The TechMobility Podcast
Welcome to The TechMobility Podcast, your ultimate source for authentic insights, news, and perspectives at the nexus of mobility and technology. We're all about REAL FACTS, REAL OPINIONS, and REAL TALK! From personal privacy to space hotels, if it moves or moves you, we're discussing it! Our weekly episodes venture beyond the conventional, offering a unique, unfiltered take on the topics that matter. We're not afraid to color outside the lines, and we believe you'll appreciate our bold approach!
The TechMobility Podcast
Stellantis’ EV Pivot, Headlight Fails, Indoor Farms, and Coal’s Next Act
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What if being “late” saved you billions—but cost you the future? We examine Stellantis’ decision to cancel the pure-electric Ram 1500 and explore the larger question behind it: whether pausing EV investments during a downturn preserves cash or erodes the expertise needed to succeed later. From GM’s Ultium investment to Nissan’s early lead with the Leaf—and how it slipped—we connect the dots on how timing, tooling, and relentless R&D influence who leads and who follows.
Safety takes center stage as we analyze new IIHS results for seven EVs. The surprising culprit? Headlights. Despite LEDs and modern design, none received a “good” rating, and some models underperformed on rear-seat protection under stricter standards. We explain what the ratings mean, why rear occupants are now a focus, and how these findings should inform both buyers and engineers.
Next, we leave the highway for the city center, where empty offices turn into vertical farms. We follow a team growing lettuce, mushrooms, and microgreens on 18-foot racks, shrinking “hundreds of acres” of output into just a few thousand square feet. By bringing the farm closer to consumers, they cut down on miles, waste, and costs—reframing urban real estate as food infrastructure and making fresh produce possible in areas that lack it.
Finally, we confront the grid as it is, not as we wish it to be. Coal still exists; demand for reliable power, heavy industry, and exports keeps trains running from the Powder River Basin, while modern underground mines automate and enhance safety. We outline the realities of baseload power, the pace of the transition, and why gas and coal remain essential bridges until nuclear and storage can scale.
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SPEAKER_03:I'm Ken Chester. On the Docket. IIHS test EVs from empty offices to indoor farms and the future of American coal. You're more than welcome to add your voice to the conversation, be it to ask a question, share an opinion, or even suggest an idea for a future show via the Tech Mobility Online. That number 872-222-9793. Or you can email the show directly, talk at techmobility.show. For those of you that enjoy Substack, you can find me there too as a proud member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, and that's at Ken C Iowa. K-E-N, the letter C I O W A. From the Tech Mobility News Desk. Here's a case where being last was actually an excellent idea. Being last into the marketplace actually may have saved Stellantis billions of dollars. And trust me, that doesn't happen all that often. Usually, last means that there's no room for you at the in and you're just out of luck. And what am I talking about? I'm talking about Rams' decision to kill their pure electric 1500 truck that's been under development. They kind of teased us back two years ago. It's going to be in production last year, got delayed to 2027, and now with the market doing a hard turn away from pure EVs, they said, you know what? We're not going to build the truck. Now, to their credit, their sales of the half ton has been pretty good. They really haven't had much of a problem. And it doesn't really like seem like they've suffered that much as a result. But it's this case that deferring actually worked better. You can ask Ford with the Lightning, you can ask Chevy and GMC with the Silverado EV and the Sierra EV and the Hummer EV by GMC. Well, let me let me just turn this for a minute. On the one hand, in the short realm of things, it's probably a good idea that they cancel this truck. I mean, after all, Stilantis was spread thin financially, spread thin, talent-wise, spread thin. And I've been saying that from the get for a number of years now, ever since Stellantis came into creation, they didn't have the needed to make that happen. Also, you may not have realized this, but in recent years, RAM actually had what we call a mild hybrid. They had an engine, their V6 engine, working with what they call an e-hybrid system, a 48-volt kind of extra generator to give an extra boost and give slightly better fuel economy. So it's not as if they don't have anything. That's on the one hand. If you look at the industry as a whole, if you look at the commitment and the exercise and the tooling necessary, everything necessary for that knowledge, this could come back to bite them in later years. And what do I mean? In order for GM to get to where they are, they made a considerable investment in their developing of their Ultium batteries, the relationships they had with battery suppliers, and developed a whole architecture to support it. As a result, they've got a number of pure EV vehicles. Everything from the Cadillac Escalade IQ to the Hummer EV to both trucks. And GM didn't stop there. In their research, in the money that GM spent, their large trucks are getting a range of 460 miles between chargers. 