Good morning, Greek Connections listeners.
I'm your host Chase, and joining me today is Brandon Bartnick.
He's the host of the Future Mobility Podcast and the Vice President and General
Manager at Edison Manufacturing and Engineering.
In our conversation, we'll explore Edison's contributions to manufacturing in
the mobility space.
For anyone interested in the future of manufacturing electric and autonomous
vehicles, this episode is for you.
We discuss all sorts of topics today, ranging from the value proposition of
plug-in hybrids and other types of power trains, the growing importance of charging
infrastructure, especially for fleet and commercial applications, along with the
different types of AC and DC charging solutions that Edison manufacturing offers
in conjunction with battery backup solutions.
We also talk about how the latter is a key aspect in managing grid related costs and
ensuring a seamless charging experience.
Brendan shares his insights on how OEMs are positioning their long-term
investments for electric vehicles, plus the critical role quality and supply chain
management play into all of them.
So whether you're a tech enthusiast and auto industry professional or just curious
about the future of transportation, this episode covers it all.
Plus remember to subscribe and share this episode with others you think that will
enjoy the content.
And with all of that, enjoy.
Yeah, thanks, Chase.
forward to the conversation.
My pleasure.
For those who are listening who may not be familiar with Edison, the future of
mobility, can you just give a kind of quick overview, maybe first of the podcast
and then what you do and more about Edison as a company.
Yeah, sure.
So Brandon Barton, yeah, future mobility podcast started and right when the
pandemic started pretty much like March 2020.
And I've been running it for about four years now.
And chase, you had you on to talk.
Uh, I think it was after that the Texas grid failed.
Um, well, a few, few years ago, yeah, the big storm and I had the question.
Yeah.
And I was questioning like, Hey, how do these, uh, how do these grids actually
work and, and how do we try to prevent this in the future?
And we had a, a fun conversation there, but essentially the podcast is
It's built around the search for safer, more sustainable, more effective, and more
accessible transportation, which I define as movement of goods and people.
So how are we providing services for people to move themselves and to get to
places to get things to them in a way that's safe and sustainable and that
they're not putting themselves or others at undue harm or creating negative
consequences for future generations and, and all of that.
And, um, yeah, to cover a wide range of topics that's, uh,
I originally thought that was a reasonably simple scope, but I've since learned that
is a very complex equation that we're trying to solve here.
And there's, I get to speak to experts throughout the industry on those types of
topics.
And along that, my day job is closely tied to that.
So I lead Edison Manufacturing and Engineering as Vice President and General
Manager.
And we are a niche contract manufacturer.
So we specialize in low to medium volume.
complex assembly of, for the most part, electric and autonomous vehicle systems,
components, vehicles.
And so we do, we build things like chargers and electric vehicle components
up to where later this year launching production for a full vehicle and being
the full vehicle integrator in the electric vehicle space, autonomous vehicle
integration, outfits, charger builds and integration.
And essentially we serve as a reliable, capital efficient and flexible.
partner for the companies who are trying to make an impact in the space.
That's great and I think it's been really interesting to kind of follow what you're
doing now with what we had as you mentioned that conversation just a couple
of years ago because I know what you were doing previously was a little bit more
about looking at manufacturing and I know that Edison does some of this as well as
kind of like trying to figure out how to optimize and make it easier for
manufacturing but I think it's really great to see where you've come from and
what you're trying to now.
make kind of your own splash with this role at Edison.
So that that's great to see.
I know you mentioned that there may be a full car coming later this year.
Is it too early to share any details about that or will there be an update later this
year?
Yeah, I mean, I think you can just see there's a press release in late 2023.
And hopefully there's more coming, but we have an honor to work with the company
Zeus electric chassis based here in the U S building a class five electric work
truck.
And
and chassis.
And so yeah, we have, we're their partner to bring that into production.
Congrats.
That's, that's great to hear.
And definitely a space that could, uh, I think is going to be one of the earlier
and more successful ones, at least financially, to go through electrification
just with the needs of whether it's maintenance or just also that reliability
with that.
Can you share a little bit of, um, maybe some of the things
just to give a little more detail around Edison and what makes Edison Engineering
stand out and where your kind of area expertise really is in this space.
Yeah, so it's, I think it starts with a key premise.
And so you mentioned my background.
And so I studied engineering, worked at Boeing for, as a manufacturing and process
engineer for a little while.
And then I was with a engineering services company, FEV for a little over five years
and working with companies to develop these future technologies.
So whether it's battery or propulsion or any, any propulsion system, component
system, controls, integration in the vehicle, that was the sweet spot.
worked with a lot of companies to develop these technologies, but then often saw
this challenge of how do you actually put that into practice?
How do you implement that technology in a way that allows your company to grow and
scale and build a sustainable business, but also to make the impact that you're
trying to make in the world.
And that was continues to be a challenge and something that I saw over and over.
And so that's what part of what drew me to Edison is the focus on solving this
problem for companies and taking things from.
prototype and proof of concept into production and then executing as their low
to medium volume production partner.
And that's, it's a tough, it's a tough space.
And the question is, how do you do that?
Well, and one of the, the core beliefs that I have, and I think, I think the team
here has is that there's a lot of uncertainty in the system.
No one really knows if anyone gives you projection for EV volumes.
And we're talking about, Hey, people have undershot or they've overshot
It was expected that someone was going to deliver this many vehicles and they've
delivered this.
Like that, none of that surprising.
Cause I don't think anyone actually knows how this plays out.
That it's too complex of a system with regulations and customer and public
perception technology that's being developed across several axes,
infrastructure and geopolitical stuff like it's a super complex system here.
So the core belief that we're, we're kind of growing off is well, in a complex
system.
with a lot of uncertainty, choose a path that gives you optionality, choose the
path that allows you to wait to make your big bets.
And that's essentially what we do coming in and working with our customers and our
partners is to deliver for them in a very reliable way, in a structured way.
We come from our sister company, PJ Wallbank Springs has been an automotive
supplier for 40 plus years.
They provide the biggest players in the world, 20, 25 million components per year
that they deliver at a very high standard.
We know what quality looks like and we incorporate that into the products we
build, but we do it in a flexible way.
And we intentionally limit upfront capital.
We try to look for what is the most effective way to build these initial units
that allow you the flexibility and the freedom to miss projections and to make
adjustments and to learn that, Hey, your product's not evolving the way you
originally hoped or thought it would.
The market's not evolving at the pace that you had thought it would.
And
not to make a upfront rigid bet and then sink the company because that doesn't come
true.
Yeah, and I think you're there's a lot of themes you're kind of talking about right
now around just what we've been seeing in the past year, really the last six months
around, especially electric vehicles.
