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Everything Electric Podcast
Ford's Renault reliance? EV Glory to Ukraine? Korea's Chinese EV spied in Australia?
00:31:31
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- [00:00]
Imogen Vogel
Guys, thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree.
- [00:03]
Dan Caesar
Zoe, this thing weighs a ton. Drew Ski, live with your legs, man. Santa.
- [00:06]
Imogen Vogel
Santa, did you get my letter?
- [00:07]
Dan Caesar
He's talking to you britches.
- [00:09]
Imogen Vogel
I'm not. Of course he did. Right, Santa, you know my elf Drew Ski here.
- [00:14]
Dan Caesar
He handles the nice list. And elf, I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile, you can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies, right, Mrs. Claus?
- [00:25]
Imogen Vogel
I'm Mrs. Claus Claus much younger sister. And AT T Mobile, there's no trade in needed when you switch, so you can keep your old phone or give.
- [00:32]
Dan Caesar
It as a gift.
- [00:33]
Imogen Vogel
And the best part, you can make the switch to T mobile from your phone in just 15 minutes. Nice.
- [00:37]
Dan Caesar
My side of the tree is slipping. Kimber, the holidays are better. AT T Mobile, switch in just 15 minutes and get iPhone 17 on us with no trade in needed. And now T mobile is available in U.S. cellular stores with sweeper. Monthly bill credits for well qualified customers plus tax and $35 vice connection charge credit sentinel balance due to payout earlier. Cancel Finance agreement. 256 gates, $830. Eligible Ford in a new line, $100 plus a month plan with auto fees required. Check out 15 minutes or less per line. Visit t mobile.com.
- [01:06]
Imogen Vogel
Hello and welcome back to episode three of this brand new podcast, the Pulse podcast, where we are covering the life and death decade of the automotive industry as told by me, a former automotive engineer, Imogen Vogel, and Dan Caesar, an entrepreneur and CEO of the fully charged show. Hello, how are you doing?
- [01:26]
Dan Caesar
Hello, Imogen. I'm really well, thank you. I'm really looking forward to this discussion today. It never ceases to amaze me how every week delivers. What are the stories going to be for the Pulse podcast this week? And it's been another fairly seismic week in the automotive industry ahead of. I'm pretty sure an incredible year is coming. I just feel it in my bones. Maybe it's a. Maybe it's a vibe, but I can see 2026 being a year where things really, really start to fall or fall into place. And I can see car companies looking nervously ahead at demand tariffs, China and all those things. We're going to cover it here obviously on the Pulse podcast.
- [02:08]
Imogen Vogel
Well, just before we start a click record, we were talking about some of the analysis that we've been doing on the everything electric cars and everything electric tech channels and just understanding how what our data is doing and what that might mean in terms of episodes we do next year and it does closely track what's happening with the automotive industry. So for example, 2024, it was Chinese EVs are coming, 2025, Chinese cars are here, 2026, it's sort of saying affordability, we get it, that's a hygiene factor at this point. How is the industry going to consolidate and survive within changing tariffs, changing policies, slightly more political and divisive nature of our politics as well. So lots of stories to cover today, but first, how's your week been? What have you been up to?
- [02:53]
Dan Caesar
It's been a bit of a quieter week. We're obviously gearing up for the end of year. We've actually had a drinks for Electric Vehicles UK team and next week we're getting together as the fully charged family as well. So that's all well and good. So a little bit quieter. Doing a lot of admin planning for next year, obviously. Have been driving around a Ford Puma Jenny this week actually, which has been very nice, very nice. And I hadn't driven one of those before and I actually had one of the old school Ford Pumas back in the day which I really loved, so I was a bit nervous. But Ford Puma is the best selling car in the UK and the Jenny is very, very nice. And juice electric car grant in the uk, actually, they're selling like hotcakes, I think. So. Very nice car. Really, really impressed. One thing I didn't like because I think it's always good to say what you didn't like was it's got a very big steering wheel which I found a little bit unusual.
- [03:46]
Imogen Vogel
Interesting.
