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Everything Electric Podcast
Making Sense of 2026: Tr*mp? Tech? China? & The Rise of the Robots!
01:02:17
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- [00:00]
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- [01:12]
Robert Llewellyn
Hello and welcome to the Everything Electric Podcast coming to you today live from the Everything Electric offices. It's all very quiet because they've all had to go out. While we're recording this, we're going to talk about a few really interesting topics today. I'm here with Dan Caesar, CEO of the Fully Charged show and we want to cover some areas. We've not seen each other for a while and so we're going to sort of do a kind of catch up with each other. So we're going to be talking about world affairs, how the world has shifted because it is quite dramatic and it does affect the world that we operate in. It's not like it's not like over there world affairs. It's like yeah, right in your face, world affairs. We're going to be talking about electric cars, obviously, and all the different cars that are coming out and we're seeing soon and we've driven recently and the tech realities of how the technology that we cover in the broadest sense, you know, from sort of cookers with batteries in to robots, to flying things, electric ships, all that stuff. We're going to try and cover all that in one succinct, ethically sourced episode of the Ethnic Electric podcast. So please do subscribe and also tell your friends about it because we do cover some really fascinating topics and we have amazing guests on this particular podcast. So and we also, we came second in some competition which I've completely forgotten about but you know that is very exciting as well.
- [02:31]
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Robert Llewellyn
But I haven't seen you for what, it's just over three months I think and I've just come back from Australia two days ago.
- [02:56]
Dan Caesar
I think we haven't even actually spoken much this time around because you've been going down to Australia every kind of winter for quite a long time and normally we speak a bit more often this time we've probably, we might have spoken half a dozen times I think in the last three months which is, which sounds like we're dysfunctional but let me rest, let me rest. Everyone at ease. We're not dysfunctional, we're high functioning. Yeah, you're high functioning, high performing. No, it's been a while, hasn't it? And quite a lot has happened.
- [03:24]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
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Dan Caesar
In the intervening period. But you're back in England which is amazing because you were missed.
- [03:30]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. Thank you very much.
- [03:31]
Dan Caesar
You're really healthy.
- [03:32]
Robert Llewellyn
Well I do, I feel good at the moment considering this is, this is a slightly special year for me in terms of age.
- [03:39]
Dan Caesar
Didn't like to bring it up. No.
- [03:40]
Robert Llewellyn
But you know, have to face it, I've actually really think about. No one says 70 is the new 50, they just say 70 is 70, maybe the new 60, it's the new 70. It's just that anyway, that's irrelevant as we all know it, how you feel rather than the fact that you fall over quite a lot and you've got backache.
- [04:02]
Dan Caesar
Well, you look extremely healthy and relaxed so we hope to change that now.
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Robert Llewellyn
You'Re back it's going to get really stressy. I mean what's happened, what I feel has happened bigly while I've been away is the USA doing whatever it does and I kind of feel it's quite a healthy thing for the rest of the world's mental health. So for the entire population, which is 96% of the global population are not American, they're every other race. So it's very good for us to really just close that down. Don't read any news, don't follow anyone, don't listen to any people that come from there, just ignore them all the poor ones that the majority of Americans who Do not like this current administration. I feel terribly sorry for, because that's terrible, but I don't want to hear anything about it. It's pointless garbage.
- [04:53]
Dan Caesar
It is a year since I'm not even gonna call him his name because I've heard that if you actually use his name, it actually suppresses content on YouTube and on other algorithmic platforms. So I'm not gonna mention his name, but let's just call him Epstein's wingman or something as shorthand. And you know, it's been a year since he's been back in the White House and it's been extraordinary to witness. And the reality is that he is a great disruptor.
- [05:27]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [05:28]
Dan Caesar
Not of the positive variety. He effectively says pretty much whatever he's thinking. We saw that this week. I think we're going to talk a little bit about that. And the reality what he's doing, in my opinion is he is trying to be disruptive. Because if he disrupts with the megaphone that he's got, you know, being president of South Canada south with that kind of amplification, everything he says can move markets. So when he says something disruptive, it moves a market and then he goes.
- [06:03]
Robert Llewellyn
Back and he doesn't do anything.
- [06:04]
Dan Caesar
Him and his ghouls make a killing.
- [06:06]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, of course they do.
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Dan Caesar
And it really is all about market manipulation. So what we've seen, I think in the, in the markets that we operate in is clearly, he's very clearly rolled back on certain technologies, electric vehicles being one of them. And we've seen that impact our industry and our business very, very significantly. I'm sure we'll get into that in a bit more detail. And obviously this week he talks about, you know, there aren't any wind turbines in China apparently.
- [06:32]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, that is extraordinary thing to say.
- [06:35]
Dan Caesar
A great graph. I think I sent it to you today which, which proves that China's got.
- [06:38]
Robert Llewellyn
It'S got by far and away most.
- [06:39]
Dan Caesar
Of anyone on the turbines than anywhere else on the planet. So we're dealing with something completely new and pretty scary to be honest. And I noticed that there's lots of talk this week that we, we've left a period of the kind of rules based world order.
- [06:56]
Robert Llewellyn
World War II order euphemism is that.
- [06:59]
Dan Caesar
Rule leaving the rules based world order as chaos.
- [07:03]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [07:03]
Dan Caesar
And the world doesn't operate too well on chaos. So it's. Unfortunately we've had an interesting year and I think the year ahead could, could get even trickier. I think without wish to be too.
- [07:17]
Robert Llewellyn
Too negative, but I mean, I Do feel there are. I mean, there are. When the positive signs come, I cling onto those for dear life, obviously. But the fact that more and more countries are sort of asserting themselves away from America and away from the hegemony of American culture, you know, that is I think, a very healthy state for the world to be in anyway regard. Even if he wasn't in power, they're much too interesting. We give them much too much interest, the Americans and I just think make America boring and just ignore it. If you hear his voice, turn, whatever you hear it on, turn off immediately. Do not hear that vile piece of mouthpiece of obscenity, you know, just to cut it off. Because I mean, what he said today, I think, or yesterday about the British army in Afghanistan. I totally didn't support the British army going to Afghanistan, but it wasn't the soldier's fault. But I'd met three and I can think of soldiers who fought in Afghanistan who lost their legs fighting in Afghanistan. Over 450 British soldiers were killed there. And he said they weren't in their action, they were staying back because he doesn't care. He's just been into everyone in the world.
- [08:27]
Dan Caesar
But was he not the guy who didn't get drafted because he was very.
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Robert Llewellyn
Chickened out of joining the army? The lazy, scummy piece of.
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Dan Caesar
I mean it.
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Robert Llewellyn
Cowardly piece of poo.
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Dan Caesar
It is extraordinary. And you know, we're just fresh out of the, the Davos.
- [08:43]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Dan Caesar
Summit in Switzerland and we weren't there. We weren't there. We definitely wouldn't get invited to that. We wouldn't go. I normally go and you know, to see. I think there was a massive queue of people trying to get into that room and listen to what he had to say. And then they would greet him with sort of a two hour stream of consciousness full of sort of bile, bitterness, racism. Yeah. And you know, everyone was just like rubbernecking to see what he would say. And the contrast, you know, you sent me the video of Mark Carney. Couldn't have been stalker.
- [09:20]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's the only, the only hope I'm getting is that the level of obscenity of the current administration there, it's so vile, it's so ugly. Gargoyle, like ugly that anyone that sort of stands up and goes, well, we could live in a different way where we get on with each other and we shake things and we don't judge people on the color of their skin or their sexuality. You know, you go, oh, there's someone speaking like normal human rather than hideous, twisted, gargoyle, hate filled pus bucket. But anyway, I mean, I don't really want to give them any more time because it sort of.
