Rob Cooling is an EV enthusiast and expert and, in this episode, he shares his knowledge explaining why EV's are the future and how we get to that future. Rob also shares his experiences within the driving instructor industry, including how his learning experience impacted the way the teaches now. Rob explains how he smoothly transitioned from manual to electric and why he'd never drive a manual car again. 

We are also joined by Chris Bensted of the Driving Instructor and Trainers Collective to give us a round up of all the latest ADI news.

For more information on The Instructor Podcast visit https://www.theinstructorpodcast.com/ here you'll find guest profiles, spotlighted episodes, blogs access to The Instructor Podcast Premium, previous episodes and more...

Join The Instructor Podcast Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/4791266350902301

For additional content early and ad free, be sure to check out our Patreon feed: https://www.patreon.com/theinstructor - Here you'll find bonus shows and more!

You can contact us or follow us on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theinstructorpodcast

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TCDrive1

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terry-cook-5233b719a/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/the_instructor_pod/

And be sure to check out the DITC - https://theditc.co.uk/

Foreign.

Welcome and thank you for joining us on the instructor podcast where every week we're joined by experts and innovators, leaders and game changers so we can hold a mirror up at the instructor industry and see where we can improve and raise our standards.

So if you're ready, we'll make a start.

So thanks for joining us today on the instructor podcast.

We hope you're enjoying the show and if you are, make sure you give us a subscribe or a follow wherever you're listening.

So this drops into your feed every Sunday and if you're feeling extra generous, make sure you leave us a nice little five star review with some glowing words of prayers as well.

So today on episode seven, we're joined by Rob Cooling.

Now, Rob is an electric vehicle enthusiast and expert and he brings his insights and knowledge into an area that's very divisive.

You know, there's not a lot of people in the middle ground.

There's a lot of people that don't know much, including me.

But generally I think people tend to go to one side or the other.

So I found this a really interesting conversation.

I'm not going to give my thoughts anymore.

I'll let you listen to the conversation and find those out for yourself and afterwards as always.

Now we're joined by Chris Benstad of the ditc, providing us with the latest updates from within the industry with some excellent pieces today and a couple of thought provoking insights as well.

So I will now keep quiet and let you enjoy the show.

So we are joined today by the wonderful Rob Cooling, who was kindly, eagerly to come on and talk everything.

Electric vehicles, not EV cars as I refer to them.

So thank you for joining us today.

Rob, how are you?

I'm very well today, thank you.

Good stuff.

Right, so what I'd like you to begin with, just tell us a little bit about you, a little bit about your background, what led you to being an ADI and where you're at now.

What you're at Shilton now.

Okay, so backtracking the gateway to wanting to become an ADI was simply a burning desire to find some way of being self employed so I would have control over my own business, my own marketing, et cetera, et cetera.

So I quite enjoy sort of like having that sense of control over most things that I get to do that led towards sort of like beginning training.

And interestingly, I never actually used to enjoy driving itself, which is why it was always a little bit bizarre.

But I chose to become a driving instructor and I did struggle through the qualifying process, but great determination and lots of continued work.

So, although I never really enjoyed driving, I discovered that I really had quite, I suppose, a passion for teaching people to drive.

And I've been doing that ever since and really enjoying that.

And from that moment on I knew I had to go electric.

And there was a delay where I slowly got past some of the misconceptions and trying to get my head around some of the details before finally taking the plunge with my Nissan Leaf.

The original one with its 80 mile range, which I will admit was a bit limiting for my tuition in my first ev.

Moved on a bit since then and to where I am now.

Well, I found myself talking a lot about EVs.

I used to run the Nottingham EV Owners Club.

I've done all sorts of bits and bobs, various media bits for BBC, ITV, etc.

I've stepped back recently just to focus on EVs in the world of driving instructors, which is mainly done through a presentation that I run at associations and conferences and such like.

And nowadays I'm thoroughly enjoying my Kia E Niro, which has a range of 300 miles, showing just how dramatically things have moved on.

Brilliant.

There's a lot to pick up there.

Yeah, sorry, I went on a bit there.

No, no, that's good.

Lots to talk about.

But I'm going to go kind of back to one of the first things you said, which was about, I think it was not enjoying driving and struggling a little bit with it.

When you first started, sure there were a lot of similarities in your journey to mine because I never wanted to drive, ever.

I think I learned when I was about 21 and 20 maybe, and that's because I was a joiner and I didn't enjoy taking my tools about on the bus to go from site to site.

So I had to learn to drive, really, and I didn't enjoy doing it when I was first doing it, but eventually I settled down to enjoy it.

So I also struggled with my test largely, and part of that was because I just didn't enjoy driving and had no burning desire to drive.

How did you get on with Your.

Driving test all those years ago didn't enjoy the process, so I didn't particularly enjoy the process of learning to drive.

And I found it was all a little bit of a rush.

So this desperation to get the student through the test in a set amount of time, and that created quite a stressful experience for me.

I very clearly wasn't ready on the first attempt at my driving test.

And even looking at the second one that I did pass, that really also wasn't the best experience.

And it meant that the early years of my driving, I was struggling and I didn't feel fully prepared for the situation that I found myself in now.

Thankfully, I did seek help and I did get further training later on, and that was a help.

So that did offer some level of support to make things a little bit easier for me.

But I think it's part of what led me towards wanting to work with students who really also might not enjoy driving or might not enjoy the process of learning to drive, to hopefully try and make it fun and achievable as well.

But it's also led me to have a very comprehensive syllabus.

So one of the things that I'm very strong on when I'm taking on my new students is that what I don't offer.

So a product that I do not offer is the idea of passing the driving test quickly.

Instead, my course is about a comprehensive experience.

So there's a lot of dual carriageway in there, there's a lot of motorway work in there, there's a lot of long journeys, many, many experiences, and there's quite a market for that.

You know, students who aren't after a quick pass your test experience, but they want something a bit more comprehensive.

Yeah.

And again, there's a remarkable similarity to me there.

I'm going to tell a quick story, actually, about my first driving test, because I didn't pass first time.

And on another one of these, I might say, how many attempts I actually took.

But on my first ever attempt, the examiner pulled me up and they said, right, we're gonna do.

Pull up alongside the car in front, reverse back into a park position behind it.

And, you know, that's what we're gonna do.

And my response was, yeah, I don't know what that is.

I've never done that.

My examiner put me in for a test.

We'd never practiced any maneuvers.

And you can imagine what happened from there.

And that's something I use.

