Biden’s Bonkers Protectionism? Potential of Northern Powerhouses!| Fully Charged Podcast

Join presenters Robert and Dan for this episode of the Fully Charged Show Podcast as they give you a sneak peek into what’s in store at Everything Electric NORTH in Harrogate, as well as delving into the energy transition and powering a new industrial revolution in the north of England, the US’s sky-high tariffs on Chinese EVs, the dangers of the Hydrogen and CCS lobby, the potential of offshore wind, and the exciting world of home energy security with V2H technology. Enjoy! @fullychargedshow @EverythingElectricShow

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Everything Electric NORTH, Yorkshire Event Centre – 24th, 25th & 26th May

Everything Electric CANADA – Vancouver Convention Centre – 6th, 7th & 8th September

Everything Electric SOUTH – Farnborough International – 11th, 12th & 13th October

Everything Electric EUROPE – RAI Amsterdam – Date Announcement Imminent

hello and welcome to another episode of the fully charged Show podcast I’m joined today by Dan Caesar and we’re going to discuss a few Salient topics that are washing washing around the internet and the real world there we go that’s now I just wanted to give you an example of a professional introduction that’s fantastic I I I feel the pressure’s off me now to to be equally professional well last time we spoke yeah um I was very downbeat I think a bit downcast I think it was just we’ had about 700 days of consecutive rainfall I think UK was in recession but now the sun’s out the recession is gone uh all is well with the world and we are gearing up for our next show which is everything electric North in Harriet and we’ve been very busy on the fully charged show very busy with stop burning stuff as well so it’s it’s high time to have a bit of a catch up that’s very good there and I think one of the things I can’t help saying is that it looks like the weather’s going to be okay at at Harriet because there it’s indoors and Outdoors and all our shows are indoors and Outdoors but Harriet somehow because it’s so beautiful the location you kind of want to be outside quite a lot and I was just worried if we’re going to have lousy weather it would be more challenging but yorkshire’s always gorgeous I’ve been saying this all year the Yorkshire Event Center is amazing so it’s kind of perched on that kind of Hill just outside Harriet um I think it’s our kind of aesthetically most pleasing yeah uh venue it’s an amazing uh Festival experience experience there we can’t wait to go back it’s amazing that it’s a year ago I know amazing in that it feels like it was about seven years ago but at the same time you know it feels like it was it was just yesterday and we’re really looking forward to going back we’ve got a great show planned it opens on Friday the 24th runs through to Sunday the 26th and the shows have become real kind of fun festivals I think for the family now um so no we can’t we can’t wait to do it and it gives us a great deal of energy to catch up with people who quite like the fully charged shap yeah which is very nice we do no and the the panels are fantastic we know that the test drive is there the test drive list is Bonkers and then the latest edition which did that happen yesterday or the day before do you not know about this well I don’t you might not mini yes so there’s there’s quite a few cars coming uh it’s going to be a pretty big uh test drive feature I’m feeling very midlife crisis and I might like to try the Hyundai ionic 5n N I might like to give that a bit of a bit of a spin I think that’s first time it’s been available for test drive yeah there’s tons of different uh different cars coming different uh electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes and then loads and loads of Home energy stuff too so it’s going to be a really really good show and yet it looks like the weather’s going to be okay which is which is a bonus but yeah these these shows have come to sort of punctuate our our year yeah uh and then we’ll get through that one we start planning for second trip to Canada yes then we have farra returns yes the Autumn we’re now working on the schedule for 2025 and 20266 I mean and 2026 and we’re trying to get up to 10 live exhibitions by 2030 wow 10 a year yes so that’s going to take some some planning yeah and some doing but obviously the reason we’re doing that is not because we love the live shows we do but because there’re such important moments to convert people yeah into these Technologies I think that’s an important point to make if you’ve never been to one of the shows is that they are they’re they’re not like a a traditional car show and they’re not like a traditional sort of home show if you like like a like a Ideal Home Show or or grand designs they’re a combination of the two but they’ve become a different sort of they’ve almost become a hybrid not that I want to use that word but the the it’s the atmosphere and this is really the feedback we get from people who have attended them rather than us saying is that that there is’s a real strong kind of community event feel to them and there’s such positivity and there’s so many people you can talk to there that aren’t trying to sell you one specific thing I think that’s you know the home energy show is such a critically important thing that you can go and find how on Earth do I put a battery or solar panels on my house or a different water heater or different central heating system or heat pumps and you can talk to someone who’s not trying to flog you a specific heat pump which I think is a really or a particular product well I think it’s fair to say we know quite a lot about Electric cars and we know quite a lot about home energy if I go to an event where I don’t know a lot I’m sometimes scared to ask questions and if people coming and they’re interested in these things and they don’t know the answers this is the least judgmental most friendly most positive environment you can get so it’s really really good you’ve got things like as you say the energy advice Zone the test drives you know your your your fears and anxieties about driving electric kind of melt away after you’ve had a couple of uh test drives and you realize how good the the cars are so yeah from our perspective the ability to to get people to um talk about these Technologies test them it’s been absolutely an amazing success story for for us and we are interested fundamentally in getting people to stop burning stuff so so it’s really been been powerful so yeah lots of events