In this HEP-isode, we talk about the multi-billion dollar collaboration between Cummins, Daimler, and Paccar/Kenworth, Toyota's utopian hydrogen factory at the Port of Long Beach, new advanced in microwaved food technology, and Tiger's latest upgrades for aging airport equipment. Also: Arnold's nude scenes better be CGI in this next one!
In this HEP-isode, we talk about the multi-billion dollar collaboration between Cummins, Daimler, and Paccar/Kenworth, Toyota's utopian hydrogen factory at the Port of Long Beach, new advanced in microwaved food technology, and Tiger's latest upgrades for aging airport equipment. Also: Arnold's nude scenes better be CGI in this next one!
Whether we're exploring the latest in trucking technology, talking about the trends that propel the industry forward, or uncovering stories about the dedicated individuals who keep the wheels of America turning, this is where the roar of the engines and pulse of progress come together. It's sublime, it's surreal. That's the Heavy Equipment Podcast with Mike and Joe.
Jo Borrás:Episode four Welcome Michael. How are you?
Mike Switzer:Doing good, joe, are you doing?
Jo Borrás:it. I'm doing all right, a little bit later than our usual shows, a little bit later recording, not quite late enough for HEP After Dark, but that's coming soon. We'll be doing that in Las Vegas next May, but today we're going to be covering the news, and there's a whole lot of really important news in the heavy equipment truck space, and I can't think of a bigger story than this. Cummins, daimler and Pekar are going into a joint venture. They're spending a billion dollars each. They're going to own it 30, 30, 30. And they're going to be making their own LFP chemistry, electric truck batteries in North America. So this is huge because it's a lot of jobs it's worked in North America. But I think the most important thing is that you now have this huge, huge chunk of the industry that's basically going to be on standardized batteries, right, and it's kind of like building a product for AA batteries. You're not designing your own battery for your thing, you're just using an off-the-shelf battery and that's just got to make this so much easier for everybody going forward.
Mike Switzer:Well, what needed to happen, and I think it's awesome that you got three. I'm going to sound like Macho man. I heard three awesome Three. Yeah, we're going to end up in the ionosphere. This is what's going to happen.
Mike Switzer:No, but it's true, you've got three really, you've got three powerhouses of technology that are working on this, and I think it's amazing because you have to have this kind of collaboration. Otherwise, what's going to happen is like we talked about earlier the sustainability goes out the window and everything is just I'm on my own. Look at what I've got versus everybody else. This is actually a move towards. We're all in this together. We're all going to make this thing work and we're going to figure it out. I think we have to. It is a fleet manager. I'm looking at this going okay. Well, now this has legs. This is moving. This is something somebody believes in. This isn't some guys rewiring a bunch of old welders into the back of a semi truck in somebody's garage?
Jo Borrás:Well, that's happening too.
Mike Switzer:We'll talk about that episode 90. Yeah episode 90. But I mean, I just love this.
Jo Borrás:So you know I'm looking at this and I thought of you when I was writing up this article, because I got the press release a couple days ago. Of course I was thinking of you, man.
Jo Borrás:But you know I was looking at this thinking. Imagine if you had, like a Western Star Hall, or you had some kind of Cummins generator or some vehicle that was using the Cummins powertrain. You had a couple of Sprinter vans out there that were running parts back and forth and they all used the same battery. You could store one of those batteries, keep that in inventory and if any of them had a bad battery or a light went on or whatever, you could swap the battery out and then submit the battery for warranty and keep going. You wouldn't have to order some kind of specialized part. Cummins is backordered but Daimler can get the battery, but it's not going to go into the thing. I just love this kind of standardized stuff. And you said it perfectly we're all in this together. We're moving it forward, but at the same time you got to look at what Nikola is doing. You got to look at what Tesla is doing. You know Volvo and Mac. They're on their second generation. They already announced their third generation electric semi. Yeah, I actually ordered the.
