Changing The Industry Podcast

Lucas Underwood 0:00
The Introduce yourself?

Pete Bradley 0:02
Well, my name is Pete Bradley, I work for a company called her Goodman who produce diagnostic equipment, and other workshops, as well like headlight aiming devices, that sort of thing. My start was in the British army when I repaired, repaired tanks off, I've been around engine, all my working life really, right. And I then left ended up being an instructor at the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineer, okay, and enjoyed that. So I went and did another train job with the RHC, which is the Royal Automobile Club. They are sort of the roadside assistance, and did various jobs for various manufacturers trained jobs, that sort of thing. And also then go off with the job to go to Germany that was in 99. Okay, so 2000 I sold my house, change, why change jobs, change country

Lucas Underwood 1:02
changed everything.

Pete Bradley 1:05
When you're going to do it, then why not the whole lot? And we I then moved out to Germany, and I've been there ever since. Really? So I did 13 years with Heller. Okay, so I introduced into Heller technical service. So that was training hotline, technical information, and also started researching about diagnostics.

Lucas Underwood 1:32
So let me ask you this. Yeah. Because a lot of the people, right, we might have a lot of young listeners. Yeah. And we were today, they had the shop owner panel, and they talked about some of the shortages of skilled tradesmen. Right, exactly. And so one of the things we hear a lot is as well, I don't want my kid to just grow up and be a mechanic. Right. Yeah. But But how did you make this transition? How did you end up at Hello, what was that transition? Like? How'd you get there?

Pete Bradley 2:01
Opportunity and good fortune, I suppose. But when I left the army, I applied for few jobs, all in engineering, because I did my Bachelor of Engineering in the UK as well. And I had 2025 jobs that I could have done. Okay. One was in oil. Could have could have been a grease monkey, you got to go anywhere. Yeah, exactly. And then it's I chose the path, maybe of least resistance because I've done training for five years. So I knew how to do it. And I'll just flop into this job and see if anything else comes up. I've been there ever since. Wow. The transition to Heller was after the five years with the Royal Automobile Club, where I was the Training Development Manager. Okay, developing training, and things like that. And that was also my first I suppose my first taste of association work because I was involved in developing training courses for the Institute of the motor industry. Really? Yeah. So I actually I actually developed the air conditioning qualification course in the UK. That is still running today.

Lucas Underwood 3:17
Really? Yeah. Well, so like that. That is such a interesting story. When you look at the training that you see here in the States, how does it compare to the training that you have there, but

Pete Bradley 3:28
Well, I do. I do the Wolfpack sex. Rob mothers were quite good friends. I've been there four or five times now. And I've ruined maybe three or four classes on Adas Canvas systems. And also, what else did we do? I did a lighting one. Before the matrix be around also, battery electric vehicles. You know, there for our classes, as you probably know, yeah. And you get as many students as you can get into the room. And what I see is, I don't think there's any difference when you when you're down at that technical level, okay. You got to get the training fun, otherwise, just doesn't really work. Absolutely. So yeah, the people in the audience over here tend to be shop owners and technicians see I don't I don't like calling them mechanics grab you look at the technology in the vehicles today. And as you said, they're almost like a smartphone on wheels. Yeah, they really are. And you're dealing with all the electronic stuff. You got to have a logical thinking mind. You've got to be able to problem solve, yes. You're not turning spanners, you have to turn spies at some time to change the component. Right? But that's not

Lucas Underwood 4:50
the skill well, and it's starting to shift more and more. Well,

Pete Bradley 4:53
in Germany actually, they now have a qualification color Mechatronics really so it's this mix changeover from being a mechanic, wilderness banner or a screwdriver or a hammer sometimes, and going into the diagnostic side and working out what's wrong with the car,

Lucas Underwood 5:17
then pretty interesting. Oh, Freiburg, yes. In fact,

Pete Bradley 5:21
in Ireland, University of Dublin has a degree in diagnostics, really. And we, we lent them, we had an outlet in Ireland, we actually lent them our diagnostic equipment to do the this thing. And they go, I mean, you know, when you talk about diagnostics, you know, you have to have a philosophy or a principle of how to go about it. Right. So you need to learn, you know, you see these things on LinkedIn and everything like this, you know, we need problem solvers, for banks or whatever. Yeah, nobody thinks of our industry, right. Our industry used to be called the Black Hand gang. And the kids today, they don't see the real side of it. Yeah. And we're our own worst eminent enemies. With some of the adverts we put out there. You see a beefy guy with dirty hands. Yeah. I mean, I don't get my hands dirty anymore. I let somebody else turn the spanner. I did the diagnostics, say, okay, renew that component, bump onto next car, that sort of thing. And that's the way we teach the training, as well as our training academy in Germany. We've got more training academies, across Europe, and also south, South Africa, Dubai, and also in Australia.

Lucas Underwood 6:48
So you have experienced in all these different areas. Yeah. A lot of talk about the technician shortage. Do you see that there too? Oh, yeah. And, you know, one of the things I've started to notice, and I'm talking to a lot of people, we're not just talking about automotive, skilled train shortages. We're talking about skilled trade shortage across the hole. Yeah. And so you're seeing that there too?

