In this week's HEP-isode, the boys bare witness to a watershed moment in American labor history as the United Auto Workers plant a victory flag deep in the heart of the South at Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant, try to explain why everyone and their brother is putting a boom arm on their excavator, and ramble on like lunatics for a good 11 minutes. All this and the CIA's invisible purple paint, on HEP-isode 25!
In this week's HEP-isode, the boys bare witness to a watershed moment in American labor history as the United Auto Workers plant a victory flag deep in the heart of the South at Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant, try to explain why everyone and their brother is putting a boom arm on their excavator, and ramble on like lunatics for a good 11 minutes. All this and the CIA's invisible purple paint, on HEP-isode 25!
Let's go. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Heavy Equipment Podcast. Your host, Joe Boris, as ever with Mike Hot, Mike Schweitzer and Mike, is in the new office today.
Speaker 2:I've been in this office for a little bit, but I'm on the road this week trying to move around. So I'm in this office and then you know, we've got a lot of good topics. Today we're going to be talking about We've got the Chattanooga plant where the ID4 is made us. And then you know, we got a lot of good topics today we're going to be talking about we got, we got the chattanooga plant where the id4 is made. They're gonna. This is such a huge story yeah.
Speaker 1:so this is crazy. The uaw has put their little feelers into a number of these european and japanese plants have been opening up in the south and for years they really haven't gotten anywhere. This is actually the third vote that has happened at the Chattanooga plant and Volkswagen in particular has been accused of like union busting and different kinds of propaganda and stuff like that. And this most recent vote it passed, I think, 73% pass rate. There was a couple of people that didn't vote, so there's not like it was 73 to 27. It was like 73 to 22 based on like 5% abstaining, and that is a huge, huge victory. Now what's really interesting here is that this is kind of the first non-American brand to have a UAW chapter since Mitsubishi left the normal Illinois plant, the diamond star plant.
Speaker 2:Let's not talk about that faithfulateful day and our nation's mystery well, now, that's the ribion plant built. You know, I know that was sad I know it was horrible, but they had a massive strike down there. They did, yeah, massive strike so, but it was a six-week ordeal and then, you know, they voted in the right to unionize and hey what did they get a wage increase? Of what was their, what was their overall increase.
Speaker 1:They don't have a contract yet. What they're what they have is UAW representation. So it's believed that they're going to get something similar to what Ford and GM and those guys got as the current contract. Now that's going to be interesting for two reasons. Number one Volkswagen supposedly, according to them, have been paying union wages. We're going to see if that's true or not real quick. That's going to affect the pension funds, it's going to affect the insurance and the healthcare costs.
Speaker 1:But there's more to it than that, because if you look at some of these political climates in these southern states where Mercedes is building cars, where Volvo is building cars, where Nissan's been building cars for years, there are laws there that kind of try to limit union representation. Right, and there's going to be a number of votes that happen between May 13th and May 17th, so about a month from now, that's going to be about another 10,000 unionized auto workers. If they all vote UAW, if they all vote to accept that's going to be Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Nissan. That's 10,000 more members for the UAW in really strong anti-union states. That is a huge, huge win for labor. You know UAW President Fain. He's doing a great job. We talk about the Teamsters a lot on this show, I think, because they are kind of, I think, a little more visible. They're kind of funnier, you know, like the Teamsters president guy trying to get in a fight with people on the Senate floor. Good for him.
Speaker 3:Quit the tough guy act and the Senate hearings. You know where to find me Any place, any time. Cowboy Sir, this is a time, this is a place If you want to run your mouth. We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's fine Perfect.
Speaker 3:You want to do it now? I'd love to do it right now. Well, stand your butt up, then you. Okay, that's fine, perfect. You want to do it now?
Speaker 1:I'd love to do it right now.
Speaker 3:Well, stand your butt up then.
Speaker 1:You stand your butt up. Oh, hold on, oh stop. It Is that your solution? But you know, Fane is very quiet, but he's getting the job done. He's expanding the UAW in a way that we haven't really seen since the 60s and 70s, Certainly not in our lifetime.