to come and at the moment we’re just trying to work out where we go next year as well right we have done two years in Sydney now and we we going back to Sydney uh in March but actually there are a couple of other cities in Australia that are really trying to get to go down under as well amazing isn’t it we are strongly considering it yes yes the great it’s definitely to our advantage that there’s a sort of sporting competitive you know feeling between Australian cities wait a minute they’ve got everything electric we want it there’s definitely been my Australian accent do better do forgive me if you’re a there’s definitely been some competition and I think what’s really interesting and probably kept me saying is the UK Market has been tough I’m I’m going to be very upbeat today I’m feeling that things are starting to get a little bit better but um the reality is the Australian Market is flying Canadian Market is flying you know so it is a little bit politics unfortunately is wrapped up in why the UK economy is is obviously struggling and the the clean tech economy as we would call it is also having a little bit of a hard time uh but ultimately these Technologies are here to stay and they’re only going to get bigger and bigger and I think the other thing that’s important to talk about is the north you know that I mean although I’ve had all these messages recently was I can’t wait to travel South to go to to go to everything electric North so it’s people in Scotland and further north so they think of of Harriet as the Midlands for them which it kind of geographically is but it is certainly the northern bit of the of England anyway but I mean that there what’s you know there’s no question of what’s happened in the UK in the last really 20 years to be fair is this of all the money has fallen down to sort of the southeast of the of this island and the north is definit not had a good time well you there’s lots of talk about leveling up and the northern Powerhouse and things like that and I would contend that that those have been kind of empty rhetoric until now really I think there’s kind of a genuine intention um but the danger is you end up in very much a two-tier society and the whole point about these Technologies should be available to to everyone if you look at a map of where the most solar installs for example are where do you think it is it’s the south of England yeah particularly South Central Southwest uh and to the of nor of London as well those the areas where you see the most sort of solar capacity on on people’s rooftops and very very little up in the up in the north and that obviously speaks to you know um income as well it speaks to disposable income um so the reality is that we always felt it was really really important to do a show um in in the north of England yeah um and you know from our perspective we’d love to do one in Scotland as well but you’ve got to make these things work economically we also know where our audience are is so we’ve often been asked what we do one in Birmingham we don’t have a great you know a huge audience in in in in the West Midlands for example so we’ve kind of mapped out our three shows in the UK as being uh in Hampshire which is obviously in the home counties in East London and one you know on the kind of the the northern sort of spine of the of the country to attract people from across the North and hopefully a few people down from from Scotland as well so that’s worked out quite well for us and I think it gives us a great opportunity today to talk about the opportunities that exist for for the north which I think I think this whole move um this whole energy transition could be really beneficial to the north of England and one of the things we Al often talk about in energy circles is the 3DS of energy so obviously decarbonization is a given and obviously that’s really really important to people like me who you know really been you know campaigning for technologies that tackle uh climate for many years that tackle clean air but actually the other 2DS are interesting which is digitalization so we’re seeing now technology become much much smarter but the third D which I think is the most interesting of all is decentralization right as you know I’m basically an old communist so I actually believe that maybe there is inequity in the societies that that we live in um and the reality is that what we’ve had is a centralized Energy System which revolves around Central ownership roles around power plants and things like that and actually this digitization this breaking up of the uh energy industry can mean that actually it can be decentralized and it means new opportunities for places like the north of England to kind of reinvent itself and it means you can have lots of different you know can start again almost With the Energy System yeah uh and take advantage of that so I’m kind of really interested in how the the north can benefit from that and I thought it would be quite useful to run through a few things I’m not going to do a full Manifesto no no that’s good we’re not quite an election season yet but some bullet points some bullet points yeah some bullet points really I think I mean I think from from our perspective what we’ve heard a lot of so far we are going to have an election in the UK at some some point unless there’s a coup that’ll be exciting there’s a military coup it’ll be very interesting we’ll do an episode about it uh but the reality is that so far what we’re waiting for the manifestos from the different parties we have heard quite a lot of talk in the labor party about hydrogen and CCF right and in fact I was at the labor Party Conference in Liverpool uh a few months ago and the exhibition they have that alongside the conference was full of CCS Companies and full of hydrogen companies wow more than anything else actually right so those companies are lobbying very very hard the labor party will be I’m sure in the the final points of drawing up its manif esto ahead of the next election they’ve talked about creating a Great British energy uh company but what we would say actually the future really is all about solar wind batteries electric cars and actually yes hydrogen has a role to play and I’m sure carbon capture does even if we don’t believe it’s actually got a huge role to play but there’s certain industries where it’s kind of critically important to make it work and do it you know and there are obviously parts of the north which will you know has you know industrialization refineries all sorts of things so they’ll be Keen to