EV means electric vehicle. Instead of relying on a gasoline engine, it uses an electric motor powered by a battery. The hosts are talking about how the industry got very excited about EVs for a while.
Internal combustion is the traditional type of engine that burns fuel to make power. The hosts are saying that after years of EV hype, more people and manufacturers are again paying attention to gas/diesel engines.
A hybrid uses two kinds of power, usually a gas engine and an electric motor. The idea is to get the benefits of both—electric help when you need it and gas power when you want range.
Electric motors are the parts that turn electricity into motion. In an EV or hybrid, they help the car accelerate quickly because they can deliver power right away.
A turbocharger is a device that helps a smaller engine make more power. It uses the car’s exhaust to push extra air into the engine, which lets it burn more fuel efficiently for stronger acceleration.
Engine displacement is basically how big the engine is internally, measured in volume (often in cubic inches in the U.S.). The hosts are saying you can use a smaller engine and still get strong power by adding a turbo.
Here, “infrastructure” means the charging setup for electric cars—like where chargers are and how easy they are to use. If that’s missing or unreliable, EVs don’t work as well for everyone.
The Ford F-150 Lightning is an electric pickup truck. People bring it up because trucks are often used for towing, and the conversation is about whether EVs can meet that need yet.
Towing is the act of pulling a trailer or load behind a vehicle, and it’s a major use case for pickups. The segment implies EV trucks like the Ford F-150 Lightning may be constrained by real-world limits (like range/charging) when towing compared with traditional gas trucks.
SEMA is a big car show in the U.S. where companies show off new performance parts and wild custom cars. It’s a place where you can see what tech is coming next.
“ET” is short for elapsed time—basically how many seconds it takes a car to get through a timed run. People use it to compare how fast different cars accelerate.
Term
no dry train
They’re saying EVs don’t use the usual gas-car power system. Instead of an engine and multi-speed gearbox, they use an electric motor to drive the wheels.
“Aero” is short for aerodynamics. It’s about how the car shapes airflow, and good aero can help the tires grip the road better, especially at higher speeds.
A powertrain is the set of components that generate power and deliver it to the wheels. In EVs, the powertrain centers on the electric motor and battery system, while gas cars add an engine, fuel system, and more complex drivetrain hardware.
They’re talking about how hard it is for new companies to build cars from scratch. The argument is that EVs can be easier to develop than gas cars because the power system is different.
Emissions are the harmful gases and particles a vehicle produces. Car makers have to design engines and systems so the pollution stays within legal limits.
A multi-speed transmission is a gearbox with several gear ratios. It helps the engine work efficiently at different speeds, but it’s also more complicated to build and tune.
A “heat signature” is basically how much heat something gives off that cameras can detect. If a vehicle produces less heat, it can be harder to spot with thermal (infrared) sensors. The hosts are saying EVs can help with that.
“Brushless” usually means the motor doesn’t use physical brushes to make it run. Instead, electronics control the motor, which can make it more efficient and last longer. The hosts are pointing out that brushless motors are now common in everyday electric devices.
Pneumatic means “powered by compressed air.” The hosts are comparing older air-powered tools to newer electric ones, which are increasingly common now.
Hybrid architecture is how a hybrid car is put together so the gas engine and electric parts can work together. It affects how smoothly and efficiently the car can switch between power sources.
Concept
EV is not going away
This means the speaker thinks electric cars will keep growing and won’t disappear. The reason is that the tech keeps improving, making EVs easier and better to use.
Concept
hybrid I think is the bigger idea
The speaker is arguing that hybrids may be the more broadly adopted near-to-mid-term electrification path. Hybrids can reduce fuel use and emissions while avoiding some limitations of fully electric driving, like charging infrastructure and range anxiety.
For EVs, “runtime” is basically how far you can go before the battery runs low. They’re saying ads talked a lot about that, but people also want the car to be fun and exciting.
The Toyota Prius is a car that uses a gas engine and an electric motor together. This helps it use less fuel than many regular gas cars. It’s often mentioned when people talk about how cars are changing toward electricity.
The Ford F-150 is a super popular pickup truck. They’re saying EVs would have been more successful when mainstream trucks like this were part of the electrification push.
The Mustang Mach-E is Ford’s electric version of the Mustang brand. They mention it because it’s an EV that’s supposed to feel more like a fun, desirable car than a strange experiment.
This is about how people actually start using a new kind of technology. The hosts are saying it usually doesn’t happen exactly the way planners expect, because things like charging infrastructure and public comfort have to catch up.
The mass market means regular mainstream buyers, not just car geeks. The hosts are saying that if you jump straight to mainstream customers, it can be harder because the technology is still new and expensive.
The Cadillac Escalade is a big, luxury SUV. Here they’re talking about an all-electric version, meaning it runs on electricity instead of a traditional gasoline engine.
The Cadillac V16 is an old engine design from Cadillac that used sixteen cylinders. More cylinders can mean the engine runs very smoothly. It comes up in conversations because it’s an unusual, high-end type of engine.
Company
Remont
Remont is a company mentioned as helping develop the hybrid system. The host is crediting it as part of the team behind how the car’s gas-and-electric setup works.
Optimizing for efficiency means the car is trying to use less energy to go the same distance. With hybrids, that usually comes from smart switching between gas and electric power.
An electric dirt bike uses an electric motor and battery pack instead of a combustion engine. Because electric motors deliver torque quickly, riders often describe them as feeling unusually strong even at low speeds.
Torque is the force that makes the wheels turn and helps you accelerate. Higher torque usually means it feels like it pulls harder, especially from a stop.
“OEs” here means the regular car makers that build the vehicles you buy. They were waiting to see if electric cars would really take off before investing heavily.
An automatic transmission is the gearbox that shifts gears for you. The hosts are saying it can make gas cars more expensive to build and maintain than EVs.
