Amazon launches used car platform, Chery launches third UK brand in 12 months, and Ford Puma is first to get full EV grant amount – with Ben Collins, episode 221

John, have I told you I'm addicted to Carwell's auctions?

You might have mentioned it, yeah.

Well, they're online six days a week. They're getting 20,000 fresh vehicles in every month.

It's actually one of my best sources of quality stock. Listings have got plenty of

photos, service history and background checks for peace of mind. And you can pay sellers

in a click with Carwell wallet. They even transport your car with built-in protection

of up to £25,000.

Well, that's more than you will ever need.

Exactly, John. So, dealers, if you're not on Carwell, you really should get in on the

auction. See what I've done, John.

Oh, God.

Anyway, to find out more, sign up for free at carwell.co.uk slash partners slash auctions.

Welcome back to the Car dealer podcast where we pick our favourite stories of the week and

ask an industry guest to choose which were the best. I'm John Ray and joining me this

week is Gosport's premier automotive electrician, James Baggett.

James.

Premier Yeti dealer, actually, John, because I've got four of those in stock at the

moment and desperately trying to get rid of them. So, if you want a Yeti, I'm

your man.

Right.

You seem to do this thing where you go, that sells really well. I'm just going to buy

all of them.

Yeah. And then saturate the market and then they stop selling. And then I realised I've

made a mistake.

Right, some updates for you, John. Suzuki, Jimny, Saga, the white one that I imported.

I've finally fixed and it's finally gone out the door this week. It actually drove

away yesterday and I cannot tell you quite how happy I was to see the back of that

car.

But do you want to know what the problem was? I mean, just a little reminder, the

speedos weren't working. We were trying to convert the clocks. We had three

different sets of clocks in it. None of them worked. Everybody said we needed a

new ECU. We imported a new ECU from Japan at the cost of £1,000, air freighted,

especially for us. It was all set to go up to Robin Luskens, the lead dealer,

Suzuki dealer, on Tuesday. But I had a last-ditch attempt of getting the

clocks man, as I called him, to come back out and try and give it a go, fix it.

Chris Martin.

Yeah, he wasn't available. But yes, this guy turned up and he looked at it for

about five minutes, then disappeared rapidly. Didn't even say goodbye. So I

rang him and I said, look, what can we do? Is there anything that we can do

to sort this car out? And he said, the only thing that's different after

I've messed about with those clocks is the stereo, which we put in. And we're all

thinking like, how on earth can a stereo stop a speedo working? So I said to

Darren, I'm mechanic, just take the stereo out just to see if it works, took

the stereo out, speedo started working. Okay. And do you know what it was,

John? It was one cable, an earth cable that had been incorrectly put in that

was causing the speedo to stop working. And so all of this hassle, all

these last eight weeks of saga was all down to one little piece of wire. So

yes, very frustrated. And do you know what the really good news is? The

thousand pound ECU, non refundable. If you know anybody who wants an ECU for

Suzuki Jimny 2015, please, please get in touch.

Well, and the good news for Robin Luscombe is that he's not had to

bear his ass to lead city centre.

No, he was quite, he was quite pleased when I called him up and said,

we don't need our appointment. And yeah, he didn't have to do that. But

yes, so obviously on the back of that, John, we had the excitement of all our

new imports arriving. So last week I told you about the fact we went up and

bought seven more from a dealer in, in Norfolk. I rang him on Tuesday and

asked him to add another Jimny to the transporter, which he did. So we

had eight turn up on Wednesday afternoon, two, two new Jimneys, one

old one, and some Volkswagen's in a Volvo. So we are busy preparing those, but

it was quite exciting to see them all.

Preparing James, just don't touch them.

No, no, I haven't done any of that.

And what I mean by preparing is I lovingly polished one yesterday

because our normal valentine is off on annual leave. And I'm having to

do everything again. So yeah, that was my day yesterday.

Polishing a Jimny is a bit like polishing one of your shoes.

So yeah, quite a quick, quite a quick job, quite a quick job.

But yeah, you can go and have a look at that advertised now and live on

AutoTrader and our other platforms. And hopefully it will sell.

It'll be interesting because all of the other ones we sold via other like

Google and our website, we didn't actually properly advertise them.

So this is the first one I've advertised properly.

So it'd be interesting to see how quickly if it's all yourselves.

I've got everything crossed because I've got two of them in stock.

So hopefully it works.

Anyway, let's talk to a man who knows more about imports than I do.

I'll let you do the intro, John.

So joining us this week is none other than Top Gear's former stick.

It's Ben Collins. Ben, lovely to have you.

It's great to be with you. How are you?

Very good, Ben.

You don't need an ECU for an old 2015 Jimny, do you?

I don't. But who doesn't love a Jimny?

They're great guys.

People love them.

They do love them.

They're really curious.

And I know we're going to talk about this in a minute,

but the cars from Japan, which is what I'm getting involved with now.

But the Jimny's in Japan are different spec.

So you can actually get you get same car, more seats.

So there's there's all these curiosities, the different different

locations with, you know, variations on cars we love.

But I'm, yeah, people are going crazy for Jimny's

and they're holding a value, aren't they?

Yeah, I've been quite impressed at how quickly they sold.

We had two new ones and an old 2015 model, and they sold very, very quickly.

And most of the people have just been waiting for us to go for all the

IVA testing and all of the registration process

that we've had to do for these imports, which is rather stressful

and has taken up a lot of our time.

But you're you're doing things slightly differently, aren't you?

Let's tell us a little bit about the before I go on to everything else.

Tell us a little bit about the business you're involved in now

and and how it all works.

Yeah. So well, since leaving Top Gear,

my main business has been doing stunts in movies and set up a YouTube channel.

So I had tons of fun with that.

So and through that, also, you know, getting to know more about your industry,

I suppose, car dealership through my warranty connections with warranty solutions group.

And that's been brilliant.

So I got to, you know, the more time I've spent with the likes

of Mike Brewer and yourself, the more I've got to learn about

the challenges of the industry and and the opportunities as well,

especially UK and how these different markets are so different.

The short the car shortage in the UK and trying to get good stock in that kind of stuff.

And then that's that's led me to get in touch with these guys

who have been working quietly in the background, trying to find a way,

best way to bring cars from Japan to the UK.

And I know a little bit about that just anecdotally,

because from back in the 90s, I've been buying cars that would, you know,

Japan that were Japanese imports, famously my beloved Toyota Supra,

which I wrote off stupidly on a country lane was one of them.

It didn't quite make it.

But it arrived, you know, pristine, far cheaper than cars we get in the UK.

So you get great value, but in great order, low mileage.

And so, yeah, it was that was a great opportunity when I was younger

to have a lovely car and treat it badly.

But recently, I've been doing a better job of looking after them.

So I've currently got two.

I've got one and this and Sylvia drift car,

which I actually bought from a movie I was working on my fault,

which I don't know if you've seen that, but it's quite a fun film.

Fast and Furious Esk and it was the first time I'd ever driven a Sylvia.

They're just wonderful front engine, rear wheel drive.

The action team stuck a hydraulic handbrake in it.

So for me, it's like the ultimate toy.

I had to have it once I'd driven it, just fell in love with it.

But again, another car from Japan and my Lancia Delta intergrally,

which is my favorite and again, another one.

And I I I saw it was, you know, one of those classics

where was Mike Ferney's fault from DriveTribe.

He'd said, oh, you've been banging on about getting a Lancia.

There's one in the auction.

