Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Hydrogen Trucks Through The Lens of a 9 Year Old

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Hydrogen Trucks Through The Lens of a 9 Year Old · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:00
John Summers is the motoring historian.
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He was a company car thrashing, technology sales rep that turned into
0:06
a fairly inept sports bike rider.
0:08
Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of
0:12
cheap and fast, and not much reliable.
0:15
On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new
0:18
and old cars, driving, Motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.
0:23
Good
0:47
day, good morning, good afternoon.
0:49
It is John Summers, the motoring historian, in a special episode here.
0:53
Um, I have my son Oliver with me.
0:56
Um, Ollie, why are you with me today?
0:59
Uh, that's a rhetorical question.
1:01
Well, the shrugging doesn't work well on TV.
1:04
You can't, they can't see you, can they?
1:06
I could see you, but nobody else could.
1:07
And we've been to see some.
1:09
We went and played with some hydrogen trucks, didn't we?
1:12
We didn't exactly play, we just learned about them.
1:15
Why?
1:16
And we went to the first hydrogen, um, like, fueling station.
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In like, this very unattached, next to the highway, kinda area.
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Because it's supposed to fuel big rigs, who, er, which, kinda, obviously.
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Drive on the highway most of the time.
1:34
Where, was it the port of Oakland?
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So like, off the highway, and like, you know.
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It's at the port of heart at the port of Oakland, and it's
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also, they like doing ports.
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The reason they were focused on doing ports is because there's always
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loads of trucks queuing up there.
1:52
So this is not so much.
1:54
This is not so much about, you know.
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Fixing global warming.
1:57
This is more about making sure that people living in the immediate area of the ports
2:02
don't suffer respiratory illnesses as a result of literally thousands of trucks
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idling in, uh, in their neighborhoods.
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And those of us, uh, I guess the port of Oakland's pretty big, I guess, similar in
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size to Liverpool or South Hampton, but.
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So it's more specifically Long Beach.
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Um, my God, it it's, it's on a different kind of, of scale.
2:27
So that's the kind of challenge there that we were, that we went to, to
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learn about them, uh, trying to fix.
2:35
Yep.
2:36
Um, the set scene for everybody listening to this, um, we, we
2:42
showed up and it was still kind of.
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Like, you can see the gas, or the hydrogen station clearly,
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it was a hydrogen station.
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There was still like, you know, construction stuff, like, scattered
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around, because it's like, they haven't cleared all that stuff out,
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they just wanted to get to the, like, presentation as soon as possible.
3:00
Anyway, we went into this, like, little tent thing, not
3:04
like a camping tent, obviously.
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Marquee.
3:07
Whatever he just said, and um, And then, and then there was like five, maybe four
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people who present who did presentations.
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Um, there was, um, one, the, the leader guy who organized it was, I think,
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was Matt the guy from First Element or was he just like the organizer?
3:35
Yeah, I think he was from first element and it felt as if first element was some
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government funded agency Who were involved in trying to first element was the company
3:45
who got the hydrogen because hydrogen is hard to find and Then it was not hard to
3:50
find but it's hard to process isn't it?
3:52
That's the well that's what we'll get to later on in the podcast is that
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It's it's hard to process to actually be ready to put into Yeah, now so when
4:05
we rocked up there's a couple of like hyundai trucks there Um semi trucks
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and and a couple of nickelers as well.
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I've heard a nickel before never seen the trucks before um both 18 wheeler
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like style highway haulers without trailers just the tractor unit Both cab
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overs and we'll come back to that in a minute because when you first look at
4:25
them They look like normal trucks and then when you look a bit more massive
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sleeper Yeah, like a European style sleeper and an aero package on it.
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But then when you look a bit more closely, that's actually not sleeper.
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That's a bunch of hydrogen tanks.
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Yeah, hydrogen gubbins.
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So, anyway, that was, uh, that was quite interesting.
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So we rocked up there.
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So it's daycabs.
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It's still daycabs.
4:43
That's what you should take away from that paragraph.
4:46
Yeah, thanks.
4:46
That is useful, that summing up.
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Because I quite often feel on my pods, I like, nearly make a point, but don't
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quite actually close home the point.
4:55
So people don't really Well, call me Shakespeare.
4:57
Yeah.
4:57
I, I, I will, I'll call you King William.
5:01
Um, Wow, that's cool.
5:02
Um, Alright, uh, yeah, so, so the trucks, the marquee, with the great
5:08
and the good telling us all about it.
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Cold California weather, that was quite amusing as well, wasn't it?
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You were well equipped with your hoodie.
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Um, and, and a gas station, which, which kind of looked like a normal
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gas station, but the more you looked, wasn't really like a normal gas station.
5:22
No, well the only point, the only thing that really gave it away that made
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it apart from, if you looked at two pictures, the hydrogen station and the
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gas station, you could tell them apart, because, Just to give you, like, just
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saying, it was very obvious to tell them apart if you look closely at them.
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Like, the, the pumps were actually, like, they were, like, squarer and bigger.
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That's, like, the only thing that could, that's the real thing that really changed,
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or gave it away to anybody who, you know.
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Yeah, and later in the thing we'll talk about this when we actually when one
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of us actually gassed a truck up as it were um then it was clear that this was
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much more like this was not yeah yeah it wasn't really like convention gassing up
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a conventional you know diesel 18 wheeler.