Term
repair bills
“Repair bills” are the costs of fixing problems after purchase. The segment contrasts EV ownership with gasoline cars by suggesting EVs could reduce ongoing repair expenses due to fewer moving parts and simpler systems.
Car
Sierra
“Sierra” is an electric race-style car with one seat and power sent to the rear wheels. The hosts say it’s built for track and rally-style driving—things like dirt and jumps. They also mention it’s pretty quick off the line.
Rear-wheel drive means the power goes to the back wheels. That changes how the car turns and grips compared to cars where the front wheels do the work. It can feel more “driver-focused” on a track or loose surfaces.
Term
0 to 16
“0 to 16” is a quickness test the hosts are using to describe acceleration. They say it happens in about 2.4 seconds, meaning the car gets moving very fast. The exact “16” unit isn’t fully spelled out in the clip, but it’s meant as a performance brag.
The aftermarket is everything you can buy to modify or upgrade a car that isn’t made by the original manufacturer. It’s where enthusiasts and specialty companies add performance or custom features. The hosts say this space is expanding.
Term
OE
OE (original equipment) refers to the manufacturer’s own parts and systems as delivered on the car. The hosts say you’d normally wait until the OE has “all this stuff” before doing major upgrades, because early on there may be fewer compatible solutions. Once OE support and documentation improve, builders can do more ambitious conversions or performance work.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car designed for strong performance and handling. Over the years, it has added more electronics and computer-controlled features. That’s why it often comes up when people talk about how software affects how a car drives.
A battery management system is the car’s “battery brain.” It watches the battery’s temperature and voltage and helps keep it safe, including when you charge quickly.
Fast charging means charging the battery quickly using higher power. It’s harder on the battery because it makes more heat, so the car has to manage temperature carefully.
Predictive thermal management is software that tries to “guess” how hot the battery will get. Then it controls cooling so the battery stays in a safe temperature range, especially during fast charging.
Cell characterization is the process of measuring how individual battery cells behave under different conditions (like temperature and charge/discharge rates). Those results feed the BMS algorithms so it can estimate state-of-charge and manage charging safely.
Integration means the car’s different systems have to “talk to each other” and work as one. It’s hard because if one system changes, it can affect how other systems behave too.
Distributed architecture is when the car uses lots of separate computers, each responsible for a different job. The idea is that newer cars may use fewer, more powerful computers to coordinate everything better.
Modern cars have lots of computers inside. Vehicle networking is the system that lets those computers talk to each other so the car can coordinate everything smoothly.
Term
AI
Here, AI means the car uses smart computer learning to understand what you’re doing and adjust itself. Instead of only using fixed settings, it could change how the car responds in real time.
Calibration tuning is adjusting the car’s computer settings that control how the engine and drivetrain respond. Engineers test it carefully so the car feels right and performs the way they want.
“On the fly” means it changes in real time while you’re driving. Instead of waiting for a new setting, the car updates its behavior as conditions change.
Throttle is how you tell the car how much power you want. When you lift off and then press again, the car has to respond quickly—how it does that is part of what tuning affects.
A trickle charger is a slow battery charger used to keep a battery from going dead. It charges gradually, so it takes a long time compared to faster chargers.
A battery cell is one of the building blocks inside a battery pack. Modern chargers and battery management systems try to charge these cells in a controlled way so the whole pack works well for longer.
“Miles of range” is how far the EV is expected to go on one full charge. The host is saying the car’s estimate could improve as the software learns how to use energy better.
They’re describing the car getting smarter over time. By learning how you drive and what conditions you’re in, it can manage energy better and help you go farther.
Term
electrons
They’re talking about the electrical charge inside the battery. The idea is that the car can use that electricity more efficiently depending on how you drive and the conditions.
Edge processing is when the car thinks and makes decisions using computers inside the vehicle. That can react quickly to what you’re doing, without waiting for outside servers.
Road drag is the resistance from the tires rolling on the pavement. Even if the car isn’t hitting wind, the tires still “fight” the road, and that uses battery energy.
Current is how much electricity is flowing. If you push a lot of electricity through wires and connections, they heat up, so the car has to manage that heat.
Bus bars are heavy-duty metal “power rails” that move electricity around inside the battery system. Since they carry big currents, they have to be built to handle heat safely.
An EV still has a smaller 12-volt battery for everyday electronics and computers. It’s not designed to handle huge currents—those would overheat and damage wiring.
A cooling system is how the EV keeps important parts from getting too hot. If the heat is generated faster than the cooling can remove it, components can overheat and fail.
The anode is the battery’s negative electrode. It’s involved in moving lithium around inside the battery, which is what allows the battery to charge and discharge.
A battery has two main electrodes. The cathode is the positive one, and it’s part of the chemical reaction that makes the battery produce electricity (and that gets reversed when you charge it).
With batteries, improving one thing often makes another harder. For example, aiming for faster charging can create more heat, so engineers balance range, speed, and safety together.
They’re using engine terms as a comparison. A “long stroke” engine is often associated with stronger low-end pull (torque), while a “short stroke” is often associated with making power at higher revs—here, it’s just a way to explain balancing battery goals.
Hill climb racing is when cars race up a steep course, usually trying to set the fastest time. The uphill layout makes it harder to get traction and accelerate cleanly.
Time attack is a racing style where the goal is to set the fastest lap time. Instead of racing side-by-side, you’re trying to beat your best time by driving the best line and braking smoothly.
Under NDA means they’re legally not allowed to talk about certain details publicly. It’s common when companies are working on new or sensitive car projects.
Electric racing is racing with battery-powered cars instead of gas engines. Teams have to manage battery energy and cooling, and they often use regenerative braking to recover power.
Formula E is a racing series where the cars are fully electric. It’s a place where teams test how well electric race cars can accelerate, handle, and manage their battery energy.
Helix is a company the host mentions that makes electric motors. They’re pointing to Helix’s motor specs to show how impressive modern EV hardware can be.
RC car means a toy car you control with a remote. They’re comparing the Echo’s feel to that kind of quick, lively response.