understand how that works but we we think electrification is the kind of the main the main game so we’re quite interested to see what the labor Manifesto says yeah we’re also quite interested to see what the conservative Manifesto says and the others but it does seem at the time of speaking that the labor party is probably in the box seat as as far as the next election is concerned yeah but I went to um Grimsby uh last week and I caught up with our friends at my energy amazing company and uh yeah it was fantastic actually I’m sure we’ll cover that in some uh capacity but it was good to see them they’ve expanded their their Factory is finished now because it was a up and running um I love a factory tour oh you can’t be pretty sure imagin would love a factory tour um we had the full tour the full walk around and it was incredibly impressive wow uh you know state of the-art I would say um but what was interesting to me was as I drove up uh towards uh their uh their headquarters at immingham uh on the horizon there is uh the the port of immingham yeah which I think is the by tonnage is the biggest Port uh in the UK right and there are all the stacks of the refiner there alongside it right so you’ve got this kind of ju position of you know new industry with with my energy and and and old industry alongside it so I think from a perspective of you know hydrogen and C yes clearly I think it is going to be important part of any Manifesto but I think proportionately the real opportunities lie in the things that were particularly dear to us which are you know batteries and and wind and solar in particular I mean there was a particular report that literally came out yesterday which the latest figures are that batteries have just overtaken pumped storage which I would have thought wouldn’t happen sort of ever or certainly not for a long time because the the amount of pump storage in the world is massive if you think of all the the facilities in Norway in particular they’ve got loads we’ve got a bit here but a lot of countries have it Switzerland has a huge amount China is using a lot there’s some there’s quite big in the United States and in Australia but now that is smaller than our installed battery this is we’re talking grid batteries really kind of industrial level Grid batteries have overtaken pump storage I really didn’t think that would ever happen and the the it’s multiple terawatt hours of battery storage are available around the world now to make grids to you know to to help with grid management yeah and and and we haven’t seen anything yet no you know that’s that’s the reality and that’s where you know that that digitization that breaking down of energy means you can have lots of little units in battery form that can actually over time every little count to coin a supermarket phrase that actually can make a huge difference in in in the aggregate whether it’s home batteries or building batteries or the larger battery energy storage systems I mean one of the things that really interests me is is geography and how that impacts energy so different countries have different wealth China’s been very very clever how it’s kind of constructed an economy and it’s gathered together the materials refining Etc but some countries are in really strong positions and others are weaker Australia’s in quite a strong position for example very strong but the UK um is almost the perfect place for win power yes I mean the resource we have in that respect is fantastic and clearly we have tapped in into it if you look at the um energy the grid mix from 2012 to now it’s been utterly transformed wind power is a massive massive part of our kind of energy mix and and coal has been kind of moved off the the system but still there’s a huge amount of potential and what what fascinates me at the moment is if you look at the the north of England yeah actually that kind of that narrow neck of England where if you if you take sort of North Wales up to the kind of the the Lakes the the Sea Side that’s actually relatively narrow part of the country with a high Concentra of people living in Liverpool then Manchester you know leads across to to Newcastle middleb sundland Etc to actually reinvigorate the economies in those areas that that wind power is in a huge huge opportunity so the ability to create loads of wind power offshore whether it’s you know um normal wind wind turbines or if it’s floating which there a lot of that those projects were being built at the moment and onshore which I think should come back onto the agenda yeah I think the opportunity for for for the north of England to be a Powerhouse is is actually huge and what we also see in the UK is lots of coastal towns are fairly neglected yeah can be a bit depressing but there are now new there’s a a huge wind aray called rampion I think it is just off Brighton right don’t if you’ve seen that you just from from from Brighton but I think all of the these you know coastal towns could be you know revivified by having kind of you know wind wind arrays off them so there are some already built in the North Sea um I think moram has has got one that’s that’s coming we know Liverpool Bay is huge Bay um there is obviously um on the the the north SE the dogger Bank larger dogger Bank project as well and so I’ve been talking to the the crown estate who manage the the seabeds just to find out what is in existence already and what is being permitted and what is being consented and so there’s huge huge opportunity there if you get all that wind power all that renewable energy well pouring it straight into batteries or battery manufacturer or car manufacturer or renewable hydrogen or whatever it may be there’s a huge huge opportunity so I think what we’re going to try and do is um is actually try and get maybe the crown estate on one of the podcasts to talk about future opportunities so I think there’s a really a really big opportunity for for the north of England there as well and then of course there’s domestic properties yeah yeah which there’s a lot there is yeah there is tell me more about domestic properties well I think I think the I think the reality is that you’ve got this huge opportunity to almost create more you know energy security energy resilience base load whatever term you want to go with in the aggregate across all the different homes of of the north of England as I said the solar um uptake has been relatively low so far and I think a lot of that’s probably about disposable incomes in north of England but the real reality is that you know the more the more the