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Everything Electric Podcast
Godfather of EVs Turns New Leaf With 'Brill' British Batteries Move & Urges UK EV Industry to Unite.
00:56:31
The Godfather of EVs, Dr Andy Palmer, talks to Fully Charged Show Founder, Robert Llewellyn, about Palmer Automotive's acquisition of Brill Energy, accepting Chinese EV realities, and the need for the UK's EV industry to unite. The UK's EV...
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign welcome to the Everything Electric podcast. Today's guest, Andy Palmer is, has been on the show before. I've interviewed him many times. He's extraordinary man. First met him around about 2011 when the Nissan Leaf was being developed. He was very much, that was very much his baby, very, very involved in that. He then went on to work at Aston Martins and since then he has been involved in many, many things. Charging infrastructure companies, charge battery companies and more. Most recently EV uk the kind of lobbying group that we're involved in helping set up and helping maintain. All of those topics we discuss in great detail. And just while I remember that it is quite important that this, the next show that we're doing this week is at Farnborough, Farnborough International just outside London. And we have. There's some amazing stuff going on there. But very importantly on the Friday that is the B2B day business to business, there's going to be a lot of business people talking business to other business people and discussing the all the aspects of the electric vehicle and renewable energy transition that we're going through at the moment and how that can best be facilitated and made easier for people to deal with and how we going to do all those things. A lot of that stuff's being discussed on the Friday at Farnborough International and EV UK and all the people involved in that are going to be there. But there's a lot of other stuff going on still loads of test drives for people, lots and lots of cars there. Then for those of who are not in the business to business bracket, just normal people like you and I, the Saturday and Sunday is the public days and that is when we do thousands of test drives. Amazing array of cars we've got this year. It's extraordinary. But also in the afternoon of both days at about, I think about two o', clock, something like that, we are filming live in front of an audience the tests, the final tests of Zapheap and we are. So we've had lots of meetings where it is literally terrifying for us and the production, how we capture what's going to be quite a dramatic test. These are big parts, powerful machines, they're all electric. We don't know what they're going to do. We have a big audience seating area that is safe. That's all I can guarantee you that's safe. But the rest of us, I think we're in horrifying. Well, it's going to be fine, it'll be fine. But it's just that these are not like small machines. That aren't very powerful. These are kind of fairly big, chunky, weird machines. I mean you won't believe what you see. So we're filming the test of that and then that will go out as the shows later on in the year, the zappeap shows. So we've done two pilot shows. So on the first day, on the Saturday we'll test two of the teams and the machines they've built. On the second day, on the Sunday we'll test two completely different machines with two different teams. So we're really looking for, we're looking forward to it, but with trepidation and terror. Isn't that just the best mixture of things to have anyway? It is. Genuinely I can't tell you I was really looking forward to today because sometimes I'm. When I record podcasts it's people I've never met before, I don't know them, I'm a little bit tense. I've got my questions all here. Will it work? Will they? You know, I didn't have to worry about Andy. He's just amazing. What an incredible enthusiast and a knowledgeable man. His enthusiasm and optimism is based on literal engineering ground up skills that he understands how things work, how things are made, not only how things from that point of view, but how things are manufactured, how things, how materials are sourced and turned into things that we need. Really interesting. So please welcome to the Everything Electric podcast, andy Palmer. Our three free YouTube channels on EVs and cleantech are funded by our fun packed test drivetastic events in Farnborough, London, the southwest, the North, Melbourne and Sydney. And next up, Everything Electric Farnborough and new for UK viewers. You can now buy a battery EV and much more at everythingelectric store. So Andy, thank you so much for taking time to, to talk to us. It, I mean it's always a joy to, to pick your brains because you've got, I think it's fair to say you've had a bit of experience in the automotive industry and you know, some stuff. Would that be a fair appraisal on.
- [04:37]
B
The block a few times? Yes, indeed. Thank you for that. I just turned 46 years. Yeah, I started, I started as a 16 year old in a company called Automotive Products do clutches and brakes in 1979. So yes, I guess I've been around the block a bit.
- [04:56]
A
Yes, yes but then, and I mean what's incredible actually as well if you think of the, say the, the 40 years prior to that, the changes that you would have seen in engineering and automotive would have Been mainly sort of around safety, probably more fuel efficient. You know, there would have been changes, but what you've seen in your career is phenomenal change. You know, if you think of what's happened in the last, say the last 10 years in particular with the electrification and, well, and hydrogen, all the things that have been tried out in the last 10 years.
- [05:27]
B
Yes, I agree, I agree. And it's a very innovative moment, I suppose goes back feels like back in the 1930s and 40s, in fact, when you were getting really big changes. But for example, it's, you know, basically, for example, I'm a transmission engineer by training. So for a long time when, particularly when I was at Nissan, I was arguing for the need to continue a manual transmission rather than auto. And I was right. I mean, basically Europe stayed for a long time on manual transmissions and all of a sudden because of the, I suppose the advent and the adoption importantly of electric vehicles, no one is taking their tests with manual gearbox anymore. Right. And that's the seed change that the technology is driving.
- [06:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. Now that is true because both my kids who are now in their 30s, had to learn to do manual gear change, but they both learned to drive in a Nissan Leaf. In my original Nissan Leaf, we've still got it. So they, they went, what's this thing? You have to move this lever around and press it. Why has it got three pedals?
- [06:33]
B
You know, it's very antiquated in some respects, isn't it?