Speaker 2:Well, and back when it expanded, back then they needed it to. Yeah, the big three were. They were doing all kinds of different things cost strategies and all kinds of stuff to make themselves competitive and they needed the unions to step up again and become more prevalent, because they needed better wages. They were going to lose people. You know, they'd come out of the era of the fifties where you had people showing up to work that were prideful in what they were building not that they weren't in the 60s and 70s, but the mission was different and the volume was different. Then the volume ramps up, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Then people forget this too. You know, in the 50s and or in and through the 60s, these cars are relatively hand-built. Then it's more physical, but it was at a slower pace, right, you can only move so much handmade stuff. You know, yeah, they had some robotic-type manually-driven welding equipment back then and things of that nature. But through the 70s the efficiency of the plants ramped up. So you get all these workers working side-by-side moving at a ridiculous pace for the first time in history. Then we get into the 80s. The Japanese start moving in, they start revolutionizing how they make vehicles and they start looking at how they can take the efficiencies and push them even further. So they were cranking out. The movies were made about this.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was one of the best ones.
Speaker 3:Hey, today is the big day. Give him hell boy. Hey, I'll give it to him. We're counting on you. Hey, mrs Brian, yeah, this face is on the case. Hun Stevenson invited the Japanese. You know, my dad was over here with the army and I guess it was 1940. Hey, did you decorate this place yourself to put his town back to work? Welcome to your first day with the San Motus. Now everything is on his shoulders. Let's do it, and do it our way. I thought it handled great, and it's all in the hands of Ron Howard, the director of Splash and Cocoon. This is great. What could possibly go wrong? Good question, let's go find out. We must be a team. In Japan, our goal is 0% of defense. How'd you slip by? Everyone's thinking only of company. See, we have our own way of making cars. This is Looney Tunes, looney Tunes. I've heard a lot of talk about how good the Japanese businessmen are. Oh, I'm sorry, I don't get it. I don't see it. I'm not impressed. You're fired, he's coming. I can't stand it anymore. Safety glass you failed.
Speaker 2:I can't stand it anymore.
Speaker 3:Saves you glass, you fiend. They're closing down the factory and going back to Japan. I'm calling all the guys and we're coming over to get you. Oh, stop, calm yourself. At least take off your watch. I would love another chance. I know we could do better. Can we do it? Can we do it? Can we do it to do better? Can we do it? Can we do it? Can we do it? Paramount Pictures presents. I came to tell you you were great tonight. I was really proud of you. Michael Keaton Whoa, yikes, whoops In a Ron Howard production. Is it just me or do you hate the way your shorts feel when they get wet? I actually kind of like it Really. Hey, gung-ho, that's all folks.
Speaker 2:Well, but there was a lot of truth to that, because they had Toyota at the time. They had Honda was big and they were showing people how to make cars. They're like, look, if you do it this way, you're going to put out some automobiles, yeah, and all these things ramped up into the 90s and then all the way into the 2000s. Now we have. Now we're putting out stuff at an enormous pace.
Speaker 1:So they're putting out vehicles now with technology, with wiring harness, with connectors that not only would have been unheard of a generation ago but wouldn't have even been possible. They'd look at you like you were beaming this stuff in from Area 51. And it's just stuff that just comes on cars now. Night vision goggles I don't know if you remember this. It was like early 2000s. They had to do a stop sale for those early night vision cadillac deville called dts, because these foreign governments were buying them and putting that night vision stuff on their, you know, on their war machines in the middle east.
Speaker 2:It was a problem, so yeah, ahead of their time, way ahead of their time, I mean. But you had to get out of the country club.
Speaker 2:He got brought down on his brand new dts and he thought he was running apache helicopter home he's got yeah, he's got the flat brim hat, you know, with the rope on top of it, and he's just running away and golf clubs are all over the back of the car and every time he makes a turn, all them golf balls slap the left side of the car. He thought he was taking on enemy fire there's charlie's in the trees oh yeah, oh yeah yeah all you did do it.
