Kilowatt Half Hour Episode 34: Nio news, crazy Cupras and the electric 2CV | Electrifying.com

#electriccars #podcasts #kilwowatthalfhour

Listen on Apple podcasts: https://t.co/nVAmIbiVxL
Listen on Spotify: https://t.co/howlezQr6N
Listen on Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzL3RoZS1raWxvd2F0dC1oYWxmLWhvdXI
Listen on Acast: https://shows.acast.com/64de47832cfe0100110394f8/65d31c862601e100174d4b5b

This week, Ginny, Mike and Tom shoot the electric breeze on a variety of subjects, including World Car of the Year, the long-awaited return of the Ford Explorer and Omoda’s arrival in the UK . The team also answer listeners’ questions to help them find the perfect electric car.

If you have a car buying question or want to be included in our postbag, add your comment below or message us at info@electrifying.com.

Every week, the Electrifying.com meet online to discuss all the important matters at hand. Such as the weather, what we’re all having for our tea and who dumped who in last night’s Love Island. Between these heavyweight subjects, we also talk about electric cars. A lot. Probably an unhealthy amount to be honest.

And when we do discuss cars, we find out a lot. From industry gossip to the more mundane practicalities of electric car ownership, it’s the place where we dish the dirt on the cars we’ve been driving and deliver our own verdicts on the latest electric car news. We also like to have a good laugh at the daftest bits of anti-electric news that we’ve seen in the press.

We can’t promise that you’ll learn much. You probably won’t. But if you fancy 30 minutes of idle chat and gossip about the world of electric cars, we’re here for you. If you like it / hate it / think it’s too long or too short, let us know.

hello and welcome to your weekly Roundup about the world of electric cars found the team at electrifying tocom this week we’re going to be talking about the rather brilliant Kia EV3 Neo’s plans for the UK and how the Yanks are making a comeback we’ll also be answering your questions and dipping into the post bag to find out your views on everything electric welcome to the kilowatt half hour I am jinny I’m Tom and I’m Mike so it’s nice to be back together again we haven’t been it’s been a long time actually haven’t we since we’ve been on the podcast together we missed a week last week yeah yeah that’s been a few weeks yeah I missed a month boys and mean I don’t know if I’m that you know forgettable but I wasn’t here for four weeks we remembered that we didn’t want to bring it up really but we missed you Jenny I’m sure I’m sure the audience has missed you but uh when when you came back when you were last time half the half the messages and I was trying to work out uh you know sort of filter the messages for for content for for what we could talk about in the podcast and they were all just wishing you well Jenny so that’s a nice thing is it didn’t help me out trying to get content for the podcast but um obviously I don’t know we could do a kilow half hour update on my health issues no yes half an hour people thought you might have taken the time off to paint paint your uh there is always a comment about the paint people thought honestly what can I say my dad was going to do it for me but you know he got busy still there waiting one day I’ll surprise you I will I will for those of you listening and not watching on YouTube I generally record the podcast in my office and I have some paint samples on the wall behind me that have been there since we’ve been recording the podcast which started last September uh the office is still not not painted but it it will be and one day you’ll all get a surprise there you go right I I’ve got big news for both of you okay I have driven a car for the first time in a month oh okay how was it and what was have you forgotten what to do forgotten what to do I had um it did feel a bit weird actually it’s quite it’s surprising how actually just four weeks away from the road makes you really feel quite cautious and and as I’ve been dying so I’ve been back in the car for just over a week now and I’m now back sort of pretty much to my own self but that first day it was like oh my good should I have learner plates on I don’t know what to do um but I’ve been driving a Kia ev9 the single motor air version and I’ve decided that out of that range this is the car that I actually would have um I think it’s it’s got 200 um brake horsepower from its uh single motor um and you don’t miss that extra motor at all even when it’s fully loaded so I went down to Cornwall in it we had well effectively five adults because we had three big teenagers who were almost well I think they were bigger than the adults in the car and the dog and loads of stuff it was completely patched the gills more than powerful enough and the Clone range on it is 350 mil and I was getting just over 300 and that was Motorway driving with it fully loaded so I was really impressed with that it’s 8,000 pounds cheaper than the next kind of Step Up and I I think it’s a really good car actually and it was the inic efficiency and also how quickly it charges because it’s got 800 volt architecture which of course when you’re doing a journey like that where you want to just get out and stretch your legs top up quickly I thought it was great so that was a really nice first introduction back into driving I suppose there sort of three days a year when you might might regret your choice though when it’s when it snows and you’re going it’s got it’s got It’s got snow mode it has a it has an off-road snow mode on it so I don’t know I will I will report back if I mean