Let's Talk the Electric Vehicle Charging Network

Imagine trading your gas vehicle for a sleek, environmentally friendly electric vehicle. What would that lifestyle change entail?  What options are there for chargers? How is the infrastructure set up so I can drive an EV daily or on a trip? What cool things are going on in this space? We sat down with Trisha Windell from Harman Solar, a true pioneer in the realm of EV charging infrastructure, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the electric vehicle charging infrastructure landscape. With nearly six years of experience in this field, Trisha unravels what to think about and what is coming soon as you consider transitioning to an electric vehicle lifestyle.

8:05 Types of Electric Vehicle Chargers

21:34 Challenges and Progress in Charging Infrastructure

27:12 Behavioral Change for Electric Vehicles

30:49 Induction Highways and Electric Vehicles

42:54 Lithium mine in the US

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:24

Welcome to another edition of the Harman Solar podcast. I'm Ralph Romano, your host of the VPSL's of marketing at Harman Solar, and back with me as my co-host, Ben Walshlogger. You know him as Mr Everything.

Speaker 1 0:36

That's right. Glad to be back.

Speaker 2 0:38

Glad to have you back, so I've got to ask the question now. Last time we talked, your business card was a newspaper. We went from card, pamphlet, newspaper. What do we have today? Scroll we're on the scroll.

Speaker 3 0:55

Okay awesome.

Speaker 2 0:57

So we're getting biblical. I like it All right. So today, what are we gonna talk about today?

Speaker 1 1:02

We have a guest, just get right into it. We have okay. Yeah, we have a gas. Every episode we have a guy.

Speaker 2 1:09

We have a, we have a guy. Usually this time we got a gal, that's right, right. And so today we're talking about the electrical vehicle charging network. So basically the electrical vehicle charging network, so basically EV cars and then the infrastructure and all those kinds of things. Now, we're not here to talk about EV vehicles, we're not gonna tell you a vehicle, but we are gonna talk about the infrastructure around that and what that means, and we'll get into the actual Industry as itself, because this is an industry expert. So we are privileged today, privileged.

Speaker 1 1:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:36

I tell you Do you have, do we have a?

Speaker 1 1:39

guy. Her name is Trisha.

Speaker 2 1:42

Trisha Wendell, yes, trisha.

Speaker 3 1:44

Thank you, welcome world.

Speaker 2 1:46

Welcome world. How are you, trisha?

Speaker 3 1:48

I'm amazing, thank you.

Speaker 2 1:49

She's amazing. Look at that.

Speaker 1 1:51

So we have some energy in the room today. That's finally after nine podcast.

Speaker 2 1:58

So, trisha, obviously I know you work for Harmon. Yes, Tell how long you've been at Harmon going on almost seven years now.

Speaker 3 2:05

I Know time flies. Yeah, everyone right, we say this every week the common every podcast.

Speaker 2 2:12

It's seven years, eight years, ten years that.

Speaker 1 2:14

Is a lucky number, seven, yeah, so so if you want to be on the podcast seven years, wait, at least seven years anniversary gift. Is that yet yeah?

Speaker 2 2:22

Yeah, so seven years at Harmon. And what did you do before Harmon?

Speaker 3 2:26

I was in marketing and advertising.

Speaker 1 2:29

Cool.

Speaker 3 2:29

I know right, used to sell radio commercials.

Speaker 1 2:33

Well, that's why she's meant for radio that.

Speaker 3 2:37

That's why there's a feel here, yeah so that's right.

Speaker 2 2:40

She was in the radio industry and I poked her you did, I did, you were you were actually my rep and yes and I wanted you to come over, and we made that happen after about a year and a half or so.

Speaker 3 2:52

Yeah, it took a little pursuing and. Probably the best career move I made, so thank you.

Speaker 2 2:57

Absolutely the best career she ever made because, it's all because of me.

Speaker 1 3:01

All right, moving on. That's our show today.

Speaker 2 3:03

That's our show today, so tell me about your role at Harmon right now. What do you do?

Speaker 3 3:09

My current role at Harmon is a jack of all trades.

Speaker 2 3:12

But no, no, no, no there's no one, there's only one, mister.

Speaker 3 3:17

Yeah, so you can't be the jack of all things.

Speaker 2 3:19

No, no because, mister, everything's really hard to deal with.

Speaker 3 3:22

Yeah, yeah, fair enough.

Speaker 1 3:24

I really yeah the jack of some trades, or Jens.

Speaker 3 3:27

I really focus on the electric vehicle infrastructure of car chargers so I I seek business for Harmon dealing with electrify America's Tesla supercharger highways. A Dot is doing a program where they're putting in level three fast chargers. So just going after that business and bring it to Harmon.

Speaker 2 3:49

Okay so, and the taught us real quick backstory to that is so when you first came on, you were selling commercial solar. I was, and we started thinking this was probably I don't know six years ago and we started saying you know, the EV world is starting to gain some momentum. Yes and we don't know anything about it. We probably should get ahead of this, yeah right. So I tasked you with actually kind of leading that charge and developing that channel for us, and Boy did you.

Speaker 3 4:19

Yeah you, you took a leap of faith, you believed in me. I came back all excited after a utility Conference seminar and I learned about all the tax credits that were available on all the incentives. I was like gosh. I feel like this was solar, you know, 20 years ago. This is all the money's out there. People need to go after it and nobody knows about it. There's no education and Organically it was a great fit for Harmon. It was a risk, it was, but yeah but we knew it was coming.

Speaker 2 4:47

Yeah, yeah, we knew it was coming and you had the enthusiasm and the want to do it yeah and you did it.

Speaker 2 4:53

I did right and I'm gonna say this, and and for our audience, trisha, in my opinion and I think in most people, opinion is probably the number one. She's probably authority or the expert in the state when it comes to this stuff, because people come to you, not just any people, these are high-level people, these are people within the utilities. They come talk to you about this stuff because you have so much knowledge and you spent probably a good two, three years just networking in the beginning to get to know these people and get you get into this and you educated yourself at a different level.

Speaker 3 5:24

Yes right.

Speaker 2 5:25

So you are the, you're the expert. I mean I don't kid around when I say you're the expert. You really are the expert in this, in this territory, in this field.

Speaker 3 5:32

Thank you.

Speaker 1 5:32

So, we're honored today. Not only did she take on the task, she crushed it.

Speaker 2 5:37

She did, yeah, she crushed it. So what better podcast to have than to talk about this world and give people an education on it? Because, you know, a lot of our viewers are probably just people that own homes, that are thinking about buying an electric car and they want to learn more about the infrastructure. They want to learn more about how do I charge this thing, all that kind. We're gonna kind of talk about a little bit about that stuff today.

Speaker 1 5:59

You mean, your car doesn't just have like a usbc and you plug it into your wall outlet.

Speaker 3 6:03

It's just don't use your app and push play and then you charge us.

Speaker 1 6:06

now that's not how it works, no interesting and disclaimer.

Speaker 2 6:08

I'm gonna be real honest about this. I am not the expert in this area and I'm gonna say this we know. Neither is mr Everything. Well, he's gonna come off trying to say he is no, he's not. No, there's only one expert in this room when it comes to this field, and we're gonna kind of learn today by talking with you and kind of educate our audience, as I'm planning on learning a lot actually good. Wow, you need to yeah.

Speaker 3 6:29

Well, I love it, I'm extremely passionate about it, and I think that's the biggest piece that is missing everywhere is education. Everybody's talking about it.