And I went to look at it and it just it was like a time warp.

It appeared through the window and all the seats were immaculate.

Everything inside was just so well looked after.

And that's kind of the story of these cars.

I think ad hoc dealers have been buying cars from Japan

for, you know, like I say, it's for a long time.

It's a known fact that they don't salt the roads in Japan,

so you don't get the corrosion.

They're lower mileage.

People look after them and been seeing these cars

coming off the transporters from Japan.

And they've stopped, you know, the BMWs were still with that blue tape over the sills.

I mean, it's just that, you know, they're all they just look

well looked after, which is the culture out there.

So yeah, ad hoc sales, I think have been been going on.

The different model which we're doing at MotorCap is to

really save all the hassle that dealers go through with importing.

So three months delay on cars arriving, all that stuff.

So we're we're buying these cars, we're handpicking them,

only going after the premium ones.

We've got guys out there selecting in conjunction with our team

to pick the best of the stock that's available, buy up,

bring it over, get everything done so that it's retail ready.

When it gets to the UK, we do all the coding

and the conversion that needs to be done limited that it is.

It's only small, small touches and then it's ready to go.

We're selling them through BCA auctions and seeing these cars

go out on the market within a week with a 50 percent markup for the dealers.

So it's, you know, I think it's the right business for the right time.

Usually the sort of year bracket is sort of pre 2017.

I've heard mechanics say the best cars ever made were made before 2014.

So I think it's a really good sweet spot.

You know, with cost of living, things like that.

I think, you know, secondhand market is crucial

and getting a really well looked after car from that sort of era.

And these are European cars.

So it's it's BMWs, Audi's, VWs, the cars that people love and want to have.

But in bed and Nick.

So Ben, you're effectively taking care of a lot of the hassles

that I've had to deal with.

I mean, we went out to John and I went out to Japan

to to buy these cars, but purely to see what these amazing auctions are like.

I mean, we saw the conditions of these of these vehicles on the road

and they are amazing, which is why we invested in them

and brought them back and started selling them ourselves.

But the hassle we've had since it's been a big headache.

I mean, actually, if I put the time and effort that my business partner

and I put into preparing these cars, getting them registered with the government,

they would be they wouldn't be profitable.

Just just the time and the effort we put in.

But you've solved that headache for for dealers, haven't you?

Because you do all of that for them.

Has that been a bit of a challenge, though, for you and the team?

So the guys that are doing it have been doing it for so long.

The answer to that is no, really.

And and BCA great to work with.

So they've got a really efficient system.

I think that I know that so will

who has been involved in arbitrage for, I think, over a decade prior to this

and the bigger business, who is one of the who is the co-founder of the company.

He's been dealing with very large fleet sales for a long time.

So in terms of all the logistics and dealing with shipping and all that stuff,

I'm sure it's a lot. I know I casually that's in his basket.

And I know that he's, you know, he's like the swan.

The legs are frantically on the top of the water.

He looks ever so calm, dealing with all the different shipments and stuff like that.

But that's just part of it.

And obviously, as we get, as we grow, which is the whole point of this thing,

we can scale that up. That side should get some easier.

But in terms of, you know, doing the conversions and stuff,

you know, the guys that do it, that is their day job.

And and there's really there aren't any surprises.

And you're right that those these weird and wonderful things that cars can do

when a when a cable gets earth.

So it's like, well, why? Why is the indicator now not working?

Whatever it is, you know, people who are good at dealing with those systems,

you get, you know, it's all about having the right person doing the right job.

I am not that person.

So the guys who are working on the forecourt, getting it done,

they know exactly what they're doing.

And then the other side of it is obviously is buying the right kit

and knowing what's what's on trend.

How many are you bringing in then on a monthly basis?

So it's been rough to start off about it's been about 15 a month.

So it's early days. It's just beginning.

But there is now, I think that we've got, I think for the next

coming for the coming weeks, there's going to be about that per week

going out through BCA.

And they're great. They're they're great bits of kit.

And I think there's also someone by it now that are selling within minutes.

So the popularity is there.

I think people don't yet know who we are.

We've only been doing it a couple of months through BCA.

So it's a case of sort of getting some awareness.

But but the kit speaks for itself.

And I think those early early birds that got in, they've made great money

and it and quite quickly turning them through.

So we're never going to get involved with retail.

It will always be what we're doing, which is basically financing

to bridge that gap, get the stock in, put it through the auction

and support the dealers who are going to make a living reselling.

There's a little bit of an education piece of consumers as well, isn't there?

I mean, just having spoken to the customers who come in

and have bought the imports we've had so far, you sort of have to explain

the fact that they don't really come with much service history,

although they have been incredibly well looked after.

You sort of have to sell them on the on the condition of the vehicle

rather than the paperwork that you'll get.

Is there anything that you're doing or anything that the team's doing

to help educate consumers that these are good cars to buy?

Yeah, you're right.

The service history thing is the one thing we all go to, isn't it?

You want to see that FSH written there and how many owners?

That sort of stuff, which is which is key because they're key markers

on knowing what state the vehicles in.

And so, yes, it's it's a different culture in Japan.

They've got the the Shaken, which is this really arduous testing programme.

I mean, we've got the MOT, but this is that's a cakewalk

by comparison to what they do in Japan.

And it's partly why the cars get pushed out

because it's an expensive process for owners out there.

But fundamentally, the culture in Japan is

they're very fastidious about maintaining their equipment.

So that goes into it.

A lot of the cars do have service history.

And now that that's become, you know, digitized,

we are able to bring those back.

But fundamentally, we've got decent data behind all the cars we're buying.

And actually, we've just been talking to warranty solutions group

about the risk profile, which is what they do.

They look at dealers, they look at vehicles,

whether they'll apply warranty here or there.

And they've so we're working with them

and they're really excited about what we're doing

because they can see they can validate

the information we've got on these cars coming in to be

more than happy to stick a warranty on that product, which is great.

I mean, we've talked a lot about imports on this podcast,

and I'm sure you can imagine because we've been very much involved in it.

But what do you think about the the import market as a whole?

How big do you think it could get here in the UK,

especially with this used car shortage we're seeing at the moment?

I think it's going to explode.

I mean, I think so.

I think that the the market for Japanese cars

is currently 500 million a year.

But I, you know, if you look at New Zealand, I can't remember.

I don't actually know what their stats are, but they've been

importing at scale for longer.

I wouldn't be surprised if they don't dwarf what we're doing already.

And I think even there is also Ireland is way ahead of the mainland.

Whatever we call ourselves, England, Scotland, Wales.

They're way ahead.

And I think the fact is the values there, the qualities there

and you literally were turned up to go and

was so excited to go and see it, BCA, our first batch that came in.

And you just beg us, but you're literally appealing tape off stuff

that's the sort of like it's in its protective wrapper.

So, you know, you're just not dealing with the same problems

we get used to here, the potholes, all that stuff.

It's just not the way in Japan.

So, yeah, other countries are already gone through this cycle and they're way ahead.

So I just think it I just think it will explode to be, you know,

it's got it's going to grow very quickly.

And how are you involved in in the company then then?

I mean, what do you what are you doing?

Well, I get over excited about the kit, obviously, because I love cars.

So I'm trying to contain myself on that and try and keep myself off the trigger

when it's auction time in Japan, because we're supposed to stay on stay on target.

I'm really keen to see it grow.

I think it's just a fantastic business to get behind.

I think it's good for everybody, good for consumers.

