Ferrari Luce is a Ferrari electric car that was just revealed. The host is saying the reveal was a big deal with lots of journalists watching, which suggests Ferrari is taking EVs seriously.
Analog dials are the classic dashboard gauges with real markings and a needle. They’re used so you can read important info quickly without looking at a screen.
The drivetrain is everything that sends power from the car’s energy source to the wheels. In an EV, that includes the electric motors and the parts that connect them to the drive wheels.
The Fiat Punto 3 Doors is a small car with a hatchback shape and three doors. It’s made for everyday driving, especially in cities. The “3 doors” part just describes the body style.
An EV’s battery management system is like the battery’s safety and control computer. It watches the battery’s temperature and voltage and helps keep charging and power use within safe limits.
An electric motor is the part that turns electricity into motion. In an EV, it helps the car accelerate smoothly and can also slow the car down when you lift off the pedal.
Air vents are openings in the bodywork that help move air through or around the car. They can help with cooling and also with how air flows over the vehicle.
Term
launch thing
It sounds like a special “launch” mode. The car uses a specific pedal sequence to get the best possible acceleration from a stop, while keeping the wheels from slipping.
Torque is the “pulling power” the motor makes. More torque usually means quicker acceleration, and the car is trying to keep that power at the top level when you accelerate hard.
Instead of one motor, the car uses a motor at each wheel. That lets it adjust power wheel-by-wheel, which helps it accelerate harder and stay stable on different surfaces.
RPM means how many times something spins in one minute. Here, it’s describing how fast an electric motor can spin during a quick test. The point is how extremely fast the motor ramps up.
SK batteries are the battery cells used in some electric vehicles. The host is saying they’re top-tier and that the company makes them in Korea, with big factories in other places too.
The Alpina B10 is a faster, specially tuned version of a BMW 5 Series. It’s meant to drive more powerfully than a standard model, while still trying to feel comfortable. It may be mentioned to compare how different kinds of cars feel to drive.
Honkuk is a tire brand. They’re talking about an EV-focused tire line and saying it’s designed to help electric cars with things like efficiency and quiet ride quality.
Formula E is an all-electric single-seater racing series. When a tire brand says it’s an official tyre partner of Formula E, it’s implying the tires are developed and validated under high-performance EV racing conditions. That’s used as a credibility signal for technology transfer to road tires.
This is an electric car from XPeng called the G6, and “Performance” is the sportier version. The host says they drove one for a week and really liked how it felt and looked.
Solar panels are devices on your roof that make electricity from sunlight. The host is saying they had solar power and an electric car before many other people in their area did.
Car
Tesla
Tesla is a well-known electric car brand. The host is mentioning it because they’re seeing lots of EVs around now, not just the older gas-powered cars.
Renault 5 is a famous Renault model name. The host is basically saying they haven’t seen one around yet, even though they’re seeing lots of other electric cars.
The Range Rover is a large, comfortable SUV made by Land Rover. It’s designed to be good for both everyday driving and rougher roads. People may mention it because it’s a well-known luxury vehicle.
Car
Land Rover
Land Rover is the company that makes SUVs like the Range Rover. The host is using it to describe what used to be common before electric cars took over the parking lot.
The host is talking about a situation where one side (the “West”) could keep losing ground in EVs. The concern is that once momentum shifts, it can become harder and harder to catch up.
Brand loyalty means people stick with the same car brand because they trust it or feel connected to it. The host is saying that this “loyalty advantage” can get broken when new EV brands win customers.
Xiaomi is a tech company best known for electronics. The host is saying Xiaomi is coming to the EV scene soon.
Term
multi-power train
“Multi-power train” means a company offers cars with more than one kind of drivetrain. The host is saying Chinese brands are good at offering different options so they can sell in more places.
Term
super hybrids
A “super hybrid” is a more capable kind of hybrid car. It still uses a battery and electric motor, but it’s designed to do more of the work electrically than a typical mild hybrid.
The MG4 Urban EV is MG’s small electric car. Here, they’re basically saying it’s a bit smaller than the regular MG4, which can make it easier to live with in tight city spaces.
The Tesla Model Y is Tesla’s popular electric SUV. The host is saying someone expected to dislike it after a used-car test drive, but ended up loving it.
The Cheltenham Show is a named event venue where the segment says BYD’s UK country manager will appear for a fireside chat. It’s used here as the local UK platform for announcing and discussing the charging technology.
“Flash charging” means charging an EV extremely fast—on the order of minutes. Instead of pulling all the power directly from the grid, the charger uses built-in batteries to deliver the big power burst.
The Denza Z9 GT is the EV model they say will be the first in the UK to demonstrate this ultra-fast “flash charging.” The idea is that it can gain a lot of driving range in just a few minutes.
JLR stands for Jaguar Land Rover. The host is mentioning it as another Western automaker that could be involved in future production capacity and partnerships.
A reverse takeover is a corporate deal where the “smaller” or private side ends up controlling the “bigger” public company. The host is implying that some partnerships could eventually turn into control-changing deals.
The Beijing Motor Show is a big car show in China. The host mentions it to support the idea that European auto leaders are paying close attention to Chinese companies.
A purpose-built electric car is designed as an EV from the start. Instead of modifying an older gas-car design, the car’s layout is planned around the battery and electric motors.
The BMW i3 is a fully electric BMW that was designed from the start as an EV. The point here is that it wasn’t just a modified gas car—it was built around electricity.
Stellantis is a big car company that makes lots of different brands. Here, it’s mentioned because it’s working with Leap Motor to help those electric cars reach Europe.
“Macro trends” means big, long-lasting changes in the world or the industry. The host is saying these changes are bigger than any one company’s actions.
It’s a marketing phrase for people who are ready to buy. They’re not just browsing—they’re at the stage where they’re thinking seriously about choosing an electric car.
“Services” means the motorway rest areas where you stop for food, breaks, and—more and more—charging. It’s the place you’d go when traveling with an electric car.
