Good morning Grid Connections listeners
and for those of you who may be listening
for the first time, the Grid Connections
podcast is the show where we unravel the
complexities of electric transportation,
renewable energy, and our electrical power
grid that ties all of them together.
I'm your host Chase and today we're
thrilled to have Rustam Kocher, a
visionary retired trucking executive known
for his pivotal role at Daimler, where he
spearheaded the electric Cascadia trucking
program.
Our conversation was amazing.
I felt like I knew quite a bit actually
about electric trucking, but I really did
learn so much with our discussion.
In fact, our conversation went for so long
and we covered so much that I had to break
up our conversation into two parts.
So dive deep with us as we explore the
first part of our conversation with Rustam
discussing the electrifying challenges and
achievements in electric trucking from the
adoption of the game changing megawatt
charging standard or MCS for short.
to the future of autonomy in the industry.
In this episode, Rustam shares his
invaluable insights on the roadblocks and
milestones in electrifying the trucking
sector, enhancing EV charging
infrastructure, and the exciting prospects
of electric trucking domestically and
abroad.
It's a conversation packed with expertise
and foresight you won't want to miss.
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There's a treasure trove of information
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And with that, enjoy.
good morning, good afternoon, good
evening, wherever you're at, listeners.
My name is Rustam Kocher.
I actually do the heavy U on Rustam, but
either way is correct.
I fell into electrification actually
before I ever joined Daimler Trucks.
I was at Nike at the time in supply chain
and sourcing, and I had an old Nissan
Altima that I wanted to get rid of because
I got tired of paying the gasoline bill.
and this is around 2010 and there wasn't
any electric cars out there.
And so I went looking for them and I could
buy a zebra zap, which is a three wheeled
Chinese lead acid battery piece of crap,
but I think with 40 miles an hour and had
40 miles of range and had zero safety
features.
And I was like, that doesn't sound like a
car that I want to put my family and I
don't even mean.
But then I started to do some research and
the Nissan Leaf was coming out and then I
got into who killed the electric car and
looked at the Chevy Volt and I started to
do some research.
I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.
I wanted to stay in the Portland area.
There was one auto maker in the Portland
area and that was Freightliner.
And they make really big class eight
trucks and class six, seven trucks.
And...
I decided to go in with the objective of
becoming a bit of an inside agitator, kind
of the guy that throws the Molotov
cocktail over the wall and sees what
happens.
And so I was able to finagle myself into a
sourcing role there because of my
experience at Nike.
And I was purchasing essentially the
elements of an electric vehicle, spinning
electric motors, so starters and
alternators, batteries, lead acid, 12 volt
batteries, and all the electrical
components that kind of go into those
things.
And...
By doing so, I got a great lesson in who
the suppliers were, what the technology
was, how everyone was preparing for
electrification.
And what I found out was that I knew more
about vehicle electrification than most of
the suppliers did.
Certainly more than Daimler was prepared
to do.
And so quickly I kind of became the expert
in the space within Freightliner.
I started literally printing out articles
about the Tesla Semi and the Nikola
Electric Semi and things like that,
leaving them on executives desks.
Quickly graduated to email and some
newsletters that went around internally.
We grew from three to three thousand on
the email newsletter distribution list
within about three years.
And so, yeah, it just kind of grew to
position myself to be ready for when
Daimler was ever going to take that
electrification leap.
Funny story was when I was first hired,
the new employees had a chance to kind of
raise their hand in one of these all
-employee meetings and ask a question of
one of these high -level executives.
And so I raised my hand and I said, so
when do we plan?
to divest ourselves from diesel engines
and move to the next generation of
whatever's going to propel our trucks and
what's that look like?
And he literally laughed and said, oh,
diesel will be the fuel and engine for the
next foreseeable 30 years.
So there's no need to change.
To which I said, I don't think so.
And I kept doing what I was doing.
And then, uh, Fretlander decided to start,
actually Roger, uh, who was the CEO at the
time, uh, decided to start an internal,
uh, what they call a swarm with
Enzymeland, which is the German version of
a school of fish, which is kind of a, uh,
an internal startup.
And we call ourselves, we got to name
ourselves in a little bit.
And so you have the, um, Mercedes AMG,
which is the performance side of things.
And we call ourselves EMG, the e -mobility
electric mobility group.
And we were tasked within two years to
come up with, is this a feasible thing to
do as far as electrification of our
trucks?
And within three months, we had built a
class, an EM2, so class 6 -7, and a class
8 eCascadia.
We built them from the ground up using
existing chassis and cabs and proved that,
yes, the technology was there.
We could do it.
We could build them.
And then we had to prove the market case,
which took us slightly longer.
But by about five to six months, we were
essentially done and said, yes, it's
technically feasible.
There's a business case for it.
And not only that, but regulation is going
to push this in this direction.
So we need to do it.
And we quickly grew from 11, which was the
initial group, to I think there's over 300
now that call themselves EMG within
Daimler Truck.
So it was a pretty cool thing to be
involved in and to help start up.
And...
I'm excited about the fact that we have
series production now, Freyliner,
eCascadia's and EMQ's being sold to
customers.
They're even on Gen 2 for the eCascadia's,
which is really, really cool.
Yeah, no, thank you for sharing all of
that.
And that, that actually has brought up so
many more questions with, uh, with that,
but I know we've got some stuff we want to
go over, but I guess real quickly, I would
be curious in that.
Um, cause one of the things I wanted to
ask you about was if you could, how much
you could share of it, but it's around the
organizational change required and kind of
pushing that because that is such a big
change.
And it's funny you share that anecdote
about them be like, no, we'll be diesel
forever.
And.
Coincidentally, one of my best friends
actually took a job a couple of years ago
and he now lives in the Midwest selling
Volvo semis.
