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Hi, I'm Gary, and this is 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 how EVs are promoted and sold.
Our main topic of discussion today is EV promotion.
Now, long-time listeners of the podcast will know that I'm a big fan of the old PSA, Public
Service Announcement.
Back in the day, we had the Green Cross Code Man, Charlie Sears, Clunk Click Every Trip,
although the least said about the face of that campaign, the better, Tel-Sid, etc.,
all of those kind of public service announcements.
All of these had two things in common.
They were funded and created by the government, and they were designed to educate the public.
Now, there's very few of these around nowadays, and I think that's a shame, which is why
I was really interested when I came across an article entitled, The EV Add No One
Is Making, but someone really should, from former guest of the show, James McKee-Me.
In it, he was basically advocating the fact that TV commercials for electric vehicles
should focus less on the cool and groovy features of each car and more on the lifestyle
improvements you can get from going electric.
So, let's speak to James about this.
Can I ask you to start by introducing yourself and let the listeners know where you work
and what you do, please?
Thank you very much, Gary.
My name is James McKee-Me.
I founded a company called Rapid Charge Paradox Limited.
It's a consultancy in the EV and EV charging space.
People may know me previously from several roles at Podpoint, where I served over
14 years, or the company formerly known as Podpoint, now known as Pod.
Now, my overarching thesis in this episode is that there isn't enough general education
about electric vehicles and the EV lifestyle or benefits.
Now, at the moment, the onus is on individuals to learn about the ecosystem and on OEMs
to educate about the cars.
But if you look at any electric car advert for pretty much any OEM, you'll see a lot
of commonalities.
You'll see beauty shots of the cars traveling down remarkably empty streets.
You'll see some buzzword about electrified futures.
You'll see promotion of a phenomenal range of up to 350 miles.
You'll see the small print indicating that it's WLTP and not real life.
You might get a shot of someone plugging the car in at home.
And the issue with this is that it's crap, basically.
It tells the prospective customer absolutely nothing about living with an electric vehicle.
Now, taking literally someone would expect the car to be able to do 350 miles with ease
and just be refilled by plugging into a standard small charging socket.
It says nothing about different ranges that you might get.
It says nothing about what to do if you don't have home charging.
It says nothing about using public charge.
It has zero education for an end user.
And now you're here today because you and I have something specific in common
when it comes to electric vehicles.
And we both think that they're not being well promoted as a concept.
Not from the point of view of the OEM selling one of its vehicles into the market,
but from the point of view of selling the bigger EV experience to the end users.
So just as an opening gesture,
talk to me a little bit about your thinking behind that, please.
Thanks very much, Gary.
And I completely agree with you.
And you may see on my LinkedIn page on my website,
I wrote a blog about a concept for an advert,
which really would, in my view, kind of highlight the reality
for most people living with an electric car.
But I think you mentioned the people who are potentially selling this are often OEMs.
If we look at the stakeholders in this environment
who have potential budget to spend on advertising campaigns, et cetera,
I mean, OEMs are probably front and center.
And I think they have some challenges in this space.
The first is that they need to market their product.
So if we're talking about the experience of the EV,
that is not unique to their product.
So they need to move quite quickly to the features which are.
So if you just gave us a good overview of a typical kind of advert for an EV
and that often is about the design.
So a lot of the advert will be based around the aesthetics of the vehicle and things like that,
which we're very used to from all kinds of car advertising, right?
But the challenge is it's leaving a void.
If you don't understand what it is to drive an EV,
this leaves you in that period of kind of uncertainty of,
well, I see that you make this EV.
I don't really know what that means to me.
I know what my petrol or diesel car and living with that is like.
So I've not been particularly well informed.
That's such a critical element of the real benefits of living with an EV.
Gary, you mentioned the challenges for those who can't have a home charger.
And those are real.
And I've operated an EV for a long time without having a home charger
and charger pretty much exclusively on the public network.
So I understand that way of life.
But I think where we are in terms of the uptake process at the moment,
in terms of the adoption curve,
I don't think we're making the most yet of those who can charge their car at home.
And I don't think we're even selling that properly.
But I agree with you that someone needs to,
because I think that critical piece of education is lacking.
And if it's coming from anywhere, it's coming from our peers.
It's coming from seeing the Joneses suddenly got an EV down the road
and doesn't look anything like what I'm hearing in all these negative chats.
That just seems really easy.
And that, at the moment, is probably the most powerful message to us out there.
Peer pressure, effectively, while observing it amongst our peers.
But it's a frustration of mine, certainly,
about the way the discourse across the industry,
someone needs to really sell the reality of living with an EV.
It's very similar with solar panels.
If one person in a block gets solar panels,
then you'll find that a number of others do as well.
But I think the key difference is,
from a solar panel point of view,
you put them in, you work with them for a couple of days,
you see how they work.
It's black or white. They either work or they don't.
Whereas if you look at electric vehicle,
you can get an electric vehicle.
Somebody can get one delivered on the back of a low loader
with a guy who's never driven an electric vehicle
and hand the keys over and go,
well, there you go, mate, disappear.
There's no education.
There's no understanding of how to leverage
the best parts of the electric vehicle.
And I'm assuming we're going to come on
and talk about things like preconditioning
and being able to sit at home and defrost your car
while you're having your coffee, that sort of stuff.
