Your Jeep Wrangler was used in a bank robbery? Plus starting an EV Revolution

What happens when a 16-year-old buys a doorless, topless Jeep Wrangler with Bar Mitzvah money, then inherits his dad's Tesla with no way to pay for it?

Rei Vardi turned a college student's nightmare into a thriving business. His 1995 Jeep Wrangler—complete with red rims, no airbags, and a top speed of 50 mph—taught him to love driving. But when his father's 2015 Tesla Model S became his problem to solve, Rei discovered that renting out electric vehicles was nearly impossible. Someone even robbed a bank in his car.

Instead of giving up, he built Eon Rides, a virtual fleet that's revolutionizing how we think about car sharing and electric vehicles.

In this episode, discover:

• The authentic joy of driving a "beautiful piece of junk" first car
• Why traditional car sharing fails (and what Ray did differently)
• How family, entrepreneurship, and automotive passion collide
• The surprising connection between a Jeep Wrangler and a Land Rover Defender named Sasha

Guest: Rei Vardi, Founder of Eon Rides (eonrides.com)

Join Doug and Christian for another unforgettable automotive story where every car tells a tale, and every tale reveals something deeper about the drivers who love them.

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Listen on your favorite platform and visit https://carsloved.com for full episodes, our automotive blog, Guest Road Trip Playlist and our new CAR-ousel of Memories photo archive.

Don't Forget to Rate & Review to keep the engines of automotive storytelling—and personal restoration—running strong.

Chapters

• 0:03 Banter, Weather, And Endurance Drives
• 2:45 T-Shirts, DeLorean Fix, And Garage Talk
• 5:10 Global Listeners And How To Support Us
• 6:50 Theme Reveal: Some Batteries Included
• 7:42 Meet Ray And The Eon Concept
• 8:49 How The Virtual Fleet Works
• 13:29 Coast-To-Coast Access And Subscriptions
• 15:14 Booking Flow, Tutorials, And Phone-As-Key
• 17:46 First Car Stories: Jeep Wrangler Memories
• 21:48 From Tesla Payments To Startup Idea
• 24:58 Family Roots In Vehicle Sharing
• 26:46 New York Transport Hack: Overpowered E-Bike
• 27:59 User Reviews And Why Convenience Wins
• 29:40 Mom’s Heirloom: Rebuilt Land Rover Defender
• 31:45 Purpose, Team, And Building What Matters
• 34:10 Closing Thanks And Listener CTAs

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:03

Welcome back to All the Cars I've Loved Before, your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia, where our guests are unique. Each auto has an era. Every car tells its story. So, you know, it's time to plug in, get a little grease on the nails, and clip on that favorite car themed t-shirt, hat, or jacket. And before we bring Doug in, I have to ask about the weather. I have to know what the weather is doing there because um here in Florida, it's turned nice, it's turned humid, um, but if live oaks drop leaves, I spent a whole lot of yesterday raking leads, and I was on Amazon today looking to buy a brand new high-performance metal-timed rake. So let's bring our co-host in here, Doug. Doug, did you do any raking today? Or over the weekend?

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

Uh no, I did not. I was going up to I was in the car all weekend, driving all over, including going up to look at a college.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07

Marathon man. Marathon man. And back all in one day. Now, is endurance driving a thing? Is endurance driving a thing? Because yeah, I remember. What do you think? Well, uh I think you would win that if it was. Yeah, so a little bit, and this is a this is an exclusive scoop that no one will care about. Um I've known Doug for a long time, and he had a a boat that got a lot of use with his family. And when not ready. Um, well, it's a better story if I if if I pin the truth slightly. And Doug said, hey, there's this boat sitting in my backyard. Christian, come and get it. And of course, I got nothing better to do. So I drove a thousand miles, picked up the boat, and turned around and drove a thousand miles back. In what was it? I guess it was 2,000 miles in 48 hours. And I don't know if that's endurance driving, but it was probably 15, 16, 17 hours of wheel turning time. Thank you for not having the boat ready, and we had to prep it in a driving rainstorm with about a foot of mud inside of it. I really appreciate that. But anyway, not a problem. Not a problem. I won't. This is what we do for friends. So that's that I'm glad I'm glad you had a lot of fun with it. All right. Unexpected belly laugh. We'll talk about that in another episode. But all right, our man with the plan got all the options and fires on most of his cylinders, some of the time. What's happening? What's with the shirt? What do we got? What do we have?