It's going to be good for dealers to, you know, increase their profits.

So my role really is to try and drive the awareness.

And and also I think once we get, you know, once this grows,

you know, the moment we're going for, you know, I suppose your mainstream

cars that everybody needs and wants on a regular basis

and that's getting churned through year on year.

But there's definitely a case to get into the more exotic stuff.

And so that'll be fun for me as well.

So I get to review some of these things that we're just talking about the

Jimny that are unique to Japan, you know, I think I'm right in saying

it's it's two seats in the UK, isn't it?

But they don't even sell it here now.

But it was two seats when they were before just before they stopped making it.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I think really my role to raise awareness, I think stories like that

are very interesting because how many people would have loved to have had four seats?

And when a model gets discontinued, there's still a way to find it somewhere else.

You know, obviously the Japanese driving the same side as us.

So it's not that it's not like you say, if you have to do it independently

or individually, whether it's a dealer or, you know, one man, one woman

going to Japan to buy their own car, that's hard work.

So the idea is we just take the fuss out of it and yeah, provide a great service.

And I could talk about import all day, but it would be a miss of me

not to ask you about your incredible career.

You've done so much that I want to chat about.

I mean, let's I mean, just rewind the clock back.

I was doing a little bit of research ahead of this podcast.

Unusual for me, but I saw that you you started your career in the army

as an instructor for special forces driving.

I mean, what is that all about?

Yeah, so I've done all sorts.

I mean, like most racing drivers, I ended up working at the race tracks

of the race schools, trying to teach people how to drive better.

I reckon the ratio is one in 10 are trainable to get.

Well, I say one in 10, you get really lucky

and it's somebody who can really progress and you have a fantastic time.

And the rest of us are sort of, you know, different levels of ability.

That's just the way we are.

So I had a lot, but I but I really enjoyed it learning about the strengths

and weaknesses of an individual trying to recognize that and work on it,

which then spilled over into my top gear days, teaching all the celebrities,

which was just a ton of fun, just brilliant.

And, you know, such a cool part of the job in the reasonably priced car.

And then at the same time, I was getting, you know, starting to do some stuff

with the military and I did some research with the police about their training systems.

And I was fairly shocked with the techniques that they were using

and discovered that basically the police system, which is the, you know,

the push and pull and not breaking and down changing the gears at the same time.

That philosophy is basically from the 1920s.

It's based on when the steering wheel was the size of a yacht with no power steering,

you had to turn it by pushing and pulling it.

There was no other way.

And it's from when you had to double the clutch,

which anyone listening to this now will say, what does he talk?

What does that even mean?

You know, where you had to pull the gear lever out of a gear,

you know, with the clutch, rev the engine,

and then second time pump the clutch to get the gear to go back in.

If you've never driven a vintage car, you won't ever need to understand what that means.

But that is why in the 1920s, they didn't overlap, breaking and down changing.

So I was amazed that as of 2000 year 2000s,

they're still teaching that philosophy in the police in Britain.

So it's quite, quite antiquated and largely based on the, you know,

what they sort of set in stone,

thou shalt teach what thou was taught by your instructor spread the news basically.

Ironically, the, the Met was the guy that set that training system up

was a racing driver and it's just been canonized and carried on.

So I had a healthy debates with the police driving teams,

and there are different styles that they use,

but predominantly it's fairly antiquated.

Anyway, they were having quite a high ratio of accidents during training,

the police were, and then so were the army.

So I managed to get involved with that and try and come up with some ideas

of how they could make themselves safer when they're in a learning process.

And eventually that's why I also wrote my book, How to Drive,

because ultimately I've done some very, very stupid stuff on the road,

learning the hard way, which is my favorite way to learn.

And I've learned a lot from 20 odd years of racing

and doing top gear stuff, working in movies.

So I tried to bring all of that together in one place

and set it down in writing.

But yeah, it's been great.

I loved working with the army because they are the best listeners.

They, you know, it's working with athletes and military.

They just tune in, they absolutely tune into what you're telling them.

Assimilate the information and deploy it.

So they're great to work with because they learn really quickly.

So tell me how that, how did the top gear job come about?

Yeah, well, effectively, my racing career seemed to have ended.

It was, I had an amazing time, race single-seaters,

got up to racing at Le Mans 24 hours in the peak of my career in LMP1.

So the top category they're doing 220 miles an hour at Le Mans,

which is just incredible, racing in the World Sports Car Championship.

So Dizzy Heights, racing gates, Ferrari and these other big names,

loads of people from F1, IndyCar were in that series at the time.

But the, yeah, the team I was racing for, Asgari closed in 2002.

And at the time, people were not interested in 20-year-old racing drivers.

They wanted, unless you'd raced in Formula One,

they were looking at people who are older than me,

who are coming out of Formula One to go and race their Le Mans cars for better or worse.

Trying to convince them that I had beaten these people in the previous season,

didn't seem to help me at all.

So I really thought that was the end of it.

And I was looking for basically other work because I needed to find a new direction.

So I joined the Army Reserve, that was first step,

whilst also auditioning for Jobs on TV, one of which was Top Gear.

And I did various interviews, didn't get any jobs with any of them.

So I met John Bentley, who discovered Jeremy Clarkson,

but he discovered no skills in me whatsoever.

He did Army for Channel 5.

And I met Andy Willman, went to the Top Gear track, drove a car,

and he looked fairly non-plussed, and that was it.

So I was really looking for other stuff to do.

And it was only about two months later, I got a random phone call saying,

can you be at the Top Gear track on Tuesday?

And I got there, there was a white racing suit and a helmet,

and off I went, and that was the beginning.

Was it at that point that you realised that your face wasn't going to be on TV

and you were going to be this anonymous person for years?

Yes, perfect. I didn't want to, my mug on telly.

Genuinely, at the beginning of that, I could not have been more relieved

to be wearing a helmet.

The thought of being on camera absolutely terrified me.

And watching the presenters do what they did, I was just like, wow, how do you do this?

And it was Clarkson off the telly and Hammond and May.

Loads of people, really smart crews wearing North Face jackets

with really big expensive cameras.

And it all looked very complicated, and it was, and highly orchestrated

and brilliantly organised and masterminded by Andy Willman and his production team.

So to start off, I was very happy hiding in the helmet.

And then as time went on, and you kind of get more comfortable around the crews

and you start to understand the craft and what they're doing,

I guess I got more and more interested in it.

But I was very happy not talking.

Well, at least not on camera.

How did you keep it a secret?

I mean, did you have to turn up in the helmet or was it?

Did everybody there knew who you were?

And it was a case of they were just sworn to secrecy.

So basically, there was the stick in the black suit prior to my time.

So I was there eight years in the end.

And the black stick, black suited stick, he lasted eight months.

I think it was a series and a half or something like that.

And his character famously got killed off.

Probably unbeknownst to Perry, who was doing the job at the time.

They managed to get access to HMS Invincible, I think it was.

They loaded the character into a Jaguar and shot him off the steam catapult into the North Sea.

And apparently the boat nearly ran over the car.

The car didn't sink as quickly as they were expecting.

So there was nearly a collision.

But that was the end of him.

Partly because I think his identity was getting known,

or at least that's how I perceived it.

So I thought, right, if you want to keep this job, don't tell anybody.

And it's a fairly simple and effective rule.

So I didn't tell anyone.

And I would go to work.

I had an old balaclava.

So I would slip that on when I was about a mile out.

The security guard wasn't too keen on that.

