwing, it don't matter.
This happens with everybody.
This is part of the humancondition.
You have a problem, you thentake action to solve the problem
, then the problem gets solved,then you forget you had a
(48:10):
problem, you stop doing thething to fix the problem and
then you have a problem again.
We are now currently in theUnited States.
We are at the phase where wehave forgotten that there was
the problem and we are nowdialing back the regulations and
we're threatening now, rather,to dial back the regulations and
the clean air acts and the EPAprotections that cleaned this
all up for us.
But guys that are our age, wholived with that, who saw the
(48:32):
smog, who know about the riverburning on fire, we don't want
it to go back to that, but I'm,I'm concerned.
I'm concerned that there's toomuch money in the United States
and there's not enough memory tostop this from going back.
And I don't care who's in power, I don't care if it's a
Republican or Democrat, I'd liketo be able to breathe the air
(48:52):
and drink the water.
That's it.
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think.
No, what you're saying is verysound and and it doesn't matter
which side of the aisle both,both sides you could, if some
chance we had a.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Republican or Democrat president and at a
Republican or Democrat presidentfrom opposite sides, the.
If the lobbyists get their wayand they politically work the
machine to roll the clock back,there is a segment of the
American public that are goingto say, yeah, that's perfect.
Look at what we're doing.
We're America, we do what wewant.
Yeah, 20 years from now, wewere stupid, that's right.
(49:25):
And again, we don't get intopolitics.
On which side?
That's just the way we aresocially Okay.
Well, that's just humanity.
You know, you have to be ableto breathe the air, drink the
water and eat the fish, or elseit doesn't matter what you're
doing Because you're dead.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And we know we, we talk about this as an industry.
Okay, implementing something,and in six months it's forgotten
about.
You implement a new form and insix months your office can't
figure out which form to usebecause who knows why, everybody
went brain dead and they don'tknow what to do.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
You implement a safety procedure.
One season later everybodycannot remember, because we all
have chronic amnesia and no oneremembers that they have to have
a specific thing when they goto work, for you know US Steel
which is just bought by Nipon.
They don't remember any of this,right?
Okay, that is a social form.
That is us as a.
(50:21):
We completely lose touch withstuff over and over and over
again.
Yeah, it's the condition that's.
Yeah, that's what I was lookingfor.
It's the human condition.
We can't let it happen, wecan't let it halt progress,
because I believe and I've reada number of articles where if
you let the natural progressionof halt or you stop technology.
People want to talk aboutinflation.
(50:42):
Let's talk about what it mighttake to stop when we realize
there's a problem after the fact.
That's exactly right, and we'llclose it out with this.
You know, hit single from thehuman league.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
That's exactly right and we'll close it out with this
.
You know hit single from thehuman league.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Tune in next week for more heavy equipment podcast on
Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Googleor wherever you find podcasts.
Whether we're exploring the latest in trucking
technology, talking about thetrends that propel the industry
forward, or uncovering storiesabout the dedicated individuals
who keep the wheels of Americaturning, this is where the roar
of the engines and pulse ofprogress come together.
It's sublime, it's surreal.
That's the Heavy EquipmentPodcast with Mike and Joe.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome back to another episode of the Heavy
Equipment Podcast.
I'm your host, joe Boris, hereas ever, with Mike Switzer and
Mike's on the road today.
How are you doing, man?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm doing good, just running from one site to another
.
I don't have all the you know.
I don't have all the studiosStaff to annoy me all the whole
time when we're recording andyell at me because I go off
script.
So I think we're all right.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's good.
It'll be interesting to seewhether we stay on script more
without the support staff.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
The Late Late Show used to have Biff Henderson
right, david Letterman had him.
He got off track.
I don't even know what theguy's name is outside the booth,
but I call him Biff.
I think he doesn't like it, somaybe, maybe I'm being set up
for failure sometimes.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, I think there's some of that for sure.
Last week we were just gettingback from CES Las Vegas and
we're talking about all thegreat cool technology that's
there.
One of the things that wasthere that kind of got lost in
the shuffle, do say in Bobcatthey unveiled the AT450X.
It's an industry firstautonomous electric articulating
(01:46):
tractor.
This is really something for Iwould say it's a consumer model.
It's about the smallest thingthat you would get if you had a
real farm, but it's probably thebiggest thing you would get if
you were not an actual farmer.
It's like a hobby farm kind ofsize thing.
In the world of computers andphotography you'd call it a
prosumer model.
It's not consumer professional.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Prosumer.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
You're a prosumer.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, you're a pro at spending money.
Exactly what I really likeabout this thing obviously the
electric power.
It's great there's so manynoise regulations now,
especially in these niceneighborhoods up in like
Barrington and Naperville inIllinois, you can't really get
started on stuff like this.
If you're mowing a big yard oranything, you can't get started
until 9.10 in the morning.
(02:31):
There's going to be a couple ofthese landscaping companies
that are going to buy these.
They're going to get started at7.00 and 8.00 AM.
They're going to avoid the heatand they're going to just be
fine.
I think it's going to be a muchbetter work environment for
them early in the morning ifthey can avoid those noise
regulations.
The other thing I like aboutthis is the remote control.
They're calling it autonomous,but basically it's remote
(02:53):
control where you can train themachine to like.
If you're pulling a mower orsomething, you can train it on
your yard or on your field andjust hit repeat and it will go
do the exact same path that youtaught it to do.
I think that's going to be huge.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I think it's amazing.
I mean Bobcat we've talkedabout Bobcat before.
Bobcat is industry leader ininnovation.
Some people say Caterpillar is,but equally both of them are
working on stuff together intheir own world.
This is a huge thing.
I mean to be able to havesomething that's remote control.
It learns.
You can train it.
(03:31):
The other thing I was lookingat this and going over the specs
on it earlier today.
I immediately thought of golfcourses.
Yes, I was like you.
