Hotels, Compact Pickups, and Self-driving Semis

On today's exciting HEP-isode, the boys try to figure out what that chair in the hotel room is for and get sidetracked by old Builder's Square flashbacks while Mike gets worked up about the proliferation of dually pickups and Jo sits down with Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli to talk about their new Amazon deal, L4 autonomous semi trucks, and the company's billion dollar IPO.

Transcript

Road Life And Hotel Room Layouts

SPEAKER_03 0:00

So tell me, Michael, as we wind down, catch up from last week's trade show activities, get uh back up to speed. How's life in the alcove?

SPEAKER_04 0:12

Let me tell you, I mean, we've been on the road like hardcore for a while now. I have a question. So when you stay at Marion Hotels and they have the whole business desk and all that stuff in there, why do you sit in a chair and face the bed from the desk? I think there's a whole multitasking thing there that is completely underrated.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

That's uh that's a streaming technology, that's a feature for all of our uh internet content creators out there. I will say this exactly what this is for. That's exactly what it's for.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

They have embraced OnlyFans and they have embraced all the other platforms of which people can go on there and make money, and they knew we've got to provide a safe space. We gotta shout out the hotels for this because they provide a safe space for all those weary business travelers that also are internet content creators and need a place to do it without judgment.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

So listen, that's all horrific, and we should probably edit it out, but we're not going to. I gotta tell you, the hotel room I was staying at at the ACT Expo was not only one of the like top two or three hotel rooms I've ever stayed in, but it was a really strange scenario where I could shift a sliding door and I could either close off the bathroom from the bedroom or I could open it thusly and expose the bathtub and shower to great layout. It is a great layout, but I mean ironically, on the other side of the bed, facing both the bed and the shower was also like a workstation desk scenario. So it rings true at the highest level.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

I'm gonna I also have to, you know, add some creativity content here because there was a guy when I was standing not too long ago at a um, I believe it was a they got a nice kitchen and all that stuff. They have the adjoining door that I like those, yeah. Yeah, so if you got groups or whatever, you can open the doors up and all that. It was the round industrial environment, and um, there was a whole bunch of people parked out there from a certain tool vendor for an industrial space. And um throughout the night, I heard repeatedly this guy must have picked some girl up that was oblivious to the industry. Because anybody in this industry, you can't yell over and over again and not understand that this guy totally ripped the name off and said, sure, that's me. We will have to edit that out because all over us.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

No, we just beep it.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Yeah, because she continuously screamed that over and over again, and you could honest to god tell that that guy used that as his name.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Well, you know, that's like the old joke. I'm always frank and earnest with women in New York, I'm Frank, in Chicago, I'm Ernest.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

That's a good one. I've not heard that one yet.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Oh, really? Oh, that's a classic.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

I have not heard that one yet.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Well, now you have, and speaking of things that you have definitely heard of, I want to revisit something that we talked about a couple weeks back when we're talking about how fleets have kind of lost their identity. People are buying these, you know, cookie-cutter, refrigerator, white daycab units, and they're not putting in the expense of going green or brown and all of that. And we talked about Amazon and how they are one of the few fleets that are out there that are putting in real effort to stand out, to identify and brand their fleets. And that kind of leads into our guest interview today. We've got Ruse Bay Charlie, he's the CEO of Enride, which is a big multinational fleet that just signed a huge contract to handle all of Amazon's like middle mile deliveries from you know warehouse to hub. But before we get into that, I

Thin Walls And Trade Show Tales

SPEAKER_03 4:05

think we want to talk a little bit about just how much of the logistics aspect of getting stuff from A to B, Amazon has kind of taken on. And that's kind of the thing. I was having another conversation with somebody about Sears should have been Amazon, like Sears totally missed the boat and internet and delivery. They kind of were, but they didn't have the internet back then. Yeah, but they didn't control the mail. And that's the difference between Amazon, where they are the ones who are putting it in a box, they're putting it on an Amazon plane, it's landing at an Amazon terminal, it's getting picked up by an Amazon truck, it's going to an Amazon port, it's going to an Amazon distribution center into an Amazon van to an Amazon driver to your porch. No, that makes it control the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

And back then, all you got was a call from the local loading dock that Pulaski called you and said that there were, you know, your stuff had arrived in a giant ass crate.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

That's exactly right. You didn't even have tracking.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

