Latest / Energy Empire / 500 Miles on a Charge: Is This the End of the Diesel Semi?

Transcript

500 Miles on a Charge: Is This the End of the Diesel Semi? · Energy Empire

0:00
This one trucking company, you know they own 10s of thousands
0:03
of diesels. There is a wait list of people
0:07
that drive for that company that want to get into the electric.
0:10
Once truckers actually drive these vehicles, they really
0:15
enjoy the experience. It is quiet, there is no fumes
0:18
and there are no vibrations. So the actual experience itself
0:22
is really trucker friendly. Hi, my name is Jigger Shaw and
0:32
I'm a clean energy entrepreneur. And I'm Jamie Nolan, a clean
0:35
energy communications consultant.
0:36
And this is Energy Empire. Hey Jigger, how's it going?
0:40
It's going really well. My son just got a new stripe on
0:46
his belt for Taekwondo, so he's super excited.
0:51
And so, you know, always like he always loves progress.
0:54
And then yesterday we did trivia night and we were like second to
0:59
last place. But then they had this bonus
1:02
question of how many dimples are on a golf ball?
1:05
And I happen to know. And so we got 10 bonus points
1:10
and so we got first place. Oh my God, first of all,
1:13
congratulations. What an achievement.
1:15
But how many dimples are on a golf ball?
1:18
336 and. Standard that is some like
1:22
random trivia. I also had a fun children's
1:26
activities weekend, but my daughter is an Irish dancer and
1:30
she performs all over the region, like with her dance
1:33
troupe, and I am really enjoying it.
1:36
This is her first year performing and I'm enjoying it
1:39
because I get to go to all these parties in these school venues.
1:42
I did not expect that this was going to be a perk of being in a
1:45
dance mom, but I got to go to a very fancy fundraiser at the
1:50
Army Navy Country Club this weekend and it's beautiful and
1:55
there's like a gorgeous view of the Washington Monument, the Air
1:58
Force Memorial. And so I think that I'm going to
2:00
enjoy this career of dance momming and touring all the
2:04
fancy galas of the Washington DC region.
2:07
So all that said, if you are having a fancy party in the
2:10
Washington DC region and you would like some adorable Irish
2:13
dancers to join you for your entertainment, please reach out.
2:18
OK, so we found out about your ice skating prowess and now your
2:25
daughter. Is it Riverdance?
2:28
It is, it is exactly like Riverdance and it's it's so fun.
2:32
It's like it's very percussive. It's so I just, it's I'm so
2:36
happy that the thing that she decided that she was really into
2:40
is something that I also personally enjoy.
2:42
They've done private parties, Irish pubs all over the area.
2:46
So there are some benefits. I'm not going to lie.
2:49
Like you walk in and they're like your dance mom.
2:51
Here's your. Well, we have our friend Adam
2:56
Browning coming on. You and I met him through his
3:00
extraordinary service through Volt Solar, where he grew that
3:02
organization into quite an influential juggernaut
3:07
nationwide. Now he's working in trucking.
3:12
Yes, I was very excited about this episode.
3:15
First of all, I have to point out that this was really
3:17
interesting because, you know, I do public relations, I do media
3:21
relations. I know a lot of energy
3:25
reporters, to put it very lightly, and I pitch people.
3:28
That's like a big part of my job.
3:29
And now that I'm sitting in this seat at Energy Empire, I'm
3:33
getting pitched. And so Adam reached out to me.
3:38
I knew he had worked over, he had moved over to working on
3:41
freight, which is an issue that we like, a sector that we kind
3:45
of touched upon at LPO, but we didn't really get to do much
3:48
with. So I admit I don't know a lot
3:50
about it. And so after Adam reached out to
3:53
me, I asked my dad about this because he retrained a couple of
3:59
years ago after a career as a maritime electrician and
4:03
mechanic. He, he just couldn't physically
4:06
do it anymore. It's really, really hard on your
4:08
body. And now that he's in his 60s, he
4:10
didn't feel ready to retire, but he wanted to do something else.
4:13
So the state of Maryland actually paid to have him
4:16
retrained for his commercial driving license.
4:19
So he is now driving long haul trucks, refrigerated trucks from
4:24
Delaware on the Delmarva Peninsula all across the
4:27
country, like to Illinois is a is that's a regular run that he
4:31
does to Illinois and back. And so I have learned more about
4:35
trucking just in like hearing my dad's stories and such.
4:37
So when Adam reached out about this, I kind of latched onto it
4:42
and took it to my dad and was like, hey, what do you think
4:45
about this? And literally the morning of the
4:47
recording, he was like texting me furiously, like with his
4:50
questions and the topics he wanted addressed.
4:53
So I'm really excited for my dad, who is probably sitting in
4:57
his truck right now listening to this episode, to hear our
4:59
conversation. This episode is supported by S2G
5:09
Investments. If you've been listening to me,
5:12
you know that I'm done talking about R&D.
5:15
We have the technology. The real question is can we
5:19
deploy it at scale? When I joined Sanjeev Krishnan
5:23
on the S2G podcast, we skipped the hype and talked about what
5:27
actually matters, affordability, fit for purpose, capital and
5:32
getting real infrastructure built.
5:34
S2G Investments is one of the only firms who brings that same
5:39
deployment first mindset to energy, agriculture, and the
5:44
oceans, connecting the dots across the real economy.
5:49
Listen to the S2G Podcast on your favorite podcast app now
5:54
and start with my episode on energy affordability.
6:04
Hi, Adam Browning, welcome to Energy Empire.
6:07
Thank you for having me here. I'm I'm.
6:10
I'm excited for this. I want to start some more
6:12
personal. My dad is a trucker actually.
