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Non-Petroleum based EVOLVE Lubricants

Dedicated to using advanced technology and scientific breakthroughs to bring high performance finished lubricant solutions to market that provide a positive impact on the environment. Unheard of within the oil and lubricants industry, they were able to take the leap and produce products that are composed of primarily sustainable and renewable plant-based base oils while outperforming other petroleum-based products. Utilizing new technology, they created a ground-breaking, unique hydrocarbon molecule entirely based on plant-based feedstocks.

EVOLVE LUBRICANTS, Inc. is a green technology company that develops and manufactures high-performance non-petroleum based, sustainable lubricant solutions for the consumer, commercial, industrial and transportation sectors. And joining us tonight is Rick Lee, CEO and President for EVOLVE LUBRICANTS to explain how this all works.

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Spotlight

Rick Lee - CEO and President for Evolve Lubricants, Inc

Evolve Lubricants Inc. is a green technology company that has developed and manufactures high performance non-fossil sustainable lubricant solutions for the consumer, commercial, industrial and transportation sectors. Evolve Lubricants is bringing to the global marketplace the first hydrocarbon plant-based synthetic products that outperform all petroleum-based lubricants available today. We’re dedicated to producing the most advanced high performance lubricant solutions that are 100% petroleum free, sustainable, and renewable. All Evolve products outperform traditional petroleum-based products.


Contact: Rick Lee at Visit Online!

     

Notes

  • History of EVOLVE LUBRICANTS – the who/what/where/when of the brand. How did it all get started, and why?
  • Not all oils are created equal – What makes EVOSYN and ECORSA MOTORSPORT different? (elevator pitch). How would you compare your offerings for Motorsports applications to those of Mobil-1, Liqui-Moly, Motul etc?
  • Are you using similar additives and modifiers as you would see in a more traditional oil?
  • Your oil claims large ZINC contents, which is an excellent way to protect wear/tear items in the system. But they generally have a lower heat tolerance; how did EVOLVE come up with a “one size fits all” oil? #heatistheenemy
  • If we sent your product off to a facility like Blackstone Labs for testing, what would they expect to see in the results?
  • “Spec oils” – German manufacturers often have very strict requirements on what oil you should choose.  How do you find out if EVOLVE LUBE products are the right oil for your application? Are there cars (or manufacturers) that are being supplied with EVOLVE LUBE products?
  • Where can EVOLVE LUBE products be found? OTC? Dealer?

and much, much more!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports.

Tonight’s break fix guests are dedicated to using advanced technology and scientific breakthroughs to bring high performance finished lubricant solutions to market that provide a positive impact on the environment. This is unheard of. Within the oil and lubricants industry. They were able to take the leap and produce products that are composed of primarily sustainable and renewable plant-based oils, while outperforming other petroleum-based products, utilizing new technology.

They created a groundbreaking, unique hydrocarbon molecule entirely based on plant feed. Evolv Lubricants is a green technology company that develops and manufactures high performance, non petroleum based, sustainable lubricant solutions for the consumer, commercial, industrial, and transportation sectors.

And joining us tonight is Rick Lee, c [00:01:00] e o, and President for Evolv Lubricants to explain how all of this works. That’s right. Thanks Tanya, and welcome to Break Fix, Rick. Well, thanks for having me. So like all good break fix episodes. We wanna dive into the who, what, where, and when of our guests or the folks that we’re talking to.

So let’s talk about the history of Evolve Lubricants. How did it all get started and why? Evolv Lubricants, you know, really began in both the lab and the bench testing of racing oil. About eight years ago, my business partner is Tom Kirkham, who went to Poland with his brother and they converted a MIG factory aircraft plant into making aluminum body cobras.

And I read about that years ago. Yeah, so Tom Kirkham is my business partner. He owns a significant portion of evolved lubricants. We’ve been good friends for 25. . I raced his cobras. I mean, I, I did it wrong. I started out with cobras and then moved to Miatas, you know, . So, and then so, well, okay, maybe this [00:02:00] isn’t really a good idea to be doing this in Cobras.

He was in the very front of things. He’s a mechanical engineer. They looked at what was happening in the Cold War and all these other things, and they were one of the first Americans over into Poland after the Cold War. You see things like that happening and, and I see you, us at, at a very interesting point right now, we were very interested in trying to make the very best racing oils we could.

And we were testing with Paul Hassel Grn, uh, who was Toyota Engine builder of the year. For about 10 years, we had access to his Dino and running those Toyota Atlantic four a G engines at 10 to 12,000 rpm. So we found ourselves trying to perfect racing oils, basically trying to make those engines run as strong as they could and as long as they could.

At that time you were testing existing oils. Not to name any brands, but we’re talking conventional, petroleum based oils. So, What led you to make this move, to develop your own? [00:03:00] Well, you know, I was in the industrial commercial sector. I spent about 25 years in the Chevron distribution channel. I had spent this time in the petroleum space.

I saw some advances that were happening in the biotech world, particularly with molecular modeling and sequencing. I saw some products that were molecules that were being developed really as additives to increase the performance of lower performing base oils like group two base oils. Those additives were being used to meet OE specifications under a deeper dive into some of this technology or the molecular modeling.

What I found was something that I thought might, with some work, make a very good racing oil, and that’s really how we. So did you immediately take this new idea and test it on race cars or production cars? Was it something in your stable or was it one of the race cars you were already working with? We actually did start testing and we did a lot of AB type of testing around additives and things like that.

