Insider's Guide to Energy EV

14. Efficiency Drive: Maximizing EV Mileage

• Chris Sass • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Join Niall Riddell and Chris Sass for an enlightening episode of the Insiders Guide to Energy EV Miniseries, featuring an exclusive interview with Kevin Booker, a Guinness World Records holder and expert in electric vehicle (EV) efficiency. This podcast provides a deep dive into the world of EVs, offering listeners a comprehensive guide on how to enhance the performance and range of their electric vehicles. Kevin, known for his exceptional achievements in EV hyper-miling, shares his expert insights on mastering the art of gentle acceleration, the benefits of regenerative braking, and the critical role of tire efficiency. Additionally, he discusses the importance of smart climate control usage, emphasizing how these factors collectively contribute to maximizing an EV's energy efficiency.

This episode is an invaluable resource for both EV enthusiasts and those new to the world of electric vehicles. Kevin Booker's discussion about his Guinness World Records highlights the untapped potential of EVs and the significance of efficiency in promoting their adoption. The conversation delves into his record-setting experiences, including driving the Mustang Mach-E electric car with unparalleled efficiency and achieving the longest distance on a single charge in a van. These achievements are not just records but also powerful statements about the capabilities of electric vehicles and the impact of driving habits on energy consumption. Kevin's journey encourages listeners to reconsider their approach to EV driving and understand the importance of efficient vehicle use.

Listeners are invited to tune in for an engaging and insightful exploration of electric vehicle technology. As the world gravitates towards more sustainable transportation options, understanding the intricacies of EVs becomes more relevant. Niall and Chris facilitate a conversation with Kevin that is both informative and captivating, making this episode a must-listen for anyone interested in the evolving landscape of mobility. Whether you are a seasoned EV driver or contemplating a switch to electric, this episode of the Insiders Guide to Energy offers essential guidance and inspiration for navigating the exciting realm of electric vehicles.

Transcript 

 

00:00:04 Speaker 1 

Broadcasting from the commodity capital of the world, Zurich, Switzerland, this is insiders guide to energy. 

00:00:20 

Addition to insiders guide to energy is brought to you by fidectus. 

00:00:24 

Go to www.fidectus.com For more information. 

00:00:59 Speaker 2 

This episode of Insiders Guide to Energy EV Miniseries is powered by Paua. Paua helps your business transition to electric vehicles by simplifying charging, managing payments, and optimizing your charging data. 

00:01:13 Speaker 2 

Welcome to the Insiders guide to Energy EV miniseries, Niall, I'm excited about this episode. I want to know how I'm supposed to be driving this EV these days, and I think this episode might help me out. 

00:01:24 Speaker 3 

That is exactly what we're aiming to do, Chris. We will be better drivers by the end of this conversation. We're very lucky to have an individual who has. 

00:01:34 Speaker 3 

Changed the way that I think about driving and has made me re understand the old concept of miles per gallon in miles per kWh and I now actually pay a lot of attention to the data I get on my dashboard, so I'm delighted to say that we have Kevin Booker with us today who's going to teach us how to drive our EV's a little bit better. 

00:01:56 Speaker 3 

Than we did yesterday. 

00:01:59 Speaker 3 

So Chris, I'm hoping that off the back of today's conversation, we'll be able to drive our electric vehicles better than we were yesterday because we're very lucky to have Kevin Booker with us today who has made me rethink how I drive my electric vehicle in terms of my miles per kWh rather than my miles per gallon. Kevin, would you like to introduce yourself? 

00:02:19 Speaker 4 

So I'm Kevin Booker. I'm Neil, knows me as kind of from events where I've done what's called hyper myelin. Uh basically because I have for four Guinness World Records for driving efficiently. 

00:02:34 Speaker 3 

And what that means is you are the man to teach us how to get the maximum amount of juice out of those electrons we squeeze into our cars. So. So what? What makes you qualified to tell us about this, Kevin? Where? Where have you done these records? What have you been up to and what can we learn from you today? 

00:02:52 Speaker 4 

So basically I've got 4 Guinness World Records. The first one is for the most efficient in the. 

00:03:00 Speaker 4 

Mustang marquee electric car from driving from John O'Groats to Land's End. So that was 6.5 miles per kWh. One charge stop and that one charge stop was 43 minutes and 17 seconds, which is actually the. So basically 800 miles to two charges so. 

00:03:19 Speaker 4 

Never really had range anxiety. The UK is not big enough to give me range anxiety in an EV. 

