6. How to save money and catch up with European EV adoption

In this insightful episode of the "Insiders Guide to Energy EV Miniseries," listeners are taken on a fascinating journey exploring the rapidly evolving landscape of electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States. The episode features a compelling conversation with David Lewis, an expert in the field of sustainable transportation and electric mobility. Lewis shares his rich professional background, including his transformative experience in the financial sector on Wall Street and his pivotal role in leading MODIS, the world's largest vehicle reimbursement company. This journey led him to found Move EV, a company dedicated to accelerating the shift towards electric vehicles by reducing fuel costs and emissions.

Throughout the podcast, Lewis delves into the intricacies of EV adoption in the U.S., comparing it to the progress seen in Europe and highlighting the challenges and opportunities present in the American market. He sheds light on how his company, Move EV, is partnering with corporations and municipalities to facilitate this transition. Key aspects such as the total cost of ownership of EVs, the impact of corporate policies on EV adoption, and the importance of understanding one’s “driving life” are discussed. The conversation also touches on the innovative ways Move EV is helping reduce commuting emissions, which form a significant portion of the overall carbon footprint in the U.S., thereby contributing to a more sustainable future.


The episode also addresses broader implications of the EV shift, including the development of EV charging infrastructure and the socio-economic impacts of transitioning to electric vehicles. Lewis provides thought-provoking insights into the role of legislation, like the IRA, in promoting EV adoption and how it influences corporate strategies. The discussion concludes with a look at the future of the automobile industry, considering the shift towards online sales of EVs and the necessary evolution of the traditional dealership model. This podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, sustainability, and business, offering a comprehensive overview of the EV landscape and its significance in the journey towards a greener planet.

Transcript

Transcript 

00:00:04 Speaker 2 

Broadcasting from the commodity capital of the world, Zurich, Switzerland, this is insiders guide to energy. 

00:00:20 Speaker 3 

Addition to insiders guide to energy is brought to you by fidectus. Go to www.fidectus.com For more information. 

00:00:59 Speaker 1 

This episode of Insiders Guide to Energy EV Miniseries is powered by paua. Paua helps your business transition to electric vehicles by simplifying charging, managing payments, and optimizing your charging data. 

00:01:13 Speaker 1 

Welcome to insiders guide to energy. I'm your host Chris Sass, and with me is Neil Riddell. Welcome to insiders guide energy EV mini seers Neil, welcome back. 

00:01:21 Speaker 4 

Hey, Chris, how you doing? 

00:01:23 Speaker 1 

I am doing well. 

00:01:24 Speaker 1 

I'm looking forward to this conversation. We're going to talk to a gentleman I met was in Boston at a clean tech round table and I was excited enough to say, hey, he'd probably be a great fit for this EV mini series. So I'm I'm kind of looking forward to this conversation. 

00:01:40 Speaker 4 

Cool. Sounds great. Who Are we speaking to? 

00:01:42 Speaker 1 

So we have David Lewis on. 

00:01:44 Speaker 1 

Board David, welcome to the program. 

00:01:46 Speaker 5 

Thank you so much. It's an. 

00:01:47 Speaker 5 

Honor to be here with you both. 

00:01:49 Speaker 1 

So David, I I just let the audience know. 

00:01:52 Speaker 1 

That I met. 

00:01:52 Speaker 1 

You in Boston that I met you. And I didn't. Give him any more information. So let's start the interview by who are you professionally and what It is you do. 

00:02:02 Speaker 5 

Who am I professionally? I'd love that. Well, let's catch up a little bit and then we can jump into what I do, I guess. Who am I professionally? I usually like to start with. I grew up working in a restaurant, so I grew up working a lot, really understand hand to mouth. Historical memory is, you know, picking up waitresses. 

00:02:21 Speaker 5 

When their car breaks down and understanding how expensive though those bills can be. 

00:02:26 Speaker 5 

Progressed from there to the University of Vermont. Then I got, you know, I watched boiler room a few too many times and I got a job on Wall Street working on a big. 

00:02:33 Speaker 5 

Trading floor for city kind of cut my teeth there went through their investment banking program, then went through RBC's investment banking program and ended up. 

00:02:43 Speaker 5 

Syndicating a lot of debt. That was my specialty for about 10 years. Then I went to Columbia for Business School and got Super Lucky. 

00:02:52 Speaker 5 

When I got out and, you know, capped my 10 in 10 year in New York. 

00:02:57 Speaker 5 

And moved to Boston to join a company called MODIS. 

00:03:00 Speaker 5 

Modis is the largest vehicle reimbursement company in the world. It's an alternative to fleet at that company. I was vice president of strategy and was responsible for things like. 

00:03:12 Speaker 5 

M&A partnerships, platform growth and kind of became very interested in all the cost inputs of driving, how to save people money. 

00:03:25 Speaker 5 

And one of the things that I'm focused on what got me today is generally fuels about 30% the cost, total cost of ownership. So there's a lot of waste there. And then since then, I founded this company where I am today move EV and we focused on saving people money on gas. 

00:03:46 Speaker 5 

Saving them 25% of their personal omissions where their kids play baseball and helping to accelerate this move into electric vehicle. 

00:03:58 Speaker 4 

So I'm going to pick you up on something, David. I don't really believe in luck. So you said you got super lucky, but can you tell us a bit more about what made you super lucky? Because I'm, I'm convinced that you. 

00:04:08 Speaker 4 

Did something clever? 

00:04:10 Speaker 5 

Oh, thank you. Well, to make a longer story, my IQ had just sold to Microsoft for a bunch of money, so I was in the newspaper and I was. 

00:04:18 Speaker 5 

At Columbia Business School at the time. 

00:04:21 Speaker 5 

And I was trying to figure out, you know, what was I going to do next? I had a I had a gluten free burger place in the middle there, but we'll get. We'll get to that over beers. But I was trying to figure out what was I going to do next. 

00:04:34 Speaker 5 

And I really wanted to learn how to be an operator. 

00:04:37 Speaker 5 

Right. I had financed lots of businesses, I mean billions and billions of dollars passed through us. But I had never been an operator and I got presented this opportunity from the CEO of MODIS at the. 

00:04:50 Speaker 5 

To look at the market, so I spent a month before I took the job, really defining the market for his product and we realized that we thought the market was growing exponentially for reimbursement versus fleet. And what I mean by that is historically in this country, if you drive a lot for work and a sales capacity, you're provided by the company. 

00:05:11 Speaker 5 

Fleet vehicle a fuel. 

00:05:12 Speaker 5 

Card and everything is taken care of. 

00:05:16 Speaker 5 

However, in researching this, I don't always believe in that model, right? There's a lot of capital expenditure waste, in my opinion in that model. Also, it opens up the employer to night and weekend risk of the employee, which if you research driver safety in this country is when 70% of major motor vehicle accidents happen. 

00:05:36 Speaker 5 

Which is also we can go down a whole driver safety thing. I have a whole another half hour for. 

00:05:41 Speaker 5 

You on that. 

00:05:45 Speaker 5 

To circle back, I just saw that there was only two competitors in the space. I thought that Modus had better technology and I was given the opportunity to be the third leg of a stool. It was me, the CEO and the CFO, always carrying a bag, raising money, driving growth and you know, really expand. I mean the whole business. 

00:06:05 Speaker 5 

You know, just blew up over the over the next five years. We got bought by Toma Bravo in the middle of it and Premier just announced a transaction. 

00:06:14 Speaker 5 

A while ago. 

00:06:17 Speaker 5 

And so I say I got lucky is because I joined a successful entity where I was able to contribute and grow where I was given the ability to stretch myself and really build out my skill set and sort of learn how to exist in the uncertainty of. 

00:06:34 Speaker 5 

Hyper growth, you know where I had sort of grown up in very stable businesses like restaurants which you can argue state. My data business of 25 years, very stable business or finance where you know bankers are always figuring out how to make money right. 

00:06:48 Speaker 4 

So so this this says that you electric vehicles seem to be an obvious theme to you. I mean, I don't know the US particularly well we we're starting to see those early signs of hyper growth for electric vehicles here in the UK. Is the US going through the same transition? 

00:07:02 Speaker 5 

Yeah, so basic. So this is where I get really excited, right? And why we founded movie TV. So the answer is yes, but not as fast, right? And so I became hyper focused on figuring out our electric vehicles. 

00:07:18 Speaker 5 

Cheaper, better, fast. 

00:07:19 Speaker 5 

There and I found out. Yes. And then I was studying why are we lagging Europe? Why are we lagging all these other countries, Norway and especially the UK? 

00:07:29 Speaker 5 

An easy adoption. So I then went on a journey to learn and I work with consultants across Europe to really build my skill set around what's working there, came him across programs like salary sacrifice and started really the nuts and bolts of wybie's work. 

00:07:48 Speaker 5 

You know, I felt that I was uniquely qualified as sort of a mobility expert to start this company and start to solve what I see. The problem here is that. 

00:07:56 Speaker 5 

We just need to build this into the culture and so and that's how we'll accelerate adoption and the way the movie V does that is by partnering with corporations and municipality to look at all of their vehicles across their scopes, vehicles, they own all the way to vehicles that are just commuting to work or owned by by an employee. 

00:08:16 Speaker 1 

So what exactly when you partner, what are they doing? Is there software that you've put together? Is IT consulting services? What what is movie The offering your your customer? 

00:08:27 Speaker 5 

We offer both. So what we find is our clients are really ready to learn a lot and kind of rethink some of the things that they've been doing. 

00:08:36 Speaker 5 

But soft but and we've built some great software, but software is usually a. 

00:08:40 Speaker 5 

Next step, right? 

00:08:42 Speaker 5 

More times we're still identifying what is the problem here today, right. And we're showing them a very big problem, right? When we start talking about commuting emissions. 