And I think just the auto industry in general, a lot, there's been a lot of
headlines about electric vehicles aren't selling.
And there's truth to that.
But I think the bigger picture really is just cars in general have come to
a much slower rate of growth than we had been seeing the last couple of years with
interest rates and some of the other things that have really changed to make
that a little bit harder for especially manufacturers.
What are some of the maybe surprises that you've seen at Edison around how quickly
maybe some of these things have changed and how you have been able to help maybe
some of these clients?
around these unexpected changes or slowdowns.
Cause I think what we're talking about, especially when you look at the market
today from even like a year ago, it was starting to slow down, but it wasn't quite
like what we're seeing right now, especially like in headlines and
everything else about it, just making it sound like the industry has come to pretty
much a complete stop.
Yeah, that's a good question.
So the biggest, biggest surprises or change.
I mean, so we've certainly had customers ranging from, I don't know, there's a
customer that we were working with who was seeking a series B funding that
unfortunately didn't close and is no longer around.
There was a global automotive OEM that we worked with for close to a year and then
strategies and budgets change and suddenly the product that they thought they were
going to bring into market changes.
But
It's not super surprising necessarily, because that's just that happens right in
an ecosystem like we're living in right now.
I think the, it's been interesting to see how perception has changed and how the
positioning has changed.
So that was, I think one of the main things that I've recognized over the past,
say 18, 24 months or so is talking with founders and investors and things like
that.
But people like that and the tone, whether it's on a podcast platform or behind
closed doors and in a private setting, it has shifted a bit in that you're seeing
fewer of these big bets, right?
And fewer of these companies that are coming out and saying, hey, we're going to
launch and it's going to be this volume and we're going to take on Tesla within
the next 12 months or I don't know what, but like it, you know, the, the skyrocket
hockey stick, there's still companies that are.
doing that, but this general idea seems to be growing a bit that like, no, we don't
know and we want to grow.
We want to be big, but at the same time, we want to be efficient with our capital
and we want to buy ourselves a runway that allows us to grow at a rate that makes it
worthwhile for our venture capital partners if that's what you're using to
generate capital and fund your activities, but also at a responsible rate that allows
you to account for changes in the market without...
without being underwater quickly.
So I think that's the biggest change I've seen is in the perception, right?
And the people who are coming to us now and saying, it used to be, hey, we're
gonna produce a thousand of these three months from now, and now it's, well, I
think we're gonna build 25 of these and then 50, and then 100, then 500, then a
thousand.
And then that's what we can get behind a bit more and be like, okay, now we're
talking a bit more reasonably than what we were before.
Yeah, and I know your team is the whole company or is it just you based in the
Michigan area?
Yeah.
So the, we are in port here on Michigan, which is about an hour north of Okay.
That's why I thought it's kind of been interesting because we've had some people
on, um, even the last couple of episodes, we had John McElroy, who's, uh, from auto
line based in the Detroit area.
And he was kind of talking about what he's seen.
And obviously with kind of the big three talking about pulling back, still
investing in electrification for a long-term strategy, kind of like what
you're talking about, but
kind of doubling back down onto hybrids and maybe plug-in hybrid technology.
With what you're doing at Edison Engineering, is it, I know kind of looking
online, there's mentions of hybrids, but it seems to be mostly around fully
electric vehicles.
Are you seeing kind of a similar thing where some of your suppliers who have been
all in on electric are just like, maybe we should take an approach now.
and look at plug-it hybrids or some of these other technologies, are you still
seeing common interest around fully electric vehicles for the long-term
solution?
I'd say both.
We aren't necessarily...
We're technology agnostic, I would say, in that part of the reason why a lot of the
focus has been in the electric and autonomous space thus far is ultimately
the solution that we're providing, the way that I explained it, we're filling cracks
in the supply chain that are forming.
So there is an existing automotive supply chain, including our sister company,
that...
works really well and it has worked for a very long time.
But it depends on a few things, which is consistent, predictable volumes that are
actually going to play out.
And we're seeing several forces that have adjusted that.
So electrification is one of them.
Fragmentation of supply base and the OEMs and different markets and things.
And so these different forces have added, have created some cracks in the supply
chain.
And that's Edison's filling
one or a few of those cracks.
And most of those tend to be in the new technology area.
So that's why, at least outwardly facing, that's a lot of the work we're doing.
But we have similarly interesting discussions about companies getting into
the hybridization space.
Also, existing companies who are building internal combustion or conventional
vehicle components and systems that are declining in volumes.
And now suddenly the math around their assembly processes are changing.
We tend to be a good fit for that as well.
But I mean, I'm personally, and then also the company, completely technology
agnostic.
And I think when we talked about this previously, right, like I love electric
vehicles.
They're a lot of fun to drive.
They do a lot of good things and a lot of good use cases.
They certainly aren't the answer for all situations right now.
They might be in the future.
But there are several assumptions and things that need to be overcome to get to
that point.
including costs and infrastructure and stuff that everyone talks about in the
space and back to this framework right about in a world of uncertainty don't
limit your options like that's generally the way that I've thought about and this
has been fueled by some past podcasts but the way that I think about this
decarbonization effort is yeah invest heavily in electrification let's continue
to grow and improve the technology improve the infrastructure but it's
unnecessarily choose that there needs to be a single winner in this decarbonization
effort.
And that's, I think what the industry or what kind of the correcting force in the
market seems to be showing right now as well.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with you.
Um, and I think, uh, not to go down too much of a tangent.
I know last time we spoke, I believe you had just either taken delivery or about to
take delivery of a, I think it was the Jeep Wrangler four by E.
I was curious if you did take a delivery of that.
And I would just be kind of curious as what has been your experience with that
vehicle, kind of talking about this technology and talking about some of these
companies that are taking a different kind of the full approach.
And I just be curious what your experience has been as a consumer.
Yeah, I think there's a few interesting things to point to here.
So on overall fantastic driving.
Experience like and compared to the conventional Wrangler It's it's so much
better when you have a nice charge and you have the ability Yeah, you have that low
end torque and the two systems working together From a fun perspective.
It's great.
It's also there's challenges Controls this or not that the calibration is Leaves a
little for desire to be desired.
There's also right now.
There's a recall waiting on a software flash it's like I can't charge the battery
because
Oh, it could start on fire, which that's less than I ideally.
So I have a worse vehicle than I would if I'd had no battery because I have
additional weight that I'm looking at as I'm so.
I get what you're saying, though.
It's totally valid.
Yeah.
And I think that's that was a big topic we talked about in the last podcast, which
was around just software updates and having to deal with it.
