May 10, 2024 • 50 mins
Prepare to be transported back to a simpler time when two queens on the side of a coffee cup could make your day and spilling scalding hot chocolate on your crotch could ruin your life as Mike and Jo discuss the shortcomings of a Las Vegas landmark, GM's new Ultium-based commercial vehicles, and the Orange EV Husk-e yard hostler with 180,000 lb. GCWR. All this and the same number of blueberries in every muffin on this exciting HEP-isode of The Heavy Equipment Podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, hep cats and kittens.
This is going to be a littledifferent, because we've already
started talking about this.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We're way into this.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
So here's all the background that you need to know
.
If you were a child in the 70sand 80s and you ever took a road
trip, you stopped at a reststop and at that rest stop you
could put in a quarter, maybe 50cents, and you could order
vanilla cappuccino, a blackcoffee, some of the most
scalding hot cocoa in the world,and it would come out of the
(00:31):
vending machine at 272 degreesready to burn your crotch off,
and it would have some pokercards on there and you could
play poker with your buddies whoalso got their own coffee.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
You beat me to it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That's the one.
And now the real question, theonly question that matters today
, folks, should there be one ofthese vending machines at the
Mandalay Bay Starbucks in LasVegas?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I say yes.
Let me tell you, when you walkdown there at four in the
morning because you're on EastCoast time and you got up
because somebody woke you up outof bed with a serious problem,
and you handle it.
And you walk down there at fourin the morning because you're
on East Coast time and you gotup because somebody woke you up
out of bed with a seriousproblem, and you handle it, and
you go down there with your cup.
All I got is a Mandalay Bayrobe, some slippers and I got my
mug.
That's it.
I'm not talking about my faceand I need coffee.
(01:18):
I get about one million goldstars from Starbucks.
I don't care if it's going tocost me a thousand of them.
I need a cup of coffee that'sabsolutely right.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
There is no reason that in mandalay bay, in a in a
world-renowned las vegas hotel,one of the voltaggio brothers
taking up residence in theirrestaurant, that you should not
be able to get a cup of coffeeat five in the morning.
That's absurd.
That's a war crime.
I think it's against the GenevaConvention.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
From now on, I want you to put an equal amount of
blueberries in each muffin.
An equal amount of blueberriesin each muffin.
You know how long that's goingto take.
I don't care how long it takes.
Put an equal amount in eachmuffin.
Do you know how long that'sgoing to take?
I don't care how long it takes.
Put an equal amount in eachmuffin.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
And they go.
Do you know how long that'sgoing to take?
I don't care.
I don't care Because and I don'twant to say it's about lowering
your standards they haven'tlowered their standards.
It's just one of those weirdthings that when you're three
hours apart from their time, youknow, let's face it, all us
(02:30):
midwesterners we get reallytired of the crappy weather
because now that our weather'schanged a little bit, it's like
living in seattle all the time.
Sorry for seattle folks, but,um, they know you're about to be
blessed with some serious greatweather because we just got all
your weather.
So I'm just telling you rightnow we.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's one of the drawbacks of climate change.
You know it's bad for mostpeople, but for some people it's
going to work out really well.
Oregon, you're welcome oh,can't the canadians?
Toronto is going to be aparadise.
It's going to be, it's going tobe like myrtle beach.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Let me tell you, the toronto people.
They're going to be up therelooking out and breaking off
pieces of their frozen maplesyrup bites and dipping them in
their coffee that they got fromtheir Canadian vending machine,
because they have great thingsup north of the border, that's
right.
And they're going to go.
Wow, this is nice.
(03:20):
What the hell happened to thefrozen tundra we used to live in
?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Oh, I know it's going to be good.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
They got some brutal stuff up there.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
They do.
Well, you know, it's funnybecause we're talking about Las
Vegas, we're talking about theseLas Vegas hotels.
We haven't talked about why theHeavy.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Equipment.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Podcast was in Las Vegas last week.
Young Michael was on a presstour a little bit of a press
junket, if you will at an EVcharging summit and he was there
as a guest of General Motorsand you were checking out the GM
Bright Drop that's their newbig box van.
How'd you like that?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, I was out there .
I mean, it's seriously, it wasa cool work event.
You know, we went out there anddid that and I looked at the
Bright Drop and I looked at theSilverado EV.
They had the Hummer and theVette and all that stuff was all
out there too.
But another cool thing thatthey had in addition to that was
GM Power.
They're doing literally cratemotor options.
(04:16):
But electric motors, yes, notengines, crate motors.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Crate motors that you can then drop into your chassis
configuration or RV or bus lineor whatever else and the guys
at lee boy.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
They had their roscoe brooms out there with the
electric version oh, that's cool, I didn't know that, yeah,
eight.
Yeah, I kept this for me for areason.
The uh, eight hour runtime thatit has under full load is
amazing.
And then you plug it in atnight, that's.
It also had a battery poweredelectric paver for cities that
(04:51):
want to do some paving but don'twant to have all all the engine
issues.
Plug it in, charge it up.
Hey, we had to go down herebecause, you know, mrs johnson,
she called because there's watercoming up out of the road.
You get that fixed.
You still got to pave it.
This is a better, bettersolution.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, for sure, and I think you know, especially when
you look at municipalities andcities and the kind of stuff
that they operate, they arereally beholden to their
constituents, right, like thepeople that voted you into power
.
They have their goals, whetherthey make sense or not, whether
it's mathematically feasible ornot.
(05:26):
You want to stay in power.
You got to do what they want,and a lot of those
municipalities, especially inCalifornia, pacific Northwest,
even here in Chicago, they don'twant the noise, they don't want
the sound of the vibration.
You have to go electric just tomeet their demands.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Exactly I mean between the broom, the paver and
the brake drop is actually areally good van and at the
company that I work for, we'rehaving some internal meetings
about it and how it does fit aneed right, even at a
construction company, which iswhat brought me out there.
I wanted to learn more and Iwent through some educational
modules with them.
(06:02):
I wanted to understand how youactually include EV into your
fleet for the type of work thatwe do as an industrial
construction company.
Right, and we're not alone.
I met with several fleetmanagers out there that I knew
from throughout the country andwe all had the same question was
this is all really cool whenyou're a consumer, but how do I
(06:22):
use this in everyday life forour day-to-day construction
needs?
And we went over and we lookedat.
The Ford Lightning was there.
The Transit was there in itselectric forms.
The Silverado EV is an amazingtruck.
I drove it.
They have you do anacceleration test and all that.
And that accelerates as hard asthe Tesla Model Y.
(06:42):
That accelerates as hard as theTesla Model Y and I can tell
you because I've been in both.
That thing moves.
And if you are working,speaking of municipalities, if
you are working in amunicipality or if there are
some elected officials listeningto this episode, you need to be
seriously taking considerationto the BrightDrop and the
(07:06):
Silverado EV work truck.
The Silverado EV work truckcomes with standard options as a
work truck configuration which20 years ago made it a superstar
truck.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, that made it an ultimate luxury truck.
There's a couple of neat thingsabout the Silverado that GM
really did right and they reallyseparated themselves from the
Lightning and the Cybertruck andall that.
It's an 800 volt architecture,battery pack Correct.
One of the things that they'vedone is it's a split system.
So what does that mean?
That means that you can,through software, turn that
(07:44):
800-volt battery into two400-volt systems and plug it
into two DC fast chargers andget out of there even faster.
You can also use it as acharger on the move.
So if you've got anothervehicle that needs to be charged
up whether it's a golf cart ora mini excavator or something
(08:04):
you can plug it into thesilverado's big bad battery and
it'll charge that for you.
It's a really slick truck.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
It's got a 240 volt outlet in the back.
And I asked him flat out.
I said so if I show up on a jobsite and I'm in a real hard
pinch here and I gotta get outmy air archer and I'm gonna air
arc some bolts off of a cuttingedge.
They didn't recommend it, butthey also didn't say you
couldn't.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah.
I think that may have more todo with the fact that, like it
will, hurt sensitive.
It's not sensitive, it'll hurtyour range, but it's smart
enough to protect itself.
You're not going to hurt thetruck and it's just really sharp
.
It's one of those things whereyou understand what they did,
you understand why they've doneit.
You go, wow, they really didthis right.
(08:48):
Where I think they screwed upwas they gave it that avalanche
style pickup bed that'sintegrated into the body and now
you can't put a utility body onit.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, there were several concerns about that and
that shark fin deal that they'vegot on the back the fairing and
all that.
While it looks cool, you can't,as a municipality, put a
composite bed on that thing.
Yeah, you can't put alightweight aluminum bed on it,
and I think the reason that theydid that they're using the same
(09:20):
underpinning against a coupleof platforms, right.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, it's a consumer platform.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Quote, unquote right, so they took that.
Now, one thing that they did doright with that and you can see
it when you see the truck inperson it's the same with bright
drop.
They said we're not going to dolike what ram did right, ram's
got the electric truck.
I mean, it's a pickup truckthat they've had forever and
they put an electric powertrainin it right well, Well, we're
(09:46):
trying.
I need to go look at that andI'm going to go do some
comparative testing with thatLightning is very similar.
Lightning's an F-150 that theyput an electric powertrain in.
That's exactly right.
Silverado was engineered fromthe ground up for what its
intended use is, Not anymore andnot any less.
It is meant as a true EVvehicle.
(10:06):
If you want to use it, use it.
If you don't go get a nicepowered pickup truck and they're
not bashful about saying thateither, they're not jamming it
down your throat saying, heylook, you know this is the way
it's going to go.
No, if you, if this fits yourneeds, use it.
If it doesn't, there's gaslineups across all the brands.
Go check them out.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That's right.
And now, honestly we talkedabout this in one of the early
episodes the gas lineup at GM isevery bit as powerful and every
bit as capable of towing aswhat people are used to from
diesel.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
That's correct.
And Bright Drop, that's anotherthing.
That is a composite andaluminum body.
It's got in the floor.
I talked to the uh, one of thedesign team members that
actually put 1500 miles on theirbright drop gm, had him drive
it across the country and youknow it's.
It's the same thing.
It's got low center of gravity,the batteries in the floor,
underneath the, the rear cargoarea.
