EV EU-TURN! UK Under Pressure? + Our Predictions of a 'Carpocalypse' in 2026?

0:00Ever wonder why scam calls feel so specific? Why they somehow already know your name, your city, or even your address? It's usually because of data brokers. These companies collect your personal information from across the internet and sell it online, usually without you even realizing it. Things like your phone number, home address, family members, and even places you've lived. And once your information is out there, it spreads fast. That's where Aura comes in. Aura automatically finds your personal information on data broker sites and submits removal requests for you. Then Aura keeps monitoring to help make sure your information stays gone.

0:40You can even see where your data was found and removed. And Aura goes beyond data removal. You also get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and up to$5 million in identity theft insurance. Right now, you can try Aura free at Aura.com slash hidden. That's Aura.com slash hidden.

1:03Imogen:Leaders aren't born, they're made. And they're made like everything else, through hard work. Well, a Chevy Silverado was made for hard work and designed to handle the big jobs. With over 13 ,000 pounds of towing capacity and trailering sway control, Chevy Silverado can haul the biggest loads on the roughest roads. It's a true workhorse. Right now, get 0 % APR financing on a Silverado 1500 pickup. It doesn't get any lower than zero. See your Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana Chevy dealers for details. Chevy Drive Chicago.

1:38Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Pulse podcast. The podcast where we go into the life and death of the automotive industry over the next decade. Hosted by me, Imogen Vogel, and CEO of Fully Charged Show, Dan Caesar. How are you doing?

1:54Imogen:I'm well I'm reflecting on the year gone by and I'm looking forward to next year but I would say it's an extraordinary time to be in the automotive industry we'll get into some of that there's noises emanating from the European Commission even as we record so lots of news there's never a dull day let's just be positive there's never a dull day there is never a dull day and we said the same thing last week that we thought okay is it going to get to a point where it's quite difficult to sort of always find stories to fill this podcast. No, there are too many stories and we have to filter out many, many, many of them.

2:29We are, of course, having this podcast. It's our last one pulse for this year. So this is going to take a slightly different format. We are going to talk a bit about the European Commission, what that means for 2035 targets. We're going to make some predictions for 2026. And we're going to share what's in store for fully charged show, both Everything Electric Cars, Everything Electric tech and our live shows in 2026. So all of that to come, but first a very quick advert break.

2:57Imogen:This episode is brought to you by Hankook. The Hankook Ion tyre is built exclusively for electric vehicles, engineered to deliver what EV drivers need most, confident grip, quietness, energy efficiency and long mileage. As the official tyre partner of Formula E, Hankook proves its EV technology is at the highest level of performance and brings that same innovation to every ion tyre on the road. We are passing straight to the chase here because we are not messing about. There is lots to get into when it comes to this 2035 discussion. You've shared a number of articles with me. I think the one that's the most detailed is from Automotive News.

3:38Can you explain what is going on and why we're talking about it today?

3:44Imogen:I mean, effectively, you've got a new technology technology it's not a new technology and the electric vehicles have been around for over a century but for all intents and purposes as new technology coming through it needs a nudge along in the right direction because as humans we are fundamentally afraid of change not me personally but i can see why people would be hesitant about new technology quite often people have bought new technology at the whims of the government, diesel technology being one that we can remember from a few years back in the UK. And that technology has not panned out. It's been more expensive environmentally and from an economic perspective.

4:26Imogen:And people are hesitant to believe politicians when it comes to which technology to opt for. But new technology does need a nudge in the right direction. It does need government to set all the traffic lights to green, if you like, so we can seamlessly move to a future of these new technologies. But the road ahead is extremely bumpy. And also, I was talking to someone on LinkedIn just last night, and they were saying, why do EVs need any policy support? Shouldn't they just survive or fail on their own strengths and weaknesses. And the reality is that if it weren't for policy pushes, we wouldn't be driving around the cars with seatbelts and catalytic converters.

5:10Imogen:Industry does need a nudge in the right direction, but so do consumers. And I think even more so when it comes to EVs, because actually there is just a torrent of misinformation. Everything has an equal and opposite reaction, but the reality is EVs are cheaper and better. But if you read the media, you spoke to the average politician, you would not believe that was the case. That's getting lost. And actually, all that misinformation is costing us even more in subsidy, even more in incentive. And of course, in Europe, now that EV support is under attack. Effectively, the European Commission had ruled that no new cars would go on sale with a combustion engine from 2035.