Term
wristband
A wristband is like a card or tag you use to pay or unlock charging at some stations. The host is pointing out that charging access is becoming more common and familiar.
“Blade batteries” are a special way of building the battery so it’s flatter and more efficient. The idea is to fit more energy into the same space and make the battery pack work better.
They’re talking about designing the battery so parts can be swapped out later. The goal is that when better battery tech arrives, the car can be updated instead of being stuck with an old battery.
“Usable” means the battery energy the car lets you use for driving. The car keeps a little in reserve to help protect the battery and avoid unsafe extremes.
Term
drive system
The drive system in an EV includes the components that deliver power from the battery to the wheels, including motors and power electronics. Its balance with suspension is important because weight and power delivery affect traction and stability.
Individual motors means each wheel (or axle) can be driven by its own electric motor. That enables more precise control of traction and torque distribution, but it also makes the software and vehicle balance more sensitive to weight changes.
In EVs, software is the control system that coordinates motor torque, traction behavior, and how the car responds to steering inputs. When the vehicle’s weight distribution changes, the control strategy often needs to account for it to keep handling stable.
A battery box is the protected container where the electric car’s battery sits. Where it’s placed and how heavy it is can change how the car feels and handles.
Millbrook is a place where car companies test vehicles. It’s the kind of location where you can try something risky without worrying about normal road traffic.
Renewable energy is electricity made from sources that don’t run out, like sunlight and wind. If you charge an electric car with this kind of electricity, the car can be cleaner overall.
Brand
Ferrari Lube
“Ferrari Lube” sounds like a specific phrase people are seeing online. In this quote, it’s used to contrast what shows up in people’s feeds versus EV-related news.
LIVE
Spring has a way of reintroducing your home to the light.
The days stretch a little longer.
Mornings feel softer.
Your home opens up after a long winter.
But with more light comes more glare, more heat, less privacy.
The kind of upgrade that doesn't just refresh your room,
it elevates it.
And because you'll work with a local expert,
every detail is handled for you,
from inspiration to installation.
There's a store in your area where
you could get Hunter Douglas shades.
Ready to get started?
Visit nightanddaydecor.com or call
647-360-6151.
That's nightanddaydecor.com.
So welcome to the Everything Electric podcast.
I'm joined today by CEO of, well, actually,
your CEO of the fully charged show.
But let's not confuse people, because that's
the company behind everything electric.
But Dan Caesar is here with me.
And we haven't caught up for a while.
We've both been slightly busy.
I don't know how busy you've been, Dan,
but I've been slightly busy.
Well, I've been in the machinery of the business,
I would say, right in the cogs, space
of running a business.
And that's all good fun.
But I think you've been doing something a bit more.
If you ask me what I've been up to,
I've been locked in the garden office,
just like the monkey meme with the keyboard, basically.
Whereas you've been doing something a bit more glamorous,
I think.
Well, I have.
I mean, I just wanted to point out
that you are prepping for our next live event,
which is critically important.
It's all well and good me swanning off around the world.
So yes, I have just been in Rome.
Oh, tell us more.
Yeah, just I popped over there to witness the unveiling.
I mean, it is pivotal.
It's divisive and everything else.
But the unveiling of the Ferrari Luce and the person
who went to see the car after me was Il Bappa.
The Pope went to see the car.
Wow. OK. After me.
So that's how that's the level of.
So he was your wingman.
He was your.
Well, I was I was his warm up.
Let's put it like that, I think.
I mean, you know, I don't think he was aware that I was there.
But anyway, I didn't meet him.
But that was the day after we were there.
And it was fascinating because I have been to a lot of car launches
in the last 16 years.
I mean, I can't remember how many and nothing was approaching this.
I mean, they really pushed the boat out.
So I think that I don't know.
It was like many, many hundreds of journalists over the period.
So from all over the world, so there were Japanese, Chinese,
there was a South Korean guide, loads, every European nation
you can think of, Canadians, I didn't meet any Americans.
I don't know if they were there or not.
They could have been.
I'm not saying there were no Americans, but they weren't very apparent.
But American influence in the.
Well, it's Johnny and Johnny Ive is actually an Englishman, isn't he?
But he's English and the Californian influence in the whole thing.
Right. Oh, yes.
Huge California.
So Sir Johnny Ive and Mark Newsom,
who's Australian, who was lovely and who watches our show,
which is very flattering to hear that, are the two partners in.
Love from and I had quite a lot of problems
remembering the title of their company.
So they're the so that I mean, just so people who the one
or two people who might not know Johnny Ive effectively designed
the iPhone and the Apple Watch and a lot of Apple products.
And he's a sort of, you know, a very high status industrial
designer, extraordinary.
And I think what whatever you think of what the car looks like
when you sit in that car and see what they've done with the interior,
it is it is like design and engineering exquisite.
You know, Nirvana, it's just incredibly well thought out.
I mean, one of the things that I think is just I'm sure I don't know
if other people have done it, but I've never seen it in a while.
So it has literally analog dials like it has a beautiful aluminum
hand ground, a binnacle with a sort of domed glass.
It's all of a special glass and all that stuff.
And inside is an actual physical needle that can go up and down like a speedometer.
But behind that is a digital screen so it can show you rev speed,
battery temperature and that the needle changes as you change the background.
So it's just I mean, it's like that's it was genius.
But also surely someone else has done that before,
but I've never seen it anywhere else on any other vehicle.
So it was that I mean, there's so much information they gave us.
I mean, this is an absurdly fast, incredibly powerful,
luxury five seat four door luxury saloon car is what I would call it.
You know, like a sedan or saloon car with a quite I mean, you know,
the biggest trunk slash boot of any Ferrari ever made.
So it has storage space.
It's quite peculiar looking and doesn't.
But what I was so relieved when we eventually walked into it,
because remember Jack saw the drivetrain last year, the battery in the motors.
Yes. The suspension.
