Recon Mission: Electrification of Vehicles for Beginners

SFJ 4x4 Studios presents, in my oversized four-wheel drive Jeep, a Jeep podcast starring industry

experts.

Pure monocity.

What?

Say that again.

With mad scientist Scott Brown, use my drill press as a sort of lathe, our host, Neil

Simpson.

If one leg goes off, they'll all go out.

Phil Bruce Shenanigans.

We are really professional with Jeeps.

This is I Speak Jeep.

Good morning, afternoon, evening, wherever, however you are joining us.

This is the I Speak Jeep podcast presented by SFJ4x4.com.

My name is Neil, and I'm joined in grandma's couch studio on this lovely Monday by the Madness

Mad Scientist slash organizer of wiring, but can't talk, and hopefully will be the sentence

finisher for me today.

Yes.

Oh boy.

Off to a good start.

And Jeff, the Italian stallion.

The producer.

Shira Montes.

And while we produce this awesome podcast, we actually have a famous television star

in our comments here, Nate saying, good morning, don't worry, haven't forgot about the podcast

after making my international television debut.

Good for you, Nate.

Are you in all seven continents?

Right.

Did you beat us?

Yeah, the penguins are watching.

That's what I want to know.

And we got in the comments, Daddy Jeep saying morning guys, Bill McWilliam saying good

morning, Mudhorn Gladiator morning, Yvonne saying good morning, Jeanie saying good

morning.

Now that she's in the right place.

And then Joe Bryan saying you're early, nope, we're right on time.

And then, Bronze Rock saying hi guys.

Good morning.

Good morning to everybody.

Thank you so much for joining us.

If you are listening at home at a later date in your ear holes, we love and value

your support.

Thank you so very much for choosing this podcast as part of your infotainment.

With that said, please hang in there with us today because my brain is not braining.

Scott's mouth is not communicating.

And we're going to do our best to get through today's topic.

Well, I'm just coming back fresh from a fun event this weekend where I saw many of our

listeners actually there.

I'm sure getting out where the Jeepers are, that's always our hope and intention

is to get to where the Jeepers are.

Jeffrey and the Savage represented us at the Bantam Trail Festival, the Fall Fun Run, my

kind of take on it.

And of course, you know, so you had a busy weekend as well with that.

So we're going to push through this session for our listeners and followers alike.

We thank you so very much.

But bear with us and maybe you'll also, some of our live folks will be able to

key in on this conversation as well.

We are going to be talking about hybrid technology for the average consumer, the average Jeeper.

And so we'll be breaking that down some for you.

In the interim, in the moment, Jeffrey, was there anything special?

I know obviously you saw a lot of friendly faces.

You took J5 and our Comanche trailer down to the show.

I think overall it was a good event.

We had a kind of a slow morning, it was very cold.

But by lunchtime, we really started seeing the Jeepers showing up and the trail ride

was picking up quite a bit from what I could see.

I'm sure Daddy Jeep could weigh in more.

He was on the trails running them.

But we did see a lot of our good listeners and good fans.

William Williams was there and brought some gifts.

Davey already presented them to Scott.

I don't know if you've got a chance to see them.

Nice.

Excellent.

There may be something additional in the podcast you have to see if you can spot it.

Yeah, if you're watching.

And then, you know, Josh was there.

I got to see Josh Brecker for the briefest of moments.

He was over there talking with Davey, but at that moment we had a lot of people

over at our booth.

Excellent.

Briefest hello to him.

Dan and Joelle were there.

I actually didn't recognize Dan at first because he walked up with a beanie

and a sweatshirt on.

And from the back side, I'm like, who's this guy looking at?

John and five and see Joelle walk around the front.

You know, yes.

Johnny five was a highlight.

We had a ton of people trying to get us to take it out on the trails.

And 100 percent is capable.

A lot of those same people didn't believe

that we actually drove it down from Connie at Ohio and took 79 the whole way down,

you know, 70, 80 miles an hour.

Right.

I did learn that we got to recalibrate the speedometer.

There are times that I might have been going a lot faster than that.

Speedometer didn't say I was going faster.

I actually don't know.

I think we are actually at the top end of it.

I'll have to look.

I think I did.

OK. But I'm fairly certain.

The forty four.

The forty four is that I actually we don't have calibration for the forty fours.

We only have calibration up to forty two,

which we understand that the calibration typically is a couple inches under that even.

And so I think that it might actually be calibrated up as high

as the current Z automotive programming will allow it.

Right.

What I hear is they need to embrace us.

And since we're pushing the limits.

Yes. Make a special special taser update for us for us.

Yes, funny, funny, funny, funny.

You know, it's just a number for them.

That's right. That's right.

But yeah, it was a lot of people really checking it out.

They were very impressed by the build and the fact that we were able to just

actually drive it down there like that. Sure.

They just they didn't believe how how smooth that that rides.

Yeah, it's a it's a it's a beautiful Jeep that is capable on and off road

for forty fours and the ability to run the highway for a couple

hours straight is pretty remarkable.

And of course, we are going to we have the esteemed pleasure

and privilege of displaying both Johnny Five

and hashtag, not a restoration, the swamp donkey at SEMA twenty twenty five

and in about two, three weeks.

Yeah, that was really fun being able to say that we had just got

that final confirmation for Johnny Five literally the day before we were down there.

Yes. And, you know, and realistically, this big push

and kind of understanding of why why push to be, you know,

kind of relevant on a level.

And maybe there's maybe there's a talking point or a podcast in here somewhere.

But I guess for me to say that it is a testament to our listeners,

our followers, our big Jeep family to say that, you know,

to display at at SEMA is is is a

recognition of what we're trying to do for our Jeep community as a whole,

because SEMA is while Smoky Mountain is this massive,

amazing display of Jeep specific branding.

SEMA is arguably one of the world's largest automotive shows.

And so to be able to bring our Jeep community

to a global automotive show and be there

with some of the the biggest builders in the world,

where along with their hot rods and their trucks and their drag cars

and and just kind of being this hotbed space

for me to go, hey, this is why it's worth doubling down

on making sure that these builds are relevant and on display.

They're not some kind of hack, you know,

hey, we threw something together and just were displaying some import

lighting on them. That's that's far from what this is.

These are really intended to be

high quality builds that showcase the Jeep industry, the community,

the marketplace and obviously our builders here at SFJ

and what it means on this kind of this much more lofty level.

So I've been thinking about it a lot recently, say,

why are we doubling down so hard on this and what does that mean to us?

And I think that that's part of it, you know.

So anyways, look for that coverage coming up in the very near future.

And honestly, if you did come out to Trail Fest,

you saw that we had a special release Halloween shirt creepin' at real

they be designed and we sold out of them at the show.

So if you are still looking for that, go to our website, SFJ4by4.com.

You can get them ordered from there.

Davey can get those shipped out relatively quick for any of the sizes.

So if you're if you're interested in it,

he's got a bunch of other designs up right now, too.

There's some pretty cool.

There's some pretty cool merch out there.

Yeah, so additionally, we're going to be dropping our our limited edition

holiday hoodie, which you're going to want to kind of squirrel away

a little bit of of cash for because it's pretty fun.

