Freelander Goes Electric?! AI's Power Problem & Megawatt Charging!

0:24Apple Vacations, where your story starts.

0:41Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of the Everything Electric podcast. Now, we did have a rather special guest book for this week, but through the complexities of booking people and timings, we weren't able to do it. but that person is going to appear on the podcast soon. But in the meantime, I don't think we've got second best. I think we've got first best. Oh, stop. Because we have the fabulous Imogen Bogle, ready and waiting with huge mountains of data and information from around the world that she spent months researching. Oh, my God. If only, if only that were true. We kind of came into this and I think, well, we've been chatting for about 25 minutes and I said...

1:30Which we shouldn't have been doing. No, that's wrong. Because then we kept saying things that we thought were very funny and should have been on the podcast. Yes. No one else thought. But some of them were probably, you know, legally delicate. I don't know. But the thing is, because I just, when I was looking at stories yesterday, the first one I saw, and that just, I didn't even look for it, it came into my you know when you get those i don't even know where it came from you know an email update was for an electric land rover i think we should inform the viewers and listeners that you have very uh you know you you have direct experience of the company that makes land rovers jlr you work there when i first met you you were at jlr yeah that's right i that's where I did a graduate scheme as an engineer.

2:19So I've probably said this a thousand times. So for anyone who's heard the story before, buckle up, you're about to hear it again. But yeah, I was an aerodynamics engineer. And then I worked for a long time, both in aerodynamics and also in design, which I loved because yes, these are technical products. And somehow, somehow, tens of thousands of hours of engineering and tens of thousands of people managed to produce a car. But also they're so many different personalities and I loved the kind of like drama of negotiation of technical stuff so it's really fun right yeah and my last job though was working in um PR but very much on the like future technology side so right mainly autonomous connected electric and shared stuff so at the point that I left we had really as an organization just announced that by 2020 there would be an electrified version of every single model which we now know has not happened not quite happened if you google tech fest 2017 that was the big kind of like statement that's when they launched that and announced all that right yeah and you know obviously and and and jaguar and androper are not unique in this like many many many other car companies have done the same they've kind of walked back from that commitment and so it's got to the point now where we're like come on like we really want to see the electric jag we really want to see the electric ranger but we've been following those so closely so then to see this freelander come out of nowhere yeah what yeah yeah i mean it is it is a joint venture isn't it between g is it gac and um and lander and well jlr um which is fast i mean it's just extraordinary the whole thing Now I'm feverishly looking for my notes.

4:10So I think GAC is, we've teased another story that might come up. It's with Cherry. That's right, yes. Which? Oh, that who's doing, sorry, it's Cherry and Jaguar, yeah. Yeah, because many people who've been following the car industry for many years will know that circa 2015, the way that a lot of European OEMs had to do business in China was by forming a joint venture with the Chinese company. Right, yes. That's not new, is it, at all? No. So I think 2015-ish, plus or minus a year, was the year that Jaguar Land Rover and Cherry, they formed CJLR, which was Cherry Jaguar Land Rover. Oh, right. Yes.

4:55And that's who's done this. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, it's very, I mean, if they, from what I can see, it's like a product rather than a concept. Yeah. I think. It also just has not, it's been announced. I've not heard, I mean, you know, of all of us, if you think between you, me and Jack and Dan, you know, with our ears to the wall with the glass, you know, of new announcements and you'd think we might have heard of some, or some rumour, oh, Elliot. Yeah. You know, somebody would have known about this. It feels like it's come out of the woodwork somehow. And then when we were chatting off mic and when we weren't recording, we did have to have the caveat of, hang on a second, it is April Fool's Day on the day of recording.

5:39Well, yeah. And then we're like, no, no, no, this was published on the 31st of March. This has to be actually correct. Unless it was published in Australia on April Fool's Day. Oh, gosh. I think it's a legit story. I mean, it's from Electric, you know, and I don't think they do April's Fool's. And there's a lot of information about this vehicle and what it's running on and, you know, I don't think. Yeah, and I've got autocar open, so we've got at least two sources. Right, so we've got two different sources for it, yeah. But, I mean, you know, we were also chatting that, really, for the Land Rover side of the business, every time they see a Jayco or a Ramoda or another car that looks sort of like a scaled-down version of the Evoque, but in electric form and for approximately a third of the price, they must just be like, oh, for God's sake.