Or he called and told you that there was a giant bear at Pulaski's candy store. But it it yeah, it was it was this thing, and it just showed up from Sears and Robuck Company, whether it was a you know a home that came in on several rail cars or whatever it might be. That's a good point. They they didn't control Sears, didn't have their own trains, loading docks, trading facilities, and all that stuff. They did create some stuff, but they didn't. And actually, now that I think about that, I wonder if Sears and Robuck actually made those parts for the homes or if they were just reselling them. Somebody's got to be able to message us on this and figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

We don't need that. I used to work for Sears in college, so I can tell you the answer that. Oh, because Joe's a hundred years old. Joe is a hundred years old, and you ain't too far behind, my friend.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

If you're sitting here listening to this on your ham radio, signing off at night with your do do do do do do, trust in what I'm gonna tell you. This was a this used to be a big deal. This was in the management training for Sears way back in the 90s. They had their modern homes catalog, and they actually had their own lumber mill, their own processing where they would make the doors, window frames, all that stuff. And it was in Cairo, Illinois. Interesting. So a lot of those homes are still standing. That's the thing that blows people's mind. They were great homes, they were built with old Northwoods lumber, they were solid.

SPEAKER_04 6:34

Any towns that were founded around 1870, 1860 were or become something more than just a stopping post by the 1920s when the Sears and Robuck homes were coming out. You can go down to those towns and find one, they're still there. Oh, yeah, at least one per town is still up and standing. Yes, but back to how this ties into uh said shipping and distributing company.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Well, you wanted to talk about Rivian, too.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

Well, the Rivian is a whole thing. I mean, Rivian is unlike anything else because, in a sense, it's an electric vehicle, it's an electric van. Its story, though, is pretty unique, right? So that you know, here you got a company that these guys built, Amazon invested in it, helped get it off the ground. They created a basically a car line to also sell stuff to. Then they turn around and they're like, Well, you know, we got Amazon now, we got our car line now, we're doing all this, and they're great, it's a great product. They're great cars. And I think that the van line, they have proven that that van line is very robust. You cannot drive those vans as much as they are driven. Constant recharge cycles, constant cycling of different drivers into different vans, depending on which company is contracted to do that for Amazon or if they own it. You

Why Amazon Controls The Whole Chain

SPEAKER_04 7:55

can't do that without a quality product. Now, I did see though that there was some Senate, was it Senate congressional hearings on Amazon's practices with subcontractors and whether or not they were actual employees. Did you see this?

SPEAKER_03 8:10

I did see that. Now, the difference there seems to be that a lot of those guys, and this is another great product that we don't talk about enough. A lot of those companies that are the sub-vendors where they have like a it'll be a company that has 40 or 50 vans and they will let out to Amazon and they do that, I think. Number one to avoid adding to their headcount, to avoid having like long-term kind of employee commitments.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

Well, sometimes that for years, forever. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Well, and Amazon is picking that up in states that have, let's say, robust union protections and that have a lot of employee protections. They go to this contractor model to avoid a lot of that, but you don't see the Rivian vans there. What you see is the Ram Pro Master, often electric, often electric, but of the big three, the ProMaster is the only one that has that step door body and that roll-up rear door, that that Roladdin roll-up kind of scenario as a standard factory feature. You can get it, you can get it on an e transit, you can get it on you know what used to be the GM Bright Drop and some of the others, but from the Pro Master, you can get that from the RAM factory.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

Google it. That's a good point. Well, I just saw them at uh War Truck NTEA. Yeah, and you know, at NTEA they had a great display and they had all this RAM stuff there, but that's interesting. Point about that.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Yeah, it's a overlooked feature.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

So primarily though, Amazon owns most of those Rivian vans.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

They've got something like 40,000 in service right now, and they have a standing order, the first hundred thousand of those, and they will be deployed by by 2030. That's incredible. Yeah, that's a hundred thousand vans. And this is something that's really interesting, right? Because Amazon invested in this company for whatever reason, right? Whether it was because you know Elon had money and Bezos had money, and they were doing some kind of pissing contest with one another. I think that has something to do with it. But I think more to the point, once Rivian started taking off and started becoming a real thing, it was no longer economically feasible or viable, right? For whatever reason, for Bezos and friends to say, this is just our product now. Right. Ford was involved, VW's involved, these are big money players. But when you now look at Amazon's take on the marketplace, on the on the kind of the global marketplace, they have seen an opportunity at the low end of the market to introduce an affordable, practical vehicle, kind of like the old Chevy S10s and Ford Rangers and Nissan hard bodies, and that's the slate. And I think that thing is super cool.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

