In this HEP-isode, Mike and Jo explore California Governor Gavin Newsom's controversial take on autonomous semi trucks, what the Teamsters are doing to keep America trucking, and we find out exactly what kind of gear Mike is bringing onto the set of Equipment Gladiators. All this and taste of Canadian Maple Syrup, too — enjoy!
In this HEP-isode, Mike and Jo explore California Governor Gavin Newsom's controversial take on autonomous semi trucks, what the Teamsters are doing to keep America trucking, and we find out exactly what kind of gear Mike is bringing onto the set of Equipment Gladiators. All this and taste of Canadian Maple Syrup, too — enjoy!
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 3:Welcome back to the Heavy Equipment Podcast. I'm your host, joe Boris, here as ever with Michael Hot, mike Spitzer, on the big old black microphone. How you doing baby, I'm doing good, how about you? I think I was doing fine till we started recording. It's been a while, man. I feel like there's been a lot going on. I was in Phoenix, I was in California. I know you went out into the Northeast to check out the leaves changing color, how'd that go.
Speaker 4:Actually it was pretty good. We actually saw quite a bit out there. It's funny. I was looking at some equipment that they had. They were out there trying to move all these leaves off this hillside. Some of this equipment out there that I see, I'm always wondering is that something else that we could use, or could we, you know, some kind of hydrogen-based incineration of the leaves that just takes them and they're gone. It's just dying.
Speaker 3:I don't know. It's funny. There's a group down in Florida that I run into in my other life. They're called Gravitas. I'm sure we can get them a plug on here. They are a company that claims to recycle anything. They do it just like that. They vaporize it under this hydrogen combustion at super high temperatures. They're breaking down organic materials literally into the organic compounds. They're getting, like you know, the raw carbon, the raw ethanol, all of the stuff out of these materials, whether it's a tire or whether it's plastic, they don't care, they just incinerate it and then they distill it down into like these different raw materials that can then be turned in metal or plastic or just organic, basically organic fuel, like almost a biodiesel based on the state.
Speaker 4:I was going to ask. I mean, this sounds like the primitive version of a Mr Fuel, yeah, what?
Speaker 3:is it Mr Fusion? Mr Fusion, that's the one, yeah, I need fuel.
Speaker 4:He just pours a fucking can of Miller light in there, because everybody knows nobody wants that stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, you can get the carbon back out of it. You'll be all right.
Speaker 4:God forbid some of the billers going to send us a letter.
Speaker 3:I don't think that's true, because I actually like the high life. I just don't know about that Miller light stuff. It's a little weak.
Speaker 4:Nobody knows about Miller light. They just know it comes out of the draft. I'm not quite sure. Then they have one and they're like 14. One later you're trying to scrape yourself up off the bathroom.
Speaker 3:I don't know, man, I like the champagne of beers myself, but we'll move on. I really want to talk today. We always talk about real stuff on this show. It's the heavy equipment podcast, but it's also heavy conversations, right, that's right. I really want to talk about this autonomous thing. The UAW strike has kind of ground itself to a halt, but that doesn't mean that all is well in the land of labor and drivers and everything else. This Freeport Mech Moran, mine is going to convert 33 of its giant dumpers to autonomous. First of all, this thing is so freaking huge dude.
Speaker 3:This is what is this a 30?
Speaker 4:ton dump truck. No, no, no, it's 300, 300 ton. The Caterpillar 797 is one of the largest, but this is 793. I think the 793 is 300 or 290 ton payload capacity. We have to look it up, but it's up there One of the largest that they make. 797 is the largest, unless they just came out with another one. My question is if they're autonomous and yes, they're being driven autonomously. That's where they are, that. This is the first copper mine that's going to go this route, but I think they still have to have some operators on staff. There's like an interface or something like that that I was reading on some of these.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mind.
Speaker 4:Star Command. But you know the other thing you still have to have somebody involved with it.
Speaker 3:I think it depends on where the mine is located. I think this particular one in Arizona. I don't believe they need to have somebody in there or they need to have somebody in there. That's like overseeing multiple vehicles and it's kind of a way to get to get around the driver thing. There's two parts to this right Like.
