Hydrogen Fuel Cell Passenger Vehicles with Brian Goldstein of Energy Independence Now

MotorTrend

MotorTrend's Ed Loh & Jonny Lieberman sit down with the Executive Director of Energy Independence Now

Transcript

00:00:00Hi there, and welcome to another episode of The Inevitable. This is Motor Trends podcast,

00:00:21our vodcast about the future of mobility, the future of transportation, the future of

00:00:25cars. We're back in our original studios. Check out the fancy digs. We should see the zebra print

00:00:31over here. It's kind of exciting. The windows. The windows. But today we're talking about,

00:00:36is there a future for a particular form of zero emission transportation? The hydrogen fuel cell

00:00:43passenger car. We're talking to a gentleman by the name of Brian Goldstein. He's the executive

00:00:49director for a company called Energy Independence Now. And I think it's more of an organization than

00:00:57a company. A company, yes. Or it's .org. You're right. So EINow.org and also DriveH2.org. We'll

00:01:04get into his intro in just a second, but I do have a question that we got from a great,

00:01:08ardent, passionate listener by the name of Tim Bridgeham. He sent this yesterday. And he says,

00:01:15hey, I have a question for you both. My wife and I are looking to get our first EV in 2026,

00:01:20so next year. With your knowledge of the EV market and likely what's coming, I'd love your input

00:01:25on the top three EVs you'd recommend based on the following must-haves and nice-to-haves.

00:01:30A bit more context. We own a home and live in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains

00:01:34outside of Seattle, where it's quite rainy. We enjoy biking and skiing, so we need a hitch

00:01:39rack and a roof rack capabilities and all-wheel drive. So the musts. Under $50,000. And it'd be

00:01:47nice if this wasn't at the base price. 325 miles of range, but closer to 400 would be ideal.

00:01:55Tesla, NAX, Charger compatible, all-wheel drive, quiet, the racks, as mentioned, hitch and roof,

00:02:04and then design aesthetics, we like Polestar, Volvo, and Rivian. Those are the musts,

00:02:08the nice-to-have. Large sunroof, heated seats, high-quality sound system, user-friendly with

00:02:13iPhones, which is an interesting one. And then just some additional information. We're not too

00:02:19keen on Tesla. They feel a little too ubiquitous, and then there's the Elon Musk factor, though I'm

00:02:24not 100% opposed to getting one. That means we've got to convince his wife. And then lastly...

00:02:30Old Mary guy, insider baseball.

00:02:33Last, last, last. Thinking about doing this in 2026, would you buy a new one, lease a new one,

00:02:39or buy a used one? Thank you so much. All right. So, Hugo, I got thoughts.

00:02:42Right off the bat, the under $50,000 and over 300 miles of range is problematic, especially if

00:02:50you're not... And all-wheel drive.

00:02:51And all-wheel drive, if you're not looking at a Model Y. And then the nice-to-have plays well

00:02:57with iPhone integration, because I was going to say, you know, Chevy Blazer, slightly used

00:03:02Chevy Blazer EV with all-wheel drive. Man, if you're living in rainy conditions and you're

00:03:08going up to the mountains and stuff like that, what a great EV. However, famously doesn't have

00:03:13CarPlay or Android Auto. I would say, you know, slightly used Model Y really hits it.

00:03:22You know, a well-used Rivian, and sadly, it's going to be real well-used. I don't know,

00:03:30will they be under... Like, right now, I looked it up, they're all kind of like between

00:03:34$67,000 and the cheapest Rivian I saw was like $52,000. And while it doesn't have CarPlay,

00:03:41it does play very nice with your phone. But like, yeah, I mean, I guess you're just...

00:03:48For that range, it's tough. Ed, what are your thoughts?

00:03:52All right. So, I got some good ones, and I kind of went the same way,

00:03:55and I'm just checking one that I just thought I just had. So, let me... I'll just go back to front

00:04:01here. First of all, because you're thinking 2026, so you have all 2025 to consider, that's some time,

00:04:06so we'll use that to your advantage. I'm a totally a buy-used guy, and my option...

00:04:11Ed works in the new car industry.

00:04:13Don't do it. Dirty secret. I just tell you, buy a used car.

00:04:16I like new cars.

00:04:17I would say off the bat, I think Johnny's correct, it's probably a Tesla is your...

00:04:20the most bang for your buck. I mean, you can get Model 3s, long ranges, for $20,000.

00:04:26So, you can just get two, you know?

00:04:27You can get two. His and hers. Then you have a combined range, right? Or a Model Y,

00:04:31you can get those for $30,000, and those are a little higher mileage. So, but definitely under

00:04:35$50,000, you can get a really nice all-wheel drive long-range Model Y or Model 3, and it'll

00:04:42tick almost all the boxes except the plays nice with iPhone.

00:04:46It'll, you know, it pairs, it just doesn't have Apple CarPlay.

00:04:50Yeah, if you like CarPlay, if you like, like you like all the stuff on your iPhone,

00:04:54it's not that handy. Now, if you want to look at some interesting other options,

00:05:00I was looking at some used Cadillac Lyrics.

00:05:02Oh, yeah.

00:05:03Which are quite nice.

00:05:04And have CarPlay.

00:05:05And have CarPlay. Now, the problem is 50k, at least currently, you're going to be talking a

00:05:10rear drive, not an all-wheel drive, so it's a slight deal breaker there.

00:05:14No, that's a must-have. That's a deal breaker.

00:05:16It's a deal breaker because, yes, they want all-wheel drive, right?

00:05:18Yeah.

00:05:18So...

00:05:19I could say you could get a used Lyric on snow tires, and you'd be all right.

00:05:23Right. And, you know, I think...

00:05:24Americans hate to snow tires, so...

00:05:27Ionix, you could get an Ionix, but I don't think you get,

00:05:30I don't think you hit the $325,000 realistic range.

00:05:32Never, not even close to $325,000. The $325,000 for under $50,000 is a very hard thing. I mean,

00:05:37the only thing that actually does it is the Tesla's, or, like, a very, like, you know,

00:05:44Rivian, if you put it on... That's an interesting one. Gen 1 Rivians on the street tires are like

00:05:52$328,000 range. If you're really going skiing, though, you're going to want it on the off-road

00:05:56tires, and Gen 1 is $285,000, I believe, is the mileage on the off-road tires. Gen 2 is better,

00:06:02but Gen 2 just came out, and they're not going to be that cheap. Maybe they will. Who knows?

00:06:07EVs don't really hold their value all that well. And then you said, with our knowledge of what's

00:06:12coming out, Ed and I are fathers of young children. We don't sleep. We don't know anything.

00:06:17But, look, I will tell you, the one, my last one is, I drive a Ford F-150 Lightning. I love it.

00:06:24It drives really nice. I will tell you, getting one under $50,000 is going to be really tough.

00:06:31What's the range?

00:06:32And that's a little bit of a problem. It's 330 with the large battery, but it's really closer to

00:06:39280 to 300, so it's not that close. But I'll tell you, here's the secret. Silverado RS,

00:06:45Silverado work truck. Ah, nice!

00:06:48Yes. Hertz bought a whole bunch of these and then dumped them recently,

00:06:51and I was just checking. They are hovering at $60,000 plus or minus $5,000 right now,

00:06:58so in a year, could go under $50,000. They have, if you get the big battery,

00:07:02they are over 400 miles of range, I think. $450,000?

00:07:06Oh, easily. Yeah, easily.

00:07:07It's a giant battery. And the crazy part is, GM said no car play, except for a couple of these

00:07:13legacy vehicles. One is Lyric, and then the work truck version of the Silverado.

00:07:18Right, just the work truck.

00:07:19Allows you to have car play. And if you want to put bikes in the back,

00:07:24I mean, you can put them on the roof, you can put them in the back, you can put them in the bed.

00:07:27And I would say, it's not talked about enough, but the Lightning, for instance,

00:07:34EVs have such a crazy advantage off-road. It's just that super torque at no RPM.

00:07:42We did a video a while ago, we did a Hummer EV versus a Lightning, and I was ready for the Ford,

00:07:49I'm sorry, for the Hummer to wipe the floor with the Lightning. I thought it was actually

00:07:52a stupid comparison. And then, even in slick mud on street tires, the damn Lightning was good,

00:07:57it was really good off-road. So, the Chevy EV is a very, the base model.

00:08:04Silverado work truck, check it out, see how the prices go. And the last thing I'll say is,

00:08:08buy in December, and look, if you want a lease, Leasehacker, L-E-A-S-E-H-A-C-K-R.com.

00:08:19I've seen a lot of crazy deals in there. I don't know anyone who's used it. Actually,

00:08:23no, one guy's used it for an Ioniq, got an amazing deal. Check it out.

00:08:27In December, super good advice, but really, just before Thanksgiving, that's really the sales

00:08:33people got to push volume out. So, you can find some crazy deals.

00:08:36Anyways, thank you, Tim. Hope it works out. Please let us know what you end up with.

00:08:40And if you have a question, and you want a cool one of these.

00:08:43I don't know how many of those are left.

00:08:45Well, we'll get some more.

00:08:45Maybe an old t-shirt.

00:08:47Or a hat or something. It'll send you a gift. Contact us.

00:08:52MotorTrend at MotorTrend.com.

00:08:53Yeah, or Instagram, or whatever you want.

00:08:55All right. That was a long intro. Back to our man, Brian Goldstein, Executive Director at EIN,

00:09:02which does not employee identification number for your tax return. It is actually

00:09:08Energy Independence Now. It's an organization devoted to advancing fuel cell EVs and renewable

00:09:15hydrogen infrastructure for transportation, renewable energy storage, and deep decarbonization.

00:09:21We're going to bring him on. We're going to talk to him. He's a good looking guy.

00:09:25Not the kind of guy you'd think to be pushing hydrogen so hard. So, I was immediately suspicious.

00:09:30But it turns out he's actually very knowledgeable and quite pleasant.

00:09:34Ah, okay. So, Brian Goldstein.

00:09:37Welcome.

00:09:38The six MRI man.

00:09:41I thought we might get to that.

00:09:43Johnny describes-

00:09:44Well, you're here only because Farrah called me, or I saw him, or something. He's like,

00:09:49dude. He's talking about how his neighborhood has cool cars. He moved into a new house a while ago.

00:09:54He's like, there's some dude who has six Toyota Mirais. What the f***?

00:09:58I'm like, what? I got to meet this guy.

00:10:01So, that's you. What do you do?

00:10:05Yeah, end of discussion. All right, that guy.

00:10:08So, why Mirais? What do you do? What's the fascination with hydrogen?

00:10:12All right. Well, that runs deep, but I think that's why we're here.

00:10:15So, I run an environmental non-profit named Energy Independence Now, which is a

00:10:20really wonky name that doesn't quite nail down what we do. But we got it in the 90s when that

00:10:24kind of meant a little something different. Our public facing education initiatives are

00:10:30all under Drive H2 or driveh2.org, which is a little more specific about what we do.

00:10:35But we're a hydrogen advocacy group. I've been in this business for about 20 years.

00:10:40I have been running this organization for 10, 11, 12 years. Those lines start to get a little blurry.

00:10:47Sure.

00:10:49Ultimately, EIN is what we go by. EIN cut its teeth early on in the hydrogen industry and

00:10:57space specifically here in California. So, we wrote the California Hydrogen Highway

00:11:00Blueprint for Governor Schwarzenegger.

