 Planet Research, which is an improved line for NASA and international space station folks, the one that they built custom helmets for the spacesuits, and that's a really cool place. So thanks to Blue Planet and Palpanteo for letting me use his room to broadcast from, and what his broadcast is to broadcast with. Today's show we've got a guest for a change. I haven't had a guest for almost a month now. Get used to the new studio setup and everything. A good friend of mine from the Big Island also, they've deluded particularly, but on the whole island of the Big Island of Hawaii for many, many, many years. His whole family has been in business, including automotive business. And he happens to be a Toyota dealer, distributor ship here on the Big Island. And I wanted to talk to him a little bit about the trials and tribulations of bringing in new kinds of vehicles like Toyota brought in the Prius and now they're starting off with fuel cell vehicles, the Toyota Mirai. And so we're going to talk a little bit with Dave about what he has to do to set up if he ever wants to get these vehicles here, and some of the stumbling blocks, and some of the things that the government has to do, and some of the things that he'd have to actually work over money to get started if he wants to venture into new technology. So Dave, welcome to the show. I appreciate you being on, especially short notice. I appreciate it. A couple of things. One is that my interest in the discussion of alternative energy, especially transportation, came about with my participation in the County of Hawaii Mayor's Advisory Energy Committee a couple years back and looking to see and understand how we become self-sufficient. And the irony of it is that you were on the counterpart of that, not knowing what was going on. So two things. One is that because we're an auto dealer, we get access to a tremendous amount of insight to what's going on. And I think if I recall, Stan, that was it about a year ago that you were at the grand opening of the surfpool, their first hydrogen station. Right. I was actually with a road ground as they built the thing. I'd go and check on it every once in a while. And then when they finally had the grand opening and the governor to the keynote remarks, yep, I was there. And that was really in such a time because that was the first commercial hydrogen station in the state of Hawaii. And it's on a Wahoo where they had some vehicles. And in fact, I think prior to that, maybe as much as five or six years earlier, my first introduction was with General Motors and they're looking at a Wahoo on using Hawaii gas distribution system to actually do stations and using the pipelines. It's my understanding that hydrogen is lighter than the natural gas. And so it floats to the top. That's right. And they were looking to try to have a Wahoo as one of their test sites. Unfortunately, General Motors at that time and even today has elected to go more electric, although that's a mission number two because essentially a hydrogen vehicle is an electric car. And really one of the things that I credit to you in working with the ledge, you got that change for us. Yeah, finally, and this last session, they finally changed that. So they are including all hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles are included in all electric vehicle legislation of parking, HOV lane, all fuel cell vehicles now. So as part of that conversation and moving forward, I was able to meet a gentleman, but then Peter Matlock, who at that time, it still is associated with the joint energy, bioenergy lab in Northern California. And although their project has been looking using biofuels, one of the challenges with biofuels is the amount of BTU energy it takes to produce, which is one of the other things that you have given me some insight to and which in reality has been one of the most difficult scenarios in getting us off the fossil fuel non-products hit that we have as a country in a world. When it takes to produce a one BTU unit of energy, biofuels are one of the worst converters. And in fact, when you look at the fossil fuel imprint that it takes to produce a one unit of BTU, that's one of the challenges we have, which by the way, is the other reason hydrogen excites me over it pure electric is because the batteries that are used in electric vehicles are probably more detrimental to the environment than the fossil fuel admittance, which unfortunately, I don't think most people understand that context of it. Now, hydrogen on the other hand, essentially, when it's burnt, it literally turns into water. I mean, there's no emissions. And in fact, one of the things that we've been working on and so have you is understanding the use of curtailed energy to produce hydrogen, which my understanding talking to Richard Ha, that might become more of a reality with the advent of more interest in geothermal. Yeah, I think Richard's working on that and actually Paul Ponto, Mitch Ewan and I are working feverishly to get the Helion bus system start to convert over to hydrogen fuel cell buses and some other projects, maybe rental cars and things like that. So there's a lot going on in the big island in hydrogen, but