5:52Imogen:That has been lobbied very, very hard against for a long period of time. The reality is the car market in general is struggling, not just electric cars, but the whole car market is struggling. And the move to EVs is being fought by some companies, some lobbyists, and actually people are saying, you know, we need to pump the brakes, we need to slow down. And I think that's a mistake, we'll get into that. But what we've long feared would happen is being discussed in the European commission at the time of recording. And I think it's a fait accompli to use some French language. I think it will be weakened.

6:28Imogen:And as we understand it, it will actually be pushed back from 2035, the zero emission target, to 2040. Plug-in hybrids and extended range electric vehicles, EREVs as they're known, or REVs by some companies, provided their emissions can be offset, will be kind of eligible, possibly re-inclusion of things like sustainable fuels, like e-fuels or biofuels. And I happen to think this is a huge backward step. But if we go back a decade, and it is literally a decade to where this all began, it really was Dieselgate back in 2016, about 10 years ago now, that really kicked off this situation. Volkswagen were mired right in the middle of that, but they were not the only car manufacturer at all.

7:14Imogen:They were the one that actually caught a lot of the blame for that. But the reality is that's triggered the whole thing around air pollution. And since that time, electric vehicles have come on leaps and bounds, and they are now cheaper and better. So we think this is a big mistake. And we know the European Commission is about to help the automotive industry in Europe as it sees it slow down the progress but i would ask actually does that change the realities just because uh the economics are difficult as a lucid motors execs the other day has the physics changed the physics has not changed electric vehicles are still the better option so it is with a heavy heart that we think actually this could significantly change the dynamics and potentially could knock on to the uk as well which i'm sure we'll get into in a bit more detail Yeah, it's so tricky.

8:09So today it's being debated of does the 2035 target for essentially the banning of combustion engine vehicles, does it shift to 2040? And the 2035 target become 90%, which ostensibly means that about every other car could likely be a PHEV. And as we know, lots of PHEVs don't actually use their electric range. Their emissions are kind of artificially or not artificially inflated, they are inflated. so it's a negative outlook and I think clearly the European Commission is in an impossible situation where it's being lobbied very much by the fossil fuel lobby it is also having to support an automotive industry that perhaps didn't move quickly enough and it can't punish it for that previous decade of not moving fast enough but then also when you look at it like a little bit more between the lines there are some positive things in there and I'm trying to find the positives because we're getting towards the end of the year and we can't go into Christmas feeling totally depressed.

9:05Imogen:You do the positives and I'll do the others. I will do my, try my damned hardest. So some other things that have been, you know, been put forward is that actually we look at the average of fleet emissions. So the average of an OEM's fleet emissions that they sell. And the advantage of that, of course, would mean that there perhaps can be smaller, lighter, compact electric cars, which to date, they haven't really made sense for the European OEMs to make in the same volumes because they're not typically as profitable vehicles. So definitely there's incentives to make smaller, lighter electric cars here in Europe.

9:42That is a positive. There's also some speculation around greater support for fleet vehicles to go electric. So things like company car schemes, which as we know, are a huge way to incentivize companies, number one, and number two, to feed that secondhand EV market. We've seen that very acutely here in the UK. And then the third thing that I'm, again, feeling optimistic and positive about is that actually there is this social climate fund, the EU has this social climate fund. Germany is very interested in this, and Sweden have just had a policy that's been approved. This is Sweden's EV incentive scheme, which essentially is support for lower-income households to help them make that transition to electric.

10:22We've seen that already be extremely successful in France. So it's almost like, and this is going to be my interpretation, that this is a buzzy headline statement to the traditional OEMs to say, okay, we hear you, we'll push it back to 2040. But by the way, we're also going to provide a load of carrots elsewhere, which is this sort of, you know, EV push kind of through the back door. The trouble is, and the thing that makes me feel negative is that that is a buzzy headline that sends really negative signal to the world when actually, you know, this year, I think between January the 1st and 30th of November this year, there have been 18.5 million EVs sold.