00:11:02That's right, Schwarzenegger, yeah.

00:11:03Yeah. And so, we essentially, we were founded a little bit before the

00:11:07Schwarzenegger administration by a guy named Terry Tamnen, environmental rock star.

00:11:13He went on to become the Cal EPA secretary for Arnold and had already created this non-profit.

00:11:20We were kind of born out of another non-profit environment now that some people might be

00:11:23familiar with. It was in Santa Monica and Terry ran that. So, to Mary Nichols at one point,

00:11:27it was pretty cool history there, honestly, when you go back into this movement and specifically

00:11:31this movement in California. So, Terry went on to become Arnold's EPA secretary and Arnold said,

00:11:37we're going to do hydrogen. That in and of itself is a pretty cool story. I don't know

00:11:41how deep you guys want to run on this.

00:11:43Starting with Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good way.

00:11:45Yeah, it is a good way. So, Arnold decides to run. Terry's running this environment now,

00:11:51this environmental non-profit that had deep ties in this part of LA. And one of their board

00:11:56members approached him and said, hey, I think Arnold's going to run and he needs some help

00:12:00developing out his environmental platform. And Terry's like, well, there's no way this guy's

00:12:06going to win. But what we're going to do here is we're going to give him the most aggressive

00:12:10environmental platform in the history of California.

00:12:13And it was.

00:12:14It really was.

00:12:15Which means the most aggressive in the country.

00:12:18In US history.

00:12:18Yeah, absolutely. And the line of thinking there was like, well, when this guy loses,

00:12:24we can go shame the Democratic candidate into having to step it up a little bit here.

00:12:28Politics.

00:12:29Yeah. So, he's like, if I'm going to do it, we're really going to do it. And Arnold was all about

00:12:34it.

00:12:35And I remember when he was running, he was a, quote unquote, Republican. But I remember his,

00:12:41I was having conversations with my then fiance, like, yeah, okay, the sexual harassment stuff

00:12:47is insane, but look at this. That's interesting that this guy, and I know he's always been

00:12:55something of an environment, despite his association with the Hummer.

00:12:58Yeah, sure, right.

00:12:59He converted that to hydrogen, right?

00:13:00I know, yeah. I copied that and built a hydrogen Hummer essentially right after. It wasn't an OEM.

00:13:07I think GM might've done that one for him, but we can get into that in a little bit.

00:13:10Yeah.

00:13:11So anyway, Arnold goes on, wins the race here. He calls him up the next day. Mr. Governor-elect,

00:13:14congratulations. You're the new governor and now you're responsible for implementing the

00:13:20most aggressive environmental policy in the history of the country. And as the story goes,

00:13:25Arnold said, no, Terry, you're wrong about that. I don't have to do it.

00:13:29You do. And so he brought in Terry to run the show and ended up being CalEPA Secretary and

00:13:35Cabinet Secretary. And then Terry recruited EIN to essentially, literally build out this model

00:13:42for the California Hydrogen Highway Initiative after a lot of years of research into why hydrogen

00:13:47before that.

00:13:48Could you talk about what the, well, first of all, I just want to say I voted for Larry Flint.

00:13:51Second of all, can you talk about what the California Hydrogen Highway

00:13:54is, was?

00:13:56Yeah, sure.

00:13:56So could you just get everyone up to speed?

00:13:58You know, in a nutshell, it was, and this is kind of where EIN cut its teeth in between

00:14:04industry and government. It was bringing those two entities together and breaking this chicken

00:14:09or the egg, which is like, you know, pretty much you say chicken or the egg and anybody

00:14:13in the hydrogen business just rolls around saying, we're back to the chicken or the egg,

00:14:16you know? But it really is. It's like, are we getting the stations first or are we getting

00:14:19the cars first, right? So we got the government to commit to building at first the first 100

00:14:25hydrogen stations, and then Jerry Brown doubled that to 200 hydrogen stations. And then we got

00:14:29several OEMs to commit to bringing certain volumes of fuel cell electric vehicles.

00:14:33And which OEMs?

00:14:35So Honda and Toyota at the time, Hyundai came in a little later.

00:14:39Mercedes too.

00:14:40There was, yeah, there was Mercedes, Ford was in there, BMW was in there, but they didn't

00:14:44really, I don't think they brought volume. You know, they brought some cars to the market.

00:14:51They were kind of testing some stuff. A lot of those companies, like the automotive industry

00:14:55is ultimately pretty conservative about how quickly they will bring something to market.

00:15:00And, you know, I've got to applaud the companies that actually brought the vehicles literally

00:15:04to market where a consumer could walk into a dealership and drive one.

00:15:08Right. And the first, if I remember, let's see, F.C. Clarity, the Honda F.C. Clarity was like

00:15:122007, 8.

00:15:14They had RAV4s running on hydrogen.

00:15:16Yeah, there were some RAV4s. None of those were publicly available, but yeah, they had them.

00:15:21Honda had the F.C.V. That was a test.

00:15:24Wasn't the F.C. Clarity the first consumer, F.C.X. Clarity? That was the first, like 2007, 8?

00:15:29Yeah, that was the second Clarity. The first one is in the Peterson still. The second one's

00:15:34probably in the Peterson as well. Although, so they did strategically place some of those cars,

00:15:42but I don't think, you know, Joe Schmo walking in off the street could just walk into a dealership.

00:15:47I think if I remember, because I told my friends, because it would have been a perfect car for a

00:15:51certain friend of mine, a childless couple, all the constraints. I think he had to like apply to

00:15:57Honda. Like, hey, Honda, we'd be a really good match. Because I drove it. I'm like, this thing's

00:16:02great.

00:16:02It was pretty cool. It was pretty cool. It was, you know, somebody will probably yell at me about

00:16:08this. I think it was the first one designed from the ground up to be a fuel cell electric vehicle.

00:16:11100% because it had a long wheelbase, because they didn't want to give up

00:16:15trunk space or backseat passenger space for the tanks, which were between the backseat and the

00:16:20trunk. And yeah, and also, I remember one of the Honda engineers had a little bit too much to drink.

00:16:26He's like, you know, this is a $40 million car.

00:16:28I believe it. Yeah.

00:16:30Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the first.

00:16:32Yeah, she was.

00:16:32Good memory. Really good memory.

00:16:34I like Jamie Lee Curtis.

00:16:35Yeah.

00:16:35Speaking of Thomas Schwarzenegger.

00:16:37Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, my question with that was, was it always just for consumer cars,

00:16:45or was the hydrogen highway pointed at, like, trucking and shipping, stuff like that?

00:16:50Yeah, so initially, it was light duty, right? That's a deep conversation.

00:16:57That's what we're here for.

00:16:58Even light duty consumer vehicles, they wanted to stay away from fleet vehicles. They didn't

00:17:02want to pigeonhole the cars to look like a Crown Vic, so people thought it should only be a cop car

00:17:07or taxi or whatever. So they thought, we really want to bring this out initially as a consumer

00:17:12vehicle. And essentially, those companies, Toyota and Honda, I should say that they were developing

00:17:17that technology for decades before that point, you know? And so I've got to give them credit.

00:17:22They have been committed to this tech for a very long time. But there were a lot of

00:17:27conversations in those early days, like, hey, man, let's just go for fleets, like a fleet of

00:17:31100 cars or however many cars that only, you know, comes back to one place every single night

00:17:37and can refuel in one place. We don't have to worry about this whole network all over the station.

00:17:41What was the argument against that? Because that seems to me, if you want to get volume fast,

00:17:45fleet, you know?

00:17:46Yeah, no, they just didn't want to pigeonhole it. I think at the time—

00:17:48Who's they is?

00:17:49The automotive companies, you know? And so I can say, you know, who my points of contact

00:17:54that my colleagues were at the time, I can't say it was necessarily their decision. But I do know

00:18:00that we always came back to this Crown Vic conversation, where if you saw a Crown Vic on

00:18:04the street that wasn't a taxi or a cop car, you're like, you know, why would somebody,

00:18:10you know, drive a—

00:18:11It's a Forest Service vehicle.

00:18:13There you go, right? So, you know, my understanding and foggy memory of,

00:18:19you know, 20, 25 years ago was that was kind of the reasoning there.

00:18:22Okay, okay.

00:18:23And so let's, so people can sort of place this, the actual hydrogen highway is where?

00:18:31Well, so it's California. Essentially, the California hydrogen highway is a network of

00:18:35hydrogen stations, which then will enable people to buy cars or release cars or whatever,

00:18:42and be able to utilize those stations.

00:18:44And how many got built? You said Governor Brown increased it to 200.

00:18:47Yeah, yeah. So this is where we're going to go, like,

00:18:51go deep. Honestly, I told you guys, obviously, for everyone in LA, it's been a wild ride the

00:18:56last couple of weeks. I'm kind of exhausted. I figured, let's just do the unplugged version.

00:18:59I'm going to be just straight up with you guys about where we are with that.

00:19:01We should say it's January 17th. So it's a week after, you know, the most destructive

00:19:08wildfires in California history has kind of like upended our lives. So thank you,

00:19:11first of all, Brian, for making the time.

00:19:13Oh, yeah, of course.

00:19:14But yeah, things are crazy right now. So excuse all three of us if we haven't slept.

00:19:19Yeah, I think, well, you know, I was thinking about that a lot coming in because, you know,

00:19:23a lot of my job is communications, education, outreach. I do a lot of government work,

00:19:29unfortunately. And so, you know, everybody's very sensitive about, like, the phrases and

00:19:34the terminology. And, you know, I think, honestly, in the hydrogen space, we've got to move beyond

00:19:40that. Somebody just needs to be kind of honest about where we are. So, you know, to be perfectly

00:19:44blunt with you about where we are with stations, it's bad. It's abysmal, right?

00:19:50And we can go into why.

00:19:52Yeah, I mean, let's frame it up because, again, I go back to the concept is the hydrogen highway.

00:19:57And my understanding is, if you live in Southern California, it's like torrents. It's like,

00:20:03you got a few out there. This is when Toyota and Honda, Toyota has since moved and they drove

00:20:07bulldozers through the building. I think it's gonna be an Amazon warehouse or something like that.

00:20:11But for a while, for like 10, 15 years or so, they were pretty reliable.

00:20:17I think they were Shell stations along 190th or that area.

00:20:21Still is. Well, it's not Shell, but yeah, it was.

00:20:23It was Shell, right? And that, to me, is when you say the California hydrogen highway,

00:20:27it's like, okay, great. If you live in the greater Los Angeles area.

00:20:30There's three stations.

00:20:31There's like a non-zero chance you can refill your hydrogen car.

00:20:34There are more than that, actually. I'll get into it, right? Let's just do it right now.

00:20:38I think our peak was 54 stations, right?

00:20:41I mean, that's not horrid.

00:20:43It's pretty horrid after 10 years and what was supposed to be, ultimately, in retrospect,

00:20:49a pretty small amount of money. It was 200 million bucks that was supposed to go to build

00:20:52these stations, right? And you put that in perspective with the amount of money going

00:20:56into public charging and into every other-

00:20:59High-speed rail.

00:21:02We should do a whole episode on that. So 54 stations peaked maybe, I don't know,

00:21:09year, year and a half ago. I counted yesterday, we're at 42 stations.