Put a real mower on this thing,teach it what it needs to do,
set it loose.
You've already got theboundaries set up for the carts
and everything.
Give it a good pattern.
That's kind of a weird industrytoo that has a hard time with
(03:52):
stuff.
So again, I thought that wouldbe a good fit for it.
Like you said, the farmerthat's out there and he's got
some manicured pasture land thathe wants to mow down or keep
something tidied up, why not letit go out there and do what you
needed to do while you're offbusy doing something else?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
That's exactly right.
The other neat thing about thisis you can do a lot more than
just mow with it.
I mean you can set up precisionweeding, you can do spraying,
you can just do materialtransport, like if you've got
hay bales that you need to movefrom one part of the farm to the
other.
You just put them in, load itup and tell it take this back to
the barn.
(04:29):
It drives itself back, there'ssomebody there unloading it and
you can have two or three ofthese things running on a big
enough farm to just have themgoing in continuous operation
without the need, most of thetime without the need to have a
driver in there.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
No, I totally agree.
Listen, I feel and I'm going touse this term we are on the
cusp of something massive.
Yes, part of this is thistechnology because, to be
totally serious and notsarcastic, we need as much of
this as we can stand and we canhave.
There's no reason that at thisday and age, we can't get
(05:05):
something that we can train andwe and it'll learn what we
needed to do it.
Like you said, spraying andweeding, even if you're trying
to do some cultivating whereyou're trying to tear up some
ground and reseed.
That's right.
I think it's awesome and I'mglad they unveiled it at CES.
Bobcat had a whole bunch oflike whisperings of stuff they
(05:26):
were going to drop and we talkedabout this offline the other
day.
And CES is turning into its ownlittle equipment show and its
own right.
Yeah, it used to be Hitachi andthey talked about technologies
and I would bop up the CES for aweek after a week of being at
different shows and I would goout there for a single day or
two.
It was a lot of consumerelectronics, obviously that's
(05:48):
its name.
But now we're getting into thisequipment realm where the OEMs
are.
They're throwing their electricand non-electric and any kind
of software out there.
I think it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
This is exactly right and this was really put out
there by a group called Agtonomy.
Agtonomy is kind of what thename implies.
They're trying to developautonomous agriculture.
Their goal is to have a fullyautonomous robotic farm
happening by 2035.
I think they're going to getthere.
They've got a really greatquote in this release from
(06:21):
Bobcat.
It says by digitallytransforming the equipment
farmers know and trust, we canhelp them combat the daily
challenges they face, such aslabor constraints and the ever
increasing demand forsustainable farming practices
and specialty crops.
That's Tim Bucher.
He's the CEO of Agtonomy and Ithink this it's called the
AT450X Definitely check it out.
(06:43):
I think this is going to go along way towards getting those
hobby farms, those vineyards,those small organic farms that
have such a hard time hiringpeople.
I think this is going to helpthem really operate and really
grow their business.
This is great stuff.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
We need to push this technology out there's many
people in as many ways aspossible, because a lot of
people have a lot ofmisunderstandings about all of
it.
They don't know how it fits,they don't know where it's going
to fit, they're afraid of it,they want to dabble in it.
They're not sure and when weneed that.
So, whether it's CES, world ofConcrete, which is currently
going on, there's the trucks.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh, World of Concrete's a wild show too.
They have wild tech happeningout there right now as well.
We'll get to that soon enough,but I mean there's a lot of
really good stuff coming out ofthere.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, you know.
And then the truck shows comingup.
There's a whole bunch oftechnology and autonomy to be
released.
I heard at the IndianapolisTruck Show in March.
I just started working a day.
I haven't even told you thisyet I'm going to be going out
there.
I got to figure that out.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So we'll do something live on the floor.
That would be a good one.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Why not why not we?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
got to keep the curbs up.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You know what?
They're going to see a studentup when we launch heavy
equipment video channel, the Hev.
That's going to be wild.
It only airs after 1 AM for 13minutes.
You got to be on live to catchit, otherwise you just get the
scrambled version like the oldPlayboy channel, you can hear
(08:13):
what's going on, but it's justmulti-colored bars across your
TV.
I mean, isn't that better?
Wasn't it always better when itwas left to the imagination?
You couldn't see the C-sectionstars 100%.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
I remember the old days that you'd have oh, who was
his name?
Oh, howard Stern.
Did they hit a movie?
Yeah, so Howard Stern wouldhave these women on there after
night and then they'd be ontheir shoot in Ping Pong Balls
across the studio.
So I think you do the samething.
It's CES 2025.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
We'll do that off the hood at the Duke Kenworth at
the truck show.
Hey, she makes it into the fishbowl, you get a free truck.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
She makes it yeah.
The guy from Packard's going tobe like.
I didn't sign up for this.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
She's too good.
She's too good.
She got three in a row.
Our dog broke out.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Take her home.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
We didn't the longest time.
In Packard Kenworth, theyannounced today that they have
an OEM level agreement with WaveCharging.
That's our buddy that was onthe show with the wireless
charging Congrats.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
So they are now the first Well, their product makes
too much sense.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
The government's going to buy them and they're
all going to move away.
That's what's going to happenJust here.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We're just going to have wireless charging on
military bases.
Nobody else is going to have it.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
But that's a big move because now I mean, if Kenworth
really wanted to, they couldcome out right now and say, look
, we're the only truckmanufacturer, the only heavy
truck manufacturer, that you canget full warranty and wireless
charging right now, and nobodyelse has that.
So I mean, even if you buy thestuff and put it on, now, you're
dealing with aftermarketinstallation, dealer installed
(10:01):
options, this, that and theother.
This is fully OEM supported.
It's supported by not onlyPackard and Kenworth but also by
Dana, which is Dana.
Obviously Dana Axels is thesupplier there.
So everybody's on board withthis.