- [09:54]
Dan Caesar
But we've grown up, you know, growing up, you know, that culture, the American culture has been absolutely central to, pervasive, particularly where we live in the UK and because we speak the, the same language. Because, you know, actually we look to Hollywood and we look to, you know, all their sort of cultural monuments and that's what we kind of, you know, kind of brainwashes us over many, many years. To see that now and look at it through a totally different lens is really fascinating. But you know, like you said, only 4% of the population of the world is American and probably I would say maybe only quarter of those support Trump.
- [10:28]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, yeah. So it's a tiny.
- [10:30]
Dan Caesar
I feel very, very sorry for those who are kind of.
- [10:32]
Robert Llewellyn
Oh, I mean, my friends in America, I've got. They don't, they now don't. Even if I say something, they don't respond because they don't want to risk it. It's dangerous. Now I really, I understand, I don't say anything negative about them to them because it's, it's like being in Nazi Germany. I mean, you're going to have, you're going to be asked for your papers.
- [10:52]
Dan Caesar
We have a. We haven't gone there.
- [10:54]
Robert Llewellyn
No.
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Dan Caesar
And there's no plans for us to.
- [10:58]
Robert Llewellyn
Oh, I see. To go to America.
- [11:00]
Dan Caesar
No. I certainly personally am professionally have no plans to go into the us. We obviously did our big Canadian show back in September that certainly took a hit because of the mood change in North America in general. EV sales were down 40% in Canada even.
- [11:17]
Robert Llewellyn
Wow.
- [11:18]
Dan Caesar
Sort of year on year. They effectively Cardi was not kind of anti ev, but they just let their rebates and their support for EVs lapse in a bigger environment in North America where America was sort of rolling back. So had America not rolled back, Canada might have kept up the pace as well. They didn't. And in any event, EV sales went down very significantly. And so what we're seeing specifically on everything electric, the fully charged family, is a real change in terms of hybrids, plug in hybrids, a real kind of mood shift in the market overall.
- [11:51]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean, there has just been the announcement in Canada they are reducing all. They're importing Chinese electric cars now.
- [11:57]
Dan Caesar
Yes, big B, Yes. So I think they are going to import something like 49,000 electric vehicles from Chinese made electric vehicles. There is some supposition that some of Those. Some of that quote will be taken up by Tesla because Tesla has its Shanghai gigafactory. But no, I think that's great news. Yeah. And, yeah, this is the moment where, you know, it's perfectly acceptable for Mark Carney to go to China and broad relationships there. And Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the uk, is headed out to Beijing in the next week or so.
- [12:28]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
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Dan Caesar
As well. And it's expected he will also be, you know, trying to go back to what was the sort of golden era between David Cameron and Xi Jinping. But there's been a, you know, it's been a pretty frosty relationship over the last sort of decade or so. And so there's some acceptance that he will go over there and there will be a broader relation. There's a. While you're away, the Chinese Embassy in London has been approved.
- [12:53]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes, I didn't know that.
- [12:54]
Dan Caesar
That probably won't be, I think, announced formally until post the Beijing trip. But I think there was a caveat. You know, if you're going to come to Beijing, we need that bit to be sorted first. Anyway, it's the murky world of the geopolitical global order, but the reality is that suddenly China seems extraordinarily benign. It's weird, certainly, relatively benign and very ordered, very stable, with a plan. So, yeah, we're seeing that play out because so much of what we talk about, whether it's batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, all shapes and sizes, a huge percentage, I've got to quickly.
- [13:31]
Robert Llewellyn
Say, spent a lot of time in America. I've been there many, many times. I've worked there, lived there and worked there. And I was always slightly frightened, you know, just not just in normal life, going down the shops, going to a bar, just slightly edgy because they are mad and they've all got guns. And I go to China for the first time last year, never been before, was greeted by the passport control in.
- [13:56]
Dan Caesar
English, welcome to China.
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Robert Llewellyn
Stuck my password. I mean, I had a proper visa and everything went around China. Not for one moment did I have any fear or anxiety. It was the most peaceful, orderly, safe environment. I was in the middle of a massive city in Shanghai and I don't think there's anywhere I've been where I felt less under threat.
- [14:16]
Dan Caesar
So now I was, as a Brit, I felt more contempt from the airport staff at Brussels airport recently, but that's a whole other story. And that might have something to do with Brexit, but, you know, the reality is that, you know, the world is changing fast yeah. And what's interesting is the markets that we're in, they feel a huge, a huge knock on effect. So it's definitely, you know, it's meant that we've, we've had to duck and die.
- [14:40]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [14:41]
Dan Caesar
Be clever to how we, how we kind of develop our business. But at the moment, I mean, why would you watch an episode about all these wonderful electric cars.
- [14:48]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. If you can't get in America. All the only comments now from Americans on our channel, unless it's an American car. I can't even remember the last time we would have done one. But they're all, I wish we could have these. Oh, I'd love one of those. How can I get one? You know, because they don't have them. I mean that's not just Chinese Renault 5.
- [15:07]
Dan Caesar
I mean Jack has just done the kind of annual, kind of everything, electric cars roundup of all the cars, you know, and there's some amazing ones coming. They're just getting better and better and better. And no, they're not all Chinese. There's amazing cars from Korea.
- [15:19]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Dan Caesar
Amazing cars from, from Europe and from, from elsewhere. So it's far from just China only. But yeah, I think, I don't know, I'd have to do the maths. I think there's something like 160 models available in the UK now.
- [15:31]
Robert Llewellyn
Wow.
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Dan Caesar
I would say I'd be surprised if there's even half of that on sale in the us. I'd have to, I'd have to check but it will be a much, much lower number. And yeah, they're missing out on some of the, some of the very best cars. What interests me about America is, as I mentioned, is the sort of, is the CS show took recently a place in Las Vegas and at that show the Detroit based manufacturers or Detroit originator manufacturers weren't there. But some of the Chinese brands were still there. They were there with the awareness that no wall stands forever.
- [16:07]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Dan Caesar
And ultimately they'll be able to get in. So I think Geely were there, Zika were there, great wall motors were there sort of biding their time, patiently waiting for the moment.
- [16:16]
Robert Llewellyn
But they actually got, they had cars on display. Yeah, that's so funny. So Americans could see it. Yeah, see them.
- [16:23]
Dan Caesar
And they were very, very busy. So you've got some really odd things going on. Meanwhile I was at Brussels Motor show which was full of people, full of amazing cars. Suddenly the European manufacturers were there en masse as they were in Munich in September because of the threat from, from China and from Korea. So Those motor shows have sort of come roaring back to life. So while I agree with you, giving America too much airtime is.
- [16:48]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Dan Caesar
Something I would also like to avoid, the reality is that we can do that and we can kind of shut off that noise, but we also have to be aware that pretty much everything we do is on an American platform.
- [17:01]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
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Dan Caesar
So we have a YouTube channel. Spotify is mostly Swedish, but I think it's got lots of investors all around the world.
- [17:09]
Robert Llewellyn
All those things.
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Dan Caesar
Instagram, you know, TikTok is now going to have an American entity. X. Remember that used to be called Twitter, if you remember that. I remember that.
- [17:19]
Robert Llewellyn
Never used it.
- [17:20]
Dan Caesar
All those platforms are American and LinkedIn for example, as well. And so I was posting some stuff around America on LinkedIn recently and I noticed it got no views. Like I know consistently how much a post would get. Got no views. It might have been quite critical of, you know, Donny. And it just. It didn't get shared, it didn't get served to Americans at all. And so what's interesting now, you've got these kind of digital walls that have been built up. So the trade wall, the tariff wall will come down. China knows that. But actually everything we're seeing is served through an American lens, an American filter. And I just think it's highly ironic that what we're doing, not always, but often we're talking about, you know, cars that come from China, batteries that come from China. We're actually promulgating and pushing out information on those things through American filters.