Well, slate's amazing. I mean, I grew up with the 1980s Nissan pickup trucks and the Toyota pickup trucks, and we owned them and we used them for everything. And I can tell you that it's funny because we we grew up utilizing the Ford Ranger standard cap, the Toyota, the Nissan pickup truck. Way back when that was a short bed, the Chevy Love. That was a Chevy Love. That was a shortbed small engine pickup truck, and that thing it did almost what anybody needed it to do. If you were living in suburbia back then and you needed a pickup truck and you had to move, that's what you used. You didn't need the giant F 350 Denali GMC crew cab coming in there, and then y'all everybody jumps out and they're running all over while the forklift operator's trying to put three bags of mulch in the back of the thing. That's what I'm saying is make you unload the kids' bus right there, and the guy's trying to load. We back then we were smarter, we didn't have to load up the whole family to run and go get three bags of mulch. We took our niece on over there, threw the three bags in the back, and two guys went to lunch or whatever they were doing afterwards, stopped at Builders Square, filled up the rest of the truck, and made it back home and backed into the ditch and unloaded it all into the street, and then went about the rest of their day. You know why? Because it was efficient. We didn't need all these giant ass trucks. This stuff drives me nuts. You pull into a Home Depot anywhere in the Midwest that's semi-rural, anywhere out west in western states, it's like you pulled

Rivian Vans And The Contractor Model

SPEAKER_04 12:35

into a TA. These guys are out there with giant trucks, pickup trucks, and all this stuff, nuts hanging from the bottom of them. I'm all for big trucks and big power, but use it when you need it. If you don't need it, don't own it.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

No, that's a great point. Two things, obviously. Number one, Builder Square. Today's kids have no idea what they're missing out on. We're gonna run that commercial immediately.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Well, there's a small touch-up or a weekend project. If you take the time to paint it, you've got the time to protect it too. How? With Rustolium. Buy it now at Builder Square and get the best price. Guaranteed. You can choose from a wide range of colors, too. Remember, nothing beats rust like Rustolium, and nobody beats a Builder Square deal.

unknown 13:21

All right.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Yeah, you did. As soon as you said it, you started making the face of like, oh, I got him. He's excited now. Builder Square was awesome. All right. It was awesome. That was the best place. Second, the other part of this that I think you're hitting on without hitting on it is that those buildings are.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Oh, I hit on it when I need to.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

All right. Listen, this is serious. Lock in.

SPEAKER_04 13:47

Well, it's hard. You keep bringing up all the bean pounding scenarios. And to the farmers that are out there, no, this is a pounding scenario.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

Trust me.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

You guys need to you need to be blessed with as many soy bean pounding sessions as you could possibly have.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

When you at one point could reasonably work with your hands, work as a landscaper, construction, whatever it was. You were out there, and on a Friday night, you got your paycheck, you could go home, put on a clean pair of jeans, a nice shirt, hose off your truck, and go pick up a girl and go dancing and go to the bar, whatever. You can't do that today because those trucks are completely unaffordable to any kind of working man. The closest thing you got is a certified pre-owned right at the edge of warranty that maybe you could stretch out to a six or seven year loan and pray to God that you're still employed that long. And then you don't have any jingle left in your pocket to go get a beer because a beer is $14. Well, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_04 14:52

You don't need to be making a $14, you don't need a $1,400 a month truck payment. Most people do not need that.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

No, you know what the slate's gonna sell for? $25,000 for a regular cab pickup truck, bare bones, air conditioning, any lock brakes, just A to B basic transportation. How many times have you heard someone say in the last couple of years, I don't want automatic stopping, I don't need all these cameras, I don't need it to drive itself, I don't need Dolby surround sound or cruise control or any of these features that I got to pay a subscription for. I would pay more for something bare bones basic that I could work on myself. Here you've got something bare bones and basic, and you don't have to pay more.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

You pay off the work on it either. It's electric, you plug the thing in. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

But if you need to replace a panel, if you need to replace a panel, you need to change out a headlight, it's all exposed screws. You can swap out a headlight in minutes.

