HEP-isode 7 has news about the new Mercedes electric semi, a pair of next-gen CAT track loaders, more talk about the UAW strike as it enters its second week, and why it's important to use the right tool for the right job. Also: if you can't work within fifty yards of a school, that's a problem!
HEP-isode 7 has news about the new Mercedes electric semi, a pair of next-gen CAT track loaders, more talk about the UAW strike as it enters its second week, and why it's important to use the right tool for the right job. Also: if you can't work within fifty yards of a school, that's a problem!
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. It's the heavy equipment podcast with Mike and Joe.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to episode seven, the heavy equipment podcast. I'm your host, joe Boris, here with Mike Hot, mike Switzer. You gotta get that thing out of your mouth, man, it's gonna sound weird on the recording.
Speaker 3:This microphone's just. Yeah, I don't know, it might not be big enough. We're trying to.
Speaker 2:We've got some good topics today.
Speaker 3:We do, we got good stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I want to start off just with some basic news stuff. I don't know if you've seen this. Mercedes just unveiled their long haul electric truck in Europe. This is sort of similar to the Freightliner E-Cascadia in terms of mechanical equipment, but it's a snub nose cab over design. It's going to be all over Europe, quite a bit quicker to market than Tesla's truck and it's already got orders from Walmart and UPS, so that's something that's interesting. We'll take a look at that as we learn more, have we? Ever seen the inside of those.
Speaker 3:Have you seen any?
Speaker 2:interior, no, just the outside. It's just a cab over body. It's got to look to it, man, because it's got no grill, you know. So it's just that kind of snub nose angle to it. But you know again, there's not much to say about that, right, like they've unveiled it, they showed it. They talk about it having 600 mile range, the ability to fast charge in under an hour. So that kind of stuff is interesting.
Speaker 3:The Germans always make good stuff, you know the Germans always make good stuff. Think about the Mercedes-Benz. What I'm curious about, with the cab over with the being electric, because I wonder you know what they've done with, like the doghouse flat floor if there's just a bench seat, or like an old Divco milk truck, there's just a wooden bench in there that the guy sits on all day. I mean, I don't know what they got, but it's Mercedes-Benz, so I'm sure it's pretty comfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mercedes is different in Europe. You know, in the old days when you'd go to Europe and my family would go, like in the nineties and stuff, to visit my grandparents, family and things like that yeah royalty family, yeah, royalty.
Speaker 2:Of course you get picked up at the airport and that stretch Mercedes now. But you know they would have the like the Mercedes, the 260 diesel, would come pick you up at the airport as the taxi and it had vinyl seats and roll up and down windows and everything else and it was basic. It was basic and I think the Daimler trucks, the Mercedes trucks are still like that, you know where. They're pretty bare bones, nothing like what you'd see in a, you know like a modern freight liner or anything like that. Those are much more, I think, more luxurious on the state side.
Speaker 3:Are they.
Speaker 4:No, I'm kidding, no, I'm kidding they are, I'm kidding for the freight liner.
Speaker 3:The freight liner stuff's been a staple for a long time and when Daimler reached out and took them over and, you know, brought them into their role, that that was a good move. That helped them build a consistent truck that they could be put out there to the fleets, that was a good thing.
Speaker 1:Same thing with the.
Speaker 3:Mercedes Benz electric cab over out in Europe. This is what we need to see happen here to get some of these out on the road.
Speaker 2:You're going to see them. I mean, it's just one of those things where it's built for Europe. It's a smaller truck. It's not like the Class 8's here. It might still technically be a Class 8, but it's not like a 10 wheel dual rear axle kind of thing. It's a smaller truck. It's for, it's for Europe, it's cute.
Speaker 3:Well, I can tell you, but you take it to Bangladesh to be a Class 10 because they load everything up over there.
Speaker 2:I mean they load 42,000 pounds on a donkey with wooden wheels, Exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly, it's slightly square, but it'll round off as we pull it down the road.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So I think this is cool. The one I really wanted to talk about, though. Caterpillar Unveiled it's first next generation compact track loaders.
Speaker 4:It's got a little bit different.
Speaker 2:It is a smaller one and it's got a different articulation at the actual bucket. But I mean, you're better at this stuff than I am. Talk to me a little bit about this. What makes this cool?
Speaker 3:Well, so we've actually recently purchased some 299 D3s and actually it's a really good compact track loader. You know it has a suspended undercarriage. It's got one of the smoothest rides on the market. The other thing that it has going forward is it has a tremendous amount of power and then there's a cooling capability for the track loader that we have. We buy them with the auxiliary coolers up top, so it's up out of the dust and all that and it's like a TP style and the thing that they're working on and I've actually met with the product manager for the World Ride Distribution and they're working on the cab.
Speaker 3:The cab is huge. Yeah, In a sense that all the technology that they put into that cab to make it less decibels, less dirt, easier to operate, everything within arms reach you can do all these different things with it, from the throttle to the way that you run the joysticks and what they do. We actually have a drill rig that goes on, one of these that'll pull like a 36 inch, 42 inch bit and you can go down 20 feet with it. So, yeah, and then you know a couple's on there, but there's only a couple on the market that can handle that kind of weight. Caterpillar has one of them, the other one being John Deere. John Deere and Caterpillar poise themselves as one of the most productive compact track loaders on the market.
