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Hi, I'm Gary and this is episode 278 of EVV Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles
and things that are interesting to electric vehicle owners.
And on the show today, we'll be looking at new automotive.
A quick reminder that next week is the last episode of the season, so it's the round table.
And I'll be speaking with Vicki Edmunds from EVA England, Vicki Reid from Charge UK and
Tania Sinclair from Electric Vehicle UK.
So three of the top female CEOs in the industry all on the same podcast.
And yes, we'll probably talk about the budget.
Now our main topic of discussion today is new automotive.
Now many people are concerned that they shouldn't get an EV because it might be a passing fad
or they've been replaced in a few years by something like hydrogen.
And a lot of this is fueled by shock headlines in the media about falling sails and similar
and most of which are gross misrepresentations of the data or just plain lies.
So what I wanted to do today was to speak with someone who doesn't produce scurrilous
blog posts, decrying the state of EVs or pontificate on social media about why he thinks that EVs
not the way forward based on his feelings or what he sees in the local car park.
But I want to speak to someone who gathers and reports on actual empirical data.
My name's Ben and I'm the Chief Executive of New Automotive.
New Automotive is a nonprofit organization that carries out research and analysis to
support the transition to EVs.
Talk to me a little bit about the origin of New Automotive.
Where did it come from?
What was the impetus to start?
Yeah, sure.
So it's been going five years now.
We started it in 2020.
It was a bit of a lockdown project.
I felt and some of my co-founders felt that there wasn't really any organization
out there that was really sort of pushing pushing forwards EVs to government and try
to advocate for ambitious EV policy in the UK and also championing the benefits
that EVs offer for the millions of motorists across the UK.
So we set up New Automotive in 2020 and it's gone from there, really.
So, yeah, that's us.
That's us.
Now, you did mention the government and obviously we're recording this
couple of days after the budget.
So at some point I do want to loop back with you and sort of talk a little bit
about some of the research you may or may not have done regarding that
and what you think might happen.
Before we go into that, New Automotive produced a lot of reports
and a lot of blog posts out there, including insights on new car sales,
it says, but that's not all you do.
Talk to me a little bit about the other sort of data that you provide
and what sort of customers you provide that for, please.
Yeah, sure, certainly.
I mean, that's certainly the thing we're most well known for.
And we've done various things over the years.
We ran a program for a number of years that helped local authorities
plan charging infrastructure and understand EV uptake locally.
We've also done a number of other things looking outside the UK as well.
So we have a tracker that looks at global EV sales
in the key automotive markets around the world.
And so we look at the biggest markets capturing about 80% of global car sales
and which markets are electrifying the quickest
and also what's driving that electrification.
We also run something at the moment, which is a project
that tracks European battery manufacturing projects, which sounds technical.
But basically we're looking at all of the sites, all of the factories
and installations across Europe where the bits that go into EV batteries
are made and that goes from, that looks at gigafactories,
it looks at the production of things like cathodes and anodes,
right the way back up the supply chain to the mining as well.
And then also down the supply chain beyond the vehicle use case
of the batteries and looks at recycling as well.
And that's a monthly updated database.
We think it's the most comprehensive, free and open database out there
that people can use to understand how many jobs are being created,
the investment that's going into this new sector of the European economy.
So yeah, that's something else we do as well.
But really we do anything that involves looking at taking a creative look at data,
maybe producing some interesting tech product as well
that can help support this transition.
So sort of looping back a little bit to the first of those things,
which is the global EV sales.
Now, we in the UK think that we're quite progressive
and we're doing quite well.
We've got the Zed mandate and in X number of years time,
we're all going to be driving around electric vehicles.
But how are we actually, how do we rate against some of the other countries globally?
Yeah, it's a great question.
I mean, there are always examples of countries that are further ahead of us.
People will have heard,
I'm sure listeners of this podcast have heard people going on about Norway
and how advanced Norway is.
And certainly a very, you know,
almost all new cars bought in Norway these days are fully electric.