11:06Granted, that does also include hybrids. And that's a year-on-year increase of 21%. People want EVs. They're good products and they make sense. But the discussions today don't fill everyone with that amount of joy.

11:21Imogen:you've put the positive case brilliantly i couldn't have done it better i mean i'd definitely like to see my battery as half half full you know that but the reality is is the signal that concerns me but let's let's go a little bit more into the detail you know for you know european automotive execs to say actually we need smaller cars it really really struggle with that statement because the reality is because of economics when evs came along car companies started with quite high priced premium often suv style cars because that's where they felt they could make more margin so volkswagen group for example which we'll talk about in today's podcast my first car that i bought outright was a polo that's coming back as an all-electric id polo next year which is fantastic news but the reality is that anyone who's been in this industry for long enough will know that less than 10 years ago vw had the e-up it had the skoda city go it had the seat me they have had great small evs already they just walked away from it and they're not just picking again on vw bmw had the i3 which was my first electric car look i'm very very pro german car making i think what they have done is extraordinary and it is a real bind for the european commission for the automotive industry at large really really difficult decisions have to be made and so from my standpoint whenever i hear about some of this stuff i am thinking well ultimately the signals were there had you moved earlier and i guess it's a that old analogy about turning a tanker it's very very slow to do so and some of them are in and out you know they'll bmw were really early with the i3 perhaps too early in some in some respects then they got cold feet now they're back with the neuer class of vehicles which i think are going to be revolutionary in 2026 but it's little things like the re-inclusion potentially of e-fuels uh you know talks of technology neutrality uh things like that that really concern me because ultimately that brings out, I guess these big signals bring out all of the kind of naysayers again, say, I told you so, the market's not ready for electric vehicles, people don't want them.

13:43Imogen:And the reality, as we know, is if it took away the misinformation, you took away that white noise of misinformation, people would be trying them much more quickly. And actually almost no EV drivers go back again. It is simply better and cheaper technology. So fundamentally, you've got all that noise. And this will just make that worse, I'm afraid. So I am trying to be positive. I do absolutely believe the future is all electric. I just think, unfortunately, the people of lobbying will successfully have slowed down this transition. And I don't think they've sold the underlying fundamental issues that countries like Germany have with their economy.

14:21Imogen:It's built around the engine. But if the engine is no more, which ultimately is the direction of travel, where does that leave the German economy in five to 10 years time if it's really not got to grips with EVs? As I say, I think VW are making some good moves as are BMW. But I actually think this is going to be a real self-defeating moment for European automotive market, even though in the short term it might feel like it's won some concessions. Oh, completely. And I think a lot of the rhetoric at the moment is that, oh, well, well done. UK, you've succeeded in this lobbying, but you are going to lose a tremendous amount of market share to Chinese OEMs who don't care about your legacy automotive industry.

15:03And they do in as much as they're willing to take a bit of market share and to take previous German OEM execs over to China and get them into their design studios, etc, etc. But yeah, we're going to lose out. German OEMs are going to lose out a lot of market share to those Chinese EVs. but I think if we were because a lot of this upset comes from the fact that EVs were the sort of the thing that felt mandated and lots of people would say that it should have been the target should have been technology agnostic and the target should have been reducing emissions not sort of saying that combustion engines should be banned so if we could rewind the clock for a moment what would be some of the things that you would have implemented alongside this 2035 timeline?

15:50So let's go back to August 2023. What would you have done between August 23 when that announcement was made and now to help avoid the situation that we're now in?

16:00Imogen:That's a great question and one I'm completely unprepared for, but I'll give it a go. You know, the reality is that you've got to take people with you. So obviously, if you tell people to do something, quite a lot of us are quite pliable and we'll listen to that. But there's probably a larger rump of people who will actually push back against that say look I'm not going to be told what to do what to buy what to choose and we hear that kind of language all the time the reality is that even with a 2035 date actually you didn't need to switch for another decade you know so language to tell people actually you're not being made to do this now you're made you're being kind of asked to look at it for for a future date so I've always felt words like ban are not representative of the reality, the immediacy that's portrayed in the media is totally unhelpful and hysterical, frankly.

