Solar Powered Camper Vans! — Solarrolla FULL INTERVIEW

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: All right, Jess, we are so lucky to have with us again, Brett and Kira. If you remember a few years back, we talked to them at Solarola. They do these amazing camper conversions. We're going to get into all that right now. Thank you so much, guys, for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having us. We're excited to see you guys again. So last time we talked, you were doing some cool stuff for some celebrities. Have you been working with celebrities? I think last time we talked, [00:00:26] Speaker 2: were we just finishing up? Yeah. So we built a, we took a 71. It was just a transporter and we opened up the top and popped the top 40 inches and did a articulating solar ray on there. That vehicle [00:00:41] Speaker 3: struck by a tree. Crashed by a tree. Yeah. It was a real heartbreaker. It was probably our best work [00:00:49] Speaker 2: between the two of us. We were so in love with that vehicle. Red 2 drove it for a year without a hitch and we just kind of came down. He had some questions and we wanted to kind of check in with him and see the vehicle. And we were crashed there at Redfield's in the morning and Brooke, our daughter, comes running in. A tree fell on the cars. We had a Highlander at the time. But that's how we got our Tesla. Our Highlander got crushed. [00:01:12] Speaker 3: They both got crushed. So they both got totaled. We were like, well, all right, [00:01:16] Speaker 1: it's time to go full in electric. Yeah. So a silver lining, I guess you could say. Yeah. [00:01:21] Speaker 2: It was a silver lining. You know, he got, he got what the vehicle was, what he paid for. He got back from the insurance company. I actually bought the vehicle then from him. He bought from the insurance company. So we have the top here. I'm hoping I can kind of dial it in a little bit better and put it back on. Cause it, it got hit in the front. So it's a little tweaked, but I think I can fix it. [00:01:41] Speaker 1: So it'll go on another VW. Now our viewers watching may not know what you just said. You said articulating solar roof. Yeah. Let's talk about what you guys work on because we know, [00:01:53] Speaker 4: but our audience probably hasn't, hasn't seen it. Yeah. So explain what does that mean? [00:01:57] Speaker 2: Well, it's just a articulate. It just means that it moves and it's going to move based on some kind of control. And with solar, of course, we want to get our solar panels, you know, facing the sun as directly as possible to get the utmost power. And of course on the, on vehicles, there's a limited amount of real estate for solar. So you really got to, got to articulate it to get the maximum amount and get, you know, some significant amount of power from the sun on a vehicle. [00:02:23] Speaker 4: And just so everybody knows, just cause you know, we've been seeing like some, some VW micro buses here. Those typically were gasoline powered cause they were made in the sixties and the seventies. You're talking about fully converting them over to an electric drive train, electric batteries, and then putting solar on the roof of them. So that way you could charge them with the sun. [00:02:43] Speaker 2: Right. So good point because a lot of people see the vehicles with the huge solar, right? And they're wondering how they got refrigerators in there or whatever, what are we running? And it's like runs the vehicle. So yes, the, the VW was the ultimate vehicle to start with. It was like, you know, a classic first of all, but it was really lightweight, good surface area on top of it, relatively easy to work on. I mean, it was just a adapter plate. No, the motor bolts right on it's, it's fine to place for the batteries, but yeah, it was a great conversion. And I mean, that, that vehicle always had kind of a marginal motor in it in the first place. So being able to put a really strong motor in place of, you know, a little bit weaker motor, I think some of them were like 30, 40 horse and the, and the little electrics, a hundred horse. So quite an improvement there. And then of course the opportunity to not have to pay for gas or be encumbered by a gas station is, is also, it's perfect for the VW, the whole, you know, vibe of the VW and everything, just chilling and charging off the sun. That was our first vehicle. Yeah. [00:03:43] Speaker 1: So people who are watching this now and are just kind of new to this, they might be thinking what I used to think, which was like, well, you probably can't go very far. So give us some stats. I mean, what can you typically do? How far can you go out, you know, out camping with your family in a solar [00:03:56] Speaker 3: powered, um, you know, conversion? Well, at first when we started our VW, our very first one, [00:04:02] Speaker 2: our first vehicle was of course, where we started had lead aft of batteries and it had a thousand Watts of solar. I did articulate it. So it did raise up and we could really face the sun in the morning. That's really a nice marriage, the solar powered vehicle