We're Building a Diesel-Electric Pickup.

we can do a two wheeel drive we can do a four-wheel drive we can do a four-wheel drive with a generator we can do a two wheeel drive with a generator the axles are $5,000 while doing a two- wheeel Drive knocks five grand off the price for a CAT diesel generator plus the back end you're buying a new small diesel motor that's not a cheap part if inflation goes up the cost our parts are going to go up the kits going to go [Music] up all right guys uh we are here this is probably one of the most Monumental videos that we are going to release as you know uh the boss garage is uh here in Southern Ontario we got Andy who just joined recently and Aaron who does all the editing behind the scenes we have a couple more people that uh that work for us part-time editors and welders and stuff like that and then I'm uh I'm the guy you see on the screen but um we've had a lot of fun here on the boss garage and I just want to start off saying that everything's going to be the same and everything's going to be different it's uh this is pretty epic I don't know if you can see Chase on the other side of the screen um if you guys don't know Chase he's from part of the Edison Motors team out on the other side of Canada uh Canada's a big country it's about 3,500 miles away and if you go back to our video series back in October we did a full breakdown of Topsy and Topsy is North America's first diesel electric hybrid um that chase and team built uh got fully working uh within a year and made it down Ontario for testing and uh we got to know the guys very well we've been following each other on social media for a while and we really just hit it off and started talking and that led to this announcement and um I'm happy to say that we will be joining uh the Edison team and I'm taking on a whole new Venture so first off Chase thank you very much for the opportunity thank you so much for um thinking of us and uh we are very very excited so I literally couldn't think of a better group of guys to be working on this project with yeah so it it seems like in the automotive Community it's just like you meet people even though you've never met them before you you finally meet them after a while of chatting online or whatever and and you just hit it off and you guys are kind of salt of the earth you guys are hardworking guys I cannot give you enough credit for building a truck in a quanset hut because I I would have left I would have said I'm out and done but you guys did it to prove a point and um and yeah you built a fully functioning diesel electric hybrid semi and uh and he thought we could we could put a little bit of help into that not that part of it but you're into a new Venture yeah no so we're on to a pickup truck right now everybody has been asking when when are you guys going to do a pickup truck like you're retrofitting the semi-rs and we looked at it and we looked at it and now I'll admit I'm a I know semi- trucks hands down in and out I'm weak on pickup trucks I've got a core knowledge but I don't have the strength so we thinking like well who do we partner we know the electrification side we know it works in the big stuff how do we bring it down to the pickup truck so that anybody with an older pickup truck can retrofit it get the advantage of the electric and yeah so I can't think of a better group of guys to partner with on this to make sure this happens like I'm hoping you guys have the expertise you guys know how to do these engine swaps know how to do these crazy projects you you got a good attention to detail we know the electric side so I think if we join forces it's just going to be an amazing truck nice so put that into perspective to clear that up um Chase and the and his guys on his side of Canada are going to keep focusing on the semi and then we are going to work together to uh basically do the same thing as Topsy build a topsy in a pickup truck form so um they've asked us to help them with the kit to uh figure out what the best way to seamlessly build a conversion kit for pickup trucks that you already own so we would remove the engine transmission out of that and then same thing put a little diesel uh uh engine in there with a generator on it that uh charges up the batteries and replace the axles with electric axles so no more drive shaft no more exhaust and we've got a hybrid uh electric uh pickup truck that solves so many problems that it's kind of crazy that nobody's ever done this before right I've been I've been trying to explain it to people as it's this it's the step in the process that everybody missed yeah like like rather than saying oh hey don't we ice engines let's go cut that EV straight to EV do EV that's like hold on why can't it be both why can't it it seems like the logical step that should have should be happening I can't believe nobody else has done this step like this is just it seems like it's a no-brainer it's been in heavy equipment Great Train since like the 1930s 1960s all this heavy equipment's been using diesel Electric and for some reason I say Andy it's just they just decided no full EVS they're like what about a little generator everybody's been saying put a generator in it yeah and I'm so happy that you guys finally took the first step to to do that and uh I think we're both on the same page environmentally wise not uh we've already done a podcast where we've chatted about a lot of these issues so check out the Edison podcast you know you guys Sol the pile of problems uh that exist in electric trucks full electric trucks and solved a lot of problems that are in current uh diesel on on Highway trucks and what we want to do is kind of do the same thing with the pickup truck version of that so um what that means for for you guys that are watching our Channel and are into everything that we do um this is going to take a little bit to get going so currently you guys are sourcing all the parts the parts already exist correct yeah most of all the parts exist so we're trying to use as many parts between the semi-truck and the pickup truck as possible like we're going to use the same batteries because we've already used them we know how to program with them same battery management system same inverters it's just a matter of instead of having six battery modules we can just use two battery modules instead of five inverters we have two inverters we can downsize and change a little the parts use fewer of the parts but they'll still be fundamentally the same core part so they already exist the axles luckily there's enough manufacturers that make these electric axles they're plenty around there because people have been targeting like that one ton TW ton delivery van market for