Speaker 3:On the one hand, the autonomous thing solves a lot of problems. The main thing that they try to solve for is the lack of drivers. We all know we've talked about this constantly there's not only a lack of drivers, a lack of operators. There's a lack of dispatchers. Every job that requires manpower in this industry is shorthanded right now. Some of that is people don't want to work, other that is people don't want to pay. There's a whole big mess there. But at the end of the day, stuff still has to move, the business needs to still keep running. And that's where autonomous comes into play, where it can kind of make up for some of that driver shortage, technician shortage and get stuff out there.
Speaker 3:But I don't know just enough about it. I would think in a mining operation where it is a closed, controlled space and you're making that same short run of like two or three miles, eight or nine times a day. It's hot, it's gross, it's loud. I think autonomous would be much better at noticing like hey, there's a weird rock here that wasn't here the last trip around. Or like, hey, somebody's standing here, they shouldn't be there. Then a human driver where I think it's the exact opposite. When you start talking about Robo taxis and driving down the highway, I'm not ready for a robot to be doing that stuff. But five, six miles an hour to mine, I'm kind of okay with this.
Speaker 4:Well, let me tell you, if you look at any of the stats that they're putting out there, already they got more than 620 autonomous trucks operating at 15 customers that are running on three continents.
Speaker 4:That's caterpillar, that's caterpillar, that's not anybody else. Now, just those trucks alone have moved 6.9 billion tons of material. They've driven 143 million miles without causing reported injuries. And you're absolutely right. When you're in a closed system like that, that thing gets to know every inch of what it's doing. Yeah, if we've learned any lessons from total recall, johnny cab didn't work then and Johnny cab sure as hell is not going to work now. The fare is 18 credits, please. So mean dickhead.
Speaker 1:We hope you enjoyed the ride.
Speaker 3:Johnny cab's the betrayer. He's going to take you right to the rebel base.
Speaker 4:He talked exactly it. That's exactly it. Oh man, you didn't see that one coming.
Speaker 3:I did not. So there's a scene in total recall. If you've seen total recall, you already know what scene I'm talking about. There's a young lady propositioning him. She takes her top off. She got a very odd numbered mutation happening there.
Speaker 4:She got three breasts, three of them. He was all about that too, he was.
Speaker 3:I was probably maybe 11 or 12 years old when that movie come out in the theater and I was watching it and she takes her top off and the dude behind me goes oh, there's at least one guy out there who's like all about it.
Speaker 4:I tell you there's more than one heavy equipment operator that's willing to look at that motor, both the middle one and grab the other two with his hands. That's all I'm saying, that's what we're doing.
Speaker 3:This show just gets better and better it does.
Speaker 4:Although, if you, you know, listen, if they're a long day on the road, be out there beating on the front of the reefer with your crescent wrenches trying to keep that thing running and you get back into your nice, warm, cozy Volvo cab.
Speaker 3:The VNR nice sleeper.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know you knock, slight knock on the door. You open it up, you invite her in and she's got three breasts. I'm going to tell you that's just. That's just dicing on the cake to her Wonderful day.
Speaker 3:You might smell like diesel fuel.
Speaker 4:That's right, you might smell like diesel fuel and just be covered in all kinds of antifreeze. But I'm going to tell you three breasts and you're making it out.
Speaker 3:This is the one that we tag with the explicit content rating, is it that's right?
Speaker 4:Good to know we haven't said anything wrong. We haven't said anything wrong.
Speaker 3:Factually accurate reporting. This woman had a medical condition and we're all just observing it over and over again. So it was funny. I have this iPad and my kids have, you know, the YouTube kids and the different apps on it, and when they try to access something like the account or the parental controls, it hits them with a trivia question to make sure you're an adult. So the question was what is a VCR used for? And it was like multiple choice. Only one of them was to play VHS tapes and the other ones were like you can listen to music with it. It was all crazy stuff and I was thinking about a that's completely effective. I don't think my kids have ever. I don't even think my kids have seen a DVD player.
Speaker 4:Wow yeah.
