Are one of the first in over a year i think uh to be here to be here. First person, yeah yeah, it's weird for me too. I got both of my injections, so i'm i'm ready to rock and roll. I came down here for 10 days to do a bunch of stuff.

So so why don't you tell us a little bit? What would you do just for people that are watching this that don't know sure yeah, i'm an automotive journalist? I write for a number of places: jalopnik dot com, auto week, a site called evie pulse and then i own uh co-own a site called flat sixes, which is all porsche stuff. So those are the big. Those are the main outlets that i write for and then i run a car show called radwood and i'm starting an electric. Only car show called autopia 2099..

So that's only electric yeah, oh wow, well electrified so electrifying. We would allow a hybrid or uh hydrogen or something like that, but because hybrids typically have not been cool in a lot of circles, but but if it's like a diy hybrid, like a performance right, you know outside it changes right, yeah yeah, i mean i'm thinking Along the lines of like a porsche 918 uh, mclaren, p1 yeah, those are those are performance hybrids. Those are very cool um, but even even if you modified your prius, you know you slammed it on air bags or whatever. Like that's cool, i want to see that yeah, okay, so so it's! This is pretty weird because you're traditionally like what would you say, you're a car guy first and then now you're, like you, know, you're embracing the eevee stuff, yeah yeah, yes, yeah, i mean i've.

I've had gasoline in my blood since i was a kid um. Not literally that'd probably kill me, but you know what i mean so i i grew up a car guy. My dad was big into ford mustangs um, so he had a couple of those. When i was younger and um, i started wrenching on stuff.

I bought some old british cars. I've had a bunch of old german cars, i'm a big porsche guy now and the the industry's changing um. The economy is changing and the environment's changing, and so i want to kind of stay with it and and not uh lose. You know.

I still love cars. Whatever they're powered by um, but i lately have fallen in love with electric cars and really the one that really flipped that switch in my brain was the tycon. I tested the tycon in 2019 and i was like oh, this is it. This is the real deal.

Uh, it's it's fast. It's fun, yeah! It's it's well built it's fast, it's fun, but it still handles like a porsche. It still has that porsche dna and yeah. I mean i'm gon na miss shifting gears and stuff like that, but that's all going away anyway.

Nobody's buying manual transmissions anyway anymore, yeah right, so i don't think it's not really. It's almost like an automatic yeah just to win a shift, yeah right right, so yeah without uh as manuals go away. I'm fine with losing gasoline too. Just give me a full electric uh fun fun time so since you're, because i'm an outsider right like i'm, i'm not a car guy, i'm sure i'm becoming slow, sure right, but uh.

Traditionally, i'm gon na be this new wave of people that are became the car person like after them, because you, because you were a tech person first and then got it. Okay, yeah! If it wasn't for the electric thing, i probably wouldn't be yeah interesting right, yeah. So it's it's a different thing, but since you are from the traditional car world, do you, how do you think the entire like culture is? Is it are they embracing it or is there? What would you say like? Is it mostly embracing it or mostly they're, still fighting it? I i think mostly, i think it's indifference, i wouldn't say they're fighting it, but i think mostly it's just like. That's not for me.

It's kind of their thing, whatever let them do their thing. I think that'll change as they become more adopted in everyday life um. You know, because electric cars are still only three percent of the market or something like that. So you know and that's set to grow exponentially in the next few years, but it's still pretty small.

I mean somebody in the middle of iowa probably has maybe hasn't even seen a tesla. You know that's true, we do live in our little bubble, right right so and they definitely haven't seen a ticon they probably haven't. They might have seen a leaf, maybe so like to them. Their idea is like oh uh, priuses and leafs and stuff.

That's not really my thing, i'm a truck person or i'm a you, know, muscle car guy or whatever, so they haven't experienced it. The way that some of us have - and i think it's just all it takes - is driving one to really figure it out and go oh okay, yeah. This is great, so i think, as they become more prolific in the world, they'll be more embraced. I think there is a group of people that are embracing it, which is one of the reasons i'm down here in southern california, because, like you said your buddy michael brem, he's a hot rodder he's he's about going fast.

He doesn't care if it's electric or whatever. It's just that electric happens to be a really great way to go fast. So i think there are some people like him and like me, that have traditionally been car people that are jumping into this, because it's so fast and so fun yeah. So that's good because see the thing.

The reason i ask this is because i do through this podcast i've been talking to a lot of people that are doing that this is sort of like you like they grow up in traditional world, and i'm thinking like. Oh, you know the the the culture is embracing and stuff, but i'm like - ah maybe not i'm just talking to the ones that are yeah, but how many of them are not. You know what i mean like like randy pose was here, you know and they works with those guys sure and they're going to get set records next year. Uh, you know pikes peak, you know, michaelson.

You know records yeah at bonneville. Well to that point, um. What? What michael's doing right now is so inspirational, because it's to me it's where traditional southern california hot rodding was in the 50s, they take big motor out of a big sedan. Put it in a little thing and go really fast, that's what they did back.

Then they took big v8s out of these big. You know, luxury sedans threw them in their old hot rod. Um. You know 32 fords and went racing, and so like.