(11:02):
It's between the bulkhead andthe front axle, or the rear axle
, the front of the rear axle, soit's between the two.
I drove it around, made laps,they had a whole course set up.
It went out on some publicstreets.
Not only does it scoot, it'squiet for a box truck because
it's got composite side panelsand it has an aluminum frame.
(11:23):
It's solid and it's comfortable.
Set it up for one pedal drivingjust like the tesla that you're
used to or anything else likethat drives around like a golf
cart.
Yeah, if you're overlookingthat vehicle, I think you're
doing a disservice, because bothof those vehicles seriously
have a place in any kind of crewenvironment where, hey, I got
(11:47):
to run to Home Depot and go grabthis stuff.
Hey, I got to run down and grabsome parts from the truck parts
place.
It's sitting there beingcharged.
Go take it, go pick your stuffup and come back.
For either one of those options.
They both have great payloadcapacity.
If you get the 600 model rightdrop you can put a bunk of
plywood in the back roughly andyou can put a 16 foot long two
(12:10):
by four in there.
I don't know how you go wrongwith that.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
no, I think that's that's going to be a good
vehicle and I think you knowthere's a couple people that
were surprised.
That's a class two vehicle.
It only has like a 3800 poundpayload in it, but it goes back
to the right tool for the rightjob.
If you're trying to movemassive amounts of weight,
that's the wrong vehicle for you.
That's for moving cargo andmoving stuff to and from job
(12:34):
sites and I think for that it'sgoing to work really well.
Exactly, you know we're talkingabout using the right tool for
the right job.
One of the things that I alwaysfelt was kind of a prime target
for electrification obviouslyis delivery vans, route vehicles
, things like that, like we'vebeen talking about with bright
drop.
But also I got to say we got totalk about yard dogs and
(12:58):
terminal trucks and these guysfrom orange EV.
We got turned on to them acouple of weeks ago we talked to
them at the Vegas show.
This meeting is being recordedgood, the zoom meeting robot
tells us we're being recorded.
I love it.
Yeah, our guest today is kurtknightkins from orange ev.
If you're not familiar withorange ev, they build the e
(13:19):
trevor and the husky yard dogs.
This is an electric class 7 andclass 8 heavy duty semi.
You see them all over the portof Long Beach and some other
ports throughout the country andthey're going to be kind of all
over, I think, soon.
You're getting a lot of greatpress for these things.
Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Thank you.
I really appreciate your timeand having me on it's a pleasure
and an honor.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, it's exciting for us too, because I think you
know there's so many realhardball questions that can be
asked about electrification andEVs, about where we get the
batteries from and is it reallyclean, and all that.
But I think we want to startoff with an easy one.
The eTriever has by far thebest name in the entire electric
vehicle space.
I love the logo, I love thelittle iconography.
I think it's great.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Thank you, thank you, we love it.
It makes it a little bit morecheeky.
I guess the one thing that'sinteresting about these vehicles
they're not in the public eye.
No one drives a yard hosseraround the neighborhood or to
work one day, because they onlygo 33 miles an hour or less.
And so you know each companyhas their own name for it,
(14:30):
because they're not talking toeach other about it.
So the name is Yard Dog is thename we've kind of settled on,
but you have them calledSwitchers and Mules and Shunts
and Thievadors, and there areliterally 20 different names to
call a yard dog and so, uh, butfor us the e-triever, you know,
(14:52):
signifies your, and I, I knowyou've got a, a dog, and anybody
who has one knows that they'repretty loyal.
They like to fetch and go outand get trailers and bring
themark if they can, and, uh,they're always there for you.
So we thought that really uhkind of fit with our, our brand
and, and so we're pretty excitedto call our trucks, you know,
(15:14):
the e-triever and the husky yeah, and I I love these two trucks.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
so the e-triever, I think, is the newer of the two
models.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yes, Well, actually the other way around, the
E-Triever we've had, we startedout, we called it T-Series
originally and then we changedthe name to E-Triever when we
made a major upgrade back in2018.
And we we did a big upgrade tothe really to the electrical
architectural of the system andallowed the truck to be much
(15:44):
more digital is the way we thinkof it, and so we have
controllers that can look atthings like the lights and the
light goes out.
We know what happens If one ofthe circuits gets a short or an
opening.
We can detect that with thecontrollers, and so there's a
major upgrade to do that acrossthe vehicle.
(16:06):
But that's when we started theE-Triever.
We've been selling anddelivering electric yard hosters
since 2015.
The company started in 2012.
We delivered our first truck in2015.
We changed from T-Series to theE-Triever in 2018.
And then, just this last fall,we introduced the Husky, which
(16:30):
we consider to be a stronger,heavier-duty vehicle.
That's why we call it Husky.
And you know, instead ofpulling 80,000 pounds, the Husky
can pull 180,000 pounds, andinstead of a max speed of 25
miles an hour, it can pull that180,000 pounds.
Speed of 25 miles an hour itcan pull, but of that 180,000
pounds, 33, up to 33 miles anhour, and so, uh, it's a, it's
(16:53):
definitely a different vehicle,two different market segments,
and so we we have two differentvehicles.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
So that was a long-winded answer no, that's a
great answer, you know, and it'sfunny because we are the Heavy
Equipment Podcast, but I alsowrite for Electrek and, in the
past, clean Technica and others,so my focus has always been on
electrification and EVs and weget a lot of heat from that.
A lot of the operators, a lotof the trucking guys they don't
think you're going to find a lotof you know a whole lot of
(17:29):
diesel competition out therethat's going to do any more than
that no, no, and that's whatthe you know that this made.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
This truck was made.
The husky was made specificallyfor the ports and the rail
application.
We actually have two versionsof it.
We have a rail version, a portversion, but it's the same
powertrain and the samearchitecture.
Well, it's not exactly the samepowertrain, they do different
things, but the same bases onthe two vehicles.
And so, you know, in the portsthey'll pull what's called
(18:00):
unbelievably a bomb cart, andthe only reason I can imagine
that it's called a bomb cart isbecause you can have a bomb next
to it and still stick around,but they call it a bomb cart.
There's probably a better, abetter reason for it.
No one's ever been able toexplain it to me.
But you can put two containers,two 20 foot containers, onto
one trailer effectively, and sothese trailers, they pretty much
(18:24):
just stay in the port and theymove containers from the, the
rail or from the ship to, youknow, set enough to get to pull
over the road, and so to getthat ship unloaded as fast as
possible, they'll put twocontainers on the same cart and
pull that with a yard hostler,and so that's why you end up
(18:44):
pulling 180,000 pounds GCW.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
That's wild.
So tell me about this.
You guys were one of the earlyearly adopters.
I mean, you had vehicles incustomer hands four years before
Tesla even decided they weregoing to start talking about a
semi.
So you guys are really theinnovators in this space.
In terms of class eightelectrification.
Uh, you know class seven, classeight electrification.
(19:08):
What made you presumably wakeup sometime in 2010 or 2011 and
say you know, what the worldreally needs is a giant electric
car.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, uh, I like the way you put it.
Um, you know it was a process,just buyouts, and they said 30%
of their management, we wouldlike you to leave, so go find
(19:51):
another job.
Who wants?
Who wants a buyout Right?
And I said, well, if I'm evergoing to do something my own,
here's my chance.
And so I've been trying to doelectric vehicles ever since
then.
Some of those, the first thingI did, I completely failed on.
So I tried doing an electricMustang F-150s out of my garage
and you know, while I made one,no one ever bought one.
(20:13):
So that didn't work so well.
You were ahead of your time,yeah, well maybe, or I didn't
understand the business modelvery well, probably a more
accurate description.
And then I helped a companydoing airport tugs from there
create a line of all electricand then lithium ion trucks for
(20:37):
airports.
And on the way to work one dayyou know I had when I was doing
my Mustang I had made a mathmodel.
After I kind of failed there, Imade a math model of every
vehicle I could think of andcould I make it make sense
financially.
And really there was not muchon that list that made sense.
(21:00):
There was airport tug, which Iwasn't going to take that
business with my boss.
That wasn't the idea for myemployer.
There was on the other side ofthe airport where you shuttle
people from the other cars backto the airport and I said that
makes a lot of sense.
But I had just left Ford and Iknew they weren't going to give
(21:20):
that market up very quickly.
And the day they had anelectric van, that powertrain in
the van, that business goesaway.
And I had already done theMustang.
So I realized that's probablynot a good one and so I said you
know, maybe there's nothing outthere.
And I was driving to work oneday and I actually saw yard
hostler, uh, and the parking lotand I didn't know what it was.
(21:41):
And I drove up to the driverand said, um, tell me what this
thing does.
And he said to me get off mylot.
And I said but just tell mewhat this truck is and what it's
called.
And he says a Hossler.
Get off my lot.
And so I was trespassing.
And so I left and startedlooking on the internet for what
(22:03):
a yard Hossler was, and it justall made sense.
I was looking on the internetfor what a yard house was, and
you know, it just all made sense.
The heavier your vehicle, themore your payback is the more
use, you use the moreyour payback is.
And so we get excited when wehave customers run 24-7 because
we know that their payback isgoing to be significant right?
(22:25):
We've got customers running24-7 that can pay back in you
know a significant right.
We've got customers running24-7 that can pay back in you
know a year right the upfrontcost versus the diesel.
Their payback is in the firstyear just in fuel and
maintenance alone.
Now if you run two shifts, maybethat's two to three years, and
if you run just one shift, maybethat's four to five years,
right, it depends on how hardyou run, and so we do our best
(22:49):
to kind of right-size thevehicle and the charging system
to maximize their payback.
But everyone gets a payback andthe trucks run better than the
diesels and so that helps too.
But just fuel and maintenancealone, repair stuff we pay back
very, very quickly.
With maintenance alone, uh, youknow, repair stuff we pay back
(23:11):
very, very quickly, and so thatwas all kind of understood up
front that this would make sense, and so you know, there's also
the benefit of there's no rangeanxiety because you're, you're
right there in the lot all thetime, right, and so there's also
for us we're direct to thecustomer service, so it's OrangV
employees living near theircustomers with a van with parts
(23:33):
in it and either for maintenanceif they want to go do
maintenance, you have preventivemaintenance or if there's a
repair, we're right there, we goto them, we get them back up
and running.