Pete Bradley 7:10
Oh, definitely. Definitely. Australia, is they're fighting tooth and nail with incentives. Across Europe, in Belgium and Holland, they have government supported training schemes. So even if a young person goes to the school, they have advanced training, so they learn the basics. Yeah. And then they learn a speciality. So they have a qualification tree where they can go, you can be a diagnostic specialist, you can be a gearbox engine, whatever you want to specialize in, right. But it's all government funded. So even when they're in work. If the if the technician wants to do a course, or the major, the shop says, Yeah, I need you to go and do this course. The government will pay for the course, and the loss of earnings for the shop.

Lucas Underwood 8:03
Really, that is insane. The other way to get that set up here.

Pete Bradley 8:09
The only the only drawback is that you have to do this training, your training has to be registered, okay. And that's where we fall down in the left aftermarket, because we sometimes train as a marketing tool. Okay. You know, I mean, I use our equipment when I'm training. So it's a, it's a subversive marketing. Yeah. So our training doesn't get recognized unless we use a breadth of different equipment, right to demonstrate. But we do supply our training materials into them. Gotcha. And it's, I suppose, it's because there's so many different countries in Europe, right, you know, you have a variety of ways in which they're trying to attract the younger generation into the automotive industry. I mean, you don't need to turn a spanner to be in the automotive industry, you know, you can go and work for, I mean, we've turned from a diagnostic company, traditional diagnostic company, producing bespoke device with bespoke touchscreen, and all of this sort of stuff, which when it goes wrong, and your suppliers, not there anymore, like we experienced with chips, then your units dead, right. So we've we've progressed now what we do is our hardware is a basic, it's a bit like a, an iMac, like square box, right? All the connections, just like a computer. We've got more software engineers now doing the software than we had before. Right. So, you know, I think the problem or not the problem, but the issue is that the younger generations see the automotive industry as this oil Change quick lube all of that. And it's much, much wider. And I mean, some of the software engineers don't even have an automotive background.

Lucas Underwood 10:10
You know? Listen to you talk, right. And you've talked, we've talked about a lot of things over the past couple days from from what you guys are doing with with hybrid and battery electric vehicles right over there. And then, you know, you were in here talking with Scott Brown just a few moments ago, talking about this new headlight. Yeah. And it's not even really new. Right? Like,

Pete Bradley 10:33
the technology's six years old, right? Yeah.

Lucas Underwood 10:37
And it sounds amazing. For one, you said matrix headlights? Yeah, in case somebody doesn't know what that is. Explain it a little bit. Alright.

Pete Bradley 10:45
Okay. Have you got two hours? Yeah, sure. Well, essentially, you have an array of LEDs. And if you think about a projector, so that's the methodology. So you have a mirror that reflects the LEDs into the headlight. So then you produce a beam out the headlight. What you do then is you electronically control that array of LEDs, that can be up to 120 per headlight, whatever the whichever way it's working, but you control those. And you can dim them from zero to 100. Each one of these, let's say, 90, LEDs, right? So with that, having that it's not a 1% tariffs, and it's a right, constant dim or whatever. So you can then dim the headlight dim the LEDs to form whatever pattern you want on the road. I mean, you can write your name on the road, let's say yeah, and there's there's use cases now coming up where you have the headlight actually being your eyes, because at night, your eyes is probably the worst thing you use for for looking and for driving, right, you need light. So it's actually taking over and highlighting. So say, a person is still at the side of the road with dark clothing, then the radar or the camera in the car will see that person and light them up. And all of a sudden you can see them. Everything else is normal. But you've just highlighted that one person, or a rabbit or a deer. Or if you're in or if you're in the northern Scandinavia, probably an elk. You have to stop for

David Roman 12:34
adjusting with just an up and down with Moto. Not at all. So just because there's so many LEDs on that, yeah, mechanism

Pete Bradley 12:46
goes through a projection module. So it's bounced off a mirror, which flattens it out. So if you like an OLED TV, you don't see the individual LEDs do know. So that's all done with mirrors and reflections. So this, the same principle would this that the beam is reflected out, so you don't get the pimples of light, it's a flat light coming out. And then the projection module at the front actually enhances that and projects it along a lot further. I mean, LED technology has come on leaps and bounds. And in fact, there is a law being passed in in Europe, that from 2030, you will not be able to buy normal filament bulbs, real read. That's not just the automotive industry, but across the board houses and everything they want to be completely led due to power savings and all that. They want to be completely led by 2030. So if you've got to stuck a light bulbs, send them over to you have about 20 Yeah, make a fortune. I'll save a couple.

David Roman 13:58
So there are no moving moving mechanisms and mechanisms. Wow. This is just lowering the cost then of the Hello, it's assembly.

Pete Bradley 14:08
I mean, as soon as you remove moving parts from anything you don't have anywhere anymore, so it's not gonna wear out. They're not cheap. But then again, you have

David Roman 14:17
what's not cheap. I mean, I headlamp for an infinities. $2,500. Right, but it's kind of flipping motor to adjust to the turning and the high beam that adds light then it's got the LED strip and

Pete Bradley 14:34
the weight factor as well. Yeah. And you've got the design factor. Right. You look at the headlights today, typical Audi with the bull front, you know and the how the BMW with their twin sort of AngelList used to call you know, they're now flat LEDs and that sort of thing. So it's all to do with design space. And so you can build a much smaller thinner headline and that sort of thing. So it's

Lucas Underwood 15:03
that that is technology,

Pete Bradley 15:05
and also electric vehicles. Yeah. Okay, because range and electric vehicles is paramount. Right, so you use an LED headlight. And you've then reduced the power that headlight takes

Lucas Underwood 15:19
well, and it seems that that system or that configuration could optimize lower light output, and make it more effective where it's important for that light output to be on therefore, using even less energy than what I mean. It almost seems like 15 years ago, that would have been unheard of. Yeah, right. And I was

David Roman 15:44
out, he's been talking about led, and adding dissolve.

