Shaun Newman Podcast - #898 - Chace Barber

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Chace Barber is the co-founder and CEO of Edison Motors, a Canadian clean technology company based in British Columbia, specializing in diesel-electric hybrid semi-trucks and heavy-duty vehicles. A former owner-operator with 14 years in the trucking industry. The company focuses on retrofitting and building diesel-electric hybrid trucks, starting with a 1962 Kenworth prototype named "Carl" and later a custom-built prototype, "Topsy." Barber’s vision is to create fuel-efficient, durable trucks suited for Canada’s harsh climates and heavy loads, particularly for logging and vocational applications. To watch the Full Cornerstone Forum: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] Money SummitWebsite: ExpatMoneySummit.com

This is Viva Fry. I'm Dr. Peter McCullough. This is Tom Lomago. This is Chuck Pradnik. This is Alex Krenner. Hey, this is Brad Wall. This is J.P. Sears. Hi, this is Frank Paredi.

This is Tammy Peterson. This is Danielle Smith. This is James Lindsay. Hey, this is Brett Kessel, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday. How's everybody doing today? Happy hump day.

With the number of ounces of silver needed to buy an ounce of gold at now near 30-year high, silver is bargain price when compared to It's a perfect time to protect a portion of your savings with silver, and look no further than Silver Gold Bowl. They have a wide variety of best value silver for every budget. Simply text or email Graham for details whether you're a season investor or new to precious metals. Graham will work with you to answer all your questions and recommend the best products to meet your investing goals.

It's all down in the show notes. If you're on Silvergoldbill.com and you're browsing around and you make any purchases, just make sure to reference you heard about them from the Sean Newman podcast. Bow Valley Credit Union. Well, they got something new here today. Buoy and selling Bitcoin has never been easier. Bow Valley Credit Union has developed a first in Canada, the Bitcoin Gateway. Not tech savvy, no problem with just a few clicks you can buy Bitcoin directly from your Bow Valley Credit Union account.

Member benefit from up to the minute competitive pricing without the confusion or hassle of navigating complicated trading platforms, technology or charts. Whether you're new to digital assets or already a veteran in the space, the Bitcoin Gateway makes owning Bitcoin simple. direct and efficient, unlike other product offerings that deal in paper derivatives or pooled crypto products. The Bitcoin you purchase through the Bitcoin Gateway is real, truly yours, securely stored, insured, and never leveraged. Custody is provided for you with no risk of losing seed phrases, complicated technology, or fear of hackers. Just go to your Bitcoin Gateway account is a link to your traditional BVCU bank account, enabling seamless on-ramps and off-ramps between Fiat and Bitcoin. Little tech expertise or knowledge of Bitcoin required. Visit Bow Valley

for more information. It's down the show notes as well. Diamond 7 meets. Yeah, here in Lloyd Minster, you're tired of the big chain stores, discovered Diamond 7 meets a family-run business you can trust serving our community for the past 26 plus years. And with their

staff, they kept repeating, my conversations, they kept repeating how important their values of honesty and integrity while serving our community are. They offer all the cuts you'd find at any retail store, and their expert staff can help with thickness, cooking temps, and a whole lot more, ensuring leave satisfied with exactly what you love.

You can either stop in and see what they got in the freezer, or you can call them and tell them exactly what you'd like, and they'll have a cut fresh for you today. So find them on the north end of town, Highway 17 and 67th Street. You can call Diamond 7 meets at 306-825-9718. When it comes to concrete, look no further than Caleb Taves and Renegade Acres. I've been singing their praises the last couple weeks, because when it comes to concrete, whether we're talking stamped or just, you know,

I don't know, your regular concrete slab. Caleb Taves has been fantastic to work with and, you know, shout out to him and his team at Renegade Acres. Substack, free to subscribe to. We're back on with the week and review coming out Sunday, so if you want to get caught up on everything podcast, down the show notes,

become a free member of the Sean Newman podcast Substack. You'll get some things from the week there, and then you can also become a paid member and see some different things from behind. behind the scenes like the new studio and some work going on there if you're listening or watching on Spotify Apple YouTube rumble X make sure to subscribe make sure to leave a review make sure to uh rank at the podcast you know on Spotify and Apple leave us some feedback all right let's get on to that tale of the tape today's guest is the

co-founder and CEO of Edison Motors I'm talking about Chase Barber so buckle up here we go okay welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today I'm joined by Chase Barber Chase, good to have you back on, sir. Good to be back, Sean. How's you going? One of these times I'm going to talk to you, and I'm sure things are going good, but I feel like one of these times I'm going to talk to you, you're going to be like, no, we just passed a billion dollars in the bank account.

