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BYD Starts To Outsell UK’s Biggest Car Brands?! | Fully Charged Show Podcast
00:53:50
In this episode of the Fully Charged Show Podcast, Robert Llewellyn is joined by Steve Beattie, Head of Sales at BYD UK, to unpack the meteoric rise of the world's largest EV maker. From humble beginnings in battery manufacturing to selling over 4...
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- [00:00]
Steve Beattie
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Robert Llewellyn
Welcome to another episode of the Fully Charged show podcast right here on the Everything Electric channel. Oh, it's all marvellous. This is such, such a joy. Every now and then I do a record an episode of the podcast. It's just like I don't have to do much work because the, the, my guest is just amazing and full of fascinating insights and information and this is one of those experiences. So today's guest is Steve Beattie. He works for byd, Chinese car maker who are making huge inroads into Europe in general, but into this country in particular. Also South America. We do briefly touch on that. Just fascinating how quickly this company has emerged and how powerfully and the impact they're having. I think I first became aware of them in about 2009. So like a year before the Fully Charge show started. I saw some BYD cars at the Geneva Motor Show. I wasn't overly impressed, didn't really have a kind of strong opinion, just it was kind of. They were such a sort of weird fringe thing. I didn't really take much notice, but I do, I do remember seeing them there. But you know, there were sort of new Volvos and new Fords and new Audis and you know, European brands absolutely at their peak at that time in Europe obviously. And then you've got to say things have changed quite a lot since then. Just the quality of those cars and I mean I lived with an Atto 3, a BYD Atto 3 for three months while I was in Australia, so wasn't like having a test drive for an afternoon, just used it regularly as a car, kind of just normal. Didn't even think about it. And I was kind of, I had to keep reminding myself what an amazing car that is and so easy to use to charge to drive long distances, all those things. Very grateful to my sister in law for lending it to us, but no really great car. So it's been really interesting to kind of catch up and see what's happening with BYD and what's coming up. They've got some amazing stuff that's going to appear this year. I think the whole idea that we've been noticing the enthusiasm for is smaller, cheaper, lighter, electric cars and that's coming with BYD this quite soon this year, I mean like next month almost. So this is really good fun. I really hope you enjoy it. Please do tell your friends about the Everything Electric show and the podcast we do here. And please do subscribe. I'm saying this now because I think it makes more sense than at the end. And that's it now. So please do welcome Steve Beatty from BYD to the Fully Charged show podcast. We've teamed up with Duracell Energy to celebrate their brilliant ecosystem with of home energy products and their platinum homeowner offer by giving away a Duracell bunny to win. Simply watch to the end and answer a question about the Fully Charged show. So, Steve, can we just go? Because it is fascinating how short and intense the history of BYD is and I'm sure you've had to do this many times, but just for the. The people who I think now are generally aware of the company in this country, I think it's the, I think it's the first Chinese company, new Chinese company that's come particularly in the uk. I've asked lots of people who know nothing about cars, aren't interested and they've heard of BYD now and I think even if I'd asked them a year ago, they wouldn't have done. So. I, I, basically, you're doing quite a good job. But it is.
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Steve Beattie
Yeah.
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Robert Llewellyn
And how quickly it's grown and become, you know, apparent in this country.
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Steve Beattie
Yeah. Do you know what I think? I think we're surprised that probably the growth and the interest in BYD in this country so much. So funny enough, my daughter came into the garden on Sunday, on afternoon, like she's 18, she's doing a level. She went, dad, my. My friends just asked why you're on his feed. I'm like his social media feed for something talking about byd. So, yeah, so we obviously were getting anywhere, even to young.
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Robert Llewellyn
That's impressive.
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Steve Beattie
So, yeah, brief history of byd. You probably know this, Robert, but I think it's always nice, nice to know. So we are a young company, we've been going 30 years, started by our chairman, so. Chairman wank. So he started the business, which I think is always a lovely story because for me it feels like a family business. You know, we're a real, real flat structure. We actually had him over last week, him and Stella and his executive team to sort of look at the UK and do a European tour and what was happening. But it's, for me, what's incredible is that I can sit down in a meeting and, you know, it's my third meeting, I've only been here sort of seven months with the chairman to go different things and the interest that they've got and the level of detail of the business for me is lovely to see that as a, you know, as a global company that sold 4.2 million cars last year that they're still really interested in sort of the smaller, smaller areas as I say so started 30 years ago and actually Chairman Wang started selling batteries or making batteries. You know, that's what he did. And you go to the old Nokia 3310s and all those batteries and little batteries we used to take out and that was it really. He realized he could do them better or you know, more efficient than where they were getting from. And that's really how the company grew. There's obviously a number of different things we do. It's a big in electronics, you know, we make X percentage of the world's iPads. You know, there's a large amount of the world's iPads. We make a load of, load of the world's AirPods. You know, one in five smartphones have got our technology. So we are an electronics and a battery come through first. But I think the chairman decided he wanted to get into into automotive and various different guises throughout that. I guess the real milestone was probably sort of when we went all electric or well towards a new electric vehicle which was sort of 2017, 2015 when they made that decision sort of glow in terms of moving that. And then so that's sort of where the organization have come from. I think if you look at the UK, we've actually been in here since 2013, you know, we've got nearly two and a half thousand electric buses running around the UK. So which is, which is, which is quite, quite exciting and what I love about it and do you know what? I don't think you really visualize this. There's a picture of when Michael Shoe come over to set America, to set Europe up and there was him and six people from China and they've got the picture at the airport and they're waving, waving off and you think, wow, you know, when you go and set something up new in a new country, you expect global organizations for six people to turn up and just start knocking on doors to open it up and, and that's literally how I guess it started in Europe really. Sorry, I flip flop between UK and Europe. Just that picture came into my mind for your, for the listeners to sort of view.
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Robert Llewellyn
I mean Steve, I think it's fair geographically to say we are in Europe. It's not contentious. That's where we are.
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Steve Beattie
Absolutely. So then, so then as I say we got the buses that started in 20, in 2013, then in 2023 we moved into cars in Europe. We launched in April 2023 in the UK we've now got a car park of about 20,000, so about 5,000 plug in hybrids and about 15,000 electric. That really is accelerated in the last four or five months I think, if you can probably see the registration stats. So I said to the chairman when we were over in, in Shenzhen, I said we're going to sell more cars in Q1 than we did in the whole of last year.
