Driving the Future at ACT Expo: Windrose Showcases Its Purpose-Built Electric Class 8 Trucks

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Hammer Down on the Market Scale Network. I'm your host, Mike Bush, coming to you live from the ACT Expo. Joseph Jermiel is a driver with Talent Logistics. He's joined me at ACT. And today, we're gonna take a couple of test drives out on the on the on the road. Joseph, what what truck are you most excited about seeing today? Honestly, I'm most excited about seeing WinRows. WinRows, is a up and comer. They're offering four hundred miles to a charge, so it's pretty exciting to get to see and, ultimately get to drive one of those. We're gonna have some fun. I'm currently in regen level one. We have five different levels, but with bobtail, it's it's I really don't wanna send this through the windshield with so much regen. Right? So, as you noticed, we've got our information on the center screen. We've got our our speed. Also, can you see, sir, the heads up display in the glass? Oh, yeah. Yep. So it's gonna tell you your speed information there. On your left would be your radio, your navigation, kind of that kind of stuff. And on your right, this is all your information. This screen I'm in right now is called the monitoring screen. This is where I can see actually, this is the, power train information screen. In monitoring, you see all your tire temperatures. You see your tire tire pressures. I like the power train information. It tells me our battery voltages, battery temperatures. This is an eight hundred volt battery system. But, yeah, so we have all of our information here. Honestly, the screen I like to cruise the most with is this one. This one obviously tells my air pressures. And then once we get rolling, it'll actually have a display, let you know when there's different items or or objects around you. So when you're ready, sir, go ahead and put your foot on the brake. We only had a few minutes with the ride, but what what what what did what to you was the most impressive thing? Ultimately, the way the truck handles. It the ride itself was very smooth. So it was awesome, really, a good experience, I think. The inside was really nice. It was, nice to see. I really like the dual display. That was kinda cool feature. And then a feature that I've never seen in a truck before is, the mirrors feature. I know that's not really legal in California, but, I mean, it'd be nice to have a feature like that where you can see ultimately to the side of you with the mirror. Gotcha. And there was a sunroof. Yeah. How cool was that? That was pretty cool, man. I've never seen that. Yeah. I checked your car. Yeah. Alright. So so, Mike, tell me about Windrose North America. Who are you guys? Where did you come from? And what what is that that beautiful vehicle behind you? Alright. So we are headquartered in Belgium. We're a global company with Chinese roots, and we are three years old. We're we have a facility here in Huntington Beach, California. It's brand new. It was set up. We're here at the show today to show off our new production spec, truck for the US market. Okay. Gotcha. So when you say production spec truck, what what type of truck are we talking about? We're talking about an electric class eight. Is that That's right. It's a electric class eight truck. We have two of the production representative units here today, one in the booth and one in the ride. Okay. Gotcha. What what prompted Windrose to look around and say, hey. We should make a class a electric truck? Well, I think we've identified that the current offerings in class a are not optimized for electric use, for they're basically converted diesel trucks. And as Tesla has shown, a purpose built electric class a can do a lot better performance. So we were inspired by that to do a a new version of that same truck. Okay. And, you know, and that's that's why the two trucks look very similar is, the aerodynamics drive that. Got it. And, if you actually park the two trucks next to each other, they don't they don't look all that close. Okay. Gotcha. Got it. So, typically, when you're talking zero emission trucks, there there's two issues that come up. Yep. The first is that the truck's way too much. Yep. So if you're moving a metal container, yeah, it can't be full. The second one is the range. Let's talk weight and range. So you we've this is part of the reason why you wanna do a a dedicated ground up design for electric, because you can solve those two issues. So our truck can do eighty two thousand pounds, which is the max in the US, and it can go four hundred and twenty miles. Okay. Gotcha. So so, Mike, tell me about your career, Brad. How did you end up running marketing for an EV OEM? That's a great question. So I've I my most recent stop was at ABB e Mobility where I was working on megawatt charging for class a trucks and, commercial vehicles in general. Prior to that, I ran marketing for the e Mobility group at Navistar Okay. Where we launched electric school bus and the electric EMV medium duty car. Got it. Okay. Very cool. So my favorite question to ask you is if you're talking to a new or recent college grad, somebody who says, I wanna go into logistics. What's the piece of advice you give them? Figure out what the need is and go fill it. I mean, there's logistics is a huge industry. There's a lot of opportunity. It's growing probably twice as fast as the economy, I would say, in general. Just think about it. Everything is being delivered now. It used to be you if you wanted to go to the grocery store, you needed groceries, you had to get your butt to the grocery store and go there. Now you can pick up your phone and have it delivered to you. That was not the case five years ago. It's a new world. Freight transport is growing very quickly at all levels, especially last mile, and the intermediate ranges as they add more and more warehouses for everything around the country. It it's a great opportunity. And I think if if you're interested in that kind of career, you have a a good runway out of you. Okay? Appreciate you, man. Thank you. Absolutely.