They're all high-fiving eachother, and good for them, man.
I think it's a solid productand it's good for them to have
it.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So you know, down in Australia they're looking at
this.
They got the welder all chargedup and ready to rock.
They're getting ready to plugit right into the truck and then
the guy from Wave is like no,you don't need that, it's
wireless.
The guy, how the hell does itget in there?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
What are you doing Magnet?
What are the?
What are the jug of the loavesMagnets?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Oh God, yes, it's funny, though the drive Packard
products.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I'm sure there are, will make them the official
cover photo of this this week'sepisode as we go on the quest to
discover the fifth loco.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
I remember the jeans Geez.
I had three people in those.
They were walking around.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yes, yeah, somebody else who likes the wired stuff
and gets into some pretty wildstuff is the Swedes and Volvo.
Yeah, volvo has been going nuts.
This week they got two newcompact excavators.
These are diesel excavators,pretty conventional stuff, but
obviously you know increasedoperator comfort, better
filtration, better fuelefficiency, better stability,
(11:23):
the things are on, you know, alittle bit different shocks and
obviously better software andoperating software.
And you know this is supposedto be a revolutionary thing.
It's a new product, it's acomplete update of their
existing line.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, I saw, you know three and a half ton and a four
ton offering, which in the minia lot of people are like what,
what does that mean?
And you know three and a halfton, four ton, does that make a
big difference?
Each one has its own place inthe marketplace.
And you know the 10% more fuelefficiency that they're touting.
That by itself, for a singlelandscaper that may not make one
(11:58):
bit of difference, but in alarge fleet, somebody that's got
100 of these rolling around, orif you're a oil and gas
installation company, oh yeah,it makes a huge difference.
I mean, some of those guys have7500 minis in their fleet.
So you take 10% and knock itright off their budget, you have
something there.
And when dear Hitachi wasimporting, when they were
(12:20):
partnered and they wereimporting the minis, there were
a couple large oil and gasinstallation companies that were
switching to them because oftheir fuel efficiency at the
time and maintenance costs werereduced.
But probably Volvo in NorthAmerica has always been,
depending on where you're at.
For the heavy equipment sideit's been touched and go based
(12:41):
on, you know, dealer support,dealer items, just like anything
.
Caterpillar is strong in onearea.
They're not Deer.
Same thing.
Case case is a huge followingin pockets of the United States
because of the dealers.
The dealers make it.
So if you had a good dealer youcan go out there and try one of
these.
You need to because they have alot of good features on them
and all the way up into theirlarge heavy equipment and then
(13:03):
some of their demolitionequipment that uses a Volvo base
they do a great job.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, I agree fully.
You know we've had Ray on theshow as well, dr Ray Gellant,
who runs Volvo constructionequipment here in the US.
One thing that, because we'retalking about 10% better fuel
efficiency, that's 10% betterfuel efficiency while the engine
is running.
But this has a new featurethat's probably really familiar
to people if they've got a kindof a premium vehicle certainly
(13:30):
if they got a Volvo vehicle butit's probably new to the
construction world and thismeans that their fuel savings
actually gonna be quite a bitmore than 10%.
They have auto shut off.
So that means if you get out ofthe vehicle, there's not a need
for power, the engine shutsitself off.
(13:51):
So, if you like, let go of thecontrols, you stop what you're
doing, you lean over to talk tosomebody, you're off throttle,
it's not gonna run the engine,and then when you get back to
what you're doing, it justcranks over again, just like a
car.
You pull up to a red light, theengine dies.
Red light turns green.
You take your foot off thebrake, the engine cranks itself
back up and starts going again.
And this is kind of the firsttime that it's been used on a
(14:14):
small piece of equipment likethat.
I'm not small, but a compactequipment like this.
It's gonna be something that'sgonna take some getting used to
and it looks like it's easy todefeat.
You can just flip up basicallypress a button and turn it off
for guys that don't like it, butonce you get used to it I think
it's really gonna save a lot ofit, because how much fuel is
spent just idling.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So I can tell you that most fleets and listen, I
talk to a lot of fleet managersand most fleets, a lot of them
try to be within 10% at idletime and it never happens.
A lot of fleets run in that 20to 30% realm, that's it.
And there's a bunch of fleetsthat run in the 30 to 50 realm
(14:58):
because of the type of workthey're doing.
Compact equipment is some ofthe worst Telehandlers, material
handling stuff in what we callsupport equipment.
It gets fired up, it's running,it's sitting there.
There may be a guy with it buthe may have to jump out of it
and give a hand at sitting overthere idling.
I know a lot of the utilitycrews that would do water taps.
(15:21):
When you're trying to tap awater line or fix a broken water
tap, the guy's running.
He doesn't shut it off, hejumps down, he gets down in the
hole.
He's trying to help the guywith the tap because he's got
water blown all over.
They get the thing sealed up,he gets back on the machine and
keeps working.
They never get shut off.
Their productivity rate is onlyabout 50 percent of their
actual runtime.
(15:42):
What happens then is the fleetmanagers look at that and go
well, the hour meter said it raneight hours.
You got it down there for five.
But that project code, phasecode, whatever you want to call
it we're charging that for eight.
Yeah, so internally you've gota bunch of wasted costs.
If you're in a service orientedbusiness and you're billing
(16:04):
clients based off of time andmaterial and machines ran,
you've got some excess billinginvolved and anything you know.
For a long time the argumentbetween auto shutdown was safety
hey, I got a guy doingsomething.
This thing shuts off becauseI'm sitting there for five
minutes, which is extreme.
But that would be the argumentwe would get.
We would demo stuff like this.
(16:26):
What do I do?
The fact that they havestreamlined that, just like a
vehicle, you stop up, stop light, it shuts off.
We all know somebody that stillto this day, turns that off.
But those numbers are dwindlingyear, season after season, year
after year.
