August 9, 2024 • 55 mins
On this special 30th HEP-isode, we ask: are zero-tolerance drug policies in the trucking industry outdated?
This episode kicks off with look into the impacts of marijuana legalization on labor policies within the heavy equipment space. Next, we examine the declining demand for diesel fuel and shine a spotlight on Zeem Solutions' day-to-day operations as we delve into the financial intricacies of transitioning fleets to electric vehicles. Finally, we'll discuss the critical role of labor specialization and how outsourcing maintenance and repair services can streamline operations and reduce expenses for modern delivery fleets.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back for another thrilling episode of the
Heavy Equipment Podcast.
And man, that last belt ofTito's really got me right
between the eyes.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Let me tell you we're ready, Ripped and ready right
here.
Biff's in the control room.
He's been munching on some kindof weird brownie.
I got my tall cup next to meand we're ready to roll.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
He's got like one eye dilated and the other one's
just like pulsing.
He is ready, ready, that'slegal now.
And you know we are already offsubject.
We talk about this a lot,though we do talk about this a
lot.
This, the rescheduling ofmarijuana, of hemp, and and the
fact that that is legalizingthroughout the country and
(00:42):
you've got state after stateafter state making this illegal
recreational thing.
We really need to set some kindof policy that's going to
enable some kind of variancehere, because right now, if you
talk about the Teamsters and youtalk about these other
over-the-road truckorganizations operators unions,
engineering unions their stanceis still zero tolerance, like
(01:03):
just zero tolerance all the waythrough.
And I don't know how it's easy,but it's not easy because it
leads to a shortage of labor.
I mean, imagine if they had azero tolerance policy on alcohol
and you couldn't crack open abeer on Saturday with your
buddies when you're on vacation.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, it's unconstitutional, that's
unconstitutional, Well it's onlyamendments to protect our
alcoholic rights.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well, so, so that's there you go, Now that now we're
constitutional law professors.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We didn't say that.
We just read the document Ourforefathers handed to us and we
interpreted as needed.
I'm a medical doctor, medicallytreated let's put it that way
Medicinal medicinally treated.
You see what I did there.
I automatically threw thebrownie out there and derailed
the whole show.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This is why everybody loves me.
We had a whole plan.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
We talked about it before we even got on here and I
just derailed it.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I've been waiting to do this, If it's gone.
He threw his hands up to theleft.
He went to the bathroom.
He's in that dark hallway.
He went to the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
He's in that dark hallway, if people can see our
recording studio it's literallypine walls with a wooden floor
and a green ceiling.
It's in the forest Right out ofthe 70s you got orange shag
seats sitting over to the right.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, you got the green C10 Chevy out front.
You got to spray ether into itto get it going.
People know.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
That's only when it's below 50.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Let's not curse the truck too bad, below 50 celsius
maybe.
So let's get back to the plan.
Let's talk about this.
Diesel demand in the unitedstates and globally has dropped
to a 26 year low in q Q1.
The Q2 numbers are out and itcontinues to drop.
(02:45):
What's going on, man?
Why people don't like diesel nomore?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well, the problem with diesel is, as everybody
knows, that it costs more tooperate, it costs more to buy,
it costs more to have it.
You got a mixed fuel fleet.
Then you got gasoline, you gotdiesel, so you got to deal with
that separately.
You got that separately.
You got filtration, you've gotum.
You get all of the afterburntreatment, emission stuff that
you can't get away from anymore,and you have none of that with
gasoline.
Everybody has seen this comingfor a long time.
(03:12):
And look at the pickup truckmarket with the one ton,
three-quarter ton market whereeverybody's switching over to
gasoline.
Gmc saw coming a long time ago.
They put the allisontransmission right behind their
big gas motor yeah, that's agreat point.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I thought I was all set and primed because I knew we
were going to talk about this.
I was all set and primed tostart bringing up questions
about like I've been primed overto a good pregame.
No, but I was.
I was primed to talk about likeelectric and hydrogen and you
know, volvo came out with theirnews that they've logged 50
million electric miles.
Freight liners coming up on Ithink 20 million with their
(03:46):
eCascadia.
That's not even counting themedium-duty electric things like
the Ford Transits.
That's got to be taking up acouple million miles.
But I think you're right, thebig part of that, at least on
the consumer end and on that4,500, 5,500 tow truck and box
van market.
I think there has been a hugepush to gasoline there that you
haven't seen before.
(04:07):
Even in the RV space.
You used to see those E350s andstuff, the class Cs that had
the diesel chassis and now thoseare all running on gas as well,
and I think that's probably amuch larger component of that
than EV and hydrogen.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Well, if there's ever a space that you know this
country needed gas, electric,hybrid or alternative methods of
fueling.
I'm going to put it that way,because you need low maintenance
, you need stuff that people cantake off and go on their
vacations.
It's already a cluster when yougot somebody wheeling a provost
bus down the highway towardsFlorida, Georgia, Arizona, and
(04:46):
they don't even have a CDL, andthat's another problem.
We've talked about that before.
We're not going to go down.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Guys are 85 years old .
They don't even know where theyare.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
They don't know where they are.
All they know is that they hitsome toll booth and some lady's
talking to them, and they don'teven know what they're saying.
The point is, though, is theydon't need maintenance, they
don't need emissions, they don'tneed something that's going to
turn them in their trip into anightmare.
They need to be able to firethe thing up in the morning and
take off, and the other thingthat it does, by having
alternative fuel sources for RVs, is it keeps them out of what
(05:17):
the fuel islands, so you don'thave them tying up all this
stuff and precious truck stopspace, which they already don't
have, and then you pull in there.
You've been driving for sevenhours straight.
You need to get fuel in there.
There's this RV plugged up,because he's in there trying to
read the coffee label and figureout what creamery wants.
Meanwhile, they're trying tojust get fuel and move on, and
we got to get out.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
They are.
There's two things I want tobring up here, and I think you
touched on two of them.
Availability of the fuel is abig issue.
Those fuel islands that are outthere are tough to get big
trailers and rvs through, justlike they're tough to get big
semi trucks through.
They clog it up, that's theproblem.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
They just clog it up.
There's already not enoughspace, because you got guys in
there trying to shower and theyleft their, they left their uh,
their broken down trucks sittingoutside, because they have no
etiquette.
Now you get an rv plugged up inthere and then it's it well,
it's more than that too.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Right, because the guys in the rvs most of those
guys aren't truckers.
They're not truck stop people,they're not guys who grew up
around that stuff who feel morethan comfortable pulling into a
flying jr loves.
They're going to like the7-eleven and they're blocking
eight or nine consumers that tryand figure out how to get in
there.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
That's a whole other angle.
If you ever seen one of themguys trying to wheel that thing
around a speedway, oh it's rough, that's when they're leaving on
a monday morning for to go onsome road trip and all the
landscapers are in there andthey got all their, all their
stuff and they're trying to gasup five million things.
Yeah, that's exactly it I mean.
And then here comes, you know,mr 40 footer and he comes
rolling in there and he's likeoh, he's got nothing he's got
(06:42):
nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
He's got nothing.
Mr 40 footer, I haven't beencalled that since prom night.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well then, the other thing, too, is if you ever
watched anybody getting a jamwith one of those RVs and then
try to back it out of whateverjam they got it into, they have
no idea where they're going.
They can't see anything.
They think they got cameras,they got nothing.
Got nothing.
And then when they take outsomething, who's standing there
wanting to know if they got acard on them?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
The.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Teamsters.
You got a card.
You got a union card, buddy,what local are you with you,
brethren?
No, get out of here, get out,let's go, let's go, let's get
out of here.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Well, yeah, I think that's all incredibly valid,
also, not just with.
You know whether you're talkingabout CNG.
You know Cummins has their newX15 motor that runs on diesel,
runs on hydrogen, runs onnatural gas.
That's a cool motor.
(07:50):
But regardless of what you'vegot whether it's natural gas,
cng, lpg, electric or anythingyou need a place to go and get
all your maintenance done, makesure it's fueled up, make sure
it's ready for work at the endof the shift, and you know, I
think, the logistics of that andthe newness of some of this
technology, because we reallyare in a place of maximum
complexity right now.
Right, like there is no.
You just pull up to the pumpand gas it up, and if you had
like a third party that couldjust come in and support your
fleet and get it fueled up, getit charged up, get it up and
running and handle all that andyou just had a flat fee, I think
(08:11):
that would make people a lotbraver, make fleet operators a
lot braver when it came totrying out some of this new
technology, so that we canreally finally have a winner and
figure out where we're going togo with this stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Well, the stuff's changing fast enough that people
in the industry that manage itwe don't have a level of comfort
anymore that says, yeah, I gota grip on what's going on.
We had that going for a whilebecause the OEMs led us down the
path of knowledge and then theytold us what we needed to hear,
and then they did all thisstuff.
But now we're in thiscrossroads of where we're going
(08:46):
to go next as technology becomesmore readily available and
becomes more refined.
Because now we have see, now wehave a technology that's
available at exponentiallygrowing rate, right.
And then, as as we develop moreand more technology, we develop
more and more ways of using thetechnology.
So now it's available for us tofigure out ways to do stuff.
(09:07):
That is creating this weird riffwhere a lot of fleet managers,
a lot of mechanics, a lot of thedealership groups that I talk
to I talk to a lot of seniormanagement and dealership groups
across the country throughoutthe weeks they don't know where
to go, they don't know what todo, they don't have a good
(09:29):
preparation and all they'retrying to do is hang on.
And they used to see this otherthing to dealership groups a
long time ago.
You still take in all kinds ofwhat they considered foreign
work, stuff that was not undertheir umbrella of the OEM
magistrate.
They would bring in all thiscustomer pay work which was
great customer pay work for thefranchise, right, and it was.
Here's somebody that trustedthem said, hey, I know this
(09:52):
isn't Cat or John Deere orHitachi or Volvo, but can you
work on it?
And they go yeah, bring it down, we'll take a look at it.
And they're like yeah, we gotit, we downloaded a manual.
Or back in the day, they're likewe ran over to a buddy and we
got the manual and we took careof it.
That's a trust level thing,right.
Oems are getting to a pointwhere they can't do that anymore
, cause they're basically at thepoint where they're like listen
(10:12):
, we're trying to keep up withwhat we got already.
We're short staffed, we've onlygot enough people to keep what
we got moving through there, letalone try to come up with some
five-month wait time, because wecan't get parts, can't get
people.
So there's a space out therethat's needed for people that
can provide a service that isfinitely pinpointed to what you
need.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Well, I like that and I like what you're saying there
about this idea of apartnership, that you used to
have a partnership with yourdealers.
The dealers had a partnershipwith each other and there was
some kind of code there.
Fleet managers today arelooking for some kind of partner
to help guide them through alot of this uncertainty and
maximum complexity, and theydon't have it.
One guy who seems to think thathe's the ideal partner for this
(10:55):
kind of thing is Paul Giapas.
Paul is our guest today.
He is the CEO and founder ofZima Fleet Solutions and Paul,
thanks for being on the show.
Thanks for having me.
Joe, really looking forward toit.
Yeah, and Paul, you and I hitit off real well at ACT, so I
expect that this is going to bea pretty tight interview.
But for people who aren'tfamiliar with Zim Solutions,
(11:18):
what is it that you guys aredoing?
What's the elevator pitch?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Appreciate that, joe, what Zim does.
First of all, we started backin 2017.
What we do is we design,construct and operate EV
infrastructure for light-duty,medium-duty and heavy-duty
fleets, mainly focused on mediumand heavy-duty fleets.
We're doing that at ports,we're doing that at airports and
directly right at customersites.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Our first depot is here in LAX and we're starting
to roll these out across thecountry Now what is life like at
your LAX facility For somebodywho wants to use that, for
somebody who doesn't reallyunderstand what this kind of
infrastructure as a servicething looks like?
What's a day in the life thereis.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
If I start at midnight, at midnight our team
is very much charging all of thedomicile vehicles that park
there overnight.
We're also performing serviceand maintenance work.
So one of the big benefits ofworking with an as a service
like us is that we make sure wekeep the uptime.
So we're doing that service andmaintenance work at night.
Very, very busy after midnightdoing charging and service and
maintenance.
Starting at about four o'clockin the morning we get a lot of
the airport operators that startto come and pick up their
(12:33):
vehicles.
So between four and five isquite a bit of that activity.
The ports don't start openingup and getting active until
about 6 am.