- [07:26]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
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Steve Beattie
So I set myself a bit of a big target really but the team and the dealers have done an incredible job of achieving that. So we did nine and nine thousand, nine and a half thousand cars give or take Q1 and then last month we did two and a half thousand cars which took us to 2% market share for the month of April.
- [07:46]
Robert Llewellyn
And this is a company that's only been in this country a couple of years, I suppose, I mean, well, two years. Cars. Yeah, I know the buses have been around for a long time, haven't they? But the car.
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Steve Beattie
Exactly, yeah.
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Robert Llewellyn
That is incredible, isn't it? I mean, because I've just been for the first time in China, just in Shanghai for the motor show and we saw lots of other things as well but it was, you know, it's very hard not to be aghast and, and sort of blown away. Just, you know, and I'm really talking about the technology, the infrastructure, how they have built things so fast, so huge on such a massive scale. So I mean way, you know, the first thing that hit me was scooters. They didn't hit me but I watched them.
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Steve Beattie
Yeah.
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Robert Llewellyn
And there's just tens of thousands of electric scooters went past me in a half an hour and then it was the cars. I'm going, oh wait a minute, I can't hear any cars. And buses, they're all, I mean, you know, and the tax, all the taxis, electric, all the buses, electric, all the scooters. And then every now and then you hear a combustion engine which is a car and you go oh, there's one of the old ones which goes vroom because I mean I'm talking central Shanghai so it's probably not a fair comparison for the whole of China, but it's an extraordinary difference. And the only experience I've had before was secondhand from my brother in law who lived in Shanghai about 15 years ago for about 5 years and all he did was send us pictures of the, you know, the terrible air pollution, you know, Pauling, where he was told not to leave the house and go to his office because it's, you know, the Air was so toxic and the air was beautifully clear. It's like being out in the country, you know, right in the middle of Shanghai. So that's my recent experience. And also just the staggering number of BYDs. They've sold quite a few in China, I think it's fair to say.
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Steve Beattie
Yeah, we've done really well. I mean, you know, China's a big market. It's about 25 million cars a year.
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Robert Llewellyn
Wow.
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Steve Beattie
So is a big market. We probably did about 4 million last year because we exported a couple hundred thousand, give or take. But actually we're number one in China.
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Robert Llewellyn
Right.
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Steve Beattie
You know, so to be number one, you know we talk about being number one, but to be number one in China, amazing. The market's probably got maybe 150 brands, you know, about 65 in the UK. Yeah, I think is incredible.
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Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Steve Beattie
You know, to drive that performance and you know, for a car company that's so young as well. Yeah, you know, 30 years young as it was. Yeah. The team over there have done a fantastic job in the product team in building the cars. And I think it's interesting what you say in terms of, you know, where, what it was like in China from your brother in law 15 years ago and I think really what for me, you know, people say well what is the real difference? I said well look, you know, I'm not, I don't work in a European car manufacturers engineering department but what I do understand from what the team have done in China is they adopted electric technology very, very early and said actually we, we are betting on this technology to work and the research and development. You know we've got nearly 120000 engineers in BYD alone. You know, just think about that power of those people and their minds developing different things every day. It's just unbelievable. Really. Yeah.
- [10:57]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean that was one of the things I thought was interesting and I think it's a good idea for us to touch on it was it was actually at the BYD stand at the Shanghai Auto show was that wasn't about a new car. It was about how they, how BYD are building batteries and how they're testing them to destruction. The new generation of batteries. I mean the stuff they were doing, they, they had video footage of like battery packs, just the packs being crushed by hydraulic presses, having massive spikes driven through them being submerged under salt water. You know, everything you just like no, it's got it. That's, you know, but they don't catch fire. That's the thing. They're not catching Fire. They've really. And that's their whole really long presentation about this battery safety was. It was really interesting.
- [11:43]
Steve Beattie
Yeah. You know, again, I've come from Volvo, so safety is at the foremost. But at byd, with all the technology that we're bringing out, you know, it does feel very, very much that it's all about safety. If we look at a couple of the things. So first we look at our blade battery. So our battery. So if you think of it again, so you've got a battery, let's say a big square battery pack. So the first thing is our battery is integrated into the chassis of the vehicle, which makes it a lot firmer in terms of accidents and what have you. Because it's not a battery that's placed in like an engine, it's actually built into chassis vehicle. I think the second thing is, in terms of batteries, of course, in traditional batteries, with the. With the way that they're. That they are. They're, of course, they're. They're battery plaques. They're like a little breeze block that sits. That sits into that. Whereas ours, in terms of the. In terms of that, it's like a blade. So you've got the blades that fit in there. So actually when you do crash of it, in terms of if. Well, if you were to crash with it, it's a lot safer. And actually that demonstration you talk about. So at Shenzhen, in the. Not the museum, we've got like a. I guess it's a showroom in Shenzhen in our main office, actually. You know, like every hour they're.
- [12:49]
Robert Llewellyn
When they're stabbing batteries. Yeah.
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Steve Beattie
And you see, you see ours, you know, you see a traditional blade battery, which is fine and does not.
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Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [12:57]
Steve Beattie
Catch fire. But then you see an NCM battery, you know, and it does.
- [13:01]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Steve Beattie
So it's all about. All about safety. And then of course, you've got God's Eye that we're working on as well, which is, again, listening to the chairman, you know, God's Eye, which I think is an interesting. Is great, great name for it. It's basically just, I would say. And again, the product people will probably kill me for this, but it's like lidar on steroids, really. It's effectively eyes around.
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Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Steve Beattie
The whole vehicle. But it wasn't about necessarily. It's not about us being autonomous, it's about how can we protect people and how can we really make our car safer. And that's what that does. And the bit that I loved is you can just put into a car park and press park myself and it will just go off and park. Yes, but, but really it's about the safety element for me more than anything.
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Robert Llewellyn
On God's Eye because that's the other video I saw, which is what I saw that previously to going out to China, but was, was the kind of standard crash test. So I, interestingly, the only time I've witnessed a real live crash test is in Gotterberg at Volvo in, in Sweden where we were actually sitting behind a big perspective screen and they actually crashed. And it's so shocking when you're there and you know, we've all seen that film footage and it's slow mo and it goes crumple when you see it and it's like, oh my God, that was horrendous. There's plastic and bits of glass flying everywhere. Really horrifying. But they showed three crash tests on one BYD seal and like side impact, front impact, you know, smashed it to bits. Then they took the battery pack out of that car, put it in another car and drove the other car away. The battery was fine, written off but you know, wow, that was.