6:28So you always wonder... Because I don't know... Yeah, I'm just wondering how well the I-Pace did for Jaguar. I mean, clearly they sold a hell of a lot to Waymo because those are going around London now, the Waymos. I've seen about five of them. They've become very common sight. Well, what's interesting about I-Pace is that the people who I've met who still own them, and again, I appreciate that this is anecdote rather than hardcore data, but they loved them. They absolutely loved those cars. And I feel like there's this sentiment that it was too early, really. And it wouldn't have been too early if they'd continued to bring out iterations of it or additional electric vehicle models.

7:12Right. And it was sort of this flash in the pan. And then we haven't had anything subsequently. But it was a great car. And people really, really loved them. Brilliant car. Yeah. Brilliant car for the technology that existed at the time as well. Yeah. And whenever I see them now, and I do, I mean, there's plenty of them around. you go, oh, that is, I sort of, I've forgotten about it because we've, you know, particularly for us, we're seeing this endless kind of torrent of new vehicles being released. And they go, oh, the iPad, because it's, I do like the look of it and it hasn't dated and I don't think it looks a bit weird.

7:46It looks great. They, you know, they all look in pretty good nick. They're not 40 bits. They're pretty well made. And I mean that, you know, my experience of that vehicle when I went to test drive it in Portugal, whenever it came out, whatever year it came out. I'm sort of thinking about 2017, 18. I don't know. 2018 was the year, yeah. It was the year, 2018. And everything it did was like, oh, it's like an electric car and it goes fast, it's a Jaguar. I drove it along their roads. We drove it on a track and I drove much too slowly, you know, around a racing circuit with someone going, go fast, no, it's fast enough.

8:24but then when I drove it I drove I drove it up a dusty side of a hill where you were honestly as as a human being you would want a stick or a rope it was properly it was like steep I could only see the sky and this thing went up there with no effort on road tires on loose ground and dust and rocks and it did occasionally a wheel would go and but it would immediately stop if it's if it lost grip and you just went it was like that much noise as it went it's like that because i've driven silly land rovers with massive tires and winches on the front that make screaming noise and and you've got to go into a low ratio gearbox and put it in there you know all that stuff it would have any a land rover would have got up that hill but my god the noise and the heat and the strain would have been staggering and this thing just sailed up with that it was extraordinary so an amazing drive train, I think, which is what, you know, certainly Land Rover are renowned for.

9:26Really impressive. Well, this is it. And I'll just, and I know that, you know, as an organisation of everything electric and blue charge show, we've been a little bit, little bit critical of Jaguar Land Rover's commitment to electrification. But I think just reflecting on I-Pace for a second, where I want to give a lot of credit because that car was designed by Ian Callum, who not only is a phenomenal designer, but the culture that he created in his design team was second to none. Just so committed to working with junior designers to bring them up to kind of like bolster their skills. So it's a car that has a phenomenal design culture that sort of sits underneath it.

10:08But also there is a documentary about the development of the I-Pace, which I'm in. I think you can still watch it on Amazon Prime. It's narrated, or like the voiceover is by Mark Strong, which is quite fun. Right. And I feel very proud. What a great man's name. Can I just say Mark Strong. I know. Brilliant man's name. If you want a manly man, you ask Mark Strong to do something. And of course his voice. Not Kevin Weak. He doesn't get the gigs. Yeah. I wonder if it is his real name. Mark, if you're listening, let us know. Yes, when I was a kid, we knew the Strongs. There was a family and they were the Strongs.

