Ep21: Rich Rebuilds on Creating an EV Empire & Backstabbed by Tesla
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I know some of the things I may say are a little

A lot of the Tesla community thinks maybe you've turned on them. Some people's feelings are hurt when I started going over to gas cars, not realizing that I'm a car enthusiast performing EV enthusiast. The Cybertruck's embarrassing. If YouTube doesn't work out, I'm going to start an OnlyFans just of my feet, like driving my Tesla. Only feet. We have Rich Benoit today. You guys might know as Rich Rebuilds.

He is a YouTuber, an author. You are a TV show mechanic. What else have you done here? - That's pretty much it, Ashley. That's pretty much peaked at this point. - No, you also are a Tesla referral prize winner and a referral prize revoker.

I don't know what you'd call that. I think I was one of the first ones to get it revoked. I think there was someone else before me, but... We're going to get into it all right now. And let's kind of start out at the beginning here. So you made a YouTube video probably like...

seven years ago maybe maybe seven or eight years ago yeah yes and this is how you first got on my radar you're making these videos about your Tesla I think that it had you had bought a Model S I believe that had been underwater and you were trying to rebuild it and then you also at the same time made a roast of some of the Tesla YouTubers yes I think maybe about six or seven months in

where I said to myself, you know what, making just instructional videos is kind of boring. Let's spice it up a little bit. And I've been watching you for a while, back when you were like Tesla Kim. Yes. And I was like, who is this woman? I have to make fun of her. So no, it was pretty funny. I think you were on top of your Model X, I believe. Probably. That's how I used to like to take my pictures. Yeah, I was like, why is she on top of the car? And then I gave you a mini roast then. But...

a little behind the scenes, I did message you first. Yeah. I messaged you and I said, hey, I'm going to make fun of you. I'm not asking your permission, but watch the next video. Yeah. And I actually loved it. I thought it was so funny. I'm like, I love your sense of humor. I think you're hysterical and it's probably why you've been so successful with everything that you've done. Yeah, maybe. Maybe, yeah. Well, that and a lot of other things. But it's been really fun to watch you

Your channel grow, your career grow, everything that you're doing and inspiring also for me because now I'm starting to kind of try out these DIYs and get my hands dirty. Absolutely. Taking baby steps. I know some of the things I may say are a little...

controversial at times but the goal is I want people to get out there and work on their own stuff. I don't really think that you have to go to the manufacturer/dealership for everything whether it's cars or whether it's you know your HVAC system or anything that you have

you should have like the right to fix it. So that was like my biggest thing, the biggest push. And then, so if you watch the videos and you're like, this guy's an idiot, I could do that. That's my goal. But you're also really funny. Like I think I watched, you're doing like a sponsorship for something and you sat on your toilet and like the whole video is just like up your feet and you're like reading something. I'm like, he's so funny. Like I wish I could do that. Why can't you? I mean, maybe I could. I'd watch that. If someone told me...

There was a video of Kim on the toilet. Okay, maybe it's too much. But there was, yes, I would watch that. I'm sure there's others that would too. If I'm showing my feet, maybe there would be an audience for that. Listen, feet are a big thing, in case you didn't know that. If YouTube doesn't work out, I'm going to start an OnlyFans just of my feet, like driving my Tesla. Only feet. That would kill it.

Why not do both? I could do both. It's a second revenue stream. I could do both. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know. Let us know in the comments. Should I do that? I'm not sure if my husband back there would let me do that. He's probably going to cut this part out. It's only feet. Only feet. It's only feet. What's the deal?

thanks to eb jack for sponsoring these videos everyone at some point i feel like has pulled up to a shady charger where you've been a little bit nervous and you're basically sitting duck there for about 30 minutes and if there is an emergency you actually have to get out of your car to unplug before you can leave but thanks to eb jack you don't have to do that anymore yeah so this essentially acts as a circuit breaker so what you're able to do is just press unlock charge port on the center screen it stops the flow of current

and then it breaks in half as you pull away. You can put the car into drive at that point, even though it's plugged in, it breaks away. Again, we did a video on this and it protects the wand as it falls to the floor as well. And the beauty of it is they've actually got a warranty now that share your story with them and they'll send you a free replacement for your first emergency exit there. So if you need to break free level one, level two, or even DC fast chargers, superchargers, you'll be able to break free using one of these EVJECs.

again gives you the peace of mind to me it's a no-brainer especially if you supercharge frequently and there's there's plenty of shady superchargers out there for sure and we'll link everything you need to know about uvject also in the description so make sure you check that out yes and by clicking those links you're helping to support this channel all right let's keep going here you started working on your tesla tesla wasn't super happy about you doing all this or were they no they weren't thrilled with it so

It all came to a head when I tried to purchase parts for the car that was underwater and they pretty much just said, "We won't sell you these parts. We don't have these. We're not going to sell them to you, but we'll happily refer you to our sales department. You can just buy one because that makes more sense." I'm like, "Well, not really. I kind of have some money into this."

