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Everything Electric Podcast
The *Real* Range Anxiety?! How can wheels really boost battery EVs?!
00:47:57
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Everything Electric podcast where today we are talking about tyres and more specifically how thinking a little bit more sensibly about your tyres could mean that you could go further, more quietly and more safely in your electric vehicle. Now this is such an enjoyable conversation. It's actually been a few hours since I finished the conversation with Neil Barrett who is the EV lead at Hankook. And I had a right old lovely time and I really hope that you do too and come away with a few more tire facts up your sleeves. So all of that to come, but first, a very quick advert break. Our three free YouTube channels on EVs and clean energy tech are funded by our fun packed test drivetastic events in the North West. And great to London and our events down under. Next up, Everything Electric Sydney 2026. Plus check out EverythingElectric store for merch and much more. Neil, thank you so much for giving up your afternoon to come and speak with me today. Well, it's, it's an absolute, total delight to talk about all things tire related today.
- [01:22]
B
Excellent.
- [01:23]
A
And I suppose we should, we should reassure the audience who might be thinking, is this going to be that interesting? That yes, it is going to be interesting because I know you have many a tire fact indeed.
- [01:34]
B
And I've spent a lifetime accruing them. So hopefully one or two will be interesting. As it can be dry, it can be technical, we'll keep it as light as we can, but we're going to have to dive in deep on a few bits. I'd imagine we are.
- [01:48]
A
There's going to be some stuff for everyone, some stuff for the nerds, some stuff for people who are yet to be convinced that this is the podcast for them. We'll see where we end up.
- [01:56]
B
Okay, great.
- [01:57]
A
Well, but before we get into it, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and specifically what you do at Hankook?
- [02:05]
B
Okay, so, well, I'm Neil. I'm EV lead and key account manager at Hank Cook. So I've been with them. I'm in my 12th year now, so that was quick. And really my role within this, apart from my key account manager role, is to I guess be the sort of EV tire guru. You know, we're like training, you know, I monitor trends, try and help out and inform people what's going on in the market, what sizes are growing. I mean, there's a new size every week we've got to keep our eye on, you know, make sure we make it, make sure we got them, make sure we've developed it more importantly and sort of general spokesman on it, really. So I guess I was in the right room at the right time, I guess, for, for all the EVs. And I just am fascinated by EVs.
- [02:57]
A
And I think that is something that we're going to get into in this podcast that actually, when it comes to EVs, the opportunities for tires to do something slightly different and to aid performance gains is actually really huge. But before we, before we get into that, I wonder, when you, when you chat to your friends and family and say what you do, do you have a favorite tire fact that you whip out from your rear pocket?
- [03:21]
B
Do I have a favorite tire fact? I've got a new tire fact. Actually, I don't ask me to remember what I said to my friends and family about tires. I mean, I mean, I've been doing it long enough, 23 years, more to the point. But here's an interesting one. I think it's interesting, but did you know, thanks to evs, cars can now accelerate faster than they can brake?
- [03:47]
A
Wow.
- [03:48]
B
Never happened.
- [03:50]
A
That's never happened before.
- [03:51]
B
No, no, not that I can find. I'm sure someone can delve deep into the archives of some information somewhere. But generally, as a rule, it was always assumed that cars could not accelerate faster than they can brake because it was never needed.
- [04:09]
A
That is absolutely fascinating. And this is the power of, you know, people being able to comment below. If anyone wants to contend this fact, please do. Please quote your sources in those comments as well. But how interesting. I'm trying to think about when I run, do I accelerate quicker than I slow down? I'm not sure the answer to that, I have to say.
- [04:32]
B
I think it's, you know, it's to do with the physics and the technical prowess of the tires. And, you know, when they've done calculations about how fast cars can accelerate, generally speaking, it's never even been near because ices just cannot put down their power quickly. Well, they can't really, if you can imagine, they're not really producing their power until they're revving to 2,000 revs or, you know, in a fast start, maybe 3,000 revs and there's one wheel spin. But EVs are so efficient, they do take a toll. It's indicative of the toll the tyres take on an ev. I think, I think that's not really why I said it, but now I say it, it is. I mean, it's a perfect example of, you know, the stresses and strains they have to deal with and why we have to Think about them differently, I'd imagine.
- [05:19]
A
Well, I think you've, you've allowed us to segue perfectly into our next bit of this conversation, which is, when it comes to electric vehicles, why is it that we need to think about the tyre slightly differently?
- [05:33]
B
I think if we look at it in the round, if you want to pick out two points, it's the rapid increase in power versus the need for efficiency.
- [05:46]
A
And presumably those are two conflicting requirements.
