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Everything Electric Podcast
Britain's Longbow Lets Fly! Is This The Roadster We've Really Been Waiting For?
00:42:57
In this week's episode, Imogen is joined by Daniel Davey, joint CEO of Longbow Motors. He reveals how his team of Tesla, Lucid, and BYD alumni are creating Britain's next generation of electric sports cars. Could Longbow Motors be the future of...
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Foreign.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Everything Electric podcast, where today I'm going to be joined by Daniel Davey, the CEO of Longbow Motors. Now, if you've never heard of Longbow Motors before, first of all, go and give them a little Google. They are a company based here in the UK on a mission to create an electric roadster and speedster. Now, these two cars will be priced at 85k and 65k respectively and will offer 275 miles of range and both will weigh less than a tonne. Now, in Longbow's words, they will be the purest expression of a British sports car, unlike anything that has come before. The spirit of the past, engineered for the future. Now, with the name of the roadster perhaps being a not so subtle swipe at Tesla, it should come as no surprise that the Longbow team is composed of Tesla, Polestar, Lucid Uber and BYD alumni who all felt a proper electric sports car was missing from the EV lineup. Now, in this episode, we're going to be finding out how on earth the Longbow team are going to bring these rather beautiful cars to fruition without falling foul of some of the woes that have troubled various EV startups and OEMs in recent years. Now, all of that to come, but first, a very quick advert break.
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Our three free YouTube channels on EVs and cleantech are funded by our fun packed test drivetastic events in Farnborough, London, the Southwest, the North, Melbourne and Sydney. And next up, everything Electric, Farnborough and new for UK viewers. You can now buy a battery, EV and much more at EverythingElectric store. Now back to the episode.
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B
Daniel, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. I guess first things first, for those who might not have, you know, quickly gone to Google and Googled Longbow during the introduction. Can you give us the pitch? Paint a picture for us. What are these two fabulous vehicles that you're currently creating?
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Yes. So Longbow, our mission is to change how the earth feels about sports cars. So we do that with a range of products. Our first product, our first vehicle is the Speedster. So it's an open top free fall on the open road. So it's very much in the style of speedsters that you'd be aware of. So the ELVA, the Monza SP1, SP2, and really it's about experiencing the unrefined or unfiltered wilderness when you're driving around on British road. So it's an on road performance vehicle. It's Designed around driver engagement and around theatrics. That's, I think, the best introduction for Speedster and Roadster is a car that you can drive every day, but when you want to, can give you that exhilarating experience that maybe is missing in a lot of sports cars today, whether they're electric or internal combustion engine, actually. So we're more inspired by the cars that on road performance, the classic kind of British heritage of lightweight sports cars is what I think influence both vehicles. But on the Roadster, it's a serious production car, comes after the Speedster and is targeting global volumes, not just limited volumes like the speed. So that's 2,000 to 4,000 vehicles a year. Mass production. Well, mass production for sports cars.
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B
And at the moment you're thinking about that limited production, I think, starting in roughly 2026, is that right?
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Yeah. So targeted delivery for the first Spicesters will be the end of 2026? Yeah, correct.
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And people can reserve them already? I think.
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Yeah. Spicesters and Rotors are available on our website. So we already have quite a few customers for both Speedster and Roadsters. We've limited Roadsters to only a thousand reservations, so we have time. At Tesla Lucid and other businesses, we saw that your kind of reservation numbers can run amok and then you stop forgetting about the individual customers and reservation holders and start chasing stats. And we actually would much rather have a much closer relationship with a thousand reservation holders than bragging rights on 10 or 20,000 reservation holders.
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So one of your slogans, and you mentioned it there, is around changing the way that the Earth feels about sports cars. Why do we need to change the way that we think about them? And what kind of specific challenges Longbow trying to address?