And you know, we were using probably the [00:04:00] best poly alpha oen feedstocks Group four and Group five Esther products in our development. We said, Hey, listen, let’s start slowly trying to replace the petroleum part of the base oils with this molecule to see results. What we get. At the time we were doing more scientific types of testing, but it was really about trying to get more horsepower and toka out of the Atlantic Motors.

I’m sure our audience is really curious to know what the base oil is made out of. Sure. You know, people are probably thinking, you know, it’s plant-based, so are we talking corn? Are we talking palm oil? Are we talking? Who knows? Right. Sure. I kind of harken back to an episode of Top Gear. Kind of reminded me as I was digging in and doing some research on evolved lubricants where they were.

Growing, cultivating and harvesting in an attempt to make their own gas right out of rape seed and things like that. So is that the path that you guys went down where it’s like it’s a giant farm and then you guys are going through and then turning this into your base oil? The technology actually started [00:05:00] off with sorghum and unique to the base oils.

Each of the continents seemed to be good with certain types of oil. So Europe is a really great source for GrapeSEED or canola oil and the US particularly. For the US markets and what we do is a conversion. Basically, if you, you know, the soy plant, majority of that goes to the protein. We actually start from acetyl alcohol.

There are oils that are derived from the soy. We begin that in our process relative to our base oils. Most people are when they think of lubricants and motor oils, Their head’s probably going to big refineries. Sure. Uh, things of that nature. But I mean, I, I would assume this is obviously much smaller scale, probably more laboratory type.

What’s your capacity look like? Yeah. Actually it’s not, one of our joint partners started off with a biotech company and grew into an investment by our major oil refinery. And the plant today is producing 20 million gallons. There was a refinery that was built at the cost of [00:06:00] about 150 million, so this is not a benchtop laboratory type of project.

We actually are manufacturing at full scale, the ability to do about 27 truckloads a day out of our Richmond, California facility that has both rail and bulk facilities there. The technology has come a long way in the. Eight years. We’re very fortunate to have good partners in building what we think is the highest performing engine oils in the world without question.

And where we also have a great story to say, you know, we say, Hey, from the base oil process, we actually have a certified negative carbon score of a negative 0.52 lca. We’ve come a long. And being able to formulate and make products that were eventually then tested by Porsche Ag in Germany this last summer, and those results were so successful.

They agreed to publish the test results and have me write a paper and present that to the World [00:07:00] Engine Congress in bottom, bottom, Germany this last January. Oh, that’s awesome. Congratulations on that. I guess so that was a lot of stress. I spent most of my Christmas break locked up in a room writing a paper, so I guess it was.

So let’s circle back to the Evolv lubricant offerings. Mm-hmm. , especially in the oils that we’re talking about here, engine oils. Okay. So there’s two. There’s Evos Sin and e Corsa. What’s the difference? What is that all about? Sure. Primarily the Evos sin lineup is really the commercial passenger car motor oil.

Brand and that brand is also carried into our heavy duty industrial lineup. So few are a fleet owner. Wheat actually just completed our 15 W 40 CK four spec diesel engine oils. And our FA four spec 10 W 30 diesel engine oils, a low sulfated ash product. We’re not just doing passenger cars, but we’re doing heavy duty over the road.

Diesel engine oil. And contained in the US patent is actually a 4% [00:08:00] miles per gallon savings, which is significant savings in fuel economy for those companies. And we’re getting a lot of traction and attention based on that, of course, because hey, we have an alternative to petroleum and companies are looking at these things.

There seems to be a convergence of both public policy and demand for these products, and companies are looking for ESG solutions, which we have, and the e cor. Related specifically for, let’s call it high temperature, high abuse, you know, track use, right? So like our 2050 OSA racing oil will find itself into the nine 17 Porsches of Bruce Kpa, the 9 35 Porsches that he has as well.

We have a high temp, high shear number of 6.3. That’s extremely remarkable having that kind of high tempi sheer number for that particular product. In addition, what’s really special about these products is the A S T M four Ball scar test in which, you know, our score is 0.24, and the [00:09:00] lower the score, the better.

Our tests actually outperform every engine oil on the market. On that A S T M test, it’s a D 41 72. If you’re curious. When you compare and contrast Evo enti, e Corsa, obviously the base oil in this case is probably the same. So does the difference come into play with the additives that you put in for the motorsports oil versus the commercial?

It does. We actually publish what the zinc and phosphorus and calcium content is, and we print it right on the bottle on the parts per million. Something I don’t think any other oil companies are doing. We’ve done a lot of testing relative to where the precise additive is and really about performance.

It gets down to the base oils and the combination of those base oils and additives. So I describe it to a lot of folks, like, imagine a bunch of pendulums moving with targets on them, and you’ve gotta line up those targets and be able to thread that needle really, really accurate. I mean, your focus right now is primarily on engine oils.

Is there future expansion into other [00:10:00] lubricants slash greases, bigger applications, EVs, there’s no engine there, but there’s still other components that need some sort of lubrication. Yeah, and to answer that question, the answer is yes. We make a full line of hydraulic oils, 32, 46 and 68. We carry the eco label additive packages.

And the real difference, I guess I want to say this, there’s been a lot of biodegradable products in the past, but they really can’t take the higher temperatures because they weren’t hydrocarbons. They were Esther primarily. So we make a product with a m. That can really take the heat, and that’s the big difference is that this is a true hydrocarbon.

So we have a lot of precise control over the alpha olein chain length and the average branching point, it’s that linear alpha olein in the control of the double bond position and the ization and isomerization process to be able to get this optimized final structure process. On the most simple terms, if you think about it like this, if you know how [00:11:00] heat is transferred into fluid through kinetic energy and conduction, this molecule has a much thicker carbon backbone.