in a camper, because in the morning time, when you want to be facing the rising sun, your top is up and we like to put the beds up top, just of course, to, you know, add space to the RV. And then of course, same thing, when you're getting ready for bed in the evening, you're following the sun down. So whether you have full articulating, where you can just leave your vehicle parked, or, you know, as we've done with some vehicles, you know, you can get half the day with your vehicle in this position. And maybe you just kind of turn around if you really want to get the most out of the sun. But then like Joel Hayes from Rude El Sol kept telling me that his vehicle was usually ready to go before he was. So that was kind of a milestone. And that's really what I'm, what my heart's into with all of these projects is, is seeing those numbers. What's the reality of this? We can all talk about it, you know, until the sun goes down, but you know, what, what do you really get? And it's like, that's what I'm proud that Kira and I have actually gotten out there and seeing what these vehicles can get. So we pull maybe 15, 20 miles on our first vehicle. If I worked it, in other words, I was right there in the morning and moving the vehicle around. And as far as range with that one, with the [00:05:24] Speaker 3: lead acid batteries, when we first started, started in 2015 and just, you know, some lead acid batteries in there. So we were getting like 30 to 40 miles of range, but then we put a lithium set in and we were getting a hundred miles of range. And so that was a big step up into the lithium world. And of course we've, you know, lithium since there and that technology is just rapidly changing and getting [00:05:52] Speaker 1: better and better. How have things been going in terms of parts? Like I imagine when you first started, it was probably even hard to find solar panels, batteries, motors, stuff like that. Has that changed at all over the years? [00:06:04] Speaker 2: It has. Yeah, definitely. Redfuse vehicle, the vehicle we just delivered, we used light leaf solar panels. So it's a really cool company, cool folks out of Canada, and they build these carbon fiber back solar panels. So they're using sun power cells, super high power, high efficiency cells, but they sandwich them with a polymer on the top. And then they have actually like a half inch embossed carbon fiber back. So you can like stand on them and they're crazy. You know, every, every panel has its advantages and then it's a disadvantages. And it's such an intense equation because you want lightweight, but you also want stability and inertia with the whole system because it's about circus area, right? Getting it out there. And so, you know, that's, that's always the thing as far as getting more solar. Like it's really not a limitation of volume or weight anymore with pounds. It's just now becoming, all right, if you want to pull 200 miles a day off the sun, you're going to have to do a lot of creative deployment. So that's really what we're up against now as a solar powered vehicle company is, okay, what's the, what's the next thing? And it's fun because everybody's got an idea. Like Redfuse VW, as we first started talking about, was when we went to awnings off the side. So it's like with our first VW bus, you know, one panel on top, you know, if you're really chilling, it's fine. You know, camp, you know, the idea is that you're, you know, you're hanging out, you're swimming, you're hiking and your vehicle's charging. But, you know, of course it's always fun to go to the next national park or have the opportunity to go further. So then the awnings kind of hide underneath the main panel and then come out the side, which, you know, any RV is nice to have an awning and sit under the shade of the awning and that. So, so that's when it got up, started getting up here where we could pull it like a hundred miles a day. Wow. So with Redfuse, yeah, it's there, it's there. And, you know, we just delivered Redfuse and this thing was probably 12, 13,000 pounds. And I pulled like 41 miles on a cloudy day. I mean, we had a sun in the morning, but then it clouded up really good. And I was watching the meter because this was my one chance to really task. We kind of had that motor out there and deliver, but we had a chance to chill out in the South mountains and use the vehicle kind of more how it's intended, which is, you know, you put out your awnings and you set up shop and you hang out and enjoy the beauty. And when you're ready to go, your vehicle's ready to go. That's the equation, you know, it's just the surface area, the articulation, and that's what's going to, you know, origami get better with time and more people working on it. [00:08:31] Speaker 3: So after the tree fell on Redfuse's VW bus, it was a couple of years after, that's when he was like, okay, I miss my solo Rola. I miss, you know, driving a vehicle that's powered by the sun. Let's do something else. So that's when he commissioned us. And when we moved to Wisconsin, we started his E-Star, the vehicle that we just drove out to him. Same, so