460. There's only two vehicles in the marketplace that beat them, and neither one's a truck. One's a loot is the Lucid Air Sedan, the other one is a special configuration of the Tesla Model S, I believe the Model S plaid. Both of those get 500, but they're smaller and less versatile. One thing you can be sure of in the auto industry, there are always ups and downs, and it's been that way since it started. It's never years and years and years and years of prosperity. In fact, in the 70s and early 80s, it used to be, I could almost measure it, four years of prosperity, four years of recession. Literally a cycle. The companies that prospered, the companies that survived, were the companies that kept spending RD through the lousy times. How do you think Toyota, how do you think Hyundai got to where they are now? When the market turned down, they didn't take their foot up off RD. They kept at it. They even dabbled in stuff that at the time didn't seem to make much sense. But when they came out the other end, they came out stronger for it. Let me give you another case in point, another company 20 years ago that was fortuitous in their timing, and that was the Ford Motor Company. Right before the bottom fell out of the housing market, right before the recession, the Ford Motor Company, under the leadership of Alan Malale, was looking at developing a new platform, a new engine family, a bunch of new core things. They were developing their eco-boost line of engines. And when you're developing engines, you're looking at 20, 25, 30 years down the road, you're making a major investment. The Ford Motor Company borrowed billions of dollars and then borrowed on top of that, just to be sure, five billion more. Ford borrowed so much money on this gamble, they even mortgaged the Ford logo. To give you an idea. How did it turn out? While GM and Chrysler was retrenching as a result of recession, the Ford Motor Company was developing and perfecting their ACO boost line of engines, which they're still using now to their credit, to their strength. It's all a matter of timing. And what anybody, if you've been a student of the auto industry, the one thing you will see over and over when the going got tough, the visionary automotive companies kept their research, kept spending money and development. They did not, they may have cut everywhere else, but research and development was nothing that suffered. Let me flip the script for you. Let's talk about a company who did just that. They cut back, they had leadership and lost it. And now they're fighting for their lives again. And that's Nissan. I've been picking on Nissan lately. Twive years ago, Nissan was in the same shape. Carlos Gone from Renault came into the rescue, turned the company around. That fell apart about six, seven years ago. Nissan finds itself in worse shape now. And bear in mind, in 2010, the Nissan Motor Company was a pioneer at bringing to market the first full consumer ownable EV. That was the Nissan Leaf in 2010. To give you an idea how far we've come, in 2010 it was the only pure EV. The volt didn't count because it was a range extender. It wasn't really an E it wasn't a pure EV. It was an EV made it to an electric to a gasoline motor. The Leaf in 2010, 2011, had a range of 100 miles. That's it. Nissan could have continued to build on that leadership and could have spawned hybrids and everything. But somewhere between then and now, they lost track. They lost vision. They didn't keep on it. And as a result, now they're fighting to catch up in a market they owned 15 years ago. They owned this market. They could have commanded it. They could have continued. And with all the technology in battery improvements, in chemistries, in battery management systems, in packaging battery packs, whole engineering, materials, all of this has advanced mightily in these last 15 years. And Nissan, the vehicle that they finally did bring out before a revised, a new next generation Leaf was the Ariah. And the Ariah was a wonderful vehicle. But now, because the situation they're in now, the Ariya is getting discontinued in order to push the Leaf. The problem is, Nissan's financial situation and supply constraints are such that American dealers are only going to get 500 leaves a month. And that's no way to run, that's no way to run a business, folks. So Celantis got lucky. And they're reef they're reformatting and they're repositioning. But it doesn't always work that way. This was just a case where the stars aligned for them. But I gotta wonder if taking their foot up now is the right thing to do, even if they don't build it. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently tested seven EVs. We discussed the results. You are listening to the Tech Mobility Show.
