EVALANCHE? CHINA'S GRIP TIGHTENS! EV DRIVER'S 'SMUG MODE?'

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1:06Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pulse podcast, the podcast where we delve into the life and death decade of the automotive industry. You are joined as nearly always by Dan Caesar, CEO of Fully Charged Show, and Imdra Bogle, one of the presenters here on the show. But Dan, how are you doing?

1:25Imogen:I'm good. Don't play your role, Dan. Not just one of the presenters, you do huge amount of work in terms of keeping all the content running so we appreciate that and your team by the way but yeah I'm good thank you very much the sun is shining actually at the time of recording and when I went to bed the president of the USA was was sort of threatening to wipe an entire civilization off the map and who knew a ceasefire has been been agreed so I'm just glad to be alive oh my goodness I mean I I actually when I woke up this morning so I'm going to admit something I do follow um the president of the United States on Instagram and I do so because I want to know what kind of stuff is being put out um and this morning I did go on Instagram first thing so I was like there's going to be a statement I just need to see what's happened And of course, there was a ceasefire.

2:19She's like, what an absolute pillock. But anyway, yeah, we're both alive, which is great.

2:26Imogen:It's a good baseline, isn't it? And as always, interesting times in the car industry as well as the wider world. Well, we have three stories today. Avalanche, EV Avalanche. We're working on that pun. A little better written, I think, than saying, out let's say ev avalanche for the benefit of uh of the audience interrogating how chinese automakers are spending big or cutting back and last but not least a little bit of clickbait from the eye paper so all of that to come but first a very quick advert break this episode is brought to you by hong kook the hong kook ion tire is built exclusively for electric vehicles engineered to deliver what EV drivers need most, confident grip, quietness, energy efficiency and long mileage.

3:19Imogen:As the official tyre partner of Formula E, Hancock proves its EV technology is at the highest level of performance and brings that same innovation to every ion tyre on the road. All right, so let's get into story number one. EV Avalanche, which you're absolutely right, written down, Avalanche, spelt with Evie, does work. Out loud in a spoken medium, let's go with Evie Avalanche. But what are we talking about here and what's the headline? Well, as you know, I love to crucify an analogy. And from my standpoint, you know, the classic marketing curve is kind of like a big hill, basically. And at the beginning, you see the pioneers and the early adopters so that was people like robert llewellyn and quentin wilson getting in their evs many many moons again go and then you see uh the kind of early adopters the early mainstream the late mainstream and the laggards we're firmly in the early mainstream which is why it's actually quite tricky uh because the mainstream isn't one a morph of mass of people and there's a huge group called the laggards who will not buy an ev until they absolutely have to do so and will do so under the cover of darkness and delete all their comments that were negative about EVs in the first place.

4:34Imogen:But actually, I think you could look at that kind of hill as a bit of a mountain that we have to climb and crucifying that analogy. We're dealing with the front edge at the moment of the mountain. We've seen a big landslip recently, a big avalanche recently in the oil crisis that's unfolding in the Middle East. The cost of oil has put the cost of motoring right in the consumer's mind eye. And quite a few consumers already aware that actually EVs are cheaper to run. Not everyone is. Most people still don't realize that and to what extent, but a lot of people are. And they've accelerated their EV purchases as a result of this news.

5:15Imogen:But my point is, I guess, that there's still a huge mountain, still a lot of greens to eat, still a lot of hard work to be done over the next decade to actually get as many people into battery EVs as possible. And what we've seen is the front edge of that mountain sort of fall away. But make no mistake that it hasn't changed the market structurally currently. There's a lot of discussion about that at the moment. There has been a huge amount of euphoria, I would say, and giddiness in the kind of the EV community that, oh, okay, surely everyone's going to move to EVs now. And there's been some extraordinary anecdotal stories of used car lots.