00:21:13We're going in the wrong direction here.

00:21:15What, what, why though? I mean, because-

00:21:17Nobody's buying them.

00:21:18Well, okay.

00:21:18It's not that at all, but-

00:21:19Yeah, I was going to say-

00:21:22We had one. We had a Mirai.

00:21:23No, no, but I just-

00:21:23I talked to Aaron Gold about charging it during the pandemic.

00:21:26Yeah, well, okay.

00:21:27I went, I went with it. It was insane.

00:21:29No, I know, but hang on.

00:21:30All right, let's get there.

00:21:31What I was going to say was, like, Hyundai with, what was it? The Nexo?

00:21:34The Nexo.

00:21:35Like, I know a strange amount of people and they told me, they're like,

00:21:39I got a Nexo. It's like 99 bucks a month or free or whatever.

00:21:42I'm like, where are you going to fill it up?

00:21:44And they're like, I'll deal with that.

00:21:45But like more than one, you know what I mean?

00:21:47Like people, they know I'm in the car biz.

00:21:49Like, what do you think?

00:21:50And I'm like, I think you're crazy.

00:21:51How are you going to put hydrogen in it?

00:21:53So look, I've been driving only fuel cell electric vehicles for 10 years in LA.

00:21:58Up until the last year or two, never had any problems fueling.

00:22:03There's a station here on 3rd and Fairfax right around the corner.

00:22:05There was one Playa Vista.

00:22:07There's Torrance.

00:22:08You know, to kind of frame this, those were the first publicly accessible stations.

00:22:13And that was a Herculean feat to build these.

00:22:16And I'll explain that in just a minute.

00:22:18Before that, there was a small network of behind the fence stations.

00:22:23It was called the Five City Stations, right?

00:22:25And that's, I remember that's when, like, I think when the Clarity came out.

00:22:29Exactly.

00:22:29We quizzed them on that.

00:22:30They're like, well, you know, for an industry in hospitals,

00:22:33they use hydrogen for different things.

00:22:34And so there's places where they fill up their tanks

00:22:36and you can fill your car up.

00:22:37Kind of, yeah, kind of.

00:22:38So yeah, they were behind the fence.

00:22:40Like one at the Santa Monica City Yard where the refuse trucks

00:22:42and the police cars and stuff go.

00:22:44One in Burbank.

00:22:45And so this was a pilot program.

00:22:49I don't know if it's CARB or AQMD.

00:22:51Somebody retrofit, like, 30 Priuses to have fuel cells.

00:22:54And they ran those as a pilot program to see what it takes to fuel them,

00:22:57how reliable they are, all this stuff.

00:22:59Collected a bunch of data.

00:23:02So now the Hydrogen Highway, these are publicly accessible stations

00:23:05and are designed to be publicly accessible stations.

00:23:09The fact of the matter is there was not a single hydrogen station in the world

00:23:14where a consumer could drive up to a pump, a dispenser,

00:23:18and swipe a credit card and buy a gaseous fuel by the kilogram.

00:23:22Much less in the United States of America.

00:23:24I mean, it's just like anti-American to have to even say the word kilogram.

00:23:28Like, what the hell are we talking about here, you know?

00:23:30But you know, in order to be able to do that,

00:23:33those things have to pass weights and measures.

00:23:35Like when you go to the grocery store and you're, you know,

00:23:37weighing your produce or whatever, and it's like,

00:23:39there's a little seal on there.

00:23:40Somebody from the government comes in and makes sure that

00:23:42if you're buying a pound or whatever, it's actually a pound, right?

00:23:45We had no way of doing that for hydrogen before.

00:23:49So in order to be able to create these dispensers

00:23:51and for consumers to be able to use them,

00:23:54we had to create a system of measuring and making sure

00:23:57you're getting the exact amount of hydrogen out of this dispenser.

00:24:01What a crazy problem, excuse me.

00:24:03Oh my gosh.

00:24:04What a crazy problem to have.

00:24:05It took us years to sort out the POS system

00:24:08to be able to swipe a credit card at one of those machines.

00:24:12That seems to be the hardest thing.

00:24:13Like somehow I can use my credit card on my phone to buy everything,

00:24:16but charging a car or getting hydrogen,

00:24:18it's credit cards don't work.

00:24:19It makes no sense, but okay.

00:24:21And then there were nozzles.

00:24:22There were hydrogen nozzles that were like handmade

00:24:24in some small Austrian facility.

00:24:27It took like six months to make one.

00:24:29They did like 20 a year.

00:24:30They cost like $30,000 or $40,000.

00:24:32And somebody drops it on the ground.

00:24:34That was it, right?

00:24:35So they worked if you were in a lab coat and very careful

00:24:39and both hands like this is the hydrogen dispenser,

00:24:41it worked every time.

00:24:42But when you let thousands of people who are on their phone

00:24:44and just go, yeah, exactly, don't really care about it,

00:24:48dropping the dispensers, you drop one of those,

00:24:50the station's down for six months

00:24:51while you're waiting for another one.

00:24:52I mean, my first experience with, or second experience,

00:24:55my first was at FC Clarity, which we never saw them refuel.

00:24:58We all noticed on the drive.

00:24:59But my second was Mercedes.

00:25:02They had the B-Class F-Cell or F-Cell B-Class or something.

00:25:05And I went on the first leg where it was driving

00:25:08around the world.

00:25:08And I drove from Stuttgart to Paris.

00:25:11And me and Michael Harley, we just fled to Idaho.

00:25:14But anyways, a fellow journalist,

00:25:16we very famously, along with the Chinese team,

00:25:18ran out of hydrogen before we got there.

00:25:20Oh, no.

00:25:20Because we were on the Autobahn, right?

00:25:21Yeah, sure, why not?

00:25:23And they were like, how is this?

00:25:26Almost had an engineer deck me.

00:25:27Because they can't charge it.

00:25:31Well, you try to explain to a French cop

00:25:34that you're out of hydrogen.

00:25:36Like, that conversation went very badly.

00:25:38But yeah, I watched these guys fill this thing up.

00:25:41And I mean, it was like eight German engineers.

00:25:46And they had to somehow, with a mobile thing,

00:25:50pressure it up to 10,000 PSI.

00:25:52Sure.

00:25:52It was gnarly.

00:25:53I was like, this is not a consumer technology.

00:25:56This is what, 05, 06, 07?

00:25:57No, this would have been 2011 or 12.

00:26:00Oh, wow.

00:26:01Yeah, something like that.

00:26:02OK, that's some years into it.

00:26:03Yeah, I mean, Schumacher and Nico Rosberg were driving F1.

00:26:08That's pretty cool.

00:26:09It was the 125th anniversary party of Mercedes-Benz.

00:26:12So it was maybe 2025.

00:26:15So it was 2010, 2010.

00:26:16OK.

00:26:16Because in 1885.

00:26:18No, it was 11 because it was 1886 was the patent.

00:26:21Oh, gotcha.

00:26:22All right.

00:26:22Well, long story short, that technology

00:26:24has come a long way with the dispensers.

00:26:26And there's more competition in the market.

00:26:28It's become more resilient.

00:26:29We've learned from countless, I wouldn't say mistakes.

00:26:33I mean, it's just trial and error

00:26:34in the beginning of taking basically a lab technology

00:26:38and introducing it to consumers that just, I think, by nature

00:26:41and aren't very respectful of the equipment

00:26:45we're using at a gas station.

00:26:46Because we haven't had to be in the past.

00:26:48Why would you be, yeah.

00:26:49So where are we now?

00:26:51OK.

00:26:51So the dispensers, the infrastructure

00:26:55at these stations, it has evolved considerably.

00:26:58It's relatively, well, I'd say it's

00:27:01very reliable, the actual tech, right?

00:27:03We've moved on from gaseous storage

00:27:05to liquid storage, which would kind of move

00:27:10a station from 200 kilograms.

00:27:12The initial station's like 180 kilograms.

00:27:14Now they're commonly 800 to 1,000 kilograms

00:27:16of hydrogen, which means you can push a lot of cars through.

00:27:19There are five minute fueling time.

00:27:22Real quick, because what goes into a tank?

00:27:25It's like five kilograms is like a full tank?

00:27:27Yeah.

00:27:27And so most people don't let it run to empty.

00:27:29So the average fill is probably around three kilograms.

00:27:32So you can do a lot with 800 to 1,000 kilograms.

00:27:34Oh, you can do a ton with it.

00:27:35It takes about five minutes to refuel.

00:27:37So if you think about it, even given

00:27:40in a conservative estimate of 10 minutes between the time

00:27:44that fuel's actually going into another person's car,

00:27:48you can get a lot of cars refueled

00:27:51in a day at one dispenser compared to one charger,

00:27:54let's say.

00:27:55And then now the newer stations have maybe

00:27:57four fueling positions.

00:27:58So you can fuel hundreds of fuel cell electric vehicles a day.

00:28:03And we will and we should get into why that's important,

00:28:06especially in a very population-dense environment

00:28:09like LA or Tokyo or something like that.

00:28:12What was with the contraction from 54 stations to 42?

00:28:16OK, let's talk about it.

00:28:17Because I think there's more hydrogen fuel cell passenger

00:28:20cars now than there were.

00:28:22So there are.

00:28:22So some of it is legacy technology.

00:28:25We had the initial stations opened in 2015.

00:28:28And I don't know what a level 2 charger looked like in 2015

00:28:32if it would still be relatively reliable.

00:28:36Well, level 3, but yeah.

00:28:37Level 3, right.

00:28:38Some of the stuff just ages out.

00:28:41There are a few things that went into it.

00:28:43The biggest problem right now is fuel supply.

00:28:48You know, hydrogen production technologies,

00:28:50that's an old technology.

00:28:52And fuel cell technology is an old technology, right?

00:28:54So we've been producing hydrogen.

00:28:56We, meaning society, at an industrial level

00:29:00for well over 100 years.

00:29:02Those systems are locked and loaded.

00:29:04They know how to do it effectively.

00:29:07Refineries rely on it every day.

00:29:08Fertilizer is, you know, hydrogen's

00:29:10a huge component of fertilizer.

00:29:12Like the things that make the world go round use hydrogen.

00:29:15And we've been doing that effectively with fossil fuels,

00:29:18which is the, you know,

00:29:19This is absolutely what color hydrogen is.

00:29:21Right, right, right.

00:29:22With fossil fuels for well over 100 years.

00:29:24So it's not a problem actually making hydrogen.

00:29:28But making, you know, decarbonized,

00:29:31renewable, zero carbon hydrogen,

00:29:33you know, we could talk about the color rainbow

00:29:35if you guys want to get into that in a little bit.

00:29:37I would love to.

00:29:38Okay, so that's like a...

00:29:39But in a little bit, in a little bit.

00:29:40Yeah, you know, relatively speaking,

00:29:42a little newer technology.

00:29:44But as much as these,

00:29:46there are hydrogen production facilities

00:29:48all around us in California,

00:29:49but they're not set up with the merchant capability

00:29:52to refuel a trailer or a truck

00:29:56that can then take hydrogen to a station

00:29:58and then refuel that station, right?

00:30:01It's just going into massive...

00:30:02It's an infrastructure, real infrastructure.

00:30:04It is, right?