That never happens.
And therefore, the Joneses
who've got their electric vehicle are undereducated.
And then when you go over and go,
well, how are you doing with that car?
And they go, well, it's all right,
but I'm not sure about this
and I'm charging in public
and it's costing me a fortune and all that sort of stuff.
So I think the kind of thing that we're talking about
is we've got to get that base level of education.
Now, I've done the 260 plus episodes of a podcast
trying to get that level of education
and I've had a level of success.
Is it enough?
No.
Could there be more?
Yes.
And one of the things that I've advocated for
for a long time is the old,
do you remember the old Charlie says,
you know, the public service announcements
on the green cross code or clunk click every trip
or, you know, that sort of thing.
There has to be something that is funded,
now we'll talk about the funding in a second,
but there has to be something that's funded
to the point where it appears
on all the television channels.
It appears on all the social media channels.
You'll get the 32nd version,
you'll get the 15 second version,
you might get the one minute version
and it's constantly there in people's faces.
Now, you alluded to that earlier on
because, you know, I've read the script
that you put together for the advert
that you wanted to do at Podpoint
or Pod as it is now.
Fantastic.
And it's pretty much aligned with the kind of thing
that I was thinking about putting together,
but how are we going to get something like that funded?
Because it's not cheap.
But that's a great question.
I think you alluded to a couple of bits
about practical education there,
which I know I've seen in the real world.
I mean, a classic one is knowing where the DC pins are
on your socket.
So I had two experiences,
and this is some time ago.
It was when the first Peugeot is the E2SX
sort of the little guys
and I was charging it to someone
who was using basically 11 kilowatt AC outlet
on a rapid charger.
And I said, oh, you know, why don't you use the CCS?
And she said, oh, no, I didn't get out on the car.
It's not on the car.
And I said, I don't want to be that guy,
but I think I probably should be that guy.
I said, no, it is.
I said, just show you as you pull that out.
She said, oh my goodness,
that's going to save me loads of time.
And I thought that was really weird
that you weren't even told that at the point
you bought the car.
It seems confusing, which is really,
but I guess coming back to the point of oversize
and the convenience of home charging,
the next person I saw actually had a pod point
and I was walking, this was in COVID times.
We walked round the local village
and saw this really very pretty installation
of this sort of timber clad outhouse building they put it on.
And I went to ask if we could use it for marketing
because we'd actually seen this one
came through on the installer's photo.
I said, oh, this is awesome.
And they were happy to do that.
But I noticed I had this Peugeot.
And I said, just while I'm here,
just like a few days ago,
I ran with this lady and she was charging.
She wasn't aware of how to rapid charge it.
Are you aware of how to rapid charge your car?
So we were saying process and no, she wasn't.
She didn't, though.
So pulled the thing out.
But instead of having the reaction
that the other lady had had, which was,
oh goodness, thank you.
Why didn't they tell me that before?
She looked at me with derision and said, why would I care?
What's the point?
That's got over 200 miles in it every morning.
When am I ever gonna use that?
And the answer is for her, she won't.
She absolutely won't.
Now, I'm not now doing away with DC charging
or removing the DC charging sockets.
Clearly they have massive value.
But I thought in terms of a mindset,
someone who's got their EV, they used to using it,
they drive it every day and they love it.
Don't even need that.
What do you want about it?
I just thought was really illustrative
of how powerful just having a home charger is.
Now, let's go back to your question of how you fund it.
That's a really, really tricky question.
And in my piece, I get into some of the challenges.
Is an OEM gonna step up and try and own this space?
Not only have they got a short window in which to try
and get over the benefits and features of their own vehicle,
not the general experience of driving an EV.
A lot of the OEMs who have the funds to pursue advertising
in this space have one foot in the EV camp
and one foot in the keep the cash cow
of the internal combustion or hybrid vehicle going.
And that means if you really got across
how awesome it is to not visit petrol stations,
that might undermine what is still probably
your most reliable kind of revenue and margin product.
So it may not be the OEMs at this stage,
particularly the non sort of EV specific ones.
And Tesla are interesting to challenge here
because they don't advertise, right?
So that's a bit of a challenge from that side.
So you were talking about kind of a public interest
campaign and that comes back to,
is that publicly funded?
Is this taxpayer funded?
We've seen efforts here before.
Gary, you and I have been in this industry long enough
to remember Go Ultra Low.
So that was a campaign which was part funded by,
I think SMMT members, vehicle manufacturers OEMs.
So match funded, I think by the government.
It was useful to some extent,
but it's not what you're describing.
It's not sort of mass media campaign
getting these messages over.
And I guess we are in a time
of extremely constrained public spending
really really tough kind of fiscal position
for the government.
I've done a little bit of thought about this,
probably not as much as you,
but I always cast my mind back to,
it doesn't seem that much now,
but when Apple first started advertising the iPhone,
they would put together and fund a campaign
and you know, whizzy high production values and that.
And then at the end of it, it had the Apple logo
and then you would have the Vodafone logo
or you would have the E logo or you'd have the three logo.
So from my point of view,
that's a kind of a model that we should be looking at.
There should be one central organization
and it doesn't have to be the government,
but it could be.