- [14:35]
Steve Beattie
Well, hopefully there's some insurance companies listening and they'll put our insurance ratings down so the wonderful customers can have a, a cheaper car.
- [14:44]
Robert Llewellyn
It is the most. It's now become my sort of bugbear chip on my shoulder is from interviewing fire officers. So you interview fire officers and I go, well and then you sort of do the thing about car safety and how many vehicle fires and getting people out and all that. And then you go, you ask them what they drive. They all drive electric cars because they're safer and they've put out so many vehicle fires that are in combustion engine vehicles and hybrids. You know, they say no, they, you know, if you look at the statistics, it's bonkers how tiny the proportion and yet that's still a thing. We get those comments on YouTube. Well, I wouldn't buy electric car. They're going to burst into flames any minute. Well that's clever bit of marketing. Whoever managed to push that story.
- [15:28]
Steve Beattie
Yeah, it might come from an oil company maybe.
- [15:30]
Robert Llewellyn
I wouldn't dream of suggesting that, but that's possible. The, the car that I've driven a lot recently is the ATTO3 in Australia. So I stayed in my sister in law's house while she was in our house in the UK and she gave us her ATTO3. And I just want to say this is a woman who has as much interest in cars as I have in a skirting board, painting techniques. I Don't. I'm just trying to think of something that I'm not interested in. She has. She's interested in art and the history of the Italian Renaissance and things like that. She's obsessed with this car, isn't. It's so interesting. First electric car she's ever had and she loves it. She plugs it in at home and she turns the air conditioning on before she gets into it because it's so hot in. She lives in Brisbane and it's so. It's intriguing to see. I mean, this is partly part of just electric cars in general, but her attitude has been, you know, the fact that she'll even talk about it to me at all. And, and I don't think this isn't because of my influence. I mean, they just, they. They've just become very common in Australia. I mean, the huge increase in electric vehicle uptake in Australia is extraordinary, isn't it? I mean, I'm sure you've heard about it. It's really big.
- [16:50]
Steve Beattie
Yeah, no, it's. It's been strong, isn't it? I mean, we're not. We're not doing too bad. I mean, we're the best market in Europe, in the uk, aren't we? In terms of excluding Norway. Of course, in terms of. In the big markets, I guess in terms of, you know, ev. Ev uptake. And for me, what I, I really can't understand, Robert, is when I'm talking to people and I say, do you. Can you charge at home? Do you have, you know, a drive or can you actually charge at home? And when they say yes, and they tell me they're still in a combustion engine.
- [17:17]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [17:18]
Steve Beattie
Blows my mind. So my, My brother and his wife, she's a school teacher, they've just gone into a BYD right now. They were in an ice car before.
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Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Steve Beattie
And he's been adamant against it. He doesn't want an electric vehicle. I've said, you need to do it, go into it. And I've helped him get, you know, get the car, get into it, you know, so it was easy for him to get a charge in, you know, like a charge into that. And he's texting me every day or every week. Do you know what? So his daughter, his wife goes to work, she's 30 miles there, 30 miles back. He's like, it's only cost me £6. 74 this week, you know, and then he's going, oh, now I've sold another car to a customer at the. And. And it's funny, isn't it because once you converted, once you have gone into electric and you can charge at home.
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Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
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Steve Beattie
It is unbelievably, unbelievably cost effective. You'd be crazy not to. Yeah, there's two things I hate doing in the world. One of them is shaving. So I was glad that beards become a bit more trendy and, and the second thing was going to a petrol station. I've been driving a bed for years now. That's.
- [18:24]
Robert Llewellyn
But I mean that's the. I think, because I think it's a really legitimate argument is how, how unfair it is for people who can't park off the road. I think that's perfectly fair. But the point is, I think there's about 1.4 million BEVs on the roads in the UK now and there's 12 and a half million homes on government statistics, where the, where you can park off the street. So once, if there was 12 and a half million electric cars now and everyone who can park off the street had them, I'd shut up, I'd retire. But you know, there's still, so there's room for another 11 million electric cars where people with, for people who have no problem, you know, they can save so much money from buying petrol and then we can solve the problem. But you know, in other countries, China is a good example. Everyone there lives in apartments and they've got huge numbers of electric cars. So that you can, it can be done.
- [19:23]
Steve Beattie
Yeah. And I think, I think picking up on something you said there and I, you know, and I've sort of suggested this before, I think we're in danger of becoming a two tier country when it comes to electric vehicles and it's those that can and those that can't. For me, you know, the government, they need to, you know, I'm not talking about subsidies, I'm not saying help me make my cars cheaper, help people get into the cars. For me, what they need to concentrate on is how do they support the infrastructure. And it doesn't. I don't. You don't need a charger everywhere. But I'm talking about the cost of putting in fast charging because it's hugely expensive to be able to put the fast chargers in and get the grid. So the organizations that want to do that, you know, I applaud them, but the government need to work out, firstly financially, how can they support that and then secondly, what do they do in terms about the price of wholesale electricity coming to those organizations? Once we can figure that out and effectively, okay, we're always going to. You're always going to pay a little bit more from not being at home, you know, and maybe, you know, maybe it is, you know, your average is what, 26p a kilowatt and maybe it should be maybe 35p a kilowatt or something like that. But that's what the government need to fix. If they can fix that, then they're going to find a solution to get more people that can't charge at home in electric vehicles. It just takes that away. Because why would I go and spend all the upfront money of an electric vehicle? It was going to cost me the same money as an ice.
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Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Steve Beattie
And I've got that range anxiety that I'm not sure of.
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Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Steve Beattie
You know, for me, you know, for the, for the long journeys that people do, you know, where you might have to stop two or three times, you know, once a year, whatever that is. The actual. Never having to go to a petrol station and being able to charge at home and that. Saving out while, you know.
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Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Steve Beattie
The inconvenience of me stopping when I'll need to stop anyway, because the car would have outlasted my bladder.
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Robert Llewellyn
Thank you.
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Steve Beattie
By the time I'm a coffee.
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Robert Llewellyn
Very important thing. I'm glad you mentioned that. No, I think. But I mean, it's. It would be a difficult thing to market, but I think bladder range, you know, I can just see the big poster, you know, goes. Goes further than your bladder. Well, it's not going to. I know that's not going to happen.
