April 24, 2024 • 47 mins
This week, the guys are joined by Mats Sköldberg, head of technology for Volvo Construction Equipment, to chat about their all-new, battery-free EW240 Electric material handler. Then, they explore whether or not a sinister triumvirate of forces – the Mothman, the Jersey Devil, and a pack of WWII-era German Gremlins – could have been involved in the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse, and what that deadly disaster means for American shipping. All this, and a little bit of Airwolf, makes this a HEP-isode for the ages!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Heavy
Equipment Podcast.
I'm Joe Boris coming to youlive from Mike Schweitzer's
office.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That's correct.
We're doing all right.
We're doing good.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's been a while.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It has been a little bit.
We've all been caught up withsome stuff and everybody's been
getting sick.
It's been going around.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It's nasty, it's been going around.
It's nasty, it's been goingaround, man.
You know, margaret and I lastweek we were down, just like the
kids.
I don't even know what theywere doing.
They were on YouTube.
They had the credit cards.
They were ordering pizzas andjewelry and Chinese food.
Who knows?
We don't even care.
We'll see the bill when itcomes in.
Exactly here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
You know what?
I got a question about this,Because here's the thing about
this If you're an independentcontractor of sorts running your
own heavy equipment healthinsurance, these days it's got
to be rough, oh health insuranceis brutal, even with a company,
so the company.
I don't care if you're a unionor not.
Just yourself managing Justyourself.
You're going to have to pay forsome stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
You know, and that's a real problem when it comes to
this independent contractorthing, and a lot of states now
are going through differentcourt cases with truck drivers
and equipment operators that doown their own equipment about
whether or not they need to beconsidered 1099 or employer
protection.
We're not going to get into allthat because I'm not a labor
lawyer, but I will tell you that, as a family guy in his 40s and
(01:27):
I got young kids and I gotolder kids in their teens and
early 20s as well it isabsolutely brutal.
I think probably the singlemost expensive thing I pay for
every month other than the houseis medical insurance.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yep, that's the thing .
Like the union guys forgetabout that.
There's a whole thing where youknow cause they have health
insurance through the union andthey have flexible spending
accounts and all that stuff.
But then, like, let's sayyou're a contractor, he's got 12
guys.
Or you're a small miningoperation somewhere, like they
have up in Canada.
You know they get those smallsand mines and stuff.
There's not a lot of peoplethat work there.
(02:03):
They got a couple of people inthe office.
Guy owns a place.
You got a couple of bigmachines out there with some
operators.
He's still got a lot ofoverhead.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, and almost all of it's going to be insurance.
The difference there, where youstart talking about Canada or
Mexico or Sweden or somethinglike that, there's a lead in for
this.
A lot of those countries havesome kind of public or social
medicine that they don't have topay into, or rather they do pay
into from their taxes, but it'snot an additional hit that they
(02:35):
have to carry and cover.
It's not something that theyare, in effect, liable for.
So that is something that helpsand it does make it easier,
which is why you see some ofthis small scale manufacturing
that used to be the bread andbutter of the American Midwest
moving to those countries,because we just simply don't
have that.
We have a for-profit medicalsystem and we have companies
(02:58):
that are trying to cut cornerswhere they can.
What you end up with is $800 amonth health insurance bill that
you get to pay out every month,and then, if you get sick, you
get to pay out some more.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I don't know it's got to be a better way.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
There's got to be a better way.
If you lived in Sweden, itwould be handled.
And one guy who does live inSweden is our guest, Matt
Skolberg.
Matt is the head of technologyat Volvo Construction.
Matt, you're coming to us livefrom Sweden, are you not?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yes, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
You know we did an article on Electrek it's one of
the outlets that I write forabout the Volvo EW240 materials
handler.
This is if you haven't caughtthat article, we'll put a link
to it in the show notes.
But what makes this so cleveris that it is fully electric but
it's not super expensive, andyou did that by getting rid of
(03:50):
the battery.
You plug this directly into thegrid energy.
Can you talk a little bit aboutsome of the advantages that
that gives you and why thatdecision was made?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, it's of course.
I mean it's several benefits ofdoing it that way.
It's of course I mean it'sseveral benefits of doing it
that way.
I mean, as you mentioned, thecost of TCO for the customer is
a great driver behind it.
It's also that if you connectto the grid you don't need to
charge.
I mean the peak powerconsumption, so even that out.
(04:20):
So if power is available likethis at sites, this is a very
good solution.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, and one of the things that I like about this is
you mentioned the TCO, thetotal cost of ownership, for
something like this.
When you look at a lot oftraditional conventional job
sites, especially union jobsites, you see everybody working
from nine to five typically, oreight to four, those kind of
(04:54):
hours what we call normal hoursin the US.
Here in the States we havevariable utility rates, so
electricity at certain times ofday is more expensive to buy at
different times of the day.
How do you reconcile that?
Because one of the bigadvantages that a battery
electric vehicle often puts outthere, or at least the marketing
puts out there, is you cancharge it overnight when
electricity and energy we'llcall it energy is inexpensive,
(05:16):
and then use it during the daywhen that energy is more cost
prohibitive.
How are you reconciling thatwith something that's just
pulling grid energy?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I think it will be.
I mean, moving forward,different solutions will be
needed due to the reasons youmentioned.
I mean these look different indifferent parts of the world.
As you say, I mean batteries isa great solution in those cases
when you can charge overnight.
When electricity is normallycheaper, then there are, of
(05:50):
course, depending on what kindof solutions at the specific
site.
Then if, if you have poweravailable and maybe not to the
highest level, In those kind ofcases where you have this
solution like a grid solution,you can use BESS or power units
(06:12):
then so you can charge themovernight and put beside the
machine and run it if you don'thave the grid available or if
it's as you said cheaper, I meanto charge during night, so I
think it would be severaldifferent solutions.
that gives that flexibility.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Well, and that's a really good point.
You know we've talked to yourcolleague, dr Regalant.
We've had him on the showseveral times now.
We're big fans of his and heoften talks about stacking
different technologies andlooking at a job site not
necessarily in terms of the workthat needs to get done, which
is how conventionally aconstruction fleet Volvo Penta
(06:53):
or you look at the bestsolutions that again also Volvo
is developing.
Do you see an ecosystem?
(07:13):
Do you see a job site where youhave grid connected machines,
you have hydrogen machines, youhave even some diesel machines
or gen sets running, and doesthat kind of blended ecosystem,
multi-fuel ecosystem still makesense?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, I mean it depends on from what perspective
then, but I do believe I meanseveral solutions will exist in
parallel and different customersinvesting or in different
regions will use differentsolutions, and also different
applications will be moresuitable for hydrogen or diesel,
(07:52):
I mean where there are noelectricity in place, I mean
then, of course, other solutionsneeds to be found.
So I think it's important forus to take the holistic view I
mean very customer-centric andunderstand the different needs
in different applications anddifferent regions and then have
(08:16):
flexible solutions that can fitin.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Let's talk a little bit more about the machine
itself, right?
So this is the EW240 electricmaterial handler.
When we think of materialhandlers, I almost always go to
container ships, that kind ofmaterials handling and a lot of
times you see that they areelectric, they're pedestal
mounted, they're stationary.
This is a mobile materialhandler.
(08:43):
It can be driven around a jobsite.
What kind of work is thisreally doing?
Because it's not quite bigenough to unload a container
ship.
So what kind of work is thismachine doing that makes that
mobility such a criticalcomponent of its design?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
of its design.
Normally it's in scrap yards ormaterial handling.
In that regard, I mean, it canbe different kind of material
moved, of course, but scrapyards is a good example where
this is very often used.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Right, you need to move in between.
Maybe, if it's a vehicle scrapyard, you need to move in
between vehicles or in betweendifferent kinds of piles,
separate the rubber and themetal and the glass and all that
kind of thing.
That makes perfect sense.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Now in your role as the head of technology for Volvo
Construction Equipment and I'mbeing very careful not to say
Volvo CE, ray, that's for you.
I know he's going to hear thisone, so not saying Volvo CE, I'm
being good.
You've obviously worked on thisvehicle.
What are some of the otherconstruction equipment that
(09:55):
you've worked on, and can yougive us any insight into how you
make the determination for whatsize battery pack you're going
to put in it, or whether abattery is even the appropriate
fuel source?
Right, because we're talkingabout electricity as a fuel and
that's not always theappropriate fuel source.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
No, and as you say I mean of course Volvo
Construction Equipment are verymuch into articulated haulers,
excavators in all differentsizes and applications and wheel
loaders, also road orcompaction.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I don't mean to cut you off, but you guys are really
proud of that hydrogenarticulated loader.
I see wonderful photography ofthat drone photos.
They've done that thing up likeit's Brad Pitt at a photo shoot
.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, no, no, it's good.
I mean trying out.
That's more exploring.
I mean the articulated haulerwith the fuel cell.
So we do believe in hydrogen isone area, both fuel cells and
and hydrogen combustion engines.
So we are exploring both.
And then also we of coursebattery.
(11:10):
Electric is is the one that wefocus a lot on, especially on on
vehicles with wheels, becausethey can easily move to the
charging station and then,depending on the size of the
vehicles, there will also makedifferent amounts of sense.
How much does it really fitwith batteries?
(11:31):
It becomes too many maybe inthe large machines.
But to your question how doesthat determine how much battery
and so on?
Then it's very much related tothe customer needs and their
application, and I think itmight be different also.
So you can maybe choose howmuch battery you should have and
(11:54):
, as you mentioned before, Imean in combination with power
units and so on, you can playthis out and go customer-centric
on this.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah.