I was just never used to that. Usually you go to a dealership, you say, I want that. And they're like, they'll happily sell it to you. So this was the first time I've ever been roadblocked on the dealership level of things. So it was kind of like, it was a little bit of a surprise. Why do you think that they did that? Do you think it was because they were such a new company? Or what do you think their intentions were? The intentions were, it was pretty simple, I think. They were very new. So a lot of the parts...

they literally didn't even have. They were more focused on in the beginning when they were in their explosive growth stage. They said, "We don't have extra parts. We just want to do this." Also, it boils down to the personal preference of the person I was speaking to.

they kind of said to themselves, this is a waste of time. Like, why would we do this? Why would we put this person in this kind of danger when they could just buy the parts? Because when you start getting into a person coming off the street saying, I'm going to swap out this battery or I'm going to swap out this drive unit, immediately they're just like,

We can't let you do that. Like, let us do that. Why don't you go ahead and throw your little project away, buy a new car, and just play it safe? Okay. All right. So I can kind of see both sides of that, like why they might do that. But then you did go on to win some referral prizes. Yeah. You won two Roadsters, right? I just won one Roadster. One Roadster. Yeah. And then you had it basically taken away. Yeah. So...

And again, these roadsters are roadsters that we've all technically won, but no one's received them. So let's explain that. It's kind of imaginary at the moment, but I'm sure it's going to come at some point. So with the referral program, that was the second roadblock where...

A lot of the things that Tesla was doing at the time, they weren't very positive in my opinion, whether it be for repairing people's cars that have had issues or even things like there was a Takata airbag recall a while back where Tesla said, you know, we're not going to replace this airbag regardless of the status of the car because we just don't feel like doing it. That was back when a lot of the, you know, the,

the sales managers and a lot of the service advisors had say as to what car gets fixed, you know, back before, you know, they were actually super bombarded. So basically, they were just like, you know what, we're not going to fix this, you know, we don't really want to do this. So I call those things to light. And as a result, Tesla as a whole wasn't really thrilled with a lot of the things that I was saying. But there were two sides to the fence. The first side was that

Was trying to make Tesla better in a lot of ways and believe it or not a lot of the things that I said in the videos are Actual implementations that they've actually made they don't want to admit it, but they were like, okay fine. We'll do this We'll do that so when did up happening was after I got to a certain amount of referrals for the Roadster because the deal was I think when you get to ten referrals you get a

like a set of wheels, like the turbine wheels or the Uber turbines. Or if you do this, you get two kids' cars. Once you get to a certain level of the Tesla Roadster, I was able to get the Tesla Roadster, but at the end of the program, they said, you know what, we're going to remove this because we find your videos don't paint Tesla in the best light.

So that was the first, I think, kind of semi-major roadblock where I was like, wait a minute, they're almost taking this personally because in the past there was never a time where social media was so closely tied to manufacture. If you wanted to buy a part from Chevrolet,

You say you know Chevy really stinks in the YouTube video. It doesn't matter You'd walk in and buy the part and just call it a day There was such a close tie to social media and Tesla especially with the referral program They could actually go in there and individually say no we don't want you to have this or yes, you can have this so

So did you ever have you had ever had a conversation with him or did you have you had a conversation with Elon Musk at all about this? I've never never spoken to him. No, he's very careful about who he responds to and who he gives attention to. What a year ago.

one of their Tesla engineers that has to do with diagnostics and repair, he actually asked, he said, hey, you know what? We've been working hard in the background to make manuals and repair models and service documentation for these Teslas. Is there anything that you feel like you're missing from this documentation that would help people in the future? So it was very, yeah, it was very eye-opening. Now, was that before or after the TV show with Robert Downey Jr.?

Oh my goodness, that was before. Oh, okay. That was, I believe it was before, it was during filming, but it was before it actually came out. Okay. So I think maybe they would have known. I'm not really sure there's any correlation between, you know, the show and what they said, but the guy was really nice. He reached out, he said, hey, you know what, this is, I'd like to start helping now, but at the same time, I was kind of soured by it because I really moved on from mostly Tesla stuff, and it was...

about five or six years too late. But things now are definitely a lot better, for sure. - It's so interesting. So then, kind of what we just talked about is you now, how did this whole TV show come about? Did they reach out to you? Did you reach out to them? Did you know somebody? How did this happen? 'Cause you don't hear about a lot of people that go from YouTube and social media to HBO. - Have you ever had a dream where you're in a spaceship

So Robert Downey Jr.'s people got together and they said, "We want to make a show based on turning gas cars into electric cars."

And they hired her to say, hey, you know, listen, we need to start doing research in this field to see who are some of the subject matter experts. Who can we actually talk to about getting more information about converting, you know, gas cars to electric? So...

they found me, which was kind of cool. So I was supposed to originally be on the panel just to talk to Robert and say, hey, well, these are some of the pros and cons, electric versus gas, et cetera. And I was on the panel. I spoke with him. It was really cool. We went out to the Hamptons, had a really good time. And their plan was to convert a few electric vehicles. And over time, they realized, you know what? Instead of hiring a company to do it, can you do it?

And I said, "I have a company that can do it, sure." And then one thing led to another and we ended up building two cars

for him almost three cars for him because a couple of other issues had some a couple of other projects had a few issues so therefore you know we ended up building almost three cars for him which was pretty pretty cool and they said you know what we want you on the show we think you guys are very lively and friendly and it just transitioned from you know being a subject matter expert which is crazy they picked me in the first place to actually being on the show which is very cool that was so cool I remember you posted something I think on your Instagram and I was like so excited I was like PJ

And you actually use some of Tesla batteries and you put it into yeah, we absolutely did k10 the pickup truck We did use Tesla cells for that which was which was pretty interesting We used Tesla cells and we use a Tesla performance drive unit for that and for the Corvette

we once again used tesla cells but for the motors we went with our net gain uh due to the space constraints the net gains were like a little bit more cylindrical so they were easier to implement so yeah so how do you for somebody that's like getting into conversions and wants to learn about it like where do you start that's a really good question so a lot of people have engineering backgrounds engineering degrees when it comes to battery tech cooling etc

I think a lot of what you need to do, because it's not as simple as just knowing about batteries and motors and controllers. You also have to know about vehicle dynamics as well, because it's one thing to put all of those components together. It's relatively simple. You touch the battery terminals together, and then you put it in the motor and the controller. I'm obviously oversimplifying it, but that can be done.