6:15
After a long career as a maritime electrician and
6:18
mechanic, he retrained for a second career in trucking and
6:22
he's absolutely loving it. He's open to new technologies
6:27
but electrifying semi truck sounds super far fetched to him.
6:31
So when did the stop being so far fetched?
6:34
I mean, you know, it is all really new and in in that I
6:39
think there's an excitement to that as well.
6:41
Like I enjoy the beginnings of things.
6:44
But you know, I agree with the there's a lot of truckers who
6:49
look at this and they are skeptical and the technology's
6:54
evolving rapidly. But let me just share an
6:56
anecdote. We've got a depot where we have
7:00
12 different motor carriers that operate out of there.
7:03
It's inside the port of Long Beach and they range in size
7:06
from a guy with the truck to one of the largest trucking
7:10
companies in the world operating Amazon trucks and this one
7:17
trucking company you know they own 10s of.
7:19
Thousands of diesels. There is a wait list of people
7:23
that drive for that company that want to get into the electric.
7:27
Once truckers actually drive these vehicles, they really
7:31
enjoy the experience. It is quiet, there is no fumes,
7:35
there are no vibrations. 1 pedal driving is a lot easier on the
7:39
entire body than like clutching through rush hour traffic on the
7:44
Harbor Freeway. So.
7:45
The actual experience itself is really trucker friendly.
7:50
Well, that's awesome. And I feel like you just did one
7:53
of the things that I trained my clients to do, which is you just
7:56
hit all the headlines. You just hit all the key points
7:59
in that opening statement. So I'm looking forward to
8:02
digging into more on all of those points.
8:05
But let's kind of go back to the beginning of your career because
8:08
you've had kind of a storied career in energy and
8:11
environment. And Jagger and I have both known
8:13
you for a really long time because we all worked in solar.
8:17
You, you worked on mercury emissions at the EPA.
8:20
Well, So what pulled you towards freight for your next act?
8:24
You know, I've never had like a blueprint for how I wanted my
8:28
career to go. Maybe similar to to you guys as
8:31
well. For me, it was like truly just
8:34
the, the next interesting thing after another.
8:36
But after 20 years in solar, it was awesome.
8:40
It was the ride of my life and I was a little burnt out.
8:44
And when I ended up stepping down from my last job, I had a
8:48
lot of people reach out and I started consulting.
8:51
And what really grabbed me, I, I joined a board of this company
8:56
that I'm now working with working at for mobility.
8:59
What really grabbed me really like the beginnings of things,
9:03
things that we know we need that don't yet really exist.
9:06
Like that to me is, is the fun part of the ride.
9:11
And so for me, I'm now invested like I've spent enough time
9:15
really digging in to seeing how this, you know, really crucial
9:20
part of our economy, the lifeblood of our economy can be
9:23
fundamentally transformed and bettered for the experience of
9:27
everybody involved by deploying advanced.
9:29
Technology, and I'm in it to win it right now.
9:33
All right, Adam, let's just set the scene for listeners.
9:36
I think that when you look at electric vehicles, the legacy
9:40
automakers had years of warnings that EVs were coming, right?
9:43
There were all these EV mandates in the state of California, but
9:47
they really didn't move fast enough, right?
9:49
And eventually Tesla was formed and Elon invested in Tesla and
9:54
then took it over. And and, you know, and then the
9:57
legacy automakers had to scramble to catch up, right?
10:00
Is that the movie we're now watching and trucking?
10:03
Because you know, when I was at the loan programs office last
10:06
four years, we kept going after all the legacy truck makers and
10:11
saying, hey, we're happy to give you a loan to make trucks here
10:14
in the United States. And they kept dragging their
10:16
feet and dragging their feet. So I just wanted to get your
10:19
take on the dynamics here. Yeah, I would say the movie
10:25
seems pretty similar though. You know at form ability what we
10:29
do is we build truck charging depots and then provide to motor
10:33
carriers the trucking companies charging or we'll lease them a
10:39
truck and give them a truck plus charging together.
10:41
So we we own and lease out and our customers own a lot of all
10:46
those Daimler E Cascadias Byds and they're working great.
10:52
So our depot inside the Port of Long Beach now just passed.
10:57
Our customers have passed just their two millionth mile.
11:00
Of 0 emission freight going from the Port of Long Beach out to
11:04
distribution centers with those containers so you know those
11:09
that current iteration of truck that we're.
11:12
Working with like it works great.
11:15
The question though is can it really scale?
11:17
And those trucks have been really expensive and the prices
11:21
have been going more up than down the Tesla Semi, which Tesla
11:27
is now. Building that factory.
11:30
Finishing that factory out in Sparks, NV, it is a different
11:35
beast. It is a 500 mile truck versus
11:39
the two 5225 mile range that we've seen with some of the
11:45
current legacy versions from the other OEMs and it charges about
11:50
four times faster on an MCS charging standard.
11:54
It is more efficient in terms of its ability to turn electron
11:59
into a mile and it's radically cheaper.
12:02
So twice the range, nearly half the cost.
12:06
So right now that is all our customers are buying, almost
12:10
all. They are mostly just putting in
12:12
orders for the Tesla Semi. So that 500 mile truck just
12:18
radically changes the use cases that you can deploy a truck into
12:22
as well. So we had been focused and a lot
12:24
of the policy makers had focused on pork drainage.
12:27
So when a ship comes in, it's got all those containers on it.
12:30
You needed to get it out. It is hub and spoke.
12:33
So the you are going from, you know, the same place every
12:37
morning and you're just going back and forth to distribution
12:40
centers. Great application for a more
12:43
limited range truck and again the the legacy.
12:46
Trucks that we have, those are that's working great with the
12:51
Tesla Semi, like we have a great customer.