So when you say goingcustomer-centric on this, you
are suggesting that one fuel orone vehicle type is appropriate
for one customer based on thework they do, and perhaps not
for another.
Maybe not based on the workthey do and perhaps not for
another.
Maybe not based on the workthey do, maybe based on the
location, if they're way out inthe middle of nowhere.
(12:26):
One thing that we talk aboutfairly often on the show is that
just because you work for thepower company and both Michael
and I have done work fordifferent utility companies just
because you worked for thepower company doesn't mean
there's power at the job site.
In many cases, you are bringingpower to the job site, so
something like this, as cool asit is, would be totally useless
(12:49):
there because it's, you know,like we said, grid connected.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yes, and there I think it's also important I mean
in the ecosystem that we haveto cooperate with partners and
so on to provide a solution forthe customers and of course that
needs to be quite local.
But I think it's important thatwe have those kind of solutions
available so we, in a flexibleway, can help our customers in
(13:15):
this transformation.
To help our customers in thistransformation, because if not
providing the whole solution, itwill be a hurdle in the
implementation.
It's not enough with just themachine.
It needs to come with asolution, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Right, it's not just about selling them a machine.
It's about selling them theability to complete the job at
hand and giving them thatcapability to do what they need
to do, whether it's somethinglike the DD25 or the ERC25
electric, and I'll bring that uphere.
I'm dropping some names andnumbers here.
The DD25 is a roller, the ECR25is essentially a mini excavator
(13:59):
, and it's funny because everyonce in a while I will go to
VolvoCEcom and I will look atthe United States section and
looked at the electric machinesthat are available, and I
remember when it was one machineand then two machines, and now
we have six machines and soonthe material handler, I believe,
will be added there, and thenthe articulated loader.
(14:21):
Is there a goal?
Is it a stated goal to say thatwe want to have an electric or
hydrogen version of everymachine in the next you know x
how many years, or is it justsomething that's naturally
evolving as the uh, essentiallyas the work and as the customers
come to you, of course?
Speaker 3 (14:38):
in the end I mean mobile, of course.
In the end I mean Volvo.
Construction Equipment iscommitted to the science-based
target.
So I mean we should be net zeroby 2040.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So of course, by that time… 2040 is aggressive
because the EU is 2050.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
So you're ahead of them, yeah, and the reason is
because the life of the machinesshould be 10 years, so we're
not putting our customers introuble.
We put this aggressive target onourselves.
But of course, the journeythere up to 2040 will be for
different sizes and also bothfrom a technology point of view,
(15:19):
of course, what makes sense, soto speak, with the technology
available, sizes, and also bothfrom a technology point of view,
of course, what is what makessense, so to speak to with the
technology available.
But it's also important to doit from a segment point of view
where we see that this is movingfirst, but also in those
segments having a range ofmachines, so to speak.
So we have a, we have theloader and a hauler, so the
(15:41):
customer can do their completeoperation, or an excavator and a
hauler and so on so they can dotheir complete site CO2 neutral
.
So we do it by size of machinesalso, so they fit each other, I
mean regarding number of postsand so on.
So it will definitely come morein steps, then, and we're
(16:09):
working hard on that, for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
That's great stuff.
Now, I know that you cannottell us too much about future
products, but I also know, justfrom the conversations that I
have with everybody, that thereis always something on the
horizon, there's alwayssomething in the pipeline,
especially with yourcollaboration with the rest of
the Volvo group.
Right, are you seeing a greateremphasis to make some of the
(16:38):
battery technology, some of thecontroller components, charging
technology, universal across theVolvo group, or is there still
a sense of you know, volvotrucks is kind of doing their
own thing, construction is doingits own thing?
For those of you listening whodon't know this Volvo cars and
Volvo construction, volvo trucks, volvo Penta don't know this.
(17:02):
Volvo cars and Volvoconstruction, volvo trucks,
volvo Penta they are veryfriendly, there's a common
origin story, but they are notthe same company.
Volvo cars is owned by theChinese conglomerate Geely.
Geely is an investor in Volvogroup, but they are not running
it.
It is not a Chinese company,it's a totally different animal.
Now, that said, because of thatspecial relationship between
(17:22):
Volvo Group and Volvo Cars, isthere any technology transfer
happening there that is going toinfluence future construction
equipment design, or is it stillkind of its own thing in terms
of the technology?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
We cooperate a lot, of course, within the Volvo
Group, which is not the cars,but with the trucks and buses
and Volvo Penta, of course.
Where it fits, we use the samesolutions and, as you say, it
fits very well.
Some of the sizes of chargersare also related to the
(18:01):
development of components likebatteries and so on.
We cooperate closely.
So there, of course, it's goodfor the group and it's also good
for Volvo CE that we canleverage this.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I'm going to tag this timestamp in the show so that I
can say see, he said it, not me.
That's always the notes.
Don't say Volvo CE, sayconstruction equipment.
Okay, matt said it, so I can'tget in trouble anymore.
All right, I know we're comingto the end of our time
(18:36):
commitment here.
You've been a very good sport,not only in the scheduling, but
also in just being here andtalking about products with very
little guidance from me, so Iappreciate you.
Thank you so much.
What are some questions thatyou would wish I had asked that
you maybe have a really goodanswer for.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
I think what we also should remember in this it's not
only about the energy sourceand so on, it's about the whole
system as well.
I mean, in North America, wehave hand over the first
fossil-free steel articulatedhauler, for example, so it's
also important in the wholetransformation.
(19:17):
Yeah well, let's talk aboutthat for a second.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So it's a fossil-free steel hauler.
What you're saying there is notthat the vehicle itself is
fossil-free, right, Because wehave electric vehicles out there
.
You're saying that the actualsteel that the hauler is made
out of is fossil-free, issignificantly reduced carbon
(19:40):
impact than you would get out ofconventional steel, because
that's something that opponentsof electrification will often
point to and say but there's somuch carbon investment in the
manufacture of these batteryelectric vehicles that they're
not as clean as you think theyare.
Well, now, in this case, we'vegot a fossil-free steel that is
in a holler at this point but isnow something that will
(20:03):
eventually roll out to otherproducts.
That's going to dramaticallyimprove the carbon footprint of
buying one of these new vehicles.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Exactly, and that, I think, is super important in
this.
And then I mean it's earlystages.
I mean companies are investingin fossil-free steel development
, production and so on, and wewant to cooperate with them.
And it's the same with othersuppliers.
I mean, when they come up withsomething innovating and new
(20:35):
that will reduce it, we exploreand are willing to try, because
it's important that we bring thewhole value chain, so to speak,
and we do our part in this.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, that's a fantastic point.
As you were speaking, I reachedout to Daisy.
That's Daisy Gestico.
She's part of the PR team thathelped us make this connection
today and hopefully will be thefirst of many times that we have
you on the show and I justasked her for more information
on that.
Fossil-free steel, because wewill definitely want to talk
about that.
There's some other technologynow with reduced carbon concrete
(21:09):
and asphalt that we'reexploring, especially as we roll
out some differentinfrastructure projects
throughout the Midwest.
So, fossil-free steel,fossil-free concrete this is all
going to be a very excitingtime as we race to
decarbonization, just because wehave to right, because of tier
five and ESG goals and emissionsand again, this is an American
(21:31):
show, so there's always thisanti-science crowd that doesn't
quite get it or believes it'sall a scam, right.
But regardless of what youthink of it and what you think
of decarbonization, the factremains that that is what's
happening.
The technology is driving us inthat direction and if we don't
get on top of it here, we'rejust going to get left behind.
So this is what's coming andit's exciting to see all the new
(21:53):
technology and stuff that'scoming in that sense.
So again, matt, thank you somuch for being on the show again
.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Hopefully it's the first of many appearances, oh I
think it's fine, that's good, itwas good, great and it's good,
I think, thanks a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
That's hot, yes it is .
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I love when the Volvo guys come on the show.
Man, they're really good sports.
They've got a ton of stuffgoing on, whether it's through
Penta or through construction,volvo trucks that just came out,
the new VNL a couple of monthsback, and the fact that they're
willing to come on a little showlike this and talk about some
heavy stuff with us.
I always liked that.
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
We got them and C&H and we've had some of the other
companies come on, but you knowit would be kind of we got to
get some guys from, from some ofthe other manufacturers on
there too.
It'd be nice to get them all toface off on a panel episode.
Caterpillar, john Deere andVolvo.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Do it like the old McLaughlin report.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, Issue number 42 .
What are you doing about yourforest fire situation?
Speaker 1 (22:55):
They're like what are you talking about?
What is happening on a scale ofone to ten, zero being a
certain impossibility and tenbeing complete metaphysical
certitude?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I was not prepped for these questions get prepped now
.
We could have mothman on theshow okay all right we gotta get
him on here because I'm tellingyou right now, mothman, the
Jersey Devil and the Gremlins,that's the problem with the
bridge, because you got Mothmandropping the Gremlins right down
in there and the Jersey Devil,he was down in the engineering
(23:29):
room.
He's been tampering with stuffyou can't tell for a half hour.
They saw the thing come up withno steering and they still took
the bridge out.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
All right, let's slow down a little bit.
All right, let's be clear.
We don't want to make light ofthe fact that the Francis Scott
Key Bridge collapsed.
That happened last week.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
No, no, no, as we record, we're not making fun of
that.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
There is something behind the scenes there.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
We're going to talk about all the conspiracy
theorists out there.
That guy that can jump 16 feetin the air on a single bound,
that ain't superman.