Speaker 2:It's funny, as I'm reading through the article, I'm getting a John Deere ad in the middle of this article about the Caterpillar.
Speaker 3:They're very aggressive when it comes to that. But yeah, these are great machines they are.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned the stuff that they're doing with the cab. That's really smart. They talk a little bit about the Cat Smart Attachments, which is, like you know, the dozer and the greater blades in the back and all that, and how you can attach these joysticks into the cab as you buy these accessories and they just kind of snap in and they're almost plug and play where they have their own required joystick pattern for controlling the attachment and that it just automatically detects like what kind of attachment it is and figures out the software for it. And I think something like that's got to be an advancement, right? Because if you look at the past, when you were putting an attachment on some of these things, you might have to run a whole different set of controls for it, right?
Speaker 3:So I was going to say that way back in the day, if you had like a backhoe attachment or you had like a drill attachment or that you'd have to take the door off, you'd couple into it, hook all your hydraulics up and then you would actually have like the joystick stack come into the cab, which is, you know that's real safe, and then you would, you know you'd use it and what caterpillar has been trying to do and they're not alone, there's a couple out there. Bobcat's really led the way with some of this technology. Caterpillar's right. There is okay, I'm going to hook up to this attachment, use the coupler. I'm going to hook up the hydraulics. I'm going to plug in the electrical connectors. There's two on the boom, depending on how you have them set up, or one large one and the machine already knows if it's a same make.
Speaker 3:You know you want to try and keep this stuff the same. It always helps. If it's a caterpillar attachment, you plugged it in there. It automatically knows what you got and then you can work the joystick in there and run it. And the one thing that I'm interested to see and I can't wait for it to come out is caterpillar has been working on a vertical door. One of the biggest issues with the large track loaders has been the door. Kubota has this kind of figured out where they have like a flip up door and you want latch it go straight up. John Deere and Caterpillar have what they call a swing out door.
Speaker 3:So the problem with a swing out door is if the loader arms are elevated more than in the seated position you cannot get out of the cab except for pulling the rear window and going out the back, which is the recommended emergency escape route. But that's not really ideal and if you ever get stuck in one, you can't like work your way out, like if it died or it's sitting in some precarious situation. You want to get out of it. You can't, and they know this and that's something that they've been working on and I think that's going to come out in the next series after this. But the one thing to talk about with that cab is the cab is actually a one piece sealed unit. So Caterpillar, john Deere, when they make those, they actually make those cabs. The pan, the side beams, the roof and all that is all one unit. The weather stripping is next to none, the way that the glass seals in there. That's how they're able to obtain the OSHA dust rating.
Speaker 3:Okay, migration of the dirt going in the cab. So these have come so far from going back 20 years when it was just a rattly mess and you stuffed rags and stuff in the glass because it was shaking all day, and these have come a long way. They're amazing Now one of the things that has been plaguing the industry, and it doesn't matter what the brand is, is price increases. Yeah, I mean, we got to put this stuff to work and then we got to charge for it. So if you were looking at three and five and 8%, and then sometimes it was 3% a quarter, you do the math. That's 12% for the one year.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's more than that, because it's not 3% on the original price, it's 3% on the last quarter price.
Speaker 1:So it's actually 15, 16% a year.
Speaker 3:Correct, that is something that the industry is catching up to is. Okay, I bought this track loader and it's things $150,000, $120,000 with a bucket and a fork set. That's a hefty payment. Yes, and now one of the things that I will plug Caterpillar for they have figured out how to work the leasing space, very similar to the automotive market, very similar to the heavy truck market, where, okay, we know we have a good brand, we know it's valuable, we're gonna put our money where that's at and we're gonna set our residuals. We're gonna put the residual value and then the cap cost. We're gonna we're gonna stick this out there if we think that things worth 80% after you know 18 months. They have some of the most aggressive lease rates on the market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's gonna make it a lot easier, not only for the guys that are gonna get in there and lease all the the new ones, but also for the people that are in that secondary market that are gonna either lease or buy the ones that are two years old, three years old. That that's going to do the job for them. You know well enough. So I think that's. I think that's a good thing. Before we move on, you get any other fun purchases you want to mention.
