Episode Summary
Special guest Kim Mathers, VP of Product Marketing & Strategy at REE Automotive, joins Point B for an in-depth discussion on unlocking new possibilities for the EV commercial market. What innovative technologies are fundamentally changing the function of fleet vehicles? How can OEMs and fleet managers get increased flexibility in vehicle design and enhanced performance? Most importantly, how is REE’s future-proof tech decreasing Total Cost of Ownership and increasing Total Benefit of Ownership? All this and more in this episode of Point B!
Kim Mathers is the highly accomplished VP of Product Marketing & Strategy at REE Automotive with over 20 years of global experience in developing and innovating products, road mapping and lifecycle management. With a proven track record of driving product transformation through strategic business planning and leveraging market and consumer insights, Kim has consistently enabled profitable growth. Throughout her various executive roles in organizations such as Mopar, Maserati North America, and Chrysler Group LLC, she has established herself as a change agent known for her collaborative approach. Kim holds an MBA from the University of Windsor and a BASc in Materials Engineering from Queen’s University.
Key Highlights
Meet Our Guests
Kim Mathers is the highly accomplished VP of Product Marketing & Strategy at REE Automotive with over 20 years of global experience in developing and innovating products, road mapping and lifecycle management. With a proven track record of driving product transformation through strategic business planning and leveraging market and consumer insights, Kim has consistently enabled profitable growth. Throughout her various executive roles in organizations such as Mopar, Maserati North America, and Chrysler Group LLC, she has established herself as a change agent known for her collaborative approach. Kim holds an MBA from the University of Windsor and a BASc in Materials Engineering from Queen’s University.
Transcript
Kim Mathers:
Total cost of ownership as a metric is one of the most critical, if not the most critical for fleets in consideration of a vehicle. But beyond acquisition costs, it's ongoing maintenance costs. From a maintenance perspective, REEcorners are quite novel in that, again, because they're an entirely self-contained unit, they can be removed and replaced on a vehicle in less than an hour.
Announcer:
Welcome back to another episode of Point B, a Sibros podcast where we interview industry experts about the latest innovations and trends in automotive technology and the connected vehicle industry.
Steve Schwinke:
Welcome to our Point B podcast where we discuss the future of mobility and transportation products and services. My name is Steve Schwinke, Vice President of Customer Engagement at Sibros. And in today's episode, we're going to explore how REE Automotive is disrupting the EV commercial market and unlocking new possibilities for fleets through its innovative technology and approach to manufacturing.
And joining me will be Kim Mathers, Vice President of Product Marketing and Strategy at REE. Kim has an extensive 20-year background having executive roles at Mopar, Maserati North America, and Chrysler Group. Welcome, Kim.
Kim Mathers:
Thank you, Steve. It's great to be here. Really appreciate the opportunity on the podcast today to talk about REE Automotive.
Steve Schwinke:
Let's start with you telling us a little bit about REE's automotive platforms and what you are doing to differentiate your approach to vehicle technology.
Kim Mathers:
Sure. So REE Automotive is an automotive tech company and what we do with our core technology, which is a REEcorner, an x-by-wire control, enabling platforms to enable vehicles, that can really be any size or shape, with some really significant operational efficiencies which are beneficial for the end user. So with this white label approach, vehicles powered by REE initially focused on commercial applications really get commercial fleets EVs done right. So it's not just about a zero-emission vehicle, it's about building a vehicle that commercial fleets actually want and need to help them expedite the transition to zero-emission vehicles.
Steve Schwinke:
So you said x-by-wire, is that really just another name for drive-by-wire and does that include things like steering, driving, and braking?
Kim Mathers:
Drive-by-wire, probably a little more common terminology in the industry, but really drive-by-wire is a type of x-by-wire. So our core technology is what we call a REEcorner. It's a self-contained module that takes a significant portion of the vehicle function, so driving, steering, braking, suspension, off various locations throughout the vehicle and puts it in this one compact module. It enables a lot of advantages because what we do from a control perspective is we control it by wire. So we actually have, and this is novel and we believe that we're the first in the industry to do so, is that we control three parameters through by-wire. So drive-by-wire, but also steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire.