So he's been working on that and we're going to be dropping that

and doing some incentives for around the Christmas parade,

which is equally only about, you know, six, seven weeks away tops.

That hurts.

You've got in the comments,

Daddy Jeep was saying that, yeah, it was a slow morning for sure.

Josh Brucker saying he had fun on the black trails.

Bill McWilliams spied the gift that he gave us.

He knows right where that's at.

And then you got Charles saying good morning from Texas.

He's chasing a tail light short and he hates it.

Bill McWilliams is saying he hit 70 miles an hour in his 93 YJ this weekend.

I'm only assuming going downhill with a semi pushing him behind.

That's fair.

Daddy Jeep said maybe it was him that was slow.

He was editing videos until 2 a.m.

since he was fixing his Jeep during his previous scheduled editing time.

He he actually told us that he ended up having to do a fix on his Jeep

that was a trail fix from when he went wheeling with us last at

Sutherington that he never went back and fixed.

So I may have seen pictures of him under a Jeep

with a skid steer holding it up more than once.

And then you got Jeanie saying that she hoped that we were jamming out

on the way there with the sound system in Johnny Five

because it's a pretty awesome system.

It is. It's a very cool.

At one point, Davey absolutely put on his style of rap music

and is after you turn it off.

That's what I want to know.

I he actually shut it right off after I got in

because I was we stopped for diesel and and we were in Edinburgh

when we were getting fuel and I got back in after that

and he just he has a cranking and I just started

laughing like really, Davey, it took you that long

because I expected him to do that when we were right away.

Yeah. Yeah. And he just shut it right back off.

And she's as he should. Yeah.

So on to our topic at hand.

Yep. And Jeffrey, what how would you I don't I'm not sure

what you titled this particular.

I titled it Recon Mission, the hybrid for beginners.

So the Recon is a long teased jeep

that is coming to market.

It is in production currently and allegedly.

Don't believe you.

And that is a full electric jeep that's going to be coming out.

And with that, I mean, it was supposed to be dropped late 2025

that you're able to purchase it as of this moment.

It's still in production, according to the site. Right.

But as part of that and that coming up here as a potential release,

I got to thinking about the fact that a lot of people don't even know

what it takes to have a hybrid.

What kind of charger do you need at your house?

What kind of how how's it last on the road?

What kind of experience or expenses are you expected to have

when you purchase a hybrid or a full electric vehicle?

So that's that's where we came up with this topic. Right.

And and it's I think it's worth mentioning that you explicitly

asked us not to get into the highly technical minutia

that will make the average consumers eyes glaze over.

No, I assume that regardless that Scott is going to break down

what an ice engine is versus electric, but that could be even pretty

general as long as it's we're keeping it brief.

And we want to really talk about if a general consumer is considering

a new vehicle, why should they consider hybrid?

What are the pros, the cons?

What what are they going to expect if they go into that realm or the full electric recon?

And what you guys are likely unaware of.

And so what Jeffrey is, you know, kind of brought up.

And so when I say you guys, I'm not talking about our listeners.

I'm talking about Jeffrey and Scott and my own interests

and Jeffrey's attempting to jubile right now.

But ultimately, there was actually a massive update

to the four by system over the weekend.

Well, that's Charles just brought it up in our comments.

Right. And I was I was getting ready to drop that little tidbit.

And I don't expect you guys to be aware of it.

So is it like a phone update where suddenly your screen looks different

and your app icons are. Yeah.

And the funny thing is it wasn't even this weekend.

It was rolled out as a rollout last week.

And it has permeated

this the the the corners of the interwebs.

And it was fascinating because I was short of jeepers and non jeepers

alike, sending me, I don't know,

eleven team different takes on this software update.

So here's a good question because I'm I'm about as green as you can be on this.

So if you're I'll ask some layman questions and you can maybe answer some.

So give me one second as I kind of continue to contextualize

for our listeners who might be interested.

I am and have been involved in the four by E community

and forums since that jeep specifically hit the hit the market.

There are some really prolific individuals who are movers and shakers.

In fact, this was such an important concept vehicle for Jeep.

They actually had these these social pages,

these Facebook pages where Jeep engineers were actively participating with regularity.

So not like your standard like local club group or even your large,

broad, hey, JL owners 2018 and plus.

But the four by E communities had a stronghold of Jeep engineers

hanging out and interacting with average customers for a couple years.

Now that the vehicle has saturated the market and we have a far more general population

purchasing the vehicle largely unaware.

They're just purchasing it because a salesman has done this or an incentive,

you know, tax incentive that it's it's less of a good quality beta testing group.

Because now we have just kind of your average consumer in there.

But when it was this kind of this beta group of people who were reporting feedback back to the

community or to the manufacturer, you actually saw a strong presence by

Stellantis within these groups.

At this point in time, this particular update of the UConnect system,

I had a group, I had a guy who's just a software nerd, not not an engineer.

He's just a software nerd, like we might nerd out on automotive stuff or or building,

you know, out of things out of wood or houses or whatever.

He's a software nerd and he reached out to me and it was a hacker forum.

I kid you not, I cannot make this up.

It was a hacker forum of people having a conversation about how this how this

could happen at a manufacturer software disbursement level.

Because it was it was a over the air update that ended up breaking these jeeps.

Correct. Not all of them.

Kind of like an update on a cell phone where they tell you to back up your cell phone because

it could break your phone. That's what happened in the Jeep.

So does that mean that a four by E has some sort of cellular antenna above and beyond a

regular JLJT? Because like my truck again, very green on this, I don't even have

until I plug my phone in. So how does the four by E know?

So the argument is, so there's a lot of misinformation out there, right?

Because ultimately this rolled out periodically and just like anything humans are exposed to

something that brick to four by E on Monday of last week, you know, we could go today.

Was that related or not?

Right. And so people are going, but I didn't do anything.

It seems to be the one of the biggest common denominators is that people

intentionally had to process their update.

So with Jeep infotainment systems, they call it over-the-air update,

but it is not you just driving down the road and it automatically updating it.

It is a file that you have to upload into the system.

It's the same thing when we do Alpine upgrades.

If the software is out of date on it, we have to do an OTA over-the-air update on it,

but we're not connecting the Wi-Fi and doing it.

We're uploading a file in. It's just the terminology.

But this is, you're basically turning the Jeep on and it's like, hey, are you ready to update?

Correct.

So it is not like somebody's plugging a USB drive in or something like that.

You have the option and that's where a lot of these people were like, I'm not doing it.

And that's actually potentially wise.

And I think maybe we'll talk about that as we go on,

but I think that the conversation here for the average consumer is valuable,

especially in light of this last week and this last specific upgrade.

So we'll come back to your greenness and general curaminosity.

Yep. So I know before the 4x8 came out, we had our E-Assist Jeeps,

which you didn't have to plug in.

They just kind of did their own little thing.

And the 4x8, I believe, is an evolution of that technology.

Mm-hmm.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Yes.

Always there's going to be an issue.

There's always going to be an issue.

The big thing with the E-Assist is that there is some, again,

not getting overly technical.

There is some federal regulatory body, which says what size of battery you can have on an

automotive. And so E-Assist goes up to the edge, but does not go beyond it.

Whereas 4x8 authentically has a battery assist and battery bank,

which is in excess of your assist batteries.