00:08:53 Speaker 5 

And commuting emissions, especially for office workers, are a generally the vast majority of their emissions. Certainly their contributed emissions. 

00:09:01 Speaker 5 

There's a Sun Microsystems study that was. 

00:09:03 Speaker 5 

Done in the. 

00:09:04 Speaker 5 

90s that showed 80% attribution from such employees and so as you can tell, I'm just kind of helping you build the. 

00:09:12 Speaker 5 

Mosaic that helped me. 

00:09:14 Speaker 5 

For, you know, being clarity to what the problem is and what the most important solutions are. 

00:09:19 Speaker 5 

And So what? We're go ahead, sorry. 

00:09:21 Speaker 1 

Yeah, but but today, so someone comes to you and goes movie V I've looked at your website. I'm trying to figure out, you know, how I can reduce our our corporate admissions or my employees help them out along the EV trail. What's the engagement look like? How? How am I engaging with you? Is is it talking to David or is it talking to a team? What's what's? 

00:09:39 Speaker 1 

Happening. Yeah, we have a team. 

00:09:41 Speaker 5 

Locally and then internationally, because this is a global problem, we started day one with a global solo. 

00:09:48 Speaker 5 

And you'll notice that like fleet management is is very geographically focused. So what this looks like is we gather all of your information we say, do you know what's going on today in all the regions and you operate and generally we get mixed results. 

00:10:02 Speaker 5 

So we go through, we take in all of your information across your vendors, right, they're going to be 20 different places, 30 different places. Information is coming from. 

00:10:10 Speaker 5 

Then we write you a compendium. 

00:10:13 Speaker 5 

About everything that's going on today. 

00:10:17 Speaker 5 

Right. And then we overlay our expertise against industry benchmarks where you can improve today. 

00:10:26 Speaker 5 

And we're looking at cost savings, operational improvements in emissions reductions. 

00:10:31 Speaker 5 

OK. And then from there, we can have a Real conversation about what are your options. 

00:10:37 

But until we. 

00:10:38 Speaker 5 

Baseline level set you it's a complete unknown and if you see the disparate stakeholders that are involved in gathering all this data across HR, procurement, sales, it's no wonder it hasn't been done before, right? 

00:10:57 Speaker 4 

And one of the things I picked up through your website was you're actually looking at scope one, scope two and SCOPE 3 emissions. Can you just talk us through that and tell us a little bit about what the story means when you convert certain vehicles across from petrol and diesel into electric and how that changes the scope and the impact? 

00:11:16 Speaker 5 

What a great question. 

00:11:20 Speaker 5 

OK. 

00:11:22 Speaker 5 

Scope one. Our assets you own trying to keep it simple. Scope one assets you own. I own this fleet vehicle. 

00:11:31 Speaker 5 

This fleet vehicle drives around to visit a bunch of doctor's offices during the day, and he parks it in his. 

00:11:37 Speaker 5 

Garage, right. He goes to bed. He wakes up, that guy gets in his fleet vehicle, drives it around again. That's scope one. 

00:11:43 Speaker 5 

You own the vehicle. 

00:11:45 Speaker 5 

Right. So we cover those and that can be vehicles big and small depending on the. 

00:11:49 Speaker 5 

Business right. And so generally those are measured in a in a progressive company and in a very progressive company. They're trying to mitigate them. Scope one, my first priority, scope one, I don't agree with that, but I think that's how. 

00:12:05 Speaker 5 

They're perceived in the market. 

00:12:07 Speaker 5 

Scope two is energy I buy. 

00:12:11 Speaker 5 

Right. So I'm buying energy to perhaps run my electric vehicle. If you were to convert, that'd be scoped too, but the way people think about scope two is buying energy. The example that always gets said is I own a factory. I buy electricity for that factory. The emissions created from creating that electricity is my scope too. 

00:12:32 Speaker 5 

And those are perceived to be easily measurable and easily mitigated with money. 

00:12:38 Speaker 5 

Right. And generally your electric company can. 

00:12:40 Speaker 5 

Help you with those. 

00:12:42 Speaker 5 

And so I'm telling a story of we get progressively further away from your sphere of influence and abilities to throw money. 

00:12:51 Speaker 5 

At the problem. 

00:12:52 Speaker 5 

OK, Scope 3. 

00:12:56 Speaker 5 

Is way out here. 

00:12:58 Speaker 5 

And includes all things in your supply chain. So if you buy widgets from China that are shipped in a barge, then driven to your warehouse, that's Scope 3. Those are considered very difficult to manage. 

00:13:13 Speaker 5 

Very difficult to influence, right? And most companies are avoiding them today. However, there's a golden one that we focus on. 

00:13:21 Speaker 5 

And that is commuting to work. We specifically focus on commuting to work alone in your car, because even though it's way out here. 

00:13:32 Speaker 5 

With our programs, your corporation or municipality can influence them, right? And why we love Scope 3, commuting to work is that. 

00:13:43 Speaker 5 

We always use this Amazon example. Is it OK if I use an Amazon example? So Amazon made this incredible commitment to buy all these rivian vans and it is amazing $700 million if you do some back of the napkin math, it's about $70,000 a van. There's a huge green premium on that thing relative to white. 

00:14:04 Speaker 5 

Ford van. 

00:14:06 Speaker 5 

Right. So let's just say it's 70 grand to omit to stop those emissions. OK, for 15 years. 

00:14:13 Speaker 5 

The useful life of that vehicle. 

00:14:15 Speaker 5 

OK, 70 grand or $35,000 premium then? 

00:14:20 Speaker 5 

Amazon also has. 

00:14:21 Speaker 5 

A million people driving to fact drive into packaging places. 

00:14:26 Speaker 5 

In pickup trucks. 

00:14:28 Speaker 5 

And those pickup trucks are built on the same chassis, get the same MPGS as the white van that that rivian is replacing. 

00:14:36 Speaker 5 

And what we like to say is like, it's great. You work on the the vans, but let's also work on those employees because the federal government is paying your premium for you. 

00:14:49 Speaker 5 

And so. 

00:14:51 Speaker 5 

However you get. 

00:14:52 Speaker 5 

Them in to drive an EV so that they can save $3000 a year on gas, which I think is the best socioeconomic thing you can do for any human being, which is why we're doing this is get them to stop paying for gas and paying for electricity. 

00:15:06 Speaker 5 

Right. All you have to do is get them to do that, and that is not going to cost you $35,000 and it's not going to cost you $70,000. And so if you really care about reducing emissions where your kids play baseball. 

00:15:18 Speaker 5 

Could make sense to focus a little bit on those million people driving to work and not the 10,000 bands, but both are great. Sorry, both are incredible. Amazon is incredible for making that commitment. 

00:15:29 Speaker 1 

How does this? 

00:15:30 Speaker 1 

Work in in you know, so you got ESG and you got all these. All these buzzwords that people are doing in corporate America these days, you're saying it doesn't cost them money to put a program like this in place. So explain a little bit of the logistics. I'm a Fortune 1000 company or a Fortune 100 company and. 

00:15:49 Speaker 1 

I engage moving EV. Why and how do I make this work to get my my employees there? 

00:15:55 Speaker 5 

So there's tons of O. 

00:15:56 Speaker 5 

I obviously wouldn't. You know, we wouldn't be doing this. It has to make common sense for everybody, but. 

00:16:02 Speaker 5 

There's a million ways to think about the ROI. So we administer a program that basically helps the end user understand what's going on in their driving life today. 

00:16:12 Speaker 5 

Right. So we built a proprietary survey tool that helps you allow your employees to be part of your energy transition, right? Basically we want to, we want to help facilitate for a company, we want everyone driving electric vehicles. We've partnered with Movie V to make this as simple and easy for you as possible. It begins. 

00:16:32 Speaker 5 

And it's about togetherness and movie. Vehement right that we're all in this together because there is a greater benefit. 

00:16:38 Speaker 5 

Fit. What's so great about? 

00:16:40 Speaker 5 

It is everyone saves money on gas. 

00:16:42 Speaker 5 

So it's just. 

00:16:42 Speaker 5 

A cost saving thing in my mind. And then everyone benefits from fewer emissions. 

00:16:46 Speaker 5 

You hire us. 

00:16:47 Speaker 5 

We start with this survey. We baseline you again. 

00:16:50 Speaker 5 

Right. And then we continue, then the end user gets fed back their own user, they're in their own portal now learning about their driving life. 

00:16:59 Speaker 5 

And just like I taught, we talked about me teaching in high schools. We teach them, hey, these are the actual total cost of ownership of your car, which I know. 

00:17:08 Speaker 5 

95% of the population doesn't is not aware of right especially. 

00:17:14 Speaker 5 

When gas is up 2 1/2 times. 

00:17:18 Speaker 5 

So think about the environment of the last year and think about it. You know, half the population in the US living paycheck to paycheck and then have to come out an extra $1500 for gas, right. So and then we help, we help the folks sort of like, learn and understand what's available to them in terms of incentives. We give them an outlet to speak with one of our service. 

00:17:37 Speaker 5 

Members should they have actual questions because not everyone purchases stuff on their phone. I do want to say we do not sell cars. 

00:17:47 Speaker 5 

Right. We are not in the business of selling cars. 

00:17:51 Speaker 5 

We are in the business of of facilitating change. 

00:17:56 Speaker 5 

And helping people save money and save emissions. While it's great for the corporate, for those that are genuinely interested in reducing emissions. 

00:18:05 Speaker 5 

Is that each vehicle that drives to work is about 3 tons of emissions on based on the census and average commuting patterns. And so the math that got me excited was commuting to work alone in your car is about 10% of all emissions in this. 

00:18:20 Speaker 5 

And why am I so passionate about this is because I feel like we can have an effect on 10% of emissions in the country. And then if you factor in personal driving, it's more like 15% and then it's just saving money for every emission you reduce. 

00:18:35 Speaker 1 

So just I'm the master of the. 