10:53I do remember that. And I now live near a lovely family who are called the Stranges. Seriously, Mr and Mrs Strange, they live just up the lane. They're lovely. Oh, my God. Anyway. Such an aside, but there was a recent French election, local election, and the person who won, Their surname is Hitler, but with two Ts. And he was asked, why have you never changed your name? He was like, well, I'd like to prove that it's not just the name and that people can also be good with that name. They can be nice Hitlers. I imagine he really has signed up for a life of hardship. But yeah, that documentary was phenomenal to be a part of.

11:35And we're going to see the engineering development behind that part. And one thing that always sticks in my mind, And I think this is what happens in luxury cars is that, you know, you can afford to do these wonderful things. But the sound quality in there is almost like you being in a concert hall. And the reason that they can do that is that they can create an ever so slight delay in the sound that comes from above your head versus the one that comes into your ears or like, you know, sort of lower down. And that gives you a perception that the ceiling is much higher. and therefore it's more like being in a concert hall.

12:11So actually, even the engineering of the sound system is crafted to give you this like sense of being in a much fancier, more elaborate space. Right. And one of the women who kind of pioneered that, you know, she herself was a musician and also an engineer. So yeah, that car holds a real special place in life. Yeah. Yeah. Our three free YouTube channels on EVs and clean energy tech are funded by our fun-packed Test Drive-tastic events in the north, west and greater London, and our events down under. Next up, Everything Electric heads to Harrogate and then Cheltenham. All events include a B2B EV day and commercial vehicles too.

12:56I'm just going to try to do some more stories because we've done... Well, I'm very excited to see if the... What would be really embarrassing is if tomorrow we find out Automotive World falls for joke about new electric Freelander. April falls. That would be embarrassing. But I think it's possibly, I mean, and all the reports I've read of it say it's coming to Europe. It's not just for China. Obviously, it's going to be for the Chinese market to start with. But I didn't realise the Freelander was a big seller in China, the old combustion engine one. Because I always thought out of all Land Rovers, the Freelander I was the least impressed with.

13:34You know, even if you're critical of a big SUV, the Range Rover was an amazing vehicle. The old Defender, which I had, was an amazing vehicle. The Freelander was a bit... I don't know. I was never... Yeah, it's kind of like... I was never interested. The Princess Beatrice of the royal family. You know, it's like... Yeah, she hasn't done anything wrong, but you don't really want to hang out with her. It's really bad. I actually can't believe I... But I think it works. She is the printer. Yeah, that vehicle was the printer. Well, let's hope this new one is the mayor of New York. Yeah, I don't think it's good.

14:16No, let's leave it. We're going to go off on a very bad tangent. Well, I was just going to say, just whilst you're finding your second story, are you an April Fool's prankster? Is that something that's in your family? No, no. I find that, no. I've never, don't think I've ever. I'm just trying to think of ever oh god no once oh dear only once and that was so embarrassing and so awful I rang my I was in a rehearsal and I rang my then girlfriend Sonia and put on a slightly cockney accent and said is that Sonia Serafin yeah we have a young man in custody Robert Williams did a whole thing can you come and bail him out or something like that And, you know, you could not have done it to a worse person because Sonia was an incredibly intelligent woman.

15:05We're actually, Judy and I are going to go and see her if we're having lunch with her. Anyway, but she loves the drama. If there's a potential drama around. And so she went to a police station. I was in a rehearsal room the other side of London. That backfired on me badly. That was a bad... The people I was with thought it was funny while I was doing it. And then, you know, and also because she's French, then her ear might not be tuned to the same voice, but doing a different accent. You know, I got away with it. She thought it was the cops. Oh, my God. Very, very bad. So, yeah, stupid. What a stupid thing to do.

15:46But, yes, I always fall for April Fool's jokes. And I don't think, other than that, I don't think I've ever done that. The only one that I did very successfully was I told my whole family that I'd been asked to be on the Channel 5 version of Love Island. And I've never seen my dad go grey is the only way I can describe it. And I said, I was like, you know, I know this is like uncomfortable for you guys, but the money's really good. And I just thought, what have I got to lose? And my dad just like was silent for like a solid three minutes and then just went, I hear they have sex on the television.