Pete Bradley 15:48
2012 was the first full LED, in fact, the first full LED headlight was in an Escalade. Over here. Really? Yeah. That was the first fall and that was 2011. Well, there wasn't very reliable. There were. Yeah, there wasn't the there wasn't the Matrix technology or anything like that that's developed.

Lucas Underwood 16:10
Well, I was sharing a story that one of the first light world pack training classes I ever went to, was one that was taught by a gentleman and Ian Libby was there. And Ian jumps in and starts talking about Mercedes Benz body. And he's talking about the multibeam. Yeah. And there were people in that class who got up and said, If this is where we're going, I'm done. I'm out. Yeah. But

Pete Bradley 16:31
it's exciting. It is it to me, is excited until it breaks down. But

David Roman 16:38
that's, that's the anger.

Pete Bradley 16:42
Yeah. And that's that is that I mean, a case in point. When you talk about the independent aftermarket, we help manufacturers or it's now a law in Europe, that the manufacturer cannot prevent you from selling their headlight into the aftermarket. So as an OEM supplier on lighting, we can take the headlight, same tooling, everything, we're not allowed to for Audi on it, which causes an issue sometimes, but in essence, an Audi A six, I think it was in Spain. They called me and said, Pete, one headlight flashes. And the other one's got the white function. How do we change it over? Most of all, you have to do it through remote service or pass through or something like that. Yeah, we took it to the OE dealer. And they said, it's not an Audi headlight, because it hasn't got the Audi sign on it. And that's the problems you're talking about, where the manufacturers or become the gatekeeper of these things. But it is, you know, going back to your question about the technicians and how they have to deal with it. This is where that that thought comes in. How how can I do this? How can I get around it that sort of thing? In the headlight cost about 5000 euros. What's that about? I don't know what the exchange rate is.

David Roman 18:04

Lucas Underwood 18:08
Well, I mean, you know that that was one of the interesting things that came on superbly, this

David Roman 18:13
thing's more reliable. No moving parts.

Pete Bradley 18:16
I mean, the most. Yeah, there are no moving parts.

David Roman 18:20
I mean, you'll get 20 years service out of this easy. The, as we saw earlier today with that fine Volkswagen 1.8 liter 20 years later, the rest of the vehicle will be in the scrap yard, right? I headlight goes out,

Pete Bradley 18:33
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So

David Roman 18:36
you guys are on.

Pete Bradley 18:42
By now, it's true. And vehicle manufacturers have been now tasked in Europe, especially with the new legislation coming through about reusability replace replaceable parts. So I mean, parts. You can't replace a single LED, you'd be there all day with a soldering iron and stuff like that. But you can replace the module or the control units, because they're totally sealed and they have thermal management inside them to keep the headlight cool. Not advantage of LED headlights is that the heat that the LEDs produce from the power consumption gets blown onto the lens. Right, so you don't get fogging anymore.

David Roman 19:25
That's cool. Right.

Lucas Underwood 19:27
That is and, you know, I think as we see technology advance at the rate that it is, yeah, not only is it like you said, it's super exciting. Yeah, I can see why some people would be hesitant. I can see why some people would push back a little bit,

Pete Bradley 19:43
right. Yeah, but it tends to, I mean, we're talking. What was it? I think it was something like 35 million people in Germany have never been on the internet. Really, and they're called the, the non online errs are something that made me call them. And they're, they're 65 to 77 age groups. And I'm thinking about it. I'm 65 I'm I play about with my iPhone and my Android and I love messing about in the car, making it do things, you know, and all this sort of thing, just in everything and all that sort of stuff. So if you buy into it, and the younger generation, certainly with social media, and all that the younger generation is certainly more akin to accepting that. Yeah, you apply that to the automotive industry, and you look at the technology behind some of the things that are going on, you know, anyway, in it, this is exciting stuff. Right, you know, and I see the future really is definitely training. Yeah, you need to put there, these types of equipment that are agnostic stuff, or the technology into the hands of people early, right, schools, colleges, all that sort of stuff, get them used to using that. But as I said, our latest device runs off a tablet, which is browser based, so I can use anything new, you know, it's a bit small when you put on the phone. Yeah, but you could, because it's just browser based.

Lucas Underwood 21:16
You know, one of the things that came up while we were here this weekend, and I for some people, it's been an uncomfortable topic. But you know, the the manufacturers, and many shop owners, many technicians, and years gone by not all of them, but many of them, they would pick up a tool, and it wouldn't do what they needed it to do, right? And they would say, well, that needs to go to the dealer, this needs to, it needs to happen, right? And we're seeing this wave in the States again, right? Well, we're seeing where these guys are saying, Hey, I can't fix that car with OE tool, I don't have access, or I can't get those who are cost prohibitive, whatever it is. And they're coming up with ways around that, right. And one of the big conversations that happened here was, hey, there's a lot of people using these hacked tools or these clone tools, or whatever it is. And I think it poses a new challenge, in some ways for that software market or for the OE. There's guys in the US now do an EEPROM, right, where they're taking the board apart, and they're saying, Okay, I can't get this component. And that was one of the things that Brian Polly said, I thought that was really interesting whether or not we were at dinner, and he said, you know, he said, it's one thing for you to tell me that, hey, listen, you need to buy the new module, right to fix this client's core. Yeah. He said, it's another thing for you to tell me that you need to buy this new module. And it's not available for eight months. And by the way, you have to program it, you have to pay this much for our software. Yeah. And he said, you've made it to the point that I have no choice but to go around you. Right. You can't be mad at me for going around you. If you've not given me an option, right? Like, I've got to do something different. How do you see that?