listen the weather’s so CRP here it could snow tomorrow and I might be able to report back on that yeah what have you been driving come on what what have you been to what have you been behind the wheel of well I I’ve driven something which made me very very excited oh go on which was an electrified 2cv Mike why are we looking scared cuz I know Tom very well and I know what presses his buttons I know what he’s going to say yeah oh go on yeah so it’s an electric 2cv so there’s a company which um called the 2cv shop which does conversions on 2 CVS I like that um and I have owned six 2 CVS so that’s how much I like them and I think they’re great and I always thought it would’ be a great electric conversion because although the engine in a 2cv is part of its character I wouldn’t say it’s a particular asset of it um because it has 29 horsepower standard so yeah this company they put in a motor from a a zero electric motorbike and the same 10 kwatt hour battery and 10 kilowatt hour sounds like nothing but it’s enough to take it 60 mil which is you know enough for a a nice jaunt around in the summer um and it drives just like a tcv and I haven’t driven one for 25 years and now I keep looking through the classified thinking I need another one in my life did it did it make you happy it did it’s just such a clever clever thing you know with all that body roll when you go around corners and and the Simplicity of it it’s just they’re wonderful things nice what was what was the weight difference then between that and the standard and the original one only 20 kilos 20 kilos which is a good lunch isn’t it really it’s not much yeah I mean yeah I think it weighs 680 haven’t got the specs in front of me but I mean it’s it’s under 700 kilos that card so you could pick one up and carry it away uh but it’s just it’s a brilliant lovely thing it’s such a contentious area that isn’t it the whole classic conversion thing I mean it it really gets people riled up and I know some of the purists particularly hate it when it’s things like a you know a nice Porsche or um you know cars like that that have been converted you know sacr I don’t know have you driven any classic conversions Mike I haven’t but I I follow um the electric classic car company I think that’s what they’re called and they have a they have a Ferrari it’s a tester Rosa but it’s a Tesla Rossa because I’ve changed it it’s got a Tesla battery and motor and they did a they did a really long drive through Europe and did some of these sort of Alpine passes and everything and you always dip into the comments just have a look and see what uh you know what people are say and some people are getting really upset about it and you think a you know there’s bigger things in life to be worried about and B why are you following this company on social media if if you don’t like it you know it just seems a strange way to live your life doesn’t it just to get cross with them yeah I just think that’s what a lot of people do on social media though they just follow people they can get cross with but maybe it means they’re really lovely to their families and they’re loved ones so perhaps that’s okay I don’t know well well the other thing that I drove on the same day uh which isn’t really a classic was a an old London taxi so a tx4 which used to have a rattly old diesel Marine Nissan engine I think in them um and there’s a company which converts those and puts uh old Nissan Leaf batteries and Motors in it now that seems to make a lot more sense because you’ve got an old taxi which has some life left in it presumably and you take some battery in a motor out of a leaf which has been crashed whatever it is and you put that in there and then it makes much more sense around cities and that sort of thing but the the poor company called Clipper I think um have come up with this this rule that in London especially uh taxis can only be a certain age so once I think they get to 15 years old you have to scrap them you can’t have 15y old taxis running around they just won’t get license so they won’t they said in France it’s the opposite they’re absolutely happy for you to have electrified cars and they start the age from when it’s been electrified which is sensible right which is sensible and they do it for Vans and things and um things like U wheelchair accessible buses they’re electrifying those as well because they’re incredibly expensive to fit all the the wheelchair lifting kit to um but the engines obviously wear out so they refurbish them put electric motors in them and then send them out again with a new lease of life it makes a lot of sense but uh I I don’t know whether they’re going to manage to change the the mind of the legislators to say look can we have it the same way as France that you start the age at zero again once it’s been electrified yeah that’s seems sensible to me it is I think I think it’s a really interesting area there’s I don’t know if you guys have heard of electrogenic they’re a really interesting company they’re in um near banur in Oxfordshire and I drove um a porsch 356 which have been converted to electric and I’ve got to say it was it was really lovely to drive actually I mean I wasn’t offended by it at all but what what they’re doing is they’re actually providing conversion kits as well so they provide these kits that you can drop in so there’s um you can do they’ve got kits for mini Land Rover Defenders various cars and they’re also licensing their kits which is quite interesting so it you know it means you could have a go at doing it yourself at home which I quite like the idea of but what they’ve done they I I drove um a