The Future Isn’t Linear: Vans, Shoes, Jets, and Water Wars

The future rarely moves in a straight line—and this week’s episode proves it. We explore four stories that reveal how technology, markets, and human behavior collide in unexpected ways.

We begin with GM’s sudden decision to halt the Chevrolet BrightDrop EV vans, just as fleet upfitters and RV manufacturers were getting onboard. We examine why the Zevo 600 platform—AWD, large battery, OTA updates, and Chevrolet’s national service network—looked like a smart bridge strategy for electric RVs and commercial EV adoption. And we discuss what automakers lose when momentum disappears overnight.

Next, we dive into the world of high-stack running shoes with carbon-fiber plates, breaking down how energy return works, why instability increases as stack heights rise, and how “smart shoes” could adapt fit to reduce injury risk. It’s a perfect example of performance innovation bumping into real-world biomechanics.

From the ground to the skies, we analyze Boeing’s quiet resurgence and the early moves toward a next-generation narrow-body aircraft. With stricter FAA oversight, airline feedback loops, and pressure from Airbus, we explore what truly drives aerospace innovation—and why it takes decades, not news cycles.

Finally, we examine a future-facing agricultural scenario where AI-driven lithium mining accelerates aquifer depletion during drought conditions. The result? Disrupted irrigation, strained rural infrastructure, stressed livestock operations, and cascading economic impacts. We outline practical strategies such as diversified sourcing, water-reuse technology, and preparing for a shift toward more abundant battery chemistries.

If you’re interested in mobility, EVs, aviation, sustainability, agriculture, energy, or the systems that connect them, this episode offers a grounded, big-picture view of where resilience is being built—and where it’s breaking down.

Follow, share, and send us your questions. Your insights can shape future episodes.

Chapters

• 1:08 Rant: Why GM's Plan to Halt BrightDrop EV Production is WRONG
• 14:54 The Rise Of Super Shoes
• 22:24 Boeing on the Rise
• 33:22 Stress Testing Agriculture

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:07

Welcome to the Tech Mobility Podcast. Brought to you by Playbook Investors Network. Your strategic partner for unstoppable growth. Visit pincommunity.org to get started.