you've been around to witness the Prius coming on board and kind of the growing pains that comes along with bringing a new technology into your industry and into your dealerships. How much in terms of training for the mechanics and parts and things like that that now you have to bring in? What are some of the challenges that you face when you have to bring in new technology or you're going to bring in new technology? So I think one of the unfortunate scenarios during the first generation Prius, the misnomer was that you got into an accident. One is that the emergency personnel would not or would have a problem cutting you out or if you needed the jaws of life. One was the electrocution, one was the instability of the batteries. All of those things were there and so there was a great effort that was made to train first responders in that regard, also from the perspective of the technicians. This was a totally different drive frame that they had to learn and understand. So I think that learning curve in the first generation of the Prius was a little iffy, but I think Tutuotis credit, they put a lot of effort in being able to quam those questions and then they were able to quickly adapt to the second generation, which became much more acceptable because it didn't look like an hot-ball car like the first generation Prius did. Not to mention that the versatility of the second generation and the ability for it and the diagnostic side became much, much easier. So Tutuotis supported us tremendously in training our people. We have been really fortunate the car has been very reliable, but putting that aside, the complexity I think was more of a misunderstanding of the technology and not having it, I guess, adaptive. It's almost when, for example, fuel injection when it first came out, well technically fuel injection has been around since the early 1900s. Excuse me, the 1930s and it didn't resurface until the 70s and that was like far into a lot of technicians, but one of the things I can say with the new Prius and of course the Prius Prime is that along with the battery technology, although Toyota has elected not to go to NiCatch yet because they feel that the current battery system is more reliable, that there's been high receptivity. And the other thing which I don't really understand how Toyota has done it is the price point. The Prius price point is extremely affordable for that vehicle type. Yeah, there's, you know, in Hawaii, I don't know who they're, I don't know, tens of thousands of Prius is running around. My neighbor has one, a lot of folks have them and they really love them. And so I think the industry or at least the automotive press wasn't really positive on electric vehicles to begin with and the Prius in particular. And they were basically writing the obituary for the Prius before the thing even rolled out. And then lo and behold, Toyota really got it out there and it's turned out to be a very popular car. Are you hoping that the same thing will happen with Mariah, the fuel cell vehicle? You know, that's actually what's been my promise. In fact, we've been working with Servco and their biggest challenge, of course, in getting it to be more distributed outside of Oahu. One, of course, is the technical, the technicians, the capacity to be able to service it, but even more so is the availability of fuel. And you know, one of the challenges which you have worked on is to get more continuity between the manufacturers on the, I'm going to say this incorrectly, but I do believe each manufacturer has a different degree of fuel quality that they need to have their vehicles run on. Although my understanding as of the Hyundai and the Kia Souls coming online, not the Soul, but Kia, that there's more moving towards more of a standardization in regards to the fuel quality and the production of fuel. Yeah, what's been happening is Toyota and their early adopters on the hydrogen fuel cell technology have held a really tough line on the purity of the hydrogen. And that's actually driven some of the price point issues. Keeping the hydrogen at 99, we call it 5.9, 99.999% pure is the number one that's really hard to measure that much, let alone certify it. And Toyota is very picky about that certification. What we found is now a lot of the cars they've been selling in California are reaching the end of their lease period, and people are selling them and buying used Mirage. And then they go to whatever station they want and fill whatever they want. And the vehicles are responding just fine to any kind of hydrogen that goes in there, as long as it's reasonably pure. And just for your information, a friend of mine is going to probably bring 10 or 11 used Mirage to the big island here this year, we're hoping. And so you'll have a bunch of people driving Toyota Mirage around that you're fueling at Paul Foxio's place, or we may even stand up from the independent station. So we may have some on the island before Toyota sent you new one. Well, you know, it's interesting that Hawaii was the one of two California, of course, was the first market in Hawaii, was picked as the second to introduce the Mirage. And so it seems from all data that I've looked