Speaker 3:Well, to be honest, you know, one of the purchases I'm trying to work through right now but they went on strike was my new Mack truck. I just get ready to buy another one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the ua w way went on on monday and struck you know, and again nothing. You know what. They off the band together if they're gonna make some changes and they're gonna put everybody to it. I already heard Mack was very well receptive to it and said, hey, we understand, but let's come up with something so we can keep moving, because we're already way behind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's ironic, right, because max parent company now is Volvo trucks and Volvo in Europe overseas Makes a big deal about. You know the employee benefits and how progressive they are and all the different kind of union Stuff that they're doing on that side of things. You know they get out the entire month of august. They basically get to go home. They get two weeks off for Christmas and you know six months off for maternity leave and paternity leave. You know you're married to a young lady, she has a baby. You get to stay home and hang out for six months, right? So this is uh, this is a really progressive company. But then you come over to the states and they're dealing with the ua w just like everybody else and they're dealing with the same contracts everybody else. So it'll be interesting to see because this is the first time that Mack has gone through this with Volvo ownership Whether or not Volvo's kind of I don't want to use the word tradition, that's not quite right but whether they're track record Of being very progressive when it comes to labor rights and good pay and good benefits.
Speaker 2:Whether that translates over to Mack we we will have to see. But I think If I was going to bet on one European company sticking to its guns and trying to take care of its people. It would probably be Volvo. You know Mercedes and BMW. We already know from the 90s that they're going to move into the deep south where there's no unions.
Speaker 2:And you know, you start talking about the ua w a lynch mob comes for you and they'll pay 16 bucks an hour.
Speaker 3:I mean listen. One of the things that you know that's cool about this podcast and people that do listen to it all nine of you Are going to understand is that we, you know we don't pull any punches. We do talk about real. Here's the thing. We all we, we know that back in the 90s, even the early 2000s, some, some of those manufacturers were brutal. It was like okay, we're going to go on strike. We locked the place. Yeah, strike all you want, we're not here anymore. And then they did. They moved down south, they opened up new plants. They, you know they were they moved to.
Speaker 3:Canada. They moved to.
Speaker 2:Mexico.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, on those maple guys up north, they, they were welcome to it. You know they're like hey, just just give us a place to boil some stuff on break and we'll be all right.
Speaker 2:Well, and they were amenable for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest reasons that they were amenable and again this, not to make this about politics, but politics do affect our lives, right? Yes, they have health care and pension Guaranteed to them by the Canadian government.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:Is it the best health care? No. Is it the best pension? No. However, comma, is it something that the UAW did not have to provide for them or negotiate for them? Yes, so even though you could get away with going to Canada and paying lower wages, the burden of health care for your retired people was not on the company. In the states where we don't have similar government Entitlements, we have different government entitlements. The one that I personally enjoy is the one where I look overhead and I see a military aircraft. I don't have to worry about who's it is.
Speaker 3:That's correct. When I was at the Allentown plant, you know, we asked about that, we talked about that. They we said, hey, what union are you guys? We were asking all the common stuff, we're a union company. They said, hey, we're UAW. On the floor, some of the management staff's UAW, if they're, you know, if they're not, they're, they're corporate.
Speaker 3:And we asked about the benefits and they said that while Mack had a ton of legacy Contracts and a bunch of stuff, mack was a great company. They were this, this legendary force in the trucking world. Right, they were not Kenworth, they were not Peterbilt, they had their own thing and they created it. And they said that one was one of the big reasons that Volvo took them on was they were like here, here's this legendary company, we have this opportunity to swoop in and pull them into our fold. Well, we need that on top of that. It was, they said it was a very easy transition because Mack was already taking care of their people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, volvo came in and said, okay, wait, we're taking, but we're gonna, we're gonna bump you to the European style and and that mindset, just like what you're talking about, we're gonna be even more progressive, we're gonna take care of even more. And the UAW thing. I think they just didn't have a choice. You know we're talking about all the automakers having a big issue. They really have to come to the table. You got UAW across the country in a bunch of different areas that are all sitting down saying, look, we don't want to, but if we're all going to join in, this is the essential way of what a union is.
Speaker 2:Exactly. The union is not about, hey, we're all being mistreated. None of us are getting a fair shake. The union is about, hey, those guys on the floor over there, those 14 guys out of 100, they're not getting a fair shake and right, they are not being listened to or taken care of by management. They are all part of our union. We have to go on strike to support our brothers, and that's what it is Totally.
Speaker 3:I mean, look, if it was a better way. We would go back to the ways of Henry Ford when they first started making automobiles. You would just beat everybody with the rubber hose, and if you don't show up for work, we send out picketons.
Speaker 2:That's correct right.
Speaker 3:Exactly exactly. It's like truancy officers for adults.
Speaker 4:Right, you didn't show up for work today.
Speaker 3:You didn't come out here and they got the patty wagon. They pull up with a patty wagon. You got to hold your ass to work.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what happened and what happened? The thing that was crazy was once the unions really took hold in the US and we got things like you know back then. Remember what the unions were fighting for originally back during the Haymarket Rites 12 hour days and one day off a week guaranteed, that's right. You would go to church on Sunday, be done at 10 am and get marched right into the factory in some of these factory towns. And then the other demand was you got paid money not in script, not in company store credits, right.
Speaker 2:So, Henry Ford. If you remember what he did, this champion of the people, he went down to Brazil and cleared out 10,000 acres of rainforest and built himself a little town down there that he could run with an iron fist. And he had no women, no gambling, no alcohol, prayers before meals, no spices, no salt in your food, cause he was one of these RJ Kellogg guys that believed that you know, corn flakes would keep you from whacking it. So he would feed them all cornmeal and hash.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, and then they sat in yogurt at night, that's. I don't know about that. This is one of those things. It's good for the prostate.