SPEAKER_01: 0:18

I'm Ken Chester. On the docket, the evolution of the running shoe, Boeing on the Rise, and Stress Testing Agriculture. To join the conversation by asking a question, sharing an opinion, or even suggesting a topic for future discussion, call or text the Tech Mobility Show, that number 872-222-9793, or you can email the show directly, talk at techmobility.show. Either way will get you connected. For those of you who enjoy Substack, you can find me there too at Ken C Iowa. That's K-E-N, the letter C I O W A. From the Tech Mobility News Desk. It's been a while since I have gone on a rant. We're overdue, and I am going to rant. I have something I want to share with you that doesn't add up, and it seems like a major disconnect in the future. Let me explain what I'm talking about and see if you can understand why I want to rant. Here is the headline GM the stop making bright drop electric vans, and we'll assess the Cammy plant there in Ontario, Canada, for future opportunities. In October, I, for the first time ever, got a chance to put my hands on, take pictures of, and actually walk through a Chevrolet Bright Drop Van, their 600 series, which is the large series. The reason that I am ranting today is as I'm looking at the material and I'm looking at their announcement, I'm also considering the variety of announcements that were just before it. For example, they made this announcement right after Amazon said that they would evaluate the bright drop vans for fleet service. But that's not all. A few months ago, we talked about how Grounded developed an RV, a forward-thinking, leading RV, their G3, which looked awesome and was, I thought was going to change the world. If that's not enough, I also found out that an established RV company was developing an RV based on the Bright Drop Van, Coachman, and their model, the RVEX. And it's available now. And it's really reasonable, range of 270 miles, and a target MSRP of$150,000. If you know anything about self-propelled RVs, basically the class A's, which are the big ones, and the class C's, which are typically on truck chassis, on medium-duty truck chassis, like a Ford E3 450 or something like that. That's a class C. But the class A's, those are the diesel pushers, those are the big ones that go for six figures, mid to high six figures in some cases. Coachman RV, one of the many divisions of Forest River, is primarily in the business of more traditional RVs and recreational campers. The new Coachman RVEX takes that experience and electrifies it with the Chevy Bright Drop Zivo 600 as its basis. Comes standard with Chevy's max range 172 kilowatt hour 20 module battery pack, which implies that it comes exclusively with a dual-motor powertrain making 300 horsepower and 390 foot feet of torque. Stop right there. We're talking about an all-wheel drive electric RV. Let that sink in a minute. GM saying, well, you know, we closed the plant for a while, we're going to start it back in October, then it's November, then Gee Whiz, we're not going to build a plant at all. We're not going to open a plant at all. Here's my beef. The Brightstrop van is an amazing piece of work that I think had a lot of potential because there's nothing else like it out there that would be available. One of the master stroke moves that GM made was making this available through Chevy dealers. You're looking at over 4,000 dealers nationwide that could service the thing. That alone makes it doable because honestly, you're, if you come into any wide spot in the road, there's probably a Chevy dealer there or real close. And to have that knowledge that close and nearby means you can go anywhere in the United States and always be close if you have a problem. But