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Solid State Batteries Are Here! - David Michery CEO of Mullen Automotive
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Welcome to the Plug In For More podcast! Mike, Tom, and Bryant are here to help you on your journey to an Electric vehicle future. Each episode we discuss current events, trends, and a specific topic of education related to EV's. We bring together a diverse experience set, and pair it with guests who are experts in the field. For even more information on EV's, check out www.EVUniverse.com.
In this episode we about the implementation of Ford and Rivian to the Tesla NACS Supercharger network. Also, Tom gets a chance to speak with Mullen Automotive CEO David Michery about their exciting advancements in EV battery technology.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
All right. You there, you froze? Yeah, I'm here. I'm here. I'm just looking at the screen. It's just your face. Yeah. Yeah. That damn thing.
Vacation Vibes: Podcasting Without Brian
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back to the plugin for more podcasts. You know, Mike, it's surprising to me that we're doing one of these recordings yet again without Brian. He's on vacation. I can't do you believe that? Yeah, I don't even know who Brian is at this point. Apparently he's in Thailand. Eating scorpions.
00:00:29
Speaker
Yep, eating scorpions, I saw that. That was disgusting.
Plug In For More: Introduction & Sponsorship
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome to Plug In For More, brought to you by evuniverse.com. EV Universe is your one-stop shop for all things related to the electric vehicle. Here on this podcast, our goal is to educate, inspire, and hopefully make your transition into the electric vehicle marketplace a lot less intimidating. And now, here are your hosts, Mike, Tom, and Bryant.
00:00:59
Speaker
But he can't defend himself, so I'm happy about that.
Ford and Rivian: Navigating Tesla's Supercharging Network
00:01:03
Speaker
Big news in the EV world, though. So quick segue. So you can charge your Mach-E, Ford Mach-E on the Tesla supercharging network. Allegedly, that is the case. Now, Ford is providing free adapters to those who got onto their clunky website to order them once you got through all the website shutdowns.
00:01:28
Speaker
I was able to order my adapter. The adapter is free from Ford, but I'm gonna have to wait until like May until I get it. So once I have that adapter, then yes, I can use at least the current version superchargers. I know like the supercharger in my town is an older version and the Mach-E isn't able to charge on that one. But once you get into the test lab, you can plug in your vehicle and you can see what superchargers are available to your car.
00:01:56
Speaker
Very nice. So we're talking version three and the upcoming version fours. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, and then I got my Rivian back from my little bang up. Um, so just got that back a couple of days ago. So big news there is that Rivian now has access to the supercharging network. However, they are not shipping adapters quite yet. So, um, I want to dive into this for Ford and for, um, Rivian because it's interesting. So the terms of service for.
00:02:26
Speaker
forward and for Rivian is that essentially no third party adapters to make these things, you know, to work, or they're not going to cover damages potentially to the vehicle is something were to happen using the supercharger network. I think that's very interesting, especially how Rivian Rivian did it because they're not they made this announcement. They sent out emails that we now have access. I even got a notice with my update in my car this morning that
00:02:54
Speaker
we now have access to the Supercharger network, which is great, but there's really no information on when those adapters are getting shipped out. And so I think it's pushing a lot of people into third-party adapters. Now, obviously, we sell a lot of different components for EV chargers, and the adapters are going along with them, and we have an upcoming call with one of the CEOs of one of those companies. So we're going to dive into that question more with that.
00:03:23
Speaker
With that CEO, we can't say who it is quite yet, but really excited for that conversation. But they pushed this stuff out for Rivian and didn't really have a solution. And I don't know if that was the best move. I love what Rivian does, but I think that was kind of a misstep there in my opinion. I had read that the actual adapters are being manufactured by Tesla. Yep. Yeah. So maybe Rivian is stuck in a queue of waiting for
00:03:53
Speaker
forward to get all theirs out, perhaps if there was a shortage of adapters. Sure, but don't send that email. Like, just don't, don't hit go. We know how that works. So it's, you know, that's a, yeah.
00:04:08
Speaker
Anyways, that's kind of my opinion there. So you kind of glossed over. You just got the Rivian back, which is exciting. But with all that damage, it was gone for so long.
Rivian's Repair and Release Challenges
00:04:18
Speaker
I mean, that concrete pillar really did a number. What sort of things did you run into that was different that like took longer? I know there were some hang ups with it. Yeah, so the hang ups.
00:04:28
Speaker
Because it really wasn't from an accident perspective that bad at all. I mean, this repair facility does all the Rivians in pretty much North Carolina. There's a couple other spots, but they do the vast majority in Raleigh and some other areas. And they do a great job. They're well known. There's a bunch of other Rivians that were.
