Speaker 1: Pushkin. There's two ways in. There's two ways in, and
Speaker 1: I'll let you choose. One way in is pizza and tokyo.
Speaker 2: The other way you got, what's the second one? What's
Speaker 2: the second one?
Speaker 1: The second one is the more uh thinky, the more
Speaker 1: intellectual way in, which is like electrification is great, but
Speaker 1: like the wire going into my house isn't big enough
Speaker 1: basically to get all the electricity into my house that
Speaker 1: I need.
Speaker 2: Let's start with pizza.
Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein and this is What's Your Problem, the
Speaker 1: show where I talk to people who are trying to
Speaker 1: make technological progress. My guest today is Sam Demico. He's
Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of Impulse Labs, which is a
Speaker 1: company that makes induction stoves. Sam's problem is this, how
Speaker 1: do you build a really good DRIC cook top that
Speaker 1: people can install without having to rewire their house, and that,
Speaker 1: by the way, could eventually help transform the way electric
Speaker 1: power works in America. It's an ambitious project, ambitious stove,
Speaker 1: and it goes back to this moment when Sam ordered
Speaker 1: a pizza. He was working for Facebook at the time,
Speaker 1: helping to build their Oculus VR headset, and he was
Speaker 1: at a conference in Tokyo. What neighborhood in Tokyo did
Speaker 1: you have the pizza?
Speaker 2: I think it was. I think it was near Akasaka station.
Speaker 2: It's like, savoid pizza.
Speaker 1: Okay, so tell me about the pizza.
Speaker 2: I order my pizza and I get it back in
Speaker 2: like forty five seconds or like a minute or something insane.
Speaker 2: I probably say a different number of different people. But
Speaker 2: it was fast enough and absolutely fantastic. Then Krispy a
Speaker 2: lot of garlic, super super good, like master of the
Speaker 2: craft type situation. So I get this, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I want to do this at home, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to have to have a giant brick oven in
Speaker 2: my backyard. And so I was like, it would be
Speaker 2: really sweet if you could do this with electrical electricity.
Speaker 1: And how are they doing it? What's going on?
Speaker 2: So this is a classic like how normal brick oven
Speaker 2: pizzas make, and I was like, I want to replicate
Speaker 2: that like an old school brick oven. The amount of
Speaker 2: infrared power that thing dumps onto the pizza because the
Speaker 2: fire reflects off of a curved bowl above the of
Speaker 2: the pizza. It okay, I'm like, could I just do
Speaker 2: this with halogen light bulbs? And a lot of power.
Speaker 2: Could a pizza oven that makes a pizza of that
Speaker 2: quality be an electronic device? And I was like, I
Speaker 2: let's figure this out. And I realized that the power
Speaker 2: density of like the amount of infrared and the heating
Speaker 2: you need to get that onto the pizza, you were
Speaker 2: going to need more than a normal one twenty volt plug.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that if you you figured out how
Speaker 1: much power you would need to make a pizza of
Speaker 1: them that could get that hot from electricity. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you realize that you couldn't build a device that you
Speaker 1: could just plug into the wall because it would need
Speaker 1: too much power. That's the fundamental constraint.
Speaker 2: Of bingo bingo exactly. I was like, okay, well, how
Speaker 2: often are you using this thing? And also how often
Speaker 2: is it even if you're like cranking out pizzas, like
Speaker 2: you're gonna be like prepping the next pizza, Like, there's
Speaker 2: time in between for say a battery to recharge, uh huh,
Speaker 2: in between the various pizza making sessions.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So I went and just looked at this and I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay. I sized the battery pack and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: this is getting large. It's not like it's not it's
Speaker 2: not like laptop battery size. It's more like it's getting
Speaker 2: into like those little stationary like batteries you use for
Speaker 2: camping or something like that. It was getting into that.
Speaker 2: It was getting into that a lot.
Speaker 1: So you realize you're gonna need a lot of battery power.
Speaker 1: But what I just want to pause before we get
Speaker 1: into like how big were the battery, because the idea
Speaker 1: of the battery is I feel like at a certain level,
Speaker 1: it's why I want to talk to you, right Otherwise, yeah,
Speaker 1: the stoves, like the battery is a great, big, powerful
Speaker 1: idea with lots of ramifications. Right, And so the first
Speaker 1: the first, the first thing, the first reason you think
Speaker 1: of the battery is you realize, oh, you can use
Speaker 1: the regular outlet, just the same outlet that whatever I
Speaker 1: charge my phone on. You can use for like a
Speaker 1: super powerful, super hot stove if you add a battery,
Speaker 1: because the battery can just draw power all day when
Speaker 1: the stove is just sitting there, and then when you
Speaker 1: go to turn on the stove, it can discharge a
Speaker 1: ton of energy all at once, more than you could
Speaker 1: get out of the outlet. Right, Like that is that's
Speaker 1: upside insight because we don't think of home appliances that way, right.