00:03:25 Speaker 3 

What a brilliant statement, and that that was obviously clearly a long distance record. What other records have you accumulated? 

00:03:33 Speaker 4 

So the the more recent one is the record for the longest distance to a single charge in a van, which we took the record off an American entry which was the bright drop vehicle which did 256 miles to a single charge and we did 300. 

00:03:51 Speaker 4 

11 miles to a single charge and the clever fact about that was the bright drop at 174 kWh, usable battery size. And we had 68 kilowatt hours battery size, so significantly smaller, but still quite a bit further. 

00:04:06 Speaker 3 

And and again you squeezed every electron out of that to get and improved miles per kWh. What did you achieve on that particular journey? 

00:04:14 Speaker 4 

So that was. 

00:04:15 Speaker 4 

4.5 miles per kWh. 

00:04:18 Speaker 3 

So so for the listeners who are less familiar with the numbers we're talking about now, the bit I find really exciting here is I feel good when I do 3 miles per kWh, I'm not a particularly efficient driver, but realistically, hearing numbers of 4-5 and six miles per kilowatt hours. 

00:04:35 Speaker 3 

Fillers. How do you do it? What's the trick? 

00:04:39 Speaker 4 

The big thing is what people forget with EV's is they're a lot quicker than their petrol counterparts, but doesn't necessarily mean you have to race off traffic lights and away from junctions that quick. So it's all about reading the road ahead and still using that gentle acceleration. So that's mainly what people forget. It's just because. 

00:04:59 Speaker 4 

Vehicle is quick, doesn't mean you have to drive it like that. You can still drive it in a very efficient manner to get the most range out of it. 

00:05:06 Speaker 2 

You drive more efficiently and and when Neil was asking these questions, I I just pictured like you in the slow lane going 2020 kilometers an hour the entire time and people getting frustrated cause you going for mileage. How? How was your drive? Was it driven? 

00:05:20 Speaker 2 

At speed limits, were you? 

00:05:23 Speaker 4 

So basically lots of it was, you know, it was slightly slower for the the distance ones and for the van one, we tried to simulate a rural delivery route. So we stuck to roads which were 30 miles an hour. So we stuck to those type of speed. 

00:05:36 Speaker 4 

It's, but it was driving to the speed limit. It's how you accelerate and decelerate, which is the key with an EV. So you want to obviously maximize your region to get energy back because the interesting thing from the stats from the van record, we regenerated over six kilowatt hours of energy. So that's free energy, which would have been wasted as heat in breaking. 

00:05:57 Speaker 4 

In a conventional car, so you actually get a lot of energy back just by changing your driving style and using the advantages of an EV. 

00:06:06 Speaker 3 

And can you tell us more about that regen braking? Because if you drive a petrol or diesel vehicle, that's a new concept, how does it work? 

00:06:14 Speaker 4 

So effectively, in a simple terms, when you're slowing down, it changes the electric motor into a generator. So you put energy back into the battery pack and this would be energy that would normally be wasted as heat in a normal conventional vehicle from your brake discs. 

00:06:31 Speaker 3 

So do you end up with a long term problem that you never use your brakes and therefore you get an issue? Or is this just something that EV drivers adapt to? 

00:06:40 Speaker 4 

Yeah, I mean basically that can be an issue with some things is actually you do find an EVs that cars, some of the rear discs do get corroded because they just get used so little because actually you're just using the electric motor to slow you down. 

00:06:56 Speaker 3 

So on that basis I need to slow down my enthusiasm of getting away from the lights. I need to consider how I come off the accelerator and allow the vehicle to use the regen braking. They seem like obvious things to do and it almost feels like that's. 

00:07:15 Speaker 3 

One pedal driving. 

00:07:17 Speaker 3 

What about motorways? Do things not change on motorways? 

00:07:21 Speaker 4 

In motorways as well, there's one thing to consider on this is actually. 

00:07:25 Speaker 4 

When you've got to factor in your charging is actually to look at your whole journey as a whole, so you might find that actually if you drop down from 70 to 65 miles an hour, you'd need one less charge stops. So you actually get to your destination quicker. So it's all about looking at the statistics in your head and trying to work out what's the most efficient. 

00:07:45 Speaker 4 

So actually by going 60 miles an hour, you don't really slow down your trip mass. 

00:07:49 Speaker 4 

Really. But you actually gain energy because the the sort of drag curve is not linear, so the faster you go that lasts 10 miles an hour takes a lot more energy than the 1st 60 miles an hour. 