And they can get funding in
from numerous different organizations,
Charge UK for example, some of the OEMs themselves,
the AA, you know,
everybody who's got an interest
in making sure that this works.
They could all put an amount of funding in to create a pot.
The central organization, whoever it is,
could then produce that and then what comes out of it
could be sent back to the individual funders
with their own branding on it to use as they wish.
Now, yes, the OEMs may not want to do that
for exactly the reason that you mentioned before,
they're kind of cannibalizing their fossil fuel sales
and that's fair enough,
but I could imagine someone like Charge UK
putting that out, giving that out,
Gridserv being able to put something on that,
Pod being able to use that,
Osprey Charge being able to use that.
I see that, you know, there's value in there,
the AA being able to use that.
There's any number of organizations
that have the potential to benefit
from a model like that.
What do you think?
It was a really interesting idea
and I wouldn't say I've done any more thinking
than you, Gary.
That sounds like you're quite advanced
in your thinking on this.
So it's easy to be sort of cynical about OEMs
being one foot in the EV count,
one foot in the hybrid and nice count.
But that's the reality.
I mean, I'm a bit more sympathetic to them.
They have to make their business work.
They have to make this transition work.
And in my experience, they are keen
to get this information over.
It's just, are they keen to throw everything at it?
That's the challenge.
So you do see there's quite a lot of appetite
within those organizations to educate drivers,
to bring them on board, et cetera.
So that's a positive.
The charge UK I'm sure would be,
or their members would be interested in that concept.
Again, I think you're thinking of a central concept
of this advert which is trying to sell the concept
of living with an EV to different drivers
and sell the benefits, et cetera.
And then at the end, you tack on different logos.
I think that's a really interesting idea.
Of course, you could do product placement throughout it.
The challenge with product placement is obviously
you might lessen the enthusiasm
of some of the other potential
if they see their competitors appear in the advert
and not their own.
But I think that that's definitely
a really interesting idea.
And I have to say, as Apple adverts,
stay in my mind, you know,
getting off a 20 years old now,
you know, the old iPod adverts, et cetera,
and then as we move to iPhone.
And that was a very, very powerful campaign.
So yeah, I mean, I'd be very interested
in the pursuit of that.
I guess looking around the industry,
I mean, a body like Dan Caesar's EV UK
might be quite well placed to look at that
with a real sort of broad consumer angle
looking at EV as a whole.
Let me, I don't want to suggest
this is something they must immediately do,
but that would be one body
that is well placed to potentially take that on.
And yeah, I think that's a really interesting concept.
Now, the other thing that you brought up there,
and I've discussed this on the podcast before,
primarily with Kateril,
which is do OEMs really want to sell electric vehicles?
And here's the experience that I gave.
I was at an event that had test drives
with numerous OEMs there.
And I got into a BMW I something or other
to my detriment, I can't remember exactly what it was,
with a young lady from the dealership in the seat next to me.
And normally if you're doing a test drive,
you start to ask about the car and that,
but me being me, I wanted to ask about the dealership
and how they're selling electric vehicles.
So the first question I asked is,
so what vehicle do you drive?
So apparently mine, this is a woman promoting electric vehicles.
She drives a diesel BMW three series.
Okay, fair enough.
How many people, how many of your dealers drive electric?
And she said, two.
I said, out of how many?
She said, 10.
I said, okay, given that there is a mandate
to sell a minimum percentage of electric vehicles this year
and remind me what it is, 28% this year,
is it something like that?
Yeah, obviously it comes out a bit low
with the flexibilities, but I think that's right, yeah.
So one in four give or take.
Do you not think that as a dealership,
there should be more people who actively live
with electric vehicles on a day-to-day basis?
And she kind of went, yeah, you're probably right.
But the irony is I did two other test drives out there
and I asked the same question.
None of them drove electric vehicles.
None of the people in the test drives with me
drove electric vehicles.
They had a different understanding of how many people
within their organization drove electric vehicles,
but none of them did it themselves.
Now I can forgive one of them
because it was a Porsche Taycan,
a Porsche Macan I was driving in,
so maybe they don't like to give those out to the dealers,
but given that Porsche are part of a bigger chain
of companies which have their own electric vehicle offerings,
he didn't even drive one of those.
You know, to me, it would be great to get the OEMs involved
in something like this, but I would have to think,
you know, what's their, would they seize on that as right?
We could throw some money at this and solve the problem
and not have to worry about our dealerships,
or would they look at that and go,
well, you know, they're selling, they're selling,
okay, you know, we made our quota last year,
we'll probably make it this year.
Why do we need to throw more money at it?
What are your thoughts on that?
The other thing with the dealership model, of course,
is EVs actually represent a real challenge
to their business model.
So typically, the vehicles are sold on relatively slim margins
and the servicing is sold on very, very generous margins.
And the beauty, as it were, of that model
for an internal combustion in the car
is it's absolutely packed with bits that wear out.
They're kind of, by definition,
everything on it is wearing out and needs replacing
and they can make a load of money on it.
And by moving to EV, you kind of get rid of all those?
Yeah, yeah.
Your clutch isn't gonna cause you any trouble.
The exhaust isn't a problem.
I've never seen an EV blow a head gasket.
So a lot of those challenges or opportunities go away
and therefore, mind using them as a car dealer
to promote EV may be even more limited
than that of the overall OEM.