Speaker 2 6:37

We just need to educate a little bit more because in the next few years and I mean going forward I mean this is going to become bigger and bigger and bigger, and you're going to talk about some of the things going on that why that's going to happen. Let's start at the base, right, so Um, people see the initials ev. What does that mean? Right, or Evse, and this always confuses me. What does that mean? So ev is electric vehicle.

Speaker 1 6:58

Wow, that was hard, I know it's funny because we say, like she's our ev specialist, like no.

Speaker 2 7:03

No, she's not.

Speaker 3 7:05

We don't sell cars at harman. Yes, right, exactly Not yet yeah, Okay it could happen. We could be a total current turnkey right.

Speaker 2 7:13

Your expertise is the evse side.

Speaker 3 7:15

Yes which means uh electric vehicle service equipment or Uh charging infrastructure. So there's really not a lot of consistency in this space with terminology right. So, depending on who you talk to or what you're talking about, it's going to be called something totally different. We are not ev, though I do not focus on electric vehicles themselves, right you?

Speaker 2 7:35

focus on the things that help keep those vehicles on the road charging the battery right yeah.

Speaker 1 7:41

Infrastructure other things right so yep Okay. You just learned something.

Speaker 2 7:45

Yeah, write that down. Is it write it down I?

Speaker 1 7:47

need you to write it down.

Types of Electric Vehicle Chargers

Speaker 2 7:48

Today I'm gonna have a few quick slides Because I want to get into, um, some of the base equipment that people need to get familiar with if they're going to get into this world. Yeah, um, talking about the chargers and stuff, you really can't see this slide, but there's. It has the three types of chargers and I know you you have more note, you know a lot about of the level one, level two and level three.

Speaker 3 8:07

Yes.

Speaker 2 8:07

So I'll let you elaborate, but I can just give real quick, just to give you just this chart. I mean it says level one. Basically 120 volt charger goes into a standard outlet. Um, and it's more of a residential use piece.

Speaker 3 8:19

Yes.

Speaker 2 8:19

Is that the one that you typically get with a car. If you buy it, they'll give you that residential level one.

Speaker 3 8:24

Yeah, it looks like a little weird extension cord. Um, Is it like a trickle charger? Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 8:29

And takes a long time to charge the car right.

Speaker 3 8:31

Yes, like overnight right.

Speaker 2 8:32

Yes, if you're lucky, right, Tesla? I know they give them with all the tests I think they do with every manufacturer. Does that now right, or they?

Speaker 3 8:38

yeah, they're giving you an option now To purchase a charger, but they're going to give you some sort of an adapter that you can use in your home to plug it in.

Speaker 2 8:45

Okay, and that's level one. Yes then you go to level two. Now, level two is a 240 volt charger. Right and it's. It could be used in residential, or it could be used even in commercial at times. Correct, but um, and what's the differences Besides the 240 versus the 120?

Speaker 3 8:59

Well, it's going to charge your car a little bit faster. It's pulling more energy to charge your battery A little more juice, yeah. And they're a smart charger so you can use your app. Um, it's used a lot in the commercial space. That's, what you're going to see is mainly level two chargers. When you go to shopping centers or hospitals or Something like that, those are called level twos. So we're at a workplace.

Speaker 2 9:22

Now the ones that we install in the home. Sometime, the Clipper Creek to the world, the charge points the Tesla ones that were on the wall that we hardwire in. Is that a level two?

Speaker 3 9:34

that is a level two.

Speaker 2 9:34

Yes, okay, so they're.

Speaker 1 9:37

Good, and you said you mentioned that there's an app with it. What, like? What are the functionalities of that? Can? You like program it to charge certain times of the day and things like that.

Speaker 3 9:45

Yep so just like a battery bank, if you're, you know, comparing it to solar and things like that. So your app, you can actually make reservations. If you're on the road, in traveling, you can just go to an app and say, hey, I know I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna re-reserve this and you're gonna find out what chargers are available or not. But if you have those in your home, you will be able to tell your car when to charge.

Speaker 1 10:05

Yeah, like your phone. You just plug it in exactly starts charging. But on your car you can say I only want you to charge it on these times. You know, maybe it's off-peak times or things like that.

Speaker 3 10:13

Exactly, and there's gonna be some time of use rates. I maybe jump in the gun a little bit but utilities are gonna do time of use rates on those two yeah.

Speaker 1 10:20

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 10:21

Nice, nice. And then there's level three.

Speaker 3 10:25

These are the big ins.

Speaker 2 10:26

Right, it's the big ins, yes, so these are what 480 volt chargers typically tell us about these.

Speaker 3 10:32

So these are a high volt charger, so these need to come off of a large infrastructure, meaning transformers, level twos. You're gonna be using a breaker think of it as Any other appliance you have on your car so even when you're using it for a commercial application, you still are gonna come off of a breaker. It is a low-volt charger, so it meaning a high volt is gonna be charging your car a lot faster. So this is what you're gonna be seeing on the interstates, the highways, the corridors, the gas stations. They look like a gigantic gas pump.

Speaker 1 11:02

Wow, so technically they are a gas pump in a sense, right yeah, without the gas part.

Speaker 2 11:07

Yeah, obviously, because they would blow up. They're right. Okay, so that's the three type of chargers that are out there.

Speaker 1 11:13

There's nothing else right now. Right, is there a level four coming, can you? Are we allowed to disclose that?

Speaker 3 11:17

Oh, are you talking about the Tesla? One Tesla, we won't jump ahead too much because that's just kind of hitting the market.

Speaker 2 11:24

I didn't even know that I just just guess.

Speaker 1 11:26

Well, I'm a math wizard, so when you talk about level one, two and three, naturally.

Speaker 2 11:31

There's gotta be four.

Speaker 1 11:32

There's gotta be a four coming up, right so it's not like razor blades, it's not like blade one, I know my full technology for five blade, but we're not putting it out.

Speaker 2 11:40

Okay, okay, yeah so these are, these are level twos right here on the screen. So there's the Tesla one that hangs on the wall, the Clipper Creek, which we saw, we, that was the first one I think we started actually going with, and we started soon, yeah, you know what?

Speaker 3 11:53

It's a great product. It's great. It is not a smart charger. So there's a difference. You have the smart chargers and you have what a dummy charger is, so that one's just a plug-and-play.

Speaker 2 12:01

That doesn't dummy. It didn't get schooling or what I know. Shame on it. Right, she's called it stupid.

Speaker 3 12:07

It is one of the most Rebo rebut. Now I can't even talk robust Chargers that are out there. It's simple. There's a lot less pieces that can go wrong. You don't have to pay for software networking, anything like that. It's great for anything that's locked up. So if it's behind, a fence, like if you have a Harmon electric, it could go behind our fence or if it's in my garage, would be a good place for it. Yeah, right, yeah the Tesla chargers.

Speaker 2 12:31

I mean there, what is what's the right? Why is Tesla so? They look nicer of everything. Tesla just looks good, right. They're like, they're nice right, that's just what Tesla does. What, what's are they better? Is there something different about them? Obviously they fit on a Tesla. We get that. There's an adapter, but what? What's the big deal about them? Is there a big deal?

Speaker 3 12:47

So it's think about it as your Apple. So Tesla has products that they put out for themselves. So Tesla cars before used to pull into a Tesla charging network. It was really simple and easy and clean for them. Then they had an adapter that they could use any other charger that was available. Normal cars could not plug into a Tesla charger right, so it was proprietary. There's still a fast charger. There's not anything any different. It's just what cars can plug into them.