Sales are going amazing. Things are just so smooth. Transport Canada is the best. I look forward to that call. But until we get to that call, it feels like every time I have you on, it's a new hurdle or a new head scratcher. I don't know if you've been on yet where other than the first time, where you convince me these EVs aren't completely evil.

You know, since then, I feel like every step you take, you're taking two steps back trying to get around some of the regulation. Yeah, that sounds about right. The coming up with the idea was the easiest part of this. Building the trucks was relatively easy. Going through the government regulation to be allowed to build trucks is insanely difficult. Well, what's the, what's the latest on this? And I don't even know if I understand it, correct?

It's like your, uh, diesel generator isn't allowed on highways or it hasn't been, I don't know. Walk me through this because I was reading it and I'm like, I think I understand, but maybe I don't. Oh, it's, uh, so we're building a plug in hybrid where it's fully electric. And then when the batteries get low, we fire up a generator to recharge the batteries while you're driving. You got all the advantages of electric. You get that peak power. You get insane torque. You have the range of diesel still.

And you get pretty decent fuel savings. So we built it. We built a couple prototypes. We've been building these ones for customers, which means that we need a national emissions mark to be able to sell it. If we want to be able to just register it outside the province of BC, you need that national emissions mark. So we got everything together.

We submitted it. The generator is Tier 4 final, like a truck engine. It's all Tier 4 final. But they're saying because that generator is producing power that drives a vehicles, it needs to be on highway certified. But nobody makes an on-highway certified generator because generators don't power vehicles. Like, the generator emission standards, it would be totally fine if we mounted the generator to the truck. And it was powering things like an air conditioning unit, a refrigerator, a welder.

That could all get mounted to the truck. But as soon as that generator drives the wheels of the truck, nope, you can't do it. It has to be on highway certified. So where does that leave you? It leaves us dealing with Environment Canada, who came out with a mandate that by 2035, 100% of cars and trucks sold in Canada will have to be hybrid. but they are not allowing us to put a generator in there as a hybrid. I don't know. You're a smart guy.

You know, every time I talk to you, I'm like, oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. But every time you talk to government, I'm like, I don't care how smart you are. When you start talking to Environment Canada or other groups that are associated with the bureaucracy, you can be as smart as you want. If you don't dance to their tune, you ain't getting through. And I feel like maybe that's the case. Or have you found some light where you're like, oh, maybe if we go this way,

there's a way through. Like, is there anything people or anyone can do to help or is it just like bang your head against a wall? A bang a head against a wall. So one of the cool things about Environment Canada is that the guys we talk to are actually really, really smart and they're passionate about it. They really like what we're doing. They like the thing. They know it makes sense. They know it's lower emissions overall and a reduction in fuel and it's exactly what they want and they've been working for like two months trying to figure out a way to make it so that we could build a hybrid like we've been back and forth and back and forth and trying different ideas and looking for different exemptions and one of the big issues that we are having is Canada is just

tied to US EPA so there's been a lot of people why don't you just go down to the US surely that must be better but Canada just follows US EPA so for them to change the rules it seems like you have to convince the you the canadian government has to convince the u.s. government change the rules like they're like there's not much we can do right now um even if it's like the minister themselves the directors uh we can't change the rules we can't grant exemptions they said that they're exemptions on the book that exist and we just had a call with them again this morning but they can't grant an exemption because other companies can veto that exemption so you have to do a public scolger and they say, hey, we think Edison Motor should have an exemption to allow generators to be

used in their vehicles. But part of that, it can't just come as somebody that somebody signs and says, yeah, that sounds good. It makes logical sense. They've said it makes logical sense. They can't do it because they have to publicly disclose that they're doing the exemption. And then they have to put out like a six to 12 month feedback period from other manufacturers. And they said that in like 20 years, they've never seen a single exemption granted because another manufacturer has veto power and can say, no, we don't want that company to have an exemption. And they said, basically, we'll put it out there.