Mike Switzer:I ordered the copper bulldog off of one of those. That's common. But yeah, I'm actually. I want to go to Allentown and look at that and I'm trying to. I'm talking to those guys about running out there. Oh, I'll go with you. They've been trying to get me out there for a while.
Jo Borrás:I want to play in the sandbox.
Mike Switzer:Allentown's sweet, they have one of the best test facilities I've ever seen where customers can go to. But anyways. But what it does is see. With that it adds validity to everybody else's efforts to get Nikola, you got Mac, mac, volvo. I always say no, jesus Christ, I give the Red plate 9 out of 10. With this kind of collaboration Again, not everybody's got to be on the exact same battery part or the exact same, but this consolidation of everything, this is where we need to be.
Jo Borrás:But this is how it starts. They're going to get other people come on board with this, maybe BYD, one of the other, you know, maybe Toyota Hino, maybe Hyundai, because Hyundai's got heavy trucks overseas, so that might be something that brings them all together, and the new Medium Duty Mac that they released, which they, you know they had had for a while.
Mike Switzer:they kind of phased it away and then it came back and it's gaining a lot of popularity. It has Cummins power in it. Now that might be strategically done so that things like this could happen. As the marketplace consolidates all this you know Medium Duty Truck Technology we're trying to get as much Medium Duty stuff out there as we can and it makes sense. Well, here we are. You know, now you got a partnership with the Volvo Mac and then Cummins. Well, now you roll this into a battery operation and start Amazon taking advantage of some of this stuff. Some of the private fleets that are leased to FedEx are taking advantage of it. So I think it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out, if they can gain any traction with the electric power cell and some of the Medium Duty stuff too.
Jo Borrás:Yeah, that's going to be huge. I was at ACT earlier this year the American Clean Trucking Expo and advanced Clean Trucking Expo, I apologize, so you know and Cummins had their 15-liter motor, the one that runs on hydrogen, and everything else there, but they I did see a couple of Medium Duty vehicles that were running electric and they were running this Cummins Accelera battery. So I'm wondering if this is just going to be we're all going to use this Accelera battery or if this is going to be something different, a little bit different operation. And you know, time will tell. So what they've done is they've basically signed an LOI, a letter of intent. They've got the agreement going. They need to get it passed through government. There's got to be some kind of approval here that they're not you know, they're not a monopoly, right, because they represent such a huge percent of the market. And I think what they're going to show is look, you've got Tesla projecting that they're going to have 150,000 semis on the road in the next five years. You've got Volvo's sales projections saying we're the only ones right now who have a second generation truck that can go. So they're looking at that and they're pointing at that and saying no, no, no, this isn't collaboration. This isn't, you know, some backroom deal. We're doing this in the public and we're going to get it going and I really hope they do, because I think this is going to be.
Jo Borrás:I think it's just good for the country. You know, we talked about this. You and I remember that Mexican restaurant in Akron we were talking about. We need to bring this stuff back and we need to bring this kind of manufacturing and this kind of I hate to use the expression blue collar because it makes it sound like it's. You know people look down upon that expression, but you need to be able to have the kind of jobs throughout the country that can support a family and can support a community, and this kind of thing brings that back, instead of buying batteries overseas from China and bolting them into a frame when they get here. This is an assembly thing. This is real manufacturing, and I'm here for it.
Mike Switzer:Well, look at what we're doing with. You know, ford's got their investing billions of dollars in North America. Right now You've got the Intel plant which, even though it got scaled back, that project's going up again. More work for the, you know, for North America You've got companies like Volvo, mac and then you get Cummins, and that they're just constantly reinvesting in North America, which is amazing, because this is where we need it. This is where we need it.
