197 - The Education Episode
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Hi, I'm Gary and this is episode 197 of EV Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles, and things that are interesting to
electric vehicle owners. On the show today we'll be looking at EV education and what we can do about it
This season the podcast is sponsored by Zapmap the free to download app that helps EV drivers search plan and pay for their charging. Before we start,
I wanted to let you know that I'm already looking at episodes for next season. Any particular topics you want me to cover suggestions to
[email protected] Please.
Our main topic of discussion today is education. I recently encountered a young EV driver who will call Sarah. She was at a charge stop trying to use
one of the high powered chargers there. As I was looking at the Tesla V4 units which are co located. Sarah was trying to plug her car into the
charger in the adjacent parking slot rather than the one attached to her slot. So I went over and asked her if she'd rather try and the new Tesla
chargers which are cheaper. Now Sara lives in Brighton, she has no off street parking she drives an eCorsa, she uses local AC to charge and she's
only recently passed a test as evidenced by the provisional driver's ticket on her car. As she charged and we were chatting, I learned several
things that concern slash annoying me. Number one, Sara uses Waze to locate her charges. Now I've checked it out and there's some fairly decent
functionality in the app, but it doesn't have all the charges on there and it doesn't show all charges on or near a route. For example, on the
route to my mother's it only shows the units located physically on the road I was taking and not the ones that might use that were located just
off a motorway junction such as Duckmanton on the M1. Although it does show both surprisingly therefore confusingly enough, but the northbound
and southbound motorway service area charges despite the fact that you would only be travelling in one particular direction. Sarah had no idea
that specific EV charger location apps such as Zapmap exist. She's also concerned when using high power chargers in case he puts too much power into
the battery and damages it. She tries not to use really fast charges as a result. Thirdly, Sarah always charges up to 100% on rapid charges, and
wonders why it takes so long to finish. Number four, she had no idea how fast her car was supposed to charge , and what's a good charge
speed to expect. And fifth, Sara has no idea which charging networks rate highly amongst drives and which are the ones to avoid. Now at the risk of
sounding like a broken record. This comes down to one thing and one thing only education. Now I don't fault, nor criticise Sarah, for not knowing
these things we all have to learn. But somewhere down the line in the big scheme of things when she took delivery of her car Sarah was not given a
suitable handover or a link to information sources that help answer those questions. In other words, we the generic, we failed Sara. Education is the
most vital thing when it comes to electric vehicles. We've talked before on this show about the mindset change. People think that EVs are just
ice cars where you put electrons in instead of petrol. At the basic level, yes, they are. But as we've also said on the show, nobody's born knowing
how to drive or run a petrol car. You either learn by osmosis, or by actually getting out there and doing it. Nobody knew exactly how to use a petrol
pump the first time they did it. And having worked in petrol stations for several years, I can tell you from experience that many of them still have
very little clue. A friend of the podcast Ashley Bannister from LinkedIn reply to a post I wrote on this subject and he said, quote, education is so
important. And you're right. It's not the driver's fault. The first stage of learning is subconscious incompetence. In other words, we don't know what
we don't know. So it's absolutely up to the supply chain to provide some education and quote. The key there is subconscious incompetence. We don't know
what we don't know. The statements that Sarah was making are seemingly silly in the big scheme of things. Quote, I try not to use high powered
chargers in case they damage the battery. Now obviously as EV drivers we know that this isn't the case but someone brand new to drive in these
would have absolutely no idea. If you have no idea then a statement like that makes absolute sense. Now, with nearly 200 podcast episodes covered all
aspects of the EB and renewable world. I hope there's an amount of information in education here which a new driver like Sarah might find useful.
If I've helped even one new EV driver, I consider that a win. But in the big scheme of things we need to build in educating lots of Evie drivers
and potentially be drivers. I asked a few select listeners and fellow Eevee drivers to give me their experiences of how they learned about
electric vehicles.