But if any other companies say that, no, we don't want Edison to have an exemption to build a hybrids, that's it. So a U.S. company can come in and say, no, I don't think Edison should have that exemption. Edison doesn't get an exemption. So we're at the will and mercy applying for an exemption that a company in the U.S. doesn't say that, I don't think we actually want a Canadian manufacturer to build these hybrids. As long as if any of the U.S. companies say that, we're sunk in the water. So there's not even a point in doing that. Nobody gets them. What are you going to do?

Like I'm sure that's what you've been scratching your head around. Like, is there a place? just just is there's this wonderful utopia of somewhere in the world where you could build this and they'd be like, oh yeah, we'll build it. And if Canadians want to buy it, they can ship it over and and bada bing, bada boom. Like could, could Mexico be a spot? Could, I don't know. No, Mexico.

Canada, Mexico and U.S. all follow EPA. The entire rest of the world follows euro emission standards. Like China, Australia, Europe, obviously. Africa, a lot of African countries all follow Euro standards. So we could go to Australia and we could elect to use a Euro 5 or Euro 6 engine. And it's, they just certify that it's Euro 6. You can put it into any application. They say generators have to meet Euro 5. This has to meet Euro 6. They don't play around as much with the on-highway mobile, off-highway or off-highway stationary, off-highway mobile on highway certification.

They just say that that's the emission standards that the engine has to read and you can meet those standards. And then Australia, they elect, you can either use an EPA engine or you can choose to use a Euro-compliant engine. And if whatever the manufacturer wants to choose, so it's like, well, that could be a good option.

But in the meantime, it's, we asked them if we can build mechanical trucks. Like, hey, can I just take a 15-liter Cummins? put an 18 speed transmission on the back of it and just build a mechanical truck. They said, yes, we have no problem. We certify X-15 Cummins all the time.

We were looking at one next week. They're approved on highway. There's not much stopping you emissions-wise from building a mechanical truck. So we'll build mechanical trucks. If the environment Canada says that we can't build plug-in hybrids, I'll just build traditional 18-speed mechanical trucks. Forgive me. forgive me and i know there's going to be a trucker or or guys that are car guys driving everywhere

but what is the like i understand what a plug-in is i understand that but like what is the difference between a mechanical truck and the plug-in what like what what is the major difference there so a mechanical truck you have an engine transmission with gears drive shaft it turns a differential there's no electricity of all the plug-in hybrid is that it's a fully electric vehicle it's got batteries, electric axles, regent braking. It just happens to have a generator that recharges the batteries while you're moving.

So what they say for the big difference is trucks have on highway motors. So they're certified to on highway, which means that during the certification process, they simulate a driving environment. So the engines

rev up, they shift gears. They log shift gears. They lug down. The engine logs. It's just up. and down on the RPM. It's reversing. So they run that engine through a driving, simulating thing where you, they work at the throttle pedal, they step on the throttle, they shift gears, and they check the emissions while doing that. And then they certify it to that program that meets emission standards while doing, acting how the engine would work on highway. Which means that generators don't run that way. And the generator, our truck fires up. It goes to

1,600 RPM, and it stays at one flat RPM the whole time. So it's not going up and down. that's how they certify generators too. So the generator certification, it just, the motor fires up, it runs at 1 RPM, they check the emissions, the motor shuts off. So they're saying you can't have run the generator because it's not going to be certified. When it's off-road, it's going to be certified at 1 RPM. And when you stick it in a truck, you can't do that because it's only tested at 1 RPM. And they've even admitted it doesn't make sense because our generator is running at 1 RPM.