Once you take those things outside of a vehicle and you have to put them into a vehicle, that's when everything changes. You have to think about space. How much space do you have to do stuff? Because outside of a car you have an infinite amount of space, but in the car you have to cut things down by like sometimes 50, 60, 70 percent. You have to think about the drive train, where that's going to live. Is there enough room under the hood? What kind of drive train you use?

weight distribution, do you have the batteries split in half, some of the front, some of the back? Do you have it ingest the rear to aid in traction? Do you make it four-wheel drive? So you almost have to have knowledge of vehicles, obviously, and you have to have knowledge about, you know, working electronics as well. Where you would get that knowledge?

I think just starting out, obviously YouTube is big. - Watch your channel. - Yeah, well no, not my channel, but there's plenty of people smarter than I am. But watching down to earth instructional YouTube channels about doing conversions

And also, it also starts in school too. A lot of vocational schools offer those. There's a lot of programs now that offer training in EV conversion. So that'd be a great start as well. A lot of the Tesla community thinks maybe you've turned on them. Oh my goodness. And I know this because we were at an event like a week and a half ago together. And I took a picture with you and we posted it. And I wanted to read you some of the comments. Oh, I love this. Alright.

- All right, so it's kind of like mean comments, but let me pull them up here. Where do we put it? Okay, so I don't wanna hurt your feelings. - No, I love it, I love it. - Do you like it or not? - I'm excited, I'm excited. - Oh, you're excited for this? Okay.

I'm always like the mom that's like, I don't want to know. No, no, no, no. This is good feedback. All right. So one of them says lost respect for him a long time ago, which I was like, that one's pretty tough. But then I got another one says been waiting for this matchup a long time ago. And when the videos he made a reference to you and Tesla, probably the one where you were pretty funny. Rich is a sellout and a hater.

he is no longer relevant to the EV community. Which, that one was harsh. That one was good. That one was harsh. That was good. And I'm wondering, why do you think these people think this? Because I feel like you are not

any of those things? Like if people actually knew you, but like why do you think they think that? - It's really tough. You have to understand that people don't have a lot of time to process lots of information, nor do they have the time to really analyze trends. So for example, if I make a YouTube video saying something about Tesla that wasn't particularly nice, a lot of people don't necessarily understand the context of it.

You know, I could easily say, like, I don't like Tesla because of these seven things. Or I make a video saying, hey, listen, the Cybertruck's embarrassing.

They'll read the title and say, this person X found the Cybertruck, which I love, not to be very great. Therefore, because I feel I'm personally attacked, I don't like this person anymore. That happens a lot. Yeah. So should we name this video Rich Hates the Cybertruck and see how it does? Yeah. You get some clicks. Rich doubles down on hating the Cybertruck. But people actually watch the video. They'll see that.

Rich really liked the Cybertruck, but he felt that it wasn't really a Tesla product. Meaning when the Model 3 came out, it was so far ahead of everything. Whereas when the Cybertruck came out, it's kind of like mid-pack in terms of the EV pickup truck, which actually kind of surprised me. So people don't really have lots of time to process a lot of that information. And I totally get it. When...

When you see someone that was kind of championing the movement to say, hey, listen, I can make Tesla a lot better. We can do these things. They don't really read in between the lines to say, I've been pretty balanced when it comes to things about Tesla. I'll say some things that are negative and I'll say some things that are positive. But overall, in the grand scheme of it, I started a company that fixes them.

You know? Yeah. I can't hate them that much. Right. You know, when I built my first one, I gave it to my daughter. Guess what? Now my daughter is an EV driver for life.

So I think the good outweighs the bad. I just think that some people's feelings are hurt when I started going over to gas cars, not realizing that I'm a car enthusiast, performant EV enthusiast. And a lot of people that make comments like that, they're usually only a fan of one. They're usually on one lane. So I get it. That is really interesting. And I've noticed this. A lot of us YouTubers have noticed this. There's still this divide between the gas-loving cars and

and the electric cars. And sometimes we go to these events and they have like the EV content creators and then they have like the car, like gas car,

Content creators and then we're there we're meshing. It's really interesting to get the different viewpoints Yeah But I feel like you've kind of been able to mesh those two worlds together and you're one of the only content creators out there that have been able to do that it is extraordinarily important to do that to introduce one to the other because What happens a lot in comment sections on videos is when someone posts something about a gas car like a Camaro and

you know people don't really like oh look it's a gas clutch camaro then you'll have one guy that says yeah but a tesla plaid is faster and then everyone will just descend and it turns into a mess or you have it the other way when someone posts a tesla you'll have all the gas guys saying oh the evs suck i hate evs usually there's not a person that does both usually it's either hey i'm team ev or i'm team gas we need to talk about

how there are advantages and disadvantages of both and say, hey, listen, the choice is yours. I have both for reasons. You might have one for a reason or you might have another for a reason. And I think combining those things to say, you don't have to hate the other side for what they enjoy versus hating, you know, someone's personal preference to something. I think what happens is a lot is, you know, I don't want to put this totally on EV owners, but I think there's a lot of

for one, because they'll say, not only do people...

