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Rob:
Welcome to our podcast. All about the car brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host, Rob Hoffman an auto service specialist with over 44 years of industry experience. On the ride with me today, our regular guest Bryan Call a 40 year plus veteran of the automotive industry. Hello Bryan.
Bryan:
Hey Rob. Nice to be with you.
And Bill Schierl, a guy that has a lot of miles behind the wheel and always has a lot of great questions. Welcome back, Bill.
Bill:
Thanks Rob. Glad to be here.
Good to see you guys. Today we have a very special guest on our podcast. Shannon Grewe owner of several new car dealerships in central Wisconsin. And as a matter of fact, we are on site at one of Shannon's facilities, Colby Chrysler Center. So technically I suppose, we're your guest Shannon.
Shannon:
I'm excited to be here.
Well welcome Shannon. Good to have you here. Let's hop in, buckle up and hit the road. Well today we're talking about today's automotive technology and what's in the future, but as many of you know, I always like to dig up the past to see where we've been first. There's been a lot of turning points in automotive history since Carl Benz patented and put the very first automobile on the road in 1886. That's a long time ago. We saw Henry Ford invent the first moving assembly line, which took a car's build time from 12 hours to just an hour and a half. Creature comforts came to the scene in 1940 with the first air conditioner, equipped on a Packard and many experienced the first production electronic fuel injection system on several 1958 Chrysler models. And when was the first onboard computer fitted to a production car you ask? 1968 Volkswagen.
What was that, Rob? What was the computer module? Do you know?
I do not know.
Oh, sorry.
I would say it would probably be electronic ignition and
Fuel. It might have been electronic fuel injection.
Fuel injection.
Yeah. Where they was actually controlled by the computer would be my guess,
Just a guess.
In 1968.
So before it was controlled by a computer, what was the control?
It was mechanical.
Yes.
Mechanical fuel injection. Yeah.
And then since the 1930s, the Chrysler corporation has been setting trends in styling innovation and just plain exciting cars and trucks. From the airflow sedan in the thirties, which was a design ahead of its time to the hemispherical powerhouse engine of the late fifties that we still see today.
Still have today.
What do you call that today? The Hemi.
That thing gotta Hemi?
yeah. And who can forget the muscle car era of the sixties and seventies with crazy paint colors, such as go mango plum crazy, panther pink and Hemi orange
Sublime green.
Oh, there's another one. Chrysler has always been known to attract the fanatic. So yeah, today we're seeing a lot of turning points in automotive history as we move forward. I think it's evolving faster than ever. I can't keep up with it.
I agree with the rate of technology, the steps are getting a lot further apart, right?
Absolutely. There's a lot of technology that maybe even some of our listeners aren't familiar with, but they've really been around for a while. Four wheel steer. We had that back in Bryan. When was that one? That on the Chevy truck,
Chevy trucks was back in two thousands, late nineties or early 2000's.
So what's the difference between four wheel steer and four wheel drive? Same thing?
No,
The back tires actually steer like the front tires do.
Ah,
It is a weird feeling.
It's weird crab walking that thing. And I mean, it's like you're, spining around on...
Parallel parking is great. With four wheel steer kinda walks right in.
Get outta here.
No!
What car has four wheel steer?
Well, the it's coming back now.
It is coming back, we see it on the electric Hummer.
That's right.
$150,000 electric GM truck. Yeah. You see it on there? No. Yeah.
I don't understand it.
Did you ever see a monster truck?
Only one steering wheel.
You ever see a monster truck?
Well of course, yes.
Okay. So the rear tires turn and they just spin right around on a dime.
Wow. Okay. I've never seen a monster truck do that, so..
You gotta get out more
I do have to get out more
And Hey, a term that's been around for a while now, but it's kind of a techy term steer by wire. Give us some feedback on that. Bryan, what does that mean?
There's no mechanical linkage between the steering wheel and the tires. So it's all done by solenoids and pumps to actually turn it based on a sensor feedback through the steering wheel.