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Steve Beattie
That reminds me of like the 70s or 80s, you know, when you see the old car adverts, you know, I can't believe that people advertise. Yes, yes, right.
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Robert Llewellyn
But it's absolutely true. And actually I used a charger. There's a big charging hub just outside Winchester that's just open. So I can't of did a journey via that to charge there and do a little. I did a little report from it, but the point of it was, if I hadn't been filming a bit, I didn't do much, but I did a bit, you know, I would have got there plugged in. I went in, used the, the. The restroom, as they say, went in and bought a coffee and then I got an alarm from my car because it was full and I go, no, no, I'm not ready. I want longer. This is too fast. And you know that. I mean, obviously there. It didn't matter because there was plenty of charges. I wasn't stopping anybody else charging. But you know that the speed. Well that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was the, the Han. Is it the Han. L. The, the insanely fast charging. But we can do that in a minute. But that is just bonkers. You know that is a whole, that changes the whole picture, doesn't it?
- [22:24]
Steve Beattie
Our Super E platform that effectively you can charge as quick as you can fill up a petrol car or an ice. A diesel car. Yeah, I mean that, that's really exciting. Not sure you know when we'll see it in the uk.
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Robert Llewellyn
No, no.
- [22:39]
Steve Beattie
But that being said, you know, I mean there's a, you know, you look at technology that we've, you know, we've launched the Seagull in China which is our small electric car in China. So it's, if anyone wants to have a look at, they can Google Seagull or they can go Google Dolphin Mini because it's been launched in Latin America as Dolphin Mini.
- [22:56]
Robert Llewellyn
Right. Wow.
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Steve Beattie
We're bringing it into, into June. So it launched on June, the middle of June, June 10, June 11. Dolphin Surf. For various reasons we didn't call it Dolphin the other word we call it Dolphin Surf. So that's, that's coming in and That's a sub 20,000 pound electric car.
- [23:14]
Robert Llewellyn
Wow.
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Steve Beattie
So that's, that's really exciting. And that was two years ago. Launched in China.
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Robert Llewellyn
Right.
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Steve Beattie
I guess what I'm, what I'm sort of bridging to is back to the, the Super E platform tech is. Yeah, okay. It's not here yet but generally we've seen things come over in a few, a few years time. So you know we'll absolutely be hoping that we're going to see this on our cars. But I think the different thing to worry is then someone go well are they going to be able to put these, you know, you know they've said in China they're invested in megawatt charging, you know this super cold megawatt charging. But the great thing about this is actually it's dual gunned. So even if you. So effectively you could in theory, in theory this is you could pull up to a car and you've got the two chargers either side and then you could plug in both sides effectively and then you're getting 350 kilowatts, right. Or whatever it was, you know, 250 or whatever the speed is. So I think potentially in markets where they don't have the megawatt charger because it's dual gun, it could still definitely, definitely work. But as you say 15 minutes and you're topped up.
- [24:12]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, I mean, in a sense, it's, you know, that's the thing. It's hard to explain to people, but, you know, you, you actually do. I mean, what's a fascinating thing is when you look at people who are now driving electric trucks and you'd go, wow, electric trucks will never work. You can't, you know, they can't do this. Yes, they can. And the driver has to stop, by Law, for 45 minutes. Well, they stop it where they can charge. There's a great guy in Germany who's doing videos of his really long haul heavy truck journeys in electric trucks. But he's got to stop. He hasn't got the choice. It's the law. He has to stop for 45 minutes, plugs the truck in. It makes no difference to their journeys, to their logistics. Every now and then he does great. He's very honest about it because he'll come to a charger which is built for cars and it's really difficult to get his massive truck in there, but he does. And then the charger doesn't work in the middle of the night. And that's a nightmare. So it's not all perfect by any means, but, you know, just that the reality of the human body as we, as you, you know, we mentioned, and electric truck charging, electric car charging, it's a such a complex thing to explain to people. But the thing is, you don't, you know, it's not a problem. Rapid charging, is it? And doing long journeys, it's just not a problem.
- [25:29]
Steve Beattie
No, absolutely. And I think, I think, you know, the other thing I love about electric cars is the performance.
- [25:34]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
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Steve Beattie
So the BYD seal, I've got, I'm, I'm quite lucky. I've got a seal excellence. And I think it's like 500 horsepower and it's, you know, and you're talking in that car, 500 horsepower, it's like 47, 000 pounds, right? You know, you know, it's got everything in it, you know, it's got full lever, it's got 360 camera, it's got panoramic roof. Anything you can name from a tech perspective is in this car. You know, it's got, it's got, you know, all of the, you know, the adaptive cruise control, the lane assist, everything. Like so much tech going on in this car. It's got the screen which you can switch if you like it. Portrait or. Very, very important, Robert. But for me, I just love the performance, you know, I love that If I need to, you just put your. You know. It's instant, isn't it? Electric is instant, you know, whereas petrol takes a while for it to go through. Go through the turbo and go. Yeah, but it's just instant and I love that. I don't think I could again go back to a. An ice car when I've experienced the performance of these.
- [26:31]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's because I did the test drive. I was allowed to do that one when the Seal was first launched. I was up there in the Lake District, I think it was. It was. It took place in very heavy rain, so I've only driven it. That was the Seal. I've only driven it for about an hour and a half, you know, not on a classic test drive day. But I loved it. I mean, it was. I was really impressed with it.
- [26:53]
Steve Beattie
What about the Sea Lion 7? Have you driven that? Our newest?
- [26:55]
Robert Llewellyn
No, I've now seen them. I saw them in Shanghai a lot, but, yeah, no, I haven't driven that one yet. No. I mean, I'm sure it's on our list.
- [27:02]
Steve Beattie
You know, after this podcast, I'll get you one out, Robert, and you can try it for a few weeks, let.
- [27:06]
Robert Llewellyn
Me know what you think about it. So it'll be really good to understand.