same famous person, musician, Redfuse. So we just drove out his E-Star. So we did the VW bus for him. And then we did the E-Star. We also did a little golf cart for him. Some other little, he's got all sorts of little, little electric vehicles around there. [00:09:09] Speaker 1: Nice. So you guys sell professionally to, you know, famous people, right? But how did you get started? How did you guys have to go to some kind of special training to do this? How did you learn [00:09:19] Speaker 2: how to do this? Well, I did a mechanical engineering degree at Michigan Tech, which I'm pretty close to right now. In fact, some of my old college buddies are jumping on board. It's really fun. It's really exciting. One of my college friends, Paul Dezue, helped us with like our Arduino relay boards, basically the brain for the Redfuse E-Star. And we actually possibly have a little product coming out from that. And then I have one of my close friends who just arrived yesterday or two days ago. Like we did CAD for Ford back in the day. He's already modeling up. We're pretty excited. We're working on the, uh, an array for the CYBER truck. So yeah, so they've done a lot of interest [00:09:54] Speaker 3: lately. It's exciting. It's been something that we've talked about doing, you know, tops for our Tesla model Y, like when we got it years ago, the CYBER truck lends itself more to that. You know, it's got, it's got a lot more surface area. It's almost the right angle, you know? Yeah. I know. I keep thinking that the back, like, uh, you know, the part that covers the trunk is solar panels. It's like, looks like it in some of the images of the stuff. [00:10:21] Speaker 1: Well, I guess what I'm asking is because you guys inspired us. Uh, we were talking before the show, Jesse and I were so inspired after learning from you guys, what you're doing. They were like, Hey, you know what, let's convert a car ourselves. And so, you know, we converted a little MG midget and we learned a lot. And I feel like, um, before that project, we knew nothing. I mean, just the basics. And then after the project, I feel like it was like a college course, like learning with your hands, not to say that we could immediately repeat it again, but I feel like the next project wouldn't take, what'd it take us like 18 months. I feel like the next project would take us 10 months. [00:10:55] Speaker 2: I appreciate that. A lot of my respect goes out to you guys because you know, you guys have been on the Tesla end and you know, the beautiful completed, perfect cars at, you know, and that's kind of where I've always seen you. And so to hear you dig it into, cause you look now, you know, so much more about what's going on with your Tesla and then you can apply that to a build and it's vice versa. And then we all become part of the development. So that's really cool. I appreciate that. [00:11:20] Speaker 4: Yeah. Thank you. Well, and there's so many different aspects to it. There's a few that I want to touch on, but first I just want to talk a little bit about solar powered vehicles. The only ones that are kind of like, they're not even really on the market today, but the ones that people can talk about are the light year one, which I think they've gone out of business. Sono Motors one, which went out of business and then Aptera, which hasn't gone out of business yet. And we're very excited, but they've achieved what you guys have achieved, but they're doing it in a much different way. And in fact, not really what you've achieved because they're not getting the anywhere close to the amount of solar power or miles per day. And they have a, the lightest, most aerodynamic three wheeled vehicle that you can possibly imagine, which is smart. Cause if you don't want to have a fold out array, you need to make it as light as possible and still have a ton of surface area, which they do with their like beaver tail. But you've gone about it in a completely different way. What was the idea behind it? What was the impetus? What started you off? Cause you said, you know, you took some lithium ion batteries and you converted VW micro bus, and then you put some solar on the roof. What inspired you to do that? [00:12:26] Speaker 2: Well, it came, it came quite a way before that with a golf cart that I built. Okay. So when Kira was pregnant with our son, I felt super helpless. So I'm like, what can I do? Well, you can drive your kid around, put him to sleep. Right. All right. So, but I couldn't justify burning gas. I'm like, all right, I'll build this electric golf cart with solar panels. And whenever the, the baby's crying, I'll just throw them in there and drive it around and boom. Right. I don't know how much I actually [00:12:53] Speaker 3: drove the kid around. I think we, we used it more for hauling wood for like pulling trees down, [00:13:00] Speaker 2: hauling firewood. Yeah. That's the whole point. It was like, wow. [00:13:04] Speaker 3: We would watch and drive around the neighborhood. We lived like out. This is when we lived off grid [00:13:09] Speaker 2: in California, Northern California. It was