Speaker 3:Just think about that. I haven't had a DVD player since the one that I did have. I think I left in Ohio because I was like I don't know why I'm bringing this with me Swatch, Hulu and Netflix. So I don't even think they've seen that. And the other reason I bring that up is I'm pretty sure my total recall VHS edition had been worn through on that one paused scene. It was like that particular scene is a lot more faded out. The colors aren't quite as vibrant as the rest of the film.
Speaker 4:You know you have worked over a video when you got to cut it and tape it like you're in the cutting room at MGM studios to keep that baby rolling.
Speaker 3:You're trying to turn, when Harry met Sally from a rom-com into a horror movie with a set of snippers and scotch tape Actually you know what we're crusting on.
Speaker 4:a good idea here you can take old VHS tape and recut it and rework it together and then put it back through the machine and see what kind of reverse horror film you could put together.
Speaker 3:Amazing. But wasn't there like a famous Woody Allen movie like that that was shot as like a thriller and then they recut it into a, into a comedy? Yeah, yeah, annie Hall, I think was like that.
Speaker 4:If I'm remembering right, the thriller part of it was kind of lame and they were like this would make a great comedy, so that they just recut the whole thing together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know. Maybe, or, you know, maybe. We have no idea what we're talking about.
Speaker 4:That's okay too. Well, you know what we do now. No three is always better than two.
Speaker 3:All right, better than two.
Speaker 4:Oh, we're going to get a letter for that. Nobody writes letters anymore 2023.
Speaker 3:They wouldn't even know how to address it.
Speaker 4:Brother John bring thy quill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you don't want to mess with the Amish. That's real stuff. Another person. You don't want to mess with the teamsters.
Speaker 4:You know what? I'm very fortunate. I'm going to say this right now. I'm very fortunate in the area that I'm. You know that we within we do very well with the teamsters. They've been very good to us. They have the. They have one of the worst problems going right now with the driver shortage. I mean they, the BAs, are getting calls all the time. They need people. They've got everybody out that they can possibly get. I mean it's. You know I don't envy their job. You know their job is to put people to work and when you have no one else to put to work, that's it, yeah, what do?
Speaker 4:you do.
Speaker 3:You know well they're up in arms right now because they over in California there was a law that was originally signed. It was a past law. It made it through the house and everything else of the state that if you're going to have an autonomous truck you have to have an operator in there to kind of oversee things and make sure it goes sideways. And you know California governor Gavin Newsom, who I actually used to work with, by the way, he vetoed that bill which basically says that you you can have a hundred thousand pound vehicle out on the road with no human operator in there. And number one I was really surprised by that because you know Newsom very forward yeah, newsom has always been very much on the side of labor, at least in terms of his campaign promises. You know he was always very pro labor type of guy and for him to kind of just say like no, we don't need that, that was really surprising. I don't really understand what motivated that. I guess you know all these tech companies are in California making campaign contributions.
Speaker 4:Well, maybe you know. Here's the thing, yeah, if you have a driver shortage and you have like, just everything's coming off the rails, right. So California's got a bunch of challenges ahead of them. One of them is you know the EPA restrictions that they have. They have put the information out there to the people about older cars. You know things that we're going to ask for. They have severely reduced the amount of smog over so many decades out there. I mean, there used to be a joke. You go out for a run in the morning, you can see the haze cloud over top of the city, and now it's not. It's clean.
Speaker 3:Well, that's real, that's how it used to be, yeah exactly so.
Speaker 4:My friends, parents live out there and they've lived out there for quite some time. They said you go out for a run in the morning, come back and you know your nose burnt. Yeah, what I'm getting at is they've made big strides. Okay, you can't have a densely populated area like that and not have these things come back to haunt you. But autonomous, fully autonomous vehicles. I would think that if anybody was going to be cautious about this, it would be California, due to the amount of congested traffic that they have. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't feel safe knowing that. You know, hey, the semi truck just went past me and there's no one in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I think that that comes down to hype, though. Right Like you have Right Within California, you have these tech companies and they are constantly selling the idea that autonomous is safer than human driving, that autonomous has less accidents, that autonomous is more predictable. I don't think the numbers really bear that out. If you just look at the one car company that's really pushing full self-driving and autopilot and you look at Tesla, whatever you think of their CEO, whatever you think of their cars, whatever you think of electric, you can't deny that they're the first ones on the market to really try to popularize autopilot and full self-driving cars. Right and supposedly. According to the US federal government, according to the International Institute for Highway Safety that gives out all those top safety pick awards, supposedly Tesla has one of the safest cars ever built. In the three or four years that we've had full self-driving in these Teslas, even though they're supposed to be the safest cars on the road, we've had 462 fatalities behind the wheel of a Tesla.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:That's a lot. That's a lot If you look at a car like the Tesla Model S Right.