Speaker 2 13:15

Okay, and they look nice and they look nice, well, and that there's like on here, I have juice box, I have a charge point. I know we do a lot of work. I think we actually work with juice box. I've we have.

Speaker 3 13:25

We did a really large project with juice box. Um, there's a national case study. We installed 106 juice boxes at a private condominium complex in Scottsdale.

Speaker 2 13:35

I was waiting for her to say, like at a preschool yeah, we installed 106 juice boxes.

Speaker 1 13:41

Yeah, so that was the first one that happened in the United States.

Speaker 2 13:44

Wow, it was fruit punch Mm-hmm. And there's a ton of them out there.

Speaker 3 13:48

now, right, there's a lot of companies out there, oh my gosh, everybody's going after the money, because when we first started this.

Speaker 2 13:53

I remember Clipper Creek, mm-hmm. I don't remember much of anybody else, except for maybe Tesla.

Speaker 3 13:58

Yeah, I mean it was Clipper Creek, it was charge point and LX was more international. There's still the big players. Now there's wall box, I mean I probably call once a week from a new manufacturer. So what's happened is a lot of these manufacturers are white labeling it. Maybe another company can purchase them and put their own sticker on it and sell them.

Speaker 1 14:16

Yeah.

Speaker 3 14:17

So zeal energy is a great example. They're Clipper Creek's, but they put their label on it and then they sell it as zeal energy. So it's pretty confusing to a consumer.

Speaker 2 14:26

Well, it's like what trader doja trader Joe's does right a lot of people do it yeah. I mean? I mean I'm on a Costco does a cookie yeah same thing, so that's what's happening.

Speaker 3 14:35

There's a lot of investment companies that are out there. They're like, hey, there's, there's money coming down this pipeline, let's take advantage of it, okay, and then these are the commercials, so these are the, the level 3s right.

Speaker 2 14:46

So these are the ones, and we've done so many of these we have. These are actually our projects.

Speaker 3 14:51

They are.

Speaker 2 14:51

So we have. We do stuff with APS. All right, that's the blue one on the left there, so we do lots of the APS electrify America. I remember when they came out yeah, their job was to basically try to create a nationwide road of Chargers that was our criteria.

Speaker 3 15:04

Yeah, as far as the fines that they got for Volkswagen. They created electrify America, and so they had to create a charging network.

Speaker 2 15:11

Right, and then Tesla. Obviously that again the nicest looking charger in my opinion. I like the way they look and again, are they only for Tesla?

Speaker 3 15:19

So what's happened is the adapters have changed, so now normal cars can plug in tell me can see that was smart.

Speaker 1 15:26

Tesla, I think. Didn't they first roll out with like Ford, so they can use them and then a few other companies? Yeah, so exactly.

Speaker 3 15:34

So there's a standardization, so there's different plugs that you can get, and so Tesla's come out with one and manufacturers have adapted that. So that's kind of the big talk of the industry, and then this last picture.

Speaker 2 15:48

I'll let you say what that is.

Speaker 3 15:50

Oh, that is the Phoenix Zoo. Harmon Solar, harmon Electric did a program with City of Phoenix and SRP so we installed solar covered parking along with level two chargers, and it's in front of the zoo, oh wow.

Speaker 1 16:03

So if you're at the zoo, and you're charging your car, you know thank you, thank you. Thank you, I'm in, I guess.

Speaker 3 16:09

Thank you.

Speaker 2 16:10

Thank you, I start P these chargers come at a cost. Right people have to pay to get the energy out of them, right? Yes, yes, I was like it's just like basically going to. This is a gas pump, as we talked about before this is somebody that has a lot of car they go park in front of one of these things and they spend 30, 40 minutes. Whatever it is, I don't know how long it is, but you know what it changes.

Speaker 3 16:28

Everybody always asks like, how long is it gonna take to charge my car, how much is it gonna cost? Well, it's, it's a constant variable. It depends on how low your battery is if it's on empty, you know.

Speaker 2 16:37

And do any one of these charge faster than the other? No they're all the same.

Speaker 3 16:41

It's all based on your battery and technology, so each car has different Ways to get the energy faster, slower. It's all dictated by the battery, the manufacturer and how big it is you see that debate like online all the time.

Speaker 1 16:54

You're like I don't want to take 20 minutes to charge my car and all that stuff, Like it's just like your cell phone your cell phones completely dead. It's gonna take a while to charge it if your cell phones at 95%, it's not gonna take long to charge it. So when you are fueling up your car, you know it depends on how much battery life it needs to recharge. Yeah, so it could take 20 minutes. It could take two minutes.

Speaker 2 17:14

No, I know we were gonna talk cars, but is there a car or a manufacturer that is quicker, better when it comes to charging?

Speaker 3 17:22

I don't sell electric vehicles, so you don't like.

Speaker 2 17:24

You know, you know what. No.

Speaker 3 17:29

I will say that the new, the new models that are coming out have a longer range. We'll talk about that. That's the big, that's the yeah. So it's just your battery size.

Speaker 2 17:37

Yeah, okay, yeah and these are just. These are four problem. We've done so many projects in the last few years. It's just ridiculous. We've done some really cool stuff. I mean, that's the end of my slideshow that I just wanted to give people a basic understanding of what the chargers are and what's out there, blah, blah, blah, how they work. So question for you, and so this is going off topic now of that. Okay um is Demand for these products. Are they out? Are they out growing the supply? Do you think?

Speaker 2 18:01

the demand for the charging units, just for the for the cars or the infrastructure, for everything, for this whole. This whole market is the. Is the demand for this market Getting greater and out growing the supply? Yes, or it is yes Okay.

Speaker 3 18:15

Yeah, I mean We've all heard that, the notion of that we're gonna be all electric vehicles by 2030, 2035, just depending on what state you're in, it doesn't mean that gas cars are gonna be going away. But what's happened is American production has ramped up electric vehicles. Prices come down a little bit. We have a longer range, so it's more affordable for people to buy electric vehicles. It takes a really long time to get this infrastructure in place. It is not an overnight task. There could be from 12 months to 36 months. So that's what's happened is we we have a lot of EVs that are on the road. We just don't have the charging network for them the batteries. There's no more range anxiety. I think that was a big term that came out when electric vehicles hit. You couldn't go from like here to California because you didn't have it anywhere to charge. So that's alleviated a little bit, but we have to get that infrastructure built up for the cars that are on the road.

Speaker 2 19:08

So she's hitting all my talking points, which is just very frustrating, I know right, but I'm gonna focus on that for a second. So you know, bad get bad press, good press. I mean, I feel that the EV world has become kind of political. Unfortunately, everything is political nowadays and I think this is falling right into it. If you're this side of the aisle, you know you're all about EV and we should be. You know, doing EV by Next year?

Speaker 1 19:34

yeah, 100% disclaimer Harman is neutral. Yeah, I'm gonna throw the neutral.

Speaker 2 19:38

We're just giving what's going on out there and then, the other side of the aisle is like no fossil fuels, we need them. Blah, blah, blah. Reality is we need to meet in the middle somewhere. Obviously, that just makes no sense. But you make things like this political. You're gonna start hearing all the negatives in the news. I mean it, just it's, it's driving the narratives, unfortunately, that are making Maybe people shy away from wanting to look into EVs or look into charging. I don't, I don't know. I think it's a shame that they do that, because there is a definite benefit to this. I'm trying to wrap my head around it like for me, like you know Harley, that's really loud and they have an electric Harley.

