Electric Cars In The Slow Lane?

[00:00:00] The Why Curve with Phil Dobbie and Roger Hearing.

[00:00:04] Well, we all supposed to be driving electric cars by now.

[00:00:07] Wasn't it all going to be silent streets with no petrol fumes in the country?

[00:00:11] Well on target for net zero. Well, it hasn't happened.

[00:00:14] So is it down to cost, the range, the lack of charging stations,

[00:00:18] the government given up now on making us all battery power?

[00:00:21] Or is the new flood of Chinese made cheap electric cars going to change everything?

[00:00:25] Is it still an electric future?

[00:00:28] The Why Curve.

[00:00:31] Well, obviously there's a very timely discussion because I'm about to become

[00:00:35] an electric car driver and I'm quite excited about it.

[00:00:37] You are. So you've bought into all this?

[00:00:39] I have bought into it. I would do so much so I'm bought a Volvo which is a sign of old age.

[00:00:44] And it really will start becoming a Volvo driver but I am 60 this year.

[00:00:47] So I feel like...

[00:00:48] Well, I mean it's only a matter of time.

[00:00:50] It's just a short hop now to death basically.

[00:00:52] Or a mobility scooter perhaps in between.

[00:00:54] An electric mobility speed, definitely.

[00:00:56] Yeah, I'll be doing my bit for the environment.

[00:00:58] But yeah, anyway, I'm not quite sure whether I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do

[00:01:02] or more likely actually is a tax break.

[00:01:05] It's a tax dodge.

[00:01:06] Well, there you are. You see this is interesting because you clearly...

[00:01:08] You've clearly taken on board the fact that there are incentives out there.

[00:01:11] Yeah, which is good.

[00:01:12] And it's a massive incentive.

[00:01:14] So if you're running a business and you've made a bit of a profit

[00:01:17] and you don't want to pay corporate tax...

[00:01:18] Very easy.

[00:01:19] Get a car.

[00:01:20] Did you know you get tax advice on the Why Curve?

[00:01:22] Yeah, you've got it now.

[00:01:24] But please seek professional.

[00:01:26] I think we should do some sort of disclaimer before someone sees us

[00:01:29] because they buy an electric car and find it their circumstances...

[00:01:32] We could be responsible.

[00:01:34] But I mean, they show how much the government is actually trying to influence our behaviour in this way

[00:01:37] to try and get us to be aware of it.

[00:01:39] So that's a good thing in a way.

[00:01:40] Well, it is but there's so many other levels they aren't.

[00:01:42] I mean, my ex says that she can never find a place to charge her car.

[00:01:47] You know, you can go to certain distance.

[00:01:48] Nice on me this.

[00:01:49] Well, no, this is the problem.

[00:01:50] Yes, range is a massive problem.

[00:01:52] Yeah.

[00:01:53] Charging stations are a massive problem.

[00:01:54] And the cost is still huge.

[00:01:56] I'm okay, you get your tax break but for the rest of us who don't move in your exalted area,

[00:02:01] it's really a bit of a problem.

[00:02:02] So we need to find out whether or not we can actually move to the electric future

[00:02:06] which we've been told we need to and we've got someone who can tell us about that.

[00:02:10] It's Tom Stacey, he's an electric and project supply chain operations management

[00:02:15] and anglia rusky and university and quite an expert on this and he joins us now.

[00:02:19] So Tom, I mean, we do see a lot more electric cars on the road.

[00:02:22] Obviously, and I'm seeing numbers saying that there are a million of them now on Britain's roads.

[00:02:27] So it is increasing, isn't it?

[00:02:29] I mean, it's starting to take off.

[00:02:31] Is it taking off as much as was expected than as much as the government has expected?

[00:02:35] And as fast as we've expected.

[00:02:36] Yeah, but you could question, I mean, the government's targets in the next 10 years

[00:02:42] for it to be 100% of new cars sold in for it to have to be 100% of new cars sold.

[00:02:48] And then when you look at 10 years ago, it was less than 1%.

[00:02:54] So they've got a long way to go now if you know anything about technology adoption and technology curves,

[00:03:03] then they do tend to ramp up exponentially which is good.

[00:03:07] And I think if we plotted that on the graph right now, we would see we're in definitely in the ramp up period

[00:03:12] during that exponential growth.

[00:03:14] However, with all of these things, there comes a point where not everybody wants to get on board with it.

[00:03:21] These technology curves don't tend to deliver 100% necessarily.

[00:03:27] Not everybody always converts and yet we're having to say that every single car that you purchase

[00:03:33] and like goods vehicles will have to be electric.

[00:03:38] And it's an ambitious target.

[00:03:40] So it is growing.

[00:03:42] I mean, we were at say we were 10 years ago a point where it was less than 1%.

[00:03:45] We're now at a point where it's broadly one in five new cars sold.

[00:03:51] But we need to continue that rate of growth.

[00:03:54] It's interesting there that four out of five are still not.