OK. So if you have a 4x8, do you have to plug it in,

or could you just drive it and we'll let charges suck?

A 4x8 can be driven.

Normally it does have what I might call a passive charging system,

but it's not as efficient as other hybrid technology systems.

So it does have a regenerative charging.

But from my own experience of 4x8s, there are hybrids.

4x8 versus other hybrids.

Other hybrids regeneratively charge themselves much more efficiently.

OK. Also, when we recently went to get my wife a newer car,

we actually were looking at hybrids of not Jeep make,

and we flirted with the idea for two seconds until she looked up registration costs.

And I was shocked to learn that there is a plug-in cost,

and then there is just a non-plug-in cost, and then you have your regular old vehicle cost.

And that is something I figured I'd bring up, because a lot of people I'm sure don't even know,

at least in Ohio, that there is a registration cost difference for depending on what it does.

Now my understanding is there's also, generally speaking,

tax incentive for the electric that offsets a lot of that.

Absolutely.

By above and beyond.

Right. I just figured I would still bring up because that's something we didn't know.

And insurance rates are going to be different too,

because now you're in a whole different style of engine.

Correct.

So it's important to note that there are taxes.

There are state and local taxes that are built into gas prices.

And so a standard ICE engine, which is internal combustion engine,

which has an average consumption of fuel.

And of course there's metrics for all of this.

And then an expectation based on the average miles driven per year

and the vehicles that are registered.

I think we should get a credit as Jeep owners myself.

So great, because we're doing our service to everybody.

So because EVs and then PHEVs,

which is just plug-in hybrid electric vehicle,

so if you're unfamiliar EV electric vehicle,

PHEV plug-in hybrid electric vehicle,

they don't have the same gas or fuel consumption that they would have.

So now they have to offset that through registrations.

And the federal tax incentive has been disbanded.

So there was a authentic tax credit that was awesome for original owners

of the 4 by E's to help them kind of be distributed among the market,

despite a perceived lack of infrastructure, again, beta group.

But to my understanding, all of that has been nullified at this time.

And there are not the same tax credits available for direct ownership.

Now, there are other offsets that you can, you know,

if you're good on the tax side of things.

But that initial $7,500 is a thing of the past.

Okay, another dumb question.

I see like a lot of like shells and stuff like that added EV charging stations.

Yes.

Can we plug in our 4 by E's to that if we so wanted to?

Absolutely.

And one of the biggest frustrations that 4 by E owners have

is the lack of education amongst the traditional EV market.

Because obviously these parking and these, you know,

these chargers are reserved for, you know, electric vehicle technology.

And so there's actually quite a few, you know, drama written posts online

about folks who are pulling their jeeps and to charge them.

And a under informed EV owner goes off half cocked on this jeep owner.

You're in my spot.

And, and so there's Sheldon stuff happening with electric vehicles.

Oh, 100%.

And so there's these posts, these just these crazy posts or videos of people,

again, under or uninformed regarding what other hybrid technologies exist out there

or EV technologies exist out there.

And because it's a jeep, they don't think that they don't know.

They're too busy driving their small compact EV.

Right.

They don't understand what else exists on available within the same realm of engine

and electric assist.

So does that charge faster at one of those stations than plugging in at your house?

Well, so this was actually a really big thing that Jeffrey wanted to be able to communicate.

And we actually talked a good bit about it's actually something I'm really familiar with.

And it's important for people who are kind of listening in and being aware,

again contextualizing us, despite the fact that I desperately have wanted a 4xE,

I've not actually made that happen.

I've not made that a priority.

However, our own situation, A, we have a number of customers who have.

B, we're on the forefront of lifting, regearing and communicating with them.

We're not Z-automotive, right?

We don't have that intimate knowledge of interface, but we were right at the forefront

of regearing and communicating and being privy.

And again, I was in the group.

You can't do to a 4xE?

Things that you're not supposed to be able to do, right?

And we were in there with spring rates and control arm geometry.

And I've been right on it right from the get go.

And it's important to note that my interest in hybrid technology actually starts with

Toyota.

Yeah, it actually starts with Toyota back in the early 2000s.

And so I was in college and I was very much aware.

And so I went to this college that was for all purposes kind of a hoity-toity space

in a rural America world.

And I'm a motorhead by comparison to all these other people that I was going to school with.

And I ended up in, I was in an environmental sciences course.

And it was all these kind of things jived in the right combination of things.

And so I kind of became an outlier in my little niche community with the fact that

this community has a very prolific Toyota dealer.

And so the Prius and the Toyota Highlander in their hybrid technologies was kind of

becoming relevant to the community.

Fun fact, when they first really became a thing, I was in the fire department.

We had to take a special course on electrification of vehicles.

And how dangerous they were to the rescuers.

Sure.

And that initially they were standardizing having the main power lines being a bright fluorescent

orange color in the main trunk so that you knew not to cut there.

Because if you cut there as a firefighter, you were dead.

There was not much power going through it.

Fun trivia.

What was the biggest thing that irritated Scott about the Prius when it came out?

The size?

Nope.

I have no idea.

The color orange underneath.

Nope.

Huh.

I'm not sure.

Where the speedometer is located.

Why is it in the center of the dash?

Yeah.

I want to look forward and have the speedometer be in my line of sight.

Yes.

Now, I have a subception.

If it's a 32 forward or an older.

I was going to say.

Fine.

The speedometer's in the middle of the, how does that bother you?

That bothers me.

That's a CJ.

That's a, there's so many vehicles historically, the Speedos in the middle of the dash.

I don't know why.

That's a Scotism.

Weirdo.

There's plenty of other things that bothered me about the Prius.

And I think that was not one of them.

The Honda Insight was the same way if I remember right.

Oh, there was a ton of vehicles like that.

I was like, why?

The Cooper's like that.

I'm pretty certain.

No.

Or no, it's not.

No, it's not.

It's got a cool.

Yeah.

I take that back.

It makes my eye twitch.

Sorry.

All right.

Anywho of all things.

I was very much in this hot seat.

And so I've kind of been kind of consciously aware

of this marriage of internal combustion and electric assist, right?

And then ultimately, excuse me, my favorite concept that we should have developed better

is regenerative braking and regenerative charging in general,

which we still don't have seemingly a great understanding or development.

I'm gathering that's because of the voltage required

this gives me compared to the ESS because the ESS sort of all that magic just happens.

But that's a 48 volt battery.

I'm not mistaken.

And it's a massive.

So ESS is happening basically through a giant alternator.

So both.

So what's happening on an ESS and is the fact that you have a massive alternator

that is acting like a supercharger and it's actually speeding up your belt drive system,

which is assisting that main crank pulley to spin easier or faster.

But then it also can generate power because it is still an alternator.

Correct.

So it's both both teams.

Correct.

And it's both teams.

And that's exactly right.

And that's through the actual physical construction of that alternator.

And then to my own opinion, just the most spectacular, almost magical

programming because you think about how finite

our computer programming has to be when we're talking about how valves open and close

and how fuel is injected and monitoring our air fuel ratio to kind of sync everything up

into this perfect, harmonious experience.

Right.

And ultimately, we have an appreciation for early 90s computer programming,

which I'm drawing a blank on what that was called that fuel mapping on the standard computer.