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What's like the proper verb for like hydrogening up?
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Yeah, we could make one up, couldn't we?
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We could call it Splooting Up.
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Couldn't we?
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You just said that as Arthur.
6:29
Well, exactly, I was just thinking of that.
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But it's like Pickleball, isn't it?
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Pickleball is named after the founder's dog, Pickle.
6:35
That's why it's called Pickleball.
6:36
That's not true.
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It's absolutely true.
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That can't be true.
6:39
That's absolutely true.
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That's absolutely true.
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Was it green?
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Yeah.
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It's lucky the dog Oh Jesus!
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Yeah!
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It is green!
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He just It's what green?
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The man here just said it was green!
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It's what green?
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The pig the dog Pickle.
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He said it was green.
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I don't know what color Pickle was.
6:58
You don't know what color Pickle is?
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The dog, but I don't know what color pickle the dog was.
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You were talking about pickles.
7:07
Well, no to pickles, as in Branson pickle, it's brown.
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Isn't it green?
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We're digressing, aren't we?
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People tuned in to hear about the hydrogen, not you and me being
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silly about the color of pickles.
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It's pickle.
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It's either green or brown, isn't it?
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Like earthy
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Earthtones!
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Next!
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Coming up next!
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The Blue Pickle!
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The lady from, um, Cobb, the air resource people, like Gavin Newsome, like, you
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know, TNF people, she was also like an Oakland person, so that was good.
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There was, um, a dude from Hyundai Trucks, and I talked with him a bit
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afterwards, I got to know him quite well, and there was, um, His waist
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jacket rode up in a weird way, didn't it?
8:10
It did, yeah.
8:10
No, and he was like slumped in his chair.
8:13
Well, it was uncomfortable for them, wasn't it?
8:15
It was not, not the Right, they had nicer seats.
8:18
Did they have nicer seats?
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Yeah, we we were stuck out in the uh, we were stuck out in that We
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well actually of course everyone sits around the back, don't they?
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So we of course, I don't know what we were doing was I was in the loo or
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something like that but either way we uh We were like a little bit late in
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and then we have to like sneak across and we sat right at the front And it
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turned out we were sat right next to the journalist from the la times No, no guy
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was like guy had like his little pro like sherlock holmes Like, um, spiral notepad.
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Yeah.
8:48
Yeah.
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Like, like if you could imagine.
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Yeah.
8:53
And then he is just like, sit next to us with his pen, like
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scribbling down thoughts.
8:58
Yeah.
8:58
And then he asked this crazy question, like, yeah, what was it?
9:02
Reframe it to our viewers.
9:03
A little simpler.
9:05
Yeah, the question, just imagine, just imagine this a lot more complexly
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asked instead of what you're about to witness with him simplifying it.
9:14
Basically reading between the lines of his question and it took me to learn about
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it, took me to, I'd rather the rest of the demo before his question made sense to me.
9:25
But his question was basically.
9:27
Is the delivery system that you have for hydrogen, is that clean?
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Is that green?
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Or are you like, are you, you know, are you delivering hydrogen to this
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station here on a diesel tanker?
9:40
You know, that's the, the, was the kind of thing that he was driving at.
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Well, because the hydrogen has stuff, the hydrogen has messed up stuff in it.
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And the other thing is, is the hydrogen has to be cooled.
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And how do you cool it?
9:53
You're going to cool it using Wait, so are you saying it's just another way
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of doing it, other than diesel trucks?
9:59
Or is it just, or is it actually helping?
10:03
Well, that's why, that's why the guy was asking the question, was he was saying,
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if you're just, if you're dieseling all the hydrogen, Into this hydrogen station
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and then being look at our clean hydrogen trucks here But if they're if all that
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is nobody and if they don't make any sales from the hydrogen then they're just
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kind of think Yeah, this whole thing.
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That's one not making the money to Unproving their point, but
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it's not even about the sales.
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It's about whether or not It's about whether or that the question was about
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whether or not the whole You cycle from extracting the hydrogen through moving
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the hydrogen to the right location through making sure that the hydrogen was cooled.
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It was that section before it ever got into the truck.
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That was the bit that he was asking about.
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And that apparently is where the industry has not had the greenest
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credentials in, in the past.
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Um, and the CEO of, uh, of, Was ready, was like, ho ho, I was
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sort of ready for that question.
11:09
So it's interesting, so that was pretty interesting wasn't it, all around, Ollie?
11:12
Also, um, I have two points here.
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If you're expecting for anything on Nikola Trucks, He, the, the lead
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dude, Matt, said, um, there wasn't, there's not, nobody from Nikola.
11:25
So everything we learned, really, that we, like, couldn't see for ourselves,
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or read for ourselves, There were, the Nicola reps were there, weren't they?
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They just weren't on the panel.
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Well, yeah, but, and then my, and then my second point is I just want
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us to tell you, probably him, 'cause I forgot there were Cummins reps.
11:45
There was a rep from Cummins as well.
11:47
Did you see that?
11:48
He bugged off pretty early, but he was there.
11:50
Oh yeah, he really did.
11:52
Um, yeah, there was early leavers.
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Um, there always are at places like that.
11:58
Well, that's really weird why he'd bother to show up if you
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only stay there six minutes.
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My my point exactly.
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My point exactly.