And the crew also thought it was pretty strange.

But after a few weeks, they got used to it.

And I'd just go, yeah, I'd go and park my car in the middle of nowhere,

ditch my wallet, anything with a credit card or a name on it.

And then shuffle in quietly and try and not be seen

where I was getting changed and all that sort of stuff.

And there was actually a Duns fold.

It used to be the Harrier Jump Jet testing ground.

So originally, I was changing in the pilot's changing room,

which was quite cool.

And then we got moved around to a porter cabin or whatever.

But I was good at getting changed and not being seen.

And I kept it.

You either keep it completely in a bubble.

If you let anything in,

well, once you let information out, that's game over.

And so eventually that is how it unraveled.

Because it's stupid stuff like you have to sign an insurance form

and you can't just write the dig.

They're not happy with that.

You have to put your name in.

I mean, what did you tell your friends and family

you were doing for a living?

It's almost like MI5 level.

You know, I work for the government.

But without being shot at, so not much danger.

Yeah, I mean, I've always worked for myself,

or pretty predominantly.

So I've always had lots of things going on.

And so it's quite easy to lie.

Oh, I'm going through the racetrack.

So at the time I was, despite being in the depths of despair in 2002,

being unemployed for a good few months,

which in your 20s, it's just like soul destroying.

I then ended up getting hired everywhere.

So I had a full on racing season.

Ironically sponsored by the MOD.

So I was driving a camouflage car.

I was doing my reserve training.

And got the top gear job.

So I had plenty of places to be

so I could easily fog people off with different stories.

But the identity was a massive thing, wasn't it?

Because I remember when the, when your autobiography came out,

I mean, the BBC even tried to block it, didn't they?

They did.

So yeah, basically, after a long while,

it was the best job in the world.

You know, it was fantastic.

There was always the specter of being fired.

That was always there in the background.

You know, don't do this or you get fired.

Don't do this or you get fired.

And after a while, I was still being, you know,

still on effect to be a one day at a time contract.

So which I was fine with because I get it, you know,

if you become known, your days are numbered

and they're going to have to get someone else.

The whole point of this dig was being anonymous.

But BBC and their wisdom had announced my identity

in the Radio Times in the TV guide.

There was a, they did a front page thing.

Who is the Stig?

And then inside was my profile.

And by that point, the newspapers kind of,

they kind of had pieced it together.

There was enough leakage to them.

So they ran those stories in the nationals.

And we kind of limped on.

Schumacher very kindly came in

and did a big smoke screen saying that he was the Stig.

But really, I could sense the writing on the wall

and I was starting to hear it fairly bluntly

from people at BBC worldwide.

You just know when you're either going to get canned

or you have time to leave.

So yeah, so I handed in my notice

and I thought it would be a fair and great idea

to tell my story because I'd had such a great time.

BBC decided that they didn't like that.

And yeah, they put an injunction on me

which is quite full on, had to go to the high courts.

And it was pretty scary time

but managed to beat that off and get the book out there

which was a bestseller which was amazing.

And I'd loved writing it.

Some really fun stories from great times

and I only look back with happy memories really.

So other than the total panic and terror of the court thing,

it worked out well.

And you mentioned Schumacher there.

You actually beat his time around the track, didn't you?

I mean, as a racer driver,

I mean beating Schumacher has got to be up there with

the major achievements of your life.

I would not say I beat Schumacher or anything.

So yeah, it was a strange one.

On the day that he joined us for filming,

they would not tell me that he was going.

I didn't know he was there basically until I met him.

So in the morning, the first thing I did,

they said, right, go out in the Suzuki Liana,

the recent price car and drive it really badly

and light it off the track and do all this sort of stuff.

And because by that point,

I could sort of read between the lines on the creative.

And I thought, shit, this is how I'm going to get fired

because I'm going to do this bad lab

and they're going to say the stick is broken.

And this is probably my epitaph.

I'm filming it right now.

And I thought, well, if we're going to go out,

let's go out in style.

So I drove it very badly and then came back in.

And they've been asking weird questions

like what size helmet and suit did I wear

and all this sort of stuff.

And I thought, yeah, they're literally sizing me up

to replace me.

So I got back in and I felt very sort of down about it all.

And then my boss came in and said,

I'd like to come and meet someone.

And I thought, right, here we go.

And then they took me over to the caravan

and I met Michael Schumacher.

And then it was all revealed.

So Schumacher was in for the day, also in a white suit.

The universe was almost about to explode

with two stints in the same space.

And the whole gag was it's Michael Schumacher.

But then, oh no, it can't be

because he got lost in the Suzuki,

which didn't make any sense.

But basically he'd said,

when they offered him the opportunity

to drive the Leana, I think he said nine.

And it drove his Ferrari around instead.

Can't say I blame him.

And since then you've worked on a number of films, haven't you?

I remember going to something with JLR

because you did a lot of the Bond stuff,

didn't you, for several movies?

I mean, tell me a little bit about some of the movie stuff

that you've been doing.

I mean, what would people recognise?

Any chases, scenes that people would recognise?

So yeah, I mentioned My Fault with the Nissan Silvia,

which was epic.

That was a recent one that went out on Amazon.

So that was a lot of fun.

But I suppose more recognisable would be the Bond films,

which has just been amazing to work on those four.

I can say I've worked on four Bond movies,

boyhood dream to get on set even,

let alone be wearing a Bond's pinstripe suit

and hammering an Aston Martin around Lake Garda,

which is where I started, just epic.

And it was an amazing opportunity.

From getting to know a bit more about the filming process

at Top Gear, I just thought this is great.

I love it.

And I'd love to do more in why not get some movie work.

So I started reading the credits,

which nobody ever does, do they?

But from that, I picked out some of the names

of the stunt coordinators and started making phone calls.

Most of them told me to jog on.

But Gary Powell, who was working on Casino Real at the time,

gave me an invitation to meet him, which was amazing.

And then really through that network, got my first gig,

which was National Treasure 2,

doubling Nicolas Cage and driving on the roof of a car

called a pod car, and skidding around London,

which was pretty amazing.

It was London's biggest car chase, apparently.

And we literally locked down Central London outside Bank of England

and filmed day and night around these streets.

I was totally hooked.

It was just fantastic.

Because that process with way bigger crews than you get with TV.

And yeah, the destructive capability of the stunt crew,

I mean, to be given a budget where it's like,

yeah, we've got five of those cars.

We're going to destroy all of them at some point

during this chase.

This is the sequence.

And it's all high choreographed,

and you get your matchbox cars out,

and you work out who's going to be where.

And you get, it's an amazing buzz.

I mean, the difference between that and motor racing

is with racing, it's all about precision.

Don't damage the car because you won't win.

And with the stunt work, it's very much teamwork.

And the adrenaline is there

because you've got to achieve

a really high performance in a short window.

So it's a bit like a qualifying lap.

But it's really, it's all about safety

because you're the cars,

on a track, everyone's going in the same direction.

But with the stunts, you're mimicking real life.

You've got people, you know, working as pedestrians

or jumping over the cars, all this mad stuff

that could be happening.

And you have to be really clinically,

you know, very, very focused

on doing exactly what you're supposed to do

in the space you're given.

It's so much fun though.

It's great.

Yeah, there must be a huge amount of pressure there.

The one, the bond one that really sticks out in my mind

it must be Spectre where there's an Aston Martin,

I think DB10, I think they did a special, didn't they?

And the Jaguar CX-75 chasing it around

I can't remember what city was.