And so he's got his own, uh, he's, he's, I
would say, uh, optimistic, but very
skeptical.
And then of course his buyers are very
skeptical of electric trucks.
Um, but I, I'm just kind of curious of
what you saw and if there was any, maybe
tactics is the wrong word, but any tactics
or other ways to kind of win people over.
Or to kind of highlight and show to them
that this can actually work and that there
is a future for this.
One of the first things we did was...
tried to get as many executives into
electric cars as we possibly could.
Now the problem is Mercedes didn't have
any to speak of.
They had a B class that was built by Tesla
that was honestly not a great performing
vehicle.
And so we got them into Tesla's Model S,
Model X that was available at the time.
And just we'd rent them on Turo and we'd
say, here's the key card, go drive this
car for a week, a month, whatever it
takes, and then come back to us with
questions and concerns.
And obviously anybody who's driven
electric, any sort of decent recent
electric, you know, there's all the
torque, there's the smoothness, there's
the quietness, there's the practicality,
and then there's the challenge with
charging.
And so those are the things that came up,
you know, wow, this is really smooth, it's
really torquey, it's fast, it's quiet.
but it's a bitch to charge and so how do
we solve that?
And so we said well, for trucks we need to
be able to show that charging
infrastructure can work for trucks but it
probably needs to be purpose built.
And so the next step was we built a
charging station.
And as far as we know, it was the first
public truck and bus charging station in
North America, if not in the Western
world.
And it was actually a partnership with
Portland General Electric, which was the
local public utility, which serves the
Portland area.
And it's a 50 -50 split.
In fact, we got PG into a little bit of
trouble because they agreed to that
without getting express approval from
their...
body that manages them or approves what
they can spend their money on and about
three quarters of the way through that
project actually moved over to PGE.
a funny story I need to tell you about
that.
We'll talk about that offline.
And what you're referring to is, I believe
it's called now Electric Island, kind of
in North Portland there by the Daimler
headquarters.
Yep, that's the one.
And so I actually jumped over to Portland
General Electric about three quarters of
the way through that project.
And so I managed it.
So I started it, helped design it, helped
build it and get the partnership going.
And then I jumped over the fence and
helped to finish it on the PG -E site.
So that was pretty exciting.
And so we kind of had to show the world
what charging for trucks could, should
look like.
And as part of that, charging speeds is an
issue or it's a question.
So a Tesla Semi or any large Semi that's
going to travel for a full eight hour or
10 hour day probably needs to carry
between 700 kilowatt hours to a megawatt.
And if you're going to charge that at one
C, that means you need to be able to put
in one megawatt of charging power.
And there's no...
that's a totally great point.
And I didn't mean to cut you off, but just
in case anyone's listening, what one C
refers to is essentially the charge rate
in comparison to the battery.
So, uh, as, as you kind of said there,
Rustin, when, if you have what let just to
keep it simple, if you have one megawatt
hour size battery, you almost need to have
one megawatt of power.
And then you're at one C if you go to two
megawatts and it's a one megawatt hour,
then you're at two C.
But I'm sorry, continue.
the time that it takes to charge in an
hour, give or take.
So if you have a 1 megawatt battery and it
was a zero and you charged it for an hour,
it would get to full 1C, 1 megawatt.
None of those things are exact because
it's going to charge faster when it's low
and it's, yeah, anyway.
It's a rough approximation, 1C, 1
megawatt, 1 megawatt charging speed.
So...
That came up fairly early on in 2018 when
we started to get into what needed to be
done for charging speeds and public
charging for the trucks.
And Tesla actually rang us up and said,
hey, we wanna work on this project with
you.
We can't charge at the speeds we want to
with any of the existing connectors in the
marketplace.
And so we need to come up with a new
charging standard for...
our Semi because they had announced the
Semi as well as any other commercial
vehicle and the idiot that I was I raised
my hand and said sure I'll leave the
global effort to try and standardize this
having never participated in a global
standardization project before I never
should have done it I'm not an engineer I
don't have that background nor experience
but
What we have today now after almost four
years is an MCS connector.
So if you look for the megawatt charging
standard, MCS online, it's a triangular
shaped connector that has now been
essentially almost completed from a
standardization standpoint and will, I
think, be rolled out later this year in
2024.
and put into use on trucks in public
charging stations.
I believe that some of the first will be
in Germany on a partnership site with
Chaiton and a couple other manufacturers
between Berlin and Düsseldorf along kind
of the east -west axis there in Germany.
So that's pretty exciting that those are
going to use.
You've seen another connector that Tesla's
using at their Pepsi site.
They were required to deliver those trucks
in a certain amount of time based on the
state funding that was being applied to
that Pepsi site.
And in order to meet that timeline, they
had to go to market with the stage of the
development of the MCS connector that we
were on at the time.
And that was that square connector.
And so...
We've had a couple iterations since then
with that global project and we've reached
that triangular plug.
The hope is that Tesla will come to the
market with the series production of Semi
with that same triangular shaped plug on
the truck so that any fleet that has a
mixture of Volvos and Mercedes and whoever
else is out there and Tesla will simply be
able to use the same charge plug and won't
have a mixture of DC charging plugs that
we do.
cars today.
And that was the intent.
The intent was to make this plug so that
it would be a worldwide standard so you
could have a truck in Germany that could
run in Portugal, that could run in Russia,
that could run in the U .S., that could
run in Venezuela, and everyone could
drive.
Yeah.
And from what I've seen, yeah, there's
been a few different iterations of it, but
the last one I saw, and I believe this is
the one you're talking about is
essentially looks kind of like a rounded
triangle from the outside.
And then there's essentially two main DC
pins and then I think two or three like
communication pins as well.
Um, and so,
and you have an in and out on the comms.
Yeah.
