SpaceX Vet's Transformer Vehicle: Road to Rail Instantly

Most people see train tracks and think "obstacle." Kevin Damoa sees the ultimate highway hack. After six years in the Army doing rail operations and stints at SpaceX and Northrop Grumman, he's realizing something crazy: America has 140,000 miles of rail that's basically empty while our highways are parking lots.

So he's building a vehicle that doesn't care. Road congested? Jump on the rail. Train coming? Hop off and take the service road. Bad track ahead? The vehicle's sensors catch it, and you route around. It carries full shipping containers (60,000 pounds) and runs on whatever fuel you've got handy.

Here's the thing: moving freight by rail costs 70% less than trucking, but nobody uses it because you need cranes, multiple vehicles, and weeks of waiting. Damoa's vehicles are eliminating all of that. Drive straight from a ship to the rail, ride to your city, drive off to the warehouse. Done.

In this episode, the Glīd CEO breaks down why investors just oversubscribed his funding round, how this technology could transform shipping in developing nations, and why he calls logistics "special forces for regular people." Plus, the wild story of testing these beasts at an abandoned Kansas munitions depot.

More at https://FUTR.tv Audio version at https://futr.buzzsprout.com Learn about Glīd: https://glidrail.com/ Book mentioned: The Box by Marc Levinson: https://amzn.to/46u8Rm4

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Transcript

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What if a single vehicle could seamlessly transition from highway to railway? Transforming how we think about transportation forever. Stay tuned. Today we're joined by Kevin Damoa, founder and CEO of Glide Technologies, who's turning that bold vision into a reality. A combat veteran turned visionary engineer. Kevin has left his mark across some of the most cutting edge companies in aerospace and mobility. From designing rocket logistics systems at SpaceX to managing the F 35 fighter Jet program at Northrop Grumman, his latest Venture Glide technologies represents perhaps his most ambitious project, yet an autonomous road to rail vehicle that could revolutionize freight transportation while integrating clean energy and advanced automation. Kevin brings engineering excellence and. Entrepreneurial drive to tackling one of logistics greatest challenges. So let's hear about it from Kevin himself. Welcome, Kevin. Hey Chris. Thanks so much for having me. This is like transformers meets every kid's train fantasy, uh, what you, what you're building here, it's, it's super cool. But thank you. Like, before we get there, I. Like you, you've got this wild background. Um, yeah. And it's like spans so many industries, so many cool companies, you know, so much like life experience stuff too. Um, could you just talk a little bit about like, you know, like your background and, and like how that, you know, like how you went from that to, you know. Founding Glide Technologies and coming up with this idea. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, thanks Chris. So, so I've been in logistics for 23 years. It's, it's like, it's my love note, uh, to all the logisticians out there. Um, you know, I joined the military to 80 17, you know, right after nine 11 I wanted to do my part. So I joined the US Army, um, and uh, US Army took me a lot of places, and one of the places that it took me was to a rail line. Uh, where I did, uh, railhead operations, uh, prior to and while, uh, deployed over in Iraq, uh, with third a CR. Um, and then, uh, you know, got outta the army, you know, after my, my six year stint went over the, the California to pursue the, the Hollywood dream. Um, and there that path I saw California was on fire. Uh, so I joined the California International Guard, uh, to support them in their mission to fight fires. Uh, so I did that from 2007 to 2018, is when I retired from the Air Force. And then, um, you know, my first like big boy job was with SpaceX. Um, I'm the first person in the world to commercially ship Tess Launch, recover in the re relaunch a rocket alongside those great folks at SpaceX. You know, shout out to all the Space Xers out there, uh, before going off to like Northrop Grumman, you know, supporting with the F 35, uh, program. Uh, and, and supporting our war fighters in the air, um, you know, throughout the world as we launched that, that, that beautiful platform out. Uh, to jumping right back into startup world, um, you know, did some, uh, some executive stints at Romeo Power as an early employee at XOs Trucks as an early employee and executive, um, at Canoe as an early employee and executive, uh, before going off doing my own thing, um, as a consultant, uh, working at companies like Hydroplane and Zero Lab and working with companies like, uh, like inr for example, you know, on some, some great. Uh, programs and projects, um, that really elevate the way that we move things, uh, before helping, you know, Harley Davidson out with their first e-bike. Um, you know, uh, well there you go. Serial one. Um, which, which brought me to the moment that we have today, um, with, uh, with, with Glide as we look to, as you say, transform literally, um, the way that we move things on road and Row. The world operates on logistics. I mean, I don't think people appreciate how complex our logistics infrastructure is. I mean, we order something from Amazon and it shows up same day often. Yeah, yeah. And you know, like, like, you know, that's, it's just this magic that happens, but we don't think about all this stuff behind it. I mean, could you talk a little bit about like, you know, what, as somebody in logistics for a long time, you know, like what was it that, that, you know, excited you about it and, and like what were the, some of the real big challenges you saw there? Yeah, of course. I mean, the thing that excites me is, is, is like special forces for, for regular people. Um, I think law decisions are, are like super humans. And the reason why I say that is because not one day is the same. You