00:08:02 Speaker 2 

Do you? But I'm not convinced drivers as a whole are willing to do that. I I remember in the US the speed limit nationally was put down to 55 miles an hour for a number of years just to save oiling after the oil embargo on. 

00:08:16 Speaker 2 

70S and people were pretty frustrated with that. So do we think this behavior is significantly something you have to be conscious of and calculate, or is the car going to be able to calculate this in the future and the dashboards gauges they're showing me how to optimize? 

00:08:31 Speaker 4 

You've got now in a lot new of new cars. You've got adaptive cruise control and actually the Ford system. They've just launched. Blue Cruise can take a lot of that out of effort out for you because it reads the road signs, it reads the roads, it follows the lanes, you know it is hands off driving with just eyes on the road. So there are. 

00:08:51 Speaker 4 

Clever and clever, sister. 

00:08:53 Speaker 2 

And then I think there was also a belief that tire pressure is significant to mileage, at least for the gas car. Is that something you worried about as well when you were driving the electric cars? 

00:09:05 Speaker 4 

I mean, the biggest thing that's hurting efficiency of EVs is the tendency for people to like big fancy alloy wheels. So actually, if you're driving a car with a, I think the Ionic 5 end, which I looked at is on 21 inch wheels, actually a 19 inch wheel will be far, far more efficient. So I think manufacturers have a role to play. 

00:09:25 Speaker 4 

Because they've actually created a market where cars have bigger wheels and they've lost the efficiency drive because people think there's an EV, it's green. I think they do need to get that back though. 

00:09:36 Speaker 3 

So that's that's quite interesting the you know the the shape of the vehicle being important cause one of the things we've observed is some slightly weird shaped vehicles are merging. The Ionic is an interesting example where they introduce is it the ionic 6 that's got that really long sleek space age look is that something that manufacturers are pushing towards? 

00:09:59 Speaker 4 

They should do because the Ionic 6 is one of the most aerodynamic cars on the market. 

00:10:04 Speaker 4 

The moment I mean the disadvantage is it is the default spec in the UK comes with 20 inch wheels whereas in other markets you do get an 18 inch wheel version which does allow you 50 miles extra range and that's without driver interaction. That's just by dropping a wheel size you can actually go much further. So I think the problem is is people. 

00:10:24 Speaker 4 

Like big SUV's and for efficiency or big SUV is not the ideal shape. 

00:10:31 Speaker 3 

How fascinating that you end up picking a vehicle based on looks. You might then look at the battery and go and need a bigger battery, but actually if you just accepted a smaller wheel, you'd get the mileage in its own right. 

00:10:45 Speaker 4 

Yeah, exactly. 

00:10:48 Speaker 2 

So if you had to give if, if it's a trade off. And I mean, I think the one thing that gets people in the EV's is the first time you drive one is the the fun of driving an EV when you when you hit the accelerator and and just have that acceleration. 

00:11:02 Speaker 2 

If I had a give and take, would it be keeping it at 60 or would it be less Jack Rabbit? 

00:11:08 Speaker 4 

Starts probably less racing off at lights because it's still going to take you a lot of energy to initially move off, so actually you're better off just accelerating gently from the set of traffic lights and actually going slower overall. 

00:11:24 Speaker 2 

And then for and a Guinness Book of World Records, since you, you, you have some records here, what is the category that this fell under and and why did this become important to have make a Guinness? 

00:11:36 Speaker 4 

Mainly because it's, I mean, the people I did the record with, some of them have fueled card wreck car records and I thought well, it's time to get some EV ones. And I think it encourages the adoption of EVs because it does make people less scared of them because when you look at a figure that actually you can go from John Gross to Land's End in one charge, stop that kind of. 

00:11:55 Speaker 4 

Goes about the press, you know, goes against the press thing that says ohh these don't go very. 

00:12:01 Speaker 3 

So you've teamed up with some other individuals to achieve these world records. Who are these people? And you know, what were the records they held previously? 

00:12:11 Speaker 4 

So the records they previously held is the person. There's an Irish guy called Fergal McGraw who is he has the diesel car and petrol car record. So I finally converted him to have a nice, greener version of a vehicle to get a record in. And then the last record, we had a new person who's Sam Clark from grid serve. 

00:12:30 Speaker 4 

Who? That was his first record. So he joined the team because he's a big EV advocate and we thought, let's get another person who's EV involved in. 