- [18:13]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [18:14]
Dan Caesar
And so actually that's not great because the reality is that it's actually, you know, we can't really control the amount of views, you know, what's happening with those sorts of things. We don't know if we mention, you know, famous presidents, for example, whether, you know, that's getting, you know, suppressed. Views are getting suppressed. So that's complicated. But psychologically for Americans, they're not seeing.
- [18:37]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. What's going on?
- [18:39]
Dan Caesar
Condemnation for him.
- [18:40]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Dan Caesar
Different technology. So they actually have. It's very strange. They're building a sort of digital moat around. Around that country which ultimately leads nowhere. Nowhere good. So let's hope that over time there is a free, fair election in America and there is, you know, the pendulum swings back to a more natural place. But I'm worried that it won't.
- [19:00]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, no, me too. Yeah, no, it is. I mean, that is a big. It's just been launched today, a European based social networking thing.
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Dan Caesar
Has it?
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Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Dan Caesar
What's that called? Do you know?
- [19:12]
Robert Llewellyn
I Can't remember. It's only. I think it's like today or yesterday.
- [19:16]
Dan Caesar
No, I was thinking, I was thinking. Absolutely.
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Robert Llewellyn
I mean, there's another one that I've used called Monet. Yes, Monet. And every time I go on it, I go, it's nothing. I mean, it's not, it's not huge.
- [19:27]
Dan Caesar
No, there's a. There's a French equivalent to Instagram again, I forgot the name of that. So I'm, you know, I think that's what it is.
- [19:33]
Robert Llewellyn
Monet is the pictures, the reality.
- [19:36]
Dan Caesar
I was thinking, you know, Europe really needs to get in the game with this sort of stuff. You know, a lot of fuss about, you know, Chinese cars. Could they all be turned off with a kill switch? Which is rubbish in my opinion, but very little said about American social media. And, you know, my children are, you know.
- [19:53]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Dan Caesar
Looking at these different platforms, you know, we all are.
- [19:57]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
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Dan Caesar
We're actually getting information from a source now. You'd have to say a slightly questionable. So I did at the time think, you know, would be great if Europe kind of had some of these platforms of our own.
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Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [20:15]
Dan Caesar
So one of the things I thought would be interesting to do is to. Is to talk about specific technologies because we haven't had that kind of a chat for quite a long time. I think I can. I think you and I are quite well known for being a little bit skeptical about hydrogen vehicles.
- [20:32]
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- [21:02]
Dan Caesar
And I think that time has shown us to be on the money there. I don't think it was a great surprise that that's the case that, you know, they can't sell them the ones they can sell. They're trying to giveaway. So. But we've never, we haven't checked in on this sort of thing for quite a long time because a lot of things have moved forward. Some things, obviously, electric vehicle market people will say it's growing slower than anticipated. Some people might say it's going backwards, which is not true.
- [21:27]
Robert Llewellyn
It is growing, still growing.
- [21:29]
Dan Caesar
It is growing. It is still growing at a good pace. Maybe not quite the pace that some venture capitalists hoped it would grow. And so There is some tension and there's clear, clearly a lot more work to be done. And actually misinformation, industrial scale misinformation of a decade has actually kept demand lower. If there was no misinformation and people knew the truth that EVs were cheaper and better, they'd be selling in higher quantities. But there's no real panic there. We know the direction of travel, we know that over the next 10 years or so, mostly everyone will be buying battery electric vehicles come 20, 35 and in some cases some countries much, much sooner. In fact, it's one country that's happening already. So we know that. But I think we haven't talked about electric flight and even things like drones and vertical takeoff and land. We haven't talked about the different kind of technologies, nuclear, all those things. I wonder where your head's at and what's, what's real and what's not. Because for me, if we started with transport, I have always felt very, very strongly that public transport should be the primary.
- [22:29]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Dan Caesar
But that hasn't really moved forward in a meaningful way because it is so.
- [22:37]
Robert Llewellyn
Expensive to put it in. Yeah.
- [22:39]
Dan Caesar
So you could go on a car journey or you could go on a train journey. If you're not in the uk, you might understand that. But in the UK it would be way more expensive to go on a.
- [22:49]
Robert Llewellyn
Train journey, hire a helicopter or a private jet. Cheaper than taking four people on a train.
- [22:54]
Dan Caesar
But we talk about cars a lot and I always think, well, people now think of us as the car guys. Right. And I'm like, well actually I don't necessarily think that is the best way forward, but we seem to be in a, in a world where car culture is hardwired into us.
- [23:07]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [23:07]
Dan Caesar
Through billions of pounds worth of advertising. And if people can afford cars, that seems to be the, the preference. Meanwhile, public transport, has it moved forward in the uk? I would say it's gone backwards.
- [23:18]
Robert Llewellyn
I would defend London, I mean, because I don't know any other cities well enough. No, it's happened all over. But London has made an enormous shift in the Elizabeth line for one thing. So there is a new incredibly good, incredibly fast train right across London East West. Amazing. But the buses, I think that has made a really big impact. I walked through London yesterday and there was a queue of buses at one point on the near Notting Hill and they were all electric, all of them. And they just now coming up a 2000 double decker classic red London buses are electric and that's made a big difference to the, the Air quality in London and the delivery vans and the little. It's not, you know, if, even if you get an Uber eats bike, it's no longer a 2cc scooter, it's an electric bike. They do go too fast. Well, there was a man that was arrested, an Uber deliverer delivery on a bike, 72 miles an hour. He was, he was clocked at by a car chasing him. I mean that pizza could not arrive cold.
- [24:25]
Dan Caesar
That's dangerous. But yeah, I mean, anyway, yeah, having been to Sydney a couple of times in recent years, they've just implementing their new vehicle emission standards there. But going walking around Sydney, I sort of choke on the air. Yeah, it's really like you say in London, you can walk around now and actually the knock on effect is electric buses, more electric cars, electric taxis. So that makes the whole city more walkable.
- [24:46]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
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Dan Caesar
And I personally like if I can like to walk around London if weather allows and all the rest of it. But I mean certainly public transport. So London's quite an interesting case I think because it is, it dominates the uk, doesn't it in terms of policy, all those things and hopefully that's been devolved into Manchester and Birmingham and so on and so forth. But the intercity stuff train, that's very, very expensive. And then when we spent quite a lot of time in Utrecht and Amsterdam and places like that and always green with jealousy at their kind of, you know, their micro mobility bikes in particular, that is something again in London. You could look at that as saying that's developed.
- [25:28]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
- [25:28]
Dan Caesar
Could you say that outside of London and the uk? I suppose it is a growing market, but not everyone's got an electric bike and, and I don't think everyone will get an electric bike. And I think that market has since COVID sort of not grown at anything like the speed that we all might have hoped.
- [25:45]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes, I think that also is so weather. I mean Sydney, there is a real boom of electric mobility, electric micro mobility, electric bikes because it's. Because you're not riding through cold rain most of the time. I mean it did actually rain a hell of a lot when I was there this time. But generally speaking speaking, you know, it's a sunnier, warmer place than we are, than we are here.
- [26:06]
Dan Caesar
Well, I mean if they can make it work in Amsterdam. I love seeing, you know, a family taking their kids to school in a cargo bike. I mean I think that's just, just fantastic when I see that. And then the bigger end of the spectrum for vehicles, I'm thinking about things like, well Commercial vehicles and bigger HGV that will go electric, I'm confident. But what about kind of marine and kind of the kind of the aviation what have you, what's your kind of view on where that's going?
