Reeves ruins EVs? Porsche envies Hyundai? Is XPeng the new Tesla? | Everything Electric Podcast

0:00From lashes for days with the Viral Liquid Lash Extensions Mascara to awakening your eyes with lift and color from the brilliant eye brightener, Thrive Cosmetics is the go-to when you want to amplify your everyday look. Plus, every product is 100 % vegan, cruelty-free, and made with clean, skin-loving ingredients that work with your skin. And for every product purchased, Thrive Cosmetics donates to help communities thrive. So every time you use your favorite Thrive Cosmetics product, you're helping communities you care about, too. Amplify your everyday. Go to thrivecosmetics.com slash shine26 for an exclusive offer of 20 % off your first order.

0:37That's Thrive Cosmetics, C-A-U-S-E-M-E-T-I-C-S dot com slash shine26. And now, another appliance triumph from our friends at Grand Appliance. With two dogs, every wash load came out covered in fur. I went into Grand Appliance looking for a fix, and they recommended the Maytag Top Load with PetPro Hair Removal System. They had it in stock and installed it days later. And you know what? It really works. Lint rollers are a thing of my past now. Great recommendations from the appliance experts. Shop GrandAppliance.com. GrandAppliance.com.

1:19Hello and welcome to the Pulse Podcast, a brand new podcast for your feed, which is all about the life and death of the automotive industry, as told through the eyes of a former automotive engineer and an entrepreneur, Dan Caesar. Dan, do you want to give the audience a little bit of an overview as to what to expect from this brand new feature? Well, we have a ringside seat, don't we, on what's going on in the automotive industry. We're at that kind of junction point of electric vehicles taking over, but it is a fraught changeover. and there are so many stories daily that we actually felt that rather than Robert's almost breaking news episodes that we do monthly on our channels something a bit more regular that kept a pulse so to speak of what's going on in the automotive industry would be useful it's a time of great consolidation so we're going to cover that here for you every Thursday as well as you know offer some little nuggets and tidbits from across the industry hopefully keep this super interesting and you're so right we do have these ringside seats and we have to learn so much and read so much and we're like we should probably do something with this knowledge and share it a little bit perhaps um so that's kind of how this came to fruition um but yeah we're excited to see how it goes and this is going to be part of a family of podcasts as well so we've got the regular podcast that you and robert host with uh industry uh insights on talking to people so that's going to be called spark as of now and also we've got a new one coming in the new year called tech in china as well as robert's almost breaking news is going to get a bit of a zhuzh up and it's going to be called fuse from the new year as well we're not busy at all we are twiddling our thumbs doing absolutely nothing at all times um but of course because this is the fully charged show productions umbrella all of these podcasts will be able to view if you want to see our lovely faces on YouTube, but you can listen to them straight into your ear holes on any podcast platform as well.

3:16So Dan, before we get into our three stories today, what have you been up to? What's been occupying your world in this automotive transition? Well, we're very lucky to get invites to lots of different events. We're actually through our own event season. We've just completed Everything Electric Melbourne. We've got a bit of a break now, but before Everything Electric Sydney, so I get a bit of time to meet up with different car companies and find out what they're up to. So in the last few days, I've been with MG, and I've been with BYD as well. And it's extraordinary to see the progress those companies are making.

3:52I was with MG, and I got a chance to test drive the MG S5 test reviews. That's not really my wheelhouse. I'll leave that to you and to Jack and to Robert. But it was interesting to to give another new car a try I've tried quite a few recently and I really just sort of reflected on the progress that that British brand has made globally I mean we all know that MG as was is now owned by a company from China but isn't it extraordinary we've taken a British brand and the progress I think at peak it probably sold about 100 ,000 cars a year back in a day and now they're sort of zeroing in a million sales per annum around the world they're in 120 countries uh top markets are china uh the uk is second as you might expect india mexico and australia and they've got a huge range of battery evs with mg s5 s6 the mg4 which i think was the one that really kind of uh catapulted them uh into the mainstream the new im5 the im6 the cyberster and with more to come as well.

4:56So life comes at you fast, right? You know, if you'd said 10 years ago, if you'd asked anyone about the MG brand, they would have said, you know, oh yeah, I used to love it, quite fond of it, but it wasn't really doing a great deal. Now it's absolutely transformed into a major player on the national and international stage. Do you know, so at one of our live shows, I can't remember which one, but I had to do the live EV review of the Cyberster. And I just, the whole way through, I was like, you know, wouldn't it be great if they were like, you could just have this. we'll just give it to you no problem and I also felt a particular affinity to it because um you know you can get those blue plaques on the outside of buildings when significant people have lived there um very very near my house here in Oxford was uh is the blue plaque for William Morris who was the original inventor of uh MG so I was like well you know it's just crying out to me I need this in my life um I've actually been driving though this week the Polestar 3 and I've had it for a week and I'll be honest and this is going to be a controversial opinion when it comes to you in particular I had the electric g-wagon the week before okay yeah the review of that's coming soon and I totally accept that it is an outrageous ridiculous car that nobody needs and yet was such a guilty pleasure um it was really fun terrible EV I will say terrible range but anyway so in getting the Polestar 3 it felt comparatively very sensible however I have been absolutely blown away I drove up to a shoot in Leeds yesterday came back obviously it's it's amazing I would genuinely again love to have one and that's the problem we drive so many good things and it's hard to whittle down the list yeah I know I've been very fortunate to drive a lot of very good cars this year including Polestar 4 which I which I loved as well it's a bit like being a kid in a candy shop but you know really when you're actually looking to put your money down and buy one of these things it's a totally different ball game but the offering now the amount of different cars available electric cars is just extraordinary and it really is actually we're spoiled for choice yeah you're going to buy one it's very very tough hence what we do and lots of other people do lots of test drives around the world because that's a great way to compare and contrast well i think the latest out is that there are over 130 different electric vehicle models currently available in the UK.