SPEAKER_04 15:53

Listen, this is exactly what we talked about. You we need sustainable vehicles that are affordable to those that are working to get them. That's it. 30 years ago, if you had a dually pickup truck, you damn sure had a need for that. Yes, they weren't just rolling around, it was big when you pulled in with one because people are like, What the hell are you doing with that? And I because we towed all the time, we had them, but when you pulled into Home Depot with that and you were like buying a ladder and used your dually to go pick up a ladder, people looked at you, they're like, The hell's wrong with you. Yeah, we need to get back to that.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

As a country, we were better off if you were an accountant, you were working behind a desk, if you had a pickup truck, it was weird.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

Yes, because otherwise you drove a four-door or two-door car that made sense for you to take it back and forth to work, even if it was a little cool, like a 300 ZX.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Yeah, those 80s 300 ZXs were so cool.

SPEAKER_04 16:50

That's what I'm saying. Like, even if you were T tops, yeah. If you were hot shit, you had a little 300 ZX, you would drive that to work, you would drive that back. Was it practical all the time? Absolutely not. But you didn't have five cars, you weren't sitting there with your car loan porness trying to figure out how to juggle two car payments, all uh rent, and all the other stuff. Not to mention trying to date anybody. Because let me tell you something right now: a woman is not gonna want to go to dinner with a guy who has all this flashy crap, but looks at her like he can't figure out how to pay this bill when he gets it. That's a moonshot never happening, buddy.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

I it is so wild to look at how these things have changed. Damn right. I was talking to somebody, I think I might have even been talking to you about this. I looked up an old apartment I had when I was in college, and I was in college, and this was like $800 a month. This is 25 plus years ago, so that was a pricey, that was a nice apartment. But you know, you got a roommate, you split it, you make it work, and it included all the utilities and everything else.

Affordable Vehicles And The Cost Crunch

SPEAKER_03 17:55

That same apartment today is sixteen hundred dollars with no utilities. I don't know how people pay for it, that's a mortgage.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

I don't know. All I know is my first rent that I ever paid was $825 a month, and that was a lot. Just an extreme disconnect anymore when you have all these these metro cities. People want to live downtown, and going downtown is great, but downtown costs you $2,200 for a single bedroom.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

Yeah, if you're able to live anywhere that's nice with a pool. No, and if you do the math on a 30-year note, $2,200 a month, that's almost that's $800,000. How are you supposed to get a starter apartment for the same price as a luxury home?

SPEAKER_04 18:36

Here's the thing if you're gonna spend that much on a home, you might as well go buy a home that's gonna work for you and make you money, and go get yourself a brand new 589 Peter belt and put that baby on the road.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

Listen, man, you get one of them big old trucks, lease it out to somebody like a big Uber, you're all set. Have a fleet of those things. What was that thing that um Elon? It's been years and years now since it happened, but I think it was about eight or nine years ago that Elon was saying that everybody who buys a Tesla is gonna buy a robo taxi and it can go out and pay for itself while you sleep, come home and plug itself in.

SPEAKER_04 19:11

We've talked about this.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

We have.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

Listen, and I said it before when we talked about it back then, and I'll talk about it again. When my cat ends up hitching a ride in that thing, the one it decides to go pick up fares and save me money on my car payment, and they you know they pull up there because somebody's on Uber and they're like, Oh, yeah, the Uber's gonna be here in 20 minutes. Nate car pulls up, and instead of the guy turning around and going, Hey, you John, the cat turns around and goes, We're in trouble. What if it's my cat?

SPEAKER_03 19:41

You open the door, the cat freaks out and claws your eyeballs out.

SPEAKER_04 19:44

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

Am I liable?

SPEAKER_04 19:46

Yeah, Marcia's gonna hold you hostage until you end up at some all-night pet store buying savories. And meanwhile, she's threatening your lady with her nails. That's something bad shit's gonna go down.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

It'll look like the guy that got hit by the claws, like just just touching the neck, like the dog.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