- [26:32]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean I think aviation realistically is, you know, having just flown back on an Airbus A380 that's not going to be an electric equivalent, there's not going to be electric equivalent machine of that unless there's some spooky sci fi technology developed, you know, certainly not in your lifetime, my lifetime or anyone watching this lifetime. I mean the amount of energy that's needed to move that size of thing is mind boggling. It's kind of gigawatts, it's in the gigawatt spectrum. I talked to Elliot the other day and it's going to be on the, on the show about small two seater drones. Effectively or fully autonomous, they have to fly so they've legislated for them the low altitude. So it's under a thousand meters high, 1,000 meters, quite high. But it's not where you know, even a private plane would fly 4 or 5,000 meters and a, you know, commercial jets hard now and that is a thing that you can hop across a city in those, you know and you get. And there's a great, I found a great bit of footage of a Chinese journalist in it and I couldn't understand what she was saying but she, she got in and she was, you could tell, terrified, no one else there. And this thing, you know, it went up but she went up in it and it flew around in a big circle and landed again.
- [27:50]
Dan Caesar
Yeah, I'd be quite scared I think first time to go in one of those.
- [27:55]
Robert Llewellyn
But I think that will happen in a way that we still can't really tell. It'll either be super luxury executive only flying off the rooftop of your office to the local airport or I think the more likely is delivering stuff so that I can really see a role for that. So there are plane like drones, I saw one in Shanghai. So they've got wings but they don't need a Runway. So they go up straight up. But once they're up they fly along like a regular aircraft, fully autonomous, no pilots with a payload, you know, it could deliver medical stuff or whatever, you know.
- [28:29]
Dan Caesar
Yeah, I could see that happening and obviously you're going to see that first in China. It's a bit like firework displays that now drones in China, which is extraordinary to see but I have, you know, if you look at Catl and What they're doing, the energy density of some of the stuff they've got coming does make it look like short hop flying.
- [28:50]
Robert Llewellyn
Will be a possibility. Yes, I think so.
- [28:52]
Dan Caesar
So I wonder. It was interesting to see how that develops. You know, could you go to London to Manchester for example or London to Paris or something? I think that will happen.
- [29:00]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [29:01]
Dan Caesar
In our lifetimes.
- [29:02]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. Certainly in yours.
- [29:04]
Dan Caesar
Yeah. I didn't like to say none of us know.
- [29:08]
Robert Llewellyn
None of us know. It's a mystery. But I mean the thing that. The two things that I think are interesting, certainly the. I wish I had time to go and see it. The. The ferry that we went to see last year, the Inkat ferry in Tasmania that's running right. Yeah. It's undergoing sea trials. It works, it goes along and that was not a little boat with some batteries. It was a ship.
- [29:31]
Dan Caesar
Yeah.
- [29:32]
Robert Llewellyn
You know it can. I can't remember how many cars. It's hundreds of cars and three and a half thousand passengers. So it's a proper ferry. Like you go across the channel and that's 100% electric. It will go across the River Plate in between Argentina and Uruguay.
- [29:46]
Dan Caesar
Sounds right.
- [29:46]
Robert Llewellyn
I think that's right. Not Paraguay, it's Uruguay. I think it is. Yeah. I could point to it on a map. But anyway that is amazing. And that will be totally powered by wind because the people who bought it have wind farms already. So it'll be wind and solar charge. You know that's the fuel that's going into it. So if.
- [30:07]
Dan Caesar
And that and the longer range shipping because a high percentage of that is actually people moving fossil fuels around. Fossil fuels around as well. Right. So.
- [30:15]
Robert Llewellyn
So that is a. That I really don't know how you would do that. So I think coastal shipping.
- [30:19]
Dan Caesar
Yeah.
- [30:20]
Robert Llewellyn
Will be fully electric. Just makes economic sense. Any ferries across seas? So the channel ferries there'll be electric it. You know what are you going to buy loads of diesel? Of course you're not. If you can get away with it and you can charge it where you can build your own wind turbines and you can use that electricity as a company or solar panels or whatever. It makes so much economic sense to do that.
- [30:41]
Dan Caesar
So I guess for planes that and for marine. Oceans are the problem, right? Yeah.
- [30:46]
Robert Llewellyn
Smaller seas, long haul flights and I mean if we didn't use as much fossil fuel we would cut global shipping down by, you know it's 40% of all shipping at the moment is fossil fuel. We're never going to reduce it altogether but you could probably reduce it by, you know, in a fantasy world by 60% so that there's a tiny amount of big ships pushing oil through water.
- [31:09]
Dan Caesar
It's quite interesting, isn't it? Because then you could see, you know, there's going to be one set of solutions for the Americas.
- [31:15]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [31:15]
Dan Caesar
A different set of solutions for. Oh, it's very different for Europe, North Africa, sort of Middle east and then different solutions, solutions for, you know, Oceano and things like that. But it sort of separates the continents in a way because you can't do, you can't really do long haul electric flight. Are you kind of. There's a. Anyway, maybe that's why Greenland's so strategically important.
- [31:39]
Robert Llewellyn
But the thing that, the thing that really struck me in Australia and was quite big news there was, was household batteries. So there was a government scheme supporting the installation of household batteries and it was just. I thought it would be like, oh, they put in a thousand, they put in 200,000 household batteries and they're not. What I also thought was they'd be like ones I have, you know, 13 and a half kilowatt hours. I've got 26 kilowatt hours. People are putting in 60 kilowatt hours.
- [32:05]
Dan Caesar
I think they've even modulated the policy, haven't they, to incentivize slightly smaller batteries.
- [32:10]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
- [32:11]
Dan Caesar
Because we're putting in such big batteries. But actually I would say. And Chris Bowen, who is kind of the face of all of that down, great guy, friend of a friend of everything electric, he gets on quite well with Ed Miliband, apparently. But actually in the uk, to be fair, since you've been away, they have not only extended the electric car grant, they've also started advertising EVs in a new campaign called get the Electric Feeling, which has started a few days ago. And they've just actually announced that the warm homes plan is going to put quite a lot of money into insulation, solar heat pumps, I think batteries as well, but I'd have to check. So while the Labour government in the UK has been in power for over a year and a half now, and I would certainly say some things happen too slowly. There are some things happening. But, yeah, Australia is a fantastic place in the moment in terms of how progressive it's being. You know, the things that it's, that it's doing, it's becoming a bit of a, A world leader in its own right.
- [33:14]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. But I mean the other thing about all those batteries is they're all linked, so they're, they're all dischargeable into the grid, which we haven't really Got that? Well, we have got it, but it's a bit haphazard. But that is. They're built to do that. The grid around them is built to do that. So they are helping power the country at certain times. And as a homeowner, you sell that electricity. And it is Sarah Aubrey.
- [33:37]
Dan Caesar
Yeah.
- [33:38]
Robert Llewellyn
Who's going to be making some shows for us. I mean, she's amazing, but her house, she hasn't got. She's not got a big solar array, but she's got a massive battery. So she charges her battery in the daytime. Grid electricity is incredibly cheap if you've got the right tariff. So the grid electricity is in the 1, 2, 3 cents a kilowatt hour. But she's also got her solar at 7 in the evening when there's high demand and the price goes sometimes insane. She sells 20 kilowatt hours and it's a lot of actual money. It's thousands of pounds, thousands of dollars a year she earns from living in a house with solar panels and a battery. She doesn't, you know, it's transformative. And there's. Now, there's the thing called the Snowy river pumped hydro scheme. That's what being built at the moment, which is fantastic. But the Snowy river was built in the 50s and 60s. It's a big dam up in the Blue Mountains with, you know, it's a hydroelectric thing. There's now more electricity available to the, to Australia's grid from domestic batteries than from the Snowy river project. And it's a big thing. It's not a little stream, it's a massive river that produces gigawatts. You know, I mean, it's, it's amazing what they've done in that in very, very short time since, since July of last year to now. There's two.