Speaker 2:All you needed was the you know, the uh older neighbor that we used to be an ex-door gunner, rolling the window down and trying to fight somebody with a nine iron oh my god and it all starts with the night vision.
Speaker 1:It all starts with the night vision. It all starts with the night vision. You hear the golf balls. All of a sudden, your old man starts into. Let me tell you about this time.
Speaker 2:I was stationed in cambodia oh, jesus, and if you had that on a dozer you know you have that on a d9 some old tank commander would go just have flashbacks and freak out didn't.
Speaker 1:Uh, what was that guy's name? Haymeyer nemeyer, the guy that went crazy up there in gramby the killdozer, yeah, the killdozer, if he is. That guy had night vision. We never would have heard of him for another two days you know what?
Speaker 2:somebody ought to gave uh, that concrete contractor a bonus because when he got that thing hung up on whatever concrete they made that out of for that barrier wall, that's the only reason they stopped that thing. Yeah, I'll tell you something. They should have lined up in front of that concrete plant. He was the savior of the town. He was going to take everybody out and a barrier wall took him out because some 6 000 psi mix. It shouldn't have been in there.
Speaker 2:But they said ship it anyways, saved everybody in that town generations from now, they should be kissing the concrete that kept all those people alive oh, it's so funny man that's a spin on that.
Speaker 1:No one's heard before that is a spin on that that no one's heard. Well, maybe the one guy who's like I told you that bollards was the way to go.
Speaker 2:That'll keep back anything when that was going on and the choppers were flying around that thing. They're all ribbing each other in the control room going till he gets hung up on that.
Speaker 1:They're waiting for it. It's like I know what's in there, we're going to be fine. He's standing on the other side of it Like bring it on over here, ed.
Speaker 2:That's right Well all right, they're yelling at me.
Speaker 1:We got to get away. So I gotta ask you this man you're, you're in this field, you're in the uh construction space. You buy a ton of equipment. I always wonder when I start to see like this kind of uh convergence of design from these major equipment manufacturers, I always wonder if there's something to that on the purchasing side that's driving that. So this week Volvo, ce, caterpillar and Hitachi have all made updates to their excavators and they are now offering a straight boom for demolition. Now, these are all three companies that did not have a straight boom last year and all three of them, as of this week, have a straight boom Volvo on the EC500, caterpillar on the 330, and Hitachi's updated the Zaxxis 5. So tell me what's going on, man. There's got to be something happening where all these companies decided 2024, this is going to be the year we do this.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, the straight boom is nothing new, okay.
Speaker 1:Been around for years.
Speaker 3:Demolition.
Speaker 2:They had to go out and outsource them. You know, young and before that, you had a bunch of guys, pure, specific and jewel, before they got bought up and dismantled. They all made these things and you had to go out and buy them. I'm glad to see that the, the oems, come out and said, hey look, rather than us go out and buy these things and hand, put them on our own thing and put the dealer through an upfit and all that, let's just offer them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anytime you can get anything from the oem, it fixes a bunch of problems. One it's in's in their parts catalog. So all the little fittings and lines and hose changes and all the bracketry and all the intricacies of that particular part that when you break it, damage it or have to repair it, you can go to the dealer and support it. There's nothing worse, nothing on this planet worse than calling when you tear something up or break it to the upfitter and the guy goes, oh, geez, oh, I don't know, yeah, a long time ago. And you're like, yeah, I know it was probably about a few years ago, yeah, I don't know if we still got the drawings for that. And in your heart sinks cause you're like, oh for that. And your heart sinks because you're like, oh, this thing's broken, smoking on a job site and I gotta get this back up and running. So these guys are looking for the blueprints.
Speaker 2:I am so glad to see the oems do it and I think you're going to see more and more of this, even if they're outsourcing the actual fabrication. The boom to start with, it is integrated into their part system and that's the bigger thing. You can buy whatever you want. It's keeping it running. That's we talk about all the time. You have mining equipment and you've got all this stuff. How you support that and how you keep it running is what's important.