16:30At that point I was like, I'm sorry, Dad. It's April Fool's Day. Yeah. I've not done any pranks since. No. Yeah, I gave him a heart attack, which I don't need to do again. But then I sort of think of you, you are more of a prankster than I am because of the things you've done with Deep with your husband. Was it you in a box or something that was delivered or it looked like it was too... What was that story? That was slow. The poor man. But I love the way he reacts to it. We shouldn't go on about it too much. Well, that is funny. Just do... Very briefly, what is so annoying about him is that he's incredibly cool and calm all the time.

17:09Yeah. And so I obviously have him on Find My Friends. The only reason I use Find My Friends is to see how much time I have to hide for when he's going to come home. So I could see that he was like three minutes away from home. So I like got into this box, hid it. I like sellotaped it from the inside. And I'm in there sort of chuckling to myself, seeing like, okay, he's going to be home in 30 seconds. Annoyingly, his mum rang him, which meant that he was then outside in the car chatting to her for like 12 minutes. I'm like, well, I've committed to this box now. So I've got to stay here. And then when he came in, he just went, I know you're in there.

17:51at that point i've been in there for like 17 minutes but like oh such a damp squib of a surprise um and i never learned because i do it every single time you do it all the time and he's never surprised he's never surprised it's really upsetting and we're going to talk about and one other we're going to we've got we've got to try to do more than one topic but no the one the thing i wanted to know was because i'd read some stories about big grid batteries and i came across and how big they're getting so i remember the one that's outside oxford that's very near you is i think 50 megawatt hours it's somewhere around that you know which is massive you know when you think of how big batteries are got but there's there's now a 30 gigawatt hour battery in america that's just been installed just been and just been on but it clicked on.

18:4630 gigawatt hours. I mean, it takes up quite a lot of room when you get to that scale. And I was so excited. Oh, this would be a great story for tomorrow. Then I read a bit further. It's for a data centre. And this is the thing. And I'm really sorry to be doing some live Googling, but I want to live Google. Oops, let me see. Right.

19:11Live Googling's great. I meant to do this before. I'm glad you say the words that you're Googling because I do that. You know, I try to be like, oh, this is, oh, gosh. So if we, wow. Okay. So just to put it into perspective, and this was the number that I wanted, was that London, the city of London, a megacity, uses roughly 100 gigawatt hours a day. so you know for seven to eight hours you could run off this this battery for this data center the whole city 12 million people yeah no it's colossal but it also tells you the consumption levels of data centers which i think is you know and i know it's a contentious issue and i hear people say it's not as bad as you say and they don't use as much water and blah blah blah blah but i mean we know i mean the crock one in wherever that is that's the that's kind of the worst it's so typical why is that the worst they've got 24 i think it's 24 gas turbines running 24 hours a day and people live near it and they can't sleep because of the noise you know it's jet engines and and that's the trouble is that you know it it's always difficult sort of equating situation situation we've just said this one data center versus the city of london if 30 gigawatt hours of batteries existed in london they would do so in a very very distributed way yes it wouldn't be in one lump yeah yes this is so this is existing in these very concentrated areas for which very specific communities are then hugely impacted and yeah like you know the the health impact from from the noise exposure from the just everything and then of course there's a debate about how that translates into bills in that area and and all the rest of it as well yeah yeah i mean i think it's a really difficult line for us because you know what the way people will watch or listen to this is entirely reliant on data centers you know with none and in fact none of us are innocent of it i mean if you've ever ordered anything on amazon if you've used the internet you've used data centers you know but i mean i think the the the reason it's come into the news is because of the, you know, galaxy level increase in scale and energy use from AI.

21:38I mean, that is really, and whether, and now, I mean, I love hearing the debate of going, well, we might not need all that much because now there's new, you know, that is evolving so fast that actually there may not, there may be less use of vast strings of computers in massive buildings with, you know, all that stuff. I think the thing that bugs me, and it is a chip on my shoulder and it shouldn't be there, is that for so long I heard so many people whine on about how electric vehicles would melt the grid. And then you go, no one, you know, now, why aren't those same people now saying data centres will melt the grid?

