The Tesla Semi Has a Rival - And It's Already on the Road!

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1:04Hello and welcome to another episode of the Everything Electric podcast, where today we have a really special guest for you. But before we get to that, if you could do us the honor of liking and subscribing, we so appreciate it. It really does help us out and ensures that we can come to wonderful places like Antwerp, where we're recording today. But And today I'm catching up with the CEO of Windrose Technology, Wen Han. Now Windrose Technology is a relative latecomer to the world of electric vehicles, but it seems to me that that timing is totally strategic. Windrose Technology are developing electric HGVs and unlike some of their predecessors or some of those early arrivals, Nikola, Volta trucks, that were forced to develop components themselves and completely vertically integrate, Windrose have been able to wait for that electric vehicle supply chain to mature and as such rapidly accelerate their delivery of their electric HGV.

1:56Today they have a stunning truck that boasts a 670 kilometre range, an unusual central driving position, pretty good aerodynamics and they have a very interesting approach to manufacturing and scaling. So we are going to get into all of that but first a very quick advert break our three free youtube channels on evs and clean energy tech are funded by our fun packed test drive tastic events in the north west and greater london and our events down under next up everything electric north 2026 plus check out everything electric dot store for merch and much more when thank you so much for giving up your morning this morning um i guess first things first If you had to explain Windrose Trucks in one sentence, what would it be?

2:44What's the goal? Good question. We're trying to redesign the way trucks are built and operated and designed for the global market. Now, we've had the pleasure of spending some time with the truck yesterday. There will be a full episode coming out on the truck, I think just after this episode, maybe before. I'll have to consult the production schedule. but just to bring everyone up to speed, give us the little 101 of the global E700 truck, the top line stats. Yes. So we, well, the first thing you should know is we're only four years old as a company with about 122 people. I always start with that because our speed of execution and learning is our most important strength.

3:30In terms of the product, Our goal is to use it to electrify 5 % of the world's total carbon emissions, which is also about 5 % of the world's GDP that is going into trucking. So the truck that you saw, long haul, big rigs like that, they actually account for 1 20th of all the economic activity on the planet. Which is mad. It's really mad. And I guess partly because we see trucks all the time, we don't even think about them. But actually all of these trucks are carrying around very precious cargo contributing to economies worldwide. And pollution, yes. Yeah, and pollution critically. The product is meant to be a very global product, has a name.

4:13The E is, of course, for electric. And the 700 is the range. The naming is very different from traditional truck models. Traditionally, trucks are named esoterically. They're almost trying to prevent you from understanding what they're doing. Many times the numbers mean horsepower or cylinders and all these things. We make it really simple. 700 is also about how many kilowatt hour of battery we have, as well as the approximate range that we have. So it's a global truck, which means we've homologated the truck, certified it in Europe, North America, China. It's coming to the UK. we hope we can get the paperwork done well before summer this year.

5:00Yeah. And as you already noticed, the driver sits in the middle, so that we don't have a left-hand version versus a right-hand steering version. So global is really the key word, the key key keyword. The second word, E, of course, is all electric battery powered. We focus on LFP battery, 700 plus kilowatt hour, and then 700 is the battery size and the range. Conservatively, we do 670 kilometers of range. That's been tested in five continents, Asia, South America, North America, Europe, not the UK yet, but very soon. And then also in Oceania, which is Australia and New Zealand. So we're really familiar with right-hand steering, left-side driving markets.

5:50There are so many questions that we need to get into in this podcast, not least the choice for LFP, not least the fact that you've been on this journey for just four years and somehow have established yourself in all of these different markets and, of course, have a truck that is far more than a simple prototype. So I do want to get into all of those things. But let's just pause on the fact that there is a central driving position. Yes. You told me yesterday that no truck with a central driving position has ever been homologated before. Yes. And it's kind of crazy to me because it makes so much sense.