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It's like people who leave the gig so they don't have to queue
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in the car park before the encore.
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Why do you bother coming at all?
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That's like the best part.
12:11
Exactly!
12:12
We waited to go from Bruce Springsteen like, I don't
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know, maybe an hour, two hours?
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Yeah.
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But it's not as long as Gammy and I, we went to Silverstone.
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It bloody rained.
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Bloody people got their cars stuck leaving the field.
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We were still there at midnight.
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We just slept in the Vectra.
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And tell, tell the viewers how long that was or how, when
12:37
did the race start and end?
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I know the race started at like two o'clock or something.
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We were late.
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I was running along that start finish straight to try and get to a cop's corner
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where I could see it as the race started.
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So that was pretty annoying.
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Um, but what was more annoying was when we got back to the car, then we
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couldn't drive out of the car park.
12:59
Well, um, I just like to silverstone's famous for that, by the way.
13:02
Having really terrible facilities to access to and from.
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I always think of it when people moan about the traffic at Laguna Seka.
13:08
It's always like, Hmm, yeah, you should try Silverstone in the rain.
13:12
I this why, how do we get talking about this is nothing.
13:15
I like Luga.
13:15
I like Laguna Se because one, there's always group C cars there
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no favorite car taxi going six.
13:22
Well, when we've been at Pebble B, when we've been to Pebble Beach.
13:25
. There's we thing groups.
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C cars.
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Well, that, that, well that's the only time I really go.
13:29
Yeah.
13:29
And then also they have that, um, jump in Joe's, um, saucer, which
13:34
I always get, which is so good.
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Mm.
13:36
Yeah.
13:36
So look soft truck.
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So you catch that.
13:38
So the priorities are the TCO have line Porsche 9 5, 6, I believe.
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There's only one in that livery.
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and the soft, which I'm trying to buy when I grow up.
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And the soft serve ice cream.
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Yeah.
13:51
Yeah.
13:52
Okay.
13:52
So the, alright, this the point like 20 minutes ago I tr I, we
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got onto this, um, rat hole, but the point we're doing pretty well.
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We're only 14 minutes in now.
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Well, the point I was trying to make before those four minutes
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went down a rat hole about Laguna sake and all that, um, is that
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there was like four things or like.
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I don't know, like phases of this event.
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The first one was, um, the press conference, like the press, which we're
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talking about next is spoiler alert.
14:30
Um, well, I was going to say that let's do, let's talk about the refinery
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of the hydrogen, the science bit.
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Yeah.
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Which was sort of in the, which was sort of in the middle.
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So it's right Stop.
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But right between Like, a long and thin rectangle, which was sort of in the middle
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of the light and medium duty area and the heavy duty hydrogen trucks, which
14:57
they had on display there, and then they had one SUV hydrogen light duty.
15:04
Anyway, in the middle, there was the refinery and everything, and a really long
15:07
and thin water tower that we talk about.
15:10
Then the next one, which was, now we split into groups and stuff, but
15:15
of course we were late, so we were just like, Can we join this group?
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We didn't really understand how they split the groups.
15:21
Well, we did, we just didn't, we were meant to be like, I don't know what we
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were meant to be doing, but our group was taking a long time to form up, wasn't it?
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So I was just like, let's just not be in the right group.
15:31
So we went over to the group with that that was going straight into the science
15:35
bit, which is the right way to do it.
15:37
We had to put these heavy coats on, didn't we?
15:39
Yeah.
15:39
And these eye defender things.
15:42
Yeah.
15:42
I don't even know how they helped cause I took them off and then, uh, anyway,
15:47
it was something to do with cooling and expanding and this dude with a beard,
15:51
he explained it three times and we, and I still didn't bloody understand it.
15:56
No, and I made live TV.
15:58
Which we'll talk about later.
15:59
Then the next bit was the fueling demonstration, which
16:02
I imagine we Hang on a minute.
16:04
Do you not want to say anything more about the science bit?
16:07
Well, I will say but just we're not we're not doing an overview here.
16:11
Let's do we do the science bit We don't tell him what's coming.
16:14
It's not like a It's not like a tv show from the 1990s where you tell him
16:18
what's happened And then you tell them what's happening in case they just came
16:20
in after a purchase After a commercial break or in case people are stupid.
16:25
I often think people do that Really?
16:28
Yeah.
16:28
Yeah.
16:28
I don't really, I don't like to recap 'cause recaps boring.
16:31
If you paid attention, if you've been paying attention, you're
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like, why do I need the recap?
16:34
Only stupid people need to recap.
16:36
Honestly, I'm watching my favorite TV show on like channel tv.
16:39
I'm, I'm watching the ads.
16:41
Yeah.
16:42
Well you like the story of the ads as well, which is the delicious thing
16:44
about being as young habit your way.
16:47
You suck.
16:49
Alright.
16:49
Yes.
16:49
Thank you Ali.
16:50
Um, alright.
16:51
The science bit.
16:51
Do you wanna say anything more about the science bit?
16:53
We didn't understand it.
16:54
The dude had a beard.
16:55
He was very clever.
16:56
He had a beard and no hair and was very clever, and the TV camera guy asked him
17:02
some stuff and he explained it quite well, but us dummies still didn't understand it.
17:06
Also, the only thing that I really remembered was There was a bunch of
17:10
pipes inside a converting shipping container shipping container.