Mike Switzer:We need it here because for us to continue on this March, for everything that we're doing, we have to have the jobs. We have to have it here with people want to have it sourced. It also makes it available for any kind of federal public works. So if you're going to be selling to anybody that's federal and they demand a US source product, you have that going for you. This isn't easy to do and you got to give them a lot of credit because, like you said, they're investing billions of dollars in this. They're bringing it here. They could just as easily having some village put this stuff together, which you know, years ago was, you know, some of the big business model which, like we're going to find the cheapest labor possible and tell them what to do and they're just doing it three million times.
Jo Borrás:Right, that's how you got. You know, whatever they called it, the Ford Transit that was being sold in the US, that was being built in Turkey, was being shipped over with no seats to avoid the chicken tax, and then they were putting seats in it that were made in Alabama or something. It was real weird and it was all done to save a couple pennies here, a couple pennies there, and then you know, we had a ship go sideways in the Suez Canal and that took everybody's just in time. Well, it's out now, but yeah, it took everybody's time delivery.
Mike Switzer:That's what we were down.
Jo Borrás:We were down one ship went sideways and billions of dollars went away.
Mike Switzer:So what they were digging it with was just a couple shovels and some spoons. They're out there with these little excavators trying to get the tail of this thing moved out. They're trying to go hard a port. It ain't going to happen.
Jo Borrás:Well, the thing that was so crazy was you were looking at those videos. I think it was called the Evergreen or something. It was just so massive and you're looking like what are they? What is that little yellow speck under there? That's like an excavator the size of your house, but it just looks like nothing next to the shack Exactly.
Mike Switzer:You know one thing we could do a whole segment on the MacLR. The MacLR is really cool 100% electric. It's got 42% more energy than the standard 376kwh. So you know, you put this thing in a trash compactor scenario, some kind of a recycling thing in your neighborhood. This thing is going to cruise around. The only thing you're going to hear it do is clank into bottles and stuff as it dumps the trash into it. Yeah, that's it.
Jo Borrás:Or if you have, like, a hydraulic on the arm, you'll hear that hissing and whirring every once in a while. But even that, you're not going to hear the brakes like it used to, because it's using regen braking. It doesn't have that loud hissing, squealing brake thing, yeah, and listen to this.
Mike Switzer:The other thing that they got that's really interesting about this is they put two AC motors in there to provide 536p horsepower. The thing about 536p horsepower that is more than what the Pinnacle product that they sell makes with the conventional Mac engine in there. Yeah, and it makes it at 0 RPM instantaneous. It's instant, and that's what a lot of people, I don't think, realizes that when you're talking about electric and you're talking about what this can do, you're exactly right. You need power and torque from 0 to get moving. Right. It provides it. Now, yeah, you're not trying to wind the thing up, you're not scaring the neighbor's dog off the front porch, you just got it. It's going to quietly move around. It's very interesting. It's very interesting.
Jo Borrás:No, it's going to be really neat. We have one of those. Lrs has one of those here in Chicago and I'm convinced that it's going to eventually kill me because I just walk right into the alley because I don't hear it, that arms going to grab me and launch me into the back. That'd be last year. Hear me.
Mike Switzer:I don't know.
Jo Borrás:So it's 17. Live from the back of the dumper. I hope I'm not going into the incinerator, boys.
Mike Switzer:No, it reminds me of a Terminator when that, when they, you know, time travel and the guys out there dumping trash with the, with the old international thing and old start and his orb appears out of nowhere. That's what Max trying to do. They're trying to bring the Terminator.
Jo Borrás:So we want to see Arnold in the nude again.
Mike Switzer:Again, again, yes.
Jo Borrás:Yeah, that's a let's hope that CGI now, because it's been a while.
Mike Switzer:Well, I think stuff's a lot lower than it used to be.
Jo Borrás:Yes, I think that could be said of all of us. Oh my gosh, Okay, a similar front we're not going to talk about. You know green stuff and hippie tree hugging, nonsense the entire show. But this one is also interesting. At the same time that Cummins, Daimler Packard doing all this, I always want to say Packard Kenworth. I don't know why. I know that that's a brand of theirs and I shouldn't say that. It's like saying Ford Lincoln all the time, GM, Cadillac or whatever, but Packard Kenworth, get over it.