Because I assume this one's you have to take into a dealer to get the update done,
correct?
Yeah, and I mean you see it too like the dealer network, right?
Especially the Stellantis organization.
They don't have a ton of electrification experience, especially in the US.
So it's not like you're dealing with high voltage experts for the most part when
you're bringing in.
I mean there's a few of them, but not everyone at the dealership is a high
voltage expert.
So that's been an interesting learning opportunity, but I think maybe the most
interesting takeaway I've had.
So I have changed my job location as well as my home location.
since I bought, I guess I'm leasing the vehicles since I, since I started the
lease on it and it has completely changed the value proposition for me.
So my previous location for better, for worse, unfortunately not for that.
So it's, it's still, it's still a really fun vehicle and I love driving it around.
We try to optimize and use it for the local shorter cause it has 27 or so miles
of, of range nominally.
So
You can get to a decent amount of places, but that type of driving made up a lot of
my driving in the old situation.
Even my commute, it was like 35 miles round trip or something like that.
So I had most of the way there.
Now I live in an area that I have a second kid coming and I want a little bit more
space.
I'm not too far from my things.
I don't live as close to all the stuff that I used to do.
So the daily driving is a little longer.
And I also don't live in Port Huron, which is where the organization is.
So I, I now have a fairly long highway commute when I go into work and, uh,
Wrangler is not an aerodynamically efficient vehicle by any means.
Also 27 miles of range doesn't do much for me when I'm driving whatever it is, like
70 miles one way.
So, uh, it's not the right vehicle for me in this.
It was the right vehicle in the old situation.
Like now it's likely a f***.
full hybrid would be if I could optimize based on, if I did the optimization
problem based on the grid I have here as well as my driving, like my commuter
vehicle I believe should be a full hybrid or even a battery electric vehicle with a
reasonable range would be better.
Interesting, gotcha.
And sorry, I didn't realize, I'd heard something, but I didn't realize the
severity of the recall for the four by E.
And that is kind of one of the interesting things that
I kind of, I, I see the value proposition of plug-in hybrids, but I, I feel like
I've kind of gotten back and I just had curiosity.
Do you plug it in pretty regularly or would you just, yeah.
I mean, when it, when I can, yes.
Cause I mean, in part because I believe the sustainability impact.
Um, but then also it's just a lot more fun to drive when it has a full charge rate.
Well, it's interesting because we've had a couple of guests on that kind of are.
very pro plug-in hybrid.
And then there's also, I think it's starting to change, but there's some
pretty good statistics.
And I feel like you being who you are and working in the industry, you would
actually plug it in, but there there've been some pretty good statistics showing
like people even with plug-in hybrids don't even plug them in that much.
And some of that had to do with maybe they don't have a place to plug in overnight
and other reasons.
But yeah, it's funny because now I have our daily road tripper kind of vehicles, a
Tesla Model Y.
And then our kind of fun, uh, cause, uh, being, I actually, I don't know if I told
you this, uh, I live in Bend, Oregon now, which is much more kind of rural and kind
of a ski town and there's a lot of great hiking and kind of forest road.
So for those adventures, I, we actually have a 1987 Land Rover Defender 90.
And so those things can not be more farther apart, but also more fun in their
own specific ways.
And I, I kind of, uh, I am actually planning.
We had another guest on here that specializes in electrification of old
defenders.
And so I'm looking at maybe doing that with ours, but it to me has just become
like pretty clear that one or the other.
I mean, the beauty of that Land Rover is for as much crap as British automakers get
for bad electrics in this car.
It pretty much just goes to the battery and then the headlights.
And I will be honest right now, it is not running cause the alternator just broke.
But other than that, there is so little wiring in this car.
that it is really kind of just interesting showing the, in some ways, I think almost
the peak of like the fully internal combustion engine versus like the fully
electric system and just having kind of a product for each use case.
And, uh, I, I definitely think plug-in hybrids will be a thing and definitely a
kind of maybe stop gap or at least a way to get people introduce the idea of
plugging in and charging, but it's, it's just kind of interesting here, your
experience with it and just.
what we've been seeing in the space around, um, whether people are going to, I
think there's definitely a good portion, uh, as you probably know, like the middle
of the country where, uh, the charging infrastructure still isn't that great and
people are kind of hesitant to go fully with it, but there's also the use case of
like, Hey, it's a lot less than gas in theory, if you get the right, uh, plug in
hybrid and like you're talking about it meets your needs.
So I think there's definitely an interest there with
Yeah, I mean it was a 110 outlet that I used and it charges overnight.
It's a 15 kilowatt hour pack.
I feel good about that from the materials and the effort that goes into building
that pack.
And yeah, if I lived in the current, in the old situation, it's the perfect
vehicle, I think, but, uh, just, just not right now.
Yeah.
And you said it was a lease.
So what are you, I mean, it sounds like maybe you still have a little bit of time,
but you're probably leaning towards just kind of more of the traditional hybrid.
If you were to do another one or have you given a much thought of what you would
replace it with?
Yeah, so we live in a suburban-like area, right?
We'll have two kids here soon.
And actually, both vehicles are up for consideration of what we want to do.
And I did the one vehicle thing for some time back in, which worked well during the
COVID time, but not currently given our boundary conditions.
So we need two vehicles.
And if you think about the primary drivers, right, of what goes into the
decision, it's I make a...
long highway commute two to three times a week.
We need some way to get our family into the vehicle and move in a safe manner
around.
We'll take a handful of quote unquote road trips, which is probably a couple hour
drive in one direction with the full family per year.
And so there's a whole conversation to be had about
What's a rational approach and how do you rationally optimize those different
things?
What's a fun car?
Ultimately where we yeah, where we seem to be settling is like a reasonably cheap,
affordable highway vehicle that I, you know, drive ideally a full hybrid.
Like I said, I think that's I think that's an efficient application for it for that.
And then the larger SUV of some sort.
I mean, I guess electric could be nice, but at the same time, yeah, the cost is a
factor.
So some type of an electrified SUV and a highway vehicle is likely what we'll go
with.
But I mean, there's so many different factors that go into that, right?
I mean, if it is my work vehicle, it needs to be professional enough, right?
Like it has to be.
So yeah.
And also like if...
If I get a high highway optimized vehicle for that work scenario, it's likely going
to be a small vehicle, which then likely does not make it the thing that we take on
road trips.
So then the other vehicle has to have some way to be able to go on road trips.
Right.
Just kind of the right balance of the purpose and the need for each vehicle.
Um, yeah, kind of rambling, but that's how we've thought about it so far.
No, no, I get that.
That's always kind of a tough decision.