So that might be a challenge on that side of it.
But I guess, I think you're right,
it's another example of a slightly lukewarm.
Yeah, we wanna be doing well in EV, not least,
because we kind of have to,
because of the Zev mandate and the potential
for getting fines or whatever it might be
or really buying the credits or whatever they are.
And it would be good to see that we have a future
as an OEM to continue to make our car
be it in electric form and people will like them.
Those are good things, but our model today,
it's very difficult, I think, to take a long-term view
when you're a member of staff looking to hit your targets
that month, that quarter, that year.
And I think we see that right the way through.
I mean, we started with a conversation
on how much they're willing to spend
on really promoting how great EVs are.
Well, I don't really wanna undermine
the sale of petrol cars by really pointing out
that going to a petrol station
is an absolute, the hideous experience,
a vast cost, et cetera.
So I think we see again and again,
it's not that your conventional OEMs are anti-EV
or that they don't wanna win this space, they do,
but they aren't 100% in.
And I just think that shows up in all different areas,
not least your test drive experience.
Now, there are two aspects to the education part of this.
We've already talked about one,
which is educating the individual
who's never been in an electric vehicle
to understand the benefits of owning one, driving one.
And you've talked about never having
to go to a petrol station again, et cetera.
But the other aspect of this that we haven't touched on,
but which is equally as important,
is combating and countering the misinformation.
So for example, I would love to have just a 10
or 15 second advert somewhere
where you've got two people on the phones
and one of them goes,
you drive one of those electric cars, don't you?
Yeah.
So does the battery run out the same
as it does on the iPhone?
And you need a new one after three years
and they kinda go, well, no, actually it doesn't
because it's not an iPhone
and it's got a lot of complex tech underneath it
that helps manage it
and it will probably last for longer
than the car that it sat in.
What other things would you like to see specifically
or generally that we push out
in terms of combating misinformation
as well as the bigger topic
of living in the EV sphere?
It's really tricky, isn't it?
There are actors who clearly are motivated
to put negative information out.
You call it misinformation, whatever you want.
There are two problems at play.
One is that EVs have become politicized to an extent
as part of kind of the net zero agenda
and becoming political football is not great fun
having seen that happen to us.
And I really don't think it should be.
I don't think you should be able to tell anyone's
political opinions from the fact they drive an EV.
And for all his sins,
I think Elon has probably shown that.
But there are some outlets that go beyond that, right?
And we could name them.
There are some newspapers that go beyond that.
I mean, the thing I'd like to see
is what the editorial discussion is.
I remember there was a point where,
I mean, EVs are the only growth sector
in the automotive world, right?
Everything else is in decline.
And there was one month where they were pretty well,
you know, all to do with sort of boat sharp, I think,
when you get really good months
and quieter months, whatever.
But there was a good month
and everyone was like,
oh, look, EVs have jumped by whatever it was.
And one of these newspapers,
I won't name them, I'm gonna be diplomatic,
put out a headline,
EV sales decline X percent.
And what they'd done is they'd looked
at private registrations, which are very small.
So retail sales, sorry, not private registrations,
retail sales, which remain a small proportion.
And this is because of how brilliant
the low BIC rate opportunity is.
That is where most private buyers are getting their car.
These aren't company cars.
I mean, technically they are,
but they are being bought by individuals
who have access to really affordable, beautiful,
you know, very expensive cars.
And that's really good.
So the retail market isn't as big
because it's being satisfied elsewhere.
And that fluctuates, right?
It's at a low level and it fluctuates.
And this month, it had gone down by a proportion.
And they'd taken from that
and said, oh, yeah, EV sales are falling.
You're like, but no, EV sales have let this,
but I just, like, how have you even worked that out?
So someone clearly has said,
find something in the data to make this look bad
because you wouldn't naturally do that.
But Parvami also thinks that
I think it's a folly to get caught up on that.
We all know, because we occasionally engage online,
people who have decided that being anti-EV
is a very good substitute for a personality.
And this is sort of essentially
has become their raison d'etre.
And there is no point in trying to win that argument
because it's irrelevant.
You're not going to convince them.
How do you win the argument?
You ignore them and you go to the people
who just want to drive a car that's decent, right?
That fulfills their needs.
And if you get to a point of critical mass,
Luddite is kind of irrelevant, right?
Well, everyone's just gone EV because it makes sense.
I think Norway's a good extreme example here, right?
We like to look at Norwegians, I guess,
benevolent and very sort of just disorientated and worthy.
And I don't think they are at all, right?
I just think they're people like everyone else.
But because of their unique situation,
they cook the books with their very high levels of tax
and they give EVs price parity straight away.
So they've been running for over a decade
with at least price parity,
actually probably better on EV now.
And they've achieved 90% uptake, whatever it might be.
That wasn't the result of some massive consumer campaign.
That's because it just made sense, right?
Oh, that's cheaper to do.
And you got to a point of critical mass
where the EV was no longer weird
and everyone knew people who drew,
not just one person,
they knew several people driving them.
And to me, that's the thing
that probably combats the misinformation.
It's hopeless to keep telling people,
oh, your car catch is far all the time
when 80% of your car park is full of these things.