00:04:48
Speaker
really messed up in that parking lot. Um, so some of the different factors and why it took six weeks. Um, number one is they were, if you go there and you see how busy they are, they're just stacked up. They are, um, the extremely busy repair facility. There's no plate. They're double stacked in the, in the parking lot. So you can't really park anywhere.
00:05:10
Speaker
Um, so that's number one, just being busy. Number two, um, there was an issue when they painted it, the paint ran and so they had to repaint. So that put us back another three, four days, just getting in the queue and doing that. Um, and then the, probably the longest thing that took almost a full week was the calibration. So, um, when I had the accident, it took off the rear view mirror. Um, and then because of the camera setup, they, um,
00:05:39
Speaker
they had to recalibrate it. And there's only one camera or one machine that does it. And I believe it's built by Snap-on tools. And this repair facility doesn't have one yet. And they're waiting for it. So it had to be shipped the truck on a flatbed two hours away to have it worked on, sit at that repair facility while they do the calibration, even though this thing is done. And then they got to ship it back on a flatbed.
00:06:08
Speaker
And so that whole process took, I think, another five or six business days to do. And then as soon as I, soon as it rolled up, they called me come and get it. Um, and so that was, that was great. But yeah, so it took a little bit while. Um, I think it's a lot of this is partly because Rivian's new, a newer manufacturer and they don't have all the, um,
00:06:31
Speaker
you know, they'll have the network of repair facilities and all the components to fix every piece of it. Like, you know, Tesla and the other OEMs out there. No, that's good. I'm glad you got it back. And on the Rivian vein, we haven't talked about
Rivian's Future Models: R2 and R3
00:06:46
Speaker
it yet in the podcast. I know it's a little bit of stale news at this point, but the R2 announcement and then the surprise R3, which I'm not gonna lie, I kind of love that R3 looks very retro. And although it doesn't work for my family, it would be a fun toy to have, I think.
00:07:00
Speaker
Absolutely. I think that thing's going to be a hit and the number of reservations they've had so far, it's it. I mean, that thing's going to go. Um, I know there's some questions out there is really going to make it. Um, I think if you look at it from a business standpoint, I mean, right now I think there's 16,000 and don't quote me on the exact number, I think 16,000 of the Amazon bands out there. Number one there that are, you know, Amazon owns and, um,
00:07:27
Speaker
You know, they're all over the place. I mean, I see them all the time. I know when it was Illinois, they're everywhere. You know, their ramp is pretty darn good. They're not having issues like Lucid or what happened with Fisker. They're good quality vehicles. You know, they're burning through cash. Yes. But I can't imagine Amazon is just going to let them go down. If they've got 16,000 of these things, that's a big part of their process. So they just going to, you know,
00:07:53
Speaker
deal with that happening. I don't know. I feel feeling that there's going to be some something that happens with Amazon helping out if need be on those. But I guess that's not kind of my question. I guess my point with the R2, R3, there's a ton of reservations on those things. And I think it's really compelling the R2, especially versus the Model Y. Yeah. You know, more traditional interior, that kind of thing. So I guess we're good.
00:08:21
Speaker
And the price points on that, I mean, VR2 is starting at $30,000 less than the R1. Just that alone is going to lower that barrier to entry for a lot of people. And obviously, it puts it in a better ballpark for tax credits and stuff like that. So I personally like the idea of the smaller vehicle. I don't think that I could get away with doing a five seater. My next vehicle is going to be somewhere three rows, something I can get some people into just because my teenager doesn't like sitting in the middle row or the middle seat
00:08:51
Speaker
the Mach-E now, so I'm stuck with that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and frankly, the way they have it packaged for cargo, that's, I think, better than the Model Y. Frankly, it's going to be faster than the Model Y by about a half second zero to 60, which I mean, we don't need it. It's absurd. Yeah, you mean three seconds zero to 60 is crazy. It's faster than the McLaren F1. Do you need that in a five seat crossover? Only car.
00:09:19
Speaker
no no absolutely not but it is a cool yes super cool love it and speaking of super cool cars our guest today is david michory the ceo of mulan motors and david and i had a good talk about their battery technology number they're headed with solid state and some of the upcoming vehicles that they have but if you're not familiar with mulan
Mullen Motors: The Commercial Vehicle Vision
00:09:40
Speaker
They are primarily producing commercial vehicles, like work trucks of that nature. So we talk about that quite a bit through the interview, but they also have a pretty exciting car that they're going to be releasing in 2025. It's the Mullen RS, which is going to be essentially a hypercar, but packaged in a crossover style body with some pretty impressive specs. Fantastic. It's a great conversation.