And because of that, the heat transfers through that backbone a lot more efficiently, and the final products. Is been really worked under a lot of precision to operate in those performance characteristics, which we’ve designed for the oil under a lot of contact pressure and shear. The base molecule really starts to self-assemble, resulting in lower traction and power loss.

It’s a pretty high tech solution and petroleum just can’t get there. It’s just one of the great things about this new technology is that we feel very. Fortunate to be able to bring this carbon negative base oil solution that we have and be able to apply that to both motorsports and commercial applications right now.

And we’re testing in some of the largest fleets in the country right now. And people might be wondering why can’t the more traditional [00:12:00] oils get there or, or be the same? And, and it comes down to you guys are using plant-based versus crude oil. Crude oil is very dirty. It’s a lot harder to quote, refine that.

There’s a lot of. Things, impurities, they’re called sulfur, nitrogen, aromatic rings, things of that nature that are not good and require a lot of processing steps to get them out. Can never get them quite 100% out, right? But if you never start with them to begin with, Then they aren’t there. . So, you know, sulfur’s a really interesting topic because, you know, we have no sulfur in this product.

So we know in the combustion process, in the pan and things the, the engine’s creating sulfur acid. And so one of the challenges is that oil being hydroscopic, you know, when you take your race engine and. In the wintertime, you eat it up for 10 or 15 minutes and you don’t boil all the water out. Really, essentially what you’ve done now is you’ve coded your engine as you’ve turned it off with other acids and you know that’s not what you want on your cam and tapit [00:13:00] surfaces sitting most of the, the winter.

So what we’ve seen in a lot of vintage racing engine applications is etching in other kinds of surface profile destruction that we see from acids. And that’s a benefit of our oil is that we just don’t have. The vehicles that you’ve mentioned so far with respect to Motorsport, they’re vintage, which is good, and somebody needs to cater to the vintage market.

But how does the Evolve Lubricants products play in Modern Motors? You know, especially a lot of these turbocharged motors where heat is the enemy, right? We’re always running up against that wall. So how does it perform in those types of applications? Well, I’m glad you asked that. That’s exactly what Porsche wanted to know.

And the 2022 Porsche nine 11. The M a 2 0 3 Turbocharged engine is the test engine in which Porsche took through the paces a couple hundred hours on the Dino in a fuel dilution scenario. So I’m sworn to secrecy with the percentages. They diluted the oil, you know, a a little more than a third. You know, ran this through all different types of [00:14:00] conditions from full race conditions to city stop and go all different kinds of conditions.

At the end of the test, there were a lot of really cool takeaways, and one of them was that the evolved products held their viscosity, and we started with the zero 40. So we held our viscosity better than any reference oil they had ever tested, and that was significant. And we looked at all the different lines in the.

And to be able to maintain the viscosity under heavy fuel dilution and other kinds of stressors in a modern motor show that this not only performs for the $5 million vintage nine 17 Porsches of the world, but the everyday Porsche or luxury or sports car that you’d like to put this in. So a lot of that obviously comes down to the modifiers and the.

That you’re putting into your oils as part of your formulation. But I, I wanna look at it from the simplistic race car driver approach. When I’m in the car and I’m on track, you know, half an hour, hour, hour and a half at a time, all I have to go by are the gauges, right? I can’t [00:15:00] tell you what the dilution level is.

I can’t tell you what the motor’s doing, how much sulfuric acid is generating. What I know is. What my oil pressure is and what my oil temperature is, and those are the two most important things when I’m out there beating up on the car. So I’ve tested different oils in my race engine, and obviously when you look at the larger chart of petroleum based oils, heavy zinc based, or what we would call diesel oils.

Are the enemy. You don’t want to use those cause they don’t withstand high temperatures very, very well. They’re great for rings and they’re great for protection and coating items. But when you move to other manufacturers that have purely Esther based oils, they can withstand more heat, they have a higher flashpoint, all these kinds of things.

So where does the evolve. E course of product fall into that scale. Is it in the upper right corner where it can withstand 300 plus degrees for hours at a time? Or where does it sit on that scale? If you compare it with, with a petroleum based oil? So the Evolv product outperforms every petroleum engine oil on the market today.

If you were to present [00:16:00] it on the scale based on sheer stability scores based on no A scores for volatility, oxidation, We actually are extending engine drain intervals in the commercial side two to three times based on the ability of the product not to oxidize and its ability to resist heat, you know, the results in our molecule is a critical control.

Over the fluid properties of viscusi, volatility, vapor pressure, traction, friction, coefficient, freezing points, those things. So when you’re able to really model this molecule to perform, a couple things happen. One is that don’t get blow by that’s happening that a lot of engines will do. You don’t have to top off.

Those are other kinds of things that you see on the racing front, at least in endurance racing last year at Lamont. I see. Pitting to top off their oil. And I’m screaming at the television, you know, going, Hey, if they were just using our oil, they wouldn’t have had to make that stop. In general, the additives are very important.

Yes. And it’s the balance of the [00:17:00] additives, not just the additives alone, it’s how they’re balanced and such. So I think you’re right. You know, really the, the strongest characteristics of the oil is, is how it fuels in the seat of your pants in a race car. Right? And what most people tell me is, Hey, my motor.

Smoother, it seems to be happier RPMs and and horsepower gains. One of the takeaways in the Porsche test was a 12 horsepower gain. That was 12 metrics, so roughly about eight US horsepower gain in this particular test. So should we expect to see lower oil temperatures? One of our initial test subjects was Arrow Lane out in Arizona, and you know, They’re out in the heat and, you know, they had a number of years of experience in the, the first thing they noticed is their oil temps dropped about 10%.