And everyone's like, Dave, you've got to let it go, pal.
Like, what are you on about?
The world's moved on.
So part of me likes to think the organic market pressure
and dynamics will put this right.
That doesn't mean to say that there isn't value
in someone tackling the reality
and selling the real upside of living with an EV
to some extent because we can get that process
to move quicker.
The industry talks a lot about the early majority
and that's the real challenge we're at at the moment.
It was going through these 20% plus of uptake.
There's a slight chasm to getting into early majority
and then late majority and then it flipped
and then it's gone and we all look like Norway.
And I think there is still space
for some campaigns, techniques,
ways of informing people that would help get us there.
And there's no doubt that the collective negativity
that is being very deliberately put out there
by some people is not helping with that.
I want to talk a little bit about the advert
that you were proposing for Pod
and the detail behind that.
But before we do that, just looping back
on the conversation about the misinformation
from some of the newspapers.
I don't know whether you saw it,
but you mentioned him already.
Dan Caesar from Electric Vehicles UK posted a graphic
from an article where somebody's actually gone
and done an analysis of all the motoring articles,
I believe, across at Mail Telegraph,
Times Express, FT, Guardian, Sun, Mirror
and The Independent.
Guess which of those had the most positive
or mostly positive articles about electric vehicles?
Yeah, which of those?
I mean, you'd not naturally think
that sort of left-wing papers will be more inclined
to disruptive environmental technologies
and therefore you expect to see that.
And so I would expect car reviews
to be relatively similar across all of them
because that's kind of the nature of it.
But then you'd see opinion pieces
would slant negative in some of those,
shall we say, centre-right publications.
That would be my assumption,
but I have a feeling, Gary, you're going to surprise me.
Well, I've got to say I was surprised.
I'm not sure whether I should have been or not.
In terms of totally positive,
obviously the Guardian has more totally positive
as a percentage of all articles,
the Guardian has mostly positive ones than anyone else.
But in terms of positive and mostly positive,
it's the Mirror.
And I don't know why, but that surprised me.
I would have expected, yeah, maybe a couple,
but they're generally, as a rule,
across all of the articles they've done
where they mentioned electric vehicles,
they'd be mostly positive or positive overall,
which, yeah, surprising.
What do you think?
Yes, they are a left-wing publication,
so maybe that fits with that kind of bias,
to some extent, pro-intervention and environmentalism.
So that kind of makes sense,
but then a tabloid, you might think not so much.
So yeah, I don't mean it's...
I would say they're not that far behind
or they're not that far ahead of the sun,
which also has quite a lot of positive
or mostly positive articles.
So again, tell me nowadays,
is the sun mostly right-wing
or is it mostly left-wing?
It tends to swap.
Mostly right, so I would think.
Okay.
So yeah, that would be another pleasant surprise.
But I've certainly seen some quite clickbait
anti-EV stuff in the sun, for sure.
But equally, they review cars.
You know, there are some fundamental about EVs
that you can't really get away from.
They're unbelievably brilliant in terms of performance.
There's only a limit to how much you can sort of
not mention that.
I drove this, it was quiet, it was unbelievably quick,
it was absolutely awesome.
I mean, I didn't like it for a reason.
You know, once you actually look at the cars,
the problem is quite hard to get away from it,
other than just apply pure nostalgia.
I like the sound of V8.
Yeah, I get that, I'm old too,
but it's pure nostalgia, right?
There isn't anything inherently good about that.
It's just like reminds me of
what I thought was good when I grew up.
But yeah, no, it's certainly interesting.
So, talk to me about the advert that you were proposing
to Pod that contrasted ice with electric vehicles.
So, what was that doing?
What sort of things were you focusing on?
It's absolutely trying to own the experience
of driving an EV.
And as I say, I don't think anyone does that at the moment.
OEMs want to own their car.
No one is out there trying to own
the experience of driving an EV.
And I'm talking about mass markets.
So, allow me to make generalizations here.
I know it's very difficult to operate an EV.
If you have no home charging, you have no work charging
and there's limited public network around you.
I appreciate that.
There are edge cases where it is very difficult to drive an EV.
But my favorite stat in all this stuff came out,
I think about 2018, 2019.
So, it's getting old, but I think it's probably
still about true, which is 72% of drivers
have access to off-street parking at home.
It's in the PWC report called Powering Ahead, I think.
And of course, it's drivers who drive cars, not households.
Households works out about kind of 60, 40 in split,
but actually car drivers are slightly biased towards
houses or living arrangements where they have
off-street parking or parking of some descriptions,
which would make sense if you think about it.
So, 72% were pushing three-quarters of drivers
in the UK have access to off-street parking at home
and therefore have the potential
to get some kind of home charger in.
So, let's talk mass market.
Mass market has a home charger.
Now, let's focus in what the reality of using those things is.
So, this is not your middle-aged men on the YouTube channel
who are gonna go,
I'm going from John of Groats to Land's End again,
because that's what I do every day.
I have to drive this enormous distance
and it's so key, if you can't do this, you can't live on.
We all know that the average mileage per day
is somewhere in a region of 20, between 20 and 22,
depending on which you look at it, miles, right?
That's not very far.
And if your EV did 25 miles,
you would be disappointed with that.
We really expect 10X that now, don't we?