Speaker 4:And it's a very popular model, I mean, that's one of the ones you see coming around, you know everywhere. And that's what I was getting at is that I think people overlook the fact that we just have to keep moving cautiously in the right way. This is no different than when the car became more mobile in the early 1900s, because we had to figure out how to get them to be able to traverse a cow path. Okay, yes.
Speaker 3:This is when we first started paving roads and doing things like that.
Speaker 4:We still had to learn how to drive. So when you had cobble roads and you had brick roads, we had wooden roads. You know they all posed their own challenges. We had firestone and Goodyear trying to come up with tire technology because we didn't know how to keep the stuff from sliding off into somebody's front porch. I'm not being like that's all serious, we're in the same boat. And a new problem yeah, we have to make sure that we keep working forward with it. I know they're working on it. You know Carnegie Mellon's working on programs to try and create all kinds of traps for these cars to get them to think. You know, I talked to my dad. We did 70, it'll be 75 years old. Here he's 75 years young, exactly.
Speaker 4:But he brings up a very solid point. What do you do when it starts going wrong? You know, you need to say I just grabbed the wheel and I take over. But what about the people that no longer understand what it means to take over? What about when you progress far enough that? What if we get to a point where you're like, and I only drive when I go to the store because I like to park in that one spot when I get on the highway, I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's coming, that's coming, so that's a really good point. So now we've got a scenario where the person who is entrusted to take over and take command of the vehicle Doesn't know how to drive the vehicle. Well, let's talk about the railroad.
Speaker 4:So when railroad was running at one time, you had the engineer who actually drove the train. You had the fireman who kept the firebox lit. She had the breakman that ran around on top of the cars and stopped the train because they had to come to a stop. You're the conductor that was keeping all that stuff going, and then you had another support man on the crew. Now we're bound to two people. You got the engineer, you have the conductor. There is so much stuff on that train that they no longer know how to do. When my grandfather was a Conductor on the railroad, he would help them change airlines and they would fix knuckles and broken parts, because that's what they did. Right, you were a true engineer.
Speaker 3:When you were a train engineer, you were an engineer who happened to be on a train. That's right.
Speaker 4:So all technology is good if people understand what the basis of it is, then you can respect it. I think that that's one of the bigger things that we're talking about. So I'm very surprised as I think a lot of people about this California thing, because it's like, wait a minute, you could create a massive problem. It's gonna be good. It's just when Right, there's no doubt that the progress is gonna be good.
Speaker 3:It's when yeah, well, and it's not only when it's there are gonna be hiccups along the way. And If it's a hiccup with something the size of a Toyota Corolla bumping into another Toyota Corolla, it's not a problem. If it's a hiccup when it's 18 wheel, 82,000 pound, giant electric lithium, hydrogen, helium, who the heck knows what else, and it's running over a baby stroller, you got a real problem.
Speaker 4:And one, and there's gonna be some of those I know, and then people that have listened to this are gonna be like, well, you guys are like talking on both sides your mouth. I was like, well, no, it's. It's such as being realistic. This stuff is coming, this is coming, but we have to, we have to move cautiously. People that are around autonomous have to be aware that it's autonomous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they have to understand that. They have to understand how to be able to communicate with other drivers. There's things that we do, maybe subconsciously, to communicate with other drivers. You know, when you're on the road and you're sharing the road with another driver, you can look over at that lane and go this guy's doing something weird and you can back off and get away from them.
Speaker 4:Well, you know how to guys with lane sharing, absolutely.