[00:03:57] Yeah, we've got this deadline.

[00:03:59] And I guess at some point people are going to be saying, well, the resale value of this car.

[00:04:03] I'm not quite sure does it make it better?

[00:04:05] In fact, if you've got a petrol car when you can't buy new ones, does that increase the resale value of petrol powered cars in five years?

[00:04:12] Because they're a rare system.

[00:04:13] Classic supply and demand, isn't it?

[00:04:15] Absolutely.

[00:04:16] A supply.

[00:04:17] And when I say absolutely, the things follow that model, will that happen here?

[00:04:22] I wish I had the crystal ball because I would go and buy, you know, I'd go and buy petrol cars now hoping that it would be my retirement fund.

[00:04:28] I think that the problem that we're going to have is that yes, collectible petrol cars are always going to be collectible.

[00:04:38] They'll always be worth perhaps more than a mass market product.

[00:04:42] What you're going to find is that you will struggle to fuel them.

[00:04:46] You will struggle to have a natural station.

[00:04:49] Yeah, because there's no business.

[00:04:50] There's already very, you know, the business model for filling stations isn't great.

[00:04:55] And I say that coming from, you know, I was brought up.

[00:04:59] My parents had a garage and had a filling station.

[00:05:02] And I watched firsthand through how the scene and not always a kid but from what they said to me.

[00:05:08] And the 70s, it was good in the 80s, they used to have to sell more chocolate bars.

[00:05:12] In the 90s, it became very difficult to be competitive to make any money.

[00:05:17] And then when the onslaught of supermarkets getting into the petrol station market who could rely on volumes of people leaving their supermarkets and also didn't have to make the profit margins because they were making the money on the fuel.

[00:05:32] They cleaned up on food, sorry, they cleaned up that market and then they push people out.

[00:05:37] And then what you've seen since the 1990s is a decline in a number of filling stations.

[00:05:42] Any new filling stations that are built now really are there to replace another one.

[00:05:46] You know, where they've moved a service station down the road or something like that, or they redeveloped a site.

[00:05:50] People aren't building them and that trend will undoubtedly continue.

[00:05:55] And then you'll end up in a situation like the dawn of the internal combustion engine car.

[00:06:00] We used to have to go to the chemist, you know, you used to have to go to a specialist and buy it petrol in pint bottles.

[00:06:06] But in a way, it's a reverse. It's a reversal of the problem which we know is there, which is at the moment you can't find reliably places to charge your electric car.

[00:06:16] So we want to get to a point where there are more of those than there are filling stations.

[00:06:20] And then as well, that is a real worry, isn't it? Because I'm very excited by the way because I'm just about to get one next week.

[00:06:25] We only heard seven times on this podcast. So they can talk about filling cars.

[00:06:29] I'm a new vol increase. A Volvo EC first.

[00:06:32] Yes, but it's I'm not getting paid for this by the way. I'm is very excited about progrosters almost saying I will almost certainly be left high and dry at some point because you won't be able to get the charging.

[00:06:44] I mean charging is a massive problem, isn't it?

[00:06:46] I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that having lived this lifestyle.

[00:06:53] But you know, for disclosure here, I've had an electric car for 10 over 10 years now in one former another. Yes, 10 years ago, I had some some some really squeaky backside moments, you know, I had a car with short range.

[00:07:07] The charges were slow. They weren't very frequent at all and they often didn't work. And it was a real sacrifice to kind of follow this, you know, this, this want to be more sustainable in transportation owning an electric car.

[00:07:22] It was difficult then. The revolution or the revelation. It was both in fact happened for me around 2017 where public charging was still not great.

[00:07:35] But I bought a Tesla, so I will say the brand of car that that I bought it was an extremely expensive purchase for me being a car guy as well. It was it was a lot of thinking.

[00:07:47] All of sudden overnight it was going from my my my previous electric vehicle, which which was then my second, which was tricky to charge. I mean, I was lucky. I charged it at home.

[00:07:58] I had charging at work. Most of my commute 95% of what I did was actually fine. I just needed to think about it in a lot ways. It was more convenient. However, when I went on those long runs, it was it was, you know, it was panic mode.

[00:08:11] But you feel like that's going to weigh now, do you? I think buying buying the Tesla made it back then seven years ago.

[00:08:18] It made a huge difference. Then all of a sudden there was a car that had a charging infrastructure that was strategically placed. The charges were numerous, reliable and very fast.

[00:08:30] The car knew about them. The car knew how much charge it had the car knew the rate it was and still does discharging, knew where you were going, took you to the charges.

[00:08:40] It wasn't really a massive detail. It was a quick stop. I probably needed a comfort break or coffee by then anyway, but that that approach of connecting it's a bit like Apple with the software and hardware of their products of connecting the vehicle with the thing that it has to go hand in, which is the charging with the software that ran.

[00:08:59] Both the charging and the vehicle fleet together was a revelation now, of course.

