Ex-Logger Aims to Beat Elon Musk in Electric Trucks

Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:17)

Tracy, have you been following Elon's?

Tracy Alloway (0:21)

You're gonna have to be more specific.

Joe Weisenthal (0:23)

You know, I think he kind of has this reputation, and it's kind of worked out for a while, like promising things that, you know, maybe take a while to materialize. Like eventually they come around, whether it's Twitter, it's gonna be like this like super app, and he's gonna get rid of all the bots. Did he get rid of all the bots, Tracy?

Tracy Alloway (0:40)

No, absolutely. If anything, I swear there are more than ever. Yeah, it feels like that.

Under every tweet now, there's basically someone shilling Bitcoin, I think.

Joe Weisenthal (0:50)

Yeah, and then at Tesla, and again, incredible success story, but like self-driving cars, I think that's been promised for a while, in some form or another, it hasn't happened. And one of the things that's somewhere on the roadmap, and no one really knows when, is there's gonna be an electric truck.

Tracy Alloway (1:08)

Yeah, so I know various companies have talked about doing this, and I think there, isn't there a pickup, an electric pickup truck somewhere?

Joe Weisenthal (1:16)

Yeah, there's a few.

Tracy Alloway (1:17)

Yeah.

Joe Weisenthal (1:17)

The electric pickup truck, I mean, you know, there's the Ford Lightning, and so that's starting to go. But you know, obviously, we talk a lot about freight on this podcast, and I think there's a long way until we get any sort of like electrification of a freight vehicle.

Tracy Alloway (1:32)

I mean, that's my perception of it, which is when people think of electric vehicles, it's usually, you know, it's sort of like basic sedan kind of thing, maybe an SUV.

The trucks are sort of further down the line. And then when it comes to actual long haul trucks, I hardly ever hear anyone talk about it. You hear a lot when when people talk about technology in trucking, it tends to be autonomous driving, doesn't necessarily seem to be electric trucks themselves.

Joe Weisenthal (2:02)

Yeah, and of course, there's this whole infrastructure associated with trucking, the truck stops, et cetera. You have these big fleets, they make purchase commitments, et cetera.

So even if the technology were there somehow, and I don't really know if it is, it seems like it's going to be a long way until we get an electrified trucking fleet, if ever. And so while obviously Tesla at some point wants to plan that there are other entities that want that market as well, because it's going to be really big.

Tracy Alloway (2:32)

Right, and the other thing that we've discussed on the show is the difficulty of rolling out the actual grid needs for electric vehicles. And I can imagine with long haul trucks, that would be even more difficult and potentially extreme, given that a lot of trucks go to places far off in the wilderness.

Think of things like logging trucks.

Joe Weisenthal (2:56)

Yes, and so there are different types of commercial trucking. And so you think of the highway and the trucks you see on the highway, but it's very different when there's a truck that's going up the side of a steep and icy, snowy mountain and getting logs and going back down.

Different physical demands on the truck itself, given different physical demands on the driver. Anyway, we're kind of gonna merge these two topics. Different types of trucks, what can be electrified, why. Try to understand a little bit more about the commercial trucking infrastructure and not just the highway vehicles that we know.

Tracy Alloway (3:33)

We're gonna do logging?

Joe Weisenthal (3:34)

We're gonna do electric logging trucks.

Tracy Alloway (3:37)

You know what, I have an interest in logging now because a tree fell down in my backyard, a big tree, a couple weeks ago.

And I'm trying to figure out how to move it. And once I move it, I too will be a logger.

Joe Weisenthal (3:50)

Well, this is perfect. We have the perfect guest who could probably tell you all about moving your log off of your property. We're going to be speaking with Chace Barber, who is the CEO of Edison Motors. It's a small startup aiming to electrify the trucking market. And he was also a logger. He drove trucks that moved logs. And so he's familiar with that world, trucker, logger, electric vehicle entrepreneur. Chace Barber, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lot.

Chace Barber (4:22)

Oh, you betcha. Thanks for having me on here.