- [03:47]
Dan Caesar
Apart from that. Well, is it, Is it interesting? I don't know, but I found that was the one thing I didn't quite gel with. But actually the car itself was really, really good and it's another one of those cars that does make fake engine noises and I have to admit, sadly, I do quite like that because it gives you a bit more feedback and a bit more connection with the car. So anyway, good job Ford, that's a great car and hopefully we'll be test. Well, we test driving lots more cars in the year ahead.
- [04:12]
Imogen Vogel
Well, so this week we've just gone out with our almost breaking news episode in which there is a small clip about driving the Cup River Valve which I did a few weeks ago. I can now tell you my driving experience or my thoughts on the driving experience. And it too had the synthetic engine noise. It's not an engine noise because they're like, well, an electric car doesn't have an engine. But it is how we imagine an electric motor might sound. Even though we understand an electric motor doesn't necessarily really make any noise. And you could notch it up and down. And I was grateful for that, for the fact that you could notch it up and down.
- [04:43]
Dan Caesar
But a little, little.
- [04:45]
Imogen Vogel
A little bit, I can cope with a little bit. I don't mind it.
- [04:48]
Dan Caesar
No, I quite like it. I have to say. As I said before, I have the Hyundai Ioniq 5N, and that was incredibly fun. Not just because of the sound effects that it makes. You could actually put like a fighter jet noise, which I didn't like quite so much. But, you know, you can do the sort of normal kind of sports car sounds and it's great. And I do genuinely think it adds something. And I think if we are trying to get as many people into EV possible, the fact that they make noise is quite reassuring, I think.
- [05:15]
Imogen Vogel
Well, I think there's a safety component to it as well. That something that I think a lot of electric vehicle drivers forget when they first get into an EV is that it's very silent and so you lose that perception of speed and you can accidentally go quite fast, not least because you have instant torque. And so actually introducing a bit of sound, I think can force you, or subconsciously force you to drive a bit slower. So that's no bad thing either. Right, we have got three juicy stories for today. We are talking Hyundai, we're talking Ford and Renault and EVs in Ukraine.
- [05:50]
Dan Caesar
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- [06:17]
Imogen Vogel
So let's kick off with story number one. The headline being eagerly awaited, Ev Spied in Oz. That's from CarsGuide. Do you want to give us a little bit more context?
- [06:28]
Dan Caesar
Well, we work in Australia quite a lot. We have a team down under, so we did a lot of work there. What's interesting with the Australian market is its proximity to Asia means you're getting a whole range of different Asian cars, not just Chinese cars, appearing down there before they're hitting the market here in the uk, definitely before they're arriving in North America and in Europe. And actually, there were. We had a team meeting this week. There were several brands mentioned that I had forgotten about. This is, you know, And I'm supposed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the EV industry that are now coming to market in Australia. Things like Dongfeng's Faw Auras, GWM Oras Way, you know, lots of different brands popped up this week and then I spied this story that Hyundai's Alexio, which is a kind of midsize suv, we need some more of those, don't we? Has actually been spotted driving around Melbourne and I hadn't heard of this car. And what really stood out for me is obviously Hyundai have branded all their electric cars Ioniq. So I was thinking, well, this is, this is unusual. What is this? Is this a fuel cell car? Obviously they've had the, the Hyundai Nexo. So I was trying to work out what it was and it's actually a product of Beijing Hyundai which is a joint venture between Hyundai and China's Baic. So it's going to share the kind of EGMP platform that Hyundai and has and shares with Kia as well. But it is actually Chinese made and that's going to be crossing into Australia and coming out there soon. Which I thought was, was fascinating. You know, the reality is that we are now seeing all sorts of different cars come out and obviously Jindai are one of many manufacturers who've been selling cars in China, have got into joint ventures and are making cars there as well. And this one's making its way to Australia but it doesn't fit under the Ioniq brand. So it is really a patchwork quilt, the EV market at the moment. But I suppose it's good for the consumer. Lots of different choice, lots of different options and I know Hyundai is still planning to launch the next Nexo hydrogen fuel cell EV as well next year. So it's still, still flogging that horse. We've been consistent about this for years. We don't think hydrogen has a major role to, to play. But Hyundai has still been doing that. I think in South Korea they have quite a lot of hydrogen infrastructure but outside of, outside of certain markets it really isn't getting much uptake as battery EV is just a more efficient, better type of powertrain.