Like, I think like you just said, it's almost.

It's beneficial, it's benefiting not the time, but now, looking back, it's something I can use with my learners and I tend to get a lot of people that come to me with anxiety and nerves and not necessarily learning issues, but issues.

So, yeah.

Would you say that's significantly affected the way you teach?

Definitely, yeah.

So my own experiences have very much formed the way in which I will present my products now, of course, I will be very adjustable to the student.

Entire course is adaptable to the individual.

And I very strongly, you know, encourage their input into how we manage it, how we approach it.

What I will not shortcut on, though, is the material, which is important to someone really being put in a position where they are ready for, you know, what we always define as safe driving for life.

But it was also my experience with training to be a driving instructor that led to that mentality as well, because once again, it was that preset crash course for a whole ton of information dropped on you in an incredibly short period of time, and then being told you're ready to take the part free, and it all goes horrendously wrong again and again and again.

Six times I had to take that part free.

And it took me a long time.

And it has left me, you know, looking back on it, thinking of how it really should have been.

And I have no doubt that there would have been better options for me, better trainers that I could have pursued because my experience was not a good one.

It's interesting you say that and just touching back on your syllabus and the way you teach now, like you've said, there's.

There is a market there for people that don't just want to fast pass, they want to learn to drive and learn and develop new skills around driving.

Is that how you market yourself?

Is that what you put out there?

So it's not ruling out people, but it's inviting that group of people in.

Yeah, definitely.

So I'll use the word comprehensive quite a lot and I make that quite clear on the website.

So it's kind of built into the way in which I'll do all of my marketing and also making sure that the student kind of understands what it is.

But they are, you know, essentially letting themselves in for at the same time as, you know, including them in the process of what it is that they want as well.

You know, what are we trying to achieve here?

But yeah, I will make that sort of like quite clear.

And long gone are the days where I would feel like I had to get the student through in a preset number of hours.

Because I remember those early days for me and the pressure of feeling like you had to get the student through in this pre set number of hours, as people around you told you, oh, I've got my student through in whatever number of hours it happens to be.

And the bottom line is, you know, you've got to move at the pace of the student.

The time frame is dictated more by the student than by the instructor.

And the instructor's job is to adapt to that and work with that.

Now, of course you want that to happen in what is potentially the shortest time frame.

That would be nice.

But at the same time, I think you do need to make sure that the content material is in there, that we're not editing out some rather important stuff.

So I include all of that and the student can see what's in the course as well.

And obviously they don't have to choose me, not by a long shot.

But it's putting that product out there saying this is what I do.

And obviously if you want that, I'm here.

And there is, there's a very strong demand for the opposite of pass the driving test quickly.

Yeah, I find that fascinating because one of the reasons I'm doing this podcast is to show people there is a different way.

And you like me, I'm sure in a lot of different Facebook groups.

And Facebook has many a wonderful use, but it's also got many a negative side.

And I'll see a lot of people say, no, it's always been done this way or people only want this thing.

And I find it interesting that you're putting something different out there and you're getting that influx of customers, influx of people wanting what you're putting out there.

So by doing something different, you're attracting the customer that's suitable for you.

I like that.

Yeah.

And I enjoy it.

It's much more enjoyable.

I'm a lot happier now than I was in my early days as a driving instructor.

And I suppose that happens to all of us.

You know, you sort of like find your way eventually fall into what is right for you and how you need to do things.

I mean, I like the word structured.

You know, I'm a very, very strong believer in doing my best to be client centered.

You know, coaching love stuff like that.

Fantastic.

I'm not going to claim to be an expert at it by a long shot, but I do love the word structured.

And I think sometimes we might underestimate the importance of the students sense of what is going on.

Because when I learned to drive and when I trained to be a driving instructor.

I had no understanding of what was happening.

I couldn't see the structure, I couldn't see the pattern, I couldn't see the syllabus and how it was going to lead me to the end result.

So in my lot, I have a very clear structure, a syllabus which is broken into five stages.

And they can see what they're doing, they can see where they're at, they can see where they're going, and they can see how much longer they've got ahead of them.

So the journey is all mapped out and nice and clear.

Doesn't mean that the whole thing can't be changed and modified and adapted.

It is not set in stone, but there is a feeling of the purpose of everything we do and what the next step is.

It's quite centered.

But I used.

I used to feel lost, you know, whenever I was learning my lessons or to be a driving instructor, I just felt lost.

I couldn't see where it was going and I was just sinking all the time.

Yeah, I can, I can relate to that.

And I can relate to that with my early days and instructor in that I wasn't the best instructor.

And thinking back to how I was with some of my students and learning from my mistakes with them to.

To improve to where.

Where I am now.

But I think it's some key points you're making there.

And I think the market, the marketing guys call it marketing for ideal client, don't they?

So you pick your ideal client, you market for that person.

Don't rule out anyone else, but it attracts more of that people.

And like I said, I think that there's a different way.

And I like that you, you're doing that essentially.

But I am now going to bring this background to evs.

I think the first question I want to ask you on this, I may have misheard this, but when you first went to using an electric car, did that.

Were you originally teaching in a manual and then you went.

I was, yeah.

And what I started to realize was that a lot of my students were coming to me because I was advertising, you know, that I was specializing in students with learning difficulties and such like, and that was how they were finding me.

But a lot of these students actually needed automatic, and they were only learning manual because that was what I was providing.

And it was becoming increasingly clear that I really needed to transition over to automatic, mainly for those reasons, because My client base had shifted.

And that's what triggered the initial looking into EVs.

I mean, before that I would never have gone automatic.

And I used to give the argument that, you know, I had no interest in auto and I would never have perceived myself going in that direction.

And my market, you know, my inquiries were all manual.

It felt like it was all manual.

But once you start to advertise that you are automatic, you know, for me that really opened the floodgates and you suddenly discover there is a lot of work out there in that automatic side of things and it is growing as well.

When you transitioned from manual to automatic, how did you manage that with your students?

Because I'm guessing there were some that still wanted to learn manual.

There was.

So what I did was I ran a six month overlap transition between manual and automatic.

So I had the manual car and the auto car side by side for six months.

And I quickly became rather desperate to get out of the manual car and just be able to live in the, in the ev, in the automatic car.

And all of my existing students, we had that six months to try and get, you know, everything done, finished and through the driving test and all bar one, it worked out.

And that one I helped to find somebody who could finish the process.

There were a couple of my manual students that requested a trial in the automatic, in the EV and then went on to switch over to learning just in the automatic.