00:30:05So you've got, in the complete vertical,

00:30:08you've got hydrogen production

00:30:10and then hydrogen distribution,

00:30:11which is a very different thing.

00:30:12Getting it from the production facility

00:30:14to the station itself,

00:30:16and then you have the stations.

00:30:18So like for a refinery,

00:30:20an oil refinery, you know,

00:30:21that uses a lot of hydrogen,

00:30:22how is that transported from the production facility?

00:30:26A lot of it's produced at the refinery.

00:30:29So a lot of the refineries have, and...

00:30:31Okay, that makes sense.

00:30:32Yeah, and they typically,

00:30:34even though they have production on site

00:30:36at the refineries, can't produce enough.

00:30:38They use a lot of hydrogen.

00:30:40It scrubs the impurities out of oil.

00:30:42And as you refine gasoline into, you know,

00:30:45more and more pure product,

00:30:46it takes more hydrogen to do that.

00:30:48So a lot of them are on a pipeline right now,

00:30:50just to simplify it.

00:30:51So it's a pipeline from the production facility

00:30:53to the refinery.

00:30:54Right.

00:30:55So Johnny asked 54 to 42,

00:30:58and you said distribution infrastructure,

00:31:01but can we talk about the giant,

00:31:02enormous hydrogen-shaped elephant in the room?

00:31:04Which is, all these problems would be solved

00:31:06if there was actual demand for hydrogen cars.

00:31:08Is that accurate?

00:31:09Nobody...

00:31:11No one's that interested in hydrogen cars.

00:31:13It's not.

00:31:14Frankly, we're having to dial back

00:31:17allocations of fuel cell electric vehicles

00:31:20in California.

00:31:22More people want to buy them

00:31:23than we can now let buy them

00:31:25because the stations...

00:31:27And I say the stations aren't reliable enough.

00:31:29It's not the station itself.

00:31:31There are a lot of things that go into that,

00:31:33but the customers can't rely

00:31:35on being able to fuel those vehicles.

00:31:37The vehicles are great.

00:31:39There's demand for the vehicles.

00:31:41And look, when I say demand,

00:31:42we're talking production volumes

00:31:44of maybe 3,000 units a year per OEM.

00:31:47We're not talking 50 or 100,000 units.

00:31:49But of those 3,000 units,

00:31:51people want to buy them.

00:31:52They're also, as are battery electric vehicles,

00:31:56heavily subsidized in different ways.

00:31:57So there are incentives

00:31:58that make people want to buy them.

00:32:00But frankly, I've got to say,

00:32:04I drive a Mirai.

00:32:05It's a great car.

00:32:06I love the car.

00:32:07So I don't really feel like I'm compromising

00:32:10on the vehicle experience.

00:32:12It's really the fueling experience.

00:32:14But let's dive into that question.

00:32:15Why are we going backwards

00:32:17in the number of stations?

00:32:20Essentially, the organization I run

00:32:23worked with a lot of other people

00:32:25to create legislation that allocated,

00:32:27by law, taxpayer money to build hydrogen stations.

00:32:31And then the same bills initially actually

00:32:33went to five different alternative fuel categories.

00:32:36So hydrogen, battery electric vehicles.

00:32:38There's probably natural gas at the time.

00:32:40This goes way back, right?

00:32:42Maybe propane.

00:32:43I'm forgetting.

00:32:44Remember, there was all kinds of

00:32:48police-adjacent vehicles

00:32:49that ran around on propane.

00:32:50Yeah, yeah, sure.

00:32:51So there were five categories of alternative fuels

00:32:55that each got a $200 million allocation

00:32:57over a 10-year time period.

00:33:00Biofuels, wow.

00:33:01Yeah, yeah, right?

00:33:03By the state government.

00:33:04And so that was to be distributed

00:33:07by the California Energy Commission.

00:33:09And to be quite candid,

00:33:12of that 10-year time period,

00:33:14the Energy Commission took a five-year,

00:33:16four-and-a-half-year hiatus

00:33:17in even distributing that money

00:33:20towards hydrogen stations.

00:33:21So ultimately, shocker here,

00:33:24the government didn't really uphold the commitment

00:33:26that they made while the auto OEMs were,

00:33:28and it left the customers in the lurch.

00:33:30And it's really tarnished this whole concept

00:33:33of whether fuel cell electric vehicles

00:33:35are a viable part of a zero-carbon.

00:33:37What was the reason for the pause?

00:33:39I'm trying to think,

00:33:40going from the Brown to Newsom,

00:33:42it's not a huge...

00:33:43Even Schwarzenegger, Brown, Newsom,

00:33:45it's not a huge change in priorities

00:33:48in terms of the environment, right?

00:33:50Yeah, no, not at all.

00:33:51Not at all from the top, from leadership.

00:33:55But again, this is where kind of...

00:33:58I just want to be blunt with you guys

00:34:00and say the stuff that people

00:34:01aren't really talking about.

00:34:04There are a couple of people

00:34:05at the Energy Commission

00:34:05that just didn't like hydrogen,

00:34:07just didn't feel like they wanted

00:34:09to support that technology.

00:34:10Big oil patrons.

00:34:13Look, you can make a lot of arguments

00:34:15that like, well, these fueling problems

00:34:17can be solved, but with an EV

00:34:18because you just plug it in

00:34:19when you're at your house.

00:34:20It's a simple way of looking at it,

00:34:21but yeah, that's kind of...

00:34:24Do you drive anything else?

00:34:26You mentioned that you've...

00:34:27You said something about the cars you drive,

00:34:29and up until recently, it sounds like you may...

00:34:31Are you now driving an EV

00:34:33or are you still...

00:34:34No, fuel cell electric vehicles, 10 years.

00:34:36You're fuel cell all the way.

00:34:37Solid 10 years.

00:34:38How many do you have at the moment?

00:34:39Two, actually.

00:34:40Oh, only two.

00:34:40Yeah, two.

00:34:42But I still struggle with the volume.

00:34:45So all of this, all of your career

00:34:47is now doing this 20 years,

00:34:49and at least 15, what are we doing?

00:34:5310 of it, a solid 10 of that

00:34:55has been during the rise

00:34:57of Tesla primarily in California

00:34:59and the EV starting to really take over.

00:35:02And if you're in the hydrogen lane,

00:35:04you're just...

00:35:05EV just blew by you.

00:35:07And you're talking about 54 stations,

00:35:09but you can drive to Vegas

00:35:11and we can go to a couple of Tesla ones.

00:35:13Baker has 88 Tesla chargers

00:35:15plus 12 Electrify America chargers

00:35:18in the same parking lot.

00:35:18Yeah, that's great.

00:35:19Yeah, and it's like...

00:35:22I struggle with that there is...

00:35:24I get that...

00:35:26This is fascinating, by the way,

00:35:26just I'm not trying to totally repeat,

00:35:28but it's fascinating that there are...

00:35:30You claim there's enough demand,

00:35:32and demand is being held back

00:35:34by forces that say,

00:35:35well, you can't have them

00:35:36because there's not enough chargers.

00:35:37By the egg, not the chicken.

00:35:38Yeah, that's so weird.

00:35:41That's strange to me,

00:35:43but also it does seem to still indicate

00:35:45that outside of a very small slice

00:35:49of hydrogen enthusiasts

00:35:51or these people who really love this

00:35:54versus battery electric,

00:35:56that there's no demand for hydrogen vehicles.

00:35:59At scale, right?

00:36:01Is that a fair assessment or still poor?

00:36:03There would be more

00:36:04if you had more infrastructure.

00:36:06It's accurate.

00:36:07It's not necessarily fair,

00:36:08but it's accurate, right?

00:36:10Not fair in the way that you're saying,

00:36:12it's just fair in how it's broken down.

00:36:15So let's break that down, right?

00:36:19Americans, for some reason,

00:36:21we want to pick a winner, right?

00:36:22We want to pick,

00:36:23is it going to be VHS or Betamax, right?

00:36:25Is it going to be black or white or whatever?

00:36:28We just want to pick one thing, right?

00:36:31Rarely is there a conversation where we're like,

00:36:33you can either have wind or you can have solar,

00:36:36but you can't have both, right?

00:36:39It doesn't really make sense.

00:36:40They're complementary technologies.

00:36:41And when it comes to transportation,

00:36:43there are exactly two

00:36:45zero emission technologies out there.

00:36:47There's battery electric vehicles

00:36:48and fuel cell electric vehicles.

00:36:50They're all EVs, right?

00:36:51It's just a question of,

00:36:52are you pulling the electricity off the grid?

00:36:54Are you making it in real time on the car,

00:36:56which allows you to refuel it faster?

00:36:58And let's jump into that.

00:37:00So we're in a state with 40 million people

00:37:02and we have about 40 million cars, roughly.

00:37:06That number has actually come down since then,

00:37:07but since my antiquated numbers here.

00:37:12About half of the people in California

00:37:14live in multifamily housing, right?

00:37:15So right off the bat,

00:37:16you've got about half the population

00:37:18that doesn't have their own garage,

00:37:21a dedicated parking spot,

00:37:24even a place where they know their car

00:37:26will be every night, right?

00:37:27Yep, yep.

00:37:28We talk about this very frequently on this podcast.

00:37:30Okay, great, great.

00:37:31So I'm preaching the choir here a little bit, right?

00:37:34So you take Park La Brea,

00:37:3610,000 people in one housing development,

00:37:38or you take Baldwin Village, the old jungles, right?

00:37:41Maybe 4,000 people,

00:37:43it's tough to get an accurate number on that.

00:37:46Park La Brea is a solid 10,000 people, right?

00:37:50Do you think you could put 10,000 chargers up

00:37:52at Park La Brea?

00:37:54Maybe eventually.

00:37:55I don't know if there's even room

00:37:56to park 10,000 cars in Park La Brea,

00:37:58but when you've got dense, urban, multifamily housing,

00:38:05charging or access to charging,

00:38:07access to the infrastructure to charge,

00:38:08there are some challenges there.

00:38:10I'm not saying it's either or, it's impossible.

00:38:11I would say you totally could do level two.

00:38:14However, the, I don't wanna say it's not political,

00:38:17well, the will of the landlords to do anything

00:38:20to cut into their profit margin is zero.

00:38:23They're not, landlords are not putting in chargers, yeah.

00:38:26But let's talk about the consumers now,

00:38:29those vehicles, right?

00:38:31The folks that are making the decisions,

00:38:33probably in Sacramento,

00:38:35have never been to a development like Park La Brea

00:38:37or Baldwin Village or...

00:38:42Yes, the problem with representative democracy is...

00:38:45So they've probably never been there.

00:38:46They probably don't consider the fact

00:38:48that maybe a lot of people in Baldwin Village

00:38:51are working two jobs a day,

00:38:52taking two kids to school and back to school.

00:38:55And I know you've got kids, I don't know if you do,

00:38:58but can you take an hour out of your day

00:39:02in between picking up the kids,

00:39:04trying to get to your next job

00:39:06and sit still at a charging unit for an hour

00:39:09or however long it takes, right?

00:39:10Even 30 minutes, right?

00:39:12Enough time, you have 30 minutes to burn.

00:39:16At face value, that's not,

00:39:18it doesn't seem like that's too much to ask

00:39:20of the population in general,

00:39:22but there are a lot of people

00:39:23that I think that's too much to ask, right?