Speaker 1:It's great for the first week yeah, and you know it's funny, we talk about this on the tuner side of things. When you and I first met, we were doing, you know, performance cars, aftermarket performance tuning. We always talked about trying to avoid a franken car because you got turbos from one guy, intercoolers from another guy, software from a third guy, and then when it don't work right, they all start pointing the finger at each other. Meanwhile you're sitting there on the side of the road with nobody, you know, with no vehicle, right.
Speaker 2:It crosses all industries it's the same crosses all industries. It's the same across all industries.
Speaker 1:Caterpillar actually references that in their press release. It's actually almost all about the simplified maintenance and operational schedule of these demolition excavators, Now that it's part of the OEM catalog and they actually give a number here. They say lowering long term owning and operating costs. A number here. They say lowering long-term owning and operating costs. All filters are now feature extended, synchronized thousand-hour change intervals, grouped together long-life oil air filters. They talk about remote troubleshoot, which is their that's what they call their remote diagnostic the ability to get fault codes without interrupting the production cycle and without having to bring it into a dealer. So, like half the press release about this thing is all about how this is going to simplify maintenance and enable, you know, easier ordering and more uptime. So I think that's definitely good stuff.
Speaker 2:They're working heavily for the industry to get to the longer uptime, longer service intervals yeah, and we've been through this before and we've looked at these when people went from 250 hours to 500, there's some 700 hour interval stuff out there. People are leery of it. All comes back. We have to remember it's what you're using it for.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you're in a corrosive, nasty environment like a sulfur mine, that thousand hour window, that's not going to work yeah if you're in you know prairie country and you're out there with all them sod busters and you're pushing out all kinds of stuff that lasts because you're not. You just don't have the elements out there tearing it up chemically yeah, I keep going back to that phosphate guy in florida just sitting on all that dirt and sand for a hundred years.
Speaker 1:And now he's got, you know, the hot ev battery mix.
Speaker 2:He's so happy right now, you know. But yeah, so a lot of that maintenance related type stuff is all.
Speaker 1:It's all still situational yeah, it's just funny, like I think that you know you look at the big trends at least that I'm seeing in the press releases that are coming out from the manufacturers. Number one, obviously you hit the nail on the head. It's about getting longer service intervals. It's about getting more dependable, easier to work on stuff that's going to help all the way down the line, because the dealers don't have enough people to service these things anyway. So the ability to push that all out is going to buy them some time to either staff up or come up with something that's more dependable. It's not going to break as much.
Speaker 1:The other thing is this kind of bringing in house of what used to be aftermarket upfitter type options. Volvo company in Sweden owned by the Chinese, they're building this in Korea out of their production facility in Korea. So this is something that's going to be global. This is a global type product that is going to take business, obviously, away from the upfitters, away from the dealers, but I think it's going to be in the long run, good for fleets. And the last thing that I think is the other big trend is kind of moving towards this remote operation. There's a couple of things that I wanted to talk about this week. But I thought now we've got enough on our plate. But everything seems to be going remote operation, even the Caterpillar. You're operating a 30-ton excavator remote. You don't have a guy in the cab. You've got a guy 100 feet away and maybe you can operate down the road five, 10 years. Maybe one guy is operating two or three machines at once with the software that's in there.
Speaker 2:Well, definitely with the demolition industry, the mining industry. Not the demolitions repetitive like mining, but anything you can do to remove people out of harm's way for a demolition application. That's going to be useful and people are going to need that. The remote part of it is going to be really cool and I think it's only going to get better and better. It's going to get the customer buy-in because on many levels you have the ownership buy-in of the customer. So the owner-level group of a contractor or a fleet or whatever you want to look at it from.
Speaker 2:Whichever way they go, this is great, but the people that use it, implement it and manage it, they're like I don't know about this. The 50 other things you brought me said we're great, we're not. Now is this going to be good or is it going to be a giant flop? And then, 90 days from now, it's not going to go well. A year from now you're going to be starting to yell at me and two years from then, we're going back to the way we did it before and it was just a big learning curve.