And there are other countries as well,
some of the other Scandinavian and Nordic countries in Europe
also have very, very high market share percentages.
But we might, for various reasons, think that those countries
are quite different in characteristic to the UK.
For one thing, many of them don't have much car manufacturing themselves.
They're also quite rich countries
and many of them are fuel importers.
Although, of course, Norway is not a massive fuel producer.
So if you were to say, well, let's look at the markets
that are just major automotive markets,
countries that are similar to us, France, Germany
or other very large markets such as the United States or China.
India, these countries, actually, we don't rank quite well.
If you look at the share of the market in the UK that is fully electric
and you just take the top 10 car markets around the world
by the number of cars sold,
we're the second, we have the second highest rate of EV uptake
amongst those markets and we're second to China in that league table.
So we do pretty well on this.
We're not, I wouldn't say that we are the global leader,
but we are certainly a leading market globally for EV uptake.
Having mentioned India there,
now I know India has, I believe India has a very large uptake of electric vehicles,
but there's not a huge proportion of car sales.
A lot of them are moped and motorbikes.
Is that right or am I sort of looking?
Yeah, you're not wrong.
And certainly historically, that has been the case.
India had, until fairly recently, quite a small car market.
The car market is growing, though.
I mean, it's recently overtaken the UK in size,
but of course, India is a much bigger country
and of their car sales are relatively low proportion are fully electric.
I don't actually remember what the percentage figure is, but it's low.
But yes, electric motorbikes, they're certainly taking off in India
and in countries where they have better weather than the UK
and motorbikes might be a more attractive option of going electric
can make a lot of sense.
And also markets where motorbikes might be quite old
or used for transporting a lot of goods and equipment and people.
Internal combustion engine motorbikes operated under those circumstances
can become pretty inefficient.
And so the incentive to go electric is there in those circumstances.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Let's bring it a little bit closer to home.
Now, if we're talking about EV sales, I know that the SMMT,
the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders,
tend to produce what they refer to as the official sales figures
for vehicles at the end of every month.
But you also produce a report that does something similar.
You publish one at the start of November
and I think the headline on that was that EV sold more than petrol cars
in the UK and I posted it out and somebody said,
the data is wrong because the SMMT say otherwise.
Now, I believe that's a methodology difference.
Can you sort of talk me through that, please?
Yeah, sure, I can do.
Yeah, we had lots of people discussing this.
It's not often that we see the number of battery electric cars
overtaking the number of petrol.
And so it's obviously it's a notable milestone
if and when it happens.
And I think the difference ultimately comes down to what,
how you define a petrol car.
So in short, we take our data from from a mixture from the DVSA
and the DVLA.
I'm afraid it's acronym SUP,
but it's these are the two public bodies that are responsible,
respectively, for vehicle safety standards and for vehicle licensing.
And they hold the legal record of what is registered and on the road
in the UK and they they provide this data to a number of organisations.
They provide it to us and we get a record for each vehicle
and it will say things like, you know, the make is a Tesla
and the model is a Model 3 and the fuel type is.
And then the DVLA assigns its own fuel type categories to these vehicles
and they will say things like petrol, diesel, electricity.
In some cases, we occasionally get steam vehicles.
We see them coming through, not cars, but you do occasionally get.
I mean, they have to be licensed.
So they are in that database and then some will be hybrids as well.
And the DV we follow what the DVLA assigned to a vehicle
for its fuel type category.
But the DVLA's approach, you know, it's not it's not absolutely perfect,
but we follow it because it's the it's the public authority
that that regulates these things and they assign the hybrid category
to vehicles that include some mild hybrid self, you know,
so-called self-charging hybrids vehicles such as this.
And that means that our hybrid figure contains a lot
of what other people might describe as a petrol car.
And so I think, you know, I don't want to comment too much
on what the SMMT's methodology is.
But my understanding is that they will be including more vehicles
in the petrol category and fewer in the hybrid category.