These are mission-criticalvehicles.
Our customers can't havedowntime on the diesel side of
the world.
If they have five diesel trucksrunning in a given lot that
(23:54):
they need, they'll have two,maybe even three extra because
those five are down so much thatthey have to have extra right.
Um, our uptime on our trucks is, you know, on average for our
fleet right now, it's over 97%,wow.
And if you think about thediesel, they're buying 2X for 5.
(24:16):
That's not 98% right, that's75% right.
And so it's really a bettervehicle.
We like to say it's becauseit's an orange EV vehicle.
Others have tried electric andI want to bad mouth anybody but
you know others have tried, andthey haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
But well, those guys don't come on my show, so we can
bad mouth them all we want.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
You send me a list, I'll make sure we'll spend 20
minutes on them.
I appreciate everyone who'strying to help us make this
transition really uh, you know,ultimately for me, uh, joe, it's
, it's.
I started this because of themission.
I wanted to make a difference,uh, in the environment, uh, that
doesn't always necessarily playwell, uh, but I'll say this,
(25:04):
and I think everyone can getbehind this I'm not saying we're
not saying do this because it'sgreen.
We're saying ORMGV had aresponsibility to make the very
best truck at the very bestfinancial benefit out there and
compete on every level, in everycategory, and beat the pants
(25:28):
off the competition, hopefullyin every category.
And that's why you're going togo help the environment, because
all the things for yourbusiness make sense.
And so that's how we're lookingat it.
We sell very few vehiclesbecause someone needs an ESG
target right.
But we sell almost all ourvehicles because it runs better,
(25:50):
its uptime is better or there'smoney there for the customer.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, of kind of new rebate programs and initiatives
where local governments havekind of decided that they're
going to pick a winner and saywe're going to help subsidize
and expand electrification.
So for a lot of these customersthat are eligible for those
(26:19):
rebates and incentives, are theyseeing a payback faster than a
year, or is that included inthat?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
No, that payback is with zero incentives that I've
talked about so far.
That's all zero incentives now,uh, just this last year, the ira
grant said every anybody whobuys one of our trucks and we
had to be qualified for this asa qualified manufacturer but, uh
, anybody who buys one of ourtrucks and exercise the 40 000
(26:49):
tax credit from their federaltaxes, so that's new um, uh, and
that helps, and that wasn'teven in the discussion of a, the
payback I talked about.
So it helps a little bit.
Uh, depending on theiroperations, that might make it.
You know, six months earlier,maybe even a year earlier.
But uh, depend on on theiroperations, that might make it,
you know, six months earlier,maybe even a year earlier.
(27:10):
But depending on theiroperations and what they're
doing and what they purchasefrom us, right, what they buy up
front.
So there's that there areincentives out there.
But over the last three, threeyears, over 50 percent and
sometimes as much as like 65percent of our sales have been
(27:31):
without incentives.
So I mean that just tells youlike customers are buying
because it makes sense, it's not.
It's not because, uh, they'regetting an incentive right,
that's silly.
Now what we see is it's scary toget into a new technology.
You know a person who'sdeciding this for their company.
(27:52):
Right, their job's on the line.
Boss, I want you to go buy fromthis little company who you
know started out in the garagewith $50,000.
We're much bigger than that now.
We're a major player in theindustry now.
But back in 2015, when DHLbought that first truck and put
(28:14):
it in Chicago, we were 10 peoplein the company and they said
I'm going to take a risk on this, I'm going to see if this guy's
got something.
They got an incentive, but theystill paid as much as they
would have paid for a diesel,even though they got an
incentive, and so they weretaking a big risk, right?
Yeah, if this doesn't work,what are they going to do?
(28:35):
Right?
They're going to pay another$150 to go get a diesel in here,
right?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
So they had to trust us.
We had to earn their loyalty andyou know, I think those
incentives help people, helpthat decision maker, reduce the
risk of losing their job ifthey're wrong, right.
So we do our best to make surethey're not wrong and they
(28:59):
become heroes.
And so, right now, dhl you know, two months ago I don't know if
you saw it, joe, but there wasa, maybe it's not three months
ago they did a press releasewith us and they indicated they
already had 50 trucks in thefleet.
That first one, 2015, that theybought and put in Chicago, is
still running.
And they say that in the pressrelease.
(29:21):
And they mentioned that it had24,000 hours on it at the time.
You're a truck guy, right?
You know what 24,000 hours onit at the time.
You're a truck guy, right?
You know what 24,000 hoursmeans.
It now has 25,000 hours on it.
I looked a couple weeks ago andit's over 25,000.
You can see that in ourtelematics very easily.
And they also said we're goingto buy another 50 this year, in
(29:47):
2024, then 2025, we're going toconvert our complete fleet to
orange ev electric I saw thatthat is huge news because I mean
, ultimately, there's a coupleof ways of building trust.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Right, there's proving the product, but that's
kind of hard to do with one ofthese unless somebody buys one.
But when, when you have someonelike DHL, when you have a
pedigree like you have comingfrom Ford, those are big names.
And to see DHL say, not only isour first one in operation all
these years later, but we'regoing to go 100% orange EV by
the end of 2025, I mean youcan't beat that for endorsement.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
You can't, and it indicates a couple of things.
They're not waiting until theirdiesel kind of end of life
right, they're going now.
And they are not saying I needincentives to do all of these.
Right, they're saying I'm goingnow.
They're saying I'm going now.
And what I would submit to isif our customers understood
(30:51):
everything we understand aboutour trucks and we've got over
1,000 trucks out there right nowrunning every day their best
financial and operationaldecision both best financial and
operational decision is to parktheir diesel.
Buy our trucks.
Even if they don't sell thediesels, they're still ahead.
(31:14):
A customer who buys all ourtrucks, who's running two shifts
you know hard two shifts comesout close to a million dollars
ahead.
Now it's more inifornia, it's alittle less than the rest of
the country because the fuelcosts are different.
Right depends on maintenancecosts and stuff.
Obviously, whether they do thatwork in internally and they
(31:37):
have their own maintenance teamor they or they farm that out to
a third party, right, thosethings are big factors in in how
much it costs them.
But we see over a milliondollars on a 10-year life of the
truck and that first truck inChicago was eight and a half
years.
All our trucks are still in thefirst battery pack.
We've never replaced the batterypack.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
It's funny.
That was exactly.
My next question was going tobe about the batteries, because
you will see articles, and thewebsites that I contribute to
are guilty of this as well.
When you're seeing an article,we'll say you know this Tesla
has 1.2 million miles on it, butit's on its third or fourth
battery pack.
Your trucks are on the firstbattery pack, I assume they've
got better than 80% capacitystill, and after 24,000 hours of
(32:24):
use, that is an astronomicalnumber.
I don't even know that there's.
I mean, what do you see interms of diesel for hours of
operation 15, 20,000 hours in adiesel?
You're doing a major overhaul.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, absolutely, you know.
Typically what we see is threeto five years, and maybe it's
seven.
We've seen as little as three.
I should say five to sevenyears typically is what our
customers tell us about whenthey're trying to get rid of
their diesels.
Right, depending on how hardthey run, and we've seen as
little as three.
I would not call that industrynorm by any means, but in this
(33:02):
application yard hostels theywork harder than any other truck
out there.
You know, think about what theydo.
They are backing into a trailerup to 150 times a shift and
that interface, when you hitthat trailer, that can be up to
25 Gs, right.
So you do that 150 times ashift and then you start and
(33:23):
stop.
You got heavy loads.
You are turning all over theplace, right.
You're scrubbing tires left andright.
You are idling a lot becauseyou're hooking up trailers.
Every time you hook one upright, and so you idle a lot.
Idling is hard on ICE engines,right, and so it's a really
(33:44):
really hard application.
It's a really really hardapplication and so you know,
when you see that you take thatand you put an RGB electric into
that, it can just completelychange someone's basis for how
things work.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Right, you know and it's almost an application
that's ideal for electric,because you're low speed where
the electric motors are mostefficient.
You need maximum torque to getthem off the line, which is
exactly where electric motorskick in at zero RPM.
If you have a diesel truck, youhave to constantly worry about
getting fuel in and out, if notgoing, and finding fuel.
If you run out of it on anelectric vehicle, it's right
(34:21):
there.
You already have port power.
You've already got power forthose big cranes that are
lifting those things.
So you're just tapping intothat and correct me if I'm wrong
, but there's an initiativeright now at Port of Long Beach
and Port of Houston to buildcharging into the ground, so
these things theoretically neverhave to stop.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely.
You know I'm not as familiarwith those programs I know
there's work being done.
We actually have an inductivesystem that we've developed for
our e-tribor that we're sellingOur first vehicles.
We expect them to deliver inJuly of this year.
That's awesome.
(35:02):
It's not in the ground, youdrive up next to it, but you
know it, it's inductive and soyou never have to plug in.
The other thing I realized Imissed or I went in a different
direction on you about thediesel hours.
I didn't ever answer that.
So I was saying that diesel istypically five to seven years,
(35:26):
but also that first overhaul isprobably between 15,000 and
20,000 hours.
We've seen them out there thatmake it to 30,000 hours, but
they're definitely end of lifeat that point in time.
Someone's using it as acomplete backup.
They're not using it from themain truck.
We talked about the 25,000 onthese trucks.
(35:50):
We actually have other trucksat over $27,000 already.
You know that's someone who ranfaster and harder than DHL did
with that first one right.
We have trucks running 580 hoursa month, month after month
after month, Just think abouthow good your uptime has to be
(36:12):
to do that right.
Yeah, you can't fake that right.
You can't fake it.
You either are making thosenumbers or you are not.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
That's crazy.
That's 70 shifts a month likefull eight hours of operation.
That's bananas.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Well.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Kurt, you have just been absolutely awesome.
I want to be mindful of ourtime commitment here and not go
over as we come to the close ofthis number one.
I hope this is the firstappearance of many.
You've just got a tremendousproduct.
I know it's going to continueto grow as more people find out
about it.
Is there a specific questionthat I didn't ask that you kind
of wish I had?
(36:50):
That you have a better answerfor than anybody else, and I'll
give you that.
