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Good morning Grid Connections listeners
and for those of you who may be listening

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for the first time, the Grid Connections
podcast is the show where we unravel the

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complexities of electric transportation,
renewable energy, and our electrical power

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grid that ties all of them together.

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I'm your host Chase and today we're
thrilled to have Rustam Kocher, a

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visionary retired trucking executive known
for his pivotal role at Daimler, where he

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spearheaded the electric Cascadia trucking
program.

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Our conversation was amazing.

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I felt like I knew quite a bit actually
about electric trucking, but I really did

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learn so much with our discussion.

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In fact, our conversation went for so long
and we covered so much that I had to break

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up our conversation into two parts.

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So dive deep with us as we explore the
first part of our conversation with Rustam

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discussing the electrifying challenges and
achievements in electric trucking from the

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adoption of the game changing megawatt
charging standard or MCS for short.

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to the future of autonomy in the industry.

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In this episode, Rustam shares his
invaluable insights on the roadblocks and

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milestones in electrifying the trucking
sector, enhancing EV charging

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infrastructure, and the exciting prospects
of electric trucking domestically and

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abroad.

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It's a conversation packed with expertise
and foresight you won't want to miss.

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But before we start, a quick reminder.

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If you find today's episode enlightening,
do us a favor and share it with someone

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you know who would appreciate these
insights just as much as you do.

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Word of mouth helps us grow and bring more
valuable discussion like these to you.

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Sign up for our newsletter to stay ahead
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discussions, and exclusive content from
the Grid Connections podcast.

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Plus, do you have a topic in mind or a
guest you've been dying to hear from on

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our podcast?

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Reach out to us.

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We're always on the lookout for compelling
stories and voice it to feature on our

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show.

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Email guests at connectingthegrid .com.

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Once again, that's...

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guests at ConnectingTheGrid .com or reach
out to us on our social channels.

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And for those intrigued by Rustam's
journey and eager to learn more about his

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current endeavors, be sure to check out
the show notes after the episode.

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There's a treasure trove of information
waiting for you.

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And with that, enjoy.

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good morning, good afternoon, good
evening, wherever you're at, listeners.

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My name is Rustam Kocher.

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I actually do the heavy U on Rustam, but
either way is correct.

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I fell into electrification actually
before I ever joined Daimler Trucks.

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I was at Nike at the time in supply chain
and sourcing, and I had an old Nissan

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Altima that I wanted to get rid of because
I got tired of paying the gasoline bill.

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and this is around 2010 and there wasn't
any electric cars out there.

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And so I went looking for them and I could
buy a zebra zap, which is a three wheeled

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Chinese lead acid battery piece of crap,
but I think with 40 miles an hour and had

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40 miles of range and had zero safety
features.

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And I was like, that doesn't sound like a
car that I want to put my family and I

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don't even mean.

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But then I started to do some research and
the Nissan Leaf was coming out and then I

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got into who killed the electric car and
looked at the Chevy Volt and I started to

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do some research.

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I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.

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I wanted to stay in the Portland area.

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There was one auto maker in the Portland
area and that was Freightliner.

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And they make really big class eight
trucks and class six, seven trucks.

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And...

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I decided to go in with the objective of
becoming a bit of an inside agitator, kind

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of the guy that throws the Molotov
cocktail over the wall and sees what

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happens.

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And so I was able to finagle myself into a
sourcing role there because of my

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experience at Nike.

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And I was purchasing essentially the
elements of an electric vehicle, spinning

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electric motors, so starters and
alternators, batteries, lead acid, 12 volt

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batteries, and all the electrical
components that kind of go into those

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things.

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And...

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By doing so, I got a great lesson in who
the suppliers were, what the technology

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was, how everyone was preparing for
electrification.

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And what I found out was that I knew more
about vehicle electrification than most of

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the suppliers did.

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Certainly more than Daimler was prepared
to do.

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And so quickly I kind of became the expert
in the space within Freightliner.

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I started literally printing out articles
about the Tesla Semi and the Nikola

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Electric Semi and things like that,
leaving them on executives desks.

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Quickly graduated to email and some
newsletters that went around internally.

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We grew from three to three thousand on
the email newsletter distribution list

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within about three years.

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And so, yeah, it just kind of grew to
position myself to be ready for when

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Daimler was ever going to take that
electrification leap.

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Funny story was when I was first hired,
the new employees had a chance to kind of

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raise their hand in one of these all
-employee meetings and ask a question of

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one of these high -level executives.

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And so I raised my hand and I said, so
when do we plan?

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to divest ourselves from diesel engines
and move to the next generation of

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whatever's going to propel our trucks and
what's that look like?

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And he literally laughed and said, oh,
diesel will be the fuel and engine for the

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next foreseeable 30 years.

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So there's no need to change.

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To which I said, I don't think so.

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And I kept doing what I was doing.

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And then, uh, Fretlander decided to start,
actually Roger, uh, who was the CEO at the

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time, uh, decided to start an internal,
uh, what they call a swarm with

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Enzymeland, which is the German version of
a school of fish, which is kind of a, uh,

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an internal startup.

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And we call ourselves, we got to name
ourselves in a little bit.

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And so you have the, um, Mercedes AMG,
which is the performance side of things.

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And we call ourselves EMG, the e -mobility
electric mobility group.

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And we were tasked within two years to
come up with, is this a feasible thing to

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do as far as electrification of our
trucks?

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And within three months, we had built a
class, an EM2, so class 6 -7, and a class

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8 eCascadia.

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We built them from the ground up using
existing chassis and cabs and proved that,

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yes, the technology was there.

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We could do it.

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We could build them.

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And then we had to prove the market case,
which took us slightly longer.

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But by about five to six months, we were
essentially done and said, yes, it's

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technically feasible.

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There's a business case for it.

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And not only that, but regulation is going
to push this in this direction.

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So we need to do it.

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And we quickly grew from 11, which was the
initial group, to I think there's over 300

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now that call themselves EMG within
Daimler Truck.

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So it was a pretty cool thing to be
involved in and to help start up.

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And...

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I'm excited about the fact that we have
series production now, Freyliner,

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eCascadia's and EMQ's being sold to
customers.

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They're even on Gen 2 for the eCascadia's,
which is really, really cool.

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Yeah, no, thank you for sharing all of
that.

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And that, that actually has brought up so
many more questions with, uh, with that,

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but I know we've got some stuff we want to
go over, but I guess real quickly, I would

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be curious in that.

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Um, cause one of the things I wanted to
ask you about was if you could, how much

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you could share of it, but it's around the
organizational change required and kind of

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pushing that because that is such a big
change.

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And it's funny you share that anecdote
about them be like, no, we'll be diesel

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forever.

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And.

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Coincidentally, one of my best friends
actually took a job a couple of years ago

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and he now lives in the Midwest selling
Volvo semis.

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And so he's got his own, uh, he's, he's, I
would say, uh, optimistic, but very

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skeptical.

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And then of course his buyers are very
skeptical of electric trucks.

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Um, but I, I'm just kind of curious of
what you saw and if there was any, maybe

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tactics is the wrong word, but any tactics
or other ways to kind of win people over.

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Or to kind of highlight and show to them
that this can actually work and that there

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is a future for this.

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One of the first things we did was...

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tried to get as many executives into
electric cars as we possibly could.

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Now the problem is Mercedes didn't have
any to speak of.

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They had a B class that was built by Tesla
that was honestly not a great performing

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vehicle.

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And so we got them into Tesla's Model S,
Model X that was available at the time.

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And just we'd rent them on Turo and we'd
say, here's the key card, go drive this

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car for a week, a month, whatever it
takes, and then come back to us with

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questions and concerns.

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And obviously anybody who's driven
electric, any sort of decent recent

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electric, you know, there's all the
torque, there's the smoothness, there's

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the quietness, there's the practicality,
and then there's the challenge with

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charging.

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And so those are the things that came up,
you know, wow, this is really smooth, it's

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really torquey, it's fast, it's quiet.

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but it's a bitch to charge and so how do
we solve that?

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And so we said well, for trucks we need to
be able to show that charging

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infrastructure can work for trucks but it
probably needs to be purpose built.

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And so the next step was we built a
charging station.

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And as far as we know, it was the first
public truck and bus charging station in

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North America, if not in the Western
world.

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And it was actually a partnership with
Portland General Electric, which was the

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local public utility, which serves the
Portland area.

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And it's a 50 -50 split.

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In fact, we got PG into a little bit of
trouble because they agreed to that

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without getting express approval from
their...

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body that manages them or approves what
they can spend their money on and about

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three quarters of the way through that
project actually moved over to PGE.

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a funny story I need to tell you about
that.

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We'll talk about that offline.

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And what you're referring to is, I believe
it's called now Electric Island, kind of

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in North Portland there by the Daimler
headquarters.

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Yep, that's the one.

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And so I actually jumped over to Portland
General Electric about three quarters of

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the way through that project.

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And so I managed it.

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So I started it, helped design it, helped
build it and get the partnership going.

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And then I jumped over the fence and
helped to finish it on the PG -E site.

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So that was pretty exciting.

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And so we kind of had to show the world
what charging for trucks could, should

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look like.

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And as part of that, charging speeds is an
issue or it's a question.

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So a Tesla Semi or any large Semi that's
going to travel for a full eight hour or

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10 hour day probably needs to carry
between 700 kilowatt hours to a megawatt.

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00:11:05,844 --> 00:11:09,984
And if you're going to charge that at one
C, that means you need to be able to put

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in one megawatt of charging power.

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And there's no...

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that's a totally great point.

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And I didn't mean to cut you off, but just
in case anyone's listening, what one C

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refers to is essentially the charge rate
in comparison to the battery.

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So, uh, as, as you kind of said there,
Rustin, when, if you have what let just to

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keep it simple, if you have one megawatt
hour size battery, you almost need to have

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one megawatt of power.

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And then you're at one C if you go to two
megawatts and it's a one megawatt hour,

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then you're at two C.

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But I'm sorry, continue.

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the time that it takes to charge in an
hour, give or take.

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So if you have a 1 megawatt battery and it
was a zero and you charged it for an hour,

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it would get to full 1C, 1 megawatt.

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None of those things are exact because
it's going to charge faster when it's low

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and it's, yeah, anyway.

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It's a rough approximation, 1C, 1
megawatt, 1 megawatt charging speed.

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So...

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That came up fairly early on in 2018 when
we started to get into what needed to be

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done for charging speeds and public
charging for the trucks.

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And Tesla actually rang us up and said,
hey, we wanna work on this project with

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you.

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We can't charge at the speeds we want to
with any of the existing connectors in the

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marketplace.

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And so we need to come up with a new
charging standard for...