And, uh, I mean, for us, I had looked originally at getting something a little
sportier than the Y, but.
We have now three at the time, two dogs and one's a very large dog.
So we kind of needed something with a hatchback.
And, um, I mean, I've only had my car now for pretty much maybe 18 months, maybe a
little under, and we've already put over 40,000 miles on it.
Um, and then the defender, we, we've put a bit of miles, but that's actually just
been around town and up into the mountain, so it's
It's definitely a lot less, but, um, that also is just, I mean, that's a whole
different experience.
It takes five minutes to get it started.
It's like, it's a great weekend vehicle where it's, you want to enjoy a classic,
uh, off-roading truck, but it's not practical when you're in a rush or you
have to drive a few hours, um, but it is so much fun, just the character and the,
uh, history behind those vehicles.
With.
Yeah.
I mean, if I can.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, so you're making me think of something.
And this is one of the things that sits with me pretty deep in my stomach at a
time of like, right, you're talking, you're listening to this, right?
You hear two people who are obviously in the sustainable transportation space.
You can hear several things here that are not optimized for sustainability, right?
For sure.
The fact that I live far from work and I have a highway commute, not great.
The fact that I live in a suburban area, you have a lot of people who say, well,
everyone should be thrown into city centers and there's some validity there.
But this is a something I'm still struggling with and exploring.
I think I've gotten the closest guy.
Guy Larry Burns has been a good coach of sorts and has been a podcast guest.
A few times he, he led R and D for GM and was right at the heart of the, when, when
they developed the skateboard platform back in 2000, he, he was leading the team
and started kind of the electric vehicle revolution, but talking with him about it,
he's like, well, somehow in this whole conversation we're missing.
We're missing the suburban and or rural use case, which isn't somehow there isn't
like, I don't live here because I hate the environment.
I do care and I want to do the right things.
I'm like, I'm making these trying to make these conscious decisions with the way I
transport myself and my family as well as the way I live my life.
But at the same time, somehow in my life, I've come to the conclusion that having
some land for my kids to run around, having a quiet area.
having a safer place for less fewer vehicles running around, that matters to
me.
That conclusion and my perspective has somehow been missed for the most part in
the sustainability transportation landscape.
I don't know exactly what to do with it because I know this is super complex, but
that's an issue that I've been struggling with.
For driving 40,000 miles in 18, it's a lot of miles to put on any vehicle.
Right, right.
However, still.
But you still have made.
Yeah.
And I, I completely agree.
I mean, that was, um, yeah.
And I know this is before that.
I mean, uh, like I said, I live in a ski town now.
I've always been to skiing a lot of just kind of outdoor sports.
And so, um, before that I had a super outback about the least sexy, but one of
the most utilitarian cars just for like sort of the skis in the back go.
It's got all wheel drive, got good enough ground clearance.
And even then when I was living in Portland, I was surprised how many miles I
was putting on that thing on a regular basis.
And I figured, you know what, if I go electric, I'll bet you do, I'll do
similar, maybe since I won't have to worry about oil changes and all that stuff,
it'll go up and it did.
And then some I've actually been driving way more now.
And it's not just because I went to electric, it's a couple of friends moved
to the Midwest and all these things.
So I've done road trips in it that I hadn't done previously.
But I mean, that, that was a big thing reason I pretty much had to choose.
There were, there were other EVs out there that I thought were cool and stuff, but,
um, the charging infrastructure of the, uh, I mean, where we are, I mean, you
can't see it now, but a day or two ago, those trees were covered in snow.
And so, yeah, I need something that I can go through.
Mound passes pretty easily or easily enough and not, uh, with snow tires.
I don't have to be too worried about it.
that really just left kind of the model.
Why at the end of it, it's like the only option there were others that were, I
mean, obviously the Rivian was kind of cool, but charging infrastructure really
wasn't still there for that thing.
And yeah, it totally came to, um, even though you go around here and a lot of
people have diesel pickups and all these things, although now Rivians are a damn
dozen, but at the time it just wasn't that easy and that feasible to find.
That was about the only thing that could meet those.
needs where it's like, yeah, I'm going to have to go a couple hundred miles at
least.
I mean, it's about 150, 180 to get to Portland from here.
And that is not always in great conditions.
That'll be with snow.
That'll be with ice.
And I mean, these are exactly what you're telling that I, and I, I get why some
people don't want to get Tesla, yada, but, um, it is funny when you start talking
about the rural side of stuff and that kind of infrastructure and like making it
easier.
Um, bend is a little bit of a weird city in that the fact that it does have really
good biking infrastructure and stuff like that, but, um, once you get out of the
city and like I said, you, there's about one small town between here and Boise,
Idaho, the rest is just open Eastern Oregon and there's been times I've driven
south of here where I don't even see a car for hours.
Uh, when I was coming up from Nevada, just a few, uh, a couple of months ago.
And so it's, it's one of those things that like,
There really are a few choices that if you want to go on and, uh, go somewhere remote
or kind of at just kind of, uh, with no pre-planning that really still, in my
opinion, is the only option you could maybe get away with a river.
And, but, uh, I mean, my record for doing a road trip and an EV in a days from here
to Phoenix, which was about, uh, just under 1200 miles and that's a lot of
driving, I don't care what car you're in.
And that, that pretty much, uh, I mean, I even, I remember I pulled up, I was in,
God, where was I?
I was, uh, north of Vegas still.
I want to say it was Beattie, Nevada or something.
I mean, there's so much Nevada that's especially when you're driving down there,
that's just nothing.
And then you come like, like these small little gas station oasis is, and there's
now chargers at some of them and I've been hitting all the Tesla ones, no real issue.
Some of them were the older ones.
So they charge a little bit slower, but it was always enough that like
I was there for maybe 10, 15 minutes and I'd be able to drive for another hour and
a half, two hours.
So it's kind of the perfect amount of time to break up, run, get something wasn't too
big of an issue.
But I pulled into BD and there was a Rivian and not only was it a Rivian, I
think it was an R1S, which maybe at the time had just come out.
It was a Rivian R1S and it was towing a little camper behind it.
And it had pulled up to these charges next to the Tesla ones.
And unfortunately, that one DC fast charger was only 60 kilowatts, which...
I mean, you have to know what even that means for a fast charger, but that one was
broken.
And so there was this Rivian towing a little camper on a AC charger.
And I just could not, like, I had no idea how long that guy must've been there to
get to the next thing.
And I mean, I felt, I mean, it was beautiful car and I felt bad for the guy.
Um, and maybe that's purposely why he was telling a camper just to hang out at these
things, but it was just like, yeah, I don't, uh,
I like the car a lot.