Now I'm going to lay my cards on the table here for anyone listening in the.

I will be going EV at some point, definitely.

I've got it penciled in for 20.

I think it is just that's when it's going to be convenient for me.

And I, I'm someone that does believe it's the future.

I will at times now, when they get onto this topic, try and play devil's advocate a little bit.

But the first question I want to ask you about this significantly is what are the problems that you found?

Because I'm sure that you're someone that will come out and say all the good stuff.

But in your time driving these vehicles and teaching these, what are the, what are the problems essentially?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

So overwhelmingly, it's been a very, very positive experience.

But the very first EV that I had was a what's called a 24 kilowatt hour Nissan Leaf.

So it's quite an early model and you're looking at a range of around 80 miles, which is quite limiting for a driving instructor.

Now because I was very keen to do this, I was prepared to adapt my day around the car.

So I was, you know, building in brakes to allow the car to recharge.

But the, you know, most of us would not be happy doing that, understandably taking your time out of the day for the car.

However, you know, the modern generation of EVs are pretty much broken past those issues as the range of the vehicle is tripled, quadrupled.

Now, however, there's one issue which is one of the things that I wish someone had told me when I was buying my first ev and that is the effect of winter.

Now in winter what we find is that the range of the vehicle is more affected than with combustion.

Now all cars efficiency is affected by winter, but EVs suffer this a little bit more and generally the range is knocked down by about a third.

If your car starts with an 80 mile range and you lose a third of that, that is pretty significant.

But if you've got a 300 mile range EV and you lose a third, it's not quite as dramatic, you know, it's not quite so much of an issue.

But on the earlier technology, yeah, the winter effect was noticeable.

Is that the biggest problem you come across?

Just that in winter, obviously you had an issue with it being a quite a small range, but that's you've gone past that now.

Is that, is that really the only problem you've come across?

I've got to be honest, because if there was any more problems I guarantee I would say them because I'm a very big believer in being honest about the issues and the complications.

But the reality is, you know, if I quickly run through things, you know, insurance was pretty much identical in terms of cost.

Obviously there was no tax at the moment, MOT is the same.

Servicing is significantly cheaper.

I mean, I've just done my first service on my Enero and it was £85 at the main dealership for the first service on the E Niro.

And that's because there's so little to service, you know, there's so little to do with them.

What else have we got?

Running costs are phenomenally cheaper.

So my £240amonth petrol bill is now sitting at £30amonth for electricity.

So that's £210amonth cheaper.

But obviously that saving is used to offset the fact that the car cost more to buy than the combustion equivalent.

So it's a bit of a swings and roundabouts situation there.

But the number one thing I want to emphasize, the number one reason why I would argue it's better is the driving experience.

Now the driving experience is something else.

It's very hard to explain, but I went from not enjoying driving to now actually, I like driving and that's simply from switching over to ev.

I would happily pay more to be in an EV because I enjoy it so much more.

But nothing's gone wrong.

Yes, the range can be limiting on the older models.

Yes, winter has a bit more of an effect on the range.

Nothing's broke, nothing's gone wrong.

I've never had such reliable cars, so.

And I haven't got to go to the petrol station.

I used to go to the petrol station twice a week.

Now I just wake up and I've got 300 miles sat in the battery every single morning.

So I'm sorry to be so biased, but I'm overflowing with positives, quite genuinely struggling with the negatives.

I could talk a little bit about the charging network, stop me if I'm waffling, but I've got to say, even there, my experiences have been 90% positive.

Yes, I've come across the odd one that's not working or there's issues with the network here and there.

But all of those are short term transitional problems.

We're getting past all of those issues.

We're going to hit a stage where there's more charges than petrol state.

I mean, there are these actually more charges than petrol pumps at some point in the future, so those issues will get past them.

I think those sort of minor issues you mentioned there as well.

To me they're almost irrelevant because sometimes petrol stations close by.

Plan on my part, low on petrol, I'll nip here and it's closed for somewhere or you can't fill in, so you've got to go somewhere else, which is effectively the same as your charging unit not working properly.

So to me, I went down to Asda earlier on today and there was a long queue going into the petrol station.

Now, I don't know why that was, but, you know, there's no way that would have been a five minute refuel, you know, sat in that queue.

And I've got a memory of going to Callie services once and there were signs up saying, you know, no petrol.

So we had this situation where the EVs could charge for whatever reason.

There was no petrol at the petrol station.

So obviously both sides have their issues.

It's not to say that EVs are perfect.

There's always going to be problems and anything we build has the potential to go wrong.

But, yeah, my experiences have been very good.

I mean, I must admit, I've got an image now of you sat at that service station, like, rubbing your hands together like some kind of Bond villain walking over a petrol station.

The two things that I would view, or the two things that will concern me, one of which you've just mentioned, actually, was the driving experience in.

I've only ever driven an automatic car once, many years ago, but I didn't enjoy it.

And this is just a personal preference, but yet you're saying that you preferred the automatic version.

I suppose, if you like.

What's the reason behind the preference?

Or is it just a feeling, or.

It'S a sensation to do of how the car responds?

So having spent, you know, the first few months in an EV going back to combustion.

Okay, now this is going to sound rather almost insulting to combustion, which I'm very wary of doing, because, of course, for a lot of people, combustion is their passion.

They enjoy it.

So I want to emphasize this is me, this is how I feel about things.

But many of us are the same that you discover this passion going to EV that didn't exist with combustion.

Whereas others will find a passion in combustion and might therefore understandably resist ev.

But when you've spent a bit of time in an EV and you switch back for whatever reason to combustion, it's a bit like going from Star Trek to the Flintstones, which is a ginormous exaggeration, but the responsiveness, the feeling is so different.

There's a lagginess in combustion, which I think comes from the fact that with combustion, when you put your foot down, there's a lag where the car's got to convert that petrol into energy, into movement, whereas with an EV it's just stored in the battery and released instantly.

So you get this much more instantaneous, this much more responsive feel to the car.

And it's smooth and it's quiet and it's comfortable.

And when you get to acceleration that doesn't have that interruption as the car changes from one gear to the next, I would never want to add those little interruptions back in again.

Having got used to this beautifully smooth acceleration curve that you get with an ev.

More examples.

I've got memories of trying to go up hills in combustion cars and feeling the engine struggling and having to drop down the gears just to make the car climb the hill.

You don't get that in an ev.

If you need more power, it's there and it's just released whatever speed you happen to be at.