So as you can imagine, if you take those mechanical connections that exist today between vehicles left to right, front to back, you take those off the vehicle because the control is all by wire and what you really do is enable a lot of advantages that have significant benefit to the end user, right? Because we could get low, we're fully flat from front to rear, we have a lot of flexibility in platform variations, so with respect to wheelbase and track, because we can position the corners anywhere, we're not constrained by mechanical constraints like steering gears, like drive shafts, like prop shafts.
Steve Schwinke:
So Kim, tell me about your current focus. Is it just on medium-duty truck platforms or will this technology really work for a class 1 through class 6 platforms?
Kim Mathers:
Yeah, that's a great question, Steve. So while the REEcornering control approach will work and can be applicable for any size or shape class application between class 1 and class 6, we at REE Auto are initially focused on medium-duty commercial vehicles. Then we achieve that with our flagship program, which we have announced, which we call P7. So P7 is again suitable for classes 3 to 5, and we have a couple of discrete products related to that. We have a class 4 chassis cab, we have a class 5 strip chassis. But there's a couple of reasons why we've decided to focus on that segment, class 3 to 5 and space for commercial vehicles. And it's really that REEcorner technology and the advantages that it enables that we talked a little bit about before happened to be a really great application for commercial vehicles.
Steve Schwinke:
Tell me more about REEcorners and some of the things that you can actually visualize and see the advantages. From what I'm reading about REE, you provide this ability to have this fully flat chassis, which increases cargo space for the overall truck in which that chassis is a part of, but also there's things like ingress and egress, which are much easier. Is that right?
Kim Mathers:
That is exactly right, Steve. So again, because we're by-wire without the mechanical interfaces, specifically what that can do is get us low because you don't have to have the platform up and over drive shafts, prop shafts, et cetera. So we can get low, we can get flat because there's nothing there in between the wheels. So if you think about the advantages of that, we have a lower step pipe. So from an ergonomic perspective, drivers, in some cases last-mile delivery fleets, 150 stops per day can be pretty typical for an urban route. That's a lot of in and out of the vehicle. So for example, our class 5 strip chassis, when it's mated with a Morgan Olson walk-in van body such as Proxima, which they have under development, what it gets us is a full 12-inch reduction in height. So that's one full step. So if you think about 150 stops on a route in and out of a vehicle, some significant ergonomic advantages.
But in addition to that, with the by-wire for example, we refer to it as being AD ready, as being future-proof because it doesn't matter whether it's a driver controlling the vehicle, whether it's a remote control, whether it's an AD stack, whether it's class level 4, level 5, and it gives us a lot of flexibility with respect to driver placement. It can be left-hand drive, right-hand drive, driver forward, or driver center, driver rearward. So when you start to think about the flexibility that exists in the design, it's really wide open, again enabled by that x-by-wire control.
Our REEcorner technology, because they are entirely self-contained, and we have by-wire for drive-by-wire for steering, we have steering actuation on a corner, we have drive an electric motor within a corner. So if you think about one corner replicating it four times on a vehicle, that gets you all-wheel drive, all-wheel steer. So when you really fundamentally change the function of a vehicle and a class 5 truck might drive like a class 2B truck, or even better from a turning radius perspective like Proxima powered by REE, then you can really change the fundamental economics of how many packages, how much stuff you can carry on a given route.
Steve Schwinke:
So we have these absolute performance enhancements that come with your technology. But I want to come back to this total cost ownership or TCO, and I think that's one of the areas that might be slowing down EV adoption.
Kim Mathers:
There's a perception about electric vehicles and the cost relative to ICEs. And at the end of the day for fleets, it's a business, it's a pragmatic decision. And so that environment, those economics are really changing now as electric vehicles are coming closer to parity with ICEs, especially when you consider the incentives at the federal level, at the state level. So acquisition cost, those dynamics are really changing. But TCO as a metric, total cost of ownership as a metric, is one of the most critical, if not the most critical for fleets in consideration of a vehicle. But beyond acquisition costs, it's ongoing maintenance cost. From a maintenance perspective, REEcorners are quite novel in that, again, because they're an entirely self-contained unit, they can be removed and replaced on a vehicle in less than an hour.
So if you think about the implications from a maintenance perspective, one part number to carry for service parts instead of many. In the case of a repair in the event of an accident or something like that, anything over an hour, you just remove and replace the REEcorner and most critically you get that vehicle, which is an asset, which is a tool for that fleet, back on the road. So with reduced maintenance, with reduced downtime, with the increased operational time of that asset, again is a significant advantage.