like, wow, this is, this isn't just whatever, you know, this is, this is serious. If I, if I can go with, you know, I can plug in my electric chainsaws to it and I can pull wood out and I can haul it. And then I was like, man, I just want to go to the grocery store now. If I could just go to the grocery store with this thing, my life would be [00:13:29] Speaker 1: perfect. What year was that? Yeah. Cause I didn't think we'd go in this direction, but I do want to is golf carts typically, uh, have to be plugged in. Right. Yeah. Yeah. This is the [00:13:39] Speaker 3: first one. Oh my God. That's awesome. I mean, this seems like a product actually. That's our son has turned, or he's turning 16 in July. Wow. So he's got solar in his blood. Yeah. This was, you know, 2008, he was born. So like from around then is when he started this first golf cart and put the solar panel on it. We've done, you know, quite a few of those for other people. Also, like I said, Redfu has one. His is really cool. It's got like four seats and we use thin film panels and rounded the top and everything. So it's, you know, it kind of looks like, I'll have a picture of it with his e-star. They're both like white and black with the solar and the same curb roof. It's just like a little mini me. [00:14:24] Speaker 2: Yeah. He's had it for like three years and never charged it, drives it all the time. That's awesome. That's really cool. That's great. So he's a, he's a believer. He's a really cool person. Yeah. So he's a big advocate for the vehicles, but yeah, that golf cart kicked it off. [00:14:36] Speaker 1: So let me ask you, I feel like until you start getting your hands wet in solar, and by the way, we just are building a solar mobile trailer where we've got solar on the roof and we're learning about hybrid inverters and batteries. But until you do it, it feels like you don't understand that there is this free power from the sun. Like it's just, it's theoretically in your brain. [00:14:54] Speaker 4: It's scary because I mean, I think a lot of people, the only way that they're going to go solar is one of two ways, which is either they're going to call up a solar company and they're going to go look at their roof and take measurements. And then there's going to be a bunch of big strong guys with ladders who are going to go up on the roof and they're going to install the panels and they have the know-how or whatever. And then you're going to, oh, I have solar on my house and you didn't lift a finger. You didn't really do anything. You paid for it or you're paying for it. You didn't have to think about it at all. And there's boxes on your house and some of them make some noise. And some of them, they, what does that do? And there's a big switch and I shouldn't touch that. There's all that kind of, there's that way to do it. And then there's kind of the consumer microelectronics where you're either getting like a little battery bank that has a tiny little solar cell on it, which is like three steps up from a calculator. Or you go and you get one of those big battery things so you can clonk down on a table and, and, you know, run stuff. And it could come with a solar panel and you can plug it in using the little thing. And then you go, wow, I'm doing solar. And I've done that before. It's really a fun experience to like plug in solar and then run stuff. And you're like, oh my gosh, the battery is still at a hundred percent, even though I was doing something. But there's still this scary area where it's like MPPT controllers. Right. And like the solar panel, what does a real solar panel look like? And what does it do? Can you kind of walk us through and demystify some of it? Because I've gone through the experience of having it demystified to me. Like, let's just start with a solar panel. What do we need to know about a solar panel so that way we can use it? I mean, like, do I need to be able to program to hook up a solar panel? [00:16:36] Speaker 2: No, no. And I think it's kind of typical with engineers, you know, they like to make everything seem so complicated because it's kind of an ego stroke. It's simple. There's a plus, there's a minus. Now, of course you can take it down to the complex level that a solar panel has no moving parts and two widers plus and minus. And the wonderful thing is most people have a phone now and they know charge and discharge. So there's a broad range of people who know more than they realize, right? Okay, guess what? I have to charge my phone. It's running out, you know? Hey, maybe if I turn off that app, phone won't die so soon. So along with the solar side of it, you start looking at efficiencies. Oh wait, maybe I don't need as much solar if I don't leave all these apps running. But see, we're in this mentality that because of the way that electricity is distributed to us, it's just coming out of the wall everywhere. We don't really think about that. But when you have like a closed system where the solar is coming in and you can either talk or you can't based on you know, your planning and the weather, then it becomes amazing because you realize