Speaker 2 20:11

To think that I'm gonna be on a Harley going. I Don't know that I can hear in the noise, yeah, right. I live for the noise to be deaf by the time I'm seven. I can sit on the back and do the noise for you?

Speaker 1 20:21

That would be weird.

Speaker 2 20:24

I would do. I would go to a dealership and do a test drive like that. That would be so funny. I'll take it. I Just love the way it sounds. But let's talk about the infrastructure. So I think of going back to a time when we vented the car, the combustion car, and there was no gas stations.

Speaker 3 20:41

Right.

Speaker 2 20:42

I mean so we're kind of in that same place right now with this. They're really. The infrastructure is not there right, it's just not.

Speaker 1 20:48

But that doesn't mean it's not gonna always not be there. No, that's what I'm going to next.

Speaker 2 20:52

I mean, it's getting better. Yes and I want you to talk about, like, for instance, I know that in Arizona there they're being tasked with putting that infrastructure in place. Yes, maybe you could talk about what they're looking to do.

Challenges and Progress in Charging Infrastructure

Speaker 3 21:03

Yeah. So we all know about the gigantic bill a billion dollar plus bill that was passed and that's for charging infrastructure across the United States. So Arizona apply for the grant that was seventy six point five million dollars to install the infrastructure, dc fast chargers on corridors. Sadly, that money just it's not gonna go far and we know just from sheer volume and doing it ourselves. But it's nice because we're getting the help and the financial help to get it done. It doesn't mean that again we're all gonna go to EV. We're diversifying. That's a whole idea of this and I think that people really lose sight of that. If you don't want an EV, you don't have to buy any of you, but if you do, when you pull up to a charger you want it to work and you want it to be available for you.

Speaker 2 21:50

So we just have to build that infrastructure up and I think in Arizona it's kind of tough because we're a desert state. Yeah and there's a lot of areas where there's just nothing right. So now you're gonna have to build an infrastructure out in that area to put A charger up, and that's not cheap.

Speaker 3 22:04

Yeah, and the infrastructure is just not as easy as coming off a transformer. You have to go down the line to where the power grid is, you know, and then you have to run lines from a power grid all the way to new transformers, new service. When you look at these equity zones, which is where some of these DC fast chargers are going, on the very Northwest tip of Arizona, you know we did a site audit and they still have a transform this in a cone transformer on a pole. That's not gonna charge anything.

Speaker 2 22:34

Yeah, yeah there's a little shack at the below it with a wire. You all know what I'm talking about right.

Speaker 3 22:38

Yeah, you look up on a pool and you see like this round cylinder on there.

Speaker 1 22:41

That's like grizzled with his.

Speaker 3 22:45

You know and just weird stuff that you learn, like we're. We're not allowed to install charging stations at Restops, not just us in Arizona, but anywhere.

Speaker 2 22:59

Makes common sense right you think, oh gosh, why wouldn't you allow that?

Speaker 3 23:02

because you're not able to do anything monetary at rest stops.

Speaker 1 23:05

That's why there's no gas stations. Are there vending machines? Is that counter?

Speaker 3 23:09

There's a little, yeah. Yeah, there's no rest on so.

Speaker 2 23:11

I guess. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I get it, but it seems like the most logical place to do it. Yeah maybe put it like a foot down the road. It's not the rest, oh.

Speaker 3 23:23

That's there you know these things take a lot of power, sure, huh okay.

Speaker 2 23:28

I did not know that I'm learning so much and we were gonna talk about limitations of vehicles. I think the biggest limitation, like you were touching on, was the, the batteries, yeah, ability to go a certain distance and they are getting I mean they typically the typical Tesla out. There was what? Three, is it two? Three hundred miles.

Speaker 3 23:44

Yeah, I mean, there's some that are four hundred and just depending on what you have. But probably the most topical thing is the uptime. You're gonna hear that term meaning that if I look on my app and I pull up and I see there's one available at Desert Ridge great, I pull my car in, I go to plug it in. It's not working and they're. So that is probably the biggest harper and that we're seeing right now.

Speaker 2 24:05

So there's an app that shows me where I can go find a charger. I kind of like way after shows me how much gas is at a gas station exactly, yeah, okay, that's kind of cool and you can reserve it just like open table.

Speaker 3 24:15

really, yeah, I. Don't know about that I like that, I like it.

Speaker 2 24:20

so if you reserved it and somebody else is there, what happens? It just doesn't work for them.

Speaker 3 24:24

It will stop. Yeah, just don't work for them.

Speaker 1 24:26

Then you pull up me like excuse me, I had a reservation.

Speaker 3 24:31

You just.

Speaker 1 24:33

Ben, party of two for the charger.

Speaker 2 24:39

So two things here. So the one thing I was gonna mention is this is obviously uptime, up time. You talk about uptime now there's some kind of a standard that's out there. What does explain that?

Speaker 3 24:49

Yeah, so this money that we got from the government for the Neve funds, that's seventy six point five million. Part of the criteria is a 97% uptime, meaning that when you pull up to one of these chargers it better work. We still don't know what that looks like if there's going to be fines or what's happening in service, which Harman has been doing, servicing of charging stations as well for the last four or five years. So it yeah. We're waiting to see what that's gonna look like. Who's Neve.

Speaker 3 25:23

Yeah, that is the term for the money that was awarded to a dot. It was Neve funds.

Speaker 1 25:29

Yeah, nice, that's who's drawing family. So it has to work. 97%, it's just like with efficacy. You know, going to the gas station I'm sure you've done it many times you go up to pull up the gas pump. It's got the little yellow bag on there.

Speaker 3 25:39

Yeah, you went to a gas station. They all had yellow bags. What would you do exactly? Go with the next one, yeah, take a bag?

Speaker 1 25:45

Yeah, but it just means the pump's not working. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess that that makes sense.

Speaker 2 25:50

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 25:52

Oh, I wanted to touch on the vehicle limitations that we were talking about it. It is funny that you see in these debates where you know people are like, oh, the range on these cars, you know it is not great and I always have two, you know, rebuttals of that like first of all, you know, if the range is like 300 miles, are you driving 300 miles in a day? What are you doing? I Take trips up the flag stuff every single day like you know people charge it.

Speaker 1 26:15

You know they have charging stations. We charge it at night, like you're not using your 300 miles probably every single day. So charge it when you're done. And then the other thing is funny, because you know what an old Chevy box you know 1985 Chevy box truck probably got 10 miles to the gallon or a 20 gallon tank, that that's 200 mile range, yep. So you know, sure, batteries may not be great right now and give you that full range that you want, but it's getting better, just like Internal combustion engines work right at first they weren't great.

Speaker 1 26:46

They were getting five, six miles per gallon, but they've got better over time. Right we had, we were in there, harman had an electric vehicle.

Speaker 2 26:52

I'm not gonna name the name of the manufacturer, it rhymes with his son. Anyway, you figure that one out.

Speaker 3 26:57

Yeah, you're gonna have 40 mile range. Yeah, it was like it was like 80 miles.

Speaker 2 27:00

It was 80 miles, but that was one of the first ones.

Speaker 1 27:02

I mean the example. I've gotten better and better I mean in bold in the few years you could probably buy that car now for 20 bucks. I mean, but anyway.