more homes that have solar the more homes that have the batteries potentially in the future the battery and the car as a in a bidirectional uh device as well I think the opportunity for for the north is very significant also for Skilling up as well yeah you know we are going to over time believe it or not we’re going to take boilers out and we’re going to Electrify a lot of heat that’s a huge we’ve spoken about this before that’s a huge opportunity for anyone who’s looking for a job for life of which there are very very few now yes AI will be taking your adult job any day now you know so you know the reality is but but putting a heat pump in or you know doing that sort of thing those are those are big jobs so there is actually a huge Economic Opportunity in North fingland well also I mean just very briefly the the energy Esty which I always think is great which is Hull which had a you know had was this thriving fishing PK 100 years ago 50 years ago really went down on its luck and is now this kind of booming Hightech area where the where all the the big blades for the biggest wind turbines are all made there even for like Norway Denmark Sweden if they’re putting in wind turbines they make the blades in in in hole or in homicide generally which is extraordinary I mean that that part of the world is really really benefited from the kind of the wind power uh Revolution but also you’ve got to think what what we’re going to lose because if we have less and less you know petroleum I think uh this oil and oil and gas transportation is about 40% of global Shipping something yeah to move oil it’s about it’s about 4% that slowly diminishes that will affect jobs that will affect work and you’ve got to have a cogent plan to replace that with something else whether it’s wind power or batteries but the reality is actually the north of England actually from a geographic perspective um is actually kind of well positioned but it’s going to take you know some inspirational leadership yeah to make sure that the northern Powerhouse isn’t just a throwaway phrase and it’s actually becomes a real thing it does feel a bit like it has been that and I just having a quick look at the figures Dan because it’s 49 terawatt hours of electricity was just from offshore wind in 2023 last year 40 which is which we’ve worked out it’s about 18% of the total consumption of the UK which is you know that’s gone from not perc in in really my very recent you know the very recent past it would have been minute you would have been immeasurably small 20 years ago to to to 18% I mean it’s a huge amount that’s a vast amount of electricity has been and none of that electricity needed any fuel or any Imports or any money leaving our economy this is the kind of I think rather a critical point well it is really really important I mean I think there is a balance to be struck I was at a dinner last night with some MPS um who were all very Pro Clean Energy in general and that was interestingly across the political Spectrum yeah that was all party um and it was interesting but one of the subjects that came up quite frequently was was nimbyism I not in my backyard um and you know if you are a politician I think you think politics can is is fear these days you know you’re really scared of upsetting people yeah can be quite difficult to say actually this is the way we’re going to do it and to stick to that mandate when you’ve got some very sort of vocal uh people who are in opposition and also potentially um some constituents who are just scared of of change yeah so um I have some sympathy for for politicians I think it’s an incredibly difficult job of course it is um but the reality is that you’ve got to read the bigger picture the bigger picture is we’re heading to a world where an energy transition takes place and we want to be inside that in my opinion not outside uh regretfully kind of looking on going we’ve missed a huge opportunity to reinvent ourselves for example having Chinese and Korean car companies set and Tesla set up shop and make cars here and build batteries here would be a huge opportunity in in my book so having spoken to um some politicians as recently as as last night it was kind of interesting to get their uh their take and yeah the north of England I think is sort of ripe for for Rejuvenation yeah yeah I mean well they are doing stuff aren’t they because I know they’re building new a new battery plant with Nan at Sunderland and there’s talk of going on just down the road here in Somerset you know those things are they’re starting to emerge and starting to look slightly more plausible because we’ve seen you know in the last 10 years so many you know big projects that are going to start you know and then they falter and they fall over and it’s so really it’s tough to do it well British Vault of course was was one of the big ones and of course that is I think currently under review to be generous definitely having a nap um and I think the cables from the Viking link came up in blly I think yeah which is in um so you know there are opportunities I I personally think onshore wind should be a much bigger thing um the Scottish government have embraced it if you uh if you drive up uh you know either M6 or A1 route up to Scotland you’ll see lots of wind turbines they export electricity to the rest of the UK they do and I I think you know north of England has got great opportunity I understand why there are there is nimbyism and there is concern about those things but I I don’t know my my granddad was a pylon engineer and when I was a kid he took me to see a pylon right being kind of put in the put in the ground and they just after a while they become you just don’t see them part of the background Furniture you know I mentioned about the refinery I drove past the day it’s no one’s idea of attractive there are plenty of power plants out there as well I actually think wind turbines by comparison are quite they’re very they’re delicate I would call them stunning some but know maybe that’s just me and but the reality is there kind of interesting but I think the point you mentioned the resilienc energy security thing I think that’s quite big for a lot big motivation for a lot of people we have in the UK what some people call um this may get edited out flag shaggers people who are too interested in saying you know everything’s got to be British but the reality is that why shouldn’t we be creating British energy yes yes solar yeah yeah our own solar or our own wind there was a big thing around brexit about British Fish I don’t know if