Term
1,500 pounds
That’s the car’s weight. Heavier cars usually feel different to drive than lighter ones, especially when you’re talking about acceleration and handling.
The Subaru 360 is a very small older car made by Subaru. Because it’s light and compact, it can be surprisingly easy to maneuver. People sometimes talk about it when they want to show how it can rotate and turn sharply.
“360s” means doing a full spin—turning the car all the way around. The host is saying it’s possible but extremely hard to control.
LIVE
It is the two guys drive podcast, he is Kevin Byrd, I am Willie B and today man, today we're
on a hot topic.
I gotta tell you man, it's wild to sit back and watch this ride, this trajectory that
we've been on.
It seemed like, you know, everybody, every, everything, you know, car, you know, take
the whole world of the car and shift it to, you know, this whole new lane of EV a couple
years ago.
Remember that huge enormous, remember when we went to SEMA and everything was electric
and that's all we could talk about and there was this massive push and all the, you know,
all the manufacturers like, we're not going to make, you know, gas engines anymore, we're
out.
But now, all of a sudden, here we are in 2025 and what's happened, Kevin?
There's this big push back towards internal combustion, but somewhere here in the middle
is this sweet spot that you see nowadays is easy to accomplish with the, you know, just
all the technology out there and electric motors and, you know, the unbelievable power
they have, these hybrids are really shaping up to be the kind of the wave of the future.
You know, where you get electric motors, getting the mass moving, you get a big turbo
on a smaller cubic inch engine.
It's a great formula and recipe for big power, big performance and everything we love.
So are you feeling like that's inevitably where we're going to end up and where we're
going to be when all the dust settles?
Because it has been, dude, you think of the wild ride we've been on the last, you know,
eight to nine years, it's been a wild one, man.
Wild one.
No doubt.
I got one word for all of it.
Whoopsie.
Totally mis-projected, you know.
I don't know the focus group they talked to, but they were way off, man, because the focus
group that I was hanging around with were the ones that were going, hey, man, I don't know
if that's really going to fly.
Have y'all looked at the infrastructure?
Yeah, no doubt.
No doubt.
I mean, it's close, right?
I mean, it's one thing to replace something that you've known forever, you have some affinity
liking for it with something equal or better.
And EV is getting close and in certain applications, maybe it's the third car in the family, the
second car in the family that's just commuting.
Great, man.
You never have to go to a gas station, all that stuff.
You get the price right and man, a lot of people love it.
But to go across the board, we weren't there and we weren't equalized yet, right?
It's still lagging in areas.
I mean, why would you do an F-150 lightening and towing when you can't tow?
Yeah.
You know, like, ah, you know, but there's some segments that really make sense.
But even in those, like, I'm thinking out loud here, like a lot of supercars have been jumping
on EV because the performance is sick.
I mean, absolutely sick.
Yeah, that's what I was going to see, man.
We saw at SEMA some of the most unbelievable supercars, some of the crazy performance numbers,
just the unbelievable, you know, ETs and times and, you know, because of low CG and there's
no dry train and how fast these things can accelerate and how unbelievable the aero is
on them.
Like, you can make a dynamic supercar on what seems to be a fairly decent budget nowadays.
Well, and it's easier for a lot of startup companies because the powertrain is the most
complex part of the car.
You don't always think about it, but all the, you know, all the engine, all the fine details
and when you got to do it mass production, right, maintaining the quality, the finish,
the fit on everything, plus all the combustion, the emissions, you name it, right, multi-speed
transmissions.
They're not easy to do.
So, right, really hard to do for a startup, but the battery electric motor thing has been
a lot more attainable.
So you've seen, right, the Teslas and the Lucids and the whatever's coming out of nowhere.
So it's really created a lot of opportunity, competition and maybe out of that
might be some really interesting and maybe some good product more across the board than
just these small segments at some point in the future, right?
But you know what has given us, has given us insane technology, you know, in an avenue
that probably would have been much slower to get to, has given us a way to, to get to
that fast track pace because this, you know, this EV revolution that occurred a few years
ago still continues today, just, I think in a different way.
And our guest today, Jake, man, he lives this stuff, man.
His world of hypercraft is, is just unbelievable with all things EV and really the hybrid combination
where we're going to be, you know, several years out.
It's going to be really cool to pick his brain and see what he feels and thinks is the next
evolution.
But right, man, it's wild as we sit back on a macro level, look at what's transpired over
the last eight, 19 years and go, whoa, wow, what an insane whoopsies or lefties or righties
over. Oh man, maybe not.
Maybe so.
Maybe how about this?
Oh, no, not that way.
It's been a wild ride and we'll pick Jake's brain and see what he thinks about it as well.
Let's take a break.
We'll get to it.
It's the two guys grow out of the podcast.
He's Kevin Byrd.
I'm Willie B. We'll see you on the other side of the break.
It is the two guys grow out of the podcast.
He's Kevin Byrd.
I'm Willie B.
Fire it up, man.
We have Jake from hypercraft on Jake Hawksworth and Jake has been our guy, man, for a number
of podcasts.
He's come on and shed some real knowledge light and, you know, kind of peel the layer
too back when it comes to EV warrior, where it's going, how wild and crazy the performance
number is, how cool and simple it is to really take, you know, EV to whatever it is you're
passionate about, whatever you want to design and whatever you want to build, the opportunity
is there.
You know, it's hard to believe, but it really is.
Jake, welcome to the podcast, man.
Hey, thanks for jumping on with us again.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Yeah, man.
Yeah.
Now, hypercraft, man, you guys are kind of like in the forefront of, let's say, non-OE,
so I don't know, aftermarket, but you guys are kind of doing OE, just not what we think
about from a Ford GM and Chrysler type of thing, right?
You guys are in the Marine, the defense and the racing.
I mean, you kind of got your tentacles and a lot of different spaces.