00:18:37 Speaker 1 

The the not so bright question because. 

00:18:40 Speaker 1 

And and and and. 

00:18:42 Speaker 1 

So you take. Let's say there's a million white pickup trucks driving to work and then the same chassis in there, the gas and and you go there. 

00:18:47 Speaker 1 

And you start getting people. 

00:18:48 Speaker 1 

Convert to EV's so you you've you've helped them find incentives or. 

00:18:51 Speaker 1 

Financial way to make it happen, but aren't those million pickup trucks? 

00:18:55 Speaker 1 

Still on the road, just driven by someone else, so did the problem go away. 

00:19:00 Speaker 5 

You know, again, just like such a brilliant question. And it's it is all about useful life. And so that's why we feel it's so important that those new cars that be sold are EV. 

00:19:12 Speaker 5 

Right, because that does prevent one from entering the market because stated another way, pairing it back to you another way. 

00:19:21 Speaker 5 

You take a new gas car off the lot. You've birthed it and guaranteed because we live in America, that that thing is going to drive until it's scrapped. And so you're committing to 55 metric tons of carbon even. 

00:19:33 Speaker 5 

If you drive it for. 

00:19:34 Speaker 5 

A week, so I'm agreeing with your point. So the and, that's why Massachusetts another impetus for me starting the company is governor. 

00:19:41 Speaker 5 

Baker announced was two years ago that he was going to ban the sale of gas cars here in 2035. So there's a there's a line in the. 

00:19:52 Speaker 5 

And and Massachusetts, where we're located, is prepared to lead the way. There's so much state money available to move this forward here, and the attitudes and the urgency is palpable. 

00:20:04 Speaker 1 

What? What's the benefit? An individual? So I work at one of the companies. You're you're at. Perhaps. So we've signed up for the movie TV program. I get some education. Help me understand. So you you helped them figure out the costs. Their other incentives that they're going after, you're helping them uncover, you know, federal and state incentives to help make this. 

00:20:23 Speaker 1 

In a budget of someone, or is the corporation helping them finance the vehicle differently? How how's that happening because. 

00:20:28 Speaker 1 

EVA's do seem. 

00:20:29 Speaker 1 

To be fairly expensive still, they're they're getting better. So how's the average employee getting that new vehicle? 

00:20:36 Speaker 5 

Again, what a great question. So in my mind, the way we catch up with Europe is by getting corporations and municipalities involved at scale. 

00:20:45 Speaker 5 

And I think the way to really do that is through benefits programs. 

00:20:51 Speaker 5 

Right. And So what we're trying to do? 

00:20:53 Speaker 5 

At movie The. 

00:20:54 Speaker 5 

Is level the access to the education about the vehicles, about total cost of ownership about gas and also about incentives so that the every man can make an educated financial decision and there's a lot in there, right, because we are plugging education. 

00:21:12 Speaker 5 

But we feel that we have the the empathy, the software and the humans to help folks make the change. 

00:21:20 Speaker 5 

The way that. 

00:21:21 Speaker 5 

We really accelerate. 

00:21:23 Speaker 5 

Folks only get a chance to buy a car every three to five years in this country, right? So it's important that when they do get into a new car that they've had the time. 

00:21:33 Speaker 5 

To think about the decision and order the vehicle. 

00:21:39 Speaker 5 

In an appropriate time frame to get the vehicle and help solve the supply chain issue. That's something we can go deeper into what we're doing, but how we really by sort of equalizing access to education it and and access to the equipment at more and more affordable prices is happening right now as these models are released. 

00:21:58 Speaker 5 

Feel that the same thing it's going to happen very quickly, similar to what happened with Henry Ford and sort of the peripheral vision of the middle class having gas vehicles. 

00:22:09 Speaker 5 

By by corporates creating this culture of electric of electric vehicles are part of our future. We feel that we can help the middle adopt much faster and then that will create the impetus for change. 

00:22:25 Speaker 5 

The total cost of ownership question always comes up. People just there's just things people reflectively say. And so one is they're expensive. And I would say relative to what my best day is when I have a conversation with a teacher who's making $54,000 a year. 

00:22:44 Speaker 5 

Right. And driving a Camry to work. 

00:22:48 Speaker 5 

Is that we put her in a bolt. She never goes to the gas station, is not late for dinner and she saves $3500 a year on gas. She also gets a check from the government for 7500 bucks and a $3500 check from the state. And we changed her life. So I study poverty and debt in this country. 

00:23:10 Speaker 5 

When I was working on a driver safety platform about five years ago, and so I understand the financial impact of vehicles generally. Certainly when you get into an accident. 

00:23:19 Speaker 5 

And so we just want to put this teacher who's just looking for a decent experience on the way to work into a car that requires less maintenance. 

00:23:27 Speaker 5 

Less, less and less cost of gas and and and $10,000 in total benefits from the state and federal governments. 

00:23:35 Speaker 4 

And one of the things that you've touched on a couple of times here is the total cost of ownership and you've kind of just described it. But for listeners who aren't familiar with that concept, can you just break it down a little bit further? You know, we talked about expensive vehicles, we talked about expensive fuel and maintenance. Can you break down that total cost of ownership that you teach people? 

00:23:52 Speaker 5 

Yeah. So we sometimes reference the slide. If you look at the Bureau of Transportation put out a great slide that's total cost of ownership for the. 

00:23:59 Speaker 5 

Average US vehicle over the last 15 or 20 years they have it over the last five years. It's increased by 2521% and. 

00:24:09 Speaker 5 

So you know. 

00:24:10 Speaker 5 

When you thought a vehicle is going to cost you $8000, you know sort of when you purchased. 

00:24:14 Speaker 5 

It it ended up costing you 10. 

00:24:16 Speaker 5 

That's that's a big swing for the average American that has, you know, 6 or $16,000 of credit card debt, right? So. 

00:24:25 Speaker 5 

What we focus on and and the reason why folks getting it down in the 1st place is you go to the car dealership, you're all pumped up, you end up getting a car. Generally that's more expensive. Regardless you're aware of. 

00:24:35 Speaker 5 

Your car payment. 

00:24:37 Speaker 5 

So let's say the average car. 

00:24:38 Speaker 5 

Payment in this country is about 420. 

00:24:40 Speaker 5 

$4. 

00:24:41 Speaker 5 

OK. So that's your car payment and that's what you think it costs you to drive your car because you just kind of casually go to the gas station once or twice a week and you sort of put. 

00:24:50 Speaker 5 

3040 or $50.00 in there, but it's not really. 

00:24:55 Speaker 5 

You know, part of the car, like, you're getting a couple $100 oil change. I mean, you know, it's, I don't know. 

00:25:01 Speaker 5 

It's just, you know. 

00:25:03 Speaker 5 

It's a it's petty cash, but when you add up, when you add up that petty cash. 

00:25:09 Speaker 5 

Right. You end up spending on average around $2800 a year. 

00:25:12 Speaker 5 

On gas. 

00:25:13 Speaker 5 

And then you're spending, you know, five, $600 a? 

00:25:15 Speaker 5 

Year on maintenance. 

00:25:16 Speaker 5 

And it's also costing you a lot of time because you're going to the gas station, which might be your favorite place because you're going 52 to 100 * a year. Maybe you love it there. 

00:25:24 Speaker 5 

But basically you have to. 

00:25:27 Speaker 5 

Factor in the 424. 

00:25:29 Speaker 5 

Right then you have to factor in, let's call it at least $200 a month for gas. 

00:25:35 Speaker 5 

And you start, you start, you realize that basically in your gas and. 

00:25:39 Speaker 5 

Your maintenance, you have another car payment. 

00:25:41 Speaker 5 

Right. And so if you actually know that, then let's say the person is now spending maybe close to six $700.00 a month in total cost of ownership over that 424. That's the real cost. There are several electric vehicles. 

00:25:58 Speaker 5 

That you can lease. 

00:26:01 Speaker 5 

Or finance in some way. 

00:26:04 Speaker 5 

That you can come in at a lower payment and also include your electric bill. 

00:26:09 

The thing that. 

00:26:09 Speaker 5 

I focus mostly on is how you make it a car. The car has a lot of ego involved in it, right? So we can debate that, but we try to just get you into a car that you like and we just try to focus on saving you money on. 

00:26:22 Speaker 1 

One thing in the US and and Tesla went through this in its early days is the dealership network, right. So you talked about the the car buying experience and and and I now live in Europe for the time being and and it's it's a very different experience here. But in the US, I mean it's a fine machine. You, you, you go in, they're going to pre sell you service, they're going to get the finance guy. There's there's a there's a whole machine that's designed to get the most out of anyone that walks in the door. 

00:26:46 Speaker 1 

To Max their credit limit right when you walk in. 

00:26:50 

Do you see? 

00:26:51 Speaker 1 

That needing to change and and do you see with EV's that same dealer network and service department kind of infrastructure is still necessary? And I know it's there because it's there, but does that need to change as well? 

00:27:03 Speaker 5 

So well, I just. I just wanna note and I'm not gonna go too deep, but how predatory you made that? 

00:27:08 Speaker 5 

Sound and I'm going to say that generally, you know, I think it's like you. 

00:27:14 Speaker 5 

Know I don't know. 

00:27:14 

You bought a car in the. 

00:27:14 Speaker 1 

What the word is? 

00:27:15 Speaker 1 

US and. 

00:27:15 Speaker 1 

It does, right? I I'm not gonna back away. 

00:27:18 Speaker 1 

From that it. 

00:27:18 Speaker 1 

Feels extremely pretty. 

00:27:19 Speaker 5 

And and and I don't think you have to. And I think what a lot of people don't. What's the symptom of that? The symptom of that is 80% of the population by a car. When the car breaks or their lease is up. So they're already very, very vulnerable. 

00:27:30 Speaker 5 

And likely to make poor financial decisions because there's a lot of time pressure on. 