Speaker 2:This is one of those things where, like I don't know if this is him messing with me or not.
Speaker 3:Because it's just how weird. Kellogg used to take yogurt baths because he believed that it created virginity in the bowels.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, that's absolutely correct. That is a thousand percent what RJ used to do. However, Kamma, I don't know if Ford was willing to spring for that much yogurt for his Brazilian factory workers.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, not for the factory workers. They brought it to him. He had some hot tub over in his place.
Speaker 2:The V8, the flathead V8 was actually developed to run the jets in his yogurt hot tub because the four cylinder wasn't doing it.
Speaker 3:Those cool passages were designed that way for a reason. My friend, that's right.
Speaker 2:Wow, I think it's interesting. Right, we talked about this, not about the yogurt baths, but we talked about the right tools for the right job, and we talked about that a little bit last week towards the end, when you were talking about your trip to Lake Placid with Betty White. You like how I segue into that. I do like how you segue into that. That was very nice and we'll leave that in. I like when I leave in the parts where we tell each other what a good job we're doing.
Speaker 3:Nice Say it's a vocal ball tickle.
Speaker 2:We call this the fluff room. You know, it's funny. I was actually at a parent's night, a PTA night. This is funny.
Speaker 3:You tell me this. I get scared because I just think of just mothers grabbing their children and covering their ears.
Speaker 2:Oh no, there were no kids. It was the PTA parents night. I could get into that.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah Is there, single women there, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Single moms two at a time, right in the back.
Speaker 2:They won't do that, though. They tend to go one, one by one.
Speaker 3:But yeah, yeah, either way, they're on a, they're on a six month dry spell and they're going to go.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's it, just like Quincy ME getting them on the boat. Now we have a recurring theme. We should get the theme song for that, but there are Hang on. I don't even know what it is. Well, you're going to find out because it's going to play right now.
Speaker 4:Ok, Gentlemen, you are about to enter the most fascinating sphere of police work, the world of forensic medicine.
Speaker 3:So you're at this PTA.
Speaker 2:PTA thing. I'm at this PTA thing and someone was talking to me about the podcast. Hey, do any Margaret?
Speaker 3:had to love this.
Speaker 2:Oh, she hates it. She just gets so enraged whenever I talk about the show. But this guy comes up to me and he says listening. I was listening to it and I got about two episodes in about 10 minutes into the third episode and I was like what did you think he goes? You know, I don't really know what any of that stuff is that you're talking about, but it's really cool because you guys seem to like really care about each other and you're like really supportive of each other and like as a man, I really felt like that was that was good to hear, it was really cool, oh cool. It made me feel, you know, like regardless of anything else, I know that you guys like really have each other's backs and I was like that's lame. But I just say this because I am gay, was his husband there Right.
Speaker 2:Yes, husband's a great guy yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're the only need now is we need Neil on here being the supportive role, because he's like Ricky from Fairlough Park Boys.
Speaker 2:Neil, neil would log into this, hear that and go. Jesus, just hang on.
Speaker 3:So the thing is with Neil. He's got a call from a rotary phone pipe through you know, so it's got to. It's going to have the static and the clicking.
Speaker 1:I've got a person to person call from Neil yeah.
Speaker 3:It's like you're receiving a call from Lorraine County Correctional Center. Do you accept the?
Speaker 2:charges. Press one to accept the charges. Press two to listen to a movie phone. I tried to make a joke about movie phone the other day and my kids stared at me like I had nine heads. I was like you used to have to call a number to find out what the movie times were. She goes like why didn't you just like look it up online? And I was like no, no, no, like like you couldn't do that, there was no online. And she's like did you have to go to the computer? I was like no, no computer, there was no computer. The internet used to sound like two robots screaming at each other and it was on the phone, the phone, the phone, the phone.
Speaker 2:The right tool for the right job. You don't need a three quarter ton lifted diesel, four by four, to run down to the Pigley Wiggly for a half gallon of milk. No, and you talked about this a little bit last time when you were talking about moving your guys away from the full size pickups and into, like the Jeep renegades and, you know, potentially the Ford Mavericks and other small trucks, and you had a great comment. You said you know we looked at this and said do we need the payload or do we just need a bed? And most of the time you need a bed, and at some point in the last seven days I had this realization that what you know, what the world needs now, oh.
Speaker 2:Jesus.
Speaker 1:Sweet it's enough of that.
Speaker 2:No, it's the Chevy love I know Well, yeah, see, see you all. You thought I was being goofy, yeah.
Speaker 3:The issues. What was the issue called? I think that was also the love. Oh, they had the same name. That's right, sure, ok, sure, but we were talking about the right tool for the right job.