Speaker 3:That's another great example. It's another great example the way that a group of motorcycle riders Communicate with each other just by positioning the bikes, just by the way that they're moving their hands and tilting their heads. These are things that we all understand and when you see it happen, you can understand that those communications are happening. How are those Interpersonal, vehicle to vehicle communications happening when one of the vehicles involved is autonomous?
Speaker 4:Well, and let's take it a step further California, who allows lane sharing? How does the autonomous vehicle predict? Nor understand that, hey, this motorcycle that is back there, he's gonna split the lane. Yeah, we've threw me in this traffic jam.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's a huge issue. That's a huge issue and and Unfortunately, we're not gonna find that out in a lab in a controlled environment. We're gonna find that out in the real world. It's gonna be again 10, 15 years from now. It's gonna be great. Between now and then there's gonna be some ugliness.
Speaker 4:I look forward to being able to get in my car, work on things about work while I'm commuting to the on the next office or job site or whatever I'm going to. I Look forward to that, but that is only gonna happen when I know I'm gonna get there and everything that I'm hauling with me is gonna get there without killing me Because this thing decides it's coming to a stop. Yeah. I don't even like it when Margaret drives exactly, and then everything becomes self-aware.
Speaker 3:It becomes self-aware. I swear, the minute my wife becomes self-aware, it's gonna be a problem.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right now, you got to write where you want her and I write your you want her.
Speaker 3:So you know it's funny. You made the comment a little while ago about how we are still in the early stages and it's just like what humans were learning how to drive the automobile and 100 years ago. And it occurred to me that there's a lot of stuff that surrounds the way that we drive and the way that we operate vehicles that we take totally for granted. That had to be invented by somebody and I looked this up and in 1917 Fully 20, some years after the invention of the automobile was the first time someone painted a centerline down a road. It was in Indio, california. It was Dr June McCarroll who started advocating for the use of Divided road after she was run off the road by a truck while driving on a highway that would later be incorporated into us. 99 so, sayeth the Wikipedia, wait this was 1917.
Speaker 3:Yes chain.
Speaker 4:Drive Mack truck. Get out of the way, lady, you got to move baby.
Speaker 3:Guarantee you that's what it was Some, some monster hay bale thing carrying 46 head of cattle. Yeah that's in along in her model a. You got to move, honey. Wonder what kind of doctor she was. You think she was a PhD or an MD? Definitely PhD, right Dentistry. Oh, listen to this, listen to this. Canada didn't have divided lines until 1930.
Speaker 4:Well no, because everybody drove on the right side of the road. Anyways, they could grab the syrup.
Speaker 3:Snatch it out of the maple tree exactly.
Speaker 4:I mean, they put maple on everything up there. They probably have maple roads.
Speaker 3:They probably didn't have maple roads. That's gonna be. It's like cut in a nape when the rich red, amber color is appearing through the sunlight.
Speaker 4:You know you're on the right side of the road. Stick to that, literally.
Speaker 2:It happens every year. The sun shines brighter, snow melts, trees stretch their limbs Away from the hustle. The aroma of sap fills the air, born from Waterloo region. This is Snyder Heritage Farms maple syrup.
Speaker 4:Soilant green. We're out of our soilant green. Come back tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Now soilant maple, fresh from the winters of Manitoba. It's still people, but they're all Canadians. It tastes very polite. Hmm, you can get it at Tim Hortons.
Speaker 4:Oh, what you need is Tim Hortons, but you got to put the 13 men of Tain in that. Tim Hortons coffee, what it's it's? Look it up, it's an alcohol drink. My brother gets bombed on it and paints. He paints the car, he paints whatever House car, kids, he's just putting it down. But let me tell you that's so shiny, what he's. Wow.
Speaker 3:Sixteen. So what is it? What is this?
Speaker 1:It's actually a single.
Speaker 3:Glenn Meranghi, I guess, is how you say that it's an Irish Scotch whiskey, single malt Scotch whiskey. How can he be a Scotch whiskey in Ireland? But I guess it is what it is. And yeah, this is apparently some kind of I end whiskey that they started distilling in 1843. And this is where he does all his weird scab labor, where he buys the crashed cars and then paints them in his garage. Well, did we use too much brake cleaner? Go outside. How many sons are there? Seven there is. He is just the right amount. Now, get in here and lay down this metal flake. This thing should look like a bass boat by the time we're done.