- [09:08]
Imogen Vogel
Well, when you sent me this car immediately I thought, well, obviously that's the Hyundai version of the Kia EV5 and LO and behold they're on the same platform. So it is curious that it doesn't have the Ioniq badge and maybe there's some rights thing that is far beyond our pay grade with regards to how it can be badged if it comes Through China Baic. But what I find weird is that Australia is also a right hand drive market, same as the uk, but there aren't that many right hand drive markets really. And so it's a lot of effort to put a load of engineering time into producing a car which you may not have any intention to bring over to the uk because if you were bringing it over to the UK it would be badged the Ioniq. Well, what would it be badged actually? Wouldn't be a five. Who knows, who knows?
- [09:53]
Dan Caesar
I mean it may carry the same name. Alexio, we'll get into that. The naming conventions, there's lots of cars, you know, that are called different things because the name doesn't make sense in certain markets. Obviously BYD Dolphin Surf as it is, is not called that elsewhere, you know. And so, you know, it depends on each naming convention, depends on each market, of course. So who knows what it be called and whether it will reach these shores. But having gone to the trouble of making a right hand drive version, it's quite conceivable that it might end up here in the UK and Europe as well. Although again, apologies to our North American listeners, probably not in North America anytime soon.
- [10:32]
Imogen Vogel
And we know of course that Kia and Hyundai's sales have taken a little hit in the US this year. Totally unsurprisingly given that all the grants have disappeared under a certain, certain person's. I'll just stop talking. We know who we're talking about.
- [10:54]
Dan Caesar
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- [11:26]
Imogen Vogel
Shall we move to story number two?
- [11:29]
Dan Caesar
Yeah, this is a fascinating story. You know, the Ukraine is a country with a rich history, but of course it's been in the news for the last few years because of an invasion by its, its neighbor. And you know, very sadly that situation continues. But what the Ukrainian people have shown is, you know, huge resilience and resourcefulness, innovative tech as well in warfare. You know, I don't want to talk too much about, you know, sort of technologies used for war, but I do notice obviously they've been using drones over there for, in novel ways for, for warfare. But also I think there was a slightly uncorroborated story that Actually, a fuel cell vehicle was used as a sort of a improvised bomb there as well. But that's not what this story is about, actually. It's about the battery electric vehicle market, which is growing significantly. So In November, almost 40%, 39% to be exact, of cars sold were battery EV, which is just incredible. And there's some reasons why for that. They have no VAT on those products, but ultimately it's a steady flow of evs coming in from China again. So there's this, this recurrent theme going on and it doesn't seem to matter what borders you throw up, what tariffs you. You throw up. You know, China is extremely agile, has huge capacity, huge export ambitions, and it's making its way into lots of different markets. We get obsessed about the big markets like Germany and the uk, America, China itself, of course. But the reality is that there is a lot of market to go around and China is making inroads in pretty much every country on the planet.
- [13:17]
Imogen Vogel
Well, it's really interesting. And firstly, this story came from Clean Technica and Scott Clooney, who founded Clean Technica, he was on our podcast and that episode will be going out on Monday. So, yeah, it is a newsletter that absolutely everyone should be subscribed to. And he is wonderful. But what's interesting about this to me is that actually the grid in Ukraine is quite interesting. And yes, there has been some controversy around some bribery and how certain grid projects have got through. Let's park that for a second. In a period of war, what do you discover? Agility, need to be. Flexibility, need to. Well, survival and Octopus have actually partnered with the grid network in Ukraine because they're seeing that actually they're deploying distributed energy systems, renewable energy systems, at an astonishing rate, because they need to. Because they need to replace the infrastructure that's being destroyed. And of course, what that does is create a world in which electric vehicles can make sense. So interesting that that is the case in Ukraine. But in the same breath, this week there have been six Eastern European countries who have been also joining forces with Germany to lobby against the EU on the 2035 combustion ban, which may be less surprising because there's a lot of traditional legacy OEM manufacturing capability in those countries. And the BEV market share is so comparatively small, we're talking 5 to 6%, where the European average is about 14 to 16%. So, yeah, interesting movement zooming out.