- [27:09]
Steve Beattie
Your views of it as well. So, I mean, that's our. To sort of bring it back, I guess, to our cars again. So we've now got five cars in the uk, so four of those are electric. And it's probably important, I know this is fully charged, but of course you charge it. We've also got a. It's called dmi, which is our plug in hybrid technology. Yeah, I mean, the difference between plug in hybrid and DMI is effectively the engine acts as a generator, so it's trying to use the electric as much as it possibly can. You can charge it, you can get, you know, it's like 77 miles on a full charge. On the right, the, the comforts, the Seal, you comfort model. But of course the way the engine works is because it's around town, it's efficient, it's effectively keeping you in electric mode as possibly as you can. Once it goes onto the motorway, it will then go into petrol, of course, because otherwise it's not an efficient way of doing it. But I think you can get about 700 miles out of one tank. And I love reading the Facebook groups about that car because they're sort of how good it is. And that's our biggest seller, actually. We've done 5,000 so far this year, in terms of the Seal, you. And it's a really strong car. I think it's bridging that gap. It's making people realize they can go to electric. You know, they drive mostly on electric and actually they've got the backup. So I definitely think for me what's exciting is the customers that are in Seal today. I absolutely know that when we look at renewing those in two to three years or three years time, they'll be considering electric car. I think they'll have for so long.
- [28:32]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean it is the journey. I mean certainly the journey I went on was I had a, a Golf R32. So my steps were Golf R32 to Prius. That was quite a big jump.
- [28:43]
Steve Beattie
Wow, that is a big jump.
- [28:44]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, well, it's about, it's the only time I think any salesperson's ever said when I was in the Toyota showroom and they drove away my R32 and brought in a gray Prius. The, the salesman from Toyota said, are you sure you want to do this, sir? I thought it was a classic. But you know, from that, from a, from that to an electric car, you know, that was a very common step. It's nothing special. And I mean we've sort of shunned reviewing hybrids just because, you know, we, you know, the whole point of what we were trying to do was that you don't import fuel and burn it. You, you, you, you generate, you know, that we can, as we're seeing happen, you know, you, we could be, you know, the idea is eventually to be fossil fuel free, living in the real world where, you know, that's a massive challenge that is beyond, you know, imaginings except it's very slowly happening. But I think we have to accept that, you know, just from pure popularity of, of hybrids. And I mean it certainly a plug in hybrid that can do more than 50 miles on a, on a chart without using any petrol, I think is a big thing. And I mean, you know, they were like the plug in hybrid Prius I had did 12 miles if you plugged it. So it was kind of pointless.
- [30:04]
Steve Beattie
I don't know if you remember the Ampera.
- [30:06]
Robert Llewellyn
So I was great actually.
- [30:07]
Steve Beattie
Yeah. You know, but that car was so ahead of its time. Yeah, it was, you know, it was so ahead of its time. It was a plug in hybrid, wasn't it? And everyone was like, this is never going to work, you know, and it just, just, it was too, it was too early. But that was going back really to the first plug in hybrid. Yeah. But again, you know, I think, I think with, with everybody, you know, people, people change their minds at different rates.
- [30:28]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [30:28]
Steve Beattie
And having a strong plug in hybrid technology when they can mostly run an electric.
- [30:33]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [30:34]
Steve Beattie
Gives them that confidence whether that gap in between to then move them to a full electric. You know, not everyone will take that full punch. No. But I think has been able to offer, you know, we've got more plug in hybrid cars coming at the end of the year.
- [30:46]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
- [30:46]
Steve Beattie
Maybe two or three different, different models and types and what have you. So we're definitely catering for, for anyone that wants to move into a new energy vehicle.
- [30:54]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, yeah. And then so what can you tell, can you list quickly what is for sale here? Because I've got so used to, I've been in Australia for quite a long time so my niece has a dolphin, my sister in law has an ATT3 and then there's another distant relative who's got a seal. You know I was just going, this is ridiculous. This is a BYD fan. Well the hell's happened? Yeah, but what, what is, what is available here out of all those?
- [31:17]
Steve Beattie
Okay, yeah, no, I can do so and I'll also list what's available and with the prices because we've got a sale this weekend so not sure when this podcast is going out but 15th.
- [31:28]
Robert Llewellyn
To the 19th goes out on Monday so it goes out soon.
- [31:30]
Steve Beattie
Yeah, fantastic. 15th to 19th April we've got 0% across the range and up to 1000 pound additional from a. From retail. So mixture of electric and plug in hybrids. So what have we got for sale? So first of all we've got Dolphin. Now the Dolphin is currently our smallest car that's I would call it what we call a B plus segment. So that's about if our the people want to sort of work out sizing. It's about an ID free size car. It's pure electric car. It's really, you know, it's the offer that we've got on that is from 269 down, 269amonth on a four year PCP. So there's, that's the Dolphin. You then go up a little bit in size and you go to the Atto 3. Now the Atto 3 is a proper SUV. It's our first car that we bought out. So it's an electric SUV that is I would say for again for people sort of if we like a Volkswagen Tiguan, a Kia Sportage, Nissan Qashqai, that sort of size segment vehicle that's full Electric again. And that starts at again 399amonth. 399 deposit. So 399, 399 so that that car's there. We've then got two other electric models. We then have the Seal which I guess I would say is probably a bit closest to Model 3 which is fully electric. Stunning looking car. It's our probably, you know, it's really good in terms of what it looks like and what it feels like. That car again is a, is a retail offer. I'd have to double check with that. That's about 479amonth but I think it's a bigger deposit in terms of what we put down on the, on the seal. And then we've got the Sea seven which is our say it's a bit like a model y, Model Y Polestar 4 Coupe SUV again pure electric. And then finally we've got the Seal UDMI which is our, as I say, biggest seller in the UK plug in hybrid. Up to 77 miles on one charge. And the list price of that car is £33,000. So it's super competitive. And again you're talking about a 2000 pound deposit. 349, 359amonth in terms of that. So five cars at the moment, small car coming on June 10th. We then have a, the Atto 2 electric car coming which is like a small SUV. So like a more car like a Kia EV3 that size come, that comes in September and then we've got a couple more DMI products of maybe a small saloon, small estate coming as well towards the end of the year. So we'll have about nine models by the end of the year.
- [34:07]
Robert Llewellyn
Wow, that is incredible. And I mean it is what it sort of underlines and what I was so aware of, it was really good to go to the Shanghai Automotive show simply because of the scale in a sense and the, you know, and I've been saying this for years, the challenge to European and North American car makers, you know, well established brands that people have known and trusted and loved or hated for many decades. But the challenge to them from China is palpable. I mean you really can feel it because you go there because I do remember going to the Geneva Motor Show, I think, I think 2009, 2008, nine somewhere around then and I, and I was there with Volvo, that's who I went with and I can't remember what they were launching but it was definitely electric or a plug in hybrid probably. But anyway the there was a BYD stand there, sort of, but like tucked around the back, it wasn't.