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A
I mean, interestingly, the first real change agent for the modern era of electrification was the Tesla Roadster, which was a sports car actually manufactured in the United Kingdom. So it was a British lightweight sports car. Tesla came two and a half thousand roasters were sold, around 800 a year in 2008-2012. And then. So electrification started in the sports car segment, actually, if you ignore kind of think. And a few of the smaller EVs that came before it, and then no one's gone there since. So it. Which is interesting because from a vehicle perspective, actually the best powertrain for a sports car we feel, is an electric powertrain. And the most polluting vehicles on the road are sports cars. So typically small car, massive engine, idling outside schools. Right. So people are not using them on open roads. Anyone who's driving around in a Porsche 911 in inner city London is not helping emissions, let's put it that way. And so it's something where you can make a very big impact very quickly from I think from an emissions perspective. And let's not just think of carbon, but the other emissions come out, but also on the other side everyone will say EVs are great for D segment SUVs but they'll never make good sports cars. So this halo effect or this, this view that for some reason the best cars in the market will always be ices, has not been, the halo has not been removed. And so we want to go after that halo. So the most desirable, the coolest and the best sports car on the road should be an ev. And no one else is doing it. So we want to go and snatch that halo away as well. So I think it's very important to change how the earth feels about sports cars. One from a ground up perspective because it's an important segment that is not being electrified at all. But the other from a top down perspective because it just stops people saying that the best cars in the world are ICs because they aren't.
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B
That's so interesting because I did not stop to think about the fact that sports cars represent such a high polluting car because I guess it's a bit like when you travel first class versus economy in that if you're traveling first class you have more emissions because you're taking up more room in that plane that could have had additional passengers in. Similar thing goes for a sports car. I guess the thing is, is that often SUVs are not driven at full capacity and may just have one person in. So the mass I guess can get a little quirky. But why is it that an EV powertrain does lend itself so well to the sports car segment?
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I think the whole powertrain in general, you have a lot more opportunities on where you package it. So if you put a V8 in something which have a very equivalent kind of torque rating, there aren't a lot of places you can stick it. There's not a lot you can do. So if you look at the, when everyone thinks of a sports car, most of the design you're thinking of is having to figure out where to stuff a great big whopping engine that just doesn't exist with electric vehicles. You have a lot more freedom in how you package. So a lot more freedom to explore around dynamics, center of inertia, center of gravity, even things like how do hub motors, for example, can they Operate on a sports car. So I think you have a lot more freedom there. So one packaging, you have more engineering flexibility and opportunity that hasn't existed before. I think from a design perspective that, again, you're not looking at. Okay, well, this takes up this space. Now we need to make it look pretty by skinning something over it. You have a lot more flexibility in how you can design vehicles. From the beginning, lucid have done an incredible job of that with the lucid air. So from the space perspective and concept. I know you spoke with Peter last year or year before or something.
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Yeah, last year.
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And then again, no one's really looked at that from a sports car perspective. So I think there's a lot of opportunity there. And then finally, just as a powertrain, right. It is much more energy dense. You get a lot more. I mean, again, focusing on lucid. But the. I think the Atlas motor is 24 kg and has 400 horsepower. And it's this big. There's nothing. There's no future, past or present, no physics that allow you to do that with an ice. And we're early on in the electrification journey. So I think there's a lot you can do with a powertrain that is only a decade into being developed. So inherently, it is better power delivery, better response. The argument goes that there's less theatrics, but I don't think anyone's really tried. So I think if you focus on the theater, you can get out of an electric powertrain. I think you can deliver quite the experience for drivers as well.
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B
God, that is such a brilliant engineer's answer about, like, you know, the powertrain itself is so energy dense and we have so much opportunity here. We've only just started to skim the surface. And I think part of that opportunity is also enabled by the fact that, you know, electric vehicles have taken some time to develop. And certainly the first electric vehicles probably didn't lend themselves as well. Two sports cars, A, because the batteries were more expensive and B, because they were less energy dense. So it definitely feels like the timing is so ripe to enter into the electric sports car segment. But I mean, between yourself and your co founder, Mark, your co founders, I haven't just made that.
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Yeah. And Yenni's our third co founder as well.
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Yeah, that was it. I was like, I know that I'm doing someone a disservice here, but you have really interesting backgrounds. I mean, you've all spent time at Tesla, byd, Lucid, I think Polestar and Uber. And I imagine that you Know, obviously sometimes you create a business out of like, you see this huge opportunity, but I imagine you also created it out of some sort of frustration that your previous employers were not operating in that space. So I wonder if you could just share a bit about how this came to fruition and when was it, you know, how many beers had you and had you all had together when you're like, we're doing it ourselves.