And if you have a dog and you got a smart one, it'll be just like the dog off of Mad Max Road Warrior holding the bone with a double barrel. He's gonna be waiting for you. You go in there and you get us some milk bones, buddy, or this guy'll look like that guy that got hit by the plane.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Man, well, we've gone down a rabbit hole there, but it just goes to show you that like a lot of these things do not work, and this is why I really liked talking to this guy, Rusebay, Rusebay Charlie was the CEO of En-Ride. They have the first ever level four autonomous trucks on the road, on public roads. They're just going terminal to terminal, they're just going on low traffic roads from point to point where they own everything in between. But the fact that it's there and it works and it's making money, they are just killing it. So we're gonna roll that interview now. Ruzbe Charlie, he is the CEO of Nride. Ruzbe, we are big, big fans of the work you're doing, not only with automation. I think you guys are the first L4 automated uh heavy trucks uh currently in operation in Europe. I think that puts you way ahead of everybody else. We were just at the ACT Expo this week, where you announced a huge charging deal in North America with Green Lane in both California and Texas. That's very impressive. And of course, you recently signed that freight deal, that middle mile deal with Amazon Freight. You guys are obviously electric, but firing on all cylinders regardless. You're doing

Enride’s Cabless Autonomous Truck Vision

SPEAKER_03 21:30

a really great job. Thanks for being on the show.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Thank you so much. Thanks so much for the kind words and great to be here.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

When En-Ride first came out on the market and we all kind of first became aware of what you guys were doing, there was this driverless cab concept that looked like it was straight out of Star Wars. More recently, we've seen some conventional trucks, human driven trucks on the road, but you're still pushing towards that autonomous vision. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

That is very much the question. I think we've had this. you know the the a very similar vision from from from the get-go and and the idea with starting off with the TONUS vehicles right when we when we launched the company and and and and and we sort of uh launched in the first uh vehicle format uh back in 2017 um you know the idea was let's start with the end state let's start with how we visualize that the end state of of of this transition will will look uh and then from our perspective it'll be vehicles that are electric it'll be vehicles that are autonomous uh that are cabless uh we take the driver out of the vehicle from from from from from day one and that's where we sort of started off and then we started building so if that is the future right and and the future is going to be driven in that direction due to that due to the unit economics in the market that's gonna be the cheapest way of doing doing transportation if that's the case then what are the all the different parts and how do you build a you know technology strategy commercial strategy and and sort of a a roll-up plan with with customers to work towards that uh towards that sort of uh future state of transportation that was the vision uh you know in uh and when the company was what was founded and that's what we've been executing on and and and sort of visualizing how the autonomous vehicles will will look and then putting them into operations putting our electric vehicles into operations all coordinated by our AI plan.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

And it's important to note also that this is not a theoretical thing that you guys are going to do in the future. This is not vapor where you have almost a hundred million dollars in signed contracts you have 30 customers in seven countries you've done nearly half a million completed shipments and you've covered more than 15 million all electric miles and you're for a lot of people still getting started.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

This might be the first time some readers have ever heard of you no you're you're that's right you know we we're not we're not a size project right we we we've been we've been we still founded a company was founded back in 2016 we went live with our first customer already back in 2020 uh we did our first autonomous pilot in 2019 being the first in the world to put a cannabis autonomous vehicle on the our uh on on public road and we've been at it since then scaling with our customers gathering in the the the data understanding their networks and gradually gradually scaling our platform and our offering uh together together with our customers and as you said you know uh we've got about 50 million dollars of ARR hitting hitting the books and 92 million of of in contracts and in addition to that which you know speaking about scaling right we have we have got about 800 million dollars of of a potential ARR in our joint business plans which are those scaling plans that we've set together with our customers that we're scaling towards uh with them so so and and uh we're doing it in a good pace we're talking now about trucking about logistics about transportation there is more to En-Ride than what is happening there in the surface I don't know how much of this you can talk about how much of this you feel comfortable talking about but you are also in the defense industry can you give us a little bit of information about that as much as you think might be interesting to us no absolutely you know so so uh um when we built our autonomous uh software stack the Android driver essentially that that that we we took that stack and we put it into our autonomous cabless vehicles and we deployed that with with with customers now we're deploying are deploying that with customers and we're continuing to develop that technology um about 12 months ago or so we decided to launch what we call the vehicle agnostics uh uh software platform essentially allowing us to take that autonomous driving stack out of our uh vehicles and and and putting them into use with with uh completely different sets of of vehicles having in mind you know defense applications dual use applications and and and and sort of specialized civilian applications and we've since then uh you know continued uh piloting with with our uh taking our Thomas driver stack putting it into different forms of vehicle within the within the defense base we just recently announced the appointment of of General Keith Alexander who's a former four star general uh uh uh to our