12:54
She says 60% of her business is that local drage.
12:59
So they're going from the Port of Los Angeles to Port of Long
13:02
Beach out to Carson. You know S South Central.
13:08
Los Angeles and then all the way out to the Inland Empire.
13:11
But 40% of her business, she goes with the container directly
13:15
to Phoenix, with the container directly all the way out to Las
13:17
Vegas and again with the Tesla Semi like those kind of ranges
13:22
that next, that next ring is eminently doable.
13:27
So we are now building charging out in in Las Vegas, We're
13:32
developing depots in Phoenix as well.
13:36
So that is why in our mind the performance, the cost, the
13:43
operational capabilities, just it is a step change in, in, in
13:48
the advance of 0 emission freight.
13:50
I mean, everyone loves to hate Elon, but then he pulls
13:54
something like this out and you're like, I'd, I'd rather he
13:57
be on our side. Like I think it's just one of
14:00
those things. Like it's just, it's, it's, it's
14:03
the craziness. But but the heavy duty trucks
14:06
don't use standard sort of 150 kilowatt or 350 kilowatt fast
14:11
charging, right? I mean, these are sort of MW
14:14
scale charging, is that right? No, I mean, right now my Hyundai
14:19
Ionic 5 charges faster than the trucks that we have operating
14:23
in, in Long Beach. So those are on your standard
14:27
CCS. We've got dual port three 60s
14:30
out there and so you can get a maximum of 360.
14:34
But that's why this next step to the MCS charging is so
14:38
meaningful. Like you know that is a good,
14:41
you know they're pumping a 1200 kilowatts through there and that
14:45
is just radically faster. And so it starts to change a lot
14:48
where you are now looking something that's much closer to
14:52
a gas station model. That's great.
14:54
And so when you think about what you're doing, so you're taking
14:57
drayage ports and you're like, you know, doing the short haul
15:00
there and now you're going to the next ring right out to
15:03
Phoenix, etcetera. It still seems to me though,
15:06
that the, that, the, that what you're looking at is 10% of the
15:11
class 8 truck market, right? Like we're not instantly saying
15:15
that there's a national build out like that every single route
15:19
and every single place in the country is like is fair game for
15:22
EV trucking, right? It feels like it's more hub and
15:26
spoke right because the charging infrastructure is expensive.
15:29
You want to make sure that those chargers are used a lot, right?
15:33
Is that, is that, is that right? Am I getting that right?
15:37
I think you're absolutely getting that right.
15:39
And so I will also say there is a ton of freight that gets moved
15:44
in these shorter distances. So it's not just that first mile
15:48
from, you know, port out to the distribution center, it's also.
15:51
There's plenty of, you know, middle mile, but then also the
15:55
the the last mile, your regional distribution so that your local
15:59
Safeway, you know, they have a distribution center and there is
16:02
a truck that goes in loads up enough for eight store delivery
16:07
or so as they go about their day, you'll see them those class
16:10
8 trucks day caps idling out in front of you as you're walking
16:14
through the fumes and they're unloading.
16:17
That could very well be like those are 203 hundred 350 mile
16:22
daily deliveries that could and should also be done on 0
16:27
emission. Let's go back to the analogy of
16:29
like. Solar days, you know, we started
16:31
out with rooftop. Why?
16:33
Well, costs were expensive. So, you know, competing against
16:38
a retail price versus a wholesale price put you in the
16:41
money much sooner. And you also had a customer base
16:47
that was willing to, you know, make those purchases to build
16:50
scale, to bring down costs, and then eventually you brought it
16:53
into the wholesale. So, you know, not to make
16:56
everything about a solar analogy, but there is a absolute
16:59
perfect sort of, you know, you don't start with like this
17:05
solution has to work for Everything Everywhere, all the
17:07
time, everybody. You fit the application, you fit
17:11
the technology, you fit the application where it needs until
17:14
you build the technology, build the business models, that's
17:18
going to take it the the next step.
17:20
Yeah, but let's let's dig in a little bit more on solar.
17:23
Like when you think about, you know, a lot of solar
17:25
manufacturing was sort of invented here in the United
17:27
States. It's clearly been dominated by
17:29
the Chinese. Tesla, I think played a huge
17:32
role in in getting the first generation car out the door.
17:37
It's now being dominated by the Chinese.
17:39
I think 55% of heavy duty truck sales in China last year were 0
17:44
emission, mostly electric. And so I mean, what's your sense
17:49
around US truck manufacturing and whether we should be
17:52
worried? Yeah, that China figure that was
17:55
December, but I think like over the years around 30%
17:59
nonetheless, yes, I think, you know, manufacturing of advanced
18:03
technology in the US is. At an existential state and we
18:07
should be investing in and building upon the advanced
18:12
technologies of the future and we're not doing enough in that.
18:16
So I would, you know, the other legacy OEMs, like they're
18:24
awesome people, awesome trucks and they're also global
18:28
manufacturers. So you know Volvo and Daimler,
18:32
they have an MCS truck. That they sell in Europe, they
18:36
don't have it yet in the United States and I cannot explain why
18:38
that is. So I do think and I would like
18:43
to see Tesla needs competition. We need to see, I see this as a
18:48
cataclysmic sort of catalystic call to arms for the other OEMs
18:54
to lift up their game and bring a better product, to build a
18:58
better product here in the US as well.
19:00
I have faith that over the arc of, you know, our lifetimes,
19:06
that will be the case. But we are still in the let's
19:10
get our shit together phase of like Tesla has got a vastly
19:16
different product right now. It's time for everybody else to
19:19
level up. I would also say, you know, it
19:23
is interesting here, you know, internationally both when you
19:26
look at light duty and when you look at heavy duty, the
19:32
international sort of export market is largely now being
19:40
electric. So Ethiopia 2 years ago banned
19:45
the import of internal combustion engine vehicles, and
19:49
they are now building on like their freeways.