So a lot of our tractorcustomers and box trucks they'll
start queuing up there at aboutfive to six o'clock in the
morning and then sort of postseven o'clock all those fleets
that are domiciled and park withus overnight are out doing
(12:54):
their business.
Then we start to bring in whatwe call our contract charging
customers.
Those are customers that justcome in charge and leave.
So we work with a number of carrental companies, a bunch of
different ride share companies,and what we do is we perform
charging for them throughout theday as well and then at
nighttime service that domicilevehicle.
The one thing that happensthroughout the day, joe, is
(13:16):
between four o'clock and nine.
At night is our peak time herefor our electricity usage.
So we try to dial down toliterally no charging between
four and nine o'clock, and sothere's a nice little lull
between four and nine wherewe'll stagger vehicles up that
as soon as nine oh one comes on,we turn the energy on and start
the process all over again andcharge from one nine oh one
(13:39):
right to that.
Midnight started back all overagain.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
That sounds like an incredible operation, man.
So there's a ton of complexity,a ton of moving parts there.
When you mention that you'redoing all the service and you're
doing all of the let's call itmaintenance, right, Not service?
There's a pretty broad varietyin terms of the fleets that
utilize your service.
(14:03):
I imagine there's someE-transits, there's some F-150
Lightnings, all the way up tothe Class 8 semi-trucks and a
bunch of box vans in between.
How do you ensure that the workthat your techs are doing is up
to those like warranty ormanufacturer standards?
It's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Look, if you're going to contract with Zim, we need
to make sure that we know theequipment incredibly well from
the entire architecture of thevehicle.
So what we do is, if a customercomes to us let's take
Anheuser-Busch, I run BYDs we'regoing to go, we're going to
find out everything about theBYD product so then that way,
when it's on our site, we couldtroubleshoot it.
It is 100% core to the business.
(14:44):
If we don't understand thearchitecture of the vehicle, we
won't take it in as a contract.
So it's very, very importantthat we do know them all.
Now you know and you've been atACT there's a lot of nascent
OEMs Really really challengingto have a team that can
understand everything from aTesla to an e-transit, to a XO's
lightning systems, c electricand you name it all the way up
(15:06):
to the Volvo and Daimler leveland everything in between.
The good news is, ev is notvery complicated.
A lot of the componentry issimilar.
So our team is very, very fluidin understanding the
architecture of the vehicle, howto repair them, how to
troubleshoot them, and we alsodo warranty work for most of
these OEMs as well.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Well, and that leads into my next question, right,
Because I was going to say whenyou started to respond to that,
if we want to make sure that weare 100% up to speed on the
equipment and that we areconfident, and but the question
of how is it that you knowBollinger has a new CEO now?
I had no idea that was coming.
(16:14):
So, all of this stuff, how doyou keep on top of that?
How are you growing thebusiness?
And what is next after you know, after LAX, for example.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
So really good questions.
You know, first of all, westarted this business about
three years ago and three yearsago, as you can imagine, there
was no Volvo VNR, there was noE-Cascadia.
We had to deal with thenascents.
Now I'm a glutton forpunishment, joe.
I wanted to understand thebusiness.
So what did I do?
I dove into the mostcomplicated city.
I went into LA, went rightaround LAX and what I did is I
immersed myself in this.
(16:45):
So what happened is by dealingwith a lot of the nascent OEMs.
That's why I could confidentlyturn to you and say most of the
componentry on this stuff isfairly similar, a little bit of
different flavors here and there.
But what's great about EV andthe promise is that there's not
a lot of complicated, there'snot a lot of moving parts.
You know you've got 20,000moving parts in an ICE.
You've got far less.
You've got 5% or less of thatin an EV.
(17:07):
So what happens is when youconcentrate on those main
components, that helps usunderstand the architecture of
just about every vehicle.
So, because we now have theconfidence, what we actually
focus on is when an OEM comes in, what's the interoperability of
the charging, because theservice and maintenance piece is
not overly complicated.
The growth for us and what'snext is now we're getting
(17:27):
finally some good OEMs that arecoughing up some good product.
So, to your point, you're nowstarting to see some real good
names that are recognizablestepping up with some good
products.
That makes us happy as well.
You know we're technologyagnostic in the way that we
approach this, because I don'tknow what the best charger is.
I don't know what the besttruck is, but we're testing them
more than anybody else outthere.
(17:47):
Now you're not finding us onNACFI and a lot of these other
reporting agencies, for a verygood reason.
We want to turn around to ourcustomer and understand that we
have the IP and theunderstanding of what kind of
vehicle should you use, whatkind of charger.
So we favor ABB.
Why?
We did 75,000 charge sessions,Joe, in about 18 months.
So that's a lot.
(18:09):
Everybody wants to beat up onABB.
That's a lot of performance.
Our uptime is over 99%.
That's the kind of work thatwe're doing and we want to make
sure that that reverberatesthroughout the marketplace.
So the future for us is goodsolid partnerships going into
the OEMs, helping in the earlydays, have them understand what
customers are asking us to doand then frankly keep them all
(18:30):
honest my feeling and I'm a bigtime patriot, of course,
american patriot what frustratesme is to see that the product
we sell here is too expensiveand it's lagging innovation
across the country.
So I very much look at us ascutting edge, pushing technology
both on the charging end and,of course, on the OEM side, but
where we complete the entireprocess is bringing in fleet
(18:52):
management.
Without three of those majorcomponents, in my opinion you
have a failing offering.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, and I couldn't agree with you more.
One of the things we talk aboutis that there's two aspects of
sustainability, right, or twodifferent types of
sustainability Number one, whichis sustainability of the planet
, sustainability of resources,sustainability of in an
ecological or environmentalsense, and the other flip side
of that is sustainability interms of doing business.
(19:19):
Can we continue to do businessif not necessarily in the manner
that we're used to, in thevolume and quantity and to the
quality that we're used to?
And that comment of without thefleet management aspect,
without that maintenance aspect,you really can't do that.
I think that's absolutely true.
How do you impress that upon afleet customer who is used to
(19:43):
just operating diesel trucks andbringing them in and out, and
like sending them to the dealeronce every five or six months
and 50,000 hours they get a newone.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
What's great is, you know we're not.
So we're not trying to sellelectric trucks, right?
What we're trying to do iswe're trying to explain that
we're going to help them in thistransition phase.
So what ends up happening iswe're very educational with our
fleets.
When we first started thebusiness, we literally didn't
make one single saleintentionally for five years.
We wanted to educate ourselves,so we wanted to have knowledge.
Most of the fleets, if not 95%plus, have understood us to be
(20:17):
consultants who reallyunderstand the charging, the
vehicles and that transportation, that fleet management piece.
I think that's how we're knownin the industry, joe, and we've
built our reputation that way.
So then, that way theyunderstand like I'm not going to
drive a product down yourthroat because I'm trying to
make a sale.
I want to make sure it's rightand what I want to do is deliver
to those fleets that you coulddo this in an electric truck at
(20:39):
the price, or below the price ofa diesel and that it actually
works and it's actuallysomething that they should
double or triple down on.
The biggest problem in theindustry is utilization.
Without utilization, we have togo to incentives.
Zim has a lot of utilization.
So the one thing that I getfrustrated about Joe we spoke
about this in Vegas at ACT isthe price of the truck needs to
(21:00):
come down.
We have figured outinfrastructure.
We figured out how to put it inthe ground, operate it in a way
that it's very low cost andreally super efficient.
It's the price of the truckthat screws everything up.
Electrification is ready, right.
So we're very much out thereeducating fleets, letting them
know we understand it's scary,but if you're educated and you
have somebody holding your handwhich is what Zene does will
(21:21):
hold your hand through theprocess In the next three to
five years technology gets muchbetter.
They're going to be able tohandle it going forward.
But today there's handoff andthat handoff is something that
we're a third party.
So why would we pick a charger?
Because it works.
Why would we pick a truck?
Because it works and ourbusiness model is pretty
straightforward the chargerdoesn't work.
We don't get paid If the truckdoesn't start.
It's tethered to that charger.
(21:43):
So the fleet is motivated touse us because they realize, hey
, you make money from that.
So they're highly motivated towork with us in a partnership.
And I think that's why the OEMsappreciate us, because we're
helping them sell trucks.
We're helping them sellchargers.
I think it's important.
It's early days and while it'searly days, it's important to be
educational.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Well, I agree with you a hundred percent and I
think also there's anotheraspect to this that needs to be
mentioned, which is the concernabout downtime, or rather uptime
, and people asking aboutwhether or not the uptime of EVs
is comparable to diesel.
And they look at that chargingtime, that charging cycle is
downtime.
I can't tell you how manyfleets I talked to here in the
(22:23):
Midwest that they've got their.
And not to pick on Mac, becauseI'm a huge fan of Mac and to
actually just help putsomebody's spec out in order for
a Mac Granite, so I can, so Ican speak to that fairly.
You know they're in scenariosnow where some of these parts
that are on back order on backorder for six to eight weeks.
So the type of uptime thatpeople are used to getting out
(22:46):
of diesel, historically, that isgetting longer and longer
because a lot of theelectrification and, to your
point, a lot of those movingparts that are now computer
controlled have their ownBluetooth connection or CAN bus
connection.
They are getting infinitely morecomplex and getting harder and
harder to maintain, while EVsare getting easier to maintain.
Are you able to back that upwith case studies when you're
(23:10):
talking to a fleet manager,because I think you know Ryder.
Earlier this year, ryder Truckssent out a report talking about
how EVs actually cost quite abit more than diesel operations
and if you knew what you werelooking at, you understood that,
hey, ryder bought this thingand treated it just like a
diesel and it didn't work.
You have to use you know youhave to use a screwdriver like a
(23:30):
diesel, and it didn't work.
You have to use a screwdriverlike a screwdriver and a hammer
like a hammer, and these twotools are different things.
But do you have the kind ofcase studies and the kind of
reporting and hard data thatthese fleet managers want to see
to answer their questions abouthow this all pencils out
compared to diesel?
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah, I'm very, very happy to tell you yes, very much
.
So what it comes down to.
When I saw that rider report,the first thing I said to myself
is you don't have a charger andyou don't operate a charging
hub.
What happens is that data wasincorrect.
We could show you data that weoperate class A trucks for the
last two years plus.
They're completely wrong.
Right, the answer is very muchfor us.
(24:09):
That's why, like I commentedearlier, we don't go out to the
NAC fees and other reportingagencies that want to see this,
the RMIs, and they want to sortof-.
Why would you?
That's your competitiveadvantage.
We love it because we come backand, joe, we realize, like,
what works, what doesn't work.
So we're not motivated to pushone product or the other.
We don't get commissioned on it.
What we do is we go out andtell ABB, as an example we want
(24:34):
you to be the best chargingcompany.
If you're not, we're not goingto buy your product going
forward.
And, by the way, if somebodyasks us what charger they should
use, we're going to show thatinformation.
I know that sounds very basic,but that's important.
You need to have thatrelationship and you need to
know that you have thecounterparties that realize how
important it is for you.
Whether it's a charger, whetherit's a vehicle, the difference
as a service is that we'recoming in and realizing that
(24:56):
it's long lead items for diesel.
So what do we do?
I mentioned to you that everytruck that comes on the lot, we
need to make sure we speak tothe OEM and understand their
process.
What is great?
We come in and say, hey, we'veinspected this truck, we're just
seeing right, but we think thisdoor handle is going to break.
You need to send us 20 of themin inventory.
We think you need to give uswire harnessing and so on and so
forth.
They think we're nuts in thebeginning.
(25:16):
Then what happens is stuffstarts to break and when it does
exactly what you're talkingabout, comes up and then we
hammer on the OEM and say you'regiving us inventory.
As an example, abb would be agreat example.
Everybody complains about ABBand that if a charger goes down
it takes forever to get repairedDepends on how you run your
(25:38):
business, not for us.
We have parts and consignment.
My team is trained to work onan ABB charger.
So my point is you have to havea holistic solution.
If you're gonna do EV bring inEV people?
So, inder, you nailed it right.
You've got diesel mechanicsworking on EV stuff trying to
figure things out, so hours arespent that are unnecessary, a
lot of the troubleshooting stuff, the TCOs out of our spot.
(26:01):
Maintenance costs are more thanhalf of what they are in diesel
more than half and it's becauseevery day we nurture that
vehicle and you nailed it on thecharging side I don't know how
to charge, when to charge.
Interoperability is so key.
Those are all factors thatreally play into EV that the
traditional diesel guys are notgoing to know, and I don't blame
them right, this is all we eat,sleep and drink.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
You can't know everything.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
You can't have one guy know it all right, that's
right, and I can tell you thatwhy I admire Tesla.