00:27:34 Speaker 5 

Them. So we try to help with that in terms of do I think the car purchasing model is changing in the US, Yes, I do a lot of the OEM's have said their electric vehicle sales are going to be strictly online and I think that that opens up for a much better. 

00:27:51 Speaker 5 

Customer experience as long as you know with working. 

00:27:53 Speaker 5 

With us or? 

00:27:54 Speaker 5 

With others, they get the chance to feel comfortable at the car again in a non, you know, in a non predatory way. 

00:28:01 Speaker 5 

With no Commission or Commission pressure on anyone learning about, you know, the goods and bads of owning an electric vehicle, there are some negatives, right? I can't think of many, but. 

00:28:13 Speaker 5 

Yes, I think it's changing. That's something we think is also sort of wind in our sails because we think it will be less common to go in, in the in a normal way. And then if you do any market testing like. 

00:28:27 Speaker 5 

We just did this the other day that had a market was here. 

00:28:30 Speaker 5 

Running a few. 

00:28:30 Speaker 5 

Dealerships most sales reps there don't know much about the electric vehicles that that the dealership offers just generally. And also, you know, not highly aware of what qualifies for incentives and what doesn't. 

00:28:50 Speaker 5 

And so even in a. 

00:28:51 Speaker 5 

Normal process. We feel that. 

00:28:53 Speaker 5 

There's a lot of helpful information we can share with. 

00:28:58 Speaker 5 

With our ultimate, you know, partners and friends, you know, as we like to think about it, I think you know, we feel like we're providing a very necessary service that's sort of filling a bunch of legacy gaps in this whole model that don't make sense. 

00:29:13 Speaker 5 

And we think that it's just important to take the pressure. Thank you for bringing this up, because actually to take the pressure off people and this experience and the way that our software allows you to do that, is it. 

00:29:22 Speaker 5 

Allows you to plan way ahead. 

00:29:26 Speaker 5 

Right. So you're not surprised by a date. You're not surprised by a date when you need to make a decision, and whether that's to order the vehicle, have it delivered, or claim your benefits. We're trying to destress that whole situation for you with software and prompts. 

00:29:45 Speaker 4 

This this conversation wouldn't be fair if I didn't at some point bring up electric vehicle charging info. 

00:29:50 Speaker 4 

Gotcha. I think one of the things that has caused a lot of frustration, particularly over the last three to six months in the UK is the level of reliability, the queues that are starting to emerge and the roll out of that infrastructure. But I genuinely don't have a a clue what's going on in the US when it comes to. 

00:30:07 Speaker 4 

Infrastructure. Could you tell us more? 

00:30:08 Speaker 4 

About the charging infrastructure. 

00:30:10 Speaker 4 

And you know how that's impacting the transition over in the? 

00:30:15 Speaker 5 

Yeah, I mean, I look at this as like the opportunity of a generation to sort of rebuild infrastructure that was built a long time ago with different technologies available at the time that were great. But maybe there's improved solutions now. 

00:30:35 Speaker 5 

Since you asked, we're actually leading a task force driven by the Advanced Energy Group. 

00:30:43 Speaker 5 

That's a cohort of industry experts to figure out exactly this how do we ready the infrastructure, especially in environmental justice communities? 

00:30:55 Speaker 5 

In a budget friendly way that can help make sure that we are ready for mass adoption, I think that's a long term problem. I mean we. 

00:31:04 Speaker 5 

Can you know? There's pretty high ownership home ownership in this country. Certainly buy geography. You can find places with home ownership and at movie. We're not advocating for mass adoption today. 

00:31:18 Speaker 5 

Right. We're just trying to empathetically make everyone aware that mass adoption is going to start to happen over the next 10 years, 15 years. And so let's start playing now. Let's start getting the low hanging fruit that we can take advantage of, put those people in cars a little bit faster simultaneously give us time to improve the. 

00:31:40 Speaker 5 

And also the opportunity to really improve air quality issues and environmental justice areas and also if we do this appropriately, make sure that in those areas specifically that they aren't left behind in this transition because they've been thought of ahead of time and there's tremendous amounts of money in the IRA for that. 

00:32:00 Speaker 5 

And that is part of our exploration. 

00:32:03 Speaker 1 

So speaking the IRA, how does that impact what you're doing? And there's a lot going on, right? And as you said that it goes to different communities and there's there's a lot of consideration there. 

00:32:13 Speaker 1 

The legislation hasn't been around that much. It was people saw it coming, so it wasn't a surprise. Like you said, like buying a car, you. 

00:32:19 Speaker 1 

Can plan for it. 

00:32:20 Speaker 1 

How has it impacted your organization? 

00:32:25 Speaker 5 

I mean, it's just happening now, like the government, the federal government wants you to drive an electric vehicle so badly. 

00:32:35 Speaker 5 

That they're going to give you 7500 bucks. 

00:32:40 Speaker 5 

Right. And then you get to save $3000 every year on gas. And so think about if you we do this when we start with a client as we show them the impact. 

00:32:51 Speaker 5 

Of their investment in us. Right. And that's what if literally every employee that has a car saved $3000 a year, what would they do with that money? Hopefully some of them would save for important things. A lot of them would also spend that money locally. 

00:33:08 Speaker 1 

So great, but in a ridiculous point, but a point that I've heard made. So the current and and it certainly not an argument I'm making, but I've heard it before, the current infrastructure to maintain mechanics and all the people behind the scenes to keep the current combustion engine operation in there is a lot of employed. 

00:33:28 Speaker 1 

People. So where do they go? Because my EV doesn't go into the shop near as much. In theory, right? It doesn't have as many moving parts. It shouldn't break down as much. So what happens to? 

00:33:37 Speaker 5 

Yeah. I mean, I think they evolve and adapt. I again, I don't think this is an overnight change. I think this is something that. 

00:33:45 Speaker 5 

Is going to happen overtime. I like to think that I mean, especially in America, you're kind of like, you know, you're supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And I think part of why we want to make the idea that this is coming so obvious is that folks like that can try to get the, you know, the education that they need to move forward. 

00:34:07 Speaker 5 

There's going to be a lot of jobs. 

00:34:09 Speaker 5 

Created right as well, like in terms of charging infrastructure. 

00:34:13 Speaker 5 

Pair. There's this awesome school by us to make a plug called Benjamin Franklin that trains folks to be wind turbine. 

00:34:21 Speaker 5 

Repair folks and I believe they're starting a charging repair program here and I think that we just need to learn and adapt. I I think that. 

00:34:32 Speaker 5 

There will be a reskilling that needs to take place. 

00:34:36 Speaker 5 

But when I look at my own career, I've been reskilling this whole time myself. So I think there'll be challenges, but I think they'll also be opportunities for those that embrace it early to win. 

00:34:51 Speaker 1 

Neil, we're starting to push up against time and he kind of pulled together thoughts that you have, Neil. 

00:34:57 Speaker 4 

So, David, you've taken us on quite a journey. You've taken us from the beginnings of your career and what I would add you, you suggested lucky, I would say you grafted it, you've studied and you've created in many ways a little Oasis of knowledge which you're looking to share with. 

00:35:12 Speaker 4 

Others you talked about, you know, understanding your driving life today. I thought that was a really cool concept helping people explore what they should already know. But, you know, making it easier for them to understand. And then you've taken us to an incredible fact which blew my mind, which is 10% of emissions in the US from commuting and make comes up to 15% when you include personal marks. That's enormous. 

00:35:34 Speaker 4 

That's a a great space to be exploring. I guess one of the things I'm interested in is, you know, you talked about, you know, people making educated decisions. What was your decision about what vehicle you drive? What decision did you? 

00:35:47 Speaker 5 

So it's such a it's such a great question. So I I did put a lot of thought into this. I acquired my first electric vehicle, I think about 20-4 months ago now before I started the business because I really needed to to know. 

00:36:04 Speaker 5 

Right. And so the car I acquired at the time, again this is the first car car I've ever purchased for work. And the purpose of this car for work. 

00:36:16 Speaker 5 

Was to be exciting. 

00:36:17 Speaker 5 

To fold. 

00:36:18 Speaker 5 

Folks, to get them to want to drive it, be in it, play around with it, and you'll see in some of the score we don't. We use it a lot. 

00:36:25 Speaker 5 

To excite children, I want it to be a car that was affordable for sort of these. The traveling pharmaceutical sales Rep that makes over $100,000 a year, but not like the ultra high. 

00:36:40 Speaker 5 

With people and so and I want it to fit me because I'm a big guy, right? You can't see it on screen, but I'm 63. I'm over £200. I historically have back problem. 

00:36:52 Speaker 5 

And I needed some cargo space because I have two little girls, right, and they have car seats. And so the car that I chose was a Tesla Model Y was the first year they made the car. The reasons that I bought the car then are not necessarily the reasons that I would. 

00:37:11 Speaker 5 

I don't know if I'd make the same choice today. 

00:37:13 Speaker 5 

I love the vehicle. 

00:37:14 Speaker 5 

I bought the vehicle because it was under $50,000 and that made me eligible for a state check. I got a check for $2500 from the state of Massachusetts, but only because I I I have filed it three months after purchase. I just want to make that note for. 

00:37:30 Speaker 5 

Anyone listening? So under $49,000 at the time it was attainable. 

00:37:34 Speaker 5 

Far it went over 300,000 miles at the time is still a range anxiety, I would argue. You don't need 300 miles, but I do like that. And then I wanted the charging infrastructure because my wife and I take trips to Vermont and and whatnot, and I have to say. 

00:37:51 Speaker 5 

I really enjoy the car. It's performed incredibly well. It's the first car I've ever owned that was worth more money after I purchased it than when I bought it so that. 

00:38:00 Speaker 5 

Was pretty cool. 

00:38:03 Speaker 5 

And I I do think it's an incredible vehicle. 