22:17So, you know, I think all of it is relative. You know, it's not as bad as people are saying, and also it's much worse than some people are saying. well this is it and i think you know as you say it's a difficult conversation to have when i research a lot of things and i really do need ai sometimes to help me consolidate some of that research right but there are ways and i'm sure many people listening to this are using various ai tools at work or in their personal lives and there are things that you can do in order to reduce your own personal consumption so you can feel slightly less bad about your contribution So, for example, grouping requests, being very clear about what you actually want to ask.

23:02So actually taking a step back and thinking about the problem slightly more strategically. Yeah. Using your actual physical human brain, which is a very different power source, actually. Yeah. Rather than just willy-nilly throwing out chat GPT. Yeah, sending requests, yeah. And also using the AI tool, which is funded by someone who most closely aligns with your own personal morals. I think that's very important. And so always worth doing that research as well. Tricky. It is a tricky one. But I mean, it's also, I think the positive side of that story is that the concept of a 30 gigawatt hour. And there was also, in further research, there are the first terawatt-hour batteries will be coming online.

23:49They'll be in China, but they will be counted in terawatts. And that would be enough to run a city of 12 million people for a day or a day and a half. Then you go, but what we need that for, I mean, I think I always have to kind of go through this for myself, is the curtailment of wind power is, you know, such an absolute travesty of insanity and human waste. that you want to have all those wind turbines going flat out 24 hours a day, and any electricity you don't use that moment, you store in vast batteries all over the country, that are distributed around the country, which means that you then have, you know, I mean, that's how, it's so obvious, and that technology is now becoming economically plausible.

24:33I think that's the underlying story there. You know, imagine building a 30 gigawatt hour battery storage in 2010. it would be billions, literally billions of dollars. Now it's some millions and it's less each time. And the funny time that we're in, and I'm really conscious that I'm about to venture us into territory that warrants more research and a future discussion, but an oil crisis where unlike the oil crisis of the 70s, we have viable, economically viable and technologically viable alternative solutions. And so whilst there's no question, things are going to be absolutely horrific later in the summer, but we do have the things to make sensible choices.

25:17Yeah, yeah. No, you're absolutely right because, I mean, you won't remember this. Well, I just remember cycling past a line of cars in Oxford. That was in Oxford in the early 70s, and it just went on for the – it went out of town. I mean, because there was no – it wasn't that petrol got expensive, which it did. There wasn't any. You know, that was the fuel crisis. And so you were allowed to buy a gallon. And people would queue up for a day to get one gallon of fuel, which, of course, they, I mean, the cars were so hopelessly inefficient then, they got through a gallon in about 20 miles. So it was an absolute disaster.

25:58I mean, because I was a kid and didn't care and it was funny, you know, it didn't really, it didn't affect me at all. But, you know, I think of all the families trying to get to school or get to work and all that stuff would have been a nightmare then. It was really horrific. And there was absolutely no alternative. There wasn't anyone cruising past smugly in an electric car. They didn't exist. Well, my only kind of very similar experience to that, or like sort of similar experience to that, was there was a petrol shortage in about 2003. Right. On that time, maybe early 2000. I don't remember that.

26:31It only lasted like a week. Oh, right. Oh, was that the tanker driver's strike? That could have been something like that. Yeah. and queues and queues and queues at petrol stations yeah yeah but you know it was temporary ultimately and yes yes it was and it was very localized to here this is global isn't it yeah this episode is brought to you by hongkook the hongkook ion tire 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, Hancock proves its EV technology is at the highest level of performance and brings that same innovation to every ion tyre on the road.

27:29This is a story that you know about because you've seen it and I haven't. The Windrose Global E700 electric truck actually did charging. So I know that in Germany, because I watched the electric trucker, and he's amazing, and he's charged at one point. But there is a charger in the UK, and it's in a big commercial vehicle hub somewhere in the East Midlands, I think. And it charged at 1.5 megawatts, which is obviously what you need in trucks. But you saw that truck and it is remarkably similar to the Tesla Semi in its looks. I think it's fair to say. And so we have done two episodes on this. We did a review of the truck itself, which you can find on the channel and we'll link to it.