SPEAKER_00: 2:38

What shirt do we have today? This is I've not seen that. Yeah, I haven't worn it in a while. So this is.

SPEAKER_01: 2:54

Oh, that is really neat. So at the bottom.

SPEAKER_00: 2:56

And see 1981. And the other side of the.

SPEAKER_01: 3:01

Oh, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00: 3:02

Oh, uh okay, okay. Do do the pirouette. Let's let's go. The first side of it has the last says VIN, has the VIN number, the last four digits of my VIN number. So this was a semi-customized number. Oh, it's a customized from uh DeLorean Motor Company. Yeah. They were selling them, and you put in your VIN number in your year, and they produced you a semi-custom shirt. That is lovely.

SPEAKER_01: 3:26

I'm all about thing, all right, so little cross promotion here. If you're listening to us, you won't be able to see. But if you're on YouTube and we can tease this little piece out, what I love about the shirt, okay, back up a shade. And at the bottom where it says 1981 or tilt it down, yeah, the other back up, it has crossed pistons, which I have to say is really, really clever. Like cross swords, you know, like the Virginia Cavaliers or something. That is uh that is most fantastic. So, oh, let me ask you uh by way of did you uh what was happening in the garage this weekend? Anything big? I was raking leads. What were you building?

SPEAKER_00: 4:08

Uh oh, I was all about I was on the road children in college trying to figure out how to get up to New Jersey to pick up my DeLorean because it's now fixed. And I haven't made it up there.

SPEAKER_01: 4:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:26

So it's uh it's on the list. Uh tried to go to my uh 300 ZX buddy who lives nearby and pick up a uh starter uh diode. Starter relay. Okay. And uh didn't make it over there either.

SPEAKER_01: 4:43

So everyone I made a list of all the things I wanted to do over the weekend, this beautiful list. And I'm a compulsive list maker. My lists have lists. And I was getting ready to and this clipboard, but you know, friends and parties and get-togethers. I only got five or six items crossed off the list. So there's always next weekend. Hey, that's right. Beautiful stuff. We gotta move on. Cannot wait to get today's guest. Very exciting, but gotta say, if you like what you hear, tell a family member, coworker, friend, tell an enemy. We don't care. Because you know what we do? We bring people together on this show all over the world. Yes, we are heard um what? Asia, Europe, Australia, everywhere, South America, here. Antarctica, I don't know about. Uh, do penguins get Wi-Fi? Unsure, but we can look into that. So, CarsLove.com. Check out our link tree. Can you spell it for me? L-I-N-K-D-E-R. Got it. One day I'll get that right, but I always, I always get it wrong here. And if you like what you're hearing, please leave a review and uh let us know what you think. Let's see, on podcast uh podcastering platform of choice, ideally on the YouTube on the site. What's that?

SPEAKER_00: 6:03

Reviews on Apple Podcasts would be best. Absolutely. We'll take emails, we'll take text, you can actually send us a text uh directly through the um through the podcast itself. When you go to your podcastering platform of choice, find our show. You'll be there'll be a tech there'll be a link where you can send a text directly to our inboxes. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 6:27

And email works. It does. Cars uh Christian at CarsLove.com, Doug at CarsLove.com. Uh you can catch us regular mail at one Cars Talk Plaza. Carrier Pigeon is also fine. They always end up at Doug's house. I don't know why. It must be the suet of the seed. But moving on, gotta get today's guest here in the show. Hey, how about this for a theme? I thought of a theme just now. What is it? Some batteries included. Love it. Now let's hear about how today's guest made it into your virtual garage.

SPEAKER_00: 7:03

Yeah, so um, you know, I'm always looking at different cars and different. You have a billion friends, it happens. Electric cars. And you know, I've thought about what am I going to do if I go somewhere else and I can't drive my own car traveling. And you get used to your own car. You're used to it, you have to adapt, especially if you have an electric car, going from electric car to a non-one. I mean, you you did the opposite when you rented a Chevy Bolt. And it was a big adjustment, wasn't it? Indeed. Indeed, it was. Yeah, so we found this nice gentleman with a company. Uh, hopefully I'm gonna pronounce it right, Ion Rides, but it's uh Ray Vardy. And uh he's got an EV ride sharing company that I will let him explain much better how it works.