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SPEAKER_03:To learn more about the Tech Mobility Show, start by visiting our website. I'm Ken Chester, host of the Tech Mobility Show. The website is a treasure trove of information about me and the show, as well as where to find it on the radio across the country. Keep up with the happenings at the Tech Mobility Show by visiting Techmobility.show. You can also drop us a line at talk at Techmobility.show.
SPEAKER_01:Every great business starts with a spark, but taking it to the next level takes strategy, connections, and capital. That's where Playbook Investors Network comes in. We're your strategic partner for accelerating growth, navigating challenges, and capturing market opportunities before your competition does. Your business is more than an idea. Let's make it an impact. Playbook Investors Network. Your future starts here. Learn more at pincommunity.org.
SPEAKER_00:After we improved Limit Grand Voyager's suspension system to make it even more carlike, we tested it with some very sophisticated, highly sensitive equipment. Limit Grand Voyager, only from the minivan store, extra Chrysler and Limit Dealer.
SPEAKER_03:The biggest deal in the mid-1990s was the introduction of the dual sliding doors on minivans. Up till then, for the first 15 years of minivan existence, you had the sliding door on the passenger side. In 1996, Chrysler Corporation, when they redesigned their minivan, had dual sliding doors and it took off. It changed the industry. People lost their ever-living minds. It was the option that people didn't know that they wanted. And it caught the market by storm so much so that Ford and GM, which were also marketing minivans at the time, were caught flat-footed. Ford even tried an oversized driver's side door to try to recoup because they couldn't afford and didn't have the time to completely engineer the vehicle for it's like an or a driver's side sliding door. It was that big a deal. People will remember that then. In fact, so much so, it was so successful that it ended up phasing out the short wheel-based minivans that people don't even remember now that there were short wheel-based minivans in favor of the longer dual-door minivans that most people know now. There were actually a smaller version of these minivans, folks, back in the day. But not so much now. All because of a second driver's side sliding door. As the saying goes, who knew? It was a thing. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and its sister organization, the Highway Loss Data Institute, have been positively influencing safety designs in American cars and trucks for over 60 years. Never content to rest on one set of laurels or standards, the organization has continuously updated the requirements and standards, taking into consideration the many changes that continue and can that continue to impact the automotive industry continuously. Yeah. Recently, the organization subjected seven electric vehicles to a battery crash test. We review the findings. This is topic A. Let me stop right here. No. T haters out there, no. None of them caught fire. Don't even. Wasn't even an issue. But they were crashed every kind of way that they could be crashed, just like the regular gasoline versions. Offset frontal crash. Uh, they were T-boned, they were rear-ended. All these things were done to them. Five of them earned good moderate overlap ratings. But for all seven of them, you know what the major flaw was with all seven of them? Bet you can't guess. The headlights. The headlights were considered inaccurate, at best, adequate, but not enough to get their soft safety pick award or top safety pick plus. None of them did well enough to qualify for that on the strength. They had some other strengths and weaknesses, but all of them fell flat with headlights. Now, after all these years, you would think that if anything, that it would be something that Detroit was still trying to grapple with, that the automakers were still trying to grapple with after all these years. But headlights? Really? Really? Yeah, really. And it was a wide variety, the seven. And these are all brand new. BMW I4, Chevy Blazer EV, Tesla Cybertruck built after April of this year, Volkswagen ID Buzz, Nis Nissan Araya, Chevy Blazer EV, and the Ford F-150 Lightning. These are the vehicles. None of them even got a good rating for headlight performance. And I'm trying to figure out, yo, automakers, really? Really? And I'm particularly surprised at Ford because they know how to make what I call industrial strength headlights. If you don't believe me, I'm going to take you back 30 years. The 1995 Ford contour would light up a city. That thing had incredible headlights. And that was 30 years ago. What did Ford forget in 30 years? The Tesla design was too cute for its own good. That single strip ain't enough, people. Didn't get it done. As far as BMW, Chevy, Volkswagen, what their excuses, Nissan, really? You guys have been building vehicles for years. In some cases, over