- [05:50]
B
Generally they were accepted that they were. So ties have developed hugely in the last, well, we can say 100 years. It's the same technology, really, in shape, you know, in it's rubber, it's mounted to a steel or alloy wheel. But yes, it's always been assumed that to have the grip and traction you required for a high power, you have to trade off efficiency. And that's just simply not acceptable with EVs. Just, just can't happen. I mean, in some rare cases, very high performance EVs, they allow it and I think customers accept that that's a trade off. But, you know, we're not talking about high performance cars per se, we're not talking about cars that people buy for high performance, we're talking about family cars that. Designed to carry five people with over 500 horsepower. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's where we are, that's the reality of it. So from a technical standpoint, it's a challenge. It's a real challenge. I mean, we'd never been in this situation before, so when we're asked the question, why do they need a different approach to the sort of design of tyres, then really, those, those two bits do summarize it quite nicely.
- [07:13]
A
So the implication being that we still need that high efficiency, but the performance of EVs is such that they're putting great stress on those tyres, which presumably means a faster wear rate. If you were to just use standard tyres on an electric vehicle.
- [07:28]
B
Yeah, I mean, in essence, there's a number of things that affect wear, power and weight. And these are all things I'm sure we'll touch on when we talk about characteristics of EV. But obviously, if you've got a vehicle that's got 500 horsepower and weighs two and a half ton, it will unchecked wear tires quicker than a vehicle that has less power and less weight. That's just, that's just a real fact. But obviously, knowing those, and knowing that those sort of design parameters need to be baked in at the beginning, it allows us really to go to town with the individual technical elements that we've gone into with the Hankook Ion.
- [08:07]
A
Okay, so presumably for a company like Hankook who is like, well every, every car needs four wheels at least, or four tyres.
- [08:16]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [08:18]
A
And the direction of travel is towards electric vehicles, that poses an enormous opportunity to innovate something slightly differently. So what is Hankook's approach? And I suppose sub bullet to that question is what are the specific characteristics of EVs that require that slightly different approach?
- [08:37]
B
Okay, so the initial approach or the approach we've taken to market is we brought out an EV specific tyre. A sub brand is called Ion. It's available in a number of patterns. We can go into the individuals. But in terms of what we're looking at, the main factors that influence tyre performance, wear, rolling resistance, etc. So you're talking about the weight of the vehicle. So when we talk about weight, we're not talking about a static weight, we're talking about a dynamic weight, weight transfer under braking, under cornering. Okay. It causes massive loads on the tires. So we've got to develop tyres to be able to accept that 50% of the noise in the cabin of an EV comes from the tires.
- [09:25]
A
And that's because it's no longer able to hide behind the sound of engine.
- [09:30]
B
Exactly what it does. And, and we filtered it out, you know, I mean even, you know, even luxury cars, I mean luxury cars, they got a lot of soundproof, you know, sound deadening materials and everything else. But even luxury cars they cancel out frequencies that the tires would have normally sort of produced. So therefore you, you go, it's going to be more noticeable, it's going to be the main sort of noise point in the car. Yeah, exactly. You know, so these again, but in that we have to factor in the requirement for a low rolling resistance.
- [10:06]
A
And for those who might not be familiar with low rolling resistance, can you just define what that means?
- [10:12]
B
In its easiest form, it is energy wasted as heat. So as a tyre rolls down the road, as the, you know, from a molecular level, as the molecules sort of move around within themselves from the tread area, from the sidewalls, from the shoulder area, it will try to produce, it will naturally create heat. There will be, there'll be sort of friction within that. Interestingly, it's something we can talk about with EVs because. Or at least a theme that will repeat itself, which is they are the victims of their own success in this. Because EVs generally use 25% of their energy just to make the tires roll. Yeah, that's across the board. At lower speeds, it's higher. And really, at higher speeds, then aerodynamics comes in and, you know, makes that. But As a general rule, 25 of all the energy in your battery is just there to make the tires roll. So that's a big window to go out, isn't it? You know, that's. That there's a lot of improvement to be made on that. So. And so all those tie in there, obviously, with the weight, what has an effect on wear and obviously. But the. The thing we alluded to earlier is the sheer power and torque that they actually produce.
- [11:36]
A
So that's an interesting thing because we have, on the one hand, a huge amount of power that EVs are capable of creating from a sort of standing start.
- [11:45]
B
Yeah.
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A
Which in a way you're like, well, rolling resistance or low rolling resistance may not be such a problem compared to, say, an internal combustion engine vehicle that's got like a slightly SL start, for example, it's sort of. There's less energy in that exact process. But then also you want to have a low rolling resistance, but you can't necessarily sacrifice grip. And then you want to have an efficiency, but you also have potentially a higher wear rate, so you need to sort of compromise those. So all of these things feel like a very challenging set of conflicting requirements for an engineer.
- [12:19]
B
They are. And I mean, when we. When we came to design the Ion, it wasn't just a case of just trying to put all these things we've learned over the years. We literally had to redesign a process of making it and new materials. So there was 58 patents that we registered during the design of the Ion Wow. Range. So, I mean, that's extraordinary.
