10. EV Revolution Advocacy with Roger Atkins

In this electrifying episode of the EV Mini-Series, we delve into the dynamic world of electric vehicles with none other than Roger Atkins, Founder of Electric Vehicles Outlook Ltd., a leading consultancy in the electric-connected-autonomous-shared vehicles space. Atkins, renowned for his expertise and forward-thinking in the EV industry, engages in an insightful discussion about the evolution of electric vehicles and their increasing significance in our rapidly changing world. The conversation navigates through the fascinating journey of Electric Vehicles Outlook Ltd., highlighting the profound impact that innovative ventures like Virgincars, amphibious vehicles, and electric trucks have had on the inception and growth of the company.

The episode takes listeners on an engaging ride through various aspects of the electric vehicle industry, including the transition from traditional automotive models to electric vehicles, the future of EV technology, and the pivotal role of visionary entrepreneurs like Richard Branson. Atkins shares his unique experiences and insights, drawing from his time working with Branson and his involvement in pioneering projects. He also delves into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the EV sector, particularly focusing on battery technology innovations, market trends, and the environmental implications of the shift towards electric vehicles.

Listeners are also treated to an in-depth analysis of the global EV market, with a special emphasis on the leadership role of China in shaping the future of electric mobility. Atkins discusses the geopolitical and economic factors influencing the EV landscape, offering a glimpse into what the future holds for electric vehicles globally. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the current trends and future potential of electric vehicles, providing a comprehensive and compelling narrative that is sure to captivate and inform enthusiasts and professionals alike in the electric vehicle industry.

Transcript

Transcript 

00:00:04 Speaker 1 

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

00:00:20 

Addition to insiders guide to energy is brought to you by fidectus. 

00:00:24 

Go to www.fidectus.com For more information. 

00:00:59 Speaker 2 

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. Welcome to insiders guide to Energy EV mini series. Neil, what are we gonna talk about this week? 

00:01:17 Speaker 3 

We have a super exciting guest this week. Someone who has lived and breathed the electric vehicle transition and can give us depth and experience in both what has happened in the past. But hopefully what's going to happen in the future and indications of where we're going. So yeah, we're going to be welcoming. Roger Atkins, Linkedin's top voice on electric vehicles, to talk to us a bit further about. 

00:01:37 Speaker 3 

What it is he does and what he's seen on his journey through the electric vehicle ecosystem. So Roger, if I can introduce you, you know, what would you say about yourself? How did you get here? Where did you come from? Where are we going next? 

00:01:50 Speaker 4 

There's a lot in that question. Well, first of all, thank you for. 

00:01:54 Speaker 4 

Inviting me, Neil. 

00:01:56 Speaker 4 

And and Chris, along to the show. I know you have a lot of very interesting people. You have a nice eclectic mix. That's always something that I'm attracted to eclecticism. So I'm Roger Akins. I'm 64. 

00:02:09 Speaker 4 

Have been around the auto industry more than anything else, although before that I was a musician and I tried to do a few things in in that arena tried but sadly failed nonetheless. You know, pick myself up, dust myself down and then I've had a yeah, a long standing career in automotive. 

00:02:29 Speaker 4 

To begin with, I was a car salesman. That's how I started. I liked the look of Saab cars in the mid 1980s. They were lovely then, and I discovered that if you were a car salesman, you got a free car. What? What's not to like? So that's where I began. A bunch of companies there, predominantly Volkswagen. 

00:02:49 Speaker 4 

Group Audi. Then I worked briefly for Mercedes. 

00:02:53 Speaker 4 

For a short while. 

00:02:55 Speaker 4 

And then I jumped into startups. I worked for Richard Branson. 

00:02:59 Speaker 4 

On Virgin cars, which was in 1999, two thousand early stage start up for selling cars on the Internet and the in the midst ofthe.com bubble. Little did we know it. We were inside a bubble and from there I kind of have had an appetite for risk. I think more than anything else, I think when you work with. 

00:03:19 Speaker 4 

Entrepreneurs and people who think differently and who are prepared to take chances, it kind of rubs off. So I've I've worked for a number of startups. Some of them have been successful, some of them. 

00:03:28 Speaker 4 

Have not, but more recently. In fact, the last nearly nine years I've worked for myself, which I would recommend to anybody at whatever age, if you can find a way to make a living working for yourself, that's the way to go. 

00:03:45 Speaker 3 

That's fabulous. The Richard Branson piece for me is always the bit that's super interesting. I mean, he's a he's a hero amongst many people's books, but he also went into cars. What did he do in the car world? What were you up to with Richard Branson and the car ecosystem? 

00:03:59 Speaker 4 

OK, well here's the. 

00:04:02 Speaker 4 

The Virgin brand, the Virgin name is licensed to people, so there are few 100 companies that that have the Virgin name in it. It doesn't mean the Richard Branson runs them all as it did. It didn't mean that Richard Branson ran virgin cars. It was run by a very interesting young man called Ian Lancaster and Ian basically. 

00:04:22 Speaker 4 

Worked with Richard very. 

00:04:24 Speaker 4 

Mostly to basically sell cars on the Internet. So this fed into Mr. Branson's narrative, which was to offer the consumer a better offer than they were currently getting. And in the UK at that time, the UK was known as Treasure Island amongst the automotive players because they could charge more money. 

00:04:44 Speaker 4 

And get it for selling cars in in Great Britain than anywhere else in, in, in Europe, arguably anywhere in the. 

00:04:50 Speaker 4 

Oh, and Richard Branson saw that as unfair and wanted to do something about it. So in working with Ian Lancaster very early on then selling cars on the on through a website via the phone, we had a call center. It was sort of, it was a hybrid system really. It was still quite traditional. You rang someone up, you gave them your credit card details and so on and so forth. 