We expect C250, real well-masked.
So, someone doing typical mileage
in a typically the, what does that look like?
And what do we do on most days we go to work?
We go take kids to school.
Kids go to school, we go to work,
we do our shopping, we come home.
That is the reality of how people operate their cars.
So, it was framing it in that environment.
Right, how's that day start?
It's a rush to get to work,
to get to school, all those sorts of things.
How does Neve help?
Gary, you talked about that thing
I think it's probably the most visceral first thing
about the ownership of an EV,
which is like, well, I don't have to use the scraper again.
So, yeah, the cars I start,
it won't be by the time I go look to it, right?
And that's just kind of amazing.
So, let's highlight that.
So, we get up, we're rushing, we're rushing, we're rushing.
We go to the car, one of the cars is defrosted,
the other one have to run the engine
and we're scraping and it's making us later
and all that sort of stuff.
The idea of the advert is a split screen.
So, as we go into the two experience
of living with a nice car and living with an EV,
they're side by side.
So, we're often running much happier in the EV,
it was much quicker to get going,
all those sorts of things.
We're now a little bit late.
You have a slightly stressed journey to school
and work and all those sorts of things,
whereas the EV one is much more serene.
That then goes into your day
and you do your montage,
whatever the kids are doing the day
and they can be the same.
So, you immersion to one
and then we come back to the end of the day.
And my one on that
is the idea that the mum
is going to pick the kids up from school
and then collect the husband from the station
after she finishes her own work.
So, I'm sure there's lots of assumptions there
which are questionable,
but I think it's quite a realistic scenario.
And the idea is we split again
and the warning light comes on in the petrol car
with low on petrol
and it comes on in the EV.
And we're low on charge.
So, then I was like, oh no.
In the petrol car,
she has to go and detour
of our petrol station
on the way to get to the station.
The mum's like, all right,
better plug that in when I get home.
She goes straight to pick the husband
after the kids get into the car.
Pick the husband from the station, go home.
The petrol car has to go to the petrol station.
And this is a little bit mean
because I've got a two year old daughter.
So, the world of mums and cars
and parenting is very big in my world at the moment.
And universally mums hate petrol stations
to the point where often they won't even do it.
They'll just say, no, you're going
but you do that later.
You put petrol in the car for me, I'm not going.
Because the point is if you've got young kids,
do you get them out of the car,
which is a real faff, right?
Getting them in and out of the car is a real faff.
You then get them into the shop.
Now you've got a mad martin
while they walk around the shop
and pick things up and break things
and all that kind of stuff.
Or do you leave them in the car
and you're now a bad mum, right?
I've got a Model 3 at the moment.
If I leave my kid in the car
and walk away from me, it beeps at me.
I call it snitch mode.
It does this really high pitch scream.
You get a child detected in your vehicle.
Like, I know, it was really like.
Anyway, so between the two, it's not great.
Either of those is not a good option.
And if you get your kids out of the car
or a petrol station, it is just the bleakest environment.
It feels so dangerous.
You get a kid out that wonders.
There's a throughput of cars the whole time.
It's a hideous.
Everything about this is absolutely wretched.
Anyway, that delays them.
They go to the station and pick up dad
who's now cold and bored and grumpy.
They get home.
Oh, of course, you see how much it costs
to fuel as well.
So that's a key thing.
The first that are already home,
they're home, they're inside.
They're looking at the app,
seeing how much that this is cost
is like basically negligible.
Oh, they forgot to plug in.
Other lot come home and they're grumpy.
They get in.
The last part of the video is it cuts back to
the kid runs outside, plugs the car in,
runs back inside and shuts the door.
Cause you can do it.
You wouldn't let your kid spray pressurized explosive
about the place, would you?
Plug in EV in.
Yeah.
Plug in EV in.
Great.
The kid can do that as well.
So basically it's just to really highlight
the, all the realities of that.
In the most mundane day,
that is what you're selling.
That is 90 plus percent of your life with the car.
That is what you really, really do.
You do not drive from John the Great to Land's End.
That is just no one is doing that.
So everyone is doing that scenario.
And it was just, it's just to bring, bring home that.
Now that the spit that I a little bit
have moral qualms about is if I'm a mum,
now I'm thinking, oh, if I have a petrol car,
I'm really letting my family down.
That's really terrible.
I really should,
why am I taking my kids to a petrol station?
This is absolutely awful.
Well, it wouldn't be great if it just showed up,
hey, I'm gonna be cheaper as well.
I mean, this is something I should really do.
And the mental load on mums to get everything
right in their life is already vastly too high.
And I'd be adding to it,
but it wouldn't reduce its efficacy as an advert.
Because actually from a family point of view,
EVs are ludicrously better.
You don't have a fumes that have all those sorts of things,
but also it's just, you know,
you now take ownership of the vast majority
of putting energy back into it at your home, right?
And I've not seen anyone,
anyone come close to making that case.
And that is the reality for the vast majority of users.
So I would love to see someone make that.
I think that's an excellent advert.
I love this group when I read it.
And I have one that's, it's kind of similar, but the-
Well, I'm looking forward to this, Gary.
Theme is more on,
because the other thing that people,
that I get pushed back a lot,
especially around where I live,
where they all like their diesel Range Rovers
and things like that, is-
Well, I go down to-
It's Fombra.