[00:09:05] It's interesting you make that analogy with Apple because one of the complaints I remember reporting on this was that the charging points were exclusive in the fact of the same way that a lot of Apple stuff only works with Apple products.

[00:09:16] That is the case now. That's been changed hasn't it?

[00:09:19] That's been changed. I think the second part of that really was a master structure.

[00:09:26] To be honest, within the Tesla community, that was the type of divisive people didn't want their goldnaked to be taken away from them.

[00:09:36] Didn't want to lose that exclusivity especially as Tesla owners thought at the time they paid for that charging infrastructure and they were continuing to.

[00:09:45] They were putting in an ability for for anybody to use it. They thought, hang on a minute, you know,

[00:09:52] all those drivers.

[00:09:54] You have all those drivers.

[00:09:56] That's that's changed everything. So really what you've got with Tesla are still building out their charging infrastructure as our

[00:10:04] others and we'll come to that hopefully in a minute. Tesla are building out their charging infrastructure when they build it out, they take it seriously.

[00:10:11] They put a lot of charges in there all super reliable. They're all super fast. They're in reasonably good locations.

[00:10:17] And now they're open to others and they're simple to use for others as well which is another point this worth making.

[00:10:24] The you know, they are helping the transition to electrification of vehicles for everybody.

[00:10:31] And I think one of the two of the criticisms that I have personally of the EV charging infrastructure in the UK and also in Europe as well probably worldwide to be fair is that one is a is a disparate system.

[00:10:44] It's not connected. The government has tried to kind of enforce some commonality now they've got certain ones have got to take contactless bank cards and they've got to be open to all which which is helped but it doesn't help that they're all on different.

[00:11:00] They're all on different networks. They won't exclusively have to take a contactless card many many of them you'll still need a membership so you'll either need an RFID card or you'll need an app or you'll need a website.

[00:11:10] It's never the same and surely we need the same thing that you got with Tesla across all cars where you can be told well, OK this is the nearest station and by the way there's a space available and and you're going to get there before you're an out of charge.

[00:11:24] I mean we need that sort of integration across all makes it.

[00:11:27] It's in its cool plug and go and it's a great idea but it's not in for you know not every manufacturer and chargement manufacturer signs up to it.

[00:11:37] It's a voluntary code as far as I know and no one around the world in terms of government terms of policy is enforcing that so you're ending up with a situation where there isn't that interoperability third party apps help and third party software like Zapmap and others and octopus help.

[00:11:56] But you know it's only then the only is on the third party to go and make sure those charges are working.

[00:12:07] Make sure that they've got the correct pricing information and the correct availability and it's and it's far from complete so

[00:12:15] you know outside of the world and the less they can go back to Tesla for a minute they've realized that their supercharger model is so good that they are now selling their charges the Tesla supercharges to other third parties to install using the Tesla back end of the first one opened first one open this week.

[00:12:36] But you know you get into a question of should it be monopolistic because we've got back to Apple Apple have been in a lot of trouble recently with the EU with America with the American government at the moment for having that monopolistic model that clearly works very well for consumers they know what they're getting they know it's going to work.

[00:12:55] It's simple but they have control of it so is that is there to be no open is that is the money in running these charging stations I mean Tesla.

[00:13:03] I mean I would have thought when they started there were there was a support mechanism to try and sell cars but if for these other players that are involved and it's going to be a bit like the service stations that you're talking about this just not a great deal of money in which there's not a lot of money to be made from we're not going to see the investment because I'm looking at some figures here the international energy agency the number of electric cars per charger obviously the lower the better by various countries.

[00:13:27] So there are 55 cars per charger in New Zealand there's two in South Korea so no problem get you charge up there the UK is about 20 which is about the same as Australia Germany interestingly considering they make lots of cars and the tune increasing number those are going to be electric they're on 25.8 so it's a huge variation I'm wondering what's driving that variation is it the cost efficiency is that the you know the profit incentive varies by country or is it government policy what's the dynamic there.

[00:13:56] I can only speak for the UK really where I have some kind of intimate knowledge of what's going on and the biggest thing that's been holding back charge point rollout is actually around getting the land and these all sorts of weird bylaws about running cables underland to get the power to them it's about the land and then it's connection by the DNO by the by the grid essentially to the charges you know they they they are not an insignificant.

[00:14:26] So if you're getting an extension built on your house and you need a bit more power put in you know you need to upgrade the fuse box or whatever it's a simple thing because you're not going to pull up you're not going to pull a lot of power yeah few you get a peak load and maybe 20 kilowatts when you put him 10 250 kilowatt charges you know you do the math you're talking about significant amounts of power so it's a significant undertaking for the DNOs to get them in.

[00:14:56] So if it's a significant amount of cabling and infrastructure where the needs to be done so from from everything you're saying in this what you're saying is that we are moving pretty rapidly to a point and yes there are lots of teething troubles and things that need to be got over exactly what you're talking about there that perhaps need a government push change in regulation something but we're certainly within.