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I think anyone who's worked at Tesla or Lucid others will probably have their share of frustrations, but I don't think it was born out of frustrate. I think the. So I first joined Tesla 2010 with the Tesla Roadster program and the company at that point. So I was employee 650. The product, the mission was such an exciting phase of the company's journey. And I think Mark joined shortly after I did or just after I left the first time around. And I think for him as well, that phase of the business was so exciting and it became and is a very, very large and most valuable car company in the world and becomes a political machine churning out millions of cars. The customer is no longer at the center of it. The team that is done right. There's a lot to do now, but the interesting part is early on and same thing, I joined Lucid very early on and great company but again, very large business churning out those cars. I think one is drawn to the phase of company you have early on and the excitement of launching something and building something from nothing. Very exciting. Especially with the benefit of hindsight because I remember first time around at Tesla, we had no idea how to sell electric car. And if anyone ever thinks it was easy early on at Tesla, try selling electric car when no one's heard of the brand and there are no charges. That was. That's what we had to do.
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Yeah.
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What's Tulsa? Where do I charge it? You know, there's. And it was £120,000 at the time, so it wasn't cheap either. So I think one is drawn to the face of the company and the other is again, we're very focused on the sports car segment because Mark and I are both car people and we're car people agnostic of powertrain generally. And we just really think that a. And that's where we started. We really think that an electric powertrain and lightweight sports car would be very cool. And then we looked at the business case underpinning it, we looked at the route to market and as we got there's this thing at Google, Moonshots where The main objective of Google Moonshots is to kill an idea. So your performance metrics are how many ideas did you kill this week? Because if an idea survives killing, then it's a great idea. So I think at every stage of this journey of Longbow, you know, we've interrogated from every angle. We've got an incredible board of advisors and seen that it's not just Mark and I being crazy, it's a great concept, it works, the engineering is sound and we have after launch such great response from customers, press and everyone that yeah, we need to do it now.
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B
I wonder if one of those pre orders or reservations may come from a certain elonesla.com because I, I adore chatting to people who work within the automotive industry because they know exactly which other companies are buying their cars, tearing them down, taking a little look inside, and it just wouldn't be a surprise to me if he may procure one for little Tinker.
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Interestingly, I think the point where I realized I should leave Tesla second time around, so I joined as employee 33,000. So I remember in the beginning it was David versus Goliath. And there was a point when I was at Tesla second time round where a level of confidence and maybe arrogance of Tesla's position as indomitable started coming about. Right? So I think when as a company you shift from being very humble and striving to be best striving to earn your customers delight, when that shifts, you've probably shifted as a company. So I wouldn't be surprised if many manufacturers don't think we'll make it and if many manufacturers don't buy our cars, which is fine for me, we'll just deliver a roaster before Elon. That's what we have to do.
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B
I think that is a great ambition. So I guess on that there are two things that I really, really want to ask you. The first is around your board of advisors because every time I've received a press release of insert name is joining a board of advisors at Longbourn, I'm like, what? How on earth did you make this happen? And two, as much as you have really, really scrutinised the plan and really understood the business case, and we'll get into some of the technical details around manufacturing as well. There are so many EV startups that have come and gone and I'd love to get your perspectives on why you think Longbow is slightly different and also why you have that incredible board of advisors and what they see in Longbow as well.
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I couldn't agree more on the board of advisors. So, first of all, the main reason we feel that they're a great board of advisors is just as people. They're wonderful people to spend time with and very personable, very honest, have a high level of integrity across all levels. That's very important for us. I don't think we believe in advisors just as heads that you stick on a slide to show how good you are. So they need to be advisors and offer valuable advice and differing advice. So the advice we received from Mike, from his time kind of taking McLaren through the journey he took it through, is very different from Michael Van Der Sander launching Alpine or Dan Balmer kind of growing and building out the Lotus retail network. So their advice is there's overlap, but generally they all have a different field of expertise and complement each other really nicely. And most of it just happened with a conversation, just an honest conversation where we spoke to them, told them what we're doing, they went away and then molded over. And then a couple weeks later, we'd have another deeper level conversation and they'd ask more questions. And then I think it was only after they were happy with the answers we gave and they did their own due diligence. Then we were fortunate enough for them to join us. So I think they definitely did their homework and we didn't need to do ours because their names kind of speak for themselves. So, yeah, we're very happy to have them on board. And maybe. Why is Longbow different?