That's just crazy from old school guy that most of us are when you turn that steering wheel, you picture all this linkage and a steering column and all the mechanics that are happening in front of you, but steer by wire, it's all electronic,
You know, and actually, you know, the mechanics of it are on the steering wheel side and on the tire side and in between is where electronics are. Right. You still got your tire. Rod ends all that mechanical stuff. That's all there. I mean, you need that. That's safety, that's durability, that's drivability, that's all that kind of stuff. Right. But the arm strong part of it where it used to take a pipe to turn that baby around. Now you a three year old can do it, their middle finger.
So there's no power steering system in those systems, right? It's all done by wire,
No more fluid.
There's no fluid.
If you're a power steering fluid manufacturer, you're outta business right
Now, is that the way all vehicles are these days?
There's electric pumps to help the assist on that.
Okay. So a lot of technology happening there, the one that saved my rea,r pardon the pun, is the backup camera been out for a long time. But I use that all the time in the vehicle I drive.
That's great for backing up to a trailer. Isn't it?
It's fantastic. It's a one and done deal when you're looking for that hitch, for sure.
That's an innovation that changed your driving habits.
Absolutely.
Right?
Yep.
I mean, you can almost take the mirrors off cars nowadays.
I don't think that'd be quite safe.
Well, 360 degree do do cameras now. Right?
That is true.
So, I mean,
I think it takes a while to get used to looking and I still find myself turning over my right shoulder to look at what's behind me, but it takes a time to like say, oh, okay. I just need to look at the camera.
Right. Right.
And the automatic crash notification, if I'm not mistaken back in the nineties OnStar, that's the same thing, right?
So on that was a notification. If you actually physically got in a crash,
Right.
So you might be there's.
Multiple systems now that are called crash avoidance crash, blah, blah, whatever. Right. That all have a little different niche, I guess.
I'm sure we've come a long way with that with the OnStar of the nineties too. It's a lot different than it was back then, but yeah.
Black boxes that are in all the cars now. Right. So I mean, you can plug in and I know how fast you've ever driven. I know how long your car idles. I know how many miles are on it, you know, everything. Right. And it even comes to play in some court cases. When you read about that, they'll pull them black boxes out of the cars and they'll find out.
So really the airplane technology of the black box, we've really adapted that to automotive now, is that correct?
It's in every single car since I'm probably wrong in this date, but it's saying somewhere around 2016, roughly.
Wow. That's amazing.
It's been out there for a while.
That information that do auto dealers and manufacturers tie into the black box and pull information out of it.
Yeah. Who has access to that?
So I know there's a limited amount of people that have access to that. You know, dealers don't, I mean, as far as like your, those items I talked about earlier, that's not part of the black box.
So you don't have a private investigator on site here, at Colby Chrysler,
No. I, I can't afford the W2, but yeah. There's a lot of things that are available to the dealers and, and I'm sure that the technology is there for the consumer to buy a scanner and find that information as well, just right. You buy the right scanner, obviously, you know,
You know, the scary part of this whole thing is we're sitting around here talking today about these cool things. And in a year from now, it's gonna be all different. It's gonna continue to just rock it forward.
Mm-Hmm I agree.
So what are some of the technology that we're starting to see come out today, what's in front of us today, what's really happening?
So outline a lot of the features that have been around for a while are getting much better, right? Forward collision warning. But so many people text and drive, right? I mean, it's, everybody's busy, blah, blah time. Right? So there's sensors, radars cameras that view the road in front of you and will determine if you're in danger and will, some will notify you, you know, a loud screeching noise inside the car. Some will actually apply the brakes.
Mm-Hmm .
And, and actually stop you even right. Lane departure is that cameras will read the lines on the road and keep you centered on the road.
So it'll keep you between the lines, as they say,
Keep you between the lines and you say, yeah, it's a great, great saying. Yeah. You know, some people like that, some people don't, it does get a little finicky.
Can you turn that on and off?
Speaker 3:
Absolutely. You can.
Okay. you can choose to use it.
I would say almost all these features that we're gonna talk about today. Probably you can turn on and off in your car, the forward collision warning, you can shut that off. You can change the sensitivity of it to near orfar, those types of things. And then if you are really mechanically inclined, you could probably just go in and pull a couple fuses and it ain't gonna work either, obviously. Right?
this is kind of the technology that, that it's been around for a little while, but like you said, Shannon, it continues to get better and improve. Is that right?
