Listen to more episodes from “Electric Generation”
Episode Transcript:
Chuck Nice VO:
Ah, OK, let me think for a second. So far, on this show, we’ve covered electric motorcycles, road trips, business fleets, cities and construction. Is there anything I forgot? Oh yeah, that’s right. Electric race cars! Hey, I’m Chuck Nice, and welcome to “Electric Generation,” presented by Ford. Here, we talk about all the ways our country is changing with electrification, and, today, on our final episode, we turn our attention to the race track to have some fun. Now, that other stuff is fun. I had fun on the electric motorcycle. But I’m gonna speak to Vaughn Gittin Jr., a guy who says his title is “professional fun haver.” Now, I might introduce him as a professional driver and champion drifter with a custom-built electric-powered 1,400-horsepower Mustang, but, sure, “fun haver” works. Before I speak with Vaughn, I want to introduce you to Vaughn’s crew chief — a guy named Ray Shake. Ray is the guy who takes an idea for a custom car and makes it a reality. With his team, Ray builds these incredible racing machines from scratch, and every couple of years he emerges from his workshop to unveil a shiny new prototype.
Ray Shake:
Yes, I’ve had someone crash a car on their first run. It was kind of expected. There was snow and he was from the Dominican Republic. Had never seen snow. I think he was distracted by all the white stuff on the side of the track and wanted to check it out up close.
Chuck Nice VO:
A few years ago, Ford came to Ray and his team with a challenge: Could they take their new electric Mustang, the Mach E, and turn it into an absolute racing, drifting machine?
Ray Shake:
When we got that Mach E, it was literally a chassis with nothing. No suspension, no interior, no windows, before it even made it on the production line, snatched, put it in a trailer and delivered to us to build a crazy race car. It was the only one they had.
Chuck Nice VO:
Ray was up to the task. There was only one thing, he’d never built an electric vehicle before.
Ray Shake:
It has similarities and differences between a combustion engine vehicle. There’s no fuel. Honestly, I think the electric is simpler because of the lack of components. Like, you’re minimizing total components on the powertrain, where a combustion engine, you have pistons, rods, cranks. I love electric. It’s pretty spectacular what it does. It’s different, but I don’t discriminate when it comes to any sort of vehicle. If it’s fun, it’s fun. And that’s the point.
Chuck Nice VO:
After years of development, Ray and his team pulled it off. They called it the Mustang Mach E 1400.
Ray Shake:
The Mustang Mach E 1400 is a Swiss army knife of a vehicle. It can drag race, road race, rear-wheel drive drifting, all-wheel drive drifting. The whole intent of this vehicle, from Vaughn’s mind, was to allow regular people that have no idea about the performance of electric vehicles to be able to experience a high-power racing electric vehicle that most drivers don’t even get to experience. It’s like a roller coaster. It’s awesome. The reaction from anyone that rides in this thing is almost exactly the same. It changes them, because, I don’t care who you are and what sort of understanding of physics you have, nothing prepares you for what this thing actually does. Like, when you are strapped in this thing, and this thing drives the way it does, it just changes you, in a way. These are, like, experienced NASCAR drivers, and they’re blown away. It’s, like, literally changes their life and their perspective of everything. Like, anything that you think you know about a racing vehicle changes once you experience a high-power electric racing vehicle, period.
Chuck Nice VO:
Now, Ray is an engineer first, so for him there’s a particular joy in getting fellow engineers behind the wheel of his car.
Ray Shake:
We had a couple of engineers that were like, these were Ford engineers, so, they’re super serious. You just can’t break them. They don’t smile. [Laughs] They went, and when they got out, they were just giggling like children. You could tell, like, whatever hard shell they had on was just shattered by that experience, and it just takes you to that place where it’s, like, kids with nothing else happening in the world, except the fun that they’re having in that moment.
Chuck Nice VO:
Ray and Vaughn are taking their Mustang Mach-E 1400 on tour, showing off what electric performance vehicles are made of. But I needed to hear from the man behind the driver’s seat, the one doing all that drifting, so I spoke to the “fun haver” himself.
Chuck Nice:
This is Vaughn Gittin Jr., who is better known as “king of the drift.” OK, before we get into, like, the race car stuff, I got to talk to you about the drifting. Did you and all your other drivers somehow suffer a collective head injury that let you all be this crazy?