SPEAKER_01: 7:55

Ray, welcome to the show. How are you today? Hey guys, how are you doing? Fantastic. So much better that you're here. And tell us a little bit about this home office here. I just see this welcoming space. And heck, I think I want to drive by and and check email for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02: 8:10

Yeah, maybe you come work with us, co-work for a bit, you know? We got uh we're we're here based in New York City. Um, I this home office super lucky to have it's uh it's uh it's it's the shortest commute you can find in New York. So I uh I I sleep about 20 feet from here. And so I've got this office space here that my team comes into, uh, and we all work together at home. And it's it's it's sure beats a we work. I'll put it that way.

SPEAKER_01: 8:41

Dig it, talk about a one-stop shop. So wow, tell us a little bit about your company and what you're into these days.

SPEAKER_02: 8:48

Yeah, absolutely. So um I run Eon, uh, which is what we call the virtual fleet. Uh, and essentially what we do is we connect unused cars, specifically electric vehicles, with people who need to drive them. It's super simple. Uh and kind of our whole claim to fame is that we integrate directly with the cars systems via the car's APIs and network connectivity. And so what we try to do is to basically make somebody else's car your car for a short period of time. So unlike, you know, sharing a car in the traditional sense where Christian, you have to meet up with Doug and hand him the keys and teach him how to use your car and kind of be his 24-7 support guide, uh, what we try to do at Eon is just make everything as seamless as possible, as if you're driving your own car, but everywhere. And so we load your profile into the car, you you just show up, your phone becomes the key, you unlock the car from your phone, uh, you kind of uh you get in and you go, and that's it. It's super simple. And because our team sees the vehicle and is speaking to the vehicle directly, uh, you actually have 24-7 support anywhere you need to drive. Uh, you don't have to worry that you know, um Christian is available to take your call, uh, even if you are driving Christian's car. So that's that's the basics of what we do. But you know, we grew from essentially my dorm room a couple of years ago to we now have Yeah, we now have about 2,000 cars across the country and we're growing every day. Beautiful. Uh and we just we're we're in love with uh with with making the world a more shared, cleaner place.

SPEAKER_01: 11:07

I like that. So yeah, in the the website, uh you gotta go check this out, eonrides.com, e-o-n r-i-d-e-s.com. And then one thing when I was uh getting ready to do the show here is a little bit of prep. It is so easy to navigate your site. I was blown away how easy it was get to, you know, the the the the proposition of what you offer, like you said, ease of use getting into the car. You're never on your own, you always have resource, you can call the phone, but then you've got this app that's helpful. And and so so you are across the country. You mentioned that before.

SPEAKER_02: 11:43

Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, we coast to coast, um, and and essentially uh we we strive to give people the accessibility so that they can pick up a car either at the airport or from their neighbors', you know, uh parking spot across the street. Uh and we the whole the whole idea is that the experience is always the same. One thing that you'll see if you download our app and your book with us is that you're not renting a specific person's car. It's not Doug or Christian's car. You're renting an Eon. You just choose the car that you want, you show up, you get in, you go, and then you've got 24-7 support, anything you need. Uh and it's really just that simple. You we just try and simplify it because one of the things that is has been great with the ability to share cars is that one, you know, if you have a car, you can make some money off of it. Everyone loves that. But one of the challenges is that not everybody knows how to rent a car out effectively. There's all these checks that you need to do. There's pickup procedures that have to be followed. There's support during the trip. And if you're just a you know, an individual and you're just trying to rent out your car, you'll find you'll find that, you know, sharing your car is not like just, you know, lending a hammer to a friend. It's it's really you become your own tiny car rental company. Uh and that that just doesn't work. It's very challenging. So our mission is we simplify, we do everything digitally so that that way, you know, if you own a car and you're part of our network, uh, it's as close to passive income as possible. And if you're renting a car, my gosh, you just get in, go, it's about as simple as it gets, uh, and everybody wins.

SPEAKER_01: 13:21

Fantastic. Now, you didn't say anything about the subscription, did you? I'm seeing that on your site right now. Can you talk about that for a minute?

SPEAKER_02: 13:29

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So so many people are looking for an option in what we call the medium term. You know, maybe you are just new to town and you need a car for a couple of months, or maybe you're trying to test one out for a few weeks before you decide if you want to buy it. Whatever your reason, we've got these kind of semi-long-term cars uh options, these subscriptions, which are basically like think about uh think about it as a lease that you can get out of it anytime, month to month or week to week. Um pay as you go. And then if you want to change your car, you can anytime. Um, bring the car back. We pick it up from you on the longer rentals. And it's as easy as that. You don't have to buy a car now to enjoy the same benefits.