I'll say the floor is yours andthen we'll sign off.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Well, I would say one thing the question everyone has
is charging and infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
And the.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Thing that Orange EV has tried to do there is
minimize the footprint for thecustomer, and so what we did was
we have, for a couple ofreasons, we made a charger that
is specific for our truck.
We did that originally becausethere were no chargers.
You couldn't buy one when westarted.
(37:24):
We didn't build our own charger.
There wasn't a way to chargeour truck, so we had to do it.
But when we did it, we said howdo we make it so that they have
the minimum infrastructure costpossible?
And so our charger doesn't needto have infrastructure that
allows it to charge at 200kilowatts, and yet we only use
(37:48):
20.
It uses 20, and the grid givesit 20 times 1.2, because you
know, the National Electric Codesays make sure your wiring
stuff is 20% higher than whatyou need, right and so.
But we only need, you know, 22kilowatts.
So we get to a 26 kilowatt unitor feed and we can run 20 hours
(38:13):
a day on 22 kilowatts.
Now think what that means is.
You know how much is 22kilowatts?
No one has a sense of thatthat's about halfway between
your dryer and your stove athome, your electric stove, right
?
So it's not that much right Nowif you do 200 kilowatts, which
is a lot of the new chargers outthere.
They want it to work foreverything.
(38:34):
They put this great biginfrastructure bill in and it
takes you three years to get theutility to show up at your
place to tell you how much it'sgoing to cost you, right, and
you can do one truck instead of10.
And you have all these issuesright.
And so I think one of the bigimportant factors here is how we
(38:56):
do infrastructure as acommunity, and you know, that's
one of those things like I cantalk.
We could have another show onthat and I'd be happy to talk
about that and kind of hopefullyshare some ideas about how we
can do it all better and allowthe grid to extend to a lot more
vehicles, uh, with the samegrid.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, and I think that that's definitely an
important conversation I'd loveto invite you on, and we'll do a
whole conversation about gridstuff with some other utility
people.
I think that's I.
I mean, I'd listen to that.
I think that'd be a great show.
Kurt, thank you so much forbeing a part of this.
For people who want to find youonline, learn more about what
you're doing uh, they gorngvscom.
Do you have a tiktok where youguys dance on the desk, or?
(39:40):
Uh, what?
What are some other ways tofollow along?
Speaker 3 (39:42):
you know we're in.
Yes, you can come to orgvcom.
There's lots of informationthere.
We're for sure happy to havesomeone call us direct.
We sell direct, we servicedirect.
So we're very open to inquiries.
But then we're also on Facebook.
We're on Instagram.
(40:03):
I'm not a social media guru.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
You got an intern for that team members.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
I have team members who are, you know we've.
You know, while we startedhumble, you know we've got 350
plus employees now, and so youknow we're.
We're a big team and thankfullyI've got experts on that stuff.
Unfortunately, I'm not evenversed on it, so I know we're
out there, but I thinkFacebook's a great place to find
(40:30):
us.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Absolutely All right.
Once again, that's KurtNeitgens from Orange EV.
Thanks so much for being a partof the show, kurt, and we'll
see you again soon.
Thank you those things are socool, man, and they have this
very cool they used to upfitloaders and all kinds of stuff
for doing that.
You know over the years likeI've seen a bunch of stuff like
(40:52):
that done yeah, but these guysare doing it as an oem from an
oem perspective, and they havethe best names in the business.
They have the e-triever fortheir yard dog instead of a
retriever it's an e-triever.
It's got a little dog asretriever.
It's an e-triever.
It's got a little dog as thelogo.
So that's cool.
Yeah, I like that.
But anyway you know we'retalking about all these trucks.
(41:13):
We're talking about all theseyou know different applications
for these electric trucks.
We still don't have anybody todrive the things and we always
talk about this ongoing laborshortage in the industry.
We don't have enough drivers,we don't have enough operators,
we don't have enough technicians.
Well, now we're starting to seeprograms come out to
effectively get people behindthe wheel of these things for
(41:36):
free.
So this is a free CDL programthat they're putting out.
In Oregon They've got 325 newtruck drivers will receive 100%
paid for CDLs as part of a threeand a half million dollar
federal grant and it's reallyimportant here to understand
that nationally this is a $500million grant.
(41:59):
So this is going to put a lotof new drivers on the road and,
unlike the last 15, 20 years ofdoing this, the drivers aren't
going to have to pay for it.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Listen, I mean half a billion dollar investment.
That's a lot.
That's saying something.
You know what I mean.
I would be curious to see wherethey're pulling the funding
from, but that's a whole rabbithole we're not going to get into
now.
We need these programs.
Yeah, we can't get enoughpeople that can drive, and
(42:29):
everybody knows that we talkabout it all the time.
Every one of these programs weget is is just profoundly
important, and I I just mettoday with a concrete supplier
and he's talking about how it'sso hard to get drivers.
They got trucks sitting.
You know, the guys come and go.
You get some transient guysthat only want to work when they
(42:50):
want to work and they acceptthat because they don't have
enough people.
And it doesn't matter.
Every time you talk to somebody, they talk about a driver
shortage.
They can't get people to driveit.
I'm hoping that with freedriving courses, I think you're
going to find that there's somepeople out there that might be
stuck in a situation where theywant to get out of.
maybe they need to transitionaway from a job they're in now
(43:12):
yeah and maybe they can stomachtaking some pto and then some
time off unpaid, but they alsobut they can't afford paying the
premium of a truck drivingschool.
I think you're gonna find somegood people that just they just
want to get a different start.
There's nothing wrong with that, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
No, and it's noble work too.
I mean, it's work that you'regoing to pay for your family.
You're going to be able tosupport a family with it.
You're going to be able to doreal honest work.
And one of the things that Ialways want to highlight
whenever we talk about thetrades, whenever we talk about
education.
I've been accused of beinganti-college because of some
comments I've made on the showthat nothing could be further
(43:51):
from the truth.
I am pro-education.
I just don't think thateducation begins and ends with
Shakespeare or art history orwhatever else right.
Learning how to weld is aneducation.
Understanding how the builtworld around us works is an
education.
And unfortunately, if you'retrying to get qualified for like
(44:12):
FAFSA or federal student loansor anything like that, most
banks, most federal programswill not enable you to finance
an education in the trades or acommercial driving school like
this.
It's actually easier for ayoung cat to go $100,000 or
$200,000 into debt to learnunderwater basket weaving and
(44:33):
art history, european politicsfrom the 19th century than it is
to get financing for a truckdriving program, a welding
program, an apprenticeship.
So that's kind of why programslike this are so important and,
frankly, why unions are soimportant, because a lot of the
UAW unions, the operator unions,they do have apprenticeship
(44:54):
programs that help people getinto these trades and get into
these kinds of different jobs.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Here's the thing.
All knowledge is learning, andhow you obtain that knowledge,
whether it's through a degree,through an established school,
through somebody that iscertified to train you in
whatever you're doing, orthrough some other method of
absorbing this knowledge, like afree program, an online course,
something like that.
(45:22):
All of that is education.
Yes, we don't have to label itcollege, this, that or whatever.
College is another vehicle ofgetting education.
Put a college together thattrains people in their skilled
trade, gives them work, putsthem to work as they're an
(45:42):
apprentice and and takes them inand out of that and does all
that training and and see whatyou get.
Oh, we have those.
They're an apprentice and andtakes them in and out of that
and does all that training andand see what you get?
Oh, we have those.
They're called unions.
They train people, they putthem to work as apprentices,
they put them through a specificskillset and the good locals
and I've I've been in themeetings where we've had to do
(46:03):
it there are times where youtell people this isn't for you,
but I already called the BA overat this union and I'm telling
you this is a good fit.
So, before you get too far downthe rabbit hole with your
apprenticeship.
Go over there to the millrights and go over there and do
that, and then it's vice versa.
(46:24):
Sometimes you get guys who arelike this guy's a hell of an
operator.
I want you to put him throughyour apprenticeship program
because he deserves to be overhere.
He's not going to work out withwhat he's doing here.
That's what we're talking about.
Yeah, we're talking aboutfinding your role and finding
how this works.
Yeah, finding your role is moreimportant than any other thing
(46:44):
that we talk about when it comesto education.
You've got to find your place,find your knowledge set of what
you can absorb and what you canmake sense of with your brain.
When you do that, you're goingto be successful, and that can
only be accomplished by whatAmbition.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
I know you have to want to and I think that that
gets lost so much.
And you know I'm strugglingwith this now.
You know it's trying to get thekids, especially the college
age kids in my life, to like,really want to take that next
step and kind of leap into thatcareer.
And it's hard.
But I think that what we'vereally hit upon here is a new
(47:29):
marketing angle.
We're going to start HEPUniversity.
We are going to issue four-yearbachelor's degrees in operating
, in welding, in all the trades,and we're going to do it in
concert with the unions.
The unions are going to help it, in concert with the unions.
The unions are going to helpthese kids pay for the education
and, because it's a four-yeardegree, at the end of it they'll
(47:52):
be able to take out the federalloans that they need to live on
to put a roof over their headand food in their bellies while
they're learning their trades.
So for those of you interested,be sure to send an email to
pepedu.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
I assume that's real and, yeah, someone will be with
you shortly if literally tore upa pad behind the screen, threw
it in the air and walked off tothe bathroom, which I assume is
why he carried a stack ofmagazines in there because he's
done listening to us for a goodsolid hour until we're done here
(48:27):
.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, there you go.
Well, you know biff's done withus and you should be too, so
tune in next week for the nextexciting episode of the heavy
equipment podcast.
We didn't even get to murphytractor.
We'll cover them next week.
We'll give them a good uh, givethem a good half hour wait, let
me tell you something aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
You guys need to listen in for next week.
So we talk about ev and we get.
We get basically messed up overit all the time.
But if you want to talk aboutsomething that actually burns
diesel fuel and will remove aentire fairway from a golf
course to put that in tangibleperspective and relocate it to
whatever place on this planetyou'd like to put it on, that's
(49:04):
what we're talking about in thenext episode.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
That's right.
And uh, in honor of murphytractor, we're gonna play the uh
spongebob theme song, who livesin a pineapple under the sea
absorbent and yellow and porousis he.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
If nautical nonsense be something you wish, SpongeBob
SquarePants.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish.