Mike Switzer:Peter built up some Pete Pete's going to show up. Let's kick your ass, man.
Jo Borrás:I know, I know Peter built builds great trucks and I love them. But I don't know man. The Packard Kenworth just has a nice ring to it.
Mike Switzer:Well, you know who put Kenworth on the map Bert Reynolds, jerry Reed Smoky and Abandoned. Everybody knows what Kenworth is from that.
Jo Borrás:I want to ask you this, and this is a serious trivia question. I do not know the answer, but you know the answer. What kind of truck was the pork chop express?
Mike Switzer:Oh, it was a freight liner, classic, conventional, yeah, like a mid 80s Actually that trucks for sale in Europe.
Jo Borrás:I know, but it's big money.
Mike Switzer:Yeah, it's big money. Big money to move it over here, but that would be cool to come rolling down through. Find some old.
Jo Borrás:You know a lot of guys who roll that thing down Chinatown, jam it into some alley. The Wing Tong are here.
Mike Switzer:China is here, Mr Put.
Speaker 5:You just listen to the old pork chop express here now and take his advice. On a dark and stormy night when the lightning's crashing and the thunder's rolling and the rain's coming down and sheets thick as lead, just remember what old Jack Burton does when the earth wakes and the poison arrows fall from the sky and the pillars of heaven shake. Yeah, jack Burton just looks at big old storm right square in the eye and he says give me your best shot, pal, I can take it.
Jo Borrás:So the pork chop express. If you don't get that reference, you really don't need to be listening to this show. You should go find another show that you'll enjoy.
Mike Switzer:If you don't get it, the minute you Google it, you'll know exactly what we're talking about.
Jo Borrás:Yeah, exactly. But I think it's just wild to think of all these really classic trucks that are in movies. We should do that. We should do famous trucks of movies right. We're going to do the Green Goblin from Maximum Overdrive.
Jo Borrás:Optimus.
Jo Borrás:Prime, the old Freightliner FL-86 cabover, the original Optimus Prime.
Mike Switzer:The original. Yes, it was a Freightliner as well. Yeah, the original. Yeah, the old Freightliner cabover. Well, you know what Cabovers? You can't make fun of those things. The maneuverability it's the size of a small Manhattan apartment. You, right there, you've got the doghouse next to you, you can eat dinner, you can put a tablecloth over top, lean up against it, put your shoes in there.
Jo Borrás:Man, we're never going to get to this Toyota news. I really want to get. Wow, have you ever seen the? I know you have. I think they're called the NR's. It's a little a Suzu cabover diesel medium duty.
Mike Switzer:Oh yeah, the NPR, the NPR, that's it. Yeah, it's a little bit like when you took the cab forward out and you're you know, when you're working on it it looks like a bunch of cows grazing.
Jo Borrás:That's exactly it. I had one of those as a rental that I was pulling the Get out. No, we had, because we had the John Deere Gator up at.
Mike Switzer:Oh yeah.
Jo Borrás:So we had the Gator. We put it into the back of this thing because we had to get it to the dealer. So we rented this you know whatever U-Haul Penske operation was up there up in Wisconsin and we just pulled this thing into the back of the box and drove it to the dealership. And I loved this thing, man, like I kind of want one.
Mike Switzer:Their maneuverability is second to none, and the fact that makes a Suzu, you know a very strong leader in that part of the market is that they never break down. You should see it. These guys beat these trucks up and down the road all day long.
Jo Borrás:Well, that's a duramax.
Mike Switzer:Yeah, well, then before that they had the Suzu powertrain in the NPR and then, you know, gm had that, and those trucks are phenomenal. And there was something else, too, that I was looking at the other day. A bunch of landscapers had them and they had them way overloaded and they were creaking and groaning going down the road, but it was still doing it, and these are from the 90s.