17:13
Yeah Yeah, very nice shade of blue when it just arrived on a shipping container
17:17
It was the same scale because they they moved It was a converting shipping
17:20
container because it had doors in the side of it Yeah, but anyway, let's go on
17:25
to talking about the fill up section So I was imagining this so we got our robe
17:30
we got our like shirts and like security like I defender affairs Off didn't we?
17:37
Trooped out across and now we're in this filling station with this great
17:41
big hyundai truck parked up As if you were like and we're at the gas pump
17:46
now, we're gonna like, you know gas it up Well before we tell you what happens
17:50
with this I just want to tell you I was imagining this when I read like the
17:54
description of what's gonna happen in the day on my dad's phone It, it said,
17:59
um, it said, like, demonstration, so I was imagining, like, everybody at
18:06
the event, we'd be back into that tent thing, whatever thing you call it.
18:10
Marquee.
18:11
Marquee.
18:13
Um, and we'd like, you know, watch it happen, like, in action.
18:18
But instead, it was one of the, like, rotation group things.
18:22
So we strut on over and we.
18:26
So, let's talk about that.
18:26
Well, this guy was also Well, this guy was this guy was also bold.
18:41
Um, he, um, asked me, you wanna do it?
18:46
And I said, yeah, of course.
18:47
I mean, why not?
18:48
Why not, yeah.
18:49
Uh, and then he asked Kid can do it, anyone can do it, right?
18:52
Kid Probably not true in fact, but yeah, you couldn't have done it where I had a
18:57
like it seemed to have like you have to
19:02
You want to save that detail Hey, who got who got mad at me on the pod
19:08
because because I don't like going too fast I don't like going too fast.
19:12
Yeah, we did this once and then it didn't record for some reason skillfully Yeah.
19:16
Yeah.
19:17
He's such a pro.
19:18
Yeah, I'm such a pro.
19:19
Yeah.
19:23
Guy's done like 18 episodes of this pod and still hasn't
19:26
figured out how to work podcasts.
19:34
Alright, anyway.
19:35
Tell us about the collar.
19:37
No, first, and then he asked my dad, can they do it?
19:41
And he was like, staring at his phone, like, you know, texting, whatever.
19:46
Doom scrolling.
19:46
Probably doom scrolling.
19:49
No, no, I wasn't.
19:50
I wasn't.
19:51
I was texting with your mother.
19:52
I was trying to get the camera up to film you doing it.
19:54
Whatever.
19:55
And then you said, he said yes, because he was doom scrolling.
19:58
Assumptions.
20:02
Anyway, um, so I grabbed the thing.
20:06
Maybe about I don't know 10 pounds pretty heavy and I and we open
20:12
this like rectangular Door on the side like longer than a regular
20:19
Gas opener on your regular car.
20:22
I mean obviously it's a truck, but heavy duty Highway hauler, but anyway open it up
20:28
with a little button like the Tesla handle bar Uh, what do they call, um, He uh, not
20:36
handlers, um, How am I forgetting this?
20:39
Door handle.
20:40
I forget that.
20:42
Um, So, he takes the thing off, I ker chunk it into the, Onto the slot,
20:50
That was like, it was like a, Like a circular, Like thing sticking out.
20:59
Approximately what diameter would you have said?
21:01
Like a, like maybe, like an espresso cup.
21:06
Okay, what was it made of?
21:07
Or the circumference of a Espresso, yeah, what was it made of?
21:12
Metal.
21:13
And it was like, maybe a little longer And I put the pump, which was
21:19
round as well, maybe Maybe, like a, like a, a new roll of tape thing.
21:26
I put it onto the espresso mug shape thing.
21:30
Mm hmm.
21:30
And then it, it made a nice click right on there, really smooth.
21:34
I don't know if that matters, it's brand new.
21:36
It, it, it, it would matter, because if it didn't click on properly,
21:39
the freezing cold hydrogen could, like, spread out everywhere.
21:44
I'm sure that wouldn't be at all dangerous.
21:46
Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure my dad wouldn't screw that up.
21:50
No, I never could.
21:51
But the idea is, right, that any old trucker can do it.
21:54
That this is the, this is the thing with this.
21:56
I mean, they're pros.
21:58
Yeah, but, you know, millions of, there are millions of trucks
22:02
making millions of fills every day.
22:05
And this mechanism has got to work.
22:08
Well, uh, anyway.
22:10
Um, so it works.
22:12
And then, um, funny story.
22:15
He, my dad was still doom scrolling when I did this.
22:18
So, um.
22:20
I didn't, I've got some film of him doing it, I don't know what he's talking about.
22:23
But yeah.
22:23
Whatever.
22:24
Tell your story.
22:25
Whatever, he wasn't paying attention.
22:27
And then, um, there was like what seemed to be two grades.
22:31
And I, and while it was still filling up, I asked the dude.
22:35
Um.
22:37
That question and about the two different grades that I didn't really there was just
22:43
medium of light duty Yeah, there was H.
22:47
It said H 70 and then an orange M or just H 70 H70 is for the Heavy duty trucks.
22:57
And then 870 star is if you are part of a truck company, this negotiated a
23:05
special prepaid rate with like the gas station, which was that first element.
23:11
Was that the name of the gas station?
23:12
Um, true zero.