00:05:12 Speaker 4 

And but but yeah, and and we got cars from countries like Denmark and Portugal and places where the tax regime was so draconian. But if you then imported those cars from the dealers in that location, you got them very cheap. And we passed on that cheapness to customers. 

00:05:31 Speaker 4 

So for some time we were doing very well, but unfortunately then, despite the thing called block exemption, we discovered that it was a little bit difficult to get hold of cars. 

00:05:40 Speaker 4 

And some of the dealers that were helping us and dealer groups that were helping us. 

00:05:44 Speaker 4 

Had perhaps been how can I put it politely? Had the Gypsies warning I think is a phrase that's that's used. I don't know if we're allowed to use that anymore, but anyway they they've been advised it wasn't wise to let this this, you know, jumped up entrepreneur. 

00:06:00 Speaker 4 

Richard Branson and Co get hold of stock and sell it cheap. So that's what happened. It was an extraordinary journey. It was a journey, I think. What about three years? I think the company the company ran for. 

00:06:13 Speaker 4 

And when you think of how long ago that is, 23 years ago, selling cars on the Internet and selling quite a lot of them delivering them to people's homes, essentially cutting out the. 

00:06:23 Speaker 4 

Dealers, it was way. 

00:06:26 Speaker 4 

Ahead of its time way ahead. 

00:06:28 Speaker 3 

And that's pretty cool because that gave you the exposure to the sort of entrepreneurial approach to the ecosystem. But Richard Branson was doing some pretty crazy things at that time. Did he not do something with a boat going across the across the channel or something weird? 

00:06:40 Speaker 4 

Oh, yes, indeed. So virgin cars didn't work out for me. It didn't work out, sadly for anybody in in the end. 

00:06:49 Speaker 4 

Fast forward a couple of years. I find myself then working for a company called Gibbs and they had a product called the Gibbs Aquada, which was based pretty much on the Lotus Elise and. 

00:07:02 Speaker 4 

It was a it was a an amphibious sports car. It was tremendous. It was an really, really exciting car. I mean to look at, look great, then you drive it straight into the water, it would go up on what they call the plane, which is when you know, you've got a speed boat and you're picking up speed, go up on the plane within just a few seconds and then be whizzing. 

00:07:23 Speaker 4 

And when I was at Gibbs. 

00:07:26 Speaker 4 

The thought there was, you know, we need a good bit of promotion, we need to do things that are different. I worked for a very challenging entrepreneur there as well. I've I've often find myself in in the company of people that are quite, quite challenging. But they're people then typically who get things done. So Alan Gibbs. 

00:07:45 Speaker 4 

Challenge me to to said we we we need an advertising strap line we we we need something creative you know come up with it and I suppose it's not as simple as that Alan you know you typically storyboard these things you analyze stuff you talk to potential customers you maybe go to a big agency in London and he was an absolute classic Kiwi businessman. It was like I don't want to do all that rubbish. 

00:08:08 Speaker 4 

You come up with the idea. Come on. So he he slightly not literally had me up against the wall. Not literally. And I said, oh, I don't know A to B via C. 

00:08:20 Speaker 4 

He said that's perfect because, you know, obviously see SEA, but nonetheless it seemed to work, floated his boat. I'm intended. And before too long. Then the thought was well, why don't we tell Richard Branson about this? He loves to do spectacular things for publicity. 

00:08:41 Speaker 4 

He'd love to drive to France. 

00:08:43 Speaker 4 

Without going on a ferry or a tunnel, don't think there was a tunnel back then. 

00:08:48 Speaker 4 

So that's basically what happened. He drove the car to France. He went in this side and came out the other side with Neil Jenkins as his copilot. Neil was the CEO. Yeah, it was. It was an extraordinary experience. 

00:09:03 Speaker 4 

I loved working there. There were great engineers, a lot of them. From Formula One, really smart people, a very quirky facility factory up in Nuneaton. But it was with, you know, classic brilliant British engineering. 

00:09:19 Speaker 2 

So exciting stuff a. 

00:09:21 Speaker 2 

Little skeptical that a car that's a boat drives well, so your your your credibility and performance of a car just. 

00:09:29 Speaker 2 

Went a little bit sideways because I can't imagine a boat and a Lotus drive well together at the same time. 

00:09:36 Speaker 4 

No, you'd be surprised because they they tested it. 

00:09:39 Speaker 2 

You would be if you. 

00:09:40 Speaker 4 

If you Google it and look on the Internet, you'll find a video. You'll find several videos, but one in particular where it's being tested. 

00:09:47 Speaker 4 

Did put through its tests at Millbrook going through the Alpine circuit, all all the parts of the Millbrook test facility that that take a car to the very edge. And that car drove incredibly well. So to have both. 

00:10:02 Speaker 2 

I'll take you at face value all. 

00:10:04 Speaker 2 

Those because that's hard to believe, but. 

00:10:07 Speaker 4 

OK. 

00:10:08 Speaker 2 

We're on a show about EV's, right, and we're and. And so you talked about Lotus, you know, the Lotus Car was also a platform for this thing called Tesla. I think. I think they made their early Teslas on that thing. 

00:10:18 Speaker 2 

As well so. 

00:10:18 Speaker 2 

It seems to be in a prototype for people to use. How did you go from selling cars and car boats to EV's? 

00:10:28 Speaker 4 

Good question. I worked for London taxis and London taxis make the black cab the ubiquitous black taxi. 

00:10:37 Speaker 4 

And they flirted with a hybrid taxi in about 2004, 2005 and and unfortunately, it didn't didn't progress with it, partly because it was expensive technology. The vehicle was very price sensitive, not a cheap vehicle. Anyway, the London taxi. 