Keep refining it and refining it. Right. Absolutely. You know, I mean look at bowling balls. Remember when they first come out.
No.
Round, just come on. You said you were a seasoned guys here, right?
I don't think we're that old .
Bowling balls. I'm just picturing a caveman. So, okay.
But just something that simple, right? I mean, you look at bowling ball that was built in the fifties to bowling ball that's today, it's night and day difference. You know, the materials that's made out of..
The finger holes are way more comfortable.
There's all kinds of things that are done differently.
We're just always looking for the better mouse trap, looking for something better.
Even glasses, I mean, are upgraded anyway.
But the one that I really like is the adaptive cruise. That is so cool.
You're coming up on somebody doing 50 out on the interstate and it just slows you right down and you don't have to do anything,
You know, the bad thing about that. You can get lulled to sleep. And next thing you know, you're doing 45,
But at least it's stoppin.
That's true. But the car will tell you if you know, like you're falling asleep, it will notify you and it senses your eyes
True. And it reads your eyes.
Mm-hmm .
New Speaker:
Wherever you're looking. Sometimes some of that technology.
What?
Is coming. Yeah.
If you bein to fall, you know, like a modern cars, it'll wake you back up.
Right. It'll vibrate the seat, or it'll show a cup coffee on the steering wheel or on the, on the dash in front of you say, Hey, how about a coffee break? Wanna pull over and rest? Or
I gotta get a life
Steering sense. You know, the steering angle sensor you're talking about. Right. So if it doesn't sense any steering input or anything like that, all of sudden next starts wheel to say, Hey, what's going on? Right. Right. Yeah.
And we've all seen the commercial on TV. At least most of us probably have where that family's backing out of their driveway with all the shrubs and bushes and the car automatically stops because there's somebody coming across the back, down the road. So that's that the rear cross traffic warning. That's probably saved a few people.
Oh, that's nice. Oh my God.
Yeah.
That put a lot of body shops. You know...
That's a good point.
You don't think about those things that like reduction in other business.
You guys see the spam cam too?
I've not.
What's that?
So you've heard of parents forgetting their kids in the back of the seat.
Right. So there's sensors in all the seat. That sense weight. Okay. And if somebody's back there, there's a little camera back there that shows right on the radio in front of the dash. I mean, you can look at what's going on back there.
Oh.
You know that...
I've not seen that.
Oh, is that the is that the commercial where the family has the daughter and the boyfriend in the back?
I was just gonna mention that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You seen that. Yeah. I see everything. I know.
So then, so you get out of the car, you've left your child in the unexpectedly, in the child's seat behind that. Does it ding?
It does that before you open the door.
Yeah. It's gotta catch your attention before you leave the vehicle, obviously.
Okay.
Right. But yeah. So it does it before you open a door and yeah. It'll actually turn the camera on. You can even turn it on while you're driving down road, then you know, your little ones are fighting or whatever. You can turn that camera on. You can watch 'em in the third row or do whatever.
So no, you don't have to pull over...
I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you.
You don't have to say, you know, one more thing. I'm gonna pull over to the side of the road anymore. You can address it while you're still driving.
The ejection seat is optional.
Yes, exactly. and then you can take your hands off the wheel and deal with it safely while the car still stays between the lines and the row.
That's probably not why it's designed.
cross talk:
Right. Don't do that. Yeah.
Yeah. We rented a Malibu this summer and it had a little thing on the dash. He threw some groceries in the back and it came up and said check rear seat.
Oh, sure enough. Yeah.
Before you get out.
Yep. Yeah. There you go. It's tensing you. Yep. Yep. And that all started with the airbag for the passenger side seat.
You're right.
It's where it all started.
20, 20 plus years.
Oh my God. We're old.
But anyway, yeah. You'd put your gallon of milk on a seat next to you and that thing'll be barking, put a seatbelt on or do whatever, right.
Turns on the airbag.
But anyway, the auto dimming high beams. Right,
Be standard on almost everything. Right.
That's been around forever.
But what about Cornering lights? Have you guys heard about cornering lights?
Yeah. You turn your blinker on and the headlights. Well, woo woo, turn the corner in front of you.
Yeah. That goes back to the fifties. For sure.
