Hello Mate, Can I See Your Passport?

Hi, I'm Alex, he's Jim, and this is the Charging Status EV Podcast. How are you doing, Jim?

I'm all right. How are you, Alex?

Not bad. Not bad. We were recording this on Friday 26th, and we did see each other yesterday

in Perth, or not yesterday. Wednesday this week's gone mental. We saw each other in

person. We were down in Kent somewhere filming with a new JQ, which is all very exciting.

There'll be some videos for that out soon.

We can't talk about that at the moment, can we?

Not really, no.

No, because we've got an embargo on that, but yeah, some videos on that, coming on the

8th of October at 9am.

Yeah, very specifically.

But we touched on it last week in our podcast with Jonathan, didn't we? It was last

week, wasn't it?

I think so.

But you've had an epic road trip, and I think we should discuss that in today's podcast.

Obviously, we both went to Munich Motor Show. I got a flight there, but you drove, didn't

you?

Yeah, it was really enjoyable. I think I said a few weeks ago when we were recording

in a hotel room that we'd end up doing a podcast live on the Motor Show, and that

never happened because it was really, really busy, so apologies for that.

But yeah, I drove down to Munich in a Volkswagen ID3, that's specifically the GTX version,

and one of the main takeaways I had from that was that the ID3, when it first came

out back in 2020, it really wasn't great.

The build quality wasn't quite as Volkswagen level as you'd expect it to be, and the

technology was a bit all over the place. I think without releasing a brand new version

of the minor facelifts and the upgrades I've had over the time, that car's got a lot better

than it used to be, and it's very solid, so it's well worth a look at if you've considered

an ID3 in the past, so it's good.

Yeah, I did a review of the facelifted one a while ago, and I thought the facelifted

one felt like it should have been the first release, because they'd just taken all the things

that were wrong with the first one and fixed them, and that was literally, apart from one

design feature really on the outside, that was it. It was almost like the first one

was the beta version, and then this one's the final production version, and I thought

it was actually a really decent car, second time round, but I haven't driven the GTX, and

obviously they've had more time to breathe on it, because a lot of times pass between version

B and the GTX, hasn't it?

Yeah, technology's great. They still have the problem with the haptic buttons and stuff,

just those few minor issues now, but just being a car, it's actually really just sensible

and quite easy to live with, just seems to work.

I'm quite surprised they didn't put the new steering wheel on the GTX, because the more

recent VW stuff has had the old steering wheel on again, which is great.

It was seriously one of the best steering wheels of the market, and they took it away

and messed with it, and kind of fixed a problem that didn't exist, but I'm surprised they didn't

put that on the GTX.

Yeah, the new Golf, I think it has the new wheel, but with some buttons, and the Polo

has that and stuff, but yeah, I did notice actually, when I drove the Cupra, that the

Cupra born, it has the same sort of layout, but the haptic buttons, there were some

swipe, obviously they are all swiping things, you can swipe on them, but the bit on

your finger, between your thumb and this finger here, it would sometimes touch the haptic buttons

and then do random stuff, whereas that isn't the case on the VW, they've moved it a bit,

it's a bit differently laid out, so those two cars do seem very, very different actually,

surprising how different they kind of look and feel inside, but yeah, the road trip

was good, so we left on Friday, and the motor show was on the Tuesday, I think, on Monday.

It was Monday.

Monday.

To give you some context, folks, Alex lived sort of Worcestershire, to give you some idea.

Yeah, so we drove...

On day one, you literally went deep into France, didn't you, from Worcestershire?

Actually, yeah, so we left at 4am, I think, and got to somewhere near the Luxembourg border,

probably mid-afternoon, I think late afternoon, that same day.

No, it was great.

I think I said to you in person, but the charging was very cheap in France, I just

used the Tesla Chargers, because they were surprisingly cheap over there, and just

the simplicity of the Euro Tunnel as well, because it's the first time I've been on it.

It's brilliant, isn't it?

It's so good.

I absolutely love the Euro Tunnel.

You drive onto a train, come out the other end, and you're on the motorway.

Yeah, it's very good.

The fact that you literally come off the train, don't you?

You go up the ramp or whatever, and you're on the motorway.

You don't merge onto the motorway, it's the start of it.

I think it's brilliantly well done.

Yeah, it's very, very well thought out.

And yeah, it's the first time I used it.

And the flexibility of that, you're not having to rush around trying to make sure you arrive

at a certain time.

They give you a bit of leeway, so on the way back home, we arrived early, and we actually

managed to get an earlier train.

So you've got that sort of flexibility with it, and it's all very self-service

and quite easy to use and very simple.