I don't know if it's my favorite car ever by any means for the model Y, but it was
like, yeah, for my needs.
That was about the only thing that I could do these road trips or do, um, high speed,
uh, or not high speed, but, uh, going out to really rural parts of, uh, actually all
over the country, but especially Eastern and, uh, Southern Oregon and not have to
worry about it.
And I think, uh, that's, and I totally get, if people are doing that, like that's
where a plugin hybrid, um,
totally makes sense.
And, uh, I, it's kind of interesting.
My mother-in-law just got the Volvo.
God, I can't remember what it is.
XC 90, the plug and hybrid one and really beautiful car on the inside.
But of course the one thing it has issues with is the actual battery.
She had to take it in and all this stuff, the actual, uh, internal combustion engine
car, part of it worked great.
And it was funny because, uh, she had replaced it with a Mercedes and, uh, about
six months ago.
Her husband, my father-in-law had just replaced their other Mercedes with a model
Y and what was really, which is obviously not a common, uh, use case for a lot of
people replacing our going electric.
But what was so fascinating to me was she was so disappointed in the charging of her
car because the AC charging was so much slower than the Tesla and all these other
things.
And they go on a lot of road trips too.
We met them out in steamboat Springs recently in Colorado.
And so I think for them having
the combustion engine side of it for sure made sense, but it is just kind of
interesting where, uh, you, you talk about these experiences that either defy what
people need a car for, or you have these companies and then you have these
companies who are building these plugin hybrids that, um, I, I think it makes so
much sense on paper, but then the execution of it or some other issue kind
of comes up that makes it just like, well, maybe they should have just bought a
combustion engine car from a consumer side for that experience or
an EV but I think for a lot of people it just is it needs to be an easier
experience where you don't have to Pull a Rivian up pretty much a hundred thousand
dollar car and then wait five hours for it to charge and an AC thing Just is I know
and I realize that's not the majority of people's experiences But you see something
like that and like I don't care where you live That's not gonna catch on if that's
what you have to do To do these things.
Yeah, sure It's I think it's still early, but I had some friends
I think out your way who working on a hydrogen fuel cell truck that I think will
certain There's a lot that goes into this I think the initial reaction should be
skepticism when you hear what I just said of a hydrogen fuel side truck but I think
they have the technology to actually make this happen in communities like where
you're living which I definitely keeping a keeping eyes on and then Yeah, another one
of the key trends that we've seen a lot is a Ton of different types of trailers are
getting electrified right now
for some of the reason that you mentioned, right, of whether it's a camper trailer,
or if it's, you've seen some of that work even in the long haul trucking space, or a
few different applications, but throwing some battery, e-axles, having some way to
get regen and provide, hopefully at least offset the weight of your trailer, because
yeah, right now the tech just isn't there for any vehicle really to be able to tow
and also get reasonable range.
Yeah, I think, I mean,
talking about that obviously the big one was the cyber truck and that's what
everyone was kind of so hoping for was to have that range and I guess maybe it has
this battery extender we'll see what happens there but yeah I mean that I think
is really the one area that for electrification and I get it that's a lot
of batteries and a lot of weight to be hauling around if you only tow a few times
a year which is the case for most people and I mean I've even done stuff with our
Model Y obviously it's only a
a couple thousand pounds, but honestly, as long as you don't care if it's just around
town or you're only going like an hour driving with a tone with electric vehicle
is so easy.
You don't even feel the difference for the most part.
You like, if anything, you might notice you accelerate slightly slower, but it's
still so much faster.
And so I think from, I think what most people, when most people talk about towing
an EV, I think they, I think it's just one more reason like the naysayers say, Oh,
this is why they'll never catch on.
And in practice, that's a pretty rare need.
But when you look at the commercial side of it, obviously, I mean, a buddy of mine,
he's, uh, he works in Volvo trucks and he lives in the Midwest now.
And so it is always kind of here.
Interesting hearing what they have to deal with.
And some of this talk about electrification and then the level of
skepticism is just off the roof, especially with the truck buyers, but then
you
there is a reality where it's like, well, I don't know if, and it, and I've seen
some of these things now where you put a battery.
So it's kind of like, you almost have a plug in hybrid for a traditional truck in
the trailer, which could be kind of that stepping stone and possibly work.
But I, I think inherently, uh, I think once again, on paper and in a.
Science experiment and in limited use, like hydrogen makes so much sense, but
it's just been the actual harvesting of the hydrogen and the storage of the
hydrogen and all these.
other things that just make the infrastructure really difficult.
And even then so many people have been talking about that.
That's the innovation.
Oh, okay.
Well, then maybe that's it because the, the thing I've at least seen on my side,
um, through quite a few coworkers and others is, uh, and some of them are in
kind of natural gas space is they're talking about converting natural gas.
Um, a lot of it, natural gas pipelines and some of these other things to hydrogen and
just inherently.
That's a much harder task than people realize when you're dealing with the
smallest element and it just doesn't have that same thing.
But I, yeah, I would love, I mean, if there's anything you can share about what
your friends are working on, that'd be great, but I'd love to hear more about
that soon just because yeah, I think in trucking that to me for sure makes the
most sense, it doesn't seem very practical for, uh, cars right now.
But I'd be curious if you've been, I think they should be coming out of, uh, the
stealth mode to here in the next.
month or two.
So I'll shoot you a note and maybe you can chat.
For sure.
I mean, have you been getting, I know you guys work a lot with, uh, to some extent
chargers as charging technology too.
Have you been getting a lot of interest or questions around that for like the fleet
scale or like the large commercial side of stuff?
Yeah, so I mean, when a charger stuff that we've had a conversation and or work on,
it's ranging from, you know, simple level two charger to faster chargers to some of
these battery buffered solutions, right?
Where you have, um, it's a couple of different technologies approaching this in
different ways, right?
Of having some type of a bank of energy.
So then you can flush it into the vehicle and then trickle charge it over time, uh,
and minimize the fast transient draw on the grid, right?
Um,
also mobile charging stations.
There's a few different flavors of these of something.
And some of these are longer term applications.
Some of them are stop gaps for upgrading infrastructure to be able to handle
additional load for charging multiple heavy duty trucks.
I get significant rates.
So you have trailerized products or like micro grid type products that
Yeah, there's a lot of these things in work and being rolled out.
And I guess I don't know what the sales numbers look like.
They seem to make sense because it seems like the grid upgrades are taking a long
time in some places and you need some way to charge your vehicles.
If you're going to introduce all your vehicles into a fleet.
Um, but yeah, we've certainly seen interest on the assembly side because
these are, these fall perfectly into the category of like reasonably small veil
volume, no one's really built this type of product before and you need a capital
efficient, flexible approach to do it well.