you remember that uh which is a rather odd odd odd phrase but the reality is I think there is a huge opportunity for us to create and store our own energy and and I think that you know any any politician worth their sort is really got to be think about how can we you know be part of this new Industrial Revolution well I mean it’s a bit it’s it’s become a cliche I’ve said it so many times about a billion it’s let’s just go a little bit over a billion dollars a week leaves our economy to pay for fossil fuels now obviously there’s enormous benefits from that ability to burn all those fossil fuels but it’s still leaving our economy and you you know if you reduce that by half I think we’d see major changes in the way our economy works you know that’s 52 billion doar a year is is going elsewhere you know and obviously we can’t deliver carrots to the supermarket without it at the moment but maybe we can fairly soon and those that’s what what we’re seeing is that shift you know in the energy use is also a massive shift in the economy and which I think we can’t I haven’t really got my head around that yet and I don’t know I don’t know if anyone has I’m sure people have talked about it well I think the UK is is interesting in that we we obviously sit just to the side of Europe yeah but we actually take the lead a lot from that country on the other side of the water true which is is the USA I think that’s been our kind of default position um you could argue how healthy that’s been for us that partnership over many years yeah um but the the reality is that we tend to follow America’s lead yeah and they’re very much about their own energy Independence and you know generating their own power some protectionism which maybe we’ll talk about in a minute and I do think that you know in the UK we have the ability not to to just follow but we do have the opportunity to generate our own own power but the difference obviously with with America and the UK is that um we have let a lot of our manufacturing go yeah or in fact actively encouraged it to go offsh it a lot of it’s gone to to China and to elsewhere Asian countries so we’re in a very very different situation we have a lot to win which I think America’s being quite protectionis because it has a lot to lose and and I’m sort of fascinated by that and I’m hoping that president presidential election to come and the the UK election don’t kind of contaminate each other too much because at the time of us talking Joe Biden’s just announced he’s going to quadruple the tariffs on Chinese cars Chinese cars amazing in America yeah which is pretty chunky that’s not a sort of that’s not delicate adjustment I think it’s I think it’s you know the the reality is that um he’s trying to get ahead of an electoral issue yeah he’s trying to demonstrate to Americans that actually is on the side of America yeah um before Trump yes does the same thing so he’s just trying to get ahead but I I think that that policy in America well I still think it’s probably a mistake in the long term I understand it because they’ve got they’ve got a car manufacturing industry car industry yeah so I do understand it in the UK I think it would be absolutely the wrong move for us to do that but you never know in a in an election cycle maybe some people think that’s a a good thing to imitate I mean that’s the thing is that it’s important to remember that there’s so many companies that are not American based that have huge factories in United States so Toyota Honda um Nissan mean they all do basically all the Asian car makers have all got factories that employ Americans in like we do in here I mean our only car factories really in this country are well it used to be Nissan and Honda but Honda closed so we’ve got Nissan who else have we got in this country uh TARTA TARTA also known as J jlr Yes Ford is still making some here stantis is a multinational they’re still making stuff here in Port and I think in in Luton as well yeah Toyota in bernon Toyota in Bern um I think mini in ox but that but but you’re right it’s not it’s not what it once was um and yeah the U the US is really interesting in that respect so at the moment with the new new tariffs effectively that is preventing byd from going into as it stands unless they commit to making the cars and the batteries in the US there that has been they’ve tried to forall byd going into Mexico I think because I think under the NAFTA um regulations they can actually make stuff in in in Mexico and have some of the rules apply but I think the new tariff would would take care of that okay that’s my understanding but then you do have some Brands like postar obviously yeah Swedish cool car they are but obviously they in China you know is behind behind them and so they’re now working out how they have to do things differently for example I mean I wonder if one of the side impacts of that of them of the US B effectively stopping Chinese car sales in the United States is that the the Chinese companies will then refocus I mean it feels like it’s already happened refocus their attention on Europe so the European market I feel is where they’re going to be and they’re we know byd are opening like hundreds of showrooms right across Europe well it certainly it certainly changed the order in which they’re doing things I mean I think byd is so big I don’t think it will it will delay them for that long um but it will detain them for a little bit I’m sure they’re watching the the presidential election with with great interest as well um we know we were speaking to uh byd about coming and do our California show a couple of years ago and they were very keen until until things changed and they were much less Keen to do that so we we know that’s the case um there was a great um bit of reportage from EP Conway I think you’ve had on the podcast before on Sky the other day he was talking about uh Chinese uh car exports and there’s a amazing graph which showed how they’ve come from nowhere to be the biggest exporter now globally uh which is really really fascinating um but the reality is at the moment a lot of that’s still the very big Chinese domestic Market and then a lot of it’s coming into into Europe the UK actually is I think the biggest by by volume outside of um China I think because we we have mg and we have allar and also we have you know by here now Etc so it really is interesting to see that that change but in America ultimately it is going to hit the normal person who wants to clean a Greener car cuz they’re going to be unaffordable yeah uh for quite some time to