5:53Imogen:And in Australia, for example, being unable to get any stock, all their stock has gone, huge backlogs, etc, etc. And while some of that is true, the reality is that the market is up, but petrol cars are still selling, diesel cars are still selling, that is not going to go away anytime soon. So the idea really is that there's a huge amount of work to do and actually there's a huge amount of inertia in the system how often have we talked about the fact that there's industrial scales of misinformation about evs out there that that is going to take some serious undoing over a long period of time by making people realize that these vehicles are cheaper and better we're hardwired by advertising over decades to get in cars and we're hardwired to get in combustion uh cars in particular so unwinding that is going to be a long process so um so i don't know if you've seen the stats over the last month or so but the invasion of iran actually was right at the end of february february 28th and we've so seen the whole month of march now in terms of sales uh statistics for uh cars new and used start to come through we start to see what happened in the entirety of march and it is quite interesting there has been some change some movement but not perhaps as much as some would like to see i don't if you've seen some of the stories?

7:12So I have seen some of the stats, but I do have to wonder that actually that upswing that we're seeing in the March sales, and there is an upswing, is much more likely to be driven by anticipated oil shocks coming later in the year as that sort of trickle effect of shortages unfolds. So I wouldn't be surprised if we see another big uptick in sort of September time when we're really feeling the crunch of the oil crisis. And also then we've got the new number plates as well. but yeah I mean the numbers are pretty telling do you want to walk us through some of them

7:45Imogen:yeah I think it is interesting I think you're right I think you know one month's numbers does not a summer make you know that's the reality and I think yes the cost of energy is going to get you know higher as a result of what's happened that is going to impact families economies in general not just their motoring of course but in a whole range of other reasons which is why we think cost savings you can make by driving e-visa going to be more and more important so yes this is going to play out over quite a long period of time now i don't think it's any exaggeration to say actually what's happening now will play out over at least a year and we'll still be feeling the the ramifications of this uh over the next 12 months at least possibly longer but in the short term there's a limit to what you can see in the new market you can understand that right the new market is different to the used market in the uk the bulk of sales for example and most markets are used most people are buying used and a relative few people are buying new but the new market tends to be a slightly longer process it's not just about i'm being glib but walking onto a fork or kicking the tires and choosing something it does take a little bit longer because you're spending more money, for example.

9:01Imogen:But the reality is that quite often orders are placed, deliveries are weighted. So actually, you're not going to see huge difference in the new numbers. In the UK, actually, as a percentage of car sales in March, we saw a record number of battery EVs sold, but it's still at 22 % of the whole market, which is roughly where it's been all along. I agree with you I think that might go up to 25 percent maybe 28 percent 30 percent of the next few months as those kind of orders that are being placed in March actually come to fruition in the numbers in April May June so I could see that happening but in Australia you're actually seeing a bit more of a bounce actually it was a bit more immediate than that so in Australia actually it was 11 % new car sales in February.

9:49Imogen:In March, it was 14.6%. So actually quite a noticeable amount. And I think what's going on in Australia is a little bit different to the UK. Yes, they are a landmass kind of out on their own, but actually they're very, very, very reliant on diesel. They're also, the war has prompted, you know, fears of, you know, resilience. What does that mean for Australia etc so and then there's a few the fear of actually running out of fuel which is not to be conflated with the cost benefits actually there's actually a fear of not being able to get around at all so in Australia we've seen new market bounce and we've seen all sorts of stories from all across the world in America used EV market is up significantly same in the UK but also in Australia we've heard some incredible stories about you know as I said car lots full of used cars all the evs selling out very very quickly as people go and grab those while they can but the reality is that there's not a structural shift taking place it's quite a big upswing and it will last over a period of time but there's still a huge amount of people back in that back in that mountain back in the the hills who are kind of in that kind of late mainstream and laggard position who still need to be convinced over a long period of time so things have changed but not quite as much as some of the euphoria might have suggested.

11:08I think the other interesting dynamic is that the people who were seeing purchase EVs either secondhand or firsthand now are people who are probably, A, were largely considering it. And then the invasion of Iran just sort of tipped them over the edge and were like, okay, well, now is the time to do it. Or they're people who are very affluent and can make that snap decision. And so I do think the dynamics are going to be interesting as we go through the year. and actually the availability of affordable EVs either in the first-hand market or indeed the second-hand market becomes even more prescient.