6:22If you have a central driving position, the very same truck can exist in all of these different markets, irrespective of left-hand drive or right-hand drive, which presumably that introduces a lot of simplicity into your design and manufacturing process too. When trucks were invented in 1890, all trucks looked the same, which was much like a horse carriage. And then the European cabover trucks actually came to the United States. However, later in the 70s, the United States had something called bridge law, which forced the distribution of the weight to be longer, more spread out, hence the longer nose, US-style truck.

7:01But that stopped being a factor. Bridges are much better built today than in the 70s. But trucking is traditionally a local business, meaning as you manage your truckers, your customers, you're generally moving cargo on highway and highways are by definition not cross Atlantic or cross continental. So European trucks stay in Europe, US trucks stay in North America. So there hasn't been a pressing need to really make it super global. However there's a couple different things about our industry. Electrification is a global industry. If you look at the units people use, there's no more of imperial versus metric, everything is the same.

7:47Everybody speaks kilowatt hours. Everybody speaks volts and amps, which are actually generally British, European names. So luckily for us, electrification is unifying the metrics, which is interesting and not to be taken for granted. The other thing is as the way we do our, we designed a business to be global for two reasons. One is, like you said, it's going to be so much more efficient. The second is we can do it now because of the way AI is helping us learn new information. So we're in Belgium today where people speak Dutch as their official language and then also French and English. However, I speak almost no Dutch.

8:36not speaking the language and choosing to set up our company headquarters in such a place is quite a risky move. However, with AI's help, we can speak to local people or learn documents and regulations very, very quickly and cheaply. So we are aided by AI. We wanted to build a global truck because we had to, otherwise we don't have time. We can't do that because we have AI and and we're generally sort of younger people. Most of our guys, and unfortunately it's mostly guys today, have more than eight years of trucking experience. But it's just about that. We tend to be sort of at the prime age where you've learned enough, but you can also grow quickly.

9:20And again, that's very different from a traditional manufacturing organization. You have the guys here, they were in China last week, they were in Nordics last week, and they're in here this week, and then next week they fly to China. In March, we're all in Chile and Australia. Everybody learns together and firsthand. So that's really what's, I think, truly different about our organization. And that is often the beauty and joy of working in a startup environment. You're forced to wear so many different hats. It forces that camaraderie as well. Now, for anyone who is listening to this podcast and not watching, I just want to point out that when you're annoyingly young and actually have some phenomenal experience behind you.

10:02So I want to talk a little bit about your background because you were a Stanford Business School graduate. Yes. You worked at Bridgewater in a hedge fund. You then were part of the leadership team at Plus AI, which was developing autonomous technology for trucks. What on earth made you think, do you know what? I'm going to go and do the hardest bit of this and actually make the trucks and perhaps willingly enter into that production hell as it's so often known? good question most people don't choose to go into production hell I think it's a I can't remember who said it a successful person said it you can only do what you're good at and then sort of find passion for it you generally are not so lucky to specialize in the thing you enjoy so first think about what you're good at and then enjoy it and then make it into a career.

10:57So the way I step into trucking is really serendipitous. When I came out of Stanford Graduate School of Business, I worked for a venture capital fund for a short while called GSR Ventures, one of the top ones in the world. And they had invested in PlusAI. PlusAI was founded by a number of Stanford graduates also. So there was double connection. And David, who's been a great mentor and now the CEO and co-founder at Plus AI, he invited me to join. And I said, no, I said I've never worked for a startup. I wanted to be an investor. I wanted to be like a meet us list top name and every business I touch turns into gold.

11:42And that never happened. And then six months later, he still asked me several times and I said, why don't I give it a shot? And so I joined the company knowing nothing about trucks or trucking or even doing business. I had never worked at a real company before. Bridgewater is nothing like a real business. It's a group of really smart people blessed with lots of resources, not having to think about the struggles of everyday life. So I went into Plus AI in 2018, spent the next four years there, and eventually became the CFO and chief strategy person. We did deals with the Amazon trucking program, Scania and Traytown here, Iveco in Europe and the rest of the world, also Australia.