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Oh, just before we come to that, can you give, just for the benefit of all the listeners, just rattle off those names and their sort of alumni companies.
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So Mike Fluitt. So Mike Fluitt was the previous CEO of McLaren. I think he took it all the way from the P1 until the acquisition by the SIBEN, the investment fund of UAE, as well as establishing. I think it was the fourth first CO47. Yeah, yeah. So incredible background. Before that, I think he was VP of global manufacturing at Ford as well. So. But Even before joining McLaren had incredible, incredible experience. And then Michael Van Der Sander. So Michael Van der Sander actually was at Tesla before me. Was one of the first chief commercial officers reporting directly into Elon. We call it the Icarus Zone, where you fly too close to sun and then you don't. You don't. Last one removed from Elon is the best place. If you directly report to Elon.
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You've got to fly a shield there.
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Yeah. Don't fly too close to the sun. So he was in Icarus Zone then He was chief commercial officer, Aston. Then he launched Renault Alpine and the whole vehicle program and then grew Jaguar svo, I think, from when no one heard of it to where it is today. So incredible background. And we overlapped at Lucid. So he was managing director for, for a short period of time before he was in the Icarus zone of Peter Rawlinson and then Dan Balmer, who was previous CEO and president at Lotus. So very much focused on the commercial side and the expansion once Geely took over. Looking at the new product suite as well as the Amira and the Via and how those were launched. Yeah, so incredible overlap and background. And we've got a couple more that we're going to announce shortly as well. So. Yeah, just, just, just really great. And you know, it's just great to say, you know, Michael, we're thinking about doing this. What are your thoughts? Have you. Yeah, I saw that before. This is what we did at Alpine and this is what we did at svo and I remember Aston, we had that as well. This is how we approached it. So we just. Yeah, yeah.
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And I guess like, especially in those early phases where you've got to be strategic with Cash, having that deep, deep, incredible industry experience, to say, yeah, you're on the right track or like, wouldn't do that must be totally invaluable.
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Absolutely. Yeah, it is. Because, you know, we. There is no, there's no rulebook on how to launch a lightweight electric sports car company in the United Kingdom. Right. There are things we've learned before at Tesla and Lucid, and there's things that they've learned before in their. Specifically for this. There's no rulebook. So, yeah, absolutely. It gets us further ahead. And one of our principles. So we have 24 principles. I think for Longbow, one of them is you can never have enough advice. And so. And that doesn't necessarily mean you always need to listen to the advice or follow it, but you should always take as much as you can in because it helps inform your decisions.
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B
And in terms of why Longbow is sort of teed up for a slightly different trajectory of success compared to, say, some of the other EV startups that have come and gone, why do you think this time it's different?
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I mean, we've done it. So I think between Mark, Jenny and I, we've launched five different EV brands. One in boating, two in the Middle east, three in Europe. We supported Porsche with their direct to consumer organizational structural models and stuff. So we've done this before. And despite having done it before we think we want to do it again. So I think that experience. So when we're looking at this, it's not through some rose tinted glasses where, okay, we've got a brand and we're going to launch it and it'll be easy. We know the steps that you need to follow to get there. I think that's the first point is we started from leaning into lessons we've learned and built our business plan and go to market around that experience as well as the experience of our advisors. I think from a product perspective, we're very clear on what we're looking to do. We won't deviate, I think, and we're very. And there have been some lessons we've learned from some of the other, some of the other failures in the marketplace. You know, concentration risk around certain battery chemistries or battery types. There's a lot of, if you really, if you really look at why all these other companies have failed or even struggled, in the case of Tesla, Lucid, byd, Polestar, there are a lot of lessons you can draw on how you create a different plan. So, you know, we're incorporating all those, Even the successes have a lot of lessons to learn from. And then I think we are fairly relentless. So having worked in Silicon Valley companies our entire career is a very different pace of working from anyone we've encountered in the United Kingdom in the automotive industry. So we are, I think, relentless is probably a very kind way of describing it. But we, we have a clear path and we will, we will execute on that path as well. Yeah.