So where people are just like,oh yeah, it does everything it's
supposed to and I don't worryabout it.
Yeah, that's what we have to getto with the equipment.
(16:47):
That's what we need to be.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
We will.
And I think, as people come tounderstand it like, I remember
having a conversation with a guyand I said why do you turn that
off?
Like I have a Volvo XC90, whichis kind of a premium SUV.
Right, it's an expensive car,it's a nice car Guy was sitting
in it with me.
He goes oh, I hate that.
And hit the button and I'm likefirst of all, don't hit the
button in my car.
But that's a different question.
(17:09):
And I said why?
Why don't you like that?
And he's like well, it's justburning up your starter.
And I was like, well, no, it'snot.
He's like what do you mean?
It's not burning up yourstarter.
And I was like no, it doesn'twork that way.
It like stops it just like onedegree or two degrees past top
dead center with a charge offuel in there and it's good for
(17:29):
X amount of time.
And it's going to hit it withthat spark plug and it's just
that that's just going to carryit over and it's going to rev
over.
It doesn't even run the starter.
And he was like it does whatnow?
And I explained it to him againand he was like that's really
cool.
I thought it was like burning upmy starter.
I was going to have to replacemy starter.
Like no man like this is this?
We're way beyond the old.
(17:50):
You know Cadillac or Buick, youknow eight, four, six deal.
We're like into some real smarttechnology now.
So it's good to see that and Ithink you know what you said was
exactly right.
There's going to be guys whoturn it off and every year
there's going to be fewer andfewer of those because they're
just going to get used to it.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You brought up a very good point with that eight,
four, six deal and some of theother platforms that took that
technology, but I think that theOEMs are doing a disservice to
the purchasing base by notexplaining how some of this
works.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
No, you can't do that .
We have a country that does notunderstand how a four cycle
engine works.
The average consumer in thiscountry has no conception of how
anything in their automobileworks.
It's not like it was back inour day where you had drivers,
ed, and they taught you about.
You know, suck squeeze bang allthat.
(18:48):
None of that exists.
Think of the nightmare thatNissan had rolling out CVTs in
this country and it was 100percent based on people not
understanding what was happening, and it was so bad.
It was so bad, michael, thatwhen Honda in 2014, when they
announced their CVT, they putfake stops in it where it would
(19:10):
just stop doing its CVT thingfor a couple of seconds so that
it would feel like it wasshifting gears, because
otherwise the Americans wouldcomplain.
It don't do that in Europe, itdoesn't do that in Japan,
because those are just educatetheir consumers.
But we can't educate theconsumers on that level If you
started explaining to them howauto stops start work, if you
(19:33):
started explaining to them.
I mean, we're now 30 years intoV tech and I know guys who are
car guys who couldn't tell youhow V tech works.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
No, they believe it's some some way that the oil
pressure holds the valve openinstead of like.
But anyways, that's actually agood point.
I didn't think about it thatway.
And the other thing that youknow, we always seem to run into
the whole four cycle thing andthe CVT thing is spot on,
because I remember the Hondaexperience and guys yelling that
(20:06):
they have a belt in theirtransmission and it's going to
break and there's no way tochange it.
And then you're like what areyou talking about?
You know what I'm saying, likeI do.
You could have the same thinggoing on in the heavy equipment,
you know, whether it's compactor large.
By educating them, you couldinadvertently scare them off.
I suit your saying.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, you could make it worse.
You know it's like if youstarted talking about so I'll
give you a good example.
In this press release, volvo istalking about how they've
optimized the hydraulics to usefewer parts and therefore have
fewer failures.
Because most failures in ahydraulic system happen at
couplings right.
They happen where one piececonnects to another.
(20:49):
It's not so much like in themiddle of the line.
It doesn't really work that way.
It happens at the couple.
So if you can remove three orfour components, for every
component you remove, you removetwo couplings right, because
there's inflow and outflow.
So every component you take out, you're removing two failure
points.
So if they can take six orseven components out of that
(21:12):
system, they can eliminate 15failure points, kind of right
off the bat.
So they've done that.
But if you start explaining toa lot of people hey, we've been
able to integrate this componentwith this component, so that
now there's only two things thefirst thing they're some of
these guys are going to say isoh well, now if it breaks, I got
to replace them both instead ofjust one, and it's like yeah,
(21:34):
but that's not what fails, dude.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
No, and I think a lot of people don't understand.
Well, first of all, OK, we'renot all engineers, so thank God
for that.
We're getting into an era ofoperators and construction
people.
It happened before with theskid steers, but it happened
very quietly.
A lot of technology wasintroduced into skid steers.
(21:58):
A lot of things were rolled outquickly.
You have to get to a pointwhere the operator just accepts
the training and what themachine is going to do and you
need to have people that theolder generations and the guys
that were forced to work on whatthey ran, so that it made it
throughout the day, depending onwhat you were doing.
(22:20):
There's a lot to that.
I think now you're in a totallydifferent era.
Vehicles vehicles went throughthis.
What 30, 40 years ago you know?
40 years ago you were workingon your stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, if you had a car, I mean, and you could see
it in the owner's manuals.
The owner's manual used to be,you know, full of how to change
spark plugs and what kind ofspark plugs to buy.
And now you don't have anowner's manual anymore.
You have like an operatormanual that teaches you how to
operate the radio.
And part of that is because thevehicles are better now.
(22:51):
They're just built better, theydon't require as much
maintenance.
Used to be that if you didn'tchange the oil every 3,000 miles
, you'd have a real problemafter a couple of years.
Now, 10,000 miles, if that, youknow.
That should be fine.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
The only thing left anymore that has a technical
guide on it is the heavyequipment.
Heavy equipment has greasepoints.
They have service points.
They talk about how to preparefor transport when you get into,
like great example, the MacVolvo operators manual for a new
semi truck.
It's a phone book, yeah, but ittells you everything you can do
(23:28):
to set up the dash the way youwant it.