11:43I'm sure you watched the video that Roger Atkins posted on LinkedIn about why diesel in particular is so expensive and Ed Conway did as ever the most wonderful explanation on Sky. So we'll definitely link to that as well because I think it's just it paints a very very clear picture why diesel in particular is so expensive but also why Australia is so exposed to it and indeed so is the UK but less so than Australia.

12:08Imogen:Yeah I mean the reality is we're going to have to chisel away at this mountain for a long period of time. Quite often the headwinds have been against EV politically speaking. Lots of incumbent money trying to slow the move to EV down, misinformation etc. So this is something that actually is pushing people towards that decision making but I agree probably quite a lot of people who've bought EV in the last month have done so because they're already quite close to buying one, or they had the means to do so. So it's probably brought forward some demand, but not necessarily changed the market permanently.

12:44Imogen:But it's certainly an interesting time. And it's certainly putting EVs and the fact that they're cheaper to run and cheaper over total cost of ownership, it's putting that in the news on a regular basis, which is not unhelpful to our cause. Yeah. And there's been a lot of headlines that have said things along the lines of there's a lot of smug EV drivers right now. And yes, there are. And we are some of them. Shall we move to story two?

13:30Imogen:with huge, huge bonus rounds. Moto Casino adds new games and awards players free coins every single day. Grip it and spend it on Moto Casino. Download the Moto Casino app today. Moto Casino is a social casino. What you're prohibited, no purchase necessary. Visit Moto.us for more details. Moto Casino, America's social casino. Yes, well, the second story really is about Chinese ambition. It's hard to have a podcast about the future of the car industry and not talk about China's influence in it. But there are a couple of stories that I've seen this week that kind of interested me. And I'm going to try and weave them together, if you like.

14:06Imogen:So one of the stories comes from Automotive News, a very august title in the industry, which talks about the investment some of the Chinese car companies are making. And the second story is from The Car Expert, which actually shows to what extent Chinese car makers are making inroads in the UK market. So what's interesting is Automotive News, the article actually focuses on a survey that's been done, a large scale survey in Germany, which talks about German consumer awareness of Chinese brands. Chinese brands know they need to invest in their brand. Most people won't buy a vehicle without first recognizing the brand.

14:53Imogen:And familiarity is not enough. they also these car companies have got to build positive associations so the survey that was done by a gentleman called martin fastnacht uh said many consumers may have heard of chinese manufacturers but only a few can name one and it was quite interesting when they got into awareness of the different brands actually some of the newer brands that we know changans depal cherries amoda and jacu is only about one percent as it stands uh leap motor a bit better known as is Link & Co, which has been in Germany for a few years, at 11%. But BYD stands out with a massive 64 % recognition.

15:29Imogen:And I think we all know why that is. They've spent big, but also they were the headline sponsor of UEFA's European soccer tournament in Germany in 2024. So it's really interesting to see that money was, I think, very, very well spent by comparison MG, which is obviously well known here in the UK and well known in Australia is also quite well known because it's already got a bit of a head start. So that's got 26 % recognition in Germany as well. So that's really kind of interesting to me to see that the market will not be won easily. And this is a big part of it is getting your brand out there, making the sales on the ground, but also making sure people are aware and trust the brand in the first place.

16:15Imogen:And BYD has done a very, very good job of that we can also see some other brands particularly a motor jq which is part of the cherry group and i'll come on to them in a minute also spending big to make sales to get their brands out there to get their name plates out on the road um gili as well gili as a brand as a parent group it's obviously got lots of different brands that sit beneath it such as the Polestar of this world, the Volvos, Lotus, etc. But actually, Geely is now launched in the UK as well. And they are also spending big going after this prize, if you like. But some others are not actually not doing much activity at all.

16:55Imogen:And it's hard to see, isn't it? How if three big companies spend a fortune on on the market and start to gain traction and share, it's hard to see how the others will be able to compete with that or just resign themselves to maybe selling cars in in much lower volumes but scale is what the car industry is all about so if you can't really leverage your your scale that could be problematic but trying to segue it on just very very quickly Imogen because I think you're dying to make a point as well but what we've seen in the UK now is big impact from BYD, Cherry, Jayku, Imoda in particular. And I wanted to go into some of the statistics on that, but I'll let you go.