a hundred years. And yet can't get headlights right? Here's the real kicker, though. Did you realize that prior to the late 1970s, headlight illumination, placement, and shape was all governed by federal law? That after about 1978, the federal government stopped doing that and let the automakers do their thing. And you would think, if anything, they'd get better. I mean, with LED lighting, which is brighter lighting generally, you would think, oh, this is a slam dunk. This is easy. No. No. No. They didn't get it. The instant Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has released new evaluations for these seven electric vehicles. They focused on crash protection, pedestrian avoidance, and headlight performance. These tests highlight varying levels of safety across popular models, with some excelling in protecting occupants, while others show room for improvement. Let me take you somewhere that I didn't think we'd be back literally 20 years later, 24 years later. Back about 2001, the IIHS crash tested a Ford F-150. Offset frontal crash test. And bear in mind, full disclosure, there are no federal guidelines or standards for an offset frontal crash. All these improvements have come because of the IIHS testing. The Ford F-150, it was horrible. They showed it the whole capsulate for it. It was ugly. Ford corrected a problem. You would think they would remember. In contrast, this 25 years later with the Ford F-150 Lightning, it rates poor, showing high risk of chest, head, or neck injuries. But guess what? Not for front seat passengers, but for rear seat passengers. The Nissan Raya also received a marginal rating, offering good driver protection, but high chest injury risk for those in the back seat. Now, in fairness, the gasoline versions, because they just upgraded these three years ago, 2022, they changed this to concentrate on risky passengers. So while this sounds horrible, and it is, it ain't alone because the gasoline models, a lot of them are not doing that well either. Out of the 71 that previous year qualified for top safety pick, the revised standards eliminated half of them. Only about 40, 45 of them made it into that. So obviously, the automaker's got some work to do. I'm surprised at the headlights. I really am. Because that should have been a no-brainer. It should have been a slam dunk. I mean, really, you guys? Really? Of all the things, headlight performance. Headlight performance. A lot, five of them did fine in the moderate overlap front test. Oh well. From empty offices to thriving indoor farms, things are still changing as a result of the pandemic. This is the Take Mobility Show.
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SPEAKER_03:Did you know that Tech Mobility has a YouTube channel? Hi, I'm Ken Chester, host of the Tech Mobility Show. Each week, I upload a few short videos of some of the hot topics that I cover during my weekly radio program. I've designed these videos to be informative and entertaining. It's another way to keep up on current mobility and technology news and information. Be sure to watch, like, and subscribe to my channel. That's the Tech Mobility Show on YouTube. Check it out. A recent study by Moody's Analytics found that in the second quarter of this year, office vacancy rates were above 20% nationwide, with many of the office buildings across the United States that were still emptied by the pandemic, still empty, almost four years later. Obviously, this is a concern to a wide variety of stakeholders from banks and other financial institutions who hold the mortgages. The city governments worry about a shrinking tax base and others. Enter Area 2 Farms, a three-year-old company based in Arlington, Virginia, that is taking the concept of indoor farming to unusual places. This ain't your grandfather's greenhouse. This is topic B. Empty office buildings. It is a major concern even now because, in spite of all the return to work orders, in most cities, in most downtown areas, they have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. There was a shift during the pandemic, it was a permanent shift, and it was hastened by the lockdown orders. That was happening anyway. People decided to get back in balance in their work-to-life balance. And for many people, that meant, when possible, when they could, working from home. So what do you do with these buildings? Well, we've talked about at length them being repurposed for residences. But that is very financially intensive, and unfortunately, these buildings were not built to be repurposed. So what do you do? Well, for this company, Area Two Farms, they took, they went into a low-slung brick building, and they grow dozen varieties of crops, all sorts of crops, all sorts of stuff. And the thing is that they're able to go vertical. So successful is this venture that they're backed now by nine million dollars in new funding from at least three different venture capital firms. And they're looking to build 10 new farms across the United States next year. They're