Tesla does nothing else but EVand that's why they're the best
at doing it For Zim.
We do nothing but focus oninfrastructure for fleets.
So if we've done nothing butobsess ourselves in that, the
same way you obsess in yourpodcasts and your journalism,
it's the same thing here.
(26:44):
We look, it's all I eat, sleepand drink, and do so 24-7, 365,.
Fleets know that and theyrealize here's a transition.
Here's a group that's helpingme bridge that.
But, most importantly, we'retaking risk operationally and
financial risk on the assetswhen we're doing what we're
doing 100%.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
There's two things that I wanted to bring up here,
and because you said it, I don'twant this to sound like a
gotcha thing.
I'm not Barbara Walters, I'mnot here to make anybody cry.
We want more electrification,so we want you guys to succeed.
So, that said, we talked aboutthe importance of
interoperability, and then webring up Tesla, which, yes, they
are the best.
They eat, live and breathe EVs.
(27:22):
We would not be talking aboutEVs today if it was not for
Tesla Credit, where credit isdue.
They are not typically knownfor playing well with others, so
when you see, or if you've seen, a Tesla Semi in a fleet, how
do you manage that vehicle inthat ABB kind of infrastructure?
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Really really good.
Question.
Number one ABV knows that Teslais very much in our line of
sight, so they're going to havea NAX connector for their ABV
charger, acquire a bunch ofindustrial sites.
We know how complicated andhard it is.
(28:10):
Right, I gave you insightaround how we're building at
power plants you need 750 kWjust for one of their chargers,
right, we're building at the 15megawatt 33 megawatts in New
Jersey and higher right.
So that kind of charging iswhat they need.
So I understand my opinion.
Why they haven't put out a lotof semi-trucks is because the
infrastructure is not there.
(28:31):
So they need to figure out howto partner up and figure out how
to get product in the market.
We're hoping that theyunderstand a company like Z.
We have fleets that are inorder to buy those Tesla trucks
that are saying, hey, what do Ido at my site to support that
infrastructure?
That's why I say to you they doneed to go outside of the norm
for them and say we have to lookat external partners to figure
(28:53):
this out.
So the question mark is becausenobody understands the industry
and that's why Tesla is thebest.
Do they go to Truckers America?
Do they go to Love's?
And they start to realizethat's not where the EV trucks
are.
Right, you have to go where theEV trucks are.
Guys like us, we eat, sleep anddrink it.
So, where we are similar to aTesla, we're obsessed about that
market and only that market.
We don't think about hydrogen,we don't think about ICE or CNG.
(29:15):
This is all we think about.
So for them, when they comearound to Zim, they're going to
realize you need that kind of apartnership.
So I believe that Tesla is goingto be the same way it did it
for the car industry, joe.
It's going to blow open thesemi-truck industry where
everybody realizes how can youdo that for $200,000?
, how can you get that range?
And the same way, zim onlyfocuses on infrastructure, tesla
(29:36):
builds the truck.
That's why, right, if I make adiesel and I make a great amount
of money over here, why are yougoing to go into this other
sector?
I think that there's a financialproblem there and it's not bad.
I mean, volvo's great at whatthey do, daimler's great at what
they do.
They should continue to do that.
Oil's got its place in theworld, Diesel's got its place,
so it's not being replaced.
I think that's a ridiculouscomment to say in the industry.
(29:56):
I think there's a bigaddressable market.
What does 200, 300 miles orless as the tech gets better?
That's the addressable marketthat makes sense to electrify.
That's where Zim has burden ofproof that this is how much it
costs to operate a truck likethat, and I know it's far below
the cost of a diesel.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
You mentioned this was my other Barbara Walters
gotcha from your previouscomment was that as the price of
the trucks comes down and Ithink we've seen Tesla's road
vehicles on-road vehicles overthe years passenger car vehicles
the price comes out very highand then it tends to come down
as the years.
Passenger car vehicles theprice comes out very high and
then it tends to come down asthe years go on, which is
different from most otherindustries, right, where
(30:35):
everything just gets more andmore expensive.
You are in a unique scenariobecause, in addition to seeing
that kind of breadth of productthroughout the whole industry,
you have some connectionsoverseas and we can edit this
out if you don't want to talkabout it.
But I know that you have someconnections overseas and we can
edit this out if you don't wantto talk about it.
But I know that you have someinsight into chinese evs
overseas evs that most people inthe states do not have.
(30:58):
Are you able to talk about thatat all or just give it a yes?
Speaker 4 (31:03):
absolutely.
I mean, look, joe, the onething you want to think about
with zine, right, we're makingthe market here everybody keeps
talking about.
There's a lot of like nicePowerPoints and I know the
administration likes to talkabout it as if it's done, but
it's super hard, right?
So when I come to you and I say, hey, my hurdle, like trying to
find the right truck, right, Ineed range, I need the right
price, you better believe I'mgoing to scour the planet.
(31:23):
My customers are expecting meto do that.
So China, let me just say itagain huge American patriot,
love America, would love foreverything to be sourced out of
America.
They're killing us on EV,killing us, right.
You could go out there.
You'd sit in a beautiful$20,000 electric vehicle with
300 miles of range and you'd beblown away, right.
That same exact vehicle here isdouble the price.
Just is the case, right.
(31:45):
So we knew we need to fight theterrorists to bring them in.
Because products better.
Look, american, love America,their products better.
So right now they have Chineseproduct that's coming in, fits
the bill.
It's almost the price of theother diesel and it's got the
range requirements.
They run very overweight inChina.
Europe, same thing.
They're having really goodvehicle options out there, far
better than the US.
(32:05):
What happens is there's a bitof a monopoly here, so I think
it's important to look acrossthe country.
You do that for vehicles, youdo that for the chargers, you do
that for battery storage.
The entire ecosystem is soundefined right now, joe, I'm
looking frustrated, saying Ithought we were further along.
Right, if we're not this faralong, like I'm watching Tesla
in the passenger vehicle market,what I'm saying to you, I truly
(32:26):
believe.
What I'm watching Tesla do inthe passenger vehicle market,
what I'm saying to you, I trulybelieve.
When I'm watching Tesla doingthe passenger vehicle market,
I'm watching it in slow motionin the commercial EV market, no
different.
I was internal as an investor.
I watched companies succeed andfail.
So for me, I took all theingredients and I said, okay,
what do I think is needed forfleet?
I stripped away the politics, Ieven stripped away the
incentives and said, hey, I haveno incentive.
(32:47):
Does this survive on its owntwo feet?
And I'm happy to say that theanswer was yes.
Utilization is the key.
The one area that I would sayis the biggest barrier right now
is the price of that truck.
So, yeah, I'll scour the plan.
I'll take a shot to the moon togo see what they're doing up
there, to see if that could comeback down here to earth.
Whatever it takes to make surethe customer understands the
type of options they have, I'mjust providing the service.
(33:09):
I'm going to make sure thatworks smoothly and whatever OEM
you want to use, fine, I'm goingto make sure that every day
that truck starts and that itoperates and it does the duty
it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
So we've mentioned BYD, we've mentioned Volvo,
which is a Daimler Geely project, things like that.
Geely is a Chinese brand.
There are other brands outthere that we don't have access
to.
You know, you don't sell trucks, I don't sell trucks.
There's nothing in this for youto like, endorse one or the
other.
Do you have any favorites ofwhat you've seen out there that
(33:39):
either not yet in the US or notearmarked for the US?
Speaker 4 (33:43):
You know, I've been pretty impressed with a couple
I'm just going to call themscience projects Anything that
has produced less than 500 unitsin a couple.
I'm just going to call themscience projects Anything that
has produced less than 500 unitsin a market.
Let's just be honest, it's ascience project.
I think that's fair.
Yeah, you know, there's acouple of them out there that
have been super impressive,right, you were at ACT and
Windrose came out as one of theChinese manufacturers and I
actually spoke to you aboutthose guys.
(34:03):
I went to that manufacturingfacility, scrubbed the top, the
bottom like I would.
Any OEM went to their batterypacker really impressed, really
impressed.
Right, chinese quality isusually, you know, iffy.
This here was, you know, a highquality Chinese product, right,
which means that it's prettygood standard for US product.
What I saw, I was pretty blownaway.
So that what I'm seeing is I'mseeing good engineering, I'm
(34:25):
seeing a lot of good technology.
I would say that that would beone that I'm saying is one to
watch the Tesla semi truck.
You can't compete with it.
It is the best semi truck byfar.
You can't even touch it.
Every bit of the technology,the range, the battery
efficiency, how quickly it couldbe charged, the longevity of
the batteries, all that stuffit's untouchable, right?
So I would put Tesla way up topthe others.
(34:49):
I wish I could say some positivethings.
Let me say something positive.
We've got a bunch of all thosethat are in our fleet.
They work great, they're okay.
They need to come down in price.
Daimler got to come down inyour price.
Got to come down in your price.
That's all I'm going to say.
Come down in your price.
Love it.
Customers keep coming.
Love Freightliner.
You're sending the customer theother way, like You're sending
the customer the other way Likethey don't want to buy EV, right
?
So that means that, okay, youdon't want the EV market.
(35:10):
So if you don't want the EVmarket, who wants it right?
To me, it's Tesla all day.
If I had Tesla, my entirebusiness would be utopia.
I'd be flying right.
Now.
My biggest problem is gettingtrucks right.
So I wish I can endorse others.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
The other one I would put out a nice waste management
unit that I've been seeing.
That's been crossing my path afew times in the last couple of
months.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
That's a good, solid product.
We have a couple of customersthat are big right that have
been operating that product andcoming back with very positive
feedback.
I want to endorse those thatare doing the right thing and
doing good work.
I would hope and expect FaldoDaimler.
They should be stepping up.
They should be stepping up.
That's the innovation we need.
We just had $1.7 billion nowallocated for manufacturing.
I expect American innovationand I expect people to really
(35:59):
step up here in technology.
Lower the price, right.
Let's take that number from twoand a half times the cost of a
diesel.
I would hope that our taxdollars, joe, are going to go in
to lower that cost so we couldbe competitive.
And literally what I'm about tosay I'll defend all day with
anybody in the industry.
We're in last place.
We're in last place doing this,killing us in China, killing us
(36:19):
in Europe and then other areaslike Latin America.
They're just killing us.
They're laughing at us.
What we're doing in thecapability that we have, we're
not even trying.
So I'm very frustrated as whatI would believe our company is
pioneering in this industry.
I'm very disappointed, like weneed to see a lot more happening
here.
Innovate, do what we expect youto do and if not, let's bring
in a new entrant.
(36:40):
That's why I love Tesla.
We all know what everybody saidabout Tesla when they came in.
They hated Tesla.
They thought it was absolutelywrong, thought it was ludicrous.
It's one of the biggestcompanies in the world.
The boat went by.
They missed the boat right.
Same thing is happening, in myopinion.
Like I said to you earlier,it's like watching the passenger
market in slow motion.
What Tesla did, it's happeningright now in front of me.
So I feel like it's easy for meto navigate, joe, I hate to say
(37:03):
it that way, but I feel likeit's easy for me to navigate and
that's why I make sure I drivethe way that we do at Zim, at
the port, at the airport.
Let's concentrate where it is,where it works, and then prove
that out over time and as thetech gets better, long range
will get better, cost will getbetter, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Paul, we're actually ahead of time.
Usually I do these and they'rean hour long and I got to trim
it down to 20 tight minutes, butthis was really good.
I will just simply say thankyou for being on the show.
If there's anything that youwould like to plug or promote
any websites that you'd likepeople to go check out, you know
, obviously everybody in thistree has beautiful PowerPoints.
I'm sure you've got one or twogood looking PowerPoints as well
(37:42):
.
How do people find them?
How do people keep track andfollow along with what you're
doing?
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I appreciate that, joe.
I mean the one thing I wouldsay, just overarching to your
audience EV trucks are here.
It's time now, right, the costsare getting there.
There's companies like Ziemannothers who are similar to us
that can provide this service.
It works for routes that are250 to 300 miles or less.
Let's not even talk aboutanything that's above that.
(38:06):
If we could stay in thatcategory, ev trucking and fleet
is incredibly exciting.
It's such a great growth areathat's coming.
Of course, if you're a fleettransportation company,
logistics company, you want tolook at electrification, and
right now we're one of theleaders in the world doing that,
so please reach out.