SPEAKER_01: 14:13

Yeah, that's that's that's really clutch here. And from uh one thing I see in uh some of your reviews here, as well as what's on your site, from booking to driving in minutes. So talk about how quickly this could happen. Somebody, somebody lands in, um, uh, you know, lands at a city, they pull up the app, boom. And is is there kind of a proximity telling somebody how how how close it is, and off you go? Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02: 14:38

So one of the things that we have right now is that you can see exactly where the car pickup location is on the map before you book, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. But the process is extremely simple. You book the car that you want. Uh, you get, uh, if you're a first-time user, you're gonna be prompted to just upload your information, your license, do a quick face scan. Uh, once you're verified, uh, we go, we take you through a tutorial. So this is something that only we do, which is we teach you about everything that you need to know about this car before you arrive. So you don't even you don't have to talk to anybody. You ever go to like uh an Airbnb and you get like this huge list of instructions from the owner? And then you you know, you immediately ignore it. You just completely say, okay, that's nice, you know, less it in the garbage, and then you know, the next night, you know, when it's four in the morning, your toaster's not working, you're like, crap. Yeah, so what we do is we we actually give you a super simple, like we walk you through it with gifts. It takes like one minute, you know, you go through, got it, got it, got it, got it. We give you a short little quiz just to make sure you understood everything you need to know. And then you just get in and we just find that it's the easiest thing in the world. Even if you've never been to this place before, never been in this type of car, electric cars, especially. A lot of people, you know, for sure, they might not be familiar with all the quirks of the electric cars, guides them through everything, super simple. Uh, and then bam, your phone's your key. You walk away from the car, there you're that's it. The car locks, you're done. So the whole point is just keep it simple. And our vision is that you can personalize your experience anywhere you go. Christian, you can't bring your car to New York when you travel, you know, when you fly, but you can bring your eon. And that's that's kind of the point.

SPEAKER_01: 16:18

Love it. Yeah. And there they there is always elegance and simplicity. And again, go check out the website, Eon Rides, eonrides.com. And it's uh set up here. Choose your EV rental, very straightforward. Got the app for that. Instant confirmation, no waiting around. Arrive and go. No one wants to wait at a rental car at a rental car counter. And you'll have access to 24 by 7 access and delivery, right? They have guides, around the clock support. Crucial, crucial. Skip the recharging. Hassle, seamless control at your fingertips. Breeze through tolls. I mean, I just paid, I gotta tell you, I there was a uh a charge on my credit card this morning for Sunpass. I live here in in the panhandle of Florida, and I got this charge. I said, what is this charge for? And so I had to get through email and then kind of verify, oh, well, I spent, you know, I was in Orlando and spent$80 on tolls and I figure all this kind of stuff out. They're gonna figure all this out for you. Okay. So anyway, sorry, didn't mean to gush. I'm gonna hand it over to Doug, who is going to, he's going to fit Ray into a gas-powered car that goes 88 miles an hour. We're gonna scoot right back into the past and thank you for that, Ray. Let's hand it over to Doug.

SPEAKER_00: 17:40

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Christian. Wonderful introduction, as always. So, Ray, um, tell us about your first car. How old were you? What it what was it? And uh then we'll we'll chat about some things you did in the car, how you acquired the car.

SPEAKER_01: 17:59

Things you shouldn't have done in that car, number one.

SPEAKER_02: 18:01

Well, oh man. Um, yeah, man, you guys are taking me back. This is uh so my first car was a 1995 Jeep Wrangler. It was a four-cylinder manual transmission, had no airbags, no top, no doors, uh, it had drum brakes, so they were super unresponsive. Uh the car could only go like 50 miles an hour. So I was a nuisance to people on the freeway. Um basically what happened is that, you know, um, when I was 13, I had my bar mitzvah. And so um in standard fashion, when everybody asked me what what I wanted for my bar mitzvah, I said money. So I was collecting, you know, 100 bucks here, 200 bucks there, put that into uh a savings account that my dad may or may not have manipulated. I'm not sure. But lo and behold, I was 16, I had$3,000 to spend on a car. Uh, and I was I was you know, trudging along on Craigslist, and I find this beauty, you know, this matte black, uh beat-up looking Jeep Wrangler with red rims, you know, the wheels had these red rims, and I was like, that's all right nice accent, nice touch.