When you have two different brands, let's just say Mercedes versus BMW, you'll have someone that says BMW cars are better because their engines are more powerful and their interiors are nicer. Then you have the Mercedes guy that will say, guess what? My car is more reliable and my build quality is better. And then they'll just butt heads and they'll never really get along because those are the things I have to talk about.

Once you introduce the EV side of things, not only are you arguing over whose car has better build quality, whose car is more powerful, you're also talking about the environmental impact.

And the environmental impact is a huge divide between people. Because the second you say environmental impact, you're going to hear, well, EV batteries aren't great for the environment. Or you're going to hear like, well, you have to drive a Tesla for X amount of miles for it to be even with a gas car in terms of pollution or saving the environment. So I think there's a lot of different aspects to an EV that people tend to complain about more.

So I think it really incites a lot of violence in people for some reason. It's like politics. It's like politics, yeah. It instantly gets political. It's not only A versus B, my car is better than yours because of this. There's also, well, my car is better than yours and it's faster and it's better for the environment and then people just jump on them. So all I'm really saying is I think it's,

We need to have an honest conversation with people about there's pros and cons to each. And it's okay to like both. It's okay to say. It's okay to like both. It's okay to like both. It's totally okay. You know, some people might not be okay with driving only a gas car. And some people might not be okay with driving an EV only. So what are your thoughts on hybrids?

I used to think that hybrids were the worst of both worlds. I used to always say that because I had an i8 and it had a small gas tank and a small battery. So it's like, what's this really good at? I think since 2014 when the i8 came out, there's been leaps and bounds improvements in terms of hybrid technology.

I think hybrids are a good gateway drug to help people going from strictly gas to EV because that way they actually get to say to themselves, wait a minute, I can do this. I like when it's an EV only mode because it's super quiet and it's quick.

but I also like when it's in gas mode because when I'm on the highway, I don't have to pull over and find a charging station. So I do, I think there's a place for hybrids. I do like them. I think obviously cars like the Prius, you know, they exist for a reason. That's a runaway freight train success and they continue to do well. So I think overall, I think hybrids are good. I do like hybrids. Would I drive one?

Absolutely. You would? Yeah. I've had... I had the... It was a hybrid. The pickup truck that I'm building is a hybrid. It has a motorcycle engine in the back and an electric motor in the front. But I think there's a lot of pros... I think there's a lot of pros to them. I think...

tricking people into a false sense of security is really fun. When I had the i8, it had an exhaust on it, so I would drive around with the exhaust, and then I'd push a button, and it would just completely go silent. And it would bug people out. Gas cars. What is the place for them? Since I started driving EVs, more normally the Rivian,

The second I got that Rivian, because it was the first EV with any real utility for me, you know, I had the Model S that, you know, the backseat was pretty big and you could still put stuff in it. But the Rivian was the first moment where I realized this has tons of utility. The reasons why I drive electric was because of the acceleration is insane. Acceleration is fun. I like my adrenaline rushes. It has great utility.

The quietness and the lack of sound sometimes is great because when I get home late at night, I live in a neighborhood and people are just kind of like, "We don't really want to hear these loud cars all the time." Matter of fact, the Rivian broke a few records for me. It was the car... I've never driven a car more than the Rivian in a single year.

So I think I put, this might not sound like a lot, about 20,000 miles in the first year of owning a Rivian. And while that might sound pretty average, you know, I have a few, I probably have seven or eight other cars to choose from. But the fact that I drove that the most, that says a lot. It's an awesome car. Utility is great.

The reason why I still have gas cars is because different cars suit different needs. When it comes to towing, because I do tow pretty frequently, I towed a car 20 hours down here. I've tried it with the Rivian.

And while it's fun to tow with because it's very powerful, in terms of my time, it's not quite there yet. Because I have to go back to my home. Oh my gosh, I have to hustle back by Thursday. If I took the Rivian...

I wouldn't make it back in time because it adds a significant amount of time to charge when I'm towing. The second car is a car like, you know, like a two-door Porsche or like the McLaren, for example. Those are two-door sports cars that they really don't make any real two-door sports car EVs. It was supposed to be the Roadster. I would have liked to have one. That was canceled, so I got the McLaren instead.

So there's a lot of things that look configurations that are in gas, but not necessarily an EV. If you think about it, we really haven't had a full size three row SUV until fairly recently. I think that was the, I want to say the Rivian R1S. We had the X. Well, the Model X, that's not really full fitting for me, at least. I had the Model X too. Yeah. Fitting, you know,

The area behind the third row seat, for me, putting groceries there, bags when I'm going to the airport, for me, it was a little tight for the Model X. Cars that are out now, like the Kia EV9 or Rivian R1S, those have more room, a little bit more sizable. So we just did a video with the Kia EV9. And it's interesting because it feels so much larger than the Model X, but I feel like I

I can actually fit more in our Model X. Really? Okay. Because of the way space is utilized. It's configured, right. And we noticed that because we did a road trip with it and we had all of our suitcases and I could fit them in our Model X. But then with the Kia EV9, I had a harder time because you don't have that whole sub-trunk area. And that sub-trunk part of the Model X is really...

It's helpful. It's helpful. Again, and this kind of goes back to the EV community, I feel like a little sometimes like if I didn't have a Tesla Model X, like would people get upset with me? Absolutely. They would get upset with me. Yeah, you'd be a sellout. I'd be a sellout. Just like me. Hi. For me as a car enthusiast, it was the mechanical connection that I have with the car. And it's something that's very difficult for me to explain.