- [06:35]
A
Although, of course, yeah, they've got a.
- [06:37]
B
Joy from driving and, and racing. Eraser.
- [06:42]
A
Right. Yes.
- [06:44]
B
And interestingly, the last. I've just started using basically synthetic fuel as a means of powering that to get to the net zero effect. But it does just show you the technological change that around us, be it as you, as you say, basically electric with hydrogen. Although I'm not a great fan of hydrogen for cars and synthetic fuel where I am, I am a big fan.
- [07:11]
A
Yeah. So can you briefly. I know this is slightly off tangent for us, but briefly explain what the difference between say synthetic fuel and biofuel. I mean, there is a difference, isn't there?
- [07:21]
B
Synthetic fuel essentially creates. You can create gasoline out of thin air, literally out of thin air. What you're doing is taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and turning it basically with an awful lot of energy. You're turning it into. Into gasoline. And then of course you burn it and it emits it back. The CO2 goes back into the atmosphere, but net. Net your net zero. So you're right, you're you're, you're using and, and creating CO2 in equal proportions. So in that respect, it's very good. It's a very good way of getting to net zero. But the fuel itself is rather expensive and you're using a lot of electrical energy that arguably you could more efficiently use by going directly to the car. The other thing, of course, is it's not zero tailpipe, so you're burning fuel and therefore you're putting pollutants into the local atmosphere. So particulates or nox. So there are, as always, there are merits and demerits of every technology. Generally speaking, I would say that EV has more of the solutions than it does are the problems.
- [08:31]
A
Yeah, yeah. And actually, I have to admit. So I haven't driven, you know, combustion cars for you. Well, I think I've driven a rented one about five, eight years ago in Italy, which is great fun. And I kept stalling it. They had a manual gearbox, which I've, you know, I'm old. I've driven manual gearboxes for like 42 years and I stole the damn thing all the time. But I've just recently, literally the last few days, had a loan of a Hyundai Ioniq 5N, which has noise and paddle shift gears. I've got to tell you, it's utterly unnecessary to do that when you go down the shops to get some milk. But I still do. I mean, and it makes you feel like you're going faster. It's a really interesting car because it, because of the way. I mean, it's beautifully done, the software works and, and it does little backfires and burbling exhaust when you're slowing down. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's all fake. You can only hear it inside. Thank goodness your neighbors don't have to hear it.
- [09:27]
B
But it does reiterate. It's a problem I tried to grapple with when I was developing the Nissan Leaf. But sound is an important sense for us and it evokes emotion. As we know, music produces emotion. The question is, does it have to sound like an internal combustion engine or you make it sound like something very different. And certainly with the Leaf, we try to create a noise maker and make it a different sound when the car was reversing. I'm sure that we didn't get it right, but I recently drove a simulator. I won't say for which company, but it had a number of sounds which also increased in volume and intensity the faster the un. So you got this sense of the speed and it does make a difference. And I do think that there is still some revolution around sound that we need to get to.
- [10:30]
A
Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know, the. One of the things I remember discovering very early on, so when. When I would have first had a Leaf or even prior to that, is I just set a camera up by the side of a road out in the countryside and left it running and watched. And so four cars drove past. Then I drove past as fast as I could. I was in a Mitsubishi imeve right. I went past as fast as I could and it sounded exactly the same. There was no. It wasn't quieter, you know, at speed, but at low speed, above, about lethally quiet. Yeah.
- [11:01]
B
Miles an hour. Then the sound of the. Generally the wheel tire noise becomes the dominant noise. So basically the sound at low speed is arguably useful to pedestrians to warn, but otherwise it's more an emotion around sound. And we forget how important our other senses, not just our eyes, we forget how the other senses are important, including smell.
- [11:31]
A
Yeah.
- [11:32]
B
You know, if you don't go into a Shangri La hotel anywhere around the world, you're immediately hit by the perfume that tells you you're in a Shangri La. And it's an important sensory means of telling you that you're in a safe place, you're in a. You're in a gorgeous environment.
- [11:50]
A
Yeah. I'm going to admit now, I've never been in a Shangri. Laugh. I now want to go because, I mean, that was the thing that. I never think about it until you go to a hotel, whether you love the soap, they give you a little bar. Oh, my God, that is amazing. So I have nicked some soap. I've still got one bit of it here that was really good. In a nice hotel.
- [12:13]
B
You know, people used to talk about, you know, jumping into an old car, smelling the Connolly leather.
- [12:19]
A
Yeah, yeah, that. Yeah, that's very, very familiar, that old smell. But let's try and get back on. I'll try and get back on top. It's my fault because what I find fascinating at the moment, I was just. I've just been reading a couple of articles before I spoke to you, the sort the. To find your way to what is really happening. I mean, that this applies to every topic on the planet, but specifically regarding electric vehicle uptake, the statistics tell us that the. The uptake is constant and increasing and it's very particularly. Let's stick with the UK at the moment.
- [12:55]
B
Yeah.
- [12:56]
A
But then the opinion pieces you might read go, oh, it's all over. It's a Complete failure. Nobody wants them. We're being, they're being rammed down our throats by government and you know, and obviously the truth lies somewhere between the two.