SPEAKER_01: 19:14

Nice accent. Yeah, why not?

SPEAKER_02: 19:15

It has a little, you know, something happened there. So um, so I I was living in Thousand Oaks at the time, which is like a suburb a little north of Los Angeles, and the car was in Torrance, you know, which is uh it's kind of a jump over. And of course, the the Queen's assads had cash on me. So I just like I remember my dad and I go into the bank and he's just you know pulling out all my money and hundred dollar bills. And uh, you know, we we drive on down to Torrance and uh and you know, frankly, we we meet up with this gangster, right? He's got like uh hood, and like, you know, he's he's he's just being a little sketchy. He's like, Yeah, you know, let's make this quick, you know, let's do it here in the parking lot, you know. Uh so we're just like, okay, sure, yeah, no, no problem. Here's the money, let's go. He's like, cool. He gives us the keys, the registration, the title. I was I felt I was exhilarated, you know. I was like, this is great, this is how business is done. And so uh I get this car back. Uh at this point, I can't even drive it, you know. So um my dad parks his car. We drive my car back. And then, you know, he's got to come back and get his car back. Okay, yeah. And so, you know, spent the next couple of uh weeks learning how to drive stick on this car, and I fell in love with it. It was one of my favorite things ever. It was um to this day I miss that thought.

SPEAKER_00: 20:37

Yeah. There's there's something about a Jeep, there's something about a Volkswagen. Um, I've owned several Jeeps, CJ7, a couple Wranglers, I think, as well. And yeah, I guess living in LA, you don't need a top, you don't need doors. It doesn't rain.

SPEAKER_01: 20:53

I mean, you're incredibly what did you own when I first met you? What was that yellow hulking thing? Oh, was that the that was the CJ7? That thing was bucket. Yeah, the doors were were duct tape, they were just like great, great tape-together doors. Beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00: 21:10

They were vinyl doors back then. No, they weren't duct tape, but they were they were vinyl with duct tape. Get it right.

SPEAKER_01: 21:18

Gray trim. Yeah, it was the sporty gray trim edition. Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 21:22

Didn't mean to interrupt. No, it was the rusty, rusty trim. But uh no, that was uh that was a cool Jeep, and uh I sold it to my roommate when I moved to New Jersey for work. I told him he might want to do something with the transmission. He never did. I think he put a new engine in it. He drove it all the way to New Mexico and the transmission went up. Jeez, that wasn't Adam, was it? No, no, this was uh Chris with Phil House. Gotcha, gotcha, okay. Yep, and he ended up selling it for twelve hundred bucks. But he had a good time. He got it made it all the way to New Mexico pretty good for early uh 80s Jeep. And uh yeah, it was just it was fun, but uh it uh it had its quirks and features. Uh if you if you will, like all Jeeps. It's uh as they say, it's a Jeep thing, right?

SPEAKER_01: 22:12

Yeah, yeah. And yeah. So let me squeeze in here real quick before it Ray says in his in some of the documentation that he sent us before the show, uh it we he says it was such an authentic and beautiful piece of junk. No airbags, no doors, manual transmission that couldn't go beyond 50 miles per hour. Well worn, well loved. I mean, that's that's what you gotta have for a first car, right, Ray? Oh, it was perfect. Super dangerous. Definitely don't do that for a 16-year-old, you know. Right, right. But it makes you appreciate everything after, man. I you know, if you if you had you can't give a kid top of the, you just gotta bring him through the stack, I feel. You know?

SPEAKER_02: 22:51

Yeah. And and honestly, you I don't get the high from any car that I've driven since that that car gives me. That high of just, you know, just feeling like you're just connected to the mechanics of the car, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 23:04

Yeah, yes. Yep. It's a it's a big change. Even the new Jeeps are not like that.

SPEAKER_02: 23:11

They don't feel at all like that. The that old Wrangler, you know, when you when you put in the shift and it grinds, you know, and you're like, ah, I gotta do this better. That's a good feeling. You know, you feel like you're you're learning.

SPEAKER_00: 23:22

Yeah, you're working, you're working it, right? You're working, making it work for you, but slash vice versa. And it's it's funny you mentioned bar mitzvah money. Um uh I actually took my bar mitzvah money and I used it to help me buy my first convertible, which was a Miata. Um yeah, so I I guess there's a trend. Bar mitzvah money for cars.