00:39:25Oh, and look, you know this.

00:39:27If you have a kid, I mean, like yesterday was like,

00:39:29you know, we had to go from like

00:39:31the Natural History Museum to basketball practice

00:39:34and it was like hours of misery involved in that.

00:39:36Yeah, okay, but so you're...

00:39:38Totally makes sense.

00:39:39You're laying the foundation

00:39:40between multifamily dwellings,

00:39:42the lack of home charging available,

00:39:44and then people don't have the time

00:39:45to sit around and charge.

00:39:46This is, these are all very common arguments

00:39:48that the ICE, the petrol-loving community makes

00:39:52about why battery electric don't work for me,

00:39:56which would support hydrogen.

00:39:58And hey, you got a thing that you just said

00:40:00it can charge in five, it can refill in five minutes,

00:40:02but then it hasn't been successful, right?

00:40:04The adoption hasn't been there, right?

00:40:06So keep going, but like why...

00:40:10We get the arguments against battery electrics,

00:40:13but again, you know,

00:40:14the price per kilowatt hour is coming down,

00:40:16recharge times are coming down,

00:40:19ranges are going up.

00:40:21I'm not arguing necessarily,

00:40:23because I like, look, I agree,

00:40:24they're both electric vehicles

00:40:25and they're, I love that hydrogen's net product is water

00:40:29and all the great stuff,

00:40:30but it's also, why isn't it here yet?

00:40:33Like what's going on?

00:40:33Yeah, right.

00:40:34So why, and do you think there's a future

00:40:36to hydrogen vehicles?

00:40:38Okay, so let's just knock these out in order, right?

00:40:41So, and I want to preface this by saying,

00:40:43like I, by no means am I anti-Bab,

00:40:45I honestly, I applaud the movement.

00:40:47I think it's awesome, right?

00:40:48I'm, you know, at heart a car guy,

00:40:49I think relatively speaking to what you guys do,

00:40:52it's, you know, lower end of the car guy.

00:40:54We're going to talk about you in a second.

00:40:55But yeah, we can talk about cars.

00:40:57Look, I mean, I don't know how this orthodoxy started,

00:41:00but there's, I've noticed it

00:41:01since doing this podcast now for three seasons

00:41:03that like, if you even say you like an electric vehicle,

00:41:06like you're not a car guy,

00:41:07car guys hate you.

00:41:08And it's like, all I want in life is a GTR and a GT3,

00:41:12you know, but yeah, it's totally crazy.

00:41:15How you can't have both, but please.

00:41:17So yeah, I want to say that I, you know, by no means,

00:41:20am I even suggesting that like it should,

00:41:22we shouldn't have Babs and, you know,

00:41:24we should only have fuel cell electric vehicles.

00:41:25I, you know, frankly, I think we need

00:41:28all of the above for Americans and candidly,

00:41:32beyond the drive train or the emissions of the vehicle

00:41:35until we being, you know, the environmental community,

00:41:39the all fuels community, whatever you want to call it.

00:41:41And until we can give people what they want to drive,

00:41:43the type of car they want to drive,

00:41:45none of them are going to be successful.

00:41:46So, you know, we're getting there with pickup trucks

00:41:48for on the Babs side and that's a huge step

00:41:50in the right direction, a huge step.

00:41:52And frankly, I really feel like they should have started

00:41:55with pickups and SUVs for hydrogen.

00:41:56I would say hydrogen towing would have been

00:41:58the smartest thing you could do.

00:42:00It's like, hey man, you have two tanks,

00:42:02you can tow a thousand miles clean.

00:42:04Like, you know, who doesn't want that?

00:42:06You know, and then you get no gears,

00:42:08you get electric towing, which is just awesome.

00:42:11Torque, torque, torque, torque, torque.

00:42:12So, you know, we might've missed the mark

00:42:14in just coming out with just passenger vehicles, sedans.

00:42:19But, you know, the fundamentals of those cars,

00:42:21you got a five minute refueling time for a 400 mile range

00:42:25and those cars can scale up

00:42:26without really compromising necessarily the range

00:42:29because the larger the vehicle,

00:42:30you can put some more fuel on board.

00:42:31Absolutely.

00:42:32You know, look, we have, I saw yesterday

00:42:36Fuel Cell, Toyota, Tacoma,

00:42:39you know, they have Tundra,

00:42:41they're not for sale, but they've got them.

00:42:44They just haven't started developing them

00:42:46for the consumer market.

00:42:48That's what I'm saying is like, you know,

00:42:50Tacoma's nice, but like, there should be like, you know,

00:42:52like Ford GM and Ram should be doing

00:42:55like heavy duty tow units with 20,

00:42:58you can put 20 kilograms of hydrogen on board

00:43:00and tow for, you know, 1,600 miles without refueling.

00:43:03Well, that's where we're going with heavy duty trucking.

00:43:06Yeah.

00:43:06And I do a lot of work around heavy duty trucking.

00:43:08We should get to thumb mark that

00:43:10because we should get to.

00:43:11Okay. Yeah. I think we will.

00:43:12And you look, and a lot of folks in the government

00:43:16are now saying, okay, well, I think hydrogen makes sense

00:43:19for the commercial market for trucking.

00:43:21I work right now on a lot of port applications,

00:43:24good movement application.

00:43:25I think it's cool.

00:43:25I actually love that space of the market.

00:43:27If we have time, I'd love to talk about it.

00:43:28Yeah, no, we do have time.

00:43:31But, you know, for passenger vehicles,

00:43:35I think if we can just give people this option

00:43:37of being able to drive an electric vehicle

00:43:39that you can refuel in five minutes

00:43:41and, you know, drive as big as you want a vehicle

00:43:44all the way up to an 18 wheeler at this point.

00:43:46Obviously like consumers aren't driving 18 wheelers,

00:43:48but the flexibility is there with the technology.

00:43:52The fuel cell technology,

00:43:53I talked about the hydrogen production technology.

00:43:54I wanted to get to the fuel cell technology itself.

00:43:57That's been around and heavily used

00:43:59since the space program in the fifties.

00:44:01Right.

00:44:02We've got, you know, fuel cells in all our spacecraft.

00:44:04People's lives depend on that technology

00:44:07and submarines as well.

00:44:08Super mature.

00:44:09Electrolyzers, right.

00:44:10So, you know, there's not really a technological hurdle

00:44:15right now to get through to make that technology work.

00:44:19It's the system.

00:44:20It's the vertical system of hydrogen production,

00:44:24distribution, then stations

00:44:28that has some flaws in it right now.

00:44:30Is this a U.S. problem

00:44:32with our kind of lagging infrastructure?

00:44:34Like I know, like I talked to BMW often

00:44:36and they're, you know, they're really pro hydrogen

00:44:38because Germany has this problem

00:44:39where they produce so much green energy,

00:44:42they don't know what to do with it.

00:44:44And they're like pissing away,

00:44:46you know, 5.2 megawatts a day during the summer.

00:44:49Oh, turn it into green hydrogen.

00:44:51We'll get to the rainbow in a second.

00:44:53And, and so like, and, you know,

00:44:55Germans love infrastructure

00:44:56and they will build hydrogen stations

00:44:58just like they're building, you know, EV chargers.

00:45:02Is this an American problem?

00:45:05You know, I mean, to build on that-

00:45:06Or do you know?

00:45:07Well, I do know there are,

00:45:09there are over a hundred hydrogen fueling stations

00:45:10in Germany, right?

00:45:12So 54 in California.

00:45:13Just over a hundred hydrogen cars in Germany, unfortunately,

00:45:16because they don't want to subsidize the cars.

00:45:18They're not putting the huge subsidies on the hood

00:45:21that it takes to get consumers to buy them.

00:45:22So, you know, you can drive a fuel cell vehicle,

00:45:25probably, you know, more effectively,

00:45:27more carefree in Germany than you can here.

00:45:30But there are only a few hundred people,

00:45:32maybe that are, are, are springing,

00:45:34you know, for the cost of one.

00:45:36I drove the hydrogen X5 and it's like, it's great.

00:45:38Like, wow, this is brilliant.

00:45:41How do you feel about those subsidies though?

00:45:43Like a big criticism that we get about EVs

00:45:46and like our apparent fervor for them is that,

00:45:49well, nobody actually wants them

00:45:50because it's just the government,

00:45:52A, the government's mandating them,

00:45:53which is, you know, not really accurate,

00:45:55but also nobody would buy them

00:45:57if it wasn't for the $7,500, you know, tax credit.

00:46:00I know, we're about to find out.

00:46:01Yeah. I mean, do you, is it, is that-

00:46:03We're about to find out a lot of things.

00:46:04Are those fair statements?

00:46:05Should we be more like Germany?

00:46:06Where are they?

00:46:07We can lead on the tech.

00:46:08We can build the stuff,

00:46:09but don't let the market decide what they want.

00:46:12Like- Well, you know, candidly, I'm,

00:46:15I'm not a big government guy in terms of, you know,

00:46:18saying the government should,

00:46:19should have their hands in all of this.

00:46:21But I do feel like the role of the, of the government is to,

00:46:25is to really set a goal, set a mark,

00:46:27and then let the market compete to develop the tech

00:46:31or whatever it takes to reach that mark.

00:46:34And to be very specific about that,

00:46:36I think if it's in the context of environmental goals,

00:46:38the government should set a mark and say,

00:46:40hey, we want zero emission vehicles, right?

00:46:43And I need, I need to always, when this comes up,

00:46:45pop in and say, you know,

00:46:46it's not like oil isn't subsidized by the government.

00:46:49Like, you know- Very strong point.

00:46:50The first 25% of any energy producer's profits

00:46:53are tax-free, you know, it's super subsidized,

00:46:56way more than EVs are, way more, you know.

00:46:58Absolutely, you know.

00:46:59So let's, let's, let's always mention that.

00:47:01Fair enough, yeah, that, I mean, that, that runs deep.

00:47:04Those subsidies run very deep for, you know,

00:47:06probably well over a hundred years as well.

00:47:07We all should have started oil companies, like-

00:47:09Yeah, I know, I was thinking about that.

00:47:10Tax-free profit.

00:47:11Watching Landman, I'm like, after the bank.

00:47:13Don't watch Landman.

00:47:15Talk about that later.

00:47:16You know, look, and I'm not even,

00:47:19this is weird to say as a, as an environment,

00:47:22I'm not even like anti-oil at this point,

00:47:24because I feel like until we can compete,

00:47:26like, I can't just blame it on them.

00:47:28We've developed this dependency.

00:47:30The people, the government, like, this is,

00:47:32this runs a lot deeper than one evil company

00:47:34or 10 evil companies that are selling something

00:47:37that's bad for us, right?

00:47:38So I'm not going to demonize those guys.

00:47:40And in fact, some of them really have the capacity

00:47:43and a few of them have the will

00:47:45to be a part of this transition.

00:47:46They see the writing on the wall,

00:47:47maybe 20, 30 years down the road, you know?

00:47:50Yeah, I mean, look, I'll demonize them always for,

00:47:53you know, doing the studies in the 70s that said,

00:47:55hey, you know, the stuff that we're burning

00:47:57to make profits is like, it's warming the planet.

00:47:59Bury that, you know?