electrification for a long time so they're basically those heavier Duty one ton two ton axles that have been electrified we can Source those put those in and that might be a little fun playing around picking out which ones and yeah awesome so what that means for all our projects that you guys know we finished off a pile of projects but I still have some projects on the go still have to get the C10 finished up my uh compound turbo cumins needs to be finished up and then we have the Bronco and we're going to continue with the Audi as well um that's going to continue but uh that will be in the first this winter um so we'll be working hard in the shop non-stop to finish those projects off uh we're going to keep enjoying the ones that we have the GTO the F350 which uh has a video out as well um of us driving into Texas and picking up uh more clean iron but in that time we're at the start of this uh project where we're taking this crazy idea to take old pickup trucks and completely um change the drive line on it uh it's it's it's new but it's not new but I don't think there's ever been a company that says hey we're going to build something and we're going to take the audience along for the entire ride so we're going to show you what's involved in this whole process of sourcing the parts checking out the parts quality control throwing it into a pickup truck running into all the issues that come with that fixing those issues overcoming problems overcoming um any obstacle that comes our way and then testing it proving it and then going into a higher production version of that where we can design a kit that we're happy with that is safe that is reliable um that uh we can install in pickups and then also train other shops to be able to do the same conversion so um we'll have now now you guys have already released on your channel um you guys already have a lot of interest in installers as well yeah yeah we uh we got quite a few people that have signed up to say hey I'm interested in being an install once this Kit's released to the public cuz we want trained people to be able to install this there is a safety concern that it's installed right with the electric and the high voltage you need to know what you're doing on that so that's part of the training program so really we're going to be showing the whole thing in through here across a project it's it's exactly what you say we're going to be talking about those thought processes and we've already been having a lot of internal debate where do we stick the batteries do we put them in the box an easy drop in kit do we stick them in the frame rails lower center of gravity both have their advantages and their disadvantages so we're really going to be showing that thought process that quality control that checking that hey any parts that aren't manufactured domestically we want to make sure those non-d domestically manufactured parts are absolutely up to our standard show the install um show that level of expertise because you guys are coming from a non-ev background we've got a lot of great EV Tech so it's going to be showing that hey this is how the training like what do we need to make sure that people know what do we need to be training these future installers when they come in so what we do together is going to set the groundwork for what the other installers are going to be going through so what you're doing right now is taking pre-orders yes um we're taking some reservations so people can reserve their spot in line to get one of these kits the farther up on the list the faster you're going to get a kit and it does two things number one it yeah we're fundraising the entire project through that that money is going towards building these first trucks because we've raised the money and we've done the truck sales on the semi trucks but obviously the sales on the semi trucks the money from that has to go to the semitruck bill we can't use that customer's money to fund the pickup even though I think the pickup will be quicker to market for large production the other cool thing from the business point of view is so we're looking at raising some money to build a factory build a shop one of the things that investors or Banks and finance people want to know is do you have confirmed sales if we're going to give you some money to go and build a shop so we can get out of that tent we need to see that you have an actual product that people are willing to buy you have confirmed orders and having people put down 200 250 bucks on a reservation absolutely shows that the bank and the finance people that no this is a confirmed product this is something people want they're willing to already put their money down on it those are verified sales we can use those sales as future collateral to help get it into production so not only do they help build the um project pickup that we're working on together we're going to be able to use that as confirmed sales in order to start the production part of it so it kind of hits on both sides of it that's kind of just a little bit of the business one see when we did the semi-rs we did reservations and we had a thousand companies sign up for reservations they put down the amount of trucks and it was like 13,000 trucks that they could potentially have and we said look we need to build a facility like once we get to Market this is what we're looking at and the finance gu said well how much did they put down and they said we said well nothing we didn't charge anything because the truck's not actually ready yet we'll charge people once we're in production and the bank said no we can't do that because you're not in production like you don't have the confirmed sales so you need to be able to get somebody to put some kind of deposit down so that we can give you the money to build a facility to deliver the trucks and we found out that's why all these companies do pre PR orders for everything it's not to all guarantee the thing it's so that the bank can see that there's a verified product it's like when people do pre-orders on video games what they're actually doing your early release is that that video game says Hey Early Edition we have so many people pre-ordering reserving can we get finan for the actual game because look at the sample customer size the bank says okay if there's that many people pre-ordering then this many people must order so that's kind of the interesting logic that we've learned in the last few months yeah yeah no that's excellent so I just learned that so you're ahead of the game yeah so so this means uh I I I've had so um it it's been interesting because we've we have a pile of fun on the boss garage uh we just went on another epic road trip went down to Texas came