- [13:09]
B
It feels to me some truth in, in its. But I mean, look, a lot of it is, is obviously lobby group funded. We have to remember that the oil and gas lobby is extremely powerful. The OEM industry is extremely powerful. Car companies that are behind are lobbying hard, naturally. And look, I mean I've used the same tactics myself as part of a company, so it's just business in the end of the day. But we have to remember that the adoption rate is partly government incentivized. But honestly, incentives have been part of the industry from the day. Right. You know, basically legislating for a man with a red flag walking in front of, in front of the car, legislating for catalysts, €1 legislations for CFC, free air conditioning. I mean the car industry is, is full of regulation and it's also full of incentives. And yes, right now EVs benefit from it and to some extent even, you know, fuel duty. So petrol cars benefit from. I think the interesting stuff is to look at the second hand market because if you start to see these cars coming through in the second hand market in quantity, then you know that you've started to overcome some of that inertia. And it's my great belief that the issue is no longer the car. The issue is basically the price of the car and standard economic supply. You know, basically we live in a world of pricing elasticity and if your electric car is more expensive than your ICE car, then you'll never match it from a, from a market share point of view. So the first and key thing is for the equivalent electric car, it has to be at the same price as the internal combustion car that will drive people to acquire. The second point is the cost of running and that's where you can have a compelling advantage for the electric car. So basically it's been my goal for the past five years to try and work out that dilemma of low running costs and in fact even zero running costs. Because if you're smart in the way that you deal with your energy generation. So if you're lucky enough to have a roof, if you're lucky enough to be able to charge basically off road overnight, then it's possible as one looks forward to having a proportion of your electricity for free. So imagine a world where basically the car's cost was the same as an internal combustion vehicle, but it costs you nothing to run it. The Majority of your time, forget all of the discussions around the environmental impact benefits of electric cars or how nice they are to drive, how quick they are, et cetera, et cetera, and it just doesn't cost you anything to run. That economic argument is a game changer and I think that's where we're going. And it really revolves around the decentralization and democratization of energy deployment.
- [16:29]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's so much down to. I mean, that was one of the questions, you know, that I wanted to ask you, but also have been asked, is that the thing that I still find can be challenging, it's much, much better than it was, but it is a sort of universality of public charging. I'm not talking about charging at home, but, you know, if there was one thing that you needed just to use any charger, any speed, anywhere, you know, that would be. And I think that's a hugely complex problem that I think it has been struggled with because I know you worked with podpoint.
- [17:11]
B
For many. I was the interim CEO for a while and I was chairman for a while. As you know, it's now being sold back into edf, which I think tells you that the energy companies see, see electrification as really, really important. Obviously you can see that with Octopus as well and their sales line of electric cars. So the electric car is part of that energy infrastructure and is an important part of it going forward. But charging is really, really important. Absolutely. I think we have a reasonably prolific rollout of electric chargers. Yeah, but they've got to work. I went to watch the other love of my life, Leeds United at the weekend and coming back down the M1, pulled into one of the service stations only to find a whole lineup of new chargers, none of which were working. And when that happens. That's so frustrating. Yeah, and that's, that's, you know, we don't really. I don't think we really have range anxiety anymore, but we probably still do have charger anxiety of charger anxiety.
- [18:23]
A
Well, and that's. You sort of hope that because there's a whole row of them, it won't be. But if all of them are out, that is really bad. Well, it is like, I mean, I can remember going, you know, on a motorway in, you know, 30 years ago, stopping because I really needed some petrol and the petrol pumps were out of order because there was no electricity to power the pumps. Yes, they had a power cut. So then I. I can't remember what I did, but I was stuffed. I couldn't go anywhere else.
- [18:47]
B
Is Ultimately, and I said at the start, the thing about EVs is ultimately they have more of the solutions than they do the problems.
- [18:55]
A
Yes.
- [18:56]
B
For EV charging, particularly fast charging infrastructure, the concept of putting a battery behind it gives you uninterrupted supply, but also has the possibility to significantly reduce the cost of charging because obviously you charge the battery up with cheap electricity and you hopefully pass on that cost saving to the consumer so they don't have to buy expensive electricity. So battery storage. And as I said, this decentralization of supply and democratization of supply is really a key. And that ev at the end of the day it's a big energy storage device. It has a role to play in giving back electricity to the grid and helping you with that concept of free travel.
- [19:45]
A
Yeah, I mean that was definitely a topic that was on my list was what your opinion is of you know, vehicle to vehicle to whatever grid, home, other vehicle, whatever it is. But I mean is that is, I mean that topic is fairly central in my mind as it's the clearly the next step that yeah, could really have a massive impact and actually could increase interest in the vehicles as well.
- [20:09]
B
Yeah. You know, 2012, I installed the first LEAF to home system right in the world, my home. It came after the, the tsunami and we saw people dying because of, of lack of electrical supply. So we raced it through the lab. So it's been A, you know, 2012, it's been a long time coming. But the idea that some part of your battery can give back to, either to your home battery or back to the grid, I think is an important element of the future. I don't think we'll be cycling our batteries from you know, 80 to 20, but I think idea that you cycle 10% of your battery, 10% of your battery on average 7 to 10 kilowatt hours. That, that's, you know, that if you think about that 10% sold back when, when the electricity is costing 70p and you know, 10% of it's that 7p that's giving you free, free miles and, and that's the incentive for plugging in, plugging in your car. But I do think it probably works in harmony with a, with a home battery and a home battery will be as ubiquitous as a, as a boiler in your home in the future.