understand, because it's an EV, a lot of whatever improvements or safety things that need to happen can happen through an over-the-air update. If you've got these companies that have already spent money to upfit the Ziva 600 for possible sale, why did GM think that there was no way forward for this van? I could understand going one shift. I can understand reducing numbers. But I think it's incredibly short-sighted for General Motors, considering that you've got all these folks nibbling. Why didn't GM just pivot and say, you know what? Our future is going to be in the RV market like the automakers were 50 years ago. Do you realize that most chassis for RVs back in the 70s was built by either Chrysler Ford or General Motors? They built them. And in fact, for the Class C's, Ford still does. Why would this be any different? The small one, there is so many applications for these things. And it seems to me incredibly short-sighted that okay, you spent the money, you developed this thing, and now you're saying, oh, gee, there's no way we can move forward. We don't see a way forward. Bear in mind, these were not subject to the EV credit. And the price, the one I looked at, was the extended range Max Ziva 600. It didn't, it was an empty shell, didn't have anything in it. And I believe the price there was$83,000. Basically, what you would pay for an upscale pickup truck. And in the commercial world, it's a pittance compared to other vehicles that you would spend money on. So it's not out there. I would understand if the chassis started at$120,000,$130,000,$140,000. Like, okay, you're probably priced out. But at right around$80,000 to start, and then you probably spend another$20,000,$30,000,$40,000 to upfit it. And you've got major companies that saw the value. They've done the initial testing to decide that the bright drop Ziva 600 was worth spending money to develop a product on. That says something. Because these companies are not going to bet and assess and allocate engineering time and production time and everything that goes with an upfit if they didn't think that the underlying chassis had value. So my question to GM is what really is going on? You've got these companies, and I'm talking about what is in the trade press. What I'm talking now was in the trade press months just a few months before they turned the lights out. The argument that they have is well, the market for them has struggled to gain traction. GM, when did that ever stop you? Let me take you back. For a lot of you, you probably don't know this, but let's go back to the 70s for a minute. We're going back 50 years. In the 1970s, we had two oil shocks. 1973, gas prices shot through the roof, everybody abandoned large cars. 1977 happened again. Here's the difference. In the second oil shock, GM and engineered, they took their full-size cars and down, I'm sorry, their intermediate cars and downsized them for the 77 model year. They downsized them. Guess what? Nobody wanted them. Sales dropped off, nobody wanted them. Oil shock hit the next year. What was the only part of GM that was profitable? The intermediates that everybody didn't want the year before. This happens ebb and flow in this industry. What I'm hoping is some other company looks at the tooling of the bright drop and goes, you know what? We see a business here and it's worth buying. And that GM, that GM just sells it to somebody else. If GM doesn't have the stomach for it, I'm hoping somebody in the RV field or the upfitter field does. Bottom line, the bright drop doesn't deserve to die. And GM is wrong on this. I've experienced the thing. They're wrong. As with everything else, changes come for the basic running shoe. You are listening to the Tech Mobility Show.