to come it’s an increasingly common comment I see on our YouTube episodes that feature so maybe something Elliot seen in China or something we’ve seen here is I wish we could get these in my country and I always think God I’m surprised somehow that’s counter to what I would have expected you know there’s obviously there’s often negative stuff where all Chinese cars Catch Fire and you go yeah whatever but then there’s a lot of people saying We why can’t we get smaller cheaper cars in in in America which is you know that’s that’s a growing background beat well I mean if you’re in the Pacific Northwest you can come to everything electric Canada in September you can come across the border and you can see what you could have won if you lived in Vancouver but I think youan I’m intrigued about that as an individual if someone bought a byd AT3 in Canada could they drive it can they drive it into America I mean I would I would assume so and I’m sure someone in the comments will will will explain yeah um but no I mean the the reality is that in the UK and I’m sure other countries across Europe would agree with this we do need more affordable EVS we’ve seeing them come now in fact we’re filming with quite a few yeah um a day after this podcast lands I think uh maybe a few days after this podcast lands we actually have the K EV3 which we filmed recently um and you know we’ve recently filmed with daa spring and there are a number of different more affordable cars coming and that that wouldn’t have happened without Tesla and then without without China inspiring that’s what’s that’s what’s pushed it suddenly companies are realizing they have to to to compete and and quickly yeah so stop burning stuff very interesting stuff that’s been happening recently and I do I mean I will mention it because I mention it on a news report is how many BBC Radio shows I’ve been inv invited to go on haven’t gone on many because I’ve often in the briefing call I may have said I’ve not been rude that I’ve been really polite and respectful but I’ve allowed my opinion to get ahead of me and so they just go with someone who’s less contentious I think but that’s mainly about uh the drop in sales of you know e everyone hates EVS but the stop burning stuff is countering we’ve got to say about our Victory with the Daily Mail that amazing yeah that was a good story I’m gonna just my cogs I do know that story I’m just going my cogs catch up while I while I do that but that’s why we don’t invite you to the MPS MP’s dinner Robert we had uh we had Quentin Wilson very dipl I was there uh we were we were we were pretty uh diplomatic yeah um I can be diplomatic you can but um you know we don’t want to put you in a position where you you know um you’re uncomfortable but no I mean from our perspective you know stop burning stuff is has been something we launched um just uh under a year ago just under a year yeah um and we’d like to be able to do more with it I mean the reality is we are you know David with a tiny little catapult facing Goliath yes um multiple goliaths and that’s that’s the that’s the reality so we’re very grateful to the people who contribute to stop burning stuff via Patron allows us to tackle some misinformation but there is so much yeah there is so much out there it’s almost impossible to do that I think we have made some some progress we’re now starting to talk to corporate organizations about potentially um chipping in some some money to to that campaign Quenton has been absolutely phenomenal in taking the fight on programs with Nigel farage and Jacob re Smog and and talking to uh politicians and really you know calmly putting across the benefits of electric vehicles and sort of slaying the myths one by one um but the story what news that was the Daily Mail reported electric the headline was electric cars causing all the potholes in the UK and they’ve actually had to say we made that story up and they had to publish it as a a retraction they admitted that they made the story up which was I think really quite remarkable I think I think it’s coming back to me now but I think the story the article actually said heavier cars are causing more potholes which is pretty obvious but then the Daily Mail transcribe that into electric cars are causing more potholes and that actually came up last night right with the politicians round table that we were at um and we were very very clear look you know no one’s really said anything about um Automotive obesity which is great for ra you know cars have got much much bigger so much bigger car companies have poured money into SUVs and the marketing of SUVs over the last sort of 15 20 years if you look at the growth of the SUV Market it is huge absolutely uh extraordinary uh no one said anything about that and also there are lot lots of commercial vehicles on the road as well which are very very sizable so I don’t want to be a Range Rover Basher but to pick one car out I mean they’re not small vehicles are they and they’re not light um so to sort of point the finger at electric vehicles for things like potholes is is clearly clearly disingenuous yeah and quite often you know where are potholes there are quite often on the slow roads right yes road we got loads of them the roads that are are not actually you know they don’t have the kind of highgrade Asal I know very little about Road uh roads but you know I know I know the the the grading between you know the way they make roads on on motorways and a roads is very different to to B roads for example and if there were if if electric cars caused potholes you’d see them at traffic lights yes where some of us Accel at too quickly off at traffic lights I don’t either but you know um Jack um so you know so the reality is that you know it’s really really interesting so correcting those myths is is is really really important talking politicians trying to get the media to you know report sensibly and there are some brilliant journalists out there as well a guy we work with called Ben Kilby who uh works with Quentin has been very very good at speaking to journalists who will listen and journalists who Keen to to learn about the benefits of of electric vehicles so yeah for us that’s been a uh a good campaign and hopefully much more to to come but yeah it is it is an incredibly difficult task yeah no it is and I mean you know we as Dan said you know we really want to thank all the people who support that on on patreon because it’s I mean if you if you just Google stop burning stuff you’ll find the page and it is uh it has been a it’s been a really