Speaker 2: And it's always and your appliance is always plugged in.
Speaker 2: Why would you put a battery in something that is
Speaker 2: always plugged in? Yeah, which is kind of the like
Speaker 2: weird yeah right that you have to make yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, because right right? Why not just get it enough
Speaker 1: power whenever you want on it?
Speaker 2: Bingo? And then I was like, Okay, this is a
Speaker 2: good idea. Let's pressure test what would actually cause a
Speaker 2: VC to want to invest in this. And I then
Speaker 2: kind of started fanning out beyond just me being like
Speaker 2: I want my pizza really fast and in high quality.
Speaker 2: And by the way, this pizza in my head is
Speaker 2: like glistening in its pizza way. I'm like this, this
Speaker 2: is this is like I want this pizza. But you
Speaker 2: have to think about, hey, is this a platform? Is
Speaker 2: there a wedge into a broader market? What's the big
Speaker 2: story here? And so and so what I realized was like,
Speaker 2: let's look at other appliances what the story is. And
Speaker 2: I I then thought through kind of the implications and
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, for the bigger appliances, say the
Speaker 2: ones that normally plug in with like a two forty
Speaker 2: evolt plug like the bigger one, or like a dryer,
Speaker 2: like a stovetop and of it like a wall of it,
Speaker 2: or a range product or a hot water heater, and
Speaker 2: how big is the battery going to be in those cases?
Speaker 2: And I kind of did the math and sizing, and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, it's going to be like north
Speaker 2: of two kilo what hours at least? So I'll give
Speaker 2: you the scaling factor on this is like is like
Speaker 2: you you could very quickly take like four, three or
Speaker 2: four major appliances because you think of all the big
Speaker 2: boxes you've got in your house. Times a couple of
Speaker 2: KILLO on hours batteries, you get about the same amount
Speaker 2: of storage as a Tesla power wall.
Speaker 1: A Tesla powerwall being the like you can live off
Speaker 1: the grid you put your panels on your roof, and
Speaker 1: a Tesla powerwall. So you're basically saying you can sort
Speaker 1: of distribute a like live off the grid amount of
Speaker 1: batteries if you could put a battery on the stove
Speaker 1: and the fridge and the hot water heater.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, exactly. Then I looked at what was happening
Speaker 2: in the stationary storage battery industry and it was like
Speaker 2: it was all focusing on these centralized battery systems like
Speaker 2: a battery wall battery wall type product. They weren't addressing
Speaker 2: all the wiring in your house. And also, like appliances,
Speaker 2: basically they haven't seen a lot of innovation in like
Speaker 2: fifty years or so. It's like induction stoves are fifty
Speaker 2: years old for reference, so's it's like, this is an
Speaker 2: opportunity to generationally advance the appliance industry and then also
Speaker 2: wedge like let's call it ten plus kill a lot
Speaker 2: of hours of batteries into every home in America. That
Speaker 2: is really interesting, right, Like that is a bigger story
Speaker 2: than your pizza is awesome.
Speaker 1: So there's a few balls in the air right now,
Speaker 1: how do you land on starting with an induction stove?
Speaker 2: So we thought of doing maybe tabletop devices first because
Speaker 2: they'd be easier.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2: Tabletop device would be like you could imagine the pizza
Speaker 2: oven being an ambitious one, but you could think of
Speaker 2: like there's other product ideas we've been peddling around. It's
Speaker 2: like kettle just like that. Yeah, ok, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you could do something. There's a lot of things that
Speaker 2: have high peak power demands that are interesting.
Speaker 1: We were like, we got an air fryer and it
Speaker 1: keeps blowing out the circuit breaker. We can't run the
Speaker 1: air fryer and the microwave at the same time. Give
Speaker 1: me a battery.
Speaker 2: I know, I will know. No announcements on this podcast
Speaker 2: for product announcements.
Speaker 1: Okay, but those feel sort of small ball compared to
Speaker 1: a stovetop right, Like an air fryer is like kind
Speaker 1: of a luxury weirdo item, whereas everybody has a stove.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that part of why you land on
Speaker 1: a stove.
Speaker 2: There's there's two reasons. One is there has not been
Speaker 2: there's actually a lot of meat on the bone where
Speaker 2: you could say, like if I make your hot water
Speaker 2: heater like three times more powerful, you can't make the
Speaker 2: water three times hotter.
Speaker 1: Most people wouldn't notice the difference if their water heater.
Speaker 2: So this is this is the key insight is gas
Speaker 2: stoves are and like the knobs and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: the ui ux of the stove is the fuel source.