at, that the state of Hawaii is generally speaking in regards to it. They tend to be early adopters of this type of technology. Now, that's not saying that it's public policy that drives this. I think it's the consciousness of the people that are here that are wanting this. And a big part of it, I got to take hats off to Hank and his people of really pushing this concept of being, you know, in 2045, we'd be non-dependent on fossil fuels. But you know, the one thing that amazes me with Toyota in regards to hydrogen, and by the way, one of the things that also I think that is a misnomer is hydrogen is very adaptive in transformation. So for example, in class, in buses and in class three vehicles, one of the things that impresses me that you can do, you can do a parallel system, but you can actually have it to be a generator too. And so, you know, this is one of the things that I don't know that policymakers really totally understand the capacity. We're in the middle of nowhere, right? The most isolated archipelago in the world. I mean, it's just a matter of when a major disaster worker, well, we're kind of in one at the moment now. And one of the things with having these systems in place, especially these larger parallel systems, is they actually can co-gent an emergency facility so they have to make a triage hospital in the middle of the field. These systems could potentially be those generators. Well, I got good news for you. Mitch Ewan, the three buses that he's ginning up for the Hellion bus, the county bus company, or the county bus service, they're all set up to generate power to sites like you're talking about. So, yes, that's no longer a dream. We had one of our vehicles manufactured that way for the Air Force, and Mitch decided to do the same thing with the same technology, the same platforms, on the three county buses that are going to come to the big up. So, it's headed this way. You know, we're going to take a quick break here and be back in 60 seconds with more talking Toyota and sustainable transportation with Dave DeLewis from the big house. I'm Rusty Kamori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness. I feature a wide range of amazing guests who share valuable insights about how going beyond the lines leads to success in everything you do in life. I'm looking forward to you joining me every Monday at 11 a.m. Aloha. Hey, welcome back to Stand the Energy Man, coming to you live and direct from North, and we're talking to Mr. Dave DeLewis. He's over in Hilo, actually, so we're two separate locations trying to pay attention to all the quarantine rules for the coronavirus stuff. I am still drinking Corona beer, by the way, and I haven't tried anything, so I would encourage all of you to cut Corona some slack and drink some of their beer so they don't go bankrupt. We have enough economic issues going on with this virus, so support your local brewery. But Dave, we're talking about, there's some challenges when you get a new vehicle like the Prius or you get the new Marais, and Hawaii is actually not only an early adopter for these sustainable transportation, like the plug-in electrics, they all started in Hawaii too. We had, that was part of the HCAP thing before I was involved with HCAP, but the one thing that we don't have that a lot of the mainland states have is that ZEV, the Zero Mission Vehicle designation where they do carbon trading and things like that. Hawaii decided not to become a ZEV state, so it's been a real handicap for us to get the dealerships to bring the vehicles in because they don't get any kind of a credit for bringing in those vehicles in a non-ZEV state like Hawaii. In California, they get off-steps, so if they want to bring in their luxury vehicles, they have to bring in so many fuel-efficient and clean energy vehicles, and that's why California has kind of taken off that and the amount of money California dumps into the program. So far we've been botched by two things. We're not a ZEV state, and the legislature doesn't give us any money to put the stations out there, which boggles my mind when the county can spend $10 billion on a rail program that only services a small percentage of our population. They can't afford to build a few stations and help dealerships like you out with new vehicles. So, but from your perspective and from your end, you know, what are some of the things you have to consider when you get a new technology vehicle on board? You know, so it actually predates the EV RAV4. So, you know, it's only available in California and one other state right now, and we looked at bringing that in. And so one of the challenges of that was that, you know, we weren't going to be able to have the necessary support as far as getting parts and tech support, only because the model was not available in the state. Now, the Mariah, on the other hand, is a totally different deal. Because the Mariah is in state, CERFCO has just limited the ability for the Mariah to be sold outside of Oahu because of, primarily from my understanding, it's more of the availability of fuel. So, you know, it's my understanding Mitch is very, very close of getting his plant up and running. And so, it seems to me that I