It goes back to 1950
But they quit it for a long time.
Absolutely. You turned the steering wheel and that one headlight it followed your steering wheel.
Right. That would be the Tucker. It wasn't The, I think you a hundred percent track Tucker actually with the Steering wheel and it think you have one in the middle that moved all the time. Yep. Yep.
BIll:
That reminds me of the little windshield wipers on the, the headlights.
Mercedes,
Mercedes. Like, I'm not sure if those are really valuable.
Now on the Jeep grand Cherokees, the windshield squirters are on all the cameras.
That makes sense.
That's a good idea.
That's a really nice...
Oh my gosh.
Idea.
Yeah. So then there's is there night vision anywhere?
Like how do we improve night travel?
So night vision. This is really cool. So on the...
Do tell.
Jeep grand Cherokees Jeep wagoners that night vision reaches out a hundred yards. It's a football field in front of you.
Wow.
Okay. It's really cool. It's really wide it's crystal clear. My God. It's so cool.
Crystal clear looking through the windshield or on a camera?
On your screen in front of the steering wheel.
On screen.
Screen in front of the steering wheel, right? So you got your regular vision, obviously, right? And then the screen in front of your windshield, which is a good size nowadays. I mean the, the screen technologies are my God. They're getting huge.
Speaking of that and not to interrupt that, but I was in a city, got into an Uber that was a Tesla. And the only thing on the dash was a big screen, like a personal PC screen. That was the only thing. It was a steering wheel and that screen, and there was nothing else on the entire dash.
It's like on the wagoneer. Let's talk about screens for a little second, come back to the night vision thing. But on the Wagoneer, I mean, there's a screen in the front of the driver, a screen in the middle and a screen for the passenger. So the passenger can do the navigation type it, all that stuff in there, blah, blah, blah, changing music, do whatever, just swipe it. Like you do an iPhone and boom. Now it's in the middle and everybody shares on it. Right. You shut the thing off. You can turn it into a fireplace from one side of the dash all the way to the other side. I mean
In a Jeep Wagoner?
That's a six foot fireplace in that bad boy. Right.
For ambiance to when you're going parking or something, whatever.
boy, if I had that bag in the teenage day as well,
Dangerous.
Yeah. Let's not a go there. You could put the Northern lights on it. I mean, and it's crystal clear.
So the Wagoner, that's it model. It just recently came out the larger side.
The big suburban fighter. Yeah,
Yeah,
Yeah. It's really cool. So back to the night vision, let's circle back, right? For forget about that. Cuz we're all seasoned veterans.
Especially Bryan. 300 feet in front of you. It's crystal clear. And it also incorporates pedestrian, animal detection, all these things and, and these cameras, they read all that stuff in front of you. And the information is processed, you know, so fast it'll tie into your emergency braking, your pedestrian stop, full stop assist. And now they're even getting to be takes over your throttle. It can actually steering avoidance as well. You know, they're they get so close to autonomous driving run by sensors, you know, LIDAR sensors coming out nowadays. So much of that is out there, you know, and we can roll right into the, in the Ford blue cruise, right. We're Ford dealer as well. And there's 135,000 miles of blue cruise approved roads out there. And right now they're all four lane interstates and things like that. Right. But Hey, turn this baby on. And your dash turns blue and sit back and
Dash turns blue
Watch. Watch it. I mean, it's really cool.
Well, my head's spinning, I wasn't even prepared for this information to come this fast. And you talk about sitting in the back in there, enjoying the ride. I think it's time to go on a Wisconsin road trip. What do you guys think?
I agree.
Let's do it.
Should we take a quick break and head to the Apostle Islands?
Where there's far less technology,
Far less technology and...
Out in the wilderness.
It is an awesome place to go.
Tell us about it. I've never been there. It's been on my list for years and years.
There was a group of us that went up there and rented sea kayaks and went out for a long weekend. And there's campsites out on some of the islands there's bear out there. So they got places to store your food and toiletries so that the bear leave you alone and just cruise from island to island. And then the sea caves are out there and you can take these kayaks right back in through the sea caves.
That's what interests me.
You go a hundred, 150 feet back in these caves and it's like, it's outside cuz the water is so crystal clear that the sunlight transmits through the water and lights up the inside of these caves
Is that all sandstone up there is that?