00:10:05
Speaker
listening. I think you're going to find him very intriguing and a lot of cool information coming out that hasn't really been talked about in most other streams and most other channels. You're listening to the plug in for more podcast. If you're looking for information on electric vehicles, electric vehicles components, or information on how to reduce your carbon footprint, look no further than evuniverse.com. evuniverse.com is your one stop shop for all things related to electric vehicle.
00:10:35
Speaker
David, thanks for joining us here on the podcast. I would love to give our listeners a chance to know who you are and what you represent and tell us more about your company. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. So, Mullen Automotive is an electric vehicle commercial manufacturer that produces Class 1 and Class 3 vehicles. We acquired Bollinger Motors last November.
00:11:03
Speaker
and we acquired controlling interests, they produce a class four through six, so we're locking up.
00:11:11
Speaker
basically the portfolio of commercial vehicles that Canon will be available for sale here in America, class one through class six. So we're one and three there, four through six. We're currently in full production. We produce vehicles out of Tunica, Mississippi, and we're in the process of selling those vehicles. Currently we sell through a portfolio of dealers, one of them being Randy Marion.
00:11:38
Speaker
which is the largest commercial vehicle provider in the United States. We're also actively pushing Bollinger forward. They start production of their Class 4 vehicle mid-year this year, and we expected to do some good things.
00:11:59
Speaker
had a lot of visibility, and they're bringing in a fully homologated and certified American-made, you know, forward chassis vehicle that I think is the Mercedes-Benz of the commercial vehicles. And, you know, when you talk about like a zoo-zoo and, you know, the guys that are ICE vehicles that are in that cab-forward chassis space,
00:12:26
Speaker
then I would make Bollinger the Mercedes of that class. And then where we sit, we're the workhorse, we're the Toyota. And I mean that in a good way. I mean, reliable and just good quality product. So that's kind of how I view our product portfolio. Great. Now through that part of the conversation, you're talking about class one through class six vehicles.
00:12:56
Speaker
terribly familiar with the automotive industry.
00:12:58
Speaker
What do those classes represent, and how does that translate to somebody looking for a car? Sure. I mean, I'll give you an example. A small van, right? As an example, let's say you're a florist and you deliver flowers. As an example, you'll see those smaller vans around town, wherever you might live. Similar to that, right? Like this Ford Transit, something small. So a smaller vehicle, it could be upfitted for cold storage.
00:13:27
Speaker
hot, you know, delivery, for example, as an example, quote-unquote. So, you know, we've been exploring, you know, those type of possibilities. Also, you know, class one could be used for package delivery. We call it last mile delivery. It's small enough that it can maneuver and type to get areas.
00:13:49
Speaker
and it has capacity enough to hold a substantive amount of what I would say goods, packages, whatever you want to carry in the back compartment on a delivery last mile basis. Then you move up a little bit into typically what you see today, you'll see a class two vehicle in circulation used by a portfolio of companies.
00:14:15
Speaker
We took it one step further. We went a little bit bigger. We went to a class three. The class three vehicle is a, you know, a cab forward chassis, but it's designated 10,000 pounds or greater. So you're looking at a, you know, a good sized vehicle and you can configure it in whatever form factor to your specifications. So like, let's say I'm going to use an example. Let's say you're Walmart.
00:14:42
Speaker
and you have a lumber department and you want to deliver lumber. You could have a state bed so you could have it upfitted with a state bed just to meet your needs. Let's say you're Home Depot and you have a pretty large horticulture gardening department and you're tailoring your needs to delivering sod, delivering fertilizer, plants. So maybe you want a little bit more of a
00:15:12
Speaker
not just a state bed, but an actual, you know, container as an example, right? That's open. So maybe their needs are different. But where I'm going with this is that it could be upfitted to any configuration. So we like that better from a class three perspective, that it enables us to almost upfit to your exact specifications.
00:15:36
Speaker
So we went from class one, which there's no competition in it currently, all of the gas ice vehicles that were in it all vacated the space because they didn't want to be compliant to meet all the new mandates that require them to be electric. So rather than spend the billions and billions of dollars to do it,
00:15:57
Speaker
They've chose to exit so we looked at it as a wide open space in class one and we're the only guy there that's fully homologated and certified for sale in the US EPA certification and Sitting there with class one currently today. I know that some other guys Like Hyundai came out and said we're gonna create a class one vehicle, but it's three years from now You know, so I don't want to hear about something from three years from from that. I want to know about today So today we're the only guy in the space
00:16:27
Speaker
So, you know, we're pretty excited about that. And we're also working on next generation battery technology that will expand the range of our class one cells.