interesting experience because when we first started it nearly a year ago there was just it was just a we were like throwing match sticks at at a tank you know it was absolutely hopeless but we’ve actually started to have an impact we’ve actually started to get newspapers for instance to retract stories or to admit stories were were incorrect so it’s a few times and I think the general uh I would say that there is a little bit more uh um thought behind the throwaway phrase that would be used on a radio or TV news program I mean I think there’s a little bit more care I think they’re aware that there might be you because they will receive probably 2 300 PR reports a day from the fossil fuel industry in one form or another from lobbying groups connected with that that will be spreading stories about crushing car Parks Car Parks catch fire all electric cars R fire the one about the hospital that’s a really interesting story you there was a a guy was back he was told when he arrived at a Hos Children’s Hospital oldy Children’s Hospital in Liverpool that he couldn’t Park his electric car there that’s the story that got out what he was told is he can’t Park his electric car in the one car park that’s literally underneath the wards where the children are and then you go well he shouldn’t be so my argument is don’t let any cars park there because we know that the petrol and diesel cars are much more likely to burst into flames you do not want burning cars underneath a a children’s ward in a hospital so that and there are there’s a multistory car park next door with 14 electric car charges in so you they are encouraging people to come to the hospital in electric cars because you can charge them there but the story that gets out is still an extra cars catch fire under Children’s Hospital anyway well the danger has been the sort of vicious circle the feedback loop that’s created so if I could do one thing to change this I would try and you know pour cold water on on the media particularly those that don’t know what they’re talking about they want more clicks so therefore they’re you know they some of that media is dying they’re getting less views so actually electric vehicles is one of the things they can guarantee they’re going to get a lot of clicks for that so that’s where they’ve got to but sadly politician local counselors yeah fire departments fire departments all read and buy into that and we’re all busy people we don’t have time to interrogate information sometimes if you hear that electric car uh is more dangerous for whatever reason you might you might take that face face value but I would advise people if they’re reading the media to almost almost you know see that actually it’s more lik to not be true what’s being said so we were in a room with politicians and they were repeating back to us a whole range of these myths affected right that they have heard and and they were very bright group of MPS they clearly had done a lot of their own research so that was that was interesting they were they were nobody’s fools I would say but they were they were repeating back what their constituents had said to them again which had been um coming out from the media so it’s that vicious um cycle that really uh worries me and and for example when I was telling them well actually look you know current battery chemistries are 19 times less likely to catch fire than a combustion engine vehicle some of them kind of knew roughly that that was the case but when I said to them look lfp batteries which are over half of Tesla Batteries Now are lfp batteries and I explained that are orders of magnitude less likely to catch fire than current set of batteries right they were kind of well we didn’t know that and I said well that’s that’s the the difficulty of being a politician you’re a generalist aren’t you you you just by Nature yeah you you wouldn’t necessarily know so unfortunately you know Bad actors and media take advantage of people’s gulli ability and and and lack of ability to stay to stay current so we’re trying our absolute best and I and hopefully we’ll be able to do more over time because I think it definitely has in the UK I think it’s had an impact on sales oh I’m sure it has it’s had an impact on you know even in people’s looking at secondhand electric cars which are now much more available and I think it’s very much to do with the psychology of new technology and of fear and of like oh is it going to work and allthough it’s such an easy thing to say oh you’ll get range anxiety and the batteries only last two years you’ll have to throw them away you and then you tell people who know nothing about it go oh my God I’m not getting one of those because my old Diesel’s been going for thousands of years well you filmed that Tesla in Australia that had done yeah 420,000 uh miles 66,000 K yeah 400,000 miles yeah and you know the the the reality is with with all of these stories you do need to to to research it we we know a fair a fair bit about it I think and it’s it’s great to be able to kind of put the the Counterpoint but again at last night’s we were talking about the Ed Market I think Ed Market is something like 80% of car sales are actually used so I am a bit guilty sometimes of what’s the new percentage each month but the reality is that the Ed Market is huge the Ed Market is booming EV sales in the used Market are flying way up um and that’s because some early adopters bought cars fleets bought cars and now those are going back into the used market so I actually started Googling you know I was thinking well maybe I’ll get this this electric car time to buy an electric car actually used electric car really good ones on the market for for really quite reasonable amounts so um we we’re getting there but certainly the the new car market has has struggled in general terms and then the EV share has kind of plateaued um and some of it is is being driven by Fleet but not all because if you’ve bought something privately by a salac or something like that you’ve actually probably tried to buy it as a an ordinary Panther but you’ve had to go through you know leasing or or you’ve had to to go through a sort of commercial or company car route because that is better incentivized so the smmt figures spoke about one in six cars only being private right as Electric in the last round but actually that’s a bit bit misleading then I’m not saying the smmt are misleading I’m just saying actually that if you look beneath the skin there’s lots of private buying going on but it’s through things like Leasing and other