Pete Bradley 22:55
Well, in my presentation, I showed you how we're involved in the laws and everything in Europe as our association. Yeah. And there, we have this influence. And we prevent, or try and prevent that sort of thing. And the legislation actually are type approval for the vehicle, which includes Rmi, which includes software updates, all of this sort of stuff is already legislative for that. They cannot prevent us from doing it. Okay. They put other blocks in the way. Okay, like cost. Yeah. Like, how to gain access, because the law doesn't provide for that. Right. They just say you have to make it accessible, right? Well, I can say, you can come to my house, but you gotta fly 1000 miles. And don't forget to turn the alarm off, and there's a dog in the backyard. You know, you're going that's a lot of berries. I've got, yeah, we've got to navigate, navigate this thing, right. So yeah, that's that's what's happening in Europe. But, you know, we're in the independent aftermarket. We're not only and we will always find a way, everybody always finds a way. Whether it's legal, or whether it's safe and secure, is another matter.

Lucas Underwood 24:07
And that's what it comes back to for me, right? Because it won the gallery

David Roman 24:11
is irrelevant. Well, I'm just saying just go to the country. That doesn't care,

Pete Bradley 24:17
right. Yeah, I mean, reengineering. We used to do a lot of reengineering. And it's it's a an accepted practice in Europe. It's actually in the law that Brian can do reengineer as long as you then re engineer it, and change it. Yeah. Not the actual functionality but how. So that's, that's acceptable. But now with the vehicles with the ADA systems with the lighting systems I just told you about an you're putting software onto the vehicle that may be the latest version or may not be the latest version. You're You can affect the safety in the Europe, we've got these five mandatory ADA systems, they've just come into force, which is driver drowsiness, awareness, lane change, assist, emergency braking. They were thinking of putting an alcohol test in the car as well. But they they talked about doing that here. Yeah, yeah. So you know, that was then. Not scientifically, it will be possible, but you get a lot of false. Yeah, reading, so they dispense over there. But because those are now mandatory, the manufacturers are saying why you can only use our software, you have to use our software. And we say while in the aftermarket, you have to provide us access to that stuff. Yeah. So that's why things like remote services pass through. And some of the things about over the air. You know, in the automotive industry, phones and telecommunication networks. Hello, what what do we need that on cars for now? You can go without it. Right, you know, telematics units are transmitting data to the cloud is cold.

David Roman 26:07
Is it the OES Termoli? Are they buying? You know, the modules made by Bosch, Bosch rock Velop, the software then?

Pete Bradley 26:18
Yeah, I mean, the manufacturers don't put all their eggs in one basket. So there are companies in Europe Softonic, I think is one. They supply the Volkswagen Audi with all the software, even though it's a maybe a Bosch module. It's soft on its software. So if a manufacturer says I'm not very happy with Bosch anymore, and this is a cheaper module, I can slap the software straight on it. And away we got. Gotcha. So that's how they that poses a problem in the aftermarket, because then you got to make sure that the module you're replacing is the module for that vehicle. Right? It's got that software in it.

Lucas Underwood 27:00
Yeah. And we've seen that we have seen that in cars that come into the shop. Yeah, where it's one or the other, and you have these options, and you call the dealer, and in some cases, the dealer doesn't even know. And there's no indication of which it is. Yeah, right. I'm sure you've had that happen.

David Roman 27:16
Where those courses are the worst.

Lucas Underwood 27:18
And so doesn't that pose an issue? It? Maybe not, I know, it poses an issue for us right? In the aftermarket. But doesn't it pose an issue eventually to the manufacturer, because you can't say, Hey, I'm not gonna give you access to this. And oh, by the way, the parts not available. And, you know, eventually you get to the point that the car can't be repaired, if you continue to push that. Now, I thought it was really interesting. There were gasp in the room today, when somebody said, Listen, I'll find a way around the car.

Pete Bradley 27:50
You know, you're not gonna stop. I can't wait for three days for a piece of information. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's our job. And I was saying before, the automotive industry has broadened with lots of players come into it, that we wouldn't you know, Google, Android and Apple, Apple with their car play or that sort of thing. And see the manufacturers developing their infotainment systems on their own. Yeah. Now, I use an Android. So I'm gonna use my Google man. Dang. Right. Because I've got all my favorites in there. I want to go there being the car, I need to go there. Yeah. And that that's another the flip side of this with the technicians into the workshop where we started with this, you know, that they would be able to fix that problem? Yeah, you know, I was a Bluetooth connection problem. I was, you know, normal, a normal, what you call a mechanic? Right? I don't know. But you put you put somebody, you know, the iPhone generation in a bang, bang, bang, you know, but

Lucas Underwood 28:56
it makes sense that and I think we've created these logical pathways. And the way a software works, I've talked with a lot of software engineers, and they talk about, hey, we use very common practices, right? And you look at Apple, it flows a little bit differently than an Android.

Pete Bradley 29:12
But they say user interface exactly what's behind it. Absolutely. The

Lucas Underwood 29:16
this the thought process and and really understanding the human mind how we go through it.