Battery Tech Revolution: Mullen's Solid-State Journey
00:16:38
Speaker
I'm sure you followed some of the PR that we've released previously regarding our solid state technology. But, you know, we're looking to take our range and double it if we can, to give the consumer the maximum amount of range for a last mile delivery vehicle and get rid of range anxiety even today.
00:16:57
Speaker
your bigger, call it class three vehicles by your OEMs, the bigger guys, right? With the best range possible, these guys are pushing 120 miles in range. How much better would it be if we can come in with over 200?
00:17:13
Speaker
Right? So, you know, it just what we're doing is we're working on ways to get to that point and to be able to be the most efficient from a safety perspective, from a cost basis and from a liability perspective. So, reliability to me becomes the number one
00:17:29
Speaker
you know concern here and safety meaning are you dealing with safe cells and when you deal with solid state polymers you're dealing with you know non you know you're dealing with solid electrolytes and so in a battery you have an anode, a cathode and you have an electrolyte and your electrons pass through. When you have a liquid electrolyte
00:17:50
Speaker
It's subject to explode. Basically, it can't be intruded. It can't mix with water. So you get these issues where you have what we call dangerous goods. So when you move to a solid state polymer,
00:18:06
Speaker
basically a silicon-based technology you completely eliminate the dangerous elements you know the raw earth dangerous elements that you have to mine like your nickel your magnesium your cobalt these are all dangerous materials right elements so we're working towards the future and providing a safe solution from a cell perspective that translates to the vehicle so
00:18:34
Speaker
As an example, you could take a torch and burn a hole right through a solid-state cell and nothing will happen. You take a torch to a lithium iron phosphate cell, you're going to get one hell of an explosion. So are you going to get a fire that you can't turn off? I've seen these cells burn underwater.
00:18:59
Speaker
And we're laughing, but I mean, it's a reality. It's a risk factor. So we try to eliminate a lot of that risk by looking at how can we think out of the box and create technologies that will benefit the consumer down the road. And so we're proud to say that we're in our class one. I think a couple of weeks ago, Jason, a month ago, we announced that we're actually testing it in the vehicle.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yeah, about three weeks ago, yeah, we had an announcement where we have done road testing with that solid state battery vehicle in the class one cargo van. So that's something that we have a really active program on right now.
00:19:41
Speaker
Lots of good updates coming forth. Just on the early stages, I believe, of the percentage of gain between conventional chemistry and our solid state, what did we announce? Was it a 70% increase in range? Correct, yeah. It was a 70% increase in range.
00:19:59
Speaker
just initial, initial stages could get better. So where I'm going with this is we're on the right path, right? You as a consumer, let's just say you run a small little business, call it a gardening service. As you see all over America where you've got these gardeners that pull up in these vans and they, you know, they carry their lawnmowers and their hedgers and their, you know, their equipment, their blowers, right?
00:20:21
Speaker
Imagine now, you have a electric solution that can get you from point A to point B. Most of these guys operate within a 100 mile radius. Now, there's no longer the what I call range anxiety. If you have like a 200 mile range, you can cover... Most gas vehicles don't in a given day travel 200 miles in a day. So I think that's kind of like the magic number in my opinion.
00:20:49
Speaker
So with that too, we're also exploring other ways to be more efficient. But I like the possibilities with the Class 1 on the commercial level and how it opens it up, not just to fleet services, but it opens it up to the small guy that's a gardener. And I don't want to misquote you on this, but I
00:21:12
Speaker
took in some of your other interviews. And I think I heard you say something to the effect of we are a technology company that dabbles in automobiles. That's right. And hearing you talk about this and the battery tech and going to the solid state for them, it's cool. And it's obvious that that's your focus, which it's encouraging to hear. Well, yeah. I mean, look, when I started this thing well over a decade ago, I wanted to build a car. And I knew I wanted it to be electric.
00:21:41
Speaker
And so my first battle with an electric vehicle was the Mullen GT, which, you know, Microsoft, ironically, Bill Gates' company, they're one of their first commercials, oh, God, 20 years ago.
00:21:57
Speaker
was with the Mullen GT. You can actually go find it somewhere online. It's Microsoft and Mullen automotive, I'm sorry, Mullen motor cars and you'll see the Mullen vehicles and they did a Microsoft commercial with the Mullen GT. It's a little race car and it's positioned all over in this Microsoft commercial early on Microsoft.
