Cannonball Run record holder Alex Roy on EVs, autonomous vehicles, and investing in deep tech

you doing? What's going on? Welcome. Thanks for having me. Huge fan of the show. I really appreciate you brought you brought me howls of delight when you had booked Sohan last week like 24 hours after the story broke. I'm like you guys are nextgen media. It's fantastic. That's amazing. That's amazing.

Um for those who don't know you, can you uh introduce yourself a little bit of your history but also I I want to talk about what you're up to now and then I'm sure we'll have a bunch of questions.

I'm excited for this intro too because we had another a friend of the show last week who said I had a non-traditional background for venture venture and then he goes on to say that he was like a product product product big tech which is fairly traditional certainly more traditional but I feel like you did have a nontraditional background so so take us through it uh 20 years ago I was really into street racing and I was obsessed with the can history of the cannonball run this illegal race cross country within the 70s and uh and so but as a startup guy I decided to if I was going to break the record I had to approach it like a startup so I wrote like a business plan as if it was a startup the competitive landscape was 18,700 law enforcement agencies and the terrain and the, you know, road conditions.

Uh, but the SWAT analysis, but you're actually worried about and so uh ended up um using everything off the shelf one could use in '05 for mapping. So, you know, Google maps didn't exist. Google Earth had just gone public.

So, I was using Google Earth and its back-end tools uh to figure out, you know, how to plan the drive. Drove cross country a couple times at a practice, had a thermal camera. I I salvaged from from a old Cadillac and um you know, laser jammers, radar detectors, everything one could have.

And then created a map uh of the police locations, dropped it into a Garmin, and then inserted into Google Earth to plan the drive because in Google Earth, it's always daytime, but in the practice run, it's 2/3 at night.

and so plotted latitude, longitude of every potential police trap and spotter plane, triple redundant communications, the whole thing broke the record. Wrote a book about it. Uh, and turns out, and I didn't know this, the DARPA challenges were happening at that time.

And so I got when uh, as soon as Wired magazine did a story about our cannonball uh, drive, I got outreach from all these DARPA teams. And it was all the same thing is, "Oh, Roy, you're using radar, LAR jamming, mapping, everything we use.

you're just selfish and only not trying to help anyone but yourself and we're trying to make roads safer and uh so I became out of that uh an angel investor in like autonomy and mapping and then launched a podcast about uh AVs and EVs because I'm that's that's the future and eventually I got recruited to join Argo AI which was Ford and VW's self-driving car unit where I was an executive for four years and so I little did I know that everything I was doing to try to drive cross country as fast as possible was directly relevant to investing in the future of road safety makes no sense.

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. For for those who might not be super familiar with the Cannonball Run, can you explain uh Red Ball Garage, Portoino, uh the history and kind of where it went now and kind of the current status of the uh I mean it's still illegal, but people are doing it.

There's these there there's these like delays. I see Vin Wiki videos like oh yeah, a year ago I did this run. uh what's the current culture and and and uh and like status of the cannonball?

So uh you know uh the unknown forgotten history of the cannonball is that 100 years ago car companies didn't know how to market you know internal combustion cars. So they hired this guy named Irwin Baker who was a motorcycle racer to drive from New York to California as fast as possible. No gas stations, no highways.

And every few months a car would come out with a slightly larger gas tank or slightly better fuel economy and he would go again.

And so he went from the record his first record I think was uh weeks and eventually cut it down to uh you know some I don't even remember this he did 141 records cross country but that's how you marketed internal combustion back then to prove that it was more efficient than trains and cleaner than horses and as the interstate highway system was built out and um you know speed limits arrived the cannibal culture just evaporated but what is largely unknown is that it was Coca-Cola that underwrote the creation of local and eventually regional gas stations and which unlocked iterations in in better speeds for Baker.

And so if you go forward a hundred years, you could kind of look at electric cars today. As more Tesla superchargers were built, it beca it unlocked electric cannonball records. And in the future we'll have other records.

Uh today um there are maybe I don't know hundred or so people in a in a Facebook group, the Cannonballers group. uh myself, Ed Bolan from Vinwiki who broke my record, Arie Tolman who set it during COVID. And you know, people go on solo runs and occasionally there's a multi-car run.

Um but the modern history is almost entirely based on uh the legacy of Brock Yates. He was a very libertarian editor for Car and Driver. And from 71 to 79, he went he operated a full-on illegal multi-car race.

Uh when it got covered in Time magazine in 75 or 76, it got a a lot of a lot of attention and the last one in 79 then led to the movie and that was the end of Cannonballing in an organized fashion. Um it lives on today in that at the Cannonballers group. Yeah. What what is the what do you think's next for Cannonball?

Do you think people are going to try and uh get creative with the EV challenges because that feels like almost an entirely new dynamic. But then also if you could explain kind of the the idea of like a COVID run and how that might make it kind of impossible to ever reset the record.