Oh, you're talking about batch pyre versus.

Yeah, that kind of that kind of thing where you just had kind of a series of kind of rudimentary

computer program on and off parameters.

Yeah.

They basically just said, right now you get fuel, even if you don't really need it.

Right.

Because we can't figure out how to time it otherwise we don't have the information.

And then later they were able to individually fire.

That was more off a firing order.

It's a little bit, I think they honestly was like, Hey, I was saying about this

and this wasn't as complicated as we made it.

So maybe we should just fix this.

Well, and so ultimately we have four camshafts now with overhead cam technology with multiple

this is on the V6 is right.

Multiple sensors.

They can change where the cams are at certain times.

And dose timing chains.

Yeah.

So you have two timing chains.

And so seeing a three six with ESS, which is a really, really like a profound vehicle

Yes.

But we don't see a lot of them.

And I think that some of that has to do with just this really complicated

programming that would have to take place or does take place.

Yeah.

So kind of move us forward to the 20 and it's a four cylinder, a little less

complicated programming to marry it to a large hybrid electric system.

But now we have a turbocharger as well to enter into the mix as well.

Right.

So I'm not 100% certain about that in this situation.

Okay.

I know the ESS.

The ESS does.

Right.

So but I believe so.

Right.

But ultimately so not only we have this like crazy programming that needs to happen and

high level of electrical interface and software.

But we have the actual electric portion, right?

And so this is a very long story short is what got Jeffrey excited about this was this

conversation about level one chargers, level two chargers and level three chargers,

which kind of goes back to your question about the gas station.

What it really first came down to was I had actually came across a question online,

somebody saying, can I plug my electric vehicle in at my house or do I have to buy a special

charger?

And it was like, wow, that's actually something off top of my head afford by EGP.

I didn't even know.

Yeah.

I was like, that's a great question.

And that's something that we need to address.

That one down top of that.

Do you need just your 110 plug?

Do you need a 220 plug?

And that was dedicated circuit for it.

Correct.

And that's exactly what I said to Neil.

I was like, I don't even know this stuff.

Right.

I can't expect most of our audience to know that we should really address this.

So this is where all my rambling started is kind of the spaghetti nightmare of this,

because when I was mentioning regenerative charging and the efficiencies and my own

interest in what Toyota was originally doing is that you brought up the alternators and

whatnot.

But basically through braking, it's creating electrical charge through more or less the

braking system.

Yep.

Okay.

And how about that, your brakes for your generators?

I think it's super cool.

And it's amazing that we haven't, and Jeep's kind of done that.

Right.

And that's part of the Jeep.

And this is part of why what made the Prius and Toyota technology,

not slightly, makes it more efficient than 4xE technology.

Because in my understanding of the Toyota technology, it's actually happening kind

of more immediately within the braking system.

And within the Jeep side of things, it's actually not.

Right.

And so Lordstown Motors, which was an attempt at a truck, a truck EV production,

division of workforce, split off, utilize the GM plant, lots of cloak and dagger stuff from top

down GM, from General Motors.

When I say GM, I mean General Motors, where they wanted to be involved,

but then they did end and they lay in off unions.

Totally lots of conspiratorial theory stuff here.

But Lordstown Motors was this attempt at revitalizing a highly efficient hub motor technology,

which would have placed basically four small drive motors in the hubs of each wheel.

And at that rate, you have your motors as both a direct drive, but also a direct receiver

of recharge.

They couldn't make you fly for a number of things.

I'm going to jump to the comments real fast because we freaked Daddy Jeep out.

He goes, you need special stuff to charge it at home.

I'll stick with gas because he has a gas station at home.

He really does have a gas station right next to his house.

But no, that is what the concern was and why we're bringing this up.

And ultimately, Jeeps don't have any of that extra special technology in the suspension axle.

They're pretty much the same as...

There's no magic here.

There's no magic, right?

Yeah.

The Jeep engineers and Stellantis as a whole was attempting to make this as stepping stone

friendly as possible.

Despite the fact that people thought there's a lot of magic when it comes to spring rates

and control arm bushing and so on and so forth, none of that is actually true.

Pretty much, man, I'm trying to not use a vulgarity in the process,

but from the undercarriage down, the Jeep is the same.

From Jeep to Jeep, we're fine there, right?

In certain user imagination accordingly.

Right.

When it comes to charging, Jeep gives you a 110 charger.

So Joe Harper goes, wait until wireless induction charging catches on.

I would love it.

I would freaking love it.

Lots of whole other topic.

Totes.

But here we go.

So here's the issue with the generalization of the level one charger,

which again is really what Jeff was looking to communicate to us.

And I'm going to break down the chargers, but then I'm going to have to get kind of technical,

because this is what I nerd out on.

Before you get into it, there's a level one, there's a level two, and there's a level three.

It comes standard with the level one charger.

Which works in all or most 110 household outlets.

Not the ones we had in our bedrooms growing up.

No, not those ones, guys.

No, no.

No, you probably need a three problem.

Money, I can make a three problem.

Yeah, absolutely.

I did.

I do not rip in the ground pin out of this.

So remember the ones you used to take the screw out of the faceplate and you'd screw the ground

onto it?

Yes.

Hold up.

Or the two problem that you just put the, you have to twist it as you put the plug in.

And I have and it was absolutely no reservation about, you know, amperage or what fuses on the

other end of it had an extension cord.

So your standard four by E is going to come with a 110 charger.

And that's going to allow you to plug into arguably any modern day 110 outlet.

Now, for Scott's sake, the way that you explained that and made a ton of sense

is think of it as a trickle charger.

Mm-hmm.

That's, it's a two amp charger.

Basically.

Right.

Don't take that word as, as both folks.

Yeah.

But it is a, it is the, it is the version of doing two amp on your charger or a trickle

charger.

I'll say it's your phone.

You know, your phone's dying and you go crap, where's my charger?

You go around the house and you're like, ah, I can only find my kids crappy tablet

charger.

Yes.

And you plug it in and the phone comes on and says it'll be four and a half hours.

And it's slow charging.

The phone's mad at you.

Yes.

That's the 110 charger.

Correct.

Yeah.

And the value of the 110 charger is that it has universality.

It can be used kind of anywhere.

So long as you have access to an outlet, you can largely charge your Jeep.

It also gives you a deeper charge.

So, yes.

So ultimately it's pro is that and then it does give you a good charge.

It's con is that it takes very long.

It is the conversation of an overnight charge.

You are authentically going to need eight, 10, 12, 14 hours to get a full charge.

A level two charger is going to, and what Jeff was sharing,

is going to give you an equally deep charge.

However, it's going to happen much quicker.

But the downside is you actually need 220, 240.

So you're going to need a dedicated electrical supply for this charger.

A lot of houses don't have available to plug in.

You mean they just don't plug their welder and plug in their Jeep?

Most houses don't have a welder plug in their garage.

But folks who are at home who might have a hot tub and might not understand,

the bulk of hot tub is about 60, 70% of hot tubs run on a 220, 240.

I mean, dryer or electric stove.

Yes, absolutely.

And so we do have a long extension cord to get it in there.

Woof.

We do have the capacity to see a Jeep driving through the front window of a house.