00:38:06 Speaker 1 

Awesome. I thank you so much for sharing with us today on the podcast. It's been an interesting journey. Thanks for being our guest. 

00:38:16 Speaker 5 

It's my pleasure. I love the work that you're doing. Please keep it up and looking forward to to to more. 

00:38:22 Speaker 1 

For our guests, we hope you've enjoyed this episode of Insiders Guide to Energy EV mini series. I hope it provided a glimpse of what kind of difference folks can make and what's happening in North America with EV market TuneIn again for our next episode of Insiders. 

00:38:37 Speaker 1 

Ride Energy EV miniseries. We'll talk to you again next week. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and share this with your friends. Bye, bye. 

Audio file 

audiodavidlewisfinfix.mp3 

Transcript 

00:00:04 Speaker 2 

Broadcasting from the commodity capital of the world, Zurich, Switzerland, this is insiders guide to energy. 

00:00:20 Speaker 3 

Addition to insiders guide to energy is brought to you by protectors. Go to www.protectis.com For more information. 

00:00:59 Speaker 1 

This episode of Insiders Guide to Energy EV Miniseries is powered by power. Power helps your business transition to electric vehicles by simplifying charging, managing payments, and optimizing your charging data. 

00:01:13 Speaker 1 

Welcome to insiders guide to energy. I'm your host Chris Sass, and with me is Neil Riddell. Welcome to insiders guide energy. 

00:01:19 Speaker 1 

EV mini seers Neil, welcome back. 

00:01:21 Speaker 4 

Hey, Chris, how you doing? 

00:01:23 Speaker 1 

I am doing well. 

00:01:24 Speaker 1 

I'm looking forward to this conversation. We're going to talk to a gentleman I met was in Boston at a clean tech round table and I was excited enough to say, hey, he'd probably be a great fit for this EV mini series. So I'm I'm kind of looking forward to this conversation. 

00:01:40 Speaker 4 

Cool. Sounds great. Who? 

00:01:41 Speaker 4 

Are we speaking to? 

00:01:42 Speaker 1 

So we have David Lewis on. 

00:01:44 Speaker 1 

Board David, welcome to the program. 

00:01:46 Speaker 5 

Thank you so much. It's an. 

00:01:47 Speaker 5 

Honor to be here with you both. 

00:01:49 Speaker 1 

So David, I I just let the audience know. 

00:01:52 Speaker 1 

That I met. 

00:01:52 Speaker 1 

You in Boston that I met you. 

00:01:54 Speaker 1 

And I didn't. 

00:01:55 Speaker 1 

Give him any more information. So let's start the interview by who are you professionally and what? 

00:02:00 Speaker 1 

It is you do. 

00:02:02 Speaker 5 

Who am I professionally? I'd love that. Well, let's catch up a little bit and then we can jump into what I do, I guess. Who am I professionally? I usually like to start with. I grew up working in a restaurant, so I grew up working a lot, really understand hand to mouth. Historical memory is, you know, picking up waitresses. 

00:02:21 Speaker 5 

When their car breaks down and understanding how expensive though those bills can be. 

00:02:26 Speaker 5 

Progressed from there to the University of Vermont. Then I got, you know, I watched boiler room a few too many times and I got a job on Wall Street working on a big. 

00:02:33 Speaker 5 

Trading floor for city kind of cut my teeth there went through their investment banking program, then went through RBC's investment banking program and ended up. 

00:02:43 Speaker 5 

Syndicating a lot of debt. That was my specialty for about 10 years. Then I went to Columbia for Business School and got Super Lucky. 

00:02:52 Speaker 5 

When I got out and, you know, capped my 10 in 10 year in New York. 

00:02:57 Speaker 5 

And moved to Boston to join a company called MODIS. 

00:03:00 Speaker 5 

Modis is the largest vehicle reimbursement company in the world. It's an alternative to fleet at that company. I was vice president of strategy and was responsible for things like. 

00:03:12 Speaker 5 

M&A partnerships, platform growth and kind of became very interested in all the cost inputs of driving, how to save people money. 

00:03:25 Speaker 5 

And one of the things that I'm focused on what got me today is generally fuels about 30% the cost, total cost of ownership. So there's a lot of waste there. And then since then, I founded this company where I am today move EV and we focused on saving people money on gas. 

00:03:46 Speaker 5 

Saving them 25% of their personal omissions where their kids play baseball and helping to accelerate this move into electric vehicle. 

00:03:58 Speaker 4 

So I'm going to pick you up on something, David. I don't really believe in luck. So you said you got super lucky, but can you tell us a bit more about what made you super lucky? Because I'm, I'm convinced that you. 

00:04:08 Speaker 4 

Did something clever? 

00:04:10 Speaker 5 

Oh, thank you. Well, to make a longer story, my IQ had just sold to Microsoft for a bunch of money, so I was in the newspaper and I was. 

00:04:18 Speaker 5 

At Columbia Business School at the time. 

00:04:21 Speaker 5 

And I was trying to figure out, you know, what was I going to do next? I had a I had a gluten free burger place in the middle there, but we'll get. We'll get to that over beers. But I was trying to figure out what was I going to do next. 

00:04:34 Speaker 5 

And I really wanted to learn how to be an operator. 

00:04:37 Speaker 5 

Right. I had financed lots of businesses, I mean billions and billions of dollars passed through us. But I had never been an operator and I got presented this opportunity from the CEO of MODIS at the. 

00:04:50 Speaker 5 

To look at the market, so I spent a month before I took the job, really defining the market for his product and we realized that we thought the market was growing exponentially for reimbursement versus fleet. And what I mean by that is historically in this country, if you drive a lot for work and a sales capacity, you're provided by the company. 

00:05:11 Speaker 5 

Fleet vehicle a fuel. 

00:05:12 Speaker 5 

Card and everything is taken care of. 

00:05:16 Speaker 5 

However, in researching this, I don't always believe in that model, right? There's a lot of capital expenditure waste, in my opinion in that model. Also, it opens up the employer to night and weekend risk of the employee, which if you research driver safety in this country is when 70% of major motor vehicle accidents happen. 

00:05:36 Speaker 5 

Which is also we can go down a whole driver safety thing. I have a whole another half hour for. 

00:05:41 Speaker 5 

You on that. 

00:05:45 Speaker 5 

To circle back, I just saw that there was only two competitors in the space. I thought that Modus had better technology and I was given the opportunity to be the third leg of a stool. It was me, the CEO and the CFO, always carrying a bag, raising money, driving growth and you know, really expand. I mean the whole business. 

00:06:05 Speaker 5 

You know, just blew up over the over the next five years. We got bought by Toma Bravo in the middle of it and Premier just announced a transaction. 

00:06:14 Speaker 5 

A while ago. 

00:06:17 Speaker 5 

And so I say I got lucky is because I joined a successful entity where I was able to contribute and grow where I was given the ability to stretch myself and really build out my skill set and sort of learn how to exist in the uncertainty of. 

00:06:34 Speaker 5 

Hyper growth, you know where I had sort of grown up in very stable businesses like restaurants which you can argue state. My data business of 25 years, very stable business or finance where you know bankers are always figuring out how to make money right. 

00:06:48 Speaker 4 

So so this this says that you electric vehicles seem to be an obvious theme to you. I mean, I don't know the US particularly well we we're starting to see those early signs of hyper growth for electric vehicles here in the UK. Is the US going through the same transition? 

00:07:02 Speaker 5 

Yeah, so basic. So this is where I get really excited, right? And why we founded movie TV. So the answer is yes, but not as fast, right? And so I became hyper focused on figuring out our electric vehicles. 

00:07:18 Speaker 5 

Cheaper, better, fast. 

00:07:19 Speaker 5 

There and I found out. Yes. And then I was studying why are we lagging Europe? Why are we lagging all these other countries, Norway and especially the UK? 

00:07:29 Speaker 5 

An easy adoption. So I then went on a journey to learn and I work with consultants across Europe to really build my skill set around what's working there, came him across programs like salary sacrifice and started really the nuts and bolts of wybie's work. 

00:07:48 Speaker 5 

You know, I felt that I was uniquely qualified as sort of a mobility expert to start this company and start to solve what I see. The problem here is that. 

00:07:56 Speaker 5 

We just need to build this into the culture and so and that's how we'll accelerate adoption and the way the movie V does that is by partnering with corporations and municipality to look at all of their vehicles across their scopes, vehicles, they own all the way to vehicles that are just commuting to work or owned by by an employee. 

00:08:16 Speaker 1 

So what exactly when you partner, what are they doing? Is there software that you've put together? Is IT consulting services? What what is movie The offering your your customer? 

00:08:27 Speaker 5 

We offer both. So what we find is our clients are really ready to learn a lot and kind of rethink some of the things that they've been doing. 

00:08:36 Speaker 5 

But soft but and we've built some great software, but software is usually a. 

00:08:40 Speaker 5 

Next step, right? 

00:08:42 Speaker 5 

More times we're still identifying what is the problem here today, right. And we're showing them a very big problem, right? When we start talking about commuting emissions. 

00:08:53 Speaker 5 

And commuting emissions, especially for office workers, are a generally the vast majority of their emissions. Certainly their contributed emissions. 

00:09:01 Speaker 5 

There's a Sun Microsystems study that was. 

00:09:03 Speaker 5 

Done in the. 

00:09:04 Speaker 5 

90s that showed 80% attribution from such employees and so as you can tell, I'm just kind of helping you build the. 

00:09:12 Speaker 5 

Mosaic that helped me. 

00:09:14 Speaker 5 

For, you know, being clarity to what the problem is and what the most important solutions are. 

00:09:19 Speaker 5 

And So what? We're go ahead, sorry. 