Speaker 1: And so just to be clear, when you say you
Speaker 1: mean the user interface user experience, like when you turn
Speaker 1: on a gas stove, you can see the gas flame.
Speaker 1: That's what you can It's the place in your house
Speaker 1: where you actually see, like, oh, I am burning fossil
Speaker 1: fuel in order to cook spaghetti.
Speaker 2: Gas stoves are the one situation where if you want
Speaker 2: to make a fossil fuel free home or like electrify
Speaker 2: the home completely, you would be That is the one
Speaker 2: mental block and like actual like performance block where people
Speaker 2: are like, well, I like my gas stove and I
Speaker 2: can't get rid of it.
Speaker 1: Nobody's going to be like I love my gas dryer
Speaker 1: or I love my gas water.
Speaker 2: Who cares? Yeah, yeah, No, that's it. That's a cost thing.
Speaker 2: That's like a that's like a maybe maybe my gas
Speaker 2: company's expensive, maybe is cheap. You'll pe people.
Speaker 1: Don't have an attachment to a gas water heater the
Speaker 1: way they have an attachment to a gas stove. Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: I buy that, But that seems like a reason you
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to do and stove as your first one.
Speaker 1: That seems to make it harder, not easier.
Speaker 2: So that's one piece. But then the second piece was
Speaker 2: the battery. Lets us beat the pants off of anything else.
Speaker 1: In the market in terms of performance.
Speaker 2: Performance In terms of performance, it.
Speaker 1: Goes back to the amazing pizza oven.
Speaker 2: Yes, it goes back to the amazing piece of a
Speaker 2: thing where it's like and so thinking through this was
Speaker 2: where is there like a wedge where like you have
Speaker 2: to beat fossil fuels by a resolutely huge amount to
Speaker 2: displace it. So that's why it has happened. Fully, we
Speaker 2: can do it. And it's also an installed appliance. So
Speaker 2: the and this is the piece that I'm going to
Speaker 2: get it next. So the battery can be wired in
Speaker 2: a way where it can support the grid by charging
Speaker 2: and discharging into the house, not just like the appliance
Speaker 2: having a boost from the battery basically.
Speaker 1: So there's sort of two different ideas. There two reasons
Speaker 1: you wanted to do the stove right. So one the
Speaker 1: first one you said, is because it can you can
Speaker 1: use the battery to make a better electric stove than
Speaker 1: exists now and to make a stove that is better
Speaker 1: than any gas stove that exists now. Yes, and that
Speaker 1: improvement is meaningful to the typical homeown or the typical
Speaker 1: human being in a way that a better water heater
Speaker 1: who cares.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like better water hitter may save you money,
Speaker 2: like say you go to a heat pump water hitter.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, my energy bill is two to three
Speaker 2: and a half times less, yeah, versus a resistant one. Cool,
Speaker 2: but in our case, it's like your water literally boils
Speaker 2: ten times faster than your gastove.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that. Let's we'll get back
Speaker 1: to the wiring thing and the battery and that your
Speaker 1: battery can then like go back into the grid. Like
Speaker 1: I like all that. It's very interesting. It's a big
Speaker 1: idea there. I want to talk about it, but I
Speaker 1: want to wait a minute to talk about that. And
Speaker 1: I want to just talk about induction stoves, yeah, for
Speaker 1: a minute in a few ways. Right, So one, I
Speaker 1: mean just simply just like kind of basic A basic
Speaker 1: thing is like there's different kinds of electric stoves. Right,
Speaker 1: there's the kind like I had as a child in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties with the coil that gets orange, right,
Speaker 1: And then there's the kind that you know people had
Speaker 1: as a child in the whatever two thousands, where it's
Speaker 1: a flat piece of glass and the little circle gets
Speaker 1: red right.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, neither of those is an induction stove.
Speaker 2: They are both terrible as well.
Speaker 1: They are terrible, right, So I grew up with that
Speaker 1: and now I have gas, and I'm like, I like
Speaker 1: gas because you know the other one. You turn it
Speaker 1: on and it takes forever to get hot, and then
Speaker 1: you turn it off and it's still hot, which, like
Speaker 1: you like pan really bad. Yeah, if you've got a
Speaker 1: bunch of things on the stove, there's nowhere to put
Speaker 1: it and gas, Like, you turn it on and you
Speaker 1: can see it, and you turn it off and like
Speaker 1: any pan will work on it. You don't need special pans.
Speaker 1: You can turn the knob turn, does it you see
Speaker 1: the flame? Like at a certain non rational level, I'm
Speaker 1: wary of induction stoves. First of all, tell me why
Speaker 1: I'm wary of induction stoves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think it's. I think it's because the
Speaker 2: entire history of electric stoves has been disappointing. The first
Speaker 2: generation of with the coils that is like a it's
Speaker 2: like a heating ailment that conducts into the pan basically,
Speaker 2: and the knob controls that. It takes like minutes for
Speaker 2: that to change its temperature. So the next gen is
Speaker 2: they're like, let's just basically put a light bulb underneath.