Pete Bradley 29:21
And that is exactly where the vehicle manufacturers fall over. Because they believe they have to develop everything for that car themselves. Or Elon Musk went out and disrupted the whole thing and on all the other manufacturers. Oops, what's going on here? We need to do something about this. You know, so we had big fights in Europe about access to the to the HMI, human human. What's it called? Human Interface, right? infotainment system, right? Because it's We put an app on, why can't it be accessed in a bit all? You're dealing with our infrastructure and our software? I mean, the manufacturers have had years, nothing was Ford, probably Henry that said someday, but you can have this, you can buy a car, but it's black. You chose this color, you know. And that attitude has gone through me as an advert years ago, on Ford, it may be your car, but it's still our baby. Right? Installing this thing as this is ours. Yeah, you know, but nobody owns an iPhone, I can give you my iPhone or my Android and say, go off and use it, you know, this sort of thing, like, you know, and you know how to use it? Yeah. You know, you drive a Mercedes, I'd rather BMW, I say, Well, you can borrow my car, if you want to BMW, I don't have that one. I don't even know how to start it. Where's the button to sell it? So all of these things that are happening now and the manufacturers need to wake up? You're not saying they should all build the same car? Yeah, but use common practices, not just things that are available that we in the aftermarket can deal with. I talked

Lucas Underwood 31:06
to Mark Allen from Audi A while back and he said, I thought it was just the coolest statement. He said Aldi solves a consumer problem without engineering. That's what we do. He's like, if we all solved the consumers problem with the same engineering in the same culture in the same attitude, we'd all be driving it 150s.

Pete Bradley 31:28
And maybe not a year or two.

Lucas Underwood 31:31
But you know, it was so neat hearing him say that, because it was more about the perspective that that the car still has to be drivable. Still has to be usable, the car has to be user friendly. And and there's there's limits and boundaries of where we can push that. But at the end of the day, the consumer has to want the car, right, the consumer wants to drop the dang car, the consumer has to enjoy the car, right? And if we get to a point that we're all so used to that phone, right, and the way that phone works and the way the technology in our life works now. Yeah. And the manufacturers five miles over here in a different world. And I think for the most part they're trying, they really are trying to consumers minds, I

David Roman 32:14
What incentive do they have to make it

Pete Bradley 32:17
fixable? Well, they've never made them fixable. You know, I mean,

David Roman 32:25
but don't have any incentive to do so they want the car to be functional for whatever warranty period, right? And then and then go get another one. Yeah. Look, Apple does that. Yeah, they make them great. Until the new one comes out. All sudden your phone gets slower, and we're saving the battery. That's what we're doing. And you're not, you're forcing me to go get the new one. Yeah, the manufacturer is gonna do the same

Pete Bradley 32:51
thing. But I mean, it's an interesting point about the way phones and you can, you can actually make it make a comparison or an analogy between them, you know, my phone is getting slower, my car is getting slower, or it's, it's feeling tight. So I'll change the car or change my phone. You change your phone a lot easier than you do change your car or the investment. Yeah. The shift now is to lease it or lease my car. Why would I want to own it? I did when I was young. I wanted to own my car. This is my car. The attitude has changed. I think you need to own that time. Or the younger you are, the more that is prevalent in. So you get this shift. And you know, it's my method of getting from A to B. So you talk about mobility. Instead of owning a car. Yeah, it's

Lucas Underwood 33:45
a means to an end. It's not an investment. It's not a

David Roman 33:49
it's never been an investment. But I think that that

Pete Bradley 33:52
I don't know, Shelby GT is an investor.

David Roman 33:58
I think, you know, you're right. At some point, everybody kind of wants to own it, or at the very least avoid the pain. Yeah. But if they, if they get comfortable, I mean, Cadillac rolled out their subscription based ownership, right? This super subscription and all the manufacturers are trying subscription models. They've all been rejected them. We keep trying.

Lucas Underwood 34:26
I'm sure. They'll try. And this is a planned obsolescence is probably the most interesting factor then. You know, I mean, you talked the other day. Yeah. And we were talking about Evie. Yeah. And and, you know, we've heard these stories. So the hurricane that hit Florida a while back and all of a sudden the Tesla's had more range than they had. Right And who was it? Was it the Car and Driver story yesterday, were you in there for that? And he was talking about how they rated a Tesla. It was a Tesla three it just come out and they rated it Very, very

David Roman 35:00
poorly, a consumer reports how the braking, the braking power, right? And all

Lucas Underwood 35:04
of a sudden he said, Hey, go back out to the car and the car has been sitting in a lot ever since they did the report and they retested the car. And it's like, everything they said has been fixed. Right. And so you're kind of working on something neat in Europe, on this front of a selling us DVDs. Yeah. Because that that was really interesting. Yeah, we thought about that.