Defender as well that they done an old Defender and they actually provide all the Defenders to worthy park down to glastenbury okay so the Hall of glastenbury runs off their electric Defenders and they say actually for Farmers it they’re so good off-road and the savings that they can make on fuel over the long term it actually when you weigh it up on balance it’s worth converting them to um to Electric um I’m sure that’s going to cue loads of interesting comments in the section below because I know it is really divisive but I think what they’re doing is brilliant and and I know it’s an either it’s a love it or a loath it thing I’m sure um but yeah no I yeah I I think that I think they’re good I’m quite excited I want to go in the tcv I’m I’m jealous Tom well maybe I’ll have a word oh can we do a test with it yeah and they also do Reno 4S and then the the old Renault 5 they convert those oh I’d love to that oh let’s do that okay coming soon to the electrifying YouTube channel do you remember when we were first launching electrifying we got loads of electric cars together um at a test track we used to use and one of them was an electric Fiat 500 and it was a nightmare to drive live did and there are some very funny pictures of you Mike in that car do you remember that yeah because it retains the standard gear box doesn’t it it was fairly horrid yeah it’s a strange thing well well soas are the 2 CV but they kind of just say leave it in third fine because the the talk spread so big isn’t it yeah you just don’t need to yeah yeah brilliant should we bring this up to date should we talk about some new cars like I have driven some new cars as well yeah oh well well you know it’s been quite nice people might be interested in that but they are sure so new cars oh should we talk about I mean what do you want to talk about Mike anything caught your eye um no well I haven’t driven anything much and I definitely haven’t driven anything much because um I had another issue with my aric 5 and the 12volt battery went flat again since the last podcast U well it’s not since the BL last podcast I I bought it back overnight it’s again it’s this falling between 20% battery that I have on it um I got home it was absolutely chucking it down had a shopping in bits and pieces so I came into the house I was on to about 24 25% battery charge then forgot to go out to use it the next couple of days it must have dropped at least 20% battery charge and of course then it just just eats its 12volt battery so when I came to use it actually the day before I was about to go on holiday it was absolutely dead had to climb in through the boot and all that kind of stuff get it charged up again but there’s always that worry of when you leave the car then somewhere else like I left it in the long-term car park at the airport is it going to work when you get back it’s that horrible kind of if you if you stop being able to trust a car it’s not good is it so you know it’s it’s that’s two strikes now three strikes and you’re out that’s my general rule with cars so if it does it again that’s it it’s going so yeah so I haven’t really I mean I’ve only been driving that when it’s been charged up and everything that but um yeah yeah is there not a fix you think they do something over the air is that not something that’s on a forum that will tell you how to fix it yeah I’m a car that Bings and bongs at you all the time it pesters me for anything if I forget to lock it and it’s just literally outside I can see it there outside my house on my driveway if I don’t lock it it it pings me every 30 seconds say I’m not locked I’m not locked and yet when the 12volt battery is getting critical it didn’t say a word it doesn’t ping me at all other than sort of tells me it’s not connected and anything like that so it’s yeah I believe that it’s supposed to be something that’s being fixed but I’ve had a recall but it’s for something else but um yeah it’s frustrating but I know I I know people will say don’t leave it with such low battery charge but I don’t consider 20% 50 miles whatever it has is low is itan one or 2% 5% is low yeah I don’t start to panic until I get to about anything less than 10 I’m not panicking at all for you really generally no no I mean especially on my leaf because it’s you know 20% battery charge is or is you know that’s you need to use that most days if it’s got 70 miles of range yeah shall we talk about a new new car a car that we haven’t driven yet should we talk about the Kia EV3 yes yeah what do you think a goodl looking car it is yeah it nice looking from Tom Mike yeah I think we might all agree on something for once yeah I I like it it’s good especially in that green it’s lovely I know good Lord I know I don’t like the green oh there we go there’s also a Terra Cotta color yeah oh they’ve done they’ve got it’s got short of nine colors in including I think it’s three or four that have been specially designed for it but it they sent me through the the all the information um about four or five days before I went out to film The First Look video with the car and I opened it all and it was a load of marketing presentations and stuff and I looked at it and I thought oh that’s quite clever they’re not letting me actually see the car they’re just sending me the info and it was only after I looked at it a couple of times that I realized no it really is the car cuz it looks so close to the concept does m and actually it it took me a while for the penny to drop but it does look great and I think it is one of those very rare cars that you think yeah it’s it’s actually a bit nicer than the concept um I think