That's how it's going to be used. That's how it was tested. That's how it was approved for use. But the laws say it needs to be tested in a truck at variable RPM's and speeds to meet on highway certification. So we were even talking about certification. And like the certification and the testing guys are like, we're not even sure how to run this. Do we run it as a truck engine and read the generator up and down a whole bunch? Because that's what it says you need to do to certify on highway.

But the rules also say you have to certify. with how it's going to be used, and that's not how you're going to be using the engine. And like, we can't just buy an on-highway engine either. That's the other frustrating part is that a lot of people said, well, why don't you go buy it on-highway certified and then just program it to run as a generator? Well, as soon as you change the programming or how the vehicle works,

if the vehicle was certified by, you step on the throttle pedal, fuel comes into the motor, and you get power out, that's how it has to operate. So as soon as we change the programming on the on-historized, highway it needs to be recertified. And there is ways you could do it, but it costs millions and millions of

dollars. Like the big companies can certify their hybrids because they own their engines. Like Chevy produces his own engine for, they produce their own engines, they certify their own engines, they can run through a testing thing and like the RAM recharger

it simulates a driving. So when you step on the throttle, the engine actually revs up and down for the generator. It does do a lot more like that. It's not as efficient, in my opinion, but they say it creates a better driving experience or a more familiar driver experience. But if we had millions and millions of dollars, we could certify our own engine, and that wouldn't be an issue. But we don't have millions and millions of dollars being a startup, and it's just very frustrating because we also fall into the other weird part of this where we are a Canadian unique manufacturing exemption.

The rules in Canada say that you need to meet EPA standards, which are U.S. standards. So it is incredibly difficult for us to certify with EPA standards because we're not a U.S. company. We would have to become the engine manufacturer on the title, send it in, become the engine manufacturer while doing the testing, and then somehow as a Canadian, go through the U.S. certification. process. So take the business, incorporated in the states, move to the states, go through the process, bring the engine back, and then go to the Canadian government and say, look, the US has approved our engine. Because Canada doesn't have an easy way to do it. It's, this entire thing is complicated. We've been dealing with, like, you are fair to be complicated, John, or to be confused,

because after dealing with these for three months, I just, oh, it's, it's a nightmare. We We've got a girl that works for us, Jess, that handles our alert compliance and like, oh, my heart goes out to her. Because, like, every day I do not know how she doesn't just suck start a shotgun. That's a great line. Okay. It's probably the look on my face right now as I try and keep up with you as you've rattled it all off. And I'm like, it just sounds like a ton of, I don't know, legislation to jump through. a ton of like rules and and things you got to hop through so you go back to well Edison motors

motors will just start building mechanical trucks what does that mean that just means you're gonna you're going to you're going to build a like a regular engine and what it won't be a true eve yeah it won't be any form of EV it'll just be a normal truck like every other truck that's ever been on the road but we can sell those trucks we can earn a profit and we can keep the business going because they said that they can work on something but the change can take anywhere from one year to two years. They did promise us that they will figure out a solution for this. They believe in the technology. They believe in what we're doing. The employees at Environment Canada we talk to are very, very passionate about this stuff.

They want to get us approved. They are working as hard as they can. It can take a year or two to get that through. But in the meantime, like, we can't sit around and wait for a year or two. So we'll just build normal semi-trucks like 99.99% of every other single semi-truck on the road. They'll just be normal trucks. We can build those. There are no problem. I can sell them. I can, it's proven technology. It comes with the warranty. Like the transmission has a transmission warranty. Rear ends have rear end.

I can, that truck is fine. I can build it. I know it's not going to have any problems. And I'll sell them for a profit. And I'll just, I'll do that while I wait for the government to figure out their own rules. It's just, it's very frustrating that, and I did not think starting out this, that Environment Canada mandated that by 20, 2035, 100% of vehicles sold have to be electric or plug-in hybrid. I did not think that our big barrier would be environment Canada saying we don't want to see the hybrids. We have no rules allowed for hybrids.

