Episode 357: It’s A New Day

On this episode of Grease The Wheels, we address the 800 LB gorilla in the room with the arrival of a sub $25,000 old school Mini-Truck style EV called Slate. This is one of the coolest things out there, and not only because it comes in Uncle Jimmy’s preferred cab layout, having the correct amount of doors for a pickup truck. As a product, it is deeply interesting, and we would love to get our hands on one to use (and in Erik the Producer's case - mercilessly abuse). However, the most interesting thing about this project is the possibly paradigm shifting ways that they are going to service them — utilizing a network of independent repair shops to do warranty work. It also slaps the entire argument against right to repair right across the face with the vigor of Rick James seeing Charlie Murphy — with Slate making all of their software available to both buyers and independent shops, with the intention of users performing much of their own maintenance and customization work by themselves via a web portal that tells them what they need to know. We also get into the world’s recent love affair with America, Buc-ees, Ranch Dressing, and unlimited refills with our hosting of the world cup, and what happens when you tell Americans that they, “can’t do something” 
 
 Also Uncle Jimmy gives a positively Churchillian overture to the techs in the independent shops that are going to be fixing the Slate’s. 

This Episode of Grease the Wheels is brought to you in partnership with Surfwrench Digital! For more on Video MPI Training Visit https://www.surfwrench.com/video-mpi-training-landing/ to learn more. Video MPI Training built in the shop, by your Uncle Jimmy. Use code “GTW” for 50% off your training access!  

Transcript

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All right, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome once again to Grease to Wheels. This is your Uncle Jimmy here, parked behind the microphone at the rock and roll garage. Banging out your weekly, semi-weekly Technician podcast for all you wrench, twist, and mo foes out there in all the shops and all the car dealerships all across the world. Holy shit, man, there's a lot of you guys, but not enough. Did you know that? Yeah. Hey, listen, before I get too far, let me say thank you to all of you and everybody else who's listening who works hard and sweats and builds things and fixes things and makes the planet go. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Now I got I want to preface this particular podcast with this statement that I'm about to make and then I'm going to uh bring to you some information that might just knock your socks off. It kind of knocked my socks off, and uh it never really honestly occurred to me until having a conversation with Eric, the producer, last night, and we started asking some questions about some stuff that's going on here. One of the first things I want to say, let me just get this out of the way real quick because I think this is important. This country of ours, if you're an American and you live in the United States, this country of ours is turning 250 years old on Saturday. That's a big fucking deal, folks. And you want to know something? One of the things that happened, and I think it was uh honestly an accident, but a hell of a lot of people came here from other countries to watch World Cup soccer slash football matches with their nation versus other nations. And this is a really wild, it's really wild to watch. I mean, if you get into it even a little bit, it's just it can seem really boring, sure, honestly, but there's also been some uh some very exciting moments. But one of the byproducts of this is that a lot, a lot of people from other countries have come here to the U.S. to watch different matches that have gone on here in Texas and in New York and in Boston and probably even LA, and I'm not even sure where else. But you know what they're finding? America does not suck. I've known that for a long time. America does not suck. America is great, and a lot of people who have come here agree, and they can't believe some of the stuff we have here. Like some of the some of the food that we have and uh free refills on drinks at restaurants and stuff like that. I think we're just we're killing them with kindness, and they're loving us. And I a lot of people thought America was dirty and dingy and a shitty place, and it's just not. Yes, there are some parts of America that are dirty, filthy, dingy, and and bad, and you don't want to go near them if you can avoid it. But you know what? For the most part, we're some friendly sons of bitches, and and nobody even had to ask us to be nice to these people. They just showed up and they were polite and they were friendly, and so were we. And man, there's been a lot of really great stories that have come out of some of the people who have ventured here for these uh football matches. I'm gonna say football because that's what it's called everywhere on the fucking planet except here. We call it soccer for some reason, which is weird. But uh no, this the America is getting a new lease on life with a lot of people, uh especially Europeans. Uh, there's some folks from from Asian countries too coming here, and they can't believe uh some of the things we have here and and how how abundant a lot of the resources are here, and then the food is just it seems like it's never-ending to them. And and they fell in love with this is the dumbest thing ever, ranch dressing. Can you believe and believe that? It's it's kind of ridiculous. And they're buying it uh like big box stores like Costco and Sam's Club to take back to Europe. So that's America's uh that's America's uh prize for for people from Europe is ranch dressing. Apparently they they they don't have anything like it. I'm like, oh okay, whatever. I mean, I don't really enjoy ranch dressing that much myself. I'm a I'm a Buffalo, New York blue cheese guy when it comes to that shit. So and uh lots of people just they turn green when I say blue cheese. But uh yeah, no, this is uh this is a really great country. You should be glad to live here. If you don't live here and you're listening to this, come on over. You could stay with me if you want, if you don't mind sleeping on a couch, and we'll I'll show you all around uh Dallas, Texas, that's where I'm in right now. We'll show you all kinds of shit you've never seen before, and you'll meet people who are just and here, especially in Texas, you'll meet some some of the friendliest fucking people on the planet. And when they refer to you, they're gonna cut they're gonna say, Why don't y'all come on in? You know, it's just there's just there's just a lot of hospitality