- [21:23]
A
Yeah, no, I think you're right. I mean there was a, I've just seen a report, in fact we've just reported the colossal uptake of home batteries in Australia. Well, obviously they are a bit ahead of us in terms of Solar installation in houses is very ubiquitous there. But I mean, they did, they had a very modest government support to have a battery fitted and it was overwhelmed instantaneously. I mean, everybody. And they did something like 160,000 batteries they installed in 28 days. Just an insane uptake of it. But it's, you know, that stuff then you. Once you get to a certain level, you know, the fact that you and I have batteries in our houses makes no difference to the National Grid or anybody else. But the one when a million people do that makes a very big impact.
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B
There's a concept called vpp, which is virtual power plants.
- [22:11]
A
And the idea, that's what they're running.
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B
All of the home batteries together and as soon as you get over 1 megawatt hour, you can trade back to the grid. And I think that's the game changer. Now. It does require your DNO and National Grid to be cooperative and you can understand why they might resist. And talking about lobby groups, there's probably one right there that we need to think about in the future. But we all know that electricity is insanely expensive in the uk. Why not grasp the opportunity to have a linkage back into the grid and club together with your neighbors to create these networks of VPPs?
- [22:54]
A
Yes. No, you're absolutely. I mean, it's been such a long time coming. I do feel now that it's. The technology is catching up with the, with the idea. Yes, yes. And more and more cars are fitted with that ability. You know, they're being built with a bidirectional power ability.
- [23:12]
B
Indeed, there's one. And I get rather, rather passionate about this subject. But there's. From an industrial point of view, you have to step into technology and not step away. If you, if you use all of your energies to protect and create tariff barriers and create regulatory barriers, you step away from the technology and you see that happening right now in the us, basically stepping back into the world of, of internal combustion engines, because it doesn't believe in that transition, perhaps. Whereas, you know, my encouragement to, to all governments, especially the UK government, is you need to step in, because if you don't step in, that space will be dominated by China. That's already made 20 years ago, the decision to dominate in this area. And so whether it be electric cars, whether it be batteries, whether it be the AI interaction interactions that make all of this work, we need to step into it. We've probably lost the initiative on things like batteries and even maybe things like electric vehicles. We haven't yet lost the advantage in things like software stacks and electronics. And I do believe that's still a point of entry where we as the UK can win back some of that lost ground.
- [24:36]
A
Right. I mean, that is quite chilling. But I mean, I absolutely agree with you that, you know, I went to China for the first time this year. You know, I've been accused on numerous occasions in comments on YouTube for being a shill for the Chinese Communist Party. Because I've said. But what I'm saying is, guys, look, these cars are coming. Yes, you know, they might, they might, we might have to stop them coming. But the fact is they're being made, they're being made really well. They're being made in numbers we can't even comprehend, you know, and that when you're.
- [25:08]
B
Then you can't put the genie back in the bottle. You know, they. 1992, I think, is the first time that the central, central government, government of China made an industrial strategy that says we're going to win in new energy vehicles. And in 1992, they didn't, they didn't even know what that was, what that meant by, by 2002, I was a member of the board of Donphar. They already started to articulate that as either plug in hybrids or electric vehicles. And obviously as time went by, you, you saw the rise of the electric vehicle. You cannot put that technology back into the genie bottle. It's out there and they will do everything possible, including hopefully building factories in the west and hopefully in the UK in order to try to win that battle. The worst thing that European and American industry can do is basically pretend it doesn't exist. You've got to step into the problem, not step away from the problem. You've got to win on your own terms and that means doing things better than them. And might even mean being a little bit humble about working with some of these Chinese because some of their technology, honestly is 10 years ahead. And that's, as you said, that's not a commentary on the politics of China, that's a commentary on the quality of the vehicles that they're making.
- [26:33]
A
Yeah. And the, and the engineers that are there. I mean, that, that when I heard that statistic, I did just. This was a Shanghai motor Show. I just stood for. I had to be pushed because I just mouth open so that, you know, there was. There's a hundred, roughly a hundred thousand people work for Tesla around the world, which is amazing for a new car company to reach that. But then you hear that there's 115,000 who work in BYD's R&D department and they employ over a million people. And you go, oh, okay.
- [27:02]
B
And if you have the chance, Robert, anytime visit BYD or visit Geely.
- [27:07]
A
Yeah, hopefully I will.
- [27:08]
B
This is stunning, absolutely stunning, the amount of capable manpower there. But also their factories, which are largely lights off factories these days, they're all run by robots and hence you know, the quality of the vehicles. We know that if you drive a, a Chinese car, it may lack a little bit in soul, but it doesn't lack anything in terms of perceived quality or basically performance. It's really, really good. They are really.
- [27:41]
A
I mean, do you think, I mean I'll, I mean you sort of implied it a little bit but that, that we might be seeing say in the next 10 years some partnerships or, or I don't know how you. Or joint ventures with well established brands that we all know in, in the west and in Europe and Chinese. I mean, I think it's almost happening already, isn't it?
- [28:04]
B
I mean it's starting to happen. I mean it started obviously the other way around. When the western car makers wanted access to the Chinese market, the Chinese government forced a collaborative model. So you had to be part of a joint venture. Obviously from that joint venture those car companies, those Chinese car companies learned how to make, make cars and learn the technology and weren't, weren't, weren't shy in borrowing that technology, let's say like that.
- [28:33]
A
Yeah.
- [28:34]
B
But now basically, as we've, you know, they've been relentlessly moving forward and you see it particularly in, in their technology of batteries. We probably in the west need to be a little bit humble and think about a similar mechanism where we allow access to our markets, but only in return for collaboration. And that's the quid pro quo and that's the leverage much more powerful than this honestly stupidity of putting a tariff on it which only, only the tariff is just a tax on your own people. It's so blunt. Where there are much smarter ways of, of, of creating jobs in one's country.