And that's where that difference comes from.
And at times when you get vehicles that are
counted in that in that sort of narrower definition of petrol
falling below the the battery electric segment,
obviously, our data starts to look really quite different from theirs.
Is overall, we're counting the same number of vehicles.
It's just that it's just that the way that they are categorised
is a little bit different.
So the knock on effect on that is how that applies
with this dev mandate.
Now, I know you also capture where individual OEMs
are against the the mandate.
What's the current situation on that?
What do we need to meet?
What do we what do they need to meet this year?
What's the percentage?
Yeah, sure. So the headline target is 28 percent
of a manufacturer's sales should be should be zero emission.
Now, of course, in reality, as with as with these things,
there's always a little bit more complicated than this.
And the way that the Department for Transport has decided
that manufacturers can meet that target is it's a little bit
like a game where you have to accrue enough points
in order to to to stay in the game to meet that target.
And you can earn points in lots of different ways.
You can earn points by by selling electric cars
or you can earn points by making the non electric cars,
the non zero emission cars that you sell more fuel efficient
and the Department for Transport says, well, you know,
if you suppose you have doubled the fuel efficiency
of your petrol car sales and you're also selling some EVs as well,
they take the view that you should be rewarded for the fact
that you have improved the fuel efficiency of your of your petrol car sales.
It's not unreasonable if those cars are more fuel efficient,
then they are emitting less carbon.
That is a good thing to encourage.
And so therefore, you are rewarded some points.
And so this means that the car manufacturers might look like
they are missing that headline target,
but they could actually be meeting it
because they are earning these points from their hybrid car sales.
And we try and shed a bit of light on the operation of this feature
of the policy by by quantifying what we call the implied ZEV sales target,
which is sounds complicated.
But what it means is it's the it's the once you take into account
the points that are earned from the fuel efficiency improvements,
is how many points are left over that need to be earned from ZEV sales
from sales of electric cars.
And that's why we can then say, you know, we can say company A,
OK, they've got the headline targets 28 percent,
but actually they're they're selling lots more hybrids.
These are much more fuel efficient vehicles.
Therefore, their implied target is something like 20 percent
could be reduced down to there.
Some manufacturers are really very effective at reducing that target.
They, you know, they have gone big on hybrids
and their their effective EV sales target has fallen in some cases
down to, you know, very, very low percentage figures.
In fact, I think one manufacturer
and give your listeners, I suppose this will go out after we publish
our next bulletin, but one manufacturer is about to reduce their target
to 2.8, which is a very, very low target.
Also means looking at the the vehicle sales in this way
and scoring the manufacturer's performance also means that we can look
across the market and say, how is the market as a whole
meeting this 28 percent target figure?
In reality, the target doesn't apply to the market.
It applies to manufacturers each.
But we can say if the market as a whole is meeting the target,
that's important because it means that anyone who is falling short
of the target is going to be cheaper for them to comply with those targets
because of the because there is this there is this trading element
where manufacturers who have exceeded the target,
they've done more than they needed to do.
They can sell that over performance to those who have fallen short of the targets.
So there's a financial aspect to this policy as well.
And so that's why it matters whether or not the market as a whole has met the target.
We we our latest estimate, I think, is that EV sales across the UK
should be roughly at about 21 to 22 percent in order for
for manufacturers as a whole to be exceeding the target,
to be generating more points than they need to,
and therefore compliance for the industry as a whole looks a lot easier.
So so we're in a good, pretty good position.
I think the last time I checked EV sales in the year to date,
we're at about 24 percent across the UK.
So that's as of the end of October.
So that that's looking pretty good.
You know, industry has managed to meet the target as a whole.
And that that's excellent for the UK's climate change ambitions.
Absolutely. And correct me if I'm wrong,
but as we go towards the end of the Zev mandate as we hit 2030,
the ability to I'm going to use the phrase horse trade,
then the ability to trade the different credits and that diminishes.