- [14:50]
Dan Caesar
It's a mixed picture, A mixed picture, but it is interesting, you know, what's going on in Ukraine. There are other markets that are doing well. Other markets, less so. Also, it's tied back to manufacturing. Hungary, for example, is a hotbed of new manufacturing sites for Chinese companies in particular, like Catl, like byd. But I think we should say while the Ukraine market is relatively small, BYD now has 20% of the overall local market. And that's not. That's not the EV market. 20% of the whole market.
- [15:22]
Imogen Vogel
Wow.
- [15:23]
Dan Caesar
And, yeah, actually, if they think that the government's going to start charging vat on battery EVs in Ukraine next year. So there's a bit of a surge going on as people try and buy bears before that happens, Although people are lobbying to keep that vast exemption in place. But, you know, really, really fascinating. BYD Leopard 3 is one of the big sellers. They had to look that up again, it's one of those ones you go, okay, what is that? You know, what is that? Is it a seal rebadged as a leopard? It actually turns out I sort of googled it and looked online. I thought I recognized that. I saw that at the Shanghai Motor Show. And it's actually a vehicle from BYD's other brand, Fangchen Bao. And maybe Fangcheng Bao didn't translate as a brand to. To go into Eastern Europe. So now that's known as the BYD Leopard. So a leopard can change its spelling. At least that's my poor pun for today. But it's also interesting that, you know, in the same country in the Ukraine, VW are selling their ID Unix, which is also China made. It's basically a re badged Cooper Tavascan. Toyota's doing the same with the BZ3X again, which is China only. So that recurrent theme continues. You know, there are inroads being made across all of these different markets. And yes, Ukraine, you wouldn't necessarily expect it to have such high Bev uptake. So that really stood out as a. As a story for us. And yes, I'm sure we'll mention the EU and some lobbying moves against EVs within this podcast.
- [17:00]
Imogen Vogel
Guys, thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree.
- [17:02]
Dan Caesar
Zoe, this thing weighs a ton. Drew, Ski. Lift with your legs, man.
- [17:05]
Imogen Vogel
Santa. Santa, did you get my letter?
- [17:07]
Dan Caesar
He's talking to you, Bridges.
- [17:09]
Imogen Vogel
I'm not. Of course he did. Right, Santa, you know my elf, Drew Ski here.
- [17:13]
Dan Caesar
He handles the nice list. And elf, I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile. You can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. Right, Mrs. Claus?
- [17:25]
Imogen Vogel
I'm Mrs. Claus. Much younger sister and AT T Mobile there's no trade in needed when you switch so you can keep your old.
- [17:31]
Dan Caesar
Phone or give it as a gift.
- [17:32]
Imogen Vogel
And the the best part, you can make the switch to T Mobile from your phone in just 15 minutes. Nice.
- [17:37]
Dan Caesar
My side of the tree is slipping. Kimber the holidays are better. AT T Mobile switch in just 15 minutes and get iPhone 17 on us with no trade in needed. And now T Mobile is available in US cellular stores with 24 month credits for well qualified customers plus tax and $35 device connection charge credit ended balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance Agreement 256 GS $830 eligible for in a new line $100 plus a month plan with auto PayPal taxes fees required. Check out 15 or less per line.
- [17:59]
Imogen Vogel
Visit t mobile.com so moving to our third story for today, Ford's reliance on Renault. So we both I think received the official press release for this. I also read the Electrive article. So for a little bit of context, Renault will build two battery electric cards for Ford Motor Co. On its Ampere platform. And there are some thoughts this could be a route to bring back smaller electric Ford models. What are our thoughts?