[00:15:15] So if you see reach now for situation where there are there will not be problems in terms of charging in the right right across the country you'll be able to charge your car and the range you'll have as a result will mean that it will be effectively like having a better.

[00:15:29] Oh does the government need to step in and remove some of these roadblocks in terms of getting power to these locations because remember Rissi Sunak is very good at trying to push to get power put into power stations local massacres because he got a swimming pool in Richmond so you know he's shown it can be done.

[00:15:44] So do we need to get the government to be more proactive in this is that part of the problem you need to keep putting pressure on they are starting to take notice of these issues because of the you know it's been being publicly reported in the press there's a bunch of electric car rapid charges installed in car parks around the country with covers on them.

[00:16:02] They're on and people ask why and it's reported that it's getting connection to the grid that's the issue so I think that's becoming more and more of an issue that's the fundamental.

[00:16:12] Yes, so I think we need to keep the pressure up you know going back to to your point about are we on the right track you know i'm optimistic actually and this is you know this is a simpler problem to fix than if we were trying to bring in something like hydrogen or if we were trying to do the roll out of the internal combustion engine.

[00:16:31] Car now I mean it's not insignificant to create oil refineries the supply chain the infrastructure filling stations all the scene you're talking about a highly you know you don't hundreds of liters thousands of liters of highly flammable liquid that need to be moved around training all that kind of stuff if you were to try and build an explosive gas or liquid fuel infrastructure now it would prove very difficult and very costly the good thing about electricity.

[00:17:00] The thing about electricity is that we're already capable of up for electricity you know you can charge your car so many places where there's already electricity it wouldn't mean that if you were really in the middle of nowhere and you plug into someone's.

[00:17:13] So you know 30 and that plugs up your car's going to charge very slowly so you need to think about not turning up and expecting the thing to be charged now or if you're plugging into a very low power supply it's going to take a day but if you can stay over there it's fine or if you're an emergency you need to plug in and you can do something else at the time.

[00:17:30] Fine we have got electricity everywhere we do have enough capacity within the grid to move to electrification the national grid have written about that length and you can go.

[00:17:42] There's enough power out there basically because that's often I mean that's an argument that's often used isn't it that you there's just if everyone was on an electric vehicle we just would not have enough power in the grid you say that's that's just baloney well there's there's there's two you know people confused to issues here and one is the capacity for generation the other is the capacity for transmission.

[00:18:02] And when it comes to the capacity for generation there are times when we when we produce too much electricity in this country because every newables when the winds really blowing producing too much electricity and that's exemplified by the fact that certain energy providers will now pay you to take the energy from the grid because they've got too much of it and what do you do with it you can't make it disappear you've got to consume it so if you pay people they'll stick everything on.

[00:18:27] So we have got enough capacity to generate at times not all of the time so this concept of potentially there being brownouts and I saw Delvin was talking about this.

[00:18:39] Delvin said the head of ecatristic was talking about this just yesterday there's a lot of a scheme on green about brown out but there's plenty of there's plenty of brown out is when is when the power level is so low that the lights everything just looks slightly brown i've been in a few of those in Africa where there's no the power.

[00:18:56] The power amount is not enough for the capacity what exactly the voltage drops to low and everything isn't running it for speed so we have got enough and in terms of.

[00:19:06] Transmission again people say well that the connections the good connections are old they're under capacity in certain areas that's only a problem if everybody comes home at the same time and all plugs their electric cars in at the same time and they're drawing a lot you know and it's the middle of winter and they're drawing a lot in their houses.

[00:19:25] So the answer to that and the answer for for at least 10 years from the national grid is we need to be smarter about how we do we don't need to build more power stations we do need to be more renewable absolutely we do because burning fossil fuels.

[00:19:40] To create electricity just moves the problem along okay if you're but you know it's.

[00:19:46] We just need to follow our capacities what you're saying I think is that and so I mean so I found so by the way my next or neighbor who's got electric grids on his on his roof he's got that so he's getting paid for that putting some of that back into the solar panels we know solar panels as well but he's also sometimes yeah he gets paid to take power out of the.

[00:20:07] I was a good as well you can get into fuel your car that's the thing you were just going to wire over but the interesting thing as well is because I'm with octopus energy may as well give them a plug as well just getting a name.

[00:20:17] The advertising is going to start rolling into this podcast sometime soon and they obviously they give me a low rate if I charge overnight but also if I charge during the day they know because my charges logged into my account they know when I'm charging my vehicle

[00:20:31] and they can say well okay it's one clock in the afternoon we've got a bit of spare capacity will let you have the charge it will every seven or nine pence per hour as opposed to the 30 pence or whatever it is that I'm currently paying so that's all very smart stuff isn't it using whatever's available at the time to help you charge your car irrespective of the time of day.