Got French doors.

They just pull the Jeep in.

They're having dinner.

And it's like, you know, can you pass the grape upon over the bumper?

You know what I mean?

And the Jeeps are sitting at the dinner table with them because it's plugged in at the stove.

Talk about decorating your house.

All right.

I see no problem.

I know.

You would have no reservation.

So that but ultimately access to the 220 and then, you know,

appropriately having an electrician come and give you a dedicated plug

and space and charger is something that has to be considered in that degree.

Now you're going to get an equally deep charge

and it's going to happen in say four to six to top eight hours.

Right.

Much faster, more efficient.

So it's an afternoon or an evening and then you can use the vehicle again.

Now the level three does not actually exist for the Jeep 4xE.

So this is what they would typically, as the community might call it, a lightning charger.

And people probably heard of a quick charge, a lightning charge, you know,

something along that degree.

So lightning charger is going to be more what you're going to find at the gas stations.

Now most gas stations have settings that will have basically between a level two and a level

three, right?

It has everything to do with your time that you have available to sit at the gas station.

Another dumb question, but you know, attached to this,

are all the plugs at the gas station the same?

So there's different ones for different vehicles?

There's universal, there's specific ones?

Yeah.

So of course, I'm sure Tesla is special.

I have to admit.

So I actually don't know that.

My understanding is the Tesla charger is a universal charger.

Oh, right.

Because they wanted all the electric vehicles coming to the Tesla fuel stations,

or recharge stations, I guess you should call it.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, for kind of where I stand, where I take this kind of middle ground,

but like holding my flag proudly that we need different vehicle applications on the road,

I'm here to call it fuel because I mean, food is fuel for our human bodies.

Absolutely.

And it's just a different type.

And it is fuel for the vehicle.

But I've heard people get excited over the semantics of, again,

it's like the uninformed individual yelling about the Jeep parked at the recharge space.

To me, it's no different than diesel or LP or any of that sort of stuff.

Sure, sure, sure.

So here's what happens with the lightning.

Because again, you have two options.

Or you typically have two options.

Storm clouds form and you hear a crack.

In your vehicle's charge instantly.

Yes, instantly.

So that's if you've got like 20 to 30 minutes.

And if it goes wrong and suddenly it's in 55, it became a DeLorean.

He's cracking himself up over here.

Well, I did a crash.

I did a quick jiggle.

The Tesla superchargers are different, but the level one and level two are typically universal.

Not always, but typically.

Right.

And that's part of the issue is that, you know, a lot of people's battle cry is,

well, the infrastructure doesn't exist.

Again, you and I have had this conversation and you like to go back to horse and buggies

and that kind of stuff.

There was a time, and if you're not an automotive enthusiast, a historian,

that there was a time where people said this exact same stuff about gasoline and internal

combustion engines.

I could say the same thing about for my vintage hot rods that there's not

wreck fuel or ethanol free fuel everywhere.

I have to know where I'm going, how I'm getting it,

paying the price that's available when I do find it.

There's no difference.

Right.

It's not universally accepted.

And honestly, as the frustrated truck driver that I am, I can make this argument about

gas stations that are able, that I am able to access with ease.

Absolutely.

And when I go to my GPS, unless I am using something that is big rig or full size RV friendly,

I might be shoehorned into a location where I cannot actually get around the gas station

easily.

It could be your one ton dually.

Correct.

You may only have two pumps that are diesel at any given circle K.

And they're the ends, and they also have fuel, and those are most of the time where the

wreck fuel is as well.

So now you have three.

It's like you guys were on the trip with us on the way back from

Band-Aum Sideway.

Three consumers all circling the gas station for the same pump.

Right.

We've just become such a kind of self-entitled society to believe that our existence,

which is the generalization of 87 to 9192, is what everybody's experience is.

Yeah.

And it's not, right?

I mean, I struggle to find diesel.

Sometimes I'm at a gas station when I'm out traveling, and I've got dual tanks on

either side of my truck, and I have to wait because you've got station, and I only have

one side of my truck, and then maybe I have to turn around and fill up the other side,

or maybe I just go, hey, 50 gallons is enough, and I'll move on to the next opportunity.

Yeah.

So lacking infrastructure is this really wildly self-entitled kind of automotive experience.

Well, I mean, the argument.

To me, the biggest thing where that comes into play is if you wanted to be

rubber dummy friendly, if you just want Joe Average to go buy a vehicle, and they can go

and do it, that's why Toyota with the Prius did so well.

Because you don't have to think about it.

You just get in your car.

It will go 200,000 miles within reason and be reliable.

And you don't have to think about where am I plugging in?

How am I plugging in?

What am I filling it up with?

It's just like a toaster.

It's just want to keep making your toast and being simple.

Where right now, the 4-by-E is more like your diesel truck.

You have to be an enthusiast.

You got to really like this technology.

So then therefore, then you're willing to look for the pump that has your diesel.

You're willing to put your additive secret sauce in the tank.

You're more involved.

You have to be a more conscientious owner, unquestionably.

And so here's where I was saying with the minutiae that I can't not do,

because I'm so intrigued by it.

And so I'm going to dull you to death in this conversation.

It has to do with electrons and actual electricity behavior

at what could be considered like a molecular level.

We literally have a cartoon image on the Bolton board in the shop

that Greg and him were geeking out over when we were having this conversation.

Right. Because honestly, Greg in his small motor days has an understanding of this.

And I'm going to try to make it as rudimentary as possible.

So we need a testicle coil?

We don't need a testicle coil.

That's Joe Harper's talking about that basically.

No. Realistically, what ends up happening?

Real fast before you get into that.

Joe O'Brien saying, how do you charge them on the trails?

So honestly, Jeep is putting chargers at a lot of trailheads.

That is a thing.

But also the hybrid, you can use gasoline too.

So you're able to have a backup plan.

Point of being a hybrid.

Correct.

Or we just get a generator out.

I don't think it's that like,

I know that like there's a population of people who show the pictures of the big

diesel generators hammering down and doing their thing or a generator charging an EV.

I can see the humor in it.

I get it.

But what do you think a locomotive's been for the last 50 years or something?

It almost is like, I get the joke.

I get the humor.

I really do.

But it's like, yeah, that's what we have to do.

That's where we're going.

Well, 120 years ago, somewhere there was a car that ran out of gas and a team of horses

was dragging it to the gas station.

I absolutely literally lived around the Amish.

I've actually seen it before.

You know what I mean?

They unhitched the plow team.

They come out and they drag the truck out of the farmer's field and drag it back to his house.

Just because they're neighbors.

I've literally seen it.

It happens, right?

So anyways, so what's happening with a lightning charger is the manner in which

that electric at, again, at a molecular level is forced into the battery.

It actually does not have the ability to deeply penetrate the cells of the battery.

It's more like a surface charge.

It is only a surface charge.

And you can actually not.

We do not have readily available to the mass consumer market.

A charger that I'm going to clarify because somebody is going to call you out.

It is not a surface charge.

It is similar in that regard, but it's not the surface charge of a battery you're thinking of.

You have to know the minutiae of the electrons to understand the difference.

So we're doing this for rubber dummies like myself.

The only thing we know is surface charge on our phone or overnight charge on our phone

four hours later, the phone's dead again.