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
[Laughs] I used to race motocross and BMX and skated. And, when I first saw drifting, I was like, man, this is just skateboarding with cars, right? You show your style, your personality from behind the wheel. And that’s kind of where it started, you know, myself and other like-minded people would bring their cars and, you know, it started out in some parking lots and some racetracks, and now it’s just a very, very, you know, high-level motor sport that is growing extremely fast.
Chuck Nice:
When I’m looking inside the cockpit, any other, like, race I’ve seen, race car cockpit, it looks like the driver and the car are doing their thing together. Hey, we’re out for a drive. When you look at the camera in your cockpit, it looks like a violent brawl.
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
[Laughs] That’s a good, that’s a good assessment. You know, I consider it as more of a, I try to make it a dance, but you’re right. We are using all the tools, right? It’s very aggressive on the wheel. Pull on the handbrake, foot work, you know, is constantly working, and the best way for me to explain it to someone, like, pretend you’re on the freeway doing 80 miles an hour, and all of a sudden, you just yank the wheel left to right, pull the handbrake and stand on the throttle. I mean, that’s effectively how you get a vehicle in the drift.
Chuck Nice:
Everything that you do is so counterintuitive to driving. So, I want to talk about the future of the sport. I saw your video series with Ford and the Mach-E, and it was really cool.
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
We brought out a bunch of drivers, a lot of NASCAR drivers, to experience the Mach E for the first time. And most of those guys was their first time ever experiencing electric. Needless to say, their mind was blown, just like mine the first time I drove that crazy machine. So the Mach-E 1400, we built that here at the RTR lab. You know, me, I come from an IT background. So before my old real life job, uh, was in IT. And, so, I have a love for technology, but I’ve always been a car guy. Like, I was, like, four or five years old, I could tell you a car from headlights and taillights. And so, now that electric is going to be a big part of driving experience in the future, Ford and I were very excited to show electric in a very fun, exciting way. And that’s where the concept for the Mach E 1400 was born.
Chuck Nice:
Yeah, I mean, I think most people think, oh, electric vehicle, you know, it’s kind of meek, and it’s a little mild.
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
That’s cute, yeah.
Chuck Nice:
And, once you’re in one, you realize that this thing is a rocket. It’s a silent rocket is what it is.
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
Well, it can be, you know, and that’s one of the coolest things about electric is it’s fully controllable. So, you know, you can easily, at the touch of a button, at least, you know, in the production Mach-Es, you can put it in a mode and whisper, which is very silent and very calm, you know, driving experience that you would take your grandma for a ride. But you can also push a button and put it in unbridled mode, which is intense acceleration, you know, and that’s one of my favorite things about electric. Like, I think by now, like, it’s really easy to talk about. Everyone knows, hey, electric motors provide full torque and full power at zero RPM. You know, like, that’s a, pretty much a known thing now, but the thing that isn’t known is how controllable it is. Like, you really need to just reset everything that you think you know, and just experience one, because they, the handling. Uh, I was shocked. You know, the Mach E, the Mach E GT, I know there’s a lot of people up in arms about it being called a Mustang. But, this thing, when you break down what the Mustang experience is, it’s there. There is exhilaration driving, uh, the Mach E and especially the Mach E GT. And, so, for me, that has really just changed my perspective. You know, I am a petrol oil-head through and through, and I was skeptical, but once I experienced it, it was just, poof.
Chuck Nice:
Let’s talk about the future of racing, period, OK? Do you think that we’ll have a complete transition? So that one day we’ll just see electric NASCAR, electric formula racing, electric road racing, electric rally, or will we see a bifurcation?
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
Yeah. I mean, that’s a tough question, right? That’s like looking in the crystal ball, but I think as I see it right now, there’s a lot of places that electric can be beneficial, right? Especially, you know, right now with current battery technologies, the places that electric can be superior are slightly limited, right? It’s the shorter stints, you know, you see in Formula E, them swapping batteries, they were swapping cars before. You know, it really depends on what the goal is. Right? Drag racing and drifting are perfect opportunities for electric. Uh, longer NASCAR, you know, longer road racing stints, right now, it’s not there, but I think what will start happening is there’ll start being electric-focus classes inside of existing series. And they will adapt the rules and the durations to support what is available.
And then, I think, as things evolve, I think that there will be more and more places that electric vehicles can be competitive and compete in. You know, if all things were equal right now, if you could get the amount of power density to weight and duration as you can in an internal combustion engine right now, electric would dominate everything. I mean, there is not any question about the superiority of the power output, the control, the packaging of the motors, the lack of needs of gear boxes. I mean, I don’t believe that we will ever be in a place where we’re not going to have combustion engines, at least as an option, but I think we’ll be seeing a lot more opportunities for electric. And, you know, the other thing too, I know I’m going a bit long-winded here, but —
Chuck Nice:
No, go ahead.