00:22:18
Speaker
And so how I got into the space is I bought Mullen Motor Company or motor cars. And I knew that there was something there because I knew that, you know, Forbes at one time, it's funny, you'll see an article had them listed as one of the most potentially progressive vehicle companies because they were literally in the electric space before there was anybody else in it. So I bought it in 2012.
00:22:46
Speaker
From a retired military officer, a guy named Arthur Allen, who passed away not too long ago, but served this country in Vietnam and Korea, and just a really good guy. And so when he retired from a career in the United States military as a high-ranking officer, he wanted to build a car, but he wanted to build an electric car.
00:23:09
Speaker
So I became friends with them and then I bought the company and then I said, how could I progress this forward? There were like a lot of great things. Like I remember being able to go on, you know, at the time, remember when there was MTV Cribs. Yeah. And I remember that he was selling this mall and vehicle. And I remember seeing the lead singer from Lincoln Park, I think it was, who's no longer with us. But you could see video. He was one of the buyers of a mall and
00:23:36
Speaker
GT. And so I knew that the car had garnered a lot of attention. So it just so happened that I just didn't think at that time that a sports car, even though Elon came later with the Tesla Roadster, which was a Lotus Elise, I felt that
00:23:57
Speaker
I wanted to focus on more on a wider broad spectrum vehicle like a sedan. And so I found a company called Coda Automotive that had spent three quarters of a billion dollars to try to homologate a four-door sedan. God, it was ugly. And I bought them on a bankruptcy.
00:24:18
Speaker
So I bought all the assets between, uh, call it from 2012 through 2018. I accumulated, accumulated, accumulated, but in that accumulation of assets, I also accumulated a lot of battery technology. So a lot of times people come to me and they're like, so how did you just, you know, like you just fell out of the sky, landed on your head and wow, you have solid state technology. No, man.
00:24:42
Speaker
I mean, you know, just, you know, if you really look at the history of it, you know, we've been around for a long time. And, you know, we took over a facility in Monrovia, California that had been around for a couple of decades. It was Coda Energy. And that's where, you know, they were building battery packs in 2011. And 2011, they were building battery packs in Monrovia, Coda Energy.
00:25:09
Speaker
So think about that. When did Tesla come around? So the point I'm making is there's really a lot of battery experience and knowledge floating around this company. But you know, we look, we don't brag about it. You know, people say, hey, man, you know, how why are they so lucky? How did they be able to do this when the billion, kazillion dollar companies can't do it?
00:25:34
Speaker
You can't put a price on knowledge, right? It's knowledge and know-how. And the only way you garner that is through time and experience, right? If you have a kazillion dollars, it doesn't mean you're gonna get to a solution faster than a guy that has no money, but he has knowledge and know-how. How do you explain Nikita Tesla? He had no money, but let's talk about alternating current.
00:25:59
Speaker
I mean, prior to him, we had what we call direct current. We weren't going to get anywhere with electricity. It was his genius that came up with the solution on how to have electricity be able to travel distances through what he invented, which was called basically today AC, alternating current. It didn't cost him a dime.
00:26:23
Speaker
He was able to think about that and he was able to be the guy to come up with the knowledge and the know-how to implement that. So I always tell people have the mis- notion that if you don't have a kazillion dollars, you can't do something. It doesn't always work like that. Sometimes it's the discovery aspect of it.
00:26:43
Speaker
Right? All the money in the world can't have you discover something if you just don't have the bandwidth or the knowledge or technology to do it. So where I'm going with this is we, I'm not saying we invented the wheel, but we purchased the assets from the people that were ahead of everybody else.
00:27:04
Speaker
One of the main principles was a guy named Peter Norpman who started a company called EnergyCS. First guy to invent the hybrid. He invented the hybrid drivetrain for the Toyota Prius for Toyota. Peter Norpman with a company called EnergyCS. This was back in 2005 and 2006.
00:27:25
Speaker
Peter Nortman's company, EnergyCS, eventually became Coda. You follow me? But nobody does their research all the way back to determine on, where did Mullen find all this technology? I would say they think we just pulled it out of our ass. Excuse my French.
00:27:41
Speaker
But you know, there's a source to it Anyway, you know, but we take you know, we take the criticism, you know How does a small company like yours be, you know able to do this? You're a liar. You cannot possibly have solid state polymer. You are an absolute liar Well, you saw the vehicle driving around michigan being tested with the pack in it I usually believe you know proof right physical proof in your face. How do you deny that?
00:28:12
Speaker
But you get people that just, you know, if you're not BASF and didn't spend five kazillion dollars, then it must be fake. You know, again, I think experience outweighs and trumps everything.