back again overcame some problems and and met some other more really cool people um it's very laidback now we work really hard um Aaron Aaron and I put in Easy 80 hours a week luckily we're working from home and uh we're still able to manage uh family time and work time and uh Andy's joined lately so he's not full-time like he's pretty well full-time but not full-time we're pretty casual yet so I'm not working 80 hours a week depends on the week but but it it it is a lot of fun and I get to build some of the coolest stuff that my imagin lets me lets me take on the Audi's insane um the tank and all that but um also reading reading a bunch of books and uh reading back on the Avo Arrow it really hit me probably about a year ago where I I I do think I'm born in the wrong time I don't know if you guys know that but there you get that feel from it it's it's um I I I think I'm born like 40 years too late I think it would have been the but anyway the AO Arrow was a supersonic jet that Canada built it was 20 years ahead of its time and and I just thought man how epic would it be to be a part of that uh even though the the whole government screwed it up and scrapped the program we built a working functioning supersonic jet that was 20 years ahead of its time and to be able to tell your kids look I was part of that team I was part of that engineering I was part of that design team and it changed things it changed how things were made from there on after and to change something for the better and and and I don't get to be a part of any of that just doing what we're doing now um I I I I do really appreciate when um young guys and even older guys come up to me at shows and say hey I became a mechanic because of you or I I did this because of you or I decided to fix my own truck because of you and I was able to you know now I get an appreciation for how a diesel works and I was scared before and now I don't and that is fantastic and nothing of that is going to change we're going to keep doing that but now I really feel like when you reached out and said hey do you want to be a part of this that this is that thing where you know what we can actually be part of something big and something awesome that that Canada is doing um I I'm super proud of you guys for what you've been able to accomplish in a year I'm really excited from where you guys are going and uh I've really really thrilled that you thought of us to to be able to take us along so um YouTube is not going to change we're going to keep pumping out the same videos we're going to keep doing the projects on the side as well um what it does mean is hiring some more people and but none of that um is going to happen in the first little bit because what is your timeline what are you thinking um the projects being put together the the the products being put together right now um do you want to share the timeline a little bit just so people aren like hey I want a truck next week yeah no for sure so the timeline is right now now we've done all the engineering for the electrification component we know what our electric motors are going to be our voltages all the parts we're going to use that's all locked in so but I want to work together to make sure we're picking the right axles front and rear axles what what width do we want cuz fundamentally this is one of those business decisions that buying one of something is expensive buying a hundred of them we've looked and talked with these um manufacturers of the parts and you start looking at it and you buy one axle okay the cost for example is $110,000 you buy a 100 axles they'll knock that cost down to$ 4,000 I'm just using the rough estimated numbers but it can be 60% reduction so it means that we're just going to buy one axle because if we just buy multiple and we buy 10 different axles half ton axles 3/4 one ton 450 550 axles we buy all of them we're we're not going to be able to take advantage and you so it'll be picking the right one will be absolutely essential on the start that's one of those things I'd like to work with because that's one of those debates do we do like an F450 a bigger axle it's going to be a little heavier but we can put it in the service truck and it'll be an overly heavy axle for the half tons and the 3/4 tons do we go that route or do there's a lot more 3/4 tons in one tons do we make it for that so those are one of those things I'd like to work with over the next two months I'd like to get that finalized what kind of studs 10 log eight Lug what kind of lug pattern we doing disc brakes drum brakes that sort of thing that we're really got to figure out then once we get that axle we're looking ordering it it's about a two Monon lead time once they have that first one I want to go to the manufacturer with you guys I want to see these axles at the manufacturers before they even ship it over to us check that out make sure it's all up to our quality standards once we ship that a over we're going to ship it first to the Edison shop where I want to basically put it on a 10th test bench where we put all the components together for the electric side where the axles are just sitting on the ground batteries connected everything ready to go once we verify that works we're estimating a month two months then we'll send those over to you guys so we're probably looking around June July at this point and over the summertime we'll work together get this truck built hopefully we might be able to have something by next September that's my ideal goal because the fully charged show is next September they've invited us back we showed off popsy last year I would love to have it as a goal to show off the pickup truck this year yeah so build build it build it out here and drive it cross country and prove that it works put all of these naysayers uh in their place saying but how far does it go as far as you are legally allowed to drive because this got its own generator you don't have to stop and plug it in so I think it would be funny if we uh we just hook a Tesla up and we just tow a Tesla on a trailer AC cross country first first non-stop Tesla 2 first non-stop Tesla Cross Country tour there's Tesla across Canada so excellent so now we wanted to open this kind of opportunity open to you guys and and uh answer some of the typical questions um you now that cat's kind of out of the bag and uh we can't stop smiling should we shake on it officially at this point here Chase like abely it's that second delay across country but that that was perfect all right so um the question first uh if you guys are watching this on our Channel and you haven't followed Edison and you want to put your reservation in for one of these pickups what is the deposit and where