So we kind of knew about that.
We had no idea what the car was going to be on top of it.
And I was just dreading like a big bubbly SUV like everybody seems to make,
especially when they first make an electric vehicle.
And I went to walk in and see the roof was low.
And I went, oh, good, the roof is low.
It's you know, that's what that was the first thing.
Anyway, that was spectacular.
I just want to tell you one thing which sets it apart from other,
you know, car launchers have ever been told me,
normally you go to a car launch and you stay in the hotel
and then you go down to the big, you know, conference center
and you see the car and people talk to you and tell you about the car.
Then you do a test drive or whatever.
There were no test drives.
This car cost half a million pounds.
They're not going to let you get in one test drive
unless you know, they do trust you.
But when for us to get from the hotel to the huge exhibition center
where the car was being presented, we all got in mini vans.
That's no big deal.
That was loads of journalists.
I think they're 12 or 14 black with blacked out windows,
mini vans that were very close to each other.
And we had to wait for ages.
And we couldn't understand why we were waiting.
And then suddenly we did start moving and we heard all these sirens
and we were surrounded by Italian, very glamorous,
beautifully dressed Italian polizzi with their big, powerful
Moto Guzzi motorbikes with a big stalk on them
with the blue flashing like Nina Nina Nina and they were flanking us
all the way along.
So you've got to think for the UK, if you know the M25 going around
London, you know, a big motorway slash freeway that circles the city.
We were on the equivalent of that in Rome,
traveling like 50, 60 miles an hour.
And all the traffic was at a standstill,
but they all had to move out of the way for a bunch of scruffy
journalists to go and see it for our only in Italy.
You know, Ferrari is royalty.
It's just, you know, we would like the poke that was
and all the journalists that were on.
I'm sorry, the one thing I should say, and some people cheated,
our cameras were completely our phones were covered in stickers.
We weren't allowed to take any pictures.
There was a 500,000 euro fine if you broke the embargo
and they would never talk to you again.
I mean, they were proper old school,
roughly Tufti tabloid journalists were nervous
and they were trying not to say anything, you know,
so it was a very extreme event like that.
But they so no one could film it.
But of course, actually, some people did film the police.
They were there. I've got to be.
Look, it's it's an old man.
It's it's perfectly fine.
About half the police officers were women
and they were the most terrifying riders.
You can see their hair was coming out the back and they would cut in
and they pointed a fiat Punto and tell it to stop.
They were so aggressive and so glamorous.
I mean, they're all their uniforms were designed by, you know,
Gucci, Fiorucci, somebody, somebody.
She just, you know, was that was just I mean, we shouldn't be impressed.
You know, it's just a silly thing.
But, you know, to go to a car launcher,
you get that sort of experience is pretty special when we then had
we had a nice tea cut by a three star Michelin, three star chef.
He was nice Italian bloke.
Well, it does sound better than why I was doing in the garden office
at the same time, but it's given me Italian job vibes.
It sounds like an extraordinary thing.
Like, you know, I think probably we as Brits don't always appreciate
how big a deal Ferrari is in Italy.
And I'm really fascinated at the response to the car,
because let's be honest, it was polarizing to say the least.
And I understand it like you're you're taking something with huge heritage
that, you know, emotes a huge feeling amongst many Ferrari fans.
And then you're kind of modernizing that and, you know, changing the design
and all those sorts of things.
But I wonder what the response was, whether it was quite so polarized
in Italy, or if it was just they were just against it,
or whether it's sort of sacrilege to to do something like this.
And it reminded me a little bit of when Jaguar launched there
were 01 as it's now confirmed to be called in that you can't really win.
And actually, in the day of the influencer and in the day of social media,
actually, the verdict comes in pretty quickly and intensely.
I hate this. love it.
So it must have been an extraordinary thing if you worked for Ferrari
to see or if you were Johnny I've to see people respond.
But the design interior looks amazing.
I thought the exterior looked amazing.
But then again, I haven't driven or owned many Ferraris.
I don't really have a lot of skin in the game.
So, you know, fascinating moment in time for you to be there, I think.
Yeah, no, it wasn't.
And it did feel like a pivotal thing because the kind of the idea,
the sort of spirit, if you like, the notion of it came out of Silicon Valley,
came out of of love from who are a Silicon Valley company died in the war.
They're all ex-Apple, Microsoft, you know, Google, all that.
That's who makes it up.
And, you know, there are engineers as well, but they're from that world.
They've just they're from that very much that sort of consciousness.
And what I thought was interesting was when I first heard about electric cars,
which is now like 25 years ago, all the people I heard from were nerds in Silicon Valley,
who knew how to manage batteries, knew how to run battery management systems
and control systems to let you send power from a battery to an electric motor.
You know, that all came out of Silicon Valley, not Detroit in America,
not Europe, you know, European car makers, not Japanese car makers,
not Korean car makers, and definitely not Chinese car makers,
even though they were making batteries.
You know, they that came out of that area.
And that, you know, the idea in that time, no, nearly 30 years ago
in Silicon Valley was, you know, Silicon Valley was innovation and creativity
and probably quite liberal values of my limited experience of being there.
And they like that now.
But, you know, what is interesting is this little thing has come out of it.
This design group in San Francisco, who are amazing, you know, what they've achieved.
Because they, you know, we don't even know half of things.
So they designed furniture and buildings and, you know, all kinds of others,
you know, a lot of aerospace stuff.
So they do a lot of interiors of aerospace.
So it's very strongly, you know, influenced by aerospace design.
Like, you know, your private jet has similar air vents to the Ferrari.
But I remember you always talking about the genesis of the fleet charge show was California,
it was battery management systems, it was things like that.
And it is fascinating, because we haven't got full circle, you know, at all,
because actually America's role in this is diminished very significantly.
But there was a headline today and obviously there's a lot of fuel all the way over Ferrari.
And the reality is that, you know, I saw an article in the Telegraph of All Places today
by a journalist called Ambrose Evans Pritchard.