Our website is fairlyinformative cryptic for a reason
(38:28):
because we do a lot of stuffthat's important IP.
But again, ev trucks are here.
They're here to stay and costsare only going to get lower and
performance is only going to getbetter.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
And that's ZimSolutionscom.
That's not, like you know, Zimpet sitting or anything Correct.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
So ZimSolutionscom Correct.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
And that was the great american pierogi race you
say what you will, man, but yousee one of them, big old trucks
running down the road with45,000 pounds of pure midwestern
potatoey goodness and you'regonna know that you've eaten
something.
Only only a lithuanian wouldlook at a potato and go.
(39:11):
You know what that thing needsmore starch dough wrapped around
its starchy goodness that'sright, oh, man.
So you know my?
My wife is lithuanian, herfamily's from lithuania, and I I
have come to believe honestlyin my heart of hearts, the
lithuanian cuisine is thegreatest cuisine in the world.
They have this thing called aZeppolino or Zeppolini.
(39:32):
It is effectively not to beconfused with Zim.
Not to be confused with Zim,but it does sound like Zeppolini
, zimoletti.
It's potato like, basically amashed potato with cheese and
bacon in it, breaded and thendeep fried.
It looks like a football.
It's like 62 000 calories, likeyou could feel your arteries
(39:54):
hardening while you eat it.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
It's I don't know.
So let the wainians eat likethis and stay thin, because a
lot of them are thin.
I think they only get one ayear.
Oh that, that makes sense likea soviet bloc country.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
They get like.
They get like one of them infebruary, they get another one
in September.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
They airdrop the supplies for the Zima lady.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
They just hit the ground like scud missiles.
One of them goes through theroof of your Lada.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I swear to God, I thought I thought pierogies
could fly.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
As God is my witness.
I thought turkeys could fly.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Well, in all seriousness, though, I think
Paul's got a compelling product.
You know it may not work forall people and all things, but
if you've got a delivery fleetand you know you've got a fleet
of like six or eight box trucksand you know you don't want to
put in hundreds of thousands ofdollars to manage all that
infrastructure on your own, youdon't want to have to train your
guys that have been diesel guysfor 25 years.
(40:51):
Here's a simple part of that.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Organizations can no longer afford at the rate of
what everything costs to put inthe infrastructure required to
self-service every singledifferent thing that you used to
be able to do that for.
You used to be able to go buy amixed fleet and it either had a
Cummins engine in it, it had acat engine in it, and then you
(41:14):
could train your people on thatstuff and you could have all the
things at your disposal,because it was pretty much the
same brand to brand.
And occasionally somebody wouldcome into the service office
screaming because Freightlineror Kenworth or whatever tried to
use some weird door handle thatkeeps falling off.
But seriously, that's whatwould happen.
It was some one-off thing wherethey were like this is crap,
(41:36):
why are they doing this?
And then you talk to the dealerand they send you 20 of them,
right, well and I'm laughingbecause that's the exact example
that Paul gave during theinterview.
But that's my point.
You used to be able to do thaton your own level.
You can't do that anymore and Iwill.
And I have been through thisargument with many people where
(41:57):
I said, yes, you need to shop,yes, you need a place to work on
stuff, but you need to be ableto have people inside that say
I'm pulling the ripcord, get ittowed out of here, or have some
come here and fix this thing,because I got to work on this
over here.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, it just comes back to the things that one of
the things that we've beentalking about since day one on
this show, which is the ideathat we need more specialization
day after day, but we havefewer and fewer specialists
every day, which kind of blowsmy mind, because you've got a
growing population of youngpeople who are Gen Z or
(42:34):
millennials or whatever, who arecoming into the workforce and
they've got really no appetitefor not to really sound like an
old guy, but they've got noappetite for real work, for
construction work, they've gotno appetite for being an
operator driving a truck,working a machine, and it just
blows my mind that everybodykind of thinks that they're
(42:54):
going to get this six figure job.
Well, you know, if I get out ofschool and I don't like what
I'm doing, I'll just go work atPanda Express or Bucky's and
make one hundred and fiftythousand dollars a year.
It's like it don't work likethat, dude, ain't going to
happen.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
No, it doesn't work like that, and if you want to
get ahead and you, you have todo it the same way.
We've had to do it since thetime we fell off of a boat.
You have to be good atsomething, you have to be able
to succeed and you have to makeyourself worth something and not
in some crazy way, you know,getting on only fans or whatever
.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
But my point is is that you hang on, hang on, hang
on.
There's plenty of people makinglegitimate contributions to the
economy through only fansthat's true.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Well, and I will say this, on my race car there is
there is a small sponsorshiponly fan sticker on there, so
it's okay but the point is isthat my what I'm saying is is
that from the beginning of timeof this country, people realize
listen, I got to be good atsomething, or these people are
going to eat me.
Yeah, it's changed over theyears, but let me tell you, it
(43:57):
still means the same thing.
You will cease to exist in alevel that you want to.
Yeah, we need ambitious peoplein this country more than ever.
We talk about this all the time.
We talk about the lack ofdrivers, talk about the lack of
mechanics.
Everybody knows this.
So, to beat a dead horse whichhas already decayed into the
ground, we need as many peopleas possible that are focused
(44:23):
into what they want to befocused in.
But it has to be specialized,because you can no longer be a
jack of all trades.
Okay, yeah, there used to be aguy that would sell turnips and
cabbage to the british becausehe grew it on the island and
would, in the dark, move it in aboat, and the british paid him
(44:46):
handsomely for that.
The guy also was a spy andratted the british out, which is
part of the reason we have thecountry we have today.
But the point was is he was sogood at growing lettuce, cabbage
and uh, rutabagas or whateverthe hell else he could throw in
his boat at night with a lanternthat the british were
dumbfounded by it and startedpaying him tremendously.
Okay, so from the beginning ofeverything, everything circles
(45:10):
back to the same stuff over andover again.
And then you have his companywho's like listen, don't, don't
get into this whole trying torelearn everything, we're going
to handle it for you.
You pay us a fee, or you know.
And then and the other thing toois is the cost of that's not
localized them over, howevermany hundreds of trucks you have
?
He has his entire customer baseto spread out all of his costs
(45:32):
against, which makes it evenmore affordable, and he's coming
to your door if need be andtaking the truck from you.
If he has to, takes it over tohis place.
I don't know how to get anycleaner than that.
You can't.
Can't get any cleaner than that, the only way you can do it and
do it.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
The only way you could do it is to go back in
time 45 years and have that kindof idea of, like you know, hey,
I know how to make a carburetorwork, I know how to make this
work.
And where you don't have thesoftware, we don't have the
proprietary firmware update andthe special can, connectors and
everything else and all thosethings that make this product
(46:06):
better and make the work moreefficient, make it harder to
work on, make it harder to bringpeople in.
You know it's funny becausewe're talking about all this
over and over again and I thinkit's worth bringing up that for
(46:29):
the first time ever.
One right, left, center, green,libertarian, whatever the F you
think you are, if you're goingto win a national election right
now, you need labor on yourside and I think that's the key
component right there you haveto the working people of this
country.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
People of this country.
They need someone that theybelieve they can talk to, that
listens to them, regardless ofwhat side of the aisle you're on
or what ticket you're punchingor however you're using a pigeon
to send your vote in.
The working people of thiscountry need somebody that's
going to talk.
They needed administration.
It's not just a person.
Okay, right, this is the bigthing that gets everybody in
trouble when they're talkingpolitics.
It's not solely one person, itis the entire administration and
(47:18):
their focus, and whether, again, democrat, republican,
independent, you know the guyfrom Mars that comes down and
gives us some free energy, itcomes down to connecting with
people.
Yeah, and any administration?
This goes back to I mean, thisgoes back to the beginning of
the industrial revolution, whenany administration that was like
look, you have a business, youhave a purpose here, you create
(47:42):
an economic flow and we backthat.
Democrat or Republican, thosepeople have always come out on
top.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yes, that's true, but there's two parts to that.
There's always two parts to itwith you.
No stop, because supporting thebusiness is not the same as
picking a side right.
It's not as simple as picking aside.
It's not as simple as pickingthe side of capital versus labor
(48:11):
.
It's not as simple as picking aside versus corporate, versus
public welfare.
It's somebody who sits thereand let's not say somebody.
It's an administration, it's asystem that.
What did FDR used to say?
Two chickens in every pot.
Right, that's what we need here.
We need to have some scenariothat makes Two chickens in every
(48:33):
pot and then it was a car inevery driveway, car in every
driveway.
We had this idea of raising themiddle class, moving the poor
into the middle class andcreating upward mobility, and
somewhere along the line weforgot that.
And it's the same mentality ofwhen you have a pizza party at
work.
You got a group of people whogo up and say, well, I'm only
(48:54):
going to take one slice becauseI don't think they bought enough
.
And you got another group ofpeople who says I'm going to
take three slices because Idon't think they bought enough
and I want to make sure theydon't run there.
I, you know, I've never reallyobserved the gluttony at the
pizza party table.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
But that's I'm going.
Benefits look at their salariesall the way down the line.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Look at how.
That's how a lot of peoplelooked at toilet paper during
the pandemic back in March of2020.
I'm going to buy it all.
There's nothing left.
I'm going to buy it all becausethere's nothing.
Exactly right, you got guys inCostco rolling out with 20 bags
of toilet paper going well, Ihave to do this because they're
going to run out we were sostupid back then.
We're still that stupid.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
We're just doing it over others we just do it on a
different, we do it in differentways.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Now that's the problem my favorite meme to come
out of all of that was january1st 2020.
This is going to be my year.
March 20th, march 1st 2020wipes ass with stale tortilla
you know, but we have to havethis.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
This country has to have an administration that
understands what we need.
We're at a weird like I saidearlier.
We're at a weird crossroadswith technology.
We're at a weird crossroadswith the available resources
that we actually have not dreamtup, not some other country's
resources.
It's going to give us somethingthat we think we can get actual
(50:38):
available resources knowledgeand technology.
And knowledge is different fromtechnology.
People get all weird about that, but human knowledge and their
ability to understand and dothings.
That leads us over and over andover again into the next realm.
And you have to have morecompanies like zine, where they
(50:59):
do?
Speaker 1 (50:59):
they haven't sponsored us, so don't give it
too much credit right, but butwe have to have more companies
like them and yes not not to add.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
I don't mean competitiveness, and they're in
their space.
I'm saying like their ideal.
Yes, come out and take care ofyour problems on the exact,
specific part of your fleet thatyou have there's a bunch of
holes that need to be filled.
I don't know how we're going todo it, but the industry as a
whole has to take care of it.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Yeah we could do it.
We could be the heavy equipmentlogistics providers, we could
be the help cats.
Oh, we could, we could you know?
Speaker 2 (51:33):
actually there used to be a PBS program and then
they would call in to John Deereand these guys would talk about
that.
We talked about this on anotherepisode.
We could do that.
We could have the help deskyeah, the help desk and some guy
calls.
He's like I got this flashinglight and I'm on the side of 75
down here in Atlanta.
I don't know where the hell.
(51:53):
I'm at this is horrible, andthen you just talk him through
it.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Well, that'd be a full-time job for Neil.
He'd sit there and be like hangon.
I've got the Chilton manual,for that Leans over on page 417.
Binders that he just flips overhe asked the guy hey, where are
you?
I'm not really sure.
I'm on the side of the roadhere your gps.
Yeah, get your gps.
Give me the lat long on that.
(52:19):
We'll have this thing dronedrop to you in the next 20
minutes oh, some of these guys,though.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
They take the drone with them, they just keep it in
the bunk, capture it.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
We're flying around, yeah amazon is gonna start
delivering stuff with the, withthe drone.
That's good, that's just skeetshooting with prizes.
Man, it's over.
It didn't last long.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
It was a great idea that stuff would just get
dropped off because we didn'thave enough people to do it, but
actually the people were likeno, you're not going to fly
around.
I don't understand how peopleallow them to open their garage
door with the Amazon key and gointo their homes.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
There are places where that's cool but come on, I
don't even like it when theneighbor kids eat my cinnamon
toast crunch.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
And I'm not saying that Amazon isn't trustworthy.
What I'm saying is that youhave the human element.
The guy leaves the door open.
Something happens, the cat runsout.
You, you have the human element.
The guy leaves the door open.
Something happens, the cat runsout.
You don't realize it Gets ranover by the school bus and
Johnny Sue is out there justfreaking out crying.
It's a bad idea.
Don't open people's things.
Leave it.