I like the fact that you clear border control of both of them,

like within 10 feet of each other on the same side of the water, so to speak,

as well, so that you don't have that faff when you get the other side.

So you do it before you get on the train both times.

It's quite amusing though, isn't it?

Because it's like, hello mate, can I see your passport?

And then you go to the next one and you're like, hello sir, can I have your passport?

And you're like, well, we've just moved like 12 feet.

I know regional accents can vary, but come on.

Yeah.

Actually, what surprised me on the way back home, obviously, when you're waiting to get on the train,

there's a load of...

On the French side, they've got a load of Renault 5s, just milling around,

as their sort of vehicles to get around the Eurotunnel place,

which I thought was quite cool.

Yeah, obviously, you've driven abroad before,

and I haven't driven a right-hand drive car abroad before.

It takes a few bits of time, like an hour or so, to get used to it,

and then it's all fine.

But yeah, it was very enjoyable, so very good.

Yeah, it feels much more natural driving on the correct side

for wherever you happen to be, but yeah, it doesn't take too long, does it?

It's just that odd time when you, particularly if there's nothing on the road

and you pull out of somewhere and you just think,

for a split second, you just start to go towards the wrong side of the road.

Yeah, that's all right.

The other thing I find odd, I find it weirder when I'm in a left-hand drive car

is pulling up to a petrol pump,

because your spatial awareness of the left-hand side of the car

when you're in a right-hand drive car,

I think for most people, if you've been driving it a little while,

it's second nature when it's suddenly on the other side.

I've had a couple of moments where I've almost gone into a petrol pump.

Oh, I know.

It's just spatial awareness is a bit off when it's on the other side.

It might just be me, you never know.

But yeah, first day you drove from Worcestershire to almost Luxembourg.

Yep.

And then where?

We drove into Belgium briefly and then into Luxembourg itself.

And I don't know if you've been there.

We spent, I don't know, maybe an hour in Luxembourg

to get some coffee and stuff, and that place is so clean.

Oh, it's supposed to be absolutely amazing,

but is it hideously expensive for everything?

Well, we just bought coffee and it was about the same price as coffee here,

to be honest, when I was done.

So it wasn't too bad.

But no, it was just immaculate.

I mean, you're driving the multi-storey car park,

which we pulled into and you can hear a lot of squeaking from tyres.

It's like clean.

Yeah.

And even in a lot of France,

if you go early to a multi-storey car park,

they have people on those like floor polishes,

you know, like a ride on,

it almost looks like the kind of thing they take over an ice rink.

Yep.

And they're going around on those in car parks.

And the only thing is,

I miss the smell of stale urine in them.

I miss that we've become accustomed to in the UK.

It does have that nostalgic feel when you go into a car park stairwell.

You're like, oh, there it is.

I feel at ease again.

But when it smells all clean and sanitary,

I don't know, it's not quite the same.

Yeah.

And then we, yeah, from there,

we drove, we basically drove to Munich on the second day.

So, and that's another six or so hours.

So, yeah, very easy.

One of the things I noticed is even though the GTX version

is the more sporty version, it was still very efficient.

I think I got, I think overall on the entire trip,

which was like 2,500 miles,

I think I got 3.7 miles per kilowatt hour.

That's not bad, is it?

That's a massive mix of roads.

And obviously the roads and the motorways in France and Germany

are 80 miles an hour as their speed limits.

So, yeah.

What about auto barn?

Did you hit the auto barn?

We did briefly, yeah.

What did you get up to?

124.

That's the top speed of the ID3.

Right, yeah.

Yeah.

I think all the other ID3 models are 99.

And that one's 124.

So, it didn't seem to have any,

didn't even feel like I was going that fast.

Were you in kilometers per hour?

Yeah.

Did you change it over?

Yeah, what was it?

Is it 190 something?

It was 202.

Oh, 202.

See, when I took the Onyx 6 over,

I think that topped out at like 192.

Right.

Which I think was 120 maybe.

Yeah, 120.

Yeah.

It's funny though, isn't it?

When you're doing 120 and someone comes past you

like you're standing still.

Yeah.

Either a massive estate

or like a 911 turbo or something.

Yeah.

Porsche McCann was quite often as well.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, we spent,

once we got to Munich, we spent a day,

I think we had a day before the motor show.

And then we went to the BMW world,

which is down the road from where we were.

Yeah.

And that was quite enjoyable.

They've got a lot of stuff to see there.

And yeah, the motor show as well, which was,

which was very, very,

sort of eye-opening to see all the load of Chinese brands

that were there.

And it was obviously split into two different areas.

It was so tech-heavy though, wasn't it?

It was, yeah.