- [12:44]
A
And it does allow you to say that you've almost reinvented the wheel.
- [12:49]
B
Well, I will allow you to say that, but, yeah, I mean, certainly we've. We've really pushed the limits of where the tyres can go. And it's interesting because a lot of people just assume that, you know, back in the day when you needed grip, you needed heat. I think everyone sort of was sort of comfortable with that as an understanding of it. And what we're saying is one of the big improvements in tires over the last few years, all of them, is the lack of requirement for heat to produce grip. And that comes down to the compounds we now use, which are unrecognizable for 15 years ago. Absolutely unrecognizable. And I think the way I'd like to think about it now is if. Do you remember the old light bulbs, your filament light bulbs?
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A
Yeah.
- [13:35]
B
I mean, it must be 20 years ago since we've seen them or they've banned, but they produce 90% heat and 10% light.
- [13:43]
A
Yeah.
- [13:43]
B
New LED bulbs produce 90% light and 10% heat. We all accept that. We know we can touch a light bulb now and it doesn't burn ourselves, you know, it won't burn our hands. So we know that progress has been made in this. It all sort of fits into the whole idea of reducing energy consumption in everything we do. So. So, yeah, it is. It is really a huge focus on this and, and the way we've gone about it in terms of how we've just re. I mean, of that 58 patents, 15 were just for the compound. So this, this is. We've done some remarkable sort of improvements in pushing the boundaries and trying to minimize this trade off that people think is always there. But, you know, and the thing is, EVs, because they're so efficient, are huge beneficiaries of this technology.
- [14:38]
A
Because that. There's that 25% that you can go after. Actually, if you can innovate.
- [14:44]
B
Yeah.
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A
Then you can create huge amounts of gains.
- [14:46]
B
Well, absolutely. And people tend to gravitate towards EVs because of their efficiency and their running costs. I mean, we've got the figures now. We kind of know that ice are 18 to 25% efficient and EVs are somewhere approaching 90% efficient. I think it's 87% efficient to latest figures I got, because they regen, because they don't produce the heat that ices produce, because they're just generally so well integrated and so logical, is the honest answer. So. Yeah, so if something is very efficient, if something is efficient at its core, then you can trip it up quite easily by forgetting the details. And one of those would be tyres.
- [15:29]
A
So I have so many questions and I want to make sure that I remember all of them.
- [15:33]
B
I'll try and answer all of them.
- [15:35]
A
But I guess beyond the material innovation and really working on those compounds of which there are many patents are attributed to that of the 58.
- [15:43]
B
Yeah.
- [15:43]
A
Are there any other innovations that you're like, oh, this one's a good one.
- [15:50]
B
There's quite a lot I quite like. Well, the way we've gone to town with the noise, it's that. That's really quite clever. So we've. We've developed a suite of technologies. Eye extreme lightness. Isuper mileage. I sound absorber. I perfect grip. So what. These are a suite of technologies that allow us to deal with each individual element of the EV and the challenges it gives. And certainly if we look at eye, extreme lightness, which falls under rolling resistance. I mean, there's a lot to be going in with that and a lot of them cross over. But what I do like, when we go to the ISound absorber, there's five individual technologies there we've applied, and one of them that I love, which is so simple really, is the way we've just designed the. The inside of the tread area, the circumferential grooves. There's. There's some really interesting sort of shapes, a sort of. Sort of knurling shapes around them. And that makes a hell of a difference. About 3 decibels, really, or 3% off the decibels. It's. It's amazing and one thing won't do it, but as a suite of technologies, it's remarkable. Even just the technology has gone into the tread to make it quieter as it rolls down the road. Seems perfectly logical, but that links in with every single other one of the technologies that we've gone into on this one. So, I mean, whether we want to go into depth on those, we can, but, you know.
- [17:19]
A
Well, so the one that. When I was reading the. The material about the ion range, there's one that really struck me, which is around. And I think this is all to do with creating more grip, both wet grip and dry grip. And typically when a tyre rolls, the sort of. The sipes, they kind of. It's almost like stacking bananas in shape.
- [17:37]
B
The 3D sipes.
- [17:39]
A
That's it.
- [17:39]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [17:40]
A
But what ion is doing is they. Instead of sort of stacking bananas, which, you know, inherently, if you can imagine stacking bananas, they'd have lots of space between them. This is more like stacking LEGO bricks. So they sort of lock together in order to create that grip, which I thought was very cool.
- [17:54]
B
Well, not only does it create the grip, but it stops the movement in the tread area itself, so the actual vibration is reduced, which reduces the. The production of heat, which is. Reduces the rolling resistance. So it's. There are at least two or three different upsides to that technology. So I guess this is, you know, a podcast, and it's not potentially a visual medium, but. But, yeah, I mean, it's. Rather than just a straight line, it goes in little blocks. And so when they're under pressure, for example, under cornering, they solidify together. And it's. It's just a lovely, clever. Just one of many things we've done. We've. I think we brought that out originally on truck tires, this 3D printing and it allowed the tread to change as it wears down. And then all of a sudden we think, well, hang on, this has got so many other different applications. I'm sure it was designed within it as well.