it looks fantastic and I I think you’re right it is one of those very rare cars that we agree on um I’m going to put my um steak in the ground here and say firmly that I reckon this is going to become the car to beat in its class yeah um and it’s a really competitive class so it’s up against cars like uh ex30 the ID3 the I guess the Jeep Avenger the KOA born I mean there’s a lot of competition and I was doing some um like boring sort of stat analysis as you do when you’re looking at new cars and I realized that cars in this class make up a third of all the Cs sold in Europe yeah it’s huge how much AB massive isn’t it small SUV I I was taken a back actually that it was as big as that so I I think it will become the I think it’ll become the class leader I mean obious we’ve got to drive it yet but I think given how well the ev9 drives um it’s got It’s good starting price3 33,000 and for that’s the 58.3 kilowatt hour battery that gets 254 miles you’ve got a bigger battery that will give you around 373 miles um there’s been bit of talk about things like the charging speed so obviously in the ev9 it’s got the 800 volt architecture so it charges really quickly um I think it’s up to 210 and this only charges up to 120 but they did this kind of weird thing that they when we had the sort of the presentation about the car and they said on a journey from Paris to Frankfurt if you want to do that drrive it will get there I want to say 30 minutes minutes quicker than the competition but it might have been for 40 minutes 40 minutes faster than the competition I just checked and you will have 10% left in the battery and that’s because they reckon that even though it’s it’s got a a good charging curve and also it’s very efficient so that was their way of talking around the the slower charging speeds um I don’t know didn’t the Nero do something like that though when when K upgraded the Nero they dropped the charging speed didn’t they but actually it weirdly charged quicker do you remember that Tom sort of at the back of yeah they said they had a flatter a flatter charging curve there was no peak so it would carry on for longer than the competition and that’s what they’re going to say that’s what they’re saying with this so whilst it doesn’t have that super fast charging and that 800 volt architecture they’re saying that the charging Curve will be more consistent so yeah I think it’s it I a lovely interior and you’ll be happy to hear it has buttons and a rear wiper perfect what more do you need in life that yeah you were talking about the ca born as one of the competition there and I’ve driven a CA born which again I liked very very much go on tell it’s the the VZ which is the new Fast one which has 320 horsepower which is what you got from a a Porsche 911 10 years ago and it’s rear wheeel drive so there’s no four-wheel drive so everything else in that sort of glass with that sort of power is four-wheel drive and this is just rear wheel drive so the steering feels really nice and it’s quick it’s just hilarious I love it especially because it came in a nice color of green um you drove another Cooper as well didn’t you yeah I drove the Tavis scan which I kind of had high hopes for because I do like cpra but I think it looked a bit fussy which is you know that’s a matter of taste but it’s a shame I just thought the the driving Dynamics weren’t quite there and the technology on the Battery Technology and those sorts of things isn’t as advanced as like the new scod renc for example so I just why would you have this over something else unless you really like the way it looks and it does look kind of you know bit bling a bit like a Lamborghini or something the scod Rak is such a problem for VW group isn’t it because the problem is they’ve made one car in a group that is so much better than anything the other brands seem to be able to produce do you think they’re going to make the next SK of ENC a bit rubbish just to kind of put the rest of them on a Level Playing Field I think it works like that I don’t think they’ll be allowed to will they no think they made best use of of the bits they had because everybody everyone in the brand had the same amount of stuff available didn’t and you know but I think they they made the better job of it and I think you know we’ve said this before if you compare an id4 interior to an enyak interior you you and you were blindfolded to the badges and you were told to pick which was the scoda and which was the Volkswagen I think nine nine out of 10 people would say that the the id4 interior was a scoda because it it had that slightly I wouldn’t say cheap feel but it had that more kind of utilitarian feel to it whereas the scod had to kind of double Stitch this than the other and they were the same money it was it was incredible the job they’ done with it I know it’s it’s it’s still the car that I miss the most of all the cars I’ve driven there you go because it just was efficient and comfortable and spacious and reliable and it worked all the time and it felt like a nice place to be it was just everything you want from a really good family electric car I thought it was great anyway I’ve got a picture of it on my wall got that bet you’ve got I don’t know exotic cars and I’ve got a picture of a scenc right what else are we going to chat about who wants to throw something else into the mixing pot of electrifying chitchat well I I saw in the news this week that BMW new have Revis the three Series so there’s a new three series and they’ve dropped diesels can you imagine they’re being no three series diesel I mean five years ago you’d G all nuts yeah yeah um