- [29:16]
A
Yeah, yeah. Can we talk a bit, a little bit about EV uk? Because that is you know, not something we talk about that much on, on Everything Electric show. But it's definitely something, you know, I've been involved with in the peripheral. Dan Caesar, who's, who's our CEO is very, you know, very much part of it. But you're part of that as well because that it was, we mentioned lobbying earlier on. It is effective. Am I right in describing it as effectively a lobby group for the other side That's a very small, polite lobby group to say, hang on a minute, you know, maybe we don't need to open more oil fields. Can we, can we, can we look at electric vehicles a bit more seriously?
- [29:55]
B
In its simplest way, yeah. I've agreed with Dan to, as the company is, is evolving to become the chairman, which is a nice honor for me. And, and at its simplest level it's about putting the record straight. So about trying to, to help with the, the education of, of Joe Public in terms of the, the merits of EVs. And you know, I do it myself and I always try to do it in a balanced way because I'm not anti internal combustion engine. I spent my whole career developing engines. But, but I, I dislike the discourse which is very one side or the other. So.
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A
Yes, yeah.
- [30:38]
B
So I, I like what Dan is doing. I like what EV UK is doing in terms of setting the record straight and giving more information around EVs and to some extent representing the, the EV industry. And obviously, you know, already signed up Octopus as one of the partners and OVO also is one of the partners. Hopefully some of the car companies will come on board as well. And basically it's a collaboration of the willing to try and help with that transformation. So it's consistent with my own personal goals around basically solving that dilemma that I couldn't solve with the Nissan Leaf, which was not being able to get to net zero, only what we call back then zero. Well, to wheel only being able to remove the tailpipe. But you've got to, you know, basically you've got to go further than that. You've got to remove the carbon from the atmosphere. And to do that, it's not only great technology, but it's also about education.
- [31:45]
A
Yeah. I mean, it's so difficult to constantly remind yourself. I mean, I without question live in an EV bubble and that's always a danger. And so a lot of the people I talk to, they've already got electric cars. There's not, it's not even a topic anymore. But the other evening I met, I went out to dinner with a lot of our local people that I live near here and a very lovely old lady who I've known for years, she, she arrived in a, in a land, in a, in a Land Rover with some, a lot of kids and she got out and she was so sweet. We sort of helped her out, the Land Rover and she said, oh you. Did you come in one of your electric cars? And I said yes. She said, did it blow up? That's what it said, that's what I read in the Daily Mail. And she just answered all my questions and I, I said nothing. And she said, oh, I suppose I shouldn't believe everything I read in the Daily Mail. I gave her a hug, I said.
- [32:36]
B
No, you really shouldn't. But the point is, 80 times less likely to catch fire.
- [32:42]
A
Yes.
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B
Well engineered, you know, I, as far as I know. Please correct me if you know differently, Robert, but as far as I know, the Nissan Leaf has never suffered from a thermal incident.
- [32:54]
A
I've never heard of that. No. Never heard. Yeah.
- [32:56]
B
And you know, one could say that the Nissan Leaf was very conservatively engineered and if that's the case, then I'm entirely responsible for that. But the, the point above all else was, was basically had to be safe. You know, these days I work in the world of, of batteries. Both, you know, basically static batteries and, and mobile batteries, vehicle batteries. What's interesting again, back to the Chinese. They're legislating zero thermal instances. So they're holding the right. Yeah, the manufacturers accountable for ensuring their batteries never catch fire. And that's done by a whole load of different ways. Great packaging, basically the way that you control the energy density, importantly the way that you control the battery and the way that you suppress it if you do have any incidences. So it's all within the engineer's gift. It probably means that we won't see quite such a fast race to the bottom on price. But basically you can engineer an electric battery to be fire free. You cannot say that about petrol.
- [34:11]
A
No, it's very hard to say that about petrol. But I mean, I think the point I was working with the old lady was that that's the insta. Her instant response electric vehicle or the batteries catch fire, you know, and you go, well, they don't. But I'm not going to argue with you. But no, I absolutely agree with you. And that was a fascinating thing I saw repeatedly at the Shanghai Motor show this year was big videos that showed the, the testing of battery, of battery packs and they used diggers with a big spike on and they smashed through it, they folded it in half. And my favorite one, I think it was, it was, I think it was Catl stand. They put the battery on a load of bricks out in a yard and a man poured a load of petrol on it and set fire to the battery. So the battery was covered in petrol and set fire and it was. And then the flames died down and some of the plastic had melted and then it went out.
- [35:02]
B
Yes.
- [35:02]
A
And it won't burn.
- [35:06]
B
And look, that's one of the reasons that one could say that you've seen this huge revival in LFP chemistry. So lithium phosphate, it's much harder to see a thermal runaway and you know, technically it's less energy dense than nmc, but, but, but over time has been improving, it's safe. You can do the Chinese nail test and it doesn't. You don't see a thermal runaway and it's a demonstration that, you know, As I said, EVs have more solutions than they have problems.
- [35:43]
A
Yeah, yeah. Actually, I've just very briefly remembered one of the bits of that video was a row of Chinese tanks driving over the battery pack, which was very impressive because it didn't. It survived that. But then I did wait. They've got a lot of tanks. What's my background for. I didn't say anything.