things yeah yeah yeah um so it is it’s a murky world at the moment uh anything about electric vehicles and clean energy in the UK but having been to Australia and Canada we know that there’s much less misinformation out there yes and then we’re just dreading what’s to come from America later this year but I mean I think that’s the my argument is you got you’ve got to see the kind of glob you’ve got to pull back and look at the whole globe to see what’s really going on and that is the this there’s an energy transition that is happening now it’s still in its early stages but it’s not going to stop because of one newspaper headline saying no one likes CVS or whatever it’s it’s incredibly irrelevant I mean it just there’s so much else going on and there’s so we know there’s so much coming down the pipeline which is cheaper longer lasting more reliable batteries better charging faster charging times all the things that have been you could say stumbling blocks in the last 10 years have all are all being wiped out well there’s more and more technological progress we think by directional charging will be a huge Boon to to electric vehicles once people realize that unused asset can be used and you can actually maybe make money out of it so no we would say with everything that we do with fully charged show everything we do with everything electric show everything we do with everything electric exhibitions around the world stop burning stuff it really is about as you say pulling back and looking at the big picture it’s very easy to take a couple of little pick pixels yeah and blow them out of proportion but actually if you step back you realize we are on the right right path and there are always going to be ups and downs and Peaks and troughs in this in this journey it was never going to be simple well also there’s always going to because that’s the thing I thought the other day is that you know we we we sort of see all these electric cars and because it’s still new technology we’re still and I I don’t think it’s even wrong that we are but we’re still kind of impressed that they work you’re get in a new electric you’ve never been before and you go oh it goes goes it’s good basically in 10 years time there’s going to be rubbish electric cars just like they were rubbish petrol cars and there’ll be really good electric cars that’s like they were really good petrol cars you know they’re not all perfect but they are you know I think we haven’t reached that point yet where we can say look the blah blah blah make is just awful like we could do you could do with petrol well the big I mean I think the biggest thing you’re going to see now is is the consolidation piece yeah and the reality is that you know if you look at car companies forecasts you had Jim Farley on the podcast about a year ago and Ford at that point were gung-ho they were bullish you know we’re going pure electric they are now making some noises to the contrary because the market to them has softened a little bit but that might just be that they’re going back to a customer base that isn’t quite ready for electric yeah other companies flying but now there’s also the Chinese entrance the Asian entrance suddenly that game of musical chairs that we’ve talked about often is getting really quite tense and obviously these companies build forecasts and they build their whole financials around hitting a certain level of cars sold and when that doesn’t happen you see them changing their tune so some are more bullish than ever byd for example and others are almost like walking back some of their commitments I noticed with with huge interest this week that uh it was a story from last week I think it was the future of the car um event that the financial times run I think imagin was on stage there believe that Matty Ratz the EV hypercar wonderkind the guy who’s often compared to Elon Musk has talked about they maybe making combustion engine Vehicles as well all right and they were absolutely the the absolutely poster child for creating electric hyper but I as I understand it the the premium Electric market is probably not quite as big because there’s been so many entrance yeah so much competition and of course what does any business do you can’t really blame rimat they think well we we need to survive maybe we need to produce yeah other types of cars to to do that but the the tensions under the surface of the automo Automotive Market are extraordinary tomato Market tomato Market is pretty pretty uh controversial right now but the automotive Market is just it’s extraordinary and I for one are glad that we we don’t work for an automotive company just because it’s so I feel I huge sympathy for all them it’s an incredibly difficult time to navigate through but I mean I think it’s fair to say we don’t need to mention any marks or or Brands but we are getting so many invitations to go and see so many new cars coming out I mean it’s it’s gone Bonkers we can’t we literally can’t do them all there’s just no way we can cover all of them there’s so many there’s so much stuff happen I mean I’ve complet I have to keep combing through my emails going are we doing that oh God it what are we doing and we’re all talking to each other all the time to try and work out which ones we can do there’s there’s a lot going on I think is the gist of I’m trying to say it’s it’s exhausting yeah and on that note I think we’ve we’ve covered quite a lot of ground but I mean please do come along to Harriet if you’re in the in the in the north of the country the narrow Northern bit that Dam it’s really narrow it’s only two but you can come from anywhere you can come from anywhere yeah yeah we we love we we we would love to do an event in Scotland it’s just not practical for us at the moment so if you’re in Scotland and you and you kind of quite like fully charge and you’re quite like Robert please please come please don’t take on bridge we’d love you to have you there at wher wherever you are I mean it’s going to be a a great a great show looks like it’s going to be a really good show yeah no we’re looking forward to it so that’s all uh please do you know do a bit of subscribing if you if it takes you fancy um there’s a lot of amazing episodes come up on the podcast uh tell your friends about it that’s always very useful um if if they want a little bit of the other side of the story possibly if they’ve been telling you that you have to throw a battery away after 3 years it’s always worth pointing them in our Direction and as always if you have been thank you for listening and watching