19:52
They're building large truck charging depots every 10 miles,
19:55
and they're importing trucks from China that are able to.
20:00
They've got plenty of like hydropower at really low cost.
20:05
And they are going to be inured to the craziness that's going on
20:10
in the Middle East and the Straits of Hormuz right now.
20:13
To a larger extent because they are not going to be depending
20:16
upon. Fossil fuel imports and this
20:19
shift to a electric 0 emission future is going to be driven not
20:27
just on the economics, but on sort of geopolitical concerns as
20:33
well. And, you know, I think that the
20:37
US needs to skate. To where the puck already is,
20:40
not even where it's going to be and, and scale up.
20:43
I do think actually our, a lot of our legacy OEMs, you talk,
20:47
you hear the CEO of Ford talk about how you know, the majority
20:52
of their dealerships aren't in the United States and the rest
20:56
of the world is clearly going electric.
20:59
So they're now talking to partnerships with Chinese
21:01
companies after their massive write downs with the
21:05
cancellation of the IRA. Definitely it's a missed
21:09
opportunity. I don't know yet if it's a lost
21:11
cause, but this is where I think that our internal manufacturing
21:16
capability and expertise desperately needs to go because
21:19
this is where the world's going. So one thing I'm curious about,
21:22
Adam, is particularly in drayage and like ports, when I worked at
21:26
the car Memoriam, one of the things that we found was the
21:29
health impacts from diesel at the ports made it, you know, 10
21:32
times worse in terms of health impacts to live next to a port.
21:36
You know, I, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is for a
21:38
listener who's never thought about freight in their life, why
21:40
should they care whether their truck delivering their Amazon
21:43
package runs on diesel or electricity?
21:45
Like what's the version of the story that you find that
21:47
actually lands with people? Yeah, I mean, you know, I never.
21:54
Tell someone exactly why they should care about something and
21:57
let them bring their own issue to it.
21:58
And I think there is here a range of those issues.
22:01
You know, if you are, it is true that the concentration of diesel
22:05
emissions, especially in some of these more freight concentrated
22:09
heavy locations like out of port are really horrible.
22:14
And if you live right next to one of the busier ports and
22:18
you've got all those diesel trucks going by, you know the
22:20
impacts on your life expectancy are measurable and unacceptable.
22:26
And so we have great partnerships with the ports who
22:30
are really trying to walk the walk and drive the drive on
22:37
being much better neighbors to the port communities by helping
22:40
to make this transition away from diesel to 0 emission.
22:44
I would also say, you know, we can't solve for climate without
22:48
solving for freight globally. You know, and that's part of my
22:52
big motivation is solving for climate.
22:54
It is somewhat 7% of total global climate emissions are
22:59
involved with freight. We need to figure this out.
23:01
This is often thought of as a hard to abate sector.
23:04
I can tell you it may be hard, but it is also doable.
23:07
And so let's do it. I would then finally say that
23:10
like. It does need to benefit
23:14
everybody in order to be really a durable long term solution.
23:17
And I think the deployment of advanced tech is going to not
23:21
only result in lower costs for the truck companies, but then
23:25
also for anybody that enjoys products delivered by a truck,
23:30
which is everybody. So this isn't only going to be a
23:34
cleaner system, this will also be a lower cost system.
23:39
We could go on and talk about, you know, geopolitical
23:41
resiliency, but there's a not just any one reason, there's a
23:47
lot of reasons and you pick yours, whatever motivates you
23:50
the most. All right, We've been expecting
23:53
volumes of trucks coming out of Tesla for a long time.
23:57
We've been promised them right now like there was a recent spat
24:01
of you know, like tweets and and announcements that came out.
24:05
I think everyone is now expecting that 2026 will be the
24:09
year. What is your over under on
24:12
whether we're going to get to meaningful deployments or
24:16
deliveries, I guess you'd call it, of Tesla Semis in the year
24:19
of 2026? I mean, I will definitely take
24:25
the over on this so. You're going to eat your trucker
24:28
hat if if you don't get your your deployment, your your
24:33
delivery. I have a lot of trucker hats.
24:36
On the side of the hair, so if I eat one I won't miss a thing.
24:39
But more to the point, like, I don't know, I can't speak for
24:42
Tesla. What I can say is that I was at
24:45
the factory and Sparks, Nevada Friday and we as a company have
24:52
been taking motor carriers, the trucking companies out to see
24:55
for themselves and it is an enormous facility right by that
25:00
initial Giga factory. It is equivalent of 30 football
25:04
fields under 1. Roof it is, they say, that they
25:09
will have an eventual production capacity of 50,000 units a year.
25:13
And walking through the incredible amount of machinery
25:16
and technology that is installed in that place, yeah, that that
25:20
IT jobs, you feel it. Now they've run a couple.
25:25
They've announced that on Twitter as well.
25:27
They have a couple of fully assembled vehicles that they've
25:29
run through. They are fine tuning the
25:32
production lines. They are having deep
25:34
conversations with the various robots.
25:37
They are, you know, there's, there's a what?
25:40
Kind of deep conversations are they having with robots.
25:44
Work harder. It's just to say that, you know,
25:48
and there's a lot of tune up like they have installing the
25:51
stuff. There's a lot of tune up that
25:53
then goes on. And so yeah, it, it's going to
25:58
happen. Like will it happen this week,
26:00
this month, next week, next month?
26:03
It will happen within a relevantly doable time frame
26:08
because you know, all the materials they are, it is just
26:11
the, the, the fine tuning left to go.