that you're really connecting with nature now. So you really have to think about sun and what kind of day it is and what you need to do. And that's solar powered vehicles as well. That's anything solar. You just have to do a little bit more planning as someone is running a generator for you 24/7. Sometimes that's nice, you know, to have that power conveniently there, but it's not always there and it's not always used in a way that we feel good about. And I mean, you started out in 2008 and in 2008, [00:18:08] Speaker 4: I don't even know if you could buy large lithium ion batteries. I don't think it was I don't even see any. I don't think they made them. Now there's a million and one companies selling lithium ion batteries that go from anywhere from a drop in replacement for a golf cart, which would have made your life a lot easier back then. All the way up to completely integrated with plugs and inverters and you don't have to think about anything and they have the spots to plug in the solar and everywhere in between with with hybrid inverters, which can take solar grid power and battery power and feed you whatever kind of power you want, whether that be, you know, 110 AC, which is what you normally get from the wall. And so talk to me, how has that changed the camper experience, specifically the living camping part, less so the driving part? We'll get to that in a bit. [00:19:00] Speaker 2: Well, like the vehicles we're building, they're primarily our stations, right? And then their homes, and then they're a car. So if you look at it in that order, you see, I think you can see the value of it more because like, oh, okay. I have an independent power station, right? Cool. Well, I can live in that fully off grid. And then, oh, I can, because I'm getting more than I need to operate domestically. Now I can go 200 miles, you know, and it's like mentioning all these devices coming out. And the trend that I'm noticing is this all in one, all in one, you know, MPPT controllers are now in the inverters and chargers are in the inverters. There's a unit coming out, the Walrus EVO. It's like the battery, everything, one unit, right? Trouble is it's really hard to do an all in one with solar because of how solar needs, it needs a structure to be mounted on. So it's either got to be put in the ground solidly, mostly because of wind, or it has to be on something like a vehicle to be a sound structure. I like to think that, you know, where everything is going is into this all in one, you know, even a lithium pack, if it's a good size pack, it's heavy. So put it on wheels, right? Mm-hmm. All right. Well, why push it? Power one of the wheels. You have all this power. Now, if I'm powering one of the wheels, why push it? Let's just get on there and steer it. So it all points, it all points towards putting the panels on the structure of the vehicle. We're all seeing this, all this market kind of pointing towards a certain direction. That's the way I feel when you ask about, [00:20:30] Speaker 1: you know, where is this all going with the campers? This feels like the early days of automobiles where people started to do this in their garage on the weekends with their kids. Like, oh, we can modify the car or we can fix the car. And yet it's so new and the parts are so just coming into, you know, availability that I feel like people don't see the wave coming, but I feel like it is coming. There will be this day where you'll walk down the street and people in their garages will be tinkering with solar and motors and conversions. Because a lot of this stuff isn't [00:21:01] Speaker 4: all that hard. Like it's, it's, it's involved. You have to know what you're doing, but it's not like a timing belt or something like, exactly. Right. I mean, a lot of this is, yeah, like a lot of it's wiring while wiring can be a little intimidating for some people. I feel like once you kind of start to understand it and how to, you know, make crimps and, you know, get good attachments and solder. If you have to here, you're like, oh, okay. It's not a big investment other than the copper in, in a lot of cases, in terms of the tools. Like I think we got, we went to Harbor Freight one day and we bought like a big, like a hydraulic crimper. That was like the best thing we ever got. And that's one of the most expensive wiring tools we've ever used. The rest of it's like drilling holes so you can get wire into places and then making sure that the water doesn't get into [00:21:50] Speaker 1: the hole. Like, it's like, it's that level of it. Jesse and our week is just excuses to go get more tools to build more things. Like it's just so fun. Right. I hear you. We talking about like other [00:22:02] Speaker 2: folks being able to cross the border tinkering in their garages and this stuff is becoming more accessible. And the part that I really appreciate about what you guys are doing is, you know, you're doing some of your own conversion. If it's always that we have to take this stuff to a dealer and have somebody else fix it for us, then it is not as much freedom there. And to me, this is all about