Jo Borrás:Oh, yeah, yeah, no, those, those Asusas are great little trucks, but anyway, well, actually it's funny we're talking about Asusas because GM and Toyota both have a stake in Asusas and Toyota finally has their hydrogen plant up and running at Port of Long Beach. So the water, seawater, is coming in. They're electrolyzing.
Mike Switzer:But that's just working. So they got the seawater coming in. Yes, the seawheed and all the other, you know washers and bolts and pieces and parts from the things dropping off the boxes, yeah, I don't even know if they're doing that much to it.
Jo Borrás:I think it kind of comes in and then they electro zap it with high voltage AC current. It's it splits the water. So you end up with hydrogen gas, yeah, and you end up with, you know, basically drinking water and then the wastewater. The waste product is still down there.
Mike Switzer:So, in a utopian environment, we could take in the the seawater, build fresh drinking water which is only obtained in large lakes, and then we could fix the world's fuel energy crisis and provide fresh drinking water to the entire world.
Jo Borrás:That is the utopian promise and up until a few days ago it was all talk. It was just like, hey, this is what we're going to do and we'll see. And now it's up and running. Till you just got it there, the Port along Beach, I'm actually going to fly out there and go take a look at it once. They kind of open it up to people and tours and stuff and I just I'm excited about it. You know, in a way that I didn't really expect to be, because I have always been suspicious of hydrogen. It's sort of like, you know, solid state batteries or artificial intelligence or the self-driving car. There's a lot of promise, there's a lot of people talk about it, but you know, it's always two years away. Right, twenty sixteen, it was two years away. Twenty twenty three, it's two years away. Well, apparently not Apparently, they've been running it since Monday.
Mike Switzer:And the thing is, though, when you get out there. So they got to get the the beach bums stop washing their laundry and water intake.
Jo Borrás:No, those electrolyze really well. Hmm, hey, you can you get some of the homeless in there? Zap them with 40,000 volts and you get an extra gallon of gas. Yeah, a couple tide pods were all set, but I think that's why they were trying to train us all to eat the tide pods a while back, sort of like Soylent Green.
Mike Switzer:We're all out of Soylent Green for today. We only have some tomorrow.
Jo Borrás:Yes, there were other colors, right. Soylent Green is people. Soylent Blue is like I don't know, shitsues or golden retrievers or something.
Mike Switzer:Is that what it was? I never watched the movie. To be honest with you, I've never seen you never watched, I've never seen that. I've never. I don't know why. Neil, actually, who's going to start doing the sound bites and stuff for us? He got, he's got, gotten all into that.
Jo Borrás:Yeah, I'm going to have to send it to you. I don't know where you'd find a DVD player, but I have a DVD in that movie that I'll send you a DVD player. You're really. I watch a lot on there. I tried to buy a DVD player a while ago and I couldn't find one. I was like, well, this is weird.
Mike Switzer:Walmart was running a deal on them. They were HDMI for about $20.
Jo Borrás:Oh yeah, I'll go, I'll go snag one of those. We're way off base.
Speaker 4:I was so, but we you got a lot to edit out.
Jo Borrás:We got a lot to edit out. That's fine. We like editing. That's what we do here. That's the whole point of this hobby. And, you know, maybe we'll run an old vintage Toyota commercial right now and Jason.
Mike Switzer:Sandborn Chase, we're rolling right into it.
Speaker 4:The other woman. She's nice and she really cares about his dinner, about him and about his coffee. That's why she starts his morning with Jason Sandborn, the heftier coffee, heftier flavor, heftier aroma. But there's still the kind of woman who serves whatever, sandy, are you this woman or the other woman? Jason Sandborn, the heftier coffee for the other woman who really cares.
Jo Borrás:Now that we've exposed ourselves to good old, mid-century, modern violence and sexism, let's talk about this grilled cheese sandwich coming out from Lunchables.