- [18:54]
A
What I love about all of this is that when you feel that these things come together and you see on a table or a presentation, oh, this creates sort of a 3% gain and this creates a 2% gain or whatever and then you sort of take a step back and like this was someone's job to engineer these things. And I just think that's extraordinary. And it's just so life affirming. I suppose there are people out there chasing those gains to push the envelope that little bit further.
- [19:19]
B
I mean the truth is it was in terms of engineers, probably hundreds of people's jobs, you know, and, and they have to be managed and brought together working for the same thing and so many different ideas, so many applications of technology that we've, we've, you know, developed and in this case invented. Now I don't know if anyone. Are you aware I'm going to ask you now, do you know a tire.
- [19:44]
A
Is made, where a tire is made.
- [19:46]
B
So how a tire is made?
- [19:48]
A
No, I don't actually.
- [19:50]
B
It's, it's kind of odd. So it goes down a production line and it's, it's put together, a lot of people involved, a lot of machines and sort of various rubbers are adhered to each other and, and it's sort of glued into the bead glue at this point and it comes off and it, you look at it, you think that, sorry, it doesn't look like a tire. Looks like a beach ball with a hole in it. And then it goes into the cure, it goes into the mold where it's cured. So, and this depending on the size of tires, cured for 10 to 20 minutes. And that's where all the magic happens. That's where all the, the, the rubbers cure to a point. Vulcanization and all that sort of technical, wonderful stuff. The thing is there was always a problem with that when you make a tire that's got different thicknesses. If you looked at a sort of cross section of a tire, you'd think, well, the tread's quite thick and then you need a bit more reinforcement, you know, just right at the edge of the tread where it goes into the sidewall and the sidewall you want thin. Problem is you'd have a, always have this trade off really of what's going to be Cured. Right. What's going to be under cured? And really we brought out this basically brand new machine that can cure every part of the tyre perfectly. So that goes back to the design point. So if we can now really stretch, you know, the point of design where we can say we can have that thinner now because we haven't got to worry about the curing compromise anymore. It's just not even an issue. So, so it's not just, you know, the production is one thing, but it just sort of feeds back to the design process which is one of the reasons why when we look at I extreme lightness, when we look at the optimization of, you know, the sidewall, because the sidewall does produce a lot of road and resistance but there's just parts of it that just doesn't need to be there. Because we've got to remember with tires it's the air that carries the load, not the tire. Yeah, okay. And one of the reasons EVs have become tricky, let's say, is because of their, the increasing weight and size, we've got some kind of very much larger sizes. Much, much. They're much bigger. They're probably 30% bigger in physical size. So, so it's allowed us really to, to zoom in and say, right, well if that tire is now bigger and wider and therefore it produces naturally more traction and the weight of it produces more coefficient of friction, then we can go to town with the low rolling resistance. Now you can do this on an EV tyre, but ice tyre you would not get that same benefit or you would get a trade off or a compromise. So our insistence on going down the iron was to make sure that everything we put in it would have a benefit to EVs, not a real specific tangible benefit.
- [22:42]
A
So when you put everything together across those four pillars, those four umbrellas of isuper mileage or. This is testing me now. Yeah, I'm going to have a look here.
- [22:53]
B
I can read them out for you.
- [22:56]
A
Well, you can see if I, if I took them all off. So eye extreme lightness, ISO mileage eye sound absorber and eye perfect grip.
- [23:03]
B
Yeah.
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A
If you put all those things together, what does that translate to, to a driver in an ev in terms of benefits?
- [23:11]
B
In terms of benefits, it'll, it'll give you four main benefits. Low rolling resistance will give you more range, less energy use. That could be very important. Might not be so important. But bear in mind, bear in mind that, that you know, really you bought an ev, you know, it should be very important. Quietness should be much quieter. It should be. And you tested me now, you should get much better adhesion with the road because the technology we've put into the tire allows the tread to remain in contact with the tarmac a lot more. Okay. And one interesting thing I'll just say about when we talk about something we haven't touched on. Iperfect grip. When you're putting 500 horsepower through tires, what tends to happen is that they will circumferentially grow, the tyres will expand. That tends to happen in the center of the tread. So that'll tend to push up. Well, naturally, that you're lifting the side, the other sides of the tire, the other sides of the tread off the road. So you're reducing grip, which increases slip, which increases uneven wear, which, you know, all of a sudden you're in this sort of negative spiral. So it is very important really, that what we've done to that is, you know, we've reinforced the right bits with aramid and steel and we've had. We put variable tensions. So if we can think again of this, if you think again of the, the, the cross section of the tire, if you cut through it, you'd see rubber, rubber in the middle, you'd see lots of steel, steel belts going through. And then you'd see what we call aramid. It looks like Kevlar, but we can adjust specifically the tensions of those to make sure that tyre doesn't grow under high acceleration. And that is incredibly important because what it means is you've got better grip, better wear, you know, better life and much more even wear patterns. Truth of the matter is, if you do drive it like they'll go, you're going to get through tyres quicker. I think, I think we know most.