SPEAKER_04: 10:20

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_00: 10:52

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SPEAKER_01: 11:24

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_04: 11:50

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_03: 12:25

First, we made Climate Grand Voyager features more comfortable. Then we built in child safety seats for added convenience. Now we put the most features.

SPEAKER_01: 13:27

Chrysler invented the minivan craze back in 1984, were 11 years in by this time, and they're still innovating. Ford rushed to market an oversized driver's door in order to facilitate that. GM didn't even address it and would get out of the minivan business completely by the turn of the century. Ford would eventually throw in the towel on the WindStar. But it was that second door. In fact, a lot of people don't realize there were two different sizes of Chrysler minivan back in that day. There was the short wheelbase, which was always a three-door, and the long wheelbase, which became the minivan that people know today that had the dual sliding doors. And yeah, in the mid-1990s, that was a big deal. It was a game changer. And bear in mind at that time, Chrysler was building north of a half a million plus minivans a year across the Chrysler Town and Country, Dodge Caravan, a grand caravan, Plymouth Voyager, and Plymouth Grand Voyager. Even after they wiped out the short wheelbase minivans, the long wheelbase with the double doors was the thing. And it was an option at first. But so many people wanted it, they just made it standard and went on. It's amazing what happens. Sometimes the automakers get it right. Who knew? As you might have come to expect, sneaker tech has evolved from minimalist designs to high-performance cushioned platforms, often with carbon fiber support for speed and comfort. But the shoe companies, they're not done yet. This is topic A. And let me stop right here and say easily that these aren't your grandpa's sneakers. Case in point. A lot of people wear sneakers today the way that most of us used to wear dress shoes. Air Jordan's, probably the most popular, most well-known of this genre. To Nike, it's worth seven billion dollars a year. On the Nike campus, they have a whole building dedicated to that brand alone. And yes, Michael Jordan still consults with them on every year of Air Jordan's. Even LeBron James is getting into the act. But I digress. Let's talk about running shoes in particular. Now I'm not a runner, but what they tell me about shoes is what they do. And here's something I didn't know. The height of the shoe, a tall shoe, what they call a tall stack, is actually designed to give you a certain amount of protection, stability, and comfort where it absorbs a lot of the force and reduces certain certain injuries. Here's where they're going in the future. I'm going to start that and then I'm going to cycle kind of back to where we are now. The latest innovations for running shoes. So I'm talking about a particular type of sneaker. I'm talking about shoes people buy for running. And these include what they call smart shoes that record information about a runner's gait and stride. Details that could one day be used to personalize footwear. Personalize footwear and ward off injuries that could be trade-offs of running in high performance shoes. This whole high performance craze started, they tracked it back to 2009 when a fellow named Christopher McDougal wrote a book called Born to Run, and it popularized the idea of running barefoot or in toe shoes in a manner akin to ancient hunter-gatherers. I've seen some of those toe shoes. Weirdest thing you ever want to see, but I've seen them. However, many runners who did that experienced what they call plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, and stress fractures. In fact, it was such a thing that they said that minimalist shoes were like economic stimulus plan for podiatrists and physical therapists. That many injuries. Why? It's the high stack height. I mentioned that earlier, stack height. And that's the amount of material between your foot and the ground that these shoes promise maximum comfort and performance. Remember, I talked about the mid shoe. The mid. And there's a reason for that. That midsole of any running shoe, if you're running, compresses on landing, momentarily stores energy, and as the midsole expands, propels the runner forward. These things that they're developing now called super shoes, they do that much more efficiently. The idea behind the super shoe, the idea between engineering the midsole was to see how you could run down a mountain as fast as possible and as smoothly as possible. And this super shoe, how they define it, is a high-stack sneaker that combines thick foam with carbon fiber plates to return more energy to the runner. The issue is if you can resume more energy to the runner, they can run faster on less energy, being more efficient. Nike's super shoe made its debut in 2016 at the Rio Olympics. Curved plates of carbon fiber rocked runners from the heels to the toes. The plates were in constant hefty foam cushions to ensure athletes lost less energy per footfall than existing options. More efficient. The design enabled wearers to run run faster for the same effort, shaving minutes off marathon times. And that kind of blew up the industry. In fact, it was such a thing that they actually set, and I gotta find the uh organization that actually set a standard of 1.6 millimeters high in order to mitigate, you know, folks making bigger and bigger shoes. It's a thing now. However, the downside of a shoe with a higher stack height is ironically, it's less stable. And if you're moving those injuries from the ankles and the toes, it ends up in the knees and the hips. You just moved it up. So it's a trade-off of what you're doing. But they're doing this thing, and they're just measuring more in order to get personal, personal, personal. That's the future. Down and out for the last several years, Boeing is finally rising to the challenge and taking on rival Airbus. This is the Tech Mobility Show.