23:14
True zero is the name of the, the, the gas station.
23:17
Wasn't it?
23:18
I, uh, I'm going to rustle my papers now and get, um, the
23:22
notepad that I actually had.
23:25
The notes that I actually took.
23:27
Let's see who was, let's remind ourselves who was involved.
23:30
TrueZero, FirstElement, Hyundai, and Nikola.
23:34
Well, also, Yeah, so, so, um, but, but, but, but, um, also just for reference,
23:42
I don't think, you can look this up yourself, but I don't think that
23:47
Nikola has anything to do with Tesla.
23:50
Yeah, no, we didn't know anything about Nicola Trucks, and of course I should
23:53
have done some research about that.
23:54
Have we finished at the pump?
23:56
Because after the pump we went over and looked at the actual trucks.
23:59
We're ready to talk about the actual trucks.
24:01
Um, I just have one more thought on the um, on the pump.
24:07
I, after we were like, the group was kind of pressing on to the trucks,
24:11
and I, and, And we hung back and sort of asked the dude a couple questions.
24:16
And then the question that I thought was really good actually, and the dude
24:19
thought was good, was I asked him, on the side there was like a plastic thing
24:24
sticking out from the pump that was big.
24:28
That was really big.
24:31
And there was nothing in it, but it looked like it'd hold something.
24:35
And it looked like it'd hold just a bigger version of, of the, um, The receptacle,
24:42
like the, the, what would be like the, the, the bit of the gas pump, like in a
24:46
normal gas pump, that you would put your hand on and that you would lift out of the
24:50
pump and put into the side of your car.
24:53
It was like, there was an alternative one of those, wasn't there?
24:56
There was like, there was like an extra one.
24:59
Yeah.
24:59
And what did he say it was for?
25:01
Was it for a different kind of truck or something?
25:02
Yeah, it was.
25:04
It was for the I think, but there wasn't, but there wasn't actually one.
25:09
There wasn't actually a pump in, in the slot.
25:12
Also, though, if you're wondering how the, um, how the metal, how the, Um, How the,
25:21
P the, like, nozzle, Gr gripped onto the side of the truck to let the hydrogen in,
25:30
Was, um, There was like these li there was like these three little teeth, That
25:37
would grab on To a thin pipe inside the espresso mug And, um, And that's how it
25:47
held on And then to And then there was like a sleeve Or like a collar Around That
25:54
you pull down to detatch The, the thing from the The nozzle from the truck And, um
26:04
What was I gonna say about that Uh, Well, we're going to talk about the trucks now.
26:10
Well, I had one more.
26:11
I, I just lost for the like finishing of that.
26:17
Oh yeah, well, on the collar in, you just pulled it back and it came out
26:23
and oh, it auto stops when it, when it senses that you don't want to do
26:29
a full fill and you pull the, um, the sleeve back That, um, it auto stops the
26:37
hydrogen coming in, so you can pull off without the hydrogen spewing everywhere.
26:43
So now we can move on to the trucks.
26:45
Yeah, um, I'll just add a look at my notes here.
26:48
So, I spoke to the Hyundai guy, didn't I?
26:50
Yeah, you told me.
26:51
Before we did the truck thing.
26:53
And this was pretty interesting because, um, this reflects on what Oli's going
26:56
to tell us about the trucks in a minute.
26:58
Is that the, when I said to him, why now for Hyundai?
27:03
That's what he basically said, but he was lost for words when he tried to say that.
27:08
Thanks Holly, yeah.
27:09
But basically I was like, you know, why now?
27:12
He also said this in the press conference, right?
27:15
Well, I asked, I asked the question in the press conference and then I found
27:19
myself, I thought I was asking a different question when I was chatting with the guy.
27:22
And then as I was like talking, I realized I wasn't asking a different question.
27:26
I was asking actually the same question is like, why are Hyundai hot for this now?
27:31
And the answer he gave me was surprisingly candid, which is, you know, most
27:34
of the heavy haulers on the road in Korea anyway are Hyundai's, right?
27:39
So we already had, The body and the chassis and all of that.
27:43
And they already had the drivetrain, the hybrid drivetrain, that they'd
27:46
built for other applications.
27:48
So they just put the hybrid drivetrain in the, or at least they were, you know, they
27:52
were going to build the hybrid drivetrain.
27:53
So it was, it was like a Lego like application.
27:57
Also, what you should take away from that to simplify what he just said,
27:59
or to sieve it a little bit more, is that, Um, they just converted the truck.
28:08
They just bought a couple hundred.
28:10
Hunai Trucks and converted them.
28:13
They converted the sleeper into hydrogen tanks.
28:16
Yeah, whereas the Nikola is like a bespoke electric truck.
28:19
So let's just, so let's just talk about this.
28:21
I thought this was quite interesting.
28:23
Four key advantages for heavy duty applications for hydrogen over a
28:30
traditional Battery electric truck.
28:33
So this isn't in competition with diesel trucks This is in competition
28:37
with other battery electric with other Electric trucks that have a battery like
28:43
a conventional like electric car That's, that's, the, the, the, um, Really?
28:49
They're, they're like enemy as like Google is like like rivals with Apple
28:57
It's sort of like diesel trucks aren't really in the picture for hydrogen
29:02
trucks being, um, rivals with So let's, so let's talk about that, right?