A huge number. I mean, that’s just a, a great advantage. So in racing sometimes, you know, you have to tape up the radiators to get the heat in there, to get the power. I mean, that’s something you can play with and work with. But essentially if there’s less friction going on in this motor, [00:18:00] it’s making more power.

Speaking about the additives, are you guys developing your own or are you going to companies that have already, you know, there’s gonna be out there to develop ’em? Yeah, no, we’ve used just about every additive company in the past in the world. We didn’t use any particular off the shelf kind of thing. You know, when we first started, I mean, it was all about things I had seen in metals tests and other things, different philosophies about meibum.

And how much to put in, how not to put in, you know, we saw filters being clogged with the stuff tearing up motors. We’ve seen all kinds of diminishing returns based on certain additives that were in there in the early days. We made changes in, in this AB testing and it robbed power from 4,000 RPM to.

7,000 rpm, that’s not a good thing, right? So we always were looking for the absolute pinnacle of performance. And you know, to your question about where we sit on the scale, that’s it. We are a performance-driven first company. It’s in our dna. And the second thing that’s in our [00:19:00] DNA is providing the world of solution to get off of petro.

My next question is a bit of a twofold question, and I think it’s important for the folks that are listening to this that have been following along with other episodes we’ve done talking about cooling and motor oils and testing and things like that. I’m wondering this, are you guys in the process? Of accepting samples, are you polling the audience and saying, send us part of your next oil change.

We wanna see what the results are, and if not, and if folks wanna send it to Blackstone or you know, somebody else that has a testing facility, what are the expected results? So these two questions go together, but can be answered separately. I’m glad you talked about oil analysis because it’s a big part of knowing what’s going on in that engine, right?

The answer is yes. You can send everything to Blackstone and they’ve seen our products. Southwest Research Institute, one of the premier labs in the country, has seen a lot of our products. The best way to answer that oil sampling is done for lots of different reasons. Obviously, it’s to trigger some sort of [00:20:00] action or.

To pay attention to something based on a high metal account of something, or it could be used to truly know when you need to do an oil change. A lot of folks use hours or or mileage to determine when an oil change is due, but it’s really about the intersection of tbn, total base number and total acid number, and the depletion of the total base number at about 65%, or the doubling of viscosity in the.

Oil analysis is used for a lot of different ways. I think both metal analysis and oil drain intervals. I guess I wanna reframe the question in the sense that your test engines, we’ve talked a lot about Porsche and the Toyota four, a GE motor, but every motor’s a little bit different. As we’ve talked to Blackstone, Joe at Blackstone Labs before, he says, you know, BMW motors give off certain things because of the way their bearings are constructed.

There’s certain things that they’re looking for when they’re doing that test. There’s certain. Results. So I’m wondering would it be worthwhile to send in [00:21:00] an oil sample to say, if we’re running the evolved products, you know, this is what it looks like coming out of a diesel Volkswagen, and this is what it looks like coming out of a Jeep, and this is what it looks like coming out of something else to compare and see.

Do they end up being exactly s. The same as the Porsche test, or is that not a worthwhile comparison? I think in the interest of good science, sample size and understanding the, what the duty cycle of each of the engine is, I mean, you would think, okay, I have a renewable sustainable carbon negative base oil with an additive package, and ultimately I have arguably the best renewable engine oils on the planet today.

And you think that would be a great match for the Toyota Prius? That engine actually doesn’t require such a good oil. The duty cycle of that engine doesn’t need it, in a sense. So it really is about, you’re right about that particular engine, what kind of stressors it’s going to put on the oil, you know, whether it’s a flat tap cam, whether it’s turbocharger, all these things, whether it’s a hybrid, uh, with fuel dilution, [00:22:00] all these different things.

So I’m a strong believer in, in oil analysis and creating a profile room. or a basic library of test results is kind of hard if you don’t have the first originating baseline and establish a baseline for each of the engines. And I think if you have that kind of data and you say you want to, you know, make a change or a switch, as long as you’re starting with some sort of baseline and then you have something to compare it against, then I think it’s pretty.

But I think it’s pretty hard to compare engine to engines or a family of engines without establishing first a baseline on that particular motor to understand where you’re starting from. I, I think my concern comes in thinking about the conditions of the racetrack and how all of us use our cars going.

Well, if we do switch to e Corsa, then what’s my expected result? Does my oil service interval change? How do I know that? In my big turbo car, I didn. Torch this oil, you know, do you break down? All of ’em do in, in some respects. So you kind of wonder how do I know [00:23:00] if I’m doing it right and I guess that’s the bigger question to answer.

Sure. We had a, a pro customer who has another oil company with a sponsorship all over this Silver Cup car, and he lost his water a line. Along the track and the car came in and the engine was, you know, just crackling really hot, the crackle of the headers and everything. He knew that he probably cooked the motor and he thought, Hey, I’m for sure burned the oil.

He pulled the oil pan and he looked at the oil and it says, Hey, it looks. Brand new. He came to our dealer, Roger Krauss Racing Tires in Hayward, California, and promptly bought 10 cases of the, of the product from him and said, Hey, this is amazing stuff. I for sure knew I cooked this motor and this oil saved it.

You know, for most of us, losing a race motor is an expensive endeavor, and so it’s not something we wanna do or, so we think of the oil in terms of really offering the best protection we can. Well, that’s really what you have in the evolving course of products, and it’s just backed by [00:24:00] simple tests that are known in the the industry.