You know, as a car enthusiast, being connected to a car was very important to me. So, for example, thinking about how the car works, how the car makes you feel when you drive it. You know, driving a manual transmission car and just thinking about what's happening as you're shifting the gears, as you're pushing the clutch in, as you're hearing the sound the car is making out the tailpipe, a lot of it is...

a direct connection with the vehicle, that feedback that you get, because for me, feedback's important. So when you think about it, you're literally driving something that has hundreds of moving parts, which could be a turnoff to some, but a turn on to others like me.

You're driving something down the road that has hundreds of moving parts and the fact that everything is mechanically synchronized together, the fact that you have cogs and wheels and pistons and rods and they're all moving at thousands of rpm together in harmony

Not only that, but you also have the exhaust sound that it's making. And for a lot of people, exhausts are loud and obnoxious and, you know, disgusting and they smell and they're bad for the environment. But for me, it's a little bit different depending on the car because you're literally taking the culmination of all these moving parts and you're almost making like a song or like a melody. Because there's a lot of cars and companies, for example, like, you know, Porsche or Lamborghini or Ferrari, right?

they purposely tune their exhaust to make a specific distinct sound. You know, you think about, you know, as bad as some of the sounds could be, because some people make the car sound terrible,

For me, it's a literal melody. It'd be really hard to argue with someone about how beautiful the sound of a V10 Lamborghini sounds or how a Huracan or a Bugatti Veyron sounds because it's the mechanical sounds and the overall experience is very different. The major reason I can give you that is I think it's like comparing...

Rolex to an Apple watch. I think this Apple watch that I wear all the time, I wear it every day, it doesn't even come close to what a Rolex can do which is basically nothing. A Rolex just tells time, it's not very reliable, it's mechanical, there's thousands of moving parts, that's great, but it loses time as time goes on. You have to bring it in, you have to service it, you have to get it cleaned, and

The Apple Watch, it's cheaper, it's more efficient, and it does literally everything 10 times better. And that's how I can compare an EV to like a gas car. You know, this watch could run circles around any old mechanical device. But the reason why you'll see a lot of people still wear Rolexes is because they're a timepiece and it's almost a relic of human imagination and engineering.

So for example, who would have thought that having these microscopic spinning wheels, you could put them all together by human hands, you put them all together, they're pressed together, and as you move, it self-winds. So things like that, being an engineering person, thinking of things like that, it amazes me. Rockets amaze me as well. It's just, are they good for the environment? That's debatable. But the fact that you have, you know, a group of people coming together,

to make something that's destined to explore our universe. That's, I mean, that's second to none for me. That's really interesting. No, I like the way you describe it, and it actually makes a lot of sense. It's almost like this, like, vintage piece of, like, history and getting to appreciate everything that went into it on, like, a deeper level. It's really a lot deeper. It's a deeper connection. Even thinking about...

old cars like the Model T or like an old Model A, you look at it, you say to yourself, this is an old car that isn't really great at things. It can't stop well. It can't accelerate well. It can't do anything. But that's the car that started it all. Right. That's, you know, cars like that, I'm not saying it was a Model T, but, you know, the first generation of cars are what started everything. If you think about the Tesla Roadster, for example, that

A Tesla Roadster, it's a cool car. A Model 3 would run circles around it. Right. A Model 3 charges faster. It's 10 times more reliable. It's better in every way. But if you look at the Roadsters, one of the main reasons why they're so popular is because it was the beginning of Tesla. This is how it all started. We just did a video with a friend over in Seattle that has a Roadster shop over there and he rebuilds them and does his thing and he had just...

It was like a history museum going down the line. And it was so cool, the stuff that he had in there. And he was building his own parts to be able to put in these things because they can't get them anymore. Exactly.

And just like he would take them apart and he had one that he had had for like a year. He didn't even know. He took the door off it and it had like signatures of the original team that had built it. It was unreal. He's like, we've had this thing sitting here for a year. I bought it at auction. Yes. Like ruined just for pieces. And then I took it apart and he's like, now I have to restore it because look at this. It was like Franz's dad's, you know, roadster. It's history. It is. So that's how I look at things. Yeah. When you think about the watch.

mechanical watches have been made for, I can't even imagine how many years now. That's history. Like there are human hands that built that watch that has stood the test of time, which is why it's here today. You have Rolexes that are, you know, 40, 50 years old. The Apple watch, on the other hand, once this is dead and a new generation comes out,

it'll be in the landfill. No one's refurbishing old Apple watches from like seven years ago. You're not gonna do like a rich rebuild Apple watch. No.

Phone. We'll leave that to MKBHD. Right. Right, exactly. So that's the reason why. Mostly because it's a connection I feel as an enthusiast and as a person with an engineering mindset that really goes and dives deep into how things work. It gives me a different feeling. So take that to the commenter that said that you weren't relevant to the EV world. Like, obviously, you are very relevant. And...

Rich has written a book. Mmm. I did write a book. It's called I just happen to have it Right here. This is amazing. It's when the arms reach so this is a book rich going fast and fixing things and it's pretty much my life story in a book so it's everything from you know, how I grew up and Talking about you know high school college Tesla

Electrified Garage. Literally everything is in the book. And there's photos in here. And it's not a coloring book. I'm actually shocked that my first book was not a coloring book. So if you guys want, check it out. Maybe you'll learn something. It's sort of inspirational. But it's really up to you guys. So I wanted to give you this copy. I'm going to gift you this copy. I'm also going to sign it. And...