here, and we had to have other people come in and point it out to us. So uh, ladies and gentlemen who are citizens of the United States, ease up on each other, okay? With people coming from other countries don't give a rip about left or right, okay? All right, now let me move on here because I do have a point I want to make. And like I was saying, I think that this is going to be one of the most important podcasts I do because uh we were talking last night, Eric, the producer and I, about the new that new little electric vehicle that's coming out, and it's just starting to show up. They're they're starting up the production, and people are getting their hands on it, and a lot of people are really excited about it. It's the slate, the slate pickup truck. And uh behind the slate pickup is Amazon and our friend Mr. Jeff Bezos and unlimited resources, which is really, I gotta be honest with you, it's a hundred percent necessary to build a new car. You have to have really, really, really deep pockets. Just ask Elon Musk, ask Jeff Bezos. Uh, yeah, this probably cost them uh pretty penny. I think in the future you'll probably hear some of the numbers, but for right now, they're kind of trying to keep the two separate. It's not an Amazon truck, it's not, you know, it's not labeled as an Amazon truck at all. It is slate, it is a whole separate company. And what they have done is they have brought automotive transportation, personal transportation, down to a very reasonable level. Okay, this truck is very bare bones, it is basic, it is electric, it's not going to use gasoline, so there will not be a whole lot of maintenance that goes on with it. Um, it is honestly infinitely uh customizable. I mean, you can they purposely made it in such a manner that you can wrap it inexpensively. Uh, they also have kits available to turn it into an SUV if you buy the pickup truck version. Uh they they they've made it so that you can customize the grill. They have different kinds of wheels available for it. Um, and it's it's a very basic, uh, a very basic sort of a vehicle. Okay, and I got the website up here, and I just wanted to kind of give you an idea what they what they have done here. Some of the uh some of the questions that they have on their FAQ page. I kind of slipped over some of them. Some of them, what's a slate? Honestly, unless you're living under a rock, you've heard of it. Uh, you may even be interested in it. I I feel like there is a real, real, honest to God, uh, according to Hoyle, buzz about this vehicle, just because it's kind of a game changer in the economy right now, and with the way vehicles are being uh built and sold and used, uh, this is a real bare bones kind of a thing that they're throwing out there. And uh, you know, for some of us, and I say some of us because I like to think of all of us as technicians as kind of like in the same boat where we're not really well paid or not paid nearly as much as we feel like we're worth. And so anytime we want to have to get a new vehicle, we might have to save, uh, we might have to go used, and we might have to find something that needs a fucking engine and get into it and get into a new car that way, or at least a different car. I mean, this is some these are alternatives that I think a lot of us uh think about and and actually uh avenues that we pursue. Okay. So when a vehicle like this comes around and it's really affordable, you're gonna look a little harder, aren't you? You're gonna look at it a little longer and you're gonna try to decide whether or not something like this is gonna fit the bill for you. I mean, I know a lot of us drive pickup trucks, a lot of us. Um, and and for honest for good reason, we we haul stuff around. We pick up stuff, we have tools. Sometimes we, you know, go on sp on the spot to fix something. You know, maybe mom's car broke down in the driveway, and you gotta throw tools in the back of a of a pickup truck to drive over there. This this thing is would be absolutely perfect for something like that, okay? There's a lot of uses for it. It's a little tiny truck. I mean, uh, let me see if I can get the dimensions out of here. It doesn't say anything about the size of it, okay? And I did see one, and to me, it looked like it was about the size of an S10 pickup. If you're familiar with what those look like, they haven't really built those in quite a while, but it was pretty small. It wasn't a monster of the midway or anything like that. I did see it at the Good Guy Show in uh Fort Worth uh back in the early spring. But there was about there was about 50 uh slate employees hanging around it ready to pounce on anybody who might even look sideways at it, you know, to hey, uh, you know, you wanna, you know, you want to pre-order one? You know, you want you got any questions, you know, and I and I wasn't in the mood to really interface with a lot of human beings that day, so I didn't really venture too close just because sometimes I'm real misanthropic. And I don't want to fucking talk to people. And I think that some of you guys are like that too, and it's it's certainly okay. You know, you don't like a crowd, you don't like a lot of people around, you don't like a lot of people fucking with you and talking to you and you know asking you shit. I'm I'm with you. I'm I'm 100% with you. But this little truck is gonna change, it is gonna change a lot of things. And I want to I want to start here at the beginning. First off, it's small, it's electric, it's got 135 kilowatt motor, it's gonna have about 200 miles of range to it, which isn't a whole heck of a lot considering that some of the some of the higher priced and the more luxury uh EVs out there from Audi and and BMW and some of the other companies, they get much, much better range, but you're also gonna pay much, much, much more. This particular vehicle, the slate, they have put it out the door in its most basic form at 24,950. And I gotta tell you, it couldn't have made it more obvious. They were just trying to keep it under 25 grand. And I gotta applaud them. I mean, that that to the it these days, that's a reasonable price. Okay, now I you know I've all I've often gone on about how uh the median salary for technicians is right around 44k, and I'm and I hate that. I hate that so fucking much because quite frankly, I make a lot more than that, and it just means that somebody out there is making a hell of a lot less than that to make that the average. And I I'm telling you, it really, it really irritates me uh immensely, but it's it's it is what it is, and I can't do anything about it, but you know what? This is why this is gonna be an important podcast because I think that there is somebody who is gonna do something about it, and