They're like the Gulf Streams at Fombra, Gary.
Well, there is that.
There is definitely that, yeah.
But there is the narrative which is,
well, I go down to the south of France every year
in my car and it's a nice diesel
and I can go all the way down there without refuelling
and you can't do that with an electric vehicle, can you?
And yes, absolutely right.
You cannot get from where I am down to the south of France
in electric vehicle without recharging,
unless you're Kevin Booker and drive it 20 miles an hour.
But that's a different thing.
But, you know, in my mind, the advert is,
you've got the guy in his diesel Range Rover
and he sets off.
And in the background, you've got the guy in his,
we'll call it a Tesla, for want of a better word,
who follows him?
And they get down to the channel tunnel
and the guy parks up his Range Rover
and he goes in to have something to eat
before they train.
The Tesla guy plugs his car in at the channel tunnel.
Then at the other side, they're heading down.
They get to the outskirts of Paris.
I think we might stop for lunch.
So the guy in the Range Rover stops for lunch.
Guy in Tesla stops for lunch, plugs it in.
Then they get down to the,
they're not gonna do it all in one day.
So they're gonna go to an overnight hotel somewhere.
So the Range Rover guy stops at the hotel
and in the background, guess what?
The Tesla guy's plugging in
because there's a AC charger there.
And then when they get down to the south of France,
they both arrive at pretty much the same time.
Yeah, and it just, it changes the mindset
that it can't be done.
Yes, there are things you've got to do slightly differently,
but it doesn't mean that it's impossible.
And it doesn't mean that you're having to sit
and make extra stops and wait for an extended period
of time, which again is another one of the,
the misperceptions or the misconceptions
that people have about electric vehicles.
I've got to spend hours charging.
I don't know about you,
but I spend 25, 30 minutes tops when I'm charging
because I don't go all the way to 100%.
And I'm charging because I'm doing something else
at the same time.
So that's kind of my idea.
So I think between us,
we've got the market corner, don't we?
Yeah, nailed that.
Who's gonna give us the money?
That's the question.
No, I totally agree with that.
I also think let's imagine
a neighbor of mine goes to Scandinavia
and tows something in his Audi estate.
And they do the trip, it takes 23 hours.
He goes with a member of his family and they do it one go.
Fine, can't do that in Evie.
Totally agree with you, can't do that in Evie.
And if you did do it in Evie every four hours,
your brakes would be 15 minutes longer.
Oh no, that's a good outcome.
And likewise, I've got to ask
if I'm working on the moment on charge rate.
Yeah, do we need absolutely massive charge rates?
Those drivers are so irregular.
You're talking about fractions of fractions
of fractions of a percent.
Does it justify something that would allow you
to charge in under five minutes to put 200 miles in it?
And when I'm thinking about these long journeys,
I always think of basically, in the UK,
maybe in France, if you drive through France,
you realize there's nothing in it
and it just goes on forever.
But in the UK, if you average 50 miles an hour
on a long trip, you've done pretty well.
Because you're gonna hit some of those 50 mile an hour bits,
you're gonna do a bunch of 70,
you're gonna get either end of your journey,
you're gonna go around.
So it doesn't take long to work this out.
200 miles is four hours.
I'm bored after two, Gary, I don't know about you,
but I'm going, do I want a cost or a Starbucks
at that point?
And I'm starting to look for where I'm gonna go.
And of course, I may well twin that
with topping up my car.
But it's just not a hardship at all, right?
It really isn't.
And it's almost the fact that you have to do that,
you might have to do a slightly additional stop.
And I think for most driving,
in my existence, I was looking for a cost for a Starbucks
when I was driving petrol cars as well,
just because I'd get bought.
I've done crazy miles in the US
and driven for nine hour days and stuff like that.
It's not great.
If you were gonna extend my stops by 15 minutes,
I wouldn't cry about it, okay?
But I can sort of see that there may be some
tiny amount of value there.
For the most part, I just don't think there is.
All you're doing is describing to me
what the status quo is.
It wouldn't be materially worse
if it took you 15 minutes longer.
And if you drove like a normal human
and you stopped like a normal human
and you emptied like a normal human,
because this is quite a critical thing.
A lot of people on the internet seem to forget,
I don't wanna look in the footwells of their cars.
But we do need to not only take on food and drink,
but we need to release the previous food and drink
at some point.
I'd be surprised if you find you actually
stopped for much longer at all.
And I think your example is a really, really good one.
I actually did something similar.
A friend of mine lives in Switzerland
and got married in Lausanne.
So that was not an inexpensive few days down there.
But we went down and again,
Havas-Heslas so could use their network
and basically did exactly as you described.
And it was a doddle the entire way.
Oh, you can't do long journeys.
And I was like, well, I went to, yeah,
when it was Verbi8 that they got married in, sorry,
Verbi8 from, you know, mid-susets.
I felt that was reasonably long and it was a doddle.
And that usually ends that conversation pretty quick.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I've said it on the podcast before.
In the EV rally last year,
the London Bright EV rally,
we went down to Geneva
and Tim Rothfuss who was driving
and I came back from Geneva to my house in a day.
We stopped at Paris for lunch
and that was it.
Basically, we did a little charge just at the ferry port
and that was it.