I think I've met him once.
He's a very intelligent guy and he wrote the electric car takeover is now unstoppable.
Yes.
You know, so it is a moment where, whether the traditionalists like it or not,
Ferrari have to get into that game.
I wonder if they'll sell quite a few of these cars in Silicon Valley.
Oh, I think that's, I mean, I can so imagine a multi-billionaire in Silicon Valley tech,
bro, getting in his Ferrari.
It's so, you know, it's just a foregone conclusion, I'm sure they will.
I mean, I'm sure a few traditional petrolhead loving, you know, Ferrari owners that collect
Ferrari, imagine being able to collect Ferraris.
I mean, none of them are under about 250,000 pounds, you know, up to 750,000.
Even though it's nearly half a million pounds, it's not the most expensive Ferrari.
You can spend more than that on a Ferrari today if you really need to.
So it is, you know, I was a little bit conflicted about it because it's a super elitist car.
It kind of, you know, there's expensive cars like there are 150,000 pounds.
They're kind of, I feel more uncomfortable than the one that's 480,000, whatever that is.
It's so expensive, it goes into another realm.
It doesn't affect the likes of you and me.
You know, we might get to see one in the car park at Waitrose.
Actually, they're not going to go to the car park at Waitrose.
I do wonder if the, if the Pope, the Pope's tried to black one.
I reckon he really wants to get his hands on one.
Pulling a few, pulling a few strings.
There's one thing it does that I genuinely don't understand.
And they're lovely Italian guy that spent hours trying to explain to all the Brit
journals. It wasn't me not being, they, none of them could get their heads around it.
Is that if you sit in it and you put, you do the launch thing, and the launcher,
I won't go into it now, the launch thing is extraordinary.
There's a physical way that you launch the car.
Foot on brake, foot, my other foot on accelerator, hard press, both of them.
And you let the brake off.
It will go from naught to 192 miles an hour, roughly that.
So 250 kilometers an hour in a certain time.
But if you use the gears, it gets there quicker.
I don't understand because they're not gears.
They are gear things that give you the emotional.
This is how I explained it.
You give you the emotional feeling of a year.
I mean, I explained to our, so it's not mechanical gears,
but it keeps the torque of the motor at the maximum.
Here's one other data fact.
This is just fabulous.
The electric motors, there's four of them, one for each wheel, are tiny.
They're really, really small.
Because we just saw the Yasa motors.
Imagine I went to see a Yasa motor, which make these incredibly powerful motors very small.
These are small and they're only 250 horsepower each.
And there's four of them.
So it's a 1,000 horsepower car.
But they can spin not when they're connected to the car, but on their own.
A test they do is they spin from zero to, I think, it's 43,000 RPM in under a second.
So they go from that to, I mean, it makes no sense whatsoever.
I mean, it's just, so everything they've done is at the absolute pinnacle of human achievement
at this point.
I think that's what I found fascinating.
It's the best batteries, SK batteries made in Korea.
Although they do have a big factory in China.
And they did have a big factory in America, but they've closed that down.
Anyway, you know, so it was an exceptional experience to do that.
And then today, to contrast, I've been driving the Leap Motor B10.
But you've got to say, if you're looking for a compact SUV, I mean,
the review will be probably on the show by the time this goes out,
but it's very, very nice car to drive.
This episode is brought to you by Honkuk.
The Honkuk Ion Tire is built exclusively for electric vehicles,
engineered to deliver what EV drivers need most.
Confident grip, quietness, energy efficiency, and long mileage.
As the official tyre partner of Formula E, Honkuk proves its EV technology is at the highest
level of performance and brings that same innovation to every Ion Tire on the road.
Well, what a wonderful segue into the next topic.
Yes. I've been, I've been driving and I've got,
those who can't see, I've got an X-Peng polo shirt on.
I've just come home in a rush and just thrown this old thing on.
But actually, I've been driving an X-Peng G6 Performance for the last week.
Oh, because I know the G6 quite well that all the performance.
I've got to say, it is exceptional.
We'll try and get you.
I just like to have borrowed it very, very temporarily.
I'm not being paid by X-Peng for this message.
But it, it's right up there.
It's right up there.
We'll have to get you a performance version because it comes with the black wheels and all the rest of it.
Anyway, anyway, I digress.
But what I'm going to ask you, and this is a kind of segue,
is I live in the, the Surrey Hills, the flat bit of the Surrey Hills.
Very much.
But I see electric cars everywhere.
And the number now I see of Chinese made electric cars is extraordinary.
Is that, are you seeing the same phenomenon play out in the, in the Cotswolds?
Yeah, I mean, not, I mean, not in, I mean, in the, well, our village is an example.
So I don't know the exact number now that was a while ago that I went and asked everyone.
So it's 28 houses, very small village.
And I, for years, I was the special bloke that lived just on the edge of the village
because I was special because I had solar panels on one of those fancy electric cars.
And now there are, I think, 12, 12 households with electric cars in the village.
So, you know, that's a transformation.
You know, I mean, because if you think has not met that many houses,
about half the houses, just under half the houses have electric cars here.
Lots of MGs, definitely one X-Peng, someone's got a black X-Peng G6.
Can't think, but the others are Teslas, Tesla, I'm just going through them.
No one yet has got a Renault 5.
I'm going to be bitter when they do.
Bander happened, not in our village anyway.
But the ones I see around here is loads of electric cars.
So the school where my children went to primary school, that car park would be in always,
when we were there, always full of Range Rovers.
And Land Rovers and maybe some BMW saloon cars.
You know, now it's every type of electric car you can pick up.
I mean, it's very, very common.
And I'm not saying they're on a par with Range Rovers,
but, you know, you can see loads of JQ5s here.
You can see loads of Modos, BYDC, Line 7s, the X-Peng G6 that I've just mentioned.
And I've seen, I actually did see a GLE-X5 today as well.