Yep It's all sandstone. And actually one of the islands no longer exists.
Is that the same where they do the ice caves?
Mm-Hmm Yes.
Same thing. I went the summer with...
Same location though?
The no ice.
I've been there in the, in both directions, summer and winter.
Which one did you like better?
Different seasons. You get to go back after the ice. Well like I, it all involves after your activities are done. So in the sea caves, you just do different things. You go swimming and have a cocktail or something. And in the ice caves, you walk you can only walk. It's a lot slower to go then you have to drive somewhere to have your little after adventure.
So it's actually a national park. Is that right?
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And one of the islands has raspberry island has a lighthouse that they redid putting millions of dollars into it. And it's absolutely fascinating to go up there and see how the light housekeepers lived a hundred years ago.
That was a commitment to your job.
That was your life.
Where you worked like the live work concept of apartments where their apartments up below in your retail space below that know the light housekeepers were in the first live work people.
Yeah. And a lot of families out there, their wife and kids.
And then there was usually a couple of assistants that would stay with them out there. And they'd rotate shifts
24 7.
That's amazing history. Really? That that's a part of the history that's really gone by at this point. Technology has taken that over as well, the lighthouse,
And then one of the islands is actually gone. It eroded with lake superior, beatin' on it over the course of thousands of years and it's gone.
There's also, I mean...
You can see it under the water or not?
It's under the water.
You can see it or no?
Uh the water clarity is, oh, it's at least 50 feet that you can see out there.
You can see can probably see the top of whatever faded into the water. Now I've heard too that there's 21 islands or maybe 20 now. but that's a lot of islands. I mean, that's a lot of really the island hop up there kayak
And some of the islands have the campsites, like I was saying, and you plan out your trip. You can spend a weekend out there and...
Because there's also, I mean, Madeline island, which is the largest, I think of all of them. I mean, they have full housing. I mean, you go to the island for, and it's a full community.
Yeah. But they got boats that take you out to the island.
And, but that has the ice highway as well. That haven't we talked about the ice highway.
We've talked about the ice highway as well.
That's off to Madeline island during the winter months.
I gotta keep that one on my list for sure. Envy you guys for already being there. Have Shannon. Have you been there?
Never
Put it down.
I got get up there.
It's just to the north
Right? Three hour drive.
Yeah. That's it. And your car can take you there,
Right. It can drive you there.
Yeah, exactly. I guess that's what, that was a better way of what I was trying to say.
My son went there last year and he really, he really liked it. He wants to go back again and do it again.
Awesome. Well, let's leave the old world behind and come back to the leading edge of technology back into our conversation because I think I finally cleared my head just a little bit from what we just went through, but let's look and see what's coming up in the future. I mean, we talked about the past present and what's coming up and Shannon, you just touched a little bit on autonomous cars, autonomy and that's coming around.
Yeah. Have you guys, you know, like if you go down to UW Madison right. Got all these little robots running around with food in it.
I have seen them. Yes. They're crazy.
They're all over place. Right?
You go to Rochester, Mayo clinic and there's people haulers there. So those little things that are UW Madison multiply it by hundred. Right, and put a dozen people in it. They drive it all over, But nobody's driving these buses.
Oh no.
There's people sitting in 'em and going places.
Yeah. Looking around and twiddling their thumbs.
How'd you feel about that the first time you saw it?
I'm walking... But did you see my waistline? I gotta walk.
How do you communicate with the people mover?
It's on a set schedule on a set route.
Right. So it's designed to be a shuttle from building to building to building to building. Right.
But autonomous.
Big, huge windows.
But autonomous,
You know, it's just like the cars, you know, those rail cars, electric cars, what do they call the thing? San Francisco? What are those dinghies things, whatever, call on there. Right? What is that? Anyway? It's just like that. But with windows, cuz we got winter,
Like the L down in Chicago,
I think it's more possibly like the...
Like a trolley car
The tram in airports that just goes back and forth on a certain thing. But it's not on a rail it's running by itself and it's moving through space and not, you know, it's just going on a straight line
Trolley with windows.
What happens with the snow in the ice in the winter?