I don't know what your take is on that but just giving a little bit of that history because it is fascinating. So you know the traditionalist group is you know multiple cars internal combustion as fast as you can. Yeah. And uh you know I did it in 31 hours uh in in 2006.

Uh and then uh I was the our team was the first team to break it in like 25 years. Yeah. Uh and then 8 years later, Ed Bolian did it in 2850 and then Arie Tolman arrived during co with his team and did it in like 2530ish. So, you know, it is since the co record. What uh what were they driving?

Uh Arie was in an Audi RS6 disguised as a Ford tourist police car. Ed Bowling was in a Mercedes CL 55. I think I was in a BMW M5 disguised as a stormchaser tornado research vehicle. Yes. Um, it's a lot of S63s, E63s, that type of car. I mean, there aren't many American cars that could do it.

Today would be like a Cadillac, you know, C5 Blackwing. Oh, that's what John drives. Great, great car. Fantastic. Perfect. If they could just lift the speed restriction on the Wait, are you in New York right now? I'm in Scots. I'm in Scotsdale. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, I'll see you in like two hours then. You could.

So the um so you know I looked when I looked at the history of cannibal but as an investor I was studying the history of the cannibal because understanding how gas station networks were financed and built and and monetized and eventually made profitable. Um I was like looking at EV charging network business.

I'm like well how does that have they learned anything from 100 years ago? And the answer is no they didn't. And so uh you know the the the lack of infrastructure and the lack of reliable infrastructure with you know uptime was a huge Achilles heel for the EV uh industry and only Tesla figured this out early.

And so uh I looking at Cannibal Baker I'm like well why couldn't I be the cannibal baker of EVs and eventually so in 2014 15 started doing electric records. Uh Tesla was the only vehicle at the time capable of setting these records because of the charging network.

And uh recently I began looking at uh you know Lucids and Porsche TYON and those are the only vehicles that could break the Tesla record. And recently a Porsche TYON second generation became the first car to break the Tesla uh electric record in 39 something 39. What?

And and what goes into a great EV for breaking a cannonball record? Is it just total capacity of the battery or ability to sustain high speeds for a long time? I mean, or battery swapping. Battery swapping seems like logical, but none of the cars have that uh stock. So, I don't know how you do that.

Like a fuel cell is common in a in a gas car, but is there an equivalent in Yeah. I'm also curious what other tech would you would you use today? Would you use a network of drones? I can imagine. Oh, yeah. That's interesting. You know, potentially have thousands of drones spread out.

Well, this is where cannonball history and record-breaking overlaps with investing in defense because if you if you understand the history of like radar detection and laser uh speed measurement and laser jamming, it's all analogous and they are literally parallel tech in defense.

And so um the electric records up until recently because the power density of the batteries is is less than you know a fuel tank full of gas. Your speeds were basically limited to the optimal cruising speed of an EV which is in the 70s. And uh and then you have the issue of the charging networks.

So there's nothing you can really do to a pure EV today. There's not much you can do to increase their efficiency and you certainly can't increase their speed without eating into the into your battery state of charge. But everything comes down to the charging networks.

So when Tesla, you know, when their network was 150 kilowatt across the board, your maximum your minimum time cross country was X. When they went to 250, you char you cut a little time off that.

Uh what's so fascinating about the recent Porsche TYON record is the TYON's EPA battery uh EPA range is less than a Model S longrange which is what I drive.

However, the Electrify America network, which was a terrible charge network for years, um went through upgrades recently, and if you buy the cheapest Porsche TYON with the big battery option in its lightest weight configuration, rear wheel drive only, and you can charge at Electrify America at speeds that are faster than any Tesla.

the cliff in the Porsche battery will let you go uh I think max charge rate slightly beyond 50%. Whereas a Tesla the first cliff is at 20%. So that's how the TYON did it. Less battery range, faster charging deeper into the battery. That's the trick.

A Lucid today has is the longest range EV you can buy, but it does not uh its battery chemistry is not designed for what the Porsche is. And so for the time being, Porsche will hold the record. I think the next generation Tesla or Lucid could take it. Talk about EV the state of EV charging networks today.

Coverage, you know, are networks holding back EVs at all. We live in California. There seems to be plenty of of EV chargers around. Doesn't seem to be any type of bottleneck, but I'm curious nationally.

Well, I think that the non-Tesla charging network, regardless of its ubiquity, has a lot of issues with handshaking and seamless payments and just hook up to your car. Uh Tesla figured this out, you know, out of the gate. Like, it has to be frictionless or people are not going to want to do it.

And so, the American EV charge industry still has a lot of work to do. And uh and even if they do, the non-Teslas on the road, I mean, we have Rivian, Lucid, and the Porsche TYON. Those are all great great models, but other than that, there aren't there isn't like an amazing EV product from any other American OEM.