And so it's actually, I mean, it's pretty
big, but it's still like smaller than like
the traditional Chateau Mo plug.
Um, so it's not like absurdly big.
And when you're talking about the power
it's dealing with, you're like, yeah, this
seems totally reasonable.
Um, and it, and anyone that's ever been by
like a commercial fueling station or ever
just even dealt with, uh, using a gas pump
there, it's actually would be, you just
plug it in and it goes.
So it's really not that, uh, from a user
experience, it's probably just.
is good if not better really, because you
can just kind of leave it and walk away
and it's still a pretty light device.
I'm curious as you're going through the
evolution of this, you talk about the one
that Tesla goes to market with and I've
seen that one where it's maybe people that
are listening have seen on TV where it's
almost like square from the outside kind
of and there's two like main vertical
pins.
Yeah, is there as you're going through
this, what did you find was the
biggest thing dictating this evolution
through these different styles?
Was it the communication protocols?
Was it the need for kind of over and
beyond safety for delivering this power?
Or is it maybe a mixture of all of the
above?
Communication protocols was an active
conversation throughout the, from the
start to the finish, honestly, and it
didn't really get finalized until late
last year through a voting process in the
standardization body in Europe.
Primarily, we made the decisions we made
as a group.
We really started with the use case and we
started with the customers and the OEMs.
the utilities and we said okay let's help
define what this needs to do.
how it's going to be used.
Do we want people to have to use safety
equipment in order to utilize it?
We said no, so there should be no safety
equipment.
Who's going to use it?
Well, essentially anyone is going to be
driving a commercial vehicle, so it has to
fit a use case of maybe a small young
female or an older elderly driver that has
to be able to climb down and plug it in.
So it can't be too heavy, it can't be too
unwieldy.
It has to be usable by not only the peak
of safety,
human condition but the edges as well.
So how do we make this so that the...
insertion forces and the removal forces
aren't obscene and people can actually use
it.
But then again, at the same time that it's
safe, that it can conduct these one
megawatt levels of power or more in a way
that's not going to put anybody at risk.
So we said, you know, safety, usability,
no safety equipment, things like that.
And so that's that's how we kind of came
up with defining what it should be able to
do.
And then we defined from a technical
standpoint that
what it should look like.
So there's what's called creepage and
clearance distances so that you don't have
any voltage that decides to leak out when
it's under power because voltage can jump
if given the chance if it's on a dirty
surface things like that.
So I learned a lot.
We actually had one whole lesson about the
physics of energy transfer and how close
things can actually get under you know
what amount of pressure is kind of useful
and what is too much or you know
essentially
longer useful, doesn't give you any
additional contact force and reduce the
amount of heating between the two
materials, things like that.
So again, I'm not an engineer, but I
learned a lot during this process.
And we learned that it's easier to tighten
the connection on a round face than it is
on two square faces.
You can kind of push with two square
faces, but...
it's easier to cinch down a round face and
get the kind of connection.
I don't know, durability over time so that
you can have the insertion removal forces
that you want but still get a nice clamp
force, things like that.
So that's how we came up with what we did.
Then we chose the V shape because as a
user it's easier to kind of slot that into
the V, then tip it up and push it in,
things like that.
And then we defined where it should be on
the truck, which makes the cable length a
little shorter.
So that was a bit of a fight, but in the
end we said left side of the left hand
side of the vehicle in all markets.
So whether it's in the UK or in Germany,
it's on the left side of the vehicle,
roughly hip height on the average human.
So that, so the instruction removal forces
aren't too bad.
And then behind the most rearward forward
axle and in front of the most forward rear
axle.
So which is a fancy way of saying it.
Between the axles, because sometimes you
have a double steer in the front and you
have two axles in the back.
So between the axles, left hand side of
the truck, roughly hip height.
So it gives you kind of a chapazoid shape
to put the connector in.
And that way your cable doesn't have to be
too long, so you don't have a really long
cable that's liquid cooled, being draped
around and have to run.
You you're talking a class eight truck,
you potentially could have, you know, 10
meters of cable if the connection point
was on the back or the front or the nose.
It's a giant vehicle.
You see the long cables with passenger
cars today.
So that's how we defined it.
And that's what we
yeah, that is actually a really
interesting point and pretty smart to make
sure that doesn't matter what market it's
kind of in the same place and especially
on the same side.
Cause I guess in a different realm, the
Tesla superchargers opening here in North
America, and I guess they have actually
been open in Europe for a little while.
The whole issue around what side it's on
kind of causes where the car and blocks
and other chargers.
That's very interesting and makes a lot of
sense.
Now.
I have a Volkswagen ID .3 here and I end
up blocking two spots when I charge using
the Tesla charger.
So I've come to start to use the last one
on the road and I parked sideways to it.
So I only take up one spot.
But you can't do that with the semi.
With the semi and a pull through with a
trailer, you kind of have to have the
charger where it needs to be.
gonna, you're gonna definitely get into
some, uh, not so friendly conversations
with, uh, with that.
So electric Island, when that went in, uh,
I mean, it's still in and I remember
hearing they're going to do like a second
round of upgrades to it.
I don't know if that's happened.
I don't know if you do, but when it
originally launched, it was essentially
just, uh, CCS one connect.
High voltage ones, but yeah, essentially
that's what the Daimler trucks would use
is they would plug that in.
The idea was, and I think they eventually
did open it to the public to use as well.
It was open to the public from day one.
Actually the day we opened it, it was open
to the public.
In fact, it was free for about the first
six months because we couldn't get the
payment software to overlay correctly on
the multitude of chargers that we had.
And so if you rolled up and you were a
rideshare, you got free electricity for
about six months.
So there was some pretty happy people
there for a while.
But yes, it was all CCS -1 connectors.
We had a couple of Chattemo.