Speaker 4:Why is it? Thank, I'll tell you. I'll tell you a quick story. This is. This is about anybody that's ever worked on anything in their life my brother. My brother had a beater car that he drove to work every day. He loved it and it developed a hole in the rocker panel. He shows up at my dad's house and we're working in the shop on on something, some engine project, and and he pulls up and we're looking at this car. It's PR four, red, you know Chrysler's red. It's just deep, you know it looks gorgeous. It's all buffed out, except for the hole of the rocker panel. Well, now my dad goes man, you put a rocker panel on. That looks great.
Speaker 4:My brother leans back on the on the stool in the garage because he ain't working on nothing and he goes no, no, what's in a hardware store? And I got some spray foam and I started with that. It started pushing the rest of the rocker out. So I let all the rust bubble out, I shaved it all off of the rasp, I got my rotary file out and I wrote a, refiled all that back down. Then I got some bond on top of that and I let that cure for over two weeks and then he goes in. One night I was good, ripped and ready and I sprayed that thing in my garage with the fan on. He said he didn't even know what time it was when he was done doing all this work, but that thing come out looking like a fire truck. The fire department would be proud of this baby. Let me tell you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 4:It was exactly.
Speaker 3:That is exactly how I shaved the turn signals on my 73 Super Beetle.
Speaker 1:I don't even think.
Speaker 3:I had a fan. I might still be lying there underneath the car.
Speaker 4:You're going to wake up one day of this alternate reality and go. Oh, I better get to work.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm still in Florida. Oh boy, this is a problem here. That was before I met you. You might all be part of this hallucination.
Speaker 4:We could not be real.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that's about.
Speaker 4:That's all we had scripted right, that was the end of that scripted 10 minutes of material. Now we got this.
Speaker 3:Well, it's funny, you know, because you know, last week we had a nice hour long interview with Regal on over at Volvo C, volvo Construction, and that's over there. Clean tech talks my other show. But we had some snippets of it Segments that we clipped into it here. I don't know if it worked. I think it was all right, but it was relevant to what we were talking about. But one thing that we did special for this show I was talking to him about equipment gladiators, which was our idea of getting into heavy equipment and just murdering each other with equipment.
Speaker 3:And he had an interesting take on the vehicle that he would use in there. So we'll run that in just a second. But you know, we never, we never quite got you settled on a piece of equipment that you'd have in there.
Speaker 4:Well, if I was going to do that, I would. I would pull out the claws. Rotary silage harvester, that's what. That's what I would do. The what? Yeah, the claws, yeah, claas, or CL, yeah, claas. Oh, the farmers are going to kill me. Now, it's for, it's for, it's a silage chopper. So you got a four rotor head on it.
Speaker 3:Geez, yeah you would, yeah you would. So I looked this up. This is the the class Jaguar forage harvester. This thing has this particular one that I'm looking at has four main rotary heads and then it's got four smaller ones and it is just a whirling tornado of sharp tooth steel death.
Speaker 4:Anybody that's ever seen the movie Caligula. There's a scene in there where they're cutting the heads off the people that are buried in the ground. One of those rotors there's four of them on there is just like that scene.
Speaker 5:They spoke of it first in whispers, then it took the media by storm. I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the heavens. Although I have taken the form of Cias Caligula, I am a God. Bob Gucci and penthouse films international present. Caligula, you, amateur, amateur. No treachery could equal his evil. No evil was more treacherous. He's mad. Caligula, the emperor who devoured Rome. Croll, croll, croll. I hate them. Alvin McDowell, teresa and Savoy, helen Mirren, peter O'Toole, john Gilgood. No rumor can match the reality. Caligula rated R.
Speaker 3:I know a lot of people.
Speaker 4:You can't even breathe. You can't even breathe.
Speaker 3:A lot of people have seen Caligula. I don't think that was their takeaway.
Speaker 4:True.
Speaker 3:Of course, they probably didn't watch it when they were eight years old. It's like one of their core memories. I want a red rider, bb gun and Caligula. You're turning red. I don't know where to go with that man. There's no way we can put Ray on now, after Caligula, he'll be like I just own these guys and you know what.