Were you involved in that one?

Is that, was that part of your work?

I didn't do much on that.

So, and I wasn't in that scene at all.

So I did a few days on that film.

And I got to film the last,

literally the last bit in the DB5

when Bond took down Blofeld

and a couple of scenes in Austria.

But no, but that chase that you're mentioning was great

with the Bautista, the epic Bond villain

that made the car look tiny.

So no, it's good.

That was a cool chase, I like that one.

And the car does these great jumps.

It's quite a cool scene.

And I love the scene they shot in Austria

with the plane sliding down the mountain

and all that, just amazing.

So that's I mean,

with watching the plane and all that stuff,

that's the special effects department

which works quite often hand in glove with the stunt team.

So you can, you know, you'll see they create these,

you know, unbelievable machines

and how else do you get a plane

to skid down a snow filled snow cap mountain?

But they find a way to do it.

So it's also those guys that build the podcast.

So they put the, you know,

the driving system on the roof.

So you put the actors inside the car,

stunt driver on the top.

So basically they will try and come up with a solution

to almost any idea.

And it's, yeah, it's a great, great teamwork.

Amazing.

Well, I mean, thank you for giving us

an insight into all of that stuff.

But I mean, just back to the start of the podcast,

if people want to hear more about the business

you're working on now, how can they get in touch?

So go to BCA auctions

because we're there every week.

We've also got an Instagram handle at MotorCap

and a website too.

So yeah, if you stick it into Google,

you'll find us pretty easily.

And we'll start.

There'll be more interesting, exciting news.

I've got, hopefully, I'll be attending

one of these auctions at some point.

And, you know, to sort of,

because I love going to auctions.

The buzz is amazing.

So it may be online,

but you still get the same intensity and excitement.

And yeah, I'm going to go out visiting

some of the dealers that have been

starting to pick these up.

So with any luck, I'll come and see you.

We'll help you shift some gymneys

and bring in some more exciting tackle.

That sounds like a plan.

We interrupt this broadcast for some breaking news.

John, I don't want to panic you,

but the Cardio podcast live

is coming round really rather fast.

Yes, I know that, James, because I own a calendar,

but surely you've been not paying attention.

How dare you, John?

If I hadn't been paying attention,

how would I know that it's on the

September the 24th in Abandon

that we've got the Polestar boss,

Matt Galvin, Vicky Hart from Waylands,

and Alex Bradley from Small Cars Direct

on with us, hmm?

Well, technically, it's closer to Didcot,

but I'll let that one go.

Anyway, I bet you've forgotten

how people can book tickets.

No, John, because on my script right here,

it says head to cardinamagazine.co.uk slash podcast.

And people listening to this can book tickets

with the special discount code PICCANTO for 10% off.

There's a social barbecue after the recording

and plenty of time for a social catch-up

with other like-minded dealers.

We look forward to seeing you there.

This is a paid partnership in association with Dealerway.

John, guess what?

Oh, God, you've bought more ducks, haven't you?

No ducks, John.

Wrong there.

I've actually got a new habit.

I've signed up for Dealerway alongside

more than 2,500 other rated and vetted car dealers

to sell my trade-part exchanges.

The site is designed for dealers

to sell their pie exchanges for more money

quickly and easily.

There's no sellers fees and buying a car

costs just £99, one of the cheapest around.

And when I haven't got the time to list the car myself,

I can even watch out for them the details

and they do it all for me.

That sounds awfully familiar.

So are you selling all your stock there now?

Not exactly, John.

But if I do have a sudden influx of Kia Pocantos,

I know where to send them.

Dealers can find out more at dealerway.co.uk.

We'll be right back.

Now, John, I'm really enjoying how easy it is

to pay sellers on car wow.

I mean, presuming you'd rather not pay them at all.

No, that is true.

But now I can do it with car wow wallet.

You can pay sellers, finance houses, and more instantly,

literally in one click.

It's secure, easy to use,

and gets rid of all the pesky finance back and forth.

So total gain, James and John.

That does sound pretty good.

If you want to find out more,

Dealers can log on to carwow.co.uk

slash partners slash car wow dash wallet.

Now, back to the podcast.

Well, thank you, Ben.

Thank you for joining us for the podcast,

but we probably should do some stories

and try to follow Ben's story, John,

which is going to be quite hard, isn't it?

Yeah, it's all downhill from here, really.

But James and I are going to run through

our favourite stories of the week.

And at the end, Ben gets to decide

which one of us chose the best ones

and who is the winner.

Yes.

James won last week, I think.

Yes, you did.

Yes.

If you were magnanimous in victory of going...

Two-one, two-one.

So off you go.

Thanks, John.

I'll try and be quick,

because I'd like to get a few stories in this week.

But the story I'm going to start with

is news from America that Amazon

have got into the used car advertising space.

Now, Amazon have been, I would say,

messing about with the automotive market

for quite some time.

They've actually...

They're like years, James, really, actually.

They've been like, yes, John.

They first got involved in it 10 years ago

when they built a platform called Amazon Vehicles,

which was like a research-only platform.

You might remember it, John,

a little bit strange.

Customers could go on there

and do a little bit of research,

but they couldn't actually buy any cars.

Last year, they did a partnership

with Hyundai in the States, again,

for the new car market.

No other manufacturers have joined them on that,

but it's still just Hyundai.

But this latest deal is one with Hertz,

the car rental firm.

And what they've done is they've advertised

all of those ex-rental cars on the Amazon platform,

and customers can do the whole process,

finance application, click, buy it now,

and buy those cars on the Amazon platform.

So that's taking place now

in a number of different states.

There's current locations of Dallas,

Houston, Los Angeles, and Seattle,

but they're actually, Amazon are planning

on rolling that out to 45 sites across America.

So you do all of the deal on Amazon,

and then you actually go and pick it up

from one of these Hertz car sales lots, effectively.

But so it just gave me a chance

to have a little bit of a think about this.

I wrote about it in my sub-stack this week,

and I was just sort of thinking like,

are Amazon the ones to really be able to move the needle

in the UK when it comes to advertising platforms?

And I just, I'm not quite sure,

I'll be very interested in your opinion, Joe.

I'm not quite sure whether they are.

I don't know, Amazon is great when it goes,

when you need to buy bin bags, or similar.

Sorry, bin bags.

What have you buy on Amazon, Joe?

I'm probably something far poster than that.

But yes, very easy to do, isn't it, Amazon?

Very easy. It's very quick.

You don't do much research.

You search for the product.

The one that comes at the top, you quick buy it now,

you normally off it, and you've bought that product in seconds.

When it comes to buying a car,

I'm not sure whether it's quite well set up

for that whole process.

I don't know whether you've bought anything

a little bit more expensive than bin bags on Amazon, Joe.

But if you want to buy, say, a TV or something else,

the research process on Amazon is actually quite difficult.

You can actually even find in the details about the car,

it's normally hidden, sorry, about the product,

it's normally hidden away.

And I'm not quite sure whether it would be good enough

to give all of that information for a car.

However, it is a different platform,

and everybody in the UK is looking for other opportunities

when it comes to used car advertising.

AutoTrader is expensive.

We've talked about that at length about that

on this podcast, but it does work.

But people want other opportunities, and Amazon could be it.

So, what do you think, Joe?

Well, basically, I agree with what you just said.

Let's move on.

No, but I had a play around with it,

and obviously, these Hertz ones aren't on there yet.