We had all the way from 50 kW for like an
overnight style charge all the way up to,
I think I've got a 450 there now.
And we've got a stretch between 400 volt,
800 volt.
We've got the capability to put in the
automated connector system like a robot.
And then obviously we planned for MCS, so
the MCS capability to, the ability to
install an MCS, multiple MCS, as well as a
BESS and solar there are all there.
So we've, we made the site as flexible as
possible.
In fact, if you look at the overheads of
Electric Island, you'll see kind of a
concrete strip that runs through and under
all of the chargers.
That's actually a
with a cement top and you can just pop
that trench, drop new cables in, close it
back up, and you can actually switch out a
DC fast charger probably in about two
hours where at most sites it would take
you two or three days.
So it's got a tremendous flexibility.
So it seems like there could be like in
the quickest version of that, could you,
or maybe it's dependent on the actual
charger, you know, might not be able to
speak the language, but could you
literally just swap the cord out and then
it would have MCS or does the charger also
need to be replaced to, I guess what I'm
curious about is like the communication
protocol.
Is it CCS based?
Is it its own thing?
Does that make sense?
Like how you can swap out a, uh,
there, I believe you'd have to drop some
new cable.
I don't know 100 % the answer on that.
I think what they finally decided in the
standardization body was to go with
Ethernet.
And I believe that cable is different than
going via PLC or CAN, which are the other
two communication protocols out there that
we're considering.
So I believe you would have to drop a new
cable.
Gotcha.
And does it, uh, is there a kind of
version of plugin charge or something
supported or would it also kind of require
the payment side of stuff where each time
it plugs in it?
I mean, I'm just kind of curious about
that.
Yeah.
is to use 1511 -8 -20, which does have
plug and charge integrated.
So essentially you would carry the ID
within your vehicle of who you are and
who's paying for your charging.
You simply plug it in and walk away.
That's the intent.
Very cool.
With that, I think we've, unless there's
anything else you can think of, it seems
like we covered a lot on the MCS for that.
That's really fascinating.
And I really appreciate that because we
really don't get to talk about that too
much.
Um, it's usually around CCS and Tesla
standards.
So.
behind MCS was essentially to try and put
a bullet into hydrogen.
I will admit that I feel that hydrogen is
a little bit of a...
It's a push by the oil and gas industry to
stay relevant.
You know, kind of what they do is drill
and refine and pipe and ship liquid and
gaseous fuels and that's their business
model and so that's what they would like
to do with hydrogen.
The only substantial difference between,
performance difference between a hydrogen
and a BEV truck is that you can fuel a
hydrogen fuel cell truck faster and you
get slightly more range.
Well, we know batteries continue to
improve from a gravimetric, gravimetric
and let's see the term, density, power
density capacity.
And so they're able to hold more power and
accept more power.
over time as they improve.
And so we know that we'll have the
capacity on a BEV truck as much or more as
a hydrogen truck.
And with MCS, the charge time is roughly
the same.
So it essentially puts the hydrogen fuel
cell truck to bed because cost per mile of
BEV beats it every day.
Yeah.
And that's really interesting because
that's something I've talked with people a
lot.
And from like a energy and scientific
standpoint, I kind of get the argument for
hydrogen.
Uh, but when you look at, once again, like
it, to me reminds me of where consumer
electric vehicles are maybe like five to
10 years ago in some ways, because like,
obviously back then there was a much
larger argument for hydrogen for consumer
vehicles.
And now that's kind of fallen away.
Uh, we're even seeing the few that were
still open in California or even closing
down and.
argument.
If you have the electricity to make the
hydrogen, then you've created a hydrogen
that then you have to compress and ship.
And then you have to put it into a storage
tank at a dispensation facility.
You have to dispense it.
And then you have to turn it through a
fuel cell to electricity into a battery
that you then drive.
You're already five steps behind an
electric motor and a battery because
electric motor and battery, you simply put
the electricity into it and that the
battery.
So if you simply take that electricity
that you're going to use to make the
hydrogen and use it for the truck, you're
already ahead of the game.
Yeah, and I mean, I don't mean to be a
fear monger, but I think the concept of
using hydrogen and the Hindenburg analogy
to it, but then the fact that it's under
pressure, there's just all these things
that really compound it to like make it
not as energy dense, because you have to
have under pressure, you have to have a
much larger thing to keep it.
But even then, I think the thing that I'm
even consistently surprised by that people
don't fully realize, because I think the
biggest area where we're seeing this, when
you talk about the traditional fossil fuel
industry,
is around natural gas and making the
conversion from natural gas to be hydrogen
moving.
And the problem is hydrogen is the
smallest atom and it's not like slightly
harder to contain.
It's much harder to contain.
hydrogen embrittlement.
So if you use those same pipelines that
you use for natural gas and you try to use
them from hydrogen, they will just start
to crack.
And again, the hydrogen is a small atom,
so out it goes, and it will come in
contact with the source of flame and
you've got a big boom.
So.
Yeah, I mean, it's a very different form
of transportation, but if anyone that's
curious, the best thing they can do is go
research the space shuttle, uh, because it
was a mostly hydrogen powered and it just,
it is one of those things kind of in
theory.
And when you first think about it makes a
lot of sense, but then in practice and
execution, it really starts showing it
shortcomings and how much is required to
make it work.
And unfortunately it can go wrong very
quickly.
So.
We've said enough, I think about hydrogen
on that.
Um, but no, I, I really appreciate that.
And one thing you mentioned that I hadn't
really thought about before, and I kind of
like to hear more about is you said it
takes roughly the same amount of time to
fuel hydrogen as it is with an electric
truck.