The jersey devil, my friend.
When he when he clears a, whenhe clears a shipping container
and they've seen him they werethrowing morse code out there.
They were waving the flags,doing flag signals, talking
about the devil.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly,all right, yeah, look, see, we
(24:22):
got another report, okay seriousquestion Is Morse code the same
in English as it is in German?
Well no, they're the Enigmamachine, you idiot.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well, yeah, but like Mothman's not sending Enigma
codes to the German gremlins onthe tanker that shut off the
lights.
Well, or is he, what's thatbald, guy's name on x-men the
doctor, oh uh, the doctor x.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, professor, professor x professor x okay,
the car.
I think mothman sends his stuffto professor x in german.
He interprets it intuitively.
He doesn't even need a machine,he just sends it out.
He looks over at the thing andjust starts sending it.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Do you think this show would be more successful if
it was 75% Mothman conspiracieshere?
We'll phrase this in the formof a McLaughlin group question
Do you believe that the Mothmancould support an entire weekly
podcast that?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
the Mothman could support an entire weekly podcast
.
Well, you know, I think thatonce we conclude some more data
resolution and auditingtechniques, we might be able to
in fact review what we may beable to find as an audience that
could once possibly, may likelybe interested wrong the answer
(25:40):
is mermaids.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
That would be a show we could have like, uh,
fictional panelists, and they'reall like different cryptids, so
you'd have big like when aswift driver ends up on the
beach.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
There's a problem right there.
The guy's out there with a flaggoing.
Turn this way gold awaits.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
You?
Do you remember like I want tosay like 0708, when you first
started getting a ton of gps inthese cars and they would still
be updated with like a cd andpeople would like the?
The road wouldn't exist, thegps would tell them to drive
into a lake and people wouldjust do it.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
They would just go right back to the future with
lion estates.
They're standing out therelooking at a bare road and they
go.
This must be it.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
That's it exactly, exactly it.
You know you say, like, howdoes that happen?
But then you look at these catsdriving these teslas and
they've got it on autopilot.
They're not even looking at thewindshield, man, they're
looking at the dashboard,they're looking at their phone
and it just plows into a youknow parked ambulance or a fire
truck or something.
Actually it wasn't part of thethings we were going to talk
(26:42):
about, but you know, tesla had abig court case this week that
was coming up.
That was a wrongful death suitbecause of that autopilot and
literally hours, like two hoursbefore that was supposed to go
to court, they settled out ofcourt for some undisclosed but
surely ungodly amount of money.
Now, if that court case hadgone through and Tesla had been
(27:04):
found liable, that would havedramatically changed the
landscape of the truckingindustry and the shipping
industry in this country,because right now the big push
from manufacturers is to putautonomous on the road and if,
all of a sudden, you could pointthe finger at the manufacturer
and say you're liable for anaccident that happens with your
(27:25):
autonomous vehicle, that's goingto change the landscape.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Hey, listen, I think anything that you elect inside
of a vehicle, you'reautomatically at fault the
minute you elect it.
If you don't elect to put yourseatbelt on and you come through
the windshield, you've electedto not do that windshield.
You've elected to not do that.
If you elect to turn on yourauto driving capability on
whatever it is and I don't careif it's an f-18 fighter jet that
you bought in surplus fromsyria you're liable for whatever
(27:51):
that thing's about to do youget that on alibabacom.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
If you go shoot something up with your
government surplus fighter jetand it was on autopilot you're
in trouble.
Airwolf's gonna come and knockyour ass right out of the sky.
Oh, let's play the song therewe go, dude.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I knew a guy in the early days of ebay this is a
true story he bought a nikehercules missile like they had
no warhead, but it was an actualnike hercules missile.
Like they had no warhead, butit was an actual Nike Hercules
missile.
Wow, and I was like I can'tbelieve that you're allowed to
have that.
He goes, it doesn't have awarhead, it wouldn't do anything
(28:53):
.
I'm like it's the size of a busand it goes 6,000 miles an hour
.
I promise you it will dosomething.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
When you're out there with the acetylene torch and
knock that thing into gear,problems are going to come you
will be liable you will beliable.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Let's go back to that point I will be in trouble.
No, no no he'll still settleout of court the nike
corporation oh, that's I never.
That never occurred to me.
I never made that connection.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
We're gonna get a letter from nike that says we're
not affiliated with uh, we'renot affiliated with the uh
mothman.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Here's a free pair of Reeboks.
Keep my name out of your whoremouth.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
No, but you know in all honesty, I got, I got passed
the other day by a self-drivingTesla and, uh, it didn't like
the way that I crowded it whenit went by and it didn't like
the way that I crowded it whenit went by.
Believe me, it was curt when itcut me off it might be an
anti-semite okay, we're not atthe semis.
It interpreted my vehicle as asemi I get it as an anti-semi.
It was like hey, back off, andit cut me off hardcore the guys
(29:58):
asleep inside the car.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I can't even fault him for it so, just for the
record, we're not accusing elonof being an anti-semite,
anti-semi of the car.
The car doesn't like the semis,it's like hey that'll be the
headline, episode 24 is elon ananti-semi?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
we find out well, no he's building a semi of the
future.
He is.
He wants them.
Let me hold on his cars thatare roaming around with all the
great technology that's in them.
When you crowd it by somethingthree times its size, it's like
hey, I don't like you I know Ican see you coming on all nine
cameras.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Don't make me crash into you and explode.
It'll take three days to putthe fire out.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
You know the car is thinking to itself.
I ain't got a dime in this andI'll end us all right now.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I used to drive that way when I had a $500 Corolla.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
What was the red car that you had?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Oh, the red dragon, that was the Infinity.
That was a nice car.
Yes, that was a good car.
That was a good car.
Yeah, our buddy, our mutualfriend Ethan, bought that car
from me.
That car caused like threedivorces in a row.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
That car should have caused three divorces.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Well, no, that's how I got.
I got the car from someone whowas getting divorced.
I was living with my longtimegirlfriend at the time.
That went sideways.
The car had to go bye bye andas soon as Ethan got it, within
like three months months, himand what's her name, were
getting divorced.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Cars cursed man.
We tell you cars, cars, come onwith a life of their own.
We had christine, we hadchristine and I'm gonna tell you
right now, when that guy waschristine what about Old Blue?
Oh yeah, I still think that theTesla self-driving idea came
from that movie, christine,because you know the guy sitting
outside of his diamond minewatching everybody haul the gems
(31:52):
out of the sand and he goes.
I'm watching this movie and Ihave an idea Sell everything we
have and I need cash now.
When he got his cash now he,and then he got a whole jg
wentworth and he says I want myannuity right now you know, I I
think he's not old enough forthat.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I think we're lunatics.
I think he's a maximumoverdraft elon, he's like 100
years old.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
He's half fake.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
No well he's two-thirds of him is under he's
partially robot from the waistdown.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Well cause, if you watch interview to interview, he
speaks like he's fromPittsburgh, north America and
South America all at the sametime.
I think that's just being SouthAfrican right.
He keeps getting hot.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You think if there's a mouse in the house, he says
there's a moose in the hoose.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Well, let me tell you a Bodie Equipment out of
Saskatoon.
They ain't fooling around,we're going to plug Bodie.
Now I am.
I am Saskatoon, Canada.
Let me tell you Saskatoon,Saskatchewan.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Oh yeah, they do, that's right.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
They're out of moose jaw.
They're called South CountryEquipment.
They ain't dealing with Elon'selon's crap.
You know talking about no moosein the hoose they're drinking
molson behind the parts counter.
You need a belt.
Come on down, we are so far offtopic.
This is going to be thematerial handler episode record
from the office and not thebooth, because I know when biff
(33:14):
hears this he's going to comefind me and just beat my head
with the refrigerator his skullis going to collapse.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
It's like you guys need to get back on track.
We need to start recording atthe same time every week.
I would oh dude, if we did thislive, we would have to set up
the glass so that he could standbehind it pound on it.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Oh, you know what we would do.
We just put a window up withtwo handles on.
He can move it.
So it's in front of him andjust beat on it all day while
we're recording, while he'sstanding right in front of us.
That's what we need to do we'lldo that on site.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
No, you know we were laughing this morning.
We were talking about westarted the show almost a year
ago.
We're getting close to a year,getting close to a year.
If you had told me a year agowe would have four actual people
working on this and we weregetting an intern, I would have
laughed in your face.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I would have said and if we get past six episodes
I'll be amazed now help me,throw this big ball oil out the
window and let's solve theworld's energy problems what is
the seinfeld where he's got thegarbage bag of oil?
It's a ball it's a rubber ballfrom play.
Now it's for a rubber bladderfor the exxon valdez.
That's exactly.
It was ahead of its time.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Oh, we need that now.
That's perfect.
We could save the world yeah,that's a lot more bigger
problems than that well, and ifwe had bigger problems than that
, we'd be able to move them withthis 300 ton lebe hair crane.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
That's an awesome piece of equipment because they
got the thing in the Netherlands.
It's electric, right?
Yeah, there's a generator packand stuff like that goes with it
.
You're going to see a lot moreof this stuff, because when you
set up a crane whether it's athousand ton crane, 1100 ton
crane or the 2000 tonmonstrosities that have their
own, you know, sandcounterweights and stuff like
(35:02):
that they don't move all thatmuch, right?
I mean, they're there, you canmove them, they're mobile, but
you don't move them that much.