It was a non-event.
Yeah, 100%.
Now, if you were doing the London Brighton
and ended in Geneva,
I would question your sat-nav at that point.
Things have gone wrong on that journey.
But the point stands, it was an impressive journey.
Yeah.
The, for the listeners, London's Brighton EV rally is,
it was London's Brighton
and then there's a separate rally that goes Brighton
who now two years ago, we went Brighton to Paris.
Last year, we went Brighton to Paris to Geneva.
This year, we went Brighton to Bruges to Amsterdam.
Again, all electric, about a dozen of us,
multiple different cars.
We even took a Renault Espace-type people mover.
Couple of dogs, things like that.
A bus we took last year.
It's entirely possible and, you know, wish you.
James, I want to bring this to a close.
Is there anything finally that you would like to say
to the listeners on this topic before we close?
It's a very fine question, Gary.
I think no is probably the answer.
So, essentially, the one thing I'd like to say to you, Gary,
is it's a pleasure to see you again
in my new independent capacity.
And I thank you very much for hosting me on your,
as you said, qualified, successful podcast.
Likewise, the pleasure is all mine.
James, thanks a lot for your time.
Appreciate it.
A couple of takeaways from this discussion.
We both agreed that there's definitely a need
for some sort of educational mass marketing effort
covering TV, newspapers, radio, social media,
something that's not linked specifically to one manufacturer,
but which covers the experience of living with an EV.
We're also both agreed that it's both expensive
and something that individual groups,
such as EVA England or Electric Vehicle UK,
would probably find it difficult to fund by themselves.
So we probably need to be looking
at alternative ways of doing this.
So what do you think?
Let me know at info at evmusing.com.
It's time for a cool EV or renewable thing
to share with you listeners.
A Chinese company called Soars, S-A-W-E-S,
is building flying wind turbines that float high in the sky
and capture strong and steady winds.
These turbines use less material and land
and traditional ones making them cheaper
and more environmentally friendly.
Soars aims to produce powerful turbines
that can generate as much energy
as big ground turbines, but at a lower cost.
Obviously these will need to be placed in locations
where there's no chance of hitting things like aircraft
and the ground connections will need to be robust
in case of extremely high winds,
but if they prove to be scalable and commercial,
they should be great.
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Now I hope you enjoyed today's show.
It was put together this week
with the help of James McKee-Me.
If you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms
or other general messages to pass on to me,
I can be reached at info at evmuseams.com.
On the socials I'm on Blue Sky
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Now I've spoke to a few of you
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ironing, all sat on the sofa
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But if you can remember and you enjoyed the episode,
drop a review in iTunes, please,
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Thank you very much.
If you've reached this part of the podcast
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Why not let me know you've got to this point
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Hashtag if you know you know, nothing else.
Thanks as always to my co-founder, Simon.
You know, I wondered if he'd ever thought about
leveraging his electric unicycle friend group
to start a food delivery service.
I know he's been thinking about it for a while
and I wasn't sure he'd gone into the same level
of detail about it that I had.
He told me...
That's a really interesting idea
and I wouldn't say I've done any more thinking
than you, Gary.
That sounds like you're quite advanced
in your thinking on this.
Thanks for listening.
Bye.
About this episode
Gary and James McKee-Me discuss the shortcomings of current electric vehicle (EV) advertising, emphasizing the lack of practical education about living with an EV. They critique typical car ads for focusing on aesthetics and range without addressing real-life usage, charging challenges, and lifestyle benefits. They propose a mass media campaign funded by multiple stakeholders to better educate consumers on the EV experience. The conversation also covers dealer knowledge gaps, misinformation in media, and the need to normalize EVs through peer influence and realistic messaging. They share ideas for impactful adverts contrasting EVs with petrol cars in everyday scenarios.
Original notes
In this conversation, Gary Comerford and James McKemey discuss the current state of electric vehicles and the significant gaps in education and promotion surrounding them. They explore the role of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in marketing EVs, the challenges posed by misinformation, and the importance of home charging.
This discussion emphasizes the need for a comprehensive public education campaign to inform potential EV users about the benefits and realities of living with electric vehicles. They also touch on the future of charging infrastructure and the necessity of addressing public perception to facilitate wider adoption of EVs.
In this conversation, Gary Comerford and James McKemey discuss the current state of electric vehicles (EVs) and the significant gaps in education and promotion surrounding them. They explore the role of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in marketing EVs, the challenges posed by misinformation, and the importance of home charging.
The discussion emphasizes the need for a comprehensive public education campaign to inform potential EV users about the benefits and realities of living with electric vehicles.
They also touch on the future of charging infrastructure and the necessity of addressing public perception to facilitate wider adoption of EVs.
Guest Details:
James McKemey is the founder of Rapid Charge Paradox, a consultancy helping organizations navigate the transition to EVs and the role of charging infrastructure. With 14+ years' hands-on experience in EV charging at Pod Point and deep expertise in EV related policy, James specializes in bridging the gap between decarbonisation ambitions and real-world delivery. He works with organisations to solve the practical challenges of fleet electrification, and writes extensively about EV uptake, policy matters and EV charging business models & infrastructure deployment.
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
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The EV Musings Podcast
Gary Comerford
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47:49