Spongebob SquarePants.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Ready.
Spongebob SquarePants.
Spongebob SquarePants.
Spongebob SquarePants.
Spongebob SquarePants.
All right, hep cats and kittens.
This is going to be a littledifferent, because we've already
started talking about this.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We're way into this.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
So here's all the background that you need to know
.
If you were a child in the 70sand 80s and you ever took a road
trip, you stopped at a reststop and at that rest stop you
could put in a quarter, maybe 50cents, and you could order
vanilla cappuccino, a blackcoffee, some of the most
scalding hot cocoa in the world,and it would come out of the
(00:31):
vending machine at 272 degreesready to burn your crotch off,
and it would have some pokercards on there and you could
play poker with your buddies whoalso got their own coffee.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
You beat me to it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That's the one.
And now the real question, theonly question that matters today
, folks, should there be one ofthese vending machines at the
Mandalay Bay Starbucks in LasVegas?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I say yes.
Let me tell you, when you walkdown there at four in the
morning because you're on EastCoast time and you got up
because somebody woke you up outof bed with a serious problem,
and you handle it.
And you walk down there at fourin the morning because you're
on East Coast time and you gotup because somebody woke you up
out of bed with a seriousproblem, and you handle it, and
you go down there with your cup.
All I got is a Mandalay Bayrobe, some slippers and I got my
mug.
That's it.
I'm not talking about my faceand I need coffee.
(01:18):
I get about one million goldstars from Starbucks.
I don't care if it's going tocost me a thousand of them.
I need a cup of coffee that'sabsolutely right.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
There is no reason that in mandalay bay, in a in a
world-renowned las vegas hotel,one of the voltaggio brothers
taking up residence in theirrestaurant, that you should not
be able to get a cup of coffeeat five in the morning.
That's absurd.
That's a war crime.
I think it's against the GenevaConvention.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
From now on, I want you to put an equal amount of
blueberries in each muffin.
An equal amount of blueberriesin each muffin.
You know how long that's goingto take.
I don't care how long it takes.
Put an equal amount in eachmuffin.
Do you know how long that'sgoing to take?
I don't care how long it takes.
Put an equal amount in eachmuffin.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
And they go.
Do you know how long that'sgoing to take?
I don't care.
I don't care Because and I don'twant to say it's about lowering
your standards they haven'tlowered their standards.
It's just one of those weirdthings that when you're three
hours apart from their time, youknow, let's face it, all us
(02:30):
midwesterners we get reallytired of the crappy weather
because now that our weather'schanged a little bit, it's like
living in seattle all the time.
Sorry for seattle folks, but,um, they know you're about to be
blessed with some serious greatweather because we just got all
your weather.
So I'm just telling you rightnow we.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's one of the drawbacks of climate change.
You know it's bad for mostpeople, but for some people it's
going to work out really well.
Oregon, you're welcome oh,can't the canadians?
Toronto is going to be aparadise.
It's going to be, it's going tobe like myrtle beach.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Let me tell you, the toronto people.
They're going to be up therelooking out and breaking off
pieces of their frozen maplesyrup bites and dipping them in
their coffee that they got fromtheir Canadian vending machine,
because they have great thingsup north of the border, that's
right.
And they're going to go.
Wow, this is nice.
(03:20):
What the hell happened to thefrozen tundra we used to live in
?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Oh, I know it's going to be good.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
They got some brutal stuff up there.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
They do.
Well, you know, it's funnybecause we're talking about Las
Vegas, we're talking about theseLas Vegas hotels.
We haven't talked about why theHeavy.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Equipment.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Podcast was in Las Vegas last week.
Young Michael was on a presstour a little bit of a press
junket, if you will at an EVcharging summit and he was there
as a guest of General Motorsand you were checking out the GM
Bright Drop that's their newbig box van.
How'd you like that?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, I was out there .
I mean, it's seriously, it wasa cool work event.
You know, we went out there anddid that and I looked at the
Bright Drop and I looked at theSilverado EV.
They had the Hummer and theVette and all that stuff was all
out there too.
But another cool thing thatthey had in addition to that was
GM Power.
They're doing literally cratemotor options.
(04:16):
But electric motors, yes, notengines, crate motors.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Crate motors that you can then drop into your chassis
configuration or RV or bus lineor whatever else and the guys
at lee boy.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
They had their roscoe brooms out there with the
electric version oh, that's cool, I didn't know that, yeah,
eight.
Yeah, I kept this for me for areason.
The uh, eight hour runtime thatit has under full load is
amazing.
And then you plug it in atnight, that's.
It also had a battery poweredelectric paver for cities that
(04:51):
want to do some paving but don'twant to have all all the engine
issues.
Plug it in, charge it up.
Hey, we had to go down herebecause, you know, mrs johnson,
she called because there's watercoming up out of the road.
You get that fixed.
You still got to pave it.
This is a better, bettersolution.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, for sure, and I think you know, especially when
you look at municipalities andcities and the kind of stuff
that they operate, they arereally beholden to their
constituents, right, like thepeople that voted you into power
.
They have their goals, whetherthey make sense or not, whether
it's mathematically feasible ornot.
(05:26):
You want to stay in power.
You got to do what they want,and a lot of those
municipalities, especially inCalifornia, pacific Northwest,
even here in Chicago, they don'twant the noise, they don't want
the sound of the vibration.
You have to go electric just tomeet their demands.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Exactly I mean between the broom, the paver and
the brake drop is actually areally good van and at the
company that I work for, we'rehaving some internal meetings
about it and how it does fit aneed right, even at a
construction company, which iswhat brought me out there.
I wanted to learn more and Iwent through some educational
modules with them.
(06:02):
I wanted to understand how youactually include EV into your
fleet for the type of work thatwe do as an industrial
construction company.
Right, and we're not alone.
I met with several fleetmanagers out there that I knew
from throughout the country andwe all had the same question was
this is all really cool whenyou're a consumer, but how do I
(06:22):
use this in everyday life forour day-to-day construction
needs?
And we went over and we lookedat.
The Ford Lightning was there.
The Transit was there in itselectric forms.
The Silverado EV is an amazingtruck.
I drove it.
They have you do anacceleration test and all that.
And that accelerates as hard asthe Tesla Model Y.
(06:42):
That accelerates as hard as theTesla Model Y and I can tell
you because I've been in both.
That thing moves.
And if you are working,speaking of municipalities, if
you are working in amunicipality or if there are
some elected officials listeningto this episode, you need to be
seriously taking considerationto the BrightDrop and the
(07:06):
Silverado EV work truck.
The Silverado EV work truckcomes with standard options as a
work truck configuration which20 years ago made it a superstar
truck.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, that made it an ultimate luxury truck.
There's a couple of neat thingsabout the Silverado that GM
really did right and they reallyseparated themselves from the
Lightning and the Cybertruck andall that.
It's an 800 volt architecture,battery pack Correct.
One of the things that they'vedone is it's a split system.
So what does that mean?
That means that you can,through software, turn that
(07:44):
800-volt battery into two400-volt systems and plug it
into two DC fast chargers andget out of there even faster.
You can also use it as acharger on the move.
So if you've got anothervehicle that needs to be charged
up whether it's a golf cart ora mini excavator or something
(08:04):
you can plug it into thesilverado's big bad battery and
it'll charge that for you.
It's a really slick truck.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
It's got a 240 volt outlet in the back.
And I asked him flat out.
I said so if I show up on a jobsite and I'm in a real hard
pinch here and I gotta get outmy air archer and I'm gonna air
arc some bolts off of a cuttingedge.
They didn't recommend it, butthey also didn't say you
couldn't.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah.
I think that may have more todo with the fact that, like it
will, hurt sensitive.
It's not sensitive, it'll hurtyour range, but it's smart
enough to protect itself.
You're not going to hurt thetruck and it's just really sharp
.
It's one of those things whereyou understand what they did,
you understand why they've doneit.
You go, wow, they really didthis right.
(08:48):
Where I think they screwed upwas they gave it that avalanche
style pickup bed that'sintegrated into the body and now
you can't put a utility body onit.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, there were several concerns about that and
that shark fin deal that they'vegot on the back the fairing and
all that.
While it looks cool, you can't,as a municipality, put a
composite bed on that thing.
Yeah, you can't put alightweight aluminum bed on it,
and I think the reason that theydid that they're using the same
(09:20):
underpinning against a coupleof platforms, right.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, it's a consumer platform.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Quote, unquote right, so they took that.
Now, one thing that they did doright with that and you can see
it when you see the truck inperson it's the same with bright
drop.
They said we're not going to dolike what ram did right, ram's
got the electric truck.
I mean, it's a pickup truckthat they've had forever and
they put an electric powertrainin it right well, Well, we're
(09:46):
trying.
I need to go look at that andI'm going to go do some
comparative testing with thatLightning is very similar.
Lightning's an F-150 that theyput an electric powertrain in.
That's exactly right.
Silverado was engineered fromthe ground up for what its
intended use is, Not anymore andnot any less.
It is meant as a true EVvehicle.
(10:06):
If you want to use it, use it.
If you don't go get a nicepowered pickup truck and they're
not bashful about saying thateither, they're not jamming it
down your throat saying, heylook, you know this is the way
it's going to go.
No, if you, if this fits yourneeds, use it.
If it doesn't, there's gaslineups across all the brands.
Go check them out.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That's right.
And now, honestly we talkedabout this in one of the early
episodes the gas lineup at GM isevery bit as powerful and every
bit as capable of towing aswhat people are used to from
diesel.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
That's correct.
And Bright Drop, that's anotherthing.
That is a composite andaluminum body.
It's got in the floor.
I talked to the uh, one of thedesign team members that
actually put 1500 miles on theirbright drop gm, had him drive
it across the country and youknow it's.
It's the same thing.
It's got low center of gravity,the batteries in the floor,
underneath the, the rear cargoarea.
(11:02):
It's between the bulkhead andthe front axle, or the rear axle
, the front of the rear axle, soit's between the two.
I drove it around, made laps,they had a whole course set up.
It went out on some publicstreets.
Not only does it scoot, it'squiet for a box truck because
it's got composite side panelsand it has an aluminum frame.