29:09
Hydrogen trucks are basically rivals with EV trucks, not EV or hydrogen
29:16
trucks are rivals with diesel trucks.
29:18
They're just the diesel trucks are out of the picture.
29:21
And, and the reason that they're out of the picture is, is that an over
29:24
the road truck might be doing six, 800 miles a day, and it might be going to
29:30
all sorts of different destinations.
29:32
It might not even know, you know, do where it's at.
29:35
And, and just, so the whole, whereas what works for hydrogen is
29:39
you fill up in one place or what works for electric generally is.
29:42
You charge in one place and you drive and you do local routes,
29:46
maybe with a lot of stop start, probably with quite lightweight.
29:50
And then you come back and then you come back to base.
29:52
But with like 400, but with like, it takes like four hours to fill your.
29:59
To fill your, um, or to charge your electric, your, your given electric truck.
30:06
And even if you take like some Tesla Model X or whatever,
30:09
it takes about that time too.
30:12
So Well, no, it's, it, I mean, you, the, the point is that any B.
30:15
E.
30:15
that the point that, that's a point that hydrogen u that, that the mat
30:20
used, used as an advantage to prove their point during the press conference.
30:26
Is that EV trucks, because their rivals with them take longer,
30:31
just to use it as a compliment?
30:34
Yeah, um, so the, the BEVs, uh, battery vehicles, um, the application in heavy
30:46
trucking is difficult because They take such a long time to recharge,
30:52
even if they're, they're supercharging.
30:55
Um, these Hyundai's have a 400, 500 mile, 450 mile out.
31:01
Those were the numbers that they were talking about range, which.
31:05
Which is okay if you're doing local deliveries, you know, last
31:09
mile stuff, um, obviously not good as a, as a highway hauler.
31:13
Um, they have a better payload, a hydrogen truck's gonna have a better
31:17
payload than a traditional battery truck, because the traditional battery
31:21
truck has to carry the weight of the battery, um, as Which is why electric
31:26
trucks, this might be with hydrogen trucks, I might have got confused,
31:30
but I think Well hydrogen trucks are electric, aren't they, that's the thing.
31:35
Yeah, but it's not quite the same thing.
31:38
No, because one uses a battery, the other uses hydrogen.
31:41
Yeah, yeah.
31:41
To create the electricity.
31:42
But the hydrogen, um, Was it the hydrogen trucks that, um,
31:49
That partnered with Fritos?
31:51
Because their chip potato chips are really light.
31:53
No, that's the Tesla truck.
31:56
Proving that the Tesla truck is not You mean the Nikola truck?
31:59
No, the Tesla Big Rig.
32:01
There's a Tesla Big Rig.
32:03
So Nikola Tesla separate companies.
32:06
Yeah, totally separate We're not talking about the Tesla bigger again because
32:10
that is battery powered not hydrogen.
32:12
Yeah The other example they used was we're probably aware of that traffic
32:19
jam in Germany where some people are just sit in the car overnight and people
32:23
who had the electric Cars that to run the heat is overnight in the morning.
32:26
The cars wouldn't start to drive away, whereas, of course, the gas people, they
32:30
could just leave the motor running all night and there was still gas in the tank
32:33
and they could drive off in the morning.
32:35
So this kind of flexibility in the face of a natural disaster, it's Pretty clear
32:41
that the, you know, the Minnesota, the Minnesota winter, um, it, you know, the
32:48
freight liner with the Cummins diesel is going to be the, uh, the one for that.
32:53
Um, still for, for some considerable time, however, local staff, regional
32:58
staff, the local stuff, last mile stuff, stuff where, You know, these
33:03
trucks, it's at the port of Oakland so they can fill up, go to a distribution
33:08
center, drop off and then come back.
33:10
And as long as that's 500, you know, that's less, that's 200
33:13
miles there and back, that's going to absolutely work for them.
33:16
One thing that is quite interesting is.
33:18
For this concept to work, this gas station has to work absolutely faultlessly
33:24
because, of course, if that's gas station doesn't work faultlessly, there
33:27
is nowhere else for the trucks to go.
33:29
So those people who are using those hydrogen trucks, those people
33:33
don't have a business anymore.
33:35
And, of course, that's the challenge getting diesel operators to flip is they
33:39
might be able to see economies of scale.
33:41
There might be economies of scale, but getting them to flip into a
33:44
situation where if one gas station.
33:47
goes down, they're screwed, or where they need a particular driver with a
33:52
particular set of skills and if he is, you know, taken sick that day, they don't
33:56
have anybody who can operate that truck.
33:59
You know, that's the, uh, the challenge that they've got.
34:02
But this is, this is a challenge with any kind of technological
34:05
development, right, is that you have, um, path dependency, don't you?
34:09
And this may be obvious because of what we said later, That um, they
34:14
didn't have sleepers because they couldn't because it's all hydrogen
34:17
tanks that kind of look like missiles but um Well, no, let's talk about that.
34:22
They're not regional If you're really taking all this in the They're
34:28
not regional things like it's not going these hydrogen trucks unless
34:32
they make a new model They're not going from here to new york.
34:35
They're going from like here to la Maybe hydrogening up once And on the like a
34:45
maybe going there and back in two days So let's talk about the design of the truck.