And I know one of the things I've talked
to my friend who does, um, sell class
eight semis and there, these are people
are doing big trips in these semis, but I
mean, even with new regulations and I will
say, uh,
I'm always there's a fine line with
regulations, but as a person who drives a
lot on highways, the idea of like making
drivers have to take more breaks and be
safe about I'm okay with that one.
Um, uh, because everyone's human and
there's just a point that you can only
push someone so far.
And what is interesting is I believe it's,
is it every eight hours or 10 hours now,
um, that yeah.
Europe it's actually shorter, I believe
it's four or five hours in Europe.
In the US, I believe it's 10.
But yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
essentially brought it down to 10, which
is still a long day behind the wheel.
And, um, and once again, not to say they
can't do it, but I think that's a pretty
fair compromise, honestly, at 10 hours.
And so what is interesting is like, when
you look at how big these trucks are and
how fast they can go, you get into certain
States here in the U S where it's like,
you could be going in the seventies and
that's obviously kind of hitting your
efficiency and stuff, but it's.
It's kind of now at the right point that
as long as you have the charging stations
at the right location, when these drivers
have to take breaks anyway, the charging,
even with the current technology aligns
pretty well with how long they and how
frequently they have to break to recharge.
And I'm kind of curious when you
mentioned, is that kind of what you were
alluding to?
And is that similar with what you've seen
with hydrogen trucking?
Well, the MCS again, so when we started,
before we got into any sort of design
parameters of what it should look like, we
said, what does it need to do?
And one of the things that we decided that
it needed to do was hit that driver brake
and get it to 80 % roughly.
so that they can get back on the road
again and continue until their next break.
And so that was the intent was to hit that
20 to 25 minute window to get them from 10
% to 80%.
So how do we do that?
Well, we need to dispense at 1C, 1 .2C.
Okay, what connector needs to be able to
do 1 megawatt, 1 .3 megawatts, okay.
So, you know, then what does it need to
look like?
How much power does it need to dispense?
Those sorts of things.
So that's how we got to there.
And so we started with the kind of that
short break, you know, that 20 minute
break.
What does that look like?
And that's what we tried to try to hit.
So that's why we came up with the
parameters we did from power.
We also wanted to stay under 1200 volts
because if you go above 1200 volts, it
gets into some safety regulations in some
markets where you do have to wear safety
equipment or have to have special
training.
in order to operate the equipment.
And so if we stayed under 1200 volts, we
didn't get a board of those things.
Like I said, it was a lot of learning.
But at 800 amps, 1000 volts, it starts to,
that's a lot of power, but you can start
to hit those 20, 25 minute top ups.
And you see the Tesla Semi doing it
already with Pepsi.
And they're only operating at 700 kW.
where they can do a 30 minute driver break
at lunch, get that truck back up and
running and they did that 1200 mile day
when they're doing the drive on that.
So we know it's possible for sure.
It's interesting you mentioned the Tesla
semi and you said 700 kilowatts Do you
know if that's limited by the truck or is
that limited by the charging
infrastructure?
They're using currently?
I don't know the answer to that question.
I just know that that's the number that
they've shared with everyone.
I have had some conversations with
engineers on both truck and charging side,
but those are private.
Now I'm sure I, and I realize you hadn't
worked there.
I just wondering if, uh, there's more of
just a general question, but I mean, even
if you can make it even work at 700
kilowatts and you have it already kind of
almost future proof to get to that make a
watt thing.
Um, that makes it a pretty, I mean,
that's.
on top so we knew that we could hit
certain things now, but we also wanted
room for growth because both of the CCS -1
and CCS -2 were essentially topped out.
There was no more room for growth when
they were standardized.
So we said, okay, let's make this
connector able to grow, give it some
headroom so that if somebody did want to
push it, they could.
And the funny thing was is we only set out
to do this for trucks and buses.
And then here comes a marine and...
Here comes aviation and then here comes
mining and here comes all these like event
space and like, can we use this?
And we're like, sure, whatever.
So now it's like, if it rolls, floats or
flies and you need a lot of power, have
that.
So MCS is the solution to a lot of
interesting problems.
That's pretty cool.
And that, that is actually something else
I wanted to ask you about because they're
all, uh, whether you're bearish or bullish
on is there's all these new VTOL companies
coming out.
They were, I was watching an interview
recently.
Um, I think there's definitely a market
for it.
I don't know if it's a large disruptive
market unless you're a helicopter
business, but there's, there's definitely
certain areas, maybe in Europe and
definitely like the Bay area in, um, the U
S where it's like, yeah, I could see that,
but there's, there's definitely a use case
for that.
And one of the things they were talking
about is like, Oh, we don't know what
charging equipment we're going to use yet.
And so it's really interesting.
You mentioned that because like that
almost seems like, cause their batteries
aren't nearly that big.
I figured it'd be like something more like
even just using a Tesla, the new North
American charging standard actually would
be like perfect for it.
And so I was kind of curious.
They hadn't announced anything, but like
even once again, using something like
that, um, where it's a pretty well -known
standard and.
Could be used for other things.
I mean, they're talking about putting them
on the top of garage, uh,
parking garages.
So I don't know how many semi trucks are
going to go to the top of parking garage.
But, and that's where I was counting.
I was like, well, yeah, if you did like
the next thing, then while you're, if, uh,
if you're not charging a, uh, uh, if you
tall, you could be charging someone's car
and charging money for that.
But that's a whole nother thing.
And I'm not in that business.
So with that, that's,
seem to think that they can get close to a
Megalight out of a Naxx connector, which
if they can do it, power to them.
Maybe that's a cheaper way to do it.
Getting power to the site is another
question entirely.
And I'll be getting utilities to provide
that power to the site.
Right.
I think, um, I, I kind of agree with you.
I think it's really cool that they
designed it and they kind of pushed it to
be that.
I don't know how practical, but I, like
you were saying earlier, CCS one and CCS
two were kind of maxed out as it was.