Yeah, I think there's been a lot of interesting conversations that we've even
had on this podcast around the battery backup side of stuff, obviously adds a
huge cost, but when you're dealing with these commercial epic applications, I
think what most people just don't realize is how many, uh, like you were talking
about supply chain issues for sure that utility grade products are still dealing
with.
But the bigger thing too is just like demand charges and all these other kind
of, uh, grid related costs when you're delivering power, especially at
different times of the day that most people don't realize that all of a sudden
make these million dollar, very expensive battery, large battery installations
actually cost effective much quicker than most people would realize just because
it's so much easier just to drop a battery plug in the right infrastructure, let
software do some of the gaps that need to be filled.
And all of a sudden these large, uh, charging sites can be pretty financially.
worth the time and the investment to make it happen.
Have you been dealing with kind of any of the interests on the utility side around
some of these charges or trying to find ways to make the battery kind of fill that
gap for your customers?
Yeah, we haven't so far been tied too closely directly to the utilities.
It's primarily been the providers who are looking for a solution or some way to
manufacture the product and then they're managing the relationship with the utility
or whoever is doing the application work.
Gotcha.
And then with, I guess we do talk a lot about the level two, the AC versus the DC
charging.
Is there anything that you're kind of seeing from your clients around a
technology?
that they're most interested.
Is it more on the commercial kind of DC fast charge side or is it a pretty healthy
mix of both?
I think it's a mix.
I mean, you know this probably better than I do, right?
But like anything, the charging solution needs to be optimized for the use case.
For sure.
And you need to understand at what cadence will vehicles be coming through a given
area, what type of and number of vehicles, how long can they stay there, and have a
mix of solutions often at these sites that allow you to put together a total.
charging package that actually meets it.
And it's not actually even as simple as I just explained, right?
Because you also need to have the math of when and how much is going to cost you to
pull energy from the grid and how much can you reliably get at a certain time, right?
So like, there's, I think there has to be a mix of solutions.
And yeah, you're sure you have your level two overnight stuff when it makes sense,
but also you often need to inject some type of faster speed.
DC fast charge type stuff.
If you're going to have a solution that actually meets the needs of a given fleet.
For sure.
Um, and kind of one of those things, I mean, what we've all been talking about
around, whether it's the charging technology or the actual manufacturing of
the cars, I'm kind of curious as someone who's so close to the manufacturing side,
like what, with what you're seeing right now, I think it still seems to be you're
talking with a lot of these clients about the longer term focus versus some of the
kind of the short term market instability.
Where are you seeing or what do you see as like in five years where the EV space
might be or what some of the questions that your clients are kind of coming up to
you about how to kind of get to that longer term vision and that stability
versus getting distracted by some of these kind of short-term things happening in the
space.
Yeah, I don't know, but the overall industry, it's hard to say.
It feels like, and I don't know exactly what data is coming together to give me
this feeling, but it feels like some of these tangential industries, and that's
where, given the volumes I focus on, this is where I spend more of my time thinking
and researching.
The mass market automotive, yeah, it's what our sister company supports a lot,
but if someone's producing millions of vehicles per year, that's probably not a
right fit for our philosophy.
I tend to spend more time thinking about medium duty electrification.
I mentioned work trucks.
Think about things like ag and construction and mining or aviation,
marine applications, these types of things.
And it varies.
Even in those industries, it varies widely.
We get a lot of interest in forklifts or port equipment of some sort or ground.
ground vehicles for airport applications.
Where it's like, oh yeah, it seems like we're making a push towards electrifying
these, which makes sense.
And those types of vehicles actually often are different in that they stay in the
field for so long that you're probably retrofitting those vehicles, not producing
a bunch of new electric vehicles.
And it feels like there's a use case and a business case that makes a lot of sense,
but they've still been moving slower than I would have expected.
I don't know exactly.
what's driving that, whether it's an infrastructure piece or it's a skepticism
piece on the side of the customer who's trying to understand how they're going to
integrate these vehicles or this new approach into their business, right?
Because it's not as simple as go buy a bunch of electric vehicles and then
replace one for one what you're doing with internal combustion in your vehicle.
It's not, there's more that needs to change when you introduce electric
vehicles into a fleet than simply the vehicle.
You need to
your optimization scheme for your fleet, the training for your team, the way in
which you're having vehicles come in and out and planning paths, routes, and all
that type of stuff has to change.
So maybe that's a piece of it where people are still trying to figure out that
optimization piece and they're scared off.
But within five years, I'm optimistic that these, what I like to call kind of like
the obvious electrification markets, the places where you have captive fleets that
are going
out and back coming to a central location.
I mean, if wireless charging takes off, then it's a slam dunk, just park where you
need to, even if you need to plug it in, it's not an issue.
I'd like to think, and my guess would be within the next five years that these
types of markets would have very high penetration rates.
Interesting, and it's while the variety of industries you mentioned from ag to
aerospace, what kind of with what you see and where you're working, what has been
kind of maybe the
most surprising industry that has shown a strong interest for electrification.
Yeah, so maybe the question of surprising to whom.
So the I mean, before my previous I think I mentioned I was at Boeing.
So I came from the aviation space and I.
I had heard about EV tolls and stuff when I started focusing more on decarbonization
of aviation.
And I still think there's room for electrifying, maybe even the vertical
takeoff landing, I think the regional space.
But one of my key takeaways is like, that's a super tough industry to
decarbonize.
And I don't know if.
There's a lot that needs to get figured out for that to roll out at scale.
So maybe that was one of the learnings.
Um, the other was, and this is more of, I think this learning is more about me being
ignorant than the technology and the market, but how specialized equipment is
right to like, it's any of these industries you get in, like if you go to,
uh, we do automation, like we do a lot of autonomous vehicle stuff as well.
So it's a similar use case, but, um,
Go and learn about a port, for example, like a shipping port.
And it's not like they have like standard vehicles.
They have specialized vehicles that all do specific things.
And there's a desire to decarbonize these are because they're right.
They're often near cities there.
They are these captive fleets that can stay in one spot.
But also it's not as simple as go buy a bunch of off the shelf components and
throw it together like this.
Customized solutions, I need to go into this.
And there's other industries.
Next time you're at the airport, look around at how many different types of
vehicles there are that are moving your stuff around.
And I'd say that's been the biggest learning was just how much specialization
each of these individual industries have and how much you need to understand the
unique needs and use cases for each of these vehicles if you're ever going to
actually make a meaningful impact.
For sure.
And with the industries you just mentioned, since they are, uh, they're in
a commercial, they're very specialized, they're commercial, but they're usually
doing a similar thing over and over and over.
