194 - The Van Man Episode - The EV Musings Podcast

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194 - The Van Man Episode

Episode 194 • 27th November 2023 • The EV Musings Podcast • Gary Comerford

Gary C 0:00

Hi, I'm Gary and this episode 194 of EV musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles and things that are interesting to electric vehicle owners. On the show today we'll be looking at electric vans.

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Zapmap the free to download app that helps EV drivers search plan and pay for their charging.

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Our main topic of discussion today is electric vans. Now we've discussed electric vans before when we chatted with Simon Brace from the Lakes Electric Delivery service. He has a Maxus edeliver three and would you use this to go 50,000 miles a year, delivering items all around the country. You'll come up a bit later in the episode. Today I want to take a more holistic look at electric vans where the whole sector is going and to help me with this discussion. I'm delighted to welcome Paul Kirby to the show. Welcome, Paul.

Paul K 1:24

enz electric sprinter back in: 2004

Gary C 2:33

And I have a little sense of belonging there because if you recall it fully charged live in Harrogate, you, I don't know whether you'd forgotten your selfie stick or broke it and you use mine so it was kind of

Paul K 2:43

Yeah, I think I almost forgot to give it you back.

Gary C 2:48

Now we talked about it again today, which is a topic you know much about so let's start big and work our way down to the detail. Now when we talk about vans in this context, what specific sort of vehicles are we talking about? Because he's not your big 18 Wheel trucks is it?

Paul K 3:01

No. So the world of vans begins in a car derived van. So in the electric world, the Renault ZOE for a while was converted as as an electric van. But but really there isn't really many car derived vans on the market anymore. And we start with things like the Citroen Berlingo which people will be very familiar with the Vauxhall combo and the like of that and then you move up to the medium sized vans, which people would commonly know as the transit custom sized van but Vivaro II and other still antas products that Maximus e deliver three and the now coming out deliver seven and then up to the bigger stuff which goes up now to 4.25 tonnes but that's possibly a separate conversation. But typically people would know it as a three and a half tonne van which would be your Mercedes Benz Sprinter or transit sized vans. And those that's the sort of area where mainly electric vans are operating. You can see derivatives of that with chassis cabs and even motorhomes these days, you know, are beginning that sort of journey as well. So you can say a lot of variety but that's the sort of broad breadth of it.

Gary C 4:15

Fantastic. Now I'm gonna come back and ask you more specific detail about the different stratification along that but do you have statistics at hand about the sorts of numbers of vans on the UK roads a number of miles driven anything like that you can share?

Paul K 4:29

Yeah, I do as it goes sad as I am I know that last year 57 point 57 point 5 billion miles according to the DFT were driven in vans in general. There are nearly 5 million vans on the road is about 4.87 or something like that at last count vans on the road. Now of course these for vary from vans that are going on the road being registered first today, all the way through to 15 and 20 year old bands. So you know

Gary C 4:59

oad for probably since around: 2012

To my untutored mind those figures seem quite low in the big scheme of things, but of course, yes. 60,000 Electric versus however many million? Nearly five?

Paul K 6:46

Yeah, yeah. Past less than 1%. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Sorry, you were gonna say how many electric passenger cars?

Gary C 6:53

Yes, yeah. So 60,000 versus whatever it is 1 million electric passenger cars doesn't see much. But what's the is the percentage of electric vehicles as a proportion of the total number of electric vehicles.

Total number of vans sorry, increasing at the same rate all our electric vans lagging behind,

Paul K 7:13

it's just a one off grant of: 5000

Gary C 8:48

And the the barriers that are sort of up there to prevent or inhibit the the rollout of electric it's, it's a little bit more than what you've just talked about there. For instance, I had a Lorna McAteer from National Grid on the show last season talking about fleets. And she was very clear to us that it's not just a case of well swap all your internal combustion engine vans for electric and stick a charger here and there. It's never quite that easy, is it?