So do you have any sense at the moment as to
given the trend of the data that you've seen already,
which of the manufacturers do we're probably going to start sweating
a little bit as you get towards 2030?
Well, yeah, that's a that's a big question.
I mean, there's there's still a fair amount of time between now and 2030.
I mean, four years is not very long
if you want to design and bring to market a new car from scratch.
And but four years is quite a long time
if you already have plans and you are scaling up production.
And that's the that's the position that most manufacturers are in.
And so and so the question then is how much of of the
and these manufacturers, it's worth remembering,
they are global companies and cars that they will sell all over the world.
And they can decide what stock they send to different countries
and they can do that in a much shorter time period than four years.
And so what really the question for the manufacturers
is how of your global EV production,
how much you're going to send to the UK to meet your regulatory targets here.
And the mandate should really ensure that we get the EVs first as a country,
which is a good thing because it means we get cleaner air
and all the running cost savings associated with the EVs as well.
So I wouldn't like to say that there is any manufacturer
that I think is going to be unable to meet the target.
They really can surprise you.
You know, for many years, Ford was no was sort of reputed as a manufacturer
that hadn't really kind of jumped both feet first into the EV transition.
But their EV sales this year have just skyrocketed.
I mean, they are the last time I checked,
they were growing at a rate of north of 300% this year.
So it is very possible for manufacturers to change course
and to come back onto a pathway to compliance quite quickly.
And I think with the EV mandate, the way the policy is designed
is that it is almost always worth, in fact, I will say it is always
more worth their while for them to try and meet the targets
than to just ignore the policy and fall short.
I would be quite confident that the market as a whole will meet the target
in 2030 and I wouldn't like to pick out any manufacturers, I'd say.
I have faith in all of their abilities.
Many of these are either very new and innovative companies
or they are very longstanding and well-established companies
that really know their customers and they are best placed to know
how to make this transition work.
So I remain very optimistic for the target in 2030.
OK, a couple of things that come out of that then.
When we talk about the budget, there is an implied...
The OBR have said there is an implied reduction in the number of EVs
that are going to be sold and that will have an impact on the Z mandate.
And I want to loop back about that when we talk about the budget.
But talking of companies like Ford, I mean, obviously they brought
in the Jenny Puma, which is I think that's the vehicle
that started to boost their sales.
Now, traditionally from an EV point of view, Tesla were the 800 pound gorilla.
They were the ones who sold more than anybody else in the UK.
I don't think that's the case anymore.
Do you have off the top of your head sort of any figures
who are the top two or three manufacturers
for EVs in the UK at the moment?
Sorry.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, you've really put me on the spot there and testing
whether I do know my testing, whether I know my figures.
I think in the year to date, I don't know about the model breakdown,
I'm afraid, but in the year to date, I think Tesla are still number one
in the UK. They're still they're still the biggest
still hold the biggest share of the EV market, right?
So we're just looking at EVs, pure battery electric car sales here.
But I mean, got certainly gone are the days of absolute Tesla dominance
where they took almost I think at times almost a fifth of EV sales in the UK.
Those days are well behind us, and that's partly a result of the fact
that other manufacturers have come into this market
and partly as a result of the fact that
that Tesla's sales have sort of struggled to see the rates of growth
really to keep up with.
Well, in fact, I think in some cases they have struggled
to see sales growth in the UK full stop.
So yeah, Tesla number one, I'm actually now just looking at some figures here.
I can see that Volkswagen number two and BMW are just behind them after that.
But yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't be surprised if we see it if we see a day
when when Tesla don't hold the top spot and perhaps quite soon.
So it's all to play for.
Yeah. And of course, one of Tesla's biggest markets is the US.
And of course, with the change of administration over there,
the general sentiment towards electric vehicles has become a lot more negative.
Do you have any data or insight into how the like, for example,
they've they've canceled these $7000 federal grant for EVs over there?
Do you have any sort of information about how that has affected EV sales in the US?