00:28:28
Speaker
That's my opinion, right? And there's a lot of that over here, a lot of experience. Yeah. And I can get behind that. And as you're telling the story, I'm reminded of a, it's not a tale, but it's the Wright brothers and how they were pitted up against a government-funded entity to come up with the first flying machine.
How Soon? Mullen's Production Timeline for Solid-State Batteries
00:28:45
Speaker
They're doing it out of their bicycle shop, and yet they had the passion and the desire and the know-how, and they outperformed other large entities that were trying to accomplish the same thing.
00:28:55
Speaker
that has a ton of resources behind them and still couldn't do it. Correct. Well, there you go. Think about all the guys right now today that still today in America that don't have a solid state solution that has been, do you understand when we announced three weeks ago, a solid state pack in a vehicle, do you understand how groundbreaking that should have been? It got no attention. No one gave a shit.
00:29:18
Speaker
Do you understand the magnitude and significance of that? Maybe 10 years from now, someone's gonna come back and say, that was such a pivotal moment in time. These guys out of Michigan changed the entire landscape of the world. But it's okay, sometimes you gotta be like, hey, Tesla died in New York in a hotel room, broken poor. Today's regarded as probably the most, probably on the same level as Einstein.
00:29:48
Speaker
So look, I tell people all the time, you look at administrations, I call what I have here, in some regard, you run a company like ours, which is public, it's an administration on a smaller scale, just like, for example, the current administration that's running America, that's an administration. How you judge an administration, you wait till the administration's done and you judge it 10 years later, what did they accomplish? So I laugh at people, I'm like, you wanna judge me today, go ahead.
00:30:17
Speaker
Judge me 10 years from now. Commercial vehicles obviously have their own niche and admittedly our podcast doesn't always focus on that as much. I see the value and I think a lot of people do as well because it's kind of what keeps America moving. Where are you guys at on the more commercial passenger type cars?
00:30:35
Speaker
Well, right now, the Mullen 5RS is planned for low volume production and a debut in the fourth quarter in 2025 in Europe. So it's a very pricey car because it's a very sophisticated and a very, you know, the bill of materials in that car is ridiculous, but it's a ridiculous car. I call it a hypercar. It's not even a, you know, it's a hyper SUV.
00:31:02
Speaker
and it's it's built to it's I mean the materials that's built from what's all carbon fiber based I mean you guys saw it when we debuted it at CES it's an amazing vehicle it's a it's a true 200 mile an hour vehicle a lot of guys talk about you know they're the fastest zero to 60 no one ever talks about the top end because you can't get top end
00:31:25
Speaker
an electric vehicle, it just doesn't happen. The consumption of energy doesn't allow it. But, you know, we tasked our engineers, you know, when I told them, I said, I want it to go zero to 60 under two seconds, and I wanted to go over 200 miles. My engineers, you know, told me, can't do that. You could pick, they go pick one, David, right, Jason? They're like, pick one. You want zero to 60, or do you want over 200? I said, I want both. So I made them deliver me both.
00:31:56
Speaker
And so, you know, we have a vehicle that goes zero to 60 in 1.95 seconds and goes 205 miles an hour. Yeah, over 200 miles an hour. Yeah, over 200 miles an hour. You know, none of these guys, if you take a look, I don't care who they are. All of them, yeah, we do zero to 60 in 1.9 seconds. What's your top speed? 150. Right.
00:32:20
Speaker
You know, I wanted to be, I wanted to break the 200 mile barrier, right? That was my goal. And I also wanted to be quick off, you know, right off the jump. So, you know, we accomplished that and the engineering feat to do that for an electric vehicle is amazing. And then, you know, the car, you know,
00:32:40
Speaker
I'm the first guy, I don't care what anybody says, I'm telling you, I knew that weight was an issue with all electric vehicles when it comes to wanting to achieve, to break the 200 mile an hour barrier.
00:32:55
Speaker
And I looked at the best way to reduce weight. So we went with carbon composite materials, but I also looked at carbon ceramic rotors. And I looked not because they look pretty, because they do, and not because they efficiently stop you. They're used in race vehicles. They took off almost 30 pounds of weight
00:33:17
Speaker
from each rotor. So if you have four rotors, what's 30 times four? 120. So 120 pounds of weight. Then I went with magnesium-based wheels. I wanted to reduce weight, but yet I wanted strength. So let's just say if we were able to take 250 to 300 pounds of weight off of the vehicle,
00:33:41
Speaker
and then carbon bucket seats and you know on and on and on and on you know you work towards reducing weight right mass begets mass so I went ahead and built what I believed to be an amazing machine and a work of art
00:34:01
Speaker
So it's going to be a limited production vehicle and we're going to put it out in Europe in the fourth quarter in 2025. Jason, what's its projected price point? Over $300,000. So probably be closer to $350,000, $375,000. But it's going to be a vehicle?