Paul K 9:13

No. Sadly, it isn't. I mean, the way vans are used across different fleets. There's huge variety, huge variety in it and each fleet is different and each fleet will have different challenges, different needs different use cases. But productivity is one of the critical things. So you cannot afford really to spend time in a day charging a vehicle that it will just productivity is really critical. So typical van uses loses three or four days a year in typical maintenance terms. But if you wrap it in two or three hours a week for charging, which would not be unreasonable. If you were charging in the day and doing more than the range of that vehicle so in and therefore needing to charge you would lose

Use 20 odd days over the year. Now fleets measure that cost of of loss of productivity in a variety of ways. But typically, according to industry, in general, it can be anywhere between 515 100 pounds a day for that lost revenue that lost productivity. So you can see that that would really mount up in terms of cost base. Also, getting those vehicles charged out in the public domain is very, very difficult. And it's also quite costly for a business to pay at least the same as, but in often cases, many, many, much more than the actual cost of diesel to charge on the public infrastructure, it becomes not only unproductive but very costly as well. You've also got things issues around the overall range of the vehicle, how much weight you can put in them, and how that weight affects you've also got the disparity between summer and winter, which can cause some problems where fleets have bought the vehicle on the basis of the stated range, and they're getting nothing like it. So there are a variety of challenges that our van community faces. Wow.

Gary C: 11:13

Then when to start with that. So you and I were both at the Evie summit recently, and I'm pretty sure you were there in the discussion where the guy from was it Riverford? The

Paul K: 11:24

Oh, yeah. Yeah, a little vegetable people,

Gary C: 11:26

vegetable people. Now I don't have the exact figures off the top of my head. But he said something like, from a maintenance point of view, that 25 vehicles that were fully electric on his fleet, basically cost him five days maintenance across the year, whereas a similar number of vehicles at another location where I think it was 80 or 85 days, maintenance over the year. So yeah, I take the fact that if you're having to stop and do charging, there's gonna be an impact on that. Is that offset by the figures that I've just quoted about the the differential in maintenance on electric versus internal combustion?

Paul K: 12:09

Yeah, so if you times that by so it's about getting those numbers, so 20 days per van, times 25, you do the maths, it's there's 500 days, if you lost that to productivity, that the thing is the guys at Riverford will have done their due diligence around how those vans get used. And they will be aiming to complete the day's route in in, you know, within the charge of the vehicle and only charge that vehicle overnight. So that's that's what the clever people do they plan to use those vehicles. Now, that's not unusual. Most the average, we talked about that 20,000 miles a year, an average van journey across a week will be no more than 80 miles a day. But it's dealing with the exceptions. So where you've got a longer journey, the thing, the good thing about vans is in many, many cases, they have a predictable route. And they know what they're going to be doing or when they're going to be doing it. Because you know customers have expectations and ranges is the it's the air times where bands have to operate, you know, on the major road network, you know, up and down the motorways and things like that. And you've only got to travel on the motorway, you know, every morning to see early in the day, how many vans are ploughing down to various different parts of the UK. And it's often the stem mileage, the mileage from home to work where the van has gone home overnight, that is the high bid. And then the operation can be quite small, but then they have to go back. So it's those different challenges around the actual mileage per day. But if you can charge your vehicle and do the whole route in a day and come back and charge overnight, one, you get the benefit of cheaper energy. And two, you don't lose the productivity and three, then you get the incredible benefits around the maintenance element, which you've referred to and which the guys at Riverford are benefiting from significantly. And I think a lot of what you've talked to there relates to what I would call the different use cases. And so let's sort of break that down a little bit and see whether we can stratify the market along vehicle size lines. So talk to me about what said out there for your plumber slash electrician who wants something like a replacement for his Reno traffic diesel or, you know, the sort of small van that the post office use a bit of storage, reasonable range. So I mean, you're absolutely right, that is that those types of operation which will typically be pretty local. So range is less of a challenge. But you know, you think about the smaller van, very much similar to the small vans running in the Royal Mail and so forth. There's vans on the road from Steve and his group. So that's for Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroen and and actually they're sold into Toyota as well. So there's