freedom, right? We can get our own energy from the sun. We can do our own thing with it. We can decide how we want to, you know, utilize that energy. But if something goes wrong and we can't do anything about it, there's where our freedom ends, you know? And it's like, that's why Soul Roller is always going to be who we are, is going to be trying to build the simplest vehicles we can and make them accessible so that you can change a component. And also like Redfu's display, curated all the coating. She did all the display. Amazing work over here by this young lady. You know, you're looking at your cell voltages. You're looking at your module temperatures. Like it's not this like, oh, there's an empty and a full gauge. It's like you have all of the pertinent information right there. And I think people can handle that. I really do because I think I see people with their phones, they're handling that, right? They can manage that power system, you know, as well because it's like a processing a little bit and, and you're there. It gets a little freaky with the high voltage. You've got to be in the right end space. And, you know, I think that's another important element here. It's always been important for me is, is the vibe of slowing down. And it's kind of like the tortoise and the hare. You slow down, but you win the race. So it's all about, well, they don't know how fast you're going. You have to know where you're going, right? With the tortoise and the hare, you know, if it's a race, you want to get to the finish line first, but with camping, you know, what's the goal? The goal is to relax. The goal is to be with nature and the solar really lends itself to that because yes, you maybe have to spend a couple of days in a beautiful place. I know it's difficult, but hiking, doing whatever while your vehicle charges, you know, because we get, of course, a lot of comments on the road. Oh, I could never do that. And it's like, it breaks my heart. You know, a lot of people, they, they can't, time is, is the most valuable thing we have. And not everybody has a ton of that. But what I like about the, these vehicles and where it's going is it can be your office space. Now with so much remote work, you could wake up at the Grand Canyon and do your work there online with your Star Lake, you know, and then you could wake up at Yosemite and continue working and be connected there. So the opportunities for what I think is like more natural human movement, right? Just following the sun. We're in the winter here in Wisconsin and we're ready to go deliver Redfu's vehicle in Malibu. You know, it's, it's perfect. [00:24:45] Speaker 1: You know, what's crazy is I think the last time we talked two big things happened, right? Starlink was a thing, but it wasn't ready for prime time yet, I believe. So now, now we're talking about, yeah, you can go somewhere and just be as if you were in New York City, you're on the internet. And the other thing is you guys got a Tesla and I guess I'm really interested because we've come closer to you learning how to convert and solar and all this stuff. But I think last time we spoke, you hadn't, you didn't own a Tesla. So I'm curious, like, have you, what have you gotten out of being a Tesla owner that's changed at all? [00:25:14] Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, when we got it, it was like, do we want to do this? Do we not? You know, we didn't have the time to build ourselves, you know, a daily driver at that time with, with the other jobs going on. And so we're like, oh, be good market research. The car is awesome in so many ways. Living in Wisconsin traction control in the winter is amazing. Yeah. We've had a lot of issues with our heat pump and being negative 20 and it blowing, freezing cold air and his father who just passed, but, uh, we moved here largely in part to help take care of him. You know, he's in the car, 87 years old, freezing. And why is the heat not working? And, uh, you know, we ended up eventually having to get our, our heat pump replaced. And of course it had been out of warranty by that time by like a few miles, but I'd had it in three times the winter before, and they refused to do anything and said it was fine and there's nothing wrong and just put it on auto. So I did have to fight with them quite a bit and got them to replace it for free. But that is the thing that we found with it is it's, it's very much controlled by the manufacturer. We can't touch it. We can't do anything. We don't know what's wrong with it. If we have an issue, which is very different than our vehicles and what we're used to, but I still love it. It's great for travel. We've driven across the country so many times in it. And the really the superchargers is what makes that vehicle. What it is in my opinion is like the supercharger network. It allows you to be able to travel at a more gas powered rate. - I feel like I've seen other projects you've [00:26:55] Speaker 1: worked on. You have a solar powered scooter. And as soon as we started doing solar stuff, we immediately just started brainstorming, like let's do a solar