00:09:21 Speaker 1 

Yeah, but but today, so someone comes to you and goes movie V I've looked at your website. I'm trying to figure out, you know, how I can reduce our our corporate admissions or my employees help them out along the EV trail. What's the engagement look like? How? How am I engaging with you? Is is it talking to David or is it talking to a team? What's what's? 

00:09:39 Speaker 1 

Happening. Yeah, we have a team. 

00:09:41 Speaker 5 

Locally and then internationally, because this is a global problem, we started day one with a global solo. 

00:09:48 Speaker 5 

And you'll notice that like fleet management is is very geographically focused. So what this looks like is we gather all of your information we say, do you know what's going on today in all the regions and you operate and generally we get mixed results. 

00:10:02 Speaker 5 

So we go through, we take in all of your information across your vendors, right, they're going to be 20 different places, 30 different places. Information is coming from. 

00:10:10 Speaker 5 

Then we write you a compendium. 

00:10:13 Speaker 5 

About everything that's going on today. 

00:10:17 Speaker 5 

Right. And then we overlay our expertise against industry benchmarks where you can improve today. 

00:10:26 Speaker 5 

And we're looking at cost savings, operational improvements in emissions reductions. 

00:10:31 Speaker 5 

OK. And then from there, we can have a. 

00:10:34 Speaker 5 

Real conversation about what are your options. 

00:10:37 

But until we. 

00:10:38 Speaker 5 

Baseline level set you it's a complete unknown and if you see the disparate stakeholders that are involved in gathering all this data across HR, procurement, sales, it's no wonder it hasn't been done before, right? 

00:10:57 Speaker 4 

And one of the things I picked up through your website was you're actually looking at scope one, scope two and SCOPE 3 emissions. Can you just talk us through that and tell us a little bit about what the story means when you convert certain vehicles across from petrol and diesel into electric and how that changes the scope and the impact? 

00:11:16 Speaker 5 

What a great question. 

00:11:20 Speaker 5 

OK. 

00:11:22 Speaker 5 

Scope one. Our assets you own trying to keep it simple. Scope one assets you own. I own this fleet vehicle. 

00:11:31 Speaker 5 

This fleet vehicle drives around to visit a bunch of doctor's offices during the day, and he parks it in his. 

00:11:37 Speaker 5 

Garage, right. He goes to bed. He wakes up, that guy gets in his fleet vehicle, drives it around again. That's scope one. 

00:11:43 Speaker 5 

You own the vehicle. 

00:11:45 Speaker 5 

Right. So we cover those and that can be vehicles big and small depending on the. 

00:11:49 Speaker 5 

Business right. And so generally those are measured in a in a progressive company and in a very progressive company. They're trying to mitigate them. Scope one, my first priority, scope one, I don't agree with that, but I think that's how. 

00:12:05 Speaker 5 

They're perceived in the market. 

00:12:07 Speaker 5 

Scope two is energy I buy. 

00:12:11 Speaker 5 

Right. So I'm buying energy to perhaps run my electric vehicle. If you were to convert, that'd be scoped too, but the way people think about scope two is buying energy. The example that always gets said is I own a factory. I buy electricity for that factory. The emissions created from creating that electricity is my scope too. 

00:12:32 Speaker 5 

And those are perceived to be easily measurable and easily mitigated with money. 

00:12:38 Speaker 5 

Right. And generally your electric company can. 

00:12:40 Speaker 5 

Help you with those. 

00:12:42 Speaker 5 

And so I'm telling a story of we get progressively further away from your sphere of influence and abilities to throw money. 

00:12:51 Speaker 5 

At the problem. 

00:12:52 Speaker 5 

OK, Scope 3. 

00:12:56 Speaker 5 

Is way out here. 

00:12:58 Speaker 5 

And includes all things in your supply chain. So if you buy widgets from China that are shipped in a barge, then driven to your warehouse, that's Scope 3. Those are considered very difficult to manage. 

00:13:13 Speaker 5 

Very difficult to influence, right? And most companies are avoiding them today. However, there's a golden one that we focus on. 

00:13:21 Speaker 5 

And that is commuting to work. We specifically focus on commuting to work alone in your car, because even though it's way out here. 

00:13:32 Speaker 5 

With our programs, your corporation or municipality can influence them, right? And why we love Scope 3, commuting to work is that. 

00:13:43 Speaker 5 

We always use this Amazon example. Is it OK if I use an Amazon example? So Amazon made this incredible commitment to buy all these rivian vans and it is amazing $700 million if you do some back of the napkin math, it's about $70,000 a van. There's a huge green premium on that thing relative to white. 

00:14:04 Speaker 5 

Ford van. 

00:14:06 Speaker 5 

Right. So let's just say it's 70 grand to omit to stop those emissions. OK, for 15 years. 

00:14:13 Speaker 5 

The useful life of that vehicle. 

00:14:15 Speaker 5 

OK, 70 grand or $35,000 premium then? 

00:14:20 Speaker 5 

Amazon also has. 

00:14:21 Speaker 5 

A million people driving to fact drive into packaging places. 

00:14:26 Speaker 5 

In pickup trucks. 

00:14:28 Speaker 5 

And those pickup trucks are built on the same chassis, get the same MPGS as the white van that that rivian is replacing. 

00:14:36 Speaker 5 

And what we like to say is like, it's great. You work on the the vans, but let's also work on those employees because the federal government is paying your premium for you. 

00:14:49 Speaker 5 

And so. 

00:14:51 Speaker 5 

However you get. 

00:14:52 Speaker 5 

Them in to drive an EV so that they can save $3000 a year on gas, which I think is the best socioeconomic thing you can do for any human being, which is why we're doing this is get them to stop paying for gas and paying for electricity. 

00:15:06 Speaker 5 

Right. All you have to do is get them to do that, and that is not going to cost you $35,000 and it's not going to cost you $70,000. And so if you really care about reducing emissions where your kids play baseball. 

00:15:18 Speaker 5 

Could make sense to focus a little bit on those million people driving to work and not the 10,000 bands, but both are great. Sorry, both are incredible. Amazon is incredible for making that commitment. 

00:15:29 Speaker 1 

How does this? 

00:15:30 Speaker 1 

Work in in you know, so you got ESG and you got all these. All these buzzwords that people are doing in corporate America these days, you're saying it doesn't cost them money to put a program like this in place. So explain a little bit of the logistics. I'm a Fortune 1000 company or a Fortune 100 company and. 

00:15:49 Speaker 1 

I engage moving EV. Why and how do I make this work to get my my employees there? 

00:15:55 Speaker 5 

So there's tons of O. 

00:15:56 Speaker 5 

I obviously wouldn't. You know, we wouldn't be doing this. It has to make common sense for everybody, but. 

00:16:02 Speaker 5 

There's a million ways to think about the ROI. So we administer a program that basically helps the end user understand what's going on in their driving life today. 

00:16:12 Speaker 5 

Right. So we built a proprietary survey tool that helps you allow your employees to be part of your energy transition, right? Basically we want to, we want to help facilitate for a company, we want everyone driving electric vehicles. We've partnered with Movie V to make this as simple and easy for you as possible. It begins. 

00:16:32 Speaker 5 

And it's about togetherness and movie. Vehement right that we're all in this together because there is a greater benefit. 

00:16:38 Speaker 5 

Fit. What's so great about? 

00:16:40 Speaker 5 

It is everyone saves money on gas. 

00:16:42 Speaker 5 

So it's just. 

00:16:42 Speaker 5 

A cost saving thing in my mind. And then everyone benefits from fewer emissions. 

00:16:46 Speaker 5 

You hire us. 

00:16:47 Speaker 5 

We start with this survey. We baseline you again. 

00:16:50 Speaker 5 

Right. And then we continue, then the end user gets fed back their own user, they're in their own portal now learning about their driving life. 

00:16:59 Speaker 5 

And just like I taught, we talked about me teaching in high schools. We teach them, hey, these are the actual total cost of ownership of your car, which I know. 

00:17:08 Speaker 5 

95% of the population doesn't is not aware of right especially. 

00:17:14 Speaker 5 

When gas is up 2 1/2 times. 

00:17:18 Speaker 5 

So think about the environment of the last year and think about it. You know, half the population in the US living paycheck to paycheck and then have to come out an extra $1500 for gas, right. So and then we help, we help the folks sort of like, learn and understand what's available to them in terms of incentives. We give them an outlet to speak with one of our service. 

00:17:37 Speaker 5 

Members should they have actual questions because not everyone purchases stuff on their phone. I do want to say we do not sell cars. 

00:17:47 Speaker 5 

Right. We are not in the business of selling cars. 

00:17:51 Speaker 5 

We are in the business of of facilitating change. 

00:17:56 Speaker 5 

And helping people save money and save emissions. While it's great for the corporate, for those that are genuinely interested in reducing emissions. 

00:18:05 Speaker 5 

Is that each vehicle that drives to work is about 3 tons of emissions on based on the census and average commuting patterns. And so the math that got me excited was commuting to work alone in your car is about 10% of all emissions in this. 

00:18:20 Speaker 5 

And why am I so passionate about this is because I feel like we can have an effect on 10% of emissions in the country. And then if you factor in personal driving, it's more like 15% and then it's just saving money for every emission you reduce. 

00:18:35 Speaker 1 

So just I'm the master of the. 

00:18:37 Speaker 1 

The the not so bright question because. 

00:18:40 Speaker 1 

And and and and. 

00:18:42 Speaker 1 

So you take. Let's say there's a million white pickup trucks driving to work and then the same chassis in there, the gas and and you go there. 

00:18:47 Speaker 1 

And you start getting people. 

00:18:48 Speaker 1 

Convert to EV's so you you've you've helped them find incentives or. 

00:18:51 Speaker 1 

Financial way to make it happen, but aren't those million pickup trucks? 

00:18:55 Speaker 1 

Still on the road, just driven by someone else, so did the problem go away. 