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B
One thing that really strikes me is that, you know, to do something like this is highly stressful, highly risky. And clearly you and Mark have a very successful working relationship. And I was there a point in your sort of working history together where you were like, we know that we are a good duo and I don't know, just, just if you could tell us a bit about that relationship, because I think a lot of people listening to this podcast have come across a colleague in their working lives. They're like, there's just a different kind of connection that you have with that person compared to a lot of your colleagues. And it's a pretty special thing, I think.
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Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, the, I think respect is a very important foundation. I think moral alignment and testing, that is a very important foundation as well, to know that you're aligned on approach. I think those are two given foundations. And then we've been through the trenches together, even before we founded Longbow at Tesla and other Areas. So we came into this not as the first time we came together. And then as you go through, there are very challenging and trying times that further test the relationship. But if you approach it with respect, and we're best friends as well, I think that that helps you get through. Right. And I think you also. We're also both incredibly competitive and so neither of us would ever quit, therefore both of us will never quit. Therefore we'll always just keep going. So you know, that, that, that helps as well. Sorry.
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Oh, no worries. Still, I hope that's Mark and his.
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Ears are Burning was actually marked. That was literally Mark calling.
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B
Yeah, I think I should also share that. Before we started recording, you were telling me that you and Mark went on some sort of hike and got covered in leeches by accident. The hike not being the accident. The leeches definitely being the accident.
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Exactly. If you've had to pick leeches off your co founders back in some godforsaken backwater of Kyrgyzstan, I think that helps solidify that relationship as well.
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Yeah, quite a, quite a team building experience, I would say. Okay, let's turn our attention then to the approach and specifically on the manufacturing side because one of the things that we see with a lot of low volume manufacturers is that you are disproportionately exposed to fluctuations in the supply chain. Low volume manufacturers simply don't have the same bargaining power that larger volume manufacturers do. And that can mean that you end up with quite an expensive product. But I feel like you guys are doing things slightly differently, so I wonder if you could share a bit about that.
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A
Yeah, I mean, your costs are a function of the product that you design in the first place. So if you've designed a car to be 0, 60 in 2.1 seconds, then don't complain about your bill of materials because you've chosen to have expensive bill of materials in the first place and then they're doubly expensive when you're a small manufacturer. So I think again, it's simplified and add lightness. Right. So simplify your product definition. Make it more achievable, look at what the customer needs, not look at your ego because you want the fastest car on the road and the longest range and all these things. So it's just simplifying. Passing down what you need as a vehicle in the first place already does the hard work. That's the first thing, I think. Secondly, even just in the last two years or three years, the cost of, you know, per kilowatt hours dropping, I think I read the other day average cost per kilowatt hour by 2030 is going to be 60, $60 per kilowatt hour at the cell level, which is, I mean, I think Tesla was paying $2,000 per kilowatt hour in 2010, maybe more. So we were able to leverage some of those and same thing on suppliers on motors, on inverters, on. The global supply chain is increasing, but also where before maybe the global supply chain was dominated by large players like Bosch. And if you choose a Bosch motor and you want to change a line of code, it costs you a million dollars. That's, that's not a joke. Whereas you're seeing increasing, increasingly there are smaller, very reputable motor manufacturers that are driving innovation that we would be a big customer for, because maybe they're, they're servicing other interesting same for battery module and pack manufacturers. So I think the supply chain is evolving into the longer chain and we can, we can benefit from that. But. And then, and then it's just as a program level is just relentless focus right on your bill of materials, weight and cost every day and just not accepting it, going up and finding ways around it, and just again, being fairly relentless. So I think that there's no secret sauce there, benefiting from some of the macro factors. I think focusing on the right product definition from the beginning. Because if we said 60 in 1.1 seconds with SpaceX boosters, you're adding cost, complexity, weight. So yeah, I think those are the key pieces.
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B
I mean, as you say, it isn't rocket science. Having that very, very clear product definition from the start is going to avoid scope creep and suddenly cost creep and all the rest of it. So you've kind of alluded to this a little bit already with the idea that, you know, it's not going to be the absolute fastest car on the planet. And I think I've heard you speak before about not overspeccing. And for a product that is fundamentally quite an emotional purchase, it's not the most practical car in the world, it's not the most rational car in the world. How do you begin to go about that process such that customers still get that surprise and delight and joy of the craftsmanship.
