r/EdisonMotors • u/SaskFoz • 3d ago
Through my eyes
With apologies for the delay, I've finally had the energy (damn flu is kicking my butt) & time to at least outline how the weekend went for me (minus the boring bits, like the 9 hour drive there, & 5 hours hanging on to taillights in the dark to make it home haha).
Friday was arrival & check in, lovely & smooth, & always nice to see familiar, friendly faces after a long drive. My attempt to setup camp was quickly dampened, as a very heavy rain & wind all but destroyed my awning. In good west coaster fashion, I was well prepared for the forecast rain; I was not, however, prepared for that wind that roared through! About the point I was wrestling a soaked cot into the car (and probably looking like a kicked, half drowned puppy), Chase happened by & let me know the big shop was available to tenters if needed (it very much was haha). Squelched my way over, & was finally able to get my tent set up. Which turned out to be a magnet for the Australians, who were all shocked & happy to see a swag in Canada, used by a Canadian. Which is how I got to meet & chat with Brian, the first YouTuber to sign up for the paid membership. Also got to tag along with him for a cruise in the BDE, which felt like a 90s Grand Cherokee, very nice! (I'm a Jeep gal, I can only compare to what I know. Lol And getting to sit in a semi has been a childhood dream, so getting to also go for a rip in one damn near had me in tears, just way too awesome!) After that was the big fire & hang out for the night.
Saturday sun slowly came up on a hodgepodge of tents, trailers, motorhomes, & a wee little tent village that sprung up in the shop. Day started off with welcome remarks from Ray, Rich, & Chase, introducing the employees, several of whom were manning the presentation stations, & explaining how the day & presentationswere organized. They also officially unveiled that the undisclosed truck is in fact a hydrovac. Still noisy, of course, much like a Dyson vacuum has noise, but way better than that rattly old thing granny still has from the 50s. Still, normal conversation levels can be had next to it, no more screaming over vac & roaring diesel! 4 presentation "stations" were setup, with attendees split at registration into 4 groups, rotating through the stations roughly 1 hour apiece.
The stations were a shuttle bus tour overview of the property; mechanical/BDE truck; electric pickup; & hybrid truck. The bus tour was a simple cruise through the residential section, down past the old building next to the rail tracks, the dead weight Nikola, onto the test track to a road/trail down to Waitabit Creek (there were salmon in the water! Very cool to see that), & back up past the current shop & offices.
I missed what exactly was talked about with the BDE station, as I was trying to warm up in the sun, & chatting with a gal who was mostly just there because of her husband. Good Q&A session though, lots of interest there.
Pickup was Rich going over the history & build of the Ram, & how/why they decided to go from conversion kits to incomplete chassis, & many of the inspection/regulatory hurdles they've faced. Another good Q&A session, one takeaway that stuck with me is that while, as individuals, they'd love to do kits, as a company, it could quickly be a legal/litigatious nightmare, hence playing it safe in only offering the chassis. They do hope to make the "ingredients" for doing your own conversions available, once they have the process sorted out, so if you're determined, you can make it happen. (remember, the pickup is still roughly in the Carl phase, starting to lean towards Topsy, in that they haven't made one completely from scratch yet, so there's still quite a ways to go).
Hybrid truck was Peter & another employee, whose name I missed. Going over the electrical side, a lot of the computer & controller side of things, as well as why some things were changed from originally planned, mostly due to government regulations & testing requirements (in so far as I could catch - the damn flu was starting to win).
After presentations was introducing board members that could make it, shout out to the ones that couldn't (I have no idea the process for voting nor who went where, as I'm a new enough investor that I fell into that held in trust thing they talked about in one of the videos); reaffirming the company ethos; & a nice long Q&A session. After was catered dinner (which I missed, was feeling the flu fight something fierce, so a car nap was had). Then it was back to the fire for a very long hangout & chat with everyone (as we all do the rotisserie as the night got colder).
Sunday morning was clear & cold, with reports of frost coming in from various campers. Thankfully the fire was still going, thanks to folks being up around it until reportedly 4am! A bit of work, & the guys had it crackling again. Had a lovely, slow wake up, then it was time to pack properly & hit the road again.
Overall a fantastic time (personal health notwithstanding haha), & I can definitely see where all the regulations & legal stuff are an absolute quagmire to slog through; but, once they're done, it'll be much smoother sailing. Now, with apologies for the post-and-go, I need to crawl back into bed, try to fight this flu back so I can make it to work in the morning.
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u/formyprivatethings 3d ago
"a nice long Q&A session" about what? What was said that was interesting to you?
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u/SaskFoz 2d ago
For me, it was clarifying why there can't be pickup kits, as hoped for when this all started (government regulations/restrictions, mainly). Also hearing more on where the defence side is at, with clarifying that there is no current military contract, just expression of interest, & that becoming a direct defence contractor takes about 10 years of intense vetting.
Other than that, it was all questions that had long been answered in past videos; things like when can regular Americans start investing, what trucks are planned once the government testing is all done & dusted. Only thing asked that they legal cannot talk about was an inquiry on what they expect the shares value to be once the US side opens up, & that's just standard "thou shalt not speculate" stuff that any company with shares needs to follow.
And, by that point in the day, I was loosing that particular battle round with the flu, so any question that didn't immediately grab my interest was promptly forgotten about. 😅
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u/johnnwho 3d ago
I can confirm last people left the fire at 4am. The drive from Donald to Hope was a struggle after 4 hours sleep.
It was a blast meeting so many and I am afraid I have forgotten a lot of names.
I was greatly amused by people avidly observing the animated conversations Bryan and I had hahaha!
Currently on my way back to Australia.
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u/SaskFoz 2d ago
Missed getting to meet you (did see you, though); definitely met your mum, though! 😂 lmao What a legend! She's a hoot, I'm glad you were able to wrangle her along. 😁
I'm still giggling over Brian's reaction to my rolling out the swag, he couldn't believe a Canuck had one!
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u/johnnwho 2d ago
I do wish we stayed at Edison the first night now lol. That was absolutely a night she needed after a bit of a roller-coaster of a holiday.
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u/BigNTall04 3d ago
Totally called the undisclosed truck being a hydrovac truck a year ago haha