12:32So got to see the world and got to see maybe there's a chance to try to make a more interesting truck. We never say things like we like to replace and kill and eradicate traditional trucks. we always say we want to make a different product where the customers don't even have to choose. If they want our truck for this use case of long-haul and heavyweight electric usage and if they want to get the same truck like an IKEA furniture globally they have to use our truck. They will generally use our truck alongside a traditional or two traditional brands and we like that very much. So I learned to understand the dynamics of not just being competitive but also thinking how to make friends.

13:16The truck business is really a group of huge companies who've been around for 100 years. And it takes sort of a lot of thinking to go into that and it is not the recommended path for sort of Silicon Valley style startup. But I've come to really enjoy it because I think I can do a good job and there's so much more that we can do for this industry. So I know that a lot of people will look at the truck and think, oh, that kind of reminds me of a Tesla Semi, which I think is a little bit of an oversimplification because the fact is, if you are optimizing a truck for aerodynamics, it is going to end up with a slightly swoopy shape, sort of slightly more, a longer nose.

13:59But the biggest differentiation between yourself and Tesla is the choice to include a sleeper cab. Tesla have sort of said that they're thinking about hub-to-hub transport, less overnight transport. but for trucks to exist in Europe, it seems like the sleeper cab is a really essential component. Can you talk about that choice, and especially on a backdrop of a world where, as a platform, as a software-defined platform, it lends itself so well to a future of level 4, level 5 autonomy, where perhaps we don't need to think about having sleeper cabs for drivers. What was some of the logic? That's a very good question.

14:40It's too bad that not more trucks look like the Tesla truck. I think every truck ought to be more aerodynamic. And you see people do that. They add a little skirt, a little hat, and all these things. But it's not enough. The bullet train design is quite obviously the right answer. What is not obvious is how do you actually make the truck that, how do you make the insides of the truck to fit into that shape? because you have to redo the entire arrangement of the... It's a different thing. So all the tooling, all the capital expenditure you've put in for the last decades is really not usable anymore.

15:18So that's why this was such a design change. And that's why we got it patented. You can see it on the wall. Yes. This is the chassis. And on the other side of the building is the cab, which is... Patenting it is not our goal way to make money. Patenting is to show people it's a bona fide new technology. Now, regarding the Tesla, we're really super excited. I've said this as many times as I can, that the Tesla SMI is now in production. It started in 2017 when I was still in business school. Many people questioned it and say, how does it take so long? I think it takes so long because Elon is sending people to Mars, putting Saturn.

16:05satellites in space, getting the robotaxi, and also making the world's safest electric car. So now, clearly, the SEMI program is also in production. So we were thrilled by that. They have a partnership with truck stops in the United States to build charger. They will also open up their MCS charger to other trucking amps. And I think there's a real opportunity for us to work together there. The difference now is really the way we think about this truck. Unlike Elon, I only do one thing and this is my only chance, the only way I can make a real impact on the world and I have to think every minute about it.

16:48And to do that you have to realize the drivers are the most important decision makers. We've already convinced their owners that the economics is better than diesel. The impact is clearly better than diesel. We sit here, this is in the port of Antwerp, you get a lot of trucks coming through and you can smell the diesel. That's one reason why the windows are so dirty oftentimes and clearly we're making an impact but how can we make the drivers happier? Well you first have to think about that. You have to assume they're there. Well and what do they do in the truck? They sleep in the trucks, they rest in the trucks.

17:28We're also going to add a refrigerator and also curtains in the truck because they want their privacy and they want to have a cold drink. We even have one version with a microwave and a little faucet in the truck. We want to make it really driver friendly, not driver-moving. Self-driving will eventually come, but self-driving's first job is to help humans drive the trucks better by making it safer. Long-haul trucks kill more people on the road than any other means of transportation. I can imagine. These are the deadliest movement tools because you're moving, in our case, two traders, which is 68 tons total, 100 kilometers per hour speed.