And I think you're going to seea lot more of that become more
and more electric with its ownself-sufficient generating
capacity, because that, ifanything, makes the most sense
yeah, one of the things thatthey don't go into here too much
um in the article, because theguy who wrote it's an idiot.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Instead of using a lot of the hydraulic actuators
that it uses to move this, uh,handling arm and these boom arms
, it's using electric servoswhich can be like super, super
precisely controlled.
They're not going to responddifferently to hot or cold
weather, which is missioncritical on some of these things
(35:47):
that are really precise.
And I think honestly, this tiesback to the bridge thing,
because this is something that'sin operation in a large
European port Liebherr's puttingthese things at other ports and
they're mainly being used totake containers off a ship, put
them onto rail, put them ontotrucks, and this kind of thing
is really important because wegot a lot of fun out of the
(36:10):
Mothman thing, which is real,but that is a huge disruption to
everything moving in NorthAmerica right now.
If you're a car dealer, rightnow, you are not getting parts
because that port is closed.
If you are expecting cars tocome in from Europe, you're a
(36:31):
Volkswagen dealer, a Volvodealer, a Ford dealer because
those transit fans come in fromTurkey, none of you are getting
your vehicles.
Right now.
They're being rerouted to Texas, rerouted to Florida.
All the drivers that would havedone those deliveries are being
rerouted as well.
It's a huge, huge impact.
And to have a massive machinelike this, which really two,
(36:53):
three generations ago wouldn'thave even been possible to have
a machine like this capable ofmoving 24, 2,500 containers in a
day, that's the kind of thingthat's going to help us get back
on track when the next disasterhappens, because this ain't
going to be the last one.
We've got a crumblinginfrastructure, we've got a
lower and lower standard for theoperators that we hire to pilot
(37:16):
these ships, and these shipsare just getting bigger and
bigger and bigger.
I can't imagine that there'snot somebody right now looking
at this as a national securitything, going oh, apparently we
can disrupt the entire countrywith a boat.
We don't need an airplaneanymore.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Now I had heard a couple days back there was
another boat that got pushed offby some tugboats that
intercepted it.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Oh, I saw that, but I didn't get too much information
.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I didn't either.
It wasn't too much concernconfirmed and I think that
they're trying to watch nationalconcern about it.
But you're spot on, and thateverybody knows that the
national infrastructure is whatit is.
The national infrastructureneeds some work.
You can't have the amount ofinfrastructure that we have and
not have work for it and notwork on it.
I should say but, but you alsohave to have funding, because
(38:05):
and I really want to getsomebody on the show that can
talk to us about funding becauseeven on a state level or a
federal level, you need aenormous amount of funding to
handle infrastructure problemslike we're having.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, look at all the bridges in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
They did like fourteen hundred bridges in
Pennsylvania.
It could be anything from aculvert going over top of a
small you know waterway to amassive bridge project.
This is 10 years ago.
Yeah, they've created all kindsof bridge inspection equipment
where you can get in the bucket,go underneath the bridge, walk
your way down through there,look at it, inspect it, do all
that stuff.
(38:44):
There's all kinds of huge craneequipment that has been built
like this, this 300-tonner.
There's 1,100-ton cranes,1,100-ton eight-track cranes
that were re-engineered,repurposed and built so that
they could go out and help liftsome of these bridge sections
into place with the crane.
We have all kinds ofinfrastructure that is being
produced to fix ourinfrastructure to fix our
(39:11):
infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah, we have all kinds of equipment being
produced to fix theinfrastructure and then we don't
have the budget to go out andfix the infrastructure.
And it is really baffling.
And this Baltimore thing, thisis going to be probably the
first one of these that weremember as a generational thing
, but it's not going to be thelast one.
And again, I don't want to getinto a lot of the dynamics of
(39:32):
this, but when you talk aboutAmerica in the 1950s and 60s
building the highways, buildingall these bridges- it was 70
years ago.
Well, not only that, it was 70years ago and it happened
because we had a 90% corporatetax rate to fund these projects
and a lot of these companiesunderstood that if you wanted to
(39:54):
do business across the countryand across the globe, you needed
roads, you needed bridges, youneeded this stuff to function.
And somewhere along the line welost our way.
And I'm not saying that we needmore taxation, I'm not saying
that we need to go back to thesehigher tax credits, but I'm
saying that these projects werefunded by a generation that
understood they were a part ofsomething bigger than what they
(40:17):
had.
And I think we have ageneration now, not just guys in
their forties and fifties andtwenties and thirties, but even
guys in their fifties andsixties who weren't around or
who were young cats when allthis stuff was being built, and
they've taken it for granted.
No, no, cats understood.
The hep cats, the listeners ofthis show, the hep cats and
kittens out there understandthat you need to have a complete
(40:41):
system.
They understand that you needpeople working, you need
infrastructure, you needmachinery.
Our listeners get it.
It's the people that are notlistening to this show that I'm
worried about, because thosepeople have no idea what's going
on and they vote yes, and thenhere's.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Here's the even scarier part.
There is a ton of people thatare helping write legislation,
influence legislation, and I'mnot talking through.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
You know all kinds of it's on both sides.
We're not, we're not talkingone side or the other.
No, and I'm saying I'm nottalking through you know all
kinds of no, it's on both sides.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
We're not talking one side or the other.
No, I'm not talking about darkmoney or any of this crap.
I'm saying people wholegitimately work for elected
officials who don't know how anyof this works.
If you wanted to go back to thebasic, simplistic way of
thinking of why we have tocontinuously invest in an
infrastructure, go back to theoriginal reason.
(41:32):
Eisenhower said we needinterstates in this country.
Interstates.
Yeah, interstate Not interstate,interstates, right or security.
If we have to mobilize from onepart to another, we have to be
able to do that and not go.
I don't think we can haul thetanks over there.
That bridge might not hold it,hold it well, I mean let's go
back to the original purpose of.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
That was not ever meant for people to hop on the
road and go from point correct.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
It was for freight and military transport and I
still think you want to talkabout heavy equipment and I I
got a comment the other day isthe gears will talk about stuff
heavy enough, okay.
Well, you want to talk aboutsomething?
The two mile trains.
Okay, get the two mile trains.
Put commuter trains out thereagain.
Commuter monorail.
Get the traffic off some of thehighways, give it a relief or
(42:20):
dedicated freight lanes,dedicated military lanes, if
need be, that can be used forfreight, like you're saying, the
original intention and havecommuter lanes and separate them
and enforce it, you get somegood mw that hops over and wants
to pass 16 people in the hovlane, like we have.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
We have an hov lane, we have a green car lane, we
have all this random nonsense.
What we actually need is afreight lane to get the big
trucks moving through, becauseright now you have like angry
soccer moms and their minivanstrying to push around these poor
semi drivers and they'reholding up commerce.
(42:59):
They're holding up business,they're holding up trade so that
they can have road rage andshow up on TikTok and YouTube.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
That's right and they have to enforce it.
You know, one of the bestenforced HOV systems I've ever
seen is down in DC, and I sawI'm not familiar with it.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Tell me about it Well .
Speaker 2 (43:17):
So I was in a HOV lane down through the DC area
and, uh, and and we, we, weworked down there.
So we go through there and youknow, we get guys that get
tickets over there and theyenforce it with cameras.
I got a ticket years ago downthere.
I had a John Wayne poster inthe passenger seat.
I thought I was going to makeit through.
They were like no way, the bigDuke ain't riding in that.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Put a sign up that says under video, surveillance
will be enforced.
You got a car in the freightlanes.
Do it.
We'll talk about somethingthat's going to make money for
contractors.
Tell everybody.
You got to put three lanes ofof freight commerce road
together in between the roadsthat we already use to haul cars
around.
You want to talk about backinga bill.
You have everybody lined upoutside the door going.
(43:59):
Where do I vote?
Speaker 1 (44:00):
that's exactly right, and I'd love to see that,
because I think that that's kindof the thing that gets lost is,
we need to figure out what'sgoing to actually make this
country stronger, more resilient, more of handling whether it's
an extreme weather event,whether it's a bomb getting
dropped in Wisconsin, whateverit is things are going to happen
.
Things are going to happen andthis isn't paranoia.
(44:21):
This is just a long enoughtimeline.
Stuff happens.
There's a tornado.
That comes to our last episode.
We were talking to the TSRstorm guys.
They need to be able tomobilize.
When there's a blizzard, whenthere is an earthquake, they
need to be able to mobilize andget the equipment where it needs
to be to preserve human life,and we need to have that kind of
attitude.
(44:42):
And it's not about hey, I'm 14minutes late to get to the movie
theater or whatever it is.
Pick up my Tinder date at thebar, you get off the road.
We're trying to have acivilization here.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yeah, I mean we just moved to crane this week from
Cincinnati, Ohio, down toArkansas and the amount of road
construction and the amount ofdetours we had to go through to
get through our permit route toget from Ohio down to Arkansas
was enormous.
It's all part of it andanything we do to help
(45:14):
streamline that is going toreduce that kind of traffic.
It's going to reduce theintermingling of what we have
going on with the, with the guysthat are just trying to get
from one exit to another intheir car, just trying to go
home.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Yeah, just trying to go home.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
If you you separated the two, it'd be a massive win
for the traffic issue that wehave in this country that's
right, all right.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Well, I think that's uh more than far enough today,
do you think?
Speaker 2 (45:43):
dare I try?
Speaker 1 (45:44):
wait, wait question are mothman, the, the Mermaids
and the German Gremlins engagedin a trade union, and if so, is
it the cryptid local 142?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Oh my God, Could you imagine that contract
negotiation?
The Gremlin leans over and goeswe want chicken after midnight.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Mothman no chicken after midnight.