If I'm at 50 miles an hour and I want to overtake, I know there isn't going to be an issue.

You put your foot down, there's a response.

Whereas in my Yaris, you put your foot down and not a lot happens.

You might have to drop down a gear or do whatever you need to, but all of a sudden combustion just feels like what it really is.

Patched up 19th century technology and we are long overdue an upgrade that moves beyond that.

And EV offers that.

I like it.

You're selling me already.

The main thing here is I always say to people, you got to drive the cars.

You know, you've got to drive the cars or talk to the owners with practical experience.

Generally, you know, once someone's gone EV and live with an ev, it is hard to go back.

Some people do because they run into problems with the technology like charging networks or the range of the vehicle.

But it's the driving experience that is the number one reason people stick with ev.

Not the environmental argument, not the cost saving argument, it's the driving experience.

Do you find that you have to.

What's the word I'm looking for?

Do more planning?

Because I know, like you said, the arrange would probably cover you on a daily basis, but if you were traveling the country.

Yeah.

Do you find that you have to do more planning to specifically look at where you can charge?

Yes.

But now that my current EV has a 300 mile range, which interestingly is identical to the 300 mile range of my last Toyota Yaris, it's no different.

So both cars have exactly the same range.

So in the same way, with the Yaris, I had to know where the petrol stations were when you're running towards the end of your 300 miles.

The only difference is rather than knowing where the petrol station is, you just need to know where the charging station is.

And once you've driven 300 miles, you're ready for a break.

I mean, I'm sure we should all be ready for a break way before 300 miles.

But, you know, we go, not lately because of lockdown, but we've done plenty of trips to Wales and Cornwall, all that kind of thing, and we haven't really had any issues.

You do is you load up one of the websites like plug share, ZapMap, and you tap in where you want to go and it will show you the charging network for that area and you just click on a charger, have a little look and just make sure you're there at the time that you know you're going to refuel or whatever you need to.

My experiences there have been pretty positive and at the moment, the UK has over.

Oh, goodness, what is it?

8.

No, no.

38,000 connectors on the network and we're now gaining more than 500 each month.

Without exaggerating, I am absolutely surrounded in Nottingham by chargers.

It really is getting a bit ridiculous in Nottingham.

They're everywhere.

There's got to be way more than.

We've got petrol pumps.

And it's useless to me because I live in Nottingham, I've got my own one on the side of my house.

All of these public ones I don't need.

You need them to be, of course, where you're going to.

So when I go to Wales, I got to be honest, the network in Wales is pretty bad.

So if I lived in Wales in a terraced house and I wanted to go ev, I would think twice, because that is a very different situation to what I've got in Nottingham.

That makes sense, actually.

How, again, I'm struggling to phrase this one.

How much of this do you think is fear of the unknown?

In the sense that, for me, I've never driven an electric vehicle, so I don't know what it's like and I don't know where the charges are.

But part of that is before I drove a Mini, because I drive a Mini now.

Before that, I never saw Minis on road.

You start driving your Mini, you see a Mini everywhere.

So is it a little bit like that?

You start driving your EV and all of a sudden.

Oh, yeah, there are loads of charges everywhere because you start noticing them.

Yeah, right, yeah.

I mean, you've probably driven past lots and lots before, but what we've had is a very patchy.

We still do, but it's getting sorted, I think, is the best way to put it.

So back when I first went to ev, there were charges around, but they're a little bit hidden.

So you might find, you know, there's one in the back of the Holiday Inn car park, you know, there's one in the back of your local leisure center.

And the difference is petrol stations are large and prominent and that gives a confidence in being able to refuel.

Whereas EV charges tend to be a little bit hidden away, so they're not visible, and it creates this impression that there's not that many around, whereas, in fact, there's actually quite a lot of them.

Now, we are just starting to see the EV equivalent of a petrol station.

So we're gaining now, large stations kitted out with lots and lots of very high speed charges and there's going to be hundreds of these things popping up across the UK across the next few years.

Bear in mind, we've actually already got an incredibly good network.

You know, the National Grid covers the entire country.

All we have to do is keep adding new plugs to it and upgrading as we go along.

So that's going to get sorted.

And what fascinates me is that we've got 8,000 petrol stations left and falling all the time.

I can see what you're saying there.

I think my sort of counter to that, I suppose, is you can envisage the supermarket still having them.

Yeah.

And everyone knows where their supermarket is, so.

And this would be almost a fear of the unknown and knowing what you know in that for me, I've got Morrisons that way, I've got Aza that way.

Five minutes both ways.

I can go full up either time.

Well, that's my safety net and that's more than likely going to stay there.

So for the people that are a bit.

Almost died in the wool, bit set in their ways, they're still going to see that way then, you know, they're a bit, I shouldn't probably say this, but a bit stubborn.

They're not going to be able to see the bigger picture because they'll always fill up at that same service station and have that fear of the unknown, of the.

The electrics.

Something else you mentioned there, you mentioned high speed charges.

Yeah.

So what sort of time are we talking with the high speed ones for a full charge or a part charger?

Brilliant question, and I'm going to be annoyingly slightly complicated with the answer because we're in sort of like this muddled time where it's all being worked through.

So I'll give the short version.

If we jump back 10 years, when the Nissan Leaf first appeared on the market, the quickest we could get 100 miles into a battery was one hour.

It's now roughly 10 minutes.

So that's the kind of improvement we've had.

Across the last 10 years.

So the Nissan Leaf, the original one, had what's called a 50 kilowatt onboard charger, which means it can accept electricity at a rate of 50 kilowatts in one hour.

The fastest we have installed in the UK right now is 350 kilowatts.

That's a dramatic increase in the speed that we can get electricity into a battery.

Now that's happened in 10 years.

But our problem is that technology hasn't yet standardized.

We can do it, it exists right now.

But you have to have a car that is capable of accepting that amount of energy that fast.

So it's no good delivering the energy that quickly if the car can't receive it.

So if you can afford a nice shiny new Tesla or a Porsche Taycan, or even some of the brand new Kia or Hyundai offerings, you can charge over 200 kilowatts now, that's got to be about 100 miles per 10 minutes or so.

That's pretty fast.

That's not bad at all.

But the reality is, you know, on the market at the moment, most EVs are charging at somewhere around the 70 kilowatt mark.

That's not bad.

So mine charges at about, I would say, 75 kilowatts maximum, which means if I've managed to deplete the 300 mile battery, I would need to take an hour, hour and a half break maybe, I'm not quite sure actually, to try and get that back again.