Has autonomy been something that these clients have also kind of brought up to
you when they come to these conversations around electrification and what does that
usually look like?
Is it still maybe too early or are they just trying to figure out how to put these
pieces together and maybe do it in like a step function way?
Yeah, I think the so maybe I'll start macro and someone I was talking with
recently summarized it well of CS 2024 was a couple weeks ago, and had a lot of
discussions around electrification, but also autonomy.
And what they heard, and what I also heard is that there's been a shift in that
conversation.
And it's less around when will autonomous vehicle tech be ready.
And it's more about where are the applications that we can go automate right
now?
Because I mean, like, like the electric vehicle space.
quote unquote ready for ready for what ready electric vehicles are.
I like to use the phrase that when my recent podcast guests hit usually the
grass is green enough.
Right.
There's a lot of there's a lot of applications that should be electrified
today.
It's a lot of applications that can and should be automated right now.
Like the tech is very good in certain situations not for on road stuff like
yeah, rebel taxis are getting there.
But you're
personal use vehicles long ways from being automated.
It's about the least controlled environment.
And what you're talking about are these very specific controlled commercial
environments that you can bring down the delta of one, something going wrong so
much greater, but two, it's inherently in an environment where people can at least
expect how to interact with these autonomous machines.
And the speeds usually are probably- And so this is happening now.
Yeah.
And also there's a safe, like a safety case is huge in the autonomy space.
And there's a safe state of just stop.
Right.
Like if you're in a, if you're moving things around at a, at a trucking, um,
depot and your autonomous yard truck of some way, like something doesn't go right,
just stop, stay there.
No, you're fine.
You're not blocking a right away.
Like there's a safe state that is just put the brakes on.
And so, uh, yeah, your question of yes, automation is a huge focus in these
controlled environments.
Um,
to try to figure out like how can you realize and that has its own, its own
challenge of like, it's, it's not as simple as just buy an autonomous vehicle
and say, Hey, go do your thing.
But the application work has to be very intentional and strategic to actually
figure out how to incorporate it into your business to solve a real need and not just
to be able to say, look, I have the shiny new autonomous vehicle sitting in the
corner that I spent a million dollars on or whatever.
Totally.
And with that, I mean, um, you mentioned ag earlier and that's an industry that's
going through a lot of autonomy.
And actually has been for quite a while.
Uh, what are you seeing talking about the million dollar new, fully autonomous robot
thing?
Um, are you seeing the interest kind of with electrification for these
opportunities, like, well, how do I just take my existing fleet and instead of
having to buy a whole new one, maybe I buy 10 new ones to tread out, but I've got
these other 50 ones.
What can I do to either make them autonomous, make them electric?
Is that more of the conversation you're seeing?
Or is that more like, that's what they wish for.
But once you start looking into the practicality of it, just really isn't an
option.
Yeah, and I'd say ag is maybe of the industries I mentioned, one of the ones
I'm least familiar with and in the weeds, but I think I mean, both sides are going
after that.
If mining, for example, though, if you ask that question, like that's certainly the
equation.
And there's a few cool companies that are doing retrofit work for big haul trucks
and things like that.
I think certainly for autonomy, but I think decarbonization efforts as well,
because that's the same category of those vehicles are built for.
decades, not years, right?
Is that I'm kind of curious when you talk about decarbonization, because I think a
lot of that, depending on who you talk to, for sure, some of that's obviously
politically driven in their opinions, but so many large companies just have
decarbonization mandates is are you seeing that it's driven by obviously, maybe in
Europe and some of these other countries, there are actual governmental
numbers they need to hit that are driving this.
Are you seeing it from your customers be more around numbers they need to hit or is
it sometimes around their own goals that they've set as a company like, yeah, we
wanna be carbon neutral or carbon free by 2050, 2035.
And so we've looked at these things going on in our space that we have to hit this,
this and this, or it's like, well, with this new law passed, or is it kind of a
mix of both for what these companies are trying to accomplish?
It's, it's, it's a mix.
I mean, it's also, it's, it's hard to get to true motivations, um, and, and really
get to the, to the heart of that.
But I mean, there's all ultimately, there's typically some type of
self-interest.
Maybe for some people, they're just so committed that future generations need.
Decarbonization to, and like that, that drives their whole business strategy.
I think there are people like that.
I think that's the exception though.
I think more of it is like.
the market's going this way or we're going to be forced this way because of
regulations and some external force seems to be the primary driver in most
situations.
No, that that's kind of what I figured would be the experience with that because
it it's also like I was saying, obviously very regional.
What is being driven by like Europe or even some of the Asian countries by
legislation versus here is like, yeah, that's probably going to go that way, but
we're also getting shareholder interest and pushing for it.
with I guess a little bit of a segue with what your company does around
electrification and manufacturing.
What is, we've talked about autonomy, we've talked about electrification.
What are some of the maybe things or technologies that people that just don't
have much exposure to what Edison does in your level of manufacturing?
What are some of the disruptors or maybe even approaches to?
electric manufacturing especially, but just manufacturing you're seeing.
I think probably maybe the more common ones people are familiar with are like
agile style of building, especially like in software.
But I just be curious if there's any other kind of things that you're seeing, whether
it's from an internal or just an external technology that's kind of having a large
influence on this manufacturing that you and your company do.
Yeah.
So I highlight two things and that's quality and supply chain.
So your approach to quality needs to be robust and specific to the needs of the
product.
Right.
And so there's within the automotive world, if you, if anyone's familiar with
that, there's something called APQP or the advanced product quality planning.
And that's if you have, if any component in your car has gone through some type of
APQP process that is qualified, then you have a PPAP process that at the end, it
says if we
rules and instructions, then this comes out and it's a good quality part.
In the lower volume electrification space, you need to pick and choose from that
process, but also honor the spirit of that process.
So maybe adding a little bit more to this.
So like there's an idea called failure modes and effects analysis, both at a
design and a process level.
So when we get a new product, we'll look at it and we'll say, what are all the ways
in which this thing can break?
What are all the ways that we can?
What are all the way that this design could be faulty?
What are all the ways that during the assembly process something could go wrong
that would lead to a faulty end product?
And then you think about, okay, what is the risk level?
How likely is this to happen?
How big of an issue is it if it happens?
And how do we mitigate this?
So you then put together a control plan to figure out, we follow these steps and if
we do this correctly, then we can mitigate X and Y risk, right?
And...
Then you the way you bake in your manufacturing system the way you're
informing your operators and applying different fixtures and things are all
built with that in mind.
And so anyone who's not from the manufacturing world.