effectively five brands on the market their small van things like the Berlingo, the expert, the combo, the decap, or not the Doblo. And then the square to price all do about 175 miles on a 50 kilowatt hour battery. So if you can get the really cheap overnight energy you could do the OVO have just launched a seven pence per kilowatt hour for your charging energy that's really low, so you're only going to be using seven times 7, 49. I got that right now. So yeah, so 49 kilowatts times seven is three pound 50 for 175 miles, although you probably get about 150 in terms of real terms range. So a really credible option there from from those guys. But also Mercedes Benz with the sit down and Reno with the new E tech Canggu and Nissen town star. And there is another another one coming into that that space as well. But there's some really good small vans out there. And in the medium sector for your plumbers, your engineers, your builders, you're in that sector. There's a great selection from again from the slanted group. And also, here we'd see really the first entrance of Maximus with both the deliver three and the deliver seven. And they they're very credible products and Reno are just launching their E tech, direct replacement for the traffic with electric vehicle as well. So and those vehicles can have up to 200 miles range. So official range again, but you know, wind it back a bit for the for the summer winter scenario and for real world and for a number of other things. But you know, 150, easily

Gary C: 16:40

One of the things that I talk about use cases, one of the key differentials that sort of comes up in that discussion is we've talked there about your plumber, your electrician, your builder, they tend to be, I think use the phrase SME The Small, medium enterprise. But if you then go up to what I would call the next big use case, we have the Amazon delivery, the DPD, that sort of thing. Now, I know that the Amazon guys who come to me have a minimum 35 mile round trip journey, even if I'm the only person that they're visiting, and I'm never the only person that they're visiting, they're not going to go the shortest route. So what's sort of out there that a fleet can bring in, that can cover the sort of miles you'd expect a DPD or an Amazon to deliver in a day.

Paul K: 17:34

So typically, yeah, I know, I know the point that you make, but typically, these vehicles are not doing large mileage every day. So I know some of the some of the vehicles that you know, are doing 30 and 40,000 miles a year. Those are right on the edge of whether or not you can electrify currently. And what we've got to remember is that we're not looking, we'd love to, but we're not looking to electrify everything. Today, there is a process for this over the next seven to 10 to now 12 years, really where we will be able to migrate everything that's being sold today to electric over that period of time. So we're looking to find the the right vehicle for the use case today. And many of the types of drivers that you describe are on a very fixed route, they know exactly what their their sort of location is where they'll be doing up to 200 stops a day. And obviously, the thing about stops is the regeneration of energy. So all of these vehicles have the ability to regenerate energy. As they slow down by lifting the foot off the accelerator, the motor retards and actually puts physical kilowatt hours of energy back into the vehicles, I was talking to somebody this morning, they were saying that on a daily basis, you can generate almost 10 kilowatt hours of energy from the driving that you're doing and the slowing down. So that helps support range. So whilst the stem mileage might be 35 each way, then they might get really good performance from the vehicle in the area that they're going to serve with they're up to 200 drops a day. So they'll do all of those drops in a quite a dense and committed area. And then they'll tend to go back, you know, to wherever they came from. And so it isn't actually that much of a challenge for the last mile delivery. The last mile delivery is probably the one of the easier areas. If you can go back to a base and charge overnight. One of the easier areas to decarbonize with electric vans of this type and sort of the transit E or the the transit is probably good enough. I mean, the mileage is a little way off of its stated claim of 196. It's probably near the 150 in the summer, and 130 in the winter, but then you've got the Maximus range of vehicles with a with a number of different battery options there to suit the need of your business. So if you're only doing so

: 19:59

more mileage, you can go for the smaller battery. But if you need to do the longer mileage, you can pick a bigger battery. But the compromises, you can't carry as much weight with the bigger battery, because obviously the batteries are bigger, they they weigh more. So there is a compromise to make around weight and range. And so understanding your needs in that case are really important.