Crap.

Versus having a long charge out of it.

Right.

And so this is part of the issue where heat is also not friendly to electric batteries.

But basically the electrical load is not woven or layered well.

They are almost a little more chaotic.

Typically when you see the fun cartoonized graphic displays of this,

they're a little bit more chaotic and they're moving about in kind of a unpredictable manner.

They've spread out.

They're bouncing into each other.

The electrical load itself is less efficient by the manner in which it has been

poured into the battery in such a fast process.

I think there's a good analogy for our petrolhead people.

If you're on the racetrack and you got to fill up your vehicle real quick,

and you come over that big can and we grew up watching Richard Petty and guys

doing it and they shove it in the car and there's a little splash of fuel

when they initially do that.

And then as the car is peeling out, there's another gush of fuel.

That's not an efficient way of putting that fuel in the car, but it's quick.

It gets back on the track.

They're able to go out that, but we have some spillage.

We have some not perfect thing where we come over and go back in a day to our hand pumps.

You put the thing in.

You have no loss.

You're now priming the hose.

It takes some time.

It slowly fills and then you have to let it stop and then the hose drains down

and now we can unhook it.

Same process.

One has no loss or little loss.

The other one quick, but you have some loss.

You can't have both.

Kind of can't have both.

And that's the gist of it, right?

And to say that ultimately the way that it's layered as far as that electrical load

in the batteries is layered in there.

A lightning charger on its broad generalization of what is available to a home consumer

or even at the gas station.

Basically, we do not have the technology widely distributed that allows it to lightning

and not have loss or not have some chaos within the electrical load in the battery itself.

And also, I think it's maybe a loss in a lot of people and I only know this because of people

doing wrecked EVs or wrecked hybrid vehicles and they are dumb and take the batteries apart.

But therefore they show what they're made of.

We're talking many, many tiny little cells of batteries.

So imagine a AAA battery with all of its friends stacked up and made into layer

after layer after layer.

So what we're talking about is when it's quick, you're not efficiently filling each cell the same

where when it's a slow one, it's almost like it's slowly out of smossing through

and every little cell gets tied up right where it's supposed to be,

which I also would imagine just like anything battery.

If you do all the thing but lightning charge all the time,

it's probably going to shorten the life of that battery because now we have more heat.

Some cells are getting charged, some aren't.

So now you have not an even charge distribution across the pack.

Yeah.

I don't know about that.

That's interesting to say if you're only ever just lightning it.

I do know there is controllers involved so that a computer basically is choosing

what cell and what bank is getting charged at what time.

Correct.

So I'm sure there is something involved with that where the car is talking to the charger

vice versa.

But it's the same thing with your cell phone.

Your cell phone, they tell you if you're always doing a rapid charge on it,

you're going to diminish the life of the battery.

Absolutely.

And newer smarter phones will literally tell you what your battery life is,

not just the charge level but the life it.

So after two years of doing fast charging,

your battery life might actually only be 70%

because you've killed the battery over time by that heat capacity of it to correct a charge.

And ultimately, as humans go, we do continue to march forward and get better

technologies, better understanding of processes.

And my contention with anybody with the EV stuff that we deal with today,

I like to bring up NICAD battery technology.

When electric power tools became widely distributed in the 80s and 90s as we moved from

corded power tools, certainly in that late 80s, early 90s, and into the 90s,

we had NICAD technology, which is exactly what you guys are talking about,

that battery life diminished over the period of time because we simply didn't have

the same degree of battery interface that we then became able to establish.

And it's why name brand batteries are so expensive because ultimately,

the construction of those batteries for, if we break it down for power tools,

like the Milwaukee's and potentially the Walts, the Makitas,

that that battery is more robust made with better quality materials,

sourced in a more kind of ethical way, so on and so forth, because it's reputable.

Not only that, that brings another thing to my brain.

Back in the day when you had your NICAD, you'd be drilling a hole, putting the screw in,

and it's slowly slowing down and just finally where your Milwaukee today with your lithium

ion battery, you're over there and suddenly it just shuts off.

That shutting off is the computer interface for charging that battery.

It's basically a safety cutoff saying, I am not going to allow you to go lower than this voltage

because that's when it starts getting a little unstable.

That's exactly right. And the stability of the delivery of it is just as valuable of the

stability of the receiving charge. So let's come back to 4xE and bring this home because

obviously we talked about the chargers and what an average person might need.

We're passed out of time.

Are we passed? I thought we were, why'd you start it late?

I'm watching the clock at 15 minutes. Jeffrey, don't.

That's our weekend update.

As far as the stuff that is bricking the jeeps across the board right now,

and it's not affecting everybody, it has everything to do with when, again,

Android or iPhone sends out an update. Some people choose to do the update,

some people don't. My general advice to people like in life is don't do the update

immediately, the moment it comes out. I am always boggled at how many people immediately

run out and do the initial update and they find themselves in the round.

I'm a beta updater on the phone, so I'm always on the newest update.

Fascinating, see.

But I wouldn't do it with my vehicle.

Well, and so my recommendation is, wait a couple of days before you push through an

update on anything personally.

People make mistakes. It's easy for one little line of code to get out of the sink,

or them not to think about something. I mean, that's why I've had an update on my phone

and suddenly now I can't get into, I just make something up. I like my pictures.

Now it's completely different. It makes you mad. A couple of days later,

you get another update and guess what? They fixed that because enough people complained.

Right.

Really fun about that is I'm a beta updater. I'm always on the latest updates.

My wife is complete opposite. She will go until the update says,

you have to update or else it will not work anymore.

Yep, yep. I get it. One of the challenges, I did get a phone call, I don't know,

a month or so ago from some folks who had enterprise rental and they were in a

Grand Cherokee and the Grand Cherokee shut off the four by E,

shut off the gas station and just flat out wouldn't turn back on.

Also a known issue with them and equally probably nothing they had any control of whatsoever.

Because also you don't know who pushed through an update prior to you getting the rental vehicle

itself. Absolutely.

We obviously have the horror story of one of our employees driving four hours away

in a strictly EV vehicle and the challenge of range and that's not even something that we address

today. But range is part of that deep charge versus kind of a superficial charge.

So something to be considered about how you utilize the vehicle.

If the potential for you to own a four by E exists, I suppose this is my parting comment

or thought. And you are a person who is okay like me with the diesel and understanding that

not every pump, I might not have the most convenient experience. I'm probably going to have to add

some some sea tane or or anti-gel or coagulant, you know, booster to my fuel.

I'm I'm okay with those things. I accept that as part of my v my vehicular ownership.

If that's not something that you're already doing or privy to, then maybe four by E technology at this

here and now is not particularly well suited for you. If you are like Jeffrey, where you

apparently are a masochist and you're a beta updater, maybe, you know, understanding that

you're in the pioneering stages of the of the next world.

You might be too good for that. You might need to go off and buy like some off the wall.

Honestly, I think the Lordstown only ever produced about seven trucks.

They'll never have parts again that that program folded, so on and so forth. And those people

spent good money on those things. I think we're going to see the four by E die as a whole.