Over speed alerts, this, thatwhatever Dude does, everybody
read that.
No, but the ones that are savvydo, and that truck works for
them at the end of the day, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You know you made a really good point.
You've got to have a generationof operators that just accepts
the training and just kind ofgoes, ok, that's how you do it,
and then they will adapt thetruck or the vehicle to do what
they need it to do.
A lot of the older guys and I'mincluding myself in this they
don't really do that.
They try to adapt the vehicleto do what their old vehicle did
(24:05):
100% sense.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
It's not a Swiss Army knife.
It's built for a purpose.
I think that's always the bigmisconception too.
You know the next thing we'regoing to talk about, that that
purpose it's specifically builtfor what it does Exactly Right.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So what?
What Mike's alluding to here?
This is the new.
Again a new thing from Volvo.
This is an electric materialshandler.
This is their first electricmaterial handler.
It's called the EW 240.
This is a really neat thing.
It kind of exists to do reallyrepetitive tasks and kind of
exists to not move around awhole lot.
(24:41):
And so, instead of beingelectric in what has become the
conventional sense of it, has abattery and, you know,
alternator and all this otherstuff.
They just plug it into the grid.
Yep.
So I mean, there's a cab, it'sa big cable, it's a big DC cable
that runs out of this thing,but they just plug it into the
grid and you know they can keepthis thing running 24 hours a
(25:05):
day.
And whether it's loading up,you know, scrap iron into a haul
truck, or whether it's pullingup, you know, rocks and stones
from a quarry or a mining rig,or or it's just, you know,
picking up containers and movingthem around a yard, it doesn't
have to move around too much todo what it needs to do.
So being able to plug it intothe wall, basically, I think
(25:25):
that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
And here's the other thing.
So Centabogon years ago, theycame out with an electric
material handler, freakedeverybody out.
It was like no, you hardwarethis in to your service.
This is the power you need.
You don't need to worry aboutdiesel fuel.
Grease it like a normal machine.
It's going to be great.
Those that are in the South saygrease, grease.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
But I digress Grease lightning.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Why is grease lightning Grease lightning?
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So, and then to take it a step further, centabogon,
and I think there was anothermanufacturer around the same
time, fuchs, I think it was.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
They had a pedestal machine.
That's a truly dedicated piece.
It doesn't even move around butdoes the same thing.
It just handles material withan operator in it and all it
does is sort and categorize andthrow it in the shredder based
on what it is.
It just feeds that.
So when you have a materialhandler on wheels and you're
trying to traverse the wholesite and separate things and
move materials around, you knowthat are getting dropped off.
(26:37):
Electric is kind of a weirdoption, but not really when all
the guys doing is just trying toreposition to help unload a
truck or you know, or put it ona conveyor belt or anything like
that.
Yeah, I look forward.
I hope Volvo continues withthis.
I hope they get into somepedestal mounts or something
like that.
The industry needs solidplayers in this.
Centabogon is a solid player.
Volvo is in there, exodus,which is bought by Caterpillar.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Caterpillar has their own, you know, just like any
market.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
I'm for anybody that's going to build a solid
product and throws another hatin the ring Anytime a purchasing
guy's got to go out and get aquote on something.
Yeah, so it was Fuchs.
I'm almost positive it wasFuchs.
They still make a stationarypylon on pedestal mount pylon
mount material handler like this.
There's just a little bitdifferent just in terms of the
shape and the way it looks.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
It's a little bit different, but it's very simple.
It's got, you know, a.
It's got like almost a 40 tonoperating weight rating.
It's got 132 kilowatt electricmotor.
I think the real difference hereis that theirs have kind of
always been electric, so theycan't beat that drum, they can't
put it in the engine, theycan't put it in the engine.
(27:46):
They can't put it in the engine,they can't put it in the engine
.
I think the real differencehere is that theirs have kind of
always been electric, so theycan't beat that drum.
They can't pound thatsustainability drum in the same
way that Volvo is doing and thatCaterpillar is doing and that
Kamatsu is doing.
(28:07):
So they're saying look, we'vegot an electric option now.
Look how cool we are, we'resaving the planet, we're cutting
back diesel emissions, we'remaking it so that you don't have
to worry about fuel costs whileyou're, you know, or worry less
about fuel costs while you'repricing out this job.
And for these guys that havebeen doing electric for a really
long time, they don't reallyhave the ability to go pound
(28:29):
that drum as a new thing.
But you know, we'll do that forthem.
Well, we'll tell them they'vebeen doing a great job all this
time and you know we're glad tohave more players in it, but
just shows that they had a goodidea all along.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yeah, and Fuchs Fuchs is another one, you know, when
they were bought by Terax andTerax brought them into their
family of companies.
That's a major player.
They created and invented quitea bit.
Terax is a you know, everybodyknows Terax for their huge
ability to buy up companies.
They take them, they refinethem a little bit, sometimes
they go back out on their own,but Terax has always been that
(29:02):
way in the industry.
Yeah, and you know, fuchs wasalways a great player.
Yet Fuchs has sent a bow gunVolos getting into it.
This is great, great stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, it's good for everybody.
It's good for the industry.
I don't want to spend too muchtime on this because there's
really really big news fromVolvo that we haven't talked
about yet.
But Volvo has completelyredesigned their VNL the new,
all new VNL line.
They launched that this week.
They've got six cabconfigurations.
They've got four exterior andinterior trim levels.
(29:36):
They have completely redesignedthis thing and, you know, for
the first time since 2007.
So we're talking now about 15plus.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I think it's long overdue.
I can't believe it's been thatlong.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I mean, it just goes to show how much further ahead
of the industry the last VNL waswhen it came out in 2007.
It had, you know, it had a lotof features like ADAS and city
safety and, you know, automaticbraking and lane keeping and
adaptive cruise control that noother truck had back in 2007.