(11:23):
It's solid and it's comfortable.
Set it up for one pedal drivingjust like the tesla that you're
used to or anything else likethat drives around like a golf
cart.
Yeah, if you're overlookingthat vehicle, I think you're
doing a disservice, because bothof those vehicles seriously
have a place in any kind of crewenvironment where, hey, I got
(11:47):
to run to Home Depot and go grabthis stuff.
Hey, I got to run down and grabsome parts from the truck parts
place.
It's sitting there beingcharged.
Go take it, go pick your stuffup and come back.
For either one of those options.
They both have great payloadcapacity.
If you get the 600 model rightdrop you can put a bunk of
plywood in the back roughly andyou can put a 16 foot long two
(12:10):
by four in there.
I don't know how you go wrongwith that.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
no, I think that's that's going to be a good
vehicle and I think you knowthere's a couple people that
were surprised.
That's a class two vehicle.
It only has like a 3800 poundpayload in it, but it goes back
to the right tool for the rightjob.
If you're trying to movemassive amounts of weight,
that's the wrong vehicle for you.
That's for moving cargo andmoving stuff to and from job
(12:34):
sites and I think for that it'sgoing to work really well.
Exactly, you know we're talkingabout using the right tool for
the right job.
One of the things that I alwaysfelt was kind of a prime target
for electrification obviouslyis delivery vans, route vehicles
, things like that, like we'vebeen talking about with bright
drop.
But also I got to say we got totalk about yard dogs and
(12:58):
terminal trucks and these guysfrom orange EV.
We got turned on to them acouple of weeks ago we talked to
them at the Vegas show.
This meeting is being recordedgood, the zoom meeting robot
tells us we're being recorded.
I love it.
Yeah, our guest today is kurtknightkins from orange ev.
If you're not familiar withorange ev, they build the e
(13:19):
trevor and the husky yard dogs.
This is an electric class 7 andclass 8 heavy duty semi.
You see them all over the portof Long Beach and some other
ports throughout the country andthey're going to be kind of all
over, I think, soon.
You're getting a lot of greatpress for these things.
Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Thank you.
I really appreciate your timeand having me on it's a pleasure
and an honor.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, it's exciting for us too, because I think you
know there's so many realhardball questions that can be
asked about electrification andEVs, about where we get the
batteries from and is it reallyclean, and all that.
But I think we want to startoff with an easy one.
The eTriever has by far thebest name in the entire electric
vehicle space.
I love the logo, I love thelittle iconography.
I think it's great.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Thank you, thank you, we love it.
It makes it a little bit morecheeky.
I guess the one thing that'sinteresting about these vehicles
they're not in the public eye.
No one drives a yard hosseraround the neighborhood or to
work one day, because they onlygo 33 miles an hour or less.
And so you know each companyhas their own name for it,
(14:30):
because they're not talking toeach other about it.
So the name is Yard Dog is thename we've kind of settled on,
but you have them calledSwitchers and Mules and Shunts
and Thievadors, and there areliterally 20 different names to
call a yard dog and so, uh, butfor us the e-triever, you know,
(14:52):
signifies your, and I, I knowyou've got a, a dog, and anybody
who has one knows that they'repretty loyal.
They like to fetch and go outand get trailers and bring
themark if they can, and, uh,they're always there for you.
So we thought that really uhkind of fit with our, our brand
and, and so we're pretty excitedto call our trucks, you know,
(15:14):
the e-triever and the husky yeah, and I I love these two trucks.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
so the e-triever, I think, is the newer of the two
models.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yes, Well, actually the other way around, the
E-Triever we've had, we startedout, we called it T-Series
originally and then we changedthe name to E-Triever when we
made a major upgrade back in2018.
And we we did a big upgrade tothe really to the electrical
architectural of the system andallowed the truck to be much
(15:44):
more digital is the way we thinkof it, and so we have
controllers that can look atthings like the lights and the
light goes out.
We know what happens If one ofthe circuits gets a short or an
opening.
We can detect that with thecontrollers, and so there's a
major upgrade to do that acrossthe vehicle.
(16:06):
But that's when we started theE-Triever.
We've been selling anddelivering electric yard hosters
since 2015.
The company started in 2012.
We delivered our first truck in2015.
We changed from T-Series to theE-Triever in 2018.
And then, just this last fall,we introduced the Husky, which
(16:30):
we consider to be a stronger,heavier-duty vehicle.
That's why we call it Husky.
And you know, instead ofpulling 80,000 pounds, the Husky
can pull 180,000 pounds, andinstead of a max speed of 25
miles an hour, it can pull that180,000 pounds.
Speed of 25 miles an hour itcan pull, but of that 180,000
pounds, 33, up to 33 miles anhour, and so, uh, it's a, it's
(16:53):
definitely a different vehicle,two different market segments,
and so we we have two differentvehicles.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
So that was a long-winded answer no, that's a
great answer, you know, and it'sfunny because we are the Heavy
Equipment Podcast, but I alsowrite for Electrek and, in the
past, clean Technica and others,so my focus has always been on
electrification and EVs and weget a lot of heat from that.
A lot of the operators, a lotof the trucking guys they don't
think you're going to find a lotof you know a whole lot of
(17:29):
diesel competition out therethat's going to do any more than
that no, no, and that's whatthe you know that this made.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
This truck was made.
The husky was made specificallyfor the ports and the rail
application.
We actually have two versionsof it.
We have a rail version, a portversion, but it's the same
powertrain and the samearchitecture.
Well, it's not exactly the samepowertrain, they do different
things, but the same bases onthe two vehicles.
And so, you know, in the portsthey'll pull what's called
(18:00):
unbelievably a bomb cart, andthe only reason I can imagine
that it's called a bomb cart isbecause you can have a bomb next
to it and still stick around,but they call it a bomb cart.
There's probably a better, abetter reason for it.
No one's ever been able toexplain it to me.
But you can put two containers,two 20 foot containers, onto
one trailer effectively, and sothese trailers, they pretty much
(18:24):
just stay in the port and theymove containers from the, the
rail or from the ship to, youknow, set enough to get to pull
over the road, and so to getthat ship unloaded as fast as
possible, they'll put twocontainers on the same cart and
pull that with a yard hostler,and so that's why you end up
(18:44):
pulling 180,000 pounds GCW.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
That's wild.
So tell me about this.
You guys were one of the earlyearly adopters.
I mean, you had vehicles incustomer hands four years before
Tesla even decided they weregoing to start talking about a
semi.
So you guys are really theinnovators in this space.
In terms of class eightelectrification.
Uh, you know class seven, classeight electrification.
(19:08):
What made you presumably wakeup sometime in 2010 or 2011 and
say you know, what the worldreally needs is a giant electric
car.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, uh, I like the way you put it.
Um, you know it was a process,just buyouts, and they said 30%
of their management, we wouldlike you to leave, so go find
(19:51):
another job.
Who wants?
Who wants a buyout Right?
And I said, well, if I'm evergoing to do something my own,
here's my chance.
And so I've been trying to doelectric vehicles ever since
then.
Some of those, the first thingI did, I completely failed on.
So I tried doing an electricMustang F-150s out of my garage
and you know, while I made one,no one ever bought one.
(20:13):
So that didn't work so well.
You were ahead of your time,yeah, well maybe, or I didn't
understand the business modelvery well, probably a more
accurate description.
And then I helped a companydoing airport tugs from there
create a line of all electricand then lithium ion trucks for
(20:37):
airports.
And on the way to work one dayyou know I had when I was doing
my Mustang I had made a mathmodel.
After I kind of failed there, Imade a math model of every
vehicle I could think of andcould I make it make sense
financially.
And really there was not muchon that list that made sense.
(21:00):
There was airport tug, which Iwasn't going to take that
business with my boss.
That wasn't the idea for myemployer.
There was on the other side ofthe airport where you shuttle
people from the other cars backto the airport and I said that
makes a lot of sense.
But I had just left Ford and Iknew they weren't going to give
(21:20):
that market up very quickly.
And the day they had anelectric van, that powertrain in
the van, that business goesaway.
And I had already done theMustang.
So I realized that's probablynot a good one and so I said you
know, maybe there's nothing outthere.
And I was driving to work oneday and I actually saw yard
hostler, uh, and the parking lotand I didn't know what it was.
(21:41):
And I drove up to the driverand said, um, tell me what this
thing does.
And he said to me get off mylot.
And I said but just tell mewhat this truck is and what it's
called.
And he says a Hossler.
Get off my lot.
And so I was trespassing.
And so I left and startedlooking on the internet for what
(22:03):
a yard Hossler was, and it justall made sense.
I was looking on the internetfor what a yard house was, and
you know, it just all made sense.
The heavier your vehicle, themore your payback is the more
use, you use the moreyour payback is.
And so we get excited when wehave customers run 24-7 because
we know that their payback isgoing to be significant right?
(22:25):
We've got customers running24-7 that can pay back in you
know a significant right.
We've got customers running24-7 that can pay back in you
know a year right the upfrontcost versus the diesel.
Their payback is in the firstyear just in fuel and
maintenance alone.
Now if you run two shifts, maybethat's two to three years, and
if you run just one shift, maybethat's four to five years,
right, it depends on how hardyou run, and so we do our best
(22:49):
to kind of right-size thevehicle and the charging system
to maximize their payback.
But everyone gets a payback andthe trucks run better than the
diesels and so that helps too.
But just fuel and maintenancealone, repair stuff we pay back
very, very quickly.
With maintenance alone, uh, youknow, repair stuff we pay back
(23:11):
very, very quickly, and so thatwas all kind of understood up
front that this would make sense, and so you know, there's also
the benefit of there's no rangeanxiety because you're, you're
right there in the lot all thetime, right, and so there's also
for us we're direct to thecustomer service, so it's OrangV
employees living near theircustomers with a van with parts
(23:33):
in it and either for maintenanceif they want to go do
maintenance, you have preventivemaintenance or if there's a
repair, we're right there, we goto them, we get them back up
and running.
These are mission-criticalvehicles.
Our customers can't havedowntime on the diesel side of
the world.
If they have five diesel trucksrunning in a given lot that
(23:54):
they need, they'll have two,maybe even three extra because
those five are down so much thatthey have to have extra right.
Um, our uptime on our trucks is, you know, on average for our
fleet right now, it's over 97%,wow.
And if you think about thediesel, they're buying 2X for 5.
(24:16):
That's not 98% right, that's75% right.
And so it's really a bettervehicle.
We like to say it's becauseit's an orange EV vehicle.
Others have tried electric andI want to bad mouth anybody but
you know others have tried, andthey haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
But well, those guys don't come on my show, so we can
bad mouth them all we want.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
You send me a list, I'll make sure we'll spend 20
minutes on them.
I appreciate everyone who'strying to help us make this
transition really uh, you know,ultimately for me, uh, joe, it's
, it's.
I started this because of themission.
I wanted to make a difference,uh, in the environment, uh, that
doesn't always necessarily playwell, uh, but I'll say this,
(25:04):
and I think everyone can getbehind this I'm not saying we're
not saying do this because it'sgreen.
We're saying ORMGV had aresponsibility to make the very
best truck at the very bestfinancial benefit out there and
compete on every level, in everycategory, and beat the pants
(25:28):
off the competition, hopefullyin every category.
And that's why you're going togo help the environment, because
all the things for yourbusiness make sense.
And so that's how we're lookingat it.
We sell very few vehiclesbecause someone needs an ESG
target right.
But we sell almost all ourvehicles because it runs better,
(25:50):
its uptime is better or there'smoney there for the customer.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, of kind of new rebate programs and initiatives
where local governments havekind of decided that they're
going to pick a winner and saywe're going to help subsidize
and expand electrification.
So for a lot of these customersthat are eligible for those
(26:19):
rebates and incentives, are theyseeing a payback faster than a
year, or is that included inthat?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
No, that payback is with zero incentives that I've
talked about so far.
That's all zero incentives now,uh, just this last year, the ira
grant said every anybody whobuys one of our trucks and we
had to be qualified for this asa qualified manufacturer but, uh
, anybody who buys one of ourtrucks and exercise the 40 000
(26:49):
tax credit from their federaltaxes, so that's new um, uh, and
that helps, and that wasn'teven in the discussion of a, the
payback I talked about.
So it helps a little bit.
Uh, depending on theiroperations, that might make it.
You know, six months earlier,maybe even a year earlier.
But uh, depend on on theiroperations, that might make it,
you know, six months earlier,maybe even a year earlier.
(27:10):
But depending on theiroperations and what they're
doing and what they purchasefrom us, right, what they buy up
front.
So there's that there areincentives out there.
But over the last three, threeyears, over 50 percent and
sometimes as much as like 65percent of our sales have been
(27:31):
without incentives.
So I mean that just tells youlike customers are buying
because it makes sense, it's not.
It's not because, uh, they'regetting an incentive right,
that's silly.
Now what we see is it's scary toget into a new technology.
You know a person who'sdeciding this for their company.
(27:52):
Right, their job's on the line.
Boss, I want you to go buy fromthis little company who you
know started out in the garagewith $50,000.
We're much bigger than that now.
We're a major player in theindustry now.
But back in 2015, when DHLbought that first truck and put
(28:14):
it in Chicago, we were 10 peoplein the company and they said
I'm going to take a risk on this, I'm going to see if this guy's
got something.
They got an incentive, but theystill paid as much as they
would have paid for a diesel,even though they got an
incentive, and so they weretaking a big risk, right?
Yeah, if this doesn't work,what are they going to do?
(28:35):
Right?
They're going to pay another$150 to go get a diesel in here,
right?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
So they had to trust us.
We had to earn their loyalty andyou know, I think those
incentives help people, helpthat decision maker, reduce the
risk of losing their job ifthey're wrong, right.
So we do our best to make surethey're not wrong and they
(28:59):
become heroes.
And so, right now, dhl you know, two months ago I don't know if
you saw it, joe, but there wasa, maybe it's not three months
ago they did a press releasewith us and they indicated they
already had 50 trucks in thefleet.
That first one, 2015, that theybought and put in Chicago, is
still running.
And they say that in the pressrelease.
(29:21):
And they mentioned that it had24,000 hours on it at the time.
You're a truck guy, right?
You know what 24,000 hours onit at the time.
You're a truck guy, right?
You know what 24,000 hoursmeans.
It now has 25,000 hours on it.
I looked a couple weeks ago andit's over 25,000.
You can see that in ourtelematics very easily.
And they also said we're goingto buy another 50 this year, in
(29:47):
2024, then 2025, we're going toconvert our complete fleet to
orange ev electric I saw thatthat is huge news because I mean
, ultimately, there's a coupleof ways of building trust.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Right, there's proving the product, but that's
kind of hard to do with one ofthese unless somebody buys one.
But when, when you have someonelike DHL, when you have a
pedigree like you have comingfrom Ford, those are big names.
And to see DHL say, not only isour first one in operation all
these years later, but we'regoing to go 100% orange EV by
the end of 2025, I mean youcan't beat that for endorsement.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
You can't, and it indicates a couple of things.
They're not waiting until theirdiesel kind of end of life
right, they're going now.
And they are not saying I needincentives to do all of these.
Right, they're saying I'm goingnow.
They're saying I'm going now.
And what I would submit to isif our customers understood
(30:51):
everything we understand aboutour trucks and we've got over
1,000 trucks out there right nowrunning every day their best
financial and operationaldecision both best financial and
operational decision is to parktheir diesel.
Buy our trucks.
Even if they don't sell thediesels, they're still ahead.
(31:14):
A customer who buys all ourtrucks, who's running two shifts
you know hard two shifts comesout close to a million dollars
ahead.
Now it's more inifornia, it's alittle less than the rest of
the country because the fuelcosts are different.
Right depends on maintenancecosts and stuff.
Obviously, whether they do thatwork in internally and they
(31:37):
have their own maintenance teamor they or they farm that out to
a third party, right, thosethings are big factors in in how
much it costs them.
But we see over a milliondollars on a 10-year life of the
truck and that first truck inChicago was eight and a half
years.
All our trucks are still in thefirst battery pack.
We've never replaced the batterypack.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
It's funny.
That was exactly.
My next question was going tobe about the batteries, because
you will see articles, and thewebsites that I contribute to
are guilty of this as well.
When you're seeing an article,we'll say you know this Tesla
has 1.2 million miles on it, butit's on its third or fourth
battery pack.
Your trucks are on the firstbattery pack, I assume they've
got better than 80% capacitystill, and after 24,000 hours of
(32:24):
use, that is an astronomicalnumber.
I don't even know that there's.
I mean, what do you see interms of diesel for hours of
operation 15, 20,000 hours in adiesel?
You're doing a major overhaul.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, absolutely, you know.
Typically what we see is threeto five years, and maybe it's
seven.
We've seen as little as three.
I should say five to sevenyears typically is what our
customers tell us about whenthey're trying to get rid of
their diesels.
Right, depending on how hardthey run, and we've seen as
little as three.
I would not call that industrynorm by any means, but in this
(33:02):
application yard hostels theywork harder than any other truck
out there.
You know, think about what theydo.
They are backing into a trailerup to 150 times a shift and
that interface, when you hitthat trailer, that can be up to
25 Gs, right.
So you do that 150 times ashift and then you start and
(33:23):
stop.
You got heavy loads.
You are turning all over theplace, right.
You're scrubbing tires left andright.
You are idling a lot becauseyou're hooking up trailers.
Every time you hook one upright, and so you idle a lot.
Idling is hard on ICE engines,right, and so it's a really
(33:44):
really hard application.
It's a really really hardapplication and so you know,
when you see that you take thatand you put an RGB electric into
that, it can just completelychange someone's basis for how
things work.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Right, you know and it's almost an application
that's ideal for electric,because you're low speed where
the electric motors are mostefficient.
You need maximum torque to getthem off the line, which is
exactly where electric motorskick in at zero RPM.
If you have a diesel truck, youhave to constantly worry about
getting fuel in and out, if notgoing, and finding fuel.
If you run out of it on anelectric vehicle, it's right
(34:21):
there.
You already have port power.
You've already got power forthose big cranes that are
lifting those things.
So you're just tapping intothat and correct me if I'm wrong
, but there's an initiativeright now at Port of Long Beach
and Port of Houston to buildcharging into the ground, so
these things theoretically neverhave to stop.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely.
You know I'm not as familiarwith those programs I know
there's work being done.
We actually have an inductivesystem that we've developed for
our e-tribor that we're sellingOur first vehicles.
We expect them to deliver inJuly of this year.
That's awesome.
(35:02):
It's not in the ground, youdrive up next to it, but you
know it, it's inductive and soyou never have to plug in.
The other thing I realized Imissed or I went in a different
direction on you about thediesel hours.
I didn't ever answer that.
So I was saying that diesel istypically five to seven years,
(35:26):
but also that first overhaul isprobably between 15,000 and
20,000 hours.
We've seen them out there thatmake it to 30,000 hours, but
they're definitely end of lifeat that point in time.
Someone's using it as acomplete backup.
They're not using it from themain truck.
We talked about the 25,000 onthese trucks.
(35:50):
We actually have other trucksat over $27,000 already.
You know that's someone who ranfaster and harder than DHL did
with that first one right.
We have trucks running 580 hoursa month, month after month
after month, Just think abouthow good your uptime has to be
(36:12):
to do that right.
Yeah, you can't fake that right.
You can't fake it.
You either are making thosenumbers or you are not.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
That's crazy.
That's 70 shifts a month likefull eight hours of operation.
That's bananas.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Well.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Kurt, you have just been absolutely awesome.
I want to be mindful of ourtime commitment here and not go
over as we come to the close ofthis number one.
I hope this is the firstappearance of many.
You've just got a tremendousproduct.
I know it's going to continueto grow as more people find out
about it.
Is there a specific questionthat I didn't ask that you kind
of wish I had?
(36:50):
That you have a better answerfor than anybody else, and I'll
give you that.
I'll say the floor is yours andthen we'll sign off.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Well, I would say one thing the question everyone has
is charging and infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
And the.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Thing that Orange EV has tried to do there is
minimize the footprint for thecustomer, and so what we did was
we have, for a couple ofreasons, we made a charger that
is specific for our truck.
We did that originally becausethere were no chargers.
You couldn't buy one when westarted.
(37:24):
We didn't build our own charger.
There wasn't a way to chargeour truck, so we had to do it.
But when we did it, we said howdo we make it so that they have
the minimum infrastructure costpossible?
And so our charger doesn't needto have infrastructure that
allows it to charge at 200kilowatts, and yet we only use
(37:48):
20.
It uses 20, and the grid givesit 20 times 1.2, because you
know, the National Electric Codesays make sure your wiring
stuff is 20% higher than whatyou need, right and so.
But we only need, you know, 22kilowatts.
So we get to a 26 kilowatt unitor feed and we can run 20 hours
(38:13):
a day on 22 kilowatts.
Now think what that means is.
You know how much is 22kilowatts?
No one has a sense of thatthat's about halfway between
your dryer and your stove athome, your electric stove, right
?
So it's not that much right Nowif you do 200 kilowatts, which
is a lot of the new chargers outthere.
They want it to work foreverything.
(38:34):
They put this great biginfrastructure bill in and it
takes you three years to get theutility to show up at your
place to tell you how much it'sgoing to cost you, right, and
you can do one truck instead of10.
And you have all these issuesright.
And so I think one of the bigimportant factors here is how we
(38:56):
do infrastructure as acommunity, and you know, that's
one of those things like I cantalk.
We could have another show onthat and I'd be happy to talk
about that and kind of hopefullyshare some ideas about how we
can do it all better and allowthe grid to extend to a lot more
vehicles, uh, with the samegrid.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, and I think that that's definitely an
important conversation I'd loveto invite you on, and we'll do a
whole conversation about gridstuff with some other utility
people.
I think that's I.
I mean, I'd listen to that.
I think that'd be a great show.
Kurt, thank you so much forbeing a part of this.
For people who want to find youonline, learn more about what
you're doing uh, they gorngvscom.
Do you have a tiktok where youguys dance on the desk, or?
(39:40):
Uh, what?
What are some other ways tofollow along?
Speaker 3 (39:42):
you know we're in.
Yes, you can come to orgvcom.
There's lots of informationthere.
We're for sure happy to havesomeone call us direct.
We sell direct, we servicedirect.
So we're very open to inquiries.
But then we're also on Facebook.
We're on Instagram.
(40:03):
I'm not a social media guru.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
You got an intern for that team members.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
I have team members who are, you know we've.
You know, while we startedhumble, you know we've got 350
plus employees now, and so youknow we're.
We're a big team and thankfullyI've got experts on that stuff.
Unfortunately, I'm not evenversed on it, so I know we're
out there, but I thinkFacebook's a great place to find
(40:30):
us.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Absolutely All right.
Once again, that's KurtNeitgens from Orange EV.
Thanks so much for being a partof the show, kurt, and we'll
see you again soon.
Thank you those things are socool, man, and they have this
very cool they used to upfitloaders and all kinds of stuff
for doing that.
You know over the years likeI've seen a bunch of stuff like
(40:52):
that done yeah, but these guysare doing it as an oem from an
oem perspective, and they havethe best names in the business.
They have the e-triever fortheir yard dog instead of a
retriever it's an e-triever.
It's got a little dog asretriever.
It's an e-triever.
It's got a little dog as thelogo.
So that's cool.
Yeah, I like that.
But anyway you know we'retalking about all these trucks.
(41:13):
We're talking about all theseyou know different applications
for these electric trucks.
We still don't have anybody todrive the things and we always
talk about this ongoing laborshortage in the industry.
We don't have enough drivers,we don't have enough operators,
we don't have enough technicians.
Well, now we're starting to seeprograms come out to
effectively get people behindthe wheel of these things for
(41:36):
free.
So this is a free CDL programthat they're putting out.
In Oregon They've got 325 newtruck drivers will receive 100%
paid for CDLs as part of a threeand a half million dollar
federal grant and it's reallyimportant here to understand
that nationally this is a $500million grant.
(41:59):
So this is going to put a lotof new drivers on the road and,
unlike the last 15, 20 years ofdoing this, the drivers aren't
going to have to pay for it.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Listen, I mean half a billion dollar investment.
That's a lot.
That's saying something.
You know what I mean.
I would be curious to see wherethey're pulling the funding
from, but that's a whole rabbithole we're not going to get into
now.
We need these programs.
Yeah, we can't get enoughpeople that can drive, and
(42:29):
everybody knows that we talkabout it all the time.
Every one of these programs weget is is just profoundly
important, and I I just mettoday with a concrete supplier
and he's talking about how it'sso hard to get drivers.
They got trucks sitting.
You know, the guys come and go.
You get some transient guysthat only want to work when they
(42:50):
want to work and they acceptthat because they don't have
enough people.
And it doesn't matter.
Every time you talk to somebody, they talk about a driver
shortage.
They can't get people to driveit.
I'm hoping that with freedriving courses, I think you're
going to find that there's somepeople out there that might be
stuck in a situation where theywant to get out of.
maybe they need to transitionaway from a job they're in now
(43:12):
yeah and maybe they can stomachtaking some pto and then some
time off unpaid, but they alsobut they can't afford paying the
premium of a truck drivingschool.
I think you're gonna find somegood people that just they just
want to get a different start.
There's nothing wrong with that, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
No, and it's noble work too.
I mean, it's work that you'regoing to pay for your family.
You're going to be able tosupport a family with it.
You're going to be able to doreal honest work.
And one of the things that Ialways want to highlight
whenever we talk about thetrades, whenever we talk about
education.
I've been accused of beinganti-college because of some
comments I've made on the showthat nothing could be further
(43:51):
from the truth.
I am pro-education.
I just don't think thateducation begins and ends with
Shakespeare or art history orwhatever else right.
Learning how to weld is aneducation.
Understanding how the builtworld around us works is an
education.
And unfortunately, if you'retrying to get qualified for like
(44:12):
FAFSA or federal student loansor anything like that, most
banks, most federal programswill not enable you to finance
an education in the trades or acommercial driving school like
this.
It's actually easier for ayoung cat to go $100,000 or
$200,000 into debt to learnunderwater basket weaving and
(44:33):
art history, european politicsfrom the 19th century than it is
to get financing for a truckdriving program, a welding
program, an apprenticeship.
So that's kind of why programslike this are so important and,
frankly, why unions are soimportant, because a lot of the
UAW unions, the operator unions,they do have apprenticeship
(44:54):
programs that help people getinto these trades and get into
these kinds of different jobs.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Here's the thing.
All knowledge is learning, andhow you obtain that knowledge,
whether it's through a degree,through an established school,
through somebody that iscertified to train you in
whatever you're doing, orthrough some other method of
absorbing this knowledge, like afree program, an online course,
something like that.
(45:22):
All of that is education.
Yes, we don't have to label itcollege, this, that or whatever.
College is another vehicle ofgetting education.
Put a college together thattrains people in their skilled
trade, gives them work, putsthem to work as they're an
(45:42):
apprentice and and takes them inand out of that and does all
that training and and see whatyou get.
Oh, we have those.
They're an apprentice and andtakes them in and out of that
and does all that training andand see what you get?
Oh, we have those.
They're called unions.
They train people, they putthem to work as apprentices,
they put them through a specificskillset and the good locals
and I've I've been in themeetings where we've had to do
(46:03):
it there are times where youtell people this isn't for you,
but I already called the BA overat this union and I'm telling
you this is a good fit.
So, before you get too far downthe rabbit hole with your
apprenticeship.
Go over there to the millrights and go over there and do
that, and then it's vice versa.
(46:24):
Sometimes you get guys who arelike this guy's a hell of an
operator.
I want you to put him throughyour apprenticeship program
because he deserves to be overhere.
He's not going to work out withwhat he's doing here.
That's what we're talking about.
Yeah, we're talking aboutfinding your role and finding
how this works.
Yeah, finding your role is moreimportant than any other thing
(46:44):
that we talk about when it comesto education.
You've got to find your place,find your knowledge set of what
you can absorb and what you canmake sense of with your brain.
When you do that, you're goingto be successful, and that can
only be accomplished by whatAmbition.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
I know you have to want to and I think that that
gets lost so much.
And you know I'm strugglingwith this now.
You know it's trying to get thekids, especially the college
age kids in my life, to like,really want to take that next
step and kind of leap into thatcareer.
And it's hard.
But I think that what we'vereally hit upon here is a new
(47:29):
marketing angle.
We're going to start HEPUniversity.
We are going to issue four-yearbachelor's degrees in operating
, in welding, in all the trades,and we're going to do it in
concert with the unions.
The unions are going to help it, in concert with the unions.
The unions are going to helpthese kids pay for the education
and, because it's a four-yeardegree, at the end of it they'll
(47:52):
be able to take out the federalloans that they need to live on
to put a roof over their headand food in their bellies while
they're learning their trades.
So for those of you interested,be sure to send an email to
pepedu.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
I assume that's real and, yeah, someone will be with
you shortly if literally tore upa pad behind the screen, threw
it in the air and walked off tothe bathroom, which I assume is
why he carried a stack ofmagazines in there because he's
done listening to us for a goodsolid hour until we're done here
(48:27):
.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, there you go.
Well, you know biff's done withus and you should be too, so
tune in next week for the nextexciting episode of the heavy
equipment podcast.
We didn't even get to murphytractor.
We'll cover them next week.
We'll give them a good uh, givethem a good half hour wait, let
me tell you something aboutthat.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
You guys need to listen in for next week.
So we talk about ev and we get.
We get basically messed up overit all the time.
But if you want to talk aboutsomething that actually burns
diesel fuel and will remove aentire fairway from a golf
course to put that in tangibleperspective and relocate it to
whatever place on this planetyou'd like to put it on, that's
(49:04):
what we're talking about in thenext episode.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
That's right.
And uh, in honor of murphytractor, we're gonna play the uh
spongebob theme song, who livesin a pineapple under the sea
absorbent and yellow and porousis he.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
If nautical nonsense be something you wish, SpongeBob
SquarePants.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish.
Spongebob SquarePants.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Ready.
Spongebob SquarePants.
Spongebob SquarePants.
Spongebob SquarePants.
Spongebob SquarePants.
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