High temp, high shear tests, four ball, scar wear tests. And ultimately, when you understand the technology, it all comes together and says, well, to answer your question, why hasn’t big refineries done this? Why haven’t they done it? And that’s because the petroleum model on a per gallon basis, to get the oil out of the ground.

Is relatively inexpensive and that infrastructure is already in place as opposed to building a new refinery basically, or making a coercion to this. We see this happening in the fuels side of the business. You see renewable fuels being blended in at a 1% treat rate for the tax benefits. Then a complete switch to renewable 99, for example.

Yes, it would be wonderful if we could go full sustainable, not pulling crude oil out of the ground, but there’s so many products beyond just motor oil, what we’re talking about here, right, that we derive from crude oil. And the reality is to make these other products that everyone uses every day, [00:25:00] plastic, gasoline, diesel lubricants, can be byproducts, essentially, of the process that get these other product.

You know, in the end, it’s not like they’re going out of their way and they’ve got dedicated. I only pull crude oil out to make lubricant. Well, it doesn’t really work that way. They’re making a bunch of other products at the same time. So Exactly to your point, they’ve got that infrastructure. Exactly. The infrastructure’s there, you know, they’re.

Pulling out the jet fuel and the gasoline and the diesel based on its atomic weight and boiling point and that distillation column. So all the structure is there. You know, we have the same process in ours. The only differences were set up to do a very clean manufacturing type of process. We don’t have the environmental impact to the communities in, in an ideal world.

Technology would be adopted by states that want to have their own supply of fuels that come from renewables, where the byproduct is this one DC molecule or cosmetic grade glycerine. In addition, we are on the, the, the move to build additional refineries and [00:26:00] to really get this product well known out there in the industry.

You know, we’re really excited about our future. That is very exciting actually. So, I mean, good. To you and, and on those endeavors, hopefully you’re be able to expand. It’s really interesting, you, if you start at the sea level with a lot of the organizations on the big gallons, everybody is saying yes, especially when you have the performance gains on the industrial side of miles per gallon gains of three to 4%.

Now with ESG concerns. And corporate borrowing and such being the way it is, companies graded on its e SG scores relative to its ability to borrow and things like that on Wall Street. You know, we have a solution for companies, race teams, companies that supply the racing industry to actually show that they can do something to be green today, and our products swap in and replace petroleum and they intermingle and they can be recycled just the way the normal petroleum motor oil is.

Blend it in the whole bit. Circle back to what we were talking about just a little while ago. We were focused on the motor oils and [00:27:00] that interval cycle, et cetera. Mm-hmm. , but you mentioned the e OEN is good for passenger vehicles. Your Jeep or your Volkswagen, it’s taking you to work every day, every 3000 miles.

Take it into, you know, is the old adage, and now you’ve got the 10,000 miles. Fills and then the lifetime fills. So given that your oil is maintaining viscosity over time in temperature, and it’s not volatilizing as much or at all versus other oils, so you’re not having to top off as regularly. So what does your interval look like for somebody who wants to drive it to the grocery store?

We are telling folks that you can take that interval safely out at least two. Whatever the normal interval is for the over the road truck folks and, and those kinds of things. We’re pushing out to 176,000 miles on an oil change. On the diesel side of those things, we are looking at basically trying to give recommendations that are based on that formula.

Basically, I gave you a TBN and T n. . So it’s different for every vehicle. So what we’ve done is we’ve gone out three times safely with many of the vehicles. But for [00:28:00] being conservative, we said, Hey, you know, just try a two times interval. So that means that you’re using quite a bit less oil. The world’s using quite a bit less.

You know, our technology is here where we’re gonna be making fill for life applications. We have a small engine, 10 W 30 non-urgent small engine oil package. We have a group of customer. Large manufacturers where they were only getting a hundred hours on an oil change interval. We have taken that out to 1500 without the need for being changed.

Wow. So, pretty remarkable performance here. So to piggyback off the passenger vehicle, a lot of car manufacturers. And not to pick on Volkswagen, but I just, cause I can rattle off, you know, 5 0 5 0 1 and 5 0 8 and all these Yep. You know, specific engine. Specks that they recommend. Does that matter anymore with your oil?

Are you still able to speck out or all of it matters because now you understand that American Petroleum Institute is petroleum, right? Yeah, so we haven’t submitted our formulations for read [00:29:00] across and for other competitors to get in the space. From our perspective right now, we have something completely unique.

We eventually will work with American Petroleum Institute in new classifications for renew. What we’re gonna see ultimately is a whole bunch of solutions coming to the automotive space. And you’re right, that if we just took all of the solutions to replace petroleum in the automotive sector, that is only a very sliver of a much larger piece that petroleum plays in our world today for plastics and other sort of process oils and, and rubbers and cosmetics, asphalt, the list goes.

It is. It goes on. We have the ability to show CO2 savings relative to using our products, and we’re showing companies what their metric tonnage savings in CO2 is doing. For all the gearheads that are out there, we see the ban of fossil fuels for recreation. Happening in Europe, we see that in the fuels side, and I know that if our sport and our passion [00:30:00] comes to the party with solutions, as we always do that they’ll be taken seriously and looked at, evaluated and such.

And we have a model here. Don’t believe us. Don’t trust us. Test us. We’re shipping products right now. You can get our products online with us. Pretty simple to get products, whether you’re a company or an individual. So I wanna go back cuz you guys were nerding out on oil change intervals and things like that.

Yeah. But along with that goes the oil filters. So is there a recommended pairing there, or because there’s. Not the same impurities that you would find in a petroleum based oil. The oil filter can go two x three x five x like you’re claiming in in a lot of these cases. We have not looked at oil filters as a limiting factor in any such way.