- [18:28]
Dan Caesar
Well, I think the listener might get sick of me mentioning China, but this is partially a response to what's going on elsewhere. You know, we're moving into a new world when new alliances are being formed. You know, clearly automotive alliances are not new. You know, Ford already works with Volkswagen using its MEB platform. I think the Ford Explorer is based on that platform and now they're working with Renault. Renault, of course, very famously was part of the Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi alliance for many years. So there's nothing new under the sun, I suppose. But it does seem interesting that the kind of some of the what would be termed as the legacy automakers are kind of banding together strength in numbers to see how they can sort of stave off the threat of Chinese and and Korean cars taking more and more market share from them. So really interesting, it looks like a couple of cheaper evs are going to be coming through this sort of tie up between Ford and Renault and they'll be coming in around 2028. The speed the automotive industry is moving. I know it's almost 2026, but that does actually feel quite a long way out. This partnership also includes the potential to work on vans, but it's seen that there'll be a sort of smaller SUV and maybe something akin to the Fiesta will come out of this partnership. And what's really Interesting, I think, and good news for us Europeans, and we are Brits, but we still consider ourselves very much European is that these cars will be made in northern France. So that's kind of really, really interesting. And just to look at it, I always think it's interesting to read between the lines of what the companies are saying. So Jim Farley, who's the Ford CEO, who we're a big fan of, we've had on the podcast several times before, said, you know, it's about scale and cost commitment to Europe because Ford has lost a lot of market share in Europe over the last decade. It's gone down from about 7% to about 3%. So I would say that's quite significant. But it's very, very interesting. And Renault CEO Francois Provost said, we both feel confident that in passenger cars we can differentiate our brands. And sometimes it's about what they, they say between the lines, as I said. So they both said the two automakers do not plan to merge. And you sometimes think, do they protest too much when they say things like that? And Jim Farley even went so far as to say, I hope you don't portray this as lovers finding new lovers in reference to Ford working with Renault because they're already working with VW as well. So it is interesting, but I completely understand it from a strategic perspective. If you're trying to cope and you know, compete with these super agile new competitors, you have to be agile yourselves. And I do think Ford and, and Renau and VW are three huge organizations that are doing their best to be as fleet footed as possible. But as I say, it's the 2028 thing that makes me think, okay, the world could look very different by 2028 and the automotive industry could look very, very different as well. I don't know if you picked up on this as well, Imogen, but the, the reality is that actually sales of the Explorer and the Capri have not been a massive hit in, in the uk and from the article that I read which was on Automotive News, indicated that thousands of unsold vehicles were sitting on the Cologne Neil ground. So it is a hugely challenging market and they are being outflanked. But I think this is a sensible response. And you know, if you look at the Renault 5, if you look at the full Puma Jenny, which I've just been driving, they're really, really good cars. But I suppose the question is, are they on the software defined basis, are they as good as what's coming out of, of China, what's coming out of Korea and are they going to be cost competitive as well? So fascinating to see how this plays out. And also loyalty. A lot of, you know, German car buyers prefer to buy German brands, whereas maybe the Ukrainians might not be as loyal, you know, so it, it really is going to vary, but Ford doing their very, very best to, you know, offer lots of different cars at appropriate price points.
- [22:40]
Imogen Vogel
It's so interesting because I think if there's one thing that we know about Jim Farley having he's been on the podcast twice, is that he's an incredibly humble human being. He's driven Chinese EVs, he totally acknowledges how brilliant they are. But he also this week wrote an article in the ft. It wouldn't have been him, it would have been his PR team, let's be honest. But I found it strange because it was quite deferential and it was almost apologetic for this move and I don't think it quite struck the right tone. And I understand that there'll be a lot of questions about how secure Ford's position is if they're making these kinds of partnerships. And there was a real plea in there to stop changing or stop sort of any kind of legislation changing so that actually the automotive industry can have some sort of certainty and that certainty that's being supplied from the governments or from the EU that it can match the eight year development cycles of the automotive industry. I mean, the challenge there is that we know that the Chinese brands don't have an eight year development cycle, they're much more accelerated than that. And so yes, 2028 does feel a long way. And I think the other big thing for me is that if you have a vehicle that's underpinned by the Ampere platform that is fundamentally a Renault underneath, what's the value? What does Ford have to be to maintain its brand value and create experiences that are so uniquely Ford that people are willing to pay for above and beyond a different brand because it's no longer necessarily completely the driving experience or the build experience, it has to be something else. And I think as we enter this software defined vehicle era, that's an existential question that all of these legacy brands are having to ask themselves. What is their DNA? What makes them them?
- [24:27]
Dan Caesar
Well, it is fundamentally it's going to be the ux, it's going to be the user experience that's going to be definitive, I think. And the reality is a lot of people now ask if these cars have got Google CarPlay as effectively some of.
- [24:40]
Imogen Vogel
The car companies are advertising Carplay I'm just gonna call you out here. That was like a, that was, that was, that was, that was an old person thing to say. Google Apple CarPlay. Google. Okay, now I'm an old person. The Google version and the Apple version. We know what we're talking about.
- [24:58]
Dan Caesar
Yeah, anyway, so anyway, but people ask for that, you know, and it's ineffectively automakers kind of abrogating that responsibility for kind of in car technology to something that people are really familiar with. Which shows to me that the car industry has struggled to keep pace with what's going on on our smartphones. Obviously Tesla's very famously got fantastic software of its own, which feels a bit like Apple, but it is its own and that's the reality of how difficult it's going to be. I mean, for me personally, Jim Farley's been a great leader and I hope he can help navigate forward through this very, very difficult period of time. But you have to say if he doesn't, he definitely will have a job waiting for him for a Chinese manufacturer as their head of exports, you know, because he has been a great leader and he's been driving the Xiaomi trying to understand what's going on within China. He is a very humble guy, but I, you know, I wish him all the success. I hope Ford, you know, succeeds, but it is a very, very tough road for them and they are producing some good product. But it does seem to me that his eyes are wide open. The business's eyes are wide open, what they need to do. But yeah, as you say, it's the software defined piece that's going to be big. And Michael Dunn's newsletter, again a great source of information on all things China, posited the thought that actually in the future we'd be looking at brands without factories and that actually would someone like Ford, VW and others actually be making a lot of their cars in China and ultimately exporting those around, around the world. And you can see with things like vwid, unix, with the Hyundai Alexio that we mentioned earlier and other examples, you know, that that seems to me like a strong potential direction of travel. So we're talking about seismic change in the automotive industry. And the reality is that the EU and other countries have an opportunity to get Chinese manufacturing in their countries. But by pushing back and delaying and lobbying against bev targets, actually maybe they're actually reducing the chance that they will have the opportunity to, to build cars. Because fundamentally if you've got car plants and there are employees and they are not able to work anymore in some of the traditional legacy brands car making plants, maybe they would. Their skills will be transferable into new plants being built by the companies. So it is a knife edge, I think what's happening here, but I think Forward are really trying to weave their way through the traffic and it's fascinating to watch and I wish them and Renault all the success in this kind of endeavor. But yeah, 2028 feels a long way out.
- [27:43]
Imogen Vogel
If anyone is interested in the future of software defined vehicles and how that could have an impact on the dynamics of the automotive industry, we did do a podcast with the CTO of NXP Semiconductors. NXP Semiconductors provide semiconductors TO I think 70% of the world automotive brands. So they have this extremely acute sense of what is going on and who is doing what. So we will make sure to link to that podcast that we did earlier this year in the show Notes shall we move to Winners and Losers of this week? Is that what it's called?