I don't think it came across in my video

because I didn't film that much of it.

No.

But I would say it was 70 to 80% technology companies,

wouldn't you?

I'd say so Samsung were there.

And I didn't quite work out what they were doing.

They had some screens for a car.

Yeah.

I didn't be able to ask anyone, but...

So many companies with massive stands.

And when you looked, it was just like

autonomous driving software or autonomous driving hardware.

And it was more like a trade show where they,

you know, they're obviously trying to sell that into the OEMs.

And so much of it.

It was unbelievable.

I mean, I think I'd been there about half an hour

and I'd seen like two cars,

which I thought was unusual.

Because, I mean, like, I think that IAA mobility,

the European one now,

is going to go between Germany and France.

So I think it'll be Paris again next year.

Oh, right.

OK.

And maybe when it goes back to Germany,

it will be in Frankfurt rather than Munich.

And then it'll be Paris again and so on.

OK.

But at Paris last year,

it was what you expect from the most show.

It was big halls full of major manufacturers with big stands.

Yeah.

And it was much more like a traditional motor show,

which, you know, they've changed quite a lot over the years,

but it still had that feel.

And Munich was just bizarre because, you know,

you had like this big hall, massive hall,

and it had load of tech companies in it.

And then VW basically got half the hall at the end.

And then you go into the next one

and there's a load of tech companies.

And then you've got BMW at the end of it.

And I thought the communication was a bit poo as well,

because obviously a lot of it is in the city

and not in the convention centre.

So me and Mark left early to go to visit the stuff in the city

and they were still building it.

And then sort of roughly worked out

that actually it was going to open tomorrow.

And once we got there, of course,

it was open to the general public as well.

So it was a, you know,

I know you love when I say it about motor shows,

but it was a bun fight.

Yeah.

That was, I think we went the day off.

I think we went on the Tuesday afternoon, actually,

and had a walk around.

It was very busy in the bit in the town.

So, yeah, it did seem a bit strange

that there were, I think, six halls in the end.

Yeah.

And I think one of them was like a zombie apocalypse.

There was no one there.

Yeah.

And then there's some food in some few bits and pieces.

It was really quiet.

And then, yeah, some halls were massively busy.

They had BMW in one of them.

So it was strange.

I've not been to a motor show like that before,

but the only ones I've been to the commercial vehicle show.

So, yeah, very different kind of beast.

But, yeah, it was interesting.

So nice to get a few things filmed, but yeah.

You're going to have to try and do Paris next year.

Yeah.

I think that's a good idea.

Yeah.

If it is Paris next year when all of a sudden done.

Hmm.

Yeah.

No, it is an experience and it's good to do.

But I ended up working.

I think I did two, like, 15-hour days

just to get the content out.

And obviously, I was trying to,

the first day I was trying to get around it as quickly as I could

to get out of there, do the bit in the city

and then go and edit and put video together.

So I ended up putting two videos together.

Yep.

And then I did a separate video on the Chang'an D-PAL,

D-PAL SO5,

which had 160-litre frunk in it, by the way.

Wow.

I mean, like, I've owned cars with a smaller boot than that.

Yeah.

Probably my up's got a smaller boot than that.

That's crazy, isn't it?

160 litres.

They had the SO7 as well,

which they also had at the SMMT Drive Day the other day

that you missed.

Yeah.

But I didn't get to drive it, unfortunately.

Anyway.

Yeah, so I did that.

And then ExPang invited me onto their stand

for a presentation and stuff

and to have a look at the new P7.

Right.

Which looks incredible.

And there's rumours of that being available

for like 40, 45 grand.

Right, yeah.

And that's a car that I could see people choosing

over a Tesla, maybe,

if the numbers need to be believed,

but it's like the Chinese CLTC figures

and things and whatever it is.

And they always feel a bit like someone's thought

of a number, doubled it,

then doubled it again and written it down.

But the, I'll tell you what,

that presentation from ExPang was mind-blowing,

like some of the technology and things

that they're developing and their autonomous driving system.

They did a live stream in China

where they basically took one of their cars

and put it on a 12-hour autonomous drive

at night and day conditions.

Right.

And they picked really challenging, busy city areas

and then quite remote rural areas and stuff

and the whole thing live streamed online.

Wow.

And then they also showed that one of their customers

without their knowledge had taken one to Hong Kong.

And Hong Kong is,

they drove on the left in Hong Kong

and drove on the right in China.

He'd never tested it in a left-hand drive market

and it just worked.

And basically a guy just literally put a GoPro in his car

and did the autonomous drive there and it worked.