God, we're not doing that again.
Turn on all the lights, all thelights must be on.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
We tell you there wouldn't be any microwaves in
that, uh, that union hall.
Let me tell you, right there.
Welcome back to another episode of the Heavy
Equipment Podcast.
I'm Joe Boris coming to youlive from Mike Schweitzer's
office.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That's correct.
We're doing all right.
We're doing good.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's been a while.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It has been a little bit.
We've all been caught up withsome stuff and everybody's been
getting sick.
It's been going around.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It's nasty, it's been going around.
It's nasty, it's been goingaround, man.
You know, margaret and I lastweek we were down, just like the
kids.
I don't even know what theywere doing.
They were on YouTube.
They had the credit cards.
They were ordering pizzas andjewelry and Chinese food.
Who knows?
We don't even care.
We'll see the bill when itcomes in.
Exactly here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
You know what?
I got a question about this,Because here's the thing about
this If you're an independentcontractor of sorts running your
own heavy equipment healthinsurance, these days it's got
to be rough, oh health insuranceis brutal, even with a company,
so the company.
I don't care if you're a unionor not.
Just yourself managing Justyourself.
You're going to have to pay forsome stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
You know, and that's a real problem when it comes to
this independent contractorthing, and a lot of states now
are going through differentcourt cases with truck drivers
and equipment operators that doown their own equipment about
whether or not they need to beconsidered 1099 or employer
protection.
We're not going to get into allthat because I'm not a labor
lawyer, but I will tell you that, as a family guy in his 40s and
(01:27):
I got young kids and I gotolder kids in their teens and
early 20s as well it isabsolutely brutal.
I think probably the singlemost expensive thing I pay for
every month other than the houseis medical insurance.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yep, that's the thing .
Like the union guys forgetabout that.
There's a whole thing where youknow cause they have health
insurance through the union andthey have flexible spending
accounts and all that stuff.
But then, like, let's sayyou're a contractor, he's got 12
guys.
Or you're a small miningoperation somewhere, like they
have up in Canada.
You know they get those smallsand mines and stuff.
There's not a lot of peoplethat work there.
(02:03):
They got a couple of people inthe office.
Guy owns a place.
You got a couple of bigmachines out there with some
operators.
He's still got a lot ofoverhead.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, and almost all of it's going to be insurance.
The difference there, where youstart talking about Canada or
Mexico or Sweden or somethinglike that, there's a lead in for
this.
A lot of those countries havesome kind of public or social
medicine that they don't have topay into, or rather they do pay
into from their taxes, but it'snot an additional hit that they
(02:35):
have to carry and cover.
It's not something that theyare, in effect, liable for.
So that is something that helpsand it does make it easier,
which is why you see some ofthis small scale manufacturing
that used to be the bread andbutter of the American Midwest
moving to those countries,because we just simply don't
have that.
We have a for-profit medicalsystem and we have companies
(02:58):
that are trying to cut cornerswhere they can.
What you end up with is $800 amonth health insurance bill that
you get to pay out every month,and then, if you get sick, you
get to pay out some more.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I don't know it's got to be a better way.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
There's got to be a better way.
If you lived in Sweden, itwould be handled.
And one guy who does live inSweden is our guest, Matt
Skolberg.
Matt is the head of technologyat Volvo Construction.
Matt, you're coming to us livefrom Sweden, are you not?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Yes, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
You know we did an article on Electrek it's one of
the outlets that I write forabout the Volvo EW240 materials
handler.
This is if you haven't caughtthat article, we'll put a link
to it in the show notes.
But what makes this so cleveris that it is fully electric but
it's not super expensive, andyou did that by getting rid of
(03:50):
the battery.
You plug this directly into thegrid energy.
Can you talk a little bit aboutsome of the advantages that
that gives you and why thatdecision was made?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, it's of course.
I mean it's several benefits ofdoing it that way.
It's of course I mean it'sseveral benefits of doing it
that way.
I mean, as you mentioned, thecost of TCO for the customer is
a great driver behind it.
It's also that if you connectto the grid you don't need to
charge.
I mean the peak powerconsumption, so even that out.
(04:20):
So if power is available likethis at sites, this is a very
good solution.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, and one of the things that I like about this is
you mentioned the TCO, thetotal cost of ownership, for
something like this.
When you look at a lot oftraditional conventional job
sites, especially union jobsites, you see everybody working
from nine to five typically, oreight to four, those kind of
(04:54):
hours what we call normal hoursin the US.
Here in the States we havevariable utility rates, so
electricity at certain times ofday is more expensive to buy at
different times of the day.
How do you reconcile that?
Because one of the bigadvantages that a battery
electric vehicle often puts outthere, or at least the marketing
puts out there, is you cancharge it overnight when
electricity and energy we'llcall it energy is inexpensive,
(05:16):
and then use it during the daywhen that energy is more cost
prohibitive.
How are you reconciling thatwith something that's just
pulling grid energy?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I think it will be.
I mean, moving forward,different solutions will be
needed due to the reasons youmentioned.
I mean these look different indifferent parts of the world.
As you say, I mean batteries isa great solution in those cases
when you can charge overnight.
When electricity is normallycheaper, then there are, of
(05:50):
course, depending on what kindof solutions at the specific
site.
Then if, if you have poweravailable and maybe not to the
highest level, In those kind ofcases where you have this
solution like a grid solution,you can use BESS or power units
(06:12):
then so you can charge themovernight and put beside the
machine and run it if you don'thave the grid available or if
it's as you said cheaper, I meanto charge during night, so I
think it would be severaldifferent solutions.
that gives that flexibility.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Well, and that's a really good point.
You know we've talked to yourcolleague, dr Regalant.
We've had him on the showseveral times now.
We're big fans of his and heoften talks about stacking
different technologies andlooking at a job site not
necessarily in terms of the workthat needs to get done, which
is how conventionally aconstruction fleet Volvo Penta
(06:53):
or you look at the bestsolutions that again also Volvo
is developing.
Do you see an ecosystem?
(07:13):
Do you see a job site where youhave grid connected machines,
you have hydrogen machines, youhave even some diesel machines
or gen sets running, and doesthat kind of blended ecosystem,
multi-fuel ecosystem still makesense?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, I mean it depends on from what perspective
then, but I do believe I meanseveral solutions will exist in
parallel and different customersinvesting or in different
regions will use differentsolutions, and also different
applications will be moresuitable for hydrogen or diesel,
(07:52):
I mean where there are noelectricity in place, I mean
then, of course, other solutionsneeds to be found.
So I think it's important forus to take the holistic view I
mean very customer-centric andunderstand the different needs
in different applications anddifferent regions and then have
(08:16):
flexible solutions that can fitin.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Let's talk a little bit more about the machine
itself, right?
So this is the EW240 electricmaterial handler.
When we think of materialhandlers, I almost always go to
container ships, that kind ofmaterials handling and a lot of
times you see that they areelectric, they're pedestal
mounted, they're stationary.
This is a mobile materialhandler.
(08:43):
It can be driven around a jobsite.
What kind of work is thisreally doing?
Because it's not quite bigenough to unload a container
ship.
So what kind of work is thismachine doing that makes that
mobility such a criticalcomponent of its design?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
of its design.
Normally it's in scrap yards ormaterial handling.
In that regard, I mean, it canbe different kind of material
moved, of course, but scrapyards is a good example where
this is very often used.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Right, you need to move in between.
Maybe, if it's a vehicle scrapyard, you need to move in
between vehicles or in betweendifferent kinds of piles,
separate the rubber and themetal and the glass and all that
kind of thing.
That makes perfect sense.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Now in your role as the head of technology for Volvo
Construction Equipment and I'mbeing very careful not to say
Volvo CE, ray, that's for you.
I know he's going to hear thisone, so not saying Volvo CE, I'm
being good.
You've obviously worked on thisvehicle.
What are some of the otherconstruction equipment that
(09:55):
you've worked on, and can yougive us any insight into how you
make the determination for whatsize battery pack you're going
to put in it, or whether abattery is even the appropriate
fuel source?
Right, because we're talkingabout electricity as a fuel and
that's not always theappropriate fuel source.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
No, and as you say I mean of course Volvo
Construction Equipment are verymuch into articulated haulers,
excavators in all differentsizes and applications and wheel
loaders, also road orcompaction.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I don't mean to cut you off, but you guys are really
proud of that hydrogenarticulated loader.
I see wonderful photography ofthat drone photos.
They've done that thing up likeit's Brad Pitt at a photo shoot
.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, no, no, it's good.
I mean trying out.
That's more exploring.
I mean the articulated haulerwith the fuel cell.
So we do believe in hydrogen isone area, both fuel cells and
and hydrogen combustion engines.
So we are exploring both.
And then also we of coursebattery.
(11:10):
Electric is is the one that wefocus a lot on, especially on on
vehicles with wheels, becausethey can easily move to the
charging station and then,depending on the size of the
vehicles, there will also makedifferent amounts of sense.
How much does it really fitwith batteries?
(11:31):
It becomes too many maybe inthe large machines.
But to your question how doesthat determine how much battery
and so on?
Then it's very much related tothe customer needs and their
application, and I think itmight be different also.
So you can maybe choose howmuch battery you should have and
(11:54):
, as you mentioned before, Imean in combination with power
units and so on, you can playthis out and go customer-centric
on this.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah.
So when you say goingcustomer-centric on this, you
are suggesting that one fuel orone vehicle type is appropriate
for one customer based on thework they do, and perhaps not
for another.