But my argument would be if you've managed to wipe out a 300 mile battery, you probably need an hour break anyway.

But it's easy for me to say that when I've got a home charger.

I'm very conscious that other people who would be reliant on the network, you know, the public network, would be in a different scenario to me.

Half the population can have a home charger.

So that helps, that really helps.

But the other half of this are going to have to rely on the public network.

I mean, to dumb that down for me a little bit.

Essentially, if I had a home charger, I shouldn't need charging while I'm out.

I should just be able to go do my lessons, come back if for any reason I did need to, like you say, 30 to 30 minutes to an hour for their launch, and then I'm fine.

Yeah, potentially.

I'm slightly wary of saying, you'll definitely be fine.

The reason being manufacturers might say to you yeah.

Oh, yeah, half an hour you'll be okay.

But in reality, there's more to it than that.

Yeah, it depends on what charger you've plugged into.

It depends on, you know, how full your battery already is as to how quickly it will actually charge.

So there's varying factors as to the speed of the car charging.

I think the, the shortest summary is it's always getting quicker.

Then all of the problems with having a terraced house and no home charger go away.

They are transitional problems.

They're not permanent issues.

They're transitional issues which we can, but we will eventually get past.

But they're also valid problems.

Yeah.

And I think with the charging thing, again, I'm just going back to what I said before.

I think a lot of it for me previously and a lot of people now, is that fear of the unknown.

But as you've just put across there, there's actually very little to be afraid of.

And I suppose if you were, because it is a big switch, going from a manual car to a, to an EV is a big switch.

So I suppose if you were doing that anyway, you'd be sensible in taking the time to investigate your local area regardless.

And you know, what you were saying, there kind of stems into another passion of mine, which is instructor health.

In that, again, I'm using myself as an example when I first started, 15 minutes between every lesson, let's just plow through, get as many hours as you can, get home, have your tea, sleep back out next day.

Whereas now I take a much more healthy approach, have that gap.

So even if, like you say, you are having an hour gap at time between lessons, that's not the end of the world, that's only going to benefit you.

So at the minute, even though I'm actually trying, I'm failing miserably to throw a spanner in your works.

Just the one thing I would ask, actually, just regarding the range, how accurate are they?

So, you know, like you said, in the winter that range drops, but is it higher than it states in the summer or is that generally pretty accurate?

I'll tell you my experiences.

The Nissan Leaf was a little bit erratic in its ability to guess how many miles it had remaining.

Again, sort of like you probably find the same is true of combustion cars.

But of course, in a combustion car, it doesn't prominently display on the dashboard how many miles you've got left, at least not all of them.

Whereas an EV will generally make that very in your face, you know, it'll make it very clear this is how many miles you have remaining.

And that's what can cause that slight feeling of, oh, you know, sort of like, how's this going to go?

So being honest, the Leaf wasn't brilliant at guessing how many miles you actually had remaining.

So you ended up having to have a bit of a buffer to be absolutely certain you were going to be okay.

Having said that, the modern stuff seems to have pretty much improved a lot on that.

And we currently have a Kia Iniro and a Hyundai Ioniq family car.

And both of those seem very solid, very accurate in being able to gauge the range of the vehicle.

I've been really impressed.

The thing that's really amazed me is that Kia are advertising that the Enero has a maximum range of 282 miles.

Now I'm used to manufacturers overselling their cars and I've never had a car before that has massively outperformed what the manufacturer claims because all through summer I was getting a consistent, you know, 320 miles.

Not just what the car was telling me it could do, it actually was doing that.

So I'd get to 300 miles after a couple of days and have 20 miles left.

So it actually achieved what it was.

It told me, short answer, used to be a bit erratic.

Seems to be a lot better again as the technology evolves, I guess the algorithms are getting better and the manufacturers are learning how to build these cars better.

Yeah, I mean, I'd imagine as well a lot of this is still fairly new technology.

So it's constantly evolving.

And you look at the way just with everything with social media, the Internet, mobile phones.

Wasn't that long ago, mobile phone was a brand new thing and in space of 20 years, look at it now, it's bonkers.

Stepping away from the technology side slightly then driving licenses obviously got a manual license or a full license and we've got the automatic licenses now.

And imagine this is an argument you get thrown at you quite a lot.

People should be made to have a full license or a manual license, whatever you want to refer to as, and then they can choose afterwards what they want to drive.

How would you retort to that?

So historically having an automatic only lice, you know, sorry, an automatic only driving license would have been a serious restriction, whereas really nowadays it's no longer the significant restriction that it used to be.

Doesn't mean that there isn't an issue there at all.

So we're in a rapidly changing scenario where we've hit a point now where over 50% of all new cars are now automatic and manual is predicted to be under 40% of the market by the end of this year.

Now various manufacturers are setting deadlines to end the production of manual cars.

Some already have.

It is very unlikely that the manual car is going to survive the decade.

We are looking at quite a radical, quite a drastic, quite a sudden change in our industry.

But of course the second hand market is going to be mainly dominated by manual cars for quite some time to come.

But I would suggest that people who say that taking a manual license to keep your options open are correct.

I think that is right.

I did gently try to push my daughter, who's just turned 17, towards manual for exactly that reason.

She resisted.

So we've gone straight down the automatic route and if there's issues with manual, we can tackle that later on.

We can always do another driving test in the manual car if we really have to.

My take on this is that the bottom line is it has to be the student's choice.

And I've got a line that I like to kind of use for this, which revolves around the idea that there are many drivers out there, this included me, who cope in a manual car but could be thriving in a modern automatic.

And if the choice is between coping with driving and thriving with driving, go for the thrive option.

However, if the student has a passion for manual, obviously manual makes sense.

But I want to suggest the idea that when someone chooses manual, a lot of them aren't choosing manual out of a burning desire to learn manual, they're choosing manual because it's sensible, it keeps the options open.

If they could go straight to auto, a lot of them would do.

But manual does that option of allowing you both ways.

But it's not necessarily because they want to drive a manual car.

Depends individual circumstances.

Yeah.

And the problem I've got here is that while you're talking, I'm trying to think counter arguments and you keep answering them before I've actually said them.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Because in fact, I'm going to put this once again, I suppose you kind of answered this, but could you sell manual driving lessons in the sense of if, if I was to say, rob, I want to hire you for a week to go and advertise my driving school, which is a manual car.

Yeah.

Could you do that or would you just not be able to.