16:48Imogen:And ultimately, there is quite a big window opportunity to educate. And that's the space, whether it's between 2023 and 2025, or even an ongoing basis, that's where we're lacking, because the policymakers often don't understand EVs themselves and are not able to sell the proposition. And it's a very, very strong story. The same applies to the automotive market. If If they're made to feel that actually this is going to cost them jobs, it's going to cost them economically, then maybe they won't get fully behind that. We've all heard of stories when people go into dealerships and say, I want an electric car, and someone in the dealer will try and sell them something differently.

17:22Imogen:Well, I was in the Ford dealership recently with some super astute sales guys there who understood EVs and were selling the benefits, and they worked out what the strong arguments were. that education piece is fundamentally missing. And that's where I think the policymakers, the media, and also people in the automotive industry need education on how good these technologies are. I remember going to an ad agency a few years ago that represented one of the German manufacturers. And they were saying, how do we communicate the benefits of EVs? And I asked them how many of them even tried one in that group, and no hands went up.

17:58Imogen:I mean, that's the reality of the situation. So we're very fortunate to have driven lots of EVs. We understand it to have lived with them, driven a long way to save the fortune in doing so, knowing that they don't immolate at the side of the road, that actually charging is really easy. The whole procedure is actually much more straightforward than the media portrays. So that education piece is where we have a big opportunity. Because going back into a place where we talk about technology neutrality is a huge backward step. Ursula von der Leyen has promised to carve out space for e-fuels as a request from Germany, but biofuels are hugely contentious.

18:39Imogen:And actually, if you work out how much crop you have to use to create biofuels, for example, it is completely unsustainable, both in terms of capacity and environmentally. I mean, it is absolutely crazy. We need to move to electrification. And it might surprise you to say that I am actually quite open-minded to these extended range electric vehicles. I think the danger with plug-in hybrids actually is they're not even a halfway house, particularly if you don't plug them in. But I actually, it might surprise people to understand that I understand the impulse for extended range electric vehicles and where that's coming from in the market.

19:16Imogen:And I think those are a better bet because they will maybe go 70, 80, 90, 100 miles plus on the battery before you have to kind of dip into the range, et cetera. And the motors are being driven by the electrical power rather than the other way around. So I can see a market for that. I can see some opportunities. And I understand why that would be a good stick to say to industry, actually, maybe your plug-in hybrids should become e-revs. Maybe they should have a longer range. because actually most people, if you gave them an option to use a car and to drive it locally 50 to 100 miles a day, that's going to cover most people's needs, right?

19:53Imogen:So that, to me, actually seems like a sensible, genuine halfway house. And it's interesting to see some car companies promulgating and promoting that as an opportunity. So I totally agree with everything that you've said there. And I'm going to look at this through the lens of I'm not actually in the European Commission and I'm not held to account to any of the things that they have to do. So I can deploy a bit of la-la land thinking. And I think in my la-la land thinking, there's two things I'd implement. One is actually let's ignore emissions because that's where the fossil fuel lobby can get very much involved.

20:31It is about combustion or non-combustion, et cetera. And actually provide an efficiency target. Because at that point, it becomes so indisputable that A, it's an engineering challenge. and B, that there are certain powertrains, in this instance, electric, that are much better equipped by factors so of converting energy in to energy out. But there we go. And the second thing is that I think there is something strange about people's psychology. And I'd love to get Rory Sutherland back on the podcast to talk about this. And I think an incentive that you see you receive as a one off basis feels different to incentives that you may experience on an ongoing basis.

21:14So say, for example, there wasn't like there'd never been any incentives to purchase an EV, but actually you had free charging for, I don't know, five years. How might that change people's experience of living with these technologies as well? And especially, again, when cost of living crisis is is what it is and is people's number one concern. um and you know people are still wanging on about charging infrastructure so anything in that regard

21:41Imogen:well yeah i think you make a great a great point there i think you know for me i would you know just summarize it as i'm just making this up on the spot really is the three e's it's not e-fuels but it is education as i've touched on it is efficiency if you've touched on and it is those effective nudges how can we kind of get people to to try these things we've run thousands upon thousands of test drives around the world as everything electric it's been hugely successful how can we do more of that how can you you know like you say unlock the charging capacity tesla very famously with model s model x you know you could use the superchargers for for free for quite quite a while so and that was obviously tremendously uh successful so there's huge opportunity there I mean, I think for me, Volkswagen is the, you know, the gorilla in the room.