the name of it is Slate. Now, let me fill you in on some more basics of what this thing is all about. First off, it comes out as a pickup truck, and in a basic form, it's a pickup truck. But you can buy, then they said they have about four dozen accessories for it, and I believe them. Uh you can turn it into an SUV, put in a back seat, put on a cap of some sort, and boom, next thing you know, you're hauling a whole bunch of people around instead of plywood or dog food or tools or firewood or whatever the fuck you're gonna put in the pickup model, okay? And you and they say, and I haven't seen any like videos of this yet, I'm sure that there would be a gazillion of them once certain influencers get their hands on them. And uh, you know, just a quick note, uh, I myself and Eric, the producer, we'd love to get our hands on one just to kind of let you know what's going on with it. But uh, I really typically like to stay away from endorsing products because I don't know, that makes me feel cheap and used. So, but if they wanted to drop one off, I'd drive it around for a little bit and tell you guys all about it if you wanted, if they wanted to, but uh, I'm not gonna beg. Uh, I I certainly we certainly have an audience here, you know, all you guys out there listening on your uh Bluetooth speakers and in your AirPods and whatever you have. You guys, you guys are very substantial. You're there you're the backbone of what we got going on as automotive technicians. And this this slate, it is going to revolutionize more than one thing, okay? First off, there's not going to be a dealer, there's no dealerships, there's no franchise dealerships. Amazon is going to control everything about buying it, and it's going to be basically pretty much bought online. Now, I don't know how they're going to get it to you. I would imagine that you know they'll figure something out. I mean, if you want to drop the coin to buy one of these things, then somebody will get it to you, and you'll either have to make payments or you know, who knows, maybe you have 20, 24,000, $25,000 kicking around, burning a hole in your pocket, and there you go. Boom. These are made in Indiana. And let me tell you something about Indiana. Indiana wants me, but Lord, I can't go back there. Okay. It's a little Easter egg for you. But uh they're made in Indiana, which is in the United States, so they're U.S. built, which warms the cockles of my heart. It really does, okay? Because the American car industry, the US car industry has taken quite a few hits over the last 20, 30, even 40 years, and we could sure use uh a shot in the arm, and I think that that's a good thing, okay? Uh again, here it says here the projected range is about 205 miles. That's gonna be lower where it when it's cold. I hope you know that. And then if you need something to drive to work and you drive more than 100 miles a day, I think that this would be kind of a poor choice for you, okay? Unless, of course, you work somewhere where you can plug it in and possibly, I'm not sure how it's gonna charge, if it's gonna have a DC fast charge to it. But you know, if you get somewhere, if you get to work and you know it's it's on a quarter of its range, then you can plug it in and make it home that night. I think that would be great. Um, it's not killing anybody with its range, it's not gonna win any awards there, okay? But it's just the way it is. It's you got you, you know, and I think a lot of people drive less than that and they can charge it up. So I think that you know, there's a lot of people who have overcome range anxiety on an electric vehicle and said, Yeah, I'm not going that far. You know, I mean, I'm not going, I'm not gonna be driving 205 miles at one time. I'm gonna be somewhere where I can plug it in, and then when I want to drive back, really regardless of how far away it is, unless it's 206 miles, I'm I'm probably gonna fucking get there, okay? Safety features in the vehicle. Let's just look at that real quick. Sure, traction control, electronic stability, forward collision warning, automatic braking, two-stage airbags, sure, full-length side curtain airbags, seat side airbags, okay, remote keyless entry, backup camera. That's required by the government. Uh pedestrian identification. Yeah, I could use some of that myself. Uh, automatic high beams. Okay, so it's uh it's fairly it's a fairly safe looking truck. It is small. Uh, and sometimes that works against you in an accident, but you know, I mean it, you know, some there's no way to predict what's going to happen in an accident anyway. You just hope that with all these safety features, you'd be as safe as you could possibly be. And the other the other factor is how much of an asshole you drive like. So also, too, there's some uh there's some sizes here, uh, like on the bed, how big it is, and that. Okay, now one of the things about this, and I think that this is actually brilliant, and take it from somebody who spends a lot of his fucking time looking at fucking Apple CarPlay issues in cars and dealing with head units that don't work right, and finding out that it's the fucking customer's fucking phone, which they will never, not in a million fucking years, leave with the vehicle so that we can check them both out. No, they're gonna blame the car, drop it off, and say, it doesn't work right. And then when they leave, the fucking problem leaves with them. So to get around that, Slate said, fuck it. We're not gonna have any any infotainment, we're not gonna have a screen, we're not gonna have a radio, we're not gonna have a head unit, we're not gonna have any of that shit. You bring your own shit. You got a Bluetooth speaker, you're fucking golden. Put that in your car, there's your fucking tunes. You got Spotify, fucking hook that shit up Bluetooth, which it probably already is, throw that shit in your fucking in your goddamn slate, and there you are. There's your fucking radio. You go you want to bring a tablet? Sure, they got a spot where you can put the tablet and cinch it down, and next thing you know, you're you're you've got your uh you've got your screen. You got all the shit that you all the apps you want, they're on your tablet, they're right there on the dash, okay? Uh it doesn't actually have Bluetooth, okay? Doesn't have CarPlay, doesn't have Android Audit, doesn't have any of that shit. You bring that shit with you. How about that shit? Uh also too uh it said here at the moment there are nearly four dozen accessories and and everything from like custom grills, custom light covers. Uh obviously you can swap this thing into a uh SUV. It says it's very easy to do. Uh and and I and you know what something uh let me just let me just go here for a second. Uh