26:15
And so you know, we have again, we, we don't speak for Tesla,
26:19
They are going to do what they do.
26:20
What we have done is we have brought a lot of motor carriers
26:24
who are of interest that have the same concerns to the factory
26:28
themselves. Let them make their decisions
26:30
and they have put in orders for hundreds of them our customers
26:36
have bring. Advised that their delivery date
26:38
will be late summer, early fall, last quarter.
26:43
Depending upon when they order, how many the order, whether they
26:46
order the standard range or the long range.
26:50
Some folks want the shorter range, the the 300 mile truck
26:53
because it's lighter and that makes a difference.
26:54
And if they don't need 500 mile, they'll go with the 300 mile.
26:58
It's also got a tighter turning radius.
27:01
It turns, it's had a tighter turn radius than my old Chevy
27:07
Bolt. It is really kind of amazing.
27:11
But the so, yeah, you know, I can't tell you the date my bed.
27:18
Is it going to be this year in a, you know, solidly this year
27:22
just because I've seen the immense amount of work at the
27:24
deployment that's there. Awesome.
27:26
So it seems like Tesla has a unique ability to really make
27:29
consumers pay attention to and maybe care about things that
27:32
they otherwise wouldn't think about.
27:34
So do you think that the Tesla Semi is going to do that for
27:38
trucking? Do you think it's going to
27:39
change how the public views and thinks about freight, which is
27:43
probably not much at all right now?
27:45
Yeah. I mean, Jamie, you are a
27:48
marketing professional and I would love to know how as far as
27:54
I know, like Tesla doesn't really market things like they
27:58
shoot a car into space like they have other ways of, of, of
28:02
bringing people in. Say, you know, our customers are
28:05
mostly interested in again the performance and the price point
28:09
rather than any Tesla specific mystique and.
28:16
I do think that like again, because of the performance and
28:18
the price point this will be, this gets a lot of people's
28:21
attention and will be a transformative vehicle.
28:26
And also I hope that this catalyzes not just Tesla, but a
28:29
lot of other of the traditional OEMs to be right there at those
28:34
same price points as well as performance characteristics.
28:38
I'm not going to hold my breath. And all of those other serious
28:41
players, having met them all in the last four years and being
28:44
completely underwhelmed by their lack of enthusiasm for dreaming
28:48
big. But but help me understand range
28:51
anxiety, right? Like we, we talk about it all
28:55
the time, obviously with passenger electric vehicles.
28:57
But like, you know, how does that problem change or get worse
29:00
in a field like long haul trucking?
29:04
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think these
29:06
initial deployments won't necessarily be for cross country
29:10
trips. That will be much more regional
29:13
and with charging built respect to customers and customers
29:18
needs. We had talked about like this
29:22
being a similar movie, what we saw in Light Duty and here, you
29:25
know, Tesla is. Investing in similarly a initial
29:30
deployment of charging infrastructure, enough, you
29:34
know, to remove that range anxiety for the initial
29:37
deployments as well. They've announced something, I
29:41
don't know, 50 different sites that they will bring on by the
29:46
end of this year, early next pilot travel centers.
29:52
Now they're doing 35. Different deployments of of MCS
29:58
charging principally on interstates and then we as a
30:03
company at formability are building a lot of charging.
30:07
And we have competitors that are doing the same.
30:09
As well. So how long does it take to
30:11
charge one of these all the way to 500 miles of range?
30:15
You're gonna you can recover that between 30 to 40 minutes.
30:23
And similarly to your passenger vehicle, if you can help not
30:28
going all the way to 100, it is helpful to battery health to
30:32
charge something less than 100%. So most, most substantial
30:37
charges are going to be in the realm of 30 minutes, which
30:41
aligns very well with the mandated brakes for for
30:46
truckers. Awesome, I love that.
30:48
Talk to me about refrigeration. So I solicited questions from my
30:53
dad who I mentioned is a trucker.
30:55
He drives a 30 foot refrigerated truck and he pulls a 53 foot
30:59
trailer. He mentioned that the
31:02
refrigeration elements of the truck also run off of the
31:06
diesel. So that dramatically reduces his
31:08
fuel, his fuel economy and his mileage averages 7 to 8 miles
31:14
per gallon depending on load rate, speed, terrain, etcetera,
31:18
etcetera. So what's the status of electric
31:21
vehicle technology for refrigerated trucks?
31:23
Is that coming? That is an excellent question.
31:26
You thank your dad for that one. So there there's I think there's
31:31
two fold on this. One is that there are those that
31:34
are building the chassis with battery support in it that isn't
31:40
associated with the truck itself to support refrigeration.
31:43
The other is some trucks, including the Tesla, have an
31:48
EPTO which does also support pulling a reefer.
31:53
It does knock down your range substantially depending upon how
31:58
cold you need it to be, what the outside temperature is, how far
32:01
you're going. So that is going to be one of
32:03
the harder edge use cases that will not be your first to
32:08
electrify, but we are seeing evolving solutions to that
32:11
situation. And when you say EPEPTO, that's
32:16
just connecting the container to the the truck electrically.
32:20
Exactly so that you can then. Full refrigerated unit and
32:24
provide it with refrigeration. All right, now we're gonna get
32:27
into the lightning round of hard economics.
32:29
So, so I think it's pretty obvious to everybody that diesel
32:34
costs more than electricity. But like, you know, why don't
32:37
you like, boil that down for me? Yeah, and.
32:40
You know, similar there is no like 1 number of like what
32:44
running an electric vehicle cost or what frankly there are
32:48
regional differences in diesel prices that can vary quite
32:52
substantially as well. I would, you know.
32:55
Say that, you know, you break it down in between like fuel
32:57
savings as well as maintenance savings.