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A
So, as I said before, we have 24 principles, we have a mission and we have three core guiding principles. So the first one is simplifying the design, engineering, manufacturing process without compromising, focusing on beauty, authenticity and connectedness, not on stats. And the final one is adding lightness to the program through decentralization, the right partners and a relentless pursuit of excellence, not Building empires that procrastinate. So those are three core principles through which decisions as a company and a product level are viewed. So actually, what's more important than a sports car, is it stats, which everyone's doing because they're driven by boards and they're faceless corporations, or is it the driver experience? And those things are very different. Very, very, very different. Right, Because a car that's going to get you around the Nurburgring quickly is going to be awful to drive on the road. So we're doing none of that. We're focused on an on road performance car from the beginning. So just by focusing the product on an on road performance vehicle, we strip out weight, we strip out cost, we strip out complexity. It's already going to be nicer to drive because we're not trying to get an ego lap record time with big fat tyres and 2000 kilowatt motors, whatever it is. So that helps. And I think then we always talk about theater in the vehicle and we think fundamentally it's one of the issues that's missing. So until now I had this conversation on the other day. So, you know, electric cars aren't good as sports cars. I was like, well, you can't really say that because all the electric cars are SUVs. That's like saying a McLaren's not a good sports car because a VW Touareg is not a good sports car. Like the powertrain is not the car. Because everyone, when they think of an ev, thinks of a D segment suv because a new D segment SUV is launched every time you click your fingers, a new D segment SUV is launched somewhere in the world, not a sports car. So just by building a sports car, it's going to inherently have theatrics of a sports car, because it's a sports car and it doesn't have a roof. Our first car. So that's a lot of the theatrics in the beginning. But then we're very focused on driver engagement. So tactile interfaces, you know, not looking at stripping, not having hyperscreens and these kind of things. So the cockpit experience is going to be very tactile, it's going to be very elemental and it's going to engage the driver. So I think I feel like I'm getting around on the question, but I think that's how you bring it together. And then the stats sit after that. Right. It's kind of the start with the Y and then at the end you populate a number. Well, it can't really be slower than 3.5, even if it's 4 seconds, still be great. But we think 3.5 is the right 060 number. 250 to 270 miles range is the right range number. And that comes afterwards because we've defined what the car is and we're. And more importantly, maybe what the car isn't as well.
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B
And also that 060 number, which ultimately is quite arbitrary. But 0, 3.5 or 04 will feel extremely quick when the car is lighter and smaller and you're more exposed to the elements. I know that I've said this about a thousand times on this podcast before, but I remember the first time I rode a motorbike. I shouldn't say a motorbike, a moped, that's. Who am I kidding? And I felt like that exhilaration and I thought this was the most amazing thing. And you look down and I was going 25 miles an hour. So it's like a relative.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
As well.
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A
Yeah. I remember early days in Tesla with a Roadster test drive, and this gentleman showed up with an Elvis 39 Special, which is like a 1940s, as a real petrol head. They're going to correct me on this maybe 50s sports car. And he let me drive in it and I was doing 60 and I was terrified. Yeah, absolutely terrified, but exhilarated. So I think, you know, you, you are exactly right. I think drive resistance features, I think all the cabin things that makes it silent, double wall and removing all the experience from the vehicle. You homogenize that experience and then all your effective experience just, just forward and sideways motion. There's no other theater. It's just you could be in a, you know, a. A centrifuge. Right. For all you care.
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B
That's.
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A
That's your experience.
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B
So the thing that this really sounds like it's boiling down to is that deep consideration to the drivers and experience that they're going to get. And I love asking this question for new companies or newer companies. Sorry. Because you don't have that legacy of the brand to kind of draw upon. And I know that somewhere on your sort of Google Drive or whatever drive there will be a who do we think our customer is? So who do you think the customer is? What do you picture?