00:34:21
Speaker
that will compete with your multi-million dollar supercars. So you can't just say, hey, I don't call it, hey, here's just another electric car. No, it's a hypercar. It will get out there with the Conan sag.
00:34:37
Speaker
It'll get out there with the Bugatti. It'll get out there with the Pagani. In other words, it's fit and finish will be so magnificent that you'll just want to put it in your garage and look at it. And that's a true collector. So I'm looking to establish a
00:34:55
Speaker
a marquee vehicle that is something that you would not want to resell. The resale market on it will be non-existent. It'll be like a Pagani. Go see if you can find one.
00:35:09
Speaker
Right, so we feel we'll sell 500 to 1,000 of them and then that will drive the interest at some point down the road to come back to the U.S. with a similar version, your standard
00:35:26
Speaker
$50,000, $60,000, $75,000 version of the vehicle based off of the supercar. Kind of like what Corvette does with the Z06 and then the C8. I think I was dodged years ago that the Viper sold a lot of neons. I think I have heard that cut phrase before. Same kind of idea, I would guess.
00:35:49
Speaker
Well it does, you know, like Mercedes does a lot of that too. You know, you look at, you know, past performance is indicative of future results. Sure. Mercedes has made it built a business by taking, you know, I'll say like a Mercedes 300, right?
00:36:06
Speaker
Right. And so all, you know, a C 300, now you have an AMG C 63. Same car put on steroids through AMG. Right. Think about that. A C, a C 300 and a C 63. So now it's AMG C 63, AMG, you know, quote unquote, high performance supercar Porsche 911, right. 911 are
00:36:36
Speaker
GT3 RS same body different car one car has 300 horsepower the other car has 700 horsepower one car weighs half as much as the other one car you know goes 250 miles an hour
00:36:59
Speaker
I'd like to jump back to the solid-state battery. Obviously, you're testing. Where are you at for a projection on getting those live into production vehicles? We think we can. And I want to take a very conservative approach. So there's steps, right? Once you get the chemistry to where you feel like you're where you want to be and the form factor that you have, that form factor needs to be homologated.
00:37:24
Speaker
Meaning, now you have your standard test, right? For water intrusion, crash, right? For penetration, all of the different things, the testing that you have to go through in that vehicle, basically you recertify the vehicle almost. So I would project it 12 to 18 months from where we stopped testing.
00:37:54
Speaker
which is still very, very fast. The projection, my engineers tell me by the end of the year, we'll be ready. I always want to pad it and add a little time to it because whatever, even if we come next year, we're still
00:38:12
Speaker
light years ahead of everybody. There's no commercial viable solid state polymer solution on planet earth. So if we were to come with one, believe me, that is a paradigm shift. We're talking about a paradigm shift. So I'm not gonna brag about it. I'm just gonna do it. And then say, hey, here it is. You don't believe it? Come on, come touch it.
00:38:38
Speaker
Right. Come get in it with the United States seal on it saying it's been approved. EPA approved. With a 70% efficiency or range improvement.
00:38:50
Speaker
And comparing it to a current range. So we took a class one using lithium iron phosphate technology through a CATL cell. And we took that same class one, put our solid state solution in it.
00:39:08
Speaker
And right now it's greater than 70%. Is there a significant weight reduction to that as well in line with that 70% I would assume? Because what happens is you use less space
00:39:23
Speaker
and you get the same density, so in essence, you make up for it in, you know you are right, right? There is a weight reduction, but we're increasing the range, so the weight technically would probably be the same. If you have a 42 hour kilowatt equivalent, if you can get 80 kilowatts in the same space, it's the same weight, but you've increased the capacity. Right, okay.
00:39:51
Speaker
No, form factor stays the same density increases. I really enjoyed talking about this, David. It's fascinating. And the solid-state battery stuff is super exciting. I let the science do the speaking for me, right? So now, we have a whole different attitude here at Marlin. We're going to show you.
00:40:11
Speaker
So we go out of our way to take videos and post them on our webpage of actual testing being done with the actual Saul State cell in the pack, in the vehicle. And we do that. We say, here you go. Here you go. Right? Yeah.
00:40:28
Speaker
So that's kind of what we're doing.