- [25:22]
A
People don't, so I suppose I'm just trying to sort of build a. Probably an extremely clunky analogy here, but almost like as a. As a tire rolls, it's almost like imagining that you're trying to do you. You want to be doing a cartwheel with the flats of your palms, but instead someone's doing it on a. On a fingertip and trying to go up onto high. Onto those fingertips, which would raise you up, but also makes you incredibly unstable. And actually full palm would be a more efficient cartwheel and a safer cartwheel.
- [25:53]
B
Well, palm is quite accurate, or at least a smaller palm because that's the sort of contact patch you're looking at. So if, if you're looking circumferentially at the tire, you're looking at contact patch. Of about 2 inches. Now, as that tire turns, that contact patch is transferring through a circular tire. So it's that twisting of the rubber that's causing the rolling resistance that used to cause a lot of heat. And, and that was where, I mean, heat is the enemy of tires, always has been in terms of life. So if you get a, get a handle on heat, you get a handle on the life of the tire. It. I, I mean, I'm aware of this when we talk about this. All of these individual technical advancements are all interconnected with other parts. It's very difficult to sort of, you know, just say that does one thing, because if you do everything right, everything will work. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but generally speaking, I, I'm quite comfortable in saying that. Yeah.
- [26:51]
A
So the thing I have to ask you about, because if I don't, someone in the comments will, is around tire particulates. So how is Hankook thinking about this and how problematic are tyre particulates when it comes to EVs, given that regenerative braking is generally how EVs tend to break?
- [27:12]
B
Okay, so there is a linear connection between weight and wear. As a rule, heavier vehicle, the more it will, it will wear. Particular to an interesting one that's going to be a function of euro 7 that's coming out in 2027. And really, if you think about it, and the way evs have just cleaned everything up, I mean, what other emissions do they produce? They don't use brake pads hardly. They're lasting 150,000 miles on brake pads. So there's no dust particulates from there. So really it's the last bastion of, you know, pollution from EVs. So, yeah, it's going to become a big issue. There's two parts to this and two parts to the answer. One of the things we've done with the ion is, is paid a lot of attention to making sure that the life of the tire is, is maximized. We claim. It's very difficult to claim actual mileage. You can't. Every use is different, but there's a sort of 20% improvement over our competitors in terms of life on these because of what we've done into that, what we put into that and that that will, you know, that will have a major part. But the other size is the site, the size of the particulate. So you're looking for particulates that aren't too small, that are airborne. So that's important. And then the other part of it is what we Put in the tire that become particulates.
- [28:40]
A
Yeah.
- [28:41]
B
And then another part of it is what we put into the tire that's sustainable or not. So all these things will come together in one. So we are unclear where 20, 27 Euro 7 rules will fall, but it is important we're embracing it. We've had some very good feedback in terms of where our particular levels are at the moment, especially on the ion, and it's going to be a focus of it because it will probably be the most important thing in the next three or four years when it comes to EVs.
- [29:15]
A
But then I think what I'm hearing as an EV driver and someone who does care about air pollution, is that actually, if we accept the tire particulates are currently a bit of a necessary evil when it comes to tyres, there are ways to reduce that. But a heavier vehicle, generally speaking, would create more wear on a tire. The higher the wear, the more particulates you're releasing into the atmosphere. So actually, as an EV driver, if you can buy a tire that has, is more suited to the vehicle and can extend its life, it's ultimately per use.
- [29:49]
B
Perfect.
- [29:49]
A
You're emitting fewer particulates into the atmosphere.
- [29:52]
B
Perfect. Perfect. And we have a lot of examples now where, you know, people are deciding maybe to cut costs on time. It's, it's the, it's, it's the market, it's the market we're in. It's, you know, we, we appreciate a tire is a distressed purchase. Yeah, we understand that. But it is important, you know, if, if we've gone down the EV route, if we own an ev, we have a, a sort of responsibility, if you like, to, to continue to minimize its impact and, and you can undo a lot of work done by the EV by choosing the wrong tire on that. You know, especially when you're buying, you know, an ICE tire that really just isn't built for that kind of power. It really can chew it up quite quickly. And, and we're back to that again because, I mean, particulate is important. There's technology that are coming out now to trap particulate, which is positive. But don't forget, you know, when a tire's worn out, it's got to be recycled, disposed of. And really, that's probably as big a problem in the big term. So in the long term, so it is under. We have to understand that as EV drivers, we have a responsibility to minimize that. Yeah, I think, I think that's fair.