Maybe in some regards, I don't know, you tell me leveraging off what the industry is doing,
but yet, right, kind of what aftermarket does and entrepreneurial sort of viewpoint is,
how can I leverage it in other areas, right?
So, give us a little quick rundown of what you guys are in right now and hypercraft,
what tentacles are out there and what do you see as maybe some of the really good
fits for EV at the moment?
Yeah, so I think you touched on some really good things that we're involved in.
I mean, our goal as a company was really to take a lot of the advancement in powertrain technology
as well as software controls, kind of the data analytics that were being developed at the high
volume OEMs and say, how can we bring this technology, make a positive difference in the
lower volume, the small to mid-sized vehicle manufacturers doing much more specialized applications?
Now, there's a whole different challenge there because you don't have the high volume,
you don't have the economies of scale, but I think we can be much more flexible to where
the market is shifting, right?
And we've seen that shift where OEMs kind of develop over these really long 10 year
development cycles or it takes a long time to kind of turn the ship.
You know, we're a little bit more dynamic than that.
But can you share with us what's one of the fast things you've turned around?
Well, you saw something, right?
It was like, hey, we need this, an application or whatever.
And you know, how fast did you look into it, develop something and have something in hand?
Yeah, I mean, we did, we had a really, we, you know, we do work in the defense industry.
We have about six different kind of vehicle developments that we're supplying powertrain
systems for.
All but one is hybrid.
So all of these are hybrid, only ones appear EV play.
But we did a really cool project with special operations, a light tactical vehicle
for deployment, it's made for kind of emergency rescue situations.
And it needed to be hybrid.
They needed some, you know, they, it has a diesel engine, but they needed a very short
distance of completely silent no heat signature that was about five miles.
And this is like such a great example of how to leverage the technology the right way.
Dude, did you guys, do you guys build the Kawasaki Corleo?
Is that what you're talking about?
You guys build some robotic horse, some big Goliath man that you get into some stealthy
robot figure, like, you know, Pacific Rim style.
Nothing that crazy, but kind of in a UTV size platform, you know, used by, you know, the
seals and kind of the tier one special operations.
But we got a field testable prototype ready in about three months.
And that was kind of the timeline that we were given.
You know, no, that's six.
See, that is not OE timeline right there.
Haven't lived it for 20 something years.
It's not, it's very specific.
It's very, you know, now, now that vehicle will be tested over three years, right?
And it'll go through iterations, but, you know, they, they, the military had been asking for
that functionality for four or five years.
And, you know, the, the large OEs can't step in and deliver that functionality for, for
a vehicle that there's going to be a hundred units built, right?
And they're going to be deployed in another part of the world.
The OEM, the large falling millionaires get involved in that type of program.
So it requires the specialization of, of a hypercraft to do it.
But very cool program.
Hey man, stop playing.
Y'all got paid for that.
You said it was Navy, y'all got paid for that government.
Oh man, I hope you got them, Jake.
I hope you got them.
It's like, woo, government.
So they never, we're going to deliver it in three months.
Put a couple of commas in it.
We'll see you on Thursday.
It's for the military.
Come on.
Yeah man.
That's a great example of, of like the right application, right?
And the right time on, let's say the technology development, right?
As I was saying before in the intro, right?
This EV thing has really come a long way in the last 20, 30 years, right?
It's really snuck up on us.
And like I said, a lot of CEOs thought we were there,
but we're almost there to go across the board.
But here you're, you're focusing on areas that are, that's what they need.
They need, right?
No heat signature.
They need ultra quiet, right?
And you found this sweet spot.
I mean, can you imagine what EV, so just in the last handful of years,
you got to think it's only been really three to five, right?
We've been hard, aggressively pursuing this EV stuff.
You look at all the, the things that it's given us.
It really has been a wild shift.
I mean, think about the brushless technology in every single person's garage now,
that we used to use air.
We used to use pneumatic stuff.
Now everybody has brushless stuff, right?
You look at these little electric applications and everything,
how much better, more efficient, and much more powerful.
These little tools or pieces of yard equipment or anything electric have become,
it's really a testament to that technology and what they're doing at the forefront,
because it trickles down to all of us.
What they're doing now, we as civilians will be able to get that technology at some point.
And it's going to be cool the moment that happens.
Yeah.
And the large OEMs have blazed that path.
But what I get excited about is advancement in battery technology and,
and the electric motors and high power electronics, like inverters.
You know, all of this has now led to a better hybrid architecture,
a better hybrid system.
Because the challenge 20 years ago with hybrid was the battery side of it,
the electric motors, all of that was so difficult, so underdeveloped.
So, you know, there's pendulum swings to everything.
And I think EV is not going away.
The technology will keep getting better.
And now we're listening to the customers better than three,
five years ago when, when we pretended every in the world would go electric.
Now we're actually listening to what, what do consumers want?
What do they value?
And, and there's cool spots for electric, but hybrid I think is the bigger idea.
Hey, Kevin, can I ask you all a question?
I think you'd be perfect to answer this.
And now both of your inputs.
Do you think of EV wouldn't have gone so good when EV first launched,
they had all those cars that looked like the Jetsons and had skirts on them and just the weird,
the weird, like, you know, futuristic look that EV had and the toned down demasculated sort of cars.
Do you think if they would have gone like EV has gone today with a lot of the performance
highlights and, and that really makes the, all the commercials, you know, talk about,
yeah, runtime, but performance is always in the mix, you know, do you think if they would
approach it a little bit more as to what the consumer wanted versus this weird introduction
to EV with this goofy looking car from the future, it would have been more successful?
Well, I think that to me and Jake, you can jump in.
I think the problem, because, because you're right when you think about a Prius and stuff,
but once the EV only thing started to happen and you'd had at least stuff in the pipeline in the
news, like I mentioned before, some of the supercar stuff out there, you have the Daytona,
that was coming out, right?
You had some performance stuff because as you said,
I'm talking initially first on 10 years ago.