Proof Of Scale Plus Defense Uses

SPEAKER_00 26:10

to our board of the explos to really help us now to really start scaling that uh scaling that business and putting our technology to good use within within the defense sector as well I see this kind of technology especially at the level four state where you guys are uh which again I still believe is unique I tried to do some research and find some other things I think you guys are are way ahead on this kind of objectively there are other applications you know city transit urban transit bus routes that are fairly predictable uh as ridiculous as it sounds like you know theme park trams and things like that that follow certain routes airport trams luggage delivery even mining operations are you looking into those fields as well or are you taking this very uh let's say one vertical at a time so no that's an excellent uh excellent question right and and you're absolutely right that you know there are there are endless opportunities when it comes to automating roadborne vehicles of different sizes formats and and and and use cases and and a lot of them will have similarities in the technology that is that is required the environments in which they operate are will be similar. I think our approach has been you know we we're focused on our freight capacity as a service offering which is you know starting uh where we started off essentially when it came to our autonomous uh uh uh autonomous transportation and technology uh point to point shorter distances back and forth together uh and and and on high high asset utilization uh routes in relatively controlled environments and then we're scaling that into into we've scaled it into public roads uh we're uh continue to scale that in civilian applications so we are you know looking into and evaluating some of those a few of those that you mentioned I think what is important for us is to at the same time you know not lose focus of the the um the the what what that technology is to achieve so as long as there's an overlap you know you can have the same type of ODD and same type of use case but but being used in different you know for different purposes uh and we try to focus on purposes where we see that there's a big overlap in the product development technology development so we can use our technology broadly across those different uh across different use cases but you know not losing focus on what we're uh what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

I think that's a great point because so many companies reach a certain stage of viability and then you know the website explodes they get they stand up on a stage at a conference and they start talking about 55 different things that their technology and software and hardware can do. And then you sort of get the sense that they've lost that sense of focus or that it's sort of a diversion.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Now you think that focus is very as you said I think that focus is very important right because it is is there are so endless many possibilities but you you know automating transportation irregardless in which environment in which which which which we can format you're doing it is a complex endeavor right and it's about much more than just the just automating the point to point transportation it's about the operational setup the operational you know all the the the the interactions with the infrastructure surrounding you etc so you need to have that uh uh a certain focus and and that's you know what we're trying to make sure that that we that we maintain at all times. Well yeah for sure and and we've seen that over and over again in this industry in the last 10 years right when you make the comment interacting with the infrastructure around you there are some automation companies automation plays that are trying to put everything in the car or in the truck I've always had this idea that communicating with the 5G towers communicating with the other buildings even communicating with the other vehicles on the road is an essential piece of true autonomy level four level five autonomy as kind of the only company that has that level four tech operating on public roads in Europe how do you feel about that statement and how do you within Enride view that kind of 5G citywide infrastructure I think the the um as I said automating transportation is about so much more right and and the points that you're raising are excellent uh examples of that right the interactions between the vehicle uh uh when you don't have a driver in the vehicle right then you have an autonomous system it needs to be able to interact with uh I uh uh other vehicles in in in in traffic for example it needs to be able to uh um connect to or or or at least interact with loading the loading base for example we did just recently did a pilot where we showcased our the platform's ability to do an automated border crossing for example when we piloted crossing the border between Sweden and like so you have so many of these things and automatic loading and offloading for example automatic charging over time so so and that that entire ecosystem needs to

Staying Focused While Expanding Use Cases

SPEAKER_00 31:05

be built up in in in you know in parallel to us and and others building up the network of of automated automated transportation and and the way that we have approached this from from the get go and it goes sort of in line with how we you know what I would call a a a sort of pragmatic approach to to that right you you see where the end state needs to be uh but you can't wait for the end state before you get started you have to get started at at some point and then work towards that uh towards that towards that end state so as an example right we do we we have four four G prices in in in the US for example where we're both deployed our our manually driven electric trucks but also our autonomous autonomous vehicles um we focused on okay let's automate the back and forth transportation between the production and the distribution uh distribution center we've then done and you know in other locations we've done trials with automated loading and offloading for example we've done trials with uh which technology should we be using for automated charging uh and then gradually you start scaling that into your network and into uh you know the the full operational setup to over time reach a point where you have a fully automated uh chain from endpoint to endpoint uh but but you you you know you need to get there over time and in order to get there you need to have the operational understanding so that's also you know why we've chosen this gradual scaling uh uh approach that's a fantastic answer frankly uh you know I don't know how much of this we can talk about but I'm just gonna put it out there as a contextual thing and not ask you anything specific about it but you know you you have your IPO I believe coming up I think that from the time it was first announced there was an administration change in the US or seemed to be an administration change of sentiment towards electrification and decarbonization throughout North America which kind of diminished took a little bit of the shine off of that IPO now with everything going on in the Middle East and some people depending on who you believe it's going to be months or years before that oil and fuel capacity comes back the kind of supply catches up again with demand.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

Now an electrification play seems a lot more viable a lot more financially fiscally attractive than perhaps it did three or four months ago do you see more interest in recent weeks in the work that you've been doing do you see more excitement about it or has it been relatively stable?