00:19:00 Speaker 5 

You know, again, just like such a brilliant question. And it's it is all about useful life. And so that's why we feel it's so important that those new cars that be sold are EV. 

00:19:12 Speaker 5 

Right, because that does prevent one from entering the market because stated another way, pairing it back to you another way. 

00:19:21 Speaker 5 

You take a new gas car off the lot. You've birthed it and guaranteed because we live in America, that that thing is going to drive until it's scrapped. And so you're committing to 55 metric tons of carbon even. 

00:19:33 Speaker 5 

If you drive it for. 

00:19:34 Speaker 5 

A week, so I'm agreeing with your point. So the and, that's why Massachusetts another impetus for me starting the company is governor. 

00:19:41 Speaker 5 

Baker announced was two years ago that he was going to ban the sale of gas cars here in 2035. So there's a there's a line in the. 

00:19:52 Speaker 5 

And and Massachusetts, where we're located, is prepared to lead the way. There's so much state money available to move this forward here, and the attitudes and the urgency is palpable. 

00:20:04 Speaker 1 

What? What's the benefit? An individual? So I work at one of the companies. You're you're at. Perhaps. So we've signed up for the movie TV program. I get some education. Help me understand. So you you helped them figure out the costs. Their other incentives that they're going after, you're helping them uncover, you know, federal and state incentives to help make this. 

00:20:23 Speaker 1 

In a budget of someone, or is the corporation helping them finance the vehicle differently? How how's that happening because. 

00:20:28 Speaker 1 

EVA's do seem. 

00:20:29 Speaker 1 

To be fairly expensive still, they're they're getting better. So how's the average employee getting that new vehicle? 

00:20:36 Speaker 5 

Again, what a great question. So in my mind, the way we catch up with Europe is by getting corporations and municipalities involved at scale. 

00:20:45 Speaker 5 

And I think the way to really do that is through benefits programs. 

00:20:51 Speaker 5 

Right. And So what we're trying to do? 

00:20:53 Speaker 5 

At movie The. 

00:20:54 Speaker 5 

Is level the access to the education about the vehicles, about total cost of ownership about gas and also about incentives so that the every man can make an educated financial decision and there's a lot in there, right, because we are plugging education. 

00:21:12 Speaker 5 

But we feel that we have the the empathy, the software and the humans to help folks make the change. 

00:21:20 Speaker 5 

The way that. 

00:21:21 Speaker 5 

We really accelerate. 

00:21:23 Speaker 5 

Folks only get a chance to buy a car every three to five years in this country, right? So it's important that when they do get into a new car that they've had the time. 

00:21:33 Speaker 5 

To think about the decision and order the vehicle. 

00:21:39 Speaker 5 

In an appropriate time frame to get the vehicle and help solve the supply chain issue. That's something we can go deeper into what we're doing, but how we really by sort of equalizing access to education it and and access to the equipment at more and more affordable prices is happening right now as these models are released. 

00:21:58 Speaker 5 

Feel that the same thing it's going to happen very quickly, similar to what happened with Henry Ford and sort of the peripheral vision of the middle class having gas vehicles. 

00:22:09 Speaker 5 

By by corporates creating this culture of electric of electric vehicles are part of our future. We feel that we can help the middle adopt much faster and then that will create the impetus for change. 

00:22:25 Speaker 5 

The total cost of ownership question always comes up. People just there's just things people reflectively say. And so one is they're expensive. And I would say relative to what my best day is when I have a conversation with a teacher who's making $54,000 a year. 

00:22:44 Speaker 5 

Right. And driving a Camry to work. 

00:22:48 Speaker 5 

Is that we put her in a bolt. She never goes to the gas station, is not late for dinner and she saves $3500 a year on gas. She also gets a check from the government for 7500 bucks and a $3500 check from the state. And we changed her life. So I study poverty and debt in this country. 

00:23:10 Speaker 5 

When I was working on a driver safety platform about five years ago, and so I understand the financial impact of vehicles generally. Certainly when you get into an accident. 

00:23:19 Speaker 5 

And so we just want to put this teacher who's just looking for a decent experience on the way to work into a car that requires less maintenance. 

00:23:27 Speaker 5 

Less, less and less cost of gas and and and $10,000 in total benefits from the state and federal governments. 

00:23:35 Speaker 4 

And one of the things that you've touched on a couple of times here is the total cost of ownership and you've kind of just described it. But for listeners who aren't familiar with that concept, can you just break it down a little bit further? You know, we talked about expensive vehicles, we talked about expensive fuel and maintenance. Can you break down that total cost of ownership that you teach people? 

00:23:52 Speaker 5 

Yeah. So we sometimes reference the slide. If you look at the Bureau of Transportation put out a great slide that's total cost of ownership for the. 

00:23:59 Speaker 5 

Average US vehicle over the last 15 or 20 years they have it over the last five years. It's increased by 2521% and. 

00:24:09 Speaker 5 

So you know. 

00:24:10 Speaker 5 

When you thought a vehicle is going to cost you $8000, you know sort of when you purchased. 

00:24:14 Speaker 5 

It it ended up costing you 10. 

00:24:16 Speaker 5 

That's that's a big swing for the average American that has, you know, 6 or $16,000 of credit card debt, right? So. 

00:24:25 Speaker 5 

What we focus on and and the reason why folks getting it down in the 1st place is you go to the car dealership, you're all pumped up, you end up getting a car. Generally that's more expensive. Regardless you're aware of. 

00:24:35 Speaker 5 

Your car payment. 

00:24:37 Speaker 5 

So let's say the average car. 

00:24:38 Speaker 5 

Payment in this country is about 420. 

00:24:40 Speaker 5 

$4. 

00:24:41 Speaker 5 

OK. So that's your car payment and that's what you think it costs you to drive your car because you just kind of casually go to the gas station once or twice a week and you sort of put. 

00:24:50 Speaker 5 

3040 or $50.00 in there, but it's not really. 

00:24:55 Speaker 5 

You know, part of the car, like, you're getting a couple $100 oil change. I mean, you know, it's, I don't know. 

00:25:01 Speaker 5 

It's just, you know. 

00:25:03 Speaker 5 

It's a it's petty cash, but when you add up, when you add up that petty cash. 

00:25:09 Speaker 5 

Right. You end up spending on average around $2800 a year. 

00:25:12 Speaker 5 

On gas. 

00:25:13 Speaker 5 

And then you're spending, you know, five, $600 a? 

00:25:15 Speaker 5 

Year on maintenance. 

00:25:16 Speaker 5 

And it's also costing you a lot of time because you're going to the gas station, which might be your favorite place because you're going 52 to 100 * a year. Maybe you love it there. 

00:25:24 Speaker 5 

But basically you have to. 

00:25:27 Speaker 5 

Factor in the 424. 

00:25:29 Speaker 5 

Right then you have to factor in, let's call it at least $200 a month for gas. 

00:25:35 Speaker 5 

And you start, you start, you realize that basically in your gas and. 

00:25:39 Speaker 5 

Your maintenance, you have another car payment. 

00:25:41 Speaker 5 

Right. And so if you actually know that, then let's say the person is now spending maybe close to six $700.00 a month in total cost of ownership over that 424. That's the real cost. There are several electric vehicles. 

00:25:58 Speaker 5 

That you can lease. 

00:26:01 Speaker 5 

Or finance in some way. 

00:26:04 Speaker 5 

That you can come in at a lower payment and also include your electric bill. 

00:26:09 

The thing that. 

00:26:09 Speaker 5 

I focus mostly on is how you make it a car. The car has a lot of ego involved in it, right? So we can debate that, but we try to just get you into a car that you like and we just try to focus on saving you money on. 

00:26:22 Speaker 1 

One thing in the US and and Tesla went through this in its early days is the dealership network, right. So you talked about the the car buying experience and and and I now live in Europe for the time being and and it's it's a very different experience here. But in the US, I mean it's a fine machine. You, you, you go in, they're going to pre sell you service, they're going to get the finance guy. There's there's a there's a whole machine that's designed to get the most out of anyone that walks in the door. 

00:26:46 Speaker 1 

To Max their credit limit right when you walk in. 

00:26:50 

Do you see? 

00:26:51 Speaker 1 

That needing to change and and do you see with EV's that same dealer network and service department kind of infrastructure is still necessary? And I know it's there because it's there, but does that need to change as well? 

00:27:03 Speaker 5 

So well, I just. I just wanna note and I'm not gonna go too deep, but how predatory you made that? 

00:27:08 Speaker 5 

Sound and I'm going to say that generally, you know, I think it's like you. 

00:27:14 Speaker 5 

Know I don't know. 

00:27:14 

You bought a car in the. 

00:27:14 Speaker 1 

What the word is? 

00:27:15 Speaker 1 

US and. 

00:27:15 Speaker 1 

It does, right? I I'm not gonna back away. 

00:27:18 Speaker 1 

From that it. 

00:27:18 Speaker 1 

Feels extremely pretty. 

00:27:19 Speaker 5 

And and and I don't think you have to. And I think what a lot of people don't. What's the symptom of that? The symptom of that is 80% of the population by a car. When the car breaks or their lease is up. So they're already very, very vulnerable. 

00:27:30 Speaker 5 

And likely to make poor financial decisions because there's a lot of time pressure on. 

00:27:34 Speaker 5 

Them. So we try to help with that in terms of do I think the car purchasing model is changing in the US, Yes, I do a lot of the OEM's have said their electric vehicle sales are going to be strictly online and I think that that opens up for a much better. 

00:27:51 Speaker 5 

Customer experience as long as you know with working. 

00:27:53 Speaker 5 

With us or? 

00:27:54 Speaker 5 

With others, they get the chance to feel comfortable at the car again in a non, you know, in a non predatory way. 

00:28:01 Speaker 5 

With no Commission or Commission pressure on anyone learning about, you know, the goods and bads of owning an electric vehicle, there are some negatives, right? I can't think of many, but. 