and they they’ve now got they’ve improved the the fev version so the 330e now has uh an extra 22 miles I think it is uh but strangely 63 mil range which seems great from Electric only um but you need to get to 70 to get a real tax benefit for a company car driver so the Mercedes c300e does 70 miles uh on electric only and therefore it’s taxed at 5% yeah um and the new BMW is still taxed at 8% which is worth about ,000 a year to a company car driver so I don’t know I mean it’s a great thing and I’m sure it would be lovely to drive but I’d have the Mercedes and the th000 as a company car driver it’s interesting the demise of diesel isn’t it though because if you look I was looking at the figures from last uh the sales figures from 2023 and actually Diesel and plug-in hybrids now they’re not plug-in hybrids were not far behind you know that I think diesel was like 25% down last year it’s just dropping year on year so I guess it’s a sense they’re going to go where the Market’s going isn’t it and the market is quite clearly moving away from diesel um but yeah it’s it’s quite a big move from them isn’t it yeah um I should I tell you something that caught my eye this week was Neo yeah they’re a funny I mean we’ve none of the three of us have driven in the year have we I’ve not no no we sent I know none of us could go to drive it we’ve got the opportunity last year and batch went out to drive it for us James Bachelor and he was really impressed by it he thought it was good but we had um Stefano was out in uh Amsterdam um for us I think it was last week and he was chatting to the founder um of Neo William Lee who is said that they’re going to arrive in the UK probably in 2025 they keep saying that a lot but that also that there’s going to be three brands potentially coming so there’ll be Neo there’ll be a brand called envo which is a bit more like the sort of run-of-the-mill sort of maybe I don’t know like a VW type rival and then there’s a brand that they’ve code named Firefly which is more of a budget brand okay and I just thought I thought the really interesting quote so that article if you want to have a look at it is over on electrif find.com the really interesting quote for me was that he said in China it takes 24 months to develop a car any longer than that and you’re behind and if you’re not producing software updates every quarter the user may G give you up too and it was just a real eye opener to how quickly the Chinese market moves with producing cars because if you look at the European and the big traditional oems for five years is absolutely the norm isn’t it on the L cycle of a car the thought of developing a car in two years would send them all you know running around like head two years yeah basically so yes it’s amazing yeah I I thought that was a that was a really sort of interesting stat and also the other thing that stood out for me was the fact that they’re struggle the reason that the they’re struggling with with getting into the UK is they’re struggling with planning permission and getting locations for the battery swap sites that it needs and it just sums the UK up doesn’t it it’s the story we hear from char Point providers all the time they’re struggling with planning permission to get the power lines in to where they need you know they need for the banks are charges and it’s just we’re just it’s like the government needs to just kind of get cut through this planning red tape to allow us to just kind of update our infrastructure in the UK if your brand like Neo is struggling to launch here because they can’t get planning permission for battery swap sites and you can just imagine all the local counselors can’t you going oh no we can’t we can’t have all those battery is there oh gosh what if they all anyway all those disused petrol stations that become hand car washes or just you know gra stwn pter cabins put them there but I but I guess it’s the amount of power they need in because they need power into the battery slot Stations don’t they and it’s all links back to this whole kind of thing that we’re really bad at which is Big infrastructure planning in the UK we’re just useless at it I don’t think they need as much power as a charging station because they can charge overnight that there’s batteries there being charged true and then that they don’t need it when the user goes in and says I need it now they just need they can charge it up overnight when it’s there’s no Peaks and things I think it’s much more uh much easier to do it at a charging station than it is to to a normal one where you’ve got like Chad Mo or something anyway yeah I thought I thought that was I thought that was interesting but equally it also came the same week when um we’ve seen that one chin brand is pretty much ping out of Europe haven’t we was it um what’s aura’s parent comy called great w great W Motors yeah doun they’re closing their European headquarters so this is the brand behind Aura hundred jobs going um they were going to expand into three other European countries three or four that’s stopping and they’re moving all the European operations back to China so it’s interesting it’s not as easy I think as some of these Chinese Brands think to crack it over here is it no did you see the other one which is Leap motor which is uh going to agreement with stellantis so they’re going to yes bring in cars and sell them through citen perso Vox all deers did you listen to last week’s podcast Thomas oh sorry Thomas did you listen no um because if you had listened you would have had Nicha and I discussing this on last week’s podcast Sor he’s hanging his head in shame listeners