I think that that is super. What the community needs right now. The ev community needs right now is like breaking those barriers proving that it it's fast and good and exciting, and - and you can get really - you know you're blood pumping about it. A lot of people think that evs are just like: oh they're, quiet and they're, comfortable and they're soft and they're slow, and you know - or maybe some of them are fast.

You know my leaf's not very fast but yeah, but um. No, and i love my leaf. Like it was it's excellent around town, it's a great car for that. So if you, if you come at it with realistic expectations of like what a car is for it's great um, and if you want to go really fast, there's stuff out there, you know people are wrecking tesla's all the time so making we're making businesses around that Right right right, so the stuff is out there, you just throw it in a old mg or an old uh beetle, or you know my not little 912 over there like go rip because it'll be i mean you go from 60 horsepower to 400 yeah overnight.

I mean not overnight. It takes more than a day to build it. Yeah, don't people don't that'd, be cool like people don't realize how much work it takes to build a car yeah because sure sure, because you just see it at the end, when you go to see more like damn look at that thing, oh, i want one of Those things i'll build them on you, yeah and if you go to sema, half of those cars aren't built anyway, they're not finished. The the drive shaft is bluetooth.

The the headlights don't work. The wrap is like covering a bunch of mistakes, you're right yeah, but it's not until you get there and you get your hands dirty and you're. Like man, i've been at this for six months and yeah yeah. You know you're, like that's tough, every weekend and every afternoon free afternoon and like yeah, then you appreciate it when you see when you're like yeah, that's a lot of work.

I watched that video series lewis that built his his van out here and like i think he was maybe in over his head a little bit and yeah and didn't you know, know that it was going to take that long to build something i kind of got Lucky there, because i didn't know right, i was like look, i kind of explained i'm like it's a lot of work like it's not hard work. It's just a lot of work and it's going to feel like it's, never ending and he's like. No, i'm ready to do this. You know i'm like okay, let's do it, you know, and he did the entire build.

Yeah just basically told what to do like. Okay, take those things cut them here, figure out and had it been anybody else, i think or a regular person they would have given up. You know, and i would have been in trouble because i'd be like hey, you got to get your car out here, but he stuck through it and i think it's it takes a special person to to get you know through a project like that. It's it's! It's overwhelming, and even when i'm going through them, because i i went through this one last year, i had forgotten how much work it was yeah.

I thought i'll just swap it from one bus to the next one i'll be able to do it i'll do it live. I even did like a live stream and not 10 days later, like all day. That's all. I did for 10 days straight right.

I'm like geez, that's a lot of work like totally i've forgotten about it, so you make a living writing then. Yes, tell me about that. That's interesting because i i will aspire to be writers. I aspire to be a writer, especially with you, i'm a youtuber, but you know you can't youtube unless you're crafting some kind of story that started my writing sure, yeah um i i originally went to college to be a copywriter for advertising um.

I really wanted to do that and then i graduated in 2008, in the middle of like a really bad recession and all advertising budgets just dried up, so everybody that was hiring was no longer hiring. So i was uh. I graduated with really nothing to do and nowhere to go so i moved into my dad's basement in atlanta georgia and got a job selling porsche parts over the internet. Um - and i was always a car guy, but i was never really into like european cars and and sports cars and stuff.

I was more of a muscle, car guy and then you know i i learned more about the brand. I learned about the history and i learned about how the cars go together and looked at the quality of the parts and stuff and really fell in love with the brand. And so i did that for like 10 years and on the side doing nights and weekends. I was doing i was writing uh about cars and that started because, as a salesperson, i wanted to advertise myself and therefore advertise the business.

So i was doing pr work, uh, sending emails to magazines and websites and saying you know this is what we've got coming down the pipeline. You should know about it and they're, like one of them, was like hey, you're, really good at this writing thing. We need writers, do you want to write for us and i was like yeah all right cool, so i wrote for them for a few years and then just kind of moved, my way up the ladder and - and i was doing that nights and weekends for like I said about 10 years and then finally, uh got to a point where i had enough writing work, that i could quit my day job and write about cars for a living, and that was about five years ago, yeah five years ago. So that's around the same time that i'm starting my my thing yeah, you know my youtube channel yeah.

Well, that's one of the great things about the internet. Is it broke down that barrier where anybody can do it? If you stick to it yeah, i think i'm not that great at it, i'm just kind of okay, but i'm obsessive about it right, yeah, i'm stick with it. It's really later i mean you're still in you know, there's some level of success with it, but i definitely do enjoy that's all. We, though, all of us do like reading a well crafted piece.

You know that you know like it's. It was usually those were relevant to like novels and long shorts. You know long form stories, but now yeah we're starting to get that with like subjects that we like, like cars, for example, or yeah, electric cars yeah, which is a niche of a niche right right right. That's right! Yeah i mean uh.

My favorite is always electric swaps, people building stuff in their home garages or in shops like this or you know, michael down in almost san diego building, crazy bonneville stuff, like that's always been for the last three four years, has been my like focus. I love that stuff because, like i said it's, it's super old school, hot rod, uh but new tech, and so i'm super interested in that and that's a like niche of a niche of a niche that uh, i don't know, i really dig it. So is that what you find yourself writing these dates, because you you write for a bunch of people right, yes, um! My my four main subjects are uh electric stuff. In general, i write about new cars.