And some of the stuff they showed from the live stream was

like someone just last minute just stepping out

in front of a car and stuff and like taxis pulling out

and you can imagine what the traffic's going to be like

in a Chinese city, in the centre of a Chinese city.

Can you imagine?

Yeah, it was very impressive.

And they also showed that mothership with the flying car.

Oh, yeah.

I think this month they're going to have manned test flights

of that flying car.

And it docks into that mothership thing

which looks like a sort of messed up cyber truck.

Yeah.

And it can recharge fully six times.

I mean, it is bonkers.

Absolutely bonkers.

But yeah, that P7 was mightily impressive.

Obviously, I didn't get to drive it.

But yeah, huge like hatchback type boot,

loads of room, amazing materials and stuff in it.

And that could be an interesting one, I think.

I don't know if you saw it as well.

There's a company called Tog.

So when I was there, the cars were still covered.

And I decided to just leave before they did the unveil

just because I wanted to get to the city bit that was shut.

Yeah.

They looked all right.

I did watch the presentation, but I couldn't see anything.

So I went back a bit later and had a look around.

And they look a little bit generic to be honest.

But they're a Turkish company, which is quite unusual.

Oh, right.

Not a country you think of that's making cars.

But so I did ask them, are they going to come to the UK?

And it said there's something that they're not ready to share yet.

But it might happen at some point, I'd imagine.

But I did read today that Rivian are going to come to the UK.

That's...

Yeah, that's...

It's interesting because AutoCar covered it.

That's kind of old news.

Oh, OK.

So when the hatchback, the R3 was announced last year,

I think.

I think they said it's going to come to the UK.

But it's like a golf sort of...

Maybe like a slightly larger golf sort of size vehicle.

But yeah, I don't know why that's been sort of announced today.

But yeah, it seems strange.

Yeah.

But I'm quite looking forward to that because Rivian's software looks quite good.

It might be one of those things though where they said they're going to come to the UK

or hope to come to the UK.

And then recently they've said we are coming to the UK.

And it may be given some sort of indication of when that's going to happen or something.

Potentially.

I don't know.

Yeah, it's a weird one.

Did you get to the Lucid stand at Munich?

I didn't.

So Lucid were in the city.

The open space thing, yeah.

Well, I saw Lucid had one of their stores there.

So Lucid seemed to have like a physical shop in Munich.

So we went in there and you're only allowed in if you were pressed.

So we got in.

I had a little look around and they had got the Lucid gravity.

I think it's called the big SUV thing.

That is...

You look at the picture of that car and you think,

oh yeah, it looks pretty luxurious.

But it is so nice.

And you just sit inside it.

Or you can smell his leather.

Did you go there?

No, they didn't have that in the shop.

So I watched your video and some of the things that you saw like the Audi stand,

I didn't even see.

The layout was a bit confusing.

Yeah, very confusing.

The Lucid, I think were right by Cupra and Mercedes.

Yeah, I didn't even see those.

And I mean, the stands were incredible.

Yeah.

But yeah, the Lucid Air, I've seen quite a bit like the US shows and stuff,

but they had the one there that got the world record for,

it was like 1200 kilometers on a single charge.

Mad.

And like not 62 times of like two and a half seconds or something.

Stupid.

I mean, they're just huge and so luxurious inside.

And yeah, just lovely, lovely cars.

The CEOs Welsh as well.

So I'm hoping they come to the UK at some point.

I think they might.

I think the air is unlikely to though.

I think it's just too big for our roads.

Yeah.

Where in the US it's completely fine.

I did ask them actually when I spoke to them and they said,

I think they said they're looking at it,

but it's obviously the right hand drive market's a bit limited.

So it's weird, aren't they?

They are.

Yeah.

It's whether or not it's actually worth the investment to retool the car.

It's probably not.

And they're hemorrhaging cash anyway, aren't they?

Are they?

I think so.

Yeah.

What I understand anyway.

Oh man.

Yeah.

I did think it was a, the VW stuff was good to see.

It's good.

It's good to see VW sort of having their,

all their concepts on show to the,

the ID one and the ID Polo and stuff,

which was really good to see.

So hopefully they sort of appear when they're supposed to appear

because they,

they do seem quite promising of what they've got coming up.

So.

Have you seen it looks like the ID ones going to be the ID Lupo?

Potentially.

Yeah.

That's a nice nameplate to come back.

I think.

Yeah.

A little Lupo.

Yeah.

I think that would became the up.

Didn't it really?

Yeah.

I think ID up exclamation might quite have a too many sort of punctuation items for

a patch.

Yeah.

So that's probably what's happening there.

But no,

that little car is really, really intriguing to me.

And the Polo as well actually.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the interior of the Polo is going to look

like.