18:07That is a lot of mass moving at high momentum. Every time there's a lethal crash, seven people die in the truck accident, none of whom is the driver. It's usually the other passenger cars around. And the drivers are also fatigued and really a tough life. So we want to make it far better than before. So safety and then comfort, these are the key factors we think about. So it's much more than you've been inside the cab. It's not an RV. It's not a recreational vehicle yet, but we make it functionally really comfortable. Charging, technology, air conditioning, not to mention the lack of noise. Your butt is no longer sitting on the internal combustion engine, which vibrates and almost makes your body numb and your ears deaf with this noise and vibrations.

18:58Well, we spoke to a driver yesterday, and he'd driven the truck from Finland to here in Antwerp. And I was like, oh, what do you think? And he did this sort of big flamboyant arc and was like, just look at the space. And it is, it's absolutely enormous. It's definitely an enjoyable place to be. and whilst we were filming yesterday, it was very, very cold. So I was grateful to be able to hover in there, turn the temperature up to 31 degrees. It was lovely. Yes. The one thing people say is, oh, you know, EV cars, you've got a Tesla downstairs. They always lose so much of their range. It's not the EV's fault.

19:36The internal combustion engine naturally has the heat dissipating. Which is a waste as well. Which is about one-third of all the kilowatt hour from the well to wheel. It's actually wasted. We're not harvesting all the energy, not to mention the smell. So compared to that, we're using clean power to generate heat and air conditioning. Of course, that takes away some of the juice from the battery. However, it's actually only a number of kilowatt hour per day. If you have a 700 plus kilowatt hour battery, that difference becomes negligible. Our customers in Finland and Norway or even in China are experiencing minus 20 degrees Celsius on a regular basis.

20:16This is a hot day for them. And they really care about the heating. Also to do so without the smell and the noise. And that's what we offer. So I want to talk about the choice of battery chemistry because you have opted for LFP rather than NMC. Which may surprise some people because NMC is typically more energy dense. which would mean that you could probably have slightly more cargo capacity in terms of mass. But also from what people also understand is that LFP has more cycle life or a longer cycle life. Talk to us about the economics of that decision, because I guess it's a careful trade-off of making the trucks last longer versus potentially sacrificing some of that cargo capacity.

20:58Yes, the NMC has been popular for trucks because of the reasons you said. We believe all the reasons are correct and still valid. We do believe, however, two things. One is LFP is just far safer. Even if there's a thermal event, LFP offers 25 seconds of escape time, which is enough for the driver to immediately leave the vehicle. That's meaningfully longer than the NMC. The second reason is LFP is much longer in a lifetime. It's at least twice the performance. It's also good for storage purposes, which is, and the reason being, it's much longer lifetime in cycles. We're going to dual purpose our battery packs into storage units as well, which means for industrial use cases like our own factory that we're building here in Europe, in Antwerp, our inventory of battery packs can be used as the slot in storage units.

22:03so if you want to have a dual purpose lifetime long longevity product it's got to be the LFP now that being said structurally NMC is better than LFP that is the nature of the chemistry of the material so is there a way to marry the two things yes there is there's two ways to do it you can mix and match NMC and LFP in sort of like a salad where the things don't quite mix they're just oil and water but one wraps around the other and people have done that. The other thing is you can actually add the minganese into the LFP so it's going to be LMFP. Yeah. And we're working with our partner in the in the United States called Nant Energy and they're a team of battery specialists and that can actually improve the performance while keeping the cost down and also having the longevity.

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23:39So you're targeting a price of$250 ,000 or so which is very competitive when it comes to electric HGVs but is around double a diesel equivalent so the total cost of ownership metrics are absolutely critical for fleet managers. Now I'm guessing that the more they're used, the more they see the benefits of lower cost of fueling, but we're talking huge batteries and potentially megawatt charging systems as well. And so how much is the charging infrastructure a battle or a point of friction in terms of encouraging adoption? So everything is a battle in selling a new product and changing the ecosystem, but it's a downhill battle, which is to say structurally, and when I talked to the Sunday Times a couple weeks ago, we had the same question.