- [35:02]
Steve Beattie
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:02]
Robert Llewellyn
And there were kind of four. I. I remember them as being suggested to be used as taxes in London. There were four models and they were, you know, I was going. And I don't, you know, like, in comparison with Jack or Johnny Smith, people who have an incredible aesthetic understanding of car design and build quality. I don't have that. I can go, I. I kind of like it or I kind of don't. Those looked dangerous to me in 2009. They didn't look like they'd been tightened up, you know.
- [35:34]
Steve Beattie
Right.
- [35:34]
Robert Llewellyn
They looked a bit loose. Now you look at any Chinese car, I mean, not just byd, but although many of the top brands coming out of China are as good as an Audi or a BMW, you know, in terms of build quality and interior quality, the change has been. The challenge, if you like, is huge. And how. I don't know how we deal with that. I mean, I think that's one of the things I think is interesting about this country. We'll adopt. We'll often adopt, you know, Japanese cars we adopted very quickly. Korean cars we adopted very quickly in this country. And, you know, I think. I think there is a. We're less prejudiced, if you like, than possibly some other countries about it. And also, we don't have a big a car production industry here anymore when we used to, but we don't now.
- [36:23]
Steve Beattie
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. I think, I think you go back to, as you say, 2008, 2009. I think what a lot of the Chinese car manufacturers did, and what we definitely did was we recruited. Well, we recruited Wolfgang.
- [36:34]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [36:35]
Steve Beattie
You know, who's designed Audi, designed Lamborghini. So, you know, he's incredibly creative and what he does on our models is fantastic. Fantastic. And designing that, so that's really, really helped us get ready for the European market. But we go closer to home. You're absolutely right, Robert. I mean, we've accepted those brands. And I remember being an area manager during scrappage scheme in 2008 and looking at Kias at 499 and Hyundai's and thinking, God, you know, where are these cars? Who's going to buy them? And now actually, if you look at Kieran, Hyundai, you know, the quality of the cars, the great deal of network that they've got and what the product looks like, you know, they've done. They've done incredible, an incredible job in terms of that. And the British public are absolutely more accepting of brands, but even more so now, you know, I think according to Autotrader and this was the last one, so it might have even got bigger since then. I think when they, when people shop, they have eight brands on their shopping list. Right. You know, so you're looking at eight different brands. Whereas you went back years ago, it was free, you would have shopped. I think we're so much more open to new tech, new products as, as, as, as the British public. And of course we just want something that's really good value, you know, and, and, and, and looks good and I think, I think BYD are ticking those boxes really well. So you get so much kit and tech on the car. Yeah, the price is really strong and the build quality, dare I say, is exceptional, you know. Yeah, it's so it's like what's not right, really?
- [37:58]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. I mean the other thing that I really wanted to talk to you about because I read somewhere about the, the dealerships, so they're. Because that, I think that is a side of electric cars that we've kind of not covered properly on the fully charged show. So we were always looking at new models that come out. We don't kind of do the follow on and it's something that I've kind of just got out of the habit of. But because of having electric cars, I haven't taken them in for a service every year because they're okay and I know you should. And I've got a Nissan, I've got a 2010 built 2010 in Japan, Nissan Leaf still on the road perfectly. It's been amazing. It was a, had terrible range when it was new. It's got terrible range now. It's got a new battery, it's fine. My daughter uses it all the time, it's great. But I have spent almost zero looking after it until this year. So this year it had to have welding, it had to have some new suspension and arms and things. It needed some love and care. But for the first time in getting on for 15 years that I've had it and it's done 92,000 miles, you know, it's, it's. And every single panel body panel has got either a big scratch or a major dent. It's not, it's, it's not pristine, it's not a collector's item, it's been battered. But what that tells me is the traditional dealership model where I would go to Toyota and I'd buy a Prius and then I take it back there to have it serviced and have spare parts and oil and that would cost money and I'd give them more money. That's kind of. Well, I want to know has that disappeared with an electric car company? Because essentially BYD are an electric car company as well. I know you do hybrids but you.
- [39:49]
Steve Beattie
Know that's the main new energy vehicle company.
- [39:51]
Robert Llewellyn
New energy vehicles. Yeah.
- [39:54]
Steve Beattie
Yeah. I mean so that, so has it disappeared? So I guess there's a few, there's a few different answers. Yeah, you're absolutely right. In terms of the. Where you know what an electric vehicle needs. It will visit the, it will visit the dealer a lot, A lot less. I think we also would push over the air updates which I think is important. So the over updates can come. But like anything sometimes it's always great when it's plugged into that data.
- [40:16]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, yeah.
- [40:17]
Steve Beattie
System and what can pull through. There's some, some, some things that aren't over the air done. Which is really, really good. So I think, yeah, you know our vehicle is, you know an electric vehicle is basically every two years. Right. 18,000 miles every two years. So that's when you're going to see that vehicle, our plug in hybrid is, is every 12 months. So you're going to see that more. And of course that's going to have more of a traditional, a traditional service. So there's a few things I think, you know, dealers generally make their money from new cars, from used cars and from after sales. Now I guess as the after sales car part potentially diminishes.
- [40:47]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [40:49]
Steve Beattie
How are they therefore going to improve their revenue? Well, there's a few things, isn't there? I mean there's a lot of tooling and tech you need for electric vehicles.
- [40:55]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [40:55]
Steve Beattie
So actually whereas we could just set up. I could go, you know what, I'm a mechanic, I'm going to set up around the corner and do that. I might not. I have the training or B the tooling.
- [41:03]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [41:04]
Steve Beattie
And that's something that's very important. So I think sometimes that you're absolutely right. So there's less time on the vehicle. But in, in theory we're not employing techs anymore, we're employing software engineers.
- [41:13]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [41:13]
Steve Beattie
So actually the level potentially of the. Maybe the labor cost goes up but the parts cost comes down. So you're there or thereabouts potentially similar. I guess we'll wait and see how that develops throughout because you know you can't really set price. It just develops really where that is. I think that's one thing. I think the second thing is from A retailer network, they need to sort of look at things that can replace that. Oil revenue.