recently heard our friend uh Mr. Farley, Jim Farley, the uh CEO of Ford, uh talking about the right to repair. Now, if you don't know what that is, what that is is that certain car makers in the world are not gonna allow certain people and certain companies to get their hands on their technical information so that they can fix the vehicles that they sell. And and they're holding out, calling it proprietary and not letting anybody get their fucking hands on it. And when asked about it, our friend Mr. Farley at at Ford, the CEO, the head fucking cheese, said that it would not be a good thing for them to have uh right to repair for regular DIY people or regular lay people like well, not us actually, but uh for people out there who have tools and maybe more gumption than they should have, and maybe more ambition than they should have. He won he does not want to put out the information that you would need to fix their shit because he said you're not smart enough to do it. He pretty much said that flat out that we're not smart enough, the general public is not smart enough to fix their own cars. And I can't completely disagree with him, but I don't think that he needs to point it out, especially when he's trying to sell a product and that getting it fixed, which he's also pointed out, has been a fucking horrendous trip through the jungle. I mean, it's been terrible. I mean, he's got he says he's got thousands of open bays, thousands of jobs that pay all kinds of money, and he doesn't want to let people who want to fix their own shit give it a shot. He doesn't want to do that. Like, well, you know what? I think you're sending us mixed messages, really. Okay, because if it wasn't for right to repair as it used to exist in manuals and in books before the internet and before scan tools, I would have never became a mechanic. I wouldn't have been able to figure out anything. But thanks to the people at Chilton's manuals and Bentley manuals, I could go in and find out where the points need to be and which cylinder is number one and how to route the spark plug wires and what a firing order is, and maybe how to tune a quadrjet or or any other fucking carburetor for that matter. And and because so if I wasn't able to get my hands on that proprietary information, I wouldn't have been able to fix my shit. I would have become frustrated, and who knows, I'd be making cakes somewhere or fucking walking dogs or fucking farming. You know, I could I could have turned out to be anything, but because I was given the opportunity to work on my own shit, and no such thing as right to repair was a fucking problem, I became a technician. So, Mr. Mr. Farley, really, what you should do is is take a good long look in the mirror, talk to yourself as Matt Foley, you know, like your cousin used to, and say, I don't want to end up living in a van down by the river. I want my customers to be able to fix their own shit. And that is exactly what the slate people are gonna do. They have taken a 180-degree direction on this particular issue with Ford, and they're going to offer, and it says free of charge, all the information that people are gonna need to fix their own slate vehicle. Now, how is this gonna go? Uh, I couldn't tell you because I do talk to a lot of different people about cars, and well, that's my life, right? I mean, I am a one-trick pony, I'm telling you, it's kind of nasty. But I I just talk to people about cars, what they drive, how they drive, why they drive, and what they're doing to them, and what they can do to them, what they can't do to them. They can't do shit to them. They can't do shit to them. But does that mean that somebody who is holding a uh an office, an executive office at Ford or General Motors or anywhere for that matter, does that give them the right to say, well, they can't do it? Well, okay, underestimate Americans. I double dog dare you, because a lot of people have underestimated us in the past, and we've smacked their ass really fucking hard. Don't do it. Even if you're an American, don't say Americans can't do this, Americans can't do that. Fuck you. We will fucking do it. We will fucking do it. So what they have is, and this is I I think that this is awesome, and this is part of why this is an important podcast, because Slate is going to offer up all the information you need to fix your own shit through a through a I think it's gonna be a portal on their website. I don't know, it doesn't really say here exactly how you get at it, but it's called Slate U. Slate University, maybe that's what it means, whatever. It's gonna be the offer, they're gonna offer you all the information necessary to fix your own shit, if indeed that's what you want to do. But here's where it gets kind of tricky, and this is why this is the exact reason why this is an important podcast. What they're gonna do, okay, and I actually went to to Gemini to get a more straight kind of Approach to this, get more of a straight answer. Because fuck it, if everybody else is going to use AI, why the fuck can't Grease the Wheels use AI, right? We started talking about it last night. We're like, who's going to fix these things and where? Well, guess what? You are. And let me tell you how this is going to work, okay, and why this is important. Okay. It says here, I asked it who is going to service Slate Vehicles. It says for repairs and warranty work on the upcoming slate truck, Slate Auto is taking a unique approach that bypasses the traditional dealership model entirely. Okay, I want to read that again, okay, because that's why this is an important podcast. Slate Auto is taking a unique approach that bypasses the traditional dealership model entirely. Instead of building its own dedicated service network, Slate has officially partnered with RepairPal. And RepairPal has gone out and sought out independent repair shops. You know, like the ones that you guys want to start because you're fed up with where you fucking work. Yeah. Through the RepairPal partnership, Slate owners will have access to a network of approximately 3,000 to 4,000 certified independent repair shops across the United States to handle maintenance and carry out covered warranty work. Holy fucking shit. Now, actually, I have actually come up with something like this in the past, and I really wasn't all that serious about it. I was talking about how it would be possible, let's just say you were a uh Mercedes-Benz mechanic and you didn't want to deal with the dealer anymore. And who fucking doesn't blame you, really? Because sometimes they're run by a bunch of horses' asses. But either way, you know, you're working out as a Mercedes-Benz certified master technician and you just want to get the fuck out of the