33:00
And you know, on the maintenance side, we are seeing people go
33:04
through tires faster and sometimes quite a lot faster due
33:08
to the extra weight. And maybe even just the improved
33:12
torque. But on the flip side, our
33:15
customers are experiencing savings on the on the
33:17
maintenance as well. And that is expected to
33:20
accelerate as these trucks get older and older versus you're
33:24
competing against older trucks. Then there's the fuel.
33:27
Savings and again, you know your electricity is your fuel and
33:30
that can vary widely where you are in the United States and
33:35
whether you're you know essentially charging behind the
33:38
fence at the retail rate or whether you have to have
33:41
somebody else like us build a charging depot for you and
33:45
you're charging in essence on the road.
33:48
But Even so, under these use cases in California, you know,
33:51
we can typically offer a customer around 30% reduction in
33:57
their cost per mile their their TCO, which is non trivial as we,
34:02
you know, we look out over 5 year deployments.
34:04
So, yeah, I, you know, and this is also, you know, inclusive of
34:11
of the subsidies that are that are available, but that is, you
34:15
know, that helps. That brings people to the yard.
34:20
That is a good conversation starter, I will say.
34:22
So, Adam, if you had five minutes with my dad or any other
34:26
skeptical trucker, what's your pitch?
34:30
What's the number one argument that usually brings people
34:32
around on the solution? Well, if I was talking to your
34:35
father, I would first congratulate him on doing such a
34:38
good job of raising an awesome daughter.
34:41
And then, yeah, you know, I get it.
34:43
There's a lot of truckers that are skeptical and the range
34:46
anxiety is one of the the first and foremost.
34:49
If you get past that, you really do have to think about, you
34:53
know, your vehicle in a different way.
34:55
You know, I would think some of the other advantages is just
34:58
first, the experience of driving an electric truck.
35:00
You don't have the vibration, you don't have the noise, you
35:03
don't have the fumes, you are doing 1 pedal driving and so you
35:08
are not constantly clutching. We get consistent feedback from
35:13
our drivers that they really enjoy the experience, that their
35:16
body has never felt better, their hips, their knees are in a
35:21
way better condition and that they will never go back.
35:24
They do not want to go back to driving a diesel after that.
35:28
I would also say you know these trucks have a lot of torque.
35:31
You are passing diesel trucks when you're going up the Donner
35:34
Pass grade. They definitely there is some
35:37
real performance benefits that you know you drive an electric
35:41
vehicle. Electric car that you appreciate
35:44
as well. You see those iterated in the in
35:47
the trucks too. But first and foremost it is
35:50
that daily experience of being in a vehicle that doesn't put
35:55
your senses on constant assault and it is just a much more human
36:01
friendly driving experience. Well, that sounds awesome.
36:05
I think next time I'm in town I'm going to have to bring my
36:08
dad out to your facility so he can test drive.
36:13
I'm going to do that ending invitation to do that.
36:17
I would also say what we offer at our depot in the Port of Long
36:21
Beach is we have a, we have demo fleets.
36:24
And so he should not only come to drive, he should bring his
36:28
typical loads. We give fleets a truck and let
36:32
them run it on their loads for a week with their drivers in their
36:36
routes on their lanes and try, try before you buy.
36:41
So when he comes, he should brick, you know, bring his cargo
36:45
with him. One thing I'm concerned about in
36:46
the policy side, Adam, is that California is a laboratory for a
36:49
lot of this kind of stuff. Commercial trucks are only 7% of
36:53
vehicles, but they're over 1/4 of greenhouse gas emissions in
36:56
California. Yeah.
36:57
One of the things I'm curious about though, is it does seem
37:00
like the CARB incentives have sort of been upfront rebates
37:03
that the traditional truck manufacturers have jacked up the
37:08
cost of their electric trucks by exactly the amount the CARB is
37:11
providing as a subsidy. Have you guys thought about what
37:15
the next generation of incentives might look like to
37:19
sort of break this cycle and, you know, really get the, you
37:23
know, the total cost of ownership to a place where, you
37:26
know, everyone's just super excited about moving to
37:28
electric? Yeah.
37:30
I mean, you know, our first challenge here was just, you
37:33
know, we are now shifting between regimes of policy in
37:37
California. The first effort was around the
37:39
advanced clean trucks and they advanced clean fleets, which
37:43
were designed to just mandate this transition.
37:46
And you know, there's a role for for sticks, there's a role for
37:50
mandates. But now that has gone away with
37:55
the Trump administration and their revocation of, or at least
38:00
attempt to revoke, California's ability to set standards under
38:04
the that. Exceed the Clean Air Act.
38:07
And so we are in a different paradigm where the process going
38:11
forward is carrots rather than sticks.
38:13
It's more, you know, CSI rather than RPS and and solar standards
38:18
here are in solar speak and you know, I would I do think you
38:25
know, our incentive regime does need to be market responsive.
38:29
I do think the the the blue ribbon standard for how you
38:32
design customer incentives has been the California Solar
38:37
Initiative. From way back when.
38:40
So good, so good. And just, you know, the ability
38:44
to have a, a, a market, you know, a, a, a set of, of
38:49
incentives that were market responsive, that helped build
38:52
sufficient volume to help bring down those, those prices was
38:56
really quite helpful. I'm a little less worth like
38:59
right now. The last I would have said we
39:03
needed MSRP caps 10 months ago, the last opening of the
39:09
incentive availability back in. In September, it ended up being,
39:16
you know, the the market spoke and there was about 8085% of the
39:23
applications for incentive vouchers.
39:26
Were for the. Tesla Semi.
39:28
And so if you had a more expensive truck, you weren't,
39:34
you know, the, the, the, the market imposed its own
39:36
discipline without having to have a regulatory or a incentive
39:40
design standard. So I'm less concerned about
39:44
needing to have a the perfectly most elegant solution right now.