00:12:40 Speaker 4 

Into this, as it were. 

00:12:41 Speaker 2 

Whether weight restrictions in the car, did you strip the car out or is it just stalk the way it was to to do these records and then was the driver's weight a consideration as well? 

00:12:50 Speaker 4 

So basically, with the Guinness rules, it has to be a car that you or I or anyone could go out and buy. So the only things you're allowed to do is you're allowed to change things. 

00:13:01 Speaker 4 

As long as there's something someone else could do. So basically with the Mustang record and the van record, we made sure they had a rated energy efficient tyres on there. So you've got an energy rating on Tyre from A to E&A rated tyre is far better efficiency than an E rated tyre so we just made sure we got the most efficient tyres on there. 

00:13:20 Speaker 4 

Which is the fact that lots of people don't consider how much your tires can affect range. 

00:13:26 Speaker 2 

So I don't know the rating system of efficiency of tires. Maybe you could help me understand what makes an A rated tire better than an E rated tire. 

00:13:34 Speaker 4 

So basically it comes down to rolling resistance. So how much resistance they have travelling on any given Rd. surface. So an A rated tire will roll much easier. So you might have noticed that. 

00:13:45 Speaker 4 

When you take your foot off the accelerator, some cars will roll much further. A lot of that can be to do with the tyres and how the trade pattern works and interacts with the road surface, but it's a fine art to do it because obviously you don't want to lose the ability to stop in the wet either and to cool. 

00:14:02 Speaker 2 

Yeah, that that's what I was thinking because growing up, enjoying sports, cars and things of that, I was always thinking soft tires, right, the the softer, the tire, the better the performance in some situation. But I would expect that that's contrary to what you just described in in reliability. 

00:14:17 Speaker 4 

Yeah, there's a lot of science in the the general creation of tyres, cause obviously you want to also. 

00:14:23 Speaker 4 

Kind of minimise the dust from a tyre as well, so you want it to last a long time, but you still need wet grip so the amount of research has gone into EV tyres is huge. 

00:14:33 Speaker 3 

And and you had the team at Bridgestone involved in that journey and they put some funky tire on the vans when you did that last challenge, didn't you? 

00:14:42 Speaker 4 

Yeah. So they put their latest version of their efficient van tyre again, they're starting to design tyres specifically for commercial vehicles, which have the same efficiency rating, whereas a van tire used to be just it's a van tyre keep. 

00:14:56 Speaker 4 

The kind. 

00:14:58 Speaker 4 

Of rims off the ground, but they didn't really think about efficiency. But now, with people demanding greater and greater ranges, it's all those incremental gains you can do. So the aerodynamics, the tyres, even the thickness of tyre walls and how they're made can make a difference. 

00:15:13 Speaker 3 

So these are all things that I can probably handle. You know, I can pick a slightly smaller tyre I can or wheel size. I can pick a particular tyre to go on it. I can select a vehicle based on its efficiency, but you know, one of the things I'm really not going to talk about is what about AC or heating inside. 

00:15:30 Speaker 3 

The vehicle, you know. How does that? How do you use that as an efficient mechanism to get more mileage? Do I need to change my settings? Can I listen to the radio? 

00:15:39 Speaker 4 

So listen to the radio won't make a huge difference because that tiny vote is taking the biggest thing is with climate control is how many people don't know how to use climate control effectively. So the number of times I'll get in the car that's been used by someone else, and if it's hot, they'll have it set on low. Or if it's really. 

00:15:57 Speaker 4 

Walk coal. They'll have it set on high. You know, modern cars have climate control, so you can set a comfortable temperature. So you need to actually just more set a comfortable temperature rather than just having it on high. If you're really cold it, people teach it as a very a very digital system. It's like either freezing cold or boiling hot. There's no in between, and people need to be a bit more nuanced with how they set that up. 

00:16:20 Speaker 2 

But I I guess Neil's point was how much impact does climate control. So you you said radio is kind of almost nil or or or not inconsequential or but the climate control is important so. 

00:16:32 Speaker 4 

The the biggest thing is going to be heating. The electric vehicle is one of the most energy consumption things apart from driving it, and that's a lot of cars are getting around that to an extent by using heat pumps and some are new. Some newer vehicles are scavenging heat from other systems to try and make it more efficient. 

00:16:50 Speaker 4 

But the other thing you can use as well is you're better off heating the person rather than the air, so that's why a lot of EV's come with heated steering wheels, heated seats, so you're actually better off for efficiency using those devices rather than heating the air to warm yourself up. 