34:51
They are basically cab overs both the Nikola and the Hyundai were cab overs
34:57
Where the engine would normally be is the electric motor Where the sleeper
35:03
would normally be are all the hydrogen tanks And there's a lot of them.
35:08
There's Because it looks even bigger for a sleeper, right?
35:12
It doesn't, the more you look, the more you think like, no, this
35:15
doesn't look like a European sleeper.
35:17
And of course, to American eyes, where most trucks, especially trucks
35:20
with a sleeper, are conventional, you know, they've got the long square
35:23
nose on them, Um, for, to their eyes, The cab over with the sleeper.
35:29
That's a configuration you never really had.
35:31
No, but I I always thought it was a sleeper But we both walked in and we
35:35
first saw because the first truck we saw when we came in was a nikola truck And
35:39
we saw the big the the bigger The bigger sleeper Or what we thought was a sleeper.
35:47
We were both like that's a big sleeper when it's not also these long thin
35:53
Hydrogen tanks that we said that kind of looks like missiles There, um,
35:58
there were six of them, I counted.
36:00
Yeah, and they're all like stacked up, aren't they, in the space?
36:02
Yeah, three on like each.
36:04
Yeah, so, so, so there is a payload implication, right?
36:07
That this is taking up less weight than that payload.
36:11
Then a battery might, but there is still a payload implication.
36:14
So, so at this point, right before we went out on the test drive, I was feeling like
36:20
I felt the technology was pretty much 80 percent baked of one of the panelists.
36:25
I forgot to say this, but the most compelling panelists made the point
36:29
that because of the way that BVs are, if California is to meet its goal of
36:34
zero emissions in trucks by 2046, if, if California is to do that hydrogen.
36:40
Has to be part of the solution.
36:42
So in other words, there's a lot of pressure to develop better solutions
36:46
than what we have at the moment.
36:47
But as I say, at this point, I was feeling like the solutions were pretty, you know,
36:52
you know, kind of 80 90 percent baked.
36:55
As we moved on Definitely the hood and eye trucks is what he, is what
37:00
I believe in what he's saying.
37:03
Maybe like, maybe 90.
37:05
It took 95 percent with the Nikola trucks, and I'll tell you why in a
37:09
little bit when we start to get to the ride that we did in the Hyundai truck.
37:14
So if, so, so 80 or, you know, it felt 80 percent baked at this point.
37:21
Um, looking at the trucks themselves, um, You know, I'm not, I'm not saying
37:27
a modern Freightliner or Sterling to, to know how, how, how they might
37:31
compare, but of course, automatic transmission screens, um, you know,
37:37
and, and pretty much of a muchness.
37:39
They had a couple of different drivers, didn't they?
37:42
Who were actual truck drivers.
37:44
And this was quite interesting.
37:45
I'm gonna know of screens and nicer and better to drive and more efficient.
37:53
I sat, we sat, or I sat in both of the trucks, but we drove in the Hyundai truck.
38:00
At the end we'll talk about final thoughts and Hyundai truck driving,
38:04
but from the sitting in the truck's perspective, when I sat in the Nikola
38:10
truck, during the press conference, they're like, This is the future!
38:16
The Nikola truck struck me as more of the future.
38:20
The, the Hyundai truck struck me of more of a hydrogen truck of today.
38:26
And then when they say it's of the future, The Nikola truck
38:32
is the truck of the future.
38:35
And, and the reason I feel that way is because the Nikola truck
38:39
is like, It has like, it has like heated seats, air cooling seats,
38:45
Like a pretty decent sized TV.
38:48
Or not TV, um, like screen for directions, facing at the driver, and
38:54
it had electrical adjustable seats.
38:57
Which is, and it's more like slicker and more like efficient looking.
39:03
Even if it may not be, it still looks like that, so you might, so if I was a company
39:07
like Ryder, I might buy the Nikola, and I was in the market for hydrogen trucks,
39:13
I might buy the Nikola truck instead of the Hyundai truck for those reasons.
39:17
And then everything that I just said, the opposite of it, is the Hunoi truck.
39:22
So they laid on these proper truckers to talk to us about the,
39:27
the trucks as we were like, you know, climbing in and out of them.
39:29
And, and yet then they drove whilst, you know, we, uh, whilst one of us sat
39:34
in the passenger seat and the other one struggled to cross his legs, crammed
39:39
in the kind of sleeper, kind of center console, kind of passenger seat.
39:42
Plastic tray in between the, uh, in between the two seats.
39:46
Well, the plastic tray could have fit a corgi if you know how mean they are.
39:54
Um, so conventional truck, diesel truck, 17 or 18, 000 pounds.
39:59
These guys, 35, 000 pounds.
40:02
Which is why they partnered with a potato chip brand.
40:05
Well, no, that was because Where it's hydrogen, not, you know, battery?
40:13
Yeah, up to a point.
40:15
But there's still, you know, the sheer weight of the vehicle itself, which,
40:22
you know, is double what it was.
40:23
So there's a payload implication there, isn't there?
40:25
So I feel like, um, That made me take the, that took the wind
40:32
out of my sails a little bit.
40:34
And then I began to really think about what it was as we drove around the port
40:37
of Oakland, I began to think about what it was really going to take to make even
40:42
a big fleet like Verner or Schneider, think about making a flip, let alone,
40:48
uh, you know, one man band truck, you know, truck driver, um, I guess the
40:56
other thought I'd had, I had is the, the drive, because it's like an electric
41:02
vehicle drive, it's, it's, you know, two pedal, one pedal with heavy, you know,
41:07
regen braking, um, which, which, which, which we talked about, which we talked
41:14
about a lot, but I just, I guess we, Ollie, you and I didn't talk about this.