do they go for that Canadian 250 Canadian it's like 80 bucks American right yeah I think it's last right now so really it's not it's not a big investment to hold your spot in line and uh be part of this get one of those first one kits and if you don't like the way we put it together you don't like the videos you don't like the idea where you can sell your spot to somebody else right yeah it's it's a transferable spot yeah but you're not getting your money back right no no we're spending the money on the build truck the money is in the bolts that are in the truck be like oh those are my wheel studs yeah so if everything goes according to plan um we get the parts uh in our shop by June we are able to drive a working prototype back to uh the other side of Canada by September when can we realistically um start production on uh customers reservations yep so the next step behind that would be once we get it I want to put it through our normal six-month testing thing yeah I like to leave it well three four months minimum before we start it we run it you guys take that truck back with you find out what works find out what doesn't work do we need to change anything then what we do is we reach out to those installers the other installers then we come through the training program so me and you will work what did we learn from this build what do we want other people to learn how do we set up that training program it's probably going to be a month Long training month and a half long we come teach these mechanics about EVS EV safety proper installation procedures we take them to our Edison shop or they can come to your shop or we can come to their shop however that that works in the future we then train them on their first kit so they take their first kits we train them up they take those kits back once we're happy that they can install it correctly and safely then we open it up the kits to the public and we send them to those C first certified installers and say okay these people have been trained up they know how to install a kit the kits are available to the public we're going to send you to the closest installer to you they'll put the kid into your truck and we're as to it's probably two years before that happens a year to build the first truck and a year to train up enough installers till we can get to the point where we can start shipping all the kits out okay and uh what what trucks are you aiming to do the swaps on even initially so um I really liked your idea of the semi where you built a logging truck and everybody's like well why did you build such a heavy truck why did you build a logging truck and and there's a simple explanation for that right I wanted to build the toughest truck I fig like if it could survive logging in the most brutal conditions it can survive later after yeah can now in the pickup truck that's something that I'd love to get some people's feedback and maybe I we need to pick out what truck we're going to do because there's so much debate and all of the answers are great like someone said do a tow truck you know what I'd love to do a tow truck CU they said you have electrical power so you could offsh that electrical power so when somebody runs out of juice in their F-150 Lightning or their Tesla we could roll up next to them with the Edison truck fire up the generator plug into theirs and recharge them on the side of the road a tow truck retrofit makes so much sense people said do a service truck like a welding truck and then you could put in an electric welder and this thing can sit on the pipeline and you could send it off to some welder who could use it and that's pipeline welding in the oil patch is a damn demanding job that truck will get other people have said well why don't you retro fit a classic 1980s uh it gets poor fuel mileage it's got an old engine it's not a lot of power from that you know a 1960s truck it at 100 horsepower it doesn't it gets terrible fuel mileage I just want a high power lowcost old classic to drive other people have said do a newer truck so that you show you can do a newer truck and I don't know all of these have great arguments I don't know what to do so we will leave that in the comment section for a while we keep taking your um your your recommendations but in the meantime I feel like one of these problem like this is one of those problems where all of a sudden be like you know what this is perfect this is the one this is like we both need to agree on that but but uh that I'm sure will come to light eventually whether we're we're looking for it or not um but the first I I I want to go back to the semi where you said we built a loging truck because your competition was only two makers right if you went into a normal if you built a normal semi you're competing against every manufacturer out there who is already getting into electrification but with the logging industry it's only Kenworth and who's the other one I mean you got Kenworth and Peterbilt packar and then you got Western Star so you really got packar and Western Star they're the two loggers okay so there you go now if you're into that market you're like oh well you're already standing out right now there's already um half tun pickups there's already lightning the rivan um and uh Dodge is coming out with this hybrid version as well right yeah dodg is coming out in the Hal ton but I have been beating my fists off the desk being like no the the electric is great for torque the generator makes sense like pickup trucks are meant to work like build a work truck the high you don't need high torque like what is the point of having a 500 horsepower pickup with 8,000 foot- PBS of torque to haul Timmy to soccer practice on the weekend like no I wanted as like a hot shot that's those balls are heavy man the soccer ball you lifted them they're heavy you got a whole bag of them in the back you need a pickup truck I I mean that's fair that's fair so so going into the one now now a big disadvantage to uh full electric is that uh uh uh they don't tow very well right so the lightning is actually Ford is cutting production on the lightning because they can't sell them and um it's funny we're in this unique position where we have YouTube and we have an audience and uh hu's garage bought a lightning and I think he hurt Ford Sales so bad he towed his Model A I think with it and it dropped the range by like 60% or something like that and he just said I hate this truck he sold sold the truck and um a bunch of bad press that way now you we solved that with the generator obviously if um the generator will charge the batteries as you go if you're towing it will run more often than it will if um you're just cruising along on the highway um but