Mike Switzer:Well, you know, it wasn't being made next to a pot of fresh coffee. No, it was not, rather, it is cool.
Jo Borrás:So it basically the people behind Lunchables. We all know what Lunchables are. We're all millennials and Gen X. We were raised on the things. They have created a new kind of almost like Uncle Ben's Boiling Bag Rice, a new bag that you put a sandwich into and you microwave it and the bread comes out crispy Crispy. And I know this is a stupid thing and it's weird that we're talking about it on a heavy equipment show. But we have talked time and time again about how horrible the food choices are out there, how hard it is to find decent food, and if all of a sudden you can make yourself a decent, halfway healthy sandwich you know whether it's grilled cheese, ham and cheese or whatever in the microwave, that some of these trucks have a microwave in them. Yeah, you know, you can now have decent food. You can pack yourself something decent. Eat a little bit healthier on the road. I think that's hugely important.
Mike Switzer:Well, it is, and that's what exactly.
Mike Switzer:What I was going to say is that you know, we've been talking about food choices and here's something that this technology I mean, if they have it, it's called 360 Crisp, so they use a strategic venting and various heat points and then that way they can ensure that it's cooked and it's crispy and you know, when you pull it out there you get toasted bread, and if they can do it for that, you know this is going to happen for other things. And so this is the, this is the tester, the guy, the guy climbing out of his freight liner cab over looking for some old rim to flip over and make dinner out of, you know, was going by the wayside. As long as we can make this work, that, actually what's cool is this is probably going to store very well and just about anything that can keep it cool and keep it fresh. If you're out on the road for the week or two weeks or whatever, you know, it's like MRE is just filled up to sleep or full of them, and each your way in and fall asleep.
Jo Borrás:Yeah, that's exactly what it's going to do, and then you'll be able to have you know again. There's going to be variations on this right, like when the Lunchables first come out, it was just turkey and cheddar and then it was ham and American in this net. There's going to be variations on this. There's going to be ham.
Mike Switzer:There's making your own hummus with these things. You're making your own hummus. You're just doing all this up. I mean, have you looked at the Lunchable section in a store that really, really promotes Lunchables? You have to push the cart down it. You're not at Entomans. At the end of the aisle bud, you got a whole section dedicated to all these food choices. There's Nintendo shaped, you know, crisps and all this other stuff. That's all in there. And then you know, the other thing that I saw the other day goes along with this is there's a bunch of individually packed, sealed like pickles, all kinds of produce that I've seen at some of the stores. Now, for you know, if you're just running in there to grab something, you wanna open it up. This is these are other good options that can also be available on the road. Just gotta get them there for people so they go in. It's like, oh, this is cool, I'll eat this and go through there?
Jo Borrás:Yeah, 100%, and you know we're starting to see that. I recently found a website. Actually, someone reached out to me and turned me onto this. It was called Food Dive, which number one. I was shocked that we had listeners, so that's kind of awesome, and both of you guys, if you're there listening, thanks for listening. Yeah, they turned me onto this and there's a whole section there called Food Tech and all they talk about is new kind of new advances in the food and convenience store angle. So they talk about you know, pepsi has a new brand of water that has all the electrolytes and everything of Gatorade, but without the sugar. I think that's awesome, because you know it's hard to stay hydrated and just drink water all the time when you're on the road. Like this. Coca-cola is coming up with some new flavors that are based on artificial intelligence.
Mike Switzer:There's no way that's gonna end up positive but no, no, we're all gonna end up looking for the city of light.
Jo Borrás:That's exactly.
Speaker 5:Oh, my God.
Mike Switzer:I'm sure Coca-Cola company Windmurse with Pepsi and they bring all production of anything that's drinkable with AI technology under one roof. That could never go bad.
Jo Borrás:Wow, I, I have nothing for you, I think.