- [31:14]
A
And I think it comes back to that old adage of Buy cheap by twice. I suppose it's buy cheap, buy twice, pollute more is what we're also saying there.
- [31:24]
B
Well, I mean, it's interesting because as I said, no one, no one gets a phone call from the MOT station hearing the news, they got to buy four tires and no one does a merry dance and says, great, you know what? Motorcycle. I was in the motorcycle industry for a while. Tires, and they're completely different. You know, when they buy a tire, they want to know exactly the ins and out, what's the best, what does this. What. Even if they're never going to use it that way, they want it. They want to know they can get the best possible. So it is important, but I think I understand that replacing tires sometimes is just solving a problem you have at the time. The important thing to, for me, and advice I would give to consumers as much as I can is, you know, don't let your tyres be a shock to you that they need replacing.
- [32:14]
A
Yeah.
- [32:14]
B
You know, we, we know what the laws are, or we should do 1.6 mil around, you know, it should be checking them carefully monthly. But the, the cost of a very good tire over the. Over a. Not a very good tire. While it might sound expensive to spend, I don't know, 700 pound instead of 400 pound on four tyres, the reality of it is you've got to spend 400 anyway.
- [32:39]
A
Yeah.
- [32:40]
B
So that extra money we're suggesting you invest, take the time to work out, what benefits am I going to get for it, you know, am I going to get some extra range out of it? Yes, you will. Will that save me money? Well, it might do. I mean, if you plug in at home, not that much, but it will.
- [32:58]
A
Public network people of which I'm one every.
- [33:02]
B
Well, again, again, it's, it's, you know, it's two pricing points, isn't it? One's ten times the cost of the other.
- [33:10]
A
Yeah.
- [33:11]
B
That's a whole different conversation I'm sure you'll have with someone else. But, you know, in that case it has a massive difference.
- [33:17]
A
Yeah.
- [33:18]
B
You know, if I'm saying, you know what, I can't remember the figures on it now, sort of 10,000 miles at home charging is about £200 a year, public's about 2,000.
- [33:29]
A
Yeah, yeah. I did the maths recently, partly because I'm. I need to stop talking about this because I'm so boring, but I, I'll.
- [33:38]
B
Be the judge of that on principle. Yeah.
- [33:40]
A
I live in a Victorian terrace house and I don't think it's particularly fair that you have to do a planning application to put a charger on the outside of your house, if you've been granted permission to have a charging cable gully on the pavement.
- [33:52]
B
Yeah.
- [33:54]
A
And there are different. Councils offer different levels of that, that planning application, like either you can just do an annotated photograph, but you're still having to pay for the planning application. Or, as we're required to do, we have to submit full architectural drawings, which is outrageous.
- [34:09]
B
Thousands. Yeah.
- [34:10]
A
And, you know, I can build a construction in my garden, which is much bigger, without planning permission. So it seems a bit daft, but it is ridiculous. Yeah. And so in that process, I've sort of done some calculations on, you know, if you did 80% of charging at home, 20% on the public network versus 100% on the public network, and it is. It's. It's at least £2,000 difference, which is. Well, I mean, it makes your job marketing tires easier, but.
- [34:38]
B
Well, in that case. Yeah, Because, I mean, I. I'm not familiar with the figures with regards to who public charges and who home charges. I'm pretty sure it's like 70, 80% do home charge on evenings. It's something like that. So I'm afraid you're in the minority on.
- [34:53]
A
I am, yes.
- [34:55]
B
So I'm afraid for people who are in your position, Imogen, really, the range of a tire is very important.
- [35:03]
A
Yeah.
- [35:04]
B
But I mean, it goes a little bit further than that, doesn't it? Because obviously it's more convenient to have a longer range. But I think the most important part is, you know, when you buy. You buy a new EV or a secondhand ev, you'll always pay a premium for a bigger battery, won't you?
- [35:18]
A
Yeah.
- [35:19]
B
You know, and it's like between 3, 5, 6,000 pounds, it could be more. I mean, it's. And really, what you're buying, on average, you're buying 70, 80 miles. Well, if you choose the wrong tire, you're going to lose half of that overnight.
- [35:33]
A
Yeah.
- [35:34]
B
And we've got the facts. We've got. We've done the data on it. We got the data. We need to do more. We need to get more facts and figures like that together. But. But, yeah, it's such an important thing. It's. As I say, I tend to forget that people are in different circumstances and they're more receptive to different arguments. It's easy to do that.
- [35:58]
A
Well, I think what's interesting about where we are in the, I guess, transition to electric vehicles is that. Well, I Guess there's two things. One, when a technology is new, it seems quite intimidating to many people, understandably so. And when it does, anecdote is really important.
- [36:18]
B
Yeah.
- [36:18]
A
And those anecdotes are so specific and unique because where we need to go and how we get there varies so dramatically based on our lifestyles and we're all individuals. So that need for hyper Taylorization, of messaging, of communication becomes very, very vital. I think at this particular point, I think you're right.