39:47
Right now, I just, we need to get volume out there.
39:50
We need to get trucks on the road.
39:54
And what you know, I think really the next phase that I'm
39:56
really looking at is the consumer demand really driven by
40:01
the shippers like anyone that is.
40:03
I would like to see 0 emission freight be a proper noun, be the
40:08
next big thing that every corporate sustainability
40:11
director knows that they need, that every CEO with a customer
40:15
facing brand needs to answer to their customers for and have a
40:19
solution for both on a, you know, sustainability and
40:24
environmentally friendliness. Standard, as well as knowing
40:27
that this is. Where we need to go in order to
40:30
get better cost discipline, this deployment advanced technology
40:34
is going to benefit the trucking companies and it's going to
40:36
benefit in the end, in the long term, the people who are
40:40
shipping goods. So it, you know, our customers
40:45
respond most deeply to their customers or to not their
40:50
customers, but the, the, the shipping companies, the cargo
40:54
owners themselves and when you're able to develop.
40:58
Partnerships like this. You can really de risk any of
41:00
these investments. All right.
41:02
So let's get to the the end here, which is and in my mind
41:07
we've talked a lot about California, but how many states
41:10
do you think will have a critical mass of Tesla Semis,
41:15
you know chargers etcetera by 20-30?
41:19
You know, I think it will be principally driven around
41:23
California for quite some time because of the money that
41:27
California is putting into it, the support for charging through
41:30
the California Energy Commission, the support for
41:33
incentives for the trucks to help buy down.
41:36
The above market cost through the California Air Resources
41:39
Board. Similar to the solar story, the
41:42
next place is going to be Texas. Everything's cheaper in Texas.
41:45
Land's cheaper, electricity's cheaper, and those are critical
41:49
inputs for the fueling of these electric trucks.
41:52
And so if you look at where the Tesla is deploying their
41:56
charging, if you on their website, like they're putting in
41:59
a ton of charging in Texas as well.
42:01
We're developing in Texas as well.
42:05
You know, Illinois isn't going to be too far behind as well.
42:09
Chicago is crucial in the freight economy.
42:13
The Pritzker administration is also quite interested in
42:17
supporting. A lot of climate solutions as
42:19
well. You know, any place with that
42:22
moves goods and that has cheaper electricity is going to be on
42:26
the map. Washington is a place where you
42:28
have a lot of hydropower, cheaper electricity if they can
42:32
keep it, if it doesn't get all sort by data centers.
42:36
They have some, they haul really heavy it.
42:40
And there are some challenges in deploying electric trucks in the
42:43
state of Washington. But they've been exhibiting cool
42:45
leadership too. So I think, you know, New York
42:48
and New Jersey are going to be some additional places with the
42:51
political leadership. The cost paradigms are a little
42:55
more challenging there too. Canada is going to do great.
42:58
Ethiopia is going to do great. There's a lot of places in
43:03
Africa that I think are going to make the switch quicker than
43:08
some of the states in in this country, to be honest.
43:11
We're going to have to do a tour together of Ethiopia.
43:14
I feel like there's a energy empire on the road tour coming
43:18
up here soon. Roadshow.
43:20
Roadshow. I love it.
43:22
Yeah. Well, given how much I hate gas
43:25
leaf blowers, noise has become like a really big thing for me
43:29
too. It does feel like a lot of the
43:32
noise pollution in big cities are also due to diesels.
43:36
I mean, how does, how is it going to, you know, like sort of
43:39
sound in some of these big cities as you succeed?
43:43
Think it will sound quieter, particularly around, you know,
43:46
like the commercial deliveries, when you're thinking about like
43:49
all the vehicles that are bringing food to grocery stores,
43:54
the beverage delivery? Not just, I mean, I appreciate
43:57
Amazon when they roll out their electric trucks rather than
44:01
gasoline, but they're there is that just sort of common
44:06
backdrop hum to large cities that I hope will be measurably
44:12
quieter if we are able to get beyond just the insistent
44:16
backdrop of the internal combustion engine?
44:19
I mean, you've sold me Adam, what's not to love?
44:21
I agree. I love it all.
44:23
But I would also just say Jamie, like it.
44:26
It is, you know, it is early days and we are on the cusp of a
44:35
generational transit transition to 0 Mission Freight.
44:39
And so I do think nothing succeeds by success.
44:43
We're going to get more truckers.
44:44
We're going to get your dad out in a 0 Mission truck.
44:48
And then eventually, like what I am hoping for is a similar
44:52
scaling as to what we saw in solar.
44:53
And so once you get to that point where the gravitational
44:57
pull of the economics take over, things get really exciting right
45:01
there. And, you know, as we've seen,
45:04
China moves more freight than the US. 30% of their sales last
45:09
year were 0 emission trucks. December of last year, 55% of
45:14
their sales of heavy duty trucks were 0 emission.
45:17
This is clearly the future and our pathway to bringing down
45:22
costs building upscale is before us and it's really it's an
45:28
exciting time to be pursuing these solutions.
45:30
Thanks, Adam. It's always a pleasure to see
45:33
you. I'm glad that you haven't
45:35
retired after, you know, solving all the challenges in the solar
45:39
industry and you have decided to take on this new mountain.
45:42
It's going to be just fun to watch.
45:45
Watch the Tesla Semis come off the line and and into your
45:48
fleet. Well, I appreciate you all and
45:52
all the work that you're doing to uplift and tell the story of
45:57
of hope. There's a lot going on in the
45:59
world these days. We need y'all's deep
46:02
understanding of where the good things are.
46:04
As well. So I appreciate you all.