Old cars swap cars, a lot yeah um uh mercedes eqs. I'm super into that car. I think it's really neat. The design of it is super neat.

It's very aerodynamic very, like futuristic, very cool um uh, my leaf. I've done some work on that. So i do some diy. You know electric car, stuff, um and then so mine.

Do you moderate? I do my i do a few mods yeah. I do a few mods uh and then um so electric stuff, uh motorsport. I love racing. I've always loved racing um porsche, which is kind of my wheelhouse.

I've always known it. I have four of them, so i you know probably should know a thing or two about them and then um electro uh. No. I already said that motorcycles, motorcycles, yeah.

So those are my four like big subjects that i try to stick to. If there's news or something that's outside that realm i'll still write about it but yeah for the most part, it's those four, oh, i see yeah, and i saw the the article that you just wrote about the the uh. Well, i saw the headline i didn't read the article but the the new harley davidson party davidson yeah, the pan, america, that's an exciting thing. Right, yeah, a big manufacturer of the you know: motorcycles gets into the ev thing.

Oh, that was the live wire. The live wire so but i mean, but america is not even oh - that's not evie. Okay, i see what you say: yeah the the live wire is great. I rode uh.

I did a road trip on a live wire from la to reno and back to l.a. It's about a thousand miles and it's only got a range of about 80 miles, so it takes a lot of charging and it's fast charge fast charge. Okay, so it's not that terrible 45 minutes yeah not super fast. It's it's got a small on-board charger, so it can't take a touch.

It's not level three charges that disease is dc fast yeah. Why does it take 45? Because it's such a small battery? I guess they have to balance it. So it's like that's weird, yeah. Okay.

They need to work on that yeah yeah, yeah yeah, it's there are things that are not perfect about it, but it's a really good bike, but so, but it's it's exciting because they said they were going to get into right. Every carbon factor says they're going to get into electrics and they're, that's it, but none of them do or or their attempts are really always like. I don't know lmc's like they're, not genuine yeah. How do so with harley? Is it a genuine attempt to get into this market? Yes, it is yeah.

I think it's one of the best bikes. That's that's on the market. Today, it's expensive! It's that's one of the problems. It's too expensive.

It's almost 30 000 um, it's really expensive. So the counterpart of that bike, regular gas field, would that be um. Maybe, like a i mean any kind of like naked bike like a ducati monster or uh. How much would those go for about half wow? So it's like 50 yeah, yeah yeah, twice as much twice as much 100.

More that's quite a big yeah yeah yeah tesla, but used to be like that. But i think now, with the model 3 they're not like that you can, you can still spec them pretty high and it's hard to find them like at that base price and they mess with it every week. So who knows what the base price is? So the thing is like i have a model: three months: okay, i bought my. You know it was 38 000 right, but then we got gold incentives back and it's like, oh it's a 28 000.

sure and then now that's not uh. Now they're lower yeah they're lower at least i think now it's like, i think, there's still one right like one tier or something, maybe in california. I think i think i think uh. The federal is the federal government.

Okay, yeah the federal. We only got half of it, oh okay, because we just bought it like two years ago: okay, um, but then edison has all kinds of other people have uh. They give you money for sure, and she just kind of was diligent enough to go and look for them, and it was it literally added to 10 grand wow, and so i'm like wow. This is, you could just cut ten thousand dollars off of this car and then you add up all the savings.

Electricity is cheaper, even if you're not the most expensive yeah, which we are here. So it's like. Oh okay, it takes a little bit of thinking about it, but you're like yeah. This car is cheaper than or it's about equivalent to a gas car.

You know at this point: yeah um, just the the entry point it's a little bit higher because you kind of have to do have to sure, but then, in a very short time i think it pays off. I think, but in a motorcycle i don't know, that's the same thing right yeah i mean generally people don't put as many miles on a motorcycle generally. If you are riding a bike you're either going really far because a lot of people ride, you know big comfy, cruiser bikes on the highway they'll go across the country or whatever you're not going to really do that. On a on a live wire um.

I have a vision in my head of building a like an old honda, gold wing and filling the bags with batteries and putting it. You know: oh yeah, doing an electric. You know something with like 300 to 400 miles of range and just set it to cruise. At 65 on the highway and just and just go uh that's possible right like it's got ta, be i wonder what it is.

The average energy consumption of a motorcycle is um. Do we know? I think it's about it's about three three times less than what a car does so like my leaf is like 3.3 uh miles per hour, yeah, so yeah. That would be like 300 hours per miles on that yeah. That's crazy! Because that's what my mind gets and i think the um the live wire was - was between nine and ten miles.

Okay for a kilogram. So yeah you divide that, so you would need. Well that's an easy match right. So if you get let's say on the high end that you get 10 miles, you want 400 miles.

So you divide that by 10.. So i don't know: that's going to be 40 kilowatt hours of batteries a lot better, so i'll call it 300. 300 still. 30.