know, not one package is the same thing. Um, and even if you have something that you package multiple times, the way that it comes in and out of your door. Changes, changes hands, it changes people. Um, it changes processes and speeds and costs and everything else. It's the most dynamic, you know, thing you can experience. Um, and within that, the inherent problems that comes along with that, that, um, you know, that fluidity, that, that fluidness, you know, of the, of the process where everything is dynamic. And, you know, the best laid plans need best laid plans and need contingency to those plans in order for things to be effective. Um, is uh, the challenges that comes. You know, with logistics that keeps your head on the swivel, um, that makes, you know, lot decisions so dynamic. Um, and like I say, it's a, it's a love story. You know, where you have and like paying on one end and then you know, pure joy on the other end when you deliver something on time at the cost is supposed to be to a customer that is waiting to deploy great product on another end. If you aren't that, that, that, that, uh, that customer. You know, we, we always talk about the last mile problem in logistics, right. And, and like, um, you know, like it's easy to get it, you know, to the ship, I guess, you know, from the factory to the ship. Yeah. But then like, you know, from there it's like, what now? Yeah. So, you know, so how, how, like, talk about like, you know, how you're bridging those gaps with all of this. Yeah, absolutely. So the way that we look at things is, uh, via, um, first principles looking at global maxima. Um, so, you know, not just looking at the corridors and how we transport on either road or rail, um, but looking at all the material conveyance, um, in between to get it from that place of that place, we're moving some of those critical touches, um, uh, that, that are in between, you know, destination to destination mode to mode, node, de node, um, as well as all the backend processes. A lot of folks don't know, but you know, logistics is still very, very caveman antiquated process where you are exchanging paper, right? You hey, print out three copies of this bill of late and give it one to the driver. Yeah, I keep one and I put one in the system and that happens today all over the place. You know, where you have a clipboard with a person walking along things, but digitalizing that process as well. Um, and then at the same time, looking at it from a global perspective in regards to carbon reduction and throwing that into the equation. Um, and then the last step, looking at the geopolitical aspects of it. For the folks that live marginalized to these ports, railroads, or in other industrial parks, and then baking that into a solution that covers all of them, and that's what Glide does. Glide, you know, eliminates the different touches. Throughout the process, it streamlines the process to go from boat to road to rail, and then, you know, to, um, road again, um, and eliminates all of the, the paper documentation and all the brokerages that are there. And then it cuts out all of those, uh, um, emitting pieces of equipment along the way. Forklifts, cranes, drayage trucks, trains, you know, cargo ships, you know, roll, roll on, roll off trucks all baked into one seamless vehicle, um, that is reduction in itself. So. Is as easy as gliding, right? Yeah. As easy as gliding. And I mean, he, yes. And when you look at how it operates, it, it, it really does look that way. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things you said there that I think is really interesting is sort of like bringing, you know, like logistics to more, uh, like maybe either more marginalized areas or like more remote areas or. You know, countries that, that have, you know, like incomplete infrastructure or Absolutely. You know, like where it's just simply difficult to install infrastructure, you know, too, you know? Yeah. So can you talk about like how, how you solve for some of those problems? Yeah, absolutely. So when I think about gliders, uh, gliders are like this off-road beast of a truck train, um, where we can operate and, and, uh, truck train develop. I like that. Develop, develop. Yes. It, it goes, it goes shroom, right? It is choo choo and zoom at the same time. And it transforms too. And it, and it transforms. Exactly. Exactly. But I mean, it's for, uh, develop, developing. Um, and Auste locations, right? In the developed, uh, nations, you have infrastructure that is underutilized or utilized too much in the comparison between road being congested and then rail being underutilized here in the United States. Um, and then you have your, your developing where you don't have the infrastructure in place. You may just have. You know, uh, a rail track like in the case of a, like Africa, but you have all this like rough terrain that you have to figure out. Um, and then, you know, you have your austere, your war torn locations, uh, where you have this rail infrastructure put together. But, you know, war has taken a toll on the rest of the infrastructure or roads are two unsafe to, uh, you know, operate on, in the contested environment, um, where it glides, uh, foot to bill. You know, given that we are an off-road vehicle. We do utilize geospatial mapping. The, the go around bad obstacles. We can attenuate loads, um, on the vehicle itself so that, you know, the, the goods on top of us stays safe, um, while it transits. And then it does provide opportunities for developing countries to say, do I really need to install a road in these locations? Can I just do like a, like a gravel pit? Or, you know, do a dirt road and then, you know, stand up rail infrastructure is gonna be expensive in the long run, but cheaper over the course of things. And I can share this from state to state, country to country. And we have a, you know, a corridor that can do that quite easily. At the same time, leveraging the low cost, um, per ton mile, that rail is associated with, um. And the ability to transport a lot of goods all at one time, you know, while offsetting that gross vehicle weight that we see in some, some countries. So that's how, that's how, you know, we envision, you know, glide across those three paradigms. Take me from the factory. Yeah. To, you know, like the end point and, and just talk about like where you guys fit in and like how, how you, how you main maintain all of that to a customer. Say we're, we're Amazon, we haven't signed up with Amazon yet, but Hey, come on Amazon, we're ready for you. Uh, so we, uh, Amazon ha you know, they deal with, uh, 20 foot equivalent trailers all the time in small parcels in that L-T-L-F-T-L shipment, but they don't leverage rail, um, as much as they should. Explain that acronym for for people who aren't familiar with it. LTL? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Uh, LTL is less than truckload, so a a half of a 50 foot truck or a 53 foot truck, or a 20 foot container, or a 50 40 foot container, uh, 20 foot is called a TEU 20 foot Equivalent Unit. Um, and, and so forth. Um, so Amazon loads up packages into these, these containers. Um, and then they put 'em on the back of a, is a of a semi-truck, and the semi-truck goes and delivers it to its destination, whether it's a consolidated. Center or your final mile, final mile, whatever it may be. Um, but they don't use rail. So in our aspect, the glider would pull up at Amazon, door, be loaded up, um, and, and, and it either we will bring a container to load up or they can put a container on top of it. We would drive over to the local rail spur and a lot of the times these Amazon facilities are within feet. And within feet of a a, a rail spur itself, we'll drive over to the rail spur, get on it, drive down, it bypassing all traffic along the way. So the road guys are not like, man, that train is actually going and it has an Amazon logo on it. And then when we get to the other side, say it's a distribution center. We'll jump off, drive over to the distribution center, let the folks unload, and we can do that round robin all day, every day. You know, in between the step, you didn't hear about me saying, Hey, a forklift had to come in to the, the, the right size this, or, yeah, we didn't have to like transload this from like road to rail, which is the biggest barrier of, of entry. Um, it was all done on one vehicle, on both sides of the fence, um, and very, very cheaply. The challenge there too is that it's bi-directional in terms of like, you have to move these vehicles, you know, like you get'em there and now you gotta get'em back to pick up more loads. Absolutely. Um, so like, and, and I know there's a lot of like. There's a lot of, uh, infrastructure and complex negotiation between, you know, taking a load, then picking up another load nearby and bringing it back to where you want it to be, and you know mm-hmm. Keeping everything.'cause the more you keep everything busy, the better, better it is. Right. So how, how do you, how utilization's the name of the. Yeah. Yeah. So, so talk about the utilization piece of it. In a beautiful market, you want to do a, a, a bread run, you know, round robin where you're dropping off at one distribution point and delivering at another distribution point. Um, but the great thing about our technology is, we'll, we'll, we'll parse it out in, within the region. Say we picked up for Amazon and Amazon doesn't have an order for us to return to. Um, but we have, say a trash company that needs to be picked up or an aggregate company needs to be picked up and brought back within the proximity of our next. You know, Amazon or whatever Walmart load. Um, then we'll service all those customers at the same exact time, um, on that same rail line.'cause the rail line is our primary, uh, customer. So we'll be agnostic to every commodity. So our claim, the fame is any road based trailer, any rail based cart, any commodity. We will allow access, uh, to the rail because it doesn't have to be packaged in a. Form that is required for the rail anymore. You know, you have a container, um, that you can just load anything else on, whether it's a open top gondola or, uh, for lumber or aggregate or sand or agriculture or, you know, small parcel or large packaging palletization, um, that can fit inside a container. You know, anything that fits within that special box we can put on our glider and go. And I, you know, I don't think people really realize, and we, I could do a whole show on this too, because I think it's absolutely fascinating, but the shipping container itself and the revolution that a shipping container was like standardizing how things get shipped, completely transformed everything. Yeah, I mean, there's a book called The Box that I recommend to every, every reader. Yes. Um, if they want to learn about containerization, but I mean, now they're homes. Now a container can ship anything and everything. And then, you know, you could put a, you could put a swimming pool, make it a swimming pool. You could make it a home. I mean, it's, uh, it's a Swiss Army knife. Yeah. Well, and, and I know like, you know, it's interesting too because, um, you know when, when goods ship from say, China Yeah. You know, they purchase a new shipping container, it put it on a ship, bring it here, it gets off at a port, and then they just sell that container Absolutely. After they unload it. Right. And then Absolutely. So there's like tons of extra containers available and you know, it can be, you know, intermodal shipping or it can be a house, a new house. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you take a, a, a, a container full of Amazon, small packages to a destination, and then you pick up aggregate. You know, like how do. Those are very different loads. Absolutely. Like how do you manage things being so vastly different in terms of their weight and the weight distribution and the way they move and all that? Yeah, I think the thing that we get away with is within the United States we have, uh, you know, the gross vehicle weight requirement, right? So anything that's, you know, 40 to 80,000 pounds for a 20 foot container, you have like a 40 to 60,000 pound limit with the, um, you know, with the, uh, 40 foot container, you, you can get up to 80,000 pounds to include your. Your vehicle. So you, you're kind of limited to that 60,000 pound as well.'cause most vehicles weigh about 20,000 pounds. Um, but anything that fits within that number you can ship. Right? If it's toilet paper and you fill up the whole thing, it's like, Hey, sorry dude, you didn't make, you didn't get the weight, but you got the mass, uh, equation. But like, aggregate or small parcel or anything else, like, or, or you know, regular fluids in oil and gas or water. It all has to, you know, drive underneath that same weight. You know? Yeah. That's, that's where the variability is. So the problem that we have on our side that we have to solve is how do you attenuate those loads? You know, how do you make sure that those loads can actually be balanced, um, on your vehicle, you know, with the, you know, the solids are no problem, right? The aggregate, the lumber, the small parcel, those things. But when you get into the liquid form. How do you attenuate those moving loads the way they, they do. Um, and that's the problem that we, we, we have solved, um, you know, on it as well. So we have a yeah, we have a way to attenuate the loads as we go down as well. So, so talk about that technology, 'cause that sounds really interesting. I mean, talk, let's talk about all the technology that goes into this, because this is, there's a lot here, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. So, so typically, sorry about that. So, typically we, it's, uh, done via pneumatic. You know, and most, most trucks, air rides are, are how you handle it. Um, you know, we, um, we, we, um, electronically actuate or attenuate those loads instead of utilizing pneumatic so that we won't have. Two disparate, uh, systems on board. Um, so we do load checking. So you'll put the load on. Um, and then when the load is on, um, our truck will, will, or our gliders will drive a little bit and see how the load shifts. And then as the load shifts, we can actually, um, you know, rebalance out the load, um, you know, via actuators or suspension. Uh, based on the load, uh, characteristics. And we do it for everything that goes on top of our gliders. Um, we have all that data digitalized because I don't know if when you drive down the road you see these loading scales, you have to report everything that's on the road. So we actually put all that data, all we, we grab all that data digitally on the vehicle, and then we store that data so we can send it off to the DOT as well as a part of the process. So, you know, it's another step function that's built into how we do our technology intentionally. You, you talk about a lower carbon footprint, right? I, I assume there's like, I mean, besides the fact that rail is significantly more efficient than other modes of, of transport and you're taking all these other things out, is there, is there electrification in this, you know, like what, what are some of the, the other like sustainability technologies that you have built in here? Ab, absolutely. So every glider, um, is, is battery powered, but it's a hybrid. So on one end we have a range extender that is agnostic. So we can do JP eight, LPG biodiesel, regular gas, or, okay. You, you're gonna have to explain those acronyms too. So sorry. So sorry. So, so JJP eight is the military's, uh, fuel, right? Uh, it's like kerosene. Uh, biodiesel is diesel, but it's made clean. It's typically from. Uh, you know, vegetable oil, animal oil, whatever it may be. Uh, maybe not an oil, but you know, vegetable oil, corn oil, um, it smells like french fries, regular diesel. Um, and then gas. And then, uh, hydrogen. Hydrogen is another range extender that we're looking at, um, as well for folks that are port adjacent. So are these like multi fuel kind of vehicles or do you have to have like, choose each vehicle for the, for the. Path that it's gonna take. Yeah, we'll have to choose the vehicle for the path that it's gonna take. The great thing about us is we have a lot of real estate. Each glider is about eight foot, um, by 22 feet. Yeah. So the battery's 300 kilowatt hours only takes up so much. So you have all this real estate to have a conventional engine up front, um, or have a conventional, um, fuel, fuel cell, um, you know, system up front as well, um, to serve that purpose. And then with that being a hybrid, we don't have to put in, you know, costly charging infrastructure in place. Or if you have charging infrastructure, you can charge your battery. Um, but, you know, we always give folks, we, we, we love variability. Um, especially in, again, auste locations, developing locations or even developed locations where charging infrastructure is, is, is hard. It's harder. No, it's hard everywhere. Um, so we wanna be that one-stop shop that solves it for it for, for everybody. Well, and I don't think most people really understand how trains work either. Trains are actually electric. They're actually electric. They're, they're diesel train, but they're electric because they, they're electric. That's just a generator to charge the system. Right? Absolutely. Can you tap into to that power as well? Yeah. So, so we, we haven't looked at that, but I mean, the same as, uh, um, you know, same as the train. I think that anything that has any income. Combustion to it. They had, you know, it is an energy source that propels everything else, with the exception of, you know, of course your drivetrain at, in the regular ice vehicle that drives a train and a crank and everything else. But we won't get too far into that. But yeah, I mean, is it, is, it is the exact same methodology since these are, you know, like these, they're designed to be interchanged and move and, and resorted and different things added on. I mean, they're probably not. Prohibitive ultimately to like be able to swap out those powertrains or mm-hmm. Like the, because it's just a generator. You just have to kind of dr. It's all a generator, drop a generator on a platform, right? Absolutely. That's all It is. A generator and a tank. Right? And then you have your