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our Semi because they had announced the
Semi as well as any other commercial

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vehicle and the idiot that I was I raised
my hand and said sure I'll leave the

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global effort to try and standardize this
having never participated in a global

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00:12:53,664 --> 00:12:57,484
standardization project before I never
should have done it I'm not an engineer I

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00:12:57,484 --> 00:13:01,284
don't have that background nor experience
but

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What we have today now after almost four
years is an MCS connector.

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00:13:07,210 --> 00:13:13,160
So if you look for the megawatt charging
standard, MCS online, it's a triangular

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00:13:13,160 --> 00:13:19,170
shaped connector that has now been
essentially almost completed from a

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00:13:19,170 --> 00:13:24,610
standardization standpoint and will, I
think, be rolled out later this year in

221
00:13:24,610 --> 00:13:25,700
2024.

222
00:13:26,042 --> 00:13:30,492
and put into use on trucks in public
charging stations.

223
00:13:30,492 --> 00:13:35,842
I believe that some of the first will be
in Germany on a partnership site with

224
00:13:35,842 --> 00:13:41,812
Chaiton and a couple other manufacturers
between Berlin and Düsseldorf along kind

225
00:13:41,812 --> 00:13:44,032
of the east -west axis there in Germany.

226
00:13:44,112 --> 00:13:48,292
So that's pretty exciting that those are
going to use.

227
00:13:48,292 --> 00:13:53,092
You've seen another connector that Tesla's
using at their Pepsi site.

228
00:13:53,312 --> 00:13:57,392
They were required to deliver those trucks
in a certain amount of time based on the

229
00:13:57,392 --> 00:14:00,852
state funding that was being applied to
that Pepsi site.

230
00:14:00,852 --> 00:14:06,692
And in order to meet that timeline, they
had to go to market with the stage of the

231
00:14:06,692 --> 00:14:09,592
development of the MCS connector that we
were on at the time.

232
00:14:09,592 --> 00:14:11,552
And that was that square connector.

233
00:14:11,552 --> 00:14:12,656
And so...

234
00:14:12,656 --> 00:14:17,086
We've had a couple iterations since then
with that global project and we've reached

235
00:14:17,086 --> 00:14:18,136
that triangular plug.

236
00:14:18,136 --> 00:14:23,776
The hope is that Tesla will come to the
market with the series production of Semi

237
00:14:23,776 --> 00:14:29,996
with that same triangular shaped plug on
the truck so that any fleet that has a

238
00:14:29,996 --> 00:14:36,726
mixture of Volvos and Mercedes and whoever
else is out there and Tesla will simply be

239
00:14:36,726 --> 00:14:41,486
able to use the same charge plug and won't
have a mixture of DC charging plugs that

240
00:14:41,486 --> 00:14:42,088
we do.

241
00:14:42,616 --> 00:14:43,656
cars today.

242
00:14:43,656 --> 00:14:44,616
And that was the intent.

243
00:14:44,616 --> 00:14:48,996
The intent was to make this plug so that
it would be a worldwide standard so you

244
00:14:48,996 --> 00:14:54,236
could have a truck in Germany that could
run in Portugal, that could run in Russia,

245
00:14:54,236 --> 00:14:57,300
that could run in the U .S., that could
run in Venezuela, and everyone could

246
00:14:57,300 --> 00:14:57,800
drive.

247
00:15:00,851 --> 00:15:01,131
Yeah.

248
00:15:01,131 --> 00:15:04,471
And from what I've seen, yeah, there's
been a few different iterations of it, but

249
00:15:04,471 --> 00:15:07,081
the last one I saw, and I believe this is
the one you're talking about is

250
00:15:07,081 --> 00:15:10,411
essentially looks kind of like a rounded
triangle from the outside.

251
00:15:10,411 --> 00:15:16,181
And then there's essentially two main DC
pins and then I think two or three like

252
00:15:16,181 --> 00:15:17,931
communication pins as well.

253
00:15:17,931 --> 00:15:19,792
Um, and so,

254
00:15:19,792 --> 00:15:22,312
and you have an in and out on the comms.

255
00:15:23,187 --> 00:15:23,447
Yeah.

256
00:15:23,447 --> 00:15:27,147
And so it's actually, I mean, it's pretty
big, but it's still like smaller than like

257
00:15:27,147 --> 00:15:29,007
the traditional Chateau Mo plug.

258
00:15:29,007 --> 00:15:31,967
Um, so it's not like absurdly big.

259
00:15:31,967 --> 00:15:34,707
And when you're talking about the power
it's dealing with, you're like, yeah, this

260
00:15:34,707 --> 00:15:35,867
seems totally reasonable.

261
00:15:35,867 --> 00:15:40,177
Um, and it, and anyone that's ever been by
like a commercial fueling station or ever

262
00:15:40,177 --> 00:15:45,107
just even dealt with, uh, using a gas pump
there, it's actually would be, you just

263
00:15:45,107 --> 00:15:46,237
plug it in and it goes.

264
00:15:46,237 --> 00:15:51,667
So it's really not that, uh, from a user
experience, it's probably just.

265
00:15:51,667 --> 00:15:54,347
is good if not better really, because you
can just kind of leave it and walk away

266
00:15:54,347 --> 00:15:56,967
and it's still a pretty light device.

267
00:15:56,967 --> 00:16:03,077
I'm curious as you're going through the
evolution of this, you talk about the one

268
00:16:03,077 --> 00:16:07,657
that Tesla goes to market with and I've
seen that one where it's maybe people that

269
00:16:07,657 --> 00:16:10,897
are listening have seen on TV where it's
almost like square from the outside kind

270
00:16:10,897 --> 00:16:13,287
of and there's two like main vertical
pins.

271
00:16:13,947 --> 00:16:17,907
Yeah, is there as you're going through
this, what did you find was the

272
00:16:17,907 --> 00:16:21,217
biggest thing dictating this evolution
through these different styles?

273
00:16:21,217 --> 00:16:22,887
Was it the communication protocols?

274
00:16:22,887 --> 00:16:28,467
Was it the need for kind of over and
beyond safety for delivering this power?

275
00:16:28,467 --> 00:16:30,751
Or is it maybe a mixture of all of the
above?

276
00:16:31,056 --> 00:16:36,096
Communication protocols was an active
conversation throughout the, from the

277
00:16:36,096 --> 00:16:41,596
start to the finish, honestly, and it
didn't really get finalized until late

278
00:16:41,596 --> 00:16:47,776
last year through a voting process in the
standardization body in Europe.

279
00:16:49,276 --> 00:16:52,796
Primarily, we made the decisions we made
as a group.

280
00:16:52,796 --> 00:16:57,774
We really started with the use case and we
started with the customers and the OEMs.

281
00:16:57,774 --> 00:17:02,704
the utilities and we said okay let's help
define what this needs to do.

282
00:17:02,736 --> 00:17:04,196
how it's going to be used.

283
00:17:04,196 --> 00:17:07,896
Do we want people to have to use safety
equipment in order to utilize it?

284
00:17:07,896 --> 00:17:10,396
We said no, so there should be no safety
equipment.

285
00:17:10,396 --> 00:17:11,396
Who's going to use it?

286
00:17:11,396 --> 00:17:15,346
Well, essentially anyone is going to be
driving a commercial vehicle, so it has to

287
00:17:15,346 --> 00:17:23,836
fit a use case of maybe a small young
female or an older elderly driver that has

288
00:17:23,836 --> 00:17:25,816
to be able to climb down and plug it in.

289
00:17:25,816 --> 00:17:28,716
So it can't be too heavy, it can't be too
unwieldy.

290
00:17:28,716 --> 00:17:33,002
It has to be usable by not only the peak
of safety,

291
00:17:33,002 --> 00:17:35,442
human condition but the edges as well.

292
00:17:35,442 --> 00:17:38,016
So how do we make this so that the...

293
00:17:38,016 --> 00:17:43,046
insertion forces and the removal forces
aren't obscene and people can actually use

294
00:17:43,046 --> 00:17:43,956
it.

295
00:17:43,956 --> 00:17:48,316
But then again, at the same time that it's
safe, that it can conduct these one

296
00:17:48,316 --> 00:17:53,516
megawatt levels of power or more in a way
that's not going to put anybody at risk.

297
00:17:53,516 --> 00:17:59,586
So we said, you know, safety, usability,
no safety equipment, things like that.

298
00:17:59,586 --> 00:18:04,636
And so that's that's how we kind of came
up with defining what it should be able to

299
00:18:04,636 --> 00:18:04,906
do.

300
00:18:04,906 --> 00:18:08,390
And then we defined from a technical
standpoint that

301
00:18:08,784 --> 00:18:09,904
what it should look like.

302
00:18:09,904 --> 00:18:13,624
So there's what's called creepage and
clearance distances so that you don't have

303
00:18:13,624 --> 00:18:19,174
any voltage that decides to leak out when
it's under power because voltage can jump

304
00:18:19,174 --> 00:18:22,654
if given the chance if it's on a dirty
surface things like that.

305
00:18:22,654 --> 00:18:24,184
So I learned a lot.

306
00:18:24,184 --> 00:18:30,264
We actually had one whole lesson about the
physics of energy transfer and how close

307
00:18:30,264 --> 00:18:36,394
things can actually get under you know
what amount of pressure is kind of useful

308
00:18:36,394 --> 00:18:39,238
and what is too much or you know
essentially

309
00:18:39,930 --> 00:18:44,310
longer useful, doesn't give you any
additional contact force and reduce the

310
00:18:44,310 --> 00:18:47,090
amount of heating between the two
materials, things like that.

311
00:18:47,090 --> 00:18:52,070
So again, I'm not an engineer, but I
learned a lot during this process.

312
00:18:53,890 --> 00:19:01,540
And we learned that it's easier to tighten
the connection on a round face than it is

313
00:19:01,540 --> 00:19:03,050
on two square faces.

314
00:19:03,050 --> 00:19:05,626
You can kind of push with two square
faces, but...

315
00:19:05,626 --> 00:19:10,496
it's easier to cinch down a round face and
get the kind of connection.

316
00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:16,440
I don't know, durability over time so that
you can have the insertion removal forces

317
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:19,270
that you want but still get a nice clamp
force, things like that.

318
00:19:19,270 --> 00:19:21,080
So that's how we came up with what we did.

319
00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:26,220
Then we chose the V shape because as a
user it's easier to kind of slot that into

320
00:19:26,220 --> 00:19:29,660
the V, then tip it up and push it in,
things like that.

321
00:19:29,660 --> 00:19:33,280
And then we defined where it should be on
the truck, which makes the cable length a

322
00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:34,460
little shorter.

323
00:19:36,090 --> 00:19:40,840
So that was a bit of a fight, but in the
end we said left side of the left hand

324
00:19:40,840 --> 00:19:42,420
side of the vehicle in all markets.

325
00:19:42,420 --> 00:19:46,640
So whether it's in the UK or in Germany,
it's on the left side of the vehicle,

326
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:49,340
roughly hip height on the average human.