I mean, some of the Honda some of the Hyundai's are good. And so, you need both half the equation. This is where the Chinese are so strong because the vehicle hardware and software and infrastructure is all very good, dangerously good.

Can you talk about um it it's it's kind of surprising to meet someone who's taken uh you know, traditional combustion engine cars. so seriously to the limit and then be interested in EVs. I feel like a lot of the traditional car guys are like I I would never.

Um so what excites you about EVs broadly and then what do you think about the current state the the change to the EV incentives uh that that are going on right now? Um, how does the outlook look, you know, with with Elon?

Like the Tesla sales are kind of dropping, but that's for a variety of reasons from everything from like political to exports to China to, you know, they're late in the refresh cycle. There's so many different things going on. So, uh, so what excites you about EVs and where do you see it going?

Well, uh, I'm, you know, I'm I think I'm very American in that like I'm totally agnostic of technology. Like what is the coolest, best, newest thing? Are we making it? Let's try it. And if someone else is making it, we should make it. Like that's just that's it. This country became great by ex innovating and exporting.

So I don't care how something works as long as it's really great product. So uh you know the EV tax credit expiring I think it's September. Uh look um it's going to it's not it's not awesome if you're an American car company selling EVs and it's going to certainly slow rate of adoption because prices will go up.

Uh but um the real question is you know how do we depoliticize technologies um from our internal American discourse such that the United States long term can compete in export markets.

I don't really care like about the political opinions of who develops a certain technology because we need to create jobs here and be exporting stuff outside the US and the Chinese are going to kill us long term in the EV market if we don't get on board.

So the EV tax credit expiring sucks, but it's a minor piece in the holistic system that we need to be debating and executing on. And you know, I recently met a woman uh Ela Dinski from the I think the Foundation for American Democracy. She said, "We need a Pentagon for industrial policy.

Uh there doesn't need to be, you know, verticalized monolithic, you know, command economy, but it needs to be a little less chaotic and more focused than we've been. " And I think that's really essential. Uh really really essential. How do we solve the depreciation problem with EVs?

I think it's for for the consumer frustration of like let's say you buy a Model Y, drive it for 9 months and suddenly it's worth half of what you paid. Uh I well I don't know if there is a solution to that.

uh you know I I I probably the best solution is we need to be investing in EVs and supply chain such that we can bring cost down such that there isn't such a huge delta between the new cost and the depreciation and it's I mean all cars depreciate to some extent EVs more so I mean the great news for a lot of Americans is that used EVs are really cheap a lot of them are great I mean used Teslas are fantastic I mean assuming you well don't but don't buy an old Model S but everything else is fantastic Yeah.

Uh, where are you seeing opportunities to invest in or alongside the EV trend? Um, there's so many different parts in the supply chain. There's so many different adjacent products that an EV buyer if you're not going and funding like the next Rivian or the next Lucid, where do you see opportunities for founders?

Well, you know, I you know, automotive is a very small part of my fund, new industry venture capital. Uh I mean a lot of the the biggest bets mostly have been taken and they're very expensive. You know the I think most the opportunities are in in manufacturing and in energy.

Uh however um there is I mean we only do deep tech but outside deep tech there are a lot of opportunities adjacent to transportation and EVs and especially AVs. When people talk about job loss uh you know due to know driverless vehicles I think they are missing the big long-term picture.

uh the there is a universe of startups that don't exist yet even not even barely in conversation over dinner for providing services for passengers in autonomous vehicles. You know my mother um you know she's older and she has some issues with shopping.

She would love to have an attendant or someone just to go with her on trips to go shopping. Like where where is the Uber for elder elder care? That would it's a startup that's adjacent to Uber and Whimo that figures out how to connect them and has a supply of people who can do that.

Most people who are driving Ubers probably shouldn't be just from a safety standpoint, but they'd probably be very good at helping people. And there's a much better long-term opportunity in employment opportunity for that role than there is for driving cars. Yeah.

Now, I'd also add that the the fear and concern and the politization of driverless tech is doesn't track with the history of automation in other other verticals. You know, we used to have 100% penetration of elevator operators in this country. And we went from 100% in 1946 to 1% in like about 1970.

But the total number of people employed by the elevator industry is bigger today than it was ever. Interesting. Because elevators will always be a business, but there's other roles around the elevator industry. That's true of transportation.

So, I just don't buy any of the the panic and doom that that companies new tech at all.

What about uh what about go to markets the race between Whimo and and Tesla obviously very different you know approaches in terms of de you know fleet development uh but I'm curious how you're seeing that race so the race uh there is I mean I used to like to say there isn't a race in AV because there'll be multiple winners there's no one can name an elevator company other than Otus but there are the big five elevator companies on earth they're all big so in AV.