pursuing opportunities in Philadelphia, Charlotte, Nashville, South Florida, Orlando, Austin, Raleigh Durham, and Atlanta. Their goal is to build indoor farms within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population. That's a laudable goal. Proximity is the driving idea behind the company. The founder grew up in South Florida and he remembers a time when oranges were typically bought not at a grocery store, but literally from an actual orange grove, directly from the farmer who grew them. Today, studies estimate that most produce travels hundreds of miles before it reaches the end consumer. Let me help you with that. Speaking of somebody who worked for a grocery store here in central Iowa, hundreds of miles, I beg your pardon, thousands of miles. Particularly in the winter time. If you're enjoying corn on the ear outside of regular season, and regular season here in Iowa runs from just around just around 4th of July to the end of August, then it's coming 1,200 to 1,300 miles away, typically Florida or Texas. Those blueberries you're going to enjoy this winter, they're going to come from Peru. A lot of produce. Grapes, this winter, they'll come from Peru. As a matter of fact, even in the depth of the pandemic, I stocked lemons as far away as South Africa in Iowa. The grocery chain sourced lemons from South Africa. How many months were those things in transit? And I won't even tell you about the amount of produce that shows up that never makes it to the floor because it's already rotten. We gotta pitch it. That quality is so bad when we get it that it's not even worth it, it's not even fit because of all the traveling. You don't realize all the traveling. And I think that's his point. As a result of the distance, the stores are asking growers to produce things that are more shelf stable, not necessarily more diverse or more nutritional. How far do you think bananas travel? Nicaragua, Costa Rica? How long are they in the supply chain? By the time you get them? Peaches, apples, apples in Iowa typically come from the Pacific Northwest. So you're looking at about 1800 miles, and however long that takes? Oh yeah, the supply chain for your produce is long. And a lot of times a lot longer than you think. Those strawberries you're gonna enjoy this winter, they come from Mexico. And normally watermelon varieties and things like that, they'll come from either Texas or Mexico or Florida. And in some cases, believe it or not, even Arizona. Yeah, Arizona. So what he's looking at is moving the farm, not the food, because his argument is the closer the far the closer you are to the farm, the more nutrition, the fresher, the more opportunity for a diversity of fruits and vegetables that you can have. The company's pilot farm in Arlington produced its first crop in the fall of 2022, three years ago. Since then, the company estimates that it's produced more than 20,000 harvests using a modular rack-based system that automatically moves crops through a cycle of mimic daylight and darkness. They're not the first. But what we're seeing is with increasing cost inputs, trying to eliminate cost by eliminating the cost of transportation is a major one. To reduce time, which reduces spoilage, I mean, there's a lot of advantages of moving the crop closer to where it's going to be consumed. It's fresher, still has a lot of nutrients in it. The cost is lower. So you get fresher fruit for a lower cost in a quicker situation. Sounds like a win-win-win. The way they work it, planted in box containers filled with soil, the farm is able to grow kitchen staples like lettuce, spinach, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Anyone that's ever planted tomatoes knows that's easy. As well as more niche items like amaranth, microgreens, and purple shamrock. I don't even know what purple shamrock is. Rising 18 feet tall, the racks crammed 200 acres worth of annual crop into 3,000 square feet of real estate. Think about that a minute. 200 acres, the same yield of 200 acres in 3,000 square feet. The key is growing vertically and not horizontally. And the other key is to use land in cities that is not fit for anything else. They can make it work and make it yield. Did I mention 200 acres worth of annual crop growing in 3,000 square feet of real estate is barely the size of a small restaurant, including a kitchen. Because they grow vertically. Imagine the land cost savings. Imagine to be able to feed people in food deserts because you don't need the land and you don't have the trucking costs. To where they can get fresh fruits and vegetables down the street and around the corner. The possibilities are endless. And the thing is, this is selling out constantly. So this thing is working. People are relating to the lower cost, fresher food, more variety. Imagine what this will do in cities where fresh fruits and vegetables are hard to come by. Think about it. The question is not if Cold has a future, but rather what the future might look like. Find out next! We are the Tech Mobility Show.