Maybe not based on the workthey do and perhaps not for
another.
Maybe not based on the workthey do, maybe based on the
location, if they're way out inthe middle of nowhere.
(12:26):
One thing that we talk aboutfairly often on the show is that
just because you work for thepower company and both Michael
and I have done work fordifferent utility companies just
because you worked for thepower company doesn't mean
there's power at the job site.
In many cases, you are bringingpower to the job site, so
something like this, as cool asit is, would be totally useless
(12:49):
there because it's, you know,like we said, grid connected.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yes, and there I think it's also important I mean
in the ecosystem that we haveto cooperate with partners and
so on to provide a solution forthe customers and of course that
needs to be quite local.
But I think it's important thatwe have those kind of solutions
available so we, in a flexibleway, can help our customers in
(13:15):
this transformation.
To help our customers in thistransformation, because if not
providing the whole solution, itwill be a hurdle in the
implementation.
It's not enough with just themachine.
It needs to come with asolution, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Right, it's not just about selling them a machine.
It's about selling them theability to complete the job at
hand and giving them thatcapability to do what they need
to do, whether it's somethinglike the DD25 or the ERC25
electric, and I'll bring that uphere.
I'm dropping some names andnumbers here.
The DD25 is a roller, the ECR25is essentially a mini excavator
(13:59):
, and it's funny because everyonce in a while I will go to
VolvoCEcom and I will look atthe United States section and
looked at the electric machinesthat are available, and I
remember when it was one machineand then two machines, and now
we have six machines and soonthe material handler, I believe,
will be added there, and thenthe articulated loader.
(14:21):
Is there a goal?
Is it a stated goal to say thatwe want to have an electric or
hydrogen version of everymachine in the next you know x
how many years, or is it justsomething that's naturally
evolving as the uh, essentiallyas the work and as the customers
come to you, of course?
Speaker 3 (14:38):
in the end I mean mobile, of course.
In the end I mean Volvo.
Construction Equipment iscommitted to the science-based
target.
So I mean we should be net zeroby 2040.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So of course, by that time… 2040 is aggressive
because the EU is 2050.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
So you're ahead of them, yeah, and the reason is
because the life of the machinesshould be 10 years, so we're
not putting our customers introuble.
We put this aggressive target onourselves.
But of course, the journeythere up to 2040 will be for
different sizes and also bothfrom a technology point of view,
(15:19):
of course, what makes sense, soto speak, with the technology
available, sizes, and also bothfrom a technology point of view,
of course, what is what makessense, so to speak to with the
technology available.
But it's also important to doit from a segment point of view
where we see that this is movingfirst, but also in those
segments having a range ofmachines, so to speak.
So we have a, we have theloader and a hauler, so the
(15:41):
customer can do their completeoperation, or an excavator and a
hauler and so on so they can dotheir complete site CO2 neutral
.
So we do it by size of machinesalso, so they fit each other, I
mean regarding number of postsand so on.
So it will definitely come morein steps, then, and we're
(16:09):
working hard on that, for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
That's great stuff.
Now, I know that you cannottell us too much about future
products, but I also know, justfrom the conversations that I
have with everybody, that thereis always something on the
horizon, there's alwayssomething in the pipeline,
especially with yourcollaboration with the rest of
the Volvo group.
Right, are you seeing a greateremphasis to make some of the
(16:38):
battery technology, some of thecontroller components, charging
technology, universal across theVolvo group, or is there still
a sense of you know, volvotrucks is kind of doing their
own thing, construction is doingits own thing?
For those of you listening whodon't know this Volvo cars and
Volvo construction, volvo trucks, volvo Penta don't know this.
(17:02):
Volvo cars and Volvoconstruction, volvo trucks,
volvo Penta they are veryfriendly, there's a common
origin story, but they are notthe same company.
Volvo cars is owned by theChinese conglomerate Geely.
Geely is an investor in Volvogroup, but they are not running
it.
It is not a Chinese company,it's a totally different animal.
Now, that said, because of thatspecial relationship between
(17:22):
Volvo Group and Volvo Cars, isthere any technology transfer
happening there that is going toinfluence future construction
equipment design, or is it stillkind of its own thing in terms
of the technology?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
We cooperate a lot, of course, within the Volvo
Group, which is not the cars,but with the trucks and buses
and Volvo Penta, of course.
Where it fits, we use the samesolutions and, as you say, it
fits very well.
Some of the sizes of chargersare also related to the
(18:01):
development of components likebatteries and so on.
We cooperate closely.
So there, of course, it's goodfor the group and it's also good
for Volvo CE that we canleverage this.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I'm going to tag this timestamp in the show so that I
can say see, he said it, not me.
That's always the notes.
Don't say Volvo CE, sayconstruction equipment.
Okay, matt said it, so I can'tget in trouble anymore.
All right, I know we're comingto the end of our time
(18:36):
commitment here.
You've been a very good sport,not only in the scheduling, but
also in just being here andtalking about products with very
little guidance from me, so Iappreciate you.
Thank you so much.
What are some questions thatyou would wish I had asked that
you maybe have a really goodanswer for.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
I think what we also should remember in this it's not
only about the energy sourceand so on, it's about the whole
system as well.
I mean, in North America, wehave hand over the first
fossil-free steel articulatedhauler, for example, so it's
also important in the wholetransformation.
(19:17):
Yeah well, let's talk aboutthat for a second.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So it's a fossil-free steel hauler.
What you're saying there is notthat the vehicle itself is
fossil-free, right, Because wehave electric vehicles out there
.
You're saying that the actualsteel that the hauler is made
out of is fossil-free, issignificantly reduced carbon
(19:40):
impact than you would get out ofconventional steel, because
that's something that opponentsof electrification will often
point to and say but there's somuch carbon investment in the
manufacture of these batteryelectric vehicles that they're
not as clean as you think theyare.
Well, now, in this case, we'vegot a fossil-free steel that is
in a holler at this point but isnow something that will
(20:03):
eventually roll out to otherproducts.
That's going to dramaticallyimprove the carbon footprint of
buying one of these new vehicles.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Exactly, and that, I think, is super important in
this.
And then I mean it's earlystages.
I mean companies are investingin fossil-free steel development
, production and so on, and wewant to cooperate with them.
And it's the same with othersuppliers.
I mean, when they come up withsomething innovating and new
(20:35):
that will reduce it, we exploreand are willing to try, because
it's important that we bring thewhole value chain, so to speak,
and we do our part in this.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, that's a fantastic point.
As you were speaking, I reachedout to Daisy.
That's Daisy Gestico.
She's part of the PR team thathelped us make this connection
today and hopefully will be thefirst of many times that we have
you on the show and I justasked her for more information
on that.
Fossil-free steel, because wewill definitely want to talk
about that.
There's some other technologynow with reduced carbon concrete
(21:09):
and asphalt that we'reexploring, especially as we roll
out some differentinfrastructure projects
throughout the Midwest.
So, fossil-free steel,fossil-free concrete this is all
going to be a very excitingtime as we race to
decarbonization, just because wehave to right, because of tier
five and ESG goals and emissionsand again, this is an American
(21:31):
show, so there's always thisanti-science crowd that doesn't
quite get it or believes it'sall a scam, right.
But regardless of what youthink of it and what you think
of decarbonization, the factremains that that is what's
happening.
The technology is driving us inthat direction and if we don't
get on top of it here, we'rejust going to get left behind.
So this is what's coming andit's exciting to see all the new
(21:53):
technology and stuff that'scoming in that sense.
So again, matt, thank you somuch for being on the show again
.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Hopefully it's the first of many appearances, oh I
think it's fine, that's good, itwas good, great and it's good,
I think, thanks a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
That's hot, yes it is .
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I love when the Volvo guys come on the show.
Man, they're really good sports.
They've got a ton of stuffgoing on, whether it's through
Penta or through construction,volvo trucks that just came out,
the new VNL a couple of monthsback, and the fact that they're
willing to come on a little showlike this and talk about some
heavy stuff with us.
I always liked that.
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
We got them and C&H and we've had some of the other
companies come on, but you knowit would be kind of we got to
get some guys from, from some ofthe other manufacturers on
there too.
It'd be nice to get them all toface off on a panel episode.
Caterpillar, john Deere andVolvo.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Do it like the old McLaughlin report.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, Issue number 42 .
What are you doing about yourforest fire situation?
Speaker 1 (22:55):
They're like what are you talking about?
What is happening on a scale ofone to ten, zero being a
certain impossibility and tenbeing complete metaphysical
certitude?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I was not prepped for these questions get prepped now
.
We could have mothman on theshow okay all right we gotta get
him on here because I'm tellingyou right now, mothman, the
Jersey Devil and the Gremlins,that's the problem with the
bridge, because you got Mothmandropping the Gremlins right down
in there and the Jersey Devil,he was down in the engineering
(23:29):
room.
He's been tampering with stuffyou can't tell for a half hour.
They saw the thing come up withno steering and they still took
the bridge out.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
All right, let's slow down a little bit.
All right, let's be clear.
We don't want to make light ofthe fact that the Francis Scott
Key Bridge collapsed.
That happened last week.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
No, no, no, as we record, we're not making fun of
that.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
There is something behind the scenes there.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
We're going to talk about all the conspiracy
theorists out there.
That guy that can jump 16 feetin the air on a single bound,
that ain't superman.
The jersey devil, my friend.
When he when he clears a, whenhe clears a shipping container
and they've seen him they werethrowing morse code out there.