327
00:19:49,340 --> 00:19:52,400
So that, so the instruction removal forces
aren't too bad.

328
00:19:52,400 --> 00:20:00,120
And then behind the most rearward forward
axle and in front of the most forward rear

329
00:20:00,120 --> 00:20:01,106
axle.

330
00:20:01,360 --> 00:20:03,060
So which is a fancy way of saying it.

331
00:20:03,060 --> 00:20:06,460
Between the axles, because sometimes you
have a double steer in the front and you

332
00:20:06,460 --> 00:20:07,820
have two axles in the back.

333
00:20:07,820 --> 00:20:11,490
So between the axles, left hand side of
the truck, roughly hip height.

334
00:20:11,490 --> 00:20:14,460
So it gives you kind of a chapazoid shape
to put the connector in.

335
00:20:14,460 --> 00:20:18,140
And that way your cable doesn't have to be
too long, so you don't have a really long

336
00:20:18,140 --> 00:20:22,300
cable that's liquid cooled, being draped
around and have to run.

337
00:20:22,300 --> 00:20:26,250
You you're talking a class eight truck,
you potentially could have, you know, 10

338
00:20:26,250 --> 00:20:30,754
meters of cable if the connection point
was on the back or the front or the nose.

339
00:20:30,754 --> 00:20:32,064
It's a giant vehicle.

340
00:20:32,064 --> 00:20:35,084
You see the long cables with passenger
cars today.

341
00:20:35,084 --> 00:20:36,404
So that's how we defined it.

342
00:20:36,404 --> 00:20:37,019
And that's what we

343
00:20:37,019 --> 00:20:41,739
yeah, that is actually a really
interesting point and pretty smart to make

344
00:20:41,739 --> 00:20:45,219
sure that doesn't matter what market it's
kind of in the same place and especially

345
00:20:45,219 --> 00:20:46,199
on the same side.

346
00:20:46,199 --> 00:20:51,719
Cause I guess in a different realm, the
Tesla superchargers opening here in North

347
00:20:51,719 --> 00:20:54,579
America, and I guess they have actually
been open in Europe for a little while.

348
00:20:54,579 --> 00:20:58,919
The whole issue around what side it's on
kind of causes where the car and blocks

349
00:20:58,919 --> 00:20:59,899
and other chargers.

350
00:20:59,899 --> 00:21:03,639
That's very interesting and makes a lot of
sense.

351
00:21:03,639 --> 00:21:04,594
Now.

352
00:21:04,594 --> 00:21:09,504
I have a Volkswagen ID .3 here and I end
up blocking two spots when I charge using

353
00:21:09,504 --> 00:21:10,624
the Tesla charger.

354
00:21:10,624 --> 00:21:15,564
So I've come to start to use the last one
on the road and I parked sideways to it.

355
00:21:15,564 --> 00:21:17,584
So I only take up one spot.

356
00:21:17,944 --> 00:21:19,424
But you can't do that with the semi.

357
00:21:19,424 --> 00:21:22,444
With the semi and a pull through with a
trailer, you kind of have to have the

358
00:21:22,444 --> 00:21:23,703
charger where it needs to be.

359
00:21:23,703 --> 00:21:28,363
gonna, you're gonna definitely get into
some, uh, not so friendly conversations

360
00:21:28,363 --> 00:21:31,183
with, uh, with that.

361
00:21:31,183 --> 00:21:37,053
So electric Island, when that went in, uh,
I mean, it's still in and I remember

362
00:21:37,053 --> 00:21:39,573
hearing they're going to do like a second
round of upgrades to it.

363
00:21:39,573 --> 00:21:40,413
I don't know if that's happened.

364
00:21:40,413 --> 00:21:44,123
I don't know if you do, but when it
originally launched, it was essentially

365
00:21:44,123 --> 00:21:47,059
just, uh, CCS one connect.

366
00:21:47,059 --> 00:21:52,539
High voltage ones, but yeah, essentially
that's what the Daimler trucks would use

367
00:21:52,539 --> 00:21:53,639
is they would plug that in.

368
00:21:53,639 --> 00:21:57,889
The idea was, and I think they eventually
did open it to the public to use as well.

369
00:21:58,096 --> 00:22:00,216
It was open to the public from day one.

370
00:22:00,216 --> 00:22:02,096
Actually the day we opened it, it was open
to the public.

371
00:22:02,096 --> 00:22:05,796
In fact, it was free for about the first
six months because we couldn't get the

372
00:22:05,796 --> 00:22:11,396
payment software to overlay correctly on
the multitude of chargers that we had.

373
00:22:11,396 --> 00:22:15,706
And so if you rolled up and you were a
rideshare, you got free electricity for

374
00:22:15,706 --> 00:22:16,356
about six months.

375
00:22:16,356 --> 00:22:18,776
So there was some pretty happy people
there for a while.

376
00:22:18,776 --> 00:22:20,746
But yes, it was all CCS -1 connectors.

377
00:22:20,746 --> 00:22:22,376
We had a couple of Chattemo.

378
00:22:23,312 --> 00:22:28,832
We had all the way from 50 kW for like an
overnight style charge all the way up to,

379
00:22:28,832 --> 00:22:31,152
I think I've got a 450 there now.

380
00:22:31,152 --> 00:22:35,696
And we've got a stretch between 400 volt,
800 volt.

381
00:22:35,696 --> 00:22:42,076
We've got the capability to put in the
automated connector system like a robot.

382
00:22:42,156 --> 00:22:47,426
And then obviously we planned for MCS, so
the MCS capability to, the ability to

383
00:22:47,426 --> 00:22:53,306
install an MCS, multiple MCS, as well as a
BESS and solar there are all there.

384
00:22:53,306 --> 00:22:56,576
So we've, we made the site as flexible as
possible.

385
00:22:56,576 --> 00:23:02,016
In fact, if you look at the overheads of
Electric Island, you'll see kind of a

386
00:23:02,016 --> 00:23:04,936
concrete strip that runs through and under
all of the chargers.

387
00:23:04,936 --> 00:23:06,032
That's actually a

388
00:23:06,032 --> 00:23:10,832
with a cement top and you can just pop
that trench, drop new cables in, close it

389
00:23:10,832 --> 00:23:15,462
back up, and you can actually switch out a
DC fast charger probably in about two

390
00:23:15,462 --> 00:23:19,402
hours where at most sites it would take
you two or three days.

391
00:23:19,402 --> 00:23:22,142
So it's got a tremendous flexibility.

392
00:23:22,259 --> 00:23:27,059
So it seems like there could be like in
the quickest version of that, could you,

393
00:23:27,059 --> 00:23:29,649
or maybe it's dependent on the actual
charger, you know, might not be able to

394
00:23:29,649 --> 00:23:33,359
speak the language, but could you
literally just swap the cord out and then

395
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:38,429
it would have MCS or does the charger also
need to be replaced to, I guess what I'm

396
00:23:38,429 --> 00:23:40,439
curious about is like the communication
protocol.

397
00:23:40,439 --> 00:23:42,269
Is it CCS based?

398
00:23:42,269 --> 00:23:43,859
Is it its own thing?

399
00:23:43,859 --> 00:23:44,609
Does that make sense?

400
00:23:44,609 --> 00:23:47,275
Like how you can swap out a, uh,

401
00:23:48,532 --> 00:23:52,172
there, I believe you'd have to drop some
new cable.

402
00:23:52,172 --> 00:23:54,392
I don't know 100 % the answer on that.

403
00:23:54,392 --> 00:23:59,132
I think what they finally decided in the
standardization body was to go with

404
00:23:59,132 --> 00:24:00,132
Ethernet.

405
00:24:00,252 --> 00:24:08,252
And I believe that cable is different than
going via PLC or CAN, which are the other

406
00:24:08,252 --> 00:24:11,352
two communication protocols out there that
we're considering.

407
00:24:11,352 --> 00:24:14,272
So I believe you would have to drop a new
cable.

408
00:24:14,611 --> 00:24:15,191
Gotcha.

409
00:24:15,191 --> 00:24:20,171
And does it, uh, is there a kind of
version of plugin charge or something

410
00:24:20,171 --> 00:24:24,751
supported or would it also kind of require
the payment side of stuff where each time

411
00:24:24,751 --> 00:24:26,431
it plugs in it?

412
00:24:26,591 --> 00:24:28,403
I mean, I'm just kind of curious about
that.

413
00:24:28,403 --> 00:24:28,750
Yeah.

414
00:24:28,750 --> 00:24:32,360
is to use 1511 -8 -20, which does have
plug and charge integrated.

415
00:24:33,100 --> 00:24:38,790
So essentially you would carry the ID
within your vehicle of who you are and

416
00:24:38,790 --> 00:24:40,030
who's paying for your charging.

417
00:24:40,030 --> 00:24:41,920
You simply plug it in and walk away.

418
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:43,320
That's the intent.

419
00:24:43,507 --> 00:24:44,627
Very cool.

420
00:24:44,787 --> 00:24:47,927
With that, I think we've, unless there's
anything else you can think of, it seems

421
00:24:47,927 --> 00:24:49,527
like we covered a lot on the MCS for that.

422
00:24:49,527 --> 00:24:50,367
That's really fascinating.

423
00:24:50,367 --> 00:24:53,127
And I really appreciate that because we
really don't get to talk about that too

424
00:24:53,127 --> 00:24:53,687
much.

425
00:24:53,687 --> 00:24:57,567
Um, it's usually around CCS and Tesla
standards.

426
00:24:58,099 --> 00:24:58,318
So.

427
00:24:58,318 --> 00:25:02,548
behind MCS was essentially to try and put
a bullet into hydrogen.

428
00:25:02,928 --> 00:25:08,778
I will admit that I feel that hydrogen is
a little bit of a...

429
00:25:08,778 --> 00:25:12,768
It's a push by the oil and gas industry to
stay relevant.

430
00:25:13,368 --> 00:25:18,678
You know, kind of what they do is drill
and refine and pipe and ship liquid and

431
00:25:18,678 --> 00:25:21,998
gaseous fuels and that's their business
model and so that's what they would like

432
00:25:21,998 --> 00:25:23,288
to do with hydrogen.

433
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:31,570
The only substantial difference between,
performance difference between a hydrogen

434
00:25:31,570 --> 00:25:37,380
and a BEV truck is that you can fuel a
hydrogen fuel cell truck faster and you

435
00:25:37,380 --> 00:25:38,450
get slightly more range.

436
00:25:38,450 --> 00:25:43,100
Well, we know batteries continue to
improve from a gravimetric, gravimetric

437
00:25:43,100 --> 00:25:50,300
and let's see the term, density, power
density capacity.

438
00:25:50,300 --> 00:25:54,100
And so they're able to hold more power and
accept more power.

439
00:25:54,498 --> 00:25:56,328
over time as they improve.

