Building a Future Machines Company Without Building a Factory · Trent Dingman, Real Motors

What we talked about.

Trent Dingman, founder of Real Motors, joins Sunny Ray to explain how his team is building future machines without owning a traditional factory. Based in Greenville, South Carolina, Dingman and co-founder Michael Fang apply first principles engineering learned from designing electric riding mowers to rethink what vehicles can be. Their debut product, Project Aries, is a 100 horsepower electric cafe racer with a 15 kilowatt hour battery and 120 to 140 mile range, built around a philosophy they call electric analog, prioritizing mechanical feel like chain drives and simple gauges over screens and automation. Dingman discusses recruiting former Harley and LiveWire CTO Vance, why they structure work as project based engineering initiatives rather than a conventional company, and their uncorp approach to avoiding short term investor pressure in favor of posterity, impact, and talent. He closes by explaining why Aries is intentionally limited to 250 units at 20,000 dollars each, as the company tests sustainable, low labor manufacturing methods before scaling to higher volume future machines.

A founder explains building future machines from first principles, without a mega factory or shareholder pressure.

The questions, and the answers.

What are you building and what problem are you solving?

Real Motors builds what we call future machines, different form factors and vehicles. We're rethinking what vehicles can really look like and how they're made. There are a lot of layers to it, but primarily we focus on the design, the team behind it, and how we actually build it.

Take me into Project Aries. What is it exactly?

That's our first future machine, an electric cafe racer. It's a pretty good size, 100 horsepower peak with a 15 kilowatt hour battery, so you can get a good 120 to 140 miles of range. The 0 to 60 is of course fast.

You were designing electric riding mowers before this. What did that teach you that a motorcycle company never could?

Having an outside perspective is huge. A lot of industries have experts who do things a certain way just because that's how it's always been done. My co-founder and I like going into industries we have no business going into and applying first principles, questioning everything to see what should actually change.

Why Greenville, South Carolina instead of California or Milan?

We have a vision to change how automotive development and manufacturing is done, and South Carolina is a really good ecosystem for that. Drive down the corridor here and it's BMW, Michelin, SK Battery, one large automotive company after another. As we build our ecosystem, that gives us shared resources and heavy hitters in the network.

How did you get a former Harley chief technology officer to contribute?

Vance started LiveWire and became part of the core team there, eventually CTO. Beyond his years of expertise, we found real alignment with him on re-evaluating everything from first principles. He's excited about that and is moving forward with us into our next products, doing things from scratch.

You call it electric analog. What did the industry get wrong by putting a screen on everything?

A lot of the industry crams features into everything, like putting climate controls on an iPad. We're a team of rogue engineers who love mechanisms, so we kept things like a simple gauge and a chain drive. Our motorcycle actually makes noise even though it's electric, and it elevates your emotions when you ride instead of distracting you with alerts.

You describe Real Motors as an engineering initiative run by engineers, not shareholders. What does that change day to day?

We work project based, almost like Hollywood film production, recruiting people who are passionate about a specific outcome even if they're not full time on the team. We call our structure uncorp, meaning we avoid investors looking for a quick pump and dump, and instead build around pillars of posterity, impact, and talent.

250 units at 20,000 dollars is a deliberate number. What are you optimizing for at that scale?

We're limited to 250 units intentionally so we can learn and explore before scaling. Once you get to a thousand units or more, you're into expensive tooling and setup. This first series is meant to be personal and expressive for early customers, while our next project is designed for higher volume.