- [34:54]
Dan Caesar
You've spent time in Norway and in Canada. We're big advocates of hydro. So for us, that big is a battery.
- [35:00]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [35:00]
Dan Caesar
In its own right.
- [35:01]
Robert Llewellyn
Well, they're now doing a big pump that isn't pump storage at the moment. It's just a river that they blocked up and it goes through.
- [35:08]
Dan Caesar
That's great. There's some, there's some talk about doing some tidal stuff again in the uk. You know, we're big fans of energy storage in general, but obviously home batteries to the, to the bigger battery energy storage. Solar clearly is a winner. Why wouldn't you have that? Energy efficiency, insulation, heat pumps, other electrification of heat technologies. If you haven't seen it, we did a great episode on electric battery, which can replace your Combi boiler called the Luftmore, which is being developed by the guys out of Dyson Sodium ion batteries. All these different chemistries coming along. There's a huge amount of. To be positive about. Australia's obviously being really proactive with bi directional.
- [35:43]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [35:43]
Dan Caesar
And all the vehicle to grid, vehicle to home, vehicle to load stuff as well. I talked to someone who's getting a Kia PV5 and they've got their own karaoke business. We might see them on some of our shows next year. Right. And they're calling it Vehicle to Fun, which I quite liked. V2F. What about nuclear? Because that I. Trump mentioned that this week. Mentioned him.
- [36:02]
Robert Llewellyn
Damn, you've used the name. Damn. Cut that out.
- [36:06]
Dan Caesar
He mentioned that this week. Fukushima is being turned back on, I think. And also let's talk about small modular reactors and things like what's your fusion obviously might be a bit further away, but.
- [36:15]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [36:15]
Dan Caesar
What's your. Has your view change on that or you're not up to date on it?
- [36:19]
Robert Llewellyn
I don't think it has changed. I mean I've always, you know, just. If you look at the statistics of the global fleet of nuclear power plants, 99.5% of them have been incredibly safe. They've run for an incredible amount of time. They've been incredibly reliable. The one or two that went wrong was a big problem. But you know that you can't judge that whole thing. You know, the amount of people who died as a result of burning coal. So who dug it up, who transported it, who burnt it, who lived with the smoke is off the scale. I mean it will be. Millions of people died as a result of burning coal and it's maybe some. Thousands might have died as a result of Chernobyl or Fukushima.
- [37:00]
Dan Caesar
Yeah, that's a good way of looking.
- [37:01]
Robert Llewellyn
It's a cruel thing to. Because any death is bad. But it's so much safer than other technologies.
- [37:07]
Dan Caesar
You know, for us, you know, it's the cost though. It's the economics of it rather than the safety. Because I think if you're going to build something like that, you have to build it in a certain way. Small modular reactor. I'm interested to see how that develops.
- [37:18]
Robert Llewellyn
But yeah, I mean I'm worried that. Because it feels to me that SMRs are nudging into the same category.
- [37:27]
Dan Caesar
Well, they're getting bigger.
- [37:28]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, yeah, they're getting bigger. They're not that small, but also in the same category as carbon capture and storage.
- [37:33]
Dan Caesar
Yeah.
- [37:34]
Robert Llewellyn
As green. Green fuel, you know, catalytic. It's just all these things they're kind of really. I don't.
- [37:41]
Dan Caesar
Maybe we should do that list of things that we don't think is going to make it like hydrogen for passenger.
- [37:45]
Robert Llewellyn
Vehicles, hydrogen for even hydrogen for lorries.
- [37:49]
Dan Caesar
I don't think is going to be a thing. So. So there's that. Then there's the synthetic fish fuels. You know, hybrids.
- [37:57]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [37:57]
Dan Caesar
Plugless hybrids have had their day.
- [37:59]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [37:59]
Dan Caesar
Plug, plug in PHEVs and E Revs, the range extended ones have still got a bit of a journey but ultimately they're trains in one vehicle. They're not as good.
- [38:09]
Robert Llewellyn
You know, if you see the report about how often they're plugged in, it's so shocking. As in they're not. Yeah, yeah. 90 of people who drive them never plug them in. They don't even know how to.
- [38:18]
Dan Caesar
So battery EVs are better, they're simpler. Simpler. They're going to be more economic in the long term, they're already cheaper to run, etc and then you've got other things like as I say, synthetic fuels. But you know, for me carbon capture and storage is insane. And you know, it's a bit like saying, well, we'll get the milk out of the tea, we'll just stop putting the milk in the tea in the first place is obviously the answer. So one of the things that's always leveled about EVs in particular is what they're going to do to the grid. Yeah, I don't hear that from the same voices that would say that.
- [38:50]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [38:51]
Dan Caesar
About AI.
- [38:52]
Robert Llewellyn
No, well, I think I am hearing that, but not from the same people.
- [38:57]
Dan Caesar
So maybe from a few different voices I am hearing that. But the people who really said, well, you know, EVs are going to put an enormous strain on the grid, they are not saying that. And in fact a lot of the AI that's being built out is being built at such a speed that quite often they're actually relying on diesel gas.
- [39:15]
Robert Llewellyn
Or gas turbines and all those sorts of things.
- [39:16]
Dan Caesar
Isn't that an amazing reversal? I haven't checked it out Microsoft's statistics now, but we did an event, I'm going to say it's about 10 years ago where she had a guy from Microsoft on a panel. If you remember, that was years ago when we just started working together.
- [39:33]
Robert Llewellyn
Was that the one that I was.
- [39:34]
Dan Caesar
Officiate and the guy was there and actually they were touting their credentials around. They're adding data centers or adding compute and therefore they're adding clean energy to match that. They're also looking at some solid oxide fuel Cells and other complementary technologies because of the reliability. If your grid goes down with the data center you've got a big problem. But now it seems to me that actually that whole market's changed. I mean Microsoft may be cleaner than clean, greener than green. I don't know, I haven't checked the numbers but that seems, seems to be a big, a big shift and a worrying, yes worrying shift.
- [40:08]
Robert Llewellyn
I mean it is extraordinary how, how that you know the impact Because I suppose the thing is a big data center, the, the one there I can't remember who's built one of the tech bros is building. I mean the scale of it is like the size of Manhattan, the island of Manhattan. It's just mind bogglingly huge and it's somewhere in Utah or somewhere where there isn't any water and it needs 100 trillion gas. I think water is as big an issue as power but because that will affect the people who live around it. But that is like sort of a hundred million electric vehicles charging all the time. It's on that scale and for the people to say you know, you know you've got to let it go, you can't let it eat away at you. But for the morons the absolute who kept saying it's going to melt the grid, you utter loser. Hopeless. That said that you know there's no defending it at all. Of course it isn't going to. It actually positively helps the grid. Whereas you know I think we're so pleased I'm hearing more nerdy tech people going it's not intelligence, it's, it's, I mean Cory Doctorow, amazing thing he's written about artificial intelligence. It's, it's, it's word guessing. So clever a word guessing machine. That's much better description I think it's very you know then it's useful. A word guessing machine can be really.
- [41:25]
Dan Caesar
Useful there will I sure being a market correction on AI Anyway it's overhyped to an extent that it is, you know it is going to crash down I think and that might you know change things. We're in that kind of maximum hype phase. But yeah it's really interesting because if you think about when you started the channel in 2010 so much of this technology was just like maybe it will.