Why the fuck are you mandating that 100% of vehicles have to be plug-in hybrid if you have no rules to allow generators as to power a hybrid? That's how hybrids work. they have a generator. And like, they make it so hard for it to be a Canadian manufacturer because they just say, we follow U.S. rules. Like, they got this whole thing of elbows up. We're going to be Canada and we're going to do Canadian things. And it's like, but then you look at the rules and they're like, yeah, we're just going to follow whatever the U.S. does legally.

So is it all just talk? Like, is it all just 100% BS? Are these EV mandates full of shit because they don't have rules to allow them? is this whole build Canadian full of shit because we tie ourselves to U.S. rules. Like, what is the government doing? It's just, it's nuts. That Environment Canada is the one that says,

yeah, you guys just got to build normal trucks now. Like, maybe put the hybrid thing on hold for a little bit. I forget, you know, it had to have been well over a year ago because I invited you to come talk at the first Cornerstone Forum. And we couldn't make that work. So you came to the second. in Cornerstone Forum. So I've known you now for probably close to two years. And at the start when we were talking, I was like, wow, this is, this is something. Like,

I'm, I am impressed. And for it to come full circle to where you're going to build just a regular semi-truck, I feel like I'm almost shocked on this end. It, it's very, very disappointing. We put a lot of time and effort into R&D development, testing, going through. through all of it. Just for them to say, well, hold off another year or two while we go through this permitting. Like they are trying and they're going to try and hopefully get something a little quicker. But like, the other kind of shitty part is that we're the first ones doing this here. Like we had the first hybrid truck, the series hybrid truck in North America.

We have customers lined up who want to buy it. We have trucks that we're building for customers right now that are just finishing up and getting ready to deliver to customers that we can't. And it's that waiting a year or two just means that the other large U.S. companies, the multi-billion dollar companies, we are just giving them time to develop their own hybrid technology. And we're not the first ones to market anymore. We lose that leading edge.

It's like, it's so rare that we get cool innovation coming from Canada, where Canada, technology-wise, is out in front of all the U.S. companies. and right now our government saying just wait just stop until we figure out the regulation let's give time for the other big companies to kind of develop their own technology and then when it's approved like okay well the bigger companies could just squash us at that point right now we got the time to get it out there get people familiar get those first customers tied in with our systems and it's like curious curious yeah you're in bc would uh would being in a province like Alberta help at all. I realize it's it's a federal thing, but would

would being in a different province matter or no? No, it's it's strictly federal. Man, that sucks. It does. I don't know of a bet I wish I had like an uplifting thing here, but you're usually the uplifter. I'm normally uplifting, but this one kind of just sucks, but we have said so far the saving grace is that everything that every time we have an issue and we want to talk about an issue. It ends up working out really, really good in the long run. Remember when we were talking about the city of Terrace, we were going to buy the old Hayes truck production facility? And then the city said, the city that invited us up there said, oh, sorry, we can't approve the zoning for at least two, three years. And we're like, well, we can't wait

two, three years on zoning. But then we found for like almost the same price, 300 acres of land in Golden with no zoning, no building permits. And it's like, that worked out really, really good. It seems like every time we have some kind of setback, the universe has a way of working out for the better in the long run. Well, I hope the people listening to this, they got some smart ideas or somebody knows somebody to push a cattle prod into because it'd be really nice to see some Edison. I'm going to be honest,

seeing an Edison Motors semi go down the road would be super cool. Yeah. I just like, I would like to see it as the hybrid. that we've been talking about for two bloody years. The hybrid makes so much more sense. Like, oh, when you drive the hybrid, like, even as a truck driver, like, yeah, I like shifting gears. But, like, oh, my God, the torque, the power economic-wise, the fuel savings. Like, oh, it makes so much sense.

It's so fucking cool. It's what the government wants. It's what the drivers want. Customers that have tried it out said immediately that they want that, put me on a wait list. It kind of sucks to go back and build what everybody else is building. Like, I'll do it. but like it's not going to be as cool. But whatever, we need a Canadian,

we have zero Canadian vehicle manufacturers. We have U.S. manufacturers that can manufacture in Canada, but we have no Canadian manufacturers. So I'm not going to stop it. I'll still be a manufacturer. I'll just build normal trucks. Okay. One other question for you.