28:15And also a podcast episode with the CEO. Yeah. And it's interesting because having, you know, we've done this job for a little while and we've seen companies come and go. and I think it means that we do have a base level of skepticism particularly when it comes to younger CEOs with like really really big ambitions and so Wenhan who's the the CEO he's like 36 and I really went in like all right okay cool you've got a try and I came away being like no this this is going to be remarkably successful right I think he brings a real humility to that job I think he can absolutely see where he can leverage an existing supply chain and where he also needs to very much be present in Europe and leverage that expertise as well.

29:02So there's, you know, he's got a sensible plan. And when you ask him about the Tesla semi resemblance, he's like, well, it's a question of aerodynamics. There's only so many shapes that a truck of that size can be if you are prioritizing efficiency. but the really big difference between his truck and the tesla semi is that his has a um a bed for a driver and he's like if you want to make a truck work in europe you've got to have that as yeah yeah wow but and it's i mean it is um you know i think so important when you think when you know if you drive on any motorway in the uk autobahn autoroute freeway you know anyway you will see a lot of trucks there's a huge number of truck movements that uh you know that happen every day that burn billions of gallons of diesel and the this is a really i just think it's a critically important part of the whole transition is that the more big electric trucks there are the more than a truck stop place is going to put in big charges that's worth it from their point of view you know it makes economic sense and i think the critical thing which i hadn't really thought about but when i watched the electric trucker i really hope we will do some collaborative shows with um he's in germany tobias very nice uh is that they have to stop it's the law you know and people say well i drive i need to drive to scotland you know well you can't you've got to stop mate or you'll get you'll lose your license they have to stop for longer than it takes the trucks to charge that's the basic thing you know the trucks charge faster than the drivers exactly that and like you know if you just think that these are thunder and great big vehicles those drivers it's not vanity that they need their rest like that is in the interest of the safety of other road users yeah yeah and whilst i think we have a tendency to think of trucking as like this very archaic thing it's not every time you order something from the internet you are supporting driving um but it is also an industry facing a huge shortage of drivers and when hand's point is like well yeah if you can create something that's actually desirable to be in like that's really important you know i think there's like a deficit of like 26 percent of um jobs and like that it's like an astonishing you know they're struggling to recruit yeah yeah oh god i because i i wish i wasn't so old because i'd love to drive Well, you remember when we drove the electric trucks at Millbrook and I altered the landscape, I think in a beneficial way, by slightly cutting a corner.

31:50You only slightly cut that corner, but the damage was rather sizeable. It was sizeable. But, I mean, what is incredible with those machines, and that was nothing to do with electric. I'm sure it was the same, but it was just unnoticeable from the cab. I didn't realise I was dragging six wheels through mud. I didn't even feel it. I mean, I just wasn't. It's so, they're so enormous. So the amount of damage you could do in one of those is terrifying. New electric vehicle sales in the United States, of course they've gone down. You know, there's a government that is vehemently opposed to anything like electric vehicles.

32:26But what is interesting is their second-hand car sales have seen this weird spike in interest, particularly in the last few weeks. I mean, I think it's worth tying that in with the fact that, you know, we know that many of the automotive manufacturers we know have said, it's gone insane. We've never had this many inquiries. We cannot keep up with the demand. We know, you know, since the Epstein Wars started, you know, just phenomenal interest in, you know, people I think who, it would only be people who've gone, maybe next time we get a car, we should get an electric one or I want to try one or all that sort of stuff.

33:04they've all gone, I don't want to try one, I want one. Because they've seen the cost of fuel. But the fact that that's happened, that's really interesting in America because there must be quite a few second-hand electric vehicles for sale. I mean, there is a market, because I'm just not aware of the American EV market at the moment. I don't know what's going on. But that was an intriguing story. Yeah, and we see it in the comments. Like, for example, the Renault Twingo episode went out yesterday, and there are comments in there being like, oh, I love this car. It's so cute. Maybe I don't need to wait for it to come to the US.