00:10:53 Speaker 4 

And cut a Long story short, the the chairman of the company was very passionate about having cleaner vehicle technology, especially with taxes, and championed it. But the rest of the board wasn't wasn't struck with it didn't want. 

00:11:07 Speaker 4 

To do it so he he kind of was that. 

00:11:11 Speaker 4 

Frustrated by the situation that he cashed in his chips and he basically started an electric vehicle company called Modek, I think the original plan, I wasn't there right at the very beginning. The original plan was to have an electric taxi. 

00:11:25 Speaker 4 

But that quickly moved into having an electric van. So back in 2007, the spring of 2007, Modec had an electric van 5 1/2 tonne gross vehicle weight with a lithium ion battery. Oh, sorry. Initially it was zebra sodium nickel chloride, but within about 12-18 months. 

00:11:45 Speaker 4 

It then had an LFP battery, Li Fe PO4A battery with cells from Thunder Sky and China packaged into a battery pack. Modules in a pack by Axion up in Dundee. 

00:12:01 Speaker 4 

And when you think. 

00:12:02 Speaker 4 

Of where we. 

00:12:02 Speaker 4 

Are now with the whole narrative around well LFP's the way to go for this and that. And the other reason it's as though it's a new chemistry, it's not at all, it's been around a long time, but we chose it or the engineers chose it. Nothing to do with me. I'm. I'm. I'm wasn't in any way responsible for anything to do with the technical side of the vehicle. 

00:12:22 Speaker 4 

There were some gifted. 

00:12:23 Speaker 4 

Engineers there in terms of understanding, electrification, understanding, energy density, all of the performance aspects of a battery pack and motor combined motor inverter that we use from Cytec. In truth, the the the capability of that company was in integration and in software. It wasn't so much. 

00:12:41 Speaker 4 

You know the IP sat within within the supply chain, quite frankly, but nonetheless an amazing period to be part of an exciting adventure and that's where my whole EV thing kicked off. 

00:12:55 Speaker 3 

And and what happened to Modak? Where did it go? Why do we not see modest running around today? 

00:12:59 Speaker 4 

What a good question, Neil. Look, the company launched in spring 2007, I think you'll know and most of the listeners will know in 2008, the summer of 2008, we hit the financial crisis and the world starts going into tails. 

00:13:15 Speaker 4 

Anybody who's in business struggled. If you were a startup selling a pretty expensive electric vehicle proposition, you struggled even more. The irony was up until the moment that banking crisis hit, we got to the point where oil was, I think it was 146 dollars. 

00:13:35 Speaker 4 

And $0.20 a barrel, it had gone up to the highest price it was, and people with. 

00:13:42 Speaker 4 

Petrol and diesel cars, especially fleet operators, were panicking like mad. Like, where the heck is this going to go? This is going to crucify us so the electric vehicle for a short window of opportunity was well, that's clearly the way to go. But of course we then essentially suffered all of the aspects of. 

00:14:02 Speaker 4 

Where we were with the financial crisis and ran out of money and and and basically we didn't go somewhere there. There is an extended story to this our our I'll truncate it for because we're not gonna speak forever. There was a moment in 2010 when the then Chinese ambassador to the UK, Madam Fu Yin. 

00:14:22 Speaker 4 

Invited Modec to go and set up in China. 

00:14:26 Speaker 4 

They chose not to, but what, Madam? Flying. She I met her. She said it to. 

00:14:33 Speaker 4 

Me. She explained that the Chinese had ambition, great ambition for what she called. 

00:14:41 Speaker 4 

New energy vehicles and that the Chinese were going to go on a tremendous journey of renewable energy, new energy vehicles, AKA electric vehicles, and that modec, you know, was an exciting young company and we should go to China and they. 

00:14:53 Speaker 4 

Would help us. 

00:14:55 Speaker 4 

Without going through all of the politics and discussions, because it's probably not going to be appropriate. 

00:15:00 Speaker 4 

We didn't go. We should have gone. The rest is history, as they say. 

00:15:04 

Right. 

00:15:05 Speaker 3 

And and China is a fascinating country when it comes to electric vehicles. You've been out there, haven't you recently? 

00:15:12 Speaker 4 

Well, not for a while actually. Probably not for three years. Last time I was out there was 2019 for the Shanghai Auto Show. So not for some time, for for the obvious reason. 

00:15:25 Speaker 4 

But yeah, it is fascinating. And if you contextualize not just electric vehicles, but where? 

00:15:30 Speaker 4 

We are in. 

00:15:31 Speaker 4 

The world geopolitically in many elements and aspects of of life, you know, commerce, politics, et cetera. 

00:15:38 Speaker 4 

This begins with the father of man, China, called Xi Jinping. Sorry, not Xi Jinping. That's a Freudian slip, Deng Xiaoping. 

00:15:49 Speaker 4 

Xi Jinping would like to think it's him, but it's actually Dong Chao Ping Dong Chao Ping understood that China needed to be reinvented and that a hybrid system of communism and capitalism was possible, and that at the core of that would be education would be to ensure that you had an educated. 

00:16:11 Speaker 4 

Aspirational entrepreneurial. 

00:16:14 Speaker 4 

World where you and then you had a plan so you and and quite frankly if you look and read and understand the journey that that country went on from those times of Deng Xiaoping progressing that plan. 

00:16:29 Speaker 4 

It's astonishing and and and it gives you the clues as to why they've got to the place they're at now. 

00:16:35 Speaker 4 

And how they're sustaining that place and prevailing that place and the things we didn't do in the West, and it's nothing to do with communism versus capitalism. It's to do with it's to do with individuals. It's to do with intellect. It's to do with planning. It's to do with a number of things which are are common to all. 

00:16:55 Speaker 4 

Peoples around the world. 