[00:20:52] Yeah and let's let's remember I'm writing a piece on this at the moment I've been looking at the research that broadly the headline is in a 95% of the time 95% of cars are going nowhere so they're plugged in

[00:21:04] and so it well in theory they could be plugged in they're not they're not moving so what you really need to do is is it goes back to original point build out this charging infrastructure build it anywhere you can I guarantee you most people work in an office in most employers they've got electricity

[00:21:21] they've got electricity in the car parks if they've got car parts they like the thing there's electricity there put the charge points in encourage people to plug the cars in and then using that smart technology and all of these electric cars all have an app they all have an API they're all able to communicate with the internet's in some form or another when there is an excessive electricity charge them

[00:21:43] and perhaps if you can if you can integrate two way charging which is a very very new concept there's very few cars with two way charging but they are coming if you've got a car full of battery and you can sound your app look it's one o'clock in the afternoon I'm not going home till five I'm only going 20 miles I don't need it instead of charging me why do you take a bit of my battery charge

[00:22:02] when you take it to the washing machine wrong wrong whatever to help the grid and then with that pain me pain me

[00:22:12] what about the price of car so we've done the power in an issue which is clearly a big one but if I'm honest the reason I'm not buying electric cars I'm not half as rich as Phil here

[00:22:23] and is this not as skilled or absolutely low loads of issues on that friend but the main thing is its price I mean the price is still too much even the second hand electric car market is it's very elevated so I mean that is going to be the major issue together over isn't it Tom?

[00:22:39] We're going to get 2035 where you've got no choice I think a second hand petrol car with a dwindling number of petrol stations or yet you've got to somehow shell out for a car that you can afford.

[00:22:49] What can be done about the price issue?

[00:22:51] Well let's forget when you get to 2035 the point we made earlier is if there aren't very many petrol cars around and some of them are collectible or interesting to certain people

[00:22:59] the prices of those are going to be elevated so they won't be cheap and they won't be making very many of them.

[00:23:04] So we're just getting loads of people out price from driving them.

[00:23:07] Supply and demand I mean there's positive news around the price of cars so when I bought my first EV it was over price for what it was

[00:23:16] but the charging was all free then the charging was free the road taxes free even insurance companies didn't really understand them so the insurance wasn't particularly expensive

[00:23:24] because the only risk profile they had was that people were driving very close very slowly to get more range.

[00:23:29] So it was a cheap car to run even though it was expensive to buy when I bought the Tesla a lot of money really when I look back a lot of money again free charging but it doesn't pay for it.

[00:23:38] So where are we now?

[00:23:40] All new cars are expensive.

[00:23:42] I've spoken at length in other podcasts and interviews all cars are expensive all cars are getting more expensive.

[00:23:52] If you want to go and buy a petrol 3 series BMW or you want to buy let's say a Tesla Model 3 or a Polestar or something like that they've got price parity.

[00:24:00] They're all expensive they're all heavy so let's part that.

[00:24:04] But the cheapest cars in the market are petrol they are small they are simple they're petrol and there's a lot of reasons for that.

[00:24:13] Mainly due to economies of scale and having things at different price points in some cars making more profit than others what there aren't is a lot of cheap electric cars.

[00:24:21] However, the manufacturers realize that has to change their fully aware of the arguments that you guys have just spoken about so we're looking at that.

[00:24:31] The spring which is about 14-15 thousand pounds for a brand new EV it's not a great EV necessarily I shouldn't say that.

[00:24:39] It's not at the top of features and luxury but it is an electric vehicle.

[00:24:45] It doesn't have a very good range but it has enough for most people.

[00:24:50] What you need is what you say is not fair.

[00:24:53] If you say well it can't go backwards you know that might be limiting but generally.

[00:25:00] We're just the same as a cheap petrol car.

[00:25:03] If you think the prices will come down and then with that presumably obviously second hand because I'm like where is going to be the big concern are we going to reach a point where everyone's getting new cars and people who normally lived on buying fairly old second hand cars suddenly find that they can't afford.

[00:25:16] They're priced out of the market.

[00:25:18] There will be a second hand market in electric cars the people who had no choice but will it be as cheap?

[00:25:23] That's the question.

[00:25:25] That's a really interesting question and we could go for a very deep dive which I don't think we should in terms of the reliability of electric cars versus internal combustion engine cars as they get older.

[00:25:37] But just a one word are they are they as reliable?

[00:25:40] They are more reliable.

[00:25:42] The other thing is that the battery data would tell you that they're more reliable.

[00:25:45] However some components are more expensive to replace.

[00:25:49] If your battery pack goes there is not the second hand refurbished market for batteries that again is nascent and developing because there's no there's no demand for it.

[00:26:01] The battery packs generally like you know they're all warranted for at least eight years in all EVs that I'm aware of.

[00:26:07] Even at eight years it doesn't mean they suddenly go wrong.

[00:26:10] They just lose capacity and some of them may go wrong but it won't be the whole pack that normally goes wrong in my experience is one or two more.