Behavioral Change for Electric Vehicles

Speaker 2 27:10

So I think that that's a great point and you know. The other thing is, this is a behavioral change. We have to train ourselves to be in this world because we're so used to driving a gas car, going to a gas station and it's all fast, right, you get to a gas station and you get your car filled up within five minutes and you're out. So this is just a behavioral change to have to adapt to the fact that you're not gonna fill up in five minutes with an EV car. Right, you're gonna have to go through whatever it takes, depending on how much you need. I mean, maybe you don't need to sit there and fill it all the way. Maybe, you know, get it to you know, 50% and you can charge it at home when you're at home.

Speaker 3 27:38

I don't know. Yeah, top it up.

Speaker 2 27:40

I don't understand it. I don't have one yet. I've had my eye on a couple of them, but I'm still kind of hesitant.

Speaker 3 27:44

Bmw has a nice one. Yeah, I know that's the one.

Speaker 1 27:46

I know huh feeling up, my car is pretty fast, but I'm sure back in your day, ralph, back in my day, you know they were doing what when Jughead would come up and go.

Speaker 2 27:53

Would you like some guys they would?

Speaker 1 27:54

fill your car and wash your windows and. All that stuff like it took a while you know you know New Jersey, it's required to do that.

Speaker 2 28:01

I heard, yeah, that's the only state left in the union where they actually have to do it. That way, you can't pump your own gas.

Speaker 3 28:06

It was like that in Oregon when I lived there. Yeah, they changed it.

Speaker 1 28:08

What about for EVs in New Jersey today. They don't check your.

Speaker 3 28:12

I don't know, but I attended a.

Speaker 1 28:15

Right, okay, did they plug it in for you in New Jersey.

Speaker 3 28:18

No, they don't, but there is a piece of equipment that is on the market where it actually will select the port for you and plug it in the car, so you don't ever have to get out of your car.

Speaker 1 28:26

You don't have to get out of your car.

Speaker 3 28:27

Yeah, it's a robotic sensor, Really yeah are we getting lazy yeah?

Speaker 2 28:32

you could pull up too, like you're. How do you even ask that?

Speaker 1 28:35

Your electric car is a Roomba.

Speaker 3 28:41

Yeah hands-free.

Speaker 1 28:41

You don't have to drive it you're sleeping in your car.

Speaker 2 28:43

Oh yeah, yeah, look at that. Did you say Waymo? Yeah, those things freak me out. It's one of those things and there's nobody driving it.

Speaker 3 28:52

Well, yeah, that's what it is.

Speaker 1 28:53

It's freaks me out. Ralph is the one who Hong said them.

Speaker 3 28:59

I.

Speaker 2 29:01

Do want to drive. I want to go on one because I know they have a ton of them down in Phoenix, yep, and they're all Jaguars. I think, yeah, which is kind of interesting, yeah, I'll eventually go in one. And of course you know, and in the press you also hear about the carbon footprint. So obviously this helps to reduce that carbon footprint and Even makes it makes a lot of sense for our future going forward, I might, my goodness. I mean, why wouldn't you do this, right? I?

Speaker 2 29:22

mean, but that's where the argument is, is people are like oh, we got to go, you know all the way.

Speaker 3 29:27

Yeah, and that's a personal choice.

Speaker 2 29:30

In politics, you have to either go all the way this way, or all the way, that way, and the reality is most of us, normal people, just want to be in the middle right, and so the same with this right, we can have I can have an EV and I can have a gas car.

Speaker 1 29:41

Right, or I can have one of the other if I that's what I want, or hydrogen kind of must choose. No, we're not talking. Hydrogen there's. We will, though no, but I'm just saying so we have that we have the right to do do everything.

Speaker 2 29:51

We shouldn't be ever forced to just do one thing right, california anyway, and that's our show. We can edit that in post so we've talked about how the technology is getting better. We've already gotten into that. We. You've talked about the growth of this industry. It's faster than pretty much everything else. It's faster than the solar industry. It's wearing so fast.

Speaker 3 30:08

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 30:09

I mean and obviously I know the economy has hurt every industry and I know it's had an impact on this industry as well. You've heard the CEOs come out and talk about it, where they've maybe changing their plans up and not developing as many cars as fast as they were thinking. But there's no, not gonna stop developing.

Speaker 2 30:22

I'm still gonna do it yeah but it makes sense to, you know, adjust to the pace of the sales, obviously, and the economy has hurt the sales of cars. So, all right, I want to talk about the cool stuff.

Speaker 3 30:33

Okay.

Speaker 1 30:35

No, there's, this is our event cool. No, there's Cooler stuff, right.

Speaker 2 30:41

Yeah, so I know you mentioned to me about the thing going on Detroit. Yes talk about that.

Induction Highways and Electric Vehicles

Speaker 3 30:47

So it's gonna be the first. Well, it's research and development, but an induction highway, electrical highway in Detroit, it's like why let's me mystery everything.

Speaker 1 31:01

It's like wireless charging for your phone. You put it. You put your phone on a little wireless charging pad. There's nothing actually plugged into it, it just it's. That's how it charges. So, same concept.

Speaker 3 31:09

So it's a highway. It's not like you're gonna be stopping on this road, but as you're driving on the road, it will be charging your vehicle as you drive over it.

Speaker 2 31:16

So I meant the Detroit lines, but okay, I guess we're not talking about that.

Speaker 1 31:19

But okay, so in the induction charging yes so the slower you go, the more charge you'll get out of it, I guess, right well, it already is for, because you'll be on there longer. That's. That's a crazy idea. If you're stuck in traffic, you can just watch your battery go up and up and up and up and up, right, I mean, it's kind of a crazy idea to think about the Highways to be charged, electrically charged.

Speaker 2 31:40

I mean, I can't imagine what the infrastructure for that would look like, but it's a cool idea and you're probably it probably like a toll road If you want to get on the induction highway you've got to pay a fee. That would be cool, interesting right, that would make sense.

Speaker 3 31:52

Could be like a bypass road too.

Speaker 2 31:53

That was my idea, by the way. Okay, I get credit for that. Okay, so somebody's making millions of dollars in Detroit right into so they do have induction charging Already.

Speaker 3 32:02

That is for, like transit buses, school buses, where it's a big gigantic metal plate and they pull up charge and then they go. So it's out there Really.

Speaker 2 32:12

I know, like in Seattle because I spend time up there the buses that they have a thing off the top of the bus and it connects to wire Like bumper cars where it's above charging.

Speaker 3 32:22

Yeah, so that's been around for a while, a long while actually probably 40 years They've done stuff like that.

Speaker 2 32:27

So this is, this is kind of the next generation. That's kind of cool. Yeah, that would be really cool. Actually, it would be yeah entire well.

Speaker 1 32:34

I mean the infrastructure of that. I'm sure it's just a night managing nightmare but at the same time, like, how do you think that would play into the need for, like if everyone caught on it, a lot of highways doing that, how would that impact the need for Chargers?

Speaker 3 32:51

Oh, I don't see a like like it wouldn't go away. I wouldn't zoom.

Speaker 1 32:53

No, no, no, no, not completely go away, just maybe you know, in those longer stretch highways between charging stations.

Speaker 3 32:59

Yeah, I mean that's not going to be endless miles and miles and miles.

Speaker 2 33:02

Yeah. You know it could be you could have induction segments of the highway.

Speaker 3 33:06

Yeah, every so often yeah.

Speaker 2 33:08

So that you get charged as you drive, and that's interesting yeah.

Speaker 3 33:11

And that's something maybe that you pay for From here to Vegas, you know, yeah, like a toll, that's what I think too Like a toll.

Speaker 2 33:15

Let's tell my ideas.

Speaker 1 33:16

Like a toll.