00:48:00Right, you know, but are they, you know,

00:48:02are they like, okay, well, let's just close up shop right now.

00:48:06I get it, right?

00:48:07No, but you're 100% right.

00:48:08Like, our way of life is oil dependent, you know, largely.

00:48:12But then again, also, you know, we had a hurricane

00:48:14wipe out Asheville, North Carolina, you know,

00:48:17and you're from the South and you know how weird that is.

00:48:19And, you know, we just had the most destructive fires

00:48:22in the history of California,

00:48:24coming off the hottest recorded ocean temperatures,

00:48:26coming off, you know, we're 500% below normal rainfall

00:48:29in Southern California, coming off the hottest year

00:48:32in recorded history.

00:48:33Like, government better get involved.

00:48:35Like, what else do they do?

00:48:36Yeah, that's a great point.

00:48:37So look, at the heart of this conversation

00:48:39and where I enter the hydrogen conversation,

00:48:42I'm an Enviro, right?

00:48:43Like, that's it.

00:48:45It's not because I'm a car guy.

00:48:46It's not because I believe in hydrogen necessarily

00:48:49ahead of any other technology.

00:48:51You know, I'm an Enviro and I think that there are some

00:48:55really cool and elegant solutions

00:48:57where we can kind of have our cake and eat it too.

00:48:59I think we can do this and build super cool cars and trucks

00:49:03or whatever it may be that just, you know,

00:49:05don't cause the worst fires in the history of mankind.

00:49:10I want to pause here because I was going to ask you

00:49:12this at some point, but you just opened the door

00:49:14with the I'm an Enviro statement.

00:49:16Where does that come from?

00:49:17Because for those who are listening,

00:49:19and correct me if I'm wrong, Johnny,

00:49:21this gentleman, first of all,

00:49:22he's wearing some kind of like cool,

00:49:24like it looks like East German camouflage shirt

00:49:27and he's got the black, looks like a thermal

00:49:29and he's got a cool Rolex on.

00:49:31And so it's got some, he's the clean cut dude.

00:49:33He looks like, you know, in Patriot games,

00:49:35the old, the Harrison Ford one.

00:49:37He looks like he's on the bad guys.

00:49:39He's literally-

00:49:40I'll take that.

00:49:41Those guys were kind of cool.

00:49:42Yeah.

00:49:42They were Irish, I believe.

00:49:43I don't know.

00:49:44Yes, exactly.

00:49:45But when they were doing the training stuff.

00:49:46Yeah, right.

00:49:47He's the Jewish branch of Sinn Fein.

00:49:48Yeah, there you go.

00:49:49They weren't just doing the monkey bars.

00:49:51Right.

00:49:52So you are not just, you're not the hippy dippy.

00:49:57It's not, we don't have Greta Thunberg here.

00:49:59Like, where does this love, where does the enviro come from?

00:50:02And then how does it lead you to energy independence?

00:50:06Now, EIN, EINow.org and Drive, is it DriveH2.org?

00:50:10DriveH2.org and EIN is what we go by,

00:50:13but it's EINow.org.

00:50:13How does it lead you there?

00:50:16Like-

00:50:16All right, let's get into it.

00:50:17Origin story.

00:50:18I'll qualify that with two statements

00:50:21before we go way back to the early days.

00:50:24So first of all, my wife dresses me,

00:50:26so I've got to give her credit.

00:50:27You know, I have to get management approval

00:50:30before I walk out of the house.

00:50:31Yeah.

00:50:31So, you know, I got to give Erica credit for that.

00:50:35And, you know, I'm glad you brought up the term orthodoxy,

00:50:38right, when you were talking about this,

00:50:40like in car culture, when it comes to beds.

00:50:42But in the environmental community,

00:50:44there's this hardcore orthodoxy, man.

00:50:47When we talk about, obviously in California,

00:50:50you know, we talk about politics a lot,

00:50:52and I'm not really going to get into that aspect,

00:50:54but we talk about how, like, the political parties

00:50:57are moving so far, you know, to the extremes, right?

00:51:00Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:51:00Radicalizing.

00:51:01The environmental movement,

00:51:02and there have always been radical aspects

00:51:04of the environmental movement.

00:51:05You know, I've lived in Colorado

00:51:06when they were burning down, you know-

00:51:08Hummer dealers.

00:51:09Yeah, crazy stuff, right?

00:51:10Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:51:10But the environmental community has moved so far,

00:51:14it's become such an orthodox movement

00:51:16that it's almost counterproductive.

00:51:18We can't even get out of our own way

00:51:20because we can't agree on just basic principles

00:51:24of, you know, trying to commercialize new technologies.

00:51:27And this is where, you know,

00:51:29I feel like I'm kind of putting my own touch

00:51:31on the organization that I run

00:51:33and whatever impact I can have as an environment,

00:51:36because we've got to be practical about it.

00:51:38And I feel, gosh, man, you know,

00:51:41a little disillusioned with the environmental community

00:51:44in California.

00:51:45I feel like, man, we have caused,

00:51:48we have put a lot of hurdles up,

00:51:51a lot of obstacles to, you know,

00:51:55actually accomplishing what we're trying to accomplish

00:51:57because the environmental community is saying,

00:52:00hey, in order for us to start,

00:52:02in order for us to just hit, you know, whatever,

00:52:04the starting gun, whatever, on the starting line,

00:52:06it has to be 100%, right?

00:52:08They're certainly saying that in the context of hydrogen.

00:52:13That's been, you know, an age-old issue

00:52:16that we're dealing with in the hydrogen community.

00:52:18We'll get into the hydrogen colors there

00:52:20if you want to a little later,

00:52:21but they're basically saying,

00:52:23I say they, we, I don't know, I'm not,

00:52:25but it's like my community, right?

00:52:27They're saying in order for us to accept hydrogen

00:52:30as a transportation fuel,

00:52:31it has to be a 100% renewable from day one.

00:52:34So we just had this whole, you know,

00:52:36issue trying to get tax credits approved,

00:52:39you know, before the administration change.

00:52:41And there's like the, you know,

00:52:42three pillars that we can get into

00:52:43and when we go into the colors and stuff,

00:52:45but the environmental community will not accept

00:52:48anything less than 100% renewable,

00:52:51100% decarbonized or whatever.

00:52:53Green or white or whatever.

00:52:55Whereas, you know, never has one of them said,

00:52:58hey, you can't drive a battery electric vehicle

00:53:00until our grid is 100% renewable,

00:53:02until the grid is 100% wind and solar.

00:53:04There's gotta be a glide path

00:53:06to commercializing this technology.

00:53:08And there's a double standard in my own community

00:53:11between accepting that for battery electric vehicles

00:53:14and for fuel cell electric vehicles.

00:53:15Are we, is that just a fight against human nature?

00:53:18And an example, and I've been thinking about this,

00:53:22you know, I've been doing the car thing professionally

00:53:24for two decades, right?

00:53:25And I remember when I first got into it,

00:53:27a friend of mine was a top fuel guy,

00:53:29top fuel mechanic.

00:53:30And he took me to a drag race.

00:53:32And, you know, it's all top fuel stuff.

00:53:34Everyone there is driving the kind of cars

00:53:37you would expect to see in a drag race.

00:53:38And somebody brought a VW Bug.

00:53:41It was a dragster Bug.

00:53:42And we're standing there and me and him

00:53:44were talking to another guy.

00:53:45And the guy looks at us, he's like, import.

00:53:48And I'm like, what year were you born?

00:53:50And he was like, you know, 1972 or whatever.

00:53:53And I ran over to the Bug.

00:53:54I'm like, what year is this?

00:53:55He's like, oh, it's a 63.

00:53:56And I'm like, this car has been in America

00:53:58eight years longer than you, whatever the math was.

00:54:00Like, you know, and it's like,

00:54:02I see this in the car community where I love low riders,

00:54:04but like, you know, how can you like low riders

00:54:07in supercars, like really be authentic about it?

00:54:10You can't.

00:54:11And like, is it just human nature to like,

00:54:14do like, it has to be 100%.

00:54:16You can't, you can't.

00:54:17All right, well, we'll burn a little natural gas

00:54:19to make hydrogen.

00:54:20Like, no, you can't do that.

00:54:21Is it like?

00:54:22You know, it might be the very first step in human nature.

00:54:26But I think, you know, I think a lot of people,

00:54:30maybe a lot of other cultures might start asking questions

00:54:34before issuing opinions.

00:54:35Like, well, what does it take to go to 100%

00:54:37or what does it, what does that mean?

00:54:38Right?

00:54:39You know, I had a economics professor one time tell me,

00:54:45it was just kind of a small comment on his part,

00:54:47but basically the answer to almost every major question,

00:54:51you know, that we're going to talk about in this class

00:54:53is it depends, right?

00:54:55There's never like a yes, no,

00:54:56there's never really a black, white, it depends.

00:54:59And I think, you know, naturally the older we get,

00:55:02the more we realize that life is lived in this gray area

00:55:05and that it's, you know, yeah, we might want to say,

00:55:07okay, well, VHS was better than Betamax technology.

00:55:09Well, you know, you live a little bit,

00:55:10you realize, well, maybe Betamax actually was more efficient

00:55:13and there were some weird reasons.

00:55:15It was cheaper for porn producers to put on VHS

00:55:17and that's who was renting the most videotapes.

00:55:19Yeah.

00:55:19Right.

00:55:20So yeah, it might be a little human nature in there,

00:55:22but you know, we can get into that.

00:55:24I do want to answer your question.

00:55:25I don't know how far back you want me to go.

00:55:28I always think of that line in the jerk when he says,

00:55:30I was born a poor black child, we're all Mississippi.

00:55:32I don't know if you guys, you know, I'm dating myself.

00:55:35You were born a Jewish child in Alabama, right?

00:55:37I was.

00:55:37So that's similar.

00:55:39Born and raised in Florence, Alabama.

00:55:41There certainly weren't a lot of Goldsteins there.

00:55:44A lot of people haven't heard of Florence,

00:55:46but we have a sister city, Muscle Shoals, Alabama,

00:55:49which a lot of people have heard of

00:55:50because of the music industry.

00:55:51Yes, Lynyrd Skynyrd, yeah.

00:55:53Yeah, it's a really cool little nook in this country.

00:55:56And my family's not from there.

00:56:00My mom's from the Bronx.

00:56:01They did the Jewish Trail of Tears to Miami in the 50s,

00:56:04cool stories there.

00:56:06My dad grew up in Virginia

00:56:07and essentially was playing college football

00:56:11at the University of Virginia and failed out.

00:56:12And when he was in school,

00:56:14his parents had randomly moved to Alabama

00:56:15and he didn't have anywhere to go.

00:56:16So he had to go to Alabama and stay with his parents

00:56:19until he could get back into school.

00:56:22My mom and dad met in 1963 at the University of Alabama,

00:56:27the fall after Kennedy had to call in the National Guard

00:56:31to integrate the school.

00:56:32Right.

00:56:32No idea what they were thinking.

00:56:34I like to think they wanted to be part of the solution

00:56:37down there and part of it,

00:56:38but I don't think that's the case.

00:56:40I think it's just dumb luck they ended up in Alabama

00:56:42and here I am, right?

00:56:44So they made an agreement, they'd go wherever.

00:56:48One of them got a first job.

00:56:49My mom was a professor at a University of North Alabama.