SPEAKER_00 33:32

So you know I think electrification uh already when we started uh uh you know uh has from our perspective it's always been if you're gonna reach a scaling of electric electricity right not not just doing a few units here and there if we're gonna reach a point where you're actually scaling uh uh electrification of transportation customers it's gonna have to be about cost uh and that's been our that's been our sort of you know mantra if you will all along that the unit economist is gonna have to decide the pace in which and and and and you have to you know the the ticket to play on the market if you will is to be cost efficient versus the the incumbents and diesel solutions that you're that you're essentially competing competing in. So I think you know uh cost has always been the driver uh for for for the transition and and what you know the sentiment in the market and and the relative price between diesel and electric or or the existence of subsidies for example and other things what they do is they affect that you know uh that sort of uh uh the economics of the unit economics of of the one versus uh versus the other and of course that fluctuates over time uh you know as you said with energy prices and and so on so so you know but the overall trend that we're seeing in the in in the market is a a heightened and and increasing interest in electrification both in the US and Europe because you're starting to see the hardware coming to a point where where you know you can be cost efficient in in in the execution. You're starting to see the build out of charging infrastructure being at a critical point where where where you know where you can do that. So a lot of these factors are all playing in our I would say in giving us good good sort of tailwinds in in in electrification. But then so you know we're at a point now I would say that where it's no longer so much a question of uh you know uh um availability of hardware for example which was the question three years ago right uh now it's much more about do you have the capability and the software and the understanding to be able to plan and execute electric transportation in a way such that you can benefit from the fact that the the underlying principle right electric electric is cheap and permisse driven but you have an asset that you need to have a high asset up time

Infrastructure And The Pragmatic Path

SPEAKER_00 35:45

of so that's where you know our platform comes in and our AI models in our platform comes in and allows us to do that. And what we're definitely what we're seeing in the market is that the other factors are really lining up in in a way um so that you know both interest from customers but also our ability to deliver cost efficiently is is improving uh continuously and and we're really seeing that you know that come through in an off scaling with customers.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

And you said two things that are that are very interesting and I recognize we're coming to the end of our time commitment here so I'll make this as quick as I can you mentioned subsidies. You mentioned the sort of lack of federal subsidies and the way that that plays into that cost benefit analysis that fleets are making and clients are making, right? When you look at states like California with HVIP where they have six figure rebates for class eight trucks and you look at other states like Illinois and Florida that have similarly large rebates but not similar levels of adoption, do you think it's a question of allocation? Do you think it's politics?

SPEAKER_00 36:48

What could a state like Illinois or a state like New York do to kind of attract more N-ride business in the same way that California and Texas are doing so I think you know subsidies is one part of the equation and and to me they're also a temporary part right what they're doing is that they're you know they've historically a bridge of the gap uh in in in the cost basis of an electric truck versus or electric hardware versus versus non-electric hardware and we're getting to a point where you know uh where that is you know that balancing is is starting to happen even even if you discount you know we're active in the in the number states where there there are no subsidies and we're still able to through the deployment of our platform and and and ai models still be able to operate in a cost efficient way uh despite the absence of of subsidies. So so I think subsidies are a a part especially in accelerating right over shorter period or you're catalyzing if you will that that development. But that's that's one part of it. And then you have to make sure you know that that the the sort of uh the the transportation networks the build up of those in those in those particular uh particular locations the energy uh you know access to uh the build out of charging infrastructure and and build uh and access to grid capacity for example uh etc so there's a number of factors that plays in but I think uh you know a good catalyst is always is always of course you know helping bridge that initial uh uh investment required for for uh build out of charging for example and finally last question I ask this question of most of my guests I obviously have a very different view of nride than you do right you have the 3000 foot view you see everything that's going on what is a question that you wish more people would ask you that nride has a really great answer for I think you know uh it goes back to and you kind of asked the question or uh around you know what is what is the key factor that will help accelerate uh you know the the electrification of of of uh of of transportation and oh and and over time also the the the the automation of transportation and my answer to that and which we you know spoke a little bit about earlier is you know we're past the point where where it's a predominantly hardware type of of issue we're now at a point where you know the the the the the software platforms and and your ability to uh build out a a highly efficient transportation network regardless if you're operating that with or without driver uh you know autonomous or non-autonomously because that is over time going to be the absolute key in in terms of being cost competitive in this market is how efficient of a network can you uh can you build and I think we have a you know we have a a a unique position in that in that market.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Yeah I totally agree I think those are great answer uh again CEO of nride Rusebe Charlie nride.tech is the website definitely go check out what these guys are doing and man what a fantastic interview thank you so much for doing this and anytime you want to do this again let me know we'll book you on the show absolutely thank you so much and great for thanks so much for having me I don't understand why it's making that noise I can't hear anything I know but I'm just worried it's so loud that like I'm worried that it's getting picked up through here. So anyway I really like some