00:16:57 Speaker 3 

So they gone, Chris, you go. 

00:16:59 Speaker 2 

Yes, so I. 

00:17:00 Speaker 2 

Think from where I sit, I see China as accelerating in the EV world, right. They've they've gone from battery technology to being a leader to number of cars sold. 

00:17:12 Speaker 2 

Where does China play in your perspective? In EV's today, and where are they headed? Because so you said they had aspirations very early on. That's what you your your story to showed us that early on they had reached out to you in the early innings, but where are they today and where are they headed? 

00:17:29 Speaker 4 

They are the dominant force. They are the new empire. They are the new Detroit. They are the new Stuttgart. They they they are now in a position where in combination with one other manufacturer, Tesla. 

00:17:46 Speaker 4 

To to dominate the landscape for a host of reasons. One of the big ones is the battery. So the two key players in China that give give that country and its OEM such a strong position are BYOD run by a pretty mercurial. 

00:18:05 Speaker 4 

Leader Chairman Wang and he's a chemist by profession and he's progressed a business around the battery that then became a a car company and it may have been the other way around, but anyway it does both. It does both incredibly well. You even now see BYOD batteries, what they call the blade. 

00:18:25 Speaker 4 

Battery in Tesla vehicles, amongst others. 

00:18:29 Speaker 4 

And then the other company is a company called C ATL. 

00:18:34 Speaker 4 

And this is an extraordinary story. So an entrepreneur called Robin Zeng set up the company and has basically built the biggest battery company in the world, bar none. 1/3 of all the battery cells used in the world are made by C ATL. It's easier to say what their what cars, their batteries are not in. 

00:18:55 Speaker 4 

Rather than what they are in and I recently met the former CTO of CATL. 

00:19:02 Speaker 4 

An American. 

00:19:06 Speaker 4 

The story he has to sell Bob Gallion is his name is extraordinary. He was a GM veteran. He'd been at GM for a long time, couple of decades, and then he'd worked at Magna. He'd been the boss at Magna and a few other companies. He's invited by Robin Zang in the early days to go and help him progress. 

00:19:26 Speaker 4 

This company, which is nothing at the time really to speak of. 

00:19:31 Speaker 4 

And through. Yeah. Great planning, focus. Incredible hard work bringing the right people together and just getting on with it. The story that, that that emanates a lot out of China when you talk to the people that have been principles in its progress what you come away with is a pretty simplistic. 

00:19:51 Speaker 4 

The fact, which is they do. 

00:19:53 Speaker 4 

It rather than keep talking about. 

00:19:56 Speaker 4 

You know, our politicians, particularly in the West, are forever having reviews, discussions, plans, mantras so on and so on and so forth. And rarely do they actually either stick their hands in their pockets or make something happen. And this is the significant difference between China and the West. 

00:20:16 Speaker 4 

They act, we talk. 

00:20:18 Speaker 2 

But is is China concerned about the global market or their market, right. So they they make a lot of cars, they've they've accelerated in a lot of technology. There's probably some bias against Chinese cars, but I think in the chat I'd sent, hey, I like this Volvo partnership. I've, I've seen, I hear they have a great vehicle that people are. 

00:20:36 Speaker 2 

Embracing here in Europe. 

00:20:39 Speaker 2 

Is is China trying to dominate the world of? 

00:20:41 Speaker 2 

EV's. Or are they? 

00:20:41 Speaker 2 

Just trying to solve a local problem. 

00:20:46 Speaker 4 

So they were always playing catch up with the internal combustion engine car. They were always a couple of iterations behind that. They were never going to catch up. They were certainly never going to overtake with combustion engine cars. So for various other reasons they wanted to progress electric vehicles predominantly by the way, to do with air quality. 

00:21:04 Speaker 4 

It was the key driver Bob Gallion explained this to me, which was how Robinson. 

00:21:08 Speaker 4 

Was focused. It was about a number of principal cities that had dire consequences of rapid industrialisation in terms of air quality, not just cars, but. 

00:21:18 Speaker 4 

Vehicles, but they were a big part of it and we should say vehicles, by the way, so I'm definitely including buses, taxis, vans and trucks as well as cars. 

00:21:28 Speaker 4 

And and then their their formulation of a strategy which then articulates in a plan called made in China 2025 which emerged in 2015, was predicated on dominating the world of electric vehicles global. 

00:21:44 Speaker 4 

And that's what they're now doing. And so. 

00:21:48 Speaker 4 

This this has been. 

00:21:49 Speaker 4 

Been done in full sight of all the European and American OEM's, all of the politicians from everywhere, and nonetheless we've essentially ignored it. And then then they bring in Tesla, the first company to not. 

00:22:04 Speaker 4 

Be mandated to have a joint venture. Why do they do that? They want to inspire and challenge their own domestic manufacturers. So sticking this, you know, you know Fox in the Hen House kind of thing that really stirred. 

00:22:19 Speaker 4 

Everybody up, they also are working closely with Tesla, wanted to learn from Tesla. The thing about the Chinese, it's not people too much of the narrative, maybe more so in the past was well, the Chinese just copy people. 

00:22:33 Speaker 4 

You could you could call it that, but what they do is they learn from people and equally we can learn from them. So this whole kind of global thing now of where we are with climate change is about collaboration is about as learning from each other and certainly with the electric vehicle thing and supply chain especially which we haven't even talked about. 

00:22:55 Speaker 4 

It's too late. 

00:22:56 Speaker 4 

To compete with China, we now have no choice but to collaborate with China, and that that's not part of some sinister plot that's been produced. This is just called life. 

00:23:07 Speaker 2 

So the the. 

00:23:08 Speaker 2 

Outlier that comes to my mind living here in Switzerland with colleagues being cars. 