Pete Bradley 35:26
Well, yeah, I mean, there's two things in the Z updates with a I can't remember which manufacturer is now but they do their updates through the charging system. I think it's BMW. Okay. So if you've got one of their boxes, there, but that charging box is connected to the internet? Yeah. It's then connected to the car. So they just drop out software updates and check the car while it's charging. Right. But you talk about that sort of new ones. If it's connected to a non BMW charge point, then it's not going to do those updates, because they haven't got access to that network. But when you're talking about the actual battery, the batteries are coming on leaps and bounds. They're getting smaller, they're getting higher capacity, which gives longer range, right. And most batteries are only using 8% of their power. Wow. All right. Because Exactly. Tesla had a longer range, they just allowed it increase the capacity to 90%. Why did they do that food because of the thermal management. Okay? Because the batteries have to be cool. So the battery now becomes like your internal combustion engine. You know, you go to buy a second car, the first thing he says, How many miles has gone on it? Oh, it's got 200,000. All right, our prices coming down in price coming down. That will be the same with EVs. Burr, you haven't got an engine that you can say it's so what is the highest wearable part is the battery. Okay? So you asked how many miles is it done. And it says, you know, 50, or 60,000, you can't relate that to what the battery status, the reliability reliability of that battery. So secondhand cars will now have to be evaluated. And there will there is going to be a law passed in Europe, where on the on the when you sell a car, you put the mileage and all this sort of thing, they'll do a service, there will be for EVs and plug in hybrids, there will be a s o h value, state of health, how healthy is the battery? This is determined by lots of factors, capacity, charge rate, how often it's been charged, and all this and all these things that are logged anyway. Right? So in Europe, there is going to be a new euro euro seven for our emissions. And in that now our battery electric vehicle state of health. So five year old cars must have more than 8% state of health, eight years and older 70%. So and there's a formula and everything how how to actually do it. So manufacturers have now got to put into their battery electric vehicles, some form of a informing the customer about it, which they don't do properly anyway. Or an independent assessor, or the second car dealer must have the ability to ascertain the state of health, because he has to put it on the sales docket, right? This Evie has done 80,000 miles, but has a state of health of 85% 90% You're gonna buy that car because it's way over for the mileage, right? You know, but if it says 60% is not going to serve me saying that. Right. That's where then this next rules come in and recyclability. reusability and there's an another word begins with our and I forgot what it is. Now I'll repairability those three are being worked on at the moment where there's going to be a standard set. So if the second car dealer gets a car, electric vehicle with a 60% state of health, first he's going to do is get a new battery, expensive new batteries. So you buy a recycled or reused right or repaired battery. And that's the stage rather than now trying to get the battery manufacturers who are not common in factories, right? It's LG, it's Panasonic. Couple of others forgotten who they are now. But so much so that they're saying no, you can't live sealed, you can't repair or you can it's got Boltzmann This is wrong. We'll find a workaround, we'll find a workaround. So they're saying now you have to supply the cells as a spare part for the battery. Really. So in our training academy we've got I think it's a Volkswagen up battery that we dismantled. And you can then take the battery, the battery packs, you then have to when you've renewed the battery pack, you have to then commission the battery again. So it's like, it's like an initial charge and an old lead acid battery where you did this initial charge. Yeah. It's like that. It's called more than a whenever it's like configuring the battery, almost like balancing, balancing that. That's the word balancing. Yeah, so balance is the battery. Which is the sales all get the same, right. So that will certainly be taking off. And there'll be lots of companies springing up doing recycling and reusable repairable batteries,

Lucas Underwood 40:49
you know, of all the talk there is about Eb, right. And there's, there's, there's frustrations on one side, you gotta love them on the other side, the grid won't handle it. This will you know, that's that another. That creates a whole new picture. Yeah. of understanding the reliability of what you're by. Right. Because yeah, I mean, with with a gas engine or a diesel engine, we can't really see, we can say it's got 100,000 miles on it. Statistically speaking, yeah, these live for x, and it should be okay. But we really can't see that is a whole different level of insight. And whole different level of data collection. I mean, the charge cycles, all of that information, is really painting a picture on how the car was driven. Was it was it driven in town short trips, and

Pete Bradley 41:36
that's not an issue for for electric vehicles. Okay, short trips is not an issue at all. It just he?

Lucas Underwood 41:43
Well, I guess that's kind of what I'm saying, though, is it? It paints a picture of how the car was driven. Yeah, right. Steering suspension components, the whole nine yards, like if you, you know, different environments create different wear on a vehicle? How would you take that algorithm and turn it into something that or that information, put in the algorithm and understand at a higher level, but I think long term, you could create a whole image of vehicle reliability we've never thought of before.

Pete Bradley 42:10
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And, you know, at some point, the electric motor will probably suffer. But it's certainly the battery that people are concentrating on. And I've been driving electric vehicles now for privately for the last four years, okay. I three BMW three, which didn't manage to take off over here because of some issues. Understood. But you've got a great little car beats Porsches from the lights for 100 meters. Great talk. But the the climate has a big effect on electric vehicles. So you know, you got to hotter climate, then you got cooling issues with the battery. Charging is fine, because it will charge a lot quicker because it's warm, and everything like that. colder climates. opposite effect. So that's another issue that the manufacturers are trying to tackle the battery manufacturers to see if they can solve this climate issue.

Lucas Underwood 43:18
I had some friends who had leafs, and they were talking about the fact but I guess it was the original leaf that did not have a cooling system, or it was an adequate cooling system. And, man, they were like hot days, you can forget it, buddy. Mark that book or you can not drive it. It's a no go. So are you is Europe ahead of us? And I think I know the answer to this. But is Europe ahead of us on implementation of this, Evie? And the infrastructure that goes with it?

Pete Bradley 43:48
That's a yes and no question. Because I would say we're ahead on the legal way to make the manufacturers put this state of health and by the way, state of health is a is not a real value, because it's calculated through a whole algorithm. So as long as the manufacturers use the same algorithm, then you get good, comparable states of health. But I'm not going to do that. Right? Because I know it's our job. So, you know, have you got the faith in saying okay, well, let's VW says it's got to stay the health of 85. And the BMW next is done the same thing with the miles, but it's only 82. Why?