Yeah, but most of that was, yeah, I mean, if you go back to the whatever that GM one was,
yeah, it was all pretty lame.
But I mean, in this, in this ramp up, you had the F 150 most popular vehicle in the world,
pretty much, right?
You had F 150 and you had the Daytona was coming and you had a lot in the Mach E, right?
So those were like really cool.
I just think they went too fast.
Like if I back up a couple of years in an R&D and in powertrain and gasoline powertrain,
right, we did a lot of work that said, all right, where's the technology?
What do people want?
What's the range?
What's the cost?
All this stuff.
And we said, all right, it's out there.
It's out there and hybrid is where we get there.
And all of a sudden, you know, that was the thought process within a lot of the technical
community was EV comes out the other side of hybrid.
But all of a sudden, somewhere there was a disconnect to the CEOs that said, ah,
we want to skip all that.
That's just a bunch of wasted time.
Let's just go right to the end.
So I think that was the biggest thing is, is they skipped the part in the middle, right?
And that could have given us lots of time to digest it, to absorb it, to build infrastructure.
All of that, right?
You know, new technology adoption never happens the way they expected this to happen
in transportation, in mobility, right, with these new concepts.
So, you know, I totally agree with Kevin.
I think the weird looks didn't help anything, but just shoving down into the mass market,
you know, without the early adopters, without coming in at the high value,
because new technology is expensive, right?
So, but when you look at like the new Cadillac Escalade, all electric, like that is,
it's awesome, right?
Because people weren't quiet.
It's premium.
It's powerful, you know, but it's a good fit.
And it meets the price point of new technology.
The things that we drive every day, you know, it's just too early.
The timing's just not right, so.
Hey, but is that spaceship sound growing on people?
Because to me, it has that little, that Tron sound, whatever you want to call it.
Every time someone goes by, I'm like, oh, it's the Jetsons, you know, or whatever it is.
Yeah, the Tron.
Yeah, it's kind of, it is like that.
But it's growing on me.
They seem to be enhancing that a little bit.
These high-arrow cars, like, you know, some of these supercars, hypercars that are
electric where you can actually hear the arrow, you know, on the wind noises they go by.
You know, there's cool things, but a couple of months ago, I got to see the new
Cosworth V16 engine in person that's going into the Bugatti.
And that is a beautiful engine in a hybrid car with a beautiful hybrid system,
you know, that's developed with Remont.
And I will tell you that there is nothing that kind of gets me more excited than seeing
both technologies come together in harmony.
Like, when you have the best world, it gets, it's just, you know, you don't have to compromise
anymore.
It's not, there's no range anxiety.
There's no, like, you don't lose the sound and the emotion of engines.
You optimize for efficiency.
You optimize for fuel.
You know, you get to do all of these things.
And I think the fact that we have modern software and controls to manage all of it,
like we did 20 years ago, with higher processing power and vehicles,
it's the time, it's going to be the age of hybrid.
That's my, that's my belief.
And eventually there will be more EV adoption.
I mean, EV is still growing, right?
Over here, it's still growing.
The demand is still growing.
And with more models, that only gets better.
But, and don't you think the, the adaptation of all the EV equipment,
but lawn equipment, tools, everything in people's daily lives as it shifts and moves.
You know, one of my dirt bike friends just got that new stark that electric dirt bike,
he can't rave enough about it, bro.
It's got an 80 horsepower setting on it.
No, no dirt bike out there that has 80 horsepower.
So I can't, well, the torque.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying, dude.
The torque, dude, yeah.
It's unbelievable to have something like that is, is really,
it's just amazing where there's power, where this technology can go.
And like you said, we're just still at the, to me anyway,
we're still at the tip of that iceberg.
We're still have a lot of years in development and R&D and where it's going to go,
where it's going to take us, the sky is really the limit.
You sit back and watch how dominant electric can be.
And it gets exciting for performance guys.
It really does.
I think the days are getting further behind us where people don't see that and realize
that is going to be a part of our mechanism in the future.
Well, Jake mentioned just quickly the whole economy of scale.
So right, the OEs sat on the fence watching Tesla for so long,
just taking people's money, right?
And charging really high, high dollars for it and think,
and their course of stock price went through the roof.
And they weren't even really making any money yet.
So they're just looking at Tesla going,
man, when does it make sense to jump in here?
And if we jump in at our volumes, man, we could really undercut,
Tesla, perhaps we could undercut gasoline because all the emissions costs and everything,
automatic transmissions, they're not cheap, right?
When you made them to an engine and then you got all these
direct injection turbos and all this technology stuff.
Anyways, if you could scale up instantly,
all of a sudden the prices could come way down.
And so, yeah, when you think, man, I don't want to spend a lot of money for an electric
car, I'm not ready for one yet.
But all of a sudden, if it came in, you know, five, $10,000 cheaper,
and you don't have all these repair bills and simplicity,
and it might sound a little bit different.
So the OEs were kind of thinking, what if we jumped in?
Well, they all jumped into the same time.
And then we hit the infrastructure, right?
It didn't meet everybody's demand.
It took away something that you liked.
It didn't give you time to warm up to it.
And as you say, man, if you stick them together,
you got your ice cream and your cake.
Yeah.
You know, then you got nobody complaining, really.
Well, we're going to pick Jake's brain about that ice cream and that cake
coming up next.
Let's get to this break and we'll go for dessert, y'all.
It's hypercraft.
Check it out, Jake Hawksworth joining him, Kevin Bird,
Willie Beats, two guys, garage podcast.
Talk to you in just a minute.
It is two guys, garage podcast.
He is Kevin Bird, I am Willie Beats.
We have our boy Jake Hawksworth on.
Hypercraft is a company.
And man, you can jump online and see some of this crazy cool stuff they build.
Jake, you've got to be able to test drive all that stuff, right?
You got to go play in that stuff, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, I get a little busy to do all of it,
but every once in a while, they let me behind the wheel of something.