Would you find yourself just.

There's not enough to sell it on.

So you're talking for someone who's passed in an automatic and then wants to upgrade to a manual licen.

Is that the kind of thing you mean, or.

No.

So just imagine, for whatever reason you had to switch to a manual car or I hired you to come and get me some students in my manual car.

Would you be able to do that?

Would you be genuinely struggling to find plus points for driving learning in a manual?

Oh.

Oh.

I'm going to be hugely biased here, I'm afraid, on this one.

Being honest, this is going to sound a bit extreme, but I've reached the point where I think I would rather quit, go back to manual combustion.

Now, I know that's a little bit radical, I know I'm not alone in that as well, but that might give a slight sense of just how big this transition has been for me, switching over to ev.

I think I would give up driving now before go back to manual combustion.

And that's not meant to be an insult to people that love manual combustion because we all have our own sort of, like, take on this.

But I feel that strongly about it.

And the weird thing is my wife does as well.

I mean, when I bought back Nissan Leaf and she tried it, she immediately said, I want to get rid of the family car and buy another Leaf.

Within a month, we had two electric cars on the driveway.

And she feels the same way that I do about it.

And our forums are full of people in the same kind of position, so it's a bit hard to explain why just changing the fuel source will create that kind of sensation of it being so important.

Now, I love my job, I love teaching people, you know, to drive.

But yeah, I got to be honest, going back to manual combustion would be.

I would find that hard.

I would find that hard.

I thoroughly enjoyed the answer.

See, I try to tread carefully sometimes because sometimes when you promote the thing that you're, you know, you're really into, it can seem very much like you're knocking what somebody else is into.

But this is what I'm getting from talking to you.

You're not.

You're not knocking anyone, you're saying what you're passionate about and no point.

Have you said anyone's wrong to teach manual?

You've actually, you have given a couple of plus points for not big ones.

Admittedly, but a couple of plus points for manual there, but that's your passion and I like that and I think it shines out.

I think the other thing I want to ask on that just sort of touch on, and this is what would happen if everyone went automatic today?

What would happen if everyone electric.

We couldn't go, could we?

No, we wouldn't go.

And of course that's not, thankfully, what's going to happen.

So the last thing we want is for everyone to suddenly switch over at the same time.

Because if we're talking about electric, the bottom line is the industry cannot pivot that quickly.

It's desperately struggling at the moment to keep up with demand.

I had to wait nine months for my current EV to be built and that was how high demand had gone.

Now the industry is trying to move quickly.

Volkswagen in particular are rapidly converting their combustion factories over to EV to try and see if they can ramp up to a level where they can meet demand.

Now, that is a phenomenal rate of increase and it's not going to slow down.

If anything, it's going to keep increasing.

So the industry trying to keep up with that is going to be quite a struggle.

Now, it depends if we're talking about it in terms of the grid as well.

You know, if you're referencing can the grid cope with everyone switching over to EVs?

And I always say for anything like this, you always have to go to the experts, you know, not journalists.

You've got to go to the people that know what they're talking about.

So I would only take the answer from the National Grid, because the National Grid have produced what's called the Future Energy Scenario.

And it's documents on their website that look at how this is going to work as we all transition over towards EVs.

The very short version is it's going to be okay, but it does involve a gradual increase in our energy capacity, involves lots of local upgrades to the network.

The problem actually isn't capacity, it's Distribution, getting the energy to all of the places.

But it's more than possible, it's more than manageable.

And I won't waffle on too long about how it works.

It's to do with two way energy flow.

Currently we do one way grid sends energy to us.

The future version, it goes both ways.

And right now you can sign up to the trials for that.

So that's a whole different story.

Yeah.

Sorry, have I gone off on a tangent there or did that actually answer what you meant by the question?

It did answer the question in that we, we couldn't necessarily cope right now, but we will do a gradual transition.

Will be fine if we all switched overnight.

It's not going to work.

And it's probably a little bit unfair of me to, you know, portray the stereotype of a driving instructor, stereotype of a stubborn driving instructor, because there's a lot of good ones and there's a lot of open minded and fair instructors.

But the reason I'm kind of touching on that slightly is because I get stuck online sometimes and I don't consider myself a particularly polarizing figure.

I would imagine that you get some stick online because I would imagine that there are some circles you are quite polarizing because of the passion you've got for this and the passion that other people have for the combustion engine.

Have you been, have you get stick?

Do you get people being rude Almost.

I generally have a kind of, I guess a self decided sort of like way of interacting with the Internet, which is only to engage as much as I can do on, on a positive level.

So if it looks like it's deteriorating into, you know, an argument rather than a discussion, you know, generally I'll just try and step away from that.

So I'll normally say I'm not interested at all in trying to convince someone who doesn't want to drive an EV to drive an ev.

If they tried to convince me to drive combustion, I know how I would feel about that and it would work both ways.

So I'm talking to the EV curious.

I'm interested in talking to people who would like to know a little bit more, who have questions and thoughts and interests.

What I'm not really interested in is arguing with somebody over what kind of car they should buy.

That is completely their choice.

So generally I'll try and approach that as much as I can do on that kind of positive slant rather than that negative argument.

Doesn't mean I haven't stepped wrong every now and again.

And you get this urge to correct somebody's figures on, you know, EVs, or they might sort of like claim that apparently our grid is run by, you know, coal, that kind of thing, which it, you know, it isn't.

It definitely isn't.

And of course, then, of course, you know, you got to be careful because that's where you can easily get into a situation where things do go negative.

So still learning and sometimes treading carefully.

I like that approach, you know, having the discussion, but not an argument.

I like that.

All right, so I'm going to start wrapping up now, but there is one question I want to ask you.

Stepping away from that for a moment.

It's something that I saw you post about.

About online.

I just wanted to.

To ask you about, which was it looked like you've been doing a lot of a lockdown in regards to Zoom lessons and recording stuff for your students, which has been quite impressive.

Just tell me a little bit.

Can't say the words a little bit about that and about how that's gone now.

You found doing that sort of thing over zoom rather than in person.

The Zoom driving lessons came out of a request from an autistic student who was scheduled to start his driving lessons just before we went into this lockdown.

So that would have been early January, and he was very disappointed that we wouldn't be able to get started to begin his practical driving lessons.

And it was his suggestion that we could try and work something out online.

So I have to confess to having been a little bit edgy about it, a little bit nervous about, I suppose, being a little bit outside of my comfort zone.

You know, how on earth do you conduct a driving course which you're being paid for?