440
00:25:56,468 --> 00:26:03,718
And so we know that we'll have the
capacity on a BEV truck as much or more as

441
00:26:03,718 --> 00:26:04,688
a hydrogen truck.

442
00:26:04,688 --> 00:26:07,768
And with MCS, the charge time is roughly
the same.

443
00:26:07,768 --> 00:26:16,088
So it essentially puts the hydrogen fuel
cell truck to bed because cost per mile of

444
00:26:16,088 --> 00:26:17,708
BEV beats it every day.

445
00:26:17,971 --> 00:26:18,211
Yeah.

446
00:26:18,211 --> 00:26:20,801
And that's really interesting because
that's something I've talked with people a

447
00:26:20,801 --> 00:26:21,011
lot.

448
00:26:21,011 --> 00:26:25,271
And from like a energy and scientific
standpoint, I kind of get the argument for

449
00:26:25,271 --> 00:26:25,711
hydrogen.

450
00:26:25,711 --> 00:26:31,351
Uh, but when you look at, once again, like
it, to me reminds me of where consumer

451
00:26:31,351 --> 00:26:35,591
electric vehicles are maybe like five to
10 years ago in some ways, because like,

452
00:26:35,591 --> 00:26:38,921
obviously back then there was a much
larger argument for hydrogen for consumer

453
00:26:38,921 --> 00:26:39,531
vehicles.

454
00:26:39,531 --> 00:26:41,261
And now that's kind of fallen away.

455
00:26:41,261 --> 00:26:44,941
Uh, we're even seeing the few that were
still open in California or even closing

456
00:26:44,941 --> 00:26:46,760
down and.

457
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:47,180
argument.

458
00:26:47,180 --> 00:26:52,690
If you have the electricity to make the
hydrogen, then you've created a hydrogen

459
00:26:52,690 --> 00:26:55,100
that then you have to compress and ship.

460
00:26:55,100 --> 00:27:00,000
And then you have to put it into a storage
tank at a dispensation facility.

461
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:01,660
You have to dispense it.

462
00:27:01,660 --> 00:27:05,740
And then you have to turn it through a
fuel cell to electricity into a battery

463
00:27:05,740 --> 00:27:07,560
that you then drive.

464
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:11,680
You're already five steps behind an
electric motor and a battery because

465
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:14,630
electric motor and battery, you simply put
the electricity into it and that the

466
00:27:14,630 --> 00:27:15,376
battery.

467
00:27:15,376 --> 00:27:18,286
So if you simply take that electricity
that you're going to use to make the

468
00:27:18,286 --> 00:27:20,876
hydrogen and use it for the truck, you're
already ahead of the game.

469
00:27:21,299 --> 00:27:24,829
Yeah, and I mean, I don't mean to be a
fear monger, but I think the concept of

470
00:27:24,829 --> 00:27:29,459
using hydrogen and the Hindenburg analogy
to it, but then the fact that it's under

471
00:27:29,459 --> 00:27:33,469
pressure, there's just all these things
that really compound it to like make it

472
00:27:33,469 --> 00:27:36,329
not as energy dense, because you have to
have under pressure, you have to have a

473
00:27:36,329 --> 00:27:38,579
much larger thing to keep it.

474
00:27:38,579 --> 00:27:43,979
But even then, I think the thing that I'm
even consistently surprised by that people

475
00:27:43,979 --> 00:27:47,029
don't fully realize, because I think the
biggest area where we're seeing this, when

476
00:27:47,029 --> 00:27:49,459
you talk about the traditional fossil fuel
industry,

477
00:27:49,459 --> 00:27:53,539
is around natural gas and making the
conversion from natural gas to be hydrogen

478
00:27:53,539 --> 00:27:54,639
moving.

479
00:27:54,639 --> 00:27:59,179
And the problem is hydrogen is the
smallest atom and it's not like slightly

480
00:27:59,179 --> 00:28:00,679
harder to contain.

481
00:28:00,679 --> 00:28:04,058
It's much harder to contain.

482
00:28:04,058 --> 00:28:05,168
hydrogen embrittlement.

483
00:28:05,168 --> 00:28:09,438
So if you use those same pipelines that
you use for natural gas and you try to use

484
00:28:09,438 --> 00:28:12,108
them from hydrogen, they will just start
to crack.

485
00:28:12,108 --> 00:28:17,708
And again, the hydrogen is a small atom,
so out it goes, and it will come in

486
00:28:17,708 --> 00:28:20,208
contact with the source of flame and
you've got a big boom.

487
00:28:20,208 --> 00:28:20,849
So.

488
00:28:20,849 --> 00:28:24,869
Yeah, I mean, it's a very different form
of transportation, but if anyone that's

489
00:28:24,869 --> 00:28:28,959
curious, the best thing they can do is go
research the space shuttle, uh, because it

490
00:28:28,959 --> 00:28:34,079
was a mostly hydrogen powered and it just,
it is one of those things kind of in

491
00:28:34,079 --> 00:28:34,459
theory.

492
00:28:34,459 --> 00:28:38,719
And when you first think about it makes a
lot of sense, but then in practice and

493
00:28:38,719 --> 00:28:44,319
execution, it really starts showing it
shortcomings and how much is required to

494
00:28:44,319 --> 00:28:45,699
make it work.

495
00:28:45,999 --> 00:28:48,439
And unfortunately it can go wrong very
quickly.

496
00:28:48,439 --> 00:28:49,067
So.

497
00:28:49,651 --> 00:28:51,971
We've said enough, I think about hydrogen
on that.

498
00:28:51,971 --> 00:28:54,451
Um, but no, I, I really appreciate that.

499
00:28:54,451 --> 00:28:57,711
And one thing you mentioned that I hadn't
really thought about before, and I kind of

500
00:28:57,711 --> 00:29:02,241
like to hear more about is you said it
takes roughly the same amount of time to

501
00:29:02,241 --> 00:29:05,201
fuel hydrogen as it is with an electric
truck.

502
00:29:05,201 --> 00:29:10,551
And I know one of the things I've talked
to my friend who does, um, sell class

503
00:29:10,551 --> 00:29:14,791
eight semis and there, these are people
are doing big trips in these semis, but I

504
00:29:14,791 --> 00:29:18,931
mean, even with new regulations and I will
say, uh,

505
00:29:18,931 --> 00:29:22,971
I'm always there's a fine line with
regulations, but as a person who drives a

506
00:29:22,971 --> 00:29:27,321
lot on highways, the idea of like making
drivers have to take more breaks and be

507
00:29:27,321 --> 00:29:29,351
safe about I'm okay with that one.

508
00:29:29,351 --> 00:29:33,031
Um, uh, because everyone's human and
there's just a point that you can only

509
00:29:33,031 --> 00:29:34,611
push someone so far.

510
00:29:34,611 --> 00:29:40,721
And what is interesting is I believe it's,
is it every eight hours or 10 hours now,

511
00:29:40,721 --> 00:29:44,430
um, that yeah.

512
00:29:44,430 --> 00:29:49,160
Europe it's actually shorter, I believe
it's four or five hours in Europe.

513
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:52,080
In the US, I believe it's 10.

514
00:29:52,140 --> 00:29:53,400
But yeah.

515
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:54,760
Yeah.

516
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:55,643
Yeah.

517
00:29:55,643 --> 00:29:59,183
essentially brought it down to 10, which
is still a long day behind the wheel.

518
00:29:59,243 --> 00:30:03,543
And, um, and once again, not to say they
can't do it, but I think that's a pretty

519
00:30:03,543 --> 00:30:05,643
fair compromise, honestly, at 10 hours.

520
00:30:05,643 --> 00:30:09,663
And so what is interesting is like, when
you look at how big these trucks are and

521
00:30:09,663 --> 00:30:13,343
how fast they can go, you get into certain
States here in the U S where it's like,

522
00:30:13,343 --> 00:30:16,213
you could be going in the seventies and
that's obviously kind of hitting your

523
00:30:16,213 --> 00:30:18,771
efficiency and stuff, but it's.

524
00:30:18,771 --> 00:30:22,711
It's kind of now at the right point that
as long as you have the charging stations

525
00:30:22,711 --> 00:30:28,511
at the right location, when these drivers
have to take breaks anyway, the charging,

526
00:30:28,511 --> 00:30:32,531
even with the current technology aligns
pretty well with how long they and how

527
00:30:32,531 --> 00:30:36,891
frequently they have to break to recharge.

528
00:30:36,891 --> 00:30:40,891
And I'm kind of curious when you
mentioned, is that kind of what you were

529
00:30:40,891 --> 00:30:41,521
alluding to?

530
00:30:41,521 --> 00:30:44,779
And is that similar with what you've seen
with hydrogen trucking?

531
00:30:45,552 --> 00:30:51,422
Well, the MCS again, so when we started,
before we got into any sort of design

532
00:30:51,422 --> 00:30:54,892
parameters of what it should look like, we
said, what does it need to do?

533
00:30:54,892 --> 00:30:59,172
And one of the things that we decided that
it needed to do was hit that driver brake

534
00:30:59,172 --> 00:31:03,696
and get it to 80 % roughly.

535
00:31:03,696 --> 00:31:07,316
so that they can get back on the road
again and continue until their next break.

536
00:31:07,316 --> 00:31:13,286
And so that was the intent was to hit that
20 to 25 minute window to get them from 10

537
00:31:13,286 --> 00:31:14,236
% to 80%.

538
00:31:14,236 --> 00:31:15,186
So how do we do that?

539
00:31:15,186 --> 00:31:19,116
Well, we need to dispense at 1C, 1 .2C.

540
00:31:19,116 --> 00:31:24,036
Okay, what connector needs to be able to
do 1 megawatt, 1 .3 megawatts, okay.

541
00:31:24,416 --> 00:31:26,336
So, you know, then what does it need to
look like?

542
00:31:26,336 --> 00:31:27,856
How much power does it need to dispense?

543
00:31:27,856 --> 00:31:28,496
Those sorts of things.

544
00:31:28,496 --> 00:31:30,992
So that's how we got to there.

545
00:31:30,992 --> 00:31:37,692
And so we started with the kind of that
short break, you know, that 20 minute

546
00:31:37,692 --> 00:31:37,962
break.

547
00:31:37,962 --> 00:31:39,212
What does that look like?

548
00:31:39,212 --> 00:31:41,202
And that's what we tried to try to hit.

549
00:31:41,202 --> 00:31:45,772
So that's why we came up with the
parameters we did from power.

550
00:31:45,772 --> 00:31:51,022
We also wanted to stay under 1200 volts
because if you go above 1200 volts, it

551
00:31:51,022 --> 00:31:56,052
gets into some safety regulations in some
markets where you do have to wear safety

552
00:31:56,052 --> 00:31:58,602
equipment or have to have special
training.

553
00:31:58,602 --> 00:32:01,912
in order to operate the equipment.