battery plate, uh, your, your battery plant stays on board. That, that's a constant. But other folks, I mean, other folks is like, Hey, do we have the packaging space for, uh, two small tanks or one small tank? And then the actual powertrain itself? Yes, we do. So that's all it is. Additionally, you guys are adding in autonomous functionality to these Yes. Vehicles as well, right? Could you? Yes. Could you talk about how that works? I mean, there, there's a lot of, lot of things going on here. Absolutely. So we leverage, uh, sensor fusion, so a combination of lidar, radar, uh, sensors, um, as well as, uh, cameras for visual inspection. And we utilize that. Uh, 'cause traditionally like. We are borrowing from an industry that exists. So it's the high rail trucks that are currently utilized, uh, to inspect track. We borrow from that industry. The industry is very, that process is very manual, um, where you have a driver that gets out of the truck, um, you know, pulls pins to actuate the front rail wheels and then the rear rail wheels, and then they get in the truck and they put a piece of Velcro over the top of the steering wheel so they don't accidentally move it. You know, it's a very dangerous and antiquated process. So what we do is we actually drive onto the track. We utilize. Sensor fusion to do geospatial mapping so we can, uh, access where the track is. Once we get up to the track, we, um, realize positive acquisition of the datums on the track. Um, so that then we, um, automatically, um, put down our rail wheels when we start moving along. One thing that we can do is a part of that, since we're driving over the track, is do visual inspection. As we go down the track, and that helps us out to navigate it, um, as well as prevent derailments as well. And for the rail operator, we can actually give them that information that helps them out with lowering their insurance costs, supporting with preventative maintenance on their track, and as well as, you know, sending a signal for derailment, uh, mitigation as well. Um, and that's how our technology works on that side. Um, and that's on both of our platforms. Not only raid the fully unmanned one. But on Gladder m as well, um, that is our manned, um, uh, vehicle too. When you get on the rail line, attaching it to a locomotive is probably more efficient to, to run it. Absolutely. But you could run it. I would, Ima can you run it independent of an engine too? Just if you have access to the rails. Yeah, absolutely. So we actually, we don't, we don't link up with locomotives, um, at all. Oh, you don't? So our Not at all. No, no. Yeah. Not, not at all. Not yet. Not yet. That, that isn't what we've, we've proposed yet. So our, our value prop is to, uh, like offset the, the dwell time that a locomotive typically sees. So, um, a lot of folks don't know, but a locomotives, when they're at the ports or any destination, they have to, um, be long enough to meet their units of economics to actually pay for that locomotive. Itself. Okay. And that's typically about a two mile train. Um, in some instances it takes about two to two to six weeks in order to load up a locomotive. Oh wow. So what glide does, we actually jump in front of that train, do a bunch of deliveries, uh, and then that train departs and say that train is coming head to head to us. We can take a roadside and drive alongside that train as it passes by. Then we can jump back on the rail. Um, but we see our units of economics as better than a train, uh, from the standpoint of just pure speed. Not, not the efficiency associated with pulling a whole bunch, but the efficiency that to ship a whole bunch in a short amount of time during their dwell time is the asset that we utilize for glide. And time is money too. So that's gotta make it more cost Absolutely. Effective as well. Right? In doing that, in that, in that same breadth is, um, we're increasing the capacity of that rail line. So as that, you know, that train sits there and, and dwell, you have a bunch of open capacity that you're not utiliz. So we're leveraging that capacity that is, is there readily available, you know, so the rail makes a lot of more money. Well, and I know one of the problems with US Rail is that. You know, the, like different people own different parts of the railway, right? Yes. And so like, who they license it to depends on who gets to use it at any given time. And like you just mentioned, if the train starts to come through, you just get off and get on the road and then, you know, get back on the rail when that, when you're outta the way. So like when, like long train delays that we see in our system. Don't impact you. Right? Absolutely. You have the ability to, to leverage it. And the other great thing about the, the rail system, it's all on a schedule. I mean, you're not gonna see an ad hoc train that's going down the line. I mean, everybody has that schedule on when we have capacity and when we don't. Um, so our system, um, interacts directly with. Uh, the rail system so that we know when we have to come off or get off of, uh, come on or get off of it as well. You know, the, that dwell time or like sitting around waiting is, is really inefficient use of, of our infrastructure. I mean, like the rail itself, which you mentioned is, is kind of an expensive upfront cost to lay the rail, but like the more utilization you get out of. I would imagine that just drastically changes those economically. And then, you know, now that you can like leverage rail a lot more, now you have less road construction. Now you're not sharing the road as much with big semi-trucks because now rail is more accessible. So you now have freed up congestion on the road. So it's like it goes hand in hand. And we do a thing that I like to call corridor balancing. Um, with that freight moves on, freight, passengers move on passengers. Uh, passenger, uh, transit. Yeah. Well, I love the fact that you can get outta the way so that like, if I ever take a train anywhere, I don't have to wait for the, the big long freight train to go by. And that's another thing too. Absolutely. I mean, this