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SPEAKER_03:To learn more about the Tech Mobility Show, start by visiting our website. Hi, I'm Ken Chester, host of the Tech Mobility Show. The website is a treasure trove of information about me and the show, as well as where to find it on the radio across the country. Keep up with the happenings at the Tech Mobility Show by visiting Techmobility.show. That's Techmobility.show. You can also drop us a line at talk at Techmobility.show.
SPEAKER_01:In business, opportunity doesn't wait, and neither should you. At Playbook Investors Network, we connect visionary entrepreneurs with the strategies, resources, and capital they need to win. Whether you're launching, scaling, or reimagining your business, our network turns ambition into measurable success. Your vision deserves more than a plan. It deserves a playbook that works. Playbook Investors Network, where bold ideas meet bold results. Visit pincommunity.org today.
SPEAKER_03:Did you know that Tech Mobility has a YouTube channel? Hi, I'm Ken Chester, host of the Tech Mobility Show. Each week, I upload a few short videos of some of the hot topics that I cover during my weekly radio program. I've designed these videos to be informative and entertaining. It's another way to keep up on current mobility and technology news and information. Be sure to watch, like, and subscribe to my channel. That's the Tech Mobility Show on YouTube. Check it out. Coal. The United States has plenty of it within its boundaries. It's a dirty fuel that in recent years has been shunned by electric utilities at the urging of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency in favor of lower but not carbon-free natural gas, also an abundant supply in America. Ironically, an increasing demand for electricity from power plants able to support a stable base load, coupled with the difficulty in decarbonizing basic industries like steelmaking and cement manufacturing, which by the way, both of them use a lot of coal, means that the chunks of black gold will be with us for a while. What does that future look like? This is topic C. Now, before I go any further, and before I talk about this place in Pennsylvania, um a a confession and full uh disclosure. I'm married to a West Virginia girl. And she grew up in coal country in Logan County, West Virginia. So her life and by proxy, some of mine, has been a little bit colored by coal of all things. So I have a little bit more than a vested interest. And the reason why I'm sharing this is I get criticized a lot. People said, you always talk about EVs, you always talk about clean energy, you never talk about the other side. Ladies and gentlemen, today you and I are gonna talk coal. Before I get into this one particular example of this one particular, actually, the largest underground coal mining complex in North America, which is in southwestern Pennsylvania, near the border of West Virginia, just southwest of Pittsburgh, let me talk about some of the other industries that are dependent on coal. If you live in Iowa, if you live either near the Burlington Northern East West Line, the Iowa Interstate East West Line, or even the Union Pacific East West Line, you've seen coal trains, a lot of them, coming east from Powder River full of coal at 100 tons a car, going west empty to get more coal at 100 cars a train. And you didn't see one or two, they are constant. So no one thinks about the railroads, the railroad locomotives that are required, the crews that are required, the maintenance, the rail cars that are required, the coal cars that are required, just in that industry to support coal. I wanted to put that out there before I laid this down because it's not the only thing. I want to drop a number on you that blew my mind. And we're talking about, they call it the Enlo Fork Mine. And it's the largest underground coal mining complex in North America. And they produce a lot of coal. What do you think a coal miner makes these days? Let me read. What they mean by that is one parent can stay at home and raise kids, and the other one can work there because you have excellent pay, excellent benefits, and a bright future ahead. Oh, a while back, not so long ago, here in the last month or so. And this this writer went back home to where she came from to talk about coal. Safety is not an option in a coal mine. And they talked about how their their concentration on safety, they talked about their