554
00:32:01,912 --> 00:32:06,852
And so if we stayed under 1200 volts, we
didn't get a board of those things.

555
00:32:07,152 --> 00:32:08,872
Like I said, it was a lot of learning.

556
00:32:08,872 --> 00:32:15,572
But at 800 amps, 1000 volts, it starts to,
that's a lot of power, but you can start

557
00:32:15,572 --> 00:32:18,812
to hit those 20, 25 minute top ups.

558
00:32:18,812 --> 00:32:22,712
And you see the Tesla Semi doing it
already with Pepsi.

559
00:32:22,992 --> 00:32:25,892
And they're only operating at 700 kW.

560
00:32:26,362 --> 00:32:31,112
where they can do a 30 minute driver break
at lunch, get that truck back up and

561
00:32:31,112 --> 00:32:35,892
running and they did that 1200 mile day
when they're doing the drive on that.

562
00:32:35,892 --> 00:32:38,850
So we know it's possible for sure.

563
00:32:39,923 --> 00:32:43,653
It's interesting you mentioned the Tesla
semi and you said 700 kilowatts Do you

564
00:32:43,653 --> 00:32:47,623
know if that's limited by the truck or is
that limited by the charging

565
00:32:47,623 --> 00:32:48,193
infrastructure?

566
00:32:48,193 --> 00:32:49,547
They're using currently?

567
00:32:49,552 --> 00:32:50,892
I don't know the answer to that question.

568
00:32:50,892 --> 00:32:54,552
I just know that that's the number that
they've shared with everyone.

569
00:32:54,632 --> 00:32:58,792
I have had some conversations with
engineers on both truck and charging side,

570
00:32:58,792 --> 00:33:00,296
but those are private.

571
00:33:01,843 --> 00:33:04,493
Now I'm sure I, and I realize you hadn't
worked there.

572
00:33:04,493 --> 00:33:08,713
I just wondering if, uh, there's more of
just a general question, but I mean, even

573
00:33:08,713 --> 00:33:11,783
if you can make it even work at 700
kilowatts and you have it already kind of

574
00:33:11,783 --> 00:33:14,383
almost future proof to get to that make a
watt thing.

575
00:33:14,383 --> 00:33:16,588
Um, that makes it a pretty, I mean,
that's.

576
00:33:16,588 --> 00:33:21,138
on top so we knew that we could hit
certain things now, but we also wanted

577
00:33:21,138 --> 00:33:25,308
room for growth because both of the CCS -1
and CCS -2 were essentially topped out.

578
00:33:25,308 --> 00:33:27,808
There was no more room for growth when
they were standardized.

579
00:33:27,808 --> 00:33:31,848
So we said, okay, let's make this
connector able to grow, give it some

580
00:33:31,848 --> 00:33:35,228
headroom so that if somebody did want to
push it, they could.

581
00:33:35,288 --> 00:33:39,308
And the funny thing was is we only set out
to do this for trucks and buses.

582
00:33:39,428 --> 00:33:43,208
And then here comes a marine and...

583
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:49,100
Here comes aviation and then here comes
mining and here comes all these like event

584
00:33:49,100 --> 00:33:50,430
space and like, can we use this?

585
00:33:50,430 --> 00:33:51,610
And we're like, sure, whatever.

586
00:33:51,610 --> 00:33:55,870
So now it's like, if it rolls, floats or
flies and you need a lot of power, have

587
00:33:55,870 --> 00:33:56,160
that.

588
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,940
So MCS is the solution to a lot of
interesting problems.

589
00:34:01,331 --> 00:34:02,001
That's pretty cool.

590
00:34:02,001 --> 00:34:04,711
And that, that is actually something else
I wanted to ask you about because they're

591
00:34:04,711 --> 00:34:09,181
all, uh, whether you're bearish or bullish
on is there's all these new VTOL companies

592
00:34:09,181 --> 00:34:09,611
coming out.

593
00:34:09,611 --> 00:34:11,911
They were, I was watching an interview
recently.

594
00:34:11,911 --> 00:34:14,391
Um, I think there's definitely a market
for it.

595
00:34:14,391 --> 00:34:18,711
I don't know if it's a large disruptive
market unless you're a helicopter

596
00:34:18,711 --> 00:34:22,531
business, but there's, there's definitely
certain areas, maybe in Europe and

597
00:34:22,531 --> 00:34:26,881
definitely like the Bay area in, um, the U
S where it's like, yeah, I could see that,

598
00:34:26,881 --> 00:34:30,827
but there's, there's definitely a use case
for that.

599
00:34:31,123 --> 00:34:33,983
And one of the things they were talking
about is like, Oh, we don't know what

600
00:34:33,983 --> 00:34:35,703
charging equipment we're going to use yet.

601
00:34:35,703 --> 00:34:36,603
And so it's really interesting.

602
00:34:36,603 --> 00:34:39,573
You mentioned that because like that
almost seems like, cause their batteries

603
00:34:39,573 --> 00:34:40,803
aren't nearly that big.

604
00:34:40,803 --> 00:34:44,993
I figured it'd be like something more like
even just using a Tesla, the new North

605
00:34:44,993 --> 00:34:47,543
American charging standard actually would
be like perfect for it.

606
00:34:47,543 --> 00:34:48,553
And so I was kind of curious.

607
00:34:48,553 --> 00:34:51,893
They hadn't announced anything, but like
even once again, using something like

608
00:34:51,893 --> 00:34:55,903
that, um, where it's a pretty well -known
standard and.

609
00:34:55,903 --> 00:34:57,723
Could be used for other things.

610
00:34:57,723 --> 00:35:00,819
I mean, they're talking about putting them
on the top of garage, uh,

611
00:35:00,819 --> 00:35:01,619
parking garages.

612
00:35:01,619 --> 00:35:05,899
So I don't know how many semi trucks are
going to go to the top of parking garage.

613
00:35:05,899 --> 00:35:07,129
But, and that's where I was counting.

614
00:35:07,129 --> 00:35:11,589
I was like, well, yeah, if you did like
the next thing, then while you're, if, uh,

615
00:35:11,589 --> 00:35:16,359
if you're not charging a, uh, uh, if you
tall, you could be charging someone's car

616
00:35:16,359 --> 00:35:17,369
and charging money for that.

617
00:35:17,369 --> 00:35:18,819
But that's a whole nother thing.

618
00:35:18,819 --> 00:35:20,379
And I'm not in that business.

619
00:35:20,599 --> 00:35:23,563
So with that, that's,

620
00:35:23,580 --> 00:35:27,920
seem to think that they can get close to a
Megalight out of a Naxx connector, which

621
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:29,510
if they can do it, power to them.

622
00:35:29,510 --> 00:35:31,180
Maybe that's a cheaper way to do it.

623
00:35:31,180 --> 00:35:34,080
Getting power to the site is another
question entirely.

624
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:37,160
And I'll be getting utilities to provide
that power to the site.

625
00:35:39,571 --> 00:35:39,941
Right.

626
00:35:39,941 --> 00:35:42,551
I think, um, I, I kind of agree with you.

627
00:35:42,551 --> 00:35:46,641
I think it's really cool that they
designed it and they kind of pushed it to

628
00:35:46,641 --> 00:35:47,021
be that.

629
00:35:47,021 --> 00:35:51,121
I don't know how practical, but I, like
you were saying earlier, CCS one and CCS

630
00:35:51,121 --> 00:35:53,371
two were kind of maxed out as it was.

631
00:35:53,371 --> 00:35:58,951
And from a future proofing standpoint, if
your plans to only use it mostly for, um,

632
00:35:58,951 --> 00:36:02,851
regular vehicles, then yeah, that gives
you so much headroom and then some that it

633
00:36:02,851 --> 00:36:04,441
does seem to be pretty well future
-proofed.

634
00:36:04,441 --> 00:36:07,027
If you wanted to go up to semis, I don't
know.

635
00:36:07,027 --> 00:36:10,727
But you can at least even as like a backup
have it that like, even if you can get to

636
00:36:10,727 --> 00:36:14,577
like we're talking about 700 kilowatts,
it's kind of a nice backup thing to have

637
00:36:14,577 --> 00:36:16,427
if you're building a site anyway.

638
00:36:16,427 --> 00:36:22,357
Um, but no, I, I'm, I, I'm curious, have
you had many discussions with the

639
00:36:22,357 --> 00:36:27,607
traditional like fueling stations around
like the, the pilots, the flying J's or,

640
00:36:27,607 --> 00:36:32,567
um, kind of the commercial Pacific's that
are traditional fueling stops for truckers

641
00:36:32,567 --> 00:36:35,167
around moving to kind of an electric
future.

642
00:36:35,167 --> 00:36:36,211
And it went.

643
00:36:36,211 --> 00:36:40,071
feedback they have because the reason I
bring this up is one of the things we've

644
00:36:40,071 --> 00:36:45,261
talked about a lot on this podcast is
especially around CCS2 is the challenges

645
00:36:45,261 --> 00:36:51,671
at least domestically around Electrify
America not to point finger point, but as

646
00:36:51,671 --> 00:36:54,731
an example that have struggled with
charging infrastructure.

647
00:36:54,731 --> 00:36:58,541
And now you're starting to see some of it
through federal funding.

648
00:36:58,541 --> 00:37:00,381
Others just come through general interest.

649
00:37:00,381 --> 00:37:02,579
You're starting to see the flying J's, the
pilots.

650
00:37:02,579 --> 00:37:03,779
Enter that space.

651
00:37:03,779 --> 00:37:06,979
And for them, there's never really been a
strong business model in fueling.

652
00:37:06,979 --> 00:37:10,119
It's the stuff they sell when people stop
to fuel.

653
00:37:10,699 --> 00:37:14,199
Exactly.

654
00:37:14,659 --> 00:37:15,339
Exactly.

655
00:37:15,339 --> 00:37:15,510
And

656
00:37:15,510 --> 00:37:21,100
that the conversations with the Travel
Americas and the Loves and the Flying J

657
00:37:21,100 --> 00:37:27,660
folks were really, really frustrating back
in the early, the late teens and the early

658
00:37:27,660 --> 00:37:28,520
twenties.

659
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:34,000
There was a real lack of any interest or
desire to get into the charging space by

660
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:34,800
any of them.

661
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:36,960
I'd say that's substantially changed now.

662
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:43,950
Every single one of the major fuel
refueling rest stops slash, you know, Buc

663
00:37:43,950 --> 00:37:47,730
-E's, you know, what's what have you,
they're, they've all got some sort of a

664
00:37:47,730 --> 00:37:50,580
charging partner and they've all got some
sort of a strategy that they're going

665
00:37:50,580 --> 00:37:51,560
into.

666
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,980
Some are well thought out, some are less
so.

667
00:37:57,460 --> 00:38:02,900
Not all of them have consideration for
larger vehicles than light duty.