And from a future proofing standpoint, if
your plans to only use it mostly for, um,
regular vehicles, then yeah, that gives
you so much headroom and then some that it
does seem to be pretty well future
-proofed.
If you wanted to go up to semis, I don't
know.
But you can at least even as like a backup
have it that like, even if you can get to
like we're talking about 700 kilowatts,
it's kind of a nice backup thing to have
if you're building a site anyway.
Um, but no, I, I'm, I, I'm curious, have
you had many discussions with the
traditional like fueling stations around
like the, the pilots, the flying J's or,
um, kind of the commercial Pacific's that
are traditional fueling stops for truckers
around moving to kind of an electric
future.
And it went.
feedback they have because the reason I
bring this up is one of the things we've
talked about a lot on this podcast is
especially around CCS2 is the challenges
at least domestically around Electrify
America not to point finger point, but as
an example that have struggled with
charging infrastructure.
And now you're starting to see some of it
through federal funding.
Others just come through general interest.
You're starting to see the flying J's, the
pilots.
Enter that space.
And for them, there's never really been a
strong business model in fueling.
It's the stuff they sell when people stop
to fuel.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And
that the conversations with the Travel
Americas and the Loves and the Flying J
folks were really, really frustrating back
in the early, the late teens and the early
twenties.
There was a real lack of any interest or
desire to get into the charging space by
any of them.
I'd say that's substantially changed now.
Every single one of the major fuel
refueling rest stops slash, you know, Buc
-E's, you know, what's what have you,
they're, they've all got some sort of a
charging partner and they've all got some
sort of a strategy that they're going
into.
Some are well thought out, some are less
so.
Not all of them have consideration for
larger vehicles than light duty.
Some do, some don't.
So, you know, the proof will be in the
pudding.
Everybody's in the early stages of it.
But it's an area of industry that's right
for disruption, which is why I consult and
I'm on the advisory board for Watt EV.
So when we built Electric Island,
It was this couple of guys from down in
the LA area that kind of kept calling me
up and asking me questions.
And I've always been one that's like, one
company can't do it all.
We need as many people in this space to be
successful as possible.
If you're an honest broker, you are honest
with the market and honest with what your
technical capabilities are.
and you're in it for the right reasons, I
think you should succeed.
So there's a couple of companies that
maybe fall outside of that exclusion zone.
I won't name them, but if you're honest
and upright, forthright with the market,
let's see you succeed.
So YDV came about as an idea from these
guys that they wanted to provide
essentially identical versions of Electric
Island scaled up for the market.
And so...
power to Portland General Electric and a
couple of my predecessors in the utility
industry up and down the West Coast.
There had been some pre -work done to
establish what a West Coast clean transit
corridor would look like.
I did some more work on that when I was at
Portland General Electric.
It's a partnership between all the
different utilities up and down the West
Coast.
And it was a pre -plan as to what needs to
be done in order to allow freight to move
from San Diego to Vancouver, BC.
And so the sites have been reviewed, the
desk reviews have been done, the upgrades
have been identified, and essentially all
the utilities are waiting for is a
customer to come in and say, I plan on
asking you for 12 megawatts at the site,
or two megawatts, or whatever it is, let's
get it done.
And they can pull the desk review out that
they've recently done and move forward.
and Wadi V and others have started to do
that.
So it's really exciting to see them move
into a business that's never been a
business before.
It's truly unique, it's new, no one's ever
built.
for -profit public truck charging and bus
charging sites before.
They saw a unique opportunity in that if
you have a public charging site, you're
only making money if you're dispensing
energy.
So if you've got only a small volume of
trucks out there, you're not gonna have a
lot of customers.
But there's also within the Los Angeles
area for the ports of Long Beach and LA.
Most of the drayage carriers, the folks
that go and pick up containers are small
fleets, the mom and pops.
They run from two to five trucks.
And the way to get them into an electric
truck is to lower the barriers to entry.
And so YDB has actually purchased a number
of electric trucks.
and offers them as truck as a service and
charging as a service to these customers.
So they can simply pay a monthly fee,
charge up with the Wadi V sites and then
go pull freight, zero emissions out of
Port of LA and Long Beach.
So it's kind of exciting and it's neat to
see them succeed.
They've got one site up and running and
they'll have three more open, I think by
the end of this year, one in Bakersfield,
one in Inland Empire.
And it's really exciting to see them grow.
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned ports
because I've had a interesting
conversation recently with a company
that's focused in the commercial charging
space, but they're approaching and there's
a couple doing this, but they're
approaching it with wireless charging.
And I was kind of curious with MCS, are
there any protocols or any standards for,
or kind of like future proofing built to
do it MCS level of charging wirelessly?
Or is that kind of still a little bit of a
wild west and a separate thing?
I know.
You also mentioned doing just having a
robotic charging to kind of automate the
process anyway.
So I think that that chapter has not been
completely written for charging yet.
You made a mention of truckers and being
on the road for a certain length of time.
As we reach automation for driving, and I
don't know what kind of electric car you
have, but I had a model Y and I had a
model three in the US.
And I drove through Wyoming without
touching the steering wheel.
And I literally took...
I think 97 pennies and stuffed them into a
rubber racket ball and hung it with a
string over my steering wheel so it had
enough pull on the steering wheel.
And on the freeway, that car drove with
100 % degree of certainty.
And so it's entirely within the capability
of autonomous driving on freeways for
trucks, I think, to operate on freeways
autonomously.
And so if you extrapolate that further, if
you have autonomous trucks,
they need to be electric so that there's
zero emission.
And if you have electric autonomous
trucks, then you have to have some way to
autonomously charge them.
Whether that's a robotic arm, whether
that's induction, I don't have an answer
to that.