00:17:05 Speaker 3 

And one of my personal favorite tricks is actually in winter heating the car while it's still plugged into the. 

00:17:11 Speaker 3 

House, you know, use the remote settings, turn it on, heat it up before I get in it. So it's already a warm space when I get in in winter. 

00:17:19 Speaker 4 

Yeah, that's ideal, because then you're not actually using. In many cases the traction battery to do it, you're using the power outlet. 

00:17:24 Speaker 4 

On the wall. So that's what I'd recommend for everyone, because actually you've done that initial bit of energy to get it up to temperature by not depleting the main battery. 

00:17:35 Speaker 3 

And then when you sit in these vehicles, you you often have a big dashboard with loads of additional data and settings. Should I be looking for some of these settings to play with to make it a better drive? I mean, I really like the regen braking settings, but I, you know, my business partner who drives the EV alongside me. 

00:17:55 Speaker 3 

He hates them. So every time I get in, he's turned off. The regen is that a good thing or a bad thing? What else should I be making sure I adjust for him? 

00:18:02 Speaker 4 

So with the region, there's two schools of thought on this. A lot of people tend to use the one pedal driving mode, but doing the Guinness World Records I found that's actually less efficient because actually you tend to be fighting against the region, so you tend to be more bursty on the throttle to counteract that. So you're actually better off once you've kind of got used to a car. 

00:18:22 Speaker 4 

You can actually feel with many cars that point where the physical breaking takes over from the regen break. 

00:18:29 Speaker 4 

So you can actually tailor it so you're slowing down mainly on regen and doing that with the pedal and for the most efficiency, you're generally going to be better at doing it with the brake pedal and letting the car just force you to slow down more quickly. 

00:18:44 Speaker 3 

So that's really interesting. You're saying we've got cars loaded with tech. You know, there's there's wires and cables between your foot and the actual motor, and yet you're still driving a vehicle on the field of that experience. 

00:18:58 Speaker 4 

Yeah. When you get to the well, for most people, that can be the best way. But when you get to the level of trying to get a Guinness World Record, you have to be. 

00:19:05 Speaker 4 

So on it that you have to look at those subtleties because that could be the difference between achieving the record and not achieving it. 

00:19:11 Speaker 2 

Did you look at the weather forecast and was the exterior temperature relevant to the day you tried this? 

00:19:18 Speaker 4 

Yeah. So we looked for the warmest period of the year because you can lose up to 20% of efficiency in an EV during colder weather. So when you start dropping below about 15° C. 

00:19:31 Speaker 4 

You tend to notice the efficiency drops off and you're having to use heating and things like that. 

00:19:37 Speaker 3 

And then rain, presumably, is the other thing that has an impact on rolling resistance and so on and so forth. So you were looking for a warm, dry day. 

00:19:46 Speaker 4 

Uh, yeah, basically, it had to be dry because rolling resistance and surface water is one of the worst things because your tyres are using all that energy to get rid of the water from the tread pattern. 

00:19:58 Speaker 3 

So all of a sudden we've got a combination of climate and settings and the actual, you know, vehicle selection that dictates how far you can get with it. Do do you also see that some of the ground up EVs, those that have been manufactured as an EV, being more efficient? 

00:20:19 Speaker 3 

And those who have been kind of like we'll whack a battery into a diesel chap. 

00:20:23 Speaker 4 

Well, in theory that should be the case, but I found with a particular brand like Hyundai. 

00:20:28 Speaker 4 

The Hyundai Kona is one of the most efficient cars on the market and that is based on a Tri fuel platform. So petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric, so you've got that one's actually really efficient. So I drive an ionic 5. My wife drives a Hyundai Kona and hers is more efficient than my. 

00:20:49 Speaker 4 

Ionic 5 which is a ground up V platform. The problem being is this. This love of SUVs and big vehicles. So the ground up PVS tend to be much bigger than some of the cars that have preceded. 

00:21:02 Speaker 2 

The the vehicles you did this record in, were they your choice of vehicle? Is is the rules that you can pick any type of van or any type? 

00:21:10 Speaker 4 

Of sedan or so. So for the car one we just picked the one which we thought had the the best capability to get all three records. 

00:21:19 Speaker 4 

Because it's it's, you know, you need a big battery. You need quite an efficient powertrain and you need a relatively quick charging speed. But for the van record, there's not huge choice in the van market in the UK, they're all based on this talentis design. So we could have picked any of the five skilandis vans, which were the same, and they should have all performed equally. 