uh with the one ton there's no I don't foresee anybody else coming out in the one ton and up Market with a full EV because it still doesn't make sense do you agree oh I agree a full EV one ton would be way worse like they they did the F-150 cuz they're like yeah most people don't use an F-150 to tow and you know what it's probably there's an argument there for the F-150 electric like there is a place for electric of hey I drive to the grocery store and I drive 10 kilm to work 10 km back home I do 20 km a day that's all I do I just want to be able to plug in like there might be an argument there but it's not the one ton people buy one ton trucks to work nobody wants a work truck that can only work an hour a day no that's right and when I see when I see off-road equipment going full EV there's been agricultural tractors John Deere's done it case has done it um it still doesn't make any sense look you're you're building a a work site one you're a farm you're in the middle of the field um you don't have time to recharge and it's just a publicity stun it just doesn't make any sense I mean there are some things I've seen that make a lot of sense the underground mining has really Embrace full EV because they don't want the emissions underground where people are trapped in tunnels and all that and you're just putting out diesel smoke and they put Chargers everywhere in these underground tunnels just to constantly replug these things in quick change batteries but that doesn't make sense for 90% of people unless you're constantly just driving your one truck Underground it inside a building right right so I'm talking about an excavator that's digging a hole for a subdivision it's like well there's no there's no electricity there yet that's that's a problem right so so going into the one ton Market uh basically we're going to try and prove that it's going to work with a generator that um you can you won't sacrifice downtime to still be able to do to do uh and have it and still have an electric vehicle now um the reason that the batteries and the generator make sense is that um you're able to run an engine at Peak uh horsepower and torque numbers you're when you're charging this generator you're taking this smaller engine and getting to the RPM that it is the happiest where it's the most efficient and still putting out the the the best numbers to recharge these batteries so the problem when you have a heavy truck truck is that you need a lot of power to get this truck moving if you're moving um four five 10 ton down the road um you need a big engine and proper gearing to be able to take off be able to pass somebody but when you're cruising you don't need all of that uh energy you're you're having this big engine that is inefficient that's creating a lot of heat and that heat is um not being put to use whereas if you have a generator it's only running at Peak numbers um there's no lag there's no waiting for Boost there's no uh complicated turbo setups where you got uh veins that are moving in Turbo and and letting uh or twin turbo or whatever um that that that you see in the market today now it's just taking that Peak energy and charging the battery and you have that Reserve in your battery when you need it but you're not using as much juice when you're able to throttle it down when you're cruising down the road on top of that you're still able to use regenerative braking so every time that you break you charge the batteries as well so less wear and tear on your brakes and especially when you're pulling a trailer in that you're you're able to recoup some of that energy to store that in the battery again so you've seen significant fuel savings through that setup on on uh Topsy and on on Carl correct yeah we were seeing about 50% fuel savings roughly on them yeah that's that's amazing it can go up to 80% highway driving it can go maybe like a 5 10% fuel savings cuz Highway trucks get up to speed they stay at speed they can gear their engine where their motor's running it doesn't make as much sense on a highway truck logging you can almost see 100% fuel savings on the right loging Hall you're going uphill empty you're coming downhill loaded you're recharging the batteries and you go down loaded you go back up empty you almost never have to fire the generator up so there's but for average like City driving heavy City vocational driving yeah you're seeing about a 50% increase in fuel economy and then you're getting crazy increases for work trucks trucks that are on site running external Power Equipment something like a welding rig we could run a welder off the trucks batteries and a welder is a perfect example huge Peak power demand when you're actually welding you can hear those welders lug down throttling into it when they're actually welding and then it goes to an idle but 75% of the time of welders actually out on site they're not actually welding with this the battery only produces power when it welds like you could almost run an entire 12-hour day totally quiet off the electric power maybe the generator fires up once for 20 minutes so you're using 20 minutes of fuel versus 12 hours of idle fuel yeah yeah that's amazing now um I know another question before we get too far is how much is this gonna cost and I'm gonna say right now it's too early to tell um there's uh again it depends on how many people put in reservations uh what kind of problems we run into now there's going to be legal issues involved with this we'll take you guys along with that too safety concerns what happens in a rollover what happens ifed this what happens that what happens when somebody does something so stupid that it's completely unfathomable why would they have done this but somehow we're on the hook so all of that gets factored into these uh builds and right now we can't say um how much is going to cost but you're hoping for a third of the cost of a new truck that's kind of the goal right we're hoping for a third that's the where we'd like to be might be towards a half half the price of a new truck it's that's the target range where we're going to be and of course it's going to depend a lot on the installation cost doing up some trucks is going to be way more expensive than other trucks like the welding rig if or the tow truck if we need to put in an external charger or we got to interconnect the weld the three-phase welder that's going to be a little bit more expensive and with just the way that prices are changing so crazy that when we hit the market in two years I can't predict it because to give you an example when we started Edison Motors the battery cost has dropped in almost half from when we started the first time we actually a little bit more the first time