Unknown Speaker 44:32
What's the difference?

Pete Bradley 44:33
What's the difference? That but on a legal standpoint, we're we're ahead I think because of this drive in Europe to have this carbon neutral thing by 2035, which they've revised. Now again, they're allowing the manufacturers to produce normal combustion engines, but they must use a Climate Neutral fuel, which they've had in the back pocket for years. Anyway,

David Roman 44:57
the good Hold on, you can't just drop that. And the manufacturer had a carbon neutral fuel, or the who had the carbon neutral fuel

Pete Bradley 45:11
them? Well, it was probably developed by one of the fuel fuel market. Sorry, what is a? It's a, it's a lien burning fuel, let's say. So it, the thing is you've got on one side, you've got the climate issue. On the other side, you've got the emissions. So this is like an emission low fuel, I have to read it up again, because they only decided last week, but they've had, I mean, it's the same as hydrogen. You know, they've been able to do hydrogen propelled vehicles for years 2008, I saw a BMW with the hydrogen fuel, surely, it the thing about these developments is the manufacturers don't want to do because it's expensive, like all of the emission regulations, we got to put this on, we got to do either we've got to do this, or these things that we're adding to the car, which weren't improving the drivability of the car, but in fact, reducing the driver. So that then you had to do something with the engine to make it that it was still had that drivability, but at the same time have all of this stuff on there, preventing all of the bad stuff coming out of the exhaust, you know? So, and the the rule in Europe about 2035 You're not allowed to produce or sell any more internal combustion engines. And all of a sudden, oh, but we've got this fuel. Yeah, all right. Okay, then we will revise that then. So they've watered it down again. And I think that's something that lawmakers and policymakers, they have a difficult job. Yes. But sometimes they need to stand by what they say and say no, if to lay

Lucas Underwood 47:01
a reason, then just saying we're gonna do what we say we're gonna do.

Pete Bradley 47:05
This train has left the station and you're not changing its direction. But

Lucas Underwood 47:10
do you think that they're allowing that change? Because they look at infrastructure, they look at another piece of it? And they say, oh, man, you know, we promised this but

Pete Bradley 47:20
I mean, you know, some of the things that come out, but back to your question about infrastructure, big cities, fine. No problem with the power grid, all of that. But you get out into the country, and it gets less and less and less. And actually, in Germany, you're only allowed to do 11 kilowatt chargers. So your car sat there for quite a while. Right. Murthy with durability that I was going to mention, but we change the subject a bit. The fast chargers everybody say i i can get my car. The new ID advert is I think 20 minutes, five minutes. Something Yeah, yeah. You know, bad for the battery. Yeah. You know, it's like me trying to feed you a 20 pound steak, right in a second. You know, shoving it in? And you're going to, right, yeah. So. And that's, in fact, in the Tesla manual, it says that, if you do three fast chargers, you must do five normal charges afterwards, to balance the battery bank. Very low. So that's very telling. Yeah. But the infrastructure, you got to read the back page on that, or the small print?

Lucas Underwood 48:35
Well, I consumer goes and gets in the car and just expects the car to do whatever they need to do. Yeah, they don't read they don't. You know, we were talking to somebody earlier talking about the new technology. And the car actually was yesterday was the keynote speaker from today. And and talking about he gets in the car and drives it. Right. Well, he doesn't understand what all is. Right. And you know, the terms of service. David always loves to point out that nobody reads the terms of service, right? Like, yes. Why are you asking me again? Yes. Yes. Oh, I gave my life away. Oh, my bad. They got my firstborn shoot. I didn't read Sorry, guys. You know. And I think that that is something that that, you know, when you transition to a new technology, yeah.

Pete Bradley 49:20
But it's not only the automotive industry, it's everywhere. Yeah. And getting back to your vision. Yeah, one of the originals. Where would you would you say to a young person get into the automotive industry? I'd say yes. Because it's exciting. But no, maybe not in a workshop, but maybe in some form of development. But you need to start in the workshop to progress to that, to get the experience of what happens at the sharp end. Yeah. What happens when this vehicle fails? And then when you then progress up and say, I'll go and work for a software company that's doing automotive because I've seen things there that could be improved. Yeah. You know, and take that knowledge with you into what I mean, I didn't plan this, you know, I didn't plan to be sat in Albuquerque podcast 25 years ago. You know, it just sort of happened. And I think people younger generation have a lot of choice. Yeah. But if somebody said to me, persuade me to come into the automotive industry, well, we've been talking about for the last hour, all the technologies, all the new things that are coming out, self driving cars, all those things, electric vehicles, you know, all of those things are just something that's exciting. And, you know, you can get your teeth into it. And if you can improve that by going down that career path, and that's, that's got to be a good thing.

Lucas Underwood 50:51
Definitely. And I think that that is so much of what we're missing is they don't understand that they can have an impact. Right? Right. Yeah. And I don't think parents understand that they can have an impact. I think parents,

Pete Bradley 51:02
they want us to be lawyers and politicians. We've got too many of those people. When in a lot of money and not really saying anything. I mean, right? Yeah.