00:21:39 Speaker 2 

Well, I guess the reason I asked about the vehicle thinking on the sedan side, if you had a a car that had been built for another technology, does battery placement weigh in heavily, you know, cause batteries are not light in where they are. So if you take a car that was built for, let's say diesel and and put an EV in it. 

00:21:57 Speaker 2 

Does that make a difference performance for? 

00:22:00 Speaker 2 

Range and things like that. 

00:22:02 Speaker 4 

It seems it can do with some brands, but then I've found some where they seem to have mitigated all those disadvantages and they are really efficient anyway so. 

00:22:11 Speaker 2 

I mean, OK, so. So you're saying maybe a little bit wasn't such a big concern from you as I just heard you say? 

00:22:20 Speaker 4 

Because some of the stuff I've done, like my previous car, was the original Hyundai, Ionic had the compromise they made fit the battery on that was it lost the fully independent rear suspension on the full electric version, but it wasn't a major compromise in the way the car drove. 

00:22:36 Speaker 2 

And then charging was something you just mentioned as one of the criteria, talk about what you do to charge quickly to to to win this kind of award? 

00:22:46 Speaker 4 

So basically you have to pick the right speed charger which is becoming more common though because there's a lot more. So when I first started driving EVs A50 kWh charger A50 kilowatt charge was considered quick, but now you've got three 50s in some cases 400 kilowatt chargers. So it's just mainly picking the fast charger. 

00:23:06 Speaker 4 

And having the car that can actually take that current. 

00:23:09 Speaker 3 

And and that last piece having the car that can take the current is really crucial. You know, some of the listeners who are gonna be listening to this will be considering vehicle choices. We're talking, you know, what should you look for when it comes to charging speed? Because obviously there's different characteristics with hidden within the metrics you might see on the. 

00:23:30 Speaker 3 

The manufacturer's glossy brochure. 

00:23:33 Speaker 4 

I mean now it's. I wouldn't tell anyone to consider. Don't look at a car that doesn't have DC rapid charge and there's not many of them. There's only a few left on the UK market that only have AC charging, but I'd say look at the. 

00:23:46 Speaker 4 

Car that's. 

00:23:47 Speaker 4 

Got the highest charging speed for the price point you're looking at because you'll always find that. 

00:23:53 Speaker 4 

Your charges are getting quicker. It's the car is a limitation for a lot of these charges now. 

00:23:58 Speaker 3 

And do you do you advise people to look at things like the charging curves because we know that they don't always take that maximum charging speed. 

00:24:06 Speaker 4 

I mean, the thing that really I've kind of tried to advise people to look at which not many people do is they look at the whole battery, whereas for rapid charging you need to look at zero to 80% type scenario because the number of people I see on rapid charge. 

00:24:22 Speaker 4 

Is pulling 4 kilowatts because they're at 90% and their car can't charge that quickly past that point. So I think it's more an education piece is actually telling people how these cars work and if you're on a rapid charger, there's probably not much point staying much past 80%. 

00:24:39 Speaker 3 

And and I I had that experience the other day, which had blew my mind, which is I was sat in a colleagues Ionic 5. 

00:24:47 Speaker 3 

And we had just gone, we would continue our conversation. We've just gone past 80%, but because of the architecture of that car, we were still pulling about 50 kilowatts even though we were at 80% full and my, my, I was told I was informed this is to do with the the voltage, the battery operator. 

00:25:06 Speaker 4 

Yeah. So there is a disadvantage with that architecture I found because I have the version before they fitted the battery heater so that can mine can charge quite slowly when the battery is cold. So the problem with an 800 Volt architecture, it can go quicker because heats less of an issue at higher voltage. 

00:25:24 Speaker 4 

But that also means on a rapid charger if the battery's cold, it doesn't warm up very quickly either, so without assistance to heat the battery, you don't necessarily get those high charging speeds. 

00:25:36 Speaker 3 

So in this case we we had an 800 Volt car with a warm battery because it was a relatively recent vehicle and that's what enabled us to get that really high charging speed despite the fact we were, you know, heading towards 8090% capacity on the battery. 

00:25:50 Speaker 4 

Yeah, that's it. And basically as well, is this protect certain protections into the battery as well and? 