SPEAKER_02: 23:46

A lesson to all the Jewish boys. You know, my brother was silly. He spent he spent it on a on an alienware computer, and then and then lo and behold, you know, when I went off to college, suddenly gets guess who gets to drive my car for free.

SPEAKER_00: 23:58

That's what I was gonna say. The Jeep got passed down to your brother.

SPEAKER_01: 24:00

Love the hand-me-downs. Love the hand-me-downs. I got rattled t-shirts, he got a Jeep, lucky guy.

SPEAKER_00: 24:06

What what um what ultimately happened to the Jeep after your uh your brother was using it?

SPEAKER_02: 24:12

Well, when he went to college, he we we sold it, you know. Okay, uh, there was no one left to drive it. Uh, but we sold it for more money than we bought it for. Yeah, it's kind of amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 24:22

Jeeps hold their value. It it's amazing. They all do. People people love them, and people also get tired of them and sell them and usually break even or make money. So it was a good invest, solid investment here.

SPEAKER_02: 24:37

Honestly, yeah, go ahead, right? Absolutely. No, no, no, it was great. And you know, driving that thing at the time was like it was the kind of thing where you could have like 10 of your friends pile up, and you know, you ran out of room, so they would just stand and hold the bars, you know, that kind of thing. Just like St.

SPEAKER_01: 24:53

Elmo's Fire. That's a scene right out of St. Elmo's Fire.

SPEAKER_02: 24:56

Perfect. You know, that's what that's what it felt like. We've we felt so cool. We'd play Indiana Jones from the speakers as we'd ride around, you know. For Halloween, we did a Jurassic Park remake with it, you know, one guy dressed as a T-Rex and chased us in the car. It was great. Too good. All these memories.

SPEAKER_00: 25:12

I hope a lot of kids saw those.

SPEAKER_02: 25:14

Oh, yeah. Yes, it was we went to the to the cool desec where all all the families were, they loved it.

SPEAKER_00: 25:20

Yeah, that's awesome. So, so you sold the Jeep or passed it down, the Jeep got sold. But what was your second car? That was well, my second car technically.

SPEAKER_02: 25:33

Technically, I haven't really bought a car personally ever since. Because what what happened was that while I was in college, right? My this was around 2014. Um, 2015, my dad bought this Tesla Model S, 2015 Tesla Model S. Uh, and at the time, this was like the coolest thing you'd ever seen. This was like a quantum leap forward with cars, especially going from a manual transmission to a car that just, you know, um, it was it was high-end. And so, you know, he was driving that for a bit. And every time I'd go home to spend time with my family, it was like this was the coolest thing ever. Then around 2018, um, my dad moved to, you know, another part of the country for work. He moved to Chicago for a bit. And he didn't need the car. And so his plan was to sell it, you know, uh to give it up. And I was, even though it wasn't my car, I just thought it was so freaking cool. I was like, listen, I'll let's make a deal, right? You uh instead of you getting rid of this awesome piece of tech, give it to me and I'll figure out a way to pay you on the financing, you know. By the way, college student, no income, had no plan to have income. I was just like, let's just do it, right? And my dad was like, okay, you know. So he'll learn the hard way, I guess. You know, that was his thinking on it. Um, and as soon as I got that, first of all, the first the first two weeks were so fun because I was the kid in college with this brand new Tesla when Tesla was nothing yet, you know? And then immediately it just became obvious that this was a terrible mistake, you know. How am I gonna pay, you know, what's really the equivalent of rent for me uh in college with no plans? So immediately I just started finding ways to monetize this thing. And I was, you know, at first I tried to like Uber for a little bit, that didn't work. Uh and then I then I started renting the car out, and that really didn't work. That was a terrible idea. Um I I found out the hard way that you know, trying to rent out a car when you've got no experiences or resources is like you might as well, you know, slam your head into a wall for all the good it's gonna do you. In fact, you're probably gonna lose less money on slamming your head into the wall. So um but anyway, I still I kept with it. I I tried, you know, for for a good year, you know, I I did everything I could, and and I just found that renting a car is is horrible. It's you know, I was dealing with just I was skipping classes to hand off the keys to people. You know, I was being woken up in the middle of the night all hours, uh answering my customers and trying to teach them how to use the car. One time I had a date that I've been so excited for for like months, and I get a call that the guy's like stuck in in New Hampshire, it's negative 10 degrees outside. You know, he's he needs help, and it's like the whole thing goes sideways. Um, I mean, the car came back smoked in, dented, you know, somebody robbed a bank in my car. Yeah, someone robbed a bank in my car, you know, it's a good getaway car. Except the fact you can track it on the on the app, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:47

Which makes it robbers worse than robbers so bad to think of these things. Well, you go you go where the money is, right? Yeah, that's where the banks used to have money in there.