However, like in anything, if you understand quality brands and quality reputations. There’s almost as much bench racing on filters as there is oil. I don’t have a recommendation for anybody yet. You’re right, there’s different qualities of oil filters even within the same brand sometimes, so [00:31:00] that’s really kind of pick your poison in that case.

But I like what I’m hearing because it sounds like it’s basically a drag and drop replacement. You don’t have to change anything else. Other than the oil that you’re putting in your engine, and that’s probably gonna take two full change cycles before you’re a hundred percent on the Evolv product because of just the mixture and the residue and what’s left in the motor.

Or do you guys have some sort of flush that you recommend that should be done before switching over? You know, you don’t need to do a flush with our products. You’ll see the gains right away. The residue completely compatible and will blend with our product. It’s not material to what’s happening in that engine relatively to the total amount of liquid in the engines.

I’d probably be a better salesman if I told you to buy one case of oil plus your car with it, then use it. You know? But no, you, you don’t need to do that. Whatever you use it now, just try us. You’ll be quite amazed. I’m sure mentioned something earlier about how the oil can be recycled with traditional.

And that’s great because you know, you stick it in the big bin, you take it to your local landfill that might have a oil recycling center or something [00:32:00] like that, which is what we have a lot here on the East coast. But I also dove into the website and it mentioned several times biodegradable. And my limited understanding of biodegradable is I can leave it out in the environment and it will just decompose and return to the earth.

Are you saying I can take the Evolv product and just kind of pour it in my lawn? Nope. You can’t do that , and we don’t want. Do that of course. So, you know, I think there’s terms like readily and inherently biodegradable, so understand that a lot of the environmental remediation with fluids, anything that has hydraulics like garbage trucks, any kind of farm equipment, things like that, where a hydraulic line either leaks or brakes, and that’s what we know about hydraulic systems for the most part.

They either leak or eventually you have a line break and that fluid gets to the ground. Really, the benefit of the evolved hydraulic oils is there’s no remediation necessary because the hydraulic oil meets all the fish toxicity tests and is biodegradable because there’s such a small percentage of additive [00:33:00] in a hydraulic oil.

Now that changes a little bit as you get into the heavier and thicker viscosities, the ISO 60 eights and 40. The way that you can tell that is there’s a either a radiocarbon test or an A S T M test that will say, Hey, did this product come from petroleum or not? What we look to do is to make the products as environmentally safe as we can, at the same time being able to actually outperform petroleum products.

So that brings up a question I’ve always wondered about lubricants, and since you guys. Basically starting from ground zero, is there the possibility to have a coagulant in an oil that would basically stop a leak if it contacts oxygen or something like that? So to kind of mitigate that leak scenario you were just talking about, I guess the best way to put this is viscosity improves and viscosity modifiers at certain high levels really take away on the performance side.

The answer is, I mean, you can put all kinds of things in. And you know, certain Esther help stop leaking I think in the early days of, of [00:34:00] synthetic engine oils. And so yes, the answer is you can do that, but can you do it and still have high performance or the highest performance? And we like the engine oil in the engine and so typically leaks are something that we need to fix or do whatever.

So we try not to design the fluids around the engine builder’s, lack of lock height on a seal or something like that. So, no, and that’s a very. Point you bring up, and that’s actually what I was alluding to, which is some of the older engines for folks that you know haven’t torn into, they’ve got that numbers matching all original.

And you know that car was designed to run Quaker State 1550 from 35, 40 years ago, that type of deal. And you see that all the time. Somebody switches to a synthetic oil and suddenly the whole motor leaks like a. Obviously there’s a difference there, even in the chemical composition, and like you said, there’s viscosity modifiers that exist between the conventional regular oils and the synthetics.

Have you guys compensated for that? That’s what I’m getting at is if you do make that switch and that vintage [00:35:00] Ferrari or Porsche or, or Audi or whatever it is, that it’s not suddenly gonna cause a problem. I’m in more vintage race cars with engines over a million dollars at the Monterey. And such that I am in passenger cars at this moment.

Ultimately, what you want is the film strength thickness to protect the wear surfaces under very high heat conditions. You’re looking at the molecule not to shear basically and thicken up on itself and do these kinds of things in your additives, fallout of suspension from a perspective. Of engine protection.

Most of our customers understand that the chemistry work has been done, the testing has been done by one of the best halo brands in the world, and we’ve really brought to market something truly remarkable. If you put this engine oil, it’s not going to leak in your car. If it does leak, it’s not because of the oil, uh,

So I can tell you that much. You didn’t tighten something. For the enthusiasts out there, especially in let’s say, some of the late model world in [00:36:00] the drag racing world where they’re still actually using leaded fuels. Now, like you said, early on in the conversation, there’s always that opportunity for some blow by, there’s some mixture between the fuel and the oil.

How does the Evolv products interact or how do they interate. A leaded fuel. If that is introduced into the system for some reason, it operates great. Leaded fuel usually is all about the valve train, right? And the wear there. And our oils perform extremely well on these tapit surfaces that have DLC coatings, these flat tapit cams and other internal parts that have extremely high aware types of issues.

It’s the ability of this product to actually withstand the heat where many. , our other competitors just can’t compete, you know, based on the I shear numbers. So to answer that, yeah, I mean most of these race cars are using leather fuel. Rick, I gotta ask you this. I am really curious to try the e-course of product in my race cars and probably the Evo cinema, my [00:37:00] street cars.

But you know how us Petrolheads can be, we’re brand loyal. You get used to something you like, the way it works, you like the way the motor sounds, you’re getting the numbers that you think you’re supposed to be getting. Things like. People go all in on products. So you made mention earlier you have a small engine product, you’ve used it in the aerospace or in airplanes before, things like that.