right should we move on to our lovely listeners and find out what they’ve had to say over the last week yeah absolutely um we’ve had we’ve had a few people um asking um car related questions in terms of what they should choose um you can always um message us at podcast electrifying tocom if you have any kind of buying query or technical query about anything um not necessarily whether you’re having an issue with your dealer that’s a bit far down the line for us but anything to do with sort of buying choosing that kind of thing please please let us know we’ll we’ll do our best to help and and we read out the best ones on the on the podcast we had on um this week um guys from um dwe 9984 which don’t it’s a rough guess I’m pretty sure that’s not their real name but um I said I’m looking to Le I’m looking to least an electric car I’ve compared the new scoda enyak 85x uh bmw1 ix2 and the Volkswagen id4 id5 now it says the the latter is always significantly cheaper when they’ve been looking on the leasing sites um it compared full equipment all-wheel drive same terms same everything um why would this be should I be worried and should I go for the Volkswagen and save money so yes my what do you reckon well well I had a look I’m not the leasing Guru on the team okay that’s we know who that is and that’s not me it’s the person who didn’t listen to last week’s podcast but I was looking at our leasing um section over at electrif find.com and I put all those parameters in I didn’t see a significant difference so I took some screenshots that I have here actually when I was looking at that so I was saying so there was about a 20 quid difference okay the so the I didn’t put the BMW in I only did it on the enyak and on the um id4 and between an id4 and an enyak it was somewhere between 10 and 30 quid per month with the same with with that twoyear leas deal and the amount of mileage that um that person wanted us to put in so I didn’t see a big really big difference I think I don’t know it’s probably worth pointing out that um those leasing deals are like um like a fruit machine aren’t they you look one day and then the next day those deals have gone because leasing companies do deals with manufacturers and if there’s over Supply at the end of a month a certain leasing companies will buy those cars up so you often get incredible deals I mean we’ve we’ve talked about this for the podcast haven’t we we’ve discussed it on a Wednesday saying what we’re going to talk about on the podcast the next day with Barnard’s Bargains and then we go into it the next day and those yeah you know those cars have gone and there suddenly that that deal that we spoke about so I think maybe um uh dwe 9984 may have been looking at um you know a certain deal at a certain time in a certain week an end of a quarter let’s say um and then they’re not there again um it’s hard to say isn’t it because they do fluctuate so much and and the terms do so yeah it’s okay you got keep your ey on it I think my answer to that would be though unless it is a significant difference that really makes a difference to your budget if it’s if it’s not I would if you could I would go the bit extra and go for the enyak for all the reasons that we’ve already discussed earlier on this podcast I don’t know what do you think Tom yeah I think that also it hasn’t there been a model year change over on those cars so that the scoda might be the newer car with a better battery and the other improvements whereas the the Volkswagen could have been old one they had hanging around in stock very true and I’d always go for the newer one if I could because it’s going to have more range and it’s going to be generally better um I I think I agree that I’d rather have either of those two than the the BMW though because you didn’t really like the ix2 did you Jenny well the ex1 I didn’t love it quite the same car as I I I just didn’t think it I I didn’t think it drove that well personally and I also didn’t really love how it looked and there wasn’t a lot of room in the back seats but you know other than that it was it was great right should we should we talk about dealers because I asked them I asked everyone to we were getting people were having a moan about dealers and it’s dead easy isn’t it to moan about stuff in life so I thought let’s put some positivity into the kilowatt half hour who are the good dealers out there who deserve a name check and a shout out because they’re doing a great job so do you want to take one each we’ve got three here that were sent in should I do the first one go for it Simon Wickham hello Simon thank you so much for nominating Howard’s mg of YoVille so Simon says yo Howard’s mg of YoVille were fantastic explaining at explaining the world of EVS with petrol hybrid and fully electric they didn’t push any powertrain either they just gave you the facts no pressure test drives and they let you decide once you’ve driven an Eevee then you don’t need to sell one they sell themselves that’s the beauty of having an mg dealer in your town so great well done to Howard’s mg of hat softer Howard’s mg yeah shall I do the next one yeah you take Y and so Andy Robertson oh Robinson uh also an mg dealer he’s uh biging up here so Maple Garage in Hull where I bought my first EV and mgzs never questioned me about why or pointed me towards anything else what I like most was they just sold it to me as just a car my car is now a Rena mean E Tech from Bristol Street Motors in York same thing I went in for that ech and they sold me an ech brilliant that’s just what you want isn’t it you don’t want people saying oh are you sure no electric really