Regarding my own EV journey and the education that I've been involved with, I mean, I've listened to various podcasts,
obviously, EV Mmusings, thank you very much, Gary, I have recommended this podcast and many, many people. It's very insightful, and also the ebooks
that you've written. And this isn't a plug, I am genuinely recommended them. They're very, very good and insightful from somebody who's been and
done it. And I think that's the thing that many people forget. We do need to listen to people who have more experience in us, especially if you go
on any sort of social media out there. You know, someone will post something about an EV and there'll be 1000 People who have never driven nev
slagging them off. So we have to be very, very mindful that there's a lot of misinformation out there. But regarding education, I mean, I kind of
did it all myself. So I went out there and I checked myself out and I took I sponged it all in from various sources, especially like I said, from
various podcasts, and my ongoing journey. I just asked people like that it all comes from people who know more than us and taking that information
and sponging off them. Because we all know that car dealers are pretty useless, and they're uneducated. And if they're not willing to be
educated, they cannot give that information on to somebody else. Why do we all think you know, 20 years ago, when I learned to drive the Highway
Code said this 20 years later, the Highway Code or something completely different, but people are so I mean, egotistical in the fact that they don't
want to be criticised about anything regarding driving a vehicle. And they're not willing to educate themselves any further. So I think there
lies our main problem.
Tim R-S: I had a Tesla since 2017, and I'm a fairly technical person. So I actually had been researching about electric vehicles for a good
couple of years before I took the plunge. I had to find a lot of the information by myself, but there was already even then quite a lot of good content
out on, say YouTube. And then I discovered the Electrek, both podcast and website, which had a lot of good news about the EV industry. And so I
used that to start following very closely what was going on. So I discovered the Fully Charged channel, which covered an awful lot more than just
Tesla's and, and really, I think that that's how I learned an awful lot about electric cars. And I had to learn things like what's the difference
between kilowatt and a kilowatt hour, I had to learn the difference between fast charging, rapid charging, all of this stuff was really covered on
these YouTube videos. I was lucky in that Tesla were very good back in those days, giving information to drivers to help them understand the
Tesla's what I understand is that, as of today, at - the kind of orientation that I had, when I when I went to pick up my car, and I managed to get
probably a good half an hour with somebody from the showroom. A lot of people don't have that same education and a lot of people, if they're buying
other cars from dealers that are not Tesla's, I've heard that there are some dealers - and so of course, some are better than others. But I've
heard that there are some dealers that really don't seem to be that committed to the electric vehicle transition. Final point. Of course, when
we all grew up, and some of us are getting on a bit more than others. We were exposed to watching people drive cars, you know, right from, you know,
from as long we as early as we can remember. So, that hasn't happened in electric vehicles. So even though they're basically the same, they're just
calls. The subtle differences are things which we haven't been exposed to all our lives. And so it's no surprise that, you know, we have to make some
effort to learn.
I first discovered they were even a thing in 2015, when a relative mentioned by his Twizy I started researching did a lot of YouTube,
which says style engaged with YouTube discovered fully charged. I had a four day test drive in a Nissan Leaf, which I thought was very generous. I
had a email conversation with BMW dealer about the realistic range of like three. And in the end, I settled on the B class for Mercedes. The dealers
didn't really understand them, and gave out lots of misinformation. For example, the salesman had been in this B class for a year, and he had a
route to work which was either motorway or backroads. And he, obviously the motorway burned through more, more electrons. And he was
absolutely convinced the reason why he was because there was no ability to regen on the motorway, and I said, No, no, it's speed in the square law and
all that and he was absolutely adamant that I was wrong.
In that segment, you heard from Michael French, Tim, Rault-Smith, and Mark Garland. Quite a few different stories there about how people
were educated, which means the challenge is quite difficult. For the purposes of this episode, I'm going to split education into different aspects,
each of which need different approaches, different resources, and different educators. So let's start. The first level of education is basic
education which a current high ICE driver will need to make the decision to go electric. What range can I expect with a car? How do I charge it
if I don't have home charging? Will the range drop in winter? How much cheaper will it be to run than an ice car? How efficient is the vehicle how
powerful is this vehicle? For some people, this will be the result of going into a car dealership and speaking to a salesman. And this is where the
first problem occurs. Discussions I've had with car dealers so far indicate that there are two main issues with dealer education. The first one
is that not all dealers get the information they need to know about EVs. In a typical Ford dealership, for example, each salesman will have
will have a car that they take home every night. The cars they use aren't chosen by them, they're allocated by the dealership, and they tend to be
one of the range of cars sold by that franchise. So if Ford at a particular dealership have 10 different models and 20 salesmen, each model will
go to two salesmen. The Ford Mach E in the UK at least will only ever go to two of the 20 salesmen even though all of them will be expected to sell