668
00:38:02,998 --> 00:38:04,488
Some do, some don't.

669
00:38:04,488 --> 00:38:06,818
So, you know, the proof will be in the
pudding.

670
00:38:06,818 --> 00:38:09,048
Everybody's in the early stages of it.

671
00:38:09,348 --> 00:38:19,408
But it's an area of industry that's right
for disruption, which is why I consult and

672
00:38:19,408 --> 00:38:21,888
I'm on the advisory board for Watt EV.

673
00:38:21,888 --> 00:38:24,240
So when we built Electric Island,

674
00:38:24,240 --> 00:38:29,170
It was this couple of guys from down in
the LA area that kind of kept calling me

675
00:38:29,170 --> 00:38:30,620
up and asking me questions.

676
00:38:30,620 --> 00:38:34,840
And I've always been one that's like, one
company can't do it all.

677
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:39,300
We need as many people in this space to be
successful as possible.

678
00:38:39,300 --> 00:38:45,750
If you're an honest broker, you are honest
with the market and honest with what your

679
00:38:45,750 --> 00:38:48,280
technical capabilities are.

680
00:38:48,528 --> 00:38:51,968
and you're in it for the right reasons, I
think you should succeed.

681
00:38:51,968 --> 00:38:55,248
So there's a couple of companies that
maybe fall outside of that exclusion zone.

682
00:38:55,248 --> 00:39:01,828
I won't name them, but if you're honest
and upright, forthright with the market,

683
00:39:01,828 --> 00:39:03,448
let's see you succeed.

684
00:39:03,488 --> 00:39:08,798
So YDV came about as an idea from these
guys that they wanted to provide

685
00:39:08,798 --> 00:39:14,848
essentially identical versions of Electric
Island scaled up for the market.

686
00:39:14,848 --> 00:39:16,148
And so...

687
00:39:16,688 --> 00:39:20,538
power to Portland General Electric and a
couple of my predecessors in the utility

688
00:39:20,538 --> 00:39:22,368
industry up and down the West Coast.

689
00:39:22,368 --> 00:39:26,968
There had been some pre -work done to
establish what a West Coast clean transit

690
00:39:26,968 --> 00:39:28,748
corridor would look like.

691
00:39:28,768 --> 00:39:32,108
I did some more work on that when I was at
Portland General Electric.

692
00:39:32,108 --> 00:39:34,978
It's a partnership between all the
different utilities up and down the West

693
00:39:34,978 --> 00:39:35,648
Coast.

694
00:39:35,648 --> 00:39:41,568
And it was a pre -plan as to what needs to
be done in order to allow freight to move

695
00:39:41,568 --> 00:39:45,368
from San Diego to Vancouver, BC.

696
00:39:45,744 --> 00:39:51,294
And so the sites have been reviewed, the
desk reviews have been done, the upgrades

697
00:39:51,294 --> 00:39:57,414
have been identified, and essentially all
the utilities are waiting for is a

698
00:39:57,414 --> 00:40:03,124
customer to come in and say, I plan on
asking you for 12 megawatts at the site,

699
00:40:03,124 --> 00:40:06,624
or two megawatts, or whatever it is, let's
get it done.

700
00:40:06,624 --> 00:40:10,252
And they can pull the desk review out that
they've recently done and move forward.

701
00:40:10,498 --> 00:40:12,628
and Wadi V and others have started to do
that.

702
00:40:12,628 --> 00:40:18,648
So it's really exciting to see them move
into a business that's never been a

703
00:40:18,648 --> 00:40:19,308
business before.

704
00:40:19,308 --> 00:40:23,928
It's truly unique, it's new, no one's ever
built.

705
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:29,200
for -profit public truck charging and bus
charging sites before.

706
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:35,690
They saw a unique opportunity in that if
you have a public charging site, you're

707
00:40:35,690 --> 00:40:37,350
only making money if you're dispensing
energy.

708
00:40:37,350 --> 00:40:42,320
So if you've got only a small volume of
trucks out there, you're not gonna have a

709
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:43,340
lot of customers.

710
00:40:43,340 --> 00:40:49,680
But there's also within the Los Angeles
area for the ports of Long Beach and LA.

711
00:40:49,910 --> 00:40:54,990
Most of the drayage carriers, the folks
that go and pick up containers are small

712
00:40:54,990 --> 00:40:56,130
fleets, the mom and pops.

713
00:40:56,130 --> 00:40:58,400
They run from two to five trucks.

714
00:40:58,860 --> 00:41:06,640
And the way to get them into an electric
truck is to lower the barriers to entry.

715
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:10,704
And so YDB has actually purchased a number
of electric trucks.

716
00:41:10,704 --> 00:41:15,464
and offers them as truck as a service and
charging as a service to these customers.

717
00:41:15,464 --> 00:41:19,314
So they can simply pay a monthly fee,
charge up with the Wadi V sites and then

718
00:41:19,314 --> 00:41:22,664
go pull freight, zero emissions out of
Port of LA and Long Beach.

719
00:41:22,664 --> 00:41:26,604
So it's kind of exciting and it's neat to
see them succeed.

720
00:41:26,604 --> 00:41:30,504
They've got one site up and running and
they'll have three more open, I think by

721
00:41:30,504 --> 00:41:34,184
the end of this year, one in Bakersfield,
one in Inland Empire.

722
00:41:34,204 --> 00:41:37,402
And it's really exciting to see them grow.

723
00:41:38,867 --> 00:41:41,707
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned ports
because I've had a interesting

724
00:41:41,707 --> 00:41:47,857
conversation recently with a company
that's focused in the commercial charging

725
00:41:47,857 --> 00:41:50,767
space, but they're approaching and there's
a couple doing this, but they're

726
00:41:50,767 --> 00:41:53,107
approaching it with wireless charging.

727
00:41:53,107 --> 00:41:58,877
And I was kind of curious with MCS, are
there any protocols or any standards for,

728
00:41:58,877 --> 00:42:03,887
or kind of like future proofing built to
do it MCS level of charging wirelessly?

729
00:42:03,887 --> 00:42:06,977
Or is that kind of still a little bit of a
wild west and a separate thing?

730
00:42:06,977 --> 00:42:07,731
I know.

731
00:42:07,731 --> 00:42:11,011
You also mentioned doing just having a
robotic charging to kind of automate the

732
00:42:11,011 --> 00:42:12,193
process anyway.

733
00:42:13,104 --> 00:42:19,784
So I think that that chapter has not been
completely written for charging yet.

734
00:42:20,664 --> 00:42:25,664
You made a mention of truckers and being
on the road for a certain length of time.

735
00:42:26,404 --> 00:42:32,254
As we reach automation for driving, and I
don't know what kind of electric car you

736
00:42:32,254 --> 00:42:36,984
have, but I had a model Y and I had a
model three in the US.

737
00:42:36,984 --> 00:42:41,084
And I drove through Wyoming without
touching the steering wheel.

738
00:42:41,084 --> 00:42:42,768
And I literally took...

739
00:42:42,768 --> 00:42:49,808
I think 97 pennies and stuffed them into a
rubber racket ball and hung it with a

740
00:42:49,808 --> 00:42:53,348
string over my steering wheel so it had
enough pull on the steering wheel.

741
00:42:53,348 --> 00:42:58,848
And on the freeway, that car drove with
100 % degree of certainty.

742
00:42:58,848 --> 00:43:03,948
And so it's entirely within the capability
of autonomous driving on freeways for

743
00:43:03,948 --> 00:43:07,428
trucks, I think, to operate on freeways
autonomously.

744
00:43:07,428 --> 00:43:10,928
And so if you extrapolate that further, if
you have autonomous trucks,

745
00:43:11,536 --> 00:43:14,436
they need to be electric so that there's
zero emission.

746
00:43:14,536 --> 00:43:18,426
And if you have electric autonomous
trucks, then you have to have some way to

747
00:43:18,426 --> 00:43:20,316
autonomously charge them.

748
00:43:20,616 --> 00:43:25,316
Whether that's a robotic arm, whether
that's induction, I don't have an answer

749
00:43:25,316 --> 00:43:25,636
to that.

750
00:43:25,636 --> 00:43:28,036
I don't think anybody knows what that
answer is yet.

751
00:43:28,236 --> 00:43:33,586
Induction does have some challenges as far
as the orientation, making sure that

752
00:43:33,586 --> 00:43:38,716
they're directly, the coils are directly
oriented, that there's no misdirection

753
00:43:38,716 --> 00:43:40,976
because you get a lot of heat and you get
a lot of...

754
00:43:40,976 --> 00:43:42,896
power loss between the two.

755
00:43:42,956 --> 00:43:47,066
The coils being carried on the vehicle can
be quite heavy if you're going to convey

756
00:43:47,066 --> 00:43:50,996
that much power, whether or not that's
efficient because you have some energy

757
00:43:50,996 --> 00:43:52,096
loss there.

758
00:43:52,096 --> 00:43:54,116
Those things need to be solved.

759
00:43:57,328 --> 00:43:58,368
Again, I don't know.

760
00:43:58,368 --> 00:44:04,688
MCS was kind of the next step as far as
what we could do from a conductive point

761
00:44:04,688 --> 00:44:09,838
of view, whether it's a robotic arm that
goes and sticks that in, or whether we

762
00:44:09,838 --> 00:44:11,818
have some sort of inductive solution.

763
00:44:11,818 --> 00:44:12,368
I don't know.

764
00:44:12,368 --> 00:44:17,478
But if you talk about autonomous vehicles,
not having a driver, or maybe having a

765
00:44:17,478 --> 00:44:20,338
driver at the wheel that's simply
monitoring, then why would you have

766
00:44:20,338 --> 00:44:22,388
somebody that has to go shove the thing
into the vehicle?

767
00:44:22,388 --> 00:44:23,528
They've got to be something.

768
00:44:27,475 --> 00:44:30,095
Yeah, it's a, uh, the reason I asked that
it was kind of interesting how these

769
00:44:30,095 --> 00:44:34,695
conversations and I kind of go back and
forth on the value of the technology

770
00:44:34,695 --> 00:44:38,655
because they're, they, they were
approaching using radio waves.

771
00:44:38,655 --> 00:44:41,945
So you kind of get around some of those
issues that you were talking about from

772
00:44:41,945 --> 00:44:46,075
the hardware standpoint and you still get
pretty high efficiency, but a big part of

773
00:44:46,075 --> 00:44:50,545
it was just the fact that that way they
don't even have to train or deal with the

774
00:44:50,545 --> 00:44:52,055
people plugging it in on their break.

775
00:44:52,055 --> 00:44:54,845
And they were talking about for a lot of
these were transit electric vehicles, like

776
00:44:54,845 --> 00:44:57,211
the person could just pull up, uh,

777
00:44:57,211 --> 00:45:00,271
Have people get on and off, do a quick
charge without even knowing it.