And just to say, the Hertz,

it's like dealing with a slightly different world,

isn't it, dealing with car sales in America,

because Hertz gets through so many cars in America

that they actually have their own used car lots, I think.

Whereas here, it's a bizarre polar opposite to here.

Here, we'd say, do not buy a higher car,

and higher car companies hide it very well

in their previous owner things on the V5

and send it off to auction.

And we don't actually want to go and buy a Hertz higher car here,

but in America, for some reason, they do.

That's not live yet,

but they do have a couple of high-endized sites available

on Amazon in California and places like that.

And I was flicking through some of the classified ads on there,

and that's exactly what you said, really.

Like, the information, the layout of all the info on these cars

is a little bit clunky.

It's not brilliant, to be honest.

The TV example is great.

It lists some specs that you're not really interested in.

It doesn't really seem to know what's important

out of the things that this car or this TV

or whatever it might be has.

So I came away feeling a little bit kind of disappointed by it.

But I think, really, in between the lines of this,

as you say, Amazon put the toe in the market

with vehicle stuff 10 years ago, and nothing's really happened.

And they've got an enormous amount of power behind them

to actually do something because they really want to do it.

And I just think this is a sort of little experiment

as all these tech companies do, like Google,

well-known for it as well.

They'll launch their products and then three years later,

it's just gone.

They've just decided, no, we don't do that anymore.

I think they just try lots of things and try and innovate.

But I don't feel like they're completely serious with this one,

to be honest.

What do you think, Ben?

Do you think Amazon could crack this problem?

I think they're pretty serious

because I went to a conference where I watched them

presenting on this and how seriously they're invested

in all the data and presentation side.

So I would not underestimate them.

And if you look at how much they put into things

like the Grand Tour and all that automotive content,

yeah, I think it could be an interesting space to watch.

I mean, they've got the wherewithal to really go for it.

But then whether it's who it's for is another question,

like you just said, what information can you get from it?

And I mean, I've learned the hard way again.

I'd rather buy from a respected dealer with a decent warranty.

So you can look someone in the eye.

And if there's a problem on the whole,

again, if you're dealing with good people,

they'll look after you the end.

And I think that if you bought online,

it's, I mean, if there's a little whatever it is,

you're probably going to have to chin the cost.

I don't know.

But then they are good at taking returns.

But it's a big thing to send back.

So you need a bit of cardboard box, wouldn't you?

Yeah.

But I imagine that they've thought of that.

So I wouldn't underestimate their ability to take this in.

So I think when is it launching?

Have you seen that?

Is it coming out soon?

It's launched in the States this week, actually.

So it's those cars from Hurst for sale now.

Whether it comes to other markets like ours is unknown yet.

Are they doing end-to-end with Hurst ones?

Because the ones I looked at were sort of,

you know, go through the process,

but you still have to go and pick it up yourself.

That's it.

Yeah, it's exactly that.

Yeah.

So at least you still have to visit a physical dealer

and you actually have to go there and pick the car up.

So it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Anyway, John, that's my first one.

Over to you.

Okay.

I'm going to cheat slightly

because I haven't actually published this story yet.

Because I'm just writing it out.

But I'm going to talk about it anyway.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it's a good story, Joe.

So I've been off in,

I had a lovely evening last night at the O2.

Did you?

I did.

Yeah.

What were you seeing?

I was seeing something, this great band called Cherry,

who had these two songs called the Tigo 7 and Tigo 8.

But basically, it was the brand launch of Cherry UK.

Cherry UK, of course, is at the O2.

Well, now, James.

It's, when you say O2...

I've never had a manager in the corner.

It turns out there's two venues in the O2.

There's the O2 Big Arena,

where you have your Coldplay and Adele or whatever.

And then you have Indigo O2,

which is like a little conference room,

shall we say?

I mean, maybe that's downplaying.

It's quite...

I mean, it's the pub round the corner.

Exactly.

But it was quite big.

It was about 400 people there.

And it was unusually for us,

because media and dealers and general stakeholders

are normally separated out.

You normally have your press launch.

It's very serious.

And then you have your dealer launch,

which is a bit more...

Whee!

In this, they were combined.

So I kind of had to sit there through a lot of...

Make some noise for UK CEO,

Gary Lan, all that kind of stuff,

which was a bit peculiar to me.

But anyway, the crux of this story is

we had a little round table chat

with some of the cherry executives.

And I do hate round tables,

because you can never ask any questions

more than about 30 seconds long,

and then they move you on somewhere else.

But I did get a little nugget,

few nuggets of information out of them.

And I mean, this story is basically

that the success of J.Q. in a moda

has come actually as a bit of a surprise

to the executives of Cherry UK.

Because of course, a bit of context.

They've been here for, what, a year?

A year and a bit less than that, I think.

Not long at all.

I think a moda was October last year

and J.Q. was January this year, so...

Yes, so not even that then,

not even a year.

And they've got 89 dealers,

and I can't remember the exact numbers,

but it's upwards of 20,000 cars, isn't it?

They've pumped out already.

And they've only got really three cars,

one of which is an electric variant of another one.

So it's pretty impressive stuff, really,

what they've managed to do.

So I kind of asked that question to them,

three of their execs.

And all of them pretty much said,

yeah, it's been a...

I mean, Gary Lan, who's the UK CEO,

said it was a pleasant surprise,

you know, a very happy surprise

that they've done so well.

Obviously, it's difficult for a car company

to say something as a surprise

because they want to say,

oh, no, we knew it was going to...

Yeah, it was planned, it was planned.

But I think it's evident

that it's come as a bit of a shock to them

because the fact that they've now decided

to launch this third brand,

because the whole idea with Cherry's

an enormous company, we're not really aware of them,

or certainly weren't aware of them

more than a year ago.

But a motor and JKU was supposed to be their export brands.

So Cherry, in theory, was never supposed to come here,

and they've now gone, well, actually,

maybe there's a bit of a market for these as well.

So Cherry will be here,

launching next month.

They've already got 25 dealers signed up,

different sites.

They're not wedging them into the motor and JKU sites.

They've got additional sites.

So they are deadly serious.

There's not going to be enough space for these dealerships,

isn't there, if they carry on at this rate?

Well, you say that, James,

but you might have noticed quite a lot of other brands

are deserting their dealerships at the moment.

And that sort of came up as well.

So Olly Lowe, who's the UK head of product,

basically said as much.

She said, you know, a lot of manufacturers are contracting,

contracting at the moment.

You know, they're under cost pressures.

They're losing and shedding dealers.

And also, he says,

a lot of them applied agency model

to an industry that didn't ask for it.

Which is an interesting comment.

So he puts a lot of their success down to the dealers

and their years of experience.

They know how to manage customers

and relationships and so on.

So I thought that was really nice as well.

So where does cherry fit into this whole, like, kind of plan?

I mean, like, if you were to describe them

as other manufacturers we know,

like, how would you place them?

Well, it's very difficult

because they are very confident

that they're all completely separate.

But I couldn't really get a solid answer out of them

as to what they all represent.

It's not like your, you know,

your JQ is your Audi

and your Emoda is your VW

and your Cherry is your Skoda or something like that.

They all seem to be a little bit more...

They gave me some slightly strange answers to that.

But from what I can work out...

What would you say?

Because I can't understand where they...

Where does cherry fit in the hierarchy?

Is it like the poshest or is it the not?

I can only tell you on price point, it's the cheapest.

Oh, okay.

But again, they're different shaped cars.

So it's very difficult.

So the one...