Because I was being paid for this, and provide something which you feel is meaningful and good quality over the Internet.

And so I spent quite a bit of time planning it, trying to structure it, trying to work out how to do it and what the other lab was interested in as well.

And actually, between January and our very final one, which I think was yesterday, we pretty much covered the entire driving course.

We finished on dual carriageways and motorways just yesterday.

So it's going to be absolutely fascinating when we start practical driving lessons to see if it's helped, you know, what it's done, because I'm not yet going to stand by how well it's going to convert into the practical driving lessons.

But I've had a lot of feedback from his mum, and I think one of the big things was that actually it was a blessing in disguise because she felt like the Fact that we were able to meet on a weekly basis over the Internet via video was better for him than if it had been face to face in terms of him being inside of his comfort zone.

So I was outside of my comfort zone, but actually it was probably a better environment for this particular student.

So it's been fascinating.

Sadly, I haven't got time in my diary to keep it going because I've had requests to carry on the online zoom driving lessons, but, you know, between work and transporting kids to and from college, sadly, there's no way I can carry it on.

I find it fascinating, I'll be honest with you, because I've said for a while that I'd love to teach someone for six months without them starting the car and see what they were like when they start the car.

So I'm going to be intrigued to know how that goes.

Me too.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting.

Two final questions to wrap up, and these are what I'm asking everyone at the end, so I think I can almost guess at what at least part of the answer might be.

First one, what change would you like to see to our industry?

If you could click your fingers and make one significant change to our industry, what would it be?

Okay, I think I'm going to go with the one that just jumps straight into no, actually, no.

I know exactly what I want to go for.

I was about to go for making automatic licenses apply to all cars because other countries have experimented with that and that's worked fine.

But I'm not going to go for that one because there's something I feel stronger about, mandatory cpd.

So the idea of having a minimum number of hours and a chance to understand this check before it begins, to sit down just for five minutes with the examiner and say, this is what I've done.

I would love that.

It's interesting you say that because every instructor I've spoke to regarding this podcast, they've not all said it for this question, but they've all mentioned that same thing, that we should be doing more, that as an industry, we're a little bit lapsed, a little bit slack in that area.

So it's interesting you say that.

That might even tie into my final question, which is if you were going to leave with one tip, tip for every ADI or PDI that's listening to this now, you can give them all one tip.

One piece of advice.

What would you give them?

Adapt the pace of the learning to the needs of the students.

Excellent.

I like it.

Well, I think I mentioned before my idea behind this podcast was to get experts to get industry leaders, innovators, game changers in and speak to them.

And you're one of them.

And it's been brilliant speaking to you.

You haven't changed my mind because I was always going that way anyway.

But I have tried to throw some awkward questions your way and everyone I've thrown at you, you batted back with aplomb, so.

So yeah, it's been brilliant speaking to you.

Thank you for coming on today.

Where can people catch you?

What social media.

Is there anything you want to plug while you're on it?

Oh, I'm all over the place on social media and very happy to take questions about EVs or anything else along those sort of lines or whatnot.

So, yeah, no, very active on all social media, I believe.

And the only things that I do is I run those EV presentations, which I will happily do for any associations that ask me via Zoom or in person if it's localish when the rules allow.

Excellent.

Well, when the podcast release, I'll put the any links you want in the show notes so people can always go there, click you to find you.

But as I mentioned before, thank you for your time today.

It's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you.

No problem.

I really enjoyed that.

So big thank you there to Rob Cooling.

It's really good of him to join us and it was great to hear his insights on it.

He's answered a lot of the questions I threw him.

He batted some of the trickier questions.

I believe it batted them back of the plum.

Yeah.

And it was, it was just a fascinating conversation.

He's definitely opened my eyes a bit more.

And whilst as in the episode I stated that I am a believer that electricity is a future, I was still skeptical as to how it would work.

I was skeptical as to how efficient and how.

I don't even know what the word is, but how appropriate it would be.

And I think he's kind of put my mind ease for a lot of stuff.

And the good thing about Rob as well is he's really open.

He's.

He's open to the discussion, he's open to the debate, he's.

He's not gonna shy away from giving his opinion, but he's very much, he's well thought out and Attica in his arguments or his reasoning.

And the other thing is it does what's right for him.

So the, him using the eevee and you know, spoke about his family as well.

It's, it's what's best for him.

So just because it's not ideal for me right now or other people listening doesn't mean that it's not right for everyone.

And it's going to be a slow process.

But, yeah, let's see where we go in the future.

So, yeah, big thanks to Rob there.

We're now gonna head over to Chris Benson of the DITC who's got some of the latest news and updates, including around the latest developments with cyclists and mock tests from the dvsa.

So let's hand over to Chris.

Hi, this is Chris Benstead from the Driving Instructor and Trainers Collective, the ditc, the signposting hub for the industry.

We are bringing the instructor podcast updates from around the driver training sector and keep in touch with what's going on.

So, firstly, critical worker theory tests.

Critical worker theory tests don't exist anymore.

They are not being offered by the providers.

However, you can still get practical tests for critical workers as long as they've been booked through the employer.

They are few and far between though, so make sure that they investigate what is available to them before you make any plans.

The other change to the theory test is the booking system and the booking system is changing and it will be changing from the 8th of July.

However, that will be for tests that are being taken from the 4th of September.

So I found this a little bit confusing.

It's well worth having a read of the DBSA email so that you can try and work it through.

But basically there's a new system coming into place that's going to reduce down the availability to two months in a buy where it's been four months in advance so far.

The temporary change is that from the 4th of May, the amount of time that tests could be booked in advance is being reduced by one day by the time that the new booking system opens, which is going to be the 8th of July.

Sorry, it's a load of different dates.

I know from the 8th of July tests will only be available two months in advance, so they're reducing down that window, which I think for me, driving instructor head on sounds like an excuse for offering less tests.

But they're saying they're going to be offering more, so they're going to be opening up those windows of opportunity each day with more tests potentially available, especially as social distancing restrictions change, they're going to be able to offer more.

There's a few bigger test centres that have been opened up and you know, they're trying to maximize those windows of opportunity for taking tests.

But this sounds to me, like it's a little bit the other way.

I'm going to dig into it and if I can find out more.

Listen to the next episode of the instructor podcast to hopefully find out more.

If anyone knows more, please get in touch.

We would love to know what you've been told, but it's, it's an interesting set of dates and it seems to be suggesting there's going to be less rather than more available from a booking perspective.