Is uh i mean just like on a tesla: let's do the math, let's so tesla's like a half of a tesla right? Well, a third third of a tesla, and so each one of those packs is like 50 pounds and it's uh divided by 5.2 you're supposed to be like that's what they are so you'd put about: 200 pounds: uh 300 pounds. So it's it's nine! It's almost like 10 pounds per kilowatt, okay yeah, so so 300 pounds. So it's like a heavy passenger. Yes, it could probably handle it.

I bet it could i mean it'd, be it'd, be heavy, but is there bikes that are about that way, though there are? Okay. Oh yeah, a big, a big cruiser like a big harley, those are 900 pounds and you could easily put two, and most of that is engine. No, it's all. It's all chassis, it's all like big, thick tube frames, and i mean the motors are pretty heavy but they're not like most of it.

Motor and transmission is maybe i don't know 200 pounds or something like that. But then you got big thick shocks and you got giant wheels and tires, and it's all chromed and the big mufflers and everything. So it's it's all a bunch of metal. Those are the kind that people can't just like one.

One person can't just pick it up. If they they tipped or something you're, probably yeah, probably not you can. If you do it right the way you're supposed to do it. Is you back up to it and lift it like this, so you kind of like shoulder, lift it, but yeah 900 pounds is a lot of a lot of weight.

Yeah, that's strong man, competition kind of type of stuff. If you have a very strong guy yeah yeah, so i guess it's possible uh as a as a proof of concept as a challenge kind of thing: yeah right, yeah, yeah, why not i'd like to do that? Be cool i'd love to build one uh with these new batteries that we're getting those scooters uh. Earlier today i showed you yeah my little thing that i got going here and so for those of you listening to watching this, like the all the scooters that were around all the cities around the world, they all kind of went away like they all went bankrupt. They all changed, exchange hands, and so most of these ended up going to recyclers and so people, then those receptors didn't know what to do with the battery so they're like who who can get these batteries? Who has interested in? Who would pay money for them? And then people like me are snatching them yeah right, we're just buying truckloads of these things.

Yeah yeah, like a lot of a lot of people, are just selling almost like batteries and then it's up to you to figure it out and i've been doing extra work to figure out how to use how to find uh applications, and so the the the result Of that is that now we have a lot of these really high quality battery packs systems that we're getting for. Like nothing, you know so so batteries lithium batteries have never been cheaper, yeah well and as more electric cars get on the road they're going to get crashed, they're going to go to junkyards and there's just going to be huge stashes of of lithium-ion batteries that you Can just pick up for almost nothing, you know they're going to be, and so the thing is that and that's a responsible thing to do, because a lot of these batteries still have tons of life in them tons of life. I'll give you an example, there's one of my suppliers that got like a whole truckload of batteries, but because the person who dealt with them before him didn't know what they were doing. He there were pouch cells and they literally cut the the terminals off yeah, and so he's got like something like 80 000 pounds of these batteries.

That are amazing. They're, like i bet you they're new, because they don't seem like they're. I don't know what they come from right, but he couldn't use them. He sent me some and i'm like these are amazing, except there's.

No terminals like you, can't it's hard. So what do you end up having to do is send them over to like uh? It's called redwood, it's essentially the tesla guy, okay, that he's saying now, and so they went, they recycled them right and so that's a huge amount of weeks, because you know you're recovering the materials right, the volunteers and stuff, but but they were already built and they Could have yeah yeah perfectly good working batteries that someone just ruined because they didn't know what they were doing right and so there's quite a bit of that happening. Um, and so like that's sort of like the job of people like me to do, is to step in and be like no you're, not you're, not exactly this, yet we're going to put them in this portion. We're going to put them in this bus we're going to build e-bikes with them, we're going to do all kinds of stuff right.

So there's a lot of job opportunities that are coming up and you know it's like it's a crazy new world that we're living and it helps to have people like you that are excited about this that are from traditional car world right, so uh. It was interesting like when i had the conversation with randy. You know i thought the same thing i'm like you did you're like you hold records and all these race tracks like legit like. Why are you doing messing around with teslas hey? You know we we like a challenge too.

We like, even even us old school uh gasoline guys we like to learn new stuff yeah. You know that's my thing anyway. I love to learn about new tech. I love to learn about new ways of doing things, and i know that, like i don't know enough to do, you know even half of what you're doing, but i want to learn it and hopefully eventually i will you know i learned how to tune a carburetor.

I kind of know how to tune electric electronic fuel injection um. I sort of know my way around my little uh fuel injected 912 out there. So you know i've. I've had to learn all that stuff, somehow yeah.

So now it's time to learn it a new thing, electronically, yeah putting in a controller and checking out yeah graphs and yeah. It's a different thing. It definitely is right, and some of it is beyond me too, like over over my head, you kind of think, but but it's yeah, if you're interested in it yeah. You know it's like if you like, going fast, if you like a reliable car, if you like breathing, like my thing, is not really fast, i mean i enjoy going fast as much as the next guy right, but it's not really my thing yeah, you know.

Well, i mean it fits perfectly with the the bus and the you know: old, beetles and stuff. It's like these things were meant to be driven slow anyway, yeah, so just take it easy cruise. I just want to build cruisers that are easy to. You know drive that are so it's not.