17:40No, no, you go for it. Go into the statistics.

17:43Imogen:Well, I mean, I think so. The Car Expert, which is a website run by Stuart Masson, reported on some of the details behind the SMMT's new car market that were released this week. and the market in total all powertrains grew seven percent year on year but actually it's BYD and the Cherry Group which includes Jay Kunimoda now accounts for more than the market's overall growth meaning established brands are losing ground and the point Stuart makes is two years ago BYD was only just launching its first cars in the UK and Cherry Group did not yet exist here at all now their combined year-to-date registrations are ahead of Volkswagens which is the UK's biggest single brand and traditionally the dominant force in the uk market their growth is also greater than that of the market overall meaning they are taking thousands of sales away from other brands rather than simply adding to total registrations march was the clearest example yet of how this is changing the market spending big employing the right strategies having good cars is definitely an important part of that of course but it's not the only part it's about your go-to-market strategy and we're seeing some clear signs that some of these brands are really really starting to gain traction but it is such an interesting thing we've definitely spoken about this before that you can have a great product at a great price but ultimately cars are not just rational purchases they're deeply deeply irrational and we are a funny market as a uk market that we have we're creatures of habit and we're snobby about certain brands and you know just to I remember being at school age like 10 and people being like what supermarket is your lunch from and even having that kind of judgment back then so let alone when a new entrant comes into market we don't see a new entrant as a thing to be like oh that's cool it's new it's shiny let's go for it we see it as like oh no we'll double down on the things that we know so these brands of course have to spend extremely be big in order to gain some kind of brand awareness and brand traction.

19:46But what I find interesting is that I can well imagine the conversations in traditional OEMs where I know just how bureaucratic those organisations can be and how painful it can be to get sign-off on even the most minuscule amounts of money. They must just be looking at these big campaigns thinking, oh for God's sake, how on earth do we go beyond just leveraging our legacy and our

20:09Imogen:reputation well just this year only you know we've seen byd become a sponsor for manchester city which will win them some some sales in manchester uh the blue half of manchester maybe not the red half of manchester will win themselves uh globally i'm sure we've seen denzer uh join uh join up with daniel craig the last 007 i mean these are these are big moves right and then we see in their go to market strategy we see you know the likes of byd do a very good job in terms of getting out into the market from a dealership perspective selling um the likes of byd and cherry omoto jq and gili are all present at our everything electric shows which coming up uh shortly but as you say to the bureaucracy point we can't even get a response out of some of the the legacy manufacturers who don't seem to want to be present when there are thousands of battery EV buyers wanting test drives and looking to put money down they won't even respond to to our outreach so um you know that's not a subtle plug but it's an interesting interesting dynamic that we're seeing play but yeah certainly some of the ambition being seen is great and it's but it's not just about China right there are some great legacy brands the likes of MG who are backed by China as well are also making great strides in the market but you know our friends at Renault haven't they done brilliantly in recent times what a lineup they've got and I haven't got time to mention all the different car makers so it isn't just about China but it's it's playing a bigger and bigger role in the UK market and that statistic that they're effectively together outselling out registering Volkswagen already is just astonishing.

21:54So before we started recording this podcast I was telling you that Rob and I had started to talk about Daniel Craig's collaboration with the Denza GT9 um on the podcast of an hour Monday however one of our editors had to kindly say um I think we need to cut it and I was like oh why he was like well you just both definitely got incredibly confused between Mission Impossible and James Bond okay that's totally fair thank you for making us look less like idiots um so yeah but we're talking about it now but i do think they must have paid i would love to know how much daniel craig has been paid for this collaboration because it's got to be a hefty fee i'm not sure it's entirely something that he'd have he'd have said