dealership, but you got a house, you got a wife, you got kids, and they like where they are. And so what do you do? Well, you start working on cars at home. Maybe you have a two-car garage in the side of your house and you just start working on cars. What if Mercedes Benz called you up and said, Hey, could we send some warranty work over to your house and have you take care of it? We know you're an excellent technician. That was what I came up with before. These people have taken it a little bit different step here right at the end, and they have certified independent repair shops like the ones that guys like you and me start all across the United States. Now they're gonna have to have more than that. Okay, 3,000 to 4,000 across the country. If they start pumping these things out, they're gonna need more certified independent repair shops. So, what this is gonna be is this is folks, this is what it is. This is why it's important. This is gonna represent a paradigm shift. See, car repair has been the same for about a hundred plus years, and it has always fucked us as technicians right in the ass. We don't get paid, the dealer does get paid, they get fat and happy, they build chrome and glass showrooms, disregard us, they don't respect us, they don't appreciate us, they don't pay us what the fuck. And here it is, somebody is just saying, well, you know what, to all the dealers in the United States and in other countries of the world, ma fangoo, fuck you, we don't need you. We just need the guys who fix them. Holy fucking shit, folks. This is where it all comes unraveled. If you wanted to start your own repair shop, two, three, four bays, maybe you and a buddy, call up repair panel and say, listen, come down and certify us to work on these slates. We've done high voltage work for whoever, or everybody's got an EV, right? And you've probably worked on them and you know what you're doing, hopefully, and hopefully these things are intrinsically safe where you can disconnect the battery completely and do any kind of repair. But even then, what they have said here is that if you have major, major repairs that need to be done to the electrical system involving the battery or even the uh the motor, you'll probably have to take it to uh a certified slate repair center. And there may be uh there may be 10, 12, maybe 40, 50, 100, who even knows how many that might have to get towed across three states to get there. Uh, and that could represent a logistics problem. But you know what? You can't solve a problem until you have identified it. And what they have done here is they've said, well, we're gonna put the repairs in the hands of people who fucking fix shit and let them deal with it. Now, I gotta be honest with you, this is a real leap of faith for a car company to just say, hey, you know what, we're gonna go out and we're gonna trust people who fix cars for a living. They are not gonna be official slate dealership service department. They're not gonna be an official anything. You know, it's Joe's auto service down on the corner of Third and Maple, and they do a lot of work, and they've done a lot of work on EVs. And when RepairPel called them up, they said, Yeah, we can handle that shit. Bring it down. And so guess what? They signed them up, they certified them and said, Yeah, these guys can fix it. And then they crossed their fingers because I gotta tell you, it's quite the gamble. But you know what? I'm pulling so fucking hard for them. I really am, because you know what? This is gonna shatter completely the paradigm of how vehicles get repaired in the future. And it's about fucking time. It's been a hundred years, and it's been the same way for a hundred years. You know, you got a car that's under warranty, you gotta take it to the dealer, and the dealer, the dealer gets paid by the the manufacturer, and then they pay a little bit to the technician. And now the technician is gonna be more in charge than before, you know, because at a dealership, and you guys know this, because there's a fucking hundred zillion goddamn auto groups out there, and they have layers of management so thick you can't see the sunshine. And now what you're gonna have is a shop that your buddy named Charlie opened, Charlie's Service Center, and he's got three technicians and he got certified as an independent repair shop for these slate vehicles, and they're coming to you and they're they're banging them out. I mean, they built an assembly line and they've you know worked out a lot of different logistics, and so who knows? You could be up to your neck in these things because they're brand new. Are they gonna work perfectly? Fuck no! Anybody who thinks that they're gonna work perfectly, uh kiss my ass. It's not gonna happen, baby. There's gonna be problems. And guess what? You could be Johnny on the spot at one of these service centers who fixes them. Maybe you come up with the repair. Maybe you come up with the ultimate fix for it. You're like, you know what, instead of doing this and rebolting that on with this kind of bolt, you use a different kind of a bolt and a wire tie, and guess what? You're on the road again. It's gonna allow for technicians to innovate, it's gonna allow for technicians to to be motivated to do something different, to improvise repairs, maybe. It's also gonna allow that company. Let's just say it's you and your buddy Charlie, and you have a repair shop and you're fixing these slate things, and they put they put hundreds of thousands of them out there on the road, and you're busier than shit. And guess what? When the money comes in, it doesn't have to get split up by some auto group into fucking paying for this, that, and the other thing. All it's got to do is pay the rent and for the heat and the lights, and boom, you and Charlie. I'm telling you, this is this is a this has the potential. This has the potential of being a major shift in the way people fuck technicians in the ass. That's it. That's the way I look at it. And that because I mean I feel like a lot of us are just we're just treated so poorly. And this is a way for us to regain some respect and regain some uh financial stability, even you know, because there's no dealer, they don't have them, there's no fucking middleman there. Yeah, there's a guy who owns the shop, sure. He might even be your brother-in-law, he could be your uncle, he could just be some guy you know, but it's not some fucking big head who used to be a salesman and now he's a service manager and he's friends with the general manager, that's why he got the job. You understand what's happening here, folks? Any of you out there, and and this is a plea, this is this is a heartfelt plea from your Uncle Jimmy. If you're out there and