Gary C: 20:23

And there is another use case in here, which I'm personally very familiar with. And I've told this story on the podcast before, during lockdown, all my work dried up. And I got a call from my mother, who lives up in Yorkshire I'm down in Hampshire. She said, Gary, do you know that Morrison's next door to you is looking for delivery drivers? And my first question was, how do you know that she says I'm your mum I know stuff like that.

So I basically went and I got a job delivering groceries for Morrison's and at the time, they were using diesel sprinters with the big refrigerated box on the back. And the the interesting thing about that is that the mileage that I would do on any given shift was hugely variable. I think the maximum I did in one shift at this is seven hours is the best part of 200 miles. And the shortest I ever did in the same seven hours is 80 miles. So trying to electrify that kind of a route is very, very difficult. Because as well as needing the charge from the traction battery to keep the vehicle running, you've also got a draw on somewhere, presumably the traction battery to keep both the fridge and the refrigerator working at the optimum temperature. So am I right in thinking that's the kind of use case where you're probably going to go: You know, we don't have a solution for that. Now we'll push that one down the hill and work on it later. Or are there things that we can look at at the moment,

Paul K: 21:54

You'd think, wouldn't you? But both the guys at Asda and the guys at Tesco are looking at this. And I know that they they've got solutions. I also know that Morrison's now I've also got some electric delivery vans,

with the fridge and all of that kind of stuff on because obviously they've got to keep the temperature. So every challenge that comes along, ends up with getting some technology thrown at it. And we deal with some of the things that that that we need to overcome. So we've got lithium ion batteries that are added to the vehicle to just specifically provide support for the fridge to minimise the demand on the traction battery, we've also got solar that can be deployed to go on the roof of the vehicle and and feed that that lithium ion battery that then supports the

fridge operation so that there are things already coming in terms of technology. And also what we're seeing is that route planning and the opportunity charging kind of works quite well. Because the great thing about a delivery van for somebody like Morrison's who you talked about and Tesco and Asda and Sainsbury's and I'm sure there's others available, they all come back to base and reload. And so if you've got the right, if you've chosen the right option on the vehicle, you could have 22 kilowatt AC charging that's available on most of the vehicles these days as an option normally, or possibly go with some DC charging and deploy rapid DC charging, but there may be a 25 kilowatts in order to spread the opportunity charging availability. And then when that vehicles back at base, reloading, reboot restocking with food, you can put some energy into the vehicle to extend the range of the vehicle for that day. We're seeing that happen both that you know companies DPD are doing that for their drivers to minimise their dependence on the public network. Because the public network is quite expensive, and their owner drivers typically go home at night and you'll often see their vans, or littles or wherever it might be that charging their vehicles. But so opportunity charging and charging when they're stopped not stopping to charge is a phrase that I think I have to attribute to the lovely Sam Clark. But you know, he comes up with all these nasty little phrases, and that that is a perfect one and is a good example of when you're stopped you charge and as long as you've thought through your logistics scenario, your depotthen this works really well for the type of operation that we see particularly within supermarkets.

Gary C: 24:32

And what you brought up there is a very interesting point because at the basic level your fleet charging splits into it bifurcates the day of the word of the day Bifurcates

Paul K: 24:45

Yeah, I'm sure you'll give an explanation of bifurcates for me, if not for the rest of the audience.

Gary C: 24:51

It splits into two separate but aligned route. You basically got as you mentioned there you've got depot charging so the Morrison

Is the as does the sage visit this world, maybe even the DPD. Potentially, they will have a depotthat's set up to do an amount of charging whether it's overnight or whether it's you know, you come in at a shift change and get it done. And that's fine. There is obviously a cost aspect to that. But the other aspect of that is, those fleets. And I think Lorna McAteer talked about this, when when she was on show, it's those fleets where even though there is a depot, the vehicles are not kept at the depot overnight, and you've then got the personal charging aspect. So your average van driver tends to live in potentially a detached house. Apart from the plumbers, does chart guys always seem to live in mansions, don't they?