778
00:45:00,271 --> 00:45:04,261
Or when they take their break for lunch or
whatever, they just park it somewhere.

779
00:45:04,261 --> 00:45:07,031
They don't have to think about actually
plugging it in.

780
00:45:07,031 --> 00:45:10,211
And so from that standpoint, there's some
really interesting things.

781
00:45:10,211 --> 00:45:13,821
And the fact that there's really no moving
parts versus kind of the robotic thing is

782
00:45:13,821 --> 00:45:18,351
also kind of a long -term value
proposition to it.

783
00:45:18,351 --> 00:45:18,891
But right.

784
00:45:18,891 --> 00:45:19,911
I kind of agree with you.

785
00:45:19,911 --> 00:45:23,801
It's like, it's interesting, but it's
still kind of early days to see where,

786
00:45:23,801 --> 00:45:26,613
which one's going to really make it out in
the longterm.

787
00:45:27,091 --> 00:45:30,311
Yeah, but it's interesting you mentioned
it.

788
00:45:30,311 --> 00:45:30,866
Yeah.

789
00:45:30,866 --> 00:45:34,266
and that sort of thing, you've got
Pantograph, those go up to really nice

790
00:45:34,266 --> 00:45:35,116
high powers.

791
00:45:35,116 --> 00:45:40,376
You install those Pantos at certain brake
sites or places that a bus is going to be

792
00:45:40,376 --> 00:45:43,816
for long, five minutes or less or more,
sorry.

793
00:45:43,816 --> 00:45:46,696
And yeah, Panto is a great solution as
well.

794
00:45:48,371 --> 00:45:48,541
Yeah.

795
00:45:48,541 --> 00:45:51,991
And I think what we've been talking about
today is semis and there's probably a use

796
00:45:51,991 --> 00:45:56,331
case, especially if it's a short trip one,
but it seems like a lot of these are more

797
00:45:56,331 --> 00:46:01,311
focused on either transit or maybe even,
uh, ports were a big one for them too.

798
00:46:01,511 --> 00:46:08,581
And so, um, but we talk about autonomy and
I'm kind of curious what you have seen and

799
00:46:08,581 --> 00:46:09,631
what you've experienced.

800
00:46:09,631 --> 00:46:13,071
Uh, I've actually had a lot of, uh,
professional and personal experience

801
00:46:13,071 --> 00:46:16,531
around autonomy, but obviously kind of the
light duty side of stuff.

802
00:46:16,531 --> 00:46:21,741
And from what you were even talking about,
you're totally right that, uh, I mean, I

803
00:46:21,741 --> 00:46:22,641
actually have a model Y two.

804
00:46:22,641 --> 00:46:25,141
I've driven through Wyoming quite a few
times and you're exactly right.

805
00:46:25,141 --> 00:46:28,081
You just kind of hit the thing and it's
just straight.

806
00:46:28,081 --> 00:46:32,811
Um, yeah.

807
00:46:33,131 --> 00:46:38,921
Um, and so the, the only thing you really
have to worry about, I've done it a couple

808
00:46:38,921 --> 00:46:40,511
of times and you can get a pretty big
headwind.

809
00:46:40,511 --> 00:46:43,351
So you just have to figure out where your
charting stop is.

810
00:46:43,351 --> 00:46:46,195
Um, but other, I mean, other, other than
that,

811
00:46:46,195 --> 00:46:50,355
That other than that, that that's, and as
if you're, once again, if you got the

812
00:46:50,355 --> 00:46:54,075
Tesla thing going for you, it's still a
pretty straightforward process, but that

813
00:46:54,075 --> 00:46:57,135
is one of the few times I actually got
close to getting into trouble was the

814
00:46:57,135 --> 00:47:00,675
headwind was just hitting my range so
much, but that's a whole different story.

815
00:47:00,735 --> 00:47:08,745
So with autonomy, um, what, what have you
seen around that and what, what, uh,

816
00:47:08,745 --> 00:47:13,955
whether it's your own experience with it
or just kind of your kind of.

817
00:47:13,955 --> 00:47:17,945
industry knowledge that you can see the
future of that or how realistic and how

818
00:47:17,945 --> 00:47:21,680
soon is that for an option for semis?

819
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:26,000
So the Venn diagram of autonomy and
electric, you would think are kind of the

820
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:27,800
same circle, but they're not.

821
00:47:28,620 --> 00:47:35,120
So autonomy works really well in
commercial trucks, for the longer hauls,

822
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:39,360
and the long haul and battery electric
trucks aren't a great mix just yet.

823
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:45,840
It's great for driver safety on highway
and freeway, but again.

824
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,000
battery electric trucks don't get you on a
long haul.

825
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:55,070
So autonomy is definitely there as we see,
you know, with Tesla, there's the, what's

826
00:47:55,070 --> 00:47:57,140
the Ford, there's something blue.

827
00:47:57,420 --> 00:47:58,480
Chevy's got theirs.

828
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:00,860
I mean, there's the Mercedes has theirs.

829
00:48:00,860 --> 00:48:04,140
Everybody's got some sort of a version of
autonomy out there.

830
00:48:04,140 --> 00:48:08,770
On commercial vehicles from a safety
standpoint, I would much rather have a

831
00:48:08,770 --> 00:48:13,510
driver with an autonomous software feature
available to them to keep them safe.

832
00:48:13,510 --> 00:48:15,824
I mean, that's, I want them,

833
00:48:15,824 --> 00:48:21,914
to have that because it doesn't get
distracted, it's constantly vigilant, and

834
00:48:21,914 --> 00:48:23,324
it's not like a human.

835
00:48:23,324 --> 00:48:27,204
It's not gonna get sleepy, it's not gonna
potentially be impaired by drugs or

836
00:48:27,204 --> 00:48:31,404
alcohol, and we know it does a solid job
in certain operating parameters.

837
00:48:31,404 --> 00:48:33,464
On freeways, it's bulletproof.

838
00:48:33,464 --> 00:48:37,994
When you get into non -freeway situations,
that's when it starts to get a little

839
00:48:37,994 --> 00:48:38,724
wonky.

840
00:48:38,724 --> 00:48:41,724
I don't think we're there yet, and I don't
think that we're there yet for a while,

841
00:48:41,724 --> 00:48:45,390
but there's a lot of folks working really
hard on...

842
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:46,900
and get it dialed in.

843
00:48:46,900 --> 00:48:49,120
I they'll get there eventually.

844
00:48:49,240 --> 00:48:53,220
But I mean, what was I was reading
something about an autonomous vehicle, one

845
00:48:53,220 --> 00:48:56,600
of the Waymo's I think, and they came
around a corner one time and there was a

846
00:48:56,600 --> 00:49:00,080
woman chasing a flock of ducks with a
broom.

847
00:49:00,240 --> 00:49:04,340
And it's like, how do you program that
into your Waymo as you know, what you do

848
00:49:04,340 --> 00:49:08,080
when you encounter a flock of ducks being
chased by a woman with a broom?

849
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:11,270
You know, so it's just as a human, you're
just like, oh, you just go around.

850
00:49:11,270 --> 00:49:13,800
But how do you program that into a
computer?

851
00:49:15,987 --> 00:49:19,547
Yeah, and it's funny you mentioned that
because one of the things that Tesla had

852
00:49:19,547 --> 00:49:22,877
mentioned when they first announced the
semi, it's an interesting idea, but they

853
00:49:22,877 --> 00:49:26,027
haven't really talked about much was the
concept that you could actually have like

854
00:49:26,027 --> 00:49:30,367
three electric trucks, but one driver
essentially, where they would be the first

855
00:49:30,367 --> 00:49:31,117
two would be kind of falling.

856
00:49:31,117 --> 00:49:32,807
And that in theory kind of makes sense.

857
00:49:32,807 --> 00:49:37,057
And you kind of get maybe the best of both
worlds, but it still seems like that's a

858
00:49:37,057 --> 00:49:37,727
ways off.

859
00:49:37,727 --> 00:49:41,747
And there is, um, especially with long
haul, at least talking to people, there

860
00:49:41,747 --> 00:49:43,347
still seems to be whether.

861
00:49:43,347 --> 00:49:46,287
Even when you take charging outside of it,
there's kind of the loading and unloading

862
00:49:46,287 --> 00:49:49,427
and there's still an element of human
labor required with that.

863
00:49:49,427 --> 00:49:51,607
So it kind of makes sense to have a
driver.

864
00:49:51,607 --> 00:49:55,167
And obviously in those kinds of more
dangerous situations, but yeah, if that's

865
00:49:55,167 --> 00:49:59,777
really, if you can get autonomy for that
and charging to that point, then it does

866
00:49:59,777 --> 00:50:04,457
kind of make sense that maybe you can get
to like three trucks and one driver, uh,

867
00:50:04,457 --> 00:50:06,557
which is an interesting idea.

868
00:50:06,557 --> 00:50:10,587
It still seems like a ways out, but do you
see that as being a realistic possibility

869
00:50:10,587 --> 00:50:11,483
or.

870
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:17,290
I don't know how much exactly I can say on
that one because some of the conversations

871
00:50:17,290 --> 00:50:22,700
I've had about that issue were internal
when I was working on the topic at one of

872
00:50:22,700 --> 00:50:26,180
my previous employers and with others
inside the industry.

873
00:50:26,180 --> 00:50:33,520
I will say that by and large the challenge
is latency, which means the time it takes

874
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:38,210
from the signal to travel from one to the
other and whether it's going through a

875
00:50:38,210 --> 00:50:40,060
tower or a satellite.

876
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:45,590
And so if you talk about freeway speeds,
70 miles per hour, and if you have a

877
00:50:45,590 --> 00:50:50,320
latency of half a second, how far would
that vehicle travel in that half a second?

878
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:54,770
And if the signal is just that much late,
potentially you have the vehicle doing

879
00:50:54,770 --> 00:50:56,520
things you don't want it to do.

880
00:50:56,560 --> 00:51:02,750
So it's a difficult one to overcome
because physics says that a signal can

881
00:51:02,750 --> 00:51:06,340
only travel so fast through the Earth's
atmosphere.

882
00:51:08,051 --> 00:51:08,891
For sure.

883
00:51:08,891 --> 00:51:13,151
And while it's controversial, I think that
is always one of the areas that Tesla and

884
00:51:13,151 --> 00:51:17,471
Waymo actually have been really good about
is having so much of the thinking, whether

885
00:51:17,471 --> 00:51:21,371
it's them or someone else or a Chinese
company that comes up with it.

886
00:51:21,371 --> 00:51:22,371
I don't know.

887
00:51:22,371 --> 00:51:26,771
But like, I do think that core concept of
having so much of the actual thinking and

888
00:51:26,771 --> 00:51:31,771
processing being done in the car versus
being sent somewhere else and then, or

889
00:51:31,771 --> 00:51:34,771
being remotely done just inherently
removes a lot of that.