Now my signature isn't worth anything. Some people think it is. It is not. So it's just signing it for... It might be someday. It might be someday. But yeah, I'll sign it for you. So thank you for having me on your podcast. Thank you. It's a little gift for you guys. Oh, thank you. And then if people want to buy this, Amazon, where? Yeah, it's on Amazon. Just type in Going Fast and Fixing Things. When did you have time to write a book?

It took about three years to do so. So it was three years of me dictating into my phone and like taking notes over and over again, getting copy editors, copywriters, you name it, editors. And we finally made something. That's amazing. And also, if you want the audio book, it's in my calming and soothing voice.

That's all you get to hear. I love it. 30 hours of one long run-on sentence for me pretty much. That is so cool. Doesn't that sound great? I love it. Yeah. Thank you. So go check out the book. I'm going to read it. I'll give you my thoughts on it. But I feel like we're going to deep dive into some of those questions I asked you even before

further learn all about it. Absolutely. If you have, listen, I love answering questions. So anything, I'm an open book. So anything you want to riff and ask me off the cuff or, you know, let's just go for it. Because this is the opportunity. Okay. I do have a question for you. So we kind of talked about this a little bit with the reason for why you might want to gas. Yeah. Okay. So I have been dying to do this cross country road trip. Right.

But our issue is with electric cars, if we're pulling something, we are going to have to stop a lot. We have three kids. It's not quite there yet. We're thinking about doing some sort of pebble flow, one of those things, but they're very expensive. Would a conversion, making your own conversion of some sort of trailer thing be a possibility? Yeah, so that is a lot of people...

are developing things of that nature at the moment. So I remember like four or five years ago, I had a couple of buddies that were doing that same thing. They made Tesla trailers, hooked them up to the cars, and they literally were able to get 400, 500 miles of range. The difficult part is making something like that safely and consistently could be a little bit of a problem. It's interesting you say that

I get a lot of different feedback from people when it comes to EVs and range. And I noticed this specifically with the Cybertruck. So for example, when the Cybertruck was first introduced,

you know, it was stated to have about 500 miles of range, right? Now it has about, what, three something? And if you tow something with it, it's... It goes to nothing. But what I'm noticing is that when you see people's feedback on the Cybertruck's lack of advertised range, you'll hear a common thing that says, does the Cybertruck even need that much range? So the narrative kind of switches. It says, well...

I guess 500 would have been nice, but the Cybertruck doesn't need that much range. It does need that range. It needs more range because it's pulling. Well, they say it doesn't because if Tesla were to add more range to it,

then the price would go up and most people don't even drive that far anyways. So it was almost like a very small bubble of excuses that were being made like, "Oh, it doesn't need that much. Don't worry about it. Like we should be happy with what we have now." They also factored in, "Oh, it's gonna take longer to charge. Oh, it's gonna cost a lot more money. Oh, it's, you know, people rarely use the amount of range they have now. So why should all cyber trucks have that?" So it was very interesting arguments.

Now, in terms of pulling, while their arguments might sound a little crazy, most people don't toe at all. The amount of looks that I get from people when I tell them I toe at the Rivian, they say, are you crazy? They said, I didn't even know it could toe. Most Rivian owners have never even taken off the hitch cover to even hook anything up to it. So I think a lot of it is use case. I think they're...

are the the minority sometimes jumps up and down and makes the most noise in terms of what they want for features that they're not going to use so if you do a random poll of cyber truck owners i'm willing to bet you any money if they're the same as you know standard pickup truck owners a very small percentage of them do actually tow i think that with cyber truck though they're not seeing a lot of like truck drivers that are buying it for utility they're buying it

Because they're Tesla owners or they want it because it looks cool. It's different. It's more... It drives like a car. It doesn't really feel like a truck anyways. A truck, right. So people are like, oh, towing, towing, towing. It could tow 10,000 pounds. But people will... They'll probably put their kids' soccer stuff in it. If they want a truck to do truck things, they're probably buying something different. Something else, right. Something else. Or if they want an EV, they might be looking at the Silverado EV or something like that. Exactly. So...

You know, even for standard pickup truck owners like the classic F-150 or a Dodge Ram, they don't tow either. So towing is a very small subset of people. The truck can do it, but most people actually don't really tow with them. So I would somewhat agree with the people that are saying, talking about range, that

Because while more range would be nice, more range for towing, you get a really small subset of people that would actually do it. I think we're a little different because we actually plan on doing those things. I'm actually towing at Rivian all the time. So more range would be nice. But most of the time, for the last 30,000 or 40,000 miles to put on that truck, I would say...

Maybe 5,000 miles we're towing, which is, you know, it's even small for me. So yeah, I think once we start seeing more EVs with 800-volt architecture, I think things are really going to start to heat up a little bit more. Interesting. Literally. Because the Kia EV9, I think, has the 800, but it was pretty slow. Really? I think the Kia EV9 is one of the...

From what I remember, I think it was one of the fastest charging cars. But on Tesla chargers. Really? It's slow? It's slow. Interesting. And it was really interesting. We had to go back and I had to watch Kyle's. Kyle made some videos on this. Yeah. 86 kilowatt is the peak on a Tesla supercharger. Really? Yeah. As an Electrify American 350.