the car. On top of that, for various financial reasons, the salesman would rather sell a petrol or diesel version that sitting on the forecourt
that they know will sell rather than an electric version about which they have little knowledge or which might be on backorder for several months for
dealers to commission is earned on the delivery of the vehicle to the customer, not on the order of the vehicle. So if you had a Ford Focus ready to
go, or a Ford MachE with a three month wait for delivery, which one would you as a dealer, prioritise, selling? I find this a little
disconcerting, and I wonder how much of it is deliberate. I mean, if you ask a Vauxhall dealer about the Vauxhall Corsa, GS or design or
ultimate, they can speak chapter and verse about its top speed, acceleration, engine output, fuel efficiency, etc. But if you look at the electric
Corsa, GS or design or ultimate, I'm betting they don't know about top charge speeds battery chemistry, the power output of the electric motor,
or whether the car comes equipped with a seven kilowatt charge cable and a three pin plug cable or just the seven kilowatt cable. Why is that? Are
the OEMs not providing them with information they need to answer these questions. Or is the information there but the dealers aren't bothering
to learn it? If not, why not? There's also the FUD aspect in play her fear, uncertainty and doubt a lot of members of the general public will have
heard so on the anti EB misinformation that has been spread by pretty large media organisations out there. A lot of dealers will probably not have
any data to push that back. I mean, how many dealers could respond to a claim that EV batteries are quote made from minerals mined by slave
children and quote without some fairly specialised knowledge about artisanal mining, battery chemistry, and alternate use of cobalt? So there's
definitely an education need around that particular aspect of EV ownership. That's assuming the dealers are interested enough to actually find
the data out to counter the misinformation. They're not convinced to sell the cars in the first place, they're hardly going to be convinced
to look up anything which can be used against them. If a customer comes in asking you about cobalt in batteries, it's easy for a dealer to say
'Good point let's have a look at a nice petrol Astra instead'. Anecdotally, at least one dealership of a major German based OEM has had no
training slash development work at all, on electric vehicles makes it difficult to then sell the only segment of their vehicle lineup which is
electric right. Next level of education needed is that for when a new EV driver takes delivery of their first electric vehicle. This will cover
aspects of running one on a day to day basis. How do you charge? What are the different cables? Why are there different connectors? How would you find
charges with apps like Zapmap? Which charge point operators worth using and which aren't? Why does the charge speed vary and Why might it not be what
you expect? How do you drive efficiently in a vehicle such as this? Now hopefully a big chunk of education of that sort can come from listening to,
he says, modestly, this podcast. The issue here is one of delivery. And by that I mean the delivery of the actual vehicle itself. Now, I've mentioned
before on the show, but both of the electric vehicles I've had have come on the back of a low loader to my house, the person doing the handover
wasn't informed about the details of the car, other than a rather perfunctory, this is how you switch it on. And this is the app you need to
download to set it all up. And this is a prime opportunity to do an informed handover and learn about the car. Let's take a little sidebar here.
Back in the day, Milton Keynes had an EV experience centre in the main shopping mall, you could go in there, chat with knowledgeable people,
and take an electric car away for a weekend or even longer. But when you did this, they didn't just hand over the keys and bunch of bits of
paper. The handover process took a good hour, and it involves someone going with you to a nearby public charger and physically taking you through a
charging session. They were also able to handle and answer all the questions you may have had, because they were informed and that was their job.
Unfortunately, lack of funding shut down this initiative. But there is something similar in place, albeit not quite the same. The two main
Gridserve electric forecourts at Braintree and Norwich both have people there whose job it is to educate and inform potential car buyers about EVs.
The reason it's not the same is that the EV experience Centre in Milton Keynes wasn't trying to sell anybody anything they were simply there to
inform Gridserve are providing their expertise as part of their leasing programme. So they have a smaller number of cars. And they're primarily
focused on helping you make a decision to lease with them.
Now, the third aspect of education is knowledge transfer to someone who's fairly technical, someone like myself, I can research I know what
I'm looking for. And I know which questions to ask. But in the big scheme of things, that's not a sustainable model. One of the reasons I was an
early adopter to electric cars was because I'm the sort of person who doesn't mind looking into things and doing investigations, etc. I don't mind
working in areas of uncertainty where not everything is known about a certain topic. I don't like change. But not everyone is the same as me.
Not everyone is an early adopter. So for people like me, the information I'm looking for is by definition going to be different to the
information other people are looking at. I'm quite prepared to go look into things like battery chemistries, and the C rate for battery charge and
discharge, that sort of thing. I don't mind trying to understand charge curves and all the fairly esoteric things you might need to understand to
make things like being an early adopter of an electric car work for you. So the type of education I need is completely different as an
early adopter to the kind of things someone in the general public would need.