So we hear lots of stories. And you mentioned earlier that you alluded to it about your friendly neighbourhood delivery guys leaving their vans charging on rapids all night and blocking them up. Is that anecdotal? Is there an element of truth in there, what's the actual situation when it comes to to people who charging on the public network because they don't have depots to go to.

: 26:07

So that I mean, this is this is probably the biggest challenge that the van sector faces is that the significant portion of the vehicles that operate, go home at night, there's one very large fleet with over 1500 vehicles, they only have three depotts across the country. And all of the other vehicles that have all the vehicles that are in operation are almost self contained workshops that that will turn up at our houses and deliver the services that they provide, but then go home. So they will almost never touch a depot. That is a real challenge for fleet because some typically our cohort of Van drivers.

Paul K: 26:45

And we could be talking less than 20% will have home or off road parking or the ability to charge at home. So it's a significant challenge. Because one, these are big vehicles, to you've got to have availability. And like if like you said the, the DVD driver got their first and then the other driver comes along and tries to plug in but calm. And yes, I'm not sure that they're left overnight, they usually do get collected and taken home. But you still got this lag and the possibility of causing an issue for people which people don't want at the end of the working day, you want to be able to just plug it in and get on with it. So we really do need to address the challenge of of relatively slow, so it can be seven or 11 or 22 kilowatt charging by the roadside, so that a vehicle can charge up overnight. And we are seeing innovation coming in that space where there's a great company called chill, a guy called Phil Clark has created the battery that you can plug into the van, take your van home, leave it outside, and the battery that has been plugged into the van then transfers his energy into the traction battery that's fixed to the vehicle. So it's a really clever option that you can put in 50 kilowatts at the moment kilowatt hours, you can transfer that energy overnight, and then give the battery the battery back in the morning. And then that battery is recharged with renewable energy and in an ideal world, over you know, through the day, and then you do the same every night. And that is these are the innovations that are coming to try and solve that problem. But you know, with such a big cohort of drivers having to go home every night with a vehicle that potentially could be electric, but with very minimal infrastructure at the roadside or, you know, outside and even where they have a driveway. The private car will always trump that because you know from an insurance perspective, or just a general comfort perspective, they don't want the commercial vehicle on the drive. And of course, we've also got covenants, where you buy your house and the you say the estate's won't allow commercial vehicles with delivery and so on on people's drives. So there's a lot of challenges to overcome. But there's a lot of good work happening. The Association of Fleet professionals has provided some work. There's companies like field dynamics, kind of helping this whole world to understand where those vehicles will rest. And therefore we can deploy charging to sue and the public public sector councils are being lobbied or provided with that information so that they can put charging the will get utilisation but also that they can put in as a public sector where they don't need to make necessarily the profits that the likes of Gridserve devote an Osprey would you know from deploying the same charging?

Gary C: 29:43

You spend a lot of time talking with people who make electric vans and people who use electric vans. What you've probably alluded to them already but what are the key problems that you hear time and time again around the rollout? Is it the variety of the vehicles is it the charging infrastructure is

Get the total cost of ownership. Is it the maintenance? What are the things that are concerning? People, fleet owners who wanting to go electric?

Paul K: 30:07

You hear the usual so we have touched on them. But range, it's not enough. Total Cost of Ownership is too much weight. It's not enough. Although all of these things have answers right. So the total cost of ownership is probably the one that is most relevant in in some of the larger fleets in particular, but of course, even the sole users. And there is this disparity between the purchase outright purchase cost of the vehicle residual values, struggling just a little bit at the minute to causing that, say monthly costs or the amortised cost over a period to go up. And then to recover that cost in maintenance and energy, you have to be charging them at the right cost. So the once you get to sort of 30 P A kilowatt, which is broadly what we would pay typically, and there's wild variance in the cost of energy from as low as seven p as I alluded to earlier to higher than a pound per kilowatt hour. So it's very, very difficult for fleets to really measure that toasts total cost of ownership with any degree of consistency.