22:30Imogen:It's on this story, at least. We're talking about Europe today. As I said, I had a VW Polo. I'm a big fan of what they've done. They've obviously got other brands under the Volkswagen group as well. I had an Audi TT for my sins at one point. You know, I'm kind of all in with the brands. I think from my perspective, they're actually making some pretty good EVs. I think they would acknowledge that software was a bit of an issue early on. And I think a little bit of an issue. And I think they're in quite a good space now. But what's interesting, if you read their stories this week, is that I think their sales boss, Martin Sander, said they've got lots of different launch activities going on.

23:09Imogen:He has categorically said that range extenders will feature in their product portfolio for China. We're looking for opportunities for that technology in other parts of the world. they've also started to merge their naming systems so the vwid2 as it was originally talked about is now going to be called vwid polo which i think is emblematic that that's the way forward that's a huge signal that actually this is the mainstream and therefore we're going to use our mainstream nomenclature to actually cover off these cars i was super impressed with what they and other german automotive giants were doing at the munich auto show earlier this year i think it is a negotiation of timing rather than do they want to go down this route.

23:50Imogen:But I do wonder that the German market is kind of shooting itself in the foot. On the polo, Martin Sander said, actually, you want to simplify choices in a market where consumers often default to legacy nameplates, which makes complete sense to me. Ultimately, though, that sort of traditional polo is going to come in around 25 ,000 euros, so over 20 ,000 pounds. I remember buying my first polo this would date me but it was it was 8 000 pounds you know the the world has changed they've got far more safety systems than bigger cars etc but actually martin sanders said you know the new polo compared to the combustion version is going to offer high performance standing acceleration and actually it's a tacit admission is it not that actually these are better cars and i think one of the things that we talked about initially was the bev market is up i mean it is it is up the sales are up everywhere apart from North America.

24:46Imogen:And we all know why that's happened. If you look at every other market, and I can share links to this under this description, it is significantly up. VW alone, their BEV sales in Europe up 60 % after 10 months of this year. I mean, that is significant. So I really don't see these companies actually as saying, no, we're not interested in this at all. They're just trying to slow it down to give themselves an opportunity to fend off threat from elsewhere especially china oh 100 and i think um i've definitely mentioned this before but i test drove the cupra rival a couple of weeks ago now that is the same platform as the the vw id polo so you know basically they're going to feel pretty similar it's fun it's really fun it is everything that you would want from an id polo um and definitely embodies what what the the polos have been in the past which is that car that you know the cool sixth former would have had and turned up to school when they first started to learn to drive and inevitably the sixth former who turned 18 first in the year would have the ID Polo so uh yeah it would be fun and that's exciting I think I owned at least three Golfs in a row at one point and what a great a great car as well and id3 has sold quite well and actually it's a good car i just don't think it's quite as exciting maybe as as a goal for us back in the day so i'm sure you know that's where vw will get to as well but i think from my perspective i guess to close out the subject of what the european commissioner about to do and probably by the time this podcast come out have have done uh is that this isn't going to fend off the threat from China or any other country.

26:34Imogen:This does not change the fundamental realities. I've been working a bit more this year with Dr. Andy Palmer, the godfather of EVs. He's the chair of Electric Vehicles UK. He very recently did a sort of a thought piece in a newsletter called Trends Your Friend that's run by a friend of ours called Ben Kilby. And I'd just like to read out a couple of bits because I think it's really, really key. I'm not lobbying for EU commission to slow down because, A, they won't listen to this podcast. B, you know, it's far more complicated than us. So I'm not I'm not I don't think we've got influence beyond our sphere.

27:10Imogen:But I think this is really interesting. He says it'll be a strategic mistake for which Western manufacturers will pay heavily. Technology does not slow down simply because politicians become anxious. China is already years ahead. Changing a date on a regulatory document does nothing to reverse that reality. history teaches a simple lesson when governments insulate their markets they weaken their industries protection may feel safe but in the industrial world shaped by darwinian competition ensures that your companies are no longer the fittest once that happens recovery becomes extremely difficult where this does become problematic imaging particularly as we're brits and we happen to reside here and we happen to be closest to this market is if the eu commission starts to impact the ZEB mandate in the UK.