- [36:00]
B
If I'd have been the head of marketing, I think I might have chosen a different. A different vehicle.
- [36:06]
A
Yeah, anyway.
- [36:07]
B
Yes, yes, indeed.
- [36:12]
A
So actually it was a really interesting question I got asked on Blue sky, which I know it's not quite in your, your remit in terms of. Because it was about the design, but it is a quite an interesting question. I, I remember thinking years ago and then I haven't thought about it is why do we continue to use effectively combustion engine designs for vehicles, as in the total shape of it with electric. Because obviously you could put a cab right at the front. You don't need an engine lump at the front of a vehicle. And yet really, 90% of electric cars look like petrol cars.
- [36:48]
B
They do, they do. Look, when I developed the Leaf, at that time, we consciously made the decision to make it look like a hatchback. So it was basically, look, we're changing the, we're changing the whole powertrain system. That's going to be a lot for the customer to digest. Let's at least make it look like a normal hatchback. And that was the rationale. And that was. I think that's true of the second car that, that I developed, which was the NV200. It's the van.
- [37:14]
A
Right.
- [37:14]
B
A van is a van. It just needs a big.
- [37:16]
A
Looks like a van. Yeah.
- [37:17]
B
And then the third was, was going to be the Infinity and again there was basically make it look like a Mercedes or a BMW. The fourth car, however, the fourth car, I don't know whether you remember it was, Was called the Blade Glider, was. It was a triangular shaped car, a bit like a McLaren F1 seating pattern with a central seat, central front, central seat. And then there's passengers either side behind you. And it doesn't matter whether you liked it or not. The point of that was to say, when you've got a flat floor, you've got a flat platform. What the upper body looks like is entirely incidental. And one of my great disappointments, Robert, is that very few, if any, of the OEMs have exploited that design freedom. Very few made the car look different. Now, a couple of times ago, when I was in. In China, I came across a company called Li Auto. It's a domestic manufacturer and they do an mpv and it looks otherworldly. I don't know whether I like the design or not, but I love the fact that they've started to use the degrees of freedom to give that freedom to their designers to make the car look. Look different. And I do think that there's a huge untapped opportunity there to change the way that we think about a car. As you say, you can have a steering wheel at the front, the back, the side. You can make the upper body what you like. The upper body is relatively cheap to develop because all of the crash pulse is contained within the platform. So you can have lots of derivatives of upper bodies to appeal to lots of customer niche segments. And I do think that that is one of the huge advantages of an ev.
- [39:09]
A
Yes. I mean, that was one of the things that I was fascinated by the concept of, which was when we went to Catl's R and D place, we had a look around there, which is extraordinary. But they are, because they're now manufacturing the skateboard chassis. So the chassis, the drivetrain, everything, the full thing. And then they'll. The idea is they'll sell that to car makers who then put a body on top of it. Well, then you go. And then they had all their sort of potential designs that you could have. And that was where that. Yeah, huge. I mean, some of them, frankly, ridiculous.
- [39:41]
B
But.
- [39:41]
A
But I mean, is there. So you. Are you saying that in a sense, sometimes I assume that a car has a big bonnet, even if it's an electric car, because of crash protection and all that. But you. That's.
- [39:53]
B
You don't have to have that. And I advise a company called Tello Trucks in the us. Oh, yeah. They're developing a product which would, let's say, compete with the Ford F150.
- [40:10]
A
Yeah, but much smaller.
- [40:13]
B
But it doesn't have a bonnet at all.
- [40:15]
A
Yeah.
- [40:16]
B
As you say, it's the way that you. You manage the crash pulse. And if you think about commercial Vehicles. For a long time, you've had this cab over design. You really don't need. You really don't need the bonnet. And to some extent. Why? Why? You know, I wasn't necessarily a big fan of the Jaguar concept design. I know it's trying to provoke the result of the E type, but I'm pretty sure that William Lyons would, if he was designing cars today, he wouldn't put a big bonnet on, he'd look at something that is more. More contemporary. And so I'm really, you know, I'm really hopeful that some car companies take up that opportunity. To some extent, you see. Of course you would, wouldn't you? But to some extent, you see a little bit in the cybertruck, you see, obviously in the Tello truck. So it's starting to happen.
- [41:07]
A
Yeah.
- [41:07]
B
Lee Auto, have a look at it. It's, yeah, quite. It's quite shocking when you see it, but I love it from the point of view is that they're using that opportunity to change the way that we perceive our vehicles.
- [41:20]
A
Yeah, yeah. So then, I mean, what is your sort of feeling, if you like, optimism or pessimism regarding sort of the current situation in the UK regarding electric vehicles and the growth of that and the companies that are struggling? I mean, what. I'm very excited. This time next week, I'll be on my way to test the new Nissan Leaf. I'm having a drive of it in Copenhagen and I've seen pictures of it and it doesn't look like the Nissan Leaf you did. It looks a bit like a lot of other cars I've test driven in the last year. But I'm really interested because I'm so, You know, it had such a huge impact on my life, that car. It was the. It was, for me, the game changer, the make, the thing that made me go, okay, this stuff works. It's still in early stages, but it works.
- [42:07]
B
You know, I'm entirely biased, of course, because I was obviously so deeply involved in the development of the original Leaf. I'm sure that the new Leaf will be technologically very, very good.
- [42:18]
A
Yeah.