we were looking at batteries we were looking at about 80 $ 4,000 for the batteries on a truck like oh okay that's a little pricey now we're down to about 35 $40,000 for the batteries on a like a fully as many batteries as like the top end semi like it's the prices are dropping like crazy on some things but other things are going way up and you're like why the hell is a bolt that used to be a dollar now three and a half dollars so I like I can't predict this the cost is roughly going to be half the price of a new truck and that's what I've been saying is because if all of a sudden inflation keeps going up and our parts get more expensive then the trucks in the Market at the day will get more expensive and it'll still be about half the cost of that where if I came out and I just said oh the cost is going to be around $40 $50,000 and then we find out that the cost is 55,000 people are like you said 30 like well it's half if inflation goes up the cost our parts are going to go up the Kit's going to go up and it also depends we can do a two- wheeel drive we can do a four-wheel drive we can do a four-wheel drive with a generator we can do a two wheel drive with a generator the axles are $5,000 while doing a two wheel drive knocks five grand off the price the generator itself you're looking at 20 grand for the diesel generator like for a CAT diesel generator plus the back end you're easily 20 25 Grand because that's a new motor you're you're buying a new small diesel motor that's not a cheap part some people have said like isn't this kit going to cost like $110,000 and you're like you tell me where you can get aand brand new cat diesel brand new axles and the batteries like the batteries are about on the pickup kit going to be around that $6,000 $8,000 range for the batteries that go in there luckily it's a hybrid you don't really need that many your axles you're looking at a few grand on those like it does add up a little bit over time so that gets rid of the audience that's like look I this is something that I'm interested in but yeah 10 $10,000 is complet unrealistic but these are not also the people we just um Scott our engine builder at Northtown machine just rebuilt the 6.2 Ford and uh they told him it's a 2019 so it's four years old and uh it broke a Val spring and from Ford it was $188,000 for a new 6.2 gas engine that is already being mass produced from Ford so uh used engine from them was uh $111,000 and uh that's still you were no better off than the day before it blew up that that valve spring could go at anytime and that's not the labor to install that yet right now um if you're putting it into an older pickup generally your drive line is uh shot nobody wants these old axles nobody wants a 350 nobody wants uh an old 454 whatever was in your truck but if you're doing a newer truck um there is some recoup where you could sell the drive line or the axles that were under it to some degree recoup some of your money that way but that's all again that's all up to installers and all of that that comes later and we'll we'll deal with that then and that's why I want to be in that 450 size ideally for my personal thing if I'm choosing axles I'd like to be up in that that heavier 450 because you can put a 450 axle into a 350 or a 250 but you can't put a 250 axle into a 450 and the reason is is that a lot of this Market I foresee just in my prediction being those guys with the service trucks the tow trucks the people that use these things every day day in and day out a 50% fuel savings is huge at the end of their month for them there's an economic advantage and if you just did tow trucks and service trucks alone you would rake it in but those things put on high mileage Within 5 years they've got 400,000 500,000 kilometers on those trucks within four or five years they're putting 100,000k a year on it well now at 4 or 500,000 everything from the start of that truck engine transmission rear ends are all starting to wear out so they could run it till a major component goes blow drops a transmission drops a rear end and they're looking at it well everything's worn out I got to go back to Ford and I got to spend $100 ,000 on a new chassis plus I got to take my rigging off put it onto the new truck re and re all that rigging okay well I'm going to be 150 Grand by the time I'm said and done oh for 50 Grand I can go in and get the Edison pickup I'm saving a third of the cost of that new F uh F450 I've got a more efficient engine I've got a more reliable thing because it's running as a generator electric motors like that's that Target sale that we're going to have to be in when we're starting out and your seat all already has your ass cheeks molded into it so you don't have to like redo that seat don't forget about the ass cheeks that's a good point so now Canada just Canada just started a law or we just passed it that 2035 no more ice engines are you worried about any of this what does that look like to you I mean the only way I'd be worried is if they were dumb enough to follow through with it so there's no way that we're going to be able to do that oh it's just everybody in Northern Canada can go f themselves I guess like everybody that lives in the Yukon I get like we me and Eric lived in Watson Lake Yukon it's five hour drive to the next town There's No Chargers the vehicle doesn't have the range in the wintertime you need to go to White Horse to get groceries you got a 5H hour drive your battery can make it three hours and you're sitting on the side of the Alaska Highway de no and there's no plan even if you upid the Char Network and the batteries work we don't have the grid infrastructure because they're not building new power plants they're not putting new energy on there the cost of electricity will be so high that you'll never be able to plug your vehicle in because it'll be too expensive to drive anything unless that's their plan but like it makes no sense so so that that that was my point too it's that it's it's unrealistic and it's not going to happen it can't happen they've been talking about full electric for The Last 5 Years nowhere have I seen uh plants like you said plants being built or infrastructure being put no subdivision built before today can handle the load of everybody charging when they come home at the end of the day so my bigger worry to be honest is what we're seeing in like the ports California a lot of large contractors are making their subcontractors meet certain emission requirements and I think that is the bigger risk to these older trucks we've already seen with like Trans Mountain pipeline Port of Vancouver California they're saying hey if you're going to be working on our site you need to have an engine that's