This Sierra car is actually kind of the fun toy of everything that we've done
in kind of our portfolio of work.
Single seat, electric, rear wheel drive, about 300 horsepower.
And it's 0 to 16, about 2.4 seconds, rear wheel drive.
So it's, yeah, it's hard to hook it up, but it also has some travel.
We've jumped it over 140 feet.
It's a pretty cool car.
People check it out.
It's a great, and it's built as a track car, kind of more for rally style,
you know, dirt, some jumps.
And that's a fun one.
What's it called one more time?
The Sierra car.
Sierra.
Okay.
So it drives Sierra.com.
People want to check it out.
Absolutely will.
Where else are you guys seeing the momentum here?
Let's say the aftermarket or the niche kind of area.
Because like you said, normally you would wait until the OE has all this stuff.
And then you can do amazing things with it.
You're kind of limited somewhat by what's out there, but it is growing.
And there are these niche areas where, man, you guys are already capitalizing on,
you're already identifying, you're already having some success.
Where else are you guys having fun in the playground?
Well, you know, it's kind of an interesting question.
I would say, you know, there's something that gets us pretty excited.
It's pretty nerdy, which is software.
The thing that kind of levels the playing field with the large...
Wait, pretty nerdy.
Hold up.
Extra nerdy at minimum.
Extra not.
Not pretty extra at least.
Look, I didn't even talk about like data analytics.
Like we don't have to go into all that, but you know, it's interesting.
It's interesting what the power of software is doing to,
you know, technologies in the vehicle like powertrain.
And how it relates to performance,
how it relates to personalization of the driver's interaction with the vehicle.
And I think it's probably, you know, 10 times more disruptive and impactful
to the future of mobility than electric or hybrid.
Like we talk about, I mean, there will be hydrogen,
there will be sustainable fuels, there will be electric,
there will be hybrid, internal combustion.
Like all of that will exist in the future, in some capacity,
in different vehicle applications.
But what will power all of it, what makes it so doable
and allows the flexibility will be software.
Soft, the software defined vehicle future is really interesting.
And I think it's probably where the large volumes are actually behind companies.
Like, you know, not just hypercraft,
but a lot of the tech driven kind of forward thinking,
you know, smaller agile companies are investing a lot in software
because that's where, you know, that's how we gain a competitive edge.
So where is this, I mean, expounding that a little bit,
because I'm trying to wrap my brain around it.
Like if I think about the OEs right now in the past with engines, right,
the calibrations have gotten more and complex from,
right, the initial TBI injection or whatever,
you know, even go back to the early Corvettes, right.
So the software, which I would agree is,
and a lot of it's emissions driven and other things, right,
but software on let's say the combustion engine side.
And, you know, just being ignorant, I think, oh, battery, man, you just,
you know, have a on and off and maybe a variable,
you know, potentiometer in there for your pedal.
Like, what else do you need?
I mean, it's just electrons.
But yeah, what is about the software that,
is it the hybrid where you're trying to communicate between the two
or is it purely EV or both?
I think, I think it's all of it.
I mean, I think you can break out a system like powertrain system
and electric is actually incredibly complex from a software perspective.
Batteries are managed by battery management systems,
which are mostly software.
There's a hardware component, but, you know, to do fast charging,
it takes advanced thermals like predictive thermal management of battery systems.
And there's characterization of cells and there's algorithms that get written.
So you get, you get nerdy fast,
but I think electric kind of brought the nerds into the game, you know,
like Tesla and the tech industry.
But the reality is the software is actually a bigger solution
because integration of all of the vehicle systems
is the complexity that has kept so many, you know,
less sophisticated early stage startup companies out of the game, right?
Where a large OEM has these large engineering teams
that can do the integration.
So they have a supply base of hundreds or thousands
of different vendor suppliers all bringing their piece of the technology to the vehicle.
And all of that includes some type of electronics embedded firmware,
but it has to be integrated into the greater system.
And that's very hard to do.
The reality is that, that the modern vehicle is built on accelerated computing technology
instead of distributed architecture with hundreds of control units,
each doing their own little thing like powertrain, right?
Like an ECUs for an engine.
In the future, there's more of a central computing system
where all of your software manages the entire vehicle.
And it's much easier to integrate all of these different diverse systems.
And so this evolution that's happening in the vehicle architecture, vehicle networking,
and I know like in the aftermarket and the performance world,
these are not conversations that are necessarily being had,
but it will have an amazing impact on the performance industry, the aftermarket,
and it'll bring things, you know, technologies like AI into the vehicle platform.
I was just about to ask, man, where do you guys bring AI in?
And how do you see that changing what you guys are doing now?
Because it seems like AI is really a fast track to get faster, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, you're going to like, you know, the calibration tuning activity
of a powertrain system is done by, I mean, Kevin, you know this from the OEM side,
it's done by a team of calibration tuning engineers that work over years and all kinds
of different climate testing and different things like that.
In the future, that the AI inside the vehicles processing, you know, hardware
that is built on a data model that has taken decades of calibration and tuning for all
different powertrains and built it into a sophisticated model that keeps learning,
that calibration and tuning will be done on the fly for the individual,
and we can use AI to prompt the vehicle.
So if my driving style is different than yours, Willie, or yours, Kevin,
I'll be able to tell the vehicle like, you know, I want more responsiveness in the mid-range
when I get off the throttle and I get right back into it, I want it to be, you know,
sharper, and I can prompt the vehicle and it'll adjust the calibration in tune to me
without, you know, me getting in, hacking into or doing, and, you know, there's a lot of
specialists that work in these fields, but sometimes it's very out of reach and AI
and the new software will bring this to the consumer in a whole new way, and it's exciting.
I think it's very innovative.
Well, no, I think you make some really good points and I think it becomes a competitive
advantage, I think, as you're eluding from one OE to another as to what it brings.
We don't always see it, but I mean, you get in a modern car nowadays and the number of modules
is insane.
Like, and it's doing everything.
You don't just have a dome light and turn it on and off.