SPEAKER_04: 21:21

You've got the drive, you've got the vision. 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, delivering results. Visit pincommunity.org.

SPEAKER_01: 21:53

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. In recent years, commercial aircraft manufacturer Boeing has had nothing but bad luck and a stringa of misfortunes regarding several aspects of its business. Two major crashes of its 737 Max aircraft, continuing problems with its 787 Dreamliner, and a malfunctioning spacecraft distranded two American astronauts in space for months. The Jetmaker seems to be back on track these days and loaded for bear. This is topic B. This is the kind of conversation that I would have had with my dad back in the day. My dad was a commercial aircraft technician for U.S. Air, and we get into all kinds of conversations. And I would have loved to have picked his mind about Boeing versus Airbus. This has been an interesting conversation. But here's what's going on Boeing is actually in the beginning talks to develop a new narrow-body plane to replace the 737 Max, which has been beset by production problems. I want to back up right here, because in my research of Boeing jets, I don't know if you realize the first jet, commercial jet, was the Boeing 707. And the 707 and I are the same age. It came out in 1958. The next plane that became popular was the three-engined 727, which Boeing built in tremendous numbers and flew for years. And it came out in the early 1960s. In the late 1960s, Boeing rolled out the 737. Yeah, this plane has been flying for over 60 years. The 737 Max was its most recent iteration or variant. They haven't been building the Max is not that old, but the systems and the plane it's based on was. Everybody remembers, or you might remember, the 747, which was the biggest thing that Boeing built. And that came out in 1970. So the 50s and 60s, Boeing was on a roll. Bringing out jets, airlines was eating it up, they were putting planes down, cost per mile was dropping, and airline travel was becoming more of a thing. In the 80s, Boeing continued on a roll with the 757 and 767. And you probably remember the 67s are still in the air. Here's what you may not know about Boeing. At that same time, Boeing was looking at developing a third plane called the 777 in the mid-1980s. Because their argument is they needed a plane that was a little bit smaller than the 747, but could replace what they knew were aging first-generation three-engined large planes, uh the McDonnell Douglas AMD 11 and Lockheed L1011 TriStar. And I bet you didn't know Lockheed used to make commercial airplanes, but they did. They did. They don't anymore, but they did. The airlines didn't want that. They weren't interested. So they shelved it. Boeing went on. In the 19, late 1980s, they dusted off the plan again. Went to eight airlines, something they never do. And these eight airlines became the working group that developed something that became the 777. See, I didn't even know about that plane. I don't know if you knew about it, but I didn't know about it. And the plane started flying 30 years ago. And for all the traveling that I've done, I have never flown a 777. And there are a ton of airlines that fly it. You never hear about this plane. Here's something else you don't know. The 777 in its various uh iterations is now the most popular plane built. Boeing has built over 2,300 of them flying. And they're getting ready now to look at another new plane. We heard about the 787 and all the problems it had, which was their most recent plane. But Boeing's gone back to basics. They've gone back into the plants, they've dealt with the crisis, they've dealt with, they've slowed down development because they wanted to get it right. The new guy who is there, Kelly Osaf, I believe his name is, and wanted to get it together. They wanted to get it right. They wanted to do what they needed to do, and it was a heavy lift. But they did it. And Boeing is back in the game. And they're looking at replacing finally the 737. Here's something you may not know. Boeing's starting to have talks. But that plane that they're talking about now won't even be in the sky for 10 years. 10 years. A new Boeing, the new Boeing jet would enter service around 2037. A 10 plus year planning horizon is common in aviation. And consider this. The 737 that they're flying now, which is also very popular, will be 70 years old. 70. 70. A Boeing representative said that the company continues to focus on its recovery plan, including clearing a backlog of nearly 6,000 commercial planes and certifying the new 737 and 777 models. How a manufacturer like Boeing, like Airbus, keeps going is they will produce different variants of a plane depending on airline demand. Whether freight airlines want something or the existing passenger airlines want something a little different, obviously it's a lot cheaper to tweak an existing plane and get it certified than to build a complete new one from scratch. And by the way, that 777 that came out in the mid-1990s was their first completely computer-designed plane. And it must have gone all right because you don't hear nothing about the 777. You don't hear anything negative about it. And when I tell you a ton of airlines fly it, a ton of airlines fly it. And oh yeah, Boeing chief executive, his name is Kelly uh Ottberg. Otberg. Kelly had a tall order to turn Boeing around, and it was a lot of people vote that was going against them. And remember, in the middle of all of this drama, a lot of Boeing employees and their engineers went on strike. In the middle of all this. They got it together. And I think that with increased oversight from the FAA, because that was something FAA was called on the carpet, because they let Boeing self certify a lot of this, and Boeing got sloppy. And that was the problem. So the FAA came down pretty hard. And I'm pretty sure any new plane. That Boeing comes up with over these next 10 years will be highly scrutinized. But because Boeing is getting their act together, they may actually be competitive with Airbus once again. And you hear the term Airbus, in case you didn't know, that's a European consortium of companies that is the only other major commercial aircraft manufacturer in the world. If you're flying commercial, you're either flying a Boeing or an Airbus. If you're flying smaller planes, it could be somebody else. But the big ones, only two companies make them. That's Boeing and Airbus. Boeing feels strong enough to just start designing a new plane. It really depends if they stay on task if they're going to be able to pull it off. It should be real interesting to see what they come up with, particularly now in these days and times. How far will they push the envelope in development and sophistication? And will the FAA certify it? How robust is our food production and distribution system? A group of ad professionals decide to put it to the test to find out. We are the Tech Mobility Show.