Speaker 3 33:17

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Hydrogen cars.

Speaker 2 33:19

Yeah, what about them?

Speaker 3 33:22

Well, they're a thing too. Toyota has a couple of models, and so you're going to see hydrogen stations. We have some already, yeah.

Speaker 2 33:28

We have hydrogen stations here, yep, in Phoenix. Yes, didn't, I know that Crossroads.

Speaker 3 33:33

Actually I feel like there's one on like Union Hills and something. It's where you see fleet cars go into, like police vehicles and do their charging. That's where you find them. Wow, it's diversifying.

Speaker 2 33:43

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Okay, and also, how about could you retrofit a car with batteries?

Speaker 3 33:50

You can. There is a company that's here that will so say. You have a fleet car, bunch of fleet cars, and you go to change in your lease. They're saying that it's less expensive and they'll rip out your engine and they'll put in a battery for you.

Speaker 1 34:03

Doesn't Robert Downey Jr do something like that?

Speaker 3 34:05

Ironman yeah, sorry, doesn't Ironman do something like that?

Speaker 1 34:11

No, like, look at him, he does that. He takes old cars, like old classic cars, and makes them electric.

Speaker 3 34:16

Yeah, it's like a little side project. Ironman's not real. So I feel like back in the this was a couple years ago the actual person.

Speaker 2 34:21

Robert Downey Jr, did I thought you were talking about Ironman? No, not in the movie. I know I got him.

Speaker 1 34:27

No, this is real life, I can't remember.

Speaker 2 34:29

There's a show that he does, but it takes classic cars and and you're saying the cost of that is cheaper than replacing an engine.

Speaker 3 34:36

So what they're saying is I mean back in the day, it depends on what how big the battery is, or retrofitting. They are located here, I believe it's in Chandler. They'll give you like a cost estimate, so it could be $40,000, but you get a 30% tax credit on it and then now you have an electric car.

Speaker 1 34:55

That's cool. He roused pondering.

Speaker 3 34:58

I'm on the fence, he's not looking at anyone just staring off.

Speaker 1 35:01

I'm on the fence.

Speaker 2 35:02

I got to see it but I think it's interesting concept, but I'm a little on the fence, but I get to be on the fence. Yeah, I know, and there's, there's fleets, like you talked to. I think there's Amazon's got a fleet of electric vehicles. Oh, gosh.

Speaker 3 35:11

There's so many companies that are going electric fleets or Republic services waste management waste management. So those trucks are going electric.

Speaker 2 35:22

USPS.

Speaker 3 35:23

Yeah, the postal service got electric cars on the fleet cars.

Speaker 2 35:26

Right.

Speaker 3 35:27

Buses I don't know what you'd call them like a little mini electric.

Speaker 2 35:32

And I know you've dabbled. Like we've talked about, the city of Mesa is fire truck right?

Speaker 3 35:38

Yes, they are having a fire truck, wow.

Speaker 2 35:40

An electric fire truck that will explode and get on fire. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, it is pretty awesome.

Speaker 3 35:47

But a lot of city municipalities, police departments I've done a lot of site assessments with police departments are getting the Ford lightings. Oh, nice yeah.

Speaker 2 35:55

Really.

Speaker 3 35:56

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 35:57

Hmm, okay, and I know there's, you know, semi trucks I've seen that are electric, right, they're usually talking about buses. I know that we were talking with Wirkling with somebody about a whole bus program to get all these buses to be electric.

Speaker 3 36:07

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 36:07

I know that's still going on right now, but there's a push for that. You mentioned even ferries.

Speaker 3 36:14

They made a mist, if you know about that, niagara Falls.

Speaker 1 36:17

Yeah, I've heard of it yeah.

Speaker 3 36:18

And also the ferry that's at the one that's on Pike Street in Seattle. Yeah, so that one went electric, so it's not just cars that are going electric. We're going to have electric aircrafts across from our office.

Speaker 1 36:30

I've seen the commercials.

Speaker 3 36:31

Yes, yeah, electric aircrafts, yeah.

Speaker 1 36:33

Honda is working on a lot of those right now. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 36:36

But Dear Valley Airport is looking to do a pilot program with electric aircrafts.

Speaker 2 36:42

Really Mm-hmm we talking about it. Of course I'm going to get up or I wouldn't be doing my job.

Speaker 3 36:51

Yeah, I mean, the future is just so exciting. It's just firehosing every single day. Money's available.

Speaker 2 36:57

Yeah, so let's talk about grant money. What kind of grant money is out there?

Speaker 3 37:00

Yeah. So school districts can apply for grants for electric school buses Big incentives for that and they're getting anywhere from 500 to, I think, up to 4 million. On a couple of the grants that were available, yeah, city municipalities are getting grants. So part of the hurdle is you need to have a grant writer being able to ask for that money. Make sure you hit all that criteria. But the funds are available. The federal government opened up a lot of money.

Speaker 1 37:25

Yeah, I mean, the money's there, mm-hmm, why not? Why not spend it? They've allocated the money for that purpose.

Speaker 3 37:31

Mm-hmm, use it.

Speaker 2 37:32

Okay, yeah, okay. So let's talk about Arizona for a second. Sure, in all this big EV world, where do we rank? I mean, what are we doing as far as our infrastructure and stuff? How is Arizona doing?

Speaker 3 37:46

Oh gosh. I want to say, like, our EV adoption is what? Sixth or something like that in the United States, six, six, the infrastructure. We haven't even cracked the top 10. There's a lot of space, a lot of land in between some of our cities that we don't have charging networks. So Electrify America kind of started and the whole idea is to have it within 40 miles of each other that you would have a DC fast charger. Same with Tesla. That was a whole thought process when they started. Now it's just a timing thing. I feel like there's enough projects and the funnel, but we do have some delay with our suppliers and transformers and things like that. So things that went to contract last year or were on the books or design, they're not going to get completed until next year. So it's getting better, but there's a lot of gap in Arizona for the infrastructure.

Speaker 2 38:38

So, like anything new, right, I mean I was kind of wondering about that before Suppliers might have challenges getting what we need to do what we need right, I mean I have no idea what goes into all this, but I'm sure there's kind of a supply line issue here and there at times, especially as we got out of the pandemic, especially that's because at that point it was really starting to grow and then, everything just kind of stopped.

Speaker 2 38:56

So manufacturers probably running back and forth and then they're probably getting going, but we're probably seeing the effects of that.

Speaker 3 39:01

Oh yeah yeah, we're still deficient on the supply chain when it comes to the transformers that are required, and those are utility size transformers. So it's not just like Harman being able to purchase a utility or utility transformers, it's like TEP, srp, aps they're backlogged on getting transformers.

Speaker 1 39:17

We deal with that a lot just in supply chain issues. Just people say like, oh, like, what's taking you guys so long like time out?

Speaker 3 39:24

not taking us so long. We ordered it ahead of time. Yeah, actually, construction is so quick. It's definitely the quickest order of the process.

Speaker 2 39:33

Yeah, and you talked about ADOT with the Neve funds $76.5 million. I mean so that's a big deal and that's going to help Arizona get going Correct. I mean I wonder how. I mean, who's the number one state of adoption? Who's doing?

Speaker 3 39:46

the best.

Speaker 1 39:46

California, Of course.

Speaker 2 39:47

California, your favorite. Well, it's my hometown, right, I'm from California, but so they're number one.

Speaker 3 39:53

They got it going.