- [31:35]
A
I mean, we know who our customers are, so we've spoken to every single one of our reservation holders. So we don't need to guess. We know who our customers are. And we, not by accident, very purposefully make the Longboat proposition universally appealing. So we're not looking at saying, okay, we're targeting the Eco warriors and we're not targeting the extreme petrol heads or the collectors or the even, I would say, particular nationalities. So I think we, we very purposefully communicate our brand and our product in a way that we think appeals to a, a core crowd of automotive enthusiasts, but I think also technology enthusiasts that may be looking for something that isn't on the market currently. So I, I'm. It's a bit of a cop out, but it's kind of everyone and we don't want to. I think we will do things on the car that if someone's really at the performance end and they really want something super special they can get and they will have the opportunity for. But if someone's just, they want to use as their daily driver and they want a two seater sports car that's electric, but there's nothing else in the market and they like design and they like what cars look like, it's priced accordingly that they can also buy it. So purposely, even from a pricing perspective, it's designed to appeal broadly and that, that's, that's. It's not Marmite. So, yeah, it's, it's not Marmite. So I think you can have a product and we'll get into like the ethos of timeless, timeless beauty at some point as well, but you can have a product that is not Marmite but isn't beautiful. And I'm going to say the Model 3 from the very beginning, I think it's a great looking product, but it's not. You're not going to put a picture of a Model 3 on your wall. So that's a level of beauty and design that is not divisive, but it's also not inspiring and exciting. And then you can have beauty that is timeless and people put on its wall. And I think we're more inspired by that and I think that, that, as I said, one of our core principles is focus on beauty, authenticity and connectedness. And I think as a brand, as a product, those are the key things for us to communicate. Because I think then people will buy it because it's beautiful. People buy it because it's an EV or they'll buy it because they want a driver's car and they like going out for drives on a Sunday. So, yeah, we want to stay fairly broad in our customers.
- [34:03]
B
So I'll just share this with you because we went to the pub with and we were meeting a number of people who work for Callum, which is the design agency set up by Ian Callum, former Jaguar designer. And Ian Callum was there and we parked at that time, the Model 3 got out, went into the pub and Ian Callum said, oh, how did you find driving your appliance here? Which I think is probably a little bit harsh, but you're so right, it is an iconic car for many, many different reasons. And I'm not going to get into the Tesla debate, but this spirit of what is beauty in a car, it's like a, it's a hard thing to describe, but when you see it, you know it. And I wonder how. Well, first of all, who designed both the Speedster and the Roadster for Longbow? And two, how did you ensure that that timeless beauty really came to fruition?
- [34:56]
A
We've been very clear. So Mark and I and Jenny, we've been very clear from the beginning on what the car is and what we're looking to achieve. And again, very much inspired by cars of the 60s and 70s and 80s. Nothing after that, maybe tail end 90s, but nothing beyond that. So. So that's really where we draw inspiration from and then work together with Vant Design. So father and son pair, Chris and Jonathan Gould, and what's interesting there is, you know, Jonathan is, is a veteran, has gone through all the clay modeling and all these pieces and brings that side to things. And Chris's son is probably at the forefront of using 3D modeling and virtual reality to design vehicles. So I think a clear vision with how they approached and how they view the product is where we ended up. And actually, you know, we were, let's say we were supposed to go through five design sprints, we got to three and we were like, that's it. And we just, and we just. That's the, that's the design. We're done. And they're like, no, we need to do two more. No, stop it. We've hit it. And you iterate a little bit. But yeah, we arrive. And just final thing on that, not a lot of people know, it's actually the duality is key to it. So when we initially viewed it, there's this duality of it being electric vehicle, but then wanting to be inspired by classic design. So if you look at the car, there's a two tone paint scheme for a reason. The rear of the car is supposed to be the more modern aspects of the vehicle and automotive and the electric powertrain and the front is a skin that's stretched over the vehicle that represents more classic design and more classic vehicles. So that concept of duality I think helps us achieve that and if you really look, there are not a lot of cars in the market that have actually two tone as their core design aesthetic. So I think that helps us achieve it as well.
- [36:41]
B
God, that's really interesting. And you see this in various different brands. I think Maeve Ing's probably a good example as well of drawing that inspiration from the past and projecting it into what it should be today with the available technology. So hearing you describe that, I'm like, yeah, I can totally see that now you've chosen to have your operations here in the uk, which I would say is. Well, there's an abundance of automotive talent, so that makes total sense. But it's not necessarily the easiest place to set up manufacturing operations. And I think you said earlier something around decentralization, and I know that contract manufacturing comes into this as well. So why is it that the UK makes sense and how is it that you're operating to ensure that the UK does make sense to build these vehicles?