22:42Imogen:yes to willy-nilly no but yeah another another coup and i'm sure you can expect more collaborations of that type to come. There is no doubt about it. There is some serious ambition. And the point that I think sometimes is missed, we talk a lot in the car industry about conquesting. So one brand conquesting sales away from another. So every time BYD sells a car, they will be asking what brand the previous, the owner had previously, and they'll be making a record of who they're conquesting most away from and that loyalty is up for grabs at the moment but my view is strongly that it will cement again it will coalesce and it will cement over the next five to ten years but if you were i don't know one of the interesting things i think to me is that the jayku 7 i believe it is is the best-selling car in march in the whole of the uk it is a fev i think it's a plug-in hybrid but it's outsold everything else and i would say that it looks quite range rover ish totally different price tag and internal quality yeah well anyway it is it is the two very different products i will say that but the reality is that in the absence of range rover having a product in the market people are going towards that or there are people who've always wanted a Range Rover but could never afford one who are going towards that so for that to be the best-selling car in the UK in the month of March and by distance tells you everything this conquesting is going on but ultimately if someone likes the Jaycu or they like the BYD and they maybe buy one maybe buy a second one they might be quite difficult to shift out of those cars in five ten years time so I think it will it will crystallize around certain brands and actually how much of the Chinese brands cars improved already there's no reason that a JQ BYD etc won't get even better while keeping cost down over the next five to ten years so that conquesting piece is is an interesting one super super interesting and certainly the JQ is the car that I see most out and about in car parks I'm like oh god another one there we go um it is interesting though when you go on these sort of press trips and you speak to various engineers and to various people within car brands that yes there is this general sentiment of like the chinese oems can produce cars very very quickly that are very brilliant and their manufacturing quality has certainly improved but when it comes to chassis dynamics europe is still seen as the absolute center of excellence but then also Chinese brands being wise to that and basing some of their operations to do with some of those aspects here in Europe as well so yeah very interested to see how with a few years of ownership how that changes things or not as the case may be for the likes of BYD and Jaiku but super quick question if you were going to part with your own cash for an EV what would you get right now?

25:53Imogen:That's a really really good question I currently am driving a Model 3, which I still think is very, very, very good. You and I drove the new cheaper version of the Model 3 recently. I just think pound for pound, they're excellent. I am actually, we didn't rehearse this question. I am actually kind of in the market at the moment. I'm pretty keen on the Polestar 4. I think we've discussed that before. But the other day, I drove the Xpeng G6 Performance, and that was astounding. So I'm trying to get another drive of that. So I am actually in the market. And then we've been very fortunate to be driving around a little bit in a Renault 5 recently as well, which is also a great car at a much lower price point.

26:33Imogen:So non-answer, but there's a few. I mean, it's just like being a kid in a candy shop now. There are just so many good options, but those are some of the ones that I really like. But I could go on, like the Hyundai Onyx 5N. I don't know if you've driven that. You've got the Onyx 5, right, which is great. The 5N is unbelievably fun. Anyway, I could go on, but there's some amazing cars out there now. What would you get if you were forced to right now? The Ferrari? Well, quite. You know what? So I'm seeing we were doing a shoot with Ferrari at the end of May. And the email came to me. And I was like, I've currently got plans to see a friend in Yorkshire.

27:15And I was like, I'd like you to know that I've turned down Ferrari to come and see you in Yorkshire. and also more importantly than that I mean that's something that I could not take that from Robert he needs to do that car uh but no not a Ferrari I think the challenge that we have as a family at the moment is that I am 5 '3 my husband is 6 '4 I would go for something like to be honest like the Kia EV2 something pretty small and dinky but is disguised as a bigger kind of car he just he won't stand for that he needs something like actually quite big and largely because he's just got the longest legs in the entire world um so we're we definitely have a huge difference of opinion on that sense at the moment but he is very very keen on the Polestar 3 but in order for that to happen it'd be quite nice if some mysterious person just wrote us a check and made that dream come true uh but yeah we're um we're definitely having that debate at the moment

28:16Imogen:but I do love the Ioniq 5 um it is great yeah yeah and uh we've had I'm going to share this grievance um we've been really really fortunate to have the Renault 5 as a production team for the past year and it has almost been exactly a year I had it for three days that is it I think Robert is similarly frustrated I think yeah for two days yeah um but it's a good car It's a very, very good car, I have to say. We sacrifice for the team and that's the kind of people we are. All right, let's move to story three.