You were talking about it would take millions upon millions of dollars to be able to certify your own engines. Did I hear something along that line? Yeah, it would, it could cost us. up to like a million dollars or two to certify the motor and get that all done the proper way. Wait, one or two million to certify one motor and then you could make the same motor and off you're running? Yep.

Or one or two million per motor or one or two million every time you change the motor? If we change the motor, we would have to recertify. But if we certify an engine, we can use that engine in as many trucks as we want. So in theory, in theory, if you raised. whatever the number is. $2 million. You could certify the generator slash motor, whatever this contraption is.

Get it certified and you could move along and start building. Yes, yes. It sucks to have to raise the money because, well, you remember that whole thing where it's the government said that only rich people can invest in startups. And then they wanted us to raise the money and then we raised that money and then we shut it down, then we tried to resubmit and be like, look, we raised the money that you want,

like we proved that accredited only investors, we're willing to invest in Edison, that actual sophisticated investors were willing to invest. Can we open up our investment more? And we're trying to go through that still. And it just means that if we open that, which could take a while, we were hoping to get it in like July or like, they're like, yeah, just do your investment, close that. And then we can reopen and let the average person invest in Edison. Because right now, only if you're rich, can you invest in it, or could you invest in Edison. So it's like if we could do that and we could get our investment open and raise, we could maybe raise some more money, do it. But then it goes back to the point of like, okay, well, then I got to do the investment raise.

Waste investor money, which drives me nuts too. We're just going to waste investor money to certify an engine that's already certified to operate in Canada under Tier 4 final emission standards. We're just going to blow a million dollars or two to certify an already certified engine. But like if that's what we have to do, that's what we have to do. But that still takes months to do and months to do. And it's like, okay, that still delays production. Okay. I'm going to be the calm, reasonable voice on this side, because I'm just problem solving.

I'm like, okay, wait. You're saying only rich people can invest. When you say that, what does that actually mean? You have to have some sort of certification that you're rich, or you just need to have a million, you have to have a minimum amount you put in? It was you had to have an annual income of over $200,000 and you need to have over, or you had to have over $4, $5 million in financial assets. Okay.

And then can a corporation invest or it has to be individuals? Yeah, as long as the corporation had a gross income of over $200,000, a corporation could invest. And we did have some corporations and that that did invest to help us raise the money to build the shop and get going. So I'm just you know like I listen to your story and I go if I am a rich person, which folks, you all know, if I had billions of dollars, I think we'd all know it by now. I do not. But if I had that type of money and I know the story of Edison, I'd be like, okay, wait, so we're

talking about a million dollars. Okay. Well, let's get this thing certified. Let's push on it and carry on with life. I don't know. I realize it's raising money again. And I realize it's doing all the things. But I hear that and I go, then the Edison motor, once it's built,

I understand any time you change things, so you get through the first generation, now you've got to go sell a bunch of trucks. So the next time you change it, you get a million dollars to get it certified. But if I'm listening to you correctly, you raise the million. And I keep throwing around a million like it's not no big deal. I get it. But you raise the million. In theory, then you have a wait list of how many trucks?

A couple thousand. and if I you know then you start doing the math on a couple thousand and what that actually means bringing in money and everything and I'm like I just to me this feels like it you deserve to go on uh dragon's dead you know and be like this is our problem and then you got uh I can't remember them all the guys sitting there and they're listening are like this sounds like it's a billion dollar idea because all the big big companies are going to do it we don't we both know it honestly it's I've been our, like, I'm not a big fan of government grants, but if any of there was a time to give a company a government grant

to go through some of this process, I feel like that for the first time in this company's history, where I've been advocated for grants, like it's a government grant and certification process. These companies give out billions of dollars, $18 billion to Stalantas to do a battery plant, $250 million for, $300 million for a Chinese company to look at battery technology,

in Canada, $9 million for a U.S. company to investigate battery storage solutions for EV vehicles. That U.S. company took that, that was the one with M&P where we lost the grant because of that whole thing. They gave the $9 million to a U.S. company that then closed down the shop four or five months later. And it's like, okay, of all the billions and billions of dollars are you giving out, can you just give us like a million dollar grant or something like that to go through your own certification process. Like the money is going to go back to you guys to certify it. But can you just be like, hey, we realize that our own rules are causing you problems.