because I think that’s sort of what we were saying last week brilliant um okay Mike do you want to take our third fantastic dealer finally uh Frankie limes oh this is this is very apt isn’t it it said when looking to buy my ionic 5 I sent out specific questions to all the Hyundai dealers in Kent I mean generally speaking if if you’re emailing and and sending questions to to retailers you don’t really expect anything back do you but anyway the responses were so varied and polarized from good to bad the winner was Marshals in Maidstone the sales lady was the only response to answer all the questions and of course she got the order so there go I mean it’s it’s not difficult is it you can put the effort in get people some answers uh and if you’ve already built that relationship up um sometimes it is it’s as easy as that you know if you’re working in car dealers you’re often pushing against an open door because people be walking in unless it’s raining and they’re trying to get out of the out of the weather generally speaking people are walking into car dealerships because they want to buy something and I know about you I quite enjoy being sold not hard sell but I quite enjoy the kind of process of being you know I’m not say smoo but you know you it’s kind of somebody doing their job properly and knowing about the product and it makes you feel good and it makes you more inclined to to buy it doesn’t matter what you’re buying if you’re buying a microwave or a car it’s you know it’s you want someone who’s got knowledge of the the product um it doesn’t seem particular complicated thing to do but those those three examples show that there are some brilliant retailers out there who are embracing electric and and are are able to help so it’s good this is good and if you want to nominate any more dealerships for a shout out on the podcast or if you want to contact us about anything you can let us know in the comments below or you can email us at podcast electrifying docomo points in about Ford so we were basically chatting Nick and I about what’s going on with Ford you know are they even going to be around you know could they could we see the demise of Ford you know they don’t really seem to care much about electric that’s for sure and we had a couple of people who actually were agreeing with us really weren’t we um yeah let me take Allan so Alan gravy what a brilliant name um the Explorer numbers look good but it’s the same money as an ENC 85 Edition and it appears to be quite a bit smaller I get the feeling that Ford is giving up in Europe on cars at least they’re down to pummer Cougar Macky and the Explorer that is yet to appear the V8 Mustang is still on the website but they are very rare I don’t know I I’m yeah I’m I’m not I think I think the problem with Ford is that they make I don’t know 20% profit on each Transit they sell yeah and nothing on a fiesta so if I was the man in charge of Ford I’d probably go well it’s all that I’ll just do transits yeah well that maybe that may be their plan and then built1 said been a Ford fan for over 30 years but just recently they’ve been making decisions that don’t suit me and that’s not good is it you’ve got to make decisions that suit your customer base naming an SUV Mustang and probably calling another Capri I agree I I that’s just not broke my heart and the pumer I just don’t think the pummer should have been what it became yeah anybody who remembers the original pummer in particular the racing pumer that upset me a lot the current Focus ST may be my last Ford wow hoping kunde can make a smaller hatch like the ionic 5n yeah interesting indeed and you’re going to talk about cable storage Jenny do you want me to talk about St do you want to cover I’ll cover it obviously because it I mean obviously I listened to the your podcast last week in its entirety and and a few more times just to make sure i’ miss anything but I believe you spoke about cable storage at some point um maybe one of the reviews and um I agree with this flying twiglet says yes last someone has pointed out that cables in the boot subfloor is a silly place to keep them yeah on the ionic 5 they’re in two places there’s a because I’ve got the all-wheel drive ionic 5 the frunk is basically big enough for a sandwich and and not much else so you can literally get one cable in and I always forget which which end is which I’ve either got the granny charger or the type two cable and I always go to the wrong one um but the rear ones are obviously underneath the boot floor and when I went up north a couple of weeks ago I had to take half the stuff out of the boot to get to the type two cable that was in there but yes frying to agre so last last someone pointed out that cables in the boot are silly plac yes fast charges do have cables but if you end up somewhere that doesn’t Supermarket for example you do have to empty the load to lift it up Ford can Ford planning can avoid this but I do think manufacturers to think of a home that isn’t dependent on an empty boot frunk or the drive underneath the driver well thought about that but yeah so anyway someone agrees with you from what you said last week I think yeah I yeah um yeah I think we were saying I was basically saying is it such a big deal oh okay does it really matter I’ve never have any problem and and I also tend to charge up rapid charges all the time when I’m away from home because I’m bad like that so that’s yeah flying twiglet has made a good point and one that yes I should I should pay more attention to those people who want to use AC charging there you go and does that lead us into my final comment really