- [36:37]
B
And I think, you know, when it comes to how do we market a product, you know, how do we market a product like an ion. Because it's funny, I was working in the Everything Electric show with you guys and I spoke to a lot of customers and I understood, I understood it better after that. But there's a bit of cynicism really. Do I, do I really need an EV tire? Is there any difference? You know, it's, I just go for the standard ones. Now I could say, well, if they buy Hankooks, that would be great. But really there really is a big difference. I mean there really is a practical difference. But unfortunately one of the limitations we have is because everyone's circumstances are different and drive differently and most have different cars, I cannot turn around and say to you this will be this, this will be that. Because it depends. It depends.
- [37:33]
A
Yeah.
- [37:34]
B
And, and I guess some of the message might get lost in that. So it's, it's something I'm aware of, it's something we're aware of. But I think, you know, the, the message we want to get across to people is that, you know, EVs deserve EV tires.
- [37:49]
A
Yeah.
- [37:50]
B
And you know, Biomic, take responsibility for yourself and try and find out as much as you can from as many sources what they are. I do wonder because a lot of people are spending, you know, it's a thousand pound for four tires on some of these EVs.
- [38:04]
A
Yeah.
- [38:04]
B
Now, I don't know the last white good you bought for a thousand pounds.
- [38:10]
A
I'm trying to think, I dread to think because it's one of the things you don't really want to part with that money.
- [38:17]
B
No, you don't really do. So I mean it falls into the same thing. But if you're forced to do that, it might just be a cooker. I suppose that's top end really, isn't it? I don't know, I've lost track of it really. But you know, I mean a washing machine, 500 pound. If you're going to spend that, what are you going to do? Well, you're going to go to the shop, you're going to compare, you're going to look at ratings, you're going to maybe see if you can get a free subscription to which for a couple of days and see which is the best one in their review. And, you know, not saying I've ever done it, but I'm sure we all have. So you're going to do some research, you're going to find out, yeah, a lot of people will spend double that on tires and I haven't done any research and it's like to me that's, I guess I've been in the business too long, you know, but it's such.
- [39:00]
A
An interesting challenge that you have of, you know, ultimately working on a product which looks exactly the same from a distance at least.
- [39:09]
B
Yeah.
- [39:10]
A
To a cheaper alternative.
- [39:12]
B
Yeah.
- [39:12]
A
And as you mentioned earlier, is largely a distress purchase as well. So it's. You're having to work really hard.
- [39:20]
B
Yeah. And again, I think what we really need to do then is, so how do we as manufacturers market the fact that we make a premium tyre that works well on say an EV in this instance? So, you know, obviously there's a marketing budget for things like this, but really what we're looking at here is, you know, involvement in top tier motorsport. I mean, that really sets you apart. You know, we have strong presence with original equipment manufacturers, so we work with all of them.
- [39:52]
A
Yeah.
- [39:52]
B
You know, with product, you know, and also we encourage independent validation. So we work a lot. I say we work a lot. We provide a lot of tires for evaluation. Certainly with the German magazines who are pretty much the gold standard for, you know, tire tests. The detail they go into, I look at it and go, I just don't know what you, you mean. So. Yeah, so really that's how we do it. And, and really what the, the icing on the cake that really sets. Would set us apart is just product innovation. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's all we can do. You know, we got to come up with some good ideas, we got to tell people about it and tell them what the benefits are to them.
- [40:33]
A
But I suppose that's it. I think, you know, it's that trust. I know that you work very closely with, for example, Formula E, all of the OEMs, all of the car companies that you've mentioned, obviously those top tier magazines, and then of course, just making something that's genuinely really good.
- [40:49]
B
Well, that helps. Yeah, that helps. I mean, you mentioned Formula E. I mean, you know, we're involved in Formula E. You'd have seen the Formula E car, everything electric. I mean, that's. That's a really, really interesting. Really interesting specifications and technical requirements for that. So they. So you've got a car that produces maximum 400 kilowatt on boost, so about 500 horsepower, 900 kilos, 600 kilowatts of regen. That's what it's got to produce, you know, so sort of throws the, you know, the. The previous discussion on his head. But 600 kilowatts of regen is extraordinary. And also, there's only one tire. There's no wet weather, there's no dry weather. It's everything. And the reality of it, even the sizes are quite calm. I think the front's 2, 5 5, 4018. That's pretty similar to most car sizes. The technology was almost completely transferable into the Ion range. And the real kicker with that, we talked about how you get this power and efficiency trade off as small as possible. The real kicker with that was they are given 40 kilowatts. That's what you got to run the race. Race is 45 minutes plus a lap. It's about 60 miles. You've got 45 kilowatts plus you've got a 5 kilowatt fast charger, takes 30 seconds. So that's what you've got. So you're limited with that. That's what you got for the race. 45kW go out and fill your boots and anything you do to increase grip and traction at the expense of rolling resistance, you're not finishing the race.