So I think, yeah, I mean, I think it's still sort of relatively early days
because the various programs were phased out in the autumn of this year.
And we're talking now in November.
My understanding is that sales did rise before the withdrawal of subsidies.
This is often a pattern.
You know, if it's announced that the tax break is going to end at a particular point,
people rush to make the most of it while it's still there.
That's, you know, that's always going to happen.
And then I think I think it's it's likely that we may see
EV sales simply plateauing for a little bit.
And then in the longer term, it really depends.
There are still big question marks over the status of some of the
some of the other regulations here.
So California has its own ZEV mandate and the future of that.
I think, you know, I'm sure that it will be decided by the courts
and lengthy processes in the US.
And so those targets will the future of those targets will be will be really crucial.
The other thing that will be crucial be the number of states
that have signed up to the latest iteration of those targets.
So California has implemented a ZEV mandate.
The way US legislation works means that other states can adopt those targets
and sign up to them and enforce them in their in their own territory.
And I know that some states have backed out of signing up to the latest
version of the targets and others are still considering it.
So yeah, so I think it's a lot of uncertainty.
And I'm afraid is this kind of all I could be tempted to say about
the future of US EV sales.
Let's move on to charging infrastructure.
Now, this podcast is sponsored by ZapMap.
And obviously they produce a lot of data and insights
that illustrate your trend when it comes to infrastructure
and the number of locations, number of units, et cetera.
But I believe you've gone into a little bit more detail
and you've done analysis, a little bit more nuance
when it comes to things like charging cold spots.
Can you talk about that, please?
Yeah, we have.
We have looked at that in the past.
I mean, we're always concerned when you have local authorities
playing a role in the role out of this infrastructure,
which may may result in local authorities that are perhaps
a bit slower off the mark at kind of starting to recognize
that they need to they need to have a plan and they need to start
thinking about where this infrastructure is going to go.
That can create some cold spots.
So yes, that is something we have looked at over the years
and tried to highlight in order to kind of prompt
prompt some of the local authorities that have been a bit
slower to start moving a bit more quickly.
I do think the situation is very different to how it was a few years ago.
I mean, local authorities, I think now by and large,
they really do recognize that they they have to have a plan.
They also have a bit more funding from central government.
And I was pleased to see in the budget this year
that there was even more fun resource funding for councils
to employ to make sure that they have the staff and the in-house
kind of ability and expertise to start drawing up plans to develop them
and to make sure that this infrastructure is being rolled out.
So yeah, I mean, as always with these things,
when there's a local authority involved, things can be a bit slow moving.
But I think we'll start to see things moving much more quickly in the future.
Yeah, I remember doing an episode
quite a few seasons back about local authorities.
And I looked in, do you remember the Orcs, the off-road charging scheme?
Do.
On-road charging scheme.
Money basically the government was providing to put charges in.
And when I looked at the research of all the local authorities
and unitary authorities and that sort of stuff,
only a third of them had actually gone in and said,
yeah, we want that money.
And two thirds of them just either weren't bothered
or didn't believe in climate change or whatever.
So I think with with things like the Levi fund and that sort of stuff,
I think that's improving drastically now, isn't it?
Yeah, I think that that is definitely the case.
It really is improving.
I think there's also there will be a growing number of schemes as well
that don't actually require public funding and public support to which they may now.
So I think there's an element of caution that's going to be needed increasingly
when we look at the allocation of public funding for this stuff.
And we see that perhaps, you know, some council hasn't had any well.
That might be that might not mean that they're not installing charges.
It might just be that the money is coming from elsewhere.
Now, I believe you also worked with Electric Vehicles UK
on their cost of driving electric port earlier this year.
Talk to me a little bit about that, please.
Yeah, sure.
So Electric Vehicles UK that what they really wanted to do was to sort of really nail
down this question of whether or not it's worth getting an EV.