I drove one of those recently at our show in Harrogate.
And it's just the changing market share must be blowing people in traditional automotives
mines because you've built up, I guess, a moat called brand loyalty.
And it seems to me that that has been ripped up and torn to shreds.
I mean, I think from, without, you know, making this too clumsy,
we've got some interesting brands coming to our next show in Cheltenham.
Yeah.
We did our first ever show in eight years in your backyard, relatively speaking.
No.
Which is very, very exciting.
So coming to Cheltenham in about 10 days after this podcast,
you know, get your tickets from everythingelectric.show, etc.
But if you look at the brands that are there, Tesla are going to be there.
They support mostly everything that we do.
And then also BYD, MG, IM, GLE, Polestar, and then, you know, others like Nissan and Renault,
they were the OGs, right, of the industry.
The likes of Hyundai, Ford, Mercedes, BMW.
We've just got some vehicles from Kia, from Missuzu, KGM.
You know, it's a really kind of interesting and eclectic lineup.
But now, of the company...
About half of them are Chinese.
Yeah.
Or built in, I mean, Polestar, you know, you could say Swedish, but it's built in China.
Yeah.
We don't have a motor JQ at this event, but I'm pretty sure they're coming for the next one in Twickenham.
And there are other brands on the way, you know, like GAC, ION, NEO, Firefly,
Xiaomi is coming early next year, Zika's coming in the third quarter,
sort of fourth quarter of this year.
I mean, it's not even like the Armada is, you know, it's fully come to the fore yet.
So it's really, really hard to map forward and think, well, what does that mean?
And, you know, there's a million times everyone's bored of hearing me say it,
but are there enough consumers to go around?
But clearly the Chinese have been very clever because they've adopted a multi-power train
approach, you know.
If the EU thought it was maybe throwing up some barriers that made it hard for them
to come into Europe and compete with the European OEMs,
Chinese have been super flexible with their super hybrids,
and as well as obviously their pure EVs as well.
So I'm looking forward to maybe quite a chest drive, the IM5,
maybe we're going to get to go and see MG soon in Gloucester before this event.
You and I drove in the urban, is it called the MG4 Urban EV?
MG4 Urban EV, I've got the hang of it now.
It feels smaller than the MG4.
I think it's a bit shorter, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
So that's your review in that shortly, which is great.
And then we also have a company there called Big Motion World,
who actually sell and test drive used EVs.
I was so happy.
So I got an email from someone saying, I came expecting to hate this car,
and it was a Tesla Model Y, test drove a used one.
And now I've got one and I absolutely love it.
So it's great to see the show having an influence.
So yeah, tons of test drives on the day.
And while I'm sort of completing the thought bubble, I suppose,
about the next show we've got coming up in Cheltenham,
we've also got lots of home tech stuff there as well.
So STATE is packed full of that sort of stuff,
including Chuk that we covered recently,
which is sort of the first electric lighting efficiency
a company that was swarmed at Harrogate,
and we just did an episode on them.
Their founder has sort of built the sort of first
inverted commas castle in the UK for many years.
We've got a valent there with a heat pump.
Heat geek, you can get, you know, a heat pump.
Heat geek, some reason.
Quotes, we've got 11 energy with their sodium ion battery,
with summer energy, believe, and quite a few more.
But certainly, we would say that in Canada,
we've got loads of car companies and loads of companies in general.
Well, actually, the shows are a bit more compact than years gone by
because we've taken them outside and we've done that,
we've done that sort of quite consciously
because the home energy market is quite tough.
I would say, oh, I'm not going to use the word,
I sound like Alan Parch and use the word moribund,
but it's a bit like that in the UK home energy sector.
It's a tough market at the moment.
Whereas on the flip side,
on the other side of the world, in Australia,
we've got everything, Electric Sydney coming up in September,
and it is feckoned by comparison.
It is unbelievable what's going on there with energy.
So it just shows, and the economy,
it just shows the difference that politics can make.
But one thing I wanted to say that I think
is kind of joins the energy and car ecosystem
is that BYD are launching their flash chargers soon,
and they're launching them,
well, they're announcing them in the UK.
They're going to be at London Tech Week imminently.
But then Bono, who is the UK country manager for BYD,
is going to come to the Cheltenham Show
and you're going to have a fire-side chat with him.
And just to kind of recap what flash charging means,
they're capable of speeds up to 1,500 kilowatts,
enabling 10% to 70% charge in five minutes.
First model showcase flash charging in the UK
will be the Denza Z9 GT,
which we hope to get our hands on at some stage.
And the five-minute charge can add up to 223 miles of range.
In five minutes.
Each flash charger is equipped with two energy storage batteries,
a combined capacity of best part 400 kilowatt hours.
Energy is drawn from those rather than directly from the grid.
The batteries themselves can recharge at speeds of up to 500 kilowatts,
according to charging demands and local grid infrastructure.
So really interesting to see that get launched in the UK
and hearing directly from BYD at our Cheltenham Show
about how that's going to roll out.
But for a long time, the Tesla Supercharger Network
has been the premium experience.
So it'd be really interesting to see that dynamic
potentially change over the coming years.
So I don't think, I mean, from what I understand at BYD,
they've not built that to be an exclusive BYD product.
So it will charge any car that's capable of taking that charge.
I would be talking out of my head if I said I knew that.
We'll try and find that out.
I had read that somewhere, but who knows?
You're probably 100% great, but I will check that
and we'll put a link in about the flash charging
in the show notes for this particular episode.
But yeah, it will be amazing to do a show
which is without wishing to give away where your house is.
It's now half an hour from where you live, right?
You know, that which could be too specific.
And to see a whole group of people
that presumably haven't been able to come to Silverstone
or Farmsport or London or Harrogate over the years.
So I really look forward to that.
Yeah. And also, I mean, I just want to say,
aside from anything else, Bono G, who is sort of European head of BYD,
is just a brilliant talker, very entertaining,
very, you know, just a really engaging guy to interview.