Speaker 2 39:54

Right. They're way miles ahead of everybody. Are there states that are fighting this that you know of? Are there states that are saying, ah, we don't want to worry about this right now? Are they rejecting it?

Speaker 3 40:02

Do we want to talk about my home state, Montana?

Speaker 2 40:04

Yeah, let's talk about Montana, are they not doing it?

Speaker 3 40:07

Definitely not as fast.

Speaker 2 40:08

No.

Speaker 3 40:09

The adoption at EV and the infrastructure is not as fast.

Speaker 2 40:12

And that they're going to have their challenges, because talk about widespread areas of nothing, except maybe a. Buffalo right.

Speaker 3 40:18

I mean, we're still a horse of luggage there. I don't know what everybody else thinks we drive, but yeah.

Speaker 2 40:22

Yeah, as you go through the Midwest, I would think it's going to get kind of tough, sure, sure.

Speaker 3 40:25

But we got to be grateful to the electrify Americas and the Teslas and there's a lot of manufacturers stepping up and doing installs. You know Blink and Chargepoint, evgoes. Right now it's a race for that real estate. So these companies are taking on the expense to put the installs in because they want to get their product there.

Speaker 2 40:43

How's Texas doing?

Speaker 3 40:45

Texas is pretty good.

Speaker 2 40:46

Yeah, I would think that they're adapting pretty quickly and trying to get that going. Another area with a ton of state and a lot of you know nowhere areas, Sure, Especially West Texas.

Speaker 1 40:53

I'm thinking Nebraska, where I was from.

Speaker 3 40:55

Yeah, go Big, red, a lot of Go Big.

Speaker 1 40:57

Red, a lot of just miles and miles and miles of farmland.

Speaker 3 41:00

So like Corn yeah.

Speaker 1 41:01

I haven't implemented that infrastructure there for EV chargers. I feel like it's going to be a very I'll say it's a nightmare yeah.

Speaker 3 41:12

Yeah, and I mean everybody's harping on the deadline 2030, 2035. That's like. It's just like I mean you're my boss in sales. If I came to you with gosh Ralph, I want to bring in all this business. You're like okay, well, give me a projection. I'd be like I don't know, you're going to be like no, You're fired. I need a timeframe, I need something. I'd be like I don't know, I mean. So I mean, are these dead set dates? You have to put something out there. It can't be endless.

Speaker 2 41:39

They're not probably real estate.

Speaker 3 41:40

So I feel like it will have to see some flexibility Again when these numbers hit and these you know, 2030 and the money hit, it was before we saw this gigantic supply chain issue Right, that was uncontrollable.

Speaker 2 41:54

I just wish that people would just take the politics out of all this stuff and just this is the benefit the world and us and everything else. Let's just move forward as a humanity. And whenever it makes sense and we can grow from. I mean it'd be cool to have induction highways and electric cars and all that stuff, but it doesn't mean it needs to wipe out the other one, at least at this time.

Speaker 3 42:12

That's not the plan Right. That shouldn't be the plan Right.

Speaker 1 42:14

Right, there's pros and cons to each one.

Speaker 2 42:17

Yeah, I guess the problem is we only hear the extreme things on the news Exactly and that's the problem. You have to get past all that. So one last thing we talk about batteries. I mean, I know that they can now recycle some of these batteries, and you told me a cool thing about what we have going on here in Arizona.

Speaker 3 42:30

Yeah, we actually have a battery recycling plant that is here. They relocated here from Toronto a very large one, so In. Gilbert, yes.

Speaker 2 42:39

Right, yes, I didn't know that. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 42:42

Yeah, yeah. So they can take these things out and recycle them, and I think that that was one of the biggest things that you hear all the time like, oh, what do you do with the batteries?

Speaker 3 42:49

It's you know, pulling and throwing them away.

Lithium mine in the US

Speaker 1 42:51

But apparently we don't just throw them away, we can recycle.

Speaker 3 42:54

Not anymore. And now we found what was a lithium mine between the. What is it? Oregon? And I'm trying to think did you hear about?

Speaker 2 43:02

that no, no, yeah, really, yes. The world's largest, yes, the world's largest lithium mine Stumbled across that, that happened to you, that?

Speaker 1 43:09

happened to you. There it is the world's largest. There it is, I own this yeah. I've been sitting here the whole time.

Speaker 3 43:14

Yeah, I mean, that was crazy.

Speaker 2 43:15

That's a big deal yeah.

Speaker 3 43:16

Oh, it's on the border of Nevada and Oregon. Really Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 43:22

That's a corner.

Speaker 3 43:23

Yeah, that's like a telecorner, Just like right there. Three inch space, yeah, so that was a pretty big aha moment, which is exciting because again they're like well, we need lithium for the batteries.

Speaker 2 43:34

And I'd rather get it from here too, and I think that would help a lot with the battery. So yeah, that's pretty awesome. Did not know that. Very cool. What else don't I know?

Speaker 3 43:43

Oh gosh.

Speaker 1 43:44

And EV related. Ev related yes.

Speaker 3 43:47

This would be my safety minute to all the listeners.

Speaker 2 43:49

Yes.

Speaker 3 43:50

When you install chargers, you install them in a breaker at your residential, at your home. So just because it says spare on there does not mean that you can just put something in there and add electricity. You should really have it engineered and permitted, because you're adding a live load.

Speaker 3 44:10

And depending on the configuration of what's already there, you could be overloading your panel. You're not gonna know that. So even as a resident, harman has definitely that line in the sand that we will not install a residential charger unless it's engineered and permitted and that's for safety reasons. Same with commercial Believe it or not these level two chargers they come off of a breaker in a panel in your electrical room.

Speaker 1 44:34

I know we always talk about why Harman, why Harman?

Speaker 2 44:37

Why should?

Speaker 1 44:37

we do roofing with Harman, why should we do?

Speaker 2 44:38

well, that's why I should do EV chargers with Harman? Who's the number one EV charger installation company in Arizona?

Speaker 3 44:45

Harman oh, look at that Harman Electric.

Speaker 1 44:48

I have a feeling you knew that answer before you put it in the video.

Speaker 2 44:51

We definitely have the deepest resume, yeah, but.

Speaker 3 44:53

I mean it's not even close?

Speaker 2 44:55

Yeah, it's not even close, I know. And who made that happen? Oh, here we go.

Speaker 3 44:59

Ralph Romano? No, not Ralph Romano, but Tricia made that happen.

Speaker 2 45:02

You did hire me, though, yeah but I mean that's pretty cool to think that we are. We got so ahead of the curve that we are it when it comes to Arizona.

Speaker 3 45:09

It's exciting.

Speaker 2 45:10

I mean you work with utilities. They come to you, ask questions. I mean all the people that have these different programs that come out with they talk to you.

Speaker 3 45:17

Well, it's constant learning. You have to be aware of what's going on, and then it definitely helps that you know we've had the support, the volume, and we've had the hiccups in the beginning. There's a lot of things that we didn't know when we installed.

Speaker 1 45:29

We had to learn.

Speaker 3 45:30

Yeah, every single site is different and too many people want to create some sort of cookie cutter cost, some sort of cookie cutter way of just like, oh, a, b and C, it just it does not exist in this world.

Speaker 2 45:42

And to those of you that we installed in the beginning, we're sorry. We were learning, we were learning.

Speaker 3 45:46

But in the end it ended up perfect. And the end it always ends up perfect.

Speaker 2 45:50

But it was a process.

Speaker 3 45:51

We had to learn a lot.

Speaker 2 45:53

But there's people that are gonna have to go through that now that we've already done, and so we're way ahead of the curve.