- [42:19]
B
I think they missed the trick by not linking the DNA between the. The first generation and the second generation. I think there should have been some design cues and they're not. It does look like a little bit like an amorphous vehicle. It could be from any brand, and that's a pity, I think. I think Nissan has to rebuild itself as a car company. I think Ivan Espinosa is a great guy. He used to work for me. And with me, I think he's the right man for the job. I hope he can overcome the mistakes of the recent past. And some of those mistakes were quite big ones, like canceling Infinity. Imagine I left in 2014. The, the Infiniti EV was canceled just after I left the company, right? Imagine 2014. Imagine Infiniti now, which is nowhere, right? Imagine Infinity now had it, had it turned to be an electric vehicle only company. And you think about it in the context of where Tesla is, it would have been ahead of Tesla and you know, those are not mistakes of Ivans making. But he has to pick up the, he's got to deal with that and hopefully make some good, good decisions. Robert, EVs are inevitable. I mean, I know that we have, I know that we have lobby groups that want to hang on to petrol vehicles. I think that there is a place for alternative fuels in the future. I think, I believe more than anybody around engineering Darwinism that you have to let the survival of the fittest win. And in some cases, particularly things like maybe sports cars, certainly aviation, you're still going to need liquid fuel, maybe from a synthetic source. But in the main the science of EV will win because of its thermodynamic efficiency and generally speaking because it makes for a better car. If you, if you overcome the limitations which are mainly around range, energy density, in fact, so inevitably that we will get to a world where the majority of, of passenger vehicles are electric. It may not be in the time frame that you and I might have dreamt of, you know, 2030. Yes, it might be a little bit delayed because of those lobby groups. And what I fear most is it will take us a huge shock to get us back on track. And a huge shock unfortunately means a tragedy of some, some form or other around what's happening to our climate. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of cynicism around whether or not climate change is real. Believe me, it's real, the science is real. And our climates are changing and inevitably there will be tragedies. And when we start, when the population as a whole starts linking those tragedies to the changing climate. And whilst we can't change everything immediately, the one thing about transportation is it's the one area where we know how to make it net zero. We can solve 25% of the CO2 problem in one foul swoop by addressing the, the transport industry and moving rapidly to ev. And some of the alternatives, for example, synthetic fuel, that might, might also compete in that space. But for the main. It will be electric vehicles.
- [46:10]
A
Yeah. And I think, I think that. Yes, I, I agree with you. I don't think that any amount of lobbying will stop it. Certainly, I absolutely agree. It could delay it, but it won't stop it. And it is things like, like people's people who've got nothing to do with the automotive industry or cars or anything, for instance, who live in London. I was speaking to someone I didn't know. I just happened to be talking to them yesterday in London and they've noticed that when, I mean, I'll try it to be too gross, but when they blow their nose, it doesn't look like it did 10 years ago. That's what they remember because the air is cleaner. This is on Oxford Street. This person works on Oxford street right in the middle of London, which used to always stink. And you then go, well, there's now nearly two and a half thousand electric buses.
- [46:53]
B
Yes.
- [46:54]
A
On the roads in London, there's probably 25, 30,000 electric taxis. There's a lot of more electric cars, vans, all that stuff.
- [47:03]
B
The speed of transition in public space. And I work a lot with First Group because you're.
- [47:07]
A
Yes, with bus company.
- [47:09]
B
They're an investor in, in my Palmer Energy company.
- [47:13]
A
Right.
- [47:15]
B
They've understood. They've all dabbled with diesel, hybrid.
- [47:21]
A
Right.
- [47:21]
B
Hydrogen, electric. I think it's fair to say that most bus companies have come down to the conclusion that it's electric and they're moving their fleets quickly. Makes. If there's one vehicle type that makes sense to go electric, it's a bus. It's a bus fixed route every day, you know exactly where it's going to go, you know exactly how many miles it's going to do and you know exactly how long it's going to be in the depth of depot. They're already now moving and First Group in particular moving to an understanding that the depots also need to be electrified and batteries need to go into there so that you can control and, and time shift the period of, of charging and of course trade anything, any excess electricity back to the grid. And, and so you, you already see the, those infrastructure companies starting to move. Taxi companies, trains, ships, those are the company. Those that, those understand that it is not necessarily an environmental impact that they're chasing. It's very much from the boardroom going, I can save a lot of money by moving towards electrification. And that naturally follows into private vehicles. As I said, when you embrace basically batteries at home as well as batteries in your car.
- [48:37]
A
Yeah. And I mean, I think A key thing that is I always want to remind people, you know, who aren't quite as obsessed with this area of technology as I am, or possibly you are, but is the, the cost of batteries. I remember well, you'll know for fact what the cost of a kilowatt hour of batteries was when you were developing the Nissan leaf back in $2011,000. And I mean that, I mean the one that we saw that CATL announced at Shanghai, but we saw are the sodium ion batteries for, you know, which they' they will be able to mass produce at a profit at $10 a kilowatt hour. And since then I've actually met quite a few battery engineers in UK who are going. No one knows how they're going to do that, but they're still.
- [49:20]
B
So it's a bit of a.
- [49:21]
A
But Even if it's $25 or $50, it's still game changer.
- [49:25]
B
Look, you can buy a, you can buy a battery cell today for 50 or $60 per kilowatt hour. You've got to obviously got to then put it in a pack. But it's already gone from a thousand to fifty.
- [49:35]
A
Right.
- [49:36]
B
And sodium ion is cheaper. I mean, sodium ion is salt.
- [49:40]
A
Yeah.