Because I watched a bunch of videos about the ID Cross.

And the interior on that looks amazing.

Yeah.

It does look really cool, doesn't it?

Yeah.

I was disappointed we couldn't see the interiors there actually.

So I poked my head inside from the windows.

And they just look like Polo Mark 7 interiors.

Yeah.

The current Polo,

whatever generation that is.

So it looks like just a mule that's put over an existing body.

But yeah.

Strange.

And the other thing I thought was strange on the VW stand is they,

they didn't have any information on anything.

No.

The cars were just sitting there.

And that's probably a deliberate thing.

It's like the car will speak for itself.

Yeah.

But I also think throw as a bone, you know,

gives a bit of information.

It's not a bad thing.

No.

Knowledge is power.

Yeah.

And VW has some sort of press conference I watched briefly.

They had, I didn't realize they got their own charging network

called Ellie or EL.

Oh really?

Yeah.

And I kept seeing it on, on my map,

on my phone around Germany.

And they've announced something to do with that.

I think bi-directional charging.

Potentially I didn't quite listen.

But yeah.

That was another X-Peng thing actually.

They've got like an 850 kilowatt charging network in China.

Geez.

Yeah.

And they've been talking about some stupid numbers

on that for rollout.

850 kilowatt.

Yeah.

Of course we saw the IX3 as well.

Yeah.

So when I went around BMW World,

they had that in the foyer there.

I had a little look around that.

Didn't actually see the interior in person.

Just looked at the exterior.

And it looks pretty good I think.

The interior is great.

Is it?

Yeah.

Did you go into the bit of the stand where they had like the huge interior?

No.

Oh, it was amazing.

It was like the steering wheel.

It was like basically the top of the steering wheel and the dash,

but on a huge scale.

Wow.

So the steering wheel was probably like,

the half of the steering wheel was probably like twice my height or something.

Geez.

And then they had like a huge, huge screen,

which was like a mock-up of the new iDrive system and everything.

And it was great.

And then it's in my day one video actually.

Okay.

If you want to have a look at it.

Have a look, yeah.

And then I did have a poke around in the actual car as well.

And it's really nice.

And it's nice that they've kind of thrown out what they did before.

I mean, the iDrive system still feels like an iDrive system,

but in terms of the actual interior design,

it's been like, forget about what we used to do.

This is what we're going with.

And it does feel like a marked difference.

It's not like, well, they've changed that piano black

for some soft touch stuff.

And they've moved this back a bit and this over here.

It's a completely different concept.

And it's really well executed, I think.

Yeah.

It's good to see because their design's been a bit strange lately.

So it's good to see sort of a refinement of what they're doing.

Yeah.

That's pretty good.

And then that mini concept, whatever that was.

Yeah.

They have X Machina.

Yeah.

A design piece, isn't it?

Yeah.

Did you see all the unfinished carbon fiber,

not carbon fiber, but fiberglass on there?

Yeah.

Very cool.

Yeah.

Crazy, though, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's rough and everything.

Yeah.

It's interesting when they did that.

This is like a design concept we're doing,

but it's not actually going to make it a real car sort of thing.

Yeah.

I guess it gets loads of headlines.

Yeah.

But yeah, you do think how much does that cost and why.

Yeah.

Mercedes was interesting as well.

I don't know how much of that you saw,

but they had the AMG.

The orange thing.

X concept or something.

Yeah.

The orange thing.

That made my special place feel funny.

I really, really like the look of that.

I thought it was great.

Oh, OK.

Yeah.

I couldn't get anywhere near the Mercedes stand, to be honest,

in the halls anyway.

There's so many people sort of crowding around the new GLC,

I think it's called.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It was mad.

I don't know.

Some of the rest of their range leaves me a little bit cold.

I don't know.

The design doesn't particularly appeal to me,

but their spicy stuff really does.

That super high-end stuff they do,

I think they do phenomenally well,

and I think it looks great.

But the other stuff's a bit bland, I feel.

Yeah, I can see that.

I mean, interiors and stuff are gorgeous

on a lot of them,

and undoubtedly fantastic cars to drive.

But some of the styling's a bit like that GLC,

everyone's all over it.

And I was like, yeah.

Looks all right.

Yeah.

Well, the only Mercedes I've driven are the Vans, so.

Yeah.

There was a joy, like years ago,

I used to have to go over to Northern Ireland

for work a lot.

And quite often I'd arrive at the hire-car place,

and I'd always order an automatic.

Yeah.

And I knew that they had, like, a Corsa and a Golf,

and then about 10 E-class Mercs.

Yeah.

And nine times out of 10,

you ended up with the E-class Merc.