I don't think anybody knows what that
answer is yet.
Induction does have some challenges as far
as the orientation, making sure that
they're directly, the coils are directly
oriented, that there's no misdirection
because you get a lot of heat and you get
a lot of...
power loss between the two.
The coils being carried on the vehicle can
be quite heavy if you're going to convey
that much power, whether or not that's
efficient because you have some energy
loss there.
Those things need to be solved.
Again, I don't know.
MCS was kind of the next step as far as
what we could do from a conductive point
of view, whether it's a robotic arm that
goes and sticks that in, or whether we
have some sort of inductive solution.
I don't know.
But if you talk about autonomous vehicles,
not having a driver, or maybe having a
driver at the wheel that's simply
monitoring, then why would you have
somebody that has to go shove the thing
into the vehicle?
They've got to be something.
Yeah, it's a, uh, the reason I asked that
it was kind of interesting how these
conversations and I kind of go back and
forth on the value of the technology
because they're, they, they were
approaching using radio waves.
So you kind of get around some of those
issues that you were talking about from
the hardware standpoint and you still get
pretty high efficiency, but a big part of
it was just the fact that that way they
don't even have to train or deal with the
people plugging it in on their break.
And they were talking about for a lot of
these were transit electric vehicles, like
the person could just pull up, uh,
Have people get on and off, do a quick
charge without even knowing it.
Or when they take their break for lunch or
whatever, they just park it somewhere.
They don't have to think about actually
plugging it in.
And so from that standpoint, there's some
really interesting things.
And the fact that there's really no moving
parts versus kind of the robotic thing is
also kind of a long -term value
proposition to it.
But right.
I kind of agree with you.
It's like, it's interesting, but it's
still kind of early days to see where,
which one's going to really make it out in
the longterm.
Yeah, but it's interesting you mentioned
it.
Yeah.
and that sort of thing, you've got
Pantograph, those go up to really nice
high powers.
You install those Pantos at certain brake
sites or places that a bus is going to be
for long, five minutes or less or more,
sorry.
And yeah, Panto is a great solution as
well.
Yeah.
And I think what we've been talking about
today is semis and there's probably a use
case, especially if it's a short trip one,
but it seems like a lot of these are more
focused on either transit or maybe even,
uh, ports were a big one for them too.
And so, um, but we talk about autonomy and
I'm kind of curious what you have seen and
what you've experienced.
Uh, I've actually had a lot of, uh,
professional and personal experience
around autonomy, but obviously kind of the
light duty side of stuff.
And from what you were even talking about,
you're totally right that, uh, I mean, I
actually have a model Y two.
I've driven through Wyoming quite a few
times and you're exactly right.
You just kind of hit the thing and it's
just straight.
Um, yeah.
Um, and so the, the only thing you really
have to worry about, I've done it a couple
of times and you can get a pretty big
headwind.
So you just have to figure out where your
charting stop is.
Um, but other, I mean, other, other than
that,
That other than that, that that's, and as
if you're, once again, if you got the
Tesla thing going for you, it's still a
pretty straightforward process, but that
is one of the few times I actually got
close to getting into trouble was the
headwind was just hitting my range so
much, but that's a whole different story.
So with autonomy, um, what, what have you
seen around that and what, what, uh,
whether it's your own experience with it
or just kind of your kind of.
industry knowledge that you can see the
future of that or how realistic and how
soon is that for an option for semis?
So the Venn diagram of autonomy and
electric, you would think are kind of the
same circle, but they're not.
So autonomy works really well in
commercial trucks, for the longer hauls,
and the long haul and battery electric
trucks aren't a great mix just yet.
It's great for driver safety on highway
and freeway, but again.
battery electric trucks don't get you on a
long haul.
So autonomy is definitely there as we see,
you know, with Tesla, there's the, what's
the Ford, there's something blue.
Chevy's got theirs.
I mean, there's the Mercedes has theirs.
Everybody's got some sort of a version of
autonomy out there.
On commercial vehicles from a safety
standpoint, I would much rather have a
driver with an autonomous software feature
available to them to keep them safe.
I mean, that's, I want them,
to have that because it doesn't get
distracted, it's constantly vigilant, and
it's not like a human.
It's not gonna get sleepy, it's not gonna
potentially be impaired by drugs or
alcohol, and we know it does a solid job
in certain operating parameters.
On freeways, it's bulletproof.
When you get into non -freeway situations,
that's when it starts to get a little
wonky.
I don't think we're there yet, and I don't
think that we're there yet for a while,
but there's a lot of folks working really
hard on...
and get it dialed in.
I they'll get there eventually.
But I mean, what was I was reading
something about an autonomous vehicle, one
of the Waymo's I think, and they came
around a corner one time and there was a
woman chasing a flock of ducks with a
broom.
And it's like, how do you program that
into your Waymo as you know, what you do
when you encounter a flock of ducks being
chased by a woman with a broom?
You know, so it's just as a human, you're
just like, oh, you just go around.
But how do you program that into a
computer?
Yeah, and it's funny you mentioned that
because one of the things that Tesla had
mentioned when they first announced the
semi, it's an interesting idea, but they
haven't really talked about much was the
concept that you could actually have like
three electric trucks, but one driver
essentially, where they would be the first
two would be kind of falling.
And that in theory kind of makes sense.
And you kind of get maybe the best of both
worlds, but it still seems like that's a
ways off.
And there is, um, especially with long
haul, at least talking to people, there
still seems to be whether.
Even when you take charging outside of it,
there's kind of the loading and unloading
and there's still an element of human
labor required with that.
So it kind of makes sense to have a
driver.
And obviously in those kinds of more
dangerous situations, but yeah, if that's
really, if you can get autonomy for that
and charging to that point, then it does
kind of make sense that maybe you can get
to like three trucks and one driver, uh,
which is an interesting idea.