Obviously, Jeep already announced and I think it was so funny because so many talking heads

ran with this title. The four by E is dead. Well, that was in the gladiator. It was the truck that

never was. We never actually saw a widespread production four by E gladiator. Heck, I don't

even think they put one down as a gladiator owner. I just want to continue to feel abused

by Stalantis. Yeah, as you as that's probably what it is. So Rob in the comments said

that I need to add a color change bulb to the lamps so that I can switch them to red when we're

out of time. Fun fact, the light bulbs actually are color change. Yeah. And Neil has the controller

for that. Yeah. And I wouldn't care anyways. There's a reason I don't bother with this.

There's a reason why back on like the vaudeville days, the stage manager had a large crook that

reached across and physically remove a person off the stage. Yeah. He's the reason. Oh, yeah.

You know what, Jeff, you came up with the topic about the recon and I still am excited about

seeing the recon come out. But I understand that this is not a universally accepted vehicle

platform yet. I'm going to go on and say we've been waiting since Kaiser own Jeep to have a

little off-road friendly vehicle made by Jeep. And we still haven't got one. So

as much as I've been abused by Stalantis with gladiators that I can buy, I'll believe it when I

see it. Yeah. And we're going to have to accept that this first round of owners of the recon

are absolutely are the Jeffs of the world, the beta testers. Yep. All right, folks. Well,

hopefully we didn't get overly technical and kept it light enough for you. If you're unfamiliar with

the 4 by E model and some of the rumor mill that you might hear going around. Obviously,

there's lots to still discuss. So if you have any specific questions on this topic,

you just email that guy over there in the producer uniform. Yep. You can email him at

contact.com and producer uniform for folks who are listening at home. Apparently is

a flannel flannel of genes. So just and it says schlep across his forehead. Yep. Or you can text

us our text only number 440855 2100 until next time. Jeep on Jeep on Jeep on

so fun thing. I've been sandbagging you guys and not updating on purpose because you guys have

to guess what I did this weekend. You know, dunk some holes last weekend. He bought the

world's least desirable engine and transmission. This is not fun because he's done to me already.

Well, yeah, because now you got the rest of the car. But what kind of car? Well, it was a Lincoln

before, right? Yeah. So what is it? It was I thought you had mentioned it was a mid fifties

Lincoln undesirable. So I did not get a mid fifties car. Okay. But it might be a Ford

which I want you to remember, I kind of want to take our listeners on a journey back to young

Scott and Neil, where we talked about all the horrors of Ford ownership. And the only thing

that had you had allegiance to within the Ford community was your father-in-law. Now your

wife's Ford pick them up truck that was his workhorse of a plow winter run about vehicle.

Yes. And otherwise we could stand in solidarity of the fixer repair daily community and say that

was not for us. Despite the fact that I owned a couple Ford's begrudgingly as well.

The biggest thing I am just continued to be amazed by the Ford's is that they just

changed things constantly, but they look the same. So maybe the real masochist in the room

is actually you because you have actually chosen to subject yourself

because it's like I knew this girl in college. And of course, I mean, we're talking about this

was just not that long ago. We understand that smoking is not good for you, right? In general.

And if you smoke, that's fine. You've made that choice. But maybe you started young and you

just can't break it. I'm going to interrupt you because you said college and not that long ago.

I don't know if you realize how many years ago that actually was. I don't want to speak

to Jeffery. And I remember like hanging out with this girl and she was going to teach herself to

smoke cigarettes because she thought it looked cool that she's on an iron line. And I don't I

don't know where she's at in the world at this point in time. But I still remember that thinking,

wow, you you are you are purposely subjecting yourself to the torture at a time when you

actually know better and you've lived your life knowing better. And at this point time,

you're consciously choosing to do something. So I'm equated that to your ownership and continue

subjectification to Ford and Henry's production processes and the fact that things change

constantly. That's fair. What is wrong with you? In the comments, William said Ford owned Jaguar,

Mercury, Lincoln and Land Rover. So one of them. Nope. Yeah. No, it wasn't one of them. Well, first

is one of them. First thing is a Ford. Yeah, we got that. But what how old is it? That's the fun part.

They had a 317 in it, isn't it? Isn't that what? Yeah, but that's not what

yes, the motor exists. And yes, it's in the garage sharing space with us currently.

But that is not a good metric other than the reason to keep looking for crap that I don't need.

I want people to know. Maybe older than the 36. Maybe. So how old is it?

A 24. No, I had already had a 24. That's way too much wood. So I had to go a little newer to

get out of the wood. 27. 26. It's 99 years old. Is that insane? How much this is not a 2026.

This is a 1926. Yes, how much car actually is there? So ironically, I went to expecting to get

only part of a car. So at this point, the gig is up. It's a 1926 Ford Model T coupe called

a doctor's coupe. Because back in those days, your doctor came to you. You were dying in your bed

upstairs and the doctor arrived at his Ford coupe with his bag and probably put you in the ground

quicker. But anyway. So 26 is 99 years old. Next year, it'll be 100 years old, which just

blows my mind. That's why he got it, folks. I want you to know that. Without question.

He wanted a 100 year old car in his ownership. It's something cool. But anyway, I got there

and the guy, you know, with winter is upon us, which I am very aware of, which is probably why

I shouldn't have done this, but whatever. And he's like all the distractions he could. You

don't even have a building to put this in right now. And again, if I go back, if I bring

people to young Scott and Neil, Scott would actually go through a transformative experience

when he could not garage his vehicles. It was as if I don't know, I can't use that association.

His whole persona would change. He would become snippy and persnickety. And he would

be curt or short in his responses. Everything would be like, well, I got to get home and I

got to get my vehicles garaged as if the drop of snow, a snowflake on top of his vehicle

was somehow going to depreciate his ownership. It's traumatic. It's traumatic. And yet instead

of working towards the shared goal of putting a building back with 11 vehicles already, my concrete

guy was at an event. So I couldn't for his 11 vehicles already. We have yet acquired

another one. So you can simply say you own a hundred year old car next year.

I originally planned on. He has literally played. What's the countdown? How many months do we have

until, uh, until 2026? Four months? He's literally just. I thought about having a little

birthday cupcake for it. Yep. Just so that, you know, it's less than three months, but

that's fine. Anyway, this year's going by a lot faster than you think. And it's 20 years

since college. 21. I know. I know. The best part is make sure you knew that. I show up and I just

by pound salt, Jeffrey, pound salt, but just by happenstance took the car trailer. I originally

was thinking about taking the 68 and just sliding the body. That's all I was supposed to get

into the back of the truck. Yes. Just because I thought it'd be fun. Yes. And I get there

and he's like, you know what? A truck hauling a truck. Yeah, or a truck hauling a car. Yes.

Which I've done that with Will, these bodies all the time. Yes. You know, I was just

thinking, eh, why not? And I got there and a guy says, tell you what, I'm throwing in the whole

complete chassis with what you already agreed to purchase this for. But I want my wheels and tires

and the hubs. I'm like, so we're going to roll up on the trailer and then we're going to make it

not roll anymore. He's like, yep. I was like, okay. I've done that before. Yep. Yep. So,

and then we took the body completely apart as such for the cow and layered all the pieces

into the bed of the gladiator. So, the quarters came off, the doors, all of it and got filed.