He's one we've interviewed him a couple times before.
I saw him not long ago.
He's just so funny. He just cracks me up.
Comes up with some, you know, slightly off-colour remark
which you don't expect from a,
but, you know, not offensive, just geeky.
You know, he's very funny guy.
You make, he cracks me up every time I see him.
Actually, that is relevant, I think,
to what we were talking about in terms of the Chinese companies here
because so many of them will be, within the next two years,
will be building cars in Europe.
That's, you know, they're opening factories.
And it was just, I didn't know about LeapMotor.
LeapMotor have just literally in the last few weeks
opened their big factory where they're going to make
all the LeapMotors that you can buy in Europe,
in Zaragoza, in Spain.
And they didn't choose Coventry or Reading or Bristol,
where there is an engineering history going back 150, 200 years.
Strange that. And I can't work out why that is.
They didn't even consider opening a factory in this country.
Because at one time, like Nissan,
they built this incredible factory in, you know,
in the north of England that's still functioning.
I mean, you're trying to drag me onto very controversial ground
that, of course, I will willingly go to that controversial ground.
But the reality is that it is fascinating.
We are going to see some Chinese manufacturing assembly
in the UK, but we haven't been first on the list.
And there's a very, very obvious reason
that no one needs to say out loud why that has been the case.
People have gone to Spain, they've gone to Hungary,
to Germany as well.
So I was with a Chinese car company lots of long ago,
and they were talking about, you know,
they actually set up in Germany,
and they really want to do well in that market.
And I was sort of saying to them, well, they've chosen Germany,
very central to the European market,
perhaps not chosen in the UK for other reasons.
But actually, the German consumer is going to be harder
to persuade than the English consumer.
Yes. Oh, I think so.
The German and the UK markets are comparable in terms of size.
So I think the UK market for Chinese brands
is going to be potentially more fertile,
more fertile place to do business.
But yes, certainly looks like Cherry,
which is the overarching company that includes
Emoda, JQ, Lee Pascal,
certainly looks like they're going to take up some capacity,
whether it's at Nissan in Sunderland,
whether it's at JLR.
There's certainly those kind of conversations
are going on now.
But you're seeing that all over the world, right?
You're seeing Western OEMs actually start to,
when they started to get them to make their cars,
now they're starting to partner with them.
Now those partners are looking suspiciously like
what will be reverse takeovers over time.
As we genuinely saw,
I was lucky enough to go to Beijing Motor Show this year,
you weren't there, but genuinely saw European auto execs
scrambling after Chinese car company CEOs.
It was extraordinary.
So it is tough and certainly from our point of view,
it's great when you see a Renault, for example,
do so well, right?
Renault 5, fantastic.
When I see great cars.
But it is obviously, it's tough, it's tough out there.
So yeah, we'll, I think the next few months,
you're going to, there's going to be some major announcements,
I think, in the UK.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I just think also that it does feel like,
the, you know, if you go back to 2015,
let's just go back to 2015.
And I can't even remember what was going on.
But you know, there were lots and lots of big European car brands,
very, very confident, very bullish.
They would do one or two electric versions,
but they were a little bit compromised.
And they, I mean, the i3, the BMW i3 is a beautiful example
of a beautifully purpose-built electric car.
So there is exceptions, but there was a lot of sort of,
you know, conversions of or adaptions of existing vehicles.
2015 was when Leap Motor were founded.
I mean, it's so new.
It's 11 years old.
They've sold millions of cars in China.
They've gone into partnership with Stellantis
to come into Europe and they're building cars here.
How can an 11, you know, I always want to go back to,
we're like Ford was 11 in 1914.
Yeah, it is mind-boggling.
I saw the Leap Motor Laffer 5 unveiled in Beijing.
It's a nice looking car.
I like, you know, they've started with, I think the,
maybe the TO3, which is a bit of a face
that only a mother could love, but it's affordable.
Really a little car.
I think the B10, I think you've driven this week,
is a good looking car, and the Laffer 5 is good.
So, I mean, Leap Motor and Stellantis is a perfect example
of what I'm talking about.
One organisation, huge organisation, many brands,
trying to navigate its way through,
but Leap's influence is growing and growing
and growing within Stellantis.
And I guess it's just a sign of the times.
Nothing could be done.
These things are macro trends that are bigger
than any individual, often bigger than some of these companies.
So, it is going to just play out now.
But yeah, honestly, I've been driving this X-Pen G6 around,
the days of looking down your nose at Chinese cars
and saying they're not like that, it's long gone.
It's long gone.
Yeah, but what I actually think is happening
with a lot of people, and this is based on, you know, nothing,
because it's not hearsay, but it's that people have said,
oh, I've bought an electric car.
That's number one, I'm now driving an electric car,
and then you ask them what it is, and they know what it is,
but they don't say I bought a Chinese electric car.
You know, it's just a car, that's, you know,
because there's such new names, none of us know what the,
you know, Leap Motor could come from Stoke-on-Trent,
for all that, you know, it doesn't say Chinese Leap Motor,
even X-Pen, it's just a weird car.
Well, we went through that little early stage
where we had things like the aura funky cat,
where the car kind of looked a bit alien to these shores,
and then actually its name probably didn't help them sell
to many apart from, you know, people like Craig Charles,
funky cat, and imagine that would be right up his street, right?
But it...
If he was ever allowed to drive.
But the reality is that they've learned incredibly quickly,
and this is not to say that there aren't brilliant non-Chinese
car comers out there, I mean, the Korean are knocking it out.
Unbelievable, yeah, they are doing so well.
And the reality is there's a lot of great, great cars out there now,
which is why everything Electric West is such a great event,
because you can come and test drive them all.
No, I think it's worth, I mean, I just think this stat is amazing,
there's a stat of how many test drives we've facilitated
since we started doing live shows in 2018.