So the total cost of ownership presents a challenge. Now there are big incentives, contract wins, getting into super clean air zones, which cannot then reduce that cost of ownership. But the ESG elements of contracts, the environment, social and governance, sort of dictates from the bigger companies or the councils or the government to run a zero emission vehicle to win a particular contract or certainly incentivizing fleets to dismiss, or price in the total cost of ownership to win the contract. So then range range becomes a bit of a challenge, you know, if you're doing longer journeys, but again, most of those can be sorted out in many cases. And then you've got the weight challenge. And this is where you have to consider this 4.25 tonne derogation, which there's a degree of confusion about still but the government are acting on it, and giving us some elements of clarity. So we can drive a vehicle that is heavier, or allowed to be heavier than it used to be to compensate from the weight of the batteries. And actually, if you do use that kind of derogation, you can actually put more on your vehicle than you could before. You know, when you had a limit of three and a half tonnes as a gross vehicle weight, the maximum weight a vehicle could weigh. So there are moves afoot to to answer all of the challenges, but those challenges have ranged total cost of ownership and how much weight can I put on them? But also the where can I charge it? That's I think that's critical. Have I got enough power in my depot? Can my driver charge it at home? Do I need to change my business model? There's a lot of big questions being asked of the market at the moment. And in the commercial world. It's a real challenge to answer those questions. There is answers. But there's also not enough information in the marketplace. And the manufacturers aren't necessarily getting all of the information to all of the people that need it in a way that helps them make an informed choice.

Gary C: 33:14

A lot of good information there. Where in your opinion is the biggest bang for the buck for the adoption of electric vans, is it getting the fleet charging aspect right? Is it getting the affordable vans with the with the right range? Is it the pricing on public charging is the ability to get on street charging, which one of those would you prioritise has been something that should be

Paul K: 33:38

I was just gonna say yes. Well, listen, you know, one of the things I'm working on at the moment is a plan for vans, and I'm not alone in that operation. I'm working with the obviously the EV Cafe, which I'm a part of we a lot of our partners are bought into helping this challenge around the van community and organisations like the BVRLA logistics UK, the road haulage Association RHA, the Association of fleet professionals, there is a lot of coming together on this challenge that we have to electrify the van world. If I was to put two things out there that are not the vehicles, it would definitely be the ability to take a van home and charge it. So you know, exciting innovations from companies like tool are great. It would equally be good to see lots of on street charging, even lamppost charging as much as some people dismiss it. I think it's got its place. And you know, lamppost stroke, curbside charging in, in areas where van drivers might live, and that's where companies like field dynamics and the Association of fleet professionals can help councils deploy that charging most effectively because they've done research on where the vehicles are stopped for long periods of time. So

The we know that the charges will get used. But then that public cost of charging here in the UK is a big challenge for me. You know, if you go on the continent, you can go on into some of the public charging networks over there, particularly in the Nordics. And you'll see costs as low as 25 cents, but for DC rapid charging per kilowatt hour, and where we're charging 85 Pence or they're about 70% 70 pence. So it's a significant difference. And we need to level that playing field so that drivers can use that the vehicles themselves I think, you know, we're beginning to answer many of those questions, we're still struggling a little bit on range. And the disparity between summer and winter causes some degree of challenge. I think generally, the speed of charging and overnight charging is, is getting to a place and still anticipate starting to really accelerate, you know, the answers to those questions with big vans going to be able to do around 250 miles, that should be pretty exciting. And also extending the range of their medium sized vans as well. So we're seeing lots of development in the vehicles and the vehicles I think are being looked after Iveco have got a great answer to some of the more technical problems around taking power from the vehicle to, you know, power, a cherry picker, or a digger or some, you know, physical equipment from the back of the van. There's a lot of good stuff going on with those guys, and also answering the challenges around range. So I think it is about the infrastructure that surrounding that I would probably major on sorry, that's a very long answer for a very simple question.