We're one step away from thestuff not being boxed and then
(53:23):
some giant toy gets dropped offon the front lawn.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
With that a word from Chase and Sanborn.
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(53:54):
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It's time for Instant .
Speaker 3 (54:19):
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The Flavor Breakaway Serveinstant Jason Sanborn with
natural coffee aroma.
Welcome back for another thrilling episode of the
Heavy Equipment Podcast.
And man, that last belt ofTito's really got me right
between the eyes.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Let me tell you we're ready, Ripped and ready right
here.
Biff's in the control room.
He's been munching on some kindof weird brownie.
I got my tall cup next to meand we're ready to roll.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
He's got like one eye dilated and the other one's
just like pulsing.
He is ready, ready, that'slegal now.
And you know we are already offsubject.
We talk about this a lot,though we do talk about this a
lot.
This, the rescheduling ofmarijuana, of hemp, and and the
fact that that is legalizingthroughout the country and
(00:42):
you've got state after stateafter state making this illegal
recreational thing.
We really need to set some kindof policy that's going to
enable some kind of variancehere, because right now, if you
talk about the Teamsters and youtalk about these other
over-the-road truckorganizations operators unions,
engineering unions their stanceis still zero tolerance, like
(01:03):
just zero tolerance all the waythrough.
And I don't know how it's easy,but it's not easy because it
leads to a shortage of labor.
I mean, imagine if they had azero tolerance policy on alcohol
and you couldn't crack open abeer on Saturday with your
buddies when you're on vacation.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, it's unconstitutional, that's
unconstitutional, Well it's onlyamendments to protect our
alcoholic rights.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well, so, so that's there you go, Now that now we're
constitutional law professors.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We didn't say that.
We just read the document Ourforefathers handed to us and we
interpreted as needed.
I'm a medical doctor, medicallytreated let's put it that way
Medicinal medicinally treated.
You see what I did there.
I automatically threw thebrownie out there and derailed
the whole show.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This is why everybody loves me.
We had a whole plan.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
We talked about it before we even got on here and I
just derailed it.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I've been waiting to do this, If it's gone.
He threw his hands up to theleft.
He went to the bathroom.
He's in that dark hallway.
He went to the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
He's in that dark hallway, if people can see our
recording studio it's literallypine walls with a wooden floor
and a green ceiling.
It's in the forest Right out ofthe 70s you got orange shag
seats sitting over to the right.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, you got the green C10 Chevy out front.
You got to spray ether into itto get it going.
People know.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
That's only when it's below 50.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Let's not curse the truck too bad, below 50 celsius
maybe.
So let's get back to the plan.
Let's talk about this.
Diesel demand in the unitedstates and globally has dropped
to a 26 year low in q Q1.
The Q2 numbers are out and itcontinues to drop.
(02:45):
What's going on, man?
Why people don't like diesel nomore?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well, the problem with diesel is, as everybody
knows, that it costs more tooperate, it costs more to buy,
it costs more to have it.
You got a mixed fuel fleet.
Then you got gasoline, you gotdiesel, so you got to deal with
that separately.
You got that separately.
You got filtration, you've gotum.
You get all of the afterburntreatment, emission stuff that
you can't get away from anymore,and you have none of that with
gasoline.
Everybody has seen this comingfor a long time.
(03:12):
And look at the pickup truckmarket with the one ton,
three-quarter ton market whereeverybody's switching over to
gasoline.
Gmc saw coming a long time ago.
They put the allisontransmission right behind their
big gas motor yeah, that's agreat point.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I thought I was all set and primed because I knew we
were going to talk about this.
I was all set and primed tostart bringing up questions
about like I've been primed overto a good pregame.
No, but I was.
I was primed to talk about likeelectric and hydrogen and you
know, volvo came out with theirnews that they've logged 50
million electric miles.
Freight liners coming up on Ithink 20 million with their
(03:46):
eCascadia.
That's not even counting themedium-duty electric things like
the Ford Transits.
That's got to be taking up acouple million miles.
But I think you're right, thebig part of that, at least on
the consumer end and on that4,500, 5,500 tow truck and box
van market.
I think there has been a hugepush to gasoline there that you
haven't seen before.
(04:07):
Even in the RV space.
You used to see those E350s andstuff, the class Cs that had
the diesel chassis and now thoseare all running on gas as well,
and I think that's probably amuch larger component of that
than EV and hydrogen.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Well, if there's ever a space that you know this
country needed gas, electric,hybrid or alternative methods of
fueling.
I'm going to put it that way,because you need low maintenance
, you need stuff that people cantake off and go on their
vacations.
It's already a cluster when yougot somebody wheeling a provost
bus down the highway towardsFlorida, Georgia, Arizona, and
(04:46):
they don't even have a CDL, andthat's another problem.
We've talked about that before.
We're not going to go down.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Guys are 85 years old .
They don't even know where theyare.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
They don't know where they are.
All they know is that they hitsome toll booth and some lady's
talking to them, and they don'teven know what they're saying.
The point is, though, is theydon't need maintenance, they
don't need emissions, they don'tneed something that's going to
turn them in their trip into anightmare.
They need to be able to firethe thing up in the morning and
take off, and the other thingthat it does, by having
alternative fuel sources for RVs, is it keeps them out of what
(05:17):
the fuel islands, so you don'thave them tying up all this
stuff and precious truck stopspace, which they already don't
have, and then you pull in there.
You've been driving for sevenhours straight.
You need to get fuel in there.
There's this RV plugged up,because he's in there trying to
read the coffee label and figureout what creamery wants.
Meanwhile, they're trying tojust get fuel and move on, and
we got to get out.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
They are.
There's two things I want tobring up here, and I think you
touched on two of them.
Availability of the fuel is abig issue.
Those fuel islands that are outthere are tough to get big
trailers and rvs through, justlike they're tough to get big
semi trucks through.
They clog it up, that's theproblem.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
They just clog it up.
There's already not enoughspace, because you got guys in
there trying to shower and theyleft their, they left their uh,
their broken down trucks sittingoutside, because they have no
etiquette.
Now you get an rv plugged up inthere and then it's it well,
it's more than that too.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Right, because the guys in the rvs most of those
guys aren't truckers.
They're not truck stop people,they're not guys who grew up
around that stuff who feel morethan comfortable pulling into a
flying jr loves.
They're going to like the7-eleven and they're blocking
eight or nine consumers that tryand figure out how to get in
there.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
That's a whole other angle.
If you ever seen one of themguys trying to wheel that thing
around a speedway, oh it's rough, that's when they're leaving on
a monday morning for to go onsome road trip and all the
landscapers are in there andthey got all their, all their
stuff and they're trying to gasup five million things.
Yeah, that's exactly it I mean.
And then here comes, you know,mr 40 footer and he comes
rolling in there and he's likeoh, he's got nothing he's got
(06:42):
nothing.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
He's got nothing.
Mr 40 footer, I haven't beencalled that since prom night.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well then, the other thing, too, is if you ever
watched anybody getting a jamwith one of those RVs and then
try to back it out of whateverjam they got it into, they have
no idea where they're going.
They can't see anything.
They think they got cameras,they got nothing.
Got nothing.
And then when they take outsomething, who's standing there
wanting to know if they got acard on them?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
The.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Teamsters.
You got a card.
You got a union card, buddy,what local are you with you,
brethren?
No, get out of here, get out,let's go, let's go, let's get
out of here.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Well, yeah, I think that's all incredibly valid,
also, not just with.
You know whether you're talkingabout CNG.
You know Cummins has their newX15 motor that runs on diesel,
runs on hydrogen, runs onnatural gas.
That's a cool motor.
(07:50):
But regardless of what you'vegot whether it's natural gas,
cng, lpg, electric or anythingyou need a place to go and get
all your maintenance done, makesure it's fueled up, make sure
it's ready for work at the endof the shift, and you know, I
think, the logistics of that andthe newness of some of this
technology, because we reallyare in a place of maximum
complexity right now.
Right, like there is no.
You just pull up to the pumpand gas it up, and if you had
like a third party that couldjust come in and support your
fleet and get it fueled up, getit charged up, get it up and
running and handle all that andyou just had a flat fee, I think
(08:11):
that would make people a lotbraver, make fleet operators a
lot braver when it came totrying out some of this new
technology, so that we canreally finally have a winner and
figure out where we're going togo with this stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Well, the stuff's changing fast enough that people
in the industry that manage itwe don't have a level of comfort
anymore that says, yeah, I gota grip on what's going on.
We had that going for a whilebecause the OEMs led us down the
path of knowledge and then theytold us what we needed to hear,
and then they did all thisstuff.
But now we're in thiscrossroads of where we're going
(08:46):
to go next as technology becomesmore readily available and
becomes more refined.
Because now we have see, now wehave a technology that's
available at exponentiallygrowing rate, right.
And then, as as we develop moreand more technology, we develop
more and more ways of using thetechnology.
So now it's available for us tofigure out ways to do stuff.
(09:07):
That is creating this weird riffwhere a lot of fleet managers,
a lot of mechanics, a lot of thedealership groups that I talk
to I talk to a lot of seniormanagement and dealership groups
across the country throughoutthe weeks they don't know where
to go, they don't know what todo, they don't have a good
(09:29):
preparation and all they'retrying to do is hang on.
And they used to see this otherthing to dealership groups a
long time ago.
You still take in all kinds ofwhat they considered foreign
work, stuff that was not undertheir umbrella of the OEM
magistrate.
They would bring in all thiscustomer pay work which was
great customer pay work for thefranchise, right, and it was.
Here's somebody that trustedthem said, hey, I know this
(09:52):
isn't Cat or John Deere orHitachi or Volvo, but can you
work on it?
And they go yeah, bring it down, we'll take a look at it.
And they're like yeah, we gotit, we downloaded a manual.
Or back in the day, they're likewe ran over to a buddy and we
got the manual and we took careof it.
That's a trust level thing,right.
Oems are getting to a pointwhere they can't do that anymore
, cause they're basically at thepoint where they're like listen
(10:12):
, we're trying to keep up withwhat we got already.
We're short staffed, we've onlygot enough people to keep what
we got moving through there, letalone try to come up with some
five-month wait time, because wecan't get parts, can't get
people.
So there's a space out therethat's needed for people that
can provide a service that isfinitely pinpointed to what you
need.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Well, I like that and I like what you're saying there
about this idea of apartnership, that you used to
have a partnership with yourdealers.
The dealers had a partnershipwith each other and there was
some kind of code there.
Fleet managers today arelooking for some kind of partner
to help guide them through alot of this uncertainty and
maximum complexity, and theydon't have it.
One guy who seems to think thathe's the ideal partner for this
(10:55):
kind of thing is Paul Giapas.
Paul is our guest today.
He is the CEO and founder ofZima Fleet Solutions and Paul,
thanks for being on the show.
Thanks for having me.
Joe, really looking forward toit.
Yeah, and Paul, you and I hitit off real well at ACT, so I
expect that this is going to bea pretty tight interview.
But for people who aren'tfamiliar with Zim Solutions,
(11:18):
what is it that you guys aredoing?
What's the elevator pitch?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Appreciate that, joe, what Zim does.
First of all, we started backin 2017.
What we do is we design,construct and operate EV
infrastructure for light-duty,medium-duty and heavy-duty
fleets, mainly focused on mediumand heavy-duty fleets.
We're doing that at ports,we're doing that at airports and
directly right at customersites.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Our first depot is here in LAX and we're starting
to roll these out across thecountry Now what is life like at
your LAX facility For somebodywho wants to use that, for
somebody who doesn't reallyunderstand what this kind of
infrastructure as a servicething looks like?
What's a day in the life thereis.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
If I start at midnight, at midnight our team
is very much charging all of thedomicile vehicles that park
there overnight.
We're also performing serviceand maintenance work.
So one of the big benefits ofworking with an as a service
like us is that we make sure wekeep the uptime.
So we're doing that service andmaintenance work at night.
Very, very busy after midnightdoing charging and service and
maintenance.
Starting at about four o'clockin the morning we get a lot of
the airport operators that startto come and pick up their
(12:33):
vehicles.
So between four and five isquite a bit of that activity.
The ports don't start openingup and getting active until
about 6 am.
So a lot of our tractorcustomers and box trucks they'll
start queuing up there at aboutfive to six o'clock in the
morning and then sort of postseven o'clock all those fleets
that are domiciled and park withus overnight are out doing
(12:54):
their business.
Then we start to bring in whatwe call our contract charging
customers.
Those are customers that justcome in charge and leave.