carport and let's do a solar powered patio and let like solar power. So just put solar powered the word in front of every project. And I think that's what happens, right? It just turns your brain into like, oh my God, with batteries and solar, there's so many things you can do. [00:27:15] Speaker 2: - That's what I wanted our tagline to be. Will solar power your mom? [00:27:21] Speaker 3: - It's been a lot of potential taglines. Put a panel on it. [00:27:28] Speaker 4: - That's a good one. - It does crack open your creativity. [00:27:32] Speaker 3: - Well, and now it's like, we've got property, we have animals, we've got gardens. So it's like, we've got an electric four-wheeler. Doesn't have solar panels on it right now, but we've got a big array that we plug it into. Yeah. It's like, he did the lawnmower when we first moved here. He just converted his dad's old thirties tractor that they used to ride on when he was a kid making hay. - Wow. - He just converted that to electric, put a big old snowblower on the front, and then we didn't [00:28:02] Speaker 4: even get any snow this winter. - But yeah, for sure. There's so many things to do. - Well, I want to talk a little bit about the conversion part, especially with the car or vehicles in general. Because I've noticed that there's basically one really sticky point when you're converting a vehicle from gas to electric. And that is that you have, you take the thing that used to power the vehicle. And you quickly realize that the whole job of the engine of a car is to produce a spinning motion. And it's connected up perfectly into a system that moves that spinning motion all the way to the wheels and spins the wheels to make you move forward. And then you go, great. Well, I don't need that spinning thing. And you chuck that out. And then you want to bring in your other spinning thing, an electric motor. And then you hold them next to each other and you go, how do I work? And it doesn't work because there's no way to connect the spinning thing to the other spinning thing. And of course, you know, most electric motors were designed to be plugged into some kind of like pulley system that was going to run a pump or something. And so you go like, oh, connect to the spline. I need to connect to a spline or a drive, you know, some kind of a drive shaft. And that is the thing that I think would stop most people when it because if you told someone like you can convert this and you take out the engine, you put an electric motor. I meant a couple of times. We've done this like two or three times because we worked our way up to this. We did a ride on mower, completely ripped apart a ride on mower. We found, you know, where the belt would go to the rear differential. And I was like, perfect. We'll just spin this. And it was like, how? Because it's like a pulley shaft and I could have either hooked up a pulley, which I didn't want to do a pulley. I wanted to do direct drive. And I think what we ended up doing was just taking like pieces of metal and like putting them together. We totally hacked it. It's the stupidest thing. Like, it's basically like the poorest man's universal joint. And it's just, and it clicked and clacked. It sounded, it was louder than the original gas engine. It was like, I'm like, damn it. Like this is supposed to be so quiet and cool. How have you dealt with this problem, the coupling problem? [00:30:24] Speaker 2: Well, you know, like the VWs had kits. So there was already, when I started converting, there was already a kit. The coupler goes onto the motor, bolts right to the clutch. And then the adapter plate bolts the outside of the motor to the outside of the transmission. So stupid easy, but like on our mower, I just put the pulley on the motor and ran that belt back. And then like the tractor was totally different. I had to machine a coupler. So I have a small lathe. It's manual. It's really a great, amazing tool, but that's kind of also where the CAD comes in because you can design something and it's like a wonderful thing about the time period we live in. We can, we can send dial out and get a part back made out of stainless steel to 10 hundred thousands of an inch. And it's crazy. So that pretty quick turnaround on that, but yeah, it does take a little bit of engineering. You can either, you know, have somebody at a machine shop do it for you pretty quick, just kind of show them the mating parts or yeah, you can dive into it, do the CAD file. There's a lot of free CAD out there now, and then just fire that file off to somebody. There's a lot of machine shops that can kind of help you out because they do a lot of that coupling because people put different gas motors in different transmissions and that. So adapter plates have been, you know, something in the fifties guys were always building those, you know, to put this motor in that car. And it is very much like that. It reminds me of like hot rodding in the fifties because that's how I grew up. Like street riding, you know, street riding is you take the best of everything, right? Let's grab that motor. I like those seats. I like