- [41:32]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [41:33]
Steve Beattie
You know, tires, you know, is one thing, you know, as a customer, I don't, I really just want to go one place.
- [41:38]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
- [41:38]
Steve Beattie
I had a great relationship with a dealer that could look after me for tires, servicing, glass, all those things. I'd never go anywhere else because you just want that one relationship. So I think there's things like that, tires and glass that they can do which can sort of help, you know, smart repair, you know, I mean it's. What's it like when you scratch an alloy? Yeah, it's the worst thing in the world, isn't it? And a lot of people, if you could just pay 150 pound and get that but put back to new, you probably would.
- [42:01]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [42:01]
Steve Beattie
So I think, I think there's lots of things that a dealer can look at to do differently from that after sales revenue. And that's where they really need to sort of start a planning war. But I mean, from us, we've got dealers now, we've got 67 dealers.
- [42:15]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. That's incredible. Right, so there are. They're all over. Yeah.
- [42:18]
Steve Beattie
We've only, we've got 28 partners. So what I mean by that is, for example, say the owner of the garage. So, for example, we've got partners like Virtue, like Lithia, like Lookers, we've got some of the big ones, we've also got some local small groups, so like DM Keith in Yorkshire City, west country in the southwest. So we've got a mixture of different levels of partners. But what we want at BYD is to make sure that everybody can have, you know, a couple of sites. Because we think when you've got two or three sites, what I don't want is 100 different partners with 100 different experiences. We want to sort of manage the partners as much as we can. And that's one thing that we're doing here is to try and grow with our existing partners.
- [42:58]
Robert Llewellyn
Because, I mean, that is, I mean, a critically important thing. I won't mention manufacturers, but I did two talks for a very well known European manufacturer to their dealership network. This is 10, I'm going back 10 plus years about how, you know how to present electric cars. But, and I heard from the kind of PR team and the people I was working with at that company that that was their biggest stumbling block. It's because the dealers didn't want to sell electric cars. They wanted to, so they would actively put people off. Someone would go in and go, I want the X, whatever it is, model. And they go, now you want the diesel one, they're much more reliable. But I would assume that we've now moved on, that, you know, your dealers, if someone comes in and goes, I want a dolphin, they're not going to go, have you thought about the diesel Golf? They're not going to be doing that.
- [43:50]
Steve Beattie
Yeah, no, actually, I think again, we're incredibly lucky with the dealers and the partners. We, we've got a really invested network, you know, these, the network. I mean, if you, if you think about, you know, we were a startup in the UK in April 2023.
- [44:04]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. Wow.
- [44:04]
Steve Beattie
The dealers that have invested, they've invested in the BYD Journey, you know, I often hear them say, what horse are you going to back? Because of course there's a number of different Chinese car manufacturers that are coming over and often I hear, you know, we feel we've backed the right horse with byd, you know, we feel that. But they're, they're incredibly interested in BYD and they've invested their future, right. They're saying, well, you know what, I've got some, I've got some sites, I've got some space, what do I do with that? So they're really invested in us working as well. And it's for me, whenever I'm talking to them, it's our franchise, not their franchise. So I don't feel like I'm a traditional OEM that has to force them into doing things. I think they're so open to selling both electric and plug in hybrid cars that they want the knowledge. So, yeah, definitely, you never, you shouldn't be able to be getting that experience from a BYD dealer. And if you do, please give me a call, let me know.
- [44:52]
Robert Llewellyn
No, I'm sure it won't, it won't happen, but it is. Oh, that's what it was. I read the, the term engaged dealer network, which is basically what you've explained now, you know, because I just made a note of that because, well, engagement.
- [45:05]
Steve Beattie
Is all about transparency in my mind, you know. You know, in the beginning of the year I went out to the dealers, I said, we've got an ambition to do a lot of cars this year. And I shared them with that ambition. What it was, I shared with where we were going to get them from, what the models were going to look like, talking about the different channels we were going to sell at. You know, some of them thought I was a little bit crazy in terms of where they'd been and Then of course, then we delivered Q1. They're like, God, of course we can do those numbers. Look, we've done nearly nine and a half thousand cars in Q1 with four models. You've now got. You're gonna have more models and what have you. So. So they've really bought in and, you know, they're doing a great job. They really are doing a fantastic job.
- [45:41]
Robert Llewellyn
Because one last thing I would love to ask you is, is do you see BYD and opening manufacturing plants in Europe? I mean, I don't know if they already are. I've lost track now because there's so much news like that or. And possibly in this country. I mean, is that. Is that even on the long list of things they might do?
- [46:05]
Steve Beattie
Yeah, I think. I think when I listen to what Stella said in interviews before and again when I've been with Stella, So I think just for anyone that doesn't know. So Stella Lee is our vice president, so basically looks after both Europe and America. She actually started the company as well with the chairman or brief or maybe a few months after. And sorry, I'm going. Going off tangent, but in the BYD Museum, I love seeing pictures of Stella 30 years ago at a trade fair, selling a battery. And you think, this is the person now that's running the business for Europe and Americ, you know how to get behind that. It's just one World Car of the Year person.
- [46:38]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes. Which is great.
- [46:40]
Steve Beattie
Which is really cool. But the question, so what, I guess, sort of in theory, in quoting Stella, So, as you know, we've got a plan, or you might know, there's a plan to set a factory up in Hungary.
- [46:49]
Robert Llewellyn
That's right, yes.
- [46:50]
Steve Beattie
I did know that BYD's view is always to make cars where they sell them.
- [46:56]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [46:56]
Steve Beattie
So of course, if we're selling them in Europe, then they'd like to make the cars in Europe as well. So that's sort of in terms of the European plans and we'll see how that develops. I think in terms of uk, let's sort of watch this spread space. I think currently we're the biggest market in the UK for. In Europe, so we're. Sorry, biggest market for BYD in Europe. So thank you, everybody. Keep buying all these cars to keep us the number one market and then we'll wait and see. But I think you touched on something earlier which sort of, again, resonated with me is, you know, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, which we spoke about offline, is basically the engineering capital of the world when it comes to.
- [47:29]
Robert Llewellyn
Incredible.
- [47:30]
Steve Beattie
Comes to motorsport. Right. And automotive. So I guess all you can say is there's nothing in the plan. But, you know, why would you. If you're going where the. Where you want to build cars, maybe there's something there as well, in terms of the level of people that we employ in the uk, you know, the engineers.
- [47:43]
Robert Llewellyn
Right. And I mean, the other thing that I have forgotten, because the two things I wanted to mention was stellar. I just think the fact that there's. I've done about three, like, public talks about electric vehicles in the last 12 months. And I also. I just say to people, and it's slightly contentious, but I say, have you heard of Elon Musk? They all put their hands up. I said, have you heard of Stella Lee? No. I said, well, Stella Lee makes more cars than Elon Musk ever has and she's absolutely amazing. Google Stella Lee. You know, I've been. I've been doing. I think I'm the reason that she's been awarded this. I think it's entirely down to me, but.
- [48:17]
Steve Beattie
Well, if that's the case, I'll. Absolutely. She sends her thanks, Robert.
- [48:21]
Robert Llewellyn
No, that's true. But the other thing that I wanted to ask about was South America, because that's a kind of market that we're. That I think in Europe we're not aware of, but. But Mexico and South America, there's a lot of BYDs knocking about, from what I can understand.
- [48:35]
Steve Beattie
Yeah. Again, it was a market that I wasn't really aware of. So where are Europe?
- [48:39]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [48:40]
Steve Beattie
Where are the States? Aware of China, but didn't really think much about a Latin America. But the car market over there, they're big car markets, I think, Brazil and Mexico, about 1 1/2 million cars a year.
- [48:49]
Robert Llewellyn
Wow.
- [48:49]
Steve Beattie
You know, so they're sort of like, you know, the UK is about 2 million just for everyone, but. So they're big markets. You know, France is about one and a half million, Germany's about two and a half, give or take. So sort of gives people an idea of where they are. So they're big markets. And actually we're doing incredibly. I think we're top 10 in both Brazil and Mexico. We launched about a year earlier, but. And again, of course, the vehicles come straight from. From China to Mexico and Brazil. We. They don't have this wonderful thing that we have called GB type approval, which. Which definitely slows the process of getting our vehicles to market in the uk. So they'll go through a lot quicker, but they'll see the cars a lot quicker than Us, but yeah, they're doing a great job over there.
- [49:28]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, no, it is, it's a very impressive. The more we hear about it, I mean, I think that's one of the exciting things about the whole topic, in a way, is that, you know, you can look at any one individual market and go, oh, no, people don't want electric cars. You, you look at it globally, the uptake is mindboggling. I mean, it's so, it's so. It's on such a vast scale now that it's very hard to comprehend it. And in markets that we, you know, absolutely, as we say, we wouldn't even have thought about before.
- [49:57]
Steve Beattie
Well, who would have said, you know, look at what Norway have done, right. You know, it's one of the coldest countries in Europe and They've got what, 95% electric vehicles, you know, and as we know, you know, you know, we've all experienced batteries, but not, not, you know, not as good in the cold iPhones or whatever that might be. So, you know, and you think, well, they've really, really adopted it.
- [50:15]
Robert Llewellyn
Well, in terms of, yeah, it's electric cars and heat pumps, you know, both of those. They don't work in the cold. Except in Norway where all the houses have heat pumps and all cars are electric.
- [50:26]
Steve Beattie
Exactly.
- [50:27]
Robert Llewellyn
No, no, that's very good. I'm just, just. I'm looking at my notes. No, I think I've covered everything I wanted to. I mean, unless there's any particular thing you wanted to mention that's been really exciting and talking to you, I'm so glad you mentioned bladder range. That really makes me feel. Because I've mentioned it so many times. I always think, oh, I'm being. I'm just doing it for shock value. But I don't think I am. I think it's a real thing.
- [50:49]
Steve Beattie
No, it's, it's absolutely real. You know, every couple of hours a certain age. My age now, I'm 46, I need to stop.
- [50:54]
Robert Llewellyn
So, yeah, so, yeah, I won't tell you how many times I need to. So really, I need a car that's got five miles range at my age. Not true, I'm afraid.
- [51:05]
Steve Beattie
All of our much longer range than that, Robert.
- [51:07]
Robert Llewellyn
So, yeah, they are, they are, but that's been really interesting to talk to you, Stephen. Thank you so much for your time. I think that's, I think it's. We live in exciting times and a lot of things are changing very fast and I think, I think, well, the one thing I can guarantee is we're going to see a lot of Byds on the road and I think I always want people to notice when you see a red double decker bus, look at the front, the little round blue badge.
- [51:33]
Steve Beattie
Yeah. We've got 74 of the electric share of buses in London. Wow.
- [51:38]
Robert Llewellyn
That's, that's, that's, I think the majority. I think that's fair to say.
- [51:42]
Steve Beattie
You know how hard it would be to keep a bus on the road. Right.
- [51:44]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [51:44]
Steve Beattie
You know the work that goes on that. Because of course, the back and forth, the mileage and commercial. So, yeah, so the product we've got, we're in a great position. We're very lucky.
- [51:53]
Robert Llewellyn
So.
- [51:54]
Steve Beattie
So, yeah, fantastic.
- [51:56]
Robert Llewellyn
Great stuff. Thanks so much, Steve.
- [51:58]
Steve Beattie
No worries. Thanks very much, Robert. Thank you for having me on.
- [52:02]
Robert Llewellyn
Really hope you enjoyed that. Not going to say anything else. There's going to be more podcasts coming. I know Imogen's interviewing some very interesting people and we're going to be doing some live podcasts soon. More news on that as it happens, but I'm really looking forward to that. So we'll just be recording a podcast in front of a very small audience somewhere in the United Kingdom. Who knows where. That's all for now. Come back again next week. There'll be more. If you have been. Thank you for listening. We're really excited to partner with Duracell Energy to showcase their amazing renewable energy solutions. If you want to reduce your energy bills and join the renewable energy transition, installing home battery storage and solar panels at home is a great way to start. Duracell Energy's ecosystem of products typically partners with solar panels, but they can be used just as effectively without it, particularly for electric vehicle owners or anyone looking to take control of their energy. And with Duracell Energy's platinum homeowner offer, viewers can get a custom service that pairs you with top quality products and the best installers in your area. Plus, Duracell Energy's batteries, inverters and EV chargers work together on one easy to use app. With features like dynamic tariff integration and grid services, you'll be able to maximize your return. Ready to get started? You can get your quote today. And don't forget, we're also giving away a Duracell Energy bunny in every episode. Just answer the question about fully charged by following the link in the description. Good luck.