[00:26:18] Are they really good for the environment?

[00:26:20] Obviously it depends on where you're getting the energy from how the age is created.

[00:26:23] But there's also a lot of coverage lately about the fact that electric cars are so heavy that they are damaging our roads and also the wear and tear from the tires is more polluting than lighter petrol cars.

[00:26:36] So where do we go with that can we fix that problem?

[00:26:39] I mean I'm going to hold my hands up.

[00:26:41] My Tesla Model S is heavier on tires than a small petrol car.

[00:26:48] It's a big car. It's a big car. It's heavy on tires.

[00:26:52] And it's heavier because the battery is heavier essentially that's what we're talking about.

[00:26:55] It's a big car with a big heavy battery with a lot of tech onboard like a lot.

[00:27:00] I mean tech is what's making tech and safety is what's making cars heavier.

[00:27:05] When you put a battery pack in the battery pack as a single component of the car is heavy but you're removing exhaust systems, you're removing transmissions, you're removing engines, you're removing all the emissions control equipment.

[00:27:16] It's auxiliary power steering all that kind of stuff gets removed as well.

[00:27:21] So it's not like you're adding all that on that.

[00:27:23] The really heavy ones are a lot of the big plug-in hybrids.

[00:27:26] Like the sort of the SUVs.

[00:27:29] A lot of the SUVs now in order to make them a bit cheaper on company car tax are extremely heavy but that's because they've got everything in them.

[00:27:38] Going back to the point about are they bad for the environment?

[00:27:42] They're always going to have the law of entropy on this side.

[00:27:45] This is the thing with electric cars with internal combustion engine car.

[00:27:50] Once you burn that fuel it's gone.

[00:27:52] All it's turned into is heat, noise and warmth and a whole bunch of particulates in CO2 that you don't really want in the environment if you can avoid it.

[00:28:02] So with electric car you charge that battery up.

[00:28:06] This charges at a fairly even rate in the power you put in as the power you get out.

[00:28:10] It's not so much that you can't buy.

[00:28:11] But it's the particulates from the tires that people are talking about at the moment.

[00:28:15] Will we see tire technology improving the same way that we've seen vehicle technology?

[00:28:22] Yes, they already are.

[00:28:24] You've got a trade-off there.

[00:28:27] You can make a very hard tire that wears very slowly but it doesn't have as much grip and it isn't as safe.

[00:28:33] And then the tire manufacturer is working closely with Michelin through something else that I was doing last few weeks.

[00:28:39] The trade-offs they have to do, the development they have to do is incredible.

[00:28:43] Technology is helping.

[00:28:44] Technology is meaning that actually they have more grip and better wear characteristics than they did in the 1960s.

[00:28:50] You'll be because of the way that they're made understanding how they wear simple things as well like go and get the geometry checks when you can't get a full wheel alignment on it.

[00:29:00] You would not believe how much that can wear the tires unevenly.

[00:29:03] It's not like an even wear that causes a lot of tires to be thrown away prematurely.

[00:29:07] It's an uneven wear that wears one part of the tire and then you're throwing away good on worn tire.

[00:29:12] The technology is going to catch up essentially whether it's tires or be the building better roads, possibly I suppose, might be another thing.

[00:29:20] But we can guess that it's going to be the last thing to do.

[00:29:23] But what I've, the fact that which has been talked to me about and vast numbers of Chinese made relatively cheap

[00:29:30] potentially I suppose transmitting our data cars that are going to come onto the market pretty soon.

[00:29:35] We know that the Americans already worry about this.

[00:29:38] Is that going to be a big factor?

[00:29:40] Because China's B-Y-D now bigger than Tesla so 1.8 million cars last year versus 1.3 million Tesla's.

[00:29:46] My Volvo is made in China.

[00:29:49] They are making loads of cars.

[00:29:51] The thing that surprised me over the last couple years going to trade shows, going to exhibitions and reading in the news is how hard the Chinese are pushing into Western markets, how aggressive they are and how visible they are.

[00:30:06] And actually how good the product is.

[00:30:09] The product is really, really good.

[00:30:11] The Chinese made Volvo's and the poll stars which are kind of Volvo design, a guile design built in a Chinese factory that was created just to build that product.

[00:30:23] They are excellent.

[00:30:24] I mean they're really, really well made.

[00:30:26] They're really high quality.

[00:30:27] You wouldn't be able to detect that you weren't in European car.

[00:30:31] Absolutely not.

[00:30:32] It's it they're really high quality products.

[00:30:35] The Chinese have a stranglehold on the manufacture and supply of lithium ion batteries so much so that I think we probably need to be a little bit worried about this.

[00:30:49] How much they've tied up the supply chain, how much they've tied up the manufacture.

[00:30:53] There's a lot of lithium in the world and the lithium is reusable as well which is a really interesting point going back to EVs versus.