The fourth aspect of education is to my mum, as she'd been driving on for quite a few years knows petrol cars like the back of her hand, but bit of
a technophobe. Didn't want an iPhone or an iPad because they're too complicated. I'd ended up getting one anyway. She's constantly calling me
and asking me why something doesn't work on her iPad. 'All I did was I click this download link and...' dah dah da, you know, that sort of thing.
She needs enough information that she can use the vehicle without needing daily assistance, but she also needs to make sure she isn't overwhelmed by
the huge amount of information that is out there concerning EVs. There's no way for example, she'd be able to listen to 200 Episode back catalogue of
mine because they would overwhelmed. As an example, she knows I have a heat pump. I've explained that the heat pump is effectively a
replacement for my old boiler. What the boiler used to do is now done by the heat pump. But she still asked questions like the radiators in the
normal house work with a heat pump does it still send hot water around them? Now she's going to struggle immensely trying to understand things
like AC versus DC charging charge curves and things like that, which means she needs to be introduced in gradually and over a period of time.
A book probably isn't going to work for her. For my mum. It needs repetition, and consistency. Then, there's a type of education you need to
provide to the second hand market. At the moment, this is the largest segment of EV growth. Recent price drops have resulted in more electric
vehicles being bought secondhand. Many of them are coming through dealers. So we have the same issue as we had with new EVs, but a large number of them
are coming from websites such as Carwow or autotrader where a dealer interaction may not necessarily happen. Many roles have been bought
from auction sites after they come off lease. Again. The education aspect is lacking.
And I can't finish this episode without mentioning as I often seem to do whenever it comes to EVs, Tesla. One of the reasons they've managed to
corner the market with EVs is they've made it as simple as possible to charge. The in car entertainment system will navigate them
automatically to a charger. It will tell them how many stalls are free. Once they're all the user has to do is go to the unit pick up the charger
and approach the charge port, it will open automatically connect and start charging, it will cut off at 80% if the charge is busy, and it's
just seamless. That's the sort of thing my mother wants. She doesn't need to worry about different charges type she doesn't need to worry about
payment processing or choosing the correct cable and charge point she doesn't need to worry about charge speeds or cutting off at 80% to protect the
battery. It's as easy and seamless as her existing petrol car.
So before we finish, let's have a look at possible places where you can get good quality EV education. Obviously, there's this podcast, he
says modestly, but mine isn't the only one. The Fully Charged show/ everything electric podcast also covers a lot of interesting topics that are
both educational, and fun. As many people have already discovered, there's YouTube content creators like Fully Charged, Electrifying.com,
Andrew Till (Mr. EV) - former guest of the podcast. TeslaBjorn and many, many others all do informative videos on different aspects of
electric vehicle ownership. Then there's the EV clubs. The EV Nexus is a place to start to learn about which clubs are in your area. Pretty much
all the counties have some sort of representation in the EV clubs. They meet regularly usually over the summer although the Yorkshire EV club has a
lengthen definition of what summer means. And it's a chance for owners to meet and chat about all things EV is a great opportunity to listen and
learn. Then there's EVA England, this is the organisation acting on behalf of EV drivers, and lobbying government for changes. A lot of the
recent public transport regulations 2023 have come as a direct result of the lobbying they're doing. If you become a member, you get a rather snazzy
member's handbook, which is one of the best documents I've ever read about owning and running an EV. Apologies, apologies. That last sentence
should read. If you become a member, you get a rather snazzy members handbook, which is one of the best documents I've ever written about owning
and running an EV because, you know, I wrote it. But all of those resources are things which rely on you as an individual to find them and engage.
There's not enough out there coming from dealers, manufacturers or even the government. Remember the old 'clunk click every trip' public service
announcements, or the tell said adverts when British Gas was been privatised (I'm aging myself now, right?) Or the communication talking about
the Brexit referendum? When do you agree or disagree with it, there was information out there. These are all funded by the government or branches
of it. There's a case to say the government should be producing similar things for electric vehicles. Imagine one on chargr etiquette. For example, when
your car reaches around 80%, it's probably quicker to head off to your next destination. Rather than wait for it to go right to the top. It'll save you
time and open up a charge of someone else who might need it. You know, that sort of thing. The possibilities are endless. Now, I don't think
we're going to be able to sort out education in one episode. But I do know that unless and until we have a consistent way of informing the new EV
drivers about some of the fairly esoteric aspects of EV driving, we're going to end up with dissatisfied owners. And this will have a knock on
effect for uptake and ultimately, the impact on the planet. Also, let's not forget that other countries such as Norway, have managed to leap
this particular hurdle without a great deal of difficulty. If I recall correctly from a discussion with Tor Harritsjoi last season, lot
of this was government funded, especially by making it appealing to go electric.