I mean it is faster faster, but it's not it's not about being faster. It's about being easier, yeah yeah, there's a lot of people that just want to have like a cool car in the garage and they just they can get in fire it up and go and go. You know not have to because, if you think about it, these old cars, like special portions, well, not these ones, but the older, like air, cooled and volkswagens like there's a lot of maintenance. They have to go through, like yeah you'd have to adjust the valves on on the early yeah uh volkswagen motors, like every four thousand miles, or something like that mine needed that it's got a type four volkswagen motor from a bus.

I mean it's it's the original motor for the car, but it's the same as a bus motor two liter, oh okay and um - that would have originally had uh adjustable valves, but i've got. I had the motor rebuilt last year no 19 year before last uh last year. Last year didn't happen, yeah yeah um, so i had the motor rebuilt and i was like well while it's out while it's getting rebuilt, we're gon na do hydraulic. So so we never have to adjust those anymore, but after i got the motor done after i got it in.

I was like oh for what i spent doing all that i could have just electric swapped it really it's because that's the thing, though, right like people, ask me how much is it to cover the car and then and traditionally was like well. I was like 35 40 000 or something and then it was like. Well it's down to 30. Now you know yeah and then people are like.

Well, that's ridiculous, like nobody's gon na pay that right and then i i'm talking to some other guys and they get high performing motors, yeah, yeah and they're like oh, that was a ten thousand dollar motor. No, like it's! You guys are there. You guys are spent some of you guys are spending this already right. You know it's not from ridiculous from start to finish that project i mean it was more than just the motor.

It was like clutch and flywheel and stuff like that too, but it was a 15 000 rebuild yeah and we did some upgrades. You know it's, it's just a mild motor. It's like 105 horsepower. It's not even it's not even super strong.

It's just it's just a you know: it needed a bunch of stuff, it was an old motor with you know a couple hundred thousand miles on it and it needed a lot of work. And that's that's traditionally like the case with the porsche right. Porsche is not. I mean it's considered like it's everything's, expensive unfortunate world, right yeah, but i mean it's a it's a bus motor i mean there's it's a bus motor come on with the porsche logo, right, you're, right, yeah, yeah yeah, but i had it done by a volkswagen shop.

Oh okay, so they should have cut me a deal, but they didn't. He can afford it. Just you know charge him double. Look at him.

He looks rich. That's what all rich people look like yeah. So that's interesting! So you that's your daily! You drive. You drive a person, i mean i don't really have a daily because i don't go anywhere.

You know i i work from home. I write you know i wake up. I walk to my table and i write and then i go to bed uh um. So you know that's my commute is my slippers um but yeah.

When i go anywhere far afield, i usually drive that um i've put tons of miles on i've, driven it across the country. Um gone on a bunch of like vintage car, rallies and stuff and uh love driving it um unless it breaks down. You know i had the points go out a couple days ago up on angelus crest highway. So i was, i had to bum a ride down, buy the parts and then bum a ride back up to fix it uh.

It was 12 part. You know i should have just had a spare and i didn't yeah and then you know now. My clutch is out of alignment, so i'm grinding into every gear. You know old, car stuff, yeah, that's the thing that i keep telling people is like look.

My system has been perfect. Like i mean, i, i've changed a little sensor a couple times because inside of alignment, but i'm like all the other stuff is regular, volksi, volkswagen stuff the wheels are falling off the doors like that's just regular. You can't get away from that. You know.

Unless you don't drive a bullseye right right, so what is uh? What is the future? You say you, you have a build that you want to do right, right, yeah. Well, i've got a few but yeah the the one. The one i'm working on right now is a 1997 porsche boxster and 97.. It's a modern car.

It was the first year um, it's a 2.5 liter, with like 200 horsepower and a friend of mine in reno recently built a delorean powered by a leaf motor and he's got. You know good motor controller that he built himself and and figured out like how to make it work. I was like motor control himself, yeah yeah. Oh he's one of those guys yeah he's one of those guys, but just the rest of us to shame just went to the bipartisan slap them together.

Okay, uh, so he's he's one of those genius guys and um. Have you heard of the teslanda? Yes uh? It's the same guys, those guys built that crazy thing he built this. He built this electric delorean um, and so you know watching that kind of inspired me. I was like.

Oh, i've got to do something with this, so i bought a leaf motor and i'm not going to replace the gasoline motor i'm going to put the leaf motor in the front trunk and power the front wheels and keep the gas motor in the back. So i can use both at the same time and it's going to be a track. Focused car, no windshield it'll, be all fairing in the battery will be where the passenger seat used to be race, seat, cage harness the full. You know the whole thing and then the gas motor will power the rear, wheels, i'll move the fuel tank and the radiators to the rear of the car and then have all that space in the front for just the electric powertrain and but the cool thing about The electric motor is that it's tiny, it's just a little ball yeah like the size of the watermelon yeah yeah, the everybody thinks the leaf motor is huge, but you've got the the motor, the inverter, the cooling, the you know, the charger all that is in this Stack, i see that's right, those that's what that looks like, and so it's super tall, but you can take all that apart and you've got just the motors like this big.