[00:30:59] Petrol cars where you burn the fuel and it's gone.

[00:31:02] You know, the energy is gone to somewhere else in the system where we don't want it in the planet in the atmosphere of the planet with lithium ion batteries.

[00:31:10] You can take them apart.

[00:31:11] It's the stock trivial but you can take them apart.

[00:31:13] You can recycle them.

[00:31:14] You can get the lithium out of them.

[00:31:16] I think it's more the problem that the Chinese of mining lithium is pretty unpleasant for the environment that society.

[00:31:22] And it's also, I mean obviously it determines the geography of the new power-breaking is less to do with oil more to do with the mineral resources for batteries whether it's lithium or cobalt or manganese or whatever it is.

[00:31:35] And a lot of that can come from anywhere.

[00:31:37] It's just the size of the country that is the term where the stuff is of course.

[00:31:42] Well Australia and China have an advantage here because they're large lambuses and they have a lot of natural resources.

[00:31:48] If you look at them, I've been looking quite closely at the economy and the lithium economy of South America recently.

[00:31:55] And South America is sitting on 65% of the world's lithium and they've also got a lot of other natural resources, little manganese and gold and all the things that we need.

[00:32:05] But it's split amongst a lot of different countries.

[00:32:08] And I think if you go to the south of South America, if you go to Peru and Argentina, a lot of that lithium is contained within massive salt flats.

[00:32:17] So it's actually quite easy to get to and it's not particularly destructive to the environment to get it.

[00:32:24] It's probably better than copper mining, to be honest, which is, which really does strip the landscape.

[00:32:30] But if you go to the northern part of South America, if you go to, well go to the mid and the north you go to Brazil, Venezuela,

[00:32:37] and Colombia, that this part of the world, it's under forest.

[00:32:42] So the problem we have, we're going to have another kind of ecocide scenario where the value of those natural resources to the governments are incredibly high.

[00:32:52] But they're potentially going to cut down the forests to get to it or they're going to destroy the lakes and the rivers.

[00:32:59] And that is a worry.

[00:33:02] But I mean, you know, look at Venezuela and what happened with the oil industry.

[00:33:05] If you look at the alternative, it's not exactly lovely.

[00:33:09] What happened there?

[00:33:10] You know, there's a structure of a nation really because we choose our version of ecocide essentially.

[00:33:14] Yeah.

[00:33:15] Yeah.

[00:33:16] It was not completely clear.

[00:33:17] There were saying there are consequences.

[00:33:18] I guess I mean, it's something that we can do.

[00:33:20] Can we reduce the amount of resources that are needed?

[00:33:24] Well, if we're going to keep going, we don't actually need to replace it.

[00:33:27] We don't, we don't need to absolutely exhaust the earth.

[00:33:30] Well, we recycle it and that is the wonderful thing about lithium ion batteries.

[00:33:34] It's not, as I said earlier, it's not trivial to recycle them but it's absolutely possible and you don't need to dig up new.

[00:33:40] You'll always need to dig up some new.

[00:33:43] But if you look at, if you, if we move to a completely sustainable energy economy,

[00:33:49] we would mine significantly less than we do now because we need significant less,

[00:33:55] because the assumption there's that you recycle quite a lot of it and there's a lot wasted.

[00:33:59] There's a lot of coal bull that's dug out of the ground and refined to use in the manufacture of low sulfur petrol and diesel.

[00:34:08] So one of the largest uses of coal bull is not in lithium ion batteries but actually to the sulfurized fuel.

[00:34:14] So if you remove that, then you remove all the coal bull that's needed by now.

[00:34:17] So it goes back, yeah, it goes back to what I said earlier which is, which is about,

[00:34:23] which is about, because of that entropy, electric cars have have that on their side.

[00:34:28] You, you, you're always going to use less if you use something like that.

[00:34:34] Do you think there's a close cycle?

[00:34:35] Do you think there's a future for the car manufacturing industry in the UK on this or are we,

[00:34:39] are most parts of the world going to lose out to places like China because of that natural mineral advantage

[00:34:46] and they can just, you know, integrate vertically whereas we don't have that ability.

[00:34:51] We're the cost disadvantage first of all in having to import the raw materials plus obviously a higher cost of labor.

[00:34:57] And that's another, that's another really complicated one and a really interesting one.

[00:35:02] I'd love to have a crystal bull, you know, I'm a big supporter of the UK car industry.

[00:35:07] I think we can design really innovative vehicles.

[00:35:12] We have probably some of the leading engineers in the world for vehicle dynamics.

[00:35:17] You will be amazed how many vehicles are tuned by the British, the likes of Lotus and other,

[00:35:23] another engineering companies who are designing the vehicle dynamics for all sorts of manufacturers and always have done.

[00:35:30] We are really good at design.

[00:35:32] We're not too bad at manufacture.

[00:35:34] We were terrible at manufacture in the 1970s and lost our advantage but we've got better at it.