The other thing we talked a little bit about is future-proof, right? Our vehicles are AD-ready right now. If at some later date, a fleet wants to implement autonomous driving level 4, level 5, or even in a contained environment like a dock, which is probably a natural evolution, a natural transition, a natural first step for the application of autonomous driving, our hardware is ready. And so if you think about it, in five years and 10 years, it's not an additional cost for the fleet to implement autonomous driving on the vehicle side. So there's some significant advantages there.
And again, with the self-contained REEcorner unit, you can take it off, refurbish it towards the end of life. And if you think about putting that back on a vehicle mechanically from a drive train, steering, braking perspective, you have essentially a new or near new vehicle in the corners from a residual perspective, which is a big component of TCO, also a significant advantage.
You really can start to realize more significant advantages at the fleet level if you don't need to have as many vehicles in your fleet, if you can run bigger vehicles instead of smaller ones because you're much more maneuverable. And further, we also like to talk about the upside, right? It's not just cost of the asset, but what you can get out of it. So the total benefit of ownership. So if you can consider driving down costs, but also at the same time increasing the advantage of each, when you break that down into a cost per mile or a cost per package sort of metric, it's really a double advantage.
Steve Schwinke:
I like that. Can we create our own acronym, TBO, total benefit of ownership?
Kim Mathers:
It exists. It's certainly not as prevalent as TCO, but it's certainly a message we are trying to spread.
Steve Schwinke:
That's the first time I've heard it, but I like it. It makes a lot of sense in terms of what's going on. Let's shift gears here a little bit. We talked a little bit earlier about how you're using vehicle data to improve your product. Can you maybe expand on that a little bit more for us?
Kim Mathers:
If you think about one of our individual REEcorners, we have dozens of sensors creating tens of thousands of data points per corner per minute. So immense amounts of data, but it's really about, from a fleet perspective, data is useless, overwhelming, not helpful unless there is an appropriate, a good, interface and a path to actionable insights. So our REEcorners in control have an immense amount of information, which in particular can be combined with other inputs for truly rich and deep data insights. And that's where the real, I think, opportunity comes for fleets in terms of getting away from maintenance schedules that are only built upon mileage or only a function of mileage, right? When you can understand what's actually happening in the vehicle, what has the duty cycle been like, how has it been driven, et cetera, you can make significantly more intelligent decisions.
Steve Schwinke:
So Kim, we've talked really about the technology and the disruption that you're bringing into the EV space. We also talked about this total cost of ownership and total benefit that comes along with your approach, but we haven't really talked about manufacturing and I know that's another area that you're differentiating yourselves in the market.
Kim Mathers:
I would describe our general manufacturing strategy as similar to our strategy on the product side, which is really critical is flexibility, modularity, scalability. So our approach is really low CapEx, highly automated cloud-based manufacturing. So what does that mean? Low CapEx from that perspective, we have 10,000 vehicle set capacity right now at Coventry, and the idea is that as we scale globally in general we like to be or we intend to be close to our customer's location. So we can have, I'll say, a replica of the initial line, which will be controlled centrally. So we can bring it up quickly by mitigating costs because of the similarities. So it's really about efficiency and flexibility and a path to scaling.
Steve Schwinke:
Well, Kim, this has been very enlightening. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners about REE?
Kim Mathers:
Yeah, so maybe less so on what's to come long-term. In the nearer term, again we have to focus on two discrete products right now, chassis cab class 4, and a classified strip chassis. So we will have our first deliveries to dealers by year-end by Q4 of 2024. So some really exciting times ahead.
Steve Schwinke:
Well, we'll be cheering you from the sidelines here because you're working on technology that's going to make a difference and really just trying to help us build a future that we all want to live in. So right now, this is all the time that we have and I want to thank Kim for joining us, and I can't wait to see those REE trucks and chassis on the road and helping transform a segment of the mobility space that will all help us in the future. So Kim, thanks for joining us today.
Kim Mathers:
Thanks so much, Steve.
Announcer:
Thank you for tuning into Point B. Join us next time for more Autotech innovations and trends. Point B is brought to you by Sibros.
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