Speaker 1: So that's the flat piece of glass with the red
Speaker 1: circle under it. That is also like confusing and kind
Speaker 1: of slow and bad.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's it's terrible, it's bad. And then and then
Speaker 2: induction is this technology that directly heats the pan with
Speaker 2: magnetic fields. And so this is one where it's like
Speaker 2: there's nothing glowing red, there's nothing actually getting hot.
Speaker 1: Besides stove itself is not getting hot on an induction stone.
Speaker 2: And we always get asked this question from people being
Speaker 2: like putting a battery in a stove, isn't the stove
Speaker 2: really hot? And I'm like, the stove is not hot,
Speaker 2: the pan is hot. You form a large electric current
Speaker 2: in the base of the pan. The pan is made
Speaker 2: of steel, not like copper, so it's kind of poor
Speaker 2: in terms of electrical conductivity, so it doesn't it impedes
Speaker 2: the flow of electricity.
Speaker 1: And that generates heat to let the electricity flow through it.
Speaker 1: And that resistance is what creates heat in the pan.
Speaker 2: In the pan, yes, huh.
Speaker 1: What kind of pans work and what kind of pants
Speaker 1: don't work on an induction.
Speaker 2: So you can make all of them work. Most pans work.
Speaker 2: There are two pans that generally have issues unless they
Speaker 2: have a laminated iron layer in them, and those are
Speaker 2: like the copper pans and the aluminum pans, and a
Speaker 2: lot of aluminum pans. Very commonly, they laminate a like
Speaker 2: a steel disc on the bottom to make induction stoves
Speaker 2: work these days.
Speaker 1: Skill to come on the show, Sam walks me through
Speaker 1: what I would need to do to install a regular,
Speaker 1: non battery powered induction stove in my house, and that
Speaker 1: explanation points to a really big problem that has to
Speaker 1: be solved if we're going to electrify homes around the country. Also,
Speaker 1: how Sam thinks he can help solve that problem. There
Speaker 1: is a kind of second order problem with switching stove,
Speaker 1: which is like, even if I decide, okay, I want
Speaker 1: an induction stove, regular induction stove, not talking about what
Speaker 1: you're building. I want a stove, I'll get rid of
Speaker 1: my gas stove. I'll buy an induction stove. For whatever reason,
Speaker 1: my house may not be wired for it. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm already willing to pay for the stove, but I
Speaker 1: can't just buy the stove and get somebody to bring
Speaker 1: it in and plug it in often, right, my house
Speaker 1: is one hundred years old. I have a gas stove
Speaker 1: and a gas off and what would I have to
Speaker 1: do if I wanted to get an induction stove.
Speaker 2: So where the where in the country. Where in the
Speaker 2: country is your.
Speaker 1: House of Brooklyn, New York?
Speaker 2: Excellent, Okay, this is I can I can give you
Speaker 2: an even more micro tailored example. So here's the situation.
Speaker 2: You're like, I'm doing a kitchen remodel, I'm doing whatever.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm gonna I want to get a new stove.
Speaker 2: I heard this induction thing is awesome, Let's go do it.
Speaker 2: And then there's like the Then it's basically like you
Speaker 2: talk to your general contractor and you're like, oh, you
Speaker 2: need to run a new two hundred and forty volt
Speaker 2: circuit to your kitchen from your panel. If you if
Speaker 2: you were lucky and you don't live in Brooklyn, this
Speaker 2: is typically like five hundred bucks. Like it's not a
Speaker 2: huge deal. So then the next piece is they're then
Speaker 2: going to go to your panel and they're gonna open
Speaker 2: it up and they're gonna look at the numbers for
Speaker 2: what your panel is rated for and your electrical panel
Speaker 2: for folks, that that's the that's the metal box that
Speaker 2: has all the circum rates. Like yeah, so you open
Speaker 2: that up. There's a label on the inside and it
Speaker 2: says maximum let's say sixty amps, because I'm picking on
Speaker 2: if you have a Brooklyn apartment or something like that,
Speaker 2: that would be what it is. It'll say sixty amps.
Speaker 2: You then look at the spec sheet for the induction stove,
Speaker 2: it says sixty amps. You would need to use your
Speaker 2: entire Brooklyn h electrical supply. A new panel is like
Speaker 2: three grand or something like that, Okay, or four grand.
Speaker 2: So this is like more expensive than a lot of
Speaker 2: induction stoves. Like you buy some great products from SAMs
Speaker 2: like are LG those are those are the panel upgrade
Speaker 2: and the rewiring is going to be more expensive than
Speaker 2: the entire stuff stove.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've heard you talk about one more step
Speaker 1: right which which goes beyond the panel, and it's about
Speaker 1: like how much power is coming into the house from
Speaker 1: the street. What is that piece of it.