It still seems like a ways out, but do you
see that as being a realistic possibility
or.
I don't know how much exactly I can say on
that one because some of the conversations
I've had about that issue were internal
when I was working on the topic at one of
my previous employers and with others
inside the industry.
I will say that by and large the challenge
is latency, which means the time it takes
from the signal to travel from one to the
other and whether it's going through a
tower or a satellite.
And so if you talk about freeway speeds,
70 miles per hour, and if you have a
latency of half a second, how far would
that vehicle travel in that half a second?
And if the signal is just that much late,
potentially you have the vehicle doing
things you don't want it to do.
So it's a difficult one to overcome
because physics says that a signal can
only travel so fast through the Earth's
atmosphere.
For sure.
And while it's controversial, I think that
is always one of the areas that Tesla and
Waymo actually have been really good about
is having so much of the thinking, whether
it's them or someone else or a Chinese
company that comes up with it.
I don't know.
But like, I do think that core concept of
having so much of the actual thinking and
processing being done in the car versus
being sent somewhere else and then, or
being remotely done just inherently
removes a lot of that.
I think that's a great fallback or.
some safety elements to it, but I mean,
we, we see so many times that cell towers
or other things happen where they go down.
And at the end of the day, that car is
moving down the road and has to make the
decision.
So that.
something stopped in front of me I need to
stop and that vehicle needs to make that
decision without having to go back to the
central computer and say should I stop?
Right.
Or is this, yeah, what is this, what is
this thing I'm seeing, shooing a bunch of
ducks across the road?
Should I just keep driving?
Do I?
Yeah.
I mean, that's exactly that kind of stuff.
Um, so no, I, I understand.
I appreciate you saying what you can about
it.
We've, we've talked a lot about the
charging infrastructure and kind of the
design and the sports of it.
So let's, let's talk a little bit about
the actual trucks and your experience with
kind of designing and working, um, with
companies building those because.
As I said, I've been talking to my friend
who works in the industry.
He definitely is focused more on the long
haul stuff.
And we are seeing obviously for fleets,
it's, and large companies especially have
those, I think more clear business cases.
And then a lot of large companies even
have certain requirements that they're
making around sustainability and other
promises that are kind of accelerating and
kind of pushing them to go towards that
anyway.
But some of the things I've heard that are
kind of against, especially if you're a
smaller operator for a truck is one of the
big things is actually around the weight
and what can electric truck actually move.
I know that traditionally semis have had
like an 80 ,000 pound requirement and
that's kind of changed a little bit with
here in the U S I think they increased it
to 82 ,000 pounds if it's electric or
something.
If it's got some sort of a zev or reduced
emissions drivetrain, I believe natural
gas falls into that as well.
So if you've got that, or in the hydrogen,
so they get a two ton dispensation.
Which is something, but especially once
you're talking around a megawatt hour of
batteries, it could only be maybe a fifth
of that.
So I, uh, but I mean, obviously diesel
engines are super heavy, uh, carrying all
that fuel has it's there.
It's not a completely one or the other
there.
It's I think closer than most people
realize, but I am kind of just curious if
there's any of that you can kind of talk
about or share around the practical
applications and.
how much of a difference weight actually
plays into the effectiveness of electric
semi trucks.
So weight is definitely an issue.
The initial battery electric trucks were
heavier.
I believe the Tesla Semi is still heavier
than a traditional diesel ICE.
But I think we're getting there.
Like I said, the gravimetric and
volumetric density of batteries continues
to come down, as well as price.
So you have all of these slopes from
technology and price that are headed the
right direction.
So we'll get to the point where they're
lighter and have just as much power.
power on board, if not more.
And we already see cases where it's
cheaper by far to operate electric trucks.
If you have runs that are 100 miles or
less or 150 miles or less, and you're
running electric trucks versus the diesel,
it's cheaper.
So the question I'll ask you to ask your
friend who's involved in long haul.
is that when the industry moved from
horses and trailers to gasoline trucks,
did they still take the gasoline trucks to
the barn to feed them hay and rub them
down?
The answer is no.
They changed the way they operated, right?
And so when you're changing from a diesel
truck to a battery electric truck,
you have to change the way you operate.
Slightly, not totally, but you have to
take into account your percentage of
charge when the truck returns, the
scheduling of drivers to complete certain
routes, and how far they're gonna go with
that route on that particular day, and
what the charge rate of the truck is, and
how much power it's got on board.
You have to know these things.
We have the ability to track all this
information.
you have the ability of a dispatcher to
say choose from four trucks and say, okay,
this one needs to go 200 miles.
And, you know, I've only got one of the
trucks that's capable of doing that right
now, because that one's at 95 % steady
charge.
So go take that one.
We'll put this other truck on this route.
You know, that's those things are doable
and capable of being done on the today's
with today's technology.
As we wrap up the first part of our
conversation, we want to extend our
deepest thanks to Rustam Kocher for
joining us and sharing his profound
insights into the electrification of the
trucking industry, the challenges and
triumphs of implementing the megawatt
charging standard, along with the past,
present and future of electric trucking in
transportation.
Rustam's experience and visionary work
truly illuminate the path forward for
sustainable transport.
I'm really excited to share part two next
week with you as well.
I can't thank Rustam enough.
for his time and what we covered.
Remember, if today's conversation sparked
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Remember, just email us, guests at
connectingthegrid .com, or reach out to us
on our social channels.
For those of you who are intrigued by
Rustam's work and want to dive deeper,
remember to check out the show notes for
more information and links to his current
projects.
There's always more to explore after the
show.
We're grateful for your enthusiasm for the
subjects we cover on this podcast.
Thank you for tuning in and until part two
next week, this is the Great Connections
podcast signing