Well, it's over 160,000 now, and I think we can get up to 180,000
by, we've got Cheltenham in a few days,
then Twickenham in September, and then Sydney.
We're trying to get one of the manufacturers
to do a thousand test drives at the Sydney show,
just one manufacturer, and it's pretty cool.
They need a lot of cars to be able to do that.
Yeah, they do.
That's a three-day show, but they need to rotate
quite a few different cars to do that.
It needs to be quite a slick system,
but people are buying the cars there,
and then all thinking about it and going to the dealership
not long after, so for us, that little piece of fear
typically melts away.
At the point where you think, might test drive one of these,
you've probably done a bit of the research,
maybe you've been watching the channel,
but then you're kind of, actually, I'm now in the,
I'm in the bottom of the funnel, as they say,
in the sales business.
I can't imagine anyone actually saying that.
I'm at the bottom of the funnel.
If you walked into a showroom and said,
I'm at the bottom of the funnel, I go,
sir, the gents is just over there.
Put them to show.
Excellent work.
I think you're right.
I mean, it does feel, because we just passed
2000000 electric cars on the roads in the UK,
and I think that is a real, we are looking at a pivot year,
I think, not a single day, but it's become,
there are people who, and that's, it's become so normalized.
And finally, I'm now hearing someone the other day said,
who drives a petrol car, they're not, you know,
but they're now thinking about an electric car.
They stopped at the services.
I don't know where they, they couldn't remember where it was.
And they saw this huge long row of chargers lit up at night.
And they were, oh, that's where you stop with an electric car.
They said, they swore they'd never seen one before.
And I just listed places, you know, like rugby services,
redding services, redding a wristband,
where there's, I think, 45 charges.
You know, they're common.
That number is growing very fast.
And I think that makes, it's almost like these will never be used,
but they're really important for psychological security for people.
It's nearly normal, not quite nearly normal in a world
which is anything but normal.
And as I said, the telegraph, the electric car takeover is now unstoppable.
I mean, I'm probably going to tattoo that somewhere.
I think you should have that.
Because I mean, yeah, so for people outside the UK,
the two newspapers for some reason, and I don't really know why,
here's an interesting side of side point.
Journalists from both those newspapers were at the Ferrari launch going bananas.
They loved the Ferrari.
They loved the technology.
They thought it was amazing.
But both those newspapers are generally, editorially,
not in necessarily, they were both the motor and correspondence.
The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, very conservative newspapers.
The Daily Telegraph sort of been on a journey of denigrating
and degrading the electric cars and how awful they are
and how people have been let down by them.
And you think, well, that's why are they doing that?
And then you meet the journalist from it.
You think, oh, my God, I can't talk to him because he hates electric cars.
He's all over electric.
He drives an electric car.
He's not, you know, they're really bright guys.
They know what's going on.
Well, I think I missed it until this week.
But I think our dear friend Jeremy Clarkson mentioned about bringing
in top gear back in 2027 and said, you know, it needs to be new hosts
and it needs to address the new paradigm and it needs to include electric cars.
You know, I mean, I literally would have fallen off my chair
if I was sat on one to hear that.
So, you know, as hard fought as it has been and, you know,
there will be continual struggle to persuade people into them.
They're really good.
They are cheaper.
They are better.
Come and try them.
Bring a doubter to Cheltenham or Twickenham or Sydney or wherever
because they're just great, great pieces of technology.
That is the end of it.
And no matter where they're provenance, you know,
no matter all your psychological kind of hangups,
they're just great vehicles.
And some of them do make noises.
Yes.
You can get some that do make noises if you're really wet.
When you're reversing the leap motor, the B10 which I'm driving at the moment,
it definitely makes quite an annoying noise when it's going backwards.
No one's going to not know you're reversing.
And the cameras on it are insane.
There's so many cameras zooming around.
And also, we're about, I've just read a thing.
I'm so excited.
I'm going to try and see if we can get some test plowing done next year.
But there's some amazing fully electric tractors.
Because we tested a little one, a sort of mini tractor.
It was perfectly capable of doing what it needs to do.
But it was kind of small.
There's now some full-sized things that can pull a massive plow that have,
you know, a sort of 2,000 horsepower tractors that can work for nine hours non-stop,
which is more than a human being is allowed to.
So, you know, that stuff is changing.
There was something I was going to say that is relevant to what we've been yabbling on about.
I think it's basically, battery tech.
And I'll keep it as short as I can.
But I think Ferrari commissioned love from the company in San Francisco
to make them a five-seat four-door Ferrari.
That was what they were commissioned to do.
And when they looked at what they'd have to do to fit a V12, V8, you know, standard engine,
it would just be an enormous, huge SUV.
So that's why they went to electric.
So it was kind of a secondary thought.
But once they started going electric and they showed the executives at Ferrari
how much the batteries cost now in comparison to how much they cost,
when they started the project seven years ago,
there were some very profound smiles on the faces of the Ferrari executives,
because they basically dropped more than 70% in costs in the last seven years.
And they're using absolute cutting-edge state-of-the-art blade batteries made by SK.
I mean, the best, you know, they're not sort of,
they're not getting the ones that fell off the end of the production line.
They're giving, you know, clean Madonna of batteries.
Which is really interesting.
Good enough for the Pope.
But then the other thing that was kind of, you just go,
why can't they all do that?
They've designed their battery pack.
The whole thing, you can replace every part on it.
It's not, you know, and the individual battery cells that they put in that pack,
they can remove those and replace them with other ones.
But it's specifically designed that if in five, 10, 15 years,
there's new battery technology, they would put,
and what their predictions are from everyone,
that they will have this, it's 120 kilowatt hours of usable batteries in it.
But what they'll be able to do is put 120 kilowatt hours,
and then they'll probably have to put weight in,
because the whole thing is balanced so carefully.
So the batteries will be half the size, half the weight, same amount of power.
They can't increase the amount of power they can give out to the machine,
because it's all balanced carefully.