7:13But that probably is a perfect leaping off point for us to talk about the highs and lows of this electric vehicle world. All of that to come, but first a teeny tiny advert break. 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, Hancock proves its EV technology is at the highest level of performance and brings that same innovation to every ion tyre on the road. Story one, what have we got Dan?

7:54Well I noted this week that XPeng have hit the million car mark and it was kind of interesting because we've known about that business for a long time. We've probably featured them on the Fully Charged Show as well as Everything Electric through the eyes of Elliot Richards in Shanghai over the last five, five and a half years. And they definitely fall into that bucket of the companies, will they make it? Now, they're actually doing really quite well at the moment. We all know that in China, the five-year plan, the new five-year plan, for example, EVs are sort of deprioritized. They're not one of the top sort of priorities anymore.

8:34And that's a sign of the market maturity. It's a sign of China effectively saying, off you go, you now have to survive on your own two feet. And we think XPeng have got one of the most interesting businesses out there. Juxtaposition is Tesla, because actually what XPeng is doing extends way beyond the car. And I remember when we first started covering XPeng back in 2020, or thereabouts, there was actually some controversy around the fact that an engineer, ex-Tesla engineer, had stolen some of the source code and had used that for autonomous driving with the XPeng. Now, XPeng were exonerated from that.

9:14There were sort of forensic people who went into the source code to see that that was not the case. So that kind of passed off and Tesla and XPeng came to some sort of legal agreement never to talk about that again. But the trajectory of XPeng since then has been kind of interesting to note because they're not content with just producing cars. So they've just had a million roll off the, they've reached a million mark. They sell, you know, just to remind people, a few cars under the X-Peng brand, but they've also got a sort of more affordable brand called Mona as well, which we've seen in Australia doing very, very well.

9:47All of their cars are pure electric apart from, I think, the new X9, which I think has an e-rev version, a range extended version as well. But actually to look at X-Peng now, you have to look at the whole story. And so they very famously have had flying cars. I think they've got some some eVTOL stuff. They've got autonomous technology, loads of different interesting things. Software is very, very, very, very high standard. and the thing that I couldn't help remark recently, I don't know if you saw it, was they actually unveiled their iron humanoid robot in the most spectacular fashion. So Xiaoping has actually kind of beckoned the iron robot onto the stage at a recent launch they did and there were insinuations that in fact it wasn't, you know, it was a man or a woman who was actually in a suit basically because its walking style was so lifelike so on stage actually they actually cut uh the the leg of the robot open to and to show that it was just you know circuits and actuators beneath that kind of uh synthetic uh skin and i just sort of had to remark to myself what you know where are we this is the kind of future i suppose we all read about and watched on sci-fi as kids and it's it's becoming reality uh in real time and it's just extraordinary to see the progress so xpeng is a really really fascinating uh company um backed obviously by the kind of the might of uh you know this huge kind of um chinese industrial revolution and it's just fascinating to see how that is going to progress i don't know if you saw that um i did footage i'm talking to i had a couple of thoughts because i think in this day and age like if we think about the role of robotics there's robotics everywhere you know anyone who's got a Roomba Hoover in their home that is a robot of some description and there's a lot of questions around what's what is the purpose specifically of a humanoid robot especially when you think about the things that we need to do from an industrial perspective like actually humans aren't always particularly well suited to some of those functions and so having a robot that takes the form of a human is it really useful or is it a technological flex to show that absolutely we can do this and we're at the top of our game and I'm tempted to think that it's the latter I also think there's something around how we picture humanoid robots as we still need to be in control of them they are subservient to us blah blah blah so I was like of course they had to put it in a woman like in the shape of a woman and not only like a woman's body of this robot but a very sexy woman I would say I was like oh for god's sake like that is just so obvious um but it was so juxtaposed by I don't know if you saw the footage of the Russian humanoid robot that just had a little tumble on the stage I did I had too much vodka I I suspect without it to be stereotypical oh god it was just such a shambles and we should definitely link to the video in the notes because it was it was outrageous but the my um I have a friend who is a an industrial designer and he also works for a humanoid robot company and as an industrial designer he's responsible for designing all sorts of things but his current focus is bottoms of humanoid robots and actually this is an interesting challenge because you can't make it too sexy or you can't make it necessarily look like too much thought has gone into this design process either and so I say that because I'm like it's just fascinating that we live in a time where that is even a question and work stream being considered and you know you say it all the time the future's already here it's just not evenly distributed yet but that is such a good can i say never introduce me to that person because i won't be to resist the temptation of saying you know how did you get into robots bottoms you know childish you know what a what a what a career but i mean the reality is that to what extent you know as you say are robots going to be real whether they're going to be in humanoid form they're going to be doing other things you know fundamentally we've got that phone attached to our hands most of the time now We're part cyborg.