Speaker 3:You're, the more we look at this and the more we analyze this and we, we, we don't just. The one cool thing about the company that I work for, and my whole team and that whole department, is that we don't just sit around and calculate everything out and go well, this is the way it's going to be. We actually pull the people that are using it. We throw a couple of things out there, we let them drive it. We get feedback. I drive a lot of stuff, my staff drives a lot of stuff, and we really look at it and go does this make sense? We've tried stuff. Absolutely it doesn't. But the thing that does make sense is half ton pickup trucks when you need those long beds, short beds. And then now we're getting into the canyons, the Maverick and the Ram, which are dead on, like there was a whole era there. Well, what am I looking for? Is it? Was it a Ranchero? Yeah, ranchero.
Speaker 2:And then Ranchero Chevy, el Camino VW had one. They had a little Volkswagen Golf rabbit pickup.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and then you had the love. I think that's coming back, and I think it's coming back for a couple reasons. I try to park a 2,500 long bed crew cab in your driveway on any normal suburb. Not going to work? Yeah, try to also pay for that thing. So if there's a cost savings and really analyze it, you go. You know, the only time we use this bed is because we go out and get mulch once a year and flowers another time, and we might go buy some wood every now and then for some project we're doing.
Speaker 3:You need the bed wood, yeah, you need the bed to be there, but you're not look, anybody that talks themselves into the big dually because I might need it. They don't even own a trailer and all that stuff. It's foolishness. Right now, everything costs too much, yeah, and maintenance costs are right there behind it, escalating every day. And that's the other silent killer to a lot of people. They get over the hurdle, they get. You know fleets do this all the time. We buy the vehicle. We get over the hurdle. The cost payment. We work our way through the warranty period and then, when it's out of warranty, that's when you really start paying, because you're still paying for the vehicle. You know whether you're doing it on depreciation or you're making lease payments or whatever you're doing. And then you're maintaining it because just about that market 100,000.
Speaker 3:What happens? Yeah, you got to start doing a ton of work to it and if you go from a half ton to a three quarter ton, it just goes along with it. It does but it but it factors even more. So you're talking about, instead of just saying, ok, well, it's about 25% or 30% increase in wear and tear, no, it's double. The prices are double on the parts. That's the whole thing. And the same thing goes with the semi trucks and straight trucks, heavy equipment, savvy fleet managers and companies. We're all talking to each other saying what are you guys doing when you get into this situation? What's, what's that hidden model gem that you know has the capacity but doesn't weigh a ton so you can stack it on a trailer with some other stuff? You know, because when we're trying to do these combination loads, running them across different states, you know you can't get a permit, so you got to kind of keep it under underweight and it's a lot. The logistics of it's a lot on top of that.
Speaker 2:So there's got to be a solution out there. I think this is one of those things where you know we talk a little bit about autonomous and AI here on the show, but I think this is one of those things where you could feed a lot of this information into like an AI that just does nothing but math, tables and everything else to say, ok, we're going across these three states, here's the weight limit, here's the weight of the trailer, here's the GVWR vehicle. How can we get this out here with the least amount of trips? And this thing will just spit out an answer like you need four trailers, put this back on this one.
Speaker 3:Put this track loader on this one and go You're dead. On right there is. There's a whole push. Right now. A lot of the big construction companies are weighing everything. They've got weights listed on everything and when the truck drivers show up on a job and they're trying to clean out the job or they're loading stuff out of the yard going to a job, they sit there and they add it up and they go OK, we're done, we're done. Or I can put this on, but not that, and they're trying to maximize it. That's it.
Speaker 2:And they're doing it on site. Wouldn't it be nice, right? Wouldn't it be nice if you had that plan laid out already and you already know, you had like a QR code or something inside it where you could just scan the truck and it would tell you this one's going on trailer B, this one's going on trailer C, and you wouldn't have to figure all that out. It would just tell you where it's going to go. You go, all right, I'll just load it up here.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm going to tell you something right now, joe, that's a fantastic idea, and the number door HR department is 555 higher, and I don't think we can bring you on board. I think we can bring you on board next week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know you think I'm kidding Me, and the boys at the Python labs can write this one up pretty quick. And no, I was being serious.
Speaker 3:So I don't know, I think it's a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if you've ever met Yash from Ringer Sciences, but this is what he does. Let's bring him on. He's a brilliant, brilliant guy. So I think this is something that we can, we can, build out. We'll run it through your operation there. That'll be a good one.
Speaker 3:So the only thing, the only thing I was going to ask too, is like what's, what's the news on the Tesla cyber truck? What, like, what's going on with that? I mean, I see pictures of them. Everybody sees a picture of a broke down. It's like you know the Pepsi truck that's a behind the rocker Right.
Speaker 2:So Tesla has two truck projects. When they got the semi Okay, which is a really weird animal Like you you walk into a door and the door opens, like behind the driver seat, because the driver seats in the center, like a McLaren F1. Right, and you have to then walk around the driver seat so there's a hallway in the truck that you can't put stuff in, like you can't put your gear or a cooler or anything, because you got to walk in and out of it. Really, yeah, it's really bizarre and it's one of those things that like, yeah, it makes sense on paper, we don't have to design one for right hand drive markets, we can just do the same one. Oh, it won't matter what side he's trying to park on, because he's got a center driving seat. He'll see everything. It sounds good, but there's a reason that trucks are laid out the way that they are and it's not because every engineer for the last hundred years is stupid.