You order the Corsa and you get an E-class Merc.

And, I mean, over there,

they'd use, at the time,

every taxi would seem to be an E-class Merc,

but they're just such a lovely car to drive.

And they're just something that gives you a little bit of a hug

in a big Mercedes saloon that I miss greatly.

Yeah.

I need an S-class.

It'd suit me, I think,

and mad at my stature.

Yeah.

Oh, well.

Well, we didn't see much of each other in Munich in the end, did we?

We had, like, sort of grand plans of meeting up for something to eat

and doing the podcast and all that,

and we had a coffee together in the weird press room,

didn't we, for ten minutes?

Very hot in there, but yeah.

Yeah.

And I did film you.

You are in my video, and I didn't realise you were in it.

I think you even give a little wave, but...

I pointed at you.

So, we saw you running around in your film,

and I'm so surprised you didn't see me,

because you're so close.

Well, and on the Lucid stand,

I waited for this bloke to get out the back of the Lucid air

before I went in,

and I got in and did that.

And it was only when I was editing the video,

I realised it was my mate Mark

that I travelled there with and shared a room with.

That's when I get in the zone, mate.

I, the tiger.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was that car that I waited you from

was the Volvo ES90.

And for some reason,

there was these three blokes that sat in the car,

trying to get his, the one guy,

trying to get his phone connected to the software for ages,

and I got in the car and just have a poke around

before they got out.

And it just stank of breath.

Oh, no.

I don't know what they were doing,

trying to get their phone connected to the infotainment

for some reason, but they're in there for ages.

So I just filmed the rest of the car

and did little bits around that.

I had two moments in Paris, actually.

One of the cars I got into,

and this is in no way

any kind of region list

or racial or anything like that.

But I got in the car and the smell of garlic

made my eyes water.

I've never, if you got a garlic clove

and stuck it up your beak,

it wouldn't smell as strong as it did in this car.

And then I got into one about 10 minutes later

and it was just pure farts.

It was like a rugby team

had been out, had 10 pints each

and, you know, 32 ounce steak

and then they'd all got in there and farted

and then had it sealed from the element.

And it was like you opened a can as you opened the door.

And yeah, I think it was like

two of the first three cars I got in at Paris or something.

And I thought, oh, this is not going well.

Mad.

Well, yeah.

Anyway, that's my story.

That's my Paris Motor Show anecdote.

One for the after-dinner circuit at some point.

So where did you go after?

Oh, by the way, I have to say

the good people that are listening or watching.

Munich, Alex is not an expert in this field,

but Munich had the best beer I've ever had in my life.

It was incredible.

And I've done a lot of travelling and a lot of drinking.

The beer in Munich was fantastic.

I'm on the fat jab at the moment

and it's put me off the alcohol a little bit.

I'm not a big drinker anyway.

But I really thought, oh, it's a shame I'm going to Munich

and I'm not going to have a beer.

And I had one to be sociable and it was phenomenal.

And on the last day I was there, I did have a few.

Good to see.

Fair enough.

My friend Mark had more than a few on the day we landed

and he was quite a sorry state

in the press room the next morning, wasn't he?

He looked like he'd seen things to be fair.

Yeah.

I think the highlight was we had twin beds in the room

and the gap in between the two beds

was probably about the width of another bed.

And I mean, he's a big fella as well.

I mean, no, he's a six foot two fireman

and I basically had to drag him back to the hotel

from the centre of Munich.

And we got into the room.

He went to the toilet, came out of the bathroom

and from about 12 feet away

he tried to leap onto his bed

and it just went straight between the two of them.

He didn't even brush either bed.

It was just bang on the floor.

And then he just went, hello?

Can you help me up?

Dear me.

Yeah, he'll send a video of him to his wife.

She can share my disappointment.

But no, it's a great place to go and drink

and the Hofbrae house was amazing.

I didn't think the prices were too bad or anything.

I thought it was a really cool city.

Actually, I loved it.

Yeah, good.

Where did you go after Munich? Where was your next stop?

So we stayed in Munich for, I think, another day

just to have a day on the side of the mountain

just to sort of gather our thoughts again.

We went to Austria.

This is where the sort of trip

we didn't quite plan it as well as I hoped.

So we, the first bits,

like we ended up stopping in places

along the way.

We went to Austria and then up to Prague

and we didn't even do anything cultural in those places

because we didn't have enough time.

So, but I've not done that kind of thing before

so it kind of makes sense.

But we went to a hotel in Austria

instead of a night.

I think we went to IKEA the next day.

Yeah, and then drove six hours

from Austria to Prague in the rain.

It rained all day, dreadful.