I mean, logically, it makes sense.
Maybe there's parallels to other areas, but like that process and Approach, I
think, is critical if you're going to build anything figure out all the ways it
can go wrong.
Rank them and figure out how you can mitigate the biggest risks, essentially.
on a supply chain perspective similarly, and we work with both in the electric and
the autonomous vehicle space.
Software type companies is pretty common that we work with founders who are
software people, who are not necessarily hardware people.
And one of the key realizations needs to be like, supply chain can kill you.
Missing a single component that's critical at the time when you need it to assemble
your product, there's nothing you can do.
You can't.
You can't work at weekends.
You can't work over time.
You can't put more people at it.
You're stuck waiting on this one put component until it comes.
And so you need to build out a robust supply chain and with suppliers that you
trust and that can deliver.
And then also a tracking method.
So likely using some type of ERP system and doing very careful material planning
and ordering and logistics and inventory management because it's
so important that before a build you have a list of what are all of the things I
need and how long is it going to take me to build to get them.
You order everything when they get in your building you know exactly where they are
both in the digital and the physical world so you can point to something be like hey
that you know that bus bar that I need where is it can't just be somewhere in the
shop no it needs to be it's on rack X on shelf two and location why right.
I don't know if that stuff sounds obvious or if it sounds like overkill, but like
that is the way to do this well and to not run into unintended supply chain issues
that are going to cost you a ton.
Yeah.
And that, that makes a lot of sense.
And I think that is something that just people don't fully appreciate enough is,
uh, that example is spot on of if you don't have the part, there is nothing you
can do.
You can't, I mean, you could potentially spend more money to maybe try and buy from
a backup supplier, but either way you've lost time.
And more likely you've also now lost money that just can't be made up.
I'm kind of curious because this is, I think exposed, most people are exposed to
this in this space, at least are talked about around electric vehicles or just
vehicles and manufacturing in general.
Is there anything that while you're doing this work, since you spoke about chargers
that have kind of stood out or that's been a recurrent issue for charging companies
around those sorts of challenges.
issue for charging companies.
I don't know if there's anything.
I mean, of course, there's been supply chain uncertainty.
And I mean, it's leveled.
But maybe that's the thing I would, I guess, highlight is not understanding lead
times and the fact that you have to, like if you have a part, if you want to do a
manufacturing run, you need to backtrack.
Assume material is all on hand one, two weeks beforehand.
Backtrack from that and figure out what is your longest lead time item, what
uncertainty is there in that lead time.
and give yourself a safety factor.
So it can be right that you need to design freeze several months before your build
starts, which again, from manufacturing world, someone's probably laughing, be
like, of course, but if you're not from that world, then you might think that,
hey, we're gonna design something that's gonna be designed January 31st, we'll
build our first units February 15th, and we'll move forward.
That's not gonna happen.
Well, and coming from having done a lot of work in the software space, exactly.
It's like, oh, we can't just change this.
Although just be a
extra dev weekend and boom, we'll get this all solved out or that'll be the next
version we ship.
But yeah, I was curious about that.
I figured that might be the reality of it.
I know one of the areas, and this really isn't so much on the charging companies,
is the supply chain issues around transformers and some of the stuff that
the utility actually needs to get the power to where these chargers are going
and especially for DC fast charging has been a big reason a lot of larger
DC, uh, fast charging locations have either taken longer or have just been put
on hold indefinitely is just because there's been a shortage in general of
transformers or other just supply chain issues.
But, uh, I, I appreciate you sharing that with us.
I think I realized we're kind of coming up on our time and we're just a little over
an hour now, but one, one question I guess I have for you, I ask all of our guests
are just in your experience and what your company is doing.
Are there.
any innovative ways that you think either industry or even government can maybe help
accelerate the rollout of electric vehicles or even charging technology.
Hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of things in work.
Um, I'm curious to see, right.
This isn't an area of expertise here, but, um, how intentionally can all the fund
federal funding that's been put inside, put aside actually be put into practice
and go and make the impact that it's been, uh, meant to make.
So like for example, right.
You might think we're doing a lot of work in the electric vehicle spaces.
Should be easy to go find some type of federal funding to go and
do work with like it, it hasn't, but we haven't gotten the scent of whatever, um,
IRA or whatever money and, uh, just the, the process of going and pursuing that is
made it so it's not even worth it.
Um, so yeah, that's, that's an interesting, of course it'd be nice if
that's for sure.
That's an interesting thing that I kind of learned this year.
Earlier on our podcast, we had Lauren McDonald of the consulting and kind of
just charging guru of EV adoption.
And he was talking about
how Nevi funds, which are specifically for getting charger infrastructure on like the
state level, had kind of unintentionally been slowed down because all these larger
charging companies now were, instead of putting more sites on the ground, they
were waiting and trying to get federal funds to then use them to do these
installations.
And so unintentionally, at least kind of in the short to medium term, it was
actually slowing down a lot of the momentum and the traction of the projects
that we were seeing, at least for the charging side.
And I think according to just a recent podcast, when he was on our panel, he said
that had changed a little bit, but that was for sure something that was surprising
to me.
And I think it's something we've also just seen in this space a lot is a lot of money
put out a lot of money that either goes to studies or other things.
And then by the time, which usually a lot has passed that we see the funds put into
a physical execution that actual taxpayers and consumers can use.
It's okay.
but there's been a lot of whatever X million dollars that was set aside.
So unfortunately that's not a one-to-one direct output of what we want to see to
make that impact to improve the experience.
But I really appreciate you being on and kind of sharing these thoughts with us,
Brandon.
And for any of those who are either interested in learning more about the
Edison Manufacturing Engineering or the Future Mobility Podcast, what's the best
way for people to...
listen or kind of inquire about your services.
Yeah, so Future Mobility Podcast comes out weekly every Sunday.
Um, find out any podcast, uh, platform.
If so, yeah, check, check it out there.
If you want to reach out, if you're building anything, or if you know someone
who's building something, launching dozens, hundreds, thousands of units per
year, some type of complex assembly and they need some way to build it, reach out
to me, that's, that's where we specialize.
Uh, my email's first.lastname at Edison dash M F G.com.
So Brandon.Spartnik at.
edison-mfg.com.
Shoot me a note and let's chat.
Yeah, thank you so much, Brandon.
And we have to have you on again soon.
It's been too long.
And with that, we'll let you get going.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to our conversation today and a special thank you
to Brandon for sharing his insights and expertise in the challenges and
opportunities in electric, autonomous and EV charging manufacturing.
Also, definitely check out Brandon's podcast, the future of mobility.
I know it's a podcast a lot of our listeners would enjoy as well.
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