Speaker 3:Well, you know that that's exactly it, and so I don't know. We need to figure out how we can go and actually, you know, walk into one of these. We need to go take a look at one, so it's funny.
Speaker 2:you know, my other show is Clean Technica, clean Tech Talk, and we were invited to the Don't pay us, by the way.
Speaker 3:We just want to make that clear. We don't ask for anything from anybody that we plug. Let's keep moving.
Speaker 2:No, but I think that's worth bringing up right, no, no that's worth bringing up, because there's a ton of equipment shows that are out there that are all driven by sponsor money, and we're not driven by sponsor money because nobody is paying us. No, if you know, Mr John Deere wanted us to be in his pocket and talk about how great his stuff was. He can call Mike's HR department at 5-5-5. Pay me now and we'll make that happen. But no, in all honesty, I don't think that's what this show is going to be.
Speaker 3:There's too many shows out there right now. If you look across the, you know the canvas of what's out there and you listen to it. There's too many shows that go 30 second, 45 seconds, 60 second blocks and they just go down the pays Right and you can just, you just smell it the way that they're talking. We're talking about everything under the sun and you know, listen El Camino. They're not going to drop me off a brand new one, as much as I'd like that, but they're not going to.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, they didn't even make it anymore, so we can run El Camino commercials all day, Nobody going to die, right, I'm off of that. In fact, it's running El Camino commercial now.
Speaker 4:The new Chevy El Camino. Beautiful, isn't it? Also, it weighs less and is a more efficient size. That's almost 12 inches shorter, yet has more head and leg room than last year Incredibly. It's also a truck. It still has 800 pounds of cargo capacity, double wall construction where it counts, and for 1978 standard V6 power, v8 available. The new Chevy El Camino who thought a pickup could look this good?
Speaker 2:This is great. This is the best show I gotta eat ice cream before we do these.
Speaker 3:This is the best thing you got to get all sugared up.
Speaker 2:I got today? I've got the Capri Sun fruit punch flavor.
Speaker 3:I saw that you were sipping on that earlier. You thought I missed it.
Speaker 2:No, I would listen, man. One thing I've realized as I've grown up is that my favorite stuff when I was six and seven years old is still my favorite stuff. There is nothing like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with some nacho cheese, doritos and a fruit punch Capri Sun.
Speaker 3:No, absolutely not, Absolutely not.
Speaker 2:You get some graham crackers and applesauce and take a little nap. You're all set.
Speaker 3:I was thinking about this. We need to build some hero cards and I was thinking about this with Neil, where we could have the vintage nitro funny car with Neil's hair all frizzled out and like that, some raggedy suit, like the old drag racing stuff. I think it would be hysterical.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about this because we're going to be at the ACT show in 2024. That's going to be early in the year and we really want to make a splash. We're interviewing some interesting people. We're going to have some industry leaders and kind of forward thinking guys on there. We have an opportunity to really make an impression here. So we were talking about t-shirts. We were talking about like some kind of goofy selfies we could do. I like the idea of trading cards. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3:But no, you know what. The trading card thing is great. We got to get tops on the phone and see if we can get some of these paid. We got to put them right in some cereal boxes. Yeah, we'll get. Could you imagine Margaret's face if she was at the store and she's looking at a cereal box? And on the back of it it's like your picture or mine and it's like heavy equipment podcast.
Speaker 2:Check it out no heavy equipment. Podcast breakfast cereal, you go. She's got the Wheaties commercial and it's you and me in front of the microphones.
Speaker 3:It's just. Yeah, the whole thing is just truck shapes, the most sugary thing you could possibly imagine buying and then going around wound up.
Speaker 2:So you know how, like Lucky Charms has like the purple horseshoes and the red balloons and the green clovers, we've got like Yellow Max, red freight liners, all that, and there's nothing. There's no like Cheerios, it's just marshmallow Shaped like different. Got a little caterpillar loader, a little green John.
Speaker 3:Deere, it's like those sponges you pour milk on them. They get larger and tastier.
Speaker 2:Wow, we are so speaking of operators who fail drug tests, oh wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was a great, that was great.
Speaker 2:So this was actually in the script that we had meant to talk about, because we talked about this a few episodes back. That you know, because there is such a shortage of drivers and at the same time you now have legalized recreational marijuana. You have some recreational, you know, mushrooms and salicybe and stuff in other parts of the country. How do you police that when it's legal to partake in these activities and in some cases very beneficial for people who have other health problems to partake in these activities, but at the same time it's not allowed by your liability insurance, is not allowed by your company? And what happens to people when they fail a drug test and they lose that job or they miss out on that opportunity? And there's a new study that come out ATRI they are at the American Transportation Research Institute that focused specifically on driver marijuana failures and it says something that out of the 146,000 drivers who have been basically placed into prohibited driving status, most of them are not enrolling in the return to duty agency process.