Mike Switzer:Coca-Cola. We could go down to Atlanta, georgia, and we could talk to them about their packaging creation and talk about maybe some more sustainable ideas for guys on the road.
Jo Borrás:Well, we definitely need to do that, and I think you know we keep coming back to this All services yes, no, but this is a real, real issue. Look, the trucking industry has a massive labor shortage, and it is not just behind the wheel, it is people behind the wheel, people working at the docks, people working on the cranes, people servicing.
Mike Switzer:It's everybody involved, everybody involved, everybody involved. You get the people stuck at the desk who are trying to figure out what loads and how they're gonna dispatch people. It's everything. It is a blue, collar, white collar everything.
Jo Borrás:Nobody wants to be a part of this real business To me. I have this friend of mine, dan. He turned me on to this idea. I asked him what he did because it's you know, we're Americans. Eventually, when you're getting to know somebody, you say what do you do for a living? You know you always, this is a standard request.
Mike Switzer:It is a standard, yeah, it's a standard byline, you know. So what do you do? Yeah, exactly.
Jo Borrás:I gotta tell you. You never asked me what I did, which I really appreciate.
Mike Switzer:But again, I think you already knew I don't wanna go. I think I knew you, for this guy's got enough. This guy brings enough knowledge with him right to the table. I don't wanna know where he got it from, do you?
Jo Borrás:see the way this guy rolled a pizza up into a burrito and just ate it. No, it's incredible. We don't have that kind of technology. We need to hire this man. No.
Mike Switzer:Just hold that away from the turbo. That's all we need. You don't need that. Hold that away from the turbo.
Jo Borrás:We don't need that thing to suck up a pepperoni, destroy a $30,000 engine, build. And I'm sorry man, but did you see how they curled up into those little cups? I love that. That's how you know a quality piece of Roni. Why are we like this?
Speaker 4:I swear, you know why.
Jo Borrás:Because, we're recording late, but that's okay, it's gonna be Actually this is better.
Mike Switzer:I think we just go. I think this is better, we just keep going.
Jo Borrás:We'll do these at two in the morning.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Jo Borrás:So heard that Johnson Rod was in there. Complete ridiculousness and insanity. It would be, but anyway, oh. So interestingly enough, as we're talking about these food choices, I do have a contact that loves now who's gonna talk to us? So we'll be getting them on, we gotta figure out how to have guests on the show, especially at two in the morning.
Mike Switzer:Well, I think we just invite them. They get a couple of time slot options. We got all kinds of stuff going on. It's like, well, you get to happen in the morning, half after lunch, and then you got it half after dark. Just keep hitting the beeps, just keep hitting the beeps.
Jo Borrás:Yeah, the last one had 11 beeps. That upset me.
Mike Switzer:That wasn't too bad, I was fine. We'd still be on NBC. We'd still be on.
Jo Borrás:NBC. We'd be on USA Network with full frontal nudity.
Mike Switzer:I feel like David Letterman, why? Just like I just flipped the mic, I was like, is this thing on? What are we doing?
Jo Borrás:Paul Schaefer. We are getting to an age where the Pork Chop Express, Paul Schaefer and David Letterman are not universally known figures. There are grown adults who were in grade school the last time David Letterman was on TV.
Mike Switzer:Oh, I know. And then you know, I said something the other day referenced Johnny Carson, and a young mechanic looked at me and he goes what are you talking about? I literally threw my phone up under the counter and walked away. I said I don't know. I don't know. I said. I said I'm going to put together a list of required watching. It's going to take exactly 10 years nonstop and you are going to get caught up to where we need you to be. Let's say exactly.
Jo Borrás:If you can't do this, you're never going to be management. That's right. But there had to be stuff like that from from our parents, right that we just never understood. Like I don't know, like I feel like I was forced to watch Lawrence Welk, paul Anka, but I think it was forced upon me whether I wanted it or not.