24:31And I said, charging is actually the least of my concerns because I know it will be built. The reason is the world is moving from fossil fuel into renewable, not for selfless reasons, even for entirely selfish reasons. You have to move to a way to generate your own power. You cannot rely on drilling stuff from underneath the earth from billions of years ago, which you're not guaranteed to have access to. That's reason number one. Reason number two, of course, is artificial intelligence has a huge push on the buildout for data centers. But what's also being built is the power supply. Now, not 100 % is renewable, but the nature of the power you need at your site is a decentralized power system, which generally means over here is wind power.

25:24United States is solar, right? And there's hydraulic. and even if you're using natural gas, it's still cleaner than using a diesel truck. So the world is necessarily moving to more electricity. Now the question is, is that going to get directed into trucks? That takes the extra push, right? So here we're working with all the top charging providers, Mylands, which is quite active in the UK. We're working with Greenling, which is that picture over there. They're backed by the Daimler Group and BlackRock and NextEra, which is the biggest power company in the United States. People are making serious progress along the way.

26:06And then the question is, how do you charge at these sites? Is MCS, CCS, or something even older? It's got to be high power, high voltage, DC direct current. And again, coincidentally, that is also how all new AI infrastructure is being built. So for folks in the UK, there's a huge push on AI build out, right? For folks really everywhere, there's that big push. So we are sharing the same underlying infrastructure as AI, which is 800 volt high voltage platform, direct current. Because AI's are just giant machines that use electricity. electricity, they run on direct current, the same way our product does.

26:52So it's basically, there's a source of electricity, it'll flow through some sort of transforming device to get it to the right voltage, then output the electrons into a thing through direct current, and the thing will work. So conceptually, we're doing the same thing. So that's why I say, if it wasn't for AI, and I tell my team too, we wouldn't be making as much progress, really. But AI is actually helping us. And also the hours of charging are actually complementary between AI and trucking. Trucks tend to charge at night, AI is at least busy at night. So the peaks and troughs actually match. So it's kind of a fantastic pair.

27:37And lastly, what we do is we offer CCS and MCS, one on each side. So imagine when the iPhone moves from Lightning to Type-C, if you could have both. Yeah. Right? If on the other side, the Type-A and Type-C, you could have both, you would never have to fumble for a converter. And that's what we offer. So it doesn't matter what you have. And we can charge from two different chargers at the same time, even if you have lower power chargers. So we make it super compatible to whatever you can find, but forward compatible because we believe we're making the perfect product for the the future the skittable high-speed charging network now i noticed that you have some pretty big ambitions for windrose parks so-called and and also offering some customers three months of free charging yes so do you see an opportunity that actually the energy services around the truck will be a significant source of revenue yes we think that's the the key thing that matters It's going to be the most important source because globally 5 % of the GDP goes into trucking, but within the 5%, about 1.3 % is in the fuel.

28:491.3 % goes to drivers, and the rest goes between the truck and the tolls and the maintenance and everything. So, the hardware is really the start of how we can help the ecosystem get better. The printer is the start. The cartridge is the key. The e-cigarette is the start and the pods are the key. We hope to be as addicting as the e-cigarette products. We really do. Every time we get a driver into the truck, he or she would initially be on shore, the big screens and center driving configuration, what do I do? And no one complains after the first day. When the iPhone first came out, there were a lot of people who said the screen is too big, I can't handle it.

29:38It's not their fault. It's just you're not used to a new product. So we try to make it quite addicting. Now, the way you really make it addicting and irreplaceable is to make the economics so much better for your customers. We're doing two things. We're making the TCO better, but that's not enough. The retail price of the truck is higher because we're selling a much better product than diesel. It's also just more expensive to manufacture, there's no question about that. Battery is just more expensive today per pound or per kilowatt of performance. However, with our financing partners, which we will announce hopefully, not today, but within the month, we have a number of financing partners, European, British, and American, who will help us smooth out that curve, which means we will charge our customers per kilometer or per month in a way that basically lets it become an operating expense.