giant, you, you mentioned that they have to get, you know, like take six to eight weeks to get these trains, you know, filled. And then like I'm sitting there like I gotta be at a meeting in 10 minutes and I got Yeah. 30 minutes of train still coming. Bye. Absolutely. Cancel that meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Forget about that. Yeah. And there's, and there's no hope. You can't, you can't turn around and go somewhere else because it's miles. No, not at all. You know, I mean, you know, obviously there's, there's, there's military application you talk about like, sort of Africa, you know, like as, as a, a destination and, and like Africa's really interesting because I think it's one of the most. Compelling growing markets right now in terms of like Absolutely. And, and, and the thing that's interesting about what's going on in Africa is like they're, um, like kind of leapfrogging technologies. They have the benefit of not having a lot of the infrastructure in place, you know, that legacy infrastructure. They're not laying down, you know, copper wires everywhere and things like that. So like you kind of have, have the, the opportunity to build modern and like, I think. You know, the logistics though, still comes a problem because like the United States, uh, like North America, it's a very, very big place. Right. You know? Absolutely. And it's, and it's absolutely, it's so many different nations. And I gotta imagine like even there with like the railway, they may not even be, you know, from country to country compatible rail systems, right? So you could probably get off absolutely one and you know, like drive over and get back on a different rail, you know, that's operating differently. Um. So talk about like how, how that impacts, you know, things in, in, in sort of like growing economies like that EE exactly. That, exactly how, how you described it. You know, say you have, um, you know, disparate, um, you know, rail infrastructure or, or corridor infrastructure, um, but you know, there's one thing that stays the same. The ground doesn't change. Right, right. The ground, you don't have, you don't have different ground as you cross borders. Um, so we can, you know, utilize, you know, um, you know, what is there in order to access what is new or, you know, just by multiple states, countries having the same glide technology in it, um, would be, uh, inspiration enough for these folks to develop a, a intercontinental uh, transit system that goes between each one of these, uh, these states. Um, to bolster their economies. You know, I think, you know, within the United States is great because it is a United States. Um, Europe does the same thing. It is a a, a EU is a united country, um, Africa that hasn't, hasn't yet done that yet. Um, but if they do and they do have a shared, uh, ecosystem, then you know the amount of potential in that country or that continent is exponential. Uh, so we're, we're hoping that we can be a catalyst for that, you know, making transportation easier to access, making commodities easier to flow between, uh, nations. Um, you know, through a, a glide brand is, is the dream. I, I think, you know, that, you know, as they develop, they're gonna need a lot of materials Absolutely. To help deliver. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's kind of a, a chicken and egg situation and, and you can help kind of alleviate some of that chicken and egg problem, right. For every single commodity. It's like, Hey, I, I, you know, you built widgets in one place and I built the byproduct in another place, and then we ship it to these other place. And now you've created this circular economy for your continent. Um, because you have a shared ecosystem. You have intercontinental, you know, system of, of transit for all these goods. And whatever pro, whatever, you know, state they're in, coming from the mil, a military background, you know, you've, you, you think in terms of like, you know, like the, we talk about the internet as being able to survive anything, you know, like you Yeah. And, and you've, you're kind of creating a shipping and logistics system that can kind of survive anything. Right. You know, because Absolutely. It's not just, you know, like there's natural disasters. I mean, if you're gonna like. Tackle, you know, a huge continent that has all kinds of different ecosystems and you know mm-hmm. Earthquakes and flooding and, you know, that, all that sort of thing. The ability to route around that's gotta be really value. But, but you know, like from a military perspective, I mean, you know, if you look at, you know, some of the conflicts recently, you know, the rail lines have been the central. Discussion point. Yeah. Uh, around a lot of that and the ability to kind of, you know, route around trouble, um, has to bring a enormous amount of benefit there when you, when you go to war, the, the, the last thing that is, is tore up is the rail. The rails are a lot of times bulletproof. Yeah. I mean, you have to have a really, really smart bomb to take out a rail line, uh, 'cause it is a long LA rail line. And with our technology, you can ski over, skip over a broken rail. Um, so yeah, I think, I think it is the strongest corridor that we have outside of ocean. Nothing can change the ocean though. Well, I mean, there's bad weather, but other than that, yeah. There's bad weather. Absolutely. Absolutely. Fair point. So, okay, so talk about the autonomy that you've, you've got built in there, into this. I mean, you mentioned that you have two versions of this one, that's, that's driver, that has a driver, one that's autonomous. Mm-hmm. Like how much autonomy is there? Like can this just. Like, does this identify, you know, a problem in the rail and then just figures out how to get around it? Or do you have to, is that when somebody jumps in it and then like, helps it figure out? For our, our rating, we're actually building in scenarios on rail conditions. Uh, so we, we know, uh, for a fact, you know, it's industry knowledge on what rail conditions, a train. Can navigate if it's a poor condition