Like, there's a module that controls it like, oh, you forgot to turn your dome light off?
We'll get it for you.
You know, like everything is controlled by some kind of module and electronics,
and that's just all this stuff around you.
Now, there's all this eight ass and monitoring and everything else that's going on,
but just go to the core of the powertrain.
I mean, you made a really good point.
You think about sticking a trickle charger on a battery.
Yeah, it's safe and simple and it takes hours, but the real key is, man, I don't want to wait
40 minutes for my fast charge.
I want to get that thing down to 11, 87 right?
And it's all about, like you said, you get more and more sophisticated because you're
trying to take individual electrons and stuff them into a specific spot in that battery cell
somewhere in that pack, right?
And you have so many constraints of thermal and creating heat and everything else that,
yeah, I could see where the software kind of what it's been that we don't notice,
but when you raise that point, like it's the differentiator between one OE and another, right?
Yeah, and it'll make the product better over time.
I mean, there's a world where you might buy an electric vehicle in the future that comes with 300
miles of range, right?
And you might own it for a year.
And after a year, it now has 350 miles of range because the system learned how to optimize those
electrons in a better, more efficient way for the way you drive the condition that you're in.
And that's the power of getting the data processing in the vehicle, the edge processing,
and the software in the vehicle that is all available outside of mobility.
I mean, these are new ideas for mobility, but they're being done in other industries,
and it's only a matter of time before it kind of comes in and disrupts, right?
And it'll definitely disrupt at the OE level.
The large OEMs are all aware of this.
And Willie, I feel like we just totally nerded out there for a couple of minutes.
Well, yeah, you kind of did, man.
But I wanted to talk because most of you guys did go deep into the nerd hole.
But just to bring it back, the people out there, most people don't realize when you all talk about
the thermal management and controlling this heat, they don't get it.
They think batteries.
They think they're RC car.
They think they're brushless impact.
Those don't get maybe warm.
But what is it on a cliff note level and a dumb down level, when you're talking about
moving these electrons, people, I don't think grasp how much heat is generated in that
and how you're bombarding and trying to move all these electrons
and how much heat is generated by it.
So kind of explain that and why it's such a necessity to control all this heat
and why it's such a big, big factor in the EV revolution.
Yeah, I'll take a stab and Jake, if you want to follow up like from a vehicle mass,
it's so huge in the aerodynamic drag and everything else, road drag.
It is a massive amount of energy.
We don't realize how much energy is sitting in a tank of gas.
So to get that equivalent in a battery, it's just so large.
So if we reference it to an RC car, yeah, man, you plug that sucker in and two days later,
you're good to go.
But we don't want to do that.
So what happens when I start throwing a lot more current in, right?
I'm building a heat.
So everything from the charger, the cable going, the connector in the side of the vehicle,
all the wiring to the bus bars, to the cells, everything is getting a ton of current.
And we know what happens when you put current through a small wire.
It smokes, right?
So then you have this industrial sized stuff or you're trying to compromise and be smarter
about how you flow it in and you can't even put a cooler on it.
You think, oh, I'll just put a radiator on it.
All right, think about a little wire and you cross it across the 12-volt battery and the
thing just fries and melts.
You can't put a fan on it and cool it down.
It's going to melt anyway.
So you can't even put a cooling system on a lot of these vehicles to manage that.
So anyway, they've been trading off trying to get more range, right?
So that means more energy.
So what do they do?
They try to thin up the cathode and the anode in the cell, right, to give you all this range.
But when you try to flow that current in so fast, so hard, it's just building up heat.
So I think there's some trade-offs that are going to happen with, all right, maybe I don't
have as much range, but I've built up the type of chemistry in the cell, the construction
of the cell, all the bus bars and everything else that I can get it in and get it out faster.
So maybe I can charge faster.
Maybe I can't go as far.
So I think we're working on both ends of those, kind of like a long stroke engine with a lot
of torque and a short stroke that you can rather make a lot of power.
And it's finding that sweet spot for an application of, right, how much torque,
how much power, what's the usage.
So Jake, jump on top of that.
Hey, Jake was with you until the short stroke, long stroke point and his left eyebrow raised
about half an inch.
You lost him on a long stroke, short stroke part, but he was with you the whole time.
He's got that electron thing.
I got a foot in both worlds.
I rebuilt engines with my dad as a kid and had engine projects.
I'm an engine guy.
So I'm not totally lost on that side, but Kevin, I think you nailed it.
I think the thermal management is about optimizing the system, optimizing for health,
optimizing for performance and safety, right?
Just knowing that these systems need to be managed on the safety critical side as well.
So thermals end up being really important to a battery system.
Well, absolutely.
I mean, just like anything else, you take an engine and overheat it and you've gone
past the heat treatment and now your metal's all mushed and the thing falls apart.
Same thing with the battery.
And we've seen plenty of in the news where if you're not maintaining a temperature range
high and low of the cell, things can go sour and once a battery starts going,
then the whole car goes.
So, right, safety is definitely a key aspect in there as we're pushing the limits, right?
That's why they say don't park them under the carport or in the garage, right?
Yeah.
Leave them outside.
Yeah, no doubt.
That's the reason for it.
It's like, don't use the hair dryer in the shower.
Well, Jake, real quick, man, before we run out of time, because I think one of the cool aspects
of EV is this performance and racing where it's headed.
Like, are there any cool areas where you guys are playing around in that just ultra high
performance space?
Dude, go see.
Y'all need to go see the Sierra video, by the way, the Drive Sierra.
I went and saw that a second ago.
Oh, my God.
Look, go see the video.
All your dreams and hopes of Go Karts quad, side by side, they're all going to be ruined
when you see this crazy and sane car, because this is the toy every dude wants.
This thing is sick.
If you ever dreamed about being able to actually jump in a life-size RC car and drive it,
this is exactly what that is.
You know, I think Sierra is one of those kind of high performance racing applications.
We've done some hill climb racing with them.
It's a cool little time attack car if you want to do time attack.
We've got some programs that we can't really talk about.
Sometimes we work with OEMs.
We're under NDA, Watson Development.
But I think electric racing is just like any other industry.
It's evolving.
It's growing.
Interest around it's growing.
The technology keeps getting better.
These electric cars are crazy fast.
So it's pretty fun.
Even groups like Formula E is cool to see what they're doing, how they're evolving.
Yeah, it's kind of sad that we've all just dreamed horsepower our whole lives, right?
I mean, 400 was such a big number 30 years ago.
Like, oh man, 400, 500, oh my God.
And now you can make almost unlimited.
But it's like, oh, I have 2,000 horsepower, but it doesn't make a sound.
I missed the sound.
You know, like we've almost been given everything we dreamed of,
but it didn't come with the sound part.
You know, like, and we're like, bleh.
It kind of came too easy too.
Like I saw Helix makes a motor that weighs about 65 pounds and it has like,
you know, almost 800 horsepower peak, something that weighs 60 pounds.
It's not fair.
You know, and you know, it's almost, yeah, it's almost like, okay,
what's the next fun challenge?
Because, you know, it's the challenge.
It's the evolution that is part of the journey.
And, you know, electric, you know, it leapt us forward,
but there's a different challenge with electric, right?
We have to put, we have to put our focus in something that's different than,
you know, but it is cool to see it go.
Well, that's the thing I learned quickly on the EV side is the electric motor
is almost the commodity.
It's almost like, hey, you want the small, the medium, or the big.
There's not a lot more technology there.
I mean, ink it out little bits.
It's, it's really the battery.
I had no idea how much of the characteristic of whatever the application is in that battery
and the chemistry of the battery, the construction of the cells, right?
Like, yeah, it's that, it's that torque versus stroke, right?
Long stroke, short stroke thing.
Like there's so much you can play around with in the battery that,
that then translates through that electric motor.
Battery is the engine for sure.
So well, man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I didn't catch that years ago, right?
Didn't make sense.
Battery is the engine.
See y'all learn something.
Hey, how do people follow you on social media, man?
Kind of standard channels, you know, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, I guess,
if you're on that side of it, but hypercraft USA and, yeah, well, we post some things.
So, way cool stuff.
And check out the Sierra, Echo.
That's more my flavor.
Oh man, unbelievable toys, unbelievable site,
unbelievable technology.
It's all, it's all right there at your fingertips.
Same thing for a show though.
Check that out.
Aaron Weekends on the Motor Trip Network.
Check your local listings.
It's also available in Discovery Plus and Max.
Thanks to our producer, Scoop, our senior producer, Justin Carter,
executive producer, Bob Becker.
Thanks to our guest, Jake Hawksworth, hypercraft USA.com.
He's Kevin Vernon, Willie B, and this is the Two Guys Garage podcast.
And you know what?
We do have a website, TwoGuysGarage.com, and we have a ton of social
at TwoGuysGarage, and this Two Guys Garage podcast.
It's copyright 2025.
Brenton Productions Incorporated, all rights reserved.
I'm sure you got to drive the Echo too, right?
I've spent a lot of time in the Echo.
Ah, dude, look at that one.
Yeah, 110 miles an hour, 250 horsepower.
It's just a big, huge RC car, man, that we could fit in.
Yeah, peak it does a little over.
It's almost like 315 horsepower peak,
but it's almost undrivable with that much power.
Yeah, it's pretty wild.
Like an armchair quarterback and a backseat driver or whatever and go,
ah, you know, EV.
But dude, I'm telling you, you put me in anything that's just ripping fast,
and I'll just be giddy.
What's that Echo weigh?
About 1,500 pounds.
I think the Echo is probably the first car,
electric car I've ever driven with real personality.
Like it was meant to be an electric car.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're almost right.
It's not internal combustion because it's raw and you can hear all four tires.
You can feel everything breaking loose.
It's a visceral experience and there's not very,
but it's open cockpit, it's single seat, you're tucked in.
And that thing, you can do 360s in that,
like full 360s at 70, 80 miles an hour.
Like you can spin the car full 360 going forward at 70, 80 miles an hour.
It's just, it's wild and it's savage.
It's raw.
It's almost impossible to handle that thing.
So that's probably the first, like, you know, there's a lot of utility to EV.
You know, commuting, like we're going to go this or straight line acceleration,
but the Sierra is pretty special.
Yeah, man, and the Echo even more.
Very, very cool.
Thank you guys.
All right, Jake.
Well, we will have you on again to update us on how the technology is unfolding
and how much fun we could have at some point in time.
So thank you very much.
All right, gang.
Hope you guys had fun with us.
We'll catch you on the next Two Guys Garage Podcast.
Take care.
Two Guys Garage Podcast is a production of Britain Productions.
For more episodes, visit iHeartRadio, Apple Podcast,
Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
About this episode
SEMA-era EV hype gives way to a 2025 reality check: the industry is swinging back toward internal combustion, with hybrids positioned as the “wave of the future.” The hosts and guest Jake from Hypercraft dig into why electrification is accelerating—EVs can deliver extreme performance faster, especially for startups and specialized builds. They also argue the battery is the real “engine,” with software-heavy battery management and thermal limits shaping range, fast charging, and even safety.
“These hybrids are really shaping up to be the wave of the future,” observes Willie at the outset of this week’s podcast, with Kevin noting that Hypercraft “kinda has its tentacles in a lot of different spaces,” from marine to defense and racing. “When you have the best of both worlds,” adds Hypercraft founder Jake Hawksworth, “you don’t have to compromise anymore; it’s going to be the age of hybrid.” The proof is in the company’s Sierra, the signature single seat, electric, RWD, 300 hp, 0-60 in 2.4 seconds track car. “If you ever dreamed about being able to actually jump in a life size RC car and drive it,” Jake tells the guys, “this is exactly what this is.”