- [49:40]
B
But it's less energy dense. So when you think about that, certainly.
- [49:44]
A
For your house battery.
- [49:45]
B
Yeah, no, absolutely. So I do think it's an important technology in the same way as I think solid state is an important technology for the future. It does decouple us from the Chinese supply industry if we're thinking about geopolitical point of view because you can get salt from everywhere. The best salt is coming from desalination process. So we turn seawater into drinking water. So it has, you know, it's a waste product from that, that process, but it's perfect for making sodium batteries.
- [50:15]
A
Wow.
- [50:16]
B
So, so there is a lot of work going on in the industry to improve the energy density of sodium. The other nice thing about sodium batteries is that you can discharge the battery to 0 to 0 energy density to zero energy without damaging the battery. And that's great for transporting batteries around.
- [50:35]
A
The world safe so you can transport them uncharged effectively.
- [50:40]
B
Exactly.
- [50:40]
A
Yeah. Right. Which is. Yes. Which is useful I think, isn't it? From my, my moderate understanding of battery technology. I mean that. Well, I mean we, I, I don't want to take up too much more of your time because that is, we have covered. I'm just looking at my notes a lot of. Actually one of the things I, this is, I thought was just extraordinary and I knew nothing about this. But the women's engineering department have awarded you as a, as a, a men, as ally. What was it? What was the. I just thought that was great because I've met more, well, more and more engineers that are working in Formula one and automotive development stuff, you know, that are women that you just. That it's becoming more normal and it's. So that is for old gits like me, that's really, that's a big change, you know, from when I remember going in engineering departments 40 years ago.
- [51:29]
B
Men as an ally.
- [51:31]
A
Yeah.
- [51:32]
B
My, my perspective on, on equality has got nothing really to do with equality in itself. My point is, right, your engineering department or your design department or your business should really represent the demography of your sales and the idea that you've got a bunch of middle aged men, white blokes. Yeah. Or in Japan, Japanese blokes. But yeah, speaking, you go into any, you go into any drawing office around the world and you'll find that it's not very diverse. And the idea that you can design a car that is well adapted to a woman, to everyone or to everybody or to different countries is absurd. And so it's the whole diversity discussion and the encouragement of welcoming females into the workplace, into the, into the engineering department. Having a key part of the management structure is all to do with the balance sheet of your company. It's all to do with maximizing profits, but because you're going to make better cars. And I saw it, for example, in engineering the Aston Martin DBX. What we saw there was something like 96, 97% of Aston Martin customers were male and.
- [52:53]
A
Right.
- [52:53]
B
But every Aston Martin owner almost certainly had an SUV in their garage and it wasn't an Aston and it was often driven by the female of the family. And to reach that, you weren't going to do that by engineering, engineering, another pure Aston Martin, you had to reach your customers. So we created essentially a female board of directors that sat alongside our engineering department and helped with the interaction right from the very concept stage through the engineering, right through to the marketing. So I think women in engineering, we need more, we need to encourage it more. It's our responsibility as leaders in the OEMs to make it more welcoming. But my point is don't do it just because you think it's a nice thing to do. It will help your balance sheet.
- [53:48]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, very good. I think that's an excellent positive note to end on and it's been a genuine pleasure talking to you. I just, you know, I'm full of Admiration for what you've achieved in your. In your life and, and don't stop, carry on.
- [54:07]
B
Getting a little. A little long in the tooth now, but still, still, still going. Just, just bought a battery control company in, in Oxford, so integrating Oxford University technology into static batteries through Palmer Energy. And so, yeah, still, still trying to innovate.
- [54:26]
A
Robert, that's fantastic because they, I mean, that is such a. Fascinating how. I did a talk for the Faraday Institute very recently and, I mean, what they're up to is staggering. I mean, it is very. I mean, that's the thing I always want to try and communicate is the excitement of what's, what's being developed, what's being talked about, how that's. And that was such an amazing. That audience was amazing.
- [54:49]
B
There's still a place where UK technology can win. The point is you have to nurture it.
- [54:55]
A
Yes. Yeah, good one. Let's leave it there. Brilliant. I want to talk to you again as soon as we can, Andy. It's been real joy. Thank you so much.
- [55:01]
B
Always, always a huge pleasure. Thank you.
- [55:06]
A
I really hope you enjoyed that. I should, of course, have introduced Andy as Dr. Andy Palmer because he's proper clever. That's very rude of me. I just don't think of him in those terms. But, yeah, no, it was a real joy to, to do that. I really hope, if you're around this weekend in the uk, you can get along to the Farnborough show. Everything electric in Farnborough, still some tickets available, although it has been a little bit busier than in past years. And we're going to have a big crowd there. What else are we doing after that? We're in Melbourne, which I'm really looking forward to. That's going to be exciting. That's the first show we've done in Melbourne that's looking way more exciting than I dared hope. I think there's just a lot going on around the world. I mean, domestic batteries in Australia. We did mention them in the show then. I mean, it's just bonkers what's happening and how that is affecting the whole energy infrastructure in the country. That's enough of this particular old git waffling on. Please do tell your friends about this podcast if you can. It's not hard to tell them about it. Tell them to have a listen if you haven't subscribed to it. It does make a difference to us. Not financially, just helps the whole show grow, doesn't cost anything. And that's it. As always, if you have been. Thank you for watching. Now visit Electric Vehicles Expert, where you can follow everything electric and keep current with Clean Technica, the Driven Electrek and many more.