Speaker 2:And that's real on many levels. It's just like the electric equipment. It's just like the hydrogen that's coming up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I know Biff is really upset because we talk. So much about electric Biff, don't like it. No, no, he gets all upset. He's like yeah, let's talk about heavy, heavy equipment, but the heaviest equipment in the world is powered by electric.
Speaker 1:That's that 300-ton Liebherr crane thing. There's another one right now. There's a giant shovel.
Speaker 2:It has its own substation. It has its own substation, so Biff, Biff, get with it. This is what we're going to be talking about. He's banging on the glass. He's always banging on the glass. It's like I'm watching the monkeys at the zoo. They're all throwing stuff at me. They're one step away from I think.
Speaker 1:I think when that happens, not if, but when that happens, then we'll switch over. That'll be the first episode we put on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah for sure. Yeah, exactly, you know. Listen, the day I got to do a podcast surrounding myself and chicken wire, because I got stuff being thrown at me and I need a good safety net.
Speaker 1:Oh, like the original Roadhouse.
Speaker 2:I've ever been amped up.
Speaker 1:Exactly, oh, like the blind guy.
Speaker 3:They're just throwing bottles at it. One, two, three Escort this gentleman to the door, come on.
Speaker 1:Did you see that shit? Yeah, who is that?
Speaker 3:guy. He's good, he's real good. The name is Dolan.
Speaker 1:He's just playing his blues, it's a great scene.
Speaker 2:You know that guy died. The guy died from an overdose. No, I didn't know that he could play, though he was really good play the blind guy was. Those are real, you know. He was a good artist, but then he but he passed away, you know. So you know, if I don't know what biff wants to talk about, are we going to talk about mexico and what's made down there?
Speaker 1:is that what you boys like, mexico?
Speaker 2:yeah, exactly, I think that's what he wants, you know, yeah well, we could do that.
Speaker 1:You know it was, uh, it was interesting. So this is that big peterbilt. So peterbilt's got a fleet of these class 8 heavy duty electrics and they're running them out of the port of long beach and port of la and the just this past week actually last friday the first ever transnational electric freight run is this is a standard freight run. They were calling stuff through went from san diego to tijuana, mexico. That's the happiest place on earth, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, if you like dogs, if you like ponies. The baja.
Speaker 2:It is, yeah, that's. Uh. Yeah, well, jc ventura's down there.
Speaker 1:They got fish tacos they do indeed baja style, one might say you know?
Speaker 2:I mean, maybe they're gonna paint these uh all electric class a trucks that uh secret cia mauve color that no one can see because it's so plainly put right in front of them. I don't know about this. What are you talking about? The listeners need to look this up. Jesse ventura goes on a rant about this. It's and I and I'm being serious the cia made a color mauve that is so plainly seen by the naked eye that it becomes invisible at some point. I started reading about this and, and he goes on, he goes on talking about this. We got, we got to get him on here, we got to get the former governor of minnesota on the podcast, because he's got good points about stuff and I'm curious about his heavy equipment, his heavy equipment occupant.
Speaker 1:So apparently so I'm, I'm gonna be on some kind of list. So I I've looked this up. Apparently you're not hallucinating and it is oh, this is the thing.
Speaker 2:You guys think I'm always on drugs or drunk, but I'm telling you I don't. I always pull this. You guys think I pull this stuff out of thin air and I'm telling you it's real so you can buy this stuff.
Speaker 1:It's bare gladiola uh.
Speaker 2:Mq459 is the paint code wow I'm gonna do my house in this the neighborhood kids will just run right into it like birds into the window.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly what was that?
Speaker 1:scene. Uh, that was the, the birds with tippy hedron where they all start just like wanging themselves into the window yeah, yeah, exactly, they were killing people and yeah, alfred hitchcock. Yeah, that's a good one. You know, I'd say we should refilm that in ohio. But those cr. You don't need a hundred of those things to be scary. Just one of them chasing you is bad.
Speaker 2:Those crows are nasty.
Speaker 3:My deal is feeding them pancakes for years.