41:17
Um, I, I just found myself thinking, I feel like we're very close to autonomy.
41:22
There was so little.
41:23
No, literally, I think there was only, there was like, the brake pedal was like,
41:34
only Like, you know how, um, there's like the 18, um, like gear, highway
41:42
haulers, diesel highway haulers, who have like, who have like a creep gear,
41:48
for like traffic on the highway, You don't even need a creep gear with these.
41:55
You just kinda have to, like, kinda feather, and it'll just
42:00
kinda regen break into a creep.
42:03
And you'll Yeah.
42:06
Yeah.
42:07
So you don't need it, I suppose.
42:08
Yeah, so we're, uh So, any final thoughts, Ollie?
42:14
Um, I like the Nicola trucks better.
42:16
I just, they just You know seemed more of the of what they stated the the reasons
42:24
the state the reasons that they stated in the press Conference the Nicola truck
42:28
seemed to fit the fit them a little bit better so There have been other
42:34
hydrogen initiatives apparently There's been sports cars and stuff Well, no,
42:41
but that within California, there've been other hydrogen initiatives, which
42:45
haven't really, which by implication haven't really gone anywhere.
42:49
I can't pretend to be an expert on them, but clearly they haven't.
42:52
So that made me feel like, well, maybe this isn't, you
42:54
know, a shoe in to succeed.
42:57
And, and, and certainly, um, the technology seems if the technology
43:01
is hard to explain, it must be bloody hard to run properly.
43:07
Um, so I feel like we're You know, and even, you know, clearly the difficult
43:14
part of the technology is the science bit in getting the hydrogen and
43:19
they're even and cooling it and so on.
43:21
And they were and they what we spent a lot of time talking about was
43:25
how to make that more efficient.
43:26
And as we said, you know, the L.
43:28
A.
43:28
Times journalist, his question was around the process before.
43:35
So it feels like Yeah.
43:36
Um, you know, the the trucks themselves are like, you know, David Beckham's boots.
43:42
You know, they're they're a part of, uh, the machine.
43:44
The important thing is his brain and his leg.
43:47
Not really his shoe.
43:49
Although his shoe is the part that the ball's gonna, you know, connect with.
43:52
If that's not a really Stupid metaphor, um So, you know, I just feel like
43:59
I just feel like the trucks aren't that relevant, you know So I was I
44:02
disappointed I wasn't able to drive one.
44:04
No, was I pleased that ollie had a chance to sit in it?
44:07
Yeah, was I struck by the fact that he could probably have driven it Yeah,
44:12
I I was I was struck by that watching these things There was one pedal I'm
44:18
watching these things One pedal driving I'm watching these things creep around
44:25
the filling station, you know, and then creep out silently, you do find
44:29
yourself thinking You know It wasn't that long ago when you could smoke
44:34
in pubs and bars It wasn't that long ago when you sat in traffic you could
44:40
smell the exhaust fumes from every car You know when LA's traffic was full of
44:45
you know No smog You know, no smoke v eights, you know, with knocks and traves
44:53
hydrocarbons and popping out the smoke.
44:56
Yeah.
44:56
So it wasn't that long ago that we were there and we just accepted it.
44:59
You know?
44:59
You just accepted that when you went to a bar, even if you weren't a
45:02
smoker, you came out stinking a smoke because everyone in the bar smoked.
45:06
I think the noise of diesel, I think the smell of diesel
45:11
is going to go the same way.
45:34
What music do you think we should use for this episode?
45:36
The Halvar and Clarence ad.
45:39
All right, we can use the Halvar and Clarence ad.
45:41
What else do you think we should use?
45:43
What other music do you think we try and pull out baby by jack harlow
45:49
I don't think I don't even know that I I our music listen to it.
45:52
Well, no the music is so good the music I literally sing it if you want the music.
45:56
No, thanks the music in our um, The music in the episode as gam as
46:01
discussed with gammy is we try and publicize like little known or unknown
46:07
Cheesy heavy metal bands Crowbar.
46:11
Crowbar.
46:12
Crowbar, yeah.
46:14
Crowbar, I've seen you six times and you were shit every time, really.
46:19
The worst live show.
46:20
The worst live show I've ever seen.
46:23
No, and look up, look up like pictures of Crowbar.
46:26
They're so I don't know why I keep saying it like that.
46:29
Look at pictures of crowbars.
46:30
You wouldn't want to meet them in a dark night, Ollie.
46:32
They were mean looking.
46:33
No, they got like face tattoos.
46:35
And like And like And like They got like They have like Um They have like
46:43
I think one of them has like So one of them has like a A tattoo of a butt.
46:49
On his butt with a butt shaped motif.
46:50
No, he has like a cobra on top of one of his eyes or something.
46:54
And then you Have we come to a natural conclusion, Oli?
46:57
Yeah.
47:08
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Oh, and yeah, Clarence might bother to show up.
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He's a gnome thief, the smallest member of the crew.
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Ain't that right, Titch?
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Available now on iBooks, Audible, and everywhere that's cool.
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48:23
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