(30:09):
That are now still premiumfeatures, but not totally
revolutionary.
So now they've got a much morerevolutionary system.
They've got a 24 voltelectrical infrastructure
throughout the truck instead ofa 12 volt, which is going to
make it easier to power thingslike autonomous, like cameras,
like communication, internet ofThings, connectivity.
(30:30):
They're going to do a, you know,a fuel cell.
They're going to do a batteryelectric.
They're going to do a hydrogendiesel flex fuel, similar to
like what Cummins has had.
They're really really goingnuts with this thing.
And what's what's really?
I think the most exciting tothis is that on the diesel side
as well as, you know, the CNGside, you've got that I shift
(30:52):
transmission, which nobody evercomplained about at least, not
that I've ever heard no and nowthey're getting 30% faster shift
speeds up to 1,950 pound feetof torque.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Well, here's the thing Remember when that was at
the VNL 860?
And that was when that waslaunched, and that's what we're
talking about in the.
You know, just before 2010,2007 ish, they had the square
nose on it, stuff like that.
That truck was revolutionaryfor its time.
Yes, and that's why I'm sayingI'm blowing it away that it's
been that long for them toredesign it.
(31:25):
But they left off.
Forget that they.
They made a ton of improvementsover 15 years to the older VNL
model and between the iDrive andthe, the Volvo engine
technology, you know, theyredesigned about 90% of it.
They carried about 10% of thethings over from the last era of
the VNL because they hadrefined them moving into this
(31:47):
stage and I one thing I reallylike about this they didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It's not 10% of the 2007 trucks, it's 10% of the
optimized updated VN.
Exactly right Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Yes, and one thing that I like and I think that
it's very important some of thetrucking guys get frustrated
because they can't just go in,grab what they would call the
builder's book and absolutelycustomize a truck exactly the
way that they want it.
Right, yeah, but Volvobasically said here here's four
different versions of this truck, from a day cab to a full on
(32:22):
over the road walking high risesleeper.
But you can still customize alot of things with it.
A couple of nights ago I wentthrough and I built a truck on
their website a couple ofdifferent ways and I was still
impressed at the amount of stuffyou could do.
You could still go through andselect certain features.
They still had a pretty goodcolor palette.
(32:42):
There's a bunch of truckingcompanies that are getting away
from that.
They're shrinking their colors.
I think that's a very goodthing, because, as we and one of
the other things that Volvotalks about is is part of the
redesign reason it was they gotto a point where they needed to
gain arrow efficiency and to getthe arrow efficiency out of it.
(33:05):
They had to basically throw theexisting VNL aside and say
listen, we know what.
We got there.
What do we got to do to getbeyond that, and I think you're
going to see that with everybody.
We you know CES Peter bill hadtheir truck of the future on
there.
That's a huge thing, you know.
I say that a lot about a lot ofthese products, but we're in an
era right now Look at what wetalk about episode after episode
(33:28):
.
We talk about constantly peopledropping new products.
People are always dropping newproducts.
We got major changes, yeah, andI think we're in this cool era
where we're transitioning.
We're transitioning to electric, we're transitioning down the
road, we're positioningourselves into hydrogen.
We are still going to havediesel capability, unlike any
(33:51):
other right now, and every timea manufacturer like Volvo does a
redesign and drops one of theirtrucks, we need to pay
attention to it.
That's why I sat down and Ibuilt a couple off their website
.
It shows you where they'regoing to go, because what
they're releasing now is reallya stepping stone to where we're
going to be.
Every model change is kind oflike that, but I think right now
(34:12):
they're more profound than ever, yeah, and I think you're
making some bigger leaps thanyou ever had.
I mean, look at Peterbilt.
Peterbilt had the 379 for howmany years.
The cab had some tweaks andstuff to it, but that looked
like a classic truck.
When Peterbilt released the 589, everybody completely lost it
because they had a one-pieceraked windshield art to fit the
(34:34):
driver.
It still looks like a classictruck, but not.
The windshield goes up a littlebit higher.
Everybody was like, oh my God,this is the worst thing ever.
And the last 379 build slot Iheard was sold for something
like over half a million dollarsbecause basically people were
taking bids for it.
(34:55):
Ok, get back to the VNL.
These trucks coming out now areway more advanced and we have
to be willing just to accept itand understand that that truck
is going to help you.
I go back to all the times thatour older drivers get into the
newer stuff and they go.
I didn't think I was going tolike that and it always starts
(35:15):
out the same way.
I didn't think I was going tolike that, but that truck does
this, this and this that my oldtruck would never do.
The other thing I'm going totell you if you've ever been on
a hill, you ever pulled Jellico,you've ever been on 68 going
east, 30% faster shifts on topof a shift.
That's faster than you'll evermake manually, and I know
there's a lot of drivers outthere that say I can outshift
(35:37):
that auto shifting manual.
You can, first of all.
Second of all, the gain 30% ontop of an already lightning fast
speed by coupling yourtransmission shift with the
powertrain that you're using toprovide.
Yeah, that is incredible.
You're talking lightning fastpower changes on something
(36:00):
that's grossing 80,000 or more.
That takes a lot of work.
That's what I'm getting at withthat.
It does a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
There's another aspect, another neat trick that
this VNL does.
This new generation VNL doesthat.
You might not have caughtbecause you're not doing a lot
of over the road stuff, but theyhave what's called the
integrated Volvo parking cooler.
This is a climate controlfeature that will heat or cool
the cab.
It uses the 24 volt batterysystem and it'll allow the
(36:32):
driver of the truck, even ifit's a diesel, to hotel in the
truck without idling.
So you can have your climatecontrol, your air conditioning,
your heat in the truck withoutidling.