890
00:51:34,771 --> 00:51:36,787
I think that's a great fallback or.

891
00:51:36,787 --> 00:51:41,057
some safety elements to it, but I mean,
we, we see so many times that cell towers

892
00:51:41,057 --> 00:51:43,247
or other things happen where they go down.

893
00:51:43,247 --> 00:51:46,397
And at the end of the day, that car is
moving down the road and has to make the

894
00:51:46,397 --> 00:51:47,467
decision.

895
00:51:47,527 --> 00:51:48,652
So that.

896
00:51:48,652 --> 00:51:52,322
something stopped in front of me I need to
stop and that vehicle needs to make that

897
00:51:52,322 --> 00:51:56,272
decision without having to go back to the
central computer and say should I stop?

898
00:51:57,203 --> 00:51:58,303
Right.

899
00:51:58,463 --> 00:52:02,563
Or is this, yeah, what is this, what is
this thing I'm seeing, shooing a bunch of

900
00:52:02,563 --> 00:52:03,553
ducks across the road?

901
00:52:03,553 --> 00:52:04,603
Should I just keep driving?

902
00:52:04,603 --> 00:52:05,033
Do I?

903
00:52:05,033 --> 00:52:05,233
Yeah.

904
00:52:05,233 --> 00:52:07,323
I mean, that's exactly that kind of stuff.

905
00:52:07,323 --> 00:52:09,593
Um, so no, I, I understand.

906
00:52:09,593 --> 00:52:11,943
I appreciate you saying what you can about
it.

907
00:52:11,943 --> 00:52:16,433
We've, we've talked a lot about the
charging infrastructure and kind of the

908
00:52:16,433 --> 00:52:17,583
design and the sports of it.

909
00:52:17,583 --> 00:52:21,923
So let's, let's talk a little bit about
the actual trucks and your experience with

910
00:52:21,923 --> 00:52:26,067
kind of designing and working, um, with
companies building those because.

911
00:52:26,067 --> 00:52:28,247
As I said, I've been talking to my friend
who works in the industry.

912
00:52:28,247 --> 00:52:31,767
He definitely is focused more on the long
haul stuff.

913
00:52:32,127 --> 00:52:36,547
And we are seeing obviously for fleets,
it's, and large companies especially have

914
00:52:36,547 --> 00:52:41,767
those, I think more clear business cases.

915
00:52:41,767 --> 00:52:46,067
And then a lot of large companies even
have certain requirements that they're

916
00:52:46,067 --> 00:52:49,517
making around sustainability and other
promises that are kind of accelerating and

917
00:52:49,517 --> 00:52:51,757
kind of pushing them to go towards that
anyway.

918
00:52:51,987 --> 00:52:55,857
But some of the things I've heard that are
kind of against, especially if you're a

919
00:52:55,857 --> 00:53:01,017
smaller operator for a truck is one of the
big things is actually around the weight

920
00:53:01,017 --> 00:53:05,567
and what can electric truck actually move.

921
00:53:05,567 --> 00:53:12,057
I know that traditionally semis have had
like an 80 ,000 pound requirement and

922
00:53:12,057 --> 00:53:17,727
that's kind of changed a little bit with
here in the U S I think they increased it

923
00:53:17,727 --> 00:53:20,929
to 82 ,000 pounds if it's electric or
something.

924
00:53:21,408 --> 00:53:27,868
If it's got some sort of a zev or reduced
emissions drivetrain, I believe natural

925
00:53:27,868 --> 00:53:28,978
gas falls into that as well.

926
00:53:28,978 --> 00:53:34,468
So if you've got that, or in the hydrogen,
so they get a two ton dispensation.

927
00:53:35,443 --> 00:53:40,733
Which is something, but especially once
you're talking around a megawatt hour of

928
00:53:40,733 --> 00:53:45,563
batteries, it could only be maybe a fifth
of that.

929
00:53:45,563 --> 00:53:50,323
So I, uh, but I mean, obviously diesel
engines are super heavy, uh, carrying all

930
00:53:50,323 --> 00:53:51,483
that fuel has it's there.

931
00:53:51,483 --> 00:53:54,173
It's not a completely one or the other
there.

932
00:53:54,173 --> 00:53:57,983
It's I think closer than most people
realize, but I am kind of just curious if

933
00:53:57,983 --> 00:54:01,273
there's any of that you can kind of talk
about or share around the practical

934
00:54:01,273 --> 00:54:02,963
applications and.

935
00:54:02,963 --> 00:54:08,083
how much of a difference weight actually
plays into the effectiveness of electric

936
00:54:08,083 --> 00:54:09,159
semi trucks.

937
00:54:09,872 --> 00:54:11,792
So weight is definitely an issue.

938
00:54:11,792 --> 00:54:14,432
The initial battery electric trucks were
heavier.

939
00:54:14,432 --> 00:54:21,212
I believe the Tesla Semi is still heavier
than a traditional diesel ICE.

940
00:54:21,372 --> 00:54:22,942
But I think we're getting there.

941
00:54:22,942 --> 00:54:26,032
Like I said, the gravimetric and
volumetric density of batteries continues

942
00:54:26,032 --> 00:54:28,662
to come down, as well as price.

943
00:54:28,662 --> 00:54:32,942
So you have all of these slopes from
technology and price that are headed the

944
00:54:32,942 --> 00:54:33,892
right direction.

945
00:54:33,892 --> 00:54:38,832
So we'll get to the point where they're
lighter and have just as much power.

946
00:54:38,832 --> 00:54:41,392
power on board, if not more.

947
00:54:41,472 --> 00:54:50,422
And we already see cases where it's
cheaper by far to operate electric trucks.

948
00:54:50,422 --> 00:54:56,282
If you have runs that are 100 miles or
less or 150 miles or less, and you're

949
00:54:56,282 --> 00:54:58,912
running electric trucks versus the diesel,
it's cheaper.

950
00:54:58,912 --> 00:55:05,296
So the question I'll ask you to ask your
friend who's involved in long haul.

951
00:55:05,296 --> 00:55:12,336
is that when the industry moved from
horses and trailers to gasoline trucks,

952
00:55:12,336 --> 00:55:17,536
did they still take the gasoline trucks to
the barn to feed them hay and rub them

953
00:55:17,536 --> 00:55:18,256
down?

954
00:55:18,256 --> 00:55:19,376
The answer is no.

955
00:55:19,376 --> 00:55:22,296
They changed the way they operated, right?

956
00:55:22,356 --> 00:55:27,280
And so when you're changing from a diesel
truck to a battery electric truck,

957
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:29,220
you have to change the way you operate.

958
00:55:29,220 --> 00:55:34,580
Slightly, not totally, but you have to
take into account your percentage of

959
00:55:34,580 --> 00:55:39,340
charge when the truck returns, the
scheduling of drivers to complete certain

960
00:55:39,340 --> 00:55:43,480
routes, and how far they're gonna go with
that route on that particular day, and

961
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:47,220
what the charge rate of the truck is, and
how much power it's got on board.

962
00:55:47,220 --> 00:55:48,550
You have to know these things.

963
00:55:48,550 --> 00:55:51,280
We have the ability to track all this
information.

964
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:55,130
you have the ability of a dispatcher to
say choose from four trucks and say, okay,

965
00:55:55,130 --> 00:55:58,820
this one needs to go 200 miles.

966
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:03,720
And, you know, I've only got one of the
trucks that's capable of doing that right

967
00:56:03,720 --> 00:56:05,910
now, because that one's at 95 % steady
charge.

968
00:56:05,910 --> 00:56:07,180
So go take that one.

969
00:56:07,180 --> 00:56:09,480
We'll put this other truck on this route.

970
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:16,100
You know, that's those things are doable
and capable of being done on the today's

971
00:56:16,100 --> 00:56:17,560
with today's technology.

972
00:56:23,047 --> 00:56:26,787
As we wrap up the first part of our
conversation, we want to extend our

973
00:56:26,787 --> 00:56:30,447
deepest thanks to Rustam Kocher for
joining us and sharing his profound

974
00:56:30,447 --> 00:56:34,627
insights into the electrification of the
trucking industry, the challenges and

975
00:56:34,627 --> 00:56:38,267
triumphs of implementing the megawatt
charging standard, along with the past,

976
00:56:38,267 --> 00:56:42,327
present and future of electric trucking in
transportation.

977
00:56:42,327 --> 00:56:45,867
Rustam's experience and visionary work
truly illuminate the path forward for

978
00:56:45,867 --> 00:56:47,307
sustainable transport.

979
00:56:47,307 --> 00:56:50,347
I'm really excited to share part two next
week with you as well.

980
00:56:50,347 --> 00:56:51,847
I can't thank Rustam enough.

981
00:56:51,847 --> 00:56:54,307
for his time and what we covered.

982
00:56:54,327 --> 00:56:58,387
Remember, if today's conversation sparked
your interest or curiosity, we encourage

983
00:56:58,387 --> 00:57:01,787
you to share the episode with a friend or
colleague who would appreciate these

984
00:57:01,787 --> 00:57:03,687
forward -thinking discussions.

985
00:57:03,727 --> 00:57:06,687
Spreading the word helps us grow and
continue bringing you the cutting -edge

986
00:57:06,687 --> 00:57:08,207
content you love.

987
00:57:08,207 --> 00:57:11,247
Plus, don't forget to sign up for our
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988
00:57:11,247 --> 00:57:14,407
latest trends, expert interviews, and
behind -the -scenes content from Great

989
00:57:14,407 --> 00:57:15,267
Connections.

990
00:57:15,267 --> 00:57:18,447
Your next dose of inspiration is just an
email away.

991
00:57:18,447 --> 00:57:19,751
We also want to hear from you.

992
00:57:19,751 --> 00:57:23,151
If there's a topic you're itching to learn
more about or a guest you'd love to hear

993
00:57:23,151 --> 00:57:24,931
on the show, drop us a line.

994
00:57:24,931 --> 00:57:29,511
Your feedback shapes our show and helps us
cover the stories that matter most to you.

995
00:57:29,511 --> 00:57:33,791
Remember, just email us, guests at
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996
00:57:33,791 --> 00:57:35,511
on our social channels.

997
00:57:35,691 --> 00:57:39,531
For those of you who are intrigued by
Rustam's work and want to dive deeper,

998
00:57:39,531 --> 00:57:43,111
remember to check out the show notes for
more information and links to his current

999
00:57:43,111 --> 00:57:43,831
projects.

1000
00:57:43,831 --> 00:57:46,495
There's always more to explore after the
show.

1001
00:57:46,823 --> 00:57:50,263
We're grateful for your enthusiasm for the
subjects we cover on this podcast.

1002
00:57:50,263 --> 00:57:54,903
Thank you for tuning in and until part two
next week, this is the Great Connections

1003
00:57:54,903 --> 00:57:56,328
podcast signing