- [41:48]
Robert Llewellyn
Happen, maybe it won't, whatever. Yeah.
- [41:50]
Dan Caesar
And now where we are even though for us the process is glacially slow day to day.
- [41:56]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [41:56]
Dan Caesar
Where we are now is quite incredible, quite extraordinary. Yeah. So it's, it's interesting to kind of reflect I Didn't know whether your kind of view on technologies had changed much other than we're. We're in the middle of a war. Information.
- [42:09]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [42:09]
Dan Caesar
Aren't we? That's where, that's where. So the fight back, you always said it will be brutal.
- [42:13]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [42:14]
Dan Caesar
And it is.
- [42:15]
Robert Llewellyn
And it is brutal.
- [42:16]
Dan Caesar
Right in the. Right. And it feels like we're right in the.
- [42:19]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [42:19]
Dan Caesar
The heart of that particular part.
- [42:21]
Robert Llewellyn
But I mean in terms of nuclear, just to round off, I mean someone close to me is it works at Hinkley Point C and the stories, I'm not going to repeat them because I don't want to put him in any.
- [42:34]
Dan Caesar
You know, let's call him Homer Simpson. Just.
- [42:36]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, Simpson. But I mean he is a brilliant engineer and he's working on systems within Hinking Point C. And it's nothing to do with that. He's not anti nuclear, he's not cynical about it. He's, you know, he's very focused on the actual engineering. But it's my. They, you know, they're one little mistake. They dropped something with a big crane and it's hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds and six months delay. So all his project which wasn't directly connected with that is now delayed. It's all sort of. Well, we'll do it eventually but they've got to fix this bit first. You know that the complexity and to make it, you know, it's all. And the legislation and the safety around it is, is just mind boggling.
- [43:15]
Dan Caesar
I like project management. I like a Gantt chart.
- [43:17]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, this is project management off the scale. I mean it's great. It's employing tens of thousands of people building this huge power plant. But then you go, well it's 3 gigawatts, you know, you think well that's huge. 3 gigawatts 24 hours a day to clean zero carbon. You know, all that we've got, we'll have wind farms built and operating that will be what, 50, 60 gigawatts. I mean that's the buy in the time it takes to build one nuclear power plant. And it will be useful, I'm not going to lie. You know, there'll be times when it's not windy in the North Sea, not very often, but there will be times where that will come into its own and produce, you know, do it as a very important backup. But it does seem like there's. I think it's being overtaken. That's my fear is that it's or not. My feeling is that it's being overtaken by cheap batteries. That's, that's what's really changed. The big solar farm I went to see in Australia where it was really the batteries I was interested in because we've all seen panels. These have. It's a million, a million solar panels and 6,500 sheep. That's the solar. That's that particular installation. But with, you know, multiple hundred megawatt, I mean it's, what's it, 450 megawatt hours of batteries that do whatever. There's going to be 1200 when they finish the. And they. I said, could you. Is that economically viable? You go, yeah, we wouldn't do it if it wasn't. We couldn't have done it five years ago. It's that, that's where it's, it's tipped well.
- [44:42]
Dan Caesar
You know, ultimately that's why we're so confident of the destination of all of this because we know that economics will win and energy storage is going to play the biggest role in that. And that doesn't just mean batteries, of course, it can mean hydro.
- [44:54]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [44:54]
Dan Caesar
And there's all sorts of gravity. There's all sorts of different chemistries, you know. So, you know, when people go batteries they get a bit obsessed about lithium ion, which isn't even the predominant chemistry. Now that's LFP and it will be probably sodium ion at some point. Solid state is picking up pace in terms of development of that. So, you know, really I can see only one outcome.
- [45:19]
Robert Llewellyn
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- [45:52]
Dan Caesar
But one of the other things I was going to say to you today is what have you been driving recently? Because I. And are there any cars that you are kind of interested in? Because I've just seen Polestar 5 is launching in Sydney soon. Have you driven that, have you not?
- [46:05]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes, it's not. I don't realize when I did it I was quite.
- [46:08]
Dan Caesar
You forgot. You've driven and then you've forgotten and.
- [46:10]
Robert Llewellyn
Now you can enjoy remember driving it because it made a very big impression. It is stunning. I think it's the only thing. If I were. If I had no shame and a lot of money, I would be happily be an old grey haired man that can just about get in and out. It's not a sports car. It's really close and in terms of performance it's mind boggling. Yeah. Polestar 5 is stupendously impressive but I drove Polestar 3 from Melbourne, from Sydney to Melbourne.
- [46:39]
Dan Caesar
That's a kind of bigger.
- [46:40]
Robert Llewellyn
Slightly bigger. Slightly bigger. Really comfy. Yeah. But I wouldn't want it to be like it.
- [46:45]
Dan Caesar
We had the 4 for a bit. Did you prefer the 3 or the 4?
- [46:48]
Robert Llewellyn
The 3 was one.
- [46:49]
Dan Caesar
We drove up to the Blue Mountain. I had the four when Elliot told us he was expecting twins. Do you remember that week?
- [46:54]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes, yes, I had the four. Sorry. Which is even bigger. It's like an suv. So it's too big for me. I didn't need a car that big. But I then had a Polestar 2 which I have to say was just. That's, you know, it was. It just suits me. I don't know what about what it is about it. My wife Judy doesn't like it. She doesn't like the interior.
- [47:13]
Dan Caesar
Does she not?
- [47:14]
Robert Llewellyn
But I love the interior. It's so weird. What does that mean? I don't know.
- [47:17]
Dan Caesar
Taste.
- [47:18]
Robert Llewellyn
We're totally incompatible.
- [47:20]
Dan Caesar
What else? Have you ever seen anything else?
- [47:22]
Robert Llewellyn
Well, today I'm driving the Geely EX5.
- [47:26]
Dan Caesar
Oh my God.
- [47:26]
Robert Llewellyn
Got it right. I'm having real struggle with numbers and letter combinations. It's really difficult anyway that. I've just literally driven that here now. Mind bogglingly comfy.
- [47:36]
Dan Caesar
Yeah.
- [47:37]
Robert Llewellyn
And that's that thing where I literally had to get in it and drive straight away here and like not do anything. I didn't look at any of the controls, mirrors, rear view, visibility, speed thing, everything. Just like wow, that is really good. I really haven't taken it in yet but I mean it's a sort of bigish or mid sized suv. I suppose it's one of those. So you feel quite high up. Very comfy car though.
- [48:00]
Dan Caesar
And I've driven some great cars. On the last year I've made it a point to try and drive more because we were doing all these events around the world. We're doing test drives. I'd never done a test drive at any of our events. We've done 22 events. I think we've done 150,000 test drives. Not one of them has been me. So the last year I've tried to educate myself a little bit more. I've probably until last year driven about 30vs. Last year I probably driven another 20.
- [48:19]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [48:19]
Dan Caesar
So you know, for me it's actually quite useful to be on top of what's what. And I mean, I thought the Hyundai Ioniq 5N, the noisy one, I love that. The Renault 5 is amazing. Polestar 4 is amazing. You know, I've driven some incredible things. I had got the chance to drive the BYD Seal recently, which I really enjoyed, and then I actually tried the new Tesla Model 3 alongside it to sort of compare and contrast. And I think somewhere between the two of those is, is, is the, is the best car. But without mentioning the stuff that surrounds that company, the Model 3. I still haven't seen anything that's quite beaten it.
- [48:57]
Robert Llewellyn
No, it's a brilliant car.
- [48:58]
Dan Caesar
It's a brilliant car if you look at everything.