They were waving the flags,doing flag signals, talking
about the devil.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly,all right, yeah, look, see, we
(24:22):
got another report, okay seriousquestion Is Morse code the same
in English as it is in German?
Well no, they're the Enigmamachine, you idiot.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well, yeah, but like Mothman's not sending Enigma
codes to the German gremlins onthe tanker that shut off the
lights.
Well, or is he, what's thatbald, guy's name on x-men the
doctor, oh uh, the doctor x.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, professor, professor x professor x okay,
the car.
I think mothman sends his stuffto professor x in german.
He interprets it intuitively.
He doesn't even need a machine,he just sends it out.
He looks over at the thing andjust starts sending it.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Do you think this show would be more successful if
it was 75% Mothman conspiracieshere?
We'll phrase this in the formof a McLaughlin group question
Do you believe that the Mothmancould support an entire weekly
podcast that?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
the Mothman could support an entire weekly podcast
.
Well, you know, I think thatonce we conclude some more data
resolution and auditingtechniques, we might be able to
in fact review what we may beable to find as an audience that
could once possibly, may likelybe interested wrong the answer
(25:40):
is mermaids.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
That would be a show we could have like, uh,
fictional panelists, and they'reall like different cryptids, so
you'd have big like when aswift driver ends up on the
beach.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
There's a problem right there.
The guy's out there with a flaggoing.
Turn this way gold awaits.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
You?
Do you remember like I want tosay like 0708, when you first
started getting a ton of gps inthese cars and they would still
be updated with like a cd andpeople would like the?
The road wouldn't exist, thegps would tell them to drive
into a lake and people wouldjust do it.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
They would just go right back to the future with
lion estates.
They're standing out therelooking at a bare road and they
go.
This must be it.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
That's it exactly, exactly it.
You know you say, like, howdoes that happen?
But then you look at these catsdriving these teslas and
they've got it on autopilot.
They're not even looking at thewindshield, man, they're
looking at the dashboard,they're looking at their phone
and it just plows into a youknow parked ambulance or a fire
truck or something.
Actually it wasn't part of thethings we were going to talk
(26:42):
about, but you know, tesla had abig court case this week that
was coming up.
That was a wrongful death suitbecause of that autopilot and
literally hours, like two hoursbefore that was supposed to go
to court, they settled out ofcourt for some undisclosed but
surely ungodly amount of money.
Now, if that court case hadgone through and Tesla had been
(27:04):
found liable, that would havedramatically changed the
landscape of the truckingindustry and the shipping
industry in this country,because right now the big push
from manufacturers is to putautonomous on the road and if,
all of a sudden, you could pointthe finger at the manufacturer
and say you're liable for anaccident that happens with your
(27:25):
autonomous vehicle, that's goingto change the landscape.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Hey, listen, I think anything that you elect inside
of a vehicle, you'reautomatically at fault the
minute you elect it.
If you don't elect to put yourseatbelt on and you come through
the windshield, you've electedto not do that windshield.
You've elected to not do that.
If you elect to turn on yourauto driving capability on
whatever it is and I don't careif it's an f-18 fighter jet that
you bought in surplus fromsyria you're liable for whatever
(27:51):
that thing's about to do youget that on alibabacom.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
If you go shoot something up with your
government surplus fighter jetand it was on autopilot you're
in trouble.
Airwolf's gonna come and knockyour ass right out of the sky.
Oh, let's play the song therewe go, dude.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I knew a guy in the early days of ebay this is a
true story he bought a nikehercules missile like they had
no warhead, but it was an actualnike hercules missile.
Like they had no warhead, butit was an actual Nike Hercules
missile.
Wow, and I was like I can'tbelieve that you're allowed to
have that.
He goes, it doesn't have awarhead, it wouldn't do anything
(28:53):
.
I'm like it's the size of a busand it goes 6,000 miles an hour
.
I promise you it will dosomething.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
When you're out there with the acetylene torch and
knock that thing into gear,problems are going to come you
will be liable you will beliable.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Let's go back to that point I will be in trouble.
No, no no he'll still settleout of court the nike
corporation oh, that's I never.
That never occurred to me.
I never made that connection.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
We're gonna get a letter from nike that says we're
not affiliated with uh, we'renot affiliated with the uh
mothman.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Here's a free pair of Reeboks.
Keep my name out of your whoremouth.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
No, but you know in all honesty, I got, I got passed
the other day by a self-drivingTesla and, uh, it didn't like
the way that I crowded it whenit went by and it didn't like
the way that I crowded it whenit went by.
Believe me, it was curt when itcut me off it might be an
anti-semite okay, we're not atthe semis.
It interpreted my vehicle as asemi I get it as an anti-semi.
It was like hey, back off, andit cut me off hardcore the guys
(29:58):
asleep inside the car.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I can't even fault him for it so, just for the
record, we're not accusing elonof being an anti-semite,
anti-semi of the car.
The car doesn't like the semis,it's like hey that'll be the
headline, episode 24 is elon ananti-semi?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
we find out well, no he's building a semi of the
future.
He is.
He wants them.
Let me hold on his cars thatare roaming around with all the
great technology that's in them.
When you crowd it by somethingthree times its size, it's like
hey, I don't like you I know Ican see you coming on all nine
cameras.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Don't make me crash into you and explode.
It'll take three days to putthe fire out.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
You know the car is thinking to itself.
I ain't got a dime in this andI'll end us all right now.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I used to drive that way when I had a $500 Corolla.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
What was the red car that you had?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Oh, the red dragon, that was the Infinity.
That was a nice car.
Yes, that was a good car.
That was a good car.
Yeah, our buddy, our mutualfriend Ethan, bought that car
from me.
That car caused like threedivorces in a row.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
That car should have caused three divorces.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Well, no, that's how I got.
I got the car from someone whowas getting divorced.
I was living with my longtimegirlfriend at the time.
That went sideways.
The car had to go bye bye andas soon as Ethan got it, within
like three months months, himand what's her name, were
getting divorced.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Cars cursed man.
We tell you cars, cars, come onwith a life of their own.
We had christine, we hadchristine and I'm gonna tell you
right now, when that guy waschristine what about Old Blue?
Oh yeah, I still think that theTesla self-driving idea came
from that movie, christine,because you know the guy sitting
outside of his diamond minewatching everybody haul the gems
(31:52):
out of the sand and he goes.
I'm watching this movie and Ihave an idea Sell everything we
have and I need cash now.
When he got his cash now he,and then he got a whole jg
wentworth and he says I want myannuity right now you know, I I
think he's not old enough forthat.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I think we're lunatics.
I think he's a maximumoverdraft elon, he's like 100
years old.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
He's half fake.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
No well he's two-thirds of him is under he's
partially robot from the waistdown.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Well cause, if you watch interview to interview, he
speaks like he's fromPittsburgh, north America and
South America all at the sametime.
I think that's just being SouthAfrican right.
He keeps getting hot.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You think if there's a mouse in the house, he says
there's a moose in the hoose.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Well, let me tell you a Bodie Equipment out of
Saskatoon.
They ain't fooling around,we're going to plug Bodie.
Now I am.
I am Saskatoon, Canada.
Let me tell you Saskatoon,Saskatchewan.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Oh yeah, they do, that's right.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
They're out of moose jaw.
They're called South CountryEquipment.
They ain't dealing with Elon'selon's crap.
You know talking about no moosein the hoose they're drinking
molson behind the parts counter.
You need a belt.
Come on down, we are so far offtopic.
This is going to be thematerial handler episode record
from the office and not thebooth, because I know when biff
(33:14):
hears this he's going to comefind me and just beat my head
with the refrigerator his skullis going to collapse.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
It's like you guys need to get back on track.
We need to start recording atthe same time every week.
I would oh dude, if we did thislive, we would have to set up
the glass so that he could standbehind it pound on it.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Oh, you know what we would do.
We just put a window up withtwo handles on.
He can move it.
So it's in front of him andjust beat on it all day while
we're recording, while he'sstanding right in front of us.
That's what we need to do we'lldo that on site.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
No, you know we were laughing this morning.
We were talking about westarted the show almost a year
ago.
We're getting close to a year,getting close to a year.
If you had told me a year agowe would have four actual people
working on this and we weregetting an intern, I would have
laughed in your face.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I would have said and if we get past six episodes
I'll be amazed now help me,throw this big ball oil out the
window and let's solve theworld's energy problems what is
the seinfeld where he's got thegarbage bag of oil?
It's a ball it's a rubber ballfrom play.
Now it's for a rubber bladderfor the exxon valdez.
That's exactly.
It was ahead of its time.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Oh, we need that now.
That's perfect.
We could save the world yeah,that's a lot more bigger
problems than that well, and ifwe had bigger problems than that
, we'd be able to move them withthis 300 ton lebe hair crane.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
That's an awesome piece of equipment because they
got the thing in the Netherlands.
It's electric, right?
Yeah, there's a generator packand stuff like that goes with it
.
You're going to see a lot moreof this stuff, because when you
set up a crane whether it's athousand ton crane, 1100 ton
crane or the 2000 tonmonstrosities that have their
own, you know, sandcounterweights and stuff like
(35:02):
that they don't move all thatmuch, right?
I mean, they're there, you canmove them, they're mobile, but
you don't move them that much.
And I think you're going to seea lot more of that become more
and more electric with its ownself-sufficient generating
capacity, because that, ifanything, makes the most sense
yeah, one of the things thatthey don't go into here too much
um in the article, because theguy who wrote it's an idiot.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Instead of using a lot of the hydraulic actuators
that it uses to move this, uh,handling arm and these boom arms
, it's using electric servoswhich can be like super, super
precisely controlled.