I had a conversation with an ADI this week who had a test pupil who'd failed their practical test and their theory is coming to an end middle of July, so theory certificates going to run out.

The only tests, practical tests that are available are in September.

What do you advise that pupil?

Hopefully you're going to get a practical test before July, but you also don't want to miss out on the opportunity of getting another theory sorted out and you can't book a test that is after your theory expires.

So whereas with another pupil you might book a test for September and then try and get something sooner, they've got to sit in limbo until they find that magic test that fits in with their theory dates.

Again, something we're going to flag up to NASP and we're going to flag up to DBSA themselves and see if we can get some answers on what's advised.

You know, what do we tell our clients about how that works.

So we will feed that back to you whenever we get the responses that hopefully are the ones that we're looking for.

The DBSA themselves have released some really interesting information to have a look through and that information is looking at the test marking sheet, looking at the different skill areas.

So looking at there's 24 skill areas as most of us will know if you've bothered to count them, but there are 24 and they cover ancillary controls, awareness and planning, clearance of obstructions, etc, etc, etc.

So they've released some guidance as to what that really means and they're trying to encourage instructors to use that better inside of mock Test.

So the DBs are really big on mock tests.

I know there's mixed views between instructors.

I think it's personally think it's really good for people to know what they're going into.

I think it's one of the big fears is we don't know what's the other side of that closed door and once we know we can deal with it until we get there, we make it into this big scary beast.

So I like it from that Perspective, I don't think it necessarily benefits driving.

It doesn't help me know whether they're good enough or not, but it does help them deal with the day.

I don't really care where the test is going to go.

I don't really care, you know, what's going to be experienced on the test.

What I care is about is the format.

And the better I can demonstrate that format to my learners, the better they will be able to achieve it on the day.

As a lot of people know, I'm now exclusively doing theory training.

I'm doing that via Zoom.

So I'm not out on the road, but still running the driving school and speaking to my instructors who are.

But with the theory, it's very much about talking about them through that process so they know what they're going into to try and burst that fear bubble slightly and give them coping strategies that are going to help what is and is not acceptable.

So worth having a look.

You may well find there is nothing new, but it might give you a bit of a focus on things that you can put across.

And the DVSA have been been good at explaining these things recently.

Where you know, what you choose to take from it is down to you.

But I would definitely take the time to have a look because you might find something that you didn't know or had a misunderstanding of.

I think the one that's always stood out to me was the difference.

I had explained it very early days by an examiner I was having a chat with.

I found a friendly one.

I know they're great, but especially local ones.

We have such a good relationship with them.

But they took the time to explain to me about speed and that, you know, you've got these different speed issues of the legal limits and what was right for the situation, the situational limits, if you like, and how they view it and how they market and knowing that really helped me assess how the examiner will be seeing those situations and encourage sometimes a bit of commentary.

I think that works really well to help with communicating the thought process to the examiner.

So, you know, you don't make any excuses.

But sometimes explaining things of, you know, talking through what you're thinking can really make the difference because, you know, while.

While they are all very good at their jobs, they're not mind readers.

They can't necessarily tell exactly what was going on.

And that bit of commentary can make the world of difference, as I'm sure most of you have tried.

Those who haven't give it a go.

It really helps just encouraging them to talk through that inner voice.

And then finally DFT have released a cycle savvy driving project which has been developed in coordination with Bikeability.

And they are looking for people to.

Sorry, just looking for people.

They're looking at driving instructors.

They want ADIs to get involved.

They were trying to recruit 4,000 ADIs across the country to get involved with the Bikeability project.

Now, I've heard some early whispers of things have been going on with this project and the people that were involved with it were really impressed.

It made them look at things differently.

Poor old cyclists, you know, often viewed as in the same way we view the annoying insects on the windscreen.

And they shouldn't be.

They're road users as well.

And I know you get the ones, what do we call them, mammals, the middle aged men in Lycra.

You get the ones that are out for a fight sometimes or want to prove a point or, you know, got a chip on their shoulder from the entire world.

But I think trying to teach our clients that how to deal with cyclists.

And for me the thing that stood out was why, why are cyclists behaving in the way that they behave?

And I discovered was taught about something called primary position, which is where the cyclist takes up a position in the middle of their line.

And often as a driver, you look at them and think, oh, if they moved over, I'd be able to get through.

Yeah, you'd be able to get through.

Skimming them on the way, making them feel really threatened and squeezed in on the bit of road that's got all of the potholes that we complain about, the drain covers and the puddles.

So primary position makes them safer.

And I liken it to things like martial arts, where the key is taking up space if you have space around you.

We teach this in the car bubbles of safety and various other variations on that.

If you've got space around you, then you are going to be safer because if you hit nothing, then nothing is going to get damaged.

So, you know, the same is true for cyclists.

And this is part of what's being taught, part of what's being channeled across to hopefully then better inform drivers and gives more of a approachable attitude between us and our cycling colleagues.

That's not to say I don't get annoyed when I'm stuck behind cyclists, I just try to remember that they're doing it for the right reasons.

So well worth having a look.

You can access that through your chosen national association.

The DIA and the ADI NJC both sent out emails and I expect MSA have as well.

So yeah, check it out through them and see how you can get involved and if it's something for you, knowing a lot of driving instructors, we're not the fittest bunch.

Maybe there's some good gals out there on bikes.

I'm claiming knee injury which is why I won't be cycling along, but I'm very intrigued to know what's going on with it.

So if you hear get in touch with myself or get in touch with Terry and I'm sure one of us will be happy to have a chat with you and find out exactly what you learned and whether you think it was beneficial or not.

Be interesting.

So that's it for this week.

Thank you very much.

Stay safe out there.

So thank you to Chris and the DITC for bringing these regular updates to the instructor podcast.

They're helping me.

I hope that you guys find them useful as well to keep you abreast of some of the latest news and also get a little opinion as well, which is always helpful.

Be sure to check out the DITC full disclosure I'm a member of.

I think it's a great service that refer to themselves as a signposting hub of the industry, which I think is accurate and they've got some great benefits as well.

So yeah, really appreciate them joining us every week now to bring us up to date with the latest news from within the industry.

So thank you for listening today.

If you've enjoyed this podcast, make sure you click subscribe wherever you're listening so that the next one will drop straight into your podcast feed.

If you want to get in touch with a show, head over at TCDrive Co UK.

You can get in touch with me by any method over there.

And remember, let's just keep raising standards and stay safe.