One of the ones they announced yesterday

is going to be the cheapest plug-in hybrid on sale in the UK.

Five seat kind of, let's say,

Nissan X trail sized car,

maybe a little bit smaller than that.

So they are going in for price point, mainly.

And I think they're probably not...

Well, they're at the point where they've said

the models are competing with each other.

They're their own nearest rivals,

which is a strange situation to be in.

When I headed to China for the Motor Show earlier this year,

I obviously went with the motor and JQ.

I mean, it absolutely opened my eyes

to quite how serious they are about the UK.

I mean, it was a shock, if I'm honest.

Like just going into the hall,

it was full of cherry, a motor,

and all of their other sister brands

was a big shock to the system.

Did you get the same sort of feeling?

Having gone to the O2 satellite venue,

if you get the same feeling

that these guys are incredibly serious

and they're going to take over the world.

Yeah, pretty much.

I'll be completely honest,

and I'm sorry for anyone from Cherry

or the PR team listening,

but I kind of went along just to see

if it would be as sort of,

I don't want to say hilarious,

but as like bombastic and insane,

as I perhaps imagined.

And it was actually quite sensible,

apart from the fact that there was some sort of

a dance troupe from Britain's Got Talent.

Not Britain's Got Talent.

Combined two things there.

It was all a bit peculiar.

But yes, they are, they're deadly serious.

They say they've come up with the world's

most efficient hybrid powertrain.

They were very, very like,

we are an engineering company.

You know, we're not,

we've always made our own engines,

we've not bought them in from other people,

all that sort of stuff.

And they had, there's two cherries

coming in the next month,

the seven and the eight,

but they also had a four and a nine,

and the nine was really like, really like,

I know James, I don't know.

It doesn't make any sense.

But the nine's the poshest one,

and that was a very, very luxurious thing.

And yes, I do, I do get the vibe,

but the amount of money they spent

and the amount of firepower

they're putting behind it,

yeah, they're serious.

And the other thing is,

I would say I chatted to a couple of dealers,

you know, just getting in and out of these cars.

And they were all thrilled with,

you know, the success they'd had with Emoja and JQ.

I mean, there was one guy I chatted to

who's got a dealer in the West Midlands,

he'd got rid of a popular stonantis brand,

shall we say, and swapped in Emoja and JQ,

and said, you know, in the 20-something years

he's been a dealer,

he's never seen anything like it.

Really?

I've seen so many of them on the roads as well.

Yeah, yeah.

Ben, what's your take on these Chinese manufacturers?

Well, I had not heard of them before this conversation.

I'll put my hand up.

Yeah, I need to look into that.

So, and I haven't seen one on the road that I'm aware of.

Maybe I have, and it just didn't register.

They look like every other SUV.

So, I mean, they're quite easy to miss.

Yeah. I mean, the competition from China is pretty strong

because they're, and it's, you know,

a lot of it is cost-driven.

And obviously the engineering is a new battleground as well.

So, it's, I mean, ultimately, at the moment,

price dictates a lot of the market, doesn't it?

And people need value.

So, I think it's what we were talking about earlier,

whether it's secondhand or these new models coming out,

people are being quite motivated to try and get a deal.

Jon, let's move on because we've probably got enough time

to maybe just get one more story in each if I'm quick.

I'm just going to pick the story that the first EVs

that are finally qualified for the full electric car ground

are both Fords.

So, we've got Fords Puma Gen E and the E Torneo Courier

are the first models to get the full 3,750 pound discount

under the government's electric car grant.

This is a scheme that launched seven weeks ago, I think,

and has only just announced the first two cars available

for the full, for the full rate.

All the other ones so far are in the band two rate,

which is 1,500 pound discount.

And the reason I picked this story, Jon,

is I've spent most of my week investigating this

and I'm sort of skipping ahead

because the story will come out next week,

but I've spoken to every single manufacturer in the UK

to ask them whether they've applied for the grants

and whether they expect to be in band one or band two.

And you will be surprised how many or how few cars

will actually end up in band one.

I suspect, and I don't want to see already

second guess my research, but I suspect

there'll only be five cars, maybe six maximum in the UK

that are available for that full 3,750 pound discount,

which is quite frankly ridiculous, isn't it?

Because all of the customers out there are seeing this scheme.

It was all shouted about 3,750 pounds off EVs,

yet it's impossible to get it

because there are no cars currently available

up until two days ago.

These two fords now available to get that full discount.

So I'm looking into that at the moment.

I'm speaking to a number of different experts

on the electric car market

and I'm just waiting for a couple of other manufacturers

to come back with their answers.

But from what I'm seeing so far,

I think this scheme is going to be quite hard

to actually get that full 3,700 pound discount

on any more than five or six cars,

which I don't think is what the government was expecting.

We've talked about this at length, haven't we?

But it's all about these science-based targets.

So it's not just about beer and EV,

it's about how that EV is made

and importantly what we've found

since I've been looking into it further

is where the battery is made.

I mean, that makes up the biggest part

of where these discounts lay.

So the manufacturers submit their paperwork,

the government looks at it

and they work out which bands you're going to sit in.

But do you think the government thought

they were going to have more than six cars

in this full discount rate?

I don't know.

I don't know if they're thinking went that far, to be honest.

I think much like, as we've said before,

this is sort of 90% a marketing and PR exercise

for trying to get people into EVs

than actually trying to incentivize people.

Because as we've said,

you could have just taken the 20%,

reduced the 20% VAT rate to something else

and lopped an amount off all the cars.

But that doesn't sound,

probably someone in a spin doctor has said,

well, that sounds a bit percentages.

You know, just make it nice and a bit cleaner

with a lump of money off.

And also if they really wanted to help

people get into EVs,

they would probably do something

about the VAT on public charging

or put some sort of cap in place or for prices.

Anything, any number of things like that

would help.

And it would help across the whole car market,

you know, new and used EVs.

Whereas this is just targeting new.

So I don't know.

And my other question would be,

does it actually matter if some of them

aren't getting the full amount?

Well, it does.

Because from the dealers I'm talking to,

the issue here is all of the customers are saying,

well, can I buy 3,700 and 50 pounds off my new EV?

Whatever it is.

And the dealers having to say to them,

not quite yet,

because we don't know whether we're going to get it.

And the actual facts are probably hardly any of them

are going to get it.

But the issue is customers are holding off.

They're not buying the EVs.

It's having the opposite effect

to what they wanted the scheme to do

because the customers are expecting to get this money off

and it's not going to come.

Which is the worry.

I mean, Ian Plummer said a similar thing,

you know, we did an interview with him,

Ian Plummer from Waterloo Trader last week,

didn't we?

All this week.

Can't remember.

It's been a long week.

Actually it's been a short week.

But he described it as a holding pattern,

I think, didn't he?

It's just everything's on pause

until this is all sorted out.

And it was supposed to be sorted by the 11th,

wasn't it the 14th or the 11th of August?

Something like that.

And here we are at the end of August

and it's still not quite there.

Not quite.

It's not even a little bit there, John.

No, it's great for us

because you can talk about it every single week.

Yeah, exactly.

I was surprised,

just going back to this actual story

and the Puma and the Tornado,

whatever it is,

tiny banter.

E-Tornado Courier.

E-Tornado.

What is that?

Isn't it like the kind of bull-nosed

fiesta van thing you can buy?

I have literally no idea.

I have, exactly.

You don't see any of them, do you?

You don't see any of them.