that body. I like, you know, this transmission and you put it all together. And so all we're doing is like, Hey, now we have access to battery powered electric systems that we can charge off the sun. Come on. Let's add that to the mix with our favorite type of vehicle. But I do think the camper end of things does really lend itself to a solar powered vehicle, right? So what is the [00:32:17] Speaker 1: future for you guys and how, if people are watching now and they want to learn more about you guys and maybe even get you guys to make them a camper, how can they get in touch with you? [00:32:24] Speaker 3: So our website is www.solarola.com. All social media platforms, Solarola. And we recently started doing Patreon. So that's kind of something we're wanting to push a little more. And we're putting more like behind the scenes kind of stuff on there and a little more tech stuff. That's another way that people can, you know, help support us and also like get a little bit more information. You can either contact us through our website or email is belan@solarola.com. [00:32:59] Speaker 1: I just want to add to that for you. I think that if you are thinking about doing a conversion, having folks like Brett and Kira in your corner would be invaluable. I know there are plenty of times during our project where I was like, who can we ask? So joining their Patreon is probably a really smart idea. And just because you're going to get to see all the things they're working on behind the scenes, like you mentioned, get inspired by them. And also probably have someone you can reach out to when you've got a question because these guys know what they're talking about. For sure. [00:33:26] Speaker 3: Yeah. And we, you know, I'm very good about answering people's comments and stuff on there. Sometimes on social media, things get a little bit more lost. But I feel like Patreon is a good way for people to communicate with us. And also, you know, we're, we're trying to figure out if there's a way to do like a poll or a survey on there and kind of start asking people, hey, these are kind of, you know, we've got lots of little projects that we want to do. And if we can, you know, bring it to them and be like, hey, what would you love to see? What are you most interested in? And let that kind of, you know, pull some of our projects too. And, and kind of cater to what people want to learn about. [00:34:11] Speaker 1: Yeah. That excitement is fun to share. So Brett and Kira, you guys have a YouTube channel, right? Where you do lots of cool stuff. Can you tell viewers how they can find that? [00:34:18] Speaker 3: Solarola. Just look up Solarola. Yeah. We have a lot of build videos where we've gone through, you know, start to finish kind of on Redfu's VW bus. I've got all the footage for Redfu's E-Star that I'm going to start putting up there. Trip videos, trying to get into doing more shorts also. Just kind of get, get smaller things up there more frequently, but yeah, join us on, on YouTube. It's great to see a lot of more, you know, longer videos and in depth. [00:34:49] Speaker 1: Nice. That's so valuable because I feel like when you're working on a project, there's nothing better than seeing someone experienced doing it. And you go like, oh, [00:34:56] Speaker 4: that's how you do it. Yeah. I see a, there's a video on your YouTube channel. Is that an electric snowmobile? Yes. All right. Well, we'll let everyone go check that out because that sounds [00:35:05] Speaker 1: awesome. And also I think we should start a little race with these guys. I heard that they want to build an electric converted pontoon boat like we do. I think we should start the clock right now and [00:35:14] Speaker 4: see who gets it done first. No, I think we will definitely lose, but, but which one's faster in the water? Yeah. That's a real race. Okay. Okay. Is that what pontoon boats are supposed to do? They're supposed to go slow. Which one's more relaxing? Okay. Which one can fit more beer on board and keep it cool? Oh, that's a good one. All right. And the kids said that it's got to pull the [00:35:38] Speaker 3: tube and be fun. Right. Yeah. Most pontoons are like a little bit slow. So we've got to get ours a little bit faster. So the pontoon's more. So there's going to be a lot of categories. [00:35:48] Speaker 4: Pulling the tube is more fun. Yeah. We're going to have diving board category, slide. [00:35:52] Speaker 3: Hot slide. Nice. How about a slide? Yes. His sister just told us we need to start looking for a slide. [00:35:57] Speaker 1: Nice. All right. So comment below who you think is going to win that race. That's good. It's always good to have competition. Yeah. [00:36:04] Speaker 3: Come on. All right. Now we, now we really have to do it. All right. We got to go. Let's get there. All right. We got to go figure it out. We, we put some money down on it, but we got to go figure it out. [00:36:14] Speaker 4: Awesome. You're already ahead of us. Oh, that's no good. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us guys. We'll see you next time. Always a pleasure. All right. Bye. Bye.