00:25:55 Speaker 4 

Battery management systems have got better. I mean, the way I liking it too, as you fill in the battery up. Think of it as you're filling a bucket of water. The closer you get to the top, the more you slow down the tap because you don't want to overflow with. That's effectively what the cars are getting better at doing now as well. 

00:26:11 Speaker 2 

Is this educational process right? You, you you've you've said some things just kind of matter of fact, right that the tire size was matter of fact to you. The tire type was matter. 

00:26:19 Speaker 2 

In fact, not charging past 80% is all matter of fact. But for for someone entering the EV space, this is all new, right in in the past you just go buy a car or you go rent a car and they give you the keys. You go and it says either it's diesel or petrol and you and you choose what you put in. 

00:26:35 Speaker 2 

The tank and. 

00:26:36 Speaker 2 

And you just drive the thing. So are there. 

00:26:39 Speaker 2 

Is there a full book of things that we need to know before I switch switch over? Because it it starts getting intimidating to a certain point, right? Cause you don't wanna be that guy that went to a a charging station and pulled in next to the guy and just cut his charging in half or whatever. 

00:26:51 Speaker 2 

Or maybe you. 

00:26:52 Speaker 2 

Don't know. You just did that. So how do you learn all these things or how? 

00:26:56 Speaker 2 

What do we get there? 

00:26:58 Speaker 4 

I think to an extent, car dealerships have a role to play in. This is not just trying to sell the car based on targets and actually more learn about their customers and try and sort of aim that. I've been doing some work with deals just to try and help get that education piece across and podcasts like this help educate people. 

00:27:16 Speaker 4 

And just, you know, charging company. 

00:27:19 Speaker 4 

Podcasts out, you know, charge card companies, but just kind of trying to educate people how this thing works. Because we never got taught how to fill your car up with the petrol pump. It was just kind of showing it to you because your parents did it and you saw them do it. So it's just to try and pass that knowledge on. 

00:27:35 Speaker 3 

Yeah, I I couldn't agree with that more. I am quite regularly say to people that you know the petrol station has been taught to us by our parents and all of a sudden we're plunged into this new ecosystem. You mentioned that you are working with some parties to help, you know, improve the education we've got in the system. What is it you do as a day job? 

00:27:52 Speaker 4 

So my normal day job is I manage it and fleet for. 

00:27:56 Speaker 4 

A National Park so kind of had the the green thing kind of built into me for the 20 years I've worked for a green organization, but now it's just from the records. I've just thought, well, if I can educate people and show people that these events aren't to be afraid of, that all goes a step towards it as well. 

00:28:14 Speaker 2 

But I I noticed your background that there's a lot. 

00:28:16 Speaker 2 

Of gas, cars and things and you seem to be very passionate about automobiles. 

00:28:22 Speaker 2 

So are you elitist to just EV's at this point, or do you still have passion for your classic automobile that uses gas well? 

00:28:29 Speaker 4 

Well, this is The thing is, I can appreciate that. You know, there is a place for every vehicle. And Stefan, actually, Eva's for the day-to-day stuff means we can still have the silly cars like the Bugatti Chiron and things like that. But you you find you are getting much more extreme Evo's when you've got Ford have got their super van which has got 2000. 

00:28:49 Speaker 4 

The course power, so it's just kinda. 

00:28:52 Speaker 4 

I just like cars in general, but obviously I've moved with the times, so the Times Now are changing to EV's, but I can appreciate it. Was it a Volkswagen event? Couple of weekends ago and they had every version of the golf GT I from the mark one, and I can appreciate the heritage amongst those things. And you know the ID free GT I when it comes out will be the next iteration of that. 

00:29:14 Speaker 3 

Yeah, it's quite cool to see the evolution of vehicles. I had the privilege of seeing one of the crazy electric lotuses at an event recently, and I asked them, you know, how did you, how did you configure it and design it because I was really quite interested. And the bit that really struck. 

00:29:29 Speaker 3 

Me was most. 

00:29:30 Speaker 3 

Electric vehicles. You have this slab battery, you know that goes underneath the vehicle. 

00:29:35 Speaker 3 

Within the Lotus, they'd basically put it as a big block behind the driver in the engine space, so you know, what do you think will happen to, you know, the historical engineer and design of vehicles as we move more and more towards electric. 

00:29:50 Speaker 4 

I think it's going to get the designs are going to get more extreme in the way like you've seen how headlight designs have changed with the advent of LEDs. So whereas before you have a big head light, now you can have really small powerful headlights and you can have almost identities given to the cars by the sort of lighting things you're going to see. Eva's evolve around the fact that. 