Speaker 3:That's a good enough splice. We have an ongoing bit where we talk about a concept TV show. That's kind of like robot wars, but it's using heavy equipment with real people driving it. We're calling this equipment gladiators. It's all in good fun. So the question that I have you're in the arena, you're facing down all the other tractors from Kamatsu and everything else. What Volvo asset are you going to drive in equipment gladiators? Total nonsense and goofiness. This will not be on Clean Technica. You can decline to answer, but I'd love to know the answer.
Speaker 6:Right now. If it was tomorrow, I'd pick the problem. Oh, it's right now.
Speaker 3:You just, yeah, you're beamed into the space station and you got to pick a piece of equipment that you're going to engage in equipment gladiators with.
Speaker 6:So I, like I love the L20, l25 battery electric machine. The performance, the feel of those machines is fantastic. In the future I see a lot of promise in the hydrogen fuel cell articulated haulers. That one excites me. Now, I'm a technology nerd so you know that's part of my obsession with it is that technology is so cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, but then the accuracy and precision that you can get out of the, out of the electric excavators, that you really don't have with the hydraulic. I mean, if you're trying to like reach into the other guy's cab and just scoop him out, that's the way to do it.
Speaker 6:Yeah, for sure, and it will make even an operator like me look like a good operator.
Speaker 3:Ray, thank you for being a good sport. I hope I have your permission to use that clip. That was awesome, Great answer and obviously, if you're listening to this, go ahead over to clean tech talk. Check out Ray's series with us about Volvo construction equipment. There's zero emission, lower emission and how to get more carbon friendly. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4:Thank you the you know here's a serious question. Is vinyl comes back and we're? You know we're getting background. Everybody's into vinyl. Now you get used vinyl come up for sale. I was up at Lake Placid. There's a big store. I bought a whole bunch of vinyl up there. Everybody looks at me funny when you come walking out of there and you know, here's the thing I listen to all.
Speaker 3:Most people are buying the doors. You're over there buying, like you know, Johnny and the moonshines when you show up at the counter.
Speaker 4:Okay, you got ABBA, lester, scruggs, and, and then your other album is somebody that they didn't even know it was, so they stuck at the 50 cent bin, and then you're looking at it going oh my God, I can't believe I found this.
Speaker 3:Okay, All anchor is way underrated hey dancing on the moon, you know whatever.
Speaker 4:I'm telling you Walking hand in hand with the one I love so this is why we get along. This is my point is, is I? So I walk up to this counter up there at Lake Placid and I'm I'm putting the vinyl down there and the guy chuckles at what I have down on the counter and really cause.
Speaker 3:You're a big guy. That's a brave move.
Speaker 4:Yeah, cause it was a you know Tijuana brass and then it was no, seriously, this is what I got. It was Tijuana brass, they had Lester Scruggs, and then there was an ABBA one on there that was, like it says, played once, but whatever, yeah, and Julio Iglesias On the way. This is great, unopened, yeah, fantastic. And scored another Don Henley single release which they would send to radio stations to play one song, that back of its blank, wow. So I put those in my office. What I want to know is when these truck manufacturers are going to have album storage in the sleepers set up, cause I want to see that. I want to be able to put my LPs on while I'm cruising down the road and I want to be able to plug my Phono Jack right in the back.
Speaker 3:If you think about it, the electric ones, cause they they can hotel. Now you can hotel for 34 hours on some of these electric ones. They don't have to run the diesel Right, that's pretty smooth. You could probably listen to vinyl in those. So probably not while you're going down the road, but certainly in the back. That's what I'm saying Exactly. I think we're going to get a nice lot lizard in there here. Honey, you never heard this put on T want a brass? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:What's this?
Speaker 3:I ain't paying you to ask questions, honey.
Speaker 4:When you, when you, when you got to flip it over to the B sun, you go and get me another case. I'm not talking about tractors either, right?
Speaker 3:I think we're done for today. Well, we recorded about an hour, We'll. We'll edit this down to a tight 18 minutes.
Speaker 1:Tune in next week for more heavy equipment podcast on Spotify, apple podcasts, google wherever you find podcasts.