you're at one of these shops that's gonna be a certified independent repair shop for these slate vehicles, you guys need to do the best job you can and make this work. Because what happens to the rest of us now, you know, I'm three, four years away from retiring, so it's not really gonna help me out that much because this is not something that's gonna happen overnight. But if you guys can handle the work and handle the workload and do it efficiently and make, you know, a modicum, you know, make a modicum of money doing this, make a you know, a reasonable amount of money doing this, and and make customers happy and make Slate glad that they have you on their side, then it's gonna change everything for all of us, for everyone else, everyone who's not working on these things. Because brands, I'm telling you, the brands out there now that are having to deal with the goddamn dealership network in this country, the United States, they fucking hate them. They won't say it out loud, they won't say it to their face, but they fucking hate them. And I'll tell you why. It's real simple. You know, if you let's just say you're working at a it could be a GM dealer, let's just pick on them for a minute or two, okay? You're working at a GM dealer and you and the guy comes in and he's under warranty and he's got a leaky water pump, so you want to replace the water pump. First off, the warranty department's gonna break your balls because you have to do this for diagnosis, you have to do that for diagnosis, and then you have to get the correct part, and then you maybe have to replace a bolt, two bolts, you have to put gasket sealer on there, you have to put a belt on there, you have to use the right coolant. Okay, so they've got a lot of different fucking hoops that they're making you jump through just to get the warranty repair covered, okay? And then let's just say it takes three hours and you're making in the northeast, you're fucking making 35 bucks an hour, which I'm sorry, it's pathetic. But you're making let's we'll make it an even $30 an hour, okay? So you do three hours worth of work and you make $90. But that repair, the warranty department at General Motors pays your dealership probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 to $250 an hour. So they have gotten at $250 an hour, obviously it's $750. And you got $90 of it. Folks, do you see the fucking problem? Yeah. And if brands like General Motors and Ford and BMW and Audi and Toyota, if they could pay an independent repair shop and maybe even just you personally for the warranty repairs they need to have done to their vehicles, everybody wins except the dealer. And nobody wants the dealer to win. Nobody ever wants the dealer to win. Fuck the dealers, fuck them. So the brands, instead of paying, instead of paying the dealer $750 and having them pay you $90 for the work you did, the brand could pay $500, maybe you get $200 of it, and then the rest goes to parts. Who's going to be happy? Well, let me see. The brand first, and then you second. And who's going to get left out? The dealer, got the middleman right out, stab him in the heart, fucking kill him dead. That's why this is so important, folks. This could conceivably change everything if it works. No pressure, okay? But if you're one of these independent repair shops, the rest of us, and I mean the rest of us, the dealers, the brands, the technicians, even the parts department, they're looking to see if this is going to work. Because these vehicles that you're making, these these slate vehicles, I hope they're great. I hope they work awesome. I hope nothing ever goes wrong with them. But we live on planet Earth, folks, and Murphy was an optimist. All right. Things are going to go wrong, things are going to break, things are not going to work the way they're supposed to, and things are going to go wrong, and things are going to go bad. And you have to be ready for that. You are still going to have the chaos. You will not be able to avoid the chaos. How you handle it, how you handle it is going to dictate everything. Everything. Let me tell you something right now. I am not their target market. I am an old guy with 12 cars. What am I going to be buying? Probably nothing, actually, uh, because I just got enough stuff. Okay. But I believe that their marketing is working because there's an awful lot of people that show up on LinkedIn that are excited about what's going on with that company. And it's basically just cars built by Amazon. You know, it's Jeff Bezos, it's Amazon. He has backed it up financially. Uh, and it looks like so far, from what I can see, they seem to be doing everything right so far. Obviously, there's going to be mishaps. Like I said, they're not going to be able to avoid the chaos. They're not going to be able to. And how they handle it. If they handle it with a smile on their face, and if they are able to keep the customers happy and come up with, and then here's what's going to happen, here's another thing that's going to happen. I want to just interrupt myself. I hope that they do well. Let's just put it that way. I hope that they do well and that the problems do not overwhelm them. And that the certified independent repair network across the United States comes through with shining colors and takes care of like literally all the problems that they're going to have and makes this a winning combination where a brand can bypass a dealer network of service departments and go straight to independent repair shops and maybe even to independent repair individuals. Okay, that's my goal. Okay. But let me tell you something, what's going to happen here? Because these things, like I said earlier, infinitely customizable. And influencers around the world are going to get their hands in these things and they're going to do shit to them that is going to blow your fucking mind. I mean it. I mean it. And it's going to be crazy and it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun to watch. And in a couple of years, they're going to start having slate car shows, and they're going to have awards for most outrageous. They're going to have awards for, you know, one that's been driven the farthest, you know, to the show or whatever. And they're going to have, you know, they're going to have all kinds of crazy trophies and they'll have barbecue or whatever, depending on where you know where they are in the in the country or even in the world. And it is it, I can see this, it's just going to explode. And all that's happened right now is the fuse is lit. That's it. It's a truck. It's a little electric truck. It is basic as shit. Doesn't come with a radio. You have to bring your own fucking radio. But hey, that's so that you don't have