00:56:53So they moved there and I was born and raised

00:56:57in Florence, Alabama.

00:56:58But I bring up this university aspect

00:57:00because the fact that it's a university town,

00:57:02even though it's a small rural community,

00:57:04there's a lot of cultural stimulation there.

00:57:06And with the music industry as well,

00:57:08there's a lot of cultural stimulation there.

00:57:10And so it's an interesting little nook.

00:57:12I never really felt comfortable or at home there

00:57:14and I got out when I could,

00:57:16but I've got a lot of respect for the community.

00:57:17It's where my parents still live.

00:57:18And Alabama's beautiful.

00:57:19Oh yeah, it's amazing, right?

00:57:20So I grew up doing a lot of Boy Scout stuff,

00:57:24a lot of, I grew up, the house I lived in until we were 15,

00:57:29we were out in the woods, man.

00:57:30I was every day after school,

00:57:31get out of the house until it's dark,

00:57:33go run around in the woods.

00:57:34And just like grew up doing outdoor stuff my whole life

00:57:39and just had like a really strong pull in that direction.

00:57:43And frankly, where the car culture aspect of this comes in,

00:57:46I'm a truck guy.

00:57:47I've always been a truck guy.

00:57:50My first car was a hand-me-down,

00:57:54like third generation Honda Prelude

00:57:56that wasn't like, I didn't identify with the car,

00:57:59but it was-

00:58:00What, third gen would be like 90?

00:58:02No, I was the third person in my family to own that car.

00:58:04Oh, oh, oh, what year Prelude?

00:58:06Yeah, you know, I was trying to think about that.

00:58:08The pop-up headlights?

00:58:11I believe so.

00:58:12I think it was a 1988.

00:58:14Yes.

00:58:14Oh, that's I think second gen, I think.

00:58:18Yeah, so in terms of the Prelude,

00:58:20yeah, so there was one before that,

00:58:21so my sister had that original Prelude.

00:58:24My friend had an 82 Prelude, what a car.

00:58:25So I got this like, you know,

00:58:26this Prelude that had belonged to two or three other people

00:58:30in my family.

00:58:30And when I finally turned 16, my dad was like,

00:58:35look, you know, if you're going to have a car,

00:58:37you got to do something.

00:58:38You can't just like lay around the house

00:58:40in the summers or whatever.

00:58:41Obviously, I had to go to school.

00:58:42He's like, you got to go to work.

00:58:44I don't care what you do, you got to go to work.

00:58:46And so, and he made a deal with me.

00:58:49He said, look, whatever money you earn from work,

00:58:52he's like, you're going to put it away

00:58:54and I'll pay for your beer money or McDonald's money

00:58:57or whatever it is, but let's do this together.

00:58:59And he's like, you know, what kind of stuff do you want to do?

00:59:02And so ultimately, I ended up building

00:59:04like a lawn care and landscaping business

00:59:06and buying what was my first vehicle

00:59:10was a Nissan hard body pickup truck.

00:59:12Nice.

00:59:13You know, you got this, you know,

00:59:14Jewish kid in Florence, Alabama

00:59:16driving a Nissan hard body pickup

00:59:18with a roll bar and the lights and all that, you know.

00:59:21Yeah, I loved that truck actually.

00:59:22And I, you know, ran this like lawn care.

00:59:24We were cutting lawns after school

00:59:26and in the summer and drinking beer.

00:59:28And yeah, it was great.

00:59:29It was great.

00:59:29But, you know, I really identified as a truck guy.

00:59:34At the same time, you know, I mentioned my family

00:59:36was all down in Miami.

00:59:37So I would go down to Miami and I'd see like real car,

00:59:40like it's exotic.

00:59:40Yeah, great car scene.

00:59:42Oh my God, it was great car scene.

00:59:42Better than ever currently, but yeah.

00:59:44Yeah, and there was this one dealership there, man.

00:59:46It was something important.

00:59:48Prestige Imports.

00:59:48Prestige Imports, I knew you would know this, right?

00:59:50I've been many times.

00:59:52In fact, if you go there,

00:59:52there's like YouTube videos of me on loop.

00:59:55Oh, that's cool.

00:59:55It's pretty wild, yeah.

00:59:56So I remember, you know, my grandfather would take me there

00:59:58and we'd walk around.

00:59:59I'd just look at these cars.

01:00:00I'm like, holy, these cars are really cool.

01:00:02I remember seeing the Lambo LM002 there.

01:00:04And I'm like, this is where exotic cars meet trucks,

01:00:07you know, and I just like.

01:00:08That's what it's all about.

01:00:09But like those cars never really,

01:00:12like I appreciate them as an art form,

01:00:14but they never really spoke to me as like, you know,

01:00:17what I'm comfortable driving.

01:00:18In car culture where I grew up,

01:00:21I just didn't identify with it.

01:00:22You know, we can go into that time period of car culture

01:00:25and car stereos and all this, you know,

01:00:27leading up to the SEMA age and stuff like that.

01:00:30But I was just always more comfortable in trucks.

01:00:32I wanted to be able to, you know, camp in my car,

01:00:34sleep in my car, whatever it may be.

01:00:36And this, you know, kind of tying these two things together

01:00:39when I said earlier that I think if zero emission vehicles

01:00:42are going to be successful,

01:00:43we've got to give people what they want to drive.

01:00:45And ultimately, a lot of the country

01:00:46wants to drive trucks, man.

01:00:48Let me fast forward a bit.

01:00:49So you're an Eagle Scout who you like being outdoors.

01:00:53You in your bio, you're an Eagle Scout.

01:00:55Yeah, yeah.

01:00:56And that leads to the environmental.

01:00:59It does.

01:00:59It's where it all got started, right?

01:01:00Okay.

01:01:01So the transition from Alabama is kind of a cool story.

01:01:05So a small town,

01:01:07we didn't necessarily have all the testing

01:01:10that you need to go to college.

01:01:12We had ACT tests,

01:01:13but if you needed to take the SAT,

01:01:14you had to go to a different city to do this.

01:01:17That's wild.

01:01:18Okay, go ahead.

01:01:18Yeah, crazy.

01:01:19I had to go to a different city.

01:01:19Consider where we grew up in like,

01:01:20I think they developed the SAT in the Caneo Valley.

01:01:22Probably, right?

01:01:23That's why they were asking about surfing.

01:01:27So, you know, I was a truck guy and for fun,

01:01:32you know, and I know this,

01:01:33it's kind of weird for like a Jewish guy living in LA

01:01:37to talk about growing up,

01:01:39like on Friday nights going out into cotton fields.

01:01:41We would drive four by four into these cotton fields

01:01:43and two people do a pickup truck

01:01:45and one would buy a case of beer

01:01:46and one would buy a bottle of whiskey.

01:01:47Let me pause you here.

01:01:48I grew up basically in LA

01:01:49and that's what we would do.

01:01:50Oh, great, great.

01:01:51We'd go out to like Camarillo

01:01:53or into the avocado groves.

01:01:54Nice.

01:01:54Do the same thing.

01:01:55Yeah, right.

01:01:55Kids are kids wherever you go, right?

01:01:56Very common to drink on farms, yes.

01:01:59So we would, you know, do that

01:02:00and then, you know, we'd go what we called mud riding,

01:02:03right, you know, mud riding, mud romping.

01:02:06Mud womping, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:02:07So I did this the night before

01:02:09I was supposed to take the SAT,

01:02:11got stuck in the mud,

01:02:12couldn't get the truck out,

01:02:14ended up having to walk home.

01:02:15I don't even know if my parents know this story,

01:02:16so they're going to love this one.

01:02:18Ended up having to walk home

01:02:19like several miles caked in mud

01:02:20and, you know, got home at whatever,

01:02:22three o'clock in the morning.

01:02:23I had to get up and drive to this other city

01:02:24and take the SAT the next day.

01:02:25And I had like kind of a, in my mind,

01:02:29like a predefined path now

01:02:31to education and career path and stuff like that.

01:02:34I was going to go to a school in the South

01:02:37or the East Coast

01:02:38had an opportunity to play soccer

01:02:39at Vanderbilt or Tulane.

01:02:41And I thought, you know, Virginia was my first choice

01:02:43because I had family members there.

01:02:45I was a soccer guy.

01:02:46I really, really wanted to play soccer.

01:02:48And I'm at this school the next day

01:02:50that wasn't my school.

01:02:51And we had like a few minute break in the SAT

01:02:54and I'm walking around

01:02:54and their guidance counselor office

01:02:56had this picture

01:02:56of the University of Colorado poster.

01:02:58The University of Colorado,

01:02:59literally kids now have no idea

01:03:02what I'm talking about.

01:03:03You could tear the little piece of paper off.

01:03:04You write your name down,

01:03:05you mail it in

01:03:06and they like mail you an application

01:03:08and a brochure about the university.

01:03:09And I saw that.

01:03:10It was like this angelic music,

01:03:11like, holy shit,

01:03:12you can go to college

01:03:13at the base of a mountain

01:03:14where like,

01:03:15this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

01:03:17Like why would I move to Nashville

01:03:18or New Orleans or whatever, you know?

01:03:19I mean, Boulder is stunning, yeah.

01:03:21So I ripped it off,

01:03:22mailed it in,

01:03:23got into the school,

01:03:25didn't get into my number one school.

01:03:26I told my parents,

01:03:27I'm like, hey, I'm going to University of Colorado.

01:03:29And they're like,

01:03:30you have never set foot

01:03:31in the state of Colorado.

01:03:32What the hell are you talking about?

01:03:33I'm like, look at the picture, right?

01:03:35That's all you need to do.

01:03:37So I ended up in Colorado

01:03:38and transitioned from soccer

01:03:39into snowboarding

01:03:40and was just out in the mountains,

01:03:42every chance I get,

01:03:43way more than I was in school.

01:03:45That's a whole other story.

01:03:47But I was driving,

01:03:49at the time I transitioned to a Pathfinder,

01:03:52which was always like my absolute dream car.

01:03:54And I was driving this Pathfinder

01:03:56back and forth to the mountains,

01:03:57like before class.

01:03:58I'd show up in class

01:04:00with my snowboarding bibs and boots on,

01:04:02dripping wet,

01:04:03borrow a piece of paper

01:04:04from the person on my right

01:04:05and a pencil from the person on my left.

01:04:06But that Pathfinder

01:04:08was my gateway into the mountains.

01:04:10And so I'm thinking, well...

01:04:12So you liked the environment as well.

01:04:14Yeah, I was an outdoorsy guy.

01:04:16But it was reliant on trucks

01:04:20and 4x4s to be able to do it.

01:04:22And so the environmental movement

01:04:26was starting to trickle

01:04:28into people our age then.

01:04:30By that point, it was the 90s

01:04:31and we were starting to realize

01:04:32the harm that we're doing.

01:04:34And I had this passion for cars

01:04:36that I ended up developing

01:04:38a little bit after that,

01:04:40once I moved out here.

01:04:41And ultimately found my first job

01:04:46by dumb luck in this space

01:04:47where I could combine the two.

01:04:48I could be in the automotive industry,

01:04:50but doing some zero emission,

01:04:51alt fuels work

01:04:52is what we used to call it back then.

01:04:55And that was with?

01:04:56That was with an early startup company.