Electrification Economics And Subsidy Reality

SPEAKER_03 40:10

of these interviews man I like I thought this was a really good one because like when you see this thing and it's basically just a container on wheels and it's driving itself around with no truck that's what we've been talking about for years. I didn't even know these guys were really out there doing this and now they've got a multi hundred million dollar whatever contract with Amazon and a billion dollar valuation and they're putting this on the road this interview's got me thinking you ever total recall in Johnny Cab?

SPEAKER_04 40:39

Yes so I'm thinking we need amicab because amicab would not only go get your drunk ass at 230 in the morning but it's gonna deliver Amazon packages as well. We got it backwards and if anybody's about to pull this off it is Amazon. Let's gonna show up when you get your Amazon app out you're gonna be like oh I need a ride because we can't make it ourselves and as you're going home this automated arm is going to be like the paper boy flinging out the packages on the way home 20 miles an hour down the street with precision quality just like when you were playing a Nintendo and you played Paperboy back in the 80s.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

I like that I thought you were going another way with it I thought you were going to get to Ammy cab where it picks you up you drag your drunken body into the back and it like spits out a Gatorade it hits you with like a couple of aspirin pre we could do that too pre-hangover yeah and it's like a minivar at a hotel everything you take out of the thing costs you an extra six bucks you could get ammy nurse and then that one would show up and give you the liquid IV right intravenously uh right into your arm. Yeah you get Amy Prime after dark and get some other services there too.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

I think we're not far from that it's the oldest uh profession known to man. But we're not saying Amazon's into that all we're saying we're not saying they are into that we're just saying it would sell all we're saying is that if you had a cab that picked your ass up and at the same time on the way to you or just so happened to be when you get there because on on route on route yeah I think this is a better idea than the drone thing the drone thing is crazy.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

It is crazy drones and everybody I show this to and you know my Hilljack family out there in western North Carolina dang near Tennessee their comment is always that's just skeet shooting with prizes it there's the thing that such a cool it is that is so cool I like that I don't know when you're flying over people's backyards and dropping down boxes I I think you got problems.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

What if a bald eagle comes and takes that thing out of the sky well you're worried about that I thought you were going to be worried about like cameras and drones and sensors monitoring our movements in our own backyard we already have that yeah that's what I was gonna say that's what I'm saying imagine a bald eagle a bird of prey says uh oh this thing's too close to the nest and it dive bombs it and takes it right out and then it leaves it hanging out there by the cat and the cat's going that's right can you imagine filling out that form where you log into like Rufus or whatever their AI is and they're like was there a problem with your delivery you're like damn right it was some uh six foot harpy eagle ripped this thing out of the sky and sent my uh discreet packaging into the neighbor's pool with my name on it how am I supposed to explain this all I could tell them was a condor dropped it on the way over we're gonna close this one off I think we've peaked on that one.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

Another uh let's do another Builder Square.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Set your alarm clock for bright and early this Saturday and head for the square. Hey they're open this Saturday from 7 to 11 a.m Builder Square is Opening with great Early Bird specials. The Early Bird gets the deals this Saturday morning from 7 to 11,

Amicab Ideas Drones And Closing Bit

SPEAKER_02 44:05

only at Bilders Square, getting America squared away.