Gary C: 36:38

No, no, that's fine. That's fine. But it does raise the question in my mind of guessing. Yeah, I was chatting with someone earlier on and he said, you know, we live in an EV bubble. And, you know, we're very positive for a lot of Evie things. We know where the issues are that but obviously the real world does not live in that same bubble as us is your feeling that the general sentiment about electrifying vans is the way to go? Or is it the same as the way the electrified cars where the people like you and I who are here in the bubble, we know that it's good, but there are a lot of naysayers outside what what's your thoughts on that?

Paul K: 37:14

Well, I did a great project for a company for fleet management asked me to go and talk to the man on the street. And I took a took my Ford E Transit and parked it in the middle of Wix and b&q, car parks, other DIY sheds are available.

And, and invited people to come and talk to me. And it was great fun. As you know, people would drive in you know, I've got electric written down the side of the van and a guy. So wound down is Windows he drove past. So shout it out, the word is oh, all the way. And I said, boy, get over you come and come and justify that statement. And we talked and I think there is so much misinformation out there. We we know that the press are giving us a hard time. Part of me says rightfully because I think we we exchanged some comments on a LinkedIn post that the press aren't for us. But we are making it slightly easy for them to kickers, by not providing enough information by not accelerating the knowledge and the information out into the marketplace. bums on seats sell vehicles, it's as simple as that people experiencing an electric van will help them make a really positive decision because there's so much easier to drive so much nicer place to be. And if operated correctly, you know, we've talked about the in life benefits in particular. And we're going to see prices come down. We haven't really touched on the sub mandate today. But the ZEV mandate is going to drive manufacturers to get the price right so that people can buy them effectively, that we will see the price of diesels going up I think we'll see the price disparity between electric and diesel come together but not necessarily just because the price of of the electric van has gone down, but the diesel van will go up. So I think we've got to get information into the marketplace because all of those people that I spoke to, as much as they were quite dismissive initially, were well yeah, we know electrics the way forward. And these are people on the street. These are your butcher, baker, candlestick maker, that people that are, you know, repairing our gas boilers that are doing some work around our houses, building walls, putting in Windows, you know, plumbing our bathroom in or whatever it might be. They're doing all those great things, but they know, they know that actually we need to be more sustainable. They're just worried about price. They're worried about where they charge that they're worried about how far they can go, if we can get information to them, and the price is more equivalent to what they used to in turn.

As of that total cost of ownership we've got to re educate on that then they will be happy to buy but there is a lot of naysayers out there you know I put a post out about some an electric motorhome or camper van and you know comments like you're buying an incinerator were made with regard to that, that that post and you're like buying an incinerator what we're gonna go up in flames and buying my own crematorium. You know, those coffins are just unhelpful, and then so misinformed, but we have a duty to educate, and we need to help people and I that's why I like to spend my time talking with people that don't run electric vehicles that are not in that bubble, because actually talking to the church is very dull. And well, actually.

Gary C: 40:47

Yeah, it is. But I think one of the things that comes out from talking to the church is we get people like friend of the podcast and former guests, Simon Brace from the Lakes Electric Delivery, service, running a Maxus edeliver three, I think, covering upwards of 50,000 miles in a year, using mostly public charging when he's out and about, he has made it work for him.

Paul K: 41:12

So it's a great example of somebody you can hold up and go, Look, you've got questions. This is the guy who can answer them because he's been there. He's seen it done it. And Simon is a great example. I've known Simon really since we started the EV Cafe webinar. And he he joined it early on, as you know, his business dried up as locked down, kicked in and everybody jumped online. And we we had lots of good chats. And he's he's joined me at fully charged on a number of occasions with his van with no engine left in this van overnight, which I love.

Gary C: 41:50

It's a great sticker that isn't it?