00:23:13 Speaker 2 

And EV's? 

00:23:14 Speaker 2 

Is Hyundai in the Korean market, so I Tesla as an American jumps up as the EV that I think and I think of all the brands and the VW Group here in Switzerland comes to mind with all their reviews or haven't ridden around the Jaguars that are electric. 

00:23:28 Speaker 2 

But I was really surprised at the dominance that I'm seeing with the Korean car market coming in as well. So you're telling me that China dominates, but I'm seeing a lot of high quality vehicles. 

00:23:38 Speaker 2 

Coming out of Korea now. 

00:23:40 Speaker 4 

And you're seeing exactly the right thing. That is exactly what's happening. So it it's. If you like, a rising tide lifts all boats, and that's predominantly been happening in Asia. So the ability to build great batteries, you know, in some of the companies, not just CTL. 

00:23:54 Speaker 4 

Of course you know Panasonic, Samsung, LG, you know, and some of these are both, well, not just a few Japanese, of course, they've been at batteries for a long time. Consumer electronics before all of this, but they slightly fell off the perch to a certain extent. But the batteries that are equally impressive. 

00:24:15 Speaker 4 

Including chips and software as well are definitely in Korea, so you're absolutely right, South Korea and Hyundai and Kia, these big conglomerates have have have equally been. 

00:24:27 Speaker 4 

Like I said, a rising tide lifts all boats. That arena, that part of the world. Asia has become incredibly advanced, super smart, and got on with it. 

00:24:37 Speaker 2 

So it reminds me of the old days. I don't remember the old Datsuns and Toyotas back in the 7th, and they were tiny and nobody wanted them. And suddenly they dominated the entire U.S. market. 

00:24:46 Speaker 2 

They they had. 

00:24:47 Speaker 2 

The you know the Honda Accord and that, you know, they had the DOTSONS became. 

00:24:50 Speaker 2 

Nice metal cars. 

00:24:51 Speaker 2 

So Hyundai, I think went through that. But at hyper speed in my opinion, right, you watch them come into our market with kind of iffy. 

00:24:57 Speaker 2 

Bars long warranties, but from the EV market you said I I think people are choosing them over the alternatives is what I'm seeing left and right. 

00:25:06 Speaker 4 

Oh, they absolutely are. I mean, let's put it very simply, the two biggest car companies in the world have been for many years, Volkswagen and Toyota, the two most vulnerable car companies in the world right now, are Toyota and Volkswagen. Because they're so big, they make so many internal. 

00:25:26 Speaker 4 

Combustion engine vehicles blending in the mix of electrification is of inevitably the biggest challenge that anybody faces. If you're clean sheet operator. If you've like Tesla, have only ever made that. 

00:25:40 Speaker 4 

That, that's that's easy, but there. 

00:25:43 Speaker 4 

Are clues in how to do this because BYOD has made combustion engine, cars and electric vehicles, they only make electric vehicles now, so they've managed to wean themselves off this very successfully, and I'm surprised that some of the Western OEM's haven't kind of. Or maybe they have. 

00:26:00 Speaker 4 

Observed how that worked, what was the chronology? What was the? 

00:26:04 Speaker 4 

Man, because you know, it's very complex, but within these big companies, Toyota and Volkswagen in particular, you have huge hierarchies, powerful hierarchies of people that don't want change. You know, I'm convinced there are thousands of managers in those two companies that really rail against this whole electrification thing and hope it will just go away. 

00:26:26 Speaker 4 

They just why can't Elon Musk just get on a bloody rocket and go to Mars and leave? 

00:26:32 Speaker 4 

All alone because the, the but, but they're, you know, they're like King Canute. They're sat there with the tide coming in, trying to push it back. And it's not going to. 

00:26:41 Speaker 4 

Go back, they're. 

00:26:43 Speaker 4 

Going to drown if they're not careful. 

00:26:45 Speaker 3 

And what's really interesting is seeing some new names emerging in this marketplace, and most people will have heard of Tesla and Volkswagen. That's fairly easy and probably people have heard of the Volvo Polestar and then go. Ohh. Maybe that's Chinese owned. And then you've got your kind of Maxus and your MG that's now kind of Chinese owned. And then you go, what about these new? 

00:27:04 Speaker 3 

Names because there's a bunch of new names come into market that you know people are really, you know, starting to sit up and listen because they're like China has arrived. And actually China's been here for quite a long time now. What are some of the new names come into market at the moment? 

00:27:16 Speaker 4 

Neo, when I've been out in China, I've been to a number of NEO events. They have what they call a NEO day, where all the customers and all the people who've got on order come into a big arena. It's like a pop concert and William Lee, a kind of charismatic Elon Musk type founder Co 4. 

00:27:36 Speaker 4 

Comes on stage and shows them the new product and tells them all the exciting stuff and it gets, you know, a really exciting showbiz, you know, atmosphere. And this is a company now championing better battery swap, which was tried and and sadly failed with with better place and so. 

00:27:55 Speaker 4 

The the curious thing here, just jumping around a little bit 10 years ago, 10 years ago in about October this year, 10 years. 

00:28:03 Speaker 4 

Ago I had the opportunity at Westfield Shopping Centre, the opening of the Tesla Store there, so I wasn't getting any special treatment. I was just in the crowd like everybody else. But I get I get the chance to ask Elon Musk a question and I said out of battery swap, wireless charging and cable charging. Elon, what's the journey? 

00:28:23 Speaker 4 

Going to be and will one of them prevail? And Elon said, well, I think mostly cable charging, fast cap. 

00:28:29 Speaker 4 

Were charging and he said that he was very polite. He then said wireless charging is problematic with alignment and and and and power and battery swap, he said. We've engineered it into the Model S so we will actually show it, and if there's a demand for it. 