Studded tires... Tire chains,
High tech studs. Is that coming?
Yeah, maybe it could be
Recently in the news, an autonomous car was in the news. If we remember that the police tried to pull it over and they got out, walked up to the car and the car took off.
It was just crazy. And he went and the car went through the intersection, pulled over again,
Probably what it was supposed to do. And then
So it's real stuff it's out there.
I haven't heard that story.
That's pretty funny. Look it up. Check that out.
It's a great video.
Cop was coming with the lights on the car, pulled over just like it's supposed to do well, the car didn't realize that it was getting pulled over. Police officer pulled over. He's by the car took off
Speaker 5:
So well you hear about that too. I mean, people getting pulled over in their Teslas for sleeping and such, right?
You know, and that's the bad side of all this technology. You could really have some...
Making us lazy.
Well, it could be some danger involved in this deal. Right.
Totally.
But on the flip side of that, I'm sure it's saved a lot more lives.
Oh absolutely.
In the past with the accident avoidance and blind spot alert. Well, everything we just talked about, Obviously, right.
When you're talking about the cameras, the night vision, I'm thinking deer.
Totally
100 percent.
How Many deer...
Huge.
Not getting hit and...
Sure.
How many lives is that saving?
And you know, and you know, the technology's brand new and it's just out there and I'm sure if the deer jumps out, I mean, literally right in front, you, I mean you gotta stop 6,000 pounds. There's 8,000 pounds. You can't do that. That quick.
How many of 'em are gonna pick it up before you get that...
Give you a second or two warning and it's automatically applying the brakes before you even react.
Two seconds. Warning is a long time.
That's a long time,
Long time.
So, and then autonomous, there are certain roads that are being built just for autonomous driving.
Well, right now, if we go back to that blue cruise thing,
So the blue cruise uses cameras and the sensors for adaptive cruise control. Right. And of course, you know, their GPS is tied into that with navigation system and, and such. So I mean, it's using a combination of all those things to work, to make it happen on certain roads.
Right,
Right. And I'm sure, you know, down the road as cameras get better and Lightar sensors get better and things like that, that it will just happen all over. Right.
We'll see that before we...
Are gone.
It's gonna happen sooner, sooner than later. I think.
We'll see that. We'll see that.
You're gonna be working on them. I'm not
And you know the next thing I'm sure everybody's talking about is electric. Right.
Yeah. That's another big thing. That's different.
That's gonna happen.
That's really here.
So realistically here's my personal opinion. Right? Most family households have two cars. Right. And I truly believe that one of them can be electric. Okay. You know, the
The commuter car,
To and from work,
Right. Why not? You know, you can put 270 miles on this thing. I did some math on this. Where's my notes. So the mock currently is 224 miles to 314 miles on one single charge. Okay. At 11 kilowatt cents an hour, which is our current electric rate. Right. And it costs you 10 to 15 bucks to go 300 miles. Okay.
Because the electric to recharge the battery.
Right. Okay. Right. And say you get 30 miles of gallon, you go 300 miles. That's 10 gallons and what's gas today. Let's just, let's just call it five bucks for easy math. Right. Well, that's 50 bucks, right? That's $2,000 a year. It's 106, six bucks a month difference. Right.
So do you think though that the need for electricity, like we're moving that direction, but the production of electricity and the need for electricity will continue to grow. And I don't know if you know, the calculation based on our rate of electricity today has to change because we need more electricity.
People talk about that all the time. You know, our electric grid can't handle it, blah, blah, whatever. Right. But it's just like running your dryer in your house.
You run your dryer in your house. Right. So.
Yeah. you throw a hundred thousand dryers on top of that with all these ed vehicles
Doesn't everybody have a dryer?
As well as the car.
So now you're doubling the load. Is itgonna be able to handle it?
The Tesla...
I picture the city lights going boom.
The Tesla version of that is that cuz MREA Midwest region...
Renewable energy association.
Energy Association seminar. I went to one time cuz the guy from Tesla was there to speak. And I thought was this very interesting that every home would have solar panels and batteries in the storage so that during the day you're collecting that electricity and then you're plugging your car in and doing those things so that it's a self-generating system. So that every morning you get ready to go, your car is fully charged off of the battery power that is collected over from solar and off your roof tiles off your panels, whatever that might be somewhere.