So is there a line of evolved lubricant products that are designed for motorcycles, for boats, like we talked about lawn equipment, two strokes, and maybe the occasional Mazda Rotary. Is there something for everyone when it comes to the catalog? There is. And so just to correct you, we don’t do anything for.

Although we could, typically, the pour points or issues for aerospace are quite different in the design of those fluids because of cold temperatures, airplanes based on the insurance stuff, as we’ve kind of stayed away from that. Although we have some stunt pilot friends and guys who are begging us to make oil for their ly combinings and other engines.

So, and to answer yes. We have one of the largest box stores in the United States has completed their testing on our small engine [00:38:00] oils and two-stroke engine oils that we make will be going into their rental fleets across the country. So we’re pretty excited about those things. We’ll have lots of pressure releases and things like that wide scale adoption from some of the manufacturers that make this equipment for them based on these test results on the motorcycle, we do make a 10 W 40 mo.

Spec wet clutch racing oil and six or seven folks that are running, you know, our decals out there in, uh, the Superbike races. I, I’m trying to think, is m a two spec jao back wet clutch formulation. So you mentioned something sort of important there in terms of, it’s gonna be in a rental fleet, it’s gonna be the big box store.

So a lot of engine compartments these days. If you open the hood and you look carefully, you open the hood of a mini, for example, and you see. Or you open a Corvette and it says mobile one, like right from the factory. Right? So are we gonna see evolve on the oil cap of a manufacturer coming up soon? I hope so.

You know, it’s always the goal, I think, to see those things, but understand [00:39:00] that those are large dollar placements. Generally those companies aren’t buying oil from the oil companies. They’re taking money from the oil companies to be that factory fill. So the factory fill business is quite. One of the things that the takeaways with this renewable product is we can help these oes design tighter tolerances and actually get to better cafe standards.

The newer increased cafe standards out there where they’re calling for 8% gain on the fuel mileage and things we can help them get halfway there. Just by switching to the lubricant, being part of the design of new engines and things like that is a goal of ours. We were very fortunate that Porsche was willing to take a a hard look because they really do care about the environment and they really do care about.

Keeping their cars on the road, we felt very aligned with them relative to wanting to be a factory fill. You know, how can you blame the relationship they’ve had? That’s been a good one for so many years with their current oil company. So [00:40:00] we hope one day to enjoy those kinds of relationships with the oes.

And you said, just to reiterate, for our audience that are probably now scouring the web to figure out where they can get Evolv lubricant products, so you said right now you can order right off the website, have it delivered to your door. That’s the only way to get the e Corso or the Evo Sim at the moment.

Right. Right now we’ve been doing direct ship movements. We have about 12 dealers in the country. We’re growing our distribution base. We have had discussions with larger distribution models and stores and things like that and are. The best way to make this available to the general public. I would say we’re very, very close to these distribution deals, and I think consumers will see them in in very convenient places where they can also get recommendations from folks that are are good.

But keep in mind that the Internet’s been this wonderful thing for compressing the direct to consumer space. It’s pretty amazing. You can see something on the internet and you just click a couple buttons and it’s on your doorstep in two [00:41:00] days. So pretty cool setup. oil weighs about 25 pounds, so it’s great not to have to lug it around and the delivery will come right to your doorstep.

Are the oils priced by weight or just priced by the tight Levo sin versus e corso? What’s the average, let’s say price per liter or quart? I guess for those of us here in the States, for a bottle of the product, we are priced about 20 to 25% higher than the top tier synthetic engine oil out there, and you’re gonna see that priced anywhere from about 18 to $19 a bottle per.

When you start to even think about the fuel savings in a passenger car, it pays for itself with the fuel mileage savings, using our products from the longer drain interval scale side of things. Certainly the product’s lasting twice as long, so we feel like we’ve got a great price point and you know, it’s a binary choice where don’t have to make a sacrifice to go green.

Basically. You get better performance than what you’re doing now. And oh by the way, hey, you’re actually doing something to help the. So curiosity, if we do [00:42:00] order a couple of cases of this stuff, start running on the race cars. Does every case come with some stickers? Cuz you know how us race car guys love stickers Cause Yeah, we do.

Yeah. And we’re, we’re trying to put together a contingency program. I mean, we’ve sponsored race programs, open wheel racing in the past, formula racing, things like that. Yeah, we have an interest in it. My son races Formula Atlantic. You know, one of our board members is big in the Atlantic car world. You know, I have a Porsche race car and we’re club racers, right?

Yep. I mean, I raced in the Utah Grand Prix as a professional, only because nobody else showed up . And uh, they called me, Hey, you know, this track really well come out. So, you know, I got my whole weekend of pro racing and like I say, well, I’m a professional race car driver. Now we’re serious club guys. And you know, racing is our life and cars are our life and we wouldn’t wanna make anything.

We went in our, our cars. And if I had a nine 17 Porsche that was worth 20 million, I wouldn’t put anything but this oil in it. And I bring that up because, you know, it’s always fun to be the guy in the paddock that people go, what? What do you run into that? Is that how you got the advantage? You know? And then that actually [00:43:00] starts to build that ground swell.

Oh no. Grassroots perspective too. You know, believe me, with a 12 horsepower gain, I always tell every racer, I say, Hey, you know, if I gave you a 10th of a second in every corner, would you take it a hundred percent? And everybody says, Absolutely. Everybody says yes. And I said, well, would you change your oil?