I see yeah, it's just the way they bundle it yeah to put it in that car. It's all under the hood, so it's all stacked up on top of each other like a traditional motor. What is that going to do to the to the dynamics of the car, because you're going to add some weight to the front, but not as much i mean if it's just the motor yeah and the chargers like? That's not nothing. So if you put the battery on the passenger side, now you're putting the weed in there and in the center of the yeah in the middle of the car, so i think i mean obviously it'll add some, but with removing the radiators moving those to the back And removing the fuel tank there's a couple hundred pounds there, so it'll probably kind of balance out and i might actually have to put some batteries in the front trunk to help balance that out and that's one of the good things about you know.

Modular batteries. Is you can kind of put them where you need them to go? Yeah um, to balance out the chassis, to build the perfect car, or at least as close as you can yeah nothing. I'm building is perfect, but well hopefully we'll get there well so, but it's it's going to be heavier but you're going to have more power. So it's and it's going to be all wheel drive so yeah and it'll have like a push to pass button.

So i can put down an extra 150 to 200 horsepower to you know if there's some slow guy in front of me and just go and just why would that be always turn up uh, just depending on how much battery you've got left? I guess you know. I want to be able to do like uh, a fast lap, yeah so like if um and obviously you're not going to need it as much going into the corners. So you'd be regening into the corner and then and then you can button power on out of the corner or whatever i don't know, we'll figure it out yeah and then you'll have to manage the whole thing like how much power goes to each motor. You know is it? Is it going to change? Is it static or dynamic to change to the front to the rear, yeah right, that's right and that will be yeah that'll all be run through the computer stuff.

But from my perspective, as the driver, it'll just be put your foot down and it'll go. Hopefully, that's the idea so, like i said, i'm not like i'm becoming a race fan right. Okay, traditionally i haven't been uh, but it took like i i don't know you know uh. Oh my god.

I can't remember his name, uh blake fueler, you know blake. I don't know so he has the uh a couple records at uh, pikes peak okay. He got him on a tesla okay and he took that tesla to uh austin uh, whatever the racetrack in austin is uh. Circling america, yes yeah, and he totally stripped it down.

He did all kinds of stuff to lighten it up, but this is a stock tesla, okay and he took a few of us around that track. You know full speed on a tesla and i'm like holy crap like this is i this is not like. I mean i've been on like a p100d and i stopped there you're sure ludacris. I've done all that stuff, but it's nothing like having a uh yeah on a racetrack right and just taking those corners.

You know at full speed, yeah and taking the acceleration out of those corners and fools you're just like blown away. It's like it's like a roller coaster and not just any road. Just like an a you know like a like a 10 level roller coaster, when you walk out of that car you're dizzy, yeah yeah yeah, it messes with your brain. Yes, because it's like there's just information overload like we're going too fast.

What's going on and really having a pro driver driving it's the best way dude, because you don't have to worry you're like this guy's, not gon na. He knows what he's doing he's not gon na. Do it yeah yeah yeah, he's probably not going 100 right he's. Just you know going it's my hundred, but he's probably like fifty percent or something yeah yeah uh, it's really yeah.

It's the best place the best way to do that. It's uh and i think a lot of people get to experience that because who gets to get sure right, yeah yeah and it really changes you because you're like oh raising is cool yeah. It was like yeah yeah and that's not even like racing racing like that. They're not going wheel to wheel they're, not like you know, beating and banging or anything, there's racing racing is is awesome.

Yeah i mean track days are great. I love doing them, i'm not a racer myself, i'm not gon na go, you know, beating back doors or anything like that, but but yeah tracks are fun and there's a reason. There's a bunch of them out there. So, oh yeah, so let's talk about your car shows cause yeah.

What are your so? What's your because you're doing one? It's just electric cars? Yes, okay, that one's autopia, 2099. and 20.99 yeah? Okay, it's just a that's just a name: yeah! Okay, we uh. We were autopia and then me and the other co-founders were like we got to make it a little more, like future, sounding, what's a future way to do it, so it was like you know how in the 50s, everything was like uh space 2025 or you know, Whatever so, it's kind of like that, it's just pick a number that's far away. That sounds interesting and we'll add it on to the end of the name: yeah, okay, um, so yeah that that's uh, a cool show that we're coming up with i'm.

Actually, one of the things that i'm down here for is to scout venues, for that show you want to have it in southern california, oh yeah, i mean that's where the ev scene is okay, so it's if we're gon na have electric car show it's got ta, Be here it's gon na be in so california yeah, okay, that was that was gon na, be my own next question: where is it gon na be held yeah? So you you, don't have a venue, yet you you we are. I i have two more to look at tomorrow: um, the one that i looked at yesterday was really nice and i might book that so we have a venue i just have to pick which one okay, um uh and then yeah it'll, be but not a not In a racetrack, no it'll be it'll, be a static display, it won't be like racing or or going fast or anything. It's like bring your cool car show it off. Okay, have a lot of fun.

Oh okay, it'll be kind of like a party atmosphere. We'll have food and drinks, and you know everybody can come have a good time, and these are not like. You have to be accepted to bring your thing. It's like open to kind of stuff yeah.