Speaker 2: Let's say you want to get a two hundred amp panel,
Speaker 2: you may only have one hundred and twenty five amp service,
Speaker 2: which means you're going to have to call up con
Speaker 2: ed and maybe wait eighteen months. That's what the lead
Speaker 2: times are for PGN in San Francisco for them to
Speaker 2: go and upgrade your service from the street.
Speaker 1: And do they charge me for that as well?
Speaker 2: Yes, and that can be over ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I will say, even having to call con ed, even
Speaker 1: before you got to the tenth thousand dollars in waiting
Speaker 1: a year, I'm basically out right if I got a
Speaker 1: call cond to get a new stove, like my stove
Speaker 1: is fine.
Speaker 2: Whatever you're you're on the side of big gas and
Speaker 2: you love it. So that's the situation and scope of
Speaker 2: this problem.
Speaker 1: And so that I mean, so whatever the level is, right,
Speaker 1: So you've sort of stepped through like.
Speaker 2: There's a somewhat level.
Speaker 1: Oh I was okay, I was already sold. What's the
Speaker 1: fourth level?
Speaker 2: If you were the like last person on your street
Speaker 2: to want to do this. And by the way, all
Speaker 2: of your neighbors are getting EV chargers installed and also
Speaker 2: doing the service upgrades. Even if they don't care what
Speaker 2: their stove uses, they're gonna need to get to charge
Speaker 2: your Tesla. It's the same as a Tesla charger and
Speaker 2: a induction stove are both like forty to sixty apps,
Speaker 2: so it's the same. So that's the order of Magnazue
Speaker 2: need to think. You may have to if you're the
Speaker 2: last person, you may have to pay to upgrade the transformer.
Speaker 2: And because we stop building stuff in America anymore, there
Speaker 2: is an insane lead time on transformers.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, I mean at this point it's like whatever,
Speaker 1: you gotta get out a rocket ship and go to
Speaker 1: the moon. Right, So there is an idea here that
Speaker 1: is really interesting to me, right, and to you as
Speaker 1: well obviously, Like there's this basic idea of like, yes,
Speaker 1: we're all going to electrifire homes over some timescale, hopefully
Speaker 1: faster rather than slower, right, and great, and people are
Speaker 1: figuring out, you know whatever, nice efficient ways to eat
Speaker 1: water and dry clothes and cook food with electricity. Great,
Speaker 1: but there's this very basic sort of last mile problem, right,
Speaker 1: last ten feet problem of getting enough electricity just to
Speaker 1: the stove from whatever the panel from the street that is.
Speaker 1: That is a real problem.
Speaker 2: I think the last ten feet problem is kind of
Speaker 2: a way to think of like versus last mile, but
Speaker 2: last ten feet it is like a really great way
Speaker 2: to think about it.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of fractal.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's like first it's like from the from the panel
Speaker 1: to the stove is one of them, and then like
Speaker 1: from the panel to the street is another one, and
Speaker 1: and uh.
Speaker 2: From the outlet to the induction coil, because you could
Speaker 2: make it more powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the last one. Yeah, And so the battery. Sticking
Speaker 1: a battery on the electrical appliance becomes essentially a hack,
Speaker 1: uh that that allows you to sidestep the problem because
Speaker 1: you don't actually need the electricity all the time. Yes,
Speaker 1: you don't actually need a bigger wire. You just need
Speaker 1: to be able to store the amount of electricity that's
Speaker 1: coming into the house now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And we've done we cook a lot in
Speaker 2: the office with our prototypes and units we've gotten back
Speaker 2: from manufacturer as well, and like what we found is
Speaker 2: a normal one twenty volt outlet on a stove is
Speaker 2: more than enough to keep the battery charged while you're cooking,
Speaker 2: Which is counterintuitive because it turns out that like when
Speaker 2: you're using any of these high power draw appliances, even
Speaker 2: when they're quote unquote working, like the peak and the
Speaker 2: average are so widely disparate that there is a huge
Speaker 2: opportunity here. And like the big thing is, like all
Speaker 2: of these new things we're doing to our homes for electrification,
Speaker 2: induction stoves, heat pump water heaters, dryers, et cetera. All
Speaker 2: of them are like high peak load. So if you
Speaker 2: basically put what's called like a peaker power plant inside
Speaker 2: the device when you deploy it, you've addressed that problem
Speaker 2: as you scale.
Speaker 1: So you're saying, like the standard way of solving this
Speaker 1: problem of like whatever bigger panel, bigger wire coming to
Speaker 1: your house, maybe of whatever a new transformer on your
Speaker 1: block that is all designed to handle these just rare
Speaker 1: moments when you have like all the burners going full
Speaker 1: blast for a minute and it's like, no, we don't
Speaker 1: actually have to rebuild the world around that. We can
Speaker 1: just store up power because we're never almost never doing that.