00:28:47 Speaker 4 

We might do it, you know, subsequently they didn't. 

00:28:49 Speaker 4 

That's another story as well, but. 

00:28:53 Speaker 4 

And then of course, because better place failed. This was a fascinating company, again mercurial leader Shia gassy. 

00:29:02 Speaker 4 

Tried something, didn't work, but then people often foolishly in my view in history, look at things and say oh, it didn't work so. 

00:29:09 Speaker 4 

It won't, ever. 

00:29:10 Speaker 4 

Work. No. Maybe it was the timing. Maybe it was the people. Maybe it was something else. So now you see that the Chinese Government are supporting hugely supporting battery swap. 

00:29:22 Speaker 4 

For a host of reasons which maybe we haven't got time to go through and into, but there is a lot of merit of having battery swap and some of that merit is counterintuitive to how people see batteries and energy. That's as I say. 

00:29:34 Speaker 3 

What? What do you mean about counterintuitive? How is it counterintuitive? 

00:29:38 Speaker 3 

Because bashes battery shopping has obvious issues, you've gotta get some standardization, but the reality is, how do you then why is batteries working? A completely bad idea? Why did it fail last time? Why might it succeed now? 

00:29:49 Speaker 4 

OK, the the counterintuitive aspect is that the struggle is to build enough batteries for any EVs anyway. Why would we want to build all these extra batteries that hang around in a battery switch station? Well, they're not hanging around in the switch station. They are part of the integration into an ecosystem of energy management. 

00:30:06 Speaker 4 

They will be in localised facilities all over big towns and cities, managing the grid. They will. They will work into the micro grids and even maybe the the bigger grids that they they work, they have two jobs. Their job there is to is to manage that movement of energy, particularly renewable energy storage, the intermittency. 

00:30:27 Speaker 4 

And be ready as and when they're needed to go into an EV. So that's that's the bit that's counterintuitive. It's not making extra batteries that are just going to do nothing, that they're doing something very significant, which was always part of the plan when when I went with Professor Dave Greenwood to to better place in Israel many years ago, we saw how they were doing it, they had like. 

00:30:48 Speaker 4 

National Grid facility, where they had a big screen, big system where you could see all of the battery switch stations there. There were plenty of those. 

00:30:57 Speaker 4 

And you could see where all the batteries were. The state of charge of those batteries. So it it was an amalgamated feedstock of energy storage. And this is the stuff that people kind of missed, maybe it wasn't presented well enough. Again, the timing like with Modoc it was just you know the the wrong time etcetera. 

00:31:18 Speaker 4 

So yeah, that's battery stock and then we could talk about wireless if you want because wireless charging is something I I believe in. 

00:31:23 Speaker 4 

Hugely as well. 

00:31:24 Speaker 2 

Yeah, I remember some early trials and I think they're in the UK where they put charging in the road and you could theoretically drive in a lane and charge your car and it it, it seems kind of utopian. So what happened and why don't we see this still coming? 

00:31:41 Speaker 4 

Well, I'm not so sure where that was in the UK, but I pretty certain this in Scandinavia it's electrion A and again Israeli company. 

00:31:54 Speaker 4 

And Renault have tried it. There have been many people that have tried it and it hasn't worked for a number of reasons actually. Having what you term dynamic wireless charging, which is vehicles moving the laws of physics and the amount of copper required and a number of other things, in my humble opinion and that view of many people I've. 

00:32:14 Speaker 4 

I've encountered is just not feasible, but if you. 

00:32:18 Speaker 4 

Look at opportunity charging, charging a little and often in vehicles that are on closed loop operations like buses, taxis, vans at ports at airports, vehicles where the duty cycle can can accommodate being able to charge a little and often on a regular basis. 

00:32:39 Speaker 2 

There is a huge. 

00:32:40 Speaker 4 

Merit for wireless charging again, go back into the battery aspect, which sits at the heart of all of. 

00:32:46 Speaker 4 

This if you then roll around with the 60 kilowatt, 50 kilowatt, 40 kilowatt battery pack, which is weight and cost. 

00:32:54 Speaker 4 

And normally it can give you sixty 7080 miles or whatever on whatever vehicle if you. 

00:33:00 Speaker 4 

Don't need that. 

00:33:01 Speaker 4 

You can maybe half or even put a 10 kilowatt battery pack in something, because if you then put the range into the infrastructure rather than having it on board, that's going towards a paradigm shift in how energy and mobility. 

00:33:15 Speaker 4 

Works, so and there are now companies coming to market. And let me tell you who is about to come to market with it. Cause for me this then. 

00:33:24 Speaker 4 

Triggers the credibility of everything Tesla Tesla will this year, in my opinion, and from reading the signs this year, we'll show people and OfferUp to the market wireless charging of Tesla cars. 

00:33:44 Speaker 4 

I'm 100% certain about it. In fact they recently bought a German company that can deliver this capability. They bought the company. 

00:33:52 Speaker 4 

Yeah, right. So and they've done this with a few technologies, as you know, I'm sure along the way. So they do try to design in house. If they can't do that then then buy something and then probably bring it in house and make it even better. So. So that that's that's where my theory on is the company. I'm just trying to conjure up the memory and why theory and. 

00:34:12 Speaker 4 

German company I followed them for a little while. They're very, very interesting and I'm under a little bit of a legal thing at the moment with with somebody. So I, but I can't be explicit about that, but from the beginning of August, I I'm going to be doing something different again. 

00:34:28 Speaker 4 

In in the wireless charging space, because I'm a huge advocate for it, because I believe it's going to help us deliver better range, reduce the need for ever more ever bigger batteries and a bunch of other things. 