and we know what conditions where you have to get off the track or you're gonna derail no matter what you got going on. Yeah. So that's programming in the glider. And then there's scenarios that you don't know. Um, and within those scenarios, you know, our our go-to is to get off, right. And then there's a scenario where it's like, if you get off, you, you're actually gonna be in peril because there's a huge drop. Um, you know, down to ravine. Right, right. Um, so, you know, what do you do? Do I do you go backwards. So the glider has ability to back off the track as well. And in that instance we do have a human in the loop intervention that is say, okay, it is better to either wait in place. Um, for help or back off the track, um, to get back on an adjacent road, to go around that bit of, uh, debris or that bit of bad track that's there. Um, so, so there's optionality with human intervention about that sort of, uh, getting off the track and, and getting onto the roadway situation too. I mean, is there, do you It's probably early stage to say it's gonna be autonomous on the open roads at this point, but yeah, ab absolutely. Yeah. So I mean, I assume that's where a driver intervenes, but you know, eventually, I would imagine that's gonna be autonomous as well. Yeah. And that, and that's the dream for Glider Rim is always gonna be, well, I wouldn't say always for, but for the most part, there will be a person in the vehicle with our ability to pull a person out and they do remote operations. Uh, for Radden, that will be an unmanned operation. The great thing about rail though, um, a lot of rail lines have service roads that are parallel to the actual rail itself. Um, so that all, all that, all that line is all private. So our partnership with the rail line, you know, extends out to that private road as well. So we'll be able to, you know, run on that autonomously as well on public highways. Of course, we, we won't be able to do that without any kind of permits. Um, but eventually we'll get there. Autonomy on the road is much quicker, uh, to coming into adoption with Waymo and, and yeah, the robax and everything else, um, than, than rail right now.'cause in within the rail line there's only a couple folks working in autonomy. Um, and we still have a bit of hurdle to go. It seems like that'd be the first place to do autonomy because it's like you, you don't have to worry about where the rails are going. I mean, just you have to worry that they're there, I guess. Yeah. But you know. Exactly. Yeah. I mean that seems like a really obvious spot for Autonomy. Rail is older than, uh, you know, it's the oldest form of, of transportation, you know, big commercial transportation within the world. Um, and it's the slowest to evolve. Um, it's the most, uh, it's really private, right? I'll say that. You know, like you, you, you talked about earlier, there's 600 plus, um, rail operators within the United States alone. Rail is still very, very private. There's seven, well, that number's reducing with everybody merging. Uh, there, there were seven class ones and then there. Hundreds, 600 plus class two and threes. So you're dealing with an individual at each one of these things. And a lot of folks are like, I, I mean, I don't, I don't even know where they begin. Yeah. Right. So it hasn't evolved in a while. And these, these folks are like, if it's not broke, I'm not gonna fix it. Uh, but if your capacity is often, and that's a little broken. Is, is what I, what we say. I mean you mentioned these fronted roads, like along the, the paths of, of uh, the train tracks. I could imagine like, you know, we start shifting the way our infrastructure works.'cause I know that the rail lines do own a lot of property on either side of their Absolutely. Their railways and, and like, everybody's always like, 'cause I I, we've got a restaurant, I've got a train line just right down here and I've got a restaurant that, that wants to use that space for parking. And you, you go in there for a second and you're gonna get towed. You know? Absolutely. There's nothing there. Absolutely. You know, it's like, it's totally underutilized. I'm like, what? What's the deal here? Absolutely. Absolutely imminent domain. That's the rail guys. Yeah. They, they even have their own police. They used to have a pretty scary version of police back in the day. Right. But yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Those, those, uh, those robber barons, uh, uh, you know, of the, the old days. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So like, tell me about like, like, like I, I'm sure you must have had, had like some like cool use cases where like, you know, like there's no way to, you know, like get, you can't get there from here. But like, you've got, you've got the, the, the trick to do that. I mean, is there any like, interesting, you know, like places where you've been able to apply your technology in a really unique way? So we're looking at, um, you know, working out. In Kansas, Kansas Proving Grounds in Great Plains. It's in, uh, par Parsons, Kansas. Um, it's an old military base, um, and they have, uh, some rail that is in kind of weird conditions. At least use the word weird. Perfect for you. Yeah, absolutely. And then, uh, you know, they have some road, but the road is, um, is in weird conditions. Then they have a lot of off-road that leads into to rail, um, where they have like munitions, depots, uh, whatever it may be. Um, so that's the, the most. I wanna say a fun location for us to operate in. You know, it's like Industrial Park. You have all these different environments. Some are optimal, some aren't. Um, but, you know, one vehicle can, can do it all for all types of commodities. Like they have munitions on board, they have containerization, they have aggregate, they have lumber, they have a commercial and residential site in construction that's gonna be stood up. Um, and that's exciting for us 'cause we're like, we can service all these folks. Um, and create corridors for you no matter what you have in place right now. Um, it's the exciting thing about that site. It's like a ultimate playground for your transformer, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We call it the b the Baja Bogey. The Baja buggy. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, just go offroading. I mean, do you have like some really, some versions with like really big knobby tires and everything? They all have like big knobby tires on 'em. Like active suspension on it as well. It's pretty cool. Where are you in your journey, right? I mean, like obviously you're, you're, you're building this, you're, you're, you're, you're prototyping things, you're testing, you know, there's, I gotta imagine there's a lot of regulatory and compliance and, you know, yada yada yada things to, to get through. Absolutely. Like, so where are you on the, on this? We just raised an oversubscribe pre-seed round, which was phenomenal, was led by, uh, Outlander vc and, um, we had Draper U, the veterans Fund, antler and capital factory amongst others, uh, coming to our round. Um, so that was great. Uh, and, uh, but at the top of the year, we actually kicked off production on our GLAD rms. That's our manned, uh, version of the vehicles, um, with custom truck, um, one source in conjunction with paccar. Um, so we have those two vehicles coming off the line, um, mid-October with both FRA and DOT certifications ready to go. Added a box and then, um, we built Radden the prototype, um, and, and show that at New Mobility Futures and at right after re industrializing Detroit back in July. Um, uh, so we are in process of going through the productionization of that and doing test trials and that to improve the, um, the scalability and the operability of. Um, platform. Then we have Ezra one six our, our proprietary software that isn't an AI wrapper that isn't built in with a bunch of APIs, that it was coded at home. Um, so we have three products in one year to launch out with two of 'em being piloted this year. Um, with, with, with two great customers. I gotta imagine your market for this could be enormous. I mean, like when we talk about like in the tam that you're investing in, I mean, that's gotta look, look great, right? Globally, it's a $20 trillion tam within the United States. Just being conservative, it's about a hundred billion dollars. And that's just looking at road cargo. That's an I even looking at the defense side, at the contested side. And then right now dual use is a big thing. And naturally, so given what's going on in the world, um, and then our, our local som just our pilots that we have in a book, and our book of business is about three to $5 billion. Uh, so it, it is a very, very healthy market, you know, logistics. I, I can imagine it's, it's probably not hard to get investors for that, right? No, no, not at all. For a while it was, yeah. Well, that's always hard, right? You gotta dream. Who's this guy? You gotta dream. You gotta dream. Yeah. Who's this guy? What has he done? Ah, how's he transforming the world? What? It sounds like a great, uh, great group of investors, uh, for you and, and so like, so then like, yeah. Where, where do you, where does this go from here? I mean, like, I could, I could envision so many different, you know, evolutions for this. I mean, you know, like disrupting, you know, what you say is a 150 year old industry, you know, there's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that hasn't changed literally in 150 years. Yes. Not at all. Not at all. So I mean, like that, you know, when you talk about industries ripe for disruption, I would imagine this is probably one of those Absolutely.'cause I mean, incrementally we're trying to like move the needle, but it hasn't been completely disrupted. And, um, what we're trying to push forward is what we call logistics 4.0. Yeah. Um, making logistics as easy as gliding, um, is our thesis and, and our mission. Um, and that's how we, uh, pay rent. I talk a lot about paying rent. You know, we're all here temporarily. Everything on this earth is all temporary. Temporary, including the earth itself. Yeah. Um, how are we all paying rent for that? Um, and this is how Glide is paying rent. This is how Kevin Damo is paying rent and how is gonna be used. I mean, hopefully we will be the next form of transportation for everybody while leveraging existing infrastructure, while leveraging existing. Thought processes on how you move goods, but in a more effective, efficient way. I could see, you know, like your autonomous bed comes, picks up my, you know, little, you know, cabin, uh, it's attached to my house, takes me out and puts me on a rail, ships me out to California and drops me off and takes me to the hotel. That's a dream that, that is absolute dream. I always say to folks, don't ship it. Glide it. Glide, right? So as one day you, you will be able to say, Hey man, I'm not gonna ship it via UPS. I'm just gonna glide it and I know it's gonna get there. I love infrastructure stuff. I love, like, I love the things that change the world in dramatic ways. You know, like you mentioned the box. Yeah. I mean like the, the container like. Everybody's like, who cares? Like we are throwing those away. You know, that's just for shipping, but it's like, it's so transformative to the world. Absolutely. And like these kinds of innovations are super transformative and I love to see this kind of stuff happening. Thank you. Um, so, you know. Congratulations on a, on a very cool idea. Congratulations on your, your raise, and thank you. I, I, I hope you have tremendous success with this. And I just wanna say tha thanks so much for being on and, and, and sharing the story of your company and, and your incredible background too. Awesome. Well, tha thanks so much, Chris. I really appreciate them and it's been a real blessing, you know, to be on the show and to talk with you about our experience and, and what we will do. Um, and, and I believe we, we, we certainly will. Um, I won't stop until we do. Um, and I got a lot of push in me. Yeah, yeah. Keep going, keep going. Obviously you have a lot of push in you, so Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome.