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Everything Electric Podcast
EVs AT RISK? The trick EV industry misses to make sales surge! + FREE ticket hint.
00:47:21
Is an all-electric future inevitable? Or are the evangelists in for a shock? Imogen Bhogal talks to Everything Electric CEO, and Electric Vehicles UK Founder, Dan Caesar, about what's really happening with EV sales around the world, and...
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. How are you?
- [00:08]
B
Very well, thank you. How are you?
- [00:10]
A
I'm very well, thank you. I've got that back to school feeling. I mean I've been working very hard this summer. I know you have as well. But it feels like there's a lot of work ahead in the next few months.
- [00:19]
B
This weekend we have done a profound amount of like life admin, house admin and it has had that sense of the summer's been wonderful. It's obviously been very hot, which has felt a bit like, oh, should we be enjoying this heat when we know what's caused it? But it has had that sense of okay, let's all guns blazing, let's look to the term ahead.
- [00:39]
A
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 we're in Canada for Everything Electric Vancouver and new for UK viewers. You can now buy a battery, evidence and much more at everythingelectric store.
- [01:01]
B
So with that in mind, maybe we should start with a little bit of context because many people will be familiar with you in the context of CEO a Fully Charged show. Other people will be familiar with you in the context of CEO of EV uk. So I wonder if you could just give us a sense of, you know, what do you do, what's your dinner party response, I suppose and what pulls all of those threads together?
- [01:27]
A
Well, I've been doing those two roles for best part of a year. I joined Fully Charged show best part of 10 years ago and the last year I decided that actually doing another role on top of that would be a good idea. So I've been stretched even thinner than ever over the last 12 months. But I'm not complaining. I'm rather grandly termed Launch CEO of Electric Vehicles UK because I said right at the outset I will do it for a year and I will set it up as an organization and then I will hand over the reins to someone else. But I guess whereas Fully Charged Show Everything Electric is very obviously a YouTube channel and events around the world, Electric Vehicles UK is probably more akin to a lobby group, but we're kind of keen to sort of avoid those terms. We've come up with a sort of a slightly grandiose but I think accurate terminology. They're actually an industry to consumer accelerator and actually our whole reason for being is to drive demand of EVs. I've been advocating for clean tech of some sort or another for two decades and I guess what Kind of unifies those two decades is communication. Clear communication about technology and particularly how to tackle myths and how to actually develop a narrative. And all of those skills have sort of been brought to bear to launching Electric Vehicles UK over the last year and that's been an incredible experience and we believe it has the most enormous potential. So we've got a few announcements to make shortly.
- [03:06]
B
Do you know, that's so interesting? Clear communication of technologies and the benefits of them. And I suppose the other thing is that you've chosen the vehicle, for want of a better word, of how to speak to the various different audiences, both from the YouTube channel, the live shows, and then of course Evu UK, perhaps speaking to a few more politicians. But I suppose the question I have for you is that, you know, there's lots of things that are brilliant about this. We know it all the time, we see it all the time. It's very loads of things that give us cause for optimism, lots of things that also make us a little bit depressed. So why, why are you pouring so much effort into this? Why do you believe it's important? And why have you dedicated the best part of your career to drive forward some of this stuff?
- [03:49]
A
Honestly, I think we're at a point of some jeopardy for the transition to electric vehicles and clean energy too, fundamentally. And I'm not concerned, I think that the eventual destination is inevitable. But the slower the journey goes, the harder it will be. And we need to keep up some pace and some momentum in terms of that job. You know, convincing people to switch over to a new technology is not straightforward. It's often compared to made to seem analogous with the switch to smartphones, for example. But obviously, you know, you change those of a contract very, very quickly, whereas the car, it lives in your life for much longer, it's a much bigger purchase. And so the two things are very, very different. So actually the speed of change from ICE cars to EV has been pretty quick actually and is picking up pace, but it still feels like it's something that's going to play out over 15 to 20 years rather than five. So that gives a very, very different to debate. And actually the reality is we've seen huge amounts of misinformation, particularly over the last three years, and I remain extremely optimistic. I was with you in Sydney earlier this year. We ran an everything electric show down there. You could see the crowds of consumers gather around all the different types of cars. I was in Oslo shortly after that. It's well known that Norway has kind of led the pack and is almost 100% new car sales. Up your EV now and Shanghai shortly after, where I saw the most incredible array of technologies, both from Chinese manufacturers, but also from legacy manufacturers, often in JVs with the Chinese. We can also see continuing sales growth in the uk. We don't get too close to each month's sales. You know, we look at it over the long term trend and, you know, more than one in five, close to one in four car sales now in the UK are pure electric. And we're only at the beginning really of the arrival of more affordable options. And that includes used cars as well. So new cars, battery, EV is actually the growth powertrain. And then in the used sector, EVs are absolutely flying off the forecourts. They're the most quickest to move object and above all else. And I think this is where we probably are very, very fortunate in the job we do, working on everything electric. We are right in the thick of all the developments. We are talking to car companies, battery companies, talking to the whole industry, all the. And I think if you talk to the average person on the street, they're normally surprised. The developments that have taken place with batteries, with electric vehicles, because they're not up to date. How could you keep up to date? Every single day we receive story after story of some sort of development, some sort of new car, et cetera. It's impossible to keep up to date. And the trouble is, I think the industry itself is struggling to keep up to date. Politicians are struggling to keep up to date. Press is struggling to keep up to date. People who are Maybe looking at EVs are struggling to keep up to date. And that's why we are very, very optimistic, because we see that actually most people's knowledge is normally, if not a few months out of date, in some instances several years out of date. Whereas what we can see is how good the cars are now, how good the batteries are now. And we can also see how good they're going to be in the future. The sheer economics of electric vehicles make them inevitable, we believe. And the reality is that most progressive manufacturers can now make battery EVs cheaper than they can make hybrids. So it might not even be consum preference that drives this change, it might be manufacturer preference. I know we're in the middle of a messy middle of a changeover and some manufacturers are moving faster than others, but actually the economics will, like gravity, ultimately lead us to one conclusion. There was a great story just last week that Catl, the large Chinese battery manufacturer, I think they're Responsible for just under 40% of batteries for electric vehicles made in the world are on the cusp of a sodium ion battery for $10 per kilowatt hour. Now, back in 2009 it was for a battery, it was something like 1400 dollars per kilowatt hour. Now for lithium, where we've broken through the hundred dollar mark, actually, for some lithium, iron phosphate batteries are close to 6/10 of that. To go down to $10 per kilowatt hour would be an absolute paradigm shift. And that's why EVs and the case for them and stronger, as well as faster charging times, longer ranges. The cars themselves are getting better and better. So ultimately we can see that coming. And from our perspective with Electric Vehicles uk, it's really trying to use that knowledge and try and make it clear that actually this isn't just a fad, this is much more than that. This is a mega trend. And actually it's better to not put your head in the sand, but actually adapt to that and work with that than deny it's happening.
- [08:50]
B
I know that we've spoken about this before, but one of the total privileges of being part of Fully Charged show is that we get to witness these things firsthand, exactly as you describe. Last week I went to Candela. We were previously there three years ago when we saw the C8, this incredible leisure boat. That's an electric hydrofoiling boat. They showed us a rendered image of a P12, which is a 30 passenger hydrofoiling electric boat that can be used as part of a public transport network. I didn't believe that it would happen. I was like, oh yeah, another rendered image. Great. And three years on, it's there. And it's there because all of these technological developments are happening at the same time. The environment is so ripe for this progress, but we're so close to it and we see all these things happening and yes, it's difficult to keep up, but we do see it and we can be assured by it. And yet here in the uk there are still huge pockets of anxiety. And I wonder what you think those are the sources of those anxieties when it comes to adopting electric vehicles and what EV UK is doing to tackle them.
- [09:53]
A
Well, I think the tech is winning. So the cars themselves have alluded to. The batteries are getting better and better, they're getting cheaper and cheaper. But where we're not winning is the battle of ideas, battle for hearts and minds. And that comes down to the fact there is something of an information war going on. And EVs are losing that battle at the moment. We just seen and shared some news that actually the Times for example is very regularly reporting negatively on electric vehicles and we've dug into to why that is and they're not the only media house that's, that's doing that. There just seems to be a torrent of negative stories coming about EVs with a, with, you know, really trying to sort of stymie or slow down the, the progress of EVs equally in the UK, for those listening outside of the UK have a system where we have a government in place. The Labour government, they were voted in the general election just over a year ago and they are trying to fend off the threat of a new, more right wing party called Reform. And I think they are triangulating a lot of their positions against what Reform is saying. I think they seem to be a little bit concerned about what Reform would say about any particular policies. And the reality is Reform are really trying to rubbish EVs as part of a whole anti net zero agenda. So we're seeing in the UK and it is happening around the world, I don't have to mention any Trumps for example, to say, you know, there are politicians that are very, very vehemently against these technologies. I wonder why. And the reality is that's the sort of thing that we are, we are fighting at the moment. But if you can imagine you work within a car maker or you are in government and you're not OK with what's going on, you may well believe some of that misinformation that is out there. And in our experience, very few people, and this is not a criticism, it's the way it goes. But very, very few people are making decisions. Policy makers, auto executives, press, etc actually drive evs or drive them habitually. And we would argue that is a fatal Achilles heel when it comes to them actually trying to legislate for these cars or trying to promote these cars. You know, if really understand how good the tech is, if you don't really understand that actually it is superior to what's come before, then it's very, very hard to go out and promote that. So we think that is a real, real issue and something that Electric Vehicles UK is trying to tackle. So from our perspective, what we're trying to do is actually really bring the whole EV industry together to agree on our objectives and above all, you know, agree on a message and a campaign. You know, from our perspective, what we found is that if you're a car company, you don't want to necessarily sell the whole premise of electric vehicles. You want to be able to sell your particular product and its unique selling points. So we believe firmly that actually there needs to be an overarching campaign that really kind of creates a message that we all stand behind and embeds that message into the minds of the press, policymakers and potential purchasers alike. So you might not be able to see my T shirt. You certainly can't if you're listening to this podcast. But it says cheaper, better battery electric. And that is our kind of message, that's our mantra that we want to put in the minds of the general public, but also anyone in the industry give people confidence in making those decisions. And we have done a lot of work to make sure that we can evidence those claims as well. So almost everyone knows that EVs are cheaper from a running cost perspective. In fact, if you've got a driveway and you change over car, not getting an EV is shooting yourself in the foot, we would argue. And ultimately everyone will be able to go electric over time. But those running costs are very cheap compared to going to the petrol station and fueling up on a regular basis. What most people don't realize actually is actually that the cost of the cars themselves now is very competitive. We just got to let them do electric car grant in the UK as well, and especially in the used market, where actually on average, our cost of driving electric report that EV UK commissioned earlier this year shows that on average an EV used EV is 2,781 pounds cheaper than a used ICE car. So the reality is that demonstrating it's cheaper and demonstrating the technologies better. I actually think that there will be some talk, there is a lot of talk about residuals in the EV market, and I think actually that comes down to the fact that we haven't sufficiently explained as an industry the value of these vehicles. These vehicles are for a whole range of reasons. If you drive, listen to me, you might be shouting. One of many reasons are better than what's come before and we're not adequately communicating that. There's plenty of evidence that affect Just one little nugget is that multiple surveys show that more than nine out of ten EV drivers will never go back to combustion engine vehicles, for example. There's a reason for that. So the whole idea behind our slogan cheaper, better battery electric is the joining of the two. Cheaper doesn't necessarily mean inferior. Better doesn't mean it's more expensive. The two, it's a portmanteau of the two things. And battery Electric as well. Because there's lots of confusion out there. I'm sure, Imogen, you agree about what constitutes an electric vehicle. There's some pretty muddy waters on that point of view. And actually we see plug in hybrids as a useful stepping stone. But there's almost no use case now, almost no scenario in which battery EV wouldn't actually be better for the person who's looking to buy it.
- [15:44]
B
I always think that plug in hybrids, of course there are some use cases for which they absolutely do make sense, and there are some outlier of use cases that quite simply a battery electric vehicle might not work. But I can't help but feel for most scenarios, 99% of scenarios, getting a hybrid is just like not fully committing. It's like instead of jumping into the pool, you've just sort of dipped a toe. Which is just a less than good experience, I would say. And I shocked my dad because he is such a staunch sort of environmentally focused person. But he's been quite reticent to switch to an electric vehicle, I think partly due to his age, there's sort of uncertainty about switching to a new technology. And he test drove a Volvo EX30 the other day, which he then went on to order. And he was like, this is amazing. He was like, I'm old and I'm suddenly the lack of noise. I'm not sort of so cognitively overloaded. He was like, I am a safer, better driver. And of course it's got solar panels. So he's like, yeah, I can drive for free. And I was like, yes, we've got him. We finally got him. Which is good.
- [16:51]
A
I think that's the good point because when you talk to EV drivers, they'll all list something that they like. And so the lack of noise is something that he, he likes. But people will list different things. Like maybe they'll list the fact that you can, you know, heat the car up on a cold morning from, from the comfort of your bed. Perhaps they'll, you know, talk about the, the acceleration or, you know, there's, there's dozens of reasons why you is seen to be and is superior. But what we feel, that's kind of missing the point. The industry kind of needs to come up with what's really going to win hearts and minds. And it is the pocketbook, it's the wallet, right? It's the economic situation. If people genuinely believe that it's cheaper. I meet people all the time who know what I do for a living and they apologize to me, say we're definitely going to get an EV next time. But they are quite expensive and I actually then, depending on the mood I'm in, will say to them, actually, let me talk you through that because that is actually a misperception and equally cheaper, better. It's a much, much quicker way of saying it because unfortunately, unless you reframe the narrative, someone else will, will frame it, frame it for us. And so it's really, really important that we, we start to get this mantra out there, cheaper, better battery electric, and we evidence it and we get the whole industry to start to echo that.
- [18:07]
B
And we should definitely link to the cost of driving electric report because it's so useful to be armed with that nugget of fact, say, well actually let me just pass this fact in front of you and you will see that they are not more expensive. Now obviously there's a huge ambition when it comes to EV uk, but all of these things cost a little bit of money and presumably require more than just Dan Caesar to spearhead. So what are your thoughts with regard to that funding and to growing as well?
- [18:39]
A
Well, for those that don't know, we launched last year and actually the fully charged show, we put in a fair amount of investment to get Electric Vehicles UK underway. Getting things moving from a standing start is no simple feat. So we've done that to get it started as our kind of gift to industry. But I'd be remiss if I didn't name check Greg Jackson at Octopus for also putting in some seed funding to get this going as well. We call the year that we've just got through, sort of year zero. As we built out our plans, we've consulted with about 200 different companies and what the market wants, what the industry wants from Electric Vehicles uk and we're very, very clear on that now. But it will be a membership organization if you like. So we're calling it an industry to consumer accelerator. It will rely on companies joining us as partners, partners in this message, partners in our campaign if you like. So it's to be funded by industry that includes many different car makers, but everyone across the whole EV industry supply chain. And what we're working to do is actually fund, you know, a coherent campaign, a program of activities under the cheaper, better battery electric strategy. Throughout the course of the next 12 months, we've built up and brought together a first class team. So we've got people who've come from industry, people who all drive EVs within the team and most notably we've just agreed and we're just about to Announce today who our CEO is going to be and also who our chairman is going to be. And I'm delighted to say that our chairman is going to be Dr. Andy Palmer, who you know very well. Some people know him as the godfather of ev. He was obviously instrumental in the launch of the Nissan Leaf. And as CEO, we're bringing in Tanya Sinclair. Tanya has got a really interesting background in her own right. She's ex Nissan, so she's worked for a British based car maker. She's ex Tesla, so she's worked for the market leader in this space. She's ex levc, which is part of the Geely Group. So she's also worked for a Chinese OEM as well. She's also worked for ChargePoint, so she's very buffet with the charging industry. So Tanya's coming to lead the organization. Effective immediate. I'm very proud of what we've achieved so far. There's a lot to do and I am actually going to stay on in the capacity of founder and strategic lead. So I'll be working very, very closely with Andy and with Tanya to help Electric Vehicles UK sort of fulfill its potential over the coming months. We also have, we're creating a board. We're hoping to get a political figure onto that board as well, to be part of that. But it'll be a board of nine with Andy, Tanya, myself, three non OEM partners and three OEM partners. And the non OEM partners are Octopus Energy.
- [21:53]
B
OVO and Dan mentioned a third, even bigger and arguably even more influential company. But we will have to keep you in suspense a little longer before we announce who that is. Rest assured though, the three non OEM partners have tens of millions of UK customers between them.
- [22:09]
A
So it's coming together really, really well. And our first year proper, if you like, begins on October 1st. So everything we're doing at the moment is gearing up to that and you'll see more and more activity from us going forward.
- [22:22]
B
Goodness me, that is. You've been quite busy. I would say we have.
- [22:28]
A
We've been operating slightly in the shadows, just trying to really understand what the industry wants of us. And from our perspective, we're really trying to focus on three areas. It's really important to be efficient. As a fan of battery EVs, as a fan of energy efficiency, I think efficiency is king. And from our perspective, we will have a finite budget. Budget, A budget that would make some difference. We'll have a finite budget and the reality is we want to be super effective in all of our actions. So rather than targeting the whole world, we're really trying to target key policymakers. So to that end, we'll be at Labour Party conference shortly. We're really trying to target key members of the press with respect to provincial newspapers, it really is, when it comes to misinformation and information, it really is the key broadcasters with sky, BBC, GB News, whether it's the, the Daily Mail, it's the, it's the Times, the Express will be working and targeting all those titles as well. And equally, what we see is it's really important to not see the consumer or the car buyer as one big monolithic block. We've got to chip away at them to the tune. I think it's about 1300 EVs a day at the moment. We've got to chip away at them, chip away at those that are, if not ready, are open minded. You know, our view is that there are lots and lots and lots of people out there who are hesitant about EVs, not hostile, they just need a bit more information. Maybe they need one more question answered, maybe they need two, maybe they need three or four. But ultimately we can move those prospective buyers forward. So it really is about potential purchasers who are probably within a year or two of buying ev. How can we get them across the threshold more quickly? And we think the cheaper, better mantra is going to be a real way to grab people's attention and get people to say, yeah, I think, I think I will take a look at that. It was actually my first EV 10 years ago. I bought it off the back of a spreadsheet to show my wife that actually it was going to be really economic to, to, to run. It wasn't just a kind of virtue signaling middle class pursuit to buy this battery ev, but actually it was going to be, you know, cheap to cheap to run. And that's when we made the decision, ironically. And that, and I'm not saying money is, you know, the sole driver, but for most people it's, it's probably the single biggest factor, hence us using the word cheaper, using the word better on repeat.
- [25:01]
B
And I mean ultimately it'd be brilliant if people didn't have to make decisions purely based on money or principally on money. But right now in this particular economic climate we kind of have to. And actually if you can go where you need to go and not worry about the cost of doing that, that gives you a tremendous amount of freedom and that is improving your life in other areas as well. So I think it's such a core component of this whole message that you will save money by driving electric. So you've mentioned a couple of the activities there. Are there any others that we should be looking out for?
- [25:36]
A
Well, certainly Labour Party conference is a big one, so that comes up at the end of the month. It takes on even greater significance really, because EVs have been quite a political topic this year. Here we have had a zero emission vehicle consultation. We have also had an electric car grant announced. And there is a real sense in the EV industry that those two things could have deserved perhaps a little bit more input, let's say, from the EV industry itself. The reality is it's a very, very tough job running a consultation. It's extremely tough being a government and making some of these decisions. But from our perspective, it feels a little bit like if you're not at the table, you're on the menu sometimes. You know, the EV industry really needs to be there talking about these technologies. Getting politicians and policymakers into cars, electric cars for example, would be a big start. So that's one of the things we're going to do at Labour Party conference. But the zero emission vehicle consultation, for those less familiar with it, has a phase out period from 2030 to 2035, which did not include plugless hybrids, included only plug in hybrids and battery electric vehicles. And lobbying by the industry, this has been reported in the Guardian very, very recently, particularly by the likes of Nissan, Checo, Land Rover and Toyota have seen plugless hybrids added back in from 2030 to 2035. Speaking internally within the industry, that has caused some consternation because all the companies that are in that plan based on what they know and that was new information to them and planning cycles in the automotive industry where, you know, you work for a big oem, they are not, they're very, very serious. You know, if you get that wrong and suddenly you're manufacturing everything gearing up to 2030 and suddenly the rules change, that caused some serious consternation. More recently, electric car grant was a bit of a bittersweet moment in that it actually was good news and it was legitimacy from government saying, yeah, we're going battery electric. But. But the way that the scheme was designed has caused concern amongst some stakeholders within the industry. So it definitely feels that it will be really beneficial to have battery electric vehicle industry voices or voice united voice around the table when these decisions are being taken. So that's one thing. We'll definitely be working with as many policymakers and politicians as we can and really we want to avoid any further weakening of the mandate. The danger is that if numbers slow down, uptake slows down, the government might further weaken the mandate. That would be disastrous for the planning of the OEMs that are trying to marry up manufacturing with consumer demand, which is a very, very tough job at the best of times. But equally, it would, I think, be very, very bad for the UK economy. We actually have a huge opportunity here to embrace EVs and actually get jobs and, you know, increase our economy through that. So that's one of the things coming up. We've got Everything Electric south, which is our own show coming up in October, Electric Vehicles UK will be there as well. We're also going to run an event called Everyone Electric, which is going to talk about the people who you might not think could have an electric car and be happy with it. You know, people who don't have a driveway, perhaps people on motability, you know, and we're going to actually do an event about those people as well to show that actually there's lots of people out there who have an EV without a driveway and are doing just fine. Thank you. I'm talking to one right now. So the reality is that we want to get that message out there as well. And in addition to that, there's some other activities we've got planned. Well, there's a whole raft of activities we've got planned. But just to give you a little flavor of the things we've got planned, when government talks to the car industry, as was the kind of the combustion engine, hybrid electric vehicle industry, the whole industry, if you like, that industry is really, really good at explaining the amount of jobs it rel to and the amount of GDP it relates to. The EV industry does not have a clear grasp on that. So we are actually going to be developing an EV industry census and that will enable us to really understand how many jobs and how much value the EV industry is worth already in the UK and what that will be as we continue on the pathway to 2030 and 2035. We're also going to be be working on an EV education campaign rather than asking government to do that and waiting for their reply, we're actually just going to get on with that, using our cheaper, better battery electric messaging to get to get better uptake from end users, whether it's business consumers or normal consumers. And also we are going to build up a national EV test drive database as well. Putting people in these cars and getting them to test drive them is absolutely critical and you can do that all year round. We do that Our everything electric events very successful. We've done over 120,000 test drives around the world but we want to turn that into an all year round affair. The amount of people who get in the ev, maybe with a few qualms and they get out again full of smiles going actually this is really good. What was I worried about? And then go on to buy is considerable. So a whole range of different things planned but hopefully that gives you a bit of a sense of what we've got coming.
- [31:19]
B
Yeah, I mean that's an incredible list and you're so right. I think even the most cantankerous anti EV person get them in an ev, just say give it a little drive, maybe live with it for a month and they're sold. But I think that the jobs component is so interesting as well. Just because we're not just talking about manufacturing electric vehicles. The impact of the broader supply chain from the charging industry, from homegrown British energy, for want of another word, battery components, battery development, everything. It's so significant and it's such a huge step change which has an inordinate ability to set us on the right trajectory towards not only a clean energy transition, but being a much more resilient economy as well. So obviously there's lots of things that consumers can do and will experience as knock on benefits of this, but this is principally an industry body. So, so what can people listening to this podcast who maybe don't work in the industry, what can they do to support the cause?
- [32:22]
A
I think if you're not an EV driver yet, I think go to our website which is electric vehicles.uk and we are basically drawing together all relevant information about electric vehicles. There, there are great other places to go for that information by the way. Buy everything electric cars on YouTube channel electrifying.com there's lots of great sources for that. But the reality is that, you know, follow us, follow all of those different trusted providers of information would be good if you are an EV driver already and you are sick and tired of the misrepresentation in the media of what EV driving is like. You know, actually there aren't that many times you have to queue, if at all. I've never had to queue or you know, you know, you see a journalist set off and do a sort of hit piece on ev, but actually they've actually only charged the battery third full before they embark on a disastrous unplanned journey just to, you know, cause some create some, some clicks. If you're fed up with that, you can support our Patreon page which is called Stop Burning stuff and you actually can contribute to that on a monthly basis. If you're in the southern half of the uk, why don't you come to Everything Electric south at Farnborough in October? Come and see the cars. Come and talk to EV uk. We are actually offering, we haven't announced this yet, but might as do this now and I'll send it out on a press release. But anyone who wears the cheaper, better battery electric merch will be able to get into free to the show on that weekend in October. And actually we're going to do a huge photo roll call for EV drivers so they can all stand up with their cheaper, better battery electric hoodies on their, their caps and their T shirts and actually all sort of stand as one. So we're looking forward to, to doing that. And then if you are listening to this and you happen to be a policymaker, you know, talk to Electric Vehicles uk, we can help you and maybe we can put you in a car and take you for a test drive at Labour Party conference. And if you're a member of the press, the same come to Everything Electric Farnborough. We will show you around the cars. I think you'll be surprised how high quality they are. You know, all the technology they've got on them and the fact that they actually are often cheaper, you know. So the reality is there's lots of ways to get involved, I think. Watch this, watch this space. I'm doing delighted with the progress we've made in year zero with very little budget, but I'm really excited about where we can take this. We can get out there and actually do more consumer campaigning. There are organizations around the world as well that do similar sort of stuff and we'll be trying to join hands with those organizations going forward too.
- [35:01]
B
And I would say to anyone who is listening to this podcast and is in the car, if you stop at a service station and you see some EV drivers or some EV chargers, sorry, go and have a conversation with someone who's plugged in because from experience, people at Chargers are always more than willing to answer your questions and have a chat. Generally quite a, you know, friendly bunch.
- [35:21]
A
So great advice for some English people. They will not want to do that, but I would agree with you. Go and do it. Some of us are quite introverted, but I mean, no, you, I mean, talking to EV drivers is one of, one of the best things. I mean, I think I would particularly like to sort of pay homage to a couple of people who have helped us, you know, get to this point. To Robert Llewellyn of fully Charged show fame, for giving me the kind of latitude to help launch Electric Vehicles UK. He has done so much over the last 15 years to advance the the cause. And to Quentin Wilson as well, ex Top Gear now, as a faircharge, who's been battling, you know, hard on behalf of the motorists and trying to get the point across that battery EVs are really, really good across for many, many years. You know, without people like that, and there are many, many others I could name working really, really hard, we wouldn't be where we are today. I am very confident of where we will get to, but I think we can actually accelerate the pace, not weaken the Z mandate, maybe strengthen it, you know, get people's awareness, the fact that EVs are cheaper and better out there, more and more and more and we'll see more and more uptake and frankly the tech is getting better and more affordable too. So that is going to have a huge impact as well.
- [36:39]
B
Now, we are coming towards the end of this discussion, but before you go, I thought, you know, should test that. You've done your homework, which I'm sure you have, but, you know, we need to test this theory. So I'm going to give you three common EV myths. You've not prepared for this. So this is, you know, know, testing what knowledge you have at your fingertips and we want to see if you can debunk them. So the first one I've got here is that the EVs are falling off a cliff. No one is actually buying them and the rate is, or the uptake is going down. True or false?
- [37:11]
A
Globally, EV sales are growing. They are growing incredibly fast in some countries and much slower in others. There are very few countries I don't, can't think of it on top of my head that the sales have even plateaued. Generally they are growing. If you look at month on month sales, it can be so deceptive. So we tend to take a slightly longer view than that. And we're up to over 1.4 million battery EVs on the roads in the UK now out of a car park of 35 million. So we still have a very long way to go. But no sales are growing. UK is pretty healthy in terms of the bigger sort of Western nations, but there's almost nowhere that's not growing. I think Norway was a useful canary in the coal mine to look at, but it went really, really early, before a lot of the misinformation they are a wealthy economy, they did change tax incentives etc but actually what's changed since then is the cars have got cheaper and better as well. And actually I think a better market now to look at is the Chinese market market. And Chinese market is very, very sizable. It's by far and away the biggest market in the world. And battery evs I think from memory are over a third of sales now with plug in hybrids. Take that number of plug in plug in cars, well over 50%. And battery EV sales are accelerating there and actually plug in hybrid cells are slowing down slightly. So there are always months where sales aren't quite as good. But generally speaking sales are growing very, very fast. And as I said, once people get one they won't return and they'll tell their friends. Right? So it is, if you read the press you'd believe it's all, it's all doom and gloom. The only thing I would say is that maybe growth isn't quite as quick as some would like. And also sometimes you hear frankly from manufacturers who are struggling and it's because they're struggling but their competitors aren't. And that's. We're seeing something really fascinating play out now in the market where Ola Kalanius, who's the CEO of Mercedes, was quite downbeat, I think about the prospect of battery EVs. But if you look at his sales actually Volkswagen, Audi, BMW are all doing very well and Mercedes isn't having a great 18 months. And his comments could be more related to the fact that their individual performance is down. So you have to take everything with a grain of salt. If you're really looking for facts and figures on EV Sales, CleanTechnica, which is a website we work with a lot, is a really good EV sales tab. And you can see monthly stories but also long view stories to understand what's going on. That's where I get a lot of.
- [39:54]
B
My facts and I think something that always comes up is that there's confusion between the rate of uptake is slowing rather than the overall demand is slowing, which they're subtly different things, you know, remember your GCSE maths is what I say to that. Okay, myth number two, EVs are worse for the planet than their internal combustion engine counterparts.
- [40:21]
A
Well that's one they'll hear much less now, I'm pleased to say. I mean the reality is that if you look at, at figures from, I think it's the international climate change institutes actually they say that on a European energy grid mix that battery EV will break even on its Carbon debt after about 11,000km. So after maybe a year's driving, it will already have paid off its carbon debt and then it will be much, much cheaper. So the reality is they are actually significantly cleaner. I saw a Tesl Frontiers thumbnail. I'm sure Tesla could probably sue the hell out of this YouTuber when they, when they see it, which had a Tesla Model S and cobalt mines and all the rest of it. When you see that sort of stuff, you know, it's generally, you know, preposterously untrue. I mean, nowadays the majority chemistry is lithium, iron phosphate, lfp and that doesn't have cobalt in it at all. And I haven't even talked at length about the sodium ion natural battery coming out of Catl. Zinc iron batteries, solid state, you know, that is changing so, so quickly. So already EVs are much, much cleaner, both at the tailpipe, but also in terms of their whole cradle to grade manufacturing process as well. There's a brilliant, brilliant breakdown of how much cleaner a Polestar 4 is, I think in our Polestar 4 review video on everything electric cars done by Jack Scarlett, which actually shows you how much cleaner they are. Even then. That's quite a big car than smaller ice cars, for example. So that's fundamental, mentally untrue, and I think most people are aware of that now. But yeah, that still persists. Some people still try and bring that up. But no, it's quite easy to rebut that these days.
- [42:06]
B
And of course second life, use of batteries, recycling of the battery materials and a lot of those, a lot of the data when it pays off its carbon data. And when that moment happens, it still assumes you're charging your car using a very dirty grid. And so fundamentally, electric vehicles are a more efficient technology. So even if using electricity, electricity generated by coal, it's still a more efficient and cleaner technology than petrol as well.
- [42:31]
A
Being on a dirty grid, batteries last a lot longer than people think. People get excited about battery recycling. I personally am very excited about battery recycling. But batteries go on so long and then they can have this second life, as you said. The reality is that this is a paradigm shift. Not everyone might see that yet. We understand it's an education process, it takes time. There's so much misinformation out there. We have to have to clear that's what Electric Vehicles UK is here to, to do. But fundamentally, one of the things we wanted to do with Electric Vehicles UK is not be reactive all the time. We wanted to react and deal with misinformation, but actually we want to spend 90 of our times developing a new narrative, being proactive. I think that's been a bit of a problem crucifying a metaphor, maybe bit of a painful one for another EV myth, but we seem to as an industry be running around putting out fires. So for example, not literally far from it. But the Luton car park fire was quite a famous story that became a big story. And actually it wasn't an ev. The story went out that it was an ev. It was actually, I think it was.
- [43:28]
B
A, I think it was a Range Rover, wasn't it?
- [43:30]
A
I think it was a Range Rover. I think, apologies jlr, if that's not the case. And the problem is everyone runs after that story, tries to douse it and actually we need to be getting on, creating our own narrative. That's where we're really missing. So that's where cheaper, better battery electric comes in.
- [43:45]
B
And it's important because the power of anecdote is, is powerful when technologies are still reasonably nascent or like the uptake of, isn't totally, totally mainstream. And so we need to flip the narrative on making those anecdotes good ones instead. Now you've already debunked this one because I was going to ask you, revs more expensive. But just so anybody listening has this fact ready at their disposal, I wonder if you could give us the stat on just how much less expensive electric vehicles are compared to petrol.
- [44:15]
A
Used EVs are less expensive. I mean that's a given the cost of driving electric report shows best part of £3,000. Cheaper, cheaper model by model. There's some brilliant used EVs out there, they will last a long time. Particularly fond of BMW i3 Tesla Model 3 Ioniq 5. There's some fantastic used vehicles out there for sale. So they are cheaper and then the running costs are much cheaper as well. If you are getting a new ev, there are very, very, very few people who buy a new car at outright. If you were comparing it sticker price to sticker price, model to model, they're actually much closer than people realize. And sometimes EVs are cheaper, sometimes they're more expensive. But the bulk of people buy on some sort of finance, some sort of contract and frankly that's probably the sensible way to go if you want a, a newer, a newer car. In those scenarios we we through the cost of geometry, I think we ran about 140 different scenarios. On average consumers could save the best part of £6,000 over a four year term. So the big savings are going to come if you have a driveway and you do a lot of mileage, but you can, you could say way more than £6,000 then. But actually the reality is for most people it is considerably cheaper. And also a couple of little things. If you've not got an EV yet and you're listening to this, you may think, as I did before I got one, that I'm going to charge every nights or I'm going to use the route charging more expensive route charging on a regular basis. I mean, just to put it into context, I. I average 2530,000 miles a year, every year. I would only rapid charge maybe once a month. And given that I do that mileage, I probably charge at home once or twice a week, not every night. And you, you rarely use it, so there's quite a disproportionate mix to how much you use it. So it's very, very cheap to run. And then of course there's all those running costs that, you know, you don't have to change much, you have to rotate the tires, similar amount to how you would rotate the tyres on ice cars, you change the washer fluid, but actually there's far fewer moving parts and actually the maintenance and servicing bit is much, much cheaper as well. So it is the best experience, I think. But you know, ultimately people shouldn't believe me, they should go and try it themselves.
- [46:38]
B
Well, I think that is probably the perfect note to end on. So thank you so much for giving us the latest and greatest on what's happening in the world of electric vehicles uk. It sounds super exciting, sounds super busy, but super, super exciting and obviously extremely important too. So thank you so much. Well, that is all that we have time for today, of course. Please do let us know what you think in the comments. Please do like and subscribe. And if you have been thankful, thank you for listening and watching.
- [47:10]
A
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