Speaker 1: And if you just stick a battery on it and
Speaker 1: store up the power, that solves it.
Speaker 2: Yep, that makes that's exactly it.
Speaker 1: There's another thing you can do, right, which is use
Speaker 1: that power that's in the battery, not just for the stove,
Speaker 1: but send it where, send it to my house, send
Speaker 1: it back to the grid, Like is what is the
Speaker 1: other move? Once you have a battery on the stove.
Speaker 2: You're not cooking the complete battery capacity, Like we're able
Speaker 2: to give you like three or four meals worth of
Speaker 2: battery storage. Huh, you're able to use the excess energy
Speaker 2: to offset, say you're heating maybe during peak hours. So
Speaker 2: like typically in New York and in San Francisco, in
Speaker 2: La many places, there's widely different electricity rates depending on
Speaker 2: if it's like noon and there's like excess solar on
Speaker 2: the grid or at six pm and everyone just got
Speaker 2: home and is turning on their induction star.
Speaker 1: And this is a huge problem in energy right. In fact,
Speaker 1: the utilities build gas fired power plants that exist only
Speaker 1: for the moments when everybody suddenly turns everything on and
Speaker 1: there's a huge amount of peak demand. Right there are
Speaker 1: these peaker power plants that are inefficient and expensive, and
Speaker 1: if we could figure out how to smooth demand from
Speaker 1: the utility, like that would be great. Right. It's cheaper
Speaker 1: for consumers, but it's also way more efficient. And you're saying,
Speaker 1: these batteries on whatever, a bunch of stoves can actually
Speaker 1: like power your house at the moment when you really
Speaker 1: don't want to be pulling power from the grid.
Speaker 2: We also we have inter access. We're connect to the
Speaker 2: internet and like that. These are kind of the things
Speaker 2: like nests does for kind of the like, uh, are
Speaker 2: you home, how to manage kind of like the heating
Speaker 2: in your house for like home energy optimization and saving
Speaker 2: you money. We essentially can use some of the similar
Speaker 2: signals to then say, hey, you're done cooking for the day,
Speaker 2: we can drain a chunk of the rest of the battery.
Speaker 2: Now we're going to get people options. So this is
Speaker 2: not like done behind your back or whatever. Sure, but
Speaker 2: the but the idea is like you then can drain
Speaker 2: the rest of the battery to say that with that
Speaker 2: energy being used for your HVAC or.
Speaker 1: For so I can use the energy in the battery
Speaker 1: on my stove to power the rest of my house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're gaming PC whatever you want?
Speaker 1: Yes, huh and that works? Now? Is that the dream?
Speaker 1: Or like, when you start selling stoves later this year,
Speaker 1: will that work?
Speaker 2: Are are we're hardware able to do this? There's regulatory
Speaker 2: compliance steps to go through on that, and we're the
Speaker 2: goal here is to have this enabled on all of
Speaker 2: our hardware.
Speaker 1: So let's let's talk about the hardware. I love the dream.
Speaker 1: I feel like we gave the dream it's due. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the reality. I know you started accepting pre orders, yep.
Speaker 1: When when are like people going to be able to
Speaker 1: get their stoves for real, like, not as a special trial,
Speaker 1: not as like ceci Q four. Okay, how confident are
Speaker 1: you in that verition? Very great? What do you have
Speaker 1: to figure out between now and then?
Speaker 2: I will speak generically because I want to I some
Speaker 2: of this stuff is more confidential terms of where we
Speaker 2: are in the process and how this stuff works. But
Speaker 2: the general way you approach hardware is first you kind
Speaker 2: of were like, does this idea work like? And so
Speaker 2: we went and like built prototype stoves that had a
Speaker 2: battery in them, have tested out the whole system. You
Speaker 2: basically want to use that to figure out how to
Speaker 2: scope out what you actually want to design now that
Speaker 2: you know kind of the details of it. Start with that.
Speaker 2: You then need to land the manufacturing partners that actually
Speaker 2: scale up, and you need to actually go start doing
Speaker 2: a sequence of builds with those manufacturing partners with kind
Speaker 2: of like three or four month cadence where you're increasing
Speaker 2: the fidelity of the product and increasing the fidelity of
Speaker 2: the manufacturing process. I mean, there's then Elon quote that
Speaker 2: I think is reasonable here, which is like the factory
Speaker 2: is the product, but effectively it's like you need to
Speaker 2: build the machine that builds the machine, and not just
Speaker 2: figuring out the spec sheet of the thing that you
Speaker 2: post on the website, but like you have to make
Speaker 2: sure that you have confidence not just in the like, hey,
Speaker 2: this thing is going to be the best to have ever,
Speaker 2: but like we will also be able to deliver this
Speaker 2: to you at at scale, reliably, et cetera. And so
Speaker 2: we are at the point where we've figured out all
Speaker 2: of the details that are kind of like let's call
Speaker 2: it the major changes to the product. So it's like
Speaker 2: the units we're building are representative of the final thing.