Why is it capped at... It didn't quite make sense. So it was like the 800-volt architecture was almost like too much. Really? So that it was like... There's hardware limitations in its current form to work with Tesla superchargers. Now, the V4 superchargers... So it's... Yeah. It's waiting for V4. So technically, it's Tesla's problem. Yeah. Not the car's problem. Well, that's the thing. So Tesla's opened it up, but...

If you were going to charge on the Tesla charger from another other than Tesla at the moment. But I think V4 is where that will change. It opens up. I see. Because V4 now isn't functioning in its full capacity where they have all these V4. And those are the ones that are set up and ready to go for like all the other cars. Yes. Because at the time when I was charging the Taycan, it was on Electrify America. Yeah. And I was like, well, but this, like I said, nothing's ever free. There's such a trade-off. Yeah. Because...

Tesla is the most convenient charging network. Yeah. You plug, there's no screen. You plug it in and it starts charging, right? Let's Buy America, I charged that one the other day. I said, I,

I dealt with it. The speeds are faster, sure, but then you have to deal with Electrify America. Was it working? Yeah. No, sorry. One of them... No, most of them worked. Okay. So it was like a 75% uptime. But the thing is, is that there was a line. There was a line to charge, and one of the charges wasn't working, and I saw a guy on the phone with EA. It's like...

that's one of the downsides. When they work, they work and it's awesome. When they don't work, it's not awesome. Yeah. We've kind of dealt with that on a lot of our like non-Tesla related road trips. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Where like, we're like, oh my goodness. And then I'm

I'm like, well, that's why for road tripping, I feel like Tesla is so much easier is because of all that. Oh, it's 10 times easier. But, you know, Rivian has the Rivian network. We were able, if you have that, it's not as big as it is. I think there's like six people. There's like six, how many charges are there at the Rivian network? There was one, we drove it to the beach and back and we got lucky and there was a Rivian charger on the way that we got to stop it for that. And that made it so much easier than having to deal with anything else. Right. Yeah.

All right. I think those are like the majority of my questions. Do you have anything for me? Anything else you want to chat about? What do you want to know? What's it like being woman Tesla channel?

There's definitely like good things and bad things about it. Tell me the bad things. Bad things. I mean, some of those comments, you got some nasty comments. We read them to you. They say nasty things to you? Well, they go now to like a separate section that I don't even look at. What's a separate? Okay, gotcha. Understood. And we usually like have certain keywords that I know. That are, you know. Can you give us a keyword? They'll be like...

Like I know you're gonna cut this. Well, there's like funny things. He's gonna cut this. Yeah, go ahead.

Well, they'll be like, Kim should stay in the kitchen. She shouldn't do this. That's not nice. There's a lot of misogynistic type things in there. But overall, I like it because I feel like I get to give a different perspective than other people. I have three kids and I'm a mom. Well, I was a stay-at-home mom and now I seem to be working a lot more. I don't know what happened to that. What's going on, man? Step it up, dude. I know, right? What's she working for? Yeah.

Oh my goodness. Those aren't working hands. Look at those hands. Those aren't working hands. This guy. I know. That's going to get cut out too for sure. It's going to be like five minutes long, this whole thing. No, but like overall, I think it's really fun to be able to do it. And also it's nice because there's not as many people like in my niche. Yeah, I don't really see, you're always the one that comes up. By the way, side note, one of my favorite videos is,

Still, I know it's very recent but the Fisker video was great. I recently purchased a Fisker Ocean. No one knows. Oh, first time hearing it here. So I purchased an Ocean and before I bought it, I was doing some digging. I was like, what are Fisker Ocean owners like? And I got really good insight as to how they were from your video. And it was a beautiful video because there were... One of the comments in that video was...

you know, how you act when you bought a Zune over an iPod. And it was kind of like that in a way. I think people really know that the Ocean isn't exactly a superior product in any way compared to a Tesla, but it was very interesting and almost inspiring watching the people, you

you know be so excited about something different that wasn't the mainstream tesla ev so that was definitely interesting yeah it was a good video it's smart for you too because people are going to need someone that knows how to work on these cars yeah it's it's it's sad because that company left a lot of people high and dry yeah a lot of people high and dry and it's we haven't really experienced this

to this extent in modern times because most of the car manufacturers that went under, you know, you pick one, they were generally backed by a larger company and they were established to the point where they still made parts for it. But this is just, there's literally nothing out there for them. They're literally lost. So the ones whose cars are still running, that's great. But the ones who,

having an issue, I mean they're doing things like insurance buybacks, they're doing insurance fraud. It's insane. Oh really? Okay. It's intense. You think about it. Yeah. When you spend $70,000 on a car, then it doesn't work anymore. What are your resources? Well what did you pay for it? I know you told me this. $10,000. Wow.

So you got like the deal of a lifetime. Well, I don't really know yet because I think the price will continue to fall. So we might see them. The average might be $10,000. But imagine if you paid $70,000 for that car. What would you do? And then now there's a stop sale on them because there's such a massive recall. Dealerships can't.

really sell those cars in good faith knowing that they're not going to have any issues so a lot of dealerships that have them people have traded them in for other cars the dealerships are kind of just holding on to them yeah it's interesting because it's such i really love the design when they announced it the ocean i and i saw the pictures of that i was like this is a

It's beautiful. It is a good looking car. It's beautiful. Yeah. But obviously the software is glitchy. There's been a lot of issues like door handles and whatnot and like a bunch of stuff like that. Yeah. But if they could have fixed those issues and like gotten someone else to do the software. Yes, I know. Like kind of like what VW and Rivian's doing. Like they're coming in and like they should have purchased their software from somebody else. I know. And like gotten a tech company to come in and done something because the design and like

They thought they could do it themselves, and they couldn't. I guess that would have been me, like, building my, like, RV trailer. That would be you. But to be fair, he did build quite a few of them, so you would have a few. Yay, special guest. We're going to have a special guest over here. Special guest because she's been sitting in the background. Can Daddy take you potty? Okay. No, it's all good. All right.