So, it doesn't even look like a car on the way home. Did you take a picture before you disassembled

it? I got excited and didn't, but then I went on and took off the pictures of the for sale

ad. So, I have it as a whole car. I can't wait to see it. Congratulations to you. I'm

hoping that you're happy. I know. Good news is what actually made me justify this is it needs

some rust repair because it's 99 years old and it has some compound curves and shapes of the body

and I just want an excuse to learn how to do that with the sheet metal. And because of the building

cluster that it is, I cannot be working on what I want to be working on this winter.

So, this is because it's now in many bite-sized chunks, I can literally pull in a quarter

and tinker with it over the winter as sheet metal is concerned. I have no expectations on

maybe driving this car anytime soon. I just literally am using this as an excuse to further

my craft with the sheet metal and while I'm doing it, it makes me happy that I'm saving a car

that's 99 years old. Absolutely. It's been through a lot in life. Me and my wife nerd out on that,

thinking of all the big monumental things in life that's happened while this has existed.

Sure. This car was built before the Great Depression and the World War and the expansion of the

suburban culture. The fact that it exists makes my brain hurt almost.

Sure. It's very cool. So that is literally what the plan is for at the moment. Yes, I have a

Lincoln V8 that I think would be fun to put in it. But again, I'm trying to be very honest with

myself and this can get filed up in the attic very easily to go back to what I should be

working on. But as soon as Jeffrey is available, we are going to be working on the building

again hopefully before it snows. As soon as you have a plan to get those holes dug. I know. So

that is what I spent my weekend doing. It was a lot of fun, a lot of windshield time in the Jeep.

Beautiful fall colors. Yes. We went to summit racing. My wife bought a blanket. That was the

only thing we bought at the race shop. Thought you guys would think that was funny as well.

Went to the race shop and bought a blanket. Bought a blanket.

Wowsers. Sounds about right for you guys. Absolutely. That's a good time.

Let me guess. Blankets on the couch. No, I honestly, I think we got home and got distracted

with dinner and stuff. Was it a Ford blanket? No. Okay. Summit branded blanket. But it looks

like an Indian, not an Indian boat. Old school blanket you would put on a hot rod seat. Sure.

It's what it looks like. And she fell in love with it and I was like, you just let me buy

a car that's on the trailer accidentally so you can have whatever the hell you want. Yep.

I feel that. Yep. I feel that. So I had a, I was able to get back to the house some this weekend

and kind of start to work through finishing up the big she-shed build, finally hanging a door.

Something I've been putting off because while that might seem rudimentary to some people,

actually hanging the door and kind of taking up the space and making sure it was true,

I was making a bigger deal than it needed to be. But I went ahead and I tackled that this

weekend and I made great progress and I'm very happy about that. And as it has been,

it's been a lot about my kids and family recently and some of their athletic pursuits.

And so we had a very nice weekend kind of attending to those needs. Additionally,

I had a great experience at a local art center and some of the experiences that we are,

my wife and I are philanthropists of. So we got to share that with some folks and

stayed very, very busy, very busy all weekend and was able to lock in.

I'm very, I'm already, I'm highly consumed by how much time I'm going to have to dedicate to

transporting these vehicles out to SEMA and then obviously being at SEMA.

And so I'm equally trying to gather my nuts before the snow flies. And so it's,

you know, we've had so many mild winters and then last year,

I feel abused. You know, Thanksgiving came around and it's like it never broke until

July. And then it became a heat wave. And I look back at this year, as you mentioned,

it was going so fast. You and I, Jeffrey and I made a lot of progress on some of the

infrastructure of my homestead. And then it just kind of all like, it feels like it stopped.

It didn't, I've been able to pick away at things, but.

But not that dedicated time that summer was so busy.

Correct. Correct. Correct. So.

And honestly, I think you have a lot of potential because you've been able to seal up a lot of things.

Right. That when the snow falls and the season gets slower again,

now you'll be able to go in and work and have some comfort, level of comfort in there because

you've got some insulation hung. You've got things sealed up. Correct. Correct.

So now you have an opportunity to make some really good headway coming in the way.

That's the goal. And I really valued the fact that we got to be able to do

that this weekend. Not like that. If you get so hung up, like I've been literally conferencing

myself or, you know, therapying myself on this building is, I'm not even enjoying the process

because I'm feeling so rushed with it. Sure. So I'm kind of like, you know what,

it's in the universe hands. I'm going to let it just happen as it happens because I can't

control it. Yep. So I'm just going to live life and get back into enjoying the project.

Because if you don't have the time to go down and form your boat in your basement,

well, then that's fine. But the one that you do, it's there still.

Well, and I had a unique opportunity. The event that we went to was actually a masquerade ball.

And it kind of funny enough, we had a certain number of people in our party

and, you know, the tables were kind of open seating. And so we ended up at this table

and I made my introduction and it's actually customers of ours. So it is a customer and

her husband. And, you know, by extension, he's a customer as well. And it was funny,

we just didn't know who each other were because we're literally masks. They're costumes, right?

And it was fun because she was aware of the house build from the podcast. And I thought it

was valuable because we started doing weekend updates years ago to keep ourselves honest,

right? To have some degree of accountability when we're harassing you on your cross country

camper build. And, you know, and I thought to myself, it was actually part of that,

that conversation. And she brought up the house bill. She was familiar with it.

She's like, yeah, I noticed, you know, you haven't been updating as much. And I'm like,

that's because I honestly wasn't working on it as much as I'd like to be.

And so I thought it was actually a good motivation to get back in there and be like,

I'm going to just do this. I'm going to make sure I get this do that one thing. Yeah. And so while

it's not that big dedicated time that I was able to do previously and our patrons were seeing updates

and I was able to post about, I thought, you're right. I mean, here's a person who's not inherently

invested in that. And she was like, Hey, yeah, I know about it because of the podcast. And

I thought, okay, this is my opportunity to kind of jumpstart that accountability again.

Absolutely. And then for my weekend, we obviously were ban on Saturday all day. But then Sunday,

we had Xander's birthday party. His 12th birthday is actually this coming Wednesday.

So the 15th, but we had his birthday party. Each of the kids for their birthdays, we let them

choose what they want for cake. He chose graveyard dirt and worms. Nice. So we made

sounds delicious. Oh, it was amazing. I love dirt. That's yep. Absolutely. So very excited to do that.

Got to relax and watch the football game while the kids played at my parents house. So

nice relaxing Sunday. And then for his actual birthday, we did it. We tried to do something

on their actual birthday. So this week, we have an appointment for Morgan in Cleveland

Wednesday morning, a pre appointment. So after that, we're going right to the Science Center and

letting them hang out at the Science Center. I hope you guys have a safe and fun time. That's

a great experience for them. Yeah, very cool. All right, folks. Well, that is it. Some cool

conversation in the comments. We didn't even get into, you know, lithium batteries and precious

metals and battery demand and, you know, material production. And that will be for

another time. But we'd love to hear from you in that contact email or, you know, direct on text

message. We have a lot of jeeps that tend to they seem to have piled up over the weekend and

last week. So look for Jeffrey's Tuesday update where he typically breaks it down with Scott

and see all that's going on in our shop. Until next time, jeep on jeep on jeep on

Recon Mission: Electrification of Vehicles for Beginners

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