Speaker 2: Then you are running through a suite of tests, some
Speaker 2: of which are like in the lab being like, hey
Speaker 2: does this thing scratch if I like use the wrong
Speaker 2: cleaning agent or something. It's like it's like you're doing
Speaker 2: a matrix of tests.
Speaker 1: You're trying to break it.
Speaker 2: You're trying to break it. You're trying to break it.
Speaker 2: You're also doing software development because it's like you have
Speaker 2: to develop this is a product that's like a connected device.
Speaker 2: It's got a lot of software and firmware. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of like compliance aspects of that too, So there's
Speaker 2: code stuff. There's what's called like ul.
Speaker 1: Like underwriters laboratory, that little thing that's on the tag
Speaker 1: on every lamp you ever owned, right.
Speaker 2: Like, this includes stuff like FCC, Like you have to
Speaker 2: make sure that you pass FCC.
Speaker 1: If you have a ready communications commission because it because
Speaker 1: it's like Wi Fi enabled or something.
Speaker 2: It's not just as Wi Fi. If it has an
Speaker 2: induction coil, you have to make sure that it's like
Speaker 2: you know, like it's not gonna jam your WiFi by accident.
Speaker 2: It's all of these sort of there's there's a huge
Speaker 2: host of details here that you have to get right.
Speaker 2: And it's not just checking all the boxes. It's also
Speaker 2: making sure the product is safe, right like like it's
Speaker 2: like safe safe and so doing all of that is
Speaker 2: a process into itself.
Speaker 1: And so so you have a lot to do. Fine, Uh,
Speaker 1: how much is it going to cost?
Speaker 2: We are currently selling units on our website for fifty
Speaker 2: five This is normal for high end induction stoves. So
Speaker 2: if you look at if you look at some of
Speaker 2: the top brands in the industry, this is what they
Speaker 2: sell for similar scope.
Speaker 1: You could get a nice one for half of that.
Speaker 1: Certainly you can get a nice one for It's just
Speaker 1: a stove, to be clear, it's not an.
Speaker 2: Oven, yes exactly. Now that's the headline price. Now, a
Speaker 2: big change that the Inflation Reduction Act did has to
Speaker 2: do with batteries. There's a thirty percent tax credit for
Speaker 2: battery products.
Speaker 1: And so do you get thirty percent off the whole
Speaker 1: stove as a result.
Speaker 2: We're working through the specific details, but as it stands now,
Speaker 2: I believe so. And then additionally, the IRA takes off
Speaker 2: eight hundred and forty dollars via rebate if you have
Speaker 2: a gas stove and you want to switch to this.
Speaker 1: So that that's going to help you a lot.
Speaker 2: That's the first piece. And then the second piece is
Speaker 2: because you're putting a battery in your home. Once we
Speaker 2: kind of have the deployment with battery storage and all
Speaker 2: this other stuff working, you can save money on your
Speaker 2: energy bill at the like and depending on where you
Speaker 2: live and what your rate disparities are and what other
Speaker 2: program there's other programs for virtual power plants and all
Speaker 2: this other stuff. There's potentially a like thousands of dollars
Speaker 2: in like savings you can have on energy costs over
Speaker 2: the lifetime of the product.
Speaker 1: And will that will that kind of dynamic use of
Speaker 1: the battery be ready I know it'll be technically ready
Speaker 1: to go from the point of view of the stove
Speaker 1: and the battery when you ship, we'll will.
Speaker 2: Have we will have a subset of that all ready
Speaker 2: to go at ship date.
Speaker 1: And will the sort of like utility regulatory whatever side
Speaker 1: be be ready then? Or is that going to take
Speaker 1: like forever because it's utility.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna take. It's not gonna take forever. There
Speaker 2: is a path to making a let's call it the
Speaker 2: eighty twenty version of this work. Yeah, very fast.
Speaker 1: There's a version where you can do a lot of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah soon. Yeah, okay, And I think that's actually that's
Speaker 2: something that we're keeping a little close to the chest
Speaker 2: until we're further along. Can tell on to talk about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're gonna ship stoves to people on or
Speaker 1: before December thirty first, twenty twenty four. What are you
Speaker 1: going to do next?
Speaker 2: We're evaluating other form factors of like appliances. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'll say, I'll give you a freebie as we're definitely
Speaker 2: gonna be doing an oven and I want to have
Speaker 2: a pizza mode for that. But like you get the
Speaker 2: idea there.