SPEAKER_00: 31:19

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SPEAKER_01: 31:52

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_04: 32:22

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_01: 32:54

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. At this year's Ag Innovators UN Conference, a group of people which included students, investors, agronomists, entrepreneurs, and agribusiness leaders took on the challenge to apply stress tests to the agriculture industry. The question, how did the current system hold up? This is topic C. I got this out of an ag publication that I stumbled across. And the article asked the question stress testing agriculture, what happens when the system breaks? Why simulating shocks reveal the cracks and opportunities in our food system? And the philosophy is sometimes the best way to understand a system is to break it, at least in simulation. And they decided to copy something from the banking industry. And the challenge was simple. Take an idea borrowed from banking, stress tests, and apply it to our agriculture industry. See what cracks and what might actually hold about exist what about the existing system. Of everything you can imagine. And they didn't look at every single possible thing that could happen. They picked one. And the one the scenario that they picked was something they call the lithium reckoning. And the premise goes something like this Agriculture System Shock. AI boom drives lithium rush. Midwest aquifer collapses under pressure. In the future, this is this is what they propose. This is the premise. In 2027, a lithium-rich brine deposit is discovered beneath the Cambrian Arcadocian aquifer, triggering a rush to supply AI-driven data centers. Extraction accelerates under emergency federal domestic precious mineral sourcing policy. Combined with drought, weak water governance, and decades of use, aquifer levels plunge and regional climate patterns become more volatile as the ecosystem is thrown off balance. A regional water crisis unfolds and impacts the global agriculture production. That is where the workshop began. So, what happened next? They looked at orders of impact. First order impact, obvious hits first. Water restrictions hit hard and fast. Irrigation is bad across the Midwest. Cattle herds are culled, feedlots close, farmland values swing depending on mineral rights. Commodities prices spike. Panic sets in. Everyone turns to rivers for water, and barge traffic grinds to a halt. Takeaway, it's not subtle. When water disappears, so does agriculture as we know it. That's first order impact. Second order impact. The system starts to shift. Then things get more complicated. Water rights get rewritten. Fights break out at the federal, state, and local level. Let me stop right there. This is happening in real time, right now. We haven't talked a while about the Colorado River. But in the Colorado River, a couple of years ago, they had already declared a Tier 1 emergency in the lower basin. That triggered coming, everybody coming to the table to determine who was going to take the cuts and how they were going to be applied. Jeez, surprise. Nobody could agree. As of where they left it, if they didn't get it together, the feds were going to step in and force an agreement. Have not heard any more about that. But that's real. Here's something else. Universities pivot to water efficiency research. That's actually happening in Indonesia right now. They are ground zero for water conservation research because they don't have any water. All the water they got's imported. So they know a little something about preserving water. Here's something Brazil and Argentina quietly take global market share. Rural communities hollow out, mental health issues rise, public perception shifts, and suddenly AI isn't about innovation, it's about extraction. And this is the part we rarely talk about in agriculture. When physical resources get tight, the human systems, policy, culture, community start to break down just as fast. It's interesting that they did not point out here farm defaults and collapsing of the local financial systems as the banks fail. They didn't mention any of that. Because if the farmers can't grow, they can't bring in crops, that messes the whole financial setup and in rural communities. They kind of lew to it when they say rural communities hollow out, but they really don't say why. And it's unfortunate that they didn't spend any time talking about that. Third order impacts. Everything rebuilds just differently. Eventually the system finds a new equilibrium, but it doesn't look like the old one. Lithium prices drop, supply and demand. Solar and storage become cheap. The Midwest leans in the energy instead of crops. And here's some stuff I'm going to read it. You can make up your own mind. This is the they came up with. Prairie restoration takes off. Buffalo returns. Beef gets replaced by buffalo and goat. Rail investment surges as river transport fails. Diets change. Water use changes. Priorities change. Canada becomes the world's reliable water supplier. AI usage even gets rationed, two queries per person per day, because the environmental cost finally outweighs the convenience. Sounds extreme, but every part of the chain came from participants who live inside the system. And when you give people space to connect the dots, they'll tell you exactly how fast it unravels. I got questions. Something like this. Does that mean in this case, if Canada becomes the world's reliable water supplier, then we're now building pipelines for water in the United States? Food for thought. And AI gets rationed, how would you even regulate that? Building resilience before it is forced. The point of an exercise like this isn't to predict the future, but it's stop pretending we can't see it coming. The ground rules. See clarification. Don't argue. Contradicting consequences can exist. Big jump? Help connect the dots. Stuck? Global markets. Science. Policy. Psychology, financial markets. A few no-regret moves came out of every group discussion. Diversify supply chains and sourcing regions. Invest in water tech, irrigation efficiency, reuse, purification. And I'm going to add to that one good idea regardless of where you are. We need to stop treating water like an infinite resource. Ask the folks in the Colorado River, because that's an issue. And they really didn't get into in this case. Usually, when something gets scarce and prices start going up, the business, at least the auto industry, and I believe the storage industry will move away from lithium. I think lithium is a bridge material right now. The automakers want to get away from it, and actually it will be because of China's rare earth policies, restricting rare earths, and how hard it is to build a lithium mine around here, that I think that the automakers and others that are in this business will find other materials more plentiful, lower costs. They'll move away from that. I think what they're talking about is temporary at best, but we've seen the parts here, at least in Iowa. We had a farm crisis 40 years ago. It was not pretty. So we kind of know what can happen.

SPEAKER_04: 41:57

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_01: 42:21

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_00: 42:46

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SPEAKER_04: 43:20

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