tier four compliant whether you retrofit your older truck or your newer truck so being able to say that hey we retrofitted our truck to being electric means that yeah you don't have to go out and buy a brand new service rig for like they're $300,000 for like an F550 service rig now service truck like no you're you're going back to the semi Tru uh um and but I see the exact same thing going in the pickup truck as well no no I'm talking about the pickups they're tractors and saying you're not allowed to have an older pickup like even a Service pickup what service truck pickup they're saying no you need to have a new modern emission so if you go in there and say well we've got an electric don't worry it's electric when it's on site it's electric okay well now you just didn't like that's one of those things where a new Service pickup truck like a new f 550 service truck is getting upwards of $250 $300,000 right now because there's a shortage of them because so many people are saying that you need to get rid of your old ones a lot of people don't realize that yeah excellent so going back to the cat it's a 3.6 L about 170 horse you said 175 I think it's 140 150 okay but that's a tier four completely emission compliant so your generator gen set already comes in um and it's it's clean compliant it's passed its emissions it's a brand new engine and it's ready to go right well I'm not sure if it's tier four what I like to say is that it is emissions compliance to the standards it needs to be okay sounds good there's well we could probably leave it at that and people could read between the lines but there's a lot of gray areas for external power equipment that is put onto a truck okay I'm I'm just totally randomly do you know there's no law that says that you can't put a 1990s Lincoln welder on the back of your welding truck that your auxiliary power unit doesn't have to be the same year as your truck yeah also totally unrelated what the engine on this truck is because it's a standal load generator it's an auxiliary power generator I don't know how that factors into it but that's what you're go with anyways yeah I I I don't know I haven't connected the two and that's as far as I'm going on emissions but it will be compliant with what the current laws of emissions say keep let's keep that quiet so nobody quickly changes any laws or rules or anything like that but uh but yeah no that that sounds fantastic uh any other common questions that you get that we should kind of nip in the butt right now you want to get off your chest um yeah a lot of people say what about I get the questions all the time will this work in my F350 will it work in my Nissan Frontier here will it work in my half ton and what I say is if you've got a fullsize truck that takes a solid axle it will basically fit it's a matter of just welding where your hangers and your brackets and all that go on the axle we're just going to have it as a tube it gets all these axles get shipped from Factory as a just a tube and then you're required to weld on where all the mounting points go on that axle so if you have a half ton with a solid axle you could just change those things now you'll be running like an F450 axle on a half ton which is heavy but you can go heavier that's no problem putting in a heavier D it just means that you're going to increase the lifespan of that axle so it'll work on everything now putting it on a Ford Ranger won't really work because your tires are and your axle is wider than what your factory width now like basically all the on ton trucks or full-size trucks I should say all the fullsize trucks from the 1950s until now have roughly pretty well the same axle width so you can make them work you just if you got to change it you just change the offset on your Rim a little bit you go with a little bit less or more negative offset positive offset move the tires in and out but most axles will work excellent so what year of truck is best well uh these are the issues that we're going to have to overcome things like ABS does it affect the body control module um I know that uh the Chevy that we just got if it doesn't see um the battery charging then it won't turn on the heated seats so if there's an issue with the alternator it won't let you put on the heated seats or the air conditioning because it's a safety to kind of get you off the road things like that uh will the ABS be affected will will uh safety things like that be affected uh will the can bus still communicate when we take away the ECU or the TCM I know the Fords um they need the dash the ECM and the TCM all to be in the circle before they're able to communicate with each other and um be able to go to that so um it probably makes more sense to do an older truck or kind of a truck that's in the middle somewhere um and then uh we'll try and hash out those details now um you also have the uh the high school challenge going on correct where we're building yeah and I see you light up because what is the high school EV challenge other than a recruiting program for super smart kids who know how can buses work how to hack into computers and change all this stuff so so if your kids aren't into this High School challenge yet absolutely motivate them to uh we're sponsoring the local high school here so all be head hunting down uh in our high school seeing which kid can see which kid I mean that is the best way to do it is yeah yeah to sponsor a challenge and then take the brightest kids that did the best in the challenge be like all right working for us now challenge exciting news the container has been shipped out we ordered them from China because China is the only place that makes these parts um but it got shipped out here yesterday so we should be seeing it first second week of January I think it's scheduled to arrive in the port January 11th clears the port so we're hoping to have that to the high schools beginning of January and we'll be filming a lot of helping these kids build the cars and go through that yeah so anybody who doesn't know it's a it's just a challenge to build a go-kart and then race each other and do different uh um challenges with it uh polling challenges longevity challenges all that type of stuff so definitely stick around for that but we're not chatting about that we're still talking about the trucks um oh one of the questions we get a lot are how are you going to be powering things like the power steering the air conditioning the power brakes and the basic answer to it is that people make these parts to be electric for electric vehicles they're quite common to find now so it's just and it's an electric AC unit like your house doesn't run a diesel diesel powered engine for your house AC