Finally, just to loop back to Sarah, the young girl I met at the charger I gave Sara my podcast details so it's entirely possible she's listening
to this episode. If you are and I know you're not actually called Sarah but I needed a name with which to refer to you. I hope you're enjoying your
eCorsa in Brighton. Thanks for inspiring this episode.
It's time for a Coll EV or Renwable thing to share with the listeners. An Ohio Company change retired wind turbine blades into beautiful park benches,
planters and picnic tables for public spaces across the US with anything up to 9000 wind turbine blades per year being retired, anything
that can be second use for them is to be commended Canvus C A N V U S a US startup brings the blades into the factory in 40 foot sections, custom using
ropes or and finishes with epoxy paint. In addition to the edges Canvus uses recycled materials from other industries such as old tires,
shoes, and plastic waste. The resulting pieces of furniture are beautiful, functional, and expensive, which is where their business model
comes in. The pieces are paid for by sponsors and sponsors can be anyone from a family that wants to commemorate a loved one to a local business that
wants to increase his visibility. Each bench features a QR code that provides more information about that sponsor. With capacity for around
11,000 blades per year. This looks like a great way to promote the circular economy
And that's the show today. Hope you enjoyed listening to it. If you want to contact me I can be emailed at the new email which is info at ev
musings.com. I'm also on Twitter, EV Musings TV. If you want to support the podcast and newsletter please consider contributing to becoming an Eevee
musings patron the links in the show notes don't want to send them something on a monthly basis. Well, if you enjoyed this episode, buy me a
coffee. Go to ko-fi.com/evie musings and you can do just that. Okay? Oh dash fyi.com/evey musings, it's Apple Pay to. I have a couple of books out
there if you want something to read on your Kindle. So you've got an electric is available on Amazon worldwide for the measly sum of 99p or
equivalent. And it's a great little introduction to even with an electric car. So you've got renewable is also available on Amazon for the same
99p and it covers installing solar panels, a storage battery and a heat pump. Why not check them out? Links for everything we've talked about
in the podcast today are in the description. If you've reached this part of the podcast and are still listening, thank you. Why not? Let me know
you've got to this point by tweeting me @MusingsEV with the words, another brick in the wall hashtag if you know you know nothing else. So okay, I'll
wait for that one for you. Thanks as always to my co founder Simon. You know I often wonder if his life would have been radically different if he
decided to become a stamp collector. Looking for a penny black or a penny read it philately exhibitions. He told me he really wasn't into
things like that because it's so easy to make a bad deal when it comes to buying the perfect stamp
that dealers didn't really understand them. And getting that lots of misinformation. Thanks for listening.
Bye
About this episode
Exploring the critical gap in electric vehicle education, this episode highlights real-world challenges new EV drivers face, like locating chargers, understanding charging speeds, and navigating dealer misinformation. Through personal stories and expert insights, it discusses the need for better education at multiple levels—from initial purchase to everyday use—and the role of dealers, manufacturers, and government in providing clear, accessible information. The episode also showcases resources like podcasts, clubs, and apps that help bridge knowledge gaps, emphasizing that effective education is key to wider EV adoption and satisfaction.
Original notes
In Episode 197 Gary discusses the whole aspect of educating new EV drivers. What are the different types of education? Who should be doing this education, and what happens when people are left to their own devices?
There's many aspects to EV education. We'll discuss dealer-side education, ongoing education and sources of education.
What do you really want to know?
We'll also listen to EV drivers telling us about the issues they had learning about electric vehicles.
The EV Musings Podcast is sponsored by Zapmap, the go-to app for EV drivers, helping you find and pay for public charging with confidence.
Links in the show notes:
Episode produced by Arran Sheppard at Urban Podcasts: https://www.urbanpodcasts.co.uk
(C) 2019-2026 Gary Comerford
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The EV Musings Podcast
Gary Comerford
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