They're not going to responddifferently to hot or cold
weather, which is missioncritical on some of these things
(35:47):
that are really precise.
And I think honestly, this tiesback to the bridge thing,
because this is something that'sin operation in a large
European port Liebherr's puttingthese things at other ports and
they're mainly being used totake containers off a ship, put
them onto rail, put them ontotrucks, and this kind of thing
is really important because wegot a lot of fun out of the
(36:10):
Mothman thing, which is real,but that is a huge disruption to
everything moving in NorthAmerica right now.
If you're a car dealer, rightnow, you are not getting parts
because that port is closed.
If you are expecting cars tocome in from Europe, you're a
(36:31):
Volkswagen dealer, a Volvodealer, a Ford dealer because
those transit fans come in fromTurkey, none of you are getting
your vehicles.
Right now.
They're being rerouted to Texas, rerouted to Florida.
All the drivers that would havedone those deliveries are being
rerouted as well.
It's a huge, huge impact.
And to have a massive machinelike this, which really two,
(36:53):
three generations ago wouldn'thave even been possible to have
a machine like this capable ofmoving 24, 2,500 containers in a
day, that's the kind of thingthat's going to help us get back
on track when the next disasterhappens, because this ain't
going to be the last one.
We've got a crumblinginfrastructure, we've got a
lower and lower standard for theoperators that we hire to pilot
(37:16):
these ships, and these shipsare just getting bigger and
bigger and bigger.
I can't imagine that there'snot somebody right now looking
at this as a national securitything, going oh, apparently we
can disrupt the entire countrywith a boat.
We don't need an airplaneanymore.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Now I had heard a couple days back there was
another boat that got pushed offby some tugboats that
intercepted it.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Oh, I saw that, but I didn't get too much information
.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I didn't either.
It wasn't too much concernconfirmed and I think that
they're trying to watch nationalconcern about it.
But you're spot on, and thateverybody knows that the
national infrastructure is whatit is.
The national infrastructureneeds some work.
You can't have the amount ofinfrastructure that we have and
not have work for it and notwork on it.
I should say but, but you alsohave to have funding, because
(38:05):
and I really want to getsomebody on the show that can
talk to us about funding becauseeven on a state level or a
federal level, you need aenormous amount of funding to
handle infrastructure problemslike we're having.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, look at all the bridges in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
They did like fourteen hundred bridges in
Pennsylvania.
It could be anything from aculvert going over top of a
small you know waterway to amassive bridge project.
This is 10 years ago.
Yeah, they've created all kindsof bridge inspection equipment
where you can get in the bucket,go underneath the bridge, walk
your way down through there,look at it, inspect it, do all
that stuff.
(38:44):
There's all kinds of huge craneequipment that has been built
like this, this 300-tonner.
There's 1,100-ton cranes,1,100-ton eight-track cranes
that were re-engineered,repurposed and built so that
they could go out and help liftsome of these bridge sections
into place with the crane.
We have all kinds ofinfrastructure that is being
produced to fix ourinfrastructure to fix our
(39:11):
infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah, we have all kinds of equipment being
produced to fix theinfrastructure and then we don't
have the budget to go out andfix the infrastructure.
And it is really baffling.
And this Baltimore thing, thisis going to be probably the
first one of these that weremember as a generational thing
, but it's not going to be thelast one.
And again, I don't want to getinto a lot of the dynamics of
(39:32):
this, but when you talk aboutAmerica in the 1950s and 60s
building the highways, buildingall these bridges- it was 70
years ago.
Well, not only that, it was 70years ago and it happened
because we had a 90% corporatetax rate to fund these projects
and a lot of these companiesunderstood that if you wanted to
(39:54):
do business across the countryand across the globe, you needed
roads, you needed bridges, youneeded this stuff to function.
And somewhere along the line welost our way.
And I'm not saying that we needmore taxation, I'm not saying
that we need to go back to thesehigher tax credits, but I'm
saying that these projects werefunded by a generation that
understood they were a part ofsomething bigger than what they
(40:17):
had.
And I think we have ageneration now, not just guys in
their forties and fifties andtwenties and thirties, but even
guys in their fifties andsixties who weren't around or
who were young cats when allthis stuff was being built, and
they've taken it for granted.
No, no, cats understood.
The hep cats, the listeners ofthis show, the hep cats and
kittens out there understandthat you need to have a complete
(40:41):
system.
They understand that you needpeople working, you need
infrastructure, you needmachinery.
Our listeners get it.
It's the people that are notlistening to this show that I'm
worried about, because thosepeople have no idea what's going
on and they vote yes, and thenhere's.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Here's the even scarier part.
There is a ton of people thatare helping write legislation,
influence legislation, and I'mnot talking through.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
You know all kinds of it's on both sides.
We're not, we're not talkingone side or the other.
No, and I'm saying I'm nottalking through you know all
kinds of no, it's on both sides.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
We're not talking one side or the other.
No, I'm not talking about darkmoney or any of this crap.
I'm saying people wholegitimately work for elected
officials who don't know how anyof this works.
If you wanted to go back to thebasic, simplistic way of
thinking of why we have tocontinuously invest in an
infrastructure, go back to theoriginal reason.
(41:32):
Eisenhower said we needinterstates in this country.
Interstates.
Yeah, interstate Not interstate,interstates, right or security.
If we have to mobilize from onepart to another, we have to be
able to do that and not go.
I don't think we can haul thetanks over there.
That bridge might not hold it,hold it well, I mean let's go
back to the original purpose of.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
That was not ever meant for people to hop on the
road and go from point correct.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
It was for freight and military transport and I
still think you want to talkabout heavy equipment and I I
got a comment the other day isthe gears will talk about stuff
heavy enough, okay.
Well, you want to talk aboutsomething?
The two mile trains.
Okay, get the two mile trains.
Put commuter trains out thereagain.
Commuter monorail.
Get the traffic off some of thehighways, give it a relief or
(42:20):
dedicated freight lanes,dedicated military lanes, if
need be, that can be used forfreight, like you're saying, the
original intention and havecommuter lanes and separate them
and enforce it, you get somegood mw that hops over and wants
to pass 16 people in the hovlane, like we have.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
We have an hov lane, we have a green car lane, we
have all this random nonsense.
What we actually need is afreight lane to get the big
trucks moving through, becauseright now you have like angry
soccer moms and their minivanstrying to push around these poor
semi drivers and they'reholding up commerce.
(42:59):
They're holding up business,they're holding up trade so that
they can have road rage andshow up on TikTok and YouTube.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
That's right and they have to enforce it.
You know, one of the bestenforced HOV systems I've ever
seen is down in DC, and I sawI'm not familiar with it.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Tell me about it Well .
Speaker 2 (43:17):
So I was in a HOV lane down through the DC area
and, uh, and and we, we, weworked down there.
So we go through there and youknow, we get guys that get
tickets over there and theyenforce it with cameras.
I got a ticket years ago downthere.
I had a John Wayne poster inthe passenger seat.
I thought I was going to makeit through.
They were like no way, the bigDuke ain't riding in that.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Put a sign up that says under video, surveillance
will be enforced.
You got a car in the freightlanes.
Do it.
We'll talk about somethingthat's going to make money for
contractors.
Tell everybody.
You got to put three lanes ofof freight commerce road
together in between the roadsthat we already use to haul cars
around.
You want to talk about backinga bill.
You have everybody lined upoutside the door going.
(43:59):
Where do I vote?
Speaker 1 (44:00):
that's exactly right, and I'd love to see that,
because I think that that's kindof the thing that gets lost is,
we need to figure out what'sgoing to actually make this
country stronger, more resilient, more of handling whether it's
an extreme weather event,whether it's a bomb getting
dropped in Wisconsin, whateverit is things are going to happen
.
Things are going to happen andthis isn't paranoia.
(44:21):
This is just a long enoughtimeline.
Stuff happens.
There's a tornado.
That comes to our last episode.
We were talking to the TSRstorm guys.
They need to be able tomobilize.
When there's a blizzard, whenthere is an earthquake, they
need to be able to mobilize andget the equipment where it needs
to be to preserve human life,and we need to have that kind of
attitude.
(44:42):
And it's not about hey, I'm 14minutes late to get to the movie
theater or whatever it is.
Pick up my Tinder date at thebar, you get off the road.
We're trying to have acivilization here.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Yeah, I mean we just moved to crane this week from
Cincinnati, Ohio, down toArkansas and the amount of road
construction and the amount ofdetours we had to go through to
get through our permit route toget from Ohio down to Arkansas
was enormous.
It's all part of it andanything we do to help
(45:14):
streamline that is going toreduce that kind of traffic.
It's going to reduce theintermingling of what we have
going on with the, with the guysthat are just trying to get
from one exit to another intheir car, just trying to go
home.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Yeah, just trying to go home.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
If you you separated the two, it'd be a massive win
for the traffic issue that wehave in this country that's
right, all right.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Well, I think that's uh more than far enough today,
do you think?
Speaker 2 (45:43):
dare I try?
Speaker 1 (45:44):
wait, wait question are mothman, the, the Mermaids
and the German Gremlins engagedin a trade union, and if so, is
it the cryptid local 142?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Oh my God, Could you imagine that contract
negotiation?
The Gremlin leans over and goeswe want chicken after midnight.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Mothman no chicken after midnight.
God, we're not doing that again.
Turn on all the lights, all thelights must be on.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
We tell you there wouldn't be any microwaves in
that, uh, that union hall.
Let me tell you, right there.
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