- [42:32]
A
Yeah.
- [42:33]
B
You know, so it's. It's like the real cauldron of this test. It's extraordinary. You know, we. When I heard we would. We were joining Formula E, I thought we got an opportunity here. Boom, there we go. We got a set of EV tires. We've got a range of EV tires, never mind a set. So, yeah, that really transferable technology. It's been great fun.
- [42:56]
A
When it comes to, say, Formula one, for example, tire strategy is. Is the. The buzzword of the moment. And certainly when you watch the F1 movie, like, tires are spoken about all the time. So, yeah, it's logical that, I guess tires become very exposed when it comes to motorsport because it's the difference between winning and losing. And it's. Yeah, it's awesome to see how. How Formula E is actually pioneering things that can make their way into passenger cars. In this instance with tyres.
- [43:25]
B
Do you want to hear some sort of figures of the comparison? It's Remarkable. All right, so did you know that a liter of E10 petrol's got 9.2 kilowatts of potential energy?
- [43:36]
A
I didn't know that.
- [43:37]
B
Okay, there you go. You can have that. So what does that mean? So if you had a Formula E race and a Formula one race over the same distance, so a Formula E distance, Formula E car would use 45 kilowatts of energy, and a Formula One would use 400 kilowatts of energy.
- [43:55]
A
Yeah.
- [43:55]
B
You know, that's. That's what we're talking about here. You know, nearly 10 times less energy required for the race. I know it's not sexy, but it is kind of the future.
- [44:05]
A
Yeah.
- [44:05]
B
You know, and. And it is. Those facts maybe, you know, them aside, I mean, it's great racing, but you know, that from a, you know, a technical challenge from a manufacturer like ourselves, with all our technicians and boffins who just want to get on with the next thing. I mean, it's just perfect.
- [44:23]
A
Yeah. I mean, it's. So these facts are always so useful to hear, because when you think about EVs versus internal combustion engine equivalents, like, regardless of your politics, regardless of how you feel about the noise or whatever.
- [44:37]
B
Yeah.
- [44:38]
A
If you were, like, skipping down the road, chucking money just over your shoulder versus someone who's, like, running down the road and keeping the money in their hands, you'd be like, what on earth are you doing? This is totally inefficient and so wasteful. But energy is a little bit more abstract for people.
- [44:59]
B
It's a difficult thing to grasp. I think a couple of years ago, when energy prices went ballistic.
- [45:05]
A
Yeah.
- [45:06]
B
I think people really dialed in.
- [45:08]
A
Yeah.
- [45:08]
B
And then they came back down again. They're not cheap. They'll never be cheap. I don't think that's a whole different conversation. But it really does make you, you know, it really does make you think. Well, hang on. You know, these are. These are costs. We were all paying, I don't know, £60 for electricity and gas or £70. Then it was £200.
- [45:29]
A
Yeah.
- [45:29]
B
And it's like, well, hang on, I got to save some money here.
- [45:33]
A
Yeah.
- [45:33]
B
Yet. Yet people are still spending 220. 230. £240amonth on doing nothing in a. In a fuel car, in an internal combustion engine. Unless, of course, you've got a public charge, Imogen, for that. I'm sorry. Fortunately, we gotta sort it.
- [45:54]
A
Well, I've got to get it sorted, and I. I've had various conversations, and fortunately, my Gym does at least have free charging, which is good motivation to go there. I'm really conscious that I could chew your ear off for many more hours because as we promised at the start of this, this is a really interesting topic that people perhaps don't give as much consideration as they definitely should. So I suppose my last question is if there is just one thing that you want people to take away from this podcast, what would it be?
- [46:29]
B
I think it would be, you know, the reason we, we have produced a tyre Hank who can produce the ion is to simplify people's choice to have a one stop shop, to have a range of tyres they can go to. Don't worry about the complexity, don't worry about rolling resistance, don't worry about this, don't worry about that, look into it. But we're not here to add complexity, we're here to help you. And so you know, when now you've got your EV and it's coming up to maybe looking at tires, take ownership, read into it, get as much information as you can and you know, and let's do the complex bit because they are complex.
- [47:11]
A
They're complex and you guys are most certainly the experts.
- [47:15]
B
So we try, we try. Guarantee we'll try.
- [47:19]
A
Well, honestly Neil, thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun and I'm really grateful for you joining us on the podcast.
- [47:26]
B
Thank you. Lovely, lovely to speak to you.
- [47:28]
A
Thank you so much to Neil for joining us on this particular episode. Thank you to Andy from our team who will be editing this episode and thank you to you for listening as ever. If you could do us the honour of liking subscribers, subscribing, sharing with a friend, doing all of the above. I cannot tell you how grateful we are. It really, really does ensure that we can carry on telling interesting and important stories from across the clean energy transition. But that's it. If you have been, thank you for listening and watching.