Oil to do it? And they say, well, I gotta ask my engine builder. And I’m like, really? There is a little bit of a concept of saying, Hey, racing sometimes is kind of migrated into renting the track with my six buddies who have McLarens and that’s racing. There’s different parts of where racing is. And then there’s other guys who if that engine breaks the second, it crosses the finish line first.

It’s okay as long as we won. You know, there’s a lot of different folks out there and most of the people in our world, they don’t wanna break their engines cuz it’s really super expensive to do so. So we built a product that, first of all protects, number one, their investment grade vehicles typically and.

We think once the people get the horsepower gain, they’re gonna kind of keep it to themselves. So that’s one of the challenges. [00:44:00] Nobody says, oh, hey, I, I’m getting all this great new horsepower out of this oil. We just selectly go to the back of the pack and give guys oil. So that’s kind of fun for us.

Speaking of the helping the planet. Yeah. And the recent evolution that’s been going on. And then, you know, the scary things that we keep hearing in the news. Just recently, California, we’re gonna ban the sale of ice vehicles by 2035 and you know, bans in Europe of diesel and this, that and the other. Do you see that as an obstacle to your business, or what are your thoughts on the evolution?

Shell Oil at the World Engine Congress talked about the percentage of battery electric vehicles by 2050 that will be completed, and the percentage was relatively lower than I thought. We still have a lot of years of working with the internal combustion engine. I can tell you that a combination of renewable synthetic fuels.

And renewable engine oils. Now we have a solution to save the internal combustion engine. There’s an [00:45:00] awful lot of people who actually do not wanna see the internal combustion engine go away, and some of those manufacturers are eager to learn more about our products. I think the combination of those two products will help propel the internal combustion engine to have its role.

Electric vehicles have their role as well. There’s ups and downs. I mean, you could get into all of the carbon intensity arguments and discussions about it. I wouldn’t bet against Elon Musk. That’s my personal thoughts. I like the concepts and he was right. Petroleum was a well executed, terrible idea a hundred years ago.

You know, there’s a lot of things that we can do to make a difference right now. Today and you can do it without sacrificing performance. So why wouldn’t you do it? You know, from a cost perspective, it’s right in line with what you’re doing now. I like that a well executed, terrible idea. Isn’t that the same thing I say about the nine 11?

You know, whatever. I’ll leave that where it is. , I will not pick on that car at all. I just wish they weren’t twice with the sticker was on the GT three. That’s my [00:46:00] only problem. So Rick, I wanna give you the opportunity for any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t cover thus far.

Well, I’d like to tell you that, and every one of your folks, it’s about eliminating fear, uncertainty, and doubt in this process. And so one of the things that we’ve done is we have a $1 million. Engine warranty program on every engine that our oil goes into. So peace of mind is really important. We’ve never lost an engine because of oil failures and we don’t think we ever will, but just in case you have that coverage as a consumer, I think that’s important to at least let folks know.

The other thing is to try it and. We haven’t had anybody who’s tried it and has switched back, so that’s a great thing. We know that this is something that I think a lot of people have interest in and they can do so knowing that the most expensive vehicles from the the Ferrari that won Pebble Beach last year was running that oil with Patrick Otis as a dealer from the Bay Area to Bruce Kpa, who runs these engine oils in all of his race cars and passenger cars to [00:47:00] other large iconic folks who sat down and looked at the very best and said, This is remarkable.

This is really great. I want to be part of this. Evolv Lubricants is unlike any other oil company on the planet, while many other manufacturers continue down the road of using petroleum in their products. Evolv saw a different approach to better performance and sustainability, maximum protection. Zero guilt non petroleum lubricants for automotive and industrial applications using renewable and sustainable plant-based materials for outstanding performance.

To learn more about Evolve Lubricants revolutionary offering for street and track use, be sure to log on to www.evolvelube.com or follow them on social at Evo Sin Oil and at e Corsa Motorsport. Well, Rick, I cannot thank you. For coming on break fix and sharing your corner of the promoter sport and vehicle enthusiast world with our audience.

This is incredible stuff. This is revolutionary technology and I can’t plead [00:48:00] enough with our audience, like you said, don’t think about it. Don’t try it. We would say, just send it. You gotta get your hands on this oil, put it in the car, and see for yourself what the results are. So I, I think I’m convinced, I think I’m gonna have to put an order in.

No problem. You know? And the thing is, we got to that mentality just because there’s a lot of things out there, but everybody comes back after putting it in and says, Hey, I’m getting way better fuel mileage in my car. Oh yeah, we told you so. And the racers, you know, come back and say, Hey, my operating temperatures are down a little bit.

And the car seems to be making more power, and well, it is. It’s working less hard. Your oil pump is working less hard as well. We have made something quite unique and we’re very, very proud. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Well, I enjoyed our discussion. Thanks for having us. No, thank you.

All right, well, we’ll see you.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on [00:49:00] Instagram, a Grand Tour Motors. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that G T M remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

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To learn more about EVOLVE LUBRICANTS revolutionary offering for street and track use, be sure to logon to www.evolvelube.com or follow them on social @evosynoil and @ecorsamotorsport. 


Evolve Lubricants, Inc. is unlike any other oil company on the planet. While many other manufacturers continue down the road of using petroleum in their products, Evolve saw a different approach to better performance and sustainability. Maximum protection, zero guilt. Non-Petroleum lubricants for automotive and industrial applications, using renewable and sustainable plant-based materials for outstanding performance. 


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Tania M
Tania M
Our roving reporter & world traveler. Tania’s material is usually brought to us from far off places and we can’t wait to see what field trip she goes on next! #drivethrunews

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