But I was surprised that the Puma was

actually the one to get this.

Puma's made in Romania.

But I think the batteries...

I think the motors are made in the UK, aren't they?

Yeah, but the motor's not actually

part of the calculation.

No, well maybe it is.

I don't think it is.

The batteries for this are not made in China.

They're made in South Korea, I think,

which might have some bearing on it

because probably South Korea is quite

good on its green energy, I would guess.

Don't think it is.

But I don't really know.

But I was surprised it was this and not,

let's say, a Peugeot rifter van made in

wherever they're made.

Ellesmere Port, that one up in the north.

I was surprised it's not that.

And then, of course, the Nissan are hoping

that the new leaf will fit into this, aren't they, as well?

Yes.

Yeah, but that's obviously not in sale until later this year.

Jon, do you want to wedge one more in?

I won't trouble Ben to comment on it unless you really want to.

I am going to comment because you've triggered me

with the words government thinking.

And the whole thing is a joke.

What you've just described is just typical, isn't it?

And you're telling us what to drive.

Are these narrowed down to a handful of models

that it's probably going to change next week,

waste people's time.

They're going to try and navigate this thing.

And in the meantime, we've got the most,

I think it's four times the most expensive electricity in Europe

because of the mad energy policy.

So it's just like they just need to get a grip.

There is no thinking.

There's no joined up thinking.

And you're trying to apply logic to a situation.

You're trying to find out where the battery was from here

and this, that, the other.

It's mad, isn't it?

Whereas a simple solution, like you say, across the board,

if you want to underpin the EV market in the UK,

there's a very simple way to do it.

Keep it simple.

It was the same with diesel.

We were all told to buy diesel because it's got less,

it produces less carbon, etc.

Now it's been pilloried.

So, yeah, what does it tell you?

What's your take on electric cars, Ben?

Do you like them?

Yeah, I've, you know, got to,

I've been lucky to experience a lot of different models

starting actually the first one I ever drove,

well, the first one I ever drove was the prototype Tesla.

In the back of a Lotus.

And it was pretty amazing to feel it for the first time,

followed by the leaf, which I was less impressed with

because the range was so short.

I think, you know, and for me, the key thing is,

and it still is, is being able to trust

what the thing is telling you

when it comes to range and power consumption.

And there's very, very, very few models I've driven

that are true to the, to the, you know,

you've done it, you've covered a mile

and it's depleted a mile worth of battery.

So I spent a lot of time in the Lucid with their car that

that's, you know, been, that's been really interesting.

There's a few others, NEO,

where they've got some innovative technology

where you've got the battery come out of the car like a cassette,

which is clever because as the technology changes,

you know, there'll be improvements in battery tech

and you better switch it out.

But so there are some real pioneers in that space

that are doing it really well.

And then there are others that you get in

and you like, I can't trust this thing at all.

Do you like the driving experience, Ben?

It's very different.

I, you know, I love combustion.

Particularly petrol.

I'm chugging around in a diesel at the moment,

but I, you know, from motorsport

and from, you know, sporting perspective,

I still love combustion engines

and there's a, they are incredibly efficient,

you know, manufacturers have invested billions over time,

honing that, that combustion motor

to work the way it does and to use as little fuel

as possible to give us the best return.

But yeah, they're different.

And I think, but I do enjoy them,

that the power and acceleration you get with electric

is unlike pretty much anything else.

But it's an interesting, you know,

I think there's, the world should accommodate both.

And I think that they've got different applications for different,

you know, half the problem is with owning an EV

and living with one is the charging network is not there for it.

And certainly the UK, I think it's,

we're really underwhelmed with charging resources

and let's bring it back to the electricity price as a nightmare.

Yeah, I'm going to forfeit my last story

to ask Ben a question, which is,

with the move to EVs and all this sort of stuff,

a lot of people are sort of suggesting,

and I think Clarkson, for example, has suggested this,

that, you know, the motoring show is kind of dying.

People are not going to tune in to watch EVs

buzzing around the track because they want to see

V12s going sideways and all that sort of stuff.

Do you, what do you think of that kind of feeling?

Do you think things like Top Gear and Grand Tour

or whatever, Fifth Gear, do you think they still have a future?

Well, I don't know if they have a future.

They better make a good show.

If you don't make a good show, you're finished.

So in terms of that, I think, you know,

YouTube is where it's at.

Hence, I'm having a great time on my channel.

And, you know, there's some other really big hitters

doing great content.

You know, Matt Armstrong, Tavaresh in the US.

There's just, there's so many.

There's a whole world out there on YouTube.

So we'll see if those other shows survive,

but is car content surviving 100%?

Hell, yes.

And yeah, it is about the V12, the V10, the V8,

the V6 turbos, the revolutionary efficiency and, you know,

the tech in that genre, in there, it's so honed

and amazing.

So I think, yeah, definitely, that day is not over.

It's definitely not.

There's a world of both.

I think, well, hybrid as well, hybrid EV and combustion,

they absolutely have a future.

And it's also about affordability, like we're saying,

and bringing it back 2017, Carlson Japan,

that offers great value.

And if you're looking for a deal,

that is also the way to go.

So good plug there.

Good plug.

Well, it wasn't totally intentional,

but you're looking at the new stuff.

You know, the next iPhone, the next this, the next that,

you do have to weigh up.

How long am I going to have this car for?

Is the battery going to deplete over time?

Yes, it will.

And what happens there with depreciation?

I don't like buying stuff that loses value.

Neither does James, but he keeps doing it every week.

Right, so that's the end of our stories.

So, Ben, before we ask for your verdict,

are there any stories you think

we should have talked about this week, but we haven't?

You can say no.

No.

That's absolutely fine.

I can't think of it.

I thought those are pretty punchy,

and I was impressed with the Amazon story.

I was slightly aware of it,

but it's interesting that that's now kicked off,

and that for sure will go global.

So it makes sense they'll pioneer it in the US,

but that'll be coming here pretty fast, I think,

and that will definitely have the folks at eBay and Facebook

paying attention.

So is that your winner?

Is that what you're going with?

Yeah, I think that's going to be an interesting model.

Yes, I will accept that win.

Thank you very much.

3-1 in the series, John.

Oh, dear, oh, dear.

Remember to post the little invoice, sir.

Yeah, I will, don't worry.

Thank you.

I'll buy some Japanese cars in the not-too-distant future.

I love you.

Wonderful.

Oh, well, on that note,

all that's left for me to say

is thank you to Ben for joining us today.

It's been great to have you on,

talk about what you're up to at the minute

with your Japanese cars,

and of course, a bit of backstory about you as well.

Thanks for having me and for letting me know

there's some new cars on the market.

So I'm going to go and check those out.

Yeah, nice to see you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, boys.

Have a good one.

See you soon.

Super.

And thank you as well to James for something or other.

And thank you for listening.

We'll be back next week with another episode.

So make sure you're subscribed

to be notified when that goes live.

We've not talked about Carly the podcast live,

but there is an advert in the middle of this.

So everyone should be clicking the link below

to book their tickets with 10% off

if you put in the word Picanto.

You haven't bought a Picanto in a while, have you, James?

No.

But still, it's a good discount link.

So please use it on the website.

Yes, check out the stories you mentioned today

in the show notes below as well

and head to Carly the magazine

for much more news besides.

Thanks for listening and goodbye.

Amazon launches used car platform, Chery launches third UK brand in 12 months, and Ford Puma is first to get full EV grant amount – with Ben Collins, episode 221

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