And then, yeah, we got there quite late

and got some food from the supermarket.

Went to bed and then drove to the chain as well

because Prague's like an amazing city.

It's very compact as well, Prague,

so you can just go to the centre of what

wander around and it's very, very cool.

You must re-return.

We will do it again.

Just return, not even re-return.

Yeah, definitely we'll do it now

and we know how that kind of thing works.

You did take some Jimmy Traveller advice, though, didn't you?

You were going to go to Brussels, weren't you?

Yes.

I convinced you to go to Bruges instead.

Yeah, so from there we did quite a lot.

We went from Prague to Berlin,

spent a bit of time there

down to Frankfurt,

which I sent you a picture, I think.

I don't know if I put it on Twitter.

It's this hotel where you can

there's a lift next to the hotel room.

So you can pay to have a car loft room.

So there's a lift you're driving

and the car goes up and there's a charger and stuff.

Basically charge your car on the balcony

of your fifth floor hotel room or whatever.

Yeah, that's where they did the original

press launch for the GV60 was that hotel.

I didn't get the invite,

I just remember seeing other people

that did posting stuff there.

But that was cool.

Our chum Dave went to that one.

Dave the Auto Bear.

It's one of them hotels where

people seem to go for breakfast quite early.

So we went a little bit later and it was really quiet.

And you had on the very top floors,

that was quite nice.

One of these very well to do sort of buffets

and things that everything's really quite nice.

And then from there we went to over two

Brussels and Bruges.

I think we had about two or three hours in Bruges.

And that was, I think you described it

as a Disneyland-like place

and I definitely agree with that.

Again, so clean everywhere.

Very, very picturesque.

Yeah, just lovely place.

The boat trip's really good in Bruges.

You probably saw a load of those going down.

Did you?

Yeah, it's got everything.

You've just got a smell of chocolate everywhere, haven't you?

From all the chocolate shops.

Yeah, it's just a lovely, lovely place.

Yeah, very, very good.

It's not even that far from the UK, are there?

No, I think probably an hour and a half from...

Maybe, yeah.

Something like that from Calais?

Maybe, yeah, I think it was about that.

It's not very far at all.

What do you think?

That's like two hours from Folkston.

Yeah.

The Euro tunnels were half an hour.

Half an hour.

Yeah, so two hours away.

Man, you're in Kent.

Yep.

Yeah, crazy.

You spend like six hours driving to Scotland.

You could probably, from Folkston,

I would say you'd be in the centre of Bruges

quicker than you would be in the centre of London.

Yeah, quite possibly.

Yeah.

Again, like good quality car parks in Bruges as well.

Clean.

Yeah.

Like underground car parks, which I always like as well.

Yeah.

And EV charges in lots of them.

I noticed that.

Yeah, a lot of them.

Yeah.

My biggest takeaway from that was that the charging over there

is just so more ubiquitous.

So as I said earlier, I just use the Tesla Chargers over there.

I pay for the membership for one month.

It pays for itself quite quickly.

And then you get the cheaper rates and stuff.

And I haven't quite worked it out yet how much it actually costs,

but it was so much cheaper and so much more available

than it is here.

I mean, you look at a map of the UK where the Tesla Chargers are.

The door set where you are is completely empty.

Yeah.

I think Norfolk's a bit empty as well,

but you don't really have that at all over there at all

in any of the countries really.

There's always some Tesla Chargers not very far away.

You know the end of my road, there's a Tesla dealership.

Yep.

Since that became a Tesla dealership,

they've been trying to get planning permission

to put superchargers in there.

Yep.

And the council won't give them permission.

Weird, isn't it?

Like why?

Yeah.

I mean, to be fair, it would be better if they would

offer a main road or something

because it would make more sense.

But you think there's a company there that's willing

to invest probably a couple of million pounds

to put superchargers in.

And local planners or whatever scupper it.

You know, some old fella with a clipboard.

I think it's so silly

when it's not like they're asking for a handout

to install this stuff.

It's like private enterprise saying,

we want to give you this.

Yep.

And planners turn around and say,

no, they let Porsche put them in,

which that actually used to be a Porsche dealership.

Yep.

And Porsche moved over to the industrial estate

over here.

And Porsche have got their 350 kilowatt ones

in over there.

One pound, 10 pence, a kilowatt hour.

Yeah, one pound, 10, yeah.

But the Tesla ones, it'll be nice and cheap

and fast and ultra reliable.

Yep.

No.

We don't want any of these.

Those here, sir.

Actually, the entire time that I had

no charging problems and no issues at all.

I think for the very first leg of the journey,

I used the ABRP app.

Yep.

So I bought an OBD dongle.