Speaker 2:You know what, when a crow flies down out of the trees and he's got ears of corn and he's asking you to boil them because he'll be back later, you just drop them on your deck. Yeah, that's when you got problems. Oh, absolutely. I thought he was on acid for quite a long time and then one day the thing showed up with a fork, syrup and a knife and some butter like oh my god, a little bib on him. Like yeah, exactly yeah, he took it from a baby.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was wondering about that. I remember him telling me about that. He's talking to me about how he had these crows trained and that they were trained so good that every sunday morning at 8 am they'd go outside and start calling for him to bring them pancakes. And I was like, are you sure you're the one who has them trained? Because, uh, I hate to be this guy no, they, yeah, yeah, they had.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you I have never seen anything weird like that. But the truth is is when you feed something and you start throwing you know old bread and stuff out and things realize it's going to be out there, they're coming back that's how you ended up with me.
Speaker 1:What that's that's what it is.
Speaker 2:It's like a cat, right. I threw it some hot dogs and some pizza and he never went away that's it.
Speaker 1:You and I met at that table, at lorenzo's, in that big meeting with your brother. And then I was, and you were like here, have some breadsticks. You haven't gotten rid of me since it's been 15 years, I know well, this one gives me breadsticks.
Speaker 2:I'll be back tomorrow, you know getting back to the podcast Uh-oh, no, seriously, we're going to call somebody. We're going to get somebody on the phone to talk about the current telematics needs and what's being done. We have the guy. You know who you are. I have just the guy. You need to come know who you are. I have just the guy. You need to come on the show I have just the guy for this.
Speaker 1:You're gonna think I'm insane. Dj steve schwinke is the absolute guy for this. I'm gonna give you a rundown this guy's resume. He was the og developer of the onstar satellite network and telematics for general motors in the 90s, and now he's a dj oh yeah, we got to get him on here with ethan.
Speaker 2:He's the originator and ethan's peddling what is now the 30 years later, of his becoming we'll do a uh, we'll do our first ever hep conference call.
Speaker 1:That'll be a good one I think that'll be awesome actually we'll need a moderator and an attorney.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, there'll be a lot of, there'll be a lot of mic muting where they're gonna be like you can't say that they're gonna think we're just all over there like running hezbollah or something beep you know it's gonna be a good one yeah we're speaking of uh, speaking of having an attorney on retainer.
Speaker 2:You're on your way to las vegas next week actually tomorrow, tomorrow I fly out early in the morning, I'm packing a bag, I'm leaving. Actually it's just a quick, uh quick trip about introducing ev to your fleet and what some of the charging looks like, what some of the costs look like practical, what may not be practical with today's offerings, and that's the key thing that everybody is looking at what do they have offered today? I know there's so much on the horizon, there's so much technology coming off. Look at where we were three years ago. Look at where we are today.
Speaker 1:Look at a year ago. Like a year ago, we were talking about man. Wouldn't it be cool to have 500 kilowatt charging?
Speaker 2:And Biff just went home. He literally flipped me off and walked out of the booth.
Speaker 1:He's got a Tesla, why is? He leaving now. I know I know, know, I'm sick of this electric stuff. Tesla, drive me home, that's exactly what he's doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah tire noise he complained to me the other day. He was going down the road and a big truck passed him. He's like these older trucks, I don't know why they're still on the road. It passed me and I could even hear the radio anymore and I was like and you're the one that wants to talk about heavy, heavy, heavy iron metal clanking non-stop, which is great until you're a special foundry episode for him the steel equipment of the 1800s.
Speaker 1:Dad, why did you bring me to a gay steel mill? I don't know, son I got nothing.
Speaker 2:I got nothing that's the best simpsons ever, oh my God.
Speaker 1:Lisa needs braces. That was when the Chattanooga vote was happening. I kept texting you Lisa needs braces.
Speaker 2:Lisa needs braces. I'm like, what are you talking about? Your daughter's name isn't Lisa. I'm like, I'm so lost.
Speaker 1:This is a good one, all right, I think we're done. Thanks for listening. This is a good one, all right, I think we're done.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening. This is a short one. We keep going. I can talk about other colors. The CIA developed.
Speaker 1:I'm done.