So we work with a number of carrental companies, a bunch of
different ride share companies,and what we do is we perform
charging for them throughout theday as well and then at
nighttime service that domicilevehicle.
The one thing that happensthroughout the day, joe, is
(13:16):
between four o'clock and nine.
At night is our peak time herefor our electricity usage.
So we try to dial down toliterally no charging between
four and nine o'clock, and sothere's a nice little lull
between four and nine wherewe'll stagger vehicles up that
as soon as nine oh one comes on,we turn the energy on and start
the process all over again andcharge from one nine oh one
(13:39):
right to that.
Midnight started back all overagain.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
That sounds like an incredible operation, man.
So there's a ton of complexity,a ton of moving parts there.
When you mention that you'redoing all the service and you're
doing all of the let's call itmaintenance, right, Not service?
There's a pretty broad varietyin terms of the fleets that
utilize your service.
(14:03):
I imagine there's someE-transits, there's some F-150
Lightnings, all the way up tothe Class 8 semi-trucks and a
bunch of box vans in between.
How do you ensure that the workthat your techs are doing is up
to those like warranty ormanufacturer standards?
It's a really good question.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Look, if you're going to contract with Zim, we need
to make sure that we know theequipment incredibly well from
the entire architecture of thevehicle.
So what we do is, if a customercomes to us let's take
Anheuser-Busch, I run BYDs we'regoing to go, we're going to
find out everything about theBYD product so then that way,
when it's on our site, we couldtroubleshoot it.
It is 100% core to the business.
(14:44):
If we don't understand thearchitecture of the vehicle, we
won't take it in as a contract.
So it's very, very importantthat we do know them all.
Now you know and you've been atACT there's a lot of nascent
OEMs Really really challengingto have a team that can
understand everything from aTesla to an e-transit, to a XO's
lightning systems, c electricand you name it all the way up
(15:06):
to the Volvo and Daimler leveland everything in between.
The good news is, ev is notvery complicated.
A lot of the componentry issimilar.
So our team is very, very fluidin understanding the
architecture of the vehicle, howto repair them, how to
troubleshoot them, and we alsodo warranty work for most of
these OEMs as well.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Well, and that leads into my next question, right,
Because I was going to say whenyou started to respond to that,
if we want to make sure that weare 100% up to speed on the
equipment and that we areconfident, and but the question
of how is it that you knowBollinger has a new CEO now?
I had no idea that was coming.
(16:14):
So, all of this stuff, how doyou keep on top of that?
How are you growing thebusiness?
And what is next after you know, after LAX, for example.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
So really good questions.
You know, first of all, westarted this business about
three years ago and three yearsago, as you can imagine, there
was no Volvo VNR, there was noE-Cascadia.
We had to deal with thenascents.
Now I'm a glutton forpunishment, joe.
I wanted to understand thebusiness.
So what did I do?
I dove into the mostcomplicated city.
I went into LA, went rightaround LAX and what I did is I
immersed myself in this.
(16:45):
So what happened is by dealingwith a lot of the nascent OEMs.
That's why I could confidentlyturn to you and say most of the
componentry on this stuff isfairly similar, a little bit of
different flavors here and there.
But what's great about EV andthe promise is that there's not
a lot of complicated, there'snot a lot of moving parts.
You know you've got 20,000moving parts in an ICE.
You've got far less.
You've got 5% or less of thatin an EV.
(17:07):
So what happens is when youconcentrate on those main
components, that helps usunderstand the architecture of
just about every vehicle.
So, because we now have theconfidence, what we actually
focus on is when an OEM comes in, what's the interoperability of
the charging, because theservice and maintenance piece is
not overly complicated.
The growth for us and what'snext is now we're getting
(17:27):
finally some good OEMs that arecoughing up some good product.
So, to your point, you're nowstarting to see some real good
names that are recognizablestepping up with some good
products.
That makes us happy as well.
You know we're technologyagnostic in the way that we
approach this, because I don'tknow what the best charger is.
I don't know what the besttruck is, but we're testing them
more than anybody else outthere.
(17:47):
Now you're not finding us onNACFI and a lot of these other
reporting agencies, for a verygood reason.
We want to turn around to ourcustomer and understand that we
have the IP and theunderstanding of what kind of
vehicle should you use, whatkind of charger.
So we favor ABB.
Why?
We did 75,000 charge sessions,Joe, in about 18 months.
So that's a lot.
(18:09):
Everybody wants to beat up onABB.
That's a lot of performance.
Our uptime is over 99%.
That's the kind of work thatwe're doing and we want to make
sure that that reverberatesthroughout the marketplace.
So the future for us is goodsolid partnerships going into
the OEMs, helping in the earlydays, have them understand what
customers are asking us to doand then frankly keep them all
(18:30):
honest my feeling and I'm a bigtime patriot, of course,
american patriot what frustratesme is to see that the product
we sell here is too expensiveand it's lagging innovation
across the country.
So I very much look at us ascutting edge, pushing technology
both on the charging end and,of course, on the OEM side, but
where we complete the entireprocess is bringing in fleet
(18:52):
management.
Without three of those majorcomponents, in my opinion you
have a failing offering.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, and I couldn't agree with you more.
One of the things we talk aboutis that there's two aspects of
sustainability, right, or twodifferent types of
sustainability Number one, whichis sustainability of the planet
, sustainability of resources,sustainability of in an
ecological or environmentalsense, and the other flip side
of that is sustainability interms of doing business.
(19:19):
Can we continue to do businessif not necessarily in the manner
that we're used to, in thevolume and quantity and to the
quality that we're used to?
And that comment of without thefleet management aspect,
without that maintenance aspect,you really can't do that.
I think that's absolutely true.
How do you impress that upon afleet customer who is used to
(19:43):
just operating diesel trucks andbringing them in and out, and
like sending them to the dealeronce every five or six months
and 50,000 hours they get a newone.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
What's great is, you know we're not.
So we're not trying to sellelectric trucks, right?
What we're trying to do iswe're trying to explain that
we're going to help them in thistransition phase.
So what ends up happening iswe're very educational with our
fleets.
When we first started thebusiness, we literally didn't
make one single saleintentionally for five years.
We wanted to educate ourselves,so we wanted to have knowledge.
Most of the fleets, if not 95%plus, have understood us to be
(20:17):
consultants who reallyunderstand the charging, the
vehicles and that transportation, that fleet management piece.
I think that's how we're knownin the industry, joe, and we've
built our reputation that way.
So then, that way theyunderstand like I'm not going to
drive a product down yourthroat because I'm trying to
make a sale.
I want to make sure it's rightand what I want to do is deliver
to those fleets that you coulddo this in an electric truck at
(20:39):
the price, or below the price ofa diesel and that it actually
works and it's actuallysomething that they should
double or triple down on.
The biggest problem in theindustry is utilization.
Without utilization, we have togo to incentives.
Zim has a lot of utilization.
So the one thing that I getfrustrated about Joe we spoke
about this in Vegas at ACT isthe price of the truck needs to
(21:00):
come down.
We have figured outinfrastructure.
We figured out how to put it inthe ground, operate it in a way
that it's very low cost andreally super efficient.
It's the price of the truckthat screws everything up.
Electrification is ready, right.
So we're very much out thereeducating fleets, letting them
know we understand it's scary,but if you're educated and you
have somebody holding your handwhich is what Zene does will
(21:21):
hold your hand through theprocess In the next three to
five years technology gets muchbetter.
They're going to be able tohandle it going forward.
But today there's handoff andthat handoff is something that
we're a third party.
So why would we pick a charger?
Because it works.
Why would we pick a truck?
Because it works and ourbusiness model is pretty
straightforward the chargerdoesn't work.
We don't get paid If the truckdoesn't start.
It's tethered to that charger.
(21:43):
So the fleet is motivated touse us because they realize, hey
, you make money from that.
So they're highly motivated towork with us in a partnership.
And I think that's why the OEMsappreciate us, because we're
helping them sell trucks.
We're helping them sellchargers.
I think it's important.
It's early days and while it'searly days, it's important to be
educational.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Well, I agree with you a hundred percent and I
think also there's anotheraspect to this that needs to be
mentioned, which is the concernabout downtime, or rather uptime
, and people asking aboutwhether or not the uptime of EVs
is comparable to diesel.
And they look at that chargingtime, that charging cycle is
downtime.
I can't tell you how manyfleets I talked to here in the
(22:23):
Midwest that they've got their.
And not to pick on Mac, becauseI'm a huge fan of Mac and to
actually just help putsomebody's spec out in order for
a Mac Granite, so I can, so Ican speak to that fairly.
You know they're in scenariosnow where some of these parts
that are on back order on backorder for six to eight weeks.
So the type of uptime thatpeople are used to getting out
(22:46):
of diesel, historically, that isgetting longer and longer
because a lot of theelectrification and, to your
point, a lot of those movingparts that are now computer
controlled have their ownBluetooth connection or CAN bus
connection.
They are getting infinitely morecomplex and getting harder and
harder to maintain, while EVsare getting easier to maintain.
Are you able to back that upwith case studies when you're
(23:10):
talking to a fleet manager,because I think you know Ryder.
Earlier this year, ryder Truckssent out a report talking about
how EVs actually cost quite abit more than diesel operations
and if you knew what you werelooking at, you understood that,
hey, ryder bought this thingand treated it just like a
diesel and it didn't work.
You have to use you know youhave to use a screwdriver like a
(23:30):
diesel, and it didn't work.
You have to use a screwdriverlike a screwdriver and a hammer
like a hammer, and these twotools are different things.
But do you have the kind ofcase studies and the kind of
reporting and hard data thatthese fleet managers want to see
to answer their questions abouthow this all pencils out
compared to diesel?
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah, I'm very, very happy to tell you yes, very much
.
So what it comes down to.
When I saw that rider report,the first thing I said to myself
is you don't have a charger andyou don't operate a charging
hub.
What happens is that data wasincorrect.
We could show you data that weoperate class A trucks for the
last two years plus.
They're completely wrong.
Right, the answer is very muchfor us.
(24:09):
That's why, like I commentedearlier, we don't go out to the
NAC fees and other reportingagencies that want to see this,
the RMIs, and they want to sortof-.
Why would you?
That's your competitiveadvantage.
We love it because we come backand, joe, we realize, like,
what works, what doesn't work.
So we're not motivated to pushone product or the other.
We don't get commissioned on it.
What we do is we go out andtell ABB, as an example we want
(24:34):
you to be the best chargingcompany.
If you're not, we're not goingto buy your product going
forward.
And, by the way, if somebodyasks us what charger they should
use, we're going to show thatinformation.
I know that sounds very basic,but that's important.
You need to have thatrelationship and you need to
know that you have thecounterparties that realize how
important it is for you.
Whether it's a charger, whetherit's a vehicle, the difference
as a service is that we'recoming in and realizing that
(24:56):
it's long lead items for diesel.
So what do we do?
I mentioned to you that everytruck that comes on the lot, we
need to make sure we speak tothe OEM and understand their
process.
What is great?
We come in and say, hey, we'veinspected this truck, we're just
seeing right, but we think thisdoor handle is going to break.
You need to send us 20 of themin inventory.
We think you need to give uswire harnessing and so on and so
forth.
They think we're nuts in thebeginning.
(25:16):
Then what happens is stuffstarts to break and when it does
exactly what you're talkingabout, comes up and then we
hammer on the OEM and say you'regiving us inventory.
As an example, abb would be agreat example.
Everybody complains about ABBand that if a charger goes down
it takes forever to get repairedDepends on how you run your
(25:38):
business, not for us.
We have parts and consignment.
My team is trained to work onan ABB charger.
So my point is you have to havea holistic solution.
If you're gonna do EV bring inEV people?
So, inder, you nailed it right.
You've got diesel mechanicsworking on EV stuff trying to
figure things out, so hours arespent that are unnecessary, a
lot of the troubleshooting stuff, the TCOs out of our spot.
(26:01):
Maintenance costs are more thanhalf of what they are in diesel
more than half and it's becauseevery day we nurture that
vehicle and you nailed it on thecharging side I don't know how
to charge, when to charge.
Interoperability is so key.
Those are all factors thatreally play into EV that the
traditional diesel guys are notgoing to know, and I don't blame
them right, this is all we eat,sleep and drink.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
You can't know everything.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
You can't have one guy know it all right, that's
right, and I can tell you thatwhy I admire Tesla.
Tesla does nothing else but EVand that's why they're the best
at doing it For Zim.
We do nothing but focus oninfrastructure for fleets.