You plug it into the car,

and then the app and the car talk to each other

and it will log the efficiency that you get.

So I only did that for the very first part of the journey

because our first day in B&B had free charging overnight.

So I wanted to get there with as little as battery as possible

and just take advantage of that.

So I'll just use that for that.

But after that, I just...

There was no planning at all.

We're going here.

I was a charger there.

We'll go there.

Spend 10 minutes there.

Job done.

So very, very, very simple.

You sent me a screenshot from one of the chargers, didn't you?

A Tesla one.

Like 24p a kilowatt or...

It worked out at 22 pence, I think.

No, it was cents, wasn't it?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, but obviously converted down to 22 pence.

I think 18 pence, actually.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, maybe 22 cents.

Yes, I think it was.

Yeah.

It's crazy, isn't it?

Didn't Jonathan say last week that he thinks they're subsidized by the EU or something?

Yeah.

So I think he was suggesting that the EU would give some money to Tesla to install the chargers.

It happens for everyone, but I think on the condition that they're open to everyone,

which every Tesla charger in Europe seems to be open to everyone.

I know public charger, like charge point operators here,

have to pay a massive standing charge on the price per kilowatt hour as well.

Yep.

To the grid or whatever.

Yep.

I'm sure that's like 20p or something, daft.

Yep.

Or 30p, something like that.

Yep.

I mean, come on.

Yeah, it's mad.

Yeah.

So, you've done your first driving abroad on a grand scale and first time in an EV,

I'm guessing abroad.

Yep.

And how was it compared to the UK?

Like, if you did the equivalent road trip in the UK?

It seems easier, cheaper, pretty much.

Yeah.

Easier.

But I didn't mention the roads are noticeably better than they are here.

The roads are incredible, aren't they?

Yeah.

And, yeah, cheaper as well.

Yeah.

That's it, really.

Yeah.

I think you really notice as well how little land we have here.

Everything's spacious, isn't it?

Yeah.

Everything's crammed in here.

Obviously not in a city center or something.

Obviously everything's crammed in.

But when you're driving between places, you can see, like, land.

And you'll go to a service station and it's all kind of sprawled out.

Yep.

Like, you don't have that complete premium on land that we have here.

And I think for a road trip, that's a nice thing.

Yeah.

It was quite nice.

Yeah.

I think people, obviously people who watch this podcast or listen to this podcast know that

you can sort of do road trips in EVs, but it was so easy.

Yeah.

And actually, I think I said to you, I'm not sure.

But I think it was potentially easier to do it in an EV than petrol because, like,

you don't have to speak to anyone.

Yeah.

So you can do it all on your phone and you haven't got to ask for a certain pump

number.

So, yeah.

Mind you.

They should have the good grace to speak English, shouldn't they?

It's just rude, isn't it?

I think so.

Yeah.

The funny thing is, like, when I go to Spain and I'll try and speak Spanish

whenever I can when I'm in Spain because I don't want to forget it.

Yep.

And the amount of times they respond in English.

Because they can tell.

They think, oh, he's making the effort.

And he's speaking like, I'll make the effort and speak kids.

Right.

They're giving you better service by responding in your language.

Right.

They're like, please speak to me in Spanish.

And then they do and I don't understand.

Yeah.

So it's life.

So everyone's happy.

We had a good time at Munich.

It was a bit old, but still it was good.

You've had a brilliant road trip.

It was amazing.

Yeah.

Josie enjoyed it as well.

Yeah, she really did.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it was really rude to me throughout the moat show

and before, during and after actually.

Yeah.

As always.

Yeah.

I know she looks at me as a father figure and mentor,

but I mean, come on.

Doesn't mean you can get away with all that.

Yeah.

I think that's, I think that's it for this episode.

Yeah.

You can find York.

I know it's a few weeks ago now, but you can find Jim's content

about the Munich Moat Show on his channel.

Definitely not a guru.

I filmed a few bits and pieces on my channel.

Interface cars, looking at the stuff that was on show

and all the different cars that were there.

Yeah.

Definitely an enjoyable event.

I'd definitely go back to it.

I think if it was a bit odd,

but I think I would go to it again.

So you can find this podcast on YouTube in video

and on audio on Apple podcasts and Spotify

and all that sort of stuff.

Don't forget to subscribe to the channel,

the charging status,

EV Podcast YouTube channel.

And yeah, you can check out Jim's channel.

Definitely not a guru.

My channel, the Interface Cars.

And we'll see you again in a few weeks' time.

Bye-bye.

Hello, mate.

Can I see your passport?

And it was just pure fart.

It was just pure fart.

Hello Mate, Can I See Your Passport?

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