So we're gonna supplement the grid,
Correct. Individually, like, you know, trying to instead of mass product, where was it that they were talking about the largest solar panel farm that was gonna be installed? And I can't remember where it was...
Southwest United States.
Yeah. Somewhere. And they were, you know, like the big controversy...
Square miles.
But you take that and you disseminate that in everyone's house. If just your roof. I mean Tesla has roof tiles.
That are literally solar activated.
We just don't have enough...
Shingles.
Yeah shingles. So I mean you make every rooftop in America, a solar panel as well.
?:
So let's go down that path then
Walls. I mean like they have solar walls.
The power walls
That you can do power walls. They can have art on 'em it's... There's public installations all over.
I have 44 solar panels behind my house and I don't have an electric bill zero. Right. And it's good for 30 years when I did it back during the Obama administration was at 40%, 40% tax credit.
Right. Now it's down to 26 this summer. We're actually putting rooftops on all of our dealerships, all my dealerships. So to eliminate that electric bill. Right. And the payoff is sub 10 years.
So that technology's come down quite a bit, you know, but as the tax credits get less and less, it could increase your payoff amount. Right.
Yeah. But the technology's gonna get better. Production costs are gonna come down. So hopefully that balances itself out.
And production costs have really come down in the last decade on them quite a bit. Right.
So this all infrastructure relating back to a vehicle of like being able to transport people. Right. I mean, we've gone down this very interesting rabbit hole of when you start talking about the technology and vehicles and our electric vehicles there, how good are they gonna be? It comes back to the fuel and how are they gonna be powered.
Energy.
Right. Energy and people movement. Right.
Shannon, what does the future look like for the Chrysler brand when it comes to EV technology?
So EV technology is really accelerating very fast. Right. And the key component is the battery itself. Okay. So battery technology is really alkaline, lithium, you know, there's more, more compound road. Right. And like the Chrysler airfoil that's on its way. I mean, they're saying that's gonna be 400 plus miles. So that's already.
25%, 30% more than what's out there today. Right. The Ram truck I've heard, they're gonna be 500 miles on right. That's a long ways
And Lucent got one, that's a new startup company. That's got 500 miles plus they've got it under a, I believe it's under an hour to recharge. Sure. It's about 75%, which it gets you about 400 miles.
They get to that technology. It's after 400 miles, you gotta stop for a break anyways.
Oh Yeah. I can.
Well, I mean, coming back to that, having most homes, having two vehicles, how often are you driving? 400. I mean like that's a road very rarely. That's planned out at some level that you're driving 400 miles.
I think the only reason why you need to have a gas car. Well, it's my opinion. Right. But say you wanna travel to Yellowstone, right? Because infrastructure to charge your electric car
Is not there soon.
Well, and then the timeframe to do it. Right.
And if you get it down into the, under an hour, that's a game changer.
Yeah. You could take a quick lunch break or do whatever. Right. I don't think you could run the Cannonball, run with the thing, right?
No .
But there's plenty of articles out there. If you Google this thing of people traveling from one place to the other and they talk about their average stop to charger electric car to drive across the whole country. Right. And their stops have been averaging about an hour. Okay. Cause they got a DC fast chargers. They can hit 80%, you know, they could really fly and go through there. But you know, some questions that are out there yet is how long is battery gonna last mm-hmm right. Pounding all this electricity into this battery quickly. Is that gonna shorten your life battery span?
It has to.
Right. Well you and I think that because we're old school, but technology is changing so fast. I don't know the answer to that. Right. I think that's just gonna take a little bit of time to figure that out yet.
Cell phones, I think has driven that.
Oh Sure.
Of like finding that battery ability to recharge your cell phone.
Well, look at this. Even this little I fit battery deal that I, I got here. This is good for seven days. And I can charge it in 15 minutes.
Speaking of cell phones, Apple's been talking about potentially getting into the automotive manufacturing business,
Really.
So Honda and Sony, just inked a contract to create a car together.
Right. Honda and Sony. Right. So yeah. Apple's getting into the business. Everybody wants a piece of the, you know, to get in there and diversify their companies. So,
Well then Samsung has a chip that is connected to vehicles.