00:30:11 Speaker 4 

You can put the battery or the motor anywhere you know an all-wheel drive version. You just stick a motor at the front and the back, so there's going to be far more options and modular platforms where. 

00:30:20 Speaker 4 

The one platform could have multiple designs on the top. 

00:30:24 Speaker 2 

Will people still be driving these men? Autonomous vehicles are what people keep thinking we're working towards and and a lot of the the fuel savings and things you've talked about machines would do relatively well. I would think they would know that. Do you anticipate that? That's what we're working towards that that we need to learn all this or do you think the car is going to be? 

00:30:42 Speaker 2 

Doing this for me in the next 5 to 10 years. 

00:30:44 Speaker 4 

Well, the difficulty with autonomous vehicles is the one unpredictable bit on the road at the moment are the people who aren't driving autonomous vehicles. So it's very easy for autonomous vehicles to work in an infrastructure where everything's. 

00:30:56 Speaker 4 

Anonymous. But you think if you've got a narrow country lane and two autonomous cars, you have to do things like aggression algorithms, because if they both encounter each other in the middle, an autonomous vehicle would just sit there because the other ones sat there. One of them has to yield and give way and reverse back. So it's it's difficult because I don't, I don't think autonomous is as close as we think it is. 

00:31:17 Speaker 4 

For certain controlled situations, motorways, where they're really prescribed roads, it's easy enough to do, but it's those more complex roads where you need to make different decisions where they they're probably. 

00:31:29 Speaker 4 

The struggle. 

00:31:31 Speaker 3 

Now I'm. I'm conscious, Kevin. We're probably heading towards the the end of this show, but I have a a question which was asked of me by someone else, so excuse this question because it is quite unusual, which is, you know, the joke in the industry is that batteries now are longer than bladder range. You've clearly done some very long journeys on a single charge. 

00:31:52 Speaker 3 

You know, do you see that as a real challenge? You know, the fact that now the human body cannot go as long in the car as actually the car can go on its own single battery. 

00:32:02 Speaker 4 

I think that's The thing is, you get people who say they've driven from John O'Groats to Scotland in without stopping and it's like from health and safety point of view. And as you say from a bladder ranged possibility, it's probably not the case and they've probably bent the truth slightly in that. I think you know the cars are doing now. You know, my wife's in, they come there, we'll do 360 miles if driven. 

00:32:23 Speaker 4 

Carefully. That's not really that different to a Toyota ago I had. 

00:32:28 Speaker 4 

1015 years ago. So you think with solid-state batteries coming, they're going to get more efficient, lighter, which then increases your range. I think that's probably said that actually hydrogen might not happen in the the car space because batteries have got so good. 

00:32:47 Speaker 2 

So as we wrap this up, what would you want our audience members to take? So if if they're new to the EV space, what is the one or two things a low hanging fruit that they should focus on to improve the experience? 

00:32:58 Speaker 2 

3V. 

00:32:59 Speaker 4 

I mean the best way to have to get people at Ivies is to actually experience driving 1. So don't don't dismiss it without actually getting behind the wheel of one, because you actually find they're much nicer to drive than a lot of fuel, cars. And the other thing is. 

00:33:13 Speaker 4 

Just you know. 

00:33:15 Speaker 4 

Just look at things more sensibly. Don't drive around with a boot full of. 

00:33:19 Speaker 4 

Stuff in it when you don't need it, and there's simple things we can all do. Check tyre pressures just to actually. 

00:33:25 Speaker 4 

Get more efficiency out of a everyday car. 

00:33:29 Speaker 3 

This has been a fabulous tour around how I can get more out of the vehicle I already own. I'm going to be driving more sensibly, I'll pull away better. I'm going to have a good look at my tire pressure and whether I need to change my tyres and of course I'm going to manage my internal cabin heating and really just get the best from the vehicle I've got. So thank you for educating us Kevin, I really appreciated this. 

00:33:50 Speaker 4 

Perhaps thanks for having me and don't get too good. Obviously I don't want you coming after my Guinness World Record. 

00:33:56 Speaker 2 

Well, for our audience, we hope you've enjoyed this episode. I probably won't be as good as Neil. I kind of like driving around fast and doing those things, but I still think Evie is a fun thing to drive. If you've enjoyed this content, you enjoyed the show, please don't forget to subscribe. Watch this on YouTube and we'll see you again next time on the insiders guide to Energy EV mini series. Talk to you then bye, bye.