46:13
Wow, that was a Tour de force, Jamie.
46:15
We like covered a lot of ground with with Adam like just and it
46:21
does seem like not unlike solar, this whole thing seems focused
46:26
in California and then it sort of radiated out from California
46:31
later. Like it sounds like that's sort
46:35
of what's going on here too. Yeah, totally.
46:38
I mean, I will say, first of all, I'm sold.
46:41
I'm so excited about this technology and I do clearly see
46:44
the benefits over our commercial or rather internal combustion
46:49
engine trucks and obviously burning diesel, it's 7 or 8
46:53
miles per gallon. That being said, he very much so
46:58
spoke from a California specific point of view and I don't know
47:02
that all that translates nationwide right now because of
47:06
infrastructure. It's a major challenge.
47:08
So that's great for California. I'm not so sure about Delaware.
47:13
Well, you know, he's California dreaming, but you know, like,
47:17
but part of the part of the thing that I find fascinating is
47:21
in this moment when everyone in my neighborhood has those like
47:25
special bumper stickers on their Tesla saying, I bought this
47:28
before Elon went crazy. Like Elon is still doing the
47:35
work to push all of this stuff forward, right?
47:38
Mercedes, Volvo, Hyundai all had a shot of actually filling the
47:44
void, right? Because they announced this
47:46
Tesla semi truck like 10 years ago, I think it was like in
47:49
2017, and it's only now getting scaled up and coming out, right?
47:54
They could have filled that void and they didn't.
47:57
So why is it that we always have to lean on Elon to do the hard
48:01
stuff? Oh my God, you're so right.
48:04
I mean, I remember last year I was in a conversation with some
48:08
other folks in our industry and we were reflecting on what a
48:12
huge loss it was for us as a sector and kind of like as a
48:16
political movement to lose Elon to to mega and to the right
48:22
because he is such a visionary and he's obviously the richest
48:26
man in the world. And so I think when we lost him
48:30
kind of as an objective, incredible voice on climate and
48:35
clean energy, that was devastating.
48:39
And I mean, I, I would be prepared to forgive him.
48:43
Come back. Come.
48:44
Back Well, I mean, I feel like ACP is already forgiven him.
48:48
I mean, we're paying Katie Miller and you know, like
48:52
Kellyanne Conway and, you know, they're talking about solar all
48:55
day. And I feel like, like Elon's
49:00
still talking about how solar is gonna power the world.
49:02
So he just announced his hundred GW like manufacturing facilities
49:07
so. Yes, and we know he's still a
49:09
believer and we know he still agrees with what we're trying to
49:13
do. But at the same time, if you're
49:15
funding the political movement that's trying to dismantle all
49:18
of our work, it's there's some, there's some cognitive
49:20
dissonance there, Elon. That's all I'm saying.
49:22
We are we will welcome you back. Someone make sure this this
49:26
crosses his desk. Let him know.
49:29
Well, and the other thing that's going on right now is obviously
49:31
you have the Straits of Hormuz that shut down and diesel prices
49:35
have spiked in the United States.
49:37
So I feel like there's a lot of people looking for alternatives
49:41
to diesel right now. And so my sense is that, you
49:45
know, you're hitting the market at the time when everybody
49:48
really wants solutions. Truly, I will say I hate war.
49:52
And it's so difficult to see all this in the news.
49:55
And the only upside that I see is that I really do hope it
49:59
makes folks hesitate and think more about does it make sense
50:04
for us to be doubling down on RE?
50:07
You know, they're they're about to go back to drilling for oil
50:11
off the coast of Santa Barbara where there was an absolutely
50:13
massive oil spill about a decade ago.
50:17
Do we really need to pursue those solutions?
50:19
Or should we just use this as an opportunity to hasten our move
50:23
to to electrifying everything into E BS?
50:26
Why? Why do we keep doing this to
50:27
ourselves? Well, I mean, Adam is the right
50:30
guy to help us with this transition.
50:33
I think when you think about what we did in solar, we said
50:38
that instead of waiting for the natural cycle to occur, we're
50:43
going to introduce solar financing, We're going to
50:45
introduce all of this policy to make it go faster, right?
50:49
And I think the same thing is true here, right?
50:51
The natural cycle of things is for things to go electric.
50:55
But through some of this policy work, etcetera, we could
50:58
accelerate people moving into electric faster.
51:01
You're certainly seeing that policy happen in China now where
51:05
I think Adam said in December, 55% of all new heavy trucks were
51:10
electric. It'll be great to see 55% of all
51:13
new heavy trucks in California go electric.
51:15
Where California goes, so goes the rest of the country.
51:18
So let's just hope we can get this done.
51:21
And to harken back to the, you know, the, the jigger, the
51:26
jigger motto, deploy, deploy, deploy.
51:28
And he invited my dad and I out to the port of Long Beach for a
51:31
test drive. So now my dad and I need to get
51:34
that on the books. So he will love that.
51:36
He loves to geek out over this type of thing and we may need to
51:41
bring our our producer Simon along for that so he can get
51:45
that all on video because I think that would be a fun field
51:47
trip. I think, I think we need Fiona's
51:49
dance troupe to to be in the video.
51:53
Yes, that sounds great. And a guest appearance by the
51:57
Boyle School of Irish Dance. Let's make it happen.
52:01
Well, with that, thank you so much everybody for being a part
52:06
of this week's show. Thank you to Simon and all the
52:10
folks from We Don't Have Time for helping us produce this this
52:14
show. It does not happen by itself.
52:17
And listen to us obviously on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or
52:22
YouTube where subscribing really makes a difference.
52:25
And we really want to thank our sponsors because without that,
52:28
we just really can't make this happen.
52:30
So thank you S2G for making it all happen.