So if you're parked in an areawhere idling is prohibited or
you just don't want to be idlingand sitting there with that
noise in those fumes, this issomething that's going to enable
(36:54):
the driver to still becomfortable, still enjoy their
evenings, still sleepcomfortably, without idling the
truck and burning more fuel.
Personally, I think that's ahuge upgrade and something that
a lot of guys are going toreally appreciate once they get
inside of it.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I did see that a couple of months ago when I was
looking at that and I starteddiving into the technology
behind that.
It's crazy to think because Iwould say what?
20 years ago you had the smalltwin cylinder engines that
appeared on every over the roadtruck.
That would allow them to heatand cool the truck without the
engine running.
Remember those kids in theirstore?
After today they're beingupfitted on everything possible
(37:32):
and they work.
At first everybody was like Idon't know, I just let the truck
run, I don't need all thatextra stuff.
Well, when I was a kid andwhether we were doing something
with our race car stuff andpulled into a truck stop late,
or even when we had our own semitrucks, when you parked the
truck and walked up to the truckstop to go in and do whatever
you were going to do, just theoverwhelming rattle and the
(37:57):
parking lot was crazy.
There's jokes from the older oldtimers that then thought that
that was quiet because theywould tell you how in the early
80s and late 70s the louderDetroit diesels of the era and
all that stuff would be in theiridling.
And then God forbid somebodyhits an air starter in the
middle of the morning and wakesup, 17 people Think about how
(38:20):
far we've come with that.
And now we're talking aboutsomething that's going to make
zero noise because the thing isgoing to work off of a battery
reserve 24 volt which gives itmuch longer runtime than a 12
volt.
It's the same principle asrunning 240 versus 120.
And I don't know, I just Ican't get over that.
(38:41):
You're in an era now whereyou're like no, I trucked,
saturn, did everything I neededto do while I took my 10 hour
break, and then make a noise atall.
Yeah, and I think that's runningand other things like that.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
So yeah, and I think that that's where it's going and
I think you're going to have acouple of nights of these guys,
especially when we start gettinginto the hydrogen and into the
electric, when they pull intothe stop and they plug into that
500 kilowatt charging or theypull over their wireless
charging pad and start chargingup, where they're going to
really notice the difference andsomebody's going to pull in and
(39:14):
one of these old pizzas orsomething like that and they're
going to be, you know or not,even that.
I mean, let's just keep it allVolvo.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So I'm going to come in with a previous generation
diesel Volvo and they're goingto keep everybody awake and
everybody's going to look atthem side eye until until that
bright, you know, white orbappears and Terminator walks
away and part of the trucksmelted off, and then the guy
sleeping next to the truck onthe outside.
Actually, if you saw thatbright light, what the hell?
(39:45):
God damn son.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I need your clothes and your motorcycle.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Yeah, close your boots and your motorcycle, oh.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Man well, that's great stuff.
I think we've touched on theVolvo thing.
Let's close off the show herewith Hitachi.
Hitachi has unveiled six new Zaxis, seven excavators and a new
magic wand.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
I got enough.
I can't say anything about themagic one.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Let's just talk about the excavators.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
You know let's go back to the zaxis lineup.
So let's talk about the lasttime Hitachi dropped.
How many, how many miles?
We're telling seven, seven, six, six models.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
There's sixes, but they're dash sevens, the zax is
the models of the dash seven.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
I'll get that all mixed up by the time we get them
talking.
Next thing oh, the touchypeople are gonna say I didn't
know, we released 12.
But anyways they.
The last time they dropped thatmuch, I gotta believe, was
somewhere around interim tierfour, when they were when they
were partnered with deer, andall of a sudden they dropped the
G series.
And when deer dropped the Gseries and they dropped the
(41:28):
zaxis dash, I want to say fiveCan't remember which one it was,
but it's interim tier four andthen you had two for a final
right after that.
That's when they had a fullmodel release like that sweet,
it's all the way through right.
I'm very curious to see howthis plays out, and touchy has
talked about tier fivetechnology for years.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Well, that's what I was getting is.
This is all their tea, this isall of their zaxis lineup, but
now with some upgraded controlsystems, some better, you know
aerial what they call peripheralvision camera, so it's like
that 360 degree Parking camerathat you've gotten your cars
have got a couple of newconnectivity things, but this is
really all about tier five.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Yeah, and tier five to a lot of people are like, oh
my god, really like we just gottier four, we didn't get, just
get tier four.
Tier four has been out for avery long time.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Tier five is that for emissions 2008?
I was thinking of 15, it lookslike 2008.
Yes, whoa.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Well, 2008 was interim tier four.
Yeah, because tier four wasjust a little bit too aggressive
.
They're having a hard time.
So they got lobbied, theyworked with interim tier four,
then they went to tier four andI want to say there was a lot of
tier four technology dropped inthe 2005 is be.
(42:50):
Would it be 2015?
Speaker 2 (42:53):
2015 knows when you had to be on tier four.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
That's when a lot of the manufacturers all were like,
hey, we're dropping tier four.
It was the last time you'veseen a major update like this
and I I think that a lot of themanufacturers they're gonna be
scratching their heads abouttier five.
Same thing is tier four some ofa running from it, some of her
hit and a header on.
Hitachi has always been outfront Working on technology with
(43:19):
the powertrain and, if Iremember right and if I was
reading the article on this, Ithink a lot of this is still a
suzu powered.
The suzu has been out front ofthe Emissions technology.
Yeah, since, since thebeginning, they were like you
need us to make this thing.
All right, we're gonna work onit a little bit more.
Here you go.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
No, and I think that that's what you're starting to
see is the global brands and notthat caterpillars not a global
brand.
Obviously, caterpillar operatesthe world?
Speaker 3 (43:48):
No, but there are a lot of brands that drop the same
product across the globe.
Languages in it.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Exactly, and Hitachi is one of those companies and I
think those global guys BecauseChina, because Europe is already
in tier five or already instarting to implement tier five.
This is where their majormarket is.