Um, Whimo and Tesla are both going to have products and the people who claim one will win and the other's destroyed, it's absurd.

Uh, but the real race is, you know, can Whimo develop a business model outside of robo taxis before, um, Tesla can generate a business at scale in robo taxis because Whimo is not in the personal ownership business and and Tesla is barely in robo taxi at all.

So Whimo needs to get into the licensing business and probably miniaturaturize their hardware such that it can conform to and become invisible on passenger cars. If Ford or anyone else had Whimo Techch inside, if they could do that now, I mean Tesla's in in a tight spot. Uh but Tesla's got the opposite problem.

They've got to deploy a I would say perceptibly safe system because no one knows what safety means. um and get into the robo taxi business at scale uh with all the friction unique to their business model before uh Whimo can invade their space.

But ultimately, you're going to have three or four or five companies competing in AVTEC. You know, we're we we just seeing growing pains in both companies executing on different business models and that's going to play out. Um they'll both have their place. Um last question uh for me at least.

Um, I'm interested in uh you you compared the cannonball run to uh building a startup business plan. What do you think about the actual activity of racing in a cannonball? That idea of uh of risk takingaking of uh the stress on your body and founding a company. Have you found any analogies between the two?

Well, you know, the can when you actually years of planning go into a cannonball drive and then it's over in, you know, sub 30 hours. I don't know of anything in uh except maybe like an emergency product deployment that would as stressful, physically stressful, but every other component of it is similar.

And in that way, the cannonball is more similar to say a um deployment of a prototype in a uh defense scenario for the first time. and you have you got to deploy it. It may not be ready. You don't know. You spent years developing it. It's go time. That's the closest analog.

And I I I spent a lot of time with, you know, law enforcement and uh defense folks today. And um I'm constantly amazed that they find what I did so interesting because to me it's nowhere near as interesting as as what they do.

But then when you start talking about laser jamming and communications and mapping, spoofing, you know, a know aircraft transponders to mask your location and then I'm like, yes, conceptually it is all the same thing.

Uh I I would also remark that um there's something profoundly um American about the cannonball which I think points to like the spirit of innovation.

It isn't unique to the United States, but that drives American dynamism, which is that whatever the rules are, how far beyond them can we go successfully without hurting anyone. Let's go, let's find out. And that is the opposite mindset of a lot of founders from other countries and sadly Europe. Yep.

No, that makes no sense. Makes sense. Last question from me. The CEO of Ford was recently making some comments.

one basically talking about white collar work broadly which felt more like he was just paring you know maybe Daria or something like that but on the other side he's been very outspoken about how innovative you know Chinese EV manufacturers have been um at multiple different kind of touch points do you think that American car manufacturers outside of Tesla have the will to start to innovate at the level of of some of these Chinese EVs.

Well, I know Farley and I and you know, to his credit, uh after I set my last electrical record in a Tesla, uh he he invited me to dinner and sat next to me and grilled me on everything about Tesla Model 3. So, he's he's good. Uh he's on it. Um and the Mache reflects some of those those lessons.

Yeah, the Mache the R I my buddy my neighbor has a has a Mache Rally and it's great wild car. It's good. Uh look uh you know the Chinese um car market um has been there for anyone to see who wanted to go over there and do competitive intelligence for years.

And the same thing's happening now has happened in the 70s when the Japanese arrived in the United States. People weren't paying attention because like oh they can't these foreign they can't innovate. They don't know what they're doing X Y and Z. Well guess what they did and the cars are great.

and friends of mine, uh, Kevin Williamson's a journalist who went to China and has driven everything. He's like, "The cars are better than anything sold here, uh, even Tesla because they're built better than Teslas. " So, we've got a problem.

Uh, the only companies that are really have an opportunity in in the near to midterm are, you know, Lucid and Rivian and Tesla from the United States. Uh, the other the legacy OEMs have individual models that are okay. Maki, you know, okay.

uh uh I don't know what's coming what GM's got but the real question is what could be exported to any other country to compete with a Chinese car in that market and the answer right now is other than Tesla basically nothing um Lucid stands alone it's a luxury model it's really good uh and Rivians are very cool because the products are great but we are in a tight spot and you know we need to whatever your politics are the United States needs to have national champions that are exporting We shouldn't be talking about Tesla versus Whimo.

We should be talking about Tesla and Whimo and exporting the hell of anything we can that employs Americans here that are great products that then support the American soft power narrative for the rest of the century. Yeah, that's great. Great answer. I completely agree. Uh thank you so much for stopping by.

Yeah, we got to do this again soon. This is super fun. Anytime, guys. Love you. Thanks so much for hopping. Cheers, Alex. Well, if you have an opinion about a public car company, get on public. com. investing for those who take it seriously.

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