And they wanted to do a very, very comprehensive look at all of the aspects
or all of the costs involved in car ownership and over the length of time
that people own a car and then ask, is it is it worth your while to go electric?
Now, that's a really difficult question to answer.
It turns out people live, well, people use cars for all sorts of different things.
Everyone lives a different lives.
They have different patterns of travel and different jobs and they live
in different kinds of locations.
And so you have all of these different parameters.
So no analysis here can ever be totally comprehensive,
but we tried to be as comprehensive as we could be.
And what we did is we compared, we picked pairs of car models.
We had petrol or I think in some case diesel models versus fully electric
models that we considered to be roughly equivalent, that were available
for purchase in different scenarios.
So that might be the used market and where you're buying with cash,
or it might be new, bought with cash, I mean, that's pretty rare,
or it might be new on a leasing arrangement or news through Salo sacrifice,
all of these sorts of scenarios.
I think we looked at somewhere between 500 and a thousand different ownership
scenarios as well, all considering different charging profiles and the like.
And the findings were really surprising in some ways in that
actually in the used market, it's almost always worth your while to go electric.
They really, they really are some great cost savings available.
The cars are essentially almost a price parity, if not already at price parity.
Of course, the running cost savings are fantastic.
EVs also, it seems they don't depreciate once they are used.
They actually hold their value a little bit better than other used vehicles.
There are some, there were when we looked, I mean, this was some time ago, actually,
there was some, there was a slight premium to be paid on the insurance costs of the used EVs.
But we found that actually the service and maintenance savings canceled that out.
So that's quite neat and nice.
The area where there was sort of one big cost that jumped out at us in the used market
was with putting a charge point on your house, you need to get an electrician round.
It can cost quite a lot of money.
It's still worth your while to get an EV.
You're going to make those that that cost back in the savings quite quickly.
But that was somewhere where we felt like if government was looking for a way
to support the used market, that seemed to suggest itself as an obvious
candidate for an area of intervention.
In the new market, actually things were a little bit more mixed.
I mean, if you're not buying a car, if you're not getting a car
on a salary sacrifice arrangement, then your chances of making savings
are things were a little bit more finely balanced.
And if you were reliant on public charging and getting a new car
that wasn't on the salary sack, then you're less likely to see
really good savings as a result of going electric.
So those are the findings of the report.
As I say, you know, it was it was a little while ago now.
I'm trying to remember how long how long ago a matter of months that we did it.
But these things do quite quickly change.
And, you know, fuel prices change, electricity prices change, car prices change.
So they do, you know, the findings, I'm sure are still relevant.
But yeah, it's worth it's worth bearing in mind that some things
have probably moved in favour of EVs since then,
which brings us very nicely to the pretty much the main topic that I think
we've been wanting to talk about, which is the budget.
Now, obviously, we're a couple of days after the budget
and there were a number of things that were announced, which were both
positive and negative or seem to be negative.
Am I right in thinking that new automotive as an organisation
will take that and do some analysis and put out some reports
that help people understand what the impact of that is going to be?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think that's always that's always the role we seek to play
is the sort of distilling some some simple takeaways from the from the complexity
that that people are presented with.
And with the budget, when there are changes,
particularly that sort of impact directly on the on the personal
finances of motorists and motorists who are considering going electric
or who already have gone electric, I think we we would be keen to play
a role where we can help people kind of understand what it means for them.
So we're working on a calculator that we're hoping to launch quite soon,
which will allow people to to understand the impacts of the budget measures
on what it would mean if they were to switch to an EV or if they own an EV,
what it means for their running cost savings at the moment.
So to take a step back, the Chancellor announced a few things
that can impact EV owners or those considering an EV.
The first one is this electric vehicle mileage charge
that is going to be implemented from 2028.
And that is essentially a new tax.
It'll be on battery electric cars and on plug-in hybrids.
And the amount that you will pay annually will be proportional
to the mileage that you drive.
So you'll pay a rate per mile and for battery electric cars,
it's three pence per mile for plug-in hybrids.