You know, you look at Singaporeand things like that.
So these companies that aredoing business there already
have tier five figured out andthey're just rolling it out now
(44:16):
and you know we're gonna be.
I'm worried and I'm gonna saythis this is not a political
show and I'm not Suggesting thatone candidate is better than
the other.
I'm.
You know, that's not what thisis meant to say.
What I'm gonna say is that I'mconcerned that whoever gets
elected next, whoever is runningthis country two years from now
, if they don't pay attention,if they listen to their
(44:39):
lobbyists and they listen tothese corn huskers out here in
the middle of fly over nowhereand Allow themselves to be
lobbied out of tier five andallow themselves to be lobbied
out of electric vehicles andHydrogenization and all this, we
are going to fall way behind asan industrial nation.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
We talked about that I don't know if it's two
episodes or three episodes agoOne four-year administration
change could put us back and Idon't think I'm exaggerating at
all 20 years.
I think that's right, becausethe other thing that's going to
happen the US doesn't lead theway on this.
First of all, we are a veryclose second in a lot of ways on
(45:23):
Emissions technology andemissions mandates.
You're up in the UK, everybodyknows, pushes this, leads the
way, makes it work, and Then theUS will be able to pick up from
that.
And the only thing that I thinkis going to be slightly
different and might skew my20-year projection if we falter
(45:44):
for four years is that the OEMslooking at it from a global
basis are going to say, no,we're building in any ways and
it's coming.
And I think.
I think you're gonna see a lotof that.
You already see it with thetrucks.
The trucks already are set upin such a way where there's some
(46:05):
fine-tuning and some tweaksthat are done for North America.
Other than that, no, you know,you're getting the same truck
and a lot of cases.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
If you look Historically, you look at the
last 40 years, and you say, yes,I think Europe is leading the
way.
But if you remember how bad theair pollution was in China in
2014, 2015, where they hadbillboards of blue skies to
remind everybody what the worldused to look like before all of
their heavy industrialization,they have really clamped down on
(46:35):
that, and the way that theyhave just 180 degree turnaround
on that is really shocking.
And I saw something the otherday that you know General Motors
is selling more cars in Chinathan they are in the United
States, and a lot of people, alot of people are always
carrying that China Bandwagonand it comes from Beijing right
(46:56):
for the Olympics.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yes, and that really that really like open that up to
everybody's eyes saying wait aminute, how are they doing this?
People walking around withmasks?
They had to shut down work andproduction for I don't remember
the days Prior to the Olympicsto let the air clean up.
Let's not forget that theUnited States was not far away
(47:18):
from that, you know, when wewere going through our
industrial age and ourindustrial revolution in this
country.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Oh, in the 70s, there in the set, michael in yes,
smog and LA was so bad.
They had days that they saiddon't go outside where you live,
where you are right now inCleveland, the GD River caught
on fire.
Michael yes, hi, over there wason fire.
Do you know how bad Pollutionhas to be for the water to be on
(47:49):
fire?
And this is the problem.
That happens, and this happenswith every issue with every,
whether your left, wing, rightwing, it don't matter.
This happens with everybody.
This is part of the humancondition.
You have a problem, you thentake action to solve the problem
, then the problem gets solved,then you forget you had a
(48:10):
problem, you stop doing thething to fix the problem and
then you have a problem again.
We are now currently in theUnited States.
We are at the phase where wehave forgotten that there was
the problem and we are nowdialing back the regulations and
we're threatening now, rather,to dial back the regulations and
the clean air acts and the EPAprotections that cleaned this
all up for us.
But guys that are our age, wholived with that, who saw the
(48:32):
smog, who know about the riverburning on fire, we don't want
it to go back to that, but I'm,I'm concerned.
I'm concerned that there's toomuch money in the United States
and there's not enough memory tostop this from going back.
And I don't care who's in power, I don't care if it's a
Republican or Democrat, I'd liketo be able to breathe the air
(48:52):
and drink the water.
That's it.
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think.
No, what you're saying is verysound and and it doesn't matter
which side of the aisle both,both sides you could, if some
chance we had a.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
Republican or Democrat president and at a
Republican or Democrat presidentfrom opposite sides, the.
If the lobbyists get their wayand they politically work the
machine to roll the clock back,there is a segment of the
American public that are goingto say, yeah, that's perfect.
Look at what we're doing.
We're America, we do what wewant.
Yeah, 20 years from now, wewere stupid, that's right.
(49:25):
And again, we don't get intopolitics.
On which side?
That's just the way we aresocially Okay.
Well, that's just humanity.
You know, you have to be ableto breathe the air, drink the
water and eat the fish, or elseit doesn't matter what you're
doing Because you're dead.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And we know we, we talk about this as an industry.
Okay, implementing something,and in six months it's forgotten
about.
You implement a new form and insix months your office can't
figure out which form to usebecause who knows why, everybody
went brain dead and they don'tknow what to do.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
You implement a safety procedure.
One season later everybodycannot remember, because we all
have chronic amnesia and no oneremembers that they have to have
a specific thing when they goto work, for you know US Steel
which is just bought by Nipon.
They don't remember any of this,right?
Okay, that is a social form.
That is us as a.
(50:21):
We completely lose touch withstuff over and over and over
again.
Yeah, it's the condition that's.
Yeah, that's what I was lookingfor.
It's the human condition.
We can't let it happen, wecan't let it halt progress,
because I believe and I've reada number of articles where if
you let the natural progressionof halt or you stop technology.
People want to talk aboutinflation.
(50:42):
Let's talk about what it mighttake to stop when we realize
there's a problem after the fact.
That's exactly right, and we'llclose it out with this.
You know, hit single from thehuman league.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
That's exactly right and we'll close it out with this
.
You know hit single from thehuman league.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Tune in next week for more heavy equipment podcast on
Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Googleor wherever you find podcasts.
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