think it's the third quarter of this year is when they anticipate having production capacity to be able to at least take care of the Kelley on buses. Yeah, he's really anxious to get it online. The only thing they've been working on, so we come back is their fire suppression system. They've had it installed and everything. And it's the kind that meets the local code requirements that they're looking for. There's so much corrosion in the environment, they're right down at Nelha, near the ocean. Right. And on days like today, when you have a lot of CERF pounding against that coastline, the salt spray wreaks havoc on a lot of the electrical components. And the fire suppression system was one of the corrosion victims. So, they've had to reinstall the system and he's waiting for the recertification. So, it's all fire suppression. The station's up, it's been producing, it's ready to go. We're just waiting for the go ahead from the county and state to get it going. So, Stan, you brought up a very interesting perspective. Is the misnomer of the Zephyllin and what hydrogen was in the people's mind about what that fuel is about, which by the way is totally a bad rep for hydrogen. But putting that aside and going back to your question, I think what's going to happen is what happened about eight years, maybe not quite, they were some early, Hawaii Electric Light Company on the big island actually converted a bunch of pre-uses to all electric. They did it on their own. And I think what's going to happen here is the same thing, is because we have the ability, although it may not necessarily be what Toyota would like, we'll probably have access and resources to be able to get support. So, although we're not technically a certified Mariah dealer, I think once the vehicles are on island, that's going to change the composition of how that's looked at. That's good news, Dave, because I don't still have the... And by the way, I'm only surmising now. I'm not saying they will. I know. We wouldn't want you to make a promise you couldn't keep. Well, that's my sister. She's in charge of the dealership. She'd probably shoot me. But again, based on some of the things I'm involved with, I think it will become an opportunity for Toyota to be able to expand the market in regards to the receptivity. I know that there has been at least five inquiries that I've received of people wanting and interested in the Mariah, but until the used ones have been coming online, they were not able to get new ones to be shipped here. Okay. Well, you brought up your sister and I don't want to throw some flowers at you. People may think that, well, we're talking about a dealership on the big island in the middle of the Pacific and so what? But your dealership won a national award, not from Toyota, but that was from an independent... Yes. Yes. My sister, Jackie, who runs our dealerships, was nominated to be a time ally dealer of the year award in Las Vegas. That's big stuff. Across the whole North America and Hawaii, and I'm not sure how far that reach went, but that's a big deal for a dealership like yours. Yes. We've been very blessed. She's done a great job. And plus, I see more Toyota Tacomas and Tundra's and stuff driving on the highways over here on the big islands, if that could mean anything else. Tacoma sell more than any other vehicle in the state? On this island for sure, but it is the number one subcompact truck in the state, which is, you know, we've been very fortunate and up until this last model change, which was in 2017, it's become even more popular. So without giving away classified information, when is they going to make a Tacoma on fuel cell, run on fuel cell? You know, I'm not sure. I'm hoping that where this is going to probably move towards, and I'm trying to get my good friend, and he's yours as well, at HECO to help to drive this policy and initiative on probably starting with the utility. And he has been very receptive so, you know, we probably have to, when he's on island next time, stand, we've got to unite Corralum and see where we can get him interested in some type of collaboration. That's a deal. You know, I'm over here an awful lot now. And he does come home. He does come home. He lives on the big island. He doesn't want to live on a wall. So that's good news. Can't say I blame him. I grew up on a wall and I want to move to the big island. So we're coming up on the end of our 30 minutes here, David. I want to thank you again for a especially short notice. And I know you had a late night last night with a bunch of cranky shareholders or stakeholders that I'm one of. So thanks for putting up with a late notice show if you don't understand any of that. But keep on pushing. I know you do a lot behind the scenes to get sustainable transportation and renewable energy on the grid in the state here. So I thank you for that effort and I appreciate all the help that you give Paul and Mitch and I when it comes to working with the legislature and those folks. My pleasure. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. All right. So until next week, hello, and we'll catch you from Oahu next week. Hopefully coronavirus free. So remember, keep drinking that beer.