nicely which is fr well just go on just on the boot floor thing it’s just on on on the Lexus RZ which I had uh for a few weeks not that long ago they had space for the cables underneath the boot floor but you had to properly wrap it up in a certain way oh yeah and like put the velcro around to in order for it to fit in that space and it’s a bit like trying to get a tent back in the bag after you’ve used it for the first time you know it was absolutely impossible so the boot floor was always kind of riding out high and that really irritated me just give me a little more space yeah and I’ll be really honest as well I don’t even put my cables back in the place they meant to be put I just Shug it in the boot terrible do you don’t you just shove it in the boot no no no no no they’re shaking their heads at me like that’s a weird thing come on list and support me does anybody else who drives an electric car bother to fold their cable up and put it back NE in the place that it’s been made to keep or do you just shove it in the boot let us know in the comments below this is the thing yeah okay yeah interested to see what Say Bo the boots the boots for filthy stuff the boots for Wellies and muddy filthy stuff no okay just me then um should we end on World of Cars the comment from World of cars do which is a really good one why aren’t charging mates advertised like pet petrol prices at charging and multifuel for courts especially those with a mix of charging suppliers I saw prices of 49 P per kilowatt for off peak open Tesla superchargers right up to other supplies fast charges at 79 pound per kilowatt why is there no regulation yet on charging prices and the answer to that one is there is regulation coming in November so from November there is a whole load of legislation coming in about reliability of charges and things like displaying pricing and they are either going to have to have it displayed on the actual charger but I think they can also do it on an app and get get out of it that way because I think the challenge is that with chargers being in such often remote locations where there isn’t anybody there they’re saying it’s hard for them to be able to update Dynamic pricing like that I personally would really like to see it on the charger but I do understand that it might not be as easy as as as you know just kind of having it there um I don’t know what do you think do you you like to see that kind of thing on the charger I’m sure I’ve seen it on like totems in some places I know it happens in France where it displays it like you see petrol prices as you go past I’m sure I’ve seen that in at least one charging station I’ve used and it makes huge sense and you think about if they have Dynamic pricing so it’s cheaper at night then they just go and it changes or they’d be pretty miffed if you chain went up while you were driving in but um uh just makes such great sense because you might be driving past and think well look it’s now 40p a kilowatt hour I’ll top up like you would a petrol tank if you saw it like 99p a liter I just think we’re so far away from that kind of you know thing which just would be really helpful for drivers because yeah it’s just not I mean we’re not even at a point where on the motorway when it tells you the services are coming up and it will tell you there’s a Burger King and an M&S and whatever and then there’s a truck stop and there’s petrol and there’s diesel doesn’t even tell could tell you there couldn’t it yeah could tell it doesn’t even tell you that there’s e charges you just kind of used to be they used to be because I remember the sign in it was a car that looked like it was from the 1950s with a plug coming out of it and they put one on South Mims and I noticed it and thought well that’s interesting but they’ve stopped doing it the odd the they’re they’re in very odd places but they are not and I think if we are to do our electrifying Manifesto I think that would be one of the things in my Manifesto that I would want is I would want to have clear signage on all the ma Mo all the major a roads and motorways about what at the junction ahead can you charge an electric car I think that would be just a complete no-brainer people don’t want to faf about in an app you shouldn’t be doing it when you’re driving anyway yes I know that some apps will now sync to your carplay or your Android auto it’s still a faf yeah there there’s an election coming up J you could stand that could be your actual Manifesto you got a lot of spare time really yeah yeah let us know in the comments if you’d vote for jinny oh I can’t think of anything worse nobody vote for me I wouldn’t want them to vote for me I can imagine being a politician be awful that’s what make you a good politician if you don’t want to do it okay on that note um so what we up to in the next week or so what you up to anything exciting to tempt our listeners with in the week ahead death silence we’ll think of something for next week and we’ll leave it on that note don’t worry it will be more exciting than nothing that’s for sure I’m off to see a secret car next week um so I might be able to tell you a bit about that uh next week on next week’s podcast but I think should we should we sign off we’ve crashed the half an hour beautifully yeah it’s now well over a kilowatt half hour if we take out all the mentions of the scod en yet we might be down to under half an hour again so I don’t know probably and do let us know your comments your thoughts email them um podcast electrif find.com or let us know in the comments below thank you for joining us and we will be back next time thank you bye bye bye