to fucking deal with the problems. Trust me, I'm not kidding you when I tell you this. I work for a week. I'm going to look at at least five to ten cars that have fucking problems with the radios or the nav or the display screens. And I'm getting kind of tired of it. I mean, it's what I do for a living, but and I don't mind it, okay? But some of this stuff is is self-inflicted, and I can't get that through to people. And this way, Slate has completely avoided that. It's all self-inflicted because it's your shit. And if it doesn't fucking work, you're not going to call Slate up and say, hey, my phone doesn't work. And they're going to say, well, get a new phone. Click. Seriously. And I will laugh my balls off when that happens. Let me just fill you in on what the warranty looks like for this these things, okay? Because this is going to be important too. It says here the battery and powertrain warranty is going to be a 10-year, 110,000 mile warranty. Okay. That's pretty substantial, folks. Because if you have something that goes wrong, and maybe let's say the battery is no good and it's six years old, covered bumper to bumper, limited warranty, and that's going to cover stuff that isn't the battery in the powertrain. Four years 50,000 miles. Roadside assistance, four years 50,000 miles included from the factory. That's free. That comes with the vehicle. Okay, so these people have learned the lesson that warranty and standing behind something is going to sell this thing. Okay, because honestly, with this level of warranty, you can buy this thing with no fear. Even if it's a load of shit and it needs to be in a shop a hundred days a year, whatever it is, it's going to be covered at least for four years and 50,000 miles. Right? And I don't know what they're going to be able to do as far as like loaner cars. They may partner with uh some sort of rental company to offer you a discount rental where you know maybe you pay half and they pay half or something along those lines. I don't know. I don't work there. Uh I don't know if they thought about it. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. They did think about this anyway. Uh, this is what it says here the professional network repairPal partnership. Because Slate is a direct-to-consumer brand without a massive legacy dealership footprint. They have partnered with RepairPal to build a distributed network for official warranty work. Over 3,000 shops, independent shops across the country will act as authorized service centers. These independent shops will handle covered warranty repairs and bill Slate directly. And then there it says here that there's over 100 locations within that network that are explicitly certified with a high voltage tier to handle complex EV drivetrain and battery systems. Folks, uh, I think if you're listening to this and you're a technician out there and you've been twisting wrenches even for I'd say three to four years, you probably have some sort of EV experience. And that's that's all they're really probably looking for at these hundred specific locations where uh drivetrain and battery systems are gonna be repaired. So, you know, if you have the goods, uh sign, see if you can sign up with them. You know, start your own shop and sign up with them. It conceivably, now I can't make I'm not gonna make predictions. I don't have a crystal ball, okay? I do not have a crystal ball. But this thing could go nuclear if it if it's good and it works and it's not too troublesome from the beginning, which unfortunately it is likely to be, but hey, I don't want to I don't want to jinx them. I'm rooting for them. I'm gonna be the biggest hairy-legged cheerleader you've ever seen for these people because if what they're trying to do succeeds, it will change everything for the rest of us. It will change everything. It will change everything, it will make the old-fashioned out of date, out of style dealership service departments obsolete leak. It will make them obsolete. And honestly, if you are thinking about opening your own shop, this is this is incentive that I couldn't, I I didn't see it coming. I I'll be honest with you. I did not see this coming. I do not predict the future very well, but this is something that that could push you over the edge. It's like, why would you put up with a tip shit service manager and low pay and a shop that where they don't give a fuck about technicians, which seems like all of them, and then just start your own shop. Maybe at your house, maybe in a uh a Morton building next to your house, maybe in a buddy's shed or a barn down the street, whatever. Start your own shop, call these people up, see if you can become one of those certified independent shops. I mean, I don't there's got to be some, there's obviously there's got to be some things that they're looking for. Obviously, they want you to have certain equipment and they they want you to be skilled and they want you to, you know, there's things they're gonna want. Okay. I don't know what they are. I don't I don't have a list of them. I could probably hit repair pal and see what they are. I didn't do that, unfortunately. Uh I wasn't really thinking that far ahead, to be honest with you. But I was excited when I thought about the fact that this can change everything. And the other thing that's crazy here, okay, and I want to just add this and then I'll get off for for tonight. It says here the professional network, okay. We we just talked about that, but then number three was the DIY route, and it says in premises, a first for warranties. Slate is embracing, this is what it says, and this is AI. Okay, so this isn't really off of Slate's website, and this is not official, but uh AI goes in and finds this stuff, and and this is more than likely a hundred percent true. Slate is embracing an open source right-to-repair model, which is different than everybody else is doing, through their open access digital portal called Slate U. The company provides full factory service manuals, diagnostics, and wiring schematics with zero paywalls. It's free, folks. The information you need to fix the cars is free. If you are even remotely handy, you may be able to fix your slate yourself. And this is what it says here. Slate has explicitly stated that owners can choose to perform their own minor warranty repairs. What? You gotta be fucking kidding me. That is that how ridiculous does that sound? But if it works for them, guess who's gonna jump on the bandwagon? Yeah, everybody. Thank you very much. If you opt to fix a covered issue yourself, Slate intends to ship the replacement parts directly to you, allowing you to use standard tools to re to perform the replacement rather than losing your vehicle to a shop