We'll cover the cost of the testing for you. I think that sounds fair. It's like, if we could we do anything and be like, hey, we'll just cover the cost to go through the testing because we believe in hybrid. We're mandating hybrid. Let's just cover that cost. That's the first time in my life I've ever asked for a government grant. But it's like if you're going to cause us this many, I don't think it's fair for our

investors to have to pay for government rules that like we're trying to do it by the book but it's like come on throw us a bone here a little bit it's interesting to me because i just you know once again if i had hundreds of millions of dollars right let's just play out that i listen to this story and i'm like this is like um it's just a huge opportunity because you know the demand it's only going to grow you've already pointed that out with 2035 and people when they listen to your stories you're I've seen it. I've seen it on stage, right? And one of the things that came out of the Cornerstone Forum is how many people enjoyed Chase. They were like, that was something. I wish I would have got to meet him. I wish I would have got to pick his brain on what he's doing and probably, I assume, order my own truck or, you know, try and find ways to help it along. And I hear a low spot right now. And you're going back to building everyday regular trucks so that in two years maybe it's changed and everything. And yet all that's the hurdle right now, the big hurdle, is money. Now, I keep throwing around a million dollars.

I'm not the million dollar guy. But I do know there are people. You know, that's why I say, are you in the wrong province? Because I look at Alberta and I go, somewhere there's somebody sitting there or maybe a group of men and they hear this, they're going to be like, interesting. What does he need? And walk us through this? Because if you said tomorrow, roughly, and once again, I'm oversimplifying this. Because I know it's going to be months and everything else.

But a million dollars gets this motor certified, the way you have it running, all the ways you've been testing it. And then you get to start selling your truck. I'm like, and then what did they get back for that? I assume, I don't know,

investment in the company, right? Like, isn't that with a million dollars? Right? Yeah, there's investment. You get a part of the profits of the company. And if we build more trucks and the company grows in value and make more profit,

they make a, like it's an investment. I tell you what, Sean Newman, Sean Newman podcast wants to put some money into Edison Motors. We're still waiting for the Canadian government to approve us reopening investment, because that would be the obvious. We raised that investment money with the accredited only because there was rules that unless

you're rich, you can't invest in a startup, unless it's been like, so we've proven ourselves that accredited investors are willing to invest. So now we keep submitting all the reports. And we did like IFSRS financial statements. we had independent audits go through. We submitted all that paperwork. So hopefully we could do it because we raised the money. We're building that new shop because we just, actually I just was meeting with the construction guys right now on the concrete and the shop building.

The shop is currently being loaded up on trucks and it's on our way to our shop. So we're going to be able to start on our new production shop. It's just why it's getting a little bit stressful right now is that we have trucks that are pretty well finished, ready to sell to customers. The customers are waiting to write us the check and take possession of the truck that is built. And we have the new shop being built that once that shop's built, I'm going to want to order the inventory, order the engines, the batteries, the rear ends, the frame rail, so we can start building the next trucks for the customers who are still lined up waiting for a truck. Paperwork signed. They've agreed to buy a truck. The shop is being built. and I'm getting a little bit stressed because I need to know in the next month or two months,

am I filling this shop with mechanical trucks or am I going to be able to keep building hybrids? Like, I can't have my shop sitting empty. I can't have employees sitting around twiddling their thumbs. I can't just start shoveling money into a furnace while I wait for government regulation. If I don't get an answer in a month or two, I'm just going straight mechanical for the next little while. And I don't know how to deal with the contracts that I've already. already signed. Our customers are fantastic.

They're willing to wait for the truck. And we've got a couple clever workarounds that I'm not going to go, but they may be buying a generator separately from a different third party company. And then we'll just sell them an electric truck. And if they connected it and they just might connect it just to run their power equipment on the truck. And if they happen to connect it to the batteries, like, I'm not saying they should, but if they did, like, there's some workarounds, but I don't want to do stupid workarounds.