00:34:43 Speaker 3 

And how do you see us getting that wireless charging? Is it going to be the dream for my wife where she pulls up on the driveway, parks over a pad and happy days? Or is this just for taxis? You only get it in certain locations. It's gonna you gonna have to pay a premium. It's gonna be slower or it's gonna be, you know, faster. It's gonna be better. 

00:34:58 Speaker 3 

Where? Where do you see this happening first? 

00:35:01 Speaker 4 

OK. Well, like I think a lot of technology adoption, I'm old enough and ugly enough to remember when you could first get a mobile phone, certainly in the UK around early 1980s, it would cost, I think in real terms probably now three or four or 5000. 

00:35:15 Speaker 4 

Pounds. It's a big thing you could get in your car. You know, people who worked in the City of London had in the car. They had a few masts. 

00:35:22 Speaker 4 

Got the M4 into Surrey or wherever you know, wealthy people used to live. 

00:35:27 Speaker 4 

And that's how it worked. Then. Overtime you saw the infrastructure develop in terms of cellular masts and that whole cellular coverage network 1G2G3G-4G5G where we are now and you saw then the adoption of the mobile phone to what it is today. So to answer your question. 

00:35:47 Speaker 4 

Your wife will have wireless charging. Yes, I would if I put a date on it, I'd probably say three to five years. But in the short term, I think it will be mass adopted by bus operators, truck fan, taxi operators. And I think that adoption enables the. 

00:36:06 Speaker 4 

The industry to then bring down the price, the price of the receiving power, the price of materials, you know, scale always in all these things allows you to bring down peace cost and that's you know always how it how it's worked. 

00:36:21 Speaker 3 

So we can see wireless charging coming. We've talked a little bit about battery swapping and the fact that in many ways for people who drive a NEO car, it's already here, although there's probably not that many battery swap stations quite here in the UK yet. You know, what else do we see coming down the road? What's the future look like and what else can we do to tackle that nasty air quality climate change issue? 

00:36:40 Speaker 3 

We're trying to deal with right now. 

00:36:43 Speaker 4 

Well, I don't want to be a contrarian in saying this, and I'm not trying to just be different because this is something I've believed in. Well for a long time, I don't think mass adoption of electric vehicles will ever happen, nor should it. 

00:36:58 Speaker 4 

The reason for that is if you go to the most inefficient part of a vehicle, a car, typically a car, it's the it's the utilization, so the utilisation of a petrol or diesel car for most people is about 5 to 10% of the time of its of its of its time. 

00:37:16 Speaker 4 

And what's the utilization of an electric vehicle for most people? Mm-hmm. About 5 to 10% of its time. So exactly the same thing. So 90% of the time, this incredibly valuable asset sits there doing nothing. Now when maybe we were making the number of vehicles with the population that we had in the past kind of could get away with that it. 

00:37:35 Speaker 4 

Kind of worked. 

00:37:37 Speaker 4 

But going towards a world where you know trying to build. 

00:37:42 Speaker 4 

You know, 70 million cars every year with a 607080 kilowatt battery in them is is stretching the realms of possibility quite frankly. 

00:37:53 Speaker 4 

So, so to be specific, we will see mass adoption of buses, taxis, vans and trucks, electric, they will deal with and manage the air quality issue. We will see expensive flashy call them what you will electric vehicles for people that can you know can afford them. 

00:38:12 Speaker 4 

So. So it's gonna split. The market's gonna split. I think the 30 or 40 million cars that would have been made for people to buy and own in some fashion. 

00:38:21 Speaker 4 

That will, over the next decade or two, disappear as we see the emergence of shared vehicle platforms, autonomous vehicle propositions and more and more people living in cities anyway. So even without a technology shift, if you live in a city, what the hell do you want to own a car for? It's it's an inconvenience. It's not. 

00:38:41 Speaker 4 

It's not the other way around. So yeah, I believe for a long time that mass adoption of electric vehicles won't happen and. 

00:38:48 Speaker 4 

That if I'm right, that cuts across so many aspects of, well, how many chargers do we need? Where do we put the Chargers? You know what's going on with batteries? How many gigafactories do we build? You know, these things are all into woven they're like a Rubik's Cube. You know, the different facets are different aspects of technology, culture, politics. 

00:39:08 Speaker 4 

Resources and you click them all around and they change and you have to know the algorithm to actually get the colours all to match up. And I think the algorithm going forward is is is to have a hugely more focused civilization on share. 

00:39:23 Speaker 4 

Ring than than owning. 

00:39:25 Speaker 2 

So you've turned from car guy into psychologist here. 

00:39:29 

You're you're talking. 

00:39:30 Speaker 2 

About a change the way people live and what they do right. And I guess one of the things you inadvertently just mentioned in that let you have things that need to happen for this to happen was you know, shared economy kind of things, self driving cars and things like that. 

00:39:46 Speaker 2 

Is that fundamental technology? Because for me, if I'm trying to solve CO2 or air pollution in the city, I can still drive myself. In fact, I'm pretty happy driving a car that goes from zero to 60 in four seconds. Right? And that's. 

00:39:58 Speaker 2 

Kind of fun. 

00:39:59 Speaker 2 

So do I need all this other? 

00:39:59 

Yes, yes. 

00:40:01 Speaker 2 

Technology for this to really be cool. 

00:40:06 Speaker 4 

Possibly but, but I think. 

00:40:08 Speaker 4 

Here's the other thing about the climate change narrative. It's too anchored in three or four particular things. It's anchored in cars, it's anchored in energy, it's anchored in aviation and and maybe shipping. There are multiple elements and aspects to how does carbon get in the air? 

00:40:24 Speaker 4 

How do we go from 200 and something to 400 something in 200 years? It was the industrial revolution. 