01:04:59Funny enough, that was formed essentially

01:05:03to develop hydrogen stations

01:05:04in response to Schwarzenegger's

01:05:06California Hydrogen Highway.

01:05:07So fast forward in a little bit,

01:05:09I ended up moving to California

01:05:12to go to grad school.

01:05:13I got a scholarship to move out here.

01:05:14I thought, well, man, LA is a hellhole.

01:05:15I'm going to go out there for one year.

01:05:17I'm the day I'm done with this school,

01:05:19I'm out of here.

01:05:20And ended up falling in love with it.

01:05:22And doing some car stuff.

01:05:24I got a buddy who's really into cars

01:05:26and took me on a gumball rally in Europe

01:05:30and ended up doing a bull run

01:05:32and just really kind of

01:05:33getting this exposure to cars.

01:05:34And the whole like SEMA world

01:05:36was really ramping up then.

01:05:37And there was a lot of excitement

01:05:38in LA around.

01:05:40It's obviously automotive culture here,

01:05:42but it was really popping.

01:05:43And there were a lot of marketing dollars

01:05:46coming into big car parties

01:05:47and stuff like that in LA.

01:05:48And it was just a lot of fun.

01:05:50So I had through my mentor in grad school,

01:05:54her husband was a serial entrepreneur

01:05:55and decided to start a company

01:05:57essentially building hydrogen stations

01:05:59to try to take advantage of the subsidies

01:06:01coming out of Sacramento.

01:06:02And so when I got out of grad school,

01:06:04ended up linking up with this guy

01:06:05and becoming the first employee

01:06:07of this company.

01:06:08There was a little stop there.

01:06:09It was actually CFO

01:06:10of a motorcycle manufacturing company.

01:06:12It was kind of brought in there

01:06:13to try to help save the company

01:06:16that wasn't really doing that well financially

01:06:18and kind of got my exposure

01:06:19to vehicle manufacturing

01:06:21and just was part of the automotive industry

01:06:23in that capacity,

01:06:24but got this opportunity to come into

01:06:26what was really kind of an environmental job

01:06:28in the automotive space.

01:06:30And I just loved it.

01:06:31Had this passion for it from day one.

01:06:34So we're running up against a time barrier.

01:06:36Okay, all right.

01:06:37I think the last question I want to ask is,

01:06:42everyone missed it,

01:06:43but we saw January 1st,

01:06:44Norway passed,

01:06:45no more internal combustion vehicles

01:06:47can be sold to consumers in Norway.

01:06:49California is on target for 2035.

01:06:54Does the hydrogen passenger vehicle

01:06:57hold on until then?

01:06:58Because I imagine once,

01:07:00you can't buy an internal combustion vehicle

01:07:01if that law holds up.

01:07:03That would be the real cracking point

01:07:06of the chicken and egg problem.

01:07:07It's like, well...

01:07:09To rephrase it,

01:07:10are hydrogen cars inevitable?

01:07:14Man, you know...

01:07:15Put on your futurist goggles.

01:07:17Yeah, now I've been in the space for 20 years

01:07:20and up until six months ago,

01:07:24I would say absolutely yes.

01:07:27Honestly, the light duty aspect

01:07:30of hydrogen and fuel cells right now

01:07:32is getting chest compressions, man.

01:07:35It's pretty bad.

01:07:36And it's really just all about

01:07:38having reliable places to fuel.

01:07:40It's not about the cars at all.

01:07:42And it's really sad to see,

01:07:43I feel like a few people in Sacramento

01:07:47have really screwed it up for everybody.

01:07:50I think there are some other factors

01:07:52that are going to play into that.

01:07:53So we are seeing a lot of funding

01:07:55going into heavy duty trucking,

01:07:58a lot into port applications,

01:07:59a lot of the heavy industrial decarbonization

01:08:01where you're using renewable hydrogen

01:08:02at oil refineries instead of fossil hydrogen.

01:08:05And then in energy storage,

01:08:06which is what you were mentioning.

01:08:08I forgot what country you were mentioning.

01:08:09In Germany.

01:08:10In Germany.

01:08:11We're curtailing massive amounts of electricity

01:08:13in California, wasting it

01:08:14or paying other people to take it.

01:08:16And we can be storing that in the form of hydrogen

01:08:19and then using that for industrial decarbonization

01:08:21and transportation.

01:08:22So bringing that back to,

01:08:24are these cars inevitable?

01:08:28Right now we may just benefit

01:08:32from the growth of the heavy duty trucking space

01:08:35and from the maybe economies of scale

01:08:38for the fuel coming down

01:08:40when you're using so much fuel for trucking.

01:08:42If we have time to talk about port applications,

01:08:44I think that'll be a really cool area

01:08:46that's developing now.

01:08:47But I think now if the light duty,

01:08:50fuel cell electric vehicle movement survives,

01:08:53it will be largely

01:08:55because we're getting a little help elsewhere

01:08:57in the market.

01:08:59One last question.

01:09:00So if people want to know more,

01:09:02we listed the website,

01:09:03it's einow, energyindependencenow.org,

01:09:07driveh2.org.

01:09:10Who pays the bills?

01:09:13Do you guys write grants?

01:09:14Are you getting funding?

01:09:15Is it government funding?

01:09:16Are you part of big hydrogen?

01:09:18All of the above.

01:09:19And honestly, the answer to that question

01:09:21changes every year.

01:09:22Oh, what a nightmare.

01:09:23It is tough.

01:09:24It's tough as hell to keep any kind of non-profit afloat.

01:09:28And we've got to kind of change and pivot

01:09:31with the industry and even the political winds

01:09:37are inevitably changing right now.

01:09:39So look, when light duty was stronger,

01:09:44there's more funding around

01:09:46light duty automotive marketing budgets

01:09:48than there ever will be

01:09:50for some commercial trucking company

01:09:53or marketing budget

01:09:55or the marketing budget for a shipping terminal

01:09:58or something like that.

01:09:59So we were able to kind of tap into that

01:10:03and develop some education outreach campaigns,

01:10:05teaching people about fuel cell,

01:10:06electric vehicles, light duty.

01:10:09And that was really kind of our bread and butter for,

01:10:11you know, let's say the last five years or so.

01:10:13And then we tap into government grants

01:10:14and foundation funding.

01:10:17We were part of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation

01:10:20for a little while when my mentor

01:10:24now a partner in this area

01:10:26was CEO of that organization.

01:10:27So we were able to really kind of tap

01:10:30into the philanthropy world a little more then.

01:10:33And then that kind of moved away.

01:10:35So-

01:10:36Probably because you guys are now over 20.

01:10:3725 is a joke, but okay, I love it.

01:10:41So honestly-

01:10:42I was literally about to say,

01:10:43then you turned 25,

01:10:44but I was like, maybe I shouldn't go there.

01:10:46But since you went there, absolutely.

01:10:48So I've got to say like,

01:10:50you know, the Biden administration

01:10:52put a lot of money into hydrogen

01:10:54and that's supposed to trickle down to California.

01:10:56And who knows if it really will or not.

01:10:58I mean, you know, that may be a potential source of funding

01:11:00that keeps us afloat next year.

01:11:01But I doubt it.

01:11:02We had a guy on and I'm blanking on his name

01:11:04and it was the hydrogen boat guy.

01:11:06Oh yeah.

01:11:07So blanking.

01:11:08From Zero Emissions Industries.

01:11:10And after we turned the mics off,

01:11:12he said, actually, you know,

01:11:14the Trump administration might be great for hydrogen

01:11:16because what you were kind of talking about,

01:11:18like we won't care what makes the hydrogen,

01:11:21burn all the oil you want to make hydrogen.

01:11:23They won't care.

01:11:23There'll be no environmental play at all.

01:11:25But hydrogen is really good for, you know,

01:11:27a lot of applications.

01:11:28So we'll get this massive hydrogen infrastructure.

01:11:31And then if another administration comes in

01:11:34that then cares about the environment,

01:11:35the infrastructure is there.

01:11:37Then you just turn the hydrogen from black to blue or green.

01:11:40Switch from dirty to clean.

01:11:43Yeah.

01:11:43Does that make any...

01:11:44Joe Pratt.

01:11:45Yeah, sure.

01:11:46Sure.

01:11:46Yeah.

01:11:47Yeah.

01:11:47Does that make any sense?

01:11:48You know, it does.

01:11:49And to be blunt about it,

01:11:52the hydrogen community did fine in Trump one administration.

01:11:55We did fine in the Bush administration.

01:11:57They brought out a lot of incentives.

01:11:59We took a big hit.

01:12:00We took a big hit in the Obama administration at first

01:12:04because Secretary Chu,

01:12:05the Secretary of Department of Energy came out

01:12:07and was just like, you know,

01:12:08I'm not going to support hydrogen.

01:12:10They cut funding.

01:12:11So, you know, I'd say the political wins

01:12:14haven't been as brutal for the hydrogen movement

01:12:16as you would expect it to be

01:12:18for any other environmental endeavor.

01:12:19Well, I mean, again, if you're burning natural gas,

01:12:22that's the petroleum industry essentially

01:12:24that like, yeah, let's make hydrogen, burn gas.

01:12:26Yeah. I mean, look at that too.

01:12:27Because like the, you know,

01:12:28the petroleum industry obviously has a lot of clout.

01:12:32If we are moving into a zero emission future,

01:12:36you know, whether they like it or not,

01:12:38they probably have a better leg up

01:12:39on entering the hydrogen market

01:12:41than they do on the battery market.

01:12:43You know, they're already producing hydrogen.

01:12:44They're using hydrogen.

01:12:45They know how to move hydrogen.

01:12:47They're not in the battery business.

01:12:48So, you know, those guys are,

01:12:50they have a pretty loud voice in DC.

01:12:52And like I said, I mean,

01:12:53we did fine in the first Trump administration.

01:12:55I think Musk is the wild card right now.

01:12:57He's openly come out against hydrogen.

01:13:01Some of it's just, you know, bull.

01:13:03Some of it's just anti-competitive stuff.

01:13:05Yeah. No, he was the guy who said,

01:13:07you know, Rivian will be bankrupt tomorrow.

01:13:08Yeah. Right.

01:13:09Okay.

01:13:10You know, look, if hydrogen is going to take

01:13:14a much bigger role in trucking,

01:13:16that's a threat to, you know,

01:13:17the future of the heavy duty side of Tesla.

01:13:20And, you know, he's as unpredictable as anyone else.

01:13:23But at least he's got an office in the White House now.

01:13:25Yeah. There you go. Right.

01:13:25So it'll be a lot faster.

01:13:28On that note though, we do have to wrap this up.

01:13:30Okay. Fair enough.

01:13:31Absolute pleasure.

01:13:32I think next time we come back, we'll do the rainbow.

01:13:33Next time we'll do port stuff.

01:13:34Okay.

01:13:35Because it'd be interesting to see in a couple of years

01:13:37where hydrogen's at.

01:13:39Yeah. Look, the rainbow is an important part of it.

01:13:41It really is.

01:13:41And so I've been talking about this for 20 years.

01:13:44We've discussed it with other hydrogen people.

01:13:46We could save that for part two,

01:13:48but I appreciate you guys having me on.

01:13:49Oh, it was awesome.

01:13:50Brian, thank you so much.

01:13:51Great. All right.

01:13:51Thanks guys.

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