Oh. And your TV and a whole ball of wax. Eh.
I'll be darned I did not know that. That's interesting.
Well, Shannon I read somewhere too that the Chrysler brand will be most likely, fully electronic or EV by 2028.
100% correct.
Is that?
That's been inked on paper.
It has?
All the vehicles, all Chrysler vehicles.
So you gotta remind there's Chrysler, there's Dodge, there's Jeep. There's (raft?).
So Chrysler is the people mover guy, right? The Chrysler Pacifica, eight passengers. Everybody never, nobody wants to be a soccer mom in a minivan, but my God, they're so useful. And they're so easy to use. You can pile a bunch of stuff in there.
They're looking pretty good these days, too.
They're a good looking ride. Yeah. Yeah. They don't put a hemi in it, but it's close. you know, now the Pacifica and some other vehicles that Chrysler produces, they have plugin hybrids. Right? So you plug 'em in now with the same outlet that the Maki uses and, and you know, all these other electric cars that are coming and they run 30 to 35 miles or so roughly right in there're somewhere. Right. And most people...
That's typical day commute,
Typical day drive the kids to school, drop 'em off drive the other side of town, go to work, do the whole thing back over again. So they don't burn any gas. Right. But if you do travel further, well then the gas motor takes over and you're gone. Right. It works out pretty slick. Right. But you're right. So by 2025 is when the process is gonna start transferring everything over to a hundred percent electric and then be done by 2028. That's what they have inked on black and white paper right now.
Do you know how that compares to other brands
It's in line? It is, yeah. It's in line, you know,
They're really gonna be there.
And they're actually talking about spinning these things off of the main franchise. Ford is kind of starting to go down that path. You know, like Tesla doesn't have Tesla dealerships. Right. And Ford is starting to go down that path too. And that, that scares me a little bit because of service. Right. And how many people, and I don't know if America's ready for it yet. That's a big purchase. Right. Buying a car. I mean, it's a lot of money, you know, you just, you wanna go on your phone and go to ford.com. Yeah. There's a red one. I'll take it. Right, right. Bang. Now it's delivered on your doorstep and yeah. You know, and who's gonna show me how to run it. Who's gonna, who's gonna make sure that I got an all-wheel drive one in Wisconsin instead of just a front wheel drive one. Right. So I, I don't know if people are quite ready to spend $50,000 by click of a button on your phone yet. Right. Right.
Carbon has been doing it for five, six years,
But they're also gonna belly up and broke right now. But then the service side of the business. Right. So if something does happen to your electric vehicle, you gotta a place to take it, fix it.
Right. So you need to have a dealership for that. I mean, all these things are changing. Look at there's tire companies that mail you the tires, right. To your door.
Yes they do.
Right. There's tire companies that will mail 'em someplace. And have 'em put on for you.
They're coming out to you now with mobile tire installation.
Oh really?
Oh yeah.
Didn't know that.
Yep. That's been around for a little while, but we're starting to see it more often now in a previous podcast, just recently we talked about airless tires. So that's other technology that's being introduced to everything we've talked about today.
Have you guys driven on them yet? Or...
Have not.
Those are not...
But they're being used out there already.
In testing markets.
Agricultural stuff. Industrial places.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, they've had foam fill tires for 25, 30 years, right,
50 years.
Oh my God.
It's been a long time.
It's kinda like your mattress now. it's all full. Is it foam everywhere comes in a little box. Boom. You open it up.
That's true. Yeah. Think about that. Look at beds.
That's a whole nother podcast.
That's a whole different podcast.
Put a stamp on it. Send it to me.
How did we get onto beds from cars?
Foam
Bill's fault. Bill's fault.
Foam.
Well, thanks to you guys. My head continues to spin and it hasn't stopped yet, but you know, we've come a long way since the beginning of the automobile. And as we sit here today, it's pretty clear that technology is in the driver's seat and will take us into the future. Thank you very much to Shannon Grewe of Colby Chrysler center here on site for your information and that head spinning effect that we have going on.
Thank you very much for having me here. I appreciate the feedback and the ability to talk about these things.
Lot of, lot of great information.
It's great.Rob:
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