SPEAKER_02: 28:59

So anyway, I mean that whole thing happened, and then I just realized, you know, this is this is tough. This there's gotta be a better way of of doing it. And that's where this the idea of eon came about. And then basically from my last year in college up until now, I've been building the system to share out these electric cars. Uh and and that's where we are today. Same that whole path, you know, from uh from my dad trying to get rid of his car.

SPEAKER_00: 29:30

Great tail. Yep. Great tail. When there's a will, there's a way, and you know, it's a family thing. And real quick, your dad is involved in a car business as well, right? He's an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_02: 29:43

Yeah, honestly, I think the only way that he trusted me enough to like make him that crazy Oscar to give me his his you know, pretty new Tesla at the time, was uh back in 2014, before I even went off to school, still in high school, my dad had this idea of uh he loves camping. So he took this, these uh these minivans and basically built these conversion kits, which he could put into the minivans and turn them into campers, right? So it would still be a minivan, not like a big RV, but like just a minivan that you could park anywhere, drive it around normally. But the whole back turns into a bed, you've got, you know, like a camping shower, a full table set, cooking stove, everything comes packed in. And so at the time it was kind of a hobby. We built this out, and then my dad kind of went with that as well. And now he rents these out. All over the country. So uh it kind of goes in the family DNA at this point, you know, just sharing sharing cars and being a part of the part of the ecosystem.

SPEAKER_00: 30:44

Yeah. Well, I'm sure your dad's proud of you. Thank you. I'm proud of him. Yeah. And I love that. Hopefully we can have your dad on the show and we'll have him talk about you. Oh, yeah, absolutely. He's awesome. Well, maybe not. He'll tell all the bad stories. Okay. Well, hear that, listeners. We're we're we'll take your sons, we'll take daughters, we'll take your grandparents. We we want family stories.

SPEAKER_01: 31:09

It's all about family. Doug likes to say the show is is uh all about family. It is we we've had a father and son tandem on, and it's just really wonderful. And it's a lot of people. Father, daughters recently. Yeah. Couple. And more, more, more in the queue. So all the stories that tumble out and all the smiles on the faces. Smiles per gallon, we like to call it.

SPEAKER_00: 31:32

Yeah. So uh Ray, I know your current car is not exactly a car. Um york city. Not easy, but of course you have access to thousands, several thousand. Um what is your current vehicle of choice that you use to get around?

SPEAKER_02: 31:51

Yeah, so I I I kind of found the best New York hack, which is I have a really, you know, just a ridiculously overpowered e-bike. Um, most people see it, they think it's a motorcycle. It's a Segway Zyber, just came out. Um, you know, Segway the Scooter Company. They they built this e-bike. And uh this thing has just been for New York City, it's the best. You get everywhere about twice as fast as you know, the subway or or on a bicycle. So for the day to day, like in the city, this is this is great. It's it's really tough having a car in Manhattan. Uh, so this is like the next best alternative.

SPEAKER_00: 32:29

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_02: 32:30

And then anytime I need to get out of the city, you can use the bike lanes. That's the that's the key point. And then you know, anytime you need to get out of the city, we've got the Eon app. So we just pop into one of those, go to the Hamptons, go upstate, wherever you want to go.

SPEAKER_00: 32:42

Awesome. Well, you pick the you pick the right place to live and do your do your testing there, market testing, if you will. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01: 32:52

Speaking of, okay, perfect segue, not only the one that he rides, but the kind we use here in media. Let's talk about some reviews from the side before we rant this thing down. Come on, you you you you have to give this company a try. Don't go to those main players. Stand at the desk, then you go to the parking garage, you stand there another 45 minutes. Maybe you get the car, you know, maybe you don't. Listen to these reviews. Had an amazing rental experience. Communication was on point. Car was a blast to drive, would recommend. Here's another one from Terry W. Just grab the car from one of the spots near me. It's a million times better than keeping a car at the house, you bet. Uh, here's another. Hire uh pick up his car for the family road trip using eon as a highlight of the vacation. And last one from Stevie R. Every time is easy and smooth, including if you want to extend the time. That's crucial. Last time I had to do at that with a rental company, say goodbye to 45 minutes and a lot of frustration. Uh Stevie continues. I highly recommend if you want uh to experience an EV in New York. Well, partner, I tell you what, I think we're we're about coming up on time. So as we guide the podcast gently to the off-ramp, I got one for you on the way out here, Ray. Um, now, your mom doesn't work for you, and she doesn't have an electric car, but she might have one of the coolest rides around. You didn't oversell it. Let's hear a bit about that.