So if we've done nothing butobsess ourselves in that, the
same way you obsess in yourpodcasts and your journalism,
it's the same thing here.
(26:44):
We look, it's all I eat, sleepand drink, and do so 24-7, 365,.
Fleets know that and theyrealize here's a transition.
Here's a group that's helpingme bridge that.
But, most importantly, we'retaking risk operationally and
financial risk on the assetswhen we're doing what we're
doing 100%.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
There's two things that I wanted to bring up here,
and because you said it, I don'twant this to sound like a
gotcha thing.
I'm not Barbara Walters, I'mnot here to make anybody cry.
We want more electrification,so we want you guys to succeed.
So, that said, we talked aboutthe importance of
interoperability, and then webring up Tesla, which, yes, they
are the best.
They eat, live and breathe EVs.
(27:22):
We would not be talking aboutEVs today if it was not for
Tesla Credit, where credit isdue.
They are not typically knownfor playing well with others, so
when you see, or if you've seen, a Tesla Semi in a fleet, how
do you manage that vehicle inthat ABB kind of infrastructure?
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Really really good.
Question.
Number one ABV knows that Teslais very much in our line of
sight, so they're going to havea NAX connector for their ABV
charger, acquire a bunch ofindustrial sites.
We know how complicated andhard it is.
(28:10):
Right, I gave you insightaround how we're building at
power plants you need 750 kWjust for one of their chargers,
right, we're building at the 15megawatt 33 megawatts in New
Jersey and higher right.
So that kind of charging iswhat they need.
So I understand my opinion.
Why they haven't put out a lotof semi-trucks is because the
infrastructure is not there.
(28:31):
So they need to figure out howto partner up and figure out how
to get product in the market.
We're hoping that theyunderstand a company like Z.
We have fleets that are inorder to buy those Tesla trucks
that are saying, hey, what do Ido at my site to support that
infrastructure?
That's why I say to you they doneed to go outside of the norm
for them and say we have to lookat external partners to figure
(28:53):
this out.
So the question mark is becausenobody understands the industry
and that's why Tesla is thebest.
Do they go to Truckers America?
Do they go to Love's?
And they start to realizethat's not where the EV trucks
are.
Right, you have to go where theEV trucks are.
Guys like us, we eat, sleep anddrink it.
So, where we are similar to aTesla, we're obsessed about that
market and only that market.
We don't think about hydrogen,we don't think about ICE or CNG.
(29:15):
This is all we think about.
So for them, when they comearound to Zim, they're going to
realize you need that kind of apartnership.
So I believe that Tesla is goingto be the same way it did it
for the car industry, joe.
It's going to blow open thesemi-truck industry where
everybody realizes how can youdo that for $200,000?
, how can you get that range?
And the same way, zim onlyfocuses on infrastructure, tesla
(29:36):
builds the truck.
That's why, right, if I make adiesel and I make a great amount
of money over here, why are yougoing to go into this other
sector?
I think that there's a financialproblem there and it's not bad.
I mean, volvo's great at whatthey do, daimler's great at what
they do.
They should continue to do that.
Oil's got its place in theworld, Diesel's got its place,
so it's not being replaced.
I think that's a ridiculouscomment to say in the industry.
(29:56):
I think there's a bigaddressable market.
What does 200, 300 miles orless as the tech gets better?
That's the addressable marketthat makes sense to electrify.
That's where Zim has burden ofproof that this is how much it
costs to operate a truck likethat, and I know it's far below
the cost of a diesel.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
You mentioned this was my other Barbara Walters
gotcha from your previouscomment was that as the price of
the trucks comes down and Ithink we've seen Tesla's road
vehicles on-road vehicles overthe years passenger car vehicles
the price comes out very highand then it tends to come down
as the years.
Passenger car vehicles theprice comes out very high and
then it tends to come down asthe years go on, which is
different from most otherindustries, right, where
(30:35):
everything just gets more andmore expensive.
You are in a unique scenariobecause, in addition to seeing
that kind of breadth of productthroughout the whole industry,
you have some connectionsoverseas and we can edit this
out if you don't want to talkabout it.
But I know that you have someconnections overseas and we can
edit this out if you don't wantto talk about it.
But I know that you have someinsight into chinese evs
overseas evs that most people inthe states do not have.
(30:58):
Are you able to talk about thatat all or just give it a yes?
Speaker 4 (31:03):
absolutely.
I mean, look, joe, the onething you want to think about
with zine, right, we're makingthe market here everybody keeps
talking about.
There's a lot of like nicePowerPoints and I know the
administration likes to talkabout it as if it's done, but
it's super hard, right?
So when I come to you and I say, hey, my hurdle, like trying to
find the right truck, right, Ineed range, I need the right
price, you better believe I'mgoing to scour the planet.
(31:23):
My customers are expecting meto do that.
So China, let me just say itagain huge American patriot,
love America, would love foreverything to be sourced out of
America.
They're killing us on EV,killing us, right.
You could go out there.
You'd sit in a beautiful$20,000 electric vehicle with
300 miles of range and you'd beblown away, right.
That same exact vehicle here isdouble the price.
Just is the case, right.
(31:45):
So we knew we need to fight theterrorists to bring them in.
Because products better.
Look, american, love America,their products better.
So right now they have Chineseproduct that's coming in, fits
the bill.
It's almost the price of theother diesel and it's got the
range requirements.
They run very overweight inChina.
Europe, same thing.
They're having really goodvehicle options out there, far
better than the US.
(32:05):
What happens is there's a bitof a monopoly here, so I think
it's important to look acrossthe country.
You do that for vehicles, youdo that for the chargers, you do
that for battery storage.
The entire ecosystem is soundefined right now, joe, I'm
looking frustrated, saying Ithought we were further along.
Right, if we're not this faralong, like I'm watching Tesla
in the passenger vehicle market,what I'm saying to you, I truly
(32:26):
believe.
What I'm watching Tesla do inthe passenger vehicle market,
what I'm saying to you, I trulybelieve.
When I'm watching Tesla doingthe passenger vehicle market,
I'm watching it in slow motionin the commercial EV market, no
different.
I was internal as an investor.
I watched companies succeed andfail.
So for me, I took all theingredients and I said, okay,
what do I think is needed forfleet?
I stripped away the politics, Ieven stripped away the
incentives and said, hey, I haveno incentive.
(32:47):
Does this survive on its owntwo feet?
And I'm happy to say that theanswer was yes.
Utilization is the key.
The one area that I would sayis the biggest barrier right now
is the price of that truck.
So, yeah, I'll scour the plan.
I'll take a shot to the moon togo see what they're doing up
there, to see if that could comeback down here to earth.
Whatever it takes to make surethe customer understands the
type of options they have, I'mjust providing the service.
(33:09):
I'm going to make sure thatworks smoothly and whatever OEM
you want to use, fine, I'm goingto make sure that every day
that truck starts and that itoperates and it does the duty
it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
So we've mentioned BYD, we've mentioned Volvo,
which is a Daimler Geely project, things like that.
Geely is a Chinese brand.
There are other brands outthere that we don't have access
to.
You know, you don't sell trucks, I don't sell trucks.
There's nothing in this for youto like, endorse one or the
other.
Do you have any favorites ofwhat you've seen out there that
(33:39):
either not yet in the US or notearmarked for the US?
Speaker 4 (33:43):
You know, I've been pretty impressed with a couple
I'm just going to call themscience projects Anything that
has produced less than 500 unitsin a couple.
I'm just going to call themscience projects Anything that
has produced less than 500 unitsin a market.
Let's just be honest, it's ascience project.
I think that's fair.
Yeah, you know, there's acouple of them out there that
have been super impressive,right, you were at ACT and
Windrose came out as one of theChinese manufacturers and I
actually spoke to you aboutthose guys.
(34:03):
I went to that manufacturingfacility, scrubbed the top, the
bottom like I would.
Any OEM went to their batterypacker really impressed, really
impressed.
Right, chinese quality isusually, you know, iffy.
This here was, you know, a highquality Chinese product, right,
which means that it's prettygood standard for US product.
What I saw, I was pretty blownaway.
So that what I'm seeing is I'mseeing good engineering, I'm
(34:25):
seeing a lot of good technology.
I would say that that would beone that I'm saying is one to
watch the Tesla semi truck.
You can't compete with it.
It is the best semi truck byfar.
You can't even touch it.
Every bit of the technology,the range, the battery
efficiency, how quickly it couldbe charged, the longevity of
the batteries, all that stuffit's untouchable, right?
So I would put Tesla way up topthe others.
(34:49):
I wish I could say some positivethings.
Let me say something positive.
We've got a bunch of all thosethat are in our fleet.
They work great, they're okay.
They need to come down in price.
Daimler got to come down inyour price.
Got to come down in your price.
That's all I'm going to say.
Come down in your price.
Love it.
Customers keep coming.
Love Freightliner.
You're sending the customer theother way, like You're sending
the customer the other way Likethey don't want to buy EV, right
?
So that means that, okay, youdon't want the EV market.
(35:10):
So if you don't want the EVmarket, who wants it right?
To me, it's Tesla all day.
If I had Tesla, my entirebusiness would be utopia.
I'd be flying right.
Now.
My biggest problem is gettingtrucks right.
So I wish I can endorse others.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
The other one I would put out a nice waste management
unit that I've been seeing.
That's been crossing my path afew times in the last couple of
months.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
That's a good, solid product.
We have a couple of customersthat are big right that have
been operating that product andcoming back with very positive
feedback.
I want to endorse those thatare doing the right thing and
doing good work.
I would hope and expect FaldoDaimler.
They should be stepping up.
They should be stepping up.
That's the innovation we need.
We just had $1.7 billion nowallocated for manufacturing.
I expect American innovationand I expect people to really
(35:59):
step up here in technology.
Lower the price, right.
Let's take that number from twoand a half times the cost of a
diesel.
I would hope that our taxdollars, joe, are going to go in
to lower that cost so we couldbe competitive.
And literally what I'm about tosay I'll defend all day with
anybody in the industry.
We're in last place.
We're in last place doing this,killing us in China, killing us
(36:19):
in Europe and then other areaslike Latin America.
They're just killing us.
They're laughing at us.
What we're doing in thecapability that we have, we're
not even trying.
So I'm very frustrated as whatI would believe our company is
pioneering in this industry.
I'm very disappointed, like weneed to see a lot more happening
here.
Innovate, do what we expect youto do and if not, let's bring
in a new entrant.
(36:40):
That's why I love Tesla.
We all know what everybody saidabout Tesla when they came in.
They hated Tesla.
They thought it was absolutelywrong, thought it was ludicrous.
It's one of the biggestcompanies in the world.
The boat went by.
They missed the boat right.
Same thing is happening, in myopinion.
Like I said to you earlier,it's like watching the passenger
market in slow motion.
What Tesla did, it's happeningright now in front of me.
So I feel like it's easy for meto navigate, joe, I hate to say
(37:03):
it that way, but I feel likeit's easy for me to navigate and
that's why I make sure I drivethe way that we do at Zim, at
the port, at the airport.
Let's concentrate where it is,where it works, and then prove
that out over time and as thetech gets better, long range
will get better, cost will getbetter, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Paul, we're actually ahead of time.
Usually I do these and they'rean hour long and I got to trim
it down to 20 tight minutes, butthis was really good.
I will just simply say thankyou for being on the show.
If there's anything that youwould like to plug or promote
any websites that you'd likepeople to go check out, you know
, obviously everybody in thistree has beautiful PowerPoints.
I'm sure you've got one or twogood looking PowerPoints as well
(37:42):
.
How do people find them?
How do people keep track andfollow along with what you're
doing?
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I appreciate that, joe.
I mean the one thing I wouldsay, just overarching to your
audience EV trucks are here.
It's time now, right, the costsare getting there.
There's companies like Ziemannothers who are similar to us
that can provide this service.
It works for routes that are250 to 300 miles or less.
Let's not even talk aboutanything that's above that.
(38:06):
If we could stay in thatcategory, ev trucking and fleet
is incredibly exciting.
It's such a great growth areathat's coming.
Of course, if you're a fleettransportation company,
logistics company, you want tolook at electrification, and
right now we're one of theleaders in the world doing that,
so please reach out.
Our website is fairlyinformative cryptic for a reason
(38:28):
because we do a lot of stuffthat's important IP.
But again, ev trucks are here.
They're here to stay and costsare only going to get lower and
performance is only going to getbetter.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
And that's ZimSolutionscom.
That's not, like you know, Zimpet sitting or anything Correct.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
So ZimSolutionscom Correct.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
And that was the great american pierogi race you
say what you will, man, but yousee one of them, big old trucks
running down the road with45,000 pounds of pure midwestern
potatoey goodness and you'regonna know that you've eaten
something.
Only only a lithuanian wouldlook at a potato and go.
(39:11):
You know what that thing needsmore starch dough wrapped around
its starchy goodness that'sright, oh, man.
So you know my?
My wife is lithuanian, herfamily's from lithuania, and I I
have come to believe honestlyin my heart of hearts, the
lithuanian cuisine is thegreatest cuisine in the world.
They have this thing called aZeppolino or Zeppolini.
(39:32):
It is effectively not to beconfused with Zim.
Not to be confused with Zim,but it does sound like Zeppolini
, zimoletti.
It's potato like, basically amashed potato with cheese and
bacon in it, breaded and thendeep fried.
It looks like a football.
It's like 62 000 calories, likeyou could feel your arteries
(39:54):
hardening while you eat it.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
It's I don't know.
So let the wainians eat likethis and stay thin, because a
lot of them are thin.
I think they only get one ayear.
Oh that, that makes sense likea soviet bloc country.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
They get like.
They get like one of them infebruary, they get another one
in September.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
They airdrop the supplies for the Zima lady.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
They just hit the ground like scud missiles.
One of them goes through theroof of your Lada.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I swear to God, I thought I thought pierogies
could fly.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
As God is my witness.
I thought turkeys could fly.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Well, in all seriousness, though, I think
Paul's got a compelling product.
You know it may not work forall people and all things, but
if you've got a delivery fleetand you know you've got a fleet
of like six or eight box trucksand you know you don't want to
put in hundreds of thousands ofdollars to manage all that
infrastructure on your own, youdon't want to have to train your
guys that have been diesel guysfor 25 years.
(40:51):
Here's a simple part of that.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Organizations can no longer afford at the rate of
what everything costs to put inthe infrastructure required to
self-service every singledifferent thing that you used to
be able to do that for.
You used to be able to go buy amixed fleet and it either had a
Cummins engine in it, it had acat engine in it, and then you
(41:14):
could train your people on thatstuff and you could have all the
things at your disposal,because it was pretty much the
same brand to brand.
And occasionally somebody wouldcome into the service office
screaming because Freightlineror Kenworth or whatever tried to
use some weird door handle thatkeeps falling off.
But seriously, that's whatwould happen.
It was some one-off thing wherethey were like this is crap,
(41:36):
why are they doing this?
And then you talk to the dealerand they send you 20 of them,
right, well and I'm laughingbecause that's the exact example
that Paul gave during theinterview.
But that's my point.
You used to be able to do thaton your own level.
You can't do that anymore and Iwill.
And I have been through thisargument with many people where
(41:57):
I said, yes, you need to shop,yes, you need a place to work on
stuff, but you need to be ableto have people inside that say
I'm pulling the ripcord, get ittowed out of here, or have some
come here and fix this thing,because I got to work on this
over here.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, it just comes back to the things that one of
the things that we've beentalking about since day one on
this show, which is the ideathat we need more specialization
day after day, but we havefewer and fewer specialists
every day, which kind of blowsmy mind, because you've got a
growing population of youngpeople who are Gen Z or
(42:34):
millennials or whatever, who arecoming into the workforce and
they've got really no appetitefor not to really sound like an
old guy, but they've got noappetite for real work, for
construction work, they've gotno appetite for being an
operator driving a truck,working a machine, and it just
blows my mind that everybodykind of thinks that they're
(42:54):
going to get this six figure job.
Well, you know, if I get out ofschool and I don't like what
I'm doing, I'll just go work atPanda Express or Bucky's and
make one hundred and fiftythousand dollars a year.
It's like it don't work likethat, dude, ain't going to
happen.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
No, it doesn't work like that, and if you want to
get ahead and you, you have todo it the same way.
We've had to do it since thetime we fell off of a boat.
You have to be good atsomething, you have to be able
to succeed and you have to makeyourself worth something and not
in some crazy way, you know,getting on only fans or whatever
.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
But my point is is that you hang on, hang on, hang
on.
There's plenty of people makinglegitimate contributions to the
economy through only fansthat's true.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Well, and I will say this, on my race car there is
there is a small sponsorshiponly fan sticker on there, so
it's okay but the point is isthat my what I'm saying is is
that from the beginning of timeof this country, people realize
listen, I got to be good atsomething, or these people are
going to eat me.
Yeah, it's changed over theyears, but let me tell you, it
(43:57):
still means the same thing.
You will cease to exist in alevel that you want to.
Yeah, we need ambitious peoplein this country more than ever.
We talk about this all the time.
We talk about the lack ofdrivers, talk about the lack of
mechanics.
Everybody knows this.
So, to beat a dead horse whichhas already decayed into the
ground, we need as many peopleas possible that are focused
(44:23):
into what they want to befocused in.
But it has to be specialized,because you can no longer be a
jack of all trades.
Okay, yeah, there used to be aguy that would sell turnips and
cabbage to the british becausehe grew it on the island and
would, in the dark, move it in aboat, and the british paid him
(44:46):
handsomely for that.
The guy also was a spy andratted the british out, which is
part of the reason we have thecountry we have today.
But the point was is he was sogood at growing lettuce, cabbage
and uh, rutabagas or whateverthe hell else he could throw in
his boat at night with a lanternthat the british were
dumbfounded by it and startedpaying him tremendously.
Okay, so from the beginning ofeverything, everything circles
(45:10):
back to the same stuff over andover again.
And then you have his companywho's like listen, don't, don't
get into this whole trying torelearn everything, we're going
to handle it for you.
You pay us a fee, or you know.
And then and the other thing toois is the cost of that's not
localized them over, howevermany hundreds of trucks you have
?
He has his entire customer baseto spread out all of his costs
(45:32):
against, which makes it evenmore affordable, and he's coming
to your door if need be andtaking the truck from you.
If he has to, takes it over tohis place.
I don't know how to get anycleaner than that.
You can't.
Can't get any cleaner than that, the only way you can do it and
do it.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
The only way you could do it is to go back in
time 45 years and have that kindof idea of, like you know, hey,
I know how to make a carburetorwork, I know how to make this
work.
And where you don't have thesoftware, we don't have the
proprietary firmware update andthe special can, connectors and
everything else and all thosethings that make this product
(46:06):
better and make the work moreefficient, make it harder to
work on, make it harder to bringpeople in.
You know it's funny becausewe're talking about all this
over and over again and I thinkit's worth bringing up that for
(46:29):
the first time ever.
One right, left, center, green,libertarian, whatever the F you
think you are, if you're goingto win a national election right
now, you need labor on yourside and I think that's the key
component right there you haveto the working people of this
country.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
People of this country.
They need someone that theybelieve they can talk to, that
listens to them, regardless ofwhat side of the aisle you're on
or what ticket you're punchingor however you're using a pigeon
to send your vote in.
The working people of thiscountry need somebody that's
going to talk.
They needed administration.
It's not just a person.
Okay, right, this is the bigthing that gets everybody in
trouble when they're talkingpolitics.
It's not solely one person, itis the entire administration and
(47:18):
their focus, and whether, again, democrat, republican,
independent, you know the guyfrom Mars that comes down and
gives us some free energy, itcomes down to connecting with
people.
Yeah, and any administration?
This goes back to I mean, thisgoes back to the beginning of
the industrial revolution, whenany administration that was like
look, you have a business, youhave a purpose here, you create
(47:42):
an economic flow and we backthat.
Democrat or Republican, thosepeople have always come out on
top.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yes, that's true, but there's two parts to that.
There's always two parts to itwith you.
No stop, because supporting thebusiness is not the same as
picking a side right.
It's not as simple as picking aside.
It's not as simple as pickingthe side of capital versus labor
(48:11):
.
It's not as simple as picking aside versus corporate, versus
public welfare.
It's somebody who sits thereand let's not say somebody.
It's an administration, it's asystem that.
What did FDR used to say?
Two chickens in every pot.
Right, that's what we need here.
We need to have some scenariothat makes Two chickens in every
(48:33):
pot and then it was a car inevery driveway, car in every
driveway.
We had this idea of raising themiddle class, moving the poor
into the middle class andcreating upward mobility, and
somewhere along the line weforgot that.
And it's the same mentality ofwhen you have a pizza party at
work.
You got a group of people whogo up and say, well, I'm only
(48:54):
going to take one slice becauseI don't think they bought enough
.
And you got another group ofpeople who says I'm going to
take three slices because Idon't think they bought enough
and I want to make sure theydon't run there.
I, you know, I've never reallyobserved the gluttony at the
pizza party table.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
But that's I'm going.
Benefits look at their salariesall the way down the line.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Look at how.
That's how a lot of peoplelooked at toilet paper during
the pandemic back in March of2020.
I'm going to buy it all.
There's nothing left.
I'm going to buy it all becausethere's nothing.
Exactly right, you got guys inCostco rolling out with 20 bags
of toilet paper going well, Ihave to do this because they're
going to run out we were sostupid back then.
We're still that stupid.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
We're just doing it over others we just do it on a
different, we do it in differentways.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Now that's the problem my favorite meme to come
out of all of that was january1st 2020.
This is going to be my year.
March 20th, march 1st 2020wipes ass with stale tortilla
you know, but we have to havethis.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
This country has to have an administration that
understands what we need.
We're at a weird like I saidearlier.
We're at a weird crossroadswith technology.
We're at a weird crossroadswith the available resources
that we actually have not dreamtup, not some other country's
resources.
It's going to give us somethingthat we think we can get actual
(50:38):
available resources knowledgeand technology.
And knowledge is different fromtechnology.
People get all weird about that, but human knowledge and their
ability to understand and dothings.
That leads us over and over andover again into the next realm.
And you have to have morecompanies like zine, where they
(50:59):
do?
Speaker 1 (50:59):
they haven't sponsored us, so don't give it
too much credit right, but butwe have to have more companies
like them and yes not not to add.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
I don't mean competitiveness, and they're in
their space.
I'm saying like their ideal.
Yes, come out and take care ofyour problems on the exact,
specific part of your fleet thatyou have there's a bunch of
holes that need to be filled.
I don't know how we're going todo it, but the industry as a
whole has to take care of it.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Yeah we could do it.
We could be the heavy equipmentlogistics providers, we could
be the help cats.
Oh, we could, we could you know?
Speaker 2 (51:33):
actually there used to be a PBS program and then
they would call in to John Deereand these guys would talk about
that.
We talked about this on anotherepisode.
We could do that.
We could have the help deskyeah, the help desk and some guy
calls.
He's like I got this flashinglight and I'm on the side of 75
down here in Atlanta.
I don't know where the hell.
(51:53):
I'm at this is horrible, andthen you just talk him through
it.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Well, that'd be a full-time job for Neil.
He'd sit there and be like hangon.
I've got the Chilton manual,for that Leans over on page 417.
Binders that he just flips overhe asked the guy hey, where are
you?
I'm not really sure.
I'm on the side of the roadhere your gps.
Yeah, get your gps.
Give me the lat long on that.
(52:19):
We'll have this thing dronedrop to you in the next 20
minutes oh, some of these guys,though.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
They take the drone with them, they just keep it in
the bunk, capture it.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
We're flying around, yeah amazon is gonna start
delivering stuff with the, withthe drone.
That's good, that's just skeetshooting with prizes.
Man, it's over.
It didn't last long.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
It was a great idea that stuff would just get
dropped off because we didn'thave enough people to do it, but
actually the people were likeno, you're not going to fly
around.
I don't understand how peopleallow them to open their garage
door with the Amazon key and gointo their homes.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
There are places where that's cool but come on, I
don't even like it when theneighbor kids eat my cinnamon
toast crunch.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
And I'm not saying that Amazon isn't trustworthy.
What I'm saying is that youhave the human element.
The guy leaves the door open.
Something happens, the cat runsout.
You, you have the human element.
The guy leaves the door open.
Something happens, the cat runsout.
You don't realize it Gets ranover by the school bus and
Johnny Sue is out there justfreaking out crying.
It's a bad idea.
Don't open people's things.
Leave it.
We're one step away from thestuff not being boxed and then
(53:23):
some giant toy gets dropped offon the front lawn.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
With that a word from Chase and Sanborn.
Thank you, Patty.
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session in a very nice way byhaving a very tasty cup of Chase
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You can tell the second youopen the jar.
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(53:54):
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