Speaker 3 45:58

Yeah, we are.

Speaker 2 45:59

So when you think Harmon right, we always have Harmon Solar, but we're so much more than a solar company. Right, we're in the EVSE space. I mean we're in the infrastructure space, we're helping. We've talked about doing this in different states and really expanding out to help because we have that much knowledge, not just in Arizona.

Speaker 3 46:14

Yeah, and we have the ability to do something even more than just charging equipment. We have projects that we do solar cover, parking and we do vehicle chargers Residentially. We do the batteries, and so that's the next organic thing that you're gonna see residentially is solar battery charging units.

Speaker 2 46:30

Yeah, yeah, I think that just makes sense, right, I mean so again, solar charger battery units. That's us right. So we I know I have a lot of customers now. I would say a lot.

Speaker 1 46:40

I'd say I don't know we do get those 40% of the people right now that wanna do that stuff and we've installed quite a few chargers and it makes sense, right, so think of Harmon when you're thinking EV. If you want everything all in one delivery, Not EV. Well, I said it wrong. See Not EV.

Speaker 2 46:55

Don't come here and buy a car I can't sell it to you, don't do EVs. Right, so, but we can do the EVSEs. So I think when you're thinking chargers, you're thinking equipment, you're thinking infrastructure. Next time you drive by a charger, we probably installed it. I always tell people that See that charger, we did it. So most of the stuff out there, we've done it. So kind of cool and I you know all because of the effort we made five years ago to start getting into this.

Speaker 3 47:17

Yeah, I mean it just kind of took a leap and thought it was organic and who knew, I mean, who knew, who knew?

Speaker 1 47:22

I'll be honest. I think I know how it actually happened. Ralph, probably, like it, came across Ralph's desk and he was like I don't want to deal with this, I don't, it's not going to go anywhere. Trisha, here you have.

Speaker 3 47:31

Hey, see what you can do with this.

Speaker 1 47:32

See what you can do with this. It's not going to go anywhere. And then all of a sudden it blows up and he's like, oh wow, she did a good job and I think I'm that note. Is that true? Is that that sounds about right?

Speaker 2 47:41

Oh Jesus, thank you Absolutely not, so anything else you'd like to share with us? I mean, we've gone over a lot of stuff. It's been really good information, educational. I know I've learned a lot. I'm sure Ben learned something.

Speaker 3 47:53

I think just one other point that I would like to bring up is we do get a lot of phone calls and again it's education. But it seems really simple for a customer to call and ask for a charger. And can we get a charger that just ties into a solar system. But a solar system does not directly feed charger electricity, so I think that's probably like a misnomer that's out there. That would be scary. Yeah, so sadly there's a lot of phone calls where it's more education. Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:26

Right, it doesn't direct feed it, but obviously you're feeding your home for electricity. Yeah, it all works together at the end, but it's not a direct feed.

Speaker 3 48:33

Yeah, I mean, and there's some commercials that are out there that are a little bit confusing to you You're like oh gosh, well, I can just, you know, solar to charger to my car.

Speaker 1 48:41

We do get those calls of people like, oh, can I get solar to just for my AC or just for my car, just for my pool? I'm like no, that's not how it works. Same point Like at the back of Harman.

Speaker 2 48:50

in the back, the back of a lot of Harman, we have that massive array of solar panels that are feeding our building, and then we have a charging system in the back, attached to it, for our electric cars.

Speaker 3 49:01

Yeah, so right now there's no direct feed. That's out there. There is a product that has solar battery chargers. That is a metal plate that you can use a forklift. It's called Beam. Those are pretty cool.

Speaker 2 49:12

Yeah, I've seen that you saw the pictures of those. Yeah, those are kind of cool.

Speaker 3 49:15

But you know again, it's just education.

Speaker 2 49:19

So I guess what you learned from this is this is really just the start right.

Speaker 2 49:23

We're just starting, we're just crawling. Right now we haven't even gotten the running yet. So there's so much more that's gonna happen in the next five to 10 years. With this, I mean, just stay tuned, you know keeping out and watch it, try to get past all the bad news and stuff and just focus on this, because this is an interesting market. There's some really cool stuff down the road that we could get to. There's probably stuff we haven't even thought about that's even cooler than that that we can even imagine right now, mind blown.

Speaker 2 49:45

The flying electrical car I mean.

Speaker 3 49:46

I don't know, it's the Jetsons.

Speaker 2 49:48

Right, it could be right, so, and there's already a flying car prototype out there right now, which is kind of cool.

Speaker 3 49:52

That was really good, actually, that was pretty good. Yeah, that was practicing.

Speaker 2 49:55

Yeah, so that would be good for your stand-up tonight, anyway, so there's a lot. This industry is gonna keep growing. We're happy that we got in front of it right and we'll continue to hopefully stay in front of it and continue to grow doing this, so hopefully you learned something about this today, trisha.

Speaker 3 50:09

Yes.

Speaker 2 50:10

Thank you for joining us. Yes, thank you, it's always a pleasure talking to you and you're, like I said, the expert in the industry, trisha Windell, no doubt about it. We're really lucky to have you and, ben, did you learn something, mr?

Speaker 3 50:23

Everything.

Speaker 1 50:24

I was hoping that you say you're lucky to have me too, but that's for another podcast.

Speaker 3 50:28

What did you learn, Ben?

Speaker 1 50:29

I learned a lot about all the cool stuff going on the recharging of batteries or not recharging, but the recycling of batteries Did not know, that's pretty hot topic.

Speaker 2 50:40

I mean, I like the induction highway, though that's the coolest.

Speaker 1 50:42

That's pretty cool too. That's the coolest. Stay tuned. More to come.

Speaker 2 50:45

There is more to come, so when we get more and we have more things going on. We're going to bring you back.

Speaker 3 50:51

Done deal.

Speaker 2 50:51

What's the next topic?

Speaker 1 50:53

The next topic.

Speaker 2 50:53

I told you this, I know. See if you remember it.

Speaker 1 50:56

I believe we're having a guy come in.

Speaker 2 50:59

We are having a guy.

Speaker 1 51:00

It's talking about how we do our designs. That's right, our solar designs, your initial design, the initial design that you see in like a proposal of where are these?

Speaker 3 51:07

painted Like a solar array? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 51:11

You don't know what the terminology is yet, because people don't know what arrays are, but we're going to get into. We're very big on giving you the why. Yeah, so we're going to give you the why on what we do and you know why are you putting this here or that there, or why are you doing that. There's so many things that develop, that, why and we're going to share all that with our expert, who's been for us forever and he'll be on the next podcast, so make sure you like and subscribe.

Speaker 2 51:31

Yeah, like and subscribe to this podcast. We are going to be available now on Spotify and iTunes, as well as our YouTube and our website. Continue to subscribe and to follow and to watch, and one of the things we'd like to do too. You'll see on social media. If you have any questions that you'd like us to answer on these podcasts or if you have any ideas on podcasts you'd like us to do, just go ahead and give us a little quick note. You'll see the links on social media. Come to our website. Call in 800-281-3189. You guys met Gio last time. Tell her what you want. You know a question you might have or what you'd like to see, and we'll see if we can answer some of those questions on the air and put some of those podcasts together. Sounds good.

Speaker 3 52:07

Right, so thank you again. Thank you, my pleasure, thank you.

Speaker 2 52:11

Ben for co-hosting and we'll see you all next time. Appreciate your time today and thank you. Good luck, guys.