SPEAKER_02: 34:21

Oh, yeah, no problem. Well, some might say I worked for my mom, you know. That's that's how it is with Jewish boys at the end of the day. Absolutely. Um, but no, all jokes aside, for my mom's 50th birthday, uh, basically a whole family got together and surprised her. Her favorite car, her whole life has been uh a Land Rover defender. So what we did is over a two-year process, this had to be, you know, built from the ground up for over some time. Um, we had this custom-built Land Rover defender restored from the 80s to be, you know, completely redone. Still has the same, you know, aesthetic and the same authenticity of back then, but renewed and renovated for the current age, you know, all the all the bells and whistles, but still the real deal. It's uh it's a white with a cream interior. Um, we call it Sasha. And it's it's just been the family kind of uh it's like a family point of pride. We love this thing, and I think everybody's got that one device or that one thing that they just value as part of their family. You know, for some people it's uh it's a it's like an heirloom.

SPEAKER_01: 35:31

For other people, it's you know, um, for us this is a great word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great word, heirloom. Like like you were saying before, these things get passed down through the family, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 35:42

Yeah. Um yeah. And it's just like uh aesthetically, it it's like her whole vision of what she loves. Uh and and so that was her gift for her 50th. And you know, um, I I would say that's that's maybe the coolest car I've ever seen in my life. And I'm so happy I can try it riding it.

SPEAKER_01: 36:01

That's beautiful. That's beautiful in the retail. Yeah, the thing about Land Rovers, man, especially that vintage, they look like they can take on the world. I mean, like they could just to punch a hole in a wall. And yet, you know, very refined once you get inside and for their time, you know, luxury absolute. So, Ray, uh let me ask you this one. I said that was the last question, but let me ask you one more surprise question. What do you like most about your job? Because there's been a smile on your face the whole time you've been talking about your company. What do you like most about it?

SPEAKER_02: 36:36

Um, you know, my favorite thing is is being able to look, I I went to school for biomedical engineering. I never thought, I really never thought I'd I never thought I'd get into entrepreneurship. I never thought that I'd get into uh cars specifically as much as like, you know, we've loved it. I loved cars growing up. Uh I just didn't expect that to be the way that my life would play out. And the thing that makes me so happy is just being able to have a vision in the world, know that like we're going after it and that we are actually able to make other people's lives better, you know? And and it's not just like uh and I know it's like kind of a key kitsch, like nice thing you say that maybe every founder says, but just the ability of seeing that my teammates love what they do and love that we're building something that's really cool and the small fleet owners that you know have a small fleet of cars and that we're able to make them successful. It's it's like it's the best feeling in the world.

SPEAKER_01: 37:36

Well, yeah, and it says a lot about you that you've opened your beautiful home, that home office there that people come in. So you're obviously all about family togetherness and seeing it through together. So we want to thank you for spending some of your time with us here today. It was an absolute pleasure to meet you. We appreciate it. You guys rock. Thank you. I had so much fun. We had a blast. Thank you. You're welcome here anytime. So you have just heard, oh, he was Ray. And let's see, check him out at eonrise.com. E-O-N-R-I-D-E-E-S dot com. Trust me, it's a new way of doing it. It's a better mousetrap. You gotta check it out. Eo-n-r-i-d-e-s.com. That was Ray, and you have just heard the high revving, low mileage, late model heard round the world authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. He's Doug. Reach him at Doug at Carslove.com. I'm Christian. Reach me at Christian at Carslove.com. He was Ray, obviously. So please follow and tell a friend if you've liked what you heard. It helps us grow. Try out CarsLove.com or our link tree at L-I-N-K-T-R dot E slash CarsLoved. He always hits his mark, no matter how unready I try and make him. I am sure we will see you at the next local car show, showroom, race trip, or concor. We appreciate your listening. We'll see you next time.