- [49:00]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [49:01]
Dan Caesar
I actually think the BYD Seal for me is better looking than the Tesla Model 3.
- [49:04]
Robert Llewellyn
I prefer it, yeah. I mean, the Tesla Model 3 tastes subjective. And also the Tesla Model 3, there's so many of them in Australia. I just saw them everywhere. Kind of looks a bit dated now, you know, she's stupid. It's a silly thing, but from an aesthetic point of view, there's so many other cars that have come into, particularly the Australian market, so many Chinese cars.
- [49:22]
Dan Caesar
So I, I, I've been driving the Model 3 recently, the newer one, and it is, I still think, almost peerless. It's still exceptional. And it's the, it's the software and it's the charging. It's like it's the whole experience. But we know what don't they have to refresh and bring other cars out?
- [49:40]
Robert Llewellyn
A small car to really.
- [49:42]
Dan Caesar
I know that anyway, that's, that's probably, you know, it's one of the things I think that I would love to, love to see them do at some point. I really hope that's not off the table permanently, although it does seem that it might be, as they're focusing on other things. And that brings me neatly on to kind of robotics.
- [49:58]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [49:59]
Dan Caesar
So we talked about AI. It's quite interesting that there's going to be loads of robotics. So I think at some point we'll film a dark factory in China. I'm pretty sure, yeah.
- [50:06]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [50:07]
Dan Caesar
I think by 2030 they were sort of estimating the most factories building cars in China will not have people in them at all.
- [50:13]
Robert Llewellyn
So weird.
- [50:13]
Dan Caesar
I think there's some of that going on already. I think we might have an invite to go and film something like that at some point. I won't be there on that day, sadly, but you might be. But that's really interesting. But the humanoid bit is quite odd, isn't it? The Fact that we've seen this in lots of sci fi movies and then you know, do we need them to be human? Like in any way, shape or form, but with what Xpeng is doing, what Unitree is doing, Tesla, Hyundai. Did you see that?
- [50:38]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
- [50:39]
Dan Caesar
You know, clearly heading in a direction.
- [50:43]
Robert Llewellyn
Which it made me feel slightly shameful because for viewers that don't know, I spent 30 years being a, being a robot, you know, on telly and I did a comedy robot walk because it's a robot. So it's not going to walk like a normal human being. It's going to have a funny comedy walk because it's a machine. Then you see these things and they're kind of slouchy walk. I mean they are perfect imitations of human walking. They're not stiff and wobbly, you know, they're just, they're kind of slinky with sort of slinky.
- [51:12]
Dan Caesar
Did you see the Xpeng? So Xpeng's robot is called a humanoid robot is called Iron and the, the chairman, basically people had insinuated it was AI and and he actually got some scissors. He was on stage, he cut the.
- [51:28]
Robert Llewellyn
The material human being that was doing it.
- [51:31]
Dan Caesar
So people were saying to you. And he actually did that in front of an audience. It was extraordinary. Right. I mean, where next, I mean you might have more of a view on robots than.
- [51:40]
Robert Llewellyn
Well, I don't really. I don't think it's given me any insights into it. But it is the, it is whether it makes sense. I suppose if, I mean the idea of having one in your home that does domestic tasks is if that happens on a big scale, I am definitely too old because I wouldn't dream of having one. Because they're hard metal things. So if you accidentally bash into one, it's not like knocking into a person, it's like knocking into a hard machine and which won't fall over, you know, I don't know. But I mean on the other hand, for instance, my wonderful mother in law who is slightly incapacitated at 95 years old, if there was a machine that could gently lift her up and move her and do all the caring that she needs, you can imagine that particularly in Japan, I think it's already happening. I mean that sort of stuff you can see. But even in hospitals there's roles for machines to help humans. Definitely. I just don't know whether I wouldn't want to spend the same amount of money you'd spend on a car to have a humanoid style robot that puts dishes in the dishwasher it's not that hard washing up. It's not that hard sweeping the floor.
- [52:52]
Dan Caesar
I mean, isn't it going to be for people who've got money or businesses? Right.
- [52:57]
Robert Llewellyn
It could be people who got money. You could argue for people with disabilities. That could be. There could be a role there for it.
- [53:04]
Dan Caesar
And certainly plummeting birth rates does mean we're going to need more people to.
- [53:08]
Robert Llewellyn
Potentially look at the property. I heard a guy talking about. Who was it? CES was a sort of. What are they? I can't remember. Now, the suit that you put on that helps you like an exoskeleton.
- [53:18]
Dan Caesar
Exoskeleton.
- [53:18]
Robert Llewellyn
And he tried one from a company last year and he used it and it worked and it lifted him up and it helped him move. But he was really uncomfortable. It felt really awkward. He walked. He went to the same company this year. He put it on. He had it on all day, forgot it was on. When he needed to sit down and there was nowhere to sit, he just did a sitting position. It held him there and he could relax. And then when he needed to get up, it would push him up. There you go. That is incredible. You know that? I want to have a go with one of those. I'd have one of those. This. This exoskeleton will stop you tripping over.
- [53:51]
Dan Caesar
Well, one of the things we're doing. I'm sure you're aware of this. In fact, I think you might have already recorded a podcast with Elliot is actually. Yeah, we're bringing more of the future tech into what we do. So we are creating a new podcast, which Elliot, and that's going to be called Tech in China. We think there's huge interest around the world of what's going on there, and that's going to be way beyond the car. That's going to be everything from autonomous driving to. To drones to humanoid robots. Anything you can. You can think of. So that's interesting. And then we're going to bring that into our live event format as well.
- [54:26]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
- [54:26]
Dan Caesar
So we're going to have a future tech.
- [54:28]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
- [54:28]
Dan Caesar
Which is future tech content. Because we're already seeing companies like Xpeng come with a flying car.
- [54:34]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [54:34]
Dan Caesar
With a humanoid robot. I think Tesla brought Optimus to the Sydney show last year. So the. The opportunity and the interest in those things means that we'd be. Well, we're fascinated. So it'd be silly not to kind of talk about those and. And sort of extend our kind of field of view to talk about that kind of future tech. But it is just strange to me that having read some things like Asimov.
- [54:58]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [54:59]
Dan Caesar
Growing up and Philip K. Dick and watched all this sci fi stuff that we are now moving into that. Incredibly scary.
- [55:08]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes.
- [55:09]
Dan Caesar
But fascinating.
- [55:12]
Robert Llewellyn
It's always going to be a combination because you could have a four legged, you know, robotic machine that can go upstairs, downstairs, open doors, do all that stuff. Also carry your shopping would be brilliant. And also follow you wherever you go. Like a dog. I'm quite like a robot dog, but I want it to be able to carry all the shopping upstairs, you know, that would be amazing. But also, you know, that thing could also be armed with high explosive guns and rocket launchers and chase you wherever you went and you couldn't get away. And if you go behind a door and lock it, it just blows the door up. You know, they're always going to be. It's like drones. When we first saw camera drones, I know, it never occurred to me, it just didn't make me. I didn't think, oh, you could put a bomb on that. But clearly that's exactly what's happened bigly. You know, when you think of the amount of young Russian men who've been killed by drones, and I'm not saying the Russians are right, but I'm saying the poor soldiers, it's never their fault. I always think that's important to remind ourselves it's not the bloody soldiers who make the decisions, you know, but, you know, drones have proven themselves to be phenomenally adept weapons, which is quite scary.
- [56:21]
Dan Caesar
We won't be covering any weapons on F3 electric.
- [56:25]
Robert Llewellyn
We'd probably get huge views if we did. And loads of sponsorship.
- [56:30]
Dan Caesar
Yes. So we won't be doing that, but, you know, someone else will.