- [28:17]
Dan Caesar
Well, we try to rebrand it as peaks and troughs, ups and downs, you know, whatever. I think everyone knows, you know, what we're, what we're saying, you know, who's, who's winning and who's who's losing. And in the short term that's always quite fun to pick that out. I think we'll start with maybe with the, the sort of down news this week which I, I saw that Uber are pulling back on on evs. Uber were, you know, really sort of blazing a trail in terms of this is what our direction of travel, this is what we're going to do. But actually their emissions have nearly doubled over the last three years. You can see this story on, on Bloomberg and effectively of course Uber is a, is a US Based company and they are effectively coming out in support of Trump's anti EV bill. And you didn't mention his name earlier, but it's almost impossible to talk on any podcast, I think without mentioning the leader of the free world. I'm making inverted commas speech marks as I, as I say that, you know, fundamentally an ill will as, sorry, excuse me, an ill wind is blowing from America into Canada, across Europe. You know, it's certainly fueling some anti battery EV and anti renewables sentiment and that's a great shame. It's actually changing the mood of the the market quite considerably. But to see Uber kind of retreat in that way is, is I guess just a sign of the times. And also on a related note, you may have seen the story that Zipcar is actually Kind of withdrawing from London. So Zipcar is a shared car platform that's coming out of London. They have effectively blamed the fact that the the ultra low emission zone costs are changing. You'd know obviously if you have an EV in London, you've been able to drive into the center of London without paying the congestion charge. Well, that's going to come to an end in January. And so at this point Zip have withdrawn from the UK market. But also another factor that I wondered, is it just purely about that or has Zip actually been able to make its business model work in London? Is this just a convenient time to withdraw? Interested to know people's thoughts on that. But also Waymo is launching in London next year as well. So that kind of driverless taxi service. So huge pressures. But again, you know, how hard is it to to make a business model work in, in the current automotive sector, car sharing, etc. Very, very, very difficult. But really sad to see Uber doing that. And I wonder if in the long term they'll regret that. Short term, is it?
- [30:51]
Imogen Vogel
There's many things about it that really irritate me, but the biggest one is that actually Uber drivers could receive incentives for going for driving electric. So they could earn much more per month. They could receive a grant to get a car. And of course we know that electric vehicle running costs are lower. So an Uber driver in an electric car, the economics are just so much more lucrative. So not only is this annoying from pushing the electric vehicle market forwards anyway, it's just screwing over drivers and it's screwing over in this instance, particularly US citizens. And that's just dumb when we know affordability and cost of living is the biggest concern that everybody has. So negative points to Uber on that one.
- [31:34]
Dan Caesar
And then on the ups, I think, or the peaks, the troughs, you know, the peaks. I think again we have to kind of flag China. It seems their long term strategy is really paying dividends now. And I saw a really interesting article again from Automotive News which kind of indicated that actually the EU tariffs on Chinese has been designed to protect the industry in Europe, but actually it may have had the opposite effect. So Philippe Pushois, who's the managing director at Jefferies in London, said the European Union decision to target a specific technology and imposing extra tariffs for Chinese automob makers was ill fated. And they suggested that the tariffs may have actually incentivized Chinese automakers to continue building in China rather than setting up factories in Europe. Equally, the Chinese are very adroit at building plug in hybrid vehicles as well. So there was more incentive for them to do that and they have responded. And as far as the Chinese are concerned, they want to sell cars, build brands, and if someone buys a FEV before they buy a bev, they're probably relatively agnostic about that. They're happy for them to to do so because they know they'll get into battery evs in time. And even there's this new class, the extended range electric vehicle, which sits sort of between PHEV and bev. So the car is electrically powered, has a range extender, and so the Chinese are effectively producing better, longer range plug in hybrid type cars, again ahead of its competitors. So it seems to me that Europe trying to withdraw or slow down or the EU trying to slow down, the move to battery electric vehicles will actually be self defeating.
- [33:19]
Imogen Vogel
Well, there we go. There we have it. You can tell we're getting towards the end of the year. Before we started chatting, we're like, we're definitely feeling like our brains are at sort of at capacity and certainly my ability to speak seems to be evidence of that. But there we have it. We have China, Hyundai, Renault, Ford, Ukraine and Uber. A little foray across the automotive industry, the electric automotive industry this week. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please do of course, like subscribe, share with a friend, please also give us feedback. It is a new thing and we'd love to hear your thoughts. But that's it. If you have been, thank you for.
- [33:58]
Dan Caesar
Listening and watching and see you next week.