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29:33Imogen:Well, I mean, misinformation is alive and well, and we saw, we do see it still. I'm going to say with absolutely no statistical backup that we're seeing it a little bit less at the moment. But maybe I'm just not seeing it. But we saw an absolute doozy in the Eye, which is part of a spinoff of the Independent, I believe. Not to be confused with Independent, because Steve Fowler at the Independent does a brilliant job if you don't go to that, talking about all the new EVs. So not to be confused with them, But the I did a piece yesterday, basically, that said, you know, EV drivers shouldn't be so smug.

30:16Imogen:I guess this is probably, again, in part due to the oil crisis. Lots of EV drivers saying, actually, it's much cheaper to run my EV than it is for you to run a combustion engine vehicle. But not only was the headline, you know, an absolute masterclass in clickbait, so was the kind of the lead in the article and the end piece of the article. There was a little bit of an admission that actually EVs are 30 % to 50 % less impactful on the environment over the total cradle to grave. There was a brief admission of that, but it was surrounded by, obfuscated by a whole other range of bits of misinformation.

30:55Imogen:Of course, a lot of people just read the headline image, and we know this, right, or just read the first couple of lines. So job done. But I'm going to read out a little bit for you. But so the journalist who I will not name, but the truth is that electric vehicles are much less environmentally friendly at the beginning and at the end of their lives than petrol and diesel cars. Yeah, well, the middle bit is the most important bit, I would say. With their manufacture and eventual disposal requiring more oil materials and causing more pollution, carbon emissions are only a part of the environmental story, albeit an important one.

31:30Imogen:And in some other key environmental regards, EVs are significantly worse than petrol and diesel vehicles. and actually the reality is that the BMW Neuer class of vehicles that we've covered recently the iX3 you know the payback means that actually after about 12 ,000 miles of driving this is from BMW that actually is much much much cleaner so the reality is that EVs are cheaper they are better but they are much much cleaner and I felt this was sort of a slightly anachronistic throwback this article to to a time when people didn't know that and the one bit that made me laugh at the end it said all in all they are certainly nowhere near the environmental panacea they are presented as by many especially where the battery is concerned and i have to i have to take issue with that kind of very narrow thinking an environmental panacea means we don't have cars at all right you know and i would love that we were going around on bicycles and you know we were using public transport no more than anyone i would love that but we live in a world that's been built if you're in the uk and america and australia less so in the netherlands the lovely netherlands um but we've been built around the car it's been built around vehicles right you know things are a certain distance apart you know public transport isn't great often it's very very expensive so we live in a world where we have to accept that cars are going to be quite a big part of that and most ev evangelists aren't presenting evs as a panacea they're just saying they are much better than the alternative i can't i've never met an ev evangelist who hasn't said yeah but ultimately if you know if you really wanted to to do the right thing environmentally you would stop buying things in total you'd stop flying you'd but you'd ride a bike etc you go on public transport so that kind of made me laugh because I've never heard anyone say it's a panacea it isn't a panacea but it's a much better option than a diesel or a petrol vehicle from an environmental perspective what also really bothers me about this article is that it's very much written in the sense of you know you're in year seven at school and they're like write a negative article being 11 to 12 years old you don't need to include any kind of statistics or any kind of references you can just say something is bad and then leave it at that and that's precisely what this does it says batteries are difficult to recycle at the end of their life well try recycling burnt fossil fuels that have gone into the atmosphere like one like like back that up with something and actually we can prove the recycling batteries is actually very straightforward not least because the first point of recycling is a second life so therefore you're literally just taking it out probably doing a little bit of a software update, putting it in a different application.

34:19And at the end of its life, it is also pretty straightforward to recycle. By their nature, they are inherently much more circular items. So it's just like such utter tripe. And there's just no adequate comparison in this article at all. It's total nonsense. And honestly, I read it and I'm like, you should not be proud of this, dear journalist. And I don't think you should send this to your mum or indeed your old school teachers because they would berate you for a lack of quality uh