Speaker 3:So that and that. Actually, you know, that surprised me when they pulled that and pulled that data together, because you would think, with wages, keep going up with driving. I know there's a bunch of people out there that are going to say, no, they're not, but they are, they keep going up. You would think that somebody would say, hey, look, you know what? I just I messed up, I wasn't. I didn't quite understand. You know what the rules were. Here we go, what do I have to do? And then just go and go do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the thing that was interesting was they're taking jobs with lower pay. They're not like leaving the industry and finding jobs that pay better. They're taking jobs with lower pay, and I wonder why that is. Of those hundred and something thousand drivers, how many of them do you think understand that there is a path to remediation?
Speaker 3:Well, here's the thing when you are terminated and I don't it doesn't matter what company you work for, the state that you live in, it'll guide you through that. Yeah, and if you wanted to do it, all you have to do is Google it. I've been fired for there are many things that pop up beyond all the ambulance chasing lawyer ads, and I'm being 100 percent honest. There is so much out there and so much data for employees to go back and pull resources to say, hey, I want my job back. What do I have to?
Speaker 1:do here.
Speaker 3:I mean in Ohio and Illinois. I mean I know some of this with the states. I don't deal with it every day, but I do know what's out there and all people have to do is ask yeah, well, what do?
Speaker 2:you think of what this guy said. So they quote this guy and he's the owner operator, independent driver association. So he's the lead president. Wee, I like that. His name is Todd Spencer and he says if you test positive, you may as well just forget it. The rest of the story is that somebody might hire you, but not the better companies. I know from personal awareness of what goes on in trucking is that if you hire a driver that's got a positive test on the record and you're involved in any big accident, that's going to be used against you.
Speaker 3:Well, he's not wrong. He's not wrong, but here's here's where. Here is where he is astray, not completely right. The follow up process is is is very important when you do the exploration of an incident or a positive result in drug test, how you go about the test, how you follow up with that with the employee, how the employee follows up with what their options are, and then the actions taken later on will mitigate what they're saying. They're saying if you got a guy and he tests positive for one thing, his life's over with and if he gets in an accident with another company, well I'll tell you what. They're gonna sue you to the stone age. I understand that and he's not wrong. But any company worth their weight that notices a good driver with the right follow through and the right backing, will either retain that person and work through it or, when he goes to another company and he wants to work, they're gonna say what happened here and then he's gonna show him all this stuff. I went to whether you were required to go to any kind of AA or whatever organization or whatever you were required to do. If he has all that.
Speaker 3:Listen, a lot of people that I talked to have been their HR departments and their safety departments have been through court cases. They've went down that rabbit hole of we're getting sued because of negligence, because of this, and ultimately, while there are a lot of cases that go bad and the idiot employee gets handed the verdict and says, look, we're gonna take care of you for the rest of your life, there are many cases that go the correct way, that the court sees right through all that stuff and says, no, this has nothing to do with that. That was 10 years ago. That was five years ago. This guy followed everything to the letter. He hasn't even had ticket.
Speaker 3:The bigger thing okay, another thing I'm gonna tell you. The bigger thing that has an issue, that has an impact on this and why I kind of don't like that statement, is tickets, violations, anything that's avoidable by the driver. They bring all of that out when they're gonna take you to court. That's right. They look at everything. So it's not just well, he you know he tested positive for marijuana. As you know, his driving career is over. No, the guys that have a problem are the ones that test positive with six out of 10 panels on a 10 panel test, and that happens.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, those are the ones that are not coming back to work.
Speaker 2:You know if you really wanna drill down to what he's saying. Here is the problem is that we have a litigious society that does not enable people to have a second chance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there is. Yeah, you're absolutely right. That is the other side of the coin. It's very easy, but you know and I can talk from first hand experience with employees that I've been around with other companies. When you wanna make that happen and you wanna get your second chance and you wanna do it, it's out there, it is, it is, and there's plenty of companies that are willing to do it.
Speaker 2:You know, we I and I personally interviewed this guy. This was years ago and he was a mechanic. And I thought he was a great mechanic. He was well-spoken, he was a good dude, we laughed, we smiled. I was like this is a guy and we don't need to talk to any more people. This is the guy. In two or three years, this guy's gonna be running the whole floor. Why is he available? And then he said well, this is gonna come out anyway. Might as well tell you I'm a convicted felon and I was like well, were you convicted of being a mechanic?
Speaker 2:And he writes and he goes, no, and I was like okay, so why do I care? Right, I mean, that was eight years ago. You did your time. You've been out for five years, You've been clean, everything's fine, you don't you know? You passed the drug test, you're a good dude, you're married now. He had a kid on the way he was trying to rebuild his life and you know, I was trying to build a shop. I didn't care about any of that stuff.