It's it's for one point five pence per mile.
These are proposals, I should say.
There is a consultation going on.
And so if people are concerned about this,
I would encourage them to go to the Treasuries website,
read the consultation and by all means submit your own view.
I mean, I think they're keen for feedback on these proposals.
Now, this obviously, I think we'll have a number of people worried
who own an EV, you know, it's three pence per mile.
If you're driving 8000 miles a year or something like that,
then which is not, you know, that's that's fairly typical.
That's going to be a significant amount of money.
So the initial work calculations we've done on it
suggests that you're still going to be saving money
over owning a petrol car.
So it's not going to not going to remove
the running cost savings of going electric,
but it certainly does take a chunk out of them.
The other thing that was announced at the budget,
which I think possibly hasn't been quite as widely
or sort of fully digested by electric car owners,
was some action on the cost of electricity,
which was effectively removing some of the costs
associated with government policies
off people's energy bills and onto general taxation.
The effect of that, we're still sort of crunching the numbers,
but it looks like it might be as much as maybe three
to three and a half pence per kilowatt hour
on the unit rate of electricity,
if you were to, if it was to feed through in that way.
And that's not an insignificant saving for an electric car
driver, and it will give you back some of what you've lost,
basically, from the new mileage tax charge.
Won't give you back all of what you've lost,
but there's some of it.
So we're going to be launching a calculator soon.
People can use it.
They can put their number plate in.
It will use the vehicles publicly available,
MOT history to work out your mileage,
tell you how much you'll be paying in this new tax,
how much you might be saving from the reduction
in electricity prices.
If you drive an EV, it will give you some options
around what sort of electricity prices
you're already paying to feed into this consideration.
And it will show you what it would cost you to consider
going back to petrol,
which I sincerely hope nobody does as a result of this.
It wouldn't really make sense to do that from a cost perspective.
And then if you're driving a petrol or a hybrid car,
it'll say this is what you're probably paying in petrol
every month based on your car's fuel efficiency rating
and your mileage.
And then this is what you would like to pay
for a typical EV,
doing the same mileage in an EV,
even after the new mileage charge.
And so it gives people a bit of clarity
about what the budget means for these kinds of choices.
And hopefully that will help reassure people
that although this is not an ideal measure,
not an ideal thing for the chancellor to announce,
it's not going to take away all of those running cost savings.
And I think what gets lost a little bit
in all the uproar about this is two things.
First of all, if this three-penser mile does come into effect,
it's going to be 2028.
So we've got three years to sort that out.
But the other side to that is I believe the chancellor
announced that the freeze on fuel duty
is going to be removed in 10 months time.
And I don't know whether I'm right on this,
but it's going to be five pence,
a litre plus that.
So six pence a litre, 4.54609 litres to a gallon.
So in old money, that's almost 27 pence a gallon additional,
which people are going to have to pay to run a fossil fuel car.
So I think when we have those discussions,
it's worth making sure that that sort of calculation
gets included in the discussion.
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
And I mean, I think that look,
there's all sorts of considerations here,
one of which is the volatility of global oil markets.
You know, the oil prices is particularly low at the moment.
So your EV savings look a bit lower
than what they might ordinarily be.
If you buy a petrol car,
you're basically, you're taking a bet
on the future direction of the oil price.
It can go up as well as down.
Literacy prices historically
have always been much more stable.
Recent history, they haven't been
because of the war in Ukraine,
but for most of the period before that,
and for most of the time since,
they have been pretty stable.
Yes, they do rise occasionally,
but you know, you're buying,
in getting an EV, you're getting a little bit more,
a bit like going on to a fixed rate mortgage almost, isn't it?
You know, you kind of know what your monthly outgoings
are going to be much more clearly with an EV,
which is worth something.
Yeah, 100%, 100%.
We're coming towards the end of the time.
I've got two questions for you.
New automotive is an organisation.
What is your business model?
How are you making money?