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
The opportunity for people to develop an engine, battery and inverter package that you can take and put in your race car very easily and not have to worry about the things you have to worry about with internal combustion engines, like, that’s going to happen. Like Ford, even just announced that they’ve got a new, you know, they’re calling it “The Illuminator,” which is basically a drive unit that you can put in a hot rod, you know, hey, add your battery, add your inverter and go. And, so, these types of things are going to start to become easier for people to get into and it will not be as foreign as it is now.
Chuck Nice:
And, as soon as you get that going, once you get your, you know, your lay person, who is a super fan and a gearhead, then what happens is you see innovation start to flow both ways, you know, just like it did with combustion engines. You know, guys, guys were out on a track and they were like, what if we did this? And then, all of a sudden, that becomes, like, the standard. That standard then makes it into production. And then, before you know it, that just becomes what cars are. And then what happens is the car companies then try to recreate what the gear-heads are doing. So, it all becomes some kind of self perpetuating, you know? Is there any technology that you have seen that you feel may change our everyday lives, with respect to transportation? Like, for instance, just to give you an example of what I’m talking about, when you look at the return of power from your braking back to the battery, that came out of racing. That is now in every single car, electric or not. Is there anything like that, that you see, that might be happening?
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
I think for me, like, my big focus, uh, aside from just the fundamental of driving, like, my big focus is the driving experience.
Chuck Nice:
OK.
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
You know, for me, I love cars so much. And, I say my purpose in life is to put smiles on faces, and we all know autonomous vehicles are coming. We all know that we’re going to have an option to not drive if we don’t want. And, for me, I want to keep the driving experience that inspired me and has basically set my path of life to continue on as we have autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles and, and rollout. So, for me, I want to continue to work and develop ways that there can be sound experience, because sound is very important for your brain and the overall drive experience. And, so, I want to have those types of things.
Um, modes and different ways that you can drive your vehicle. You know, because there is so much control available for an electric vehicle, imagine if we had a mode that was a donut mode and, you know, the, the owner’s manual says, “Hey, go find a hundred-by-a-hundred lot, mark the center point and go to that center point, turn the wheel, press the donut mode, and we’re going to lock the inside tire and you’re going to do donuts.” So, I don’t have an answer for you of what’s going to revolutionize or change how we move. You know, Ford’s probably got a better answer than that for me, but my focus is the experience. I want my son, who’s three years old, to be as excited as I was to get his license and go enjoy the driving experience.
Chuck Nice:
Yeah, that’s a great answer. And I love it. I wasn’t even thinking about that aspect of driving as something that you might be able to help engineer into the experience. And that’s what you’re talking about is engineering fun and feeling into something that we pretty much take for granted. So, god bless you for looking out for your son’s fun later on in life. You know, uh, my son is 15, so, uh, I’m not as excited about him getting his license as you are. [Laughs] Because we live in New York, so, all I’m thinking about is my insurance going through the roof. Hey, man, listen, I’m out of time, man. It’s so great to talk to you.
Vaughn Gittin Jr:
Thank you for having me, and I appreciate it. And, uh, keep up, keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing more.
Chuck Nice:
I think the most exciting thing to take away from today’s episode is the image of electric cars is changed forever. We used to think of electric cars as just transportation, and even short-range transportation at that. But now that they’re 1,400 horsepower, rippin’ and drifting beasts, well, these cars are truly rebels at heart.
“Electric Generation” is presented by Ford and produced by Yahoo Creative Studios, At Will Media and me, Chuck Nice. The At Will Media producers are Mitch Bluestein, Josh Farnham, Drew Beebe and Tina Turner. Editing and sound design by Andrew Holzberger. Check out bonus material for this episode on TechCrunch.com. And, thanks to you, in advance, for giving us a great rating and for subscribing to our podcast. This is our last episode, so it’s really been a pleasure to bring you such great information about the electrification of America. By the way, the opinions on this show are personal, and do not represent those of the Ford Motor Company, or anybody else with an ounce of sense, for that matter. We hope you enjoyed the podcast. I certainly enjoyed bringing it to you. I’m Chuck Nice, and this has been “Electric Generation.” Thanks for listening.
From Ford:
To find out more about how Ford is leading the way toward a more sustainable, electric future, visit ford.com/built-for-america.