- [37:29]
A
The UK is the best place in the world to build an electric sports car. There is nowhere even close if I want to go and build a D segment suv. China is the best place in the world to build it. China is not the best place in the world to build a sports car. They have no, they've never built one. They built one, it weighs two tons and it's based off of a SUV or a sedan, I think. So the UK is. So if we agree the UK is the best place in the world to build a sports car, it follows through that the UK is the best place in the world to build an electric sports car in many ways. So I think start with that. I think the talent is here, the smaller suppliers, the larger suppliers, I think from our vehicle, 90 plus percent of the vehicle is UK supply base. So it is a UK designed engineer manufactured. Our battery modules and pack are British motors, British panels, brakes, suspension, steering. Most of the car is British. So it is a British car, it's a British car company. It's the best place to build it. And you talked about talent as well. So engineers on anything from, you know, cfd, fluid Dynamics, all the way through to suspension engineering, it's the best place in the world for. Eight of the 10 Formula One teams are based in the UK. So it is the best place to build it. And we have a rich history of building lightweight sports cars. The sports cars are really only built in the uk, in Italy or in Japan, in higher volumes. In the us, in high volumes. So, yeah, I think I see that evolving even into the electric Powertrain as well. Not that we're working with them, but Yasser as an example is incredible technology and they're just one example of a number of other suppliers that are evolving out of the UK for electric vehicle supply chain as well. And I think moving forward the government really understands that the new Advanced Propulsion Center Drive 35 initiatives around government funding really recognize that and they're looking to support the supplier base looking at supporting OEMs and manufacturers like us. So I see it as continuing to be and we want to be a big part of growing the UK as the best place to build electric sports cars.
- [39:40]
B
Carl, what a hopeful answer. And I don't mean that hopeful as in your answer is hopeful. It's a very pragmatic answer, but definitely gives a lot of hope to the UK automotive industry. Do you see that continuing as you hopefully take the rotor beyond the low volumes that you described and scale up those operations as well?
- [39:58]
A
Yeah, I think so. I think again everyone says low volume manufacturing, but we want to be at 10,000 units by 2030, which is by Tesla standards tiny. But in sports car world I think reasonable, 200, 250,000 odd sports cars are built a year. So not a huge part of that, but 5%. I think the UK is a great place to build it. I think North America is going to be a key market for us. So even if the base platform and the majority of the vehicle is here and we do some fine assembly in the us, I think the UK will always be the base of our operations, the main manufacturing footprint for us and where we want to build jobs and build capabilities and build IP and everything. It's part of our DNA. We are longbow. I don't think longbows were ever made in in North America. So it would be weird for us to build our cars in North America.
- [40:51]
B
Now we're coming to the end of this podcast and it's evident that you have this kind of very laser focused vision of the future and commitment to the mission and everything that it's going to take to bring these cars to life. But I imagine there are also days where it's like, oh come on, this is a little bit frustrating. So if by the power of the podcast you could be granted a wish or something that would just make this whole journey a little bit more straightforward, what would you wish for?
- [41:20]
A
I think the wish of awareness. You know, I think people to be aware of what we're doing, how serious we are about it and that we're much further ahead than people would think we would be at this point, we'll have some exciting things to show very shortly as well on the road. So power of awareness, because that's the start. So I think people first of all need to be aware that Longbow doing what we're doing and why it's important and how we're going about it. And I think that leads into a we're at the start and by 2030, 10,000 cars. So, yeah, we need to now get more and more people aware of it and then start delivering on the promises that we make.
- [41:57]
B
Well, I hope that this podcast at least contributes to that. And if not, then we'll just have to do an episode where we review one of the beautiful vehicles, so.
- [42:07]
A
Absolutely. Absolutely, yeah.
- [42:11]
B
Thank you so much to Daniel for taking the time to join us on the podcast. I personally found that a really fascinating insight into what it takes about the combination of having the right timing, the right experience, the right focus, the right product, and I really have everything crossed to hope for their success. We will, of course, be following their journey super closely, but that is all that we have time for today. Before you go, if you could do us the honour liking subscribing, sharing with a friend, or all of the above. We so appreciate it. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate it. It really, really does ensure that we can carry on speaking to interesting people like Daniel Davey. Thank you to Louis from our team who'll be editing this particular episode. Thank you to you for listening. So, yeah, if you have been, thank you for listening and watching.