Speaker 1: Right, because I mean, so what you're selling now is
Speaker 1: just a cook top, right, so the oven would actually
Speaker 1: be the obvious next one, so that you could sell
Speaker 1: the range, right, the stovetop and oven, Like, what's the
Speaker 1: constraint there?
Speaker 2: You literally need to have a much bigger logistical footprint
Speaker 2: as a business.
Speaker 1: What is a happy story to you of how the
Speaker 1: world looks in five years?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think I think the happy story is
Speaker 2: like if you can go get a substantial fraction of
Speaker 2: appliance installs, but like if a company can get like
Speaker 2: a million homes with this with and we're able to
Speaker 2: connect the batteries in a way where they're able to
Speaker 2: do kind of the equivalent of vehicle to home type thing.
Speaker 2: You're in a spot where you have enough storage to
Speaker 2: be kind of a big player on the grid.
Speaker 1: That's the real the real game for you is not
Speaker 1: the stove. It's not bringing the power in. It's sending
Speaker 1: the power back out. That's that's your reeling gig.
Speaker 2: It's both, it's both, it's both and so it's like
Speaker 2: it's like you make the stove that is the best
Speaker 2: stove that is also the easiest to install stove. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then you basically are just deploying more batteries than
Speaker 2: anyone else on the grid.
Speaker 1: Through that hook, there's a universe where you're not just
Speaker 1: a stove company. You impost labs are selling electricity into
Speaker 1: the grid, and the electricity is coming from the stoves
Speaker 1: of your customers who are in somehow participating in this.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're getting some of the revenue, say.
Speaker 2: Exactly, or they got a discount on the product, or
Speaker 2: there's some incentive structure. We are yes, that's I think
Speaker 2: that's one hundred percent correct.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the light ground. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's do the lightning round. What kind of stove views
Speaker 1: at home?
Speaker 2: Okay, this is going to change in like soon, But
Speaker 2: it's a Viking four burner, say it's it's a Viking
Speaker 2: four burners stove.
Speaker 1: Gas gas gas gas stove. It's a great stove. That's
Speaker 1: a fancy stove.
Speaker 2: It takes it takes six and a half minutes to
Speaker 2: boil a liter of water on the same pan. It
Speaker 2: takes forty seconds for our stove to do what.
Speaker 1: What's like a go to weeknight dinner to cook for you.
Speaker 2: I've had less time to do that more recently, but
Speaker 2: I do like doing stir fry stuff.
Speaker 1: Is it right that you worked on on Google Glass? Yes,
Speaker 1: so Google Glass was a long time and I was
Speaker 1: ten years ago. Maybe. Uh it's basically augmented reality glasses.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't work, right, the Google Glass doesn't exist today.
Speaker 1: I don't mean it didn't work technically, I mean and
Speaker 1: it didn't catch on. Uh So I'm curious, what is
Speaker 1: something you learned from from the failure of Google Less.
Speaker 2: I definitely look back fondly to days when Google was
Speaker 2: like will like to do like extremely ambitious, like stick
Speaker 2: their neck out things, and I hope that with all
Speaker 2: this AI stuff happening, they're gonna do that again. And
Speaker 2: it seems like it might it might be happening, which
Speaker 2: is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, like like weird, kind of ahead of their
Speaker 1: time experiment.
Speaker 2: Keep Google weird is like my like protest protest statement.
Speaker 2: We Also, because I was on the Camera Harbor team,
Speaker 2: we actually had the opportunity to speck out this one
Speaker 2: camera module. This is a trivia thing, this one camera
Speaker 2: module that went into this thing called Project Tango, which
Speaker 2: is this very future looking remember you know, like ar
Speaker 2: kit on your phone where you can do like the
Speaker 2: measure app on your iPhone and stuff that was like
Speaker 2: the first version. The first version of like ar on
Speaker 2: phones was done at Google. We specked out a special
Speaker 2: camera for that. That same camera ended up on the
Speaker 2: Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.
Speaker 1: That's fun. So you're saying you worked on a hell
Speaker 1: you worked on a camera that wound up on a
Speaker 1: helicopter on Mars. Yes, oh fun?
Speaker 2: Okay as an intern.
Speaker 1: Great, anything else you want to talk about.
Speaker 2: We covered a huge amount of stuff.
Speaker 1: This is we did good work. We did go work here.
Speaker 1: Delight to talk to you. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Sam Dimico is the founder and CEO of Impulse Labs.
Speaker 1: Today's show was produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang. It was
Speaker 1: edited by Lydia Jean Kott and engineered by Sarah Buguer.
Speaker 1: You can email us at Problem at Pushkin dot FM.
Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein and we'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: another episode of What's Your Problem