Well i mean it's gon na be a limited amount of space. Yeah um, because basically any venue in downtown los angeles can only fit like 150 cars max. So it's going to be limited to kind of first come first serve um, we're probably going to try to limit it. So it's not! You know 100 teslas yeah, you know so if somebody signs up model 3's and yeah yeah.

So if somebody signs up with uh model 3, you know we might take two or three of them to try and keep it uh so that you're not just looking at a bunch of the same car yeah. So yeah, sorry tesloids. But you know it's just definitely they definitely want tesla people to come, but we don't want it to be just teslas, you know and and it's got to be like you got, but the great thing is all the venues that i'm looking at have street parking all Around okay, so if the show expands outside of the show well, i see you just walk up and down the street looking at tesla's looking at you know, tycons looking at jag eye paces, whatever yeah um. You know my in my case my slammed uh uh nissan leaf on airbags.

I've got it right, fun thing about nissan leafs. They have the same suspension as the juke. So if you buy juke air bags, they just bolt right up really slam it to the ground. There you go so that's going to know.

That's one of my projects, i'm working on right now. You have you written an article on this. Not yet! Oh, it needs to be done. It's not finished.

Oh so i got ta finish it. You got ta finish it yeah, because here's the thing the the leaf, no, it was in the the prius people were more yeah. There's. Definitely some slammed braces.

I've seen some really cool ones, they're more annoying to me, because here's the thing most people, my ideas, don't don't reflect. Yes, this is me talking here. I own these, i'm sorry prius people, i'm just. I don't think those that's because cars are cool.

That's just! I haven't seen a cool one. I think they have to be seriously modified to be cool, okay, yeah and most of them aren't and most of them. They want answers from me like how do i swap the battery and i'm like? I could help you figure out how to swap the battery, but in order for me to spend that much time on a car, it's it's got to be worth it. I got ta believe that the car is cool, yeah and yeah, i'm sorry, but the prius is not cool and at least not one that i've seen.

Yet i'm not saying that they couldn't i've. Seen i've seen some really cool ones. There's some with like uh, very like japanese style body kits that have like wide bodies and big big wheels and tires and they're slammed on the ground and everything yeah. Those are really cool, but the show yeah.

I'm i'm really excited about the show. It's hopefully going to be the first weekend of december. Okay, so there's still plenty of time to plan. Yeah tickets aren't available yet, but they will be hopefully soon as soon as we get not locked down on a venue.

Tickets will be up. So look for those in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, fingers crossed okay, um, but yeah uh, somewhere downtown la uh, somewhere cool. Maybe, as far one of the venues i'm looking at tomorrow is out by lax so kind of in the la area: okay, yeah, um and then yeah, we'll we'll hope for around 150 cars and really cool backdrops, really cool, very instagram friendly.

Very you know what is do you are you going to have like a panel? Are you going to have like you could do sure, yeah speakers yeah um? Did you? Were you aware of the one that happened in the fully charged live in texas, yes, yeah there? So theirs was more like a b2b kind of thing and it was like very like yeah, very, like um uh. What do you call it like? A trade show kind of it felt like yeah. Were you there? I didn't. You didn't go okay, so i thought so too, but the atmosphere was like it felt like.

It was just people that were excited about cars. Okay, it was just like i'm thinking about another electric car yeah. I bought my first electric car. I'm excited! That's why i'm here it it just felt like there was a so there's a bunch of youtubers that were speakers, okay, including myself, and so i think we drove the audience there, and so a lot of people were somewhat enthusiast, but a lot of consumers mostly well.

That's what i felt like yeah right, and so i thought this is something new. This is, i was weirded out by the whole thing, but it's like it's. Just people were excited about cars yeah and it's mostly in a room uh and we're just talking about cars. There's some cars on the on the outside, but it didn't seem like it should have been bigger kind of thing.

Yeah there wasn't like 150 cars there yeah, my my goal is to have it be more car focused than people focused. I see and have all of the conversations be one-on-one. I see so like mingle in the crowd. Have a good time come out.

You know, have uh a really cool, artisan lunch. You know with cars around and and talk to your friends, invite your friends go. Just have a good day at a car show at a car show, and it's it's going to be more about having fun than than about um yeah. That's kind of a traditional car show selling california car show like the volkswagen shows it's like you're on.

You just show up with your car and then you just mingle right right. You have a raffle, maybe a thing. If anybody listening has heard of like uh lufka cult is kind of the the idea we're going for it's a volkswagen or a porsche show that happens down here in la every year. Okay and it's it started out very small.

I think it was like 30 cars and the last show was like i don't know, a thousand wow. That was huge. What do they kill it? They they hold it a different place. Every year, okay, um the first year it was at uh deus ex machina.

It's like a little motorcycle shop, i guess whoa um and then they held it at how did it support so many cars or or that was that it was yeah that was really small and then the most recent show was 2019. that was at universal studios. Oh, the back lot: the backlot okay, like the whole, the whole thing like there was the western set. There was a city set.

There was the downtown set from uh back to the future yeah. It was all of that. It was all there. Oh that's cool.

It was amazing, it was just cars parked on the streets in this fake city yeah. It was really cool. Well, that's cool! I haven't heard of that because i'm not in the in the circles of porsche right yeah the porsche are like the the guys that think we're. You know we're wannabes because we're like the we're the lord here yeah sure uh, but my brother's highly involved in a show.