they make electric house ACS they make electric vacuum pumps for the the brakes like Teslas aren't driving around with manual brakes electric power steering that's just an electric hydraulic pump so Mo the basic answer to Is how are you going to make this work if it's on electric vehicle the answer is always electric power yeah and same with power packs uh anything hydraulic any crane on your service truck any Stinger any um auxiliary PTO it's all just put an electric motor in front of it right yeah but that's where I say like people follow along follow along on this process watch it because we're going to be filming and we're going to be documenting how we deal with all these things where do we Mount these things how do we install these things they'll it'll be all shown through a series of videos so if you have questions about how is this going to work how is this going to work just stay tuned we will show you how it works yeah at the same time YouTube is an amazing place it's an amazing Community um I hope that your guys' comments and I believe they are now that you've got a working prototype that pulled the freaking tank around that the comments are very positive I know our audience we love our audience um they're very technical they're very uh to be able to follow along with some of the stuff that we build um you kind of got to know what you're doing and I always read the comments and I've learned from the audience as well and that's kind of the amazing part that we get to do right now is that you guys get to tag along as well and put in your input and say hey you know what um you can get this uh body control module to talk if you do this or or you need to do this in your whatever to make the computer online and you know what call this guy because he's done that before in a different way and and and we really do appreciate every one of you guys for doing that and we hope to really take you guys along and and give you guys credit for that as well oh I got to admit like when you say it like the people in the comments in the community for Edison motors have been fantastic when we run into problems and we're like Hey we're thinking about this or this people that are experts leave comments down in the comment section or they reach out or they'll make their own video and be like hey let me explain some cool things they're like and we're like you know what we didn't think of that that's actually pretty brilliant like because you think about it is that we're a small team like right now we got about 10 of us working on this project in the comment section we'll have hundreds of people's worth of knowledge that we can tap into we can acknowledge we can talk with and like all of a sudden that brings our small little Grassroots engineering people to thousands of experts in the comment section that are yeah some ideas are okay some ideas are terrible and some ideas are absolutely fantastic and we never would have thought of it without it but the fact that people actually help I view is a really really positive thing yeah yeah awesome well um I think I think for the most part we've got kind of the basis covered we've got kind of a timeline out so you don't have to ask when is this happening when is this happening definitely follow along things are moving things have been moving for the last couple months already and and in your guys's case couple years already you guys have a working running proven truck um so definitely check out Topsy and go back to the older videos and see what these guys have accomplished uh where are you guys with Topsy with getting it uh getting a manufacturer status because Topsy is in Ontario right now correct yes so I mean I haven't said it publicly cuz I was waiting until I can actually get out and film it going on but Topsy has got its approval now so now actual registration and a VIN number issued so it can be legally driven on the road the only last step we got to do now is after Christmas we'll go out there we'll round out the last few things go through the last few of their things in Ontario we ship it back to BC all they got to do is cite that the VIN number is on there and that that is the truck at the insurance place and then they will give us our BC license plate for it so we're good we've submitted everything we now have made an actual track as a manufacturer congratulations man that was epic so are you driving it back or are you towing it back we have to tow it back because it need to be cited in BC it it's a weird rule it doesn't matter the pictures you need the actual ICBC insurance person and the actual inspection facility to site the vehicle they cannot do it remotely and because it's registered here it has to be cited here so you can't uh you can't fly them out no no I actually asked that I I legitimately I'm like can we just fly you out I will pay for your plane tickets because that'll be a sweet road trip and they're like no it has to be done at the office it's a legal requirement whatever whatever at least at least you explain that yes we have to to that but this is why so awesome all right guys um I hope that you guys are excited as we are uh this is probably the biggest uh deal that I've ever made um and uh yeah this is I'm I'm again I it's hard to take it all in but uh this is pretty epic I look I'm really looking forward to the year ahead um traveling with you guys to the manufacturer uh working out the Kinks I'm sure we'll be going out your way a little bit you guys will be coming out our way a little bit and uh look really excited where we're going to be a year from now so oh me too we're going to I think we're going to change the industry here together for the way that these things are done so that's exciting awesome all right guys thank you for watching thank you for comenting uh thank you for your support and uh definitely don't go anywhere because this is uh this is probably pretty Monumental so you guys got anything else congratulations forward to all right guys uh Merry Christmas and um if it hasn't been already Merry Christmas happy New Year and uh here's to the New Year here we go

Channel: DEBOSS GARAGE

Views: 163,849

Keywords: diesel electric, diesel ev, diesel hybrid, hybrid pickup truck, diesel pickup, electric pickup, ev pickup truck, Edison Motors, Deboss Garage, tesla semi, semi truck, electrification, electric semi truck, electric semi, hybrid semi, hybrid electric truck, hybrid diesel, diesel electric truck, diesel electric hauling, diesel electric hybrid, hybrid ev, diesel ev semi, diesel ev truck, ev logging, ev semi truck, edison motors topsy, topsy ev, topsy edison

Id: CM37qGnf3WU

Length: 56min 0sec (3360 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 23 2023