for a day or days. And then it goes on to say, How will your shop handle these new direct and customer warranty frameworks? I'm just gonna write with a fucking smile. Uh, I'm not sure. It didn't say there uh that they're gonna pay. The DIY customer to fix their own shit, but it's possible. I mean, if a customer fixes his own shit and they're capable, okay, and you and I know that this could go sideways real easy because a lot of us, and myself included, think we're a hell of a lot smarter than we really are. And so I can see some DIYers using you know different uh you know different uh information that they get from Slate to get themselves into just enough trouble so their shit doesn't work. And uh you may have to go and do a mobile kind of repair thing. And uh, like I said, it didn't mention here if they're gonna actually pay the customer to fix their own shit. I would imagine that's really not part of it. And but here's the upside seeing things from both sides of the fence. Thank you very much. Uh, the upside is that if a slate customer gets the information they need and the parts they need to fix something on their vehicle and they do it and they're successful at it, there's a mountain of pride there. I mean, really, I mean, it's like IKEA has their whole philosophy is based on that. You buy uh a fucking, you know, a goddamn bed or a bureau or a TV stand or a set of just of drawers from them, and it comes in fucking pieces, and you have to screw it together. And what they found is that people kind of enjoy that, some people do anyway, uh, some people enjoy that and they feel completely involved with building their own furniture and are just just enjoy it better. I mean, it makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud that they could, you know, screw the four, you know, the four pieces of wood together and and then build the build the the drawers and all that. And this is the same exact thing. They're going to it elicit pride in ownership and the responsibility of repairing your own shit instead of going in and fucking babbling on and on about something that's fucking broken on your car to some service advisor who isn't fucking listening and is going to write down what they think you said and then try to get some technician to fix a problem that they can't understand what the fuck the problem really is in the first fucking place. And then when he wants to get paid for doing whatever he did, even if it didn't fix it, then they're gonna go, what are you fucking stoned? We don't pay, we don't pay if you don't fix them. This could cause a lot of that stuff to go away. So let me just say this again, okay? What they've got going on is is completely fucking different than what's been going on for the last hundred years. And if they're even mildly successful, the other brands out there will start to pay attention. They probably are already up on their heels listening and hearing what's going on, and maybe even they're listening to this. I don't know. I don't want to I don't want to make claims like that. I don't like to be a liar, but this this is gonna change this, it has the potential, folks, to change everything and for the better for us as individuals, as human beings. It spells the doom, it could conceivably spell the doom for dealerships. Because fuck it, they're gonna, you know, uh Amazon and Slate, they're gonna sell the fucking thing online and they're gonna give you the information so you can fix it yourself. And if you can't fix it yourself, you get to take it down to Dave's auto repair in the corner of Third Maple, and he can fix it for you. And it's under warranty, so it's not gonna cost you anything. It's like this is a win-win-win-win-win all the way around. The only loser in this whole situation is the dealer and the brands who didn't think of this shit first. So listen, uh, honestly, uh, if you're out there listening and you have and you are one of these certified independent repair shops, I want to tell you, listen, seriously, this is your Uncle Jimmy begging you, do the best you can, make all of your customers as happy as you possibly can, and it is going to help all of us. And if I, myself personally, your Uncle Jimmy, or if any of us out there that are listening to this can help you get this job done in an efficient and uh well-meaning manner and get get every make everybody happy, and it works and it's and it's a success, it will be like a tidal wave lifting all of our boats and swamping our fucking dealers, the fucking shitholes that we work in now. So no pressure. Like I said, no pressure, but just do the best you can. And you know what? If you got to have help, reach out, man. We're a brotherhood, or at least we should be anyway, okay? I know we spend a lot of time beating the shit out of each other, saying, Oh, that guy can't fix shit. That guy can't fix a sandwich, you know. That guy's no good at this. Um, we're gonna need to, we're gonna need to kind of help each other out. And we don't need to hold hands and make s'mores and sing kumbaya, but we do need to to be a community and to be a brotherhood and help each other out. All right. All right. This is this is an astounding thing that is happening here. And see if maybe you can get yourself in on it. Why not, right? All right. I think I've rattled on long enough about it. I want you to to consider, I want you to think about what's going on here and how it could conceivably change your life for the better. Okay. Uh, because I that's what that's all I ever want for all of you guys out there that are listening to this. I want you to get recognized. I want you to get the appreciation you deserve, I want you to get the respect that you deserve, I want you to get the money that you deserve, and this is a new fucking way to get all of it. Okay. All right. That's it. Your Uncle Jimmy is going to sign off now. Uh, the most important podcast he's ever done. Listen, if you got any feedback at all, whatever you got, hit me up on the Facebook page. If you got something you want to hear me talk about, if you got something you want to hear me uh speak about, maybe look into, maybe help you out with, whatever you got, please feel free to hit up the Facebook page for Grease the Wheels. Uh, I've got some exciting stuff coming. Uh, but because I'm a lazy prick, it's taken me a long time to work it out. I will let you know what that is when it comes along. But this is exciting stuff that's happening here with Slate and RepairPal and you guys out there not working at a dealer and fixing cars under warranty. Holy shit. Whoa. Hey, the sun has come up on a new day, baby. All right. All right. That's it. I'm gonna that's it. I'm that's it. I don't have anything else for you, okay? So