[00:35:39] So the ingredients for the UK car industry are there to be, to be great.

[00:35:43] And we do, you know, we have some great manufacturers, we have Jaguar and Androva,

[00:35:46] great and great products, creating EVs, Aston Martin, we've got electric rolls,

[00:35:51] Royces, there's this albeit their own by the Germans but they get advantage of their supply chain.

[00:35:56] However, we are good at it.

[00:35:59] The problem that we've got is, let's come back to the B word after Brexit.

[00:36:04] It's, and again I've studied this at length, I'm commented on this at length,

[00:36:09] it's harder to build cars in the UK because of Brexit and that was warned about.

[00:36:14] And it remains hard.

[00:36:16] Along with so much else, of course.

[00:36:17] We still do make quite a few though, don't we?

[00:36:19] And most of it is still exported to Europe but it's, you know,

[00:36:22] it's whether we can pick up and we have gone down a bit over the last couple of years.

[00:36:25] So I guess it's a, you know, it's a bad time to be a petrolhead isn't it?

[00:36:29] But there again, if you are a petrolhead, you know, you know, you know,

[00:36:32] you know, your cars are going to be more collectible and you're going to be buying your fuel.

[00:36:35] All the black money you're doing that, I think.

[00:36:37] But if you're a petrolhead and you haven't driven electric car when you put your foot on the accelerator,

[00:36:40] you're going to be impressed aren't you?

[00:36:42] I mean, they offer, they pick up fast.

[00:36:45] I love both.

[00:36:48] I always have done. I come from a background in automotive ever since I was a tiny little child.

[00:36:53] And I love both they have, they have different characters for me seeing the damage that internal combustion does to the local environment and to the wider climate was the turn off for me.

[00:37:08] If if they could recreate that fear and that sound and that noise,

[00:37:11] I know high on dire trying to do that with some of their electric vehicles and they make a noise and they feel like a petrol car,

[00:37:17] they feel like I've got a gearbox which completely you completely possible to do if people want that.

[00:37:22] Then then great.

[00:37:24] Actually the research, the research, the only research I could find about this when I was looking into this last year is

[00:37:32] if you give London cabies an electric cab and you give them a diesel cab,

[00:37:36] the ones that drive the electric cab drive better, they're more refreshed.

[00:37:40] They feel happier and the passengers are happier.

[00:37:43] So clearly I think people prefer to drive EVs.

[00:37:48] You want to keep London cabies happy definitely as a big part of this.

[00:37:52] So I'm going to have to, I think, tell us but thank you so much for giving us a sense of where it's all going.

[00:37:57] You and Phil clearly on one particular side of the fence, I'm still...

[00:38:01] You know the car I'm talking about, the EC40 from Volvo.

[00:38:04] It's a nice car isn't it?

[00:38:05] You don't have to sell it you know.

[00:38:07] You've really bought one.

[00:38:08] Anyway Tom's a Tesla man so we'll divide that into new car.

[00:38:14] So I thank you so much for being with us.

[00:38:16] Thanks guys.

[00:38:17] Well there we are, I'm very excited.

[00:38:19] Just a gay shabby.

[00:38:20] You should see him, I'm not a shabby car.

[00:38:22] Well do you know it's mainly how you can have an exciting car.

[00:38:24] I haven't had a new brand new car for 30 years or something like that.

[00:38:28] I've always been getting secondhand cheap cars so I'm looking forward to this.

[00:38:32] But anyway, next week we're back to talking about politics.

[00:38:35] We are because the local elections coming up we're going to see interesting situations here

[00:38:40] I think in terms of how reform do because as a party they're certainly getting quite high in the polls.

[00:38:46] There is a real risk isn't it?

[00:38:48] By the time you get an entry of general election they might actually get more votes than the Tory party.

[00:38:51] Well it's feasible and what this gets us into the whole idea of is populism.

[00:38:56] I mean they are a populist party.

[00:38:57] They're not a traditional right wing party.

[00:38:59] And these parties like them have grown up all over Europe, Portugal recently,

[00:39:04] the Netherlands lots of places they're getting real election advantage and of course you could say Trumpism in the states is of a similar issue.

[00:39:11] What it means is politicians, irrespective of their persuasion having to respond to the human populistic tone for whatever it might be,

[00:39:18] whatever the subject is people having to find a response to it rather than they...

[00:39:21] It isn't the classic left-right thing of the old days.

[00:39:23] It is, it's very different.

[00:39:24] And we want to find out what it means, what its significance is, how it's going to change our politics.

[00:39:30] Yeah and that's all coming up for better or worse.

[00:39:32] I can't actually see any good coming out of it but we will try and see it.

[00:39:35] But we're trying to be a little liberal leftist.

[00:39:37] So we'll find someone who does.

[00:39:39] That's all coming up on the next edition of The Why Care.

[00:39:42] We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening today.

[00:39:44] Alright.

[00:39:45] The Why curve.