00:28:13 Speaker 5 

Yes, I think it's changing. That's something we think is also sort of wind in our sails because we think it will be less common to go in, in the in a normal way. And then if you do any market testing like. 

00:28:27 Speaker 5 

We just did this the other day that had a market was here. 

00:28:30 Speaker 5 

Running a few. 

00:28:30 Speaker 5 

Dealerships most sales reps there don't know much about the electric vehicles that that the dealership offers just generally. And also, you know, not highly aware of what qualifies for incentives and what doesn't. 

00:28:50 Speaker 5 

And so even in a. 

00:28:51 Speaker 5 

Normal process. We feel that. 

00:28:53 Speaker 5 

There's a lot of helpful information we can share with. 

00:28:58 Speaker 5 

With our ultimate, you know, partners and friends, you know, as we like to think about it, I think you know, we feel like we're providing a very necessary service that's sort of filling a bunch of legacy gaps in this whole model that don't make sense. 

00:29:13 Speaker 5 

And we think that it's just important to take the pressure. Thank you for bringing this up, because actually to take the pressure off people and this experience and the way that our software allows you to do that, is it. 

00:29:22 Speaker 5 

Allows you to plan way ahead. 

00:29:26 Speaker 5 

Right. So you're not surprised by a date. You're not surprised by a date when you need to make a decision, and whether that's to order the vehicle, have it delivered, or claim your benefits. We're trying to destress that whole situation for you with software and prompts. 

00:29:45 Speaker 4 

This this conversation wouldn't be fair if I didn't at some point bring up electric vehicle charging info. 

00:29:50 Speaker 4 

Gotcha. I think one of the things that has caused a lot of frustration, particularly over the last three to six months in the UK is the level of reliability, the queues that are starting to emerge and the roll out of that infrastructure. But I genuinely don't have a a clue what's going on in the US when it comes to. 

00:30:07 Speaker 4 

Infrastructure. Could you tell us more? 

00:30:08 Speaker 4 

About the charging infrastructure. 

00:30:10 Speaker 4 

And you know how that's impacting the transition over in the? 

00:30:15 Speaker 5 

Yeah, I mean, I look at this as like the opportunity of a generation to sort of rebuild infrastructure that was built a long time ago with different technologies available at the time that were great. But maybe there's improved solutions now. 

00:30:35 Speaker 5 

Since you asked, we're actually leading a task force driven by the Advanced Energy Group. 

00:30:43 Speaker 5 

That's a cohort of industry experts to figure out exactly this how do we ready the infrastructure, especially in environmental justice communities? 

00:30:55 Speaker 5 

In a budget friendly way that can help make sure that we are ready for mass adoption, I think that's a long term problem. I mean we. 

00:31:04 Speaker 5 

Can you know? There's pretty high ownership home ownership in this country. Certainly buy geography. You can find places with home ownership and at movie. We're not advocating for mass adoption today. 

00:31:18 Speaker 5 

Right. We're just trying to empathetically make everyone aware that mass adoption is going to start to happen over the next 10 years, 15 years. And so let's start playing now. Let's start getting the low hanging fruit that we can take advantage of, put those people in cars a little bit faster simultaneously give us time to improve the. 

00:31:40 Speaker 5 

And also the opportunity to really improve air quality issues and environmental justice areas and also if we do this appropriately, make sure that in those areas specifically that they aren't left behind in this transition because they've been thought of ahead of time and there's tremendous amounts of money in the IRA for that. 

00:32:00 Speaker 5 

And that is part of our exploration. 

00:32:03 Speaker 1 

So speaking the IRA, how does that impact what you're doing? And there's a lot going on, right? And as you said that it goes to different communities and there's there's a lot of consideration there. 

00:32:13 Speaker 1 

The legislation hasn't been around that much. It was people saw it coming, so it wasn't a surprise. Like you said, like buying a car, you. 

00:32:19 Speaker 1 

Can plan for it. 

00:32:20 Speaker 1 

How has it impacted your organization? 

00:32:25 Speaker 5 

I mean, it's just happening now, like the government, the federal government wants you to drive an electric vehicle so badly. 

00:32:35 Speaker 5 

That they're going to give you 7500 bucks. 

00:32:40 Speaker 5 

Right. And then you get to save $3000 every year on gas. And so think about if you we do this when we start with a client as we show them the impact. 

00:32:51 Speaker 5 

Of their investment in us. Right. And that's what if literally every employee that has a car saved $3000 a year, what would they do with that money? Hopefully some of them would save for important things. A lot of them would also spend that money locally. 

00:33:08 Speaker 1 

So great, but in a ridiculous point, but a point that I've heard made. So the current and and it certainly not an argument I'm making, but I've heard it before, the current infrastructure to maintain mechanics and all the people behind the scenes to keep the current combustion engine operation in there is a lot of employed. 

00:33:28 Speaker 1 

People. So where do they go? Because my EV doesn't go into the shop near as much. In theory, right? It doesn't have as many moving parts. It shouldn't break down as much. So what happens to? 

00:33:37 Speaker 5 

Yeah. I mean, I think they evolve and adapt. I again, I don't think this is an overnight change. I think this is something that. 

00:33:45 Speaker 5 

Is going to happen overtime. I like to think that I mean, especially in America, you're kind of like, you know, you're supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And I think part of why we want to make the idea that this is coming so obvious is that folks like that can try to get the, you know, the education that they need to move forward. 

00:34:07 Speaker 5 

There's going to be a lot of jobs. 

00:34:09 Speaker 5 

Created right as well, like in terms of charging infrastructure. 

00:34:13 Speaker 5 

Pair. There's this awesome school by us to make a plug called Benjamin Franklin that trains folks to be wind turbine. 

00:34:21 Speaker 5 

Repair folks and I believe they're starting a charging repair program here and I think that we just need to learn and adapt. I I think that. 

00:34:32 Speaker 5 

There will be a reskilling that needs to take place. 

00:34:36 Speaker 5 

But when I look at my own career, I've been reskilling this whole time myself. So I think there'll be challenges, but I think they'll also be opportunities for those that embrace it early to win. 

00:34:51 Speaker 1 

Neil, we're starting to push up against time and he kind of pulled together thoughts that you have, Neil. 

00:34:57 Speaker 4 

So, David, you've taken us on quite a journey. You've taken us from the beginnings of your career and what I would add you, you suggested lucky, I would say you grafted it, you've studied and you've created in many ways a little Oasis of knowledge which you're looking to share with. 

00:35:12 Speaker 4 

Others you talked about, you know, understanding your driving life today. I thought that was a really cool concept helping people explore what they should already know. But, you know, making it easier for them to understand. And then you've taken us to an incredible fact which blew my mind, which is 10% of emissions in the US from commuting and make comes up to 15% when you include personal marks. That's enormous. 

00:35:34 Speaker 4 

That's a a great space to be exploring. I guess one of the things I'm interested in is, you know, you talked about, you know, people making educated decisions. What was your decision about what vehicle you drive? What decision did you? 

00:35:47 Speaker 5 

So it's such a it's such a great question. So I I did put a lot of thought into this. I acquired my first electric vehicle, I think about 20-4 months ago now before I started the business because I really needed to to know. 

00:36:04 Speaker 5 

Right. And so the car I acquired at the time, again this is the first car car I've ever purchased for work. And the purpose of this car for work. 

00:36:16 Speaker 5 

Was to be exciting. 

00:36:17 Speaker 5 

To fold. 

00:36:18 Speaker 5 

Folks, to get them to want to drive it, be in it, play around with it, and you'll see in some of the score we don't. We use it a lot. 

00:36:25 Speaker 5 

To excite children, I want it to be a car that was affordable for sort of these. The traveling pharmaceutical sales Rep that makes over $100,000 a year, but not like the ultra high. 

00:36:40 Speaker 5 

With people and so and I want it to fit me because I'm a big guy, right? You can't see it on screen, but I'm 63. I'm over £200. I historically have back problem. 

00:36:52 Speaker 5 

And I needed some cargo space because I have two little girls, right, and they have car seats. And so the car that I chose was a Tesla Model Y was the first year they made the car. The reasons that I bought the car then are not necessarily the reasons that I would. 

00:37:11 Speaker 5 

I don't know if I'd make the same choice today. 

00:37:13 Speaker 5 

I love the vehicle. 

00:37:14 Speaker 5 

I bought the vehicle because it was under $50,000 and that made me eligible for a state check. I got a check for $2500 from the state of Massachusetts, but only because I I I have filed it three months after purchase. I just want to make that note for. 

00:37:30 Speaker 5 

Anyone listening? So under $49,000 at the time it was attainable. 

00:37:34 Speaker 5 

Far it went over 300,000 miles at the time is still a range anxiety, I would argue. You don't need 300 miles, but I do like that. And then I wanted the charging infrastructure because my wife and I take trips to Vermont and and whatnot, and I have to say. 

00:37:51 Speaker 5 

I really enjoy the car. It's performed incredibly well. It's the first car I've ever owned that was worth more money after I purchased it than when I bought it so that. 

00:38:00 Speaker 5 

Was pretty cool. 

00:38:03 Speaker 5 

And I I do think it's an incredible vehicle. 

00:38:06 Speaker 1 

Awesome. I thank you so much for sharing with us today on the podcast. It's been an interesting journey. Thanks for being our guest. 

00:38:16 Speaker 5 

It's my pleasure. I love the work that you're doing. Please keep it up and looking forward to to to more. 

00:38:22 Speaker 1 

For our guests, we hope you've enjoyed this episode of Insiders Guide to Energy EV mini series. I hope it provided a glimpse of what kind of difference folks can make and what's happening in North America with EV market TuneIn again for our next episode of Insiders. 

00:38:37 Speaker 1 

Ride Energy EV miniseries. We'll talk to you again next week. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and share this with your friends. Bye, bye.