Yeah, sure.
So we are a non-profit organisation
and most of our work is funded
from philanthropic grants.
So we receive grants to produce information
and outputs and reports that are for public consumption.
So most of the work we do is made fully public
and these are things like the tools on our website,
the reports that we produce.
So yeah, we exist to do something for the public benefit,
which is a really nice and privileged position to be in.
So yeah, if anybody wants to find out more,
do get in touch.
We're more than happy to always talk about the work we do
and to share things where we can.
So I'll put some links down in the show notes for people
if they want to follow that.
And finally, is there any topic
that you would have liked me to ask you about
or anything you'd like to let the audience know
that you think might be important for them?
No, I don't think so.
I mean, I think the calculator was the thing
I wanted to tell people about.
So we've covered that.
Fantastic.
So great.
We'll make sure that gets linked out there.
Ben, thanks a lot for your time.
Very much appreciated.
No worries.
Thanks, Gary.
If you want to hear more from Ben,
he did an in-depth interview with Liz Allen
from the Full Circle CI podcast earlier this year.
And the link to his calculator is in the show notes.
It's time for a cool EV or renewable thing
to share with your listeners.
A Norwegian company rents fully electric boats
for touring beautiful waterways without pollution or noise.
The boats run on batteries charged with clean hydro power
offering a quiet and eco-friendly cruise experience.
An American couple traveled over 200 miles
in one of these boats during a 16-day trip.
Propulsion is provided by a Torquido electric drive system
and there are two BMW 40 kilowatt-hour batteries used
in the body of the vehicle.
Cruising speed is about five and a half knots
with a maximum speed of about 10 knots in a range.
It's 53 nautical miles per charge.
Once again, the Norwegians prove
what can be done with electrification.
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Many thanks to everyone who supports me through Patreon
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Now, if you enjoyed this episode,
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Go to coffee.com slash evmusings
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Regular listeners will know about my two ebooks,
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Now, they're 99p each or equivalent
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Now, check out the links in the show notes
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and associated articles.
Now, I've spoke to a few of you
and I know that you're probably driving,
walking, jogging, ironing,
or, you know,
sat on the sofa watching this on your phone,
but if you can remember and you enjoyed the episode,
drop a review in iTunes, please.
Like, subscribe, leave a comment on YouTube
because it really helps.
Thank you very much.
If you've reached this part of the podcast
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Why not let me know you 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 always find it interesting
that flying along a strident electric unicycle
is a particularly weird way to communicate,
to commute to work.
I mean, it's hardly the best way
with the sort of cold wet weather
that we have here in the UK, right?
Yeah, you're not wrong.
And certainly historically, that has been the case.
Thanks for listening. Bye.
About this episode
Ben, CEO of New Automotive, discusses the organization's role in supporting the EV transition through data-driven research, including UK and global EV sales, battery supply chains, and infrastructure planning. They clarify EV market standings, explain differences in EV sales data, and analyze manufacturer compliance with the UK's ZEV mandate. The conversation covers the impact of the recent UK budget on EV ownership costs, including a new mileage tax and electricity price changes, and highlights a forthcoming calculator tool to help consumers understand these effects. They also touch on charging infrastructure challenges and the evolving EV market landscape.
Original notes
In this conversation, Ben Nelmes, Chief Executive of New Automotive, discusses the organization's role in supporting the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) in the UK. He shares insights on EV sales, market dynamics, the impact of the ZEV mandate, and the importance of charging infrastructure. The discussion also covers the cost analysis of electric vehicles, budget implications for EV owners, and the future of EV sales in the US. Overall, the conversation highlights the evolving landscape of the automotive industry and the critical role of data and research in facilitating this transition.
Guest Details:
Ben Nelmes - Executive Director of New AutoMotive
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:
- eVED Calculator
- Ben on the Full Circle CI podcast
- Electric Boat Goes 200 Miles In Norway - CleanTechnica - Cool Thing
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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36:36