Mike Switzer:Well, you know, dancing in the rain, walking in the dark, holding hand in hand, that's the way.
Jo Borrás:That is the way. Just remember, ginger did everything Fred did, except backwards and in heels.
Mike Switzer:That's right, so anyway. Well, I mean anyways, what were we talking about? We got way off track there.
Jo Borrás:I don't know. I think we're still talking about Susie W.
Mike Switzer:We're talking about electrifying the luggage carriers at the airport, oh that's right.
Mike Switzer:The reason. Actually, this segway is really good into it because so a lot of the the tuggers that are used at the airports they're old Like a lot of that stuff has been around for many decades. Yeah, they never break down and when they do, there's really not a lot of good options. You know, I was on a flight one time and I was flying up from North Carolina and I was sitting next to a guy that sold those. He would, he had retired. So I'm talking to him. He's like 40, 48, almost 50 years old and I said you tired, he goes.
Mike Switzer:Yeah, I sold, I sold all of those east of the Mississippi. My other counterpart sold them in central, the central us and the other guys sold on the west coast. He goes, they never break down. We never have any issues with them and we all retired because we sold to everybody. And the point of that is they're aging to a point where they're gonna need work. Yeah, so if they have a sustainable option like this and then you can put it out, you can put an electric cell in there, we call it whatever you want to do. This is amazing because you can charge the thing anywhere in the airport. But we talked to the guys from wave. They could put the embedded charging right into the concrete out there as the thing is going around.
Mike Switzer:That's right and they put it right there at the other.
Jo Borrás:It'd be on at the same spot every time and it's just getting a little bit of juice. Well it's. They're getting loaded and unloaded and it's more than enough juice to go from there Back to the terminal, back to the next airplane.
Mike Switzer:They never, have to stop this thing and then okay, so then get the technology involved, the caterpillars working with Across the globe now in mining, and you get the thing where it autonomously just works itself back and forth, back and forth to these checkpoints. They're located off the wave platform, in the concrete. Next thing. You know, this thing's literally unless, a unless a pilot comes cruising in, you know at you know 55 mile an hour, with one too many. You know, roman coach, before he lands.
Jo Borrás:He's not. None of this is gonna have an issue at the admirals club for six hours delayed comes out staggering to the cockpit.
Mike Switzer:You know right. Yeah, he's a wave. We lost a motor. No, it'll turn up.
Jo Borrás:You know, like we've lost engine four. It's somewhere, don't worry. Are you a pilot?
Mike Switzer:too. You know, like this is Club one time I liked it in there is all these pilots standing around and I'm talking to the guys and we're talking about planes, landing gear and all this other stuff. And the guy goes Do you work here? No, but it sounded good, didn't it?
Jo Borrás:Let's go and Well, that's the, that's the miracle of business, right? Is that you know it's. As long as you, as long as you feel like you know what you're talking about, you can just kind of go with it and get in anywhere.
Mike Switzer:It's funny, I'm not even I'm not even a member, so I shouldn't be in the thing. But I followed him in, I got oh yeah, up in this crowd and all these guys are going with the bags.
Mike Switzer:To be bluntly honest, I may or may not have been following something that was appealing and I and I literally found myself in this room and I'm like, hmm, this is not baggage. Claim six, zero, cell two oh, this is no thanks for the drink. I like this. I just walked up, just hands me the drink. She's like oh, thanks for stopping it.
Jo Borrás:I Was planning on stopping it, thank you Once you back that thing over here to gate five. Oh, I'm sorry, it's Mike's white there, it's gate nine. Oh, stop, all right, all right, all right.
Mike Switzer:Geez.
Jo Borrás:It just gets worse and worse. Well, that's the show for today, people. Thank you so much for tuning in, and be sure to join us next time, when It'll just get worse and worse. I can't promise you anything.
Jo Borrás:Tune in next week for more heavy equipment podcast on Spotify, apple Podcast, google or wherever you find podcasts.