But the weight of the batteries will reduce,
which means they have to add that weight,
otherwise the balance of the suspension and the drive system,
and the way that the wheels turn over their individual motors and the software,
it would make it too difficult.
So it's just, you know, I think we will see in our lifetime,
Ferrari, a Ferrari Luce, with a couple of lumps of lead in the battery box
to make it heavy enough to actually drive the damn thing,
which is just so ironic, pretty weird.
Well, I would never own one.
No. I mean, wouldn't it be lovely? I'm hoping.
No, if I could.
I think it's not impossible that we might be able to drive on.
I've got a feeling it probably is going to be at somewhere like Millbrook,
or, you know, not on a road.
I think I'd be so nervous driving on a road,
in case you just have the tiniest pranget,
where you scrape it down the side of a van,
because they pull over to, you know, not our fault.
And you just think, this is 500,000 pounds, and I've scratched it.
I'd be terrified.
Yeah, I wouldn't. I would be nervous.
But I thought it's worth. I thought it was a beautiful looking thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That, I don't know what else to say.
I mean, it's been an exciting time.
I do think we're in a different, shifty period,
where, in a sense, our role as, if you like, you know, evangelists,
or what's all those words.
I don't want to be an influencer.
As long as I don't turn out to be an influencer.
But, you know, our role in expanding the world view of this new technology
of renewable energy, of batteries, it's kind of changed.
I don't agree. It's not. It's good. It's a good thing,
because they are becoming normal.
It won't be long before we just say a car.
We don't have to say electric.
I'm waiting for when we say car, and then petrol car.
Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's also, it's public conversation now.
When you first started pioneering this, you were almost a lone voice.
Oh, it's weird though.
As time has gone on, you know, depends what social platform you're on.
All you will see this week is talk about the Ferrari Lube.
All you've seen in weeks gone by is BYD Overtake, Tesla, Chinese.
It has now become common.
It's sort of forming, norming, and storming.
That's the wrong order.
But it is storming, right? It is going to be the norm.
And so our role does change, has mutated, you know.
But it's a lot of fun to see what's happening.
And it's a lot of fun to put people in EVs now, and see them grin,
and maybe change their minds, and get their first one,
and then start eulogising to their friends and family.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, let's never ever use the word influencer.
No. Not that there's anything wrong.
There were some influencers in Rome. They're all lovely.
I don't know anything about people.
No. They don't try to be bad people.
They try to be good people.
Let's stop. Let's just stop there before we...
I can see the huge spade that I've got leading up against the wall
that I can dig an even deeper hole.
No, it's been good to catch up, Dan.
And I will definitely see you in Cheltenham.
I can't believe it.
I cannot believe we're doing a show in Cheltenham of all towns,
but there we go. We are.
But I used to say to my mother when I worked at,
when I was born, and where they lived.
They lived in Cheltenham when I was made.
And then I was born in Northampton,
in the same hospital as Tim Minchin.
Oh, really?
That's not weird.
Yeah. The Australian comic and musician was also born in Northampton.
Both his parents were doctors, and they were on sabbatical in Northampton.
So strange. Anyway, but when I used to say to my mother,
I was made in Cheltenham, she'd go,
oh, disgusting.
She was horrified that.
Oh, it's my, effectively, in terms of DNA, it's my hometown.
So, yeah, it's a lovely place.
Can't wait to see you there in a few days, in 10 days.
And I think the feeling is the weather should be pretty nice.
I think we'll be in touch wood.
I hope so.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for staying with us,
for this little sojourn into the world of electric vehicles.
Please do subscribe to Everything Electric Tech and Everything Electric Cars.
Please do tell your friends about it.
Please have a look at our Patreon page,
which has become rather more exciting of late.
We've been doing many, many more things that exclusively
for our truly heroic Patreon supporters.
Some of you have been supporting us for like 10 years.
And tell your annoying aunts,
uncles, slash cousins, slash neighbor who thinks
the petrol is the king and we should always use it,
and the earth is flat.
And tell them to watch this as well,
because either entertain them or annoy them.
And as always, if you have been, thank you for watching.
About this episode
From a Ferrari Luce launch in Rome—complete with strict embargo rules and hundreds of journalists—to real-world UK EV adoption, the hosts connect design, charging, and battery tech to a bigger question: whether Western automakers face a “death spiral” as Chinese brands surge. They preview Everything Electric West in Cheltenham, where “about half” the lineup is Chinese, and argue that EVs are becoming normal enough that “we just say a car.”
Fresh from the furore over Ferrari's 1st EV, Robert Llewellyn calls Dan Caesar to discuss just how many Chinese cars they're seeing in the Cotswolds and Surrey Hills nowadays. As well as what you can expect from Everything Electric's 1st ever event in the West of England (June 12th & 13th), what it all means for the Western car industry, and whether the Pope gave Ferrari's Luce his blessing. Why not come and join us at our next Everything Electric show: https://everythingelectric.show EE WEST (Cheltenham) - 12th & 13th June 2026 EE GREATER LONDON (Twickenham) - 11th & 12th Sept 2026 EE SYDNEY - Sydney Olympic Park - 18th - 20th Sept 2026 To partner, exhibit or sponsor at our award-winning expos email: [email protected] Check out our sister channel Everything Electric CARS: https://www.youtube.com/@fullychargedshow Support our StopBurningStuff campaign: https://www.patreon.com/STOPBurningStuff Become an Everything Electric Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fullychargedshow Become a YouTube member: use JOIN button above Buy the Fully Charged Guide to Electric Vehicles & Clean Energy : https://buff.ly/2GybGt0 Subscribe for episode alerts and the Everything Electric newsletter: https://fullycharged.show/zap-sign-up/ Visit: https://FullyCharged.Show Find us on X: https://x.com/Everyth1ngElec Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/officialeverythingelectric #fullychargedshow #everythingelectricshow #homeenergy #cleanenergy #battery #electriccars #electric-vehicles-uk