Lucas Underwood 51:13
And why is it that we want them to do that we want them to have a good paying job. We don't want them to break their backs like we did. We, you know, there's all these variables. But if you don't understand what the automotive industry is today, yeah, right, you have to take a hard look at what it is because it is not what it was. No, listen, there are still guys out here, Groton in repair shops. There are still hard times and in the automotive repair world, there's no doubt. But but the future looks much different than it's ever looked before. Right. And the slide yesterday, we've talked about this, in the past aside yesterday said, there's going to be more change in the automotive industry in the next 10 years. And there has been last 100 years. And we've been saying that for the last 25 years. Right. I think it's accelerating. I think it's getting faster. And

Pete Bradley 52:02
I saw a graph actually, of when this kick points started. And it was the Industrial Revolution. And it starts like this only this is the whole Yeah. And they just goes. And I think it was we advanced in the last 10 years, more than we advanced in the last 50 or so five times the rate of advancement that we've had before. You know, something's gonna fall over.

Lucas Underwood 52:31
You know, there was a keynote, or it wasn't a keynote. It was a TED talk a long time ago. And it was by a guy named Ken Robinson. And I thought it was so interesting, because he was talking about how we educate children. Yeah. And he's talking about, we still educate them, like we did in the industrial revolution. And it was that they were on an assembly line, and the most important thing was their age. And that's how we look at it. Yeah. And, and I think about that a lot. Because I wonder if a lot of the problem with the skilled trades, a lot of the problem with automotive and the reason people aren't getting into it has way more to do with how we're educating people, and how we're setting the values and the keys that they look at, then, than anything else, then the trade itself. And and, you know, hearing you say, Hey, we got the same skilled trade shortage you have. And for so long, we've been trying to pinpoint what the issue is here in the States and say, well, it's probably this or it's probably that it might be a it might be this, it might be that. But I mean, at this point, we're throwing darts at the open.

Pete Bradley 53:32
One I was in. I was in Beirut, not. I was in Beirut, doing some training, actually, for some diagnostics. And I was talking to other guys who owned a shop in a multi storey carpark. Right. Previous cleaners of us all and they had all the diagnostic stuff. They're really good. We were talking to him, and he's just general chitchat. Really. Yeah. And he has four children, two boys, two girls. And he's sending them all to Canada to study and live in Canada. Right? Because there's no future. Right? You know, that's the sort of attitude of the shop owners who are seeing all of this are getting, like you were saying before, I'm not going to do this thing anymore. This is too complicated for me. Right? Not not saying Come on kids, you can take this business over and take it to places I have. I haven't been Yeah, they're not doing that. The you know, the majority are saying, right, I'm gonna send it to so and so. And so and so we'll sell this and you can go and study and be a doctor or whatever. Right? That sort of thing. You do get the other side. I've seen the other side as well, especially in Dubai. Okay. Young Entrepreneurs, had nothing to do with automotive industry. goes in, buys a shop and decks it out with everything. And he's repairing Lamborghinis, Bentley's Jags, and all of those cars high high profile cars. It's country to be in to do that. But he's got all the equipment, everything He says, and these technicians do. I think he said, two to three days a week or two to three days a month training. Wow, obligatory they have they don't do the training. They are. They're not out. But they adopt pay. I mean, they have a different system over there. But he's managing it like a business. Yeah. You know, and not like, I've just flopped into this auto repair business because it was easy. And now it's got complicated I don't want to do anymore.

Lucas Underwood 55:30
Well, I think that the exposure to the business, right, so if you're, if you're in the business, if you're a repair technician, if you are a shop owner, the exposure to that, what do you want for your kids, you want a better life than what you have? Right? At the end of the day? I think that's what we're all working for. And so I think the exposure to the business, the exposure to the problems and the struggles, like when you're really thinking about your children, you're focusing on what could be very best for them, how can I set them up for success? And so being exposed to the problems, right, there's days I mean, we're shop owners, right? And we experienced stuff sometimes then it's just like, I cannot believe this is happening, this sucks. And so when you you experience that, what do you do you try and protect them from that. But it's not a 30,000 foot view that says you can build generational wealth with it.

Pete Bradley 56:17
Yeah, you're right there, but I don't think that's what you've just described is, it happens everywhere, in every job, you've always gonna have a fall over or you're gonna lose the business, so you can make a bad decision. You know, the way in which I see repair shops in Europe is more in lines of what used to be over here where you had your transmission shop, your engine shop, now we're seeing workshop saying, I'm going to do VAG asset, nothing else. And that creates then opportunities for others. So if you're doing big in this area, I'll do Ford and maybe some French, right French plate, you don't have a real anyway. And then they form a cooperation. So if a reno or or four drops into the vag, he just says okay, no problem. We'll take it, he takes it on, and he gives it to his friend in the future. Right. That's the way in which we see it developing because of the diversity in the vehicles between the manufacturers.

Lucas Underwood 57:31
Are we too adversarial for that, David? Ah, I think we're too.

Pete Bradley 57:38
I don't know, ever that's if you're

David Roman 57:40
highly specialized, it wouldn't be that bad that they're totally general.

Pete Bradley 57:44
I actually actually thought about setting up a business of diagnostic specialists or vehicles diagnostic specialist by no tools, by an all the aftermarket stuff. And just offering services. If you can't fix it, I'll come and I'll fix it. But you can't see what I'm doing. Right? The car is mine and you put blinds around it and I'll get it fixed or I'll tell you what you need to do to fix it. Right. This is a price per hour or whatever. And away you go. But I've stuck to the job I'm in now so it yeah