It's okay. We can just chat, and if you like it, you'll keep it. If not, you'll do it in the editing. We'll probably have, like, the special features of Lakin walking in. The bonus footage of our test. Stuff falling over. I'll wind down. But, yeah. So, yeah. So, yeah, Fisker is a – that's an interesting one. I feel – I truly feel for the owners because I can't imagine what it's like spending that kind of money and then having no resources. I mean, you call them. They don't answer the phone.

the car doesn't work, you literally have a brick sitting in your driveway. So that's tough. What about people that blame certain content creators for like burning the car and the thing? Do you have thoughts on that? That was, that was a, that's a, I'm playing with that. You know exactly who I'm talking about. I know exactly who you're talking about. Great guy, by the way. For sure. No, I think he's a great guy, does a great job. And I actually agree with a lot of what his points. That was, that was, that was his opinion. I think the, what, that was the curse of clickbait.

because if you really watch the video, the car wasn't great. It was just kind of subpar according to the standards because, you know, we have Teslas and other many of the Europeans and stuff. He didn't really say, this is disgusting, I don't want to touch it. He was just like, this really isn't that great. But tiling something, it's the worst car ever.

That's a big deal. That's a really big deal. You know a lot of positive things he says he likes to design The interior was cool, but a lot of things were very glitchy mostly revolving around like software. Mm-hmm so by the time people saw that and

Does it have a lot of bearing on the success of the company and whether or not people purchase the vehicles? I really don't know. That's like someone saying, Rich, don't say those negative things about Tesla because the stock price is going down. Can I move stock? I don't think so. I think a lot of the people that were planning on purchasing the car have owned them at that point. And I think a video like that wouldn't really result in

X amount of sales more. A lot of the feedback that you're hearing, especially in the comment section, are from people that don't own one and wouldn't own one anyways, but are just intrigued by the video title. I agree. I agree. But I don't think it killed the car company. I think the car company had issues. I think it killed itself for sure. I mean, they made... That video had millions, five million views. It went viral, yeah. And they only made...

5,000 cars or so. Yeah. Like delivered cars. Well, and I'll say like there were a lot of bad, you know, reviews of the VinFast VF8 in the beginning. Right. And people like, you know, Donut made a video where they called it like the worst car that we've ever had and things like that. But VF8 now has improved a bunch now. Right. It's improved. So yeah, I don't think, if you think just from a numerical standpoint, if that video did 5 or 10 million views and before that video,

only 4,000 people bought the car anyways, that video did little to nothing. It was a very interesting piece. People don't take things numbers wise. But you can't blame the video for killing the company. Bad products. No. You can definitely tell in the aftermath of how they're handling things now that it was the company that did itself in, not necessarily someone's opinion on it. Yeah. I heard there are a lot of issues with stuff. You've kind of talked about this, like going missing, people's paychecks, internal issues.

Like tons of internal issues with just the way the company is being run that really is probably a huge reason. That's probably had a bigger impact on it. Because never forget, you know, before, this isn't their first bankruptcy. Yeah. So, you know, we kind of figured this could happen. But yeah, no, I'm excited to get my hands on it because I want to... Back in the initial Tesla days, my goal was to say...

What is it like having a Tesla out of warranty? What is it like? And can you fix these things yourself? Yeah. This is the same thing all over again. This is, you have a Fisker Ocean. What can you do yourself? What are your resources? Because right now,

People are just like, stay away from this thing. It's a horrible idea. And I want to just jump in feet first and say, I got to try this. I want to see what others are experiencing, but definitely on a more manageable level because this car wasn't $70,000. It was $10,000. And even then, it's scary because I very well could have a brick in my hands. So we'll see what happens. All right. Go watch Rich's channel. Read his book. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

He's awesome. He's not an EV hater. He's like a pioneer in the EV field. I'm not an EV. So yeah, I'm still, I think I'm still kind of relevant in EV stuff. Oh, you definitely are. Maybe a little bit. I don't know. But, you know, thank you for your feedback. And thanks for having me on your show. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. And if you guys have questions, leave them in the comments below. And we'll catch you next time. That's that. That was easy. So easy, right? Okay. Lincoln, you got to be in your noise, okay? No banging. You can watch, okay?

And then you and I will play later. Okay? We'll play Anna and Elsa and Barbie and we can dress up. We can do your makeup. Yeah, I'll dress up with you. Okay. What are you going to ask Rich? What questions do you have for him? What do you want to ask me? I don't know. You don't know? He has kids too. Maybe he should have brought his daughter to watch you.

I'm gonna say these chairs are not comfortable. I have a wide seat. They're for looks. I have a wide seat in the, you know. It's all for aesthetics. It looks good though. It looks great. It looks good on set and it's a small space so we just need to like. I know. I like it. I like it. You should have like a love seat. I constantly feel like I need to be doing more. Yeah, I know. I have that feeling. We're very similar. Like am I doing enough? I never feel like I'm doing enough.