- [56:36]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah, I'm sure. Oh, my God.
- [56:38]
Dan Caesar
You could be sure of that. And you know, from, from our standpoint, one of the things we're doing this year is we're going back to Harrogate.
- [56:45]
Podcast Advertiser
Yes.
- [56:46]
Robert Llewellyn
So please, I'm so excited about that.
- [56:48]
Dan Caesar
We're doing a show in your backyard in Cheltenham.
- [56:51]
Robert Llewellyn
That's done. That's fine. And it'll be very good and everybody will love it, but it's a bit close.
- [56:56]
Dan Caesar
And then we're going to Twickenham as well.
- [56:58]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [56:59]
Dan Caesar
And then back to Sydney later in the year too. So that's for us, it's been a really kind of interesting journey, I think. And what we're doing differently with the events this year is they are predominantly outdoors.
- [57:11]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
- [57:11]
Dan Caesar
And that's landed really, really well with the car companies and others, which is unfortunately running a commercial business model that's really, really important. Companies are kind of interested, but that's been. We've had an amazing response to that. So we're really looking forward to doing those and starting to. We're working on those now. We're starting to promote those and yeah, lots and lots of great content coming out. We've got Tech in China, Podcast Image and I do a regular podcast about the industry called Pulse.
- [57:39]
Robert Llewellyn
Brilliant. I've been listening to that.
- [57:40]
Dan Caesar
Your almost breaking news. Yeah, is a, is a, is a real kind of favorite. And then we've got some great car episodes and some great home tech episodes as well.
- [57:49]
Robert Llewellyn
Home tech and Gravity. I mean that's, I just want people to watch that. So what have you, what have you filmed?
- [57:55]
Dan Caesar
A couple of things.
- [57:56]
Robert Llewellyn
The most recent was the Gravity one. I haven't seen the footage yet, but. And it's in its, it's. We, we talked, I've talked about it on the show. It's a thing. Thing that has been discussed here. There's a company in the UK called Gravitricity which was. The idea was you drop a huge weight down an old mine shaft. This is a company which is called Green Gravity in Australia. They've got, it's tens of thousands of old mineshafts in Australia. There's millions around the world that are just. What do you do with them? You know, they're not, they're. They've been mined. There's a couple that are sort of 2 and 3 kilometers as deep. So there's a long way. So what they're doing is not one big weight that goes down, generates electricity, then you pull it up when electricity is cheaper than it goes down. That's all it is. It's like a giant pulley. But there's our. It's just such a clever idea and it's really worth watching. But it's multiple weights so they'll drop down weight. Now the ones they're talking about commercially are between 5 and 50 tons. So it's not nothing. Okay, it's big, but it's not thousands of tons. And that one drops down and that releases it at the bottom and that gets stored in the, in the bottom of the mine. It comes up with nothing on the thing that holds it comes out and puts another one. But while that's doing that, there's two others or three others that are also dropping weights, all coming up. And it can generate a constant supply of electricity, 5, 10, 15 megawatts for 24 hours. So that can be seen stored when electricity is cheap or free from solar and then used. So it's really long term. And also if you don't need it, nothing happens. You could, you could store that electricity for a hundred years. It's not going to go anywhere in that sense. And then you could use it again. So it's not, it has none of those restrictions that a lot of the other systems and you know, certainly chemical batteries have. You know, it can't wear out. You can replace bearings or wheels if you need to.
- [59:50]
Dan Caesar
It's actually mechanical, isn't it?
- [59:51]
Robert Llewellyn
It's mechanical and it's the fact that there's just millions of disused mines. So they're talking to people like in Romania and in, I can't remember lots of European countries where coal was a big thing. Poland, because they've got millions of holes in the ground and they don't know what to do with them. I mean they usually just fill them up and you know, dump stuff into them and seal them off. But there's so many of them. And the one problem I do remember the gravitricity people having in the UK was the ground around the top of the mine because it was like Victorian era was really unstable. It would cost a fortune to reinforce it. Well, all the mines in Australia are newer. They have very solid things because there was a whole load of stuff built above it which has all been, it's gone now. But some of them have infrastructure that they can use directly. So like you know that this sort of classic image of the big wheel at the top of a coal mine which has, which is how the lifts worked up and down, they'll use that. So the generator and the winch will be mounted in a building and that the thing will go over and they can drop this stuff up and down and they've got this system which we saw dropping up now I went there, I sort of. Oh, it's another one of these weird startup things, I don't know. And then you see it, you go, whatever else it may be, for economic reasons they can't do it. But the technology was genius. It was simple. It was using ready made mechanical bits. They're not having to produce anything new themselves. They can use the pulleys, the leverage systems, the sliding decks to move the weights in and out. All kind of generic off the shelf components. Really, really clever.
- [61:28]
Dan Caesar
I can't wait to watch that off.
- [61:31]
Robert Llewellyn
It's well good.
- [61:33]
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- [62:10]
Robert Llewellyn
Well, I think we know we've. We've kind of covered quite a lot of areas, Dan. We've. We've chewed. We've chewed considerable amounts of fat, but it was all organic and ethically, I.
- [62:19]
Dan Caesar
Think I said we were going to swear a lot today and then I didn't. Yeah, and you did.
- [62:22]
Robert Llewellyn
Oh, did I? Because I said I wouldn't swear.
- [62:24]
Dan Caesar
So apologies.
- [62:25]
Robert Llewellyn
Wouldn't swear then. I swear.
- [62:26]
Dan Caesar
Anyone sensitive.
- [62:27]
Robert Llewellyn
But I just want to say that the shows we're going to be doing this year, I mean, if you're anywhere near Harrogate, which a lot of people tell me isn't the north of England, it's northish north for us. Yeah. If you live in northern Scotland, it's definitely down south. But anyway, yeah, if you. That is a. It's such a lovely venue. We've always had shows we've done there.
- [62:49]
Dan Caesar
Have always been Cheltenham Racehorse reminds me of Yorkshire Event Center. Beautiful place. So that will be similar. The wonderful. Very lovely show in a lovely setting.
- [62:58]
Robert Llewellyn
Yes, Very nice Cheltenham. And then the other one is in Twickenham, which I'm. I'm totally intrigued because I've never been near it. So is that where they.
- [63:08]
Dan Caesar
It's at the. At the stadium.
- [63:09]
Robert Llewellyn
Right.
- [63:09]
Dan Caesar
So if you, if you, if you're into rugby. I, I used to play a little bit, but I'm not a rugby guy, I'm a football guy. But there's the kind of a fan village they have outside Twicken. It's in that kind of area there. So I think that's going to be. Be fantastic as well. And then back to Sydney.
- [63:23]
Robert Llewellyn
And then back to Sydney.
- [63:24]
Dan Caesar
And then reviewing all our plans for where we go.
- [63:26]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah.
- [63:27]
Dan Caesar
Next maybe Canada comes back onto the menu now that Chinese cars, but we'll see.
- [63:33]
Robert Llewellyn
Yeah. And also Honolulu, I think that's the one. That one bit of America I would go to. I'd love to go to. I've never been to Hawaii. There's definitely some interest from there.
- [63:44]
Dan Caesar
But you just got back to go.
- [63:46]
Robert Llewellyn
Anywhere at the moment. Yeah, yeah, but that's pretty good. So please do. For one thing, subscribe to everything. Electric cars and everything electric tech. I always want to say tell your mates, but tell your annoying uncle who thinks that batteries will have to be replaced after six months because he might you might have an annoying art. Actually I should be broad minded anyway. And yeah, do subscribe. And as always, if you have been, thank you for watching.
- [64:17]
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