commitment to a clean environment around them. I have to preface with this though, in fairness, the challenge with coal mining is that you have water that you gotta take out of the mine that has heavy metals in it, tailings, which is part of the process, because coal's gotta be washed and that that dust has got to be settled and go somewhere. Heavy metals in the rock and stuff that they filter out that in previous mines led to pollution and health problems and all sorts of things. Returning the ground the way it was. This particular mine is an underground mine. But if you go into West Virginia, where my wife is from, they're what they call leveling mountaintops, literally, to get it to coal. AI is the driver. The increase in electric demand load is expected to be three to five percent a year for at least the next 10. In Pennsylvania, and I give this as an example, coal fire plants have been discommissioned at a brisk clip in this century. Since 2009 in Pennsylvania alone, 17 plants and 60 generating units have been shut down. Natural gas is cheap, and natural gas displaced a lot of that. Also, the reason why you don't mine as much in the Appalachians anymore is because of Powder River. Powder River is in Montana and Wyoming, and alone in those 11 mines, there's roughly 700 years of coal. 700. And they're running, and they probably still are, the Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern together are running about 100 trains a day out of Powder River to feed coal today. That's right now. And they've been doing it that way for over 40 years. That line has been expanded a number of times. And both railroads run coal trains out of there in a joint line. We don't always fully appreciate the requirements that we put on energy creation. They talked about this machinery that basically generates, I mean, literally 2,000 tons a minute of coal as it cuts through the seam and carts it right out of there. It's fully automated. And they said on average, from the time it's mine to the time it ends up in a coal plant where it's used right away, within 8 to 12 hours, after it comes out of the ground, is being burned. And that was in Pennsylvania. It's a little bit further and it takes a little bit longer if it's coming out of powder river. But make no mistake, contrary to what you might believe, regardless of where you are in the spectrum, coal's gonna be with us a while. They realize they got to clean up and they're making strides to do that. They still have some challenges though. Because natural gas is still cheaper. Still, you've got coal plants being retired. There's a matter of demand. And they do export a lot of this. So a lot of it doesn't even stay in the country. Goes out to the port, goes out to the world, namely China. Coal ain't dead, people. Regardless of what you feel and all the nastiness that goes with it, as long as we've got electrical demand and as long as nuclear power has been stymied somewhat and will take a while to get caught up, coal's the answer. Coal and natural gas is going to be the answer. We are going to be tied to fossil fuels for power generation for a while.
SPEAKER_01:But taking it to the next level takes strategy, connections, and capital. That's where Playbook Investors Network comes in. We're your strategic partner for accelerating growth, navigating challenges, and capturing market opportunities before your competition does. Your business is more than an idea. Let's make it an impact. Playbook Investors Network. Your future starts here. Learn more at pincommunity.org.
SPEAKER_03:To learn more about the Tech Mobility Show, start by visiting our website. I'm Ken Chester, host of the Tech Mobility Show. The website is a treasure trove of information about me and the show, as well as where to find it on the radio across the country. Keep up with the happenings at the Tech Mobility Show by visiting Techmobility.show. You can also drop us a line at talk at Techmobility.show.
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SPEAKER_01:You've got the drive. Now you need the right partner to make it happen. At Playbook Investors Network, we power ambitious leaders with the tools, insight, and investment connections to move faster, grow stronger, and lead markets. We're more than advisors, we're your co pilots in success. Because in business, standing still is not an option. Playbook Investors Network, fueling ambition and delivering results. Visit pincommunity.org.