I just, I go back to your figure. You got a couple, what did you say? You got like 2,000 people, roughly customers waiting that are interested. I was like closer to three, four, three and a half now. Oh, now, you know, so I just pulled it up real fast because I'm just like, I saw somewhere about just Jaguar. And I know Jaguar is a luxury brand and blah, blah, blah. And they did some stupid things in marketing.

But I'm like, I wonder how many cars Jaguar sold in the U.S. And in the U.S., 964 per month. So, how many? 964 units per month. That's not much. No, it isn't. That's why I say when I listen to your story, I'm like, you're sitting on a giant mound of gold, I feel like.

Maybe I'm wrong, folks. Maybe somebody else will prove me wrong. But I'm like, wait a second. So you got like 4,000 people waiting there. And a million dollars is the hurdle. And if you get the engine and away it goes and everybody starts seeing these Edison motors going around and they're Canadian made, are you frigging kidding me? I just.

Canada is like the largest buyer of these heavy vocational trucks with the oil and gas industry in Alberta, the heavy logging and mining industry of BC, Western Canada buys like most of all of the heavy spec trucks that Kenworth makes down in the states, go to Western Canada. Like the C-500s, the majority of C-500s, we have a larger market than the states do for those heavy trucks. And if you look at Kenworth, they're worth more than general motors. Like Packard, Peterbilt and Kenworth are worth more than. all of general motors and general motors while having like a three four percent profit the big heavy trucks have like a 15 percent profit now i'm telling you right now this this entire last 15

minutes should be bottled or cut and sent to the producers of dragons den or something or wherever you sit around with your rich folks who are listening to this because i'm like this this seems like a solvable problem we started off where i'm like i don't know this sucks i can't believe you're going to go back to just building a regular truck. This is pretty wild. And the more I think about this, if the hurdle is a million dollars, it's like, I agree with you. I believe in the big guy upstairs.

I think good things are going to come out of this. And maybe I'm wrong. I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. But I listen to this chase and I'm like, I actually get more excited for you the more you talk because I'm like, you got everything just sitting there. I actually don't, you probably realize, but maybe you've forgotten. And I'm here to tell you, it's all.

sitting there. It just seems like it's so, oh, wow, this is all right there. It just seems like it's all right there. And once you get production going, the money is just going to start to roll in. I mean, if all it is, you've got 4,000 units that need to be built. Yeah. Oh, man. Well, the way I look at it, like, this is one of like the last big hurdles to go through. Once we get our national emissions mark, that's Environment Canada saying we can sell the truck. It's It's going to be solvable. They want the technology. The guys, the workers at Environment Canada are absolutely,

I rarely say this about government and you know that I've met workers or I'm like, no, they all suck. These guys are actually really passionate about it. They are working hard to solve it. It's just, they even think it's dumb that the rules aren't ready for this, that we're just tied into U.S. rules. So, hey, I'm sure we'll have a solution here. I'm sure the next time we come on here,

there'll be some great news, but things always seem to work out pretty good in the long run. Well, you keep coming back on, right? And we keep exposing the story to the different powers of B. I don't know. Any final thoughts before I let you out here? I always enjoy having you on. It's a reason why I brought you to Cornerstone,

because you're a very unique individual. Your idea with Edison Motors, I feel like is a unique one. You changed my mind. I was just explaining this to a guy earlier this morning because the first thing came out of his mind is, you know, to ask him about this and this is, I'm actually, these are the things he's doing.

And he's like, oh, and I'm like, yeah, I know. Change my mind too. Like I was dead set against how the government's doing it. And every time I listen to you interact with the government, I'm like, oh, that's what I'm dead set against. I'm dead set against the bureaucracy. But any final thoughts before I let you out of here and back on to the work day?

No, no. I think we covered it. I apologize for everyone I confused with the regulations. We're all equally confused, including the people that make the regulations. But we'll get her done. Appreciate it, Chase. Thanks for doing this. Thanks, Sean.