Paul K: 41:52

It is yeah. And so he's a great advocate. And I think it's people like Simon that are educating people one by one. He has a great story about starfish on the beach, isn't there? I don't know if you've heard it. But there's a there's a man walking along the beach throwing all these 1000s of starfish have been washed up on the shore. He's picking them up and throwing them in the sea and somebody comes up say how can you make a difference, you know, look at look at all these starfish. And he picks up another one and throws it in the sea and says I made a difference to that one. And you know if we take that attitude in life as a whole in every aspect of it, but in particular, with electric vehicles, if we can all just help one more person move to electric, then they become an advocate. And it's you know, it's not a mission. Without real purpose. We're improving air quality, we're reducing the impact on our climate, we're improving the nation's health genuinely, you know, there's multiple billions being spent every year on keeping people healthy. With air quality related health issues. This is not a mission or purpose without any real meaning we are doing something positive and you know, we can all hug a tree right and all that kind of stuff. We're not about that. But this is making tangible difference. And and if we can just help and just educate and just give some hope to that that one, then we've done our job. And we can just keep doing our job on a daily basis. And Simon is a great example of that.

Gary C: 43:23

That sounds to me like a very, very good point to draw this discussion to a close. So Paul Kirby, thank you very, very much for your time.

Paul K: 43:30

Gary has been a delight. Thank you.

Gary C: 43:34

Couple of takeaways from this. Paul and I both aligned on the fact that we need to do to be decarbonizing fleets and vans quicker than we are last mile deliveries, Royal Mail, National Grid, grocery deliveries, etc. These are all fleets that constantly have vehicles out on the road every day of the working week and often longer. I personally think in hindsight, a fleet electrification had been started before private car electrification, we will be much closer to our goals and Evie update would have had less resistance than it is having now. Plus, a lot of the infrastructure would already be there to charge the vans and this would have given car drivers confidence that the infrastructure could support them. Secondly, all seem very bearish on fleets. Various factors have played into the fact that fleet electrification isn't going as quickly as we would like lack of home charging for many van drivers who take their van home, the need to be able to run a van all day without losing time to stop and charge and cost issues are also factored into this. It has to be said though, when Lorna McAteer from National Grid was on the show, she mentioned that they don't provide home chargers for their van drivers. Many of them don't need them as they spend a lot of time at transformers and substations were simple seven kilowatt charger has been installed which charges the van as the guys are working.

Many thanks to Paul for his time. All can usually be seen most days with one of his famous selfie stick videos on various topics of his choice, as well as in the EB Cafe news every Friday at 10am on YouTube, and LinkedIn

so much heat they could power: 1000

And that's the show for today. Hope you enjoyed listening to it. If you want to contact me, I can be emailed at evey musings@gmail.com I'm also on Twitter EV Musings. Evie. If you want to support the podcast and newsletter, please consider contributing to becoming an EV musings patron. The link is in the show notes. Don't sign up for something on a monthly basis. If you enjoyed this episode, why don't buy me a coffee, go to coffee.com/evie musings and you can do just that Kayo dash fy.com/ed musings takes Apple pay to have a couple of ebooks out there she wants somebody to read on your Kindle. So you've got an electric is available on Amazon worldwide for the measly sum of the tip or equivalent and it's a great little introduction to living within the electric car. So you've got renewable is also available on Amazon for the same 99 P and it covers installing solar panels, the storage battery and a heat pump. Why don't check them out. Links for everything we've talked about in the podcast today are in the description. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe. It's available on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Please leave a review as it helps raise visibility and extend our reach in search engines. If you've reached his part of the podcast and are still listening, thank you why not? Let me know you've got to this point by tweeting me and music TV with the words the van man talks vans man, hashtag if you know you know nothing else. Thanks as always to my co founder Sam and you know I often wonder whether one source of income fair might be to commercialise the whole electric unicycle thing, get a custom designed, electric unicycle made and try and sell it to somewhere with a big audience base.

Paul K: 47:48

Problem is I'm not sure what the mass market is for that. Astor and the guys at Tesco are looking at this.

Gary C: 47:55

Thanks for listening. Bye!

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