00:40:31 Speaker 4 

More than anything else, and then the use of coal, oil and gas, yes. But then you know it's it's about consumerism. It's about the way in which people, you know, behave and we can carry on behaving like that. I like behaving like that. I like stuff, you know, so in many aspects, what I'm advocating and talking about is. 

00:40:51 Speaker 4 

You know, I'm suggesting I'm a hypocrite and and and I. 

00:40:55 Speaker 4 

Am but if we if we balance it against, well, let's not do too much. Let's not change really much at all. Let's just not worry about. 

00:41:03 Speaker 4 

It are we going to see Summers? You know, in North Africa? Well, across the whole equator. 

00:41:11 Speaker 4 

So let's let's talk about the Mediterranean people going on holiday, because that's almost a bit perverse looking at like that. It's. 

00:41:18 Speaker 4 

You know, countries around the world, whole communities being mobilized to leave where they've lived forever because it's just not sustainable anymore. So we've got, there's a pretty stark choice. Let's just carry on as normal. 

00:41:33 Speaker 4 

And watch the world fry or radically shift overtime. How we behave and what we do in order to survive as a species. And of course, all the creatures around us. Because when people talk about ohh it's damned hot, you know, 40 something whatever. Let's go inside and stick the air. 

00:41:53 Speaker 4 

What does a bird do? What what? What does a dog do? What? What? What do all these wild animals do that, I mean? 

00:41:58 Speaker 4 

It's it doesn't. 

00:42:00 Speaker 4 

It's not a nice thought, so yeah, I I I think I'm not a psychologist. I I look quite, quite simply. I'm just a storyteller. I just observe what things are happening and people are doing and I try to extrapolate. 

00:42:14 Speaker 4 

Some of that contextualize some of that and then say what I see that that's it in a nutshell. 

00:42:20 Speaker 3 

So because we all like a happy ending to our. 

00:42:23 Speaker 3 

Stories. What can you tell us about what you think might have to happen next? Who's going to have to really move and shape? You know, we're gonna see business model changes, regulation changes, technology changes. What? Tell us a happier story to a happier ending to this story. 

00:42:38 Speaker 4 

OK, you you could be either. Sometimes people say this, you can be either one or two things cornucopia. 

00:42:45 Speaker 4 

Cornucopia was the Horn of Plenty, which was about, you know, the evolution of using technology and and progress or whatever. Or Malthusian Malthus was this mathematician who suggested that we basically eat ourselves to death. You know, we we just disappear under our own, you know, under our own way of behaving. I'm cornucopian I think there are extraordinary. 

00:43:06 Speaker 4 

Capabilities amongst people to get stuff done to improve things. 

00:43:11 Speaker 4 

Whether we can do it quickly enough is another matter. What we definitely have to do is start diminishing the aspect of geopolitics and and we have to find that sweet swap of having yes, competition by having much more collaboration. And I think as a species, we're capable of it because. 

00:43:31 Speaker 4 

Yeah, so many times in history, we've gone to the brink and then found ourselves managing to walk back so that that is an optimistic view. It will be naive in some people's minds when they hear me say that. But but. But I do think as as a cornucopian, there are enough people. 

00:43:50 Speaker 4 

There is enough money and and and money will, will will trigger this more than anything else. Very good book, by the way, called green Swans. The coming boom in regenerative capitalism by John Elkington. And that book articulates how we can actually mobilize the forces of beneficial change and those forces will. 

00:44:09 Speaker 4 

Make a lot of money out of it. Sounds a bit cynical, but if you show people they can make a **** load of money. 

00:44:14 Speaker 4 

Out of doing the right thing, they'll do the right thing. 

00:44:18 Speaker 3 

So this has been one of those incredible journeys where we've gone through a little bit of Richard Branson. We've touched on virgin, the Gibbs quarter modec you have a huge respect for engineers, which I really like being an engineer. We touched on China, we've got a bit of an air quality. We've gone through Musk, our friend must gotta talk about him at all times, wireless. 

00:44:38 Speaker 3 

You touched on a bit of the future and ended on the corner cornucopian versus Malthusian debate, but. 

00:44:45 Speaker 3 

From a personal. 

00:44:46 Speaker 3 

Perspective. What electric vehicle do you drive and why? 

00:44:51 Speaker 4 

I drive an ID buzz two or three reasons. Number one, it's electric #2. It sort of looks a. 

00:44:58 Speaker 4 

Bit cool. Another reason would be I think of all the Volkswagen Electric products at the moment. It's the one where they've had a proper go at it. You know it's it's a bit different and and there's more right about the ID. 

00:45:11 Speaker 4 

Does I think then there is in some of the other ideas if I don't want to sound too kind of, you know, accusative. 

00:45:17 Speaker 4 

But the predominant reason is I needed a big boxy vehicle to whack a big dog crate in the back, so I'm going to drive an EV, but I need a practical EV. And because I take my dogs out every day for a couple of hours because they're big visual of dogs, hunting dogs and and I want to take them out safely, I have to have, you know. 

00:45:37 Speaker 4 

A big lump. It's a big metal box, so it's mildly embarrassing to have this big sort of van essentially, but that's what I have. That's what I drive. That's what I've got. 

00:45:50 Speaker 3 

Very cool. Thank you very much. 

00:45:52 Speaker 2 

So I want to thank you so much for coming on this episode. This has been a great journey, great conversation. Thank you so much for being our guest today, Roger. 

00:46:01 Speaker 4 

My pleasure. And yeah, very much appreciate the invite. So. So it's good news all round. 

00:46:08 Speaker 2 

For our audience, we hope you've enjoyed this content as much as we have. It's been a fun show to make. It's been all over the place. I hope you've learned. If you have, don't forget to share this. Subscribe. Follow us on Facebook and we'll see you again next time on the insiders guide to Energy EV miniseries. Bye. Bye.