Power Up: Mullen's Mobile Charging Solution
00:40:31
Speaker
We're focused on commercial product. That's our number one priority and focus. We're the only guy in class one. We have an awesome class three vehicle. And we also got the power up, which is a amazing mobile power system that Jason and the guys have been working on for quite some time. And actually, I'd like Jason to tell you a little bit about it and how it came about. It wasn't something that was planned. It came out of need.
00:40:57
Speaker
for our strikingly different tour, and it's got a tremendous amount of response across the globe. Jason, you want to take a minute and talk about Power Up? Thank you, David. So yeah, just to tell you a little bit more about Power Up. So Power Up was a
00:41:12
Speaker
Over the last three years, we've done a number of stops across the US showcasing our EV vehicles. We started this in 2022. We did roughly 15 stops across the US at Major League Baseball stadiums and racetracks. That first leg of the tour we did had a very small number of vehicles that we took with us, so we were able to charge those vehicles as we needed to.
00:41:36
Speaker
But what we did find on that first leg of the tour was there was almost no infrastructure to support EV charging at those stops. And again, we were at major stadiums and major parks and racetracks where, you know, you hold major, major events and none of them had support for EV charging. So when we started the second leg of the, or we were envisioning the second leg of the tour that we did this last year in 2023,
00:42:03
Speaker
We knew that we needed to have a solution in place that could satisfy our charging needs on the road. We also had quite a few more vehicles that we were taking on the road with us on this last time, and that included our Class 1 EV cargo van. We had that vehicle with us, Class 3, so we had a number of new vehicles that we had taken on tour, including the Mullen 5 RS, which was mainly used on a racetrack.
00:42:29
Speaker
So we had quite a bit more energy needs on the road. And what we did is we took a look at what we needed, we spec'd out what we needed, and we had a vehicle built for us that is our mobile charging solution. And that is a Class 5 truck that's got DC fast charging built into it. The vehicle itself runs on propane. Also the power gen set runs on propane as well.
00:42:55
Speaker
So what this does is this allows us to take power with us and that vehicle supported us across the US. And as a result of having that use case need, we've now found that there's a market opportunity for that as well. So this is a perfect vehicle moving forward that would satisfy like roadside assistance,
00:43:15
Speaker
AAA, different providers that are out there to help stranded motorists on the road where you could pull up an EV charging truck or have an EV charging truck that would also satisfy other roadside assistance requirements. And you could pull that truck up and you could plug somebody in and get them 10 to 15 miles of range.
00:43:36
Speaker
Uh, you know roughly 10 minutes so similar to what you have now with roadside assistance where they pull up with a jerry can if you're out of gas and will give you You know a few miles of distance to get you down the road to a A gas station to fuel up so
00:43:53
Speaker
What we see moving forward is, and as David had alluded to, we have received quite a few requests on power of the mobile charging solution. And this is something that we're actively moving forward with, both on a larger class five vehicle platform, but then also making configurations available for our own vehicles, which is a class three EV cab chassis truck, and then also a class one EV cargo van. Cool.
00:44:21
Speaker
Really unique, really, I think you're going to see this opportunity really expand, not just with us, but with other providers in the market. As we see EV transition happen throughout the US, the infrastructure is going to take a little bit longer to catch up.
00:44:39
Speaker
So, um, and you're always going to have a roadside assistance scenario where you're going to need something, uh, you know, in an, in an inconvenient spot to, uh, you know, to plug somebody in and get them down the road. Um, so there's a good opportunity for this as we move forward. Uh, and it's something we're really excited about. You're aware of someone could buy a Mullen commercial vehicle if they wanted it.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, so our current distribution network right now is with Randy Mary and Automotive Group. So if anyone's interested in a Class 1 EV cargo van or a Class 3 EV Cap Tracy truck, the best thing to do is to reach out to us on MullenUSA.com. Submit a request for some information. What we'll do is we'll follow up with you directly, and then we'll pass that over to our distributor, which is Randy Mary and Automotive Group.
00:45:27
Speaker
They're actually one of the largest commercial dealers in the US. They're the distributor of record for our vehicles, and then they would actually handle the sales transaction on the vehicles. So both the Class 1 and the Class 3 are available now in all 50 states. We have all of our certifications, EPA, CARB, Department of Transportation. So all of those are in place, and those vehicles are available throughout the US.
00:45:53
Speaker
Great. Well, I appreciate your time, gentlemen. Thanks for joining us, and I hope to hear more from you soon. Thank you, Tom. Take care. Thank you for listening to Plug In For More. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. In the meantime, check out the one-stop EV Marketplace, evuniverse.com. Until next time.