Speaker 3:No, you're spot on. And there's a lot of companies that people get the side-tilled head where they're like, no, and you know, the HR department tells you that and then you're like, hey, I'm sorry they found something on there, or whatever you want to say, and then they build the guy off Again. Other companies that I know of. I've talked to people. I've had people call me and ask me my opinions of it and I'm the same as you are. Listen, can the guy do what you want him to do? Yeah, Do you see anything that's gonna say? Like you know, there's a lot about reading somebody. Here's a we're gonna talk about this and even, as this rolls into another episode, but here's what we're gonna talk about, when you sit down with somebody and you're doing an interview, I, you know, I believe in a phone interview and I believe you gotta kind of talk to the guy. But I encourage everybody I've ever been on a phone to interview with to come and sit down in front of me. Yeah, Some of the best jobs I've ever had and some of the best opportunities I've ever had resulted from the fact that I was sitting with somebody and we had a connection and we understood. I understood where they wanted to be. They understood where I wanted to be and it was a match.
Speaker 3:When you go through that process and you interview somebody, your gut, your instinct says even if they're not working for you, but they're gonna work with you. That's another big part of the interview process that gets skipped. Well, Joe thought he was a great guy and they brought him on, but he doesn't get along with anybody here, Right? That's a huge problem, Okay, so well, now it's okay. I truly believe in. Well, Joe thought this guy's a good guy and he's bringing him back for a second interview where we're going to launch, and I'm gonna pull five guys with him and let's just see how everybody does. That's it.
Speaker 2:That's the right way to do it.
Speaker 3:That can't be changed Exactly. So, joe, if you're a millionaire, if you got a felony or you got whatever on your record within reason, the point is is that yeah, within reason? Yeah, you know what I'm saying with that. There are some red flags.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you, there's some red flags. It's like oh, you're a felon which I, you know money laundering, I did some taxing. Yeah, you know, everybody gets it with the government. What did you do?
Speaker 3:Well, I can't go within 50 yards of a school. All right, we have a problem, it's right, it's a big issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a problem. I got another one for you that cracked me up. I was getting quotes on a garage rebuild here outside of the beautiful city of Chicago. It's just an ongoing process. It's a constant fight with the wife over what the garage is gonna be, cause I want to have a little shop back there where I can work on my bikes, cause now I'm I just got another one, which is a whole different addiction problem.
Speaker 2:Now I have like six, come, take it. Just come, drive up in one of these trucks and you might have to take that whole garage with me, take that whole.
Speaker 2:It'll fit in the back of that monster you're driving, but regardless. So I'm getting a quote from this guy and I'm on the phone and he's like, oh, so what address are you on this net? And he's like, yeah, I don't know, I can't really go to Oak Park. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, well, you know, to get a permit, I got to show that my guys have are all paid up on their child support that are gonna happen and I was like wait, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:you're not what, like what that's?
Speaker 4:the. Thing.
Speaker 2:It's just not something I would have thought of. But like number one, why is the township asking for that on your permit? And number two, why are you employing guys that are deadbeat dads? Because they're capable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm gonna tell you my dad's era, your dad's era, like you know, and that era of business, you look, you had to look, you looked down upon companies that hired people like that. But today, when people show up and you're proud of that, that's how far we've regressed. Yeah, you know, I told my dad that and I laughed because my dad's gonna be 75 in January. And I told him yeah, I heard this guy's like what do you think? I said, well, he showed up today and he goes listen, if that's the greatest thing that happened with this guy so far, what are we, what is the workforce coming to? I said, dad, that's where we're at today.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you hire people and they don't show up. You know, labor hands, stage hands at some of these events that we do and talk to them. They go through two interviews. You hire them, they fill out all the paperwork. They go to the drug test All right, buddy, you start Monday and they never show up.
Speaker 3:You know, funny, I talked to somebody the other day who said that they hired somebody. They never showed up. They called them. They said oh, I was sorry that you know I'll be in tomorrow. They didn't come in the next day. Strike two Third no call. Third, no show. But they were calling them, but it was still a no call, no show. They fired them, they terminated them. They petitioned the state that they're in for unemployment. What the? And the company was going through the ringer trying to tell them. They never showed, they weren't yes, yes. But they kept coming back to them saying, well, but did you employ them? They're like well, technically they were employed, but they never came in. And they were like well, what did you compensate them with? And they were like nothing, because they never arrived.
Speaker 2:They never locked in.
Speaker 3:And then the state was like but now they're unemployed. And they were like, because they never came Right. And they're like well, did you make adequate? They ran them through the ringer. They're like did you make adequate attempts to bring them into the office? They said short of us going and getting them Right, send the patty wagon.
Speaker 2:And now we're back Exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly Back for the patty wagon.
Speaker 2:That's right. If you don't harvest the rubber, we will cut off your hand.
Speaker 3:Oh you need. I'm telling you, if it gets any worse you're going to have to send the guy out with the net, like from babes and toyland. You know who? My kitties.
Speaker 2:That's a good one, all right. Well, I think we'll wrap the show off on that one.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And man, it's rough out there. Boys, Just keep your head up high and hold out for episode eight.
Speaker 1:Tune in next week for more heavy equipment podcast on Spotify, apple podcasts, google or wherever you find podcasts.