It's called um. Oh man how's it going what's. It called a prado and they hold it here at prado park. Okay, it's a huge park and yeah there's like 1200 cars, yeah yeah, all volkswagens classic uh.

They used to be like really anal, but like keeping like only this kind of cars. But i think now this last year they kind of open it up, even even uh water uh. What do they call them? Water, coolers, watercolors, yeah yeah, which is like usually they're like no, it's only air cooled yeah. You know yeah.

We discriminate against the modern cars right right right, yeah, so the the idea is to have it be very, like aesthetically, pleasing and very friendly for your instagram photos. So you can come. Take a cool shot, make all your friends jealous that you were there and they weren't yeah yeah and have a good time. So that's that's so.

The only thing uh to to qualify to be in in in this show is the sketches has to be electric electro at least electrified electrified, yes, and and we're looking for literally anything like all the way back to your uh radio control stuff. Oh okay! If you want to bring a radio control car, that's awesome, put it on display it'd, be great, all the way up to brand new uh street legal cars right, maybe like dirt bikes, maybe absolutely absolutely weird! Yes, okay, if you have a home build, if you have a weird thing that you built, i i want to see it like in the in the blurb for the thing on the website. It says if you have hydrogen-powered rocket roller skates. I want those at the show: that's the cool stuff.

I want to see that sounds cool, okay, yeah. I i think that it there's a lot of ingenuity, that's going on down here in in socal in the in the election and there's no outlet for it really right to tell the truth like right, there's no cool, so one of the things is like, but i Definitely want to see one of your businesses - hey, maybe i'll by then i'll, have a couple or something i don't know, yeah uh the did you ever know who jack rickard was no okay. Jack rickard was one of these. Like guys in the early days, he was like a millionaire back in like missouri okay, and he was one of these guys that were like.

Oh these, electric cars is the future kind of thing like early on. This is before it was like 2006 or something right, and so because he had means he went and started doing like buying batteries and doing his own research. Okay - and he very quickly became aware that the fact that the car market, the car manufacturers weren't doing these because not because they didn't want to not because they couldn't he's like the technology's here, like i i'm a nobody. I just ordered.

You know that truckload of batteries and then i met - and so he built these little diys, so he used to have a show that he called evcon eevee khan right, oh okay, evcon and there was er. He used to have a uh. He used to have a hangar because he liked planes or whatever, and so so then he would invite all these guys, but but the the entries like you had to it was a diy thing like you couldn't there was no there's, no cars that are available right. So so there was, it was you had to build your own yeah and you take it yeah, and i want to see those cars too yeah.

I want to see the uh electric leopards i want to see. You know somebody who put a fork truck motor in their volkswagen beetle. You know in in 1979 because fuel prices were too high or whatever you know. I that's the stuff.

That really gets me the way i look at it. There's four ish main uh eras of evie. There was at the you know, turn of the century. In the 1900s there was there were manufacturers that were building them and then they got shut down because gasoline was more available.

Yeah there was the 70s. When there was the fuel shortage yield crisis, people started building evs at that time, home bill, yeah home builders and then in the through, like the 80s into the early 90s, there was a little bit of that it kind of carried over from the 70s. It was like the pocket protector crowd that was, like very silicon valley, yeah pushing up your glasses, very nerdy kind of you know, but those are cool and then the third wave was in the 90s, with the california zev mandate, where you had ev1 rav4 ev ranger Ev that kind of stuff there were manufacturers were starting to build them yeah and then the fourth wave was when tesla started. There was tesla and and leaf dropped in 2011, 2010 and the last decade.

The last 12 years have just been like huge growth yeah. So this is the one that actually stuck and it's actually working now and those other three were kind of like experiments yeah in the space getting ready, yeah the so this epicon thing was great for thinkers and people would build crazy things yeah and then, but then The guy passed away - and so he hadn't done it in many years and that's amazing, so maybe you're gon na bring it back. That's what i want yeah, that's what i want to be. I want to see the weird the interesting, the cool as well as like the newest hottest tech from manufacturers.

I want concept cars i want, you know home builds. I want race cars, so if i build a a a cyber truckified like uh like beetle, for example, sure i can take that 100 yeah. Okay, i mean yeah as long as it's not powered by diesel or gasoline. No, no electric yeah yeah.

Of course, yeah that'd be awesome. I can't if you've got some of the renders, if you did a cyber truck beetle i'd park it right in the middle of the show, i'd put everything around it and pointing at it and going you need to look at this. This is cool yeah cause. Have you thought? Have you looked at that because, like when the the cyber truck come out, i hated it.

I was like no that's. I still stupid stupid. Look stupid thing. This is not the workout.

I love the warthog. I grew up right in the back of that thing: shooting aliens right sure for sure this is not it uh, but then, when you see the renders of all the cyber truckified vehicles that they do you're like well, i want that, like that is cool yeah. Well, i think if somebody had built the cyber truck themselves, it would be it would be cool yeah, maybe, but because it's tesla, it's like you, think so be a little serious about this. That's never that's! Never coming to market! Looking like that, it can't.