14:00I've got some glasses that I can talk to and can translate people talking to me. So we're in that kind of that in-between area and where it goes remains to be seen. But I think what's fascinating is you get these tech firms like Xpeng doing really, really interesting work. And to what extent is the robot, is I.N. sort of, you know, a halo technology to actually get people interested in the company itself? because the Xpeng P7, the new one that they've more recently unveiled, the kind of refreshed version of that, I saw it in Munich not so long ago, is absolutely stunning car. Fundamentally, I mean, they're still a car company, but like Tesla, they're sort of flexing in other areas.

14:43And yes, what is real? What is fake? That is going to be the defining question, I think, of the next decade for all of us. And I think just listening to you there, actually you said tech company to xpeng as a tech company and i think that is absolutely the crux of this because about 10 years ago sort of following vw um dieselgate scandal transition to evs etc there was all this like oh automotive companies need to behave more like tech companies and actually the new ones can because they don't have that legacy um to kind of you know plonk that tech focus onto and the legacy OEMs are still functioning largely as legacy OEMs with a little bit of tech sprinkled on top and so yeah we're seeing very much that bifurcation of like who will be a tech company and tech forward and lead with the tech that exists within an EV and who is a car company as we know them who happen to produce EVs that's probably that probably occupies most of our debate generally?

15:42I think so. And also autonomous plays a huge role in that we've just had supervised full self driving Teslas rolling around Melbourne as part of our recent event. Xpeng has some very sophisticated autonomous technologies. We're really interested to see where that goes. Pretty keen that that progresses. I think Waymo are coming into London next year, for example, but also slightly sceptical because it's been quite difficult to persuade some people to give up their keys of their combustion engine car and get into an electric car. So persuading people to get out of cars entirely will be an interesting challenge, I think.

16:18But I mean, we literally live in this extraordinary era. I think the last five years have been incredible. And I think the next 10 years will be even more so discombobulating, confusing. And that's, I guess, why we're here on this podcast to try and say what we're seeing and give our take on it. Now you mentioned there reasons for people to get into an EV or not as the case may be and I think that segues perfectly onto, drumroll, budget

16:58it.

17:19dot com or contact your travel advisor applications where your story starts

17:32so we are recording this on thursday morning it will go out on thursday afternoon and yesterday rachel reeves announced it was the budget announcement here in the uk there were some positive things in there and safe to say there were some things that we need to unpack. Do you want to give us the highlights and lowlights? Yes. I mean, the reality is that we have the luxury of taking a big helicopter view or looking globally. I take a particularly keen interest in the UK, but I have to say I kind of look at it slightly askance. I'm kind of thinking, well, what is going on with policy around the world?

18:08You know, what's going on with uptake around the world? The UK is just one of those markets. but what's been interesting in the UK is it definitely plateaued between 2022 and 2025 as a result of EV uptake a range of subsidies being withdrawn weakening of the zero emission vehicle mandate and the last 12 months have actually seen us sort of start to to grow again so now at the point of recording about one in four new cars sold is pure electric the used market is getting some traction now. One in 20 cars sold in that market is now pure electric. And as we know, when people get in electric cars, typically they don't go back.

18:51So progress is being made, that's for sure. But we look with real interest at what's going on around the world. And I would say, you know, everyone talks about Norway, of course they do, but they've had consistent, stable policy support for EVs for a couple of decades. Similarly, in China, there's been very consistent support. And then what we're seeing is, you know, this kind of flick of a switch on and off from politicians all around the world and other places. So in the US and Canada, rebates have been pulled. The result has been, you know, huge downturn in EV uptake in those countries. We saw the same in Germany 18 months ago.

19:30At the end of last year, the Dutch market, which was flying, saw some increased taxation on EVs, which meant that EV sales sort of collapsed temporarily. they're up again. And there's this kind of seesawing effect, which is an absolute nightmare if you're in the automotive industry, because you want to plan, you want to work out where sales are coming from. At the moment, the UK is relatively stable. And I think we have to be positive that generally, we're in quite a good place. The market is growing. There is an electric car grant that's just been extended by another 1.3 billion pounds. So this is the 3 ,750 pounds that are available off an electric vehicle below a certain price point.

20:09I think it's below£35 ,000, I think. Below£37 ,000, but the reality is that that full grant is only available to a handful of cars. Most of the cars are getting the£1 ,500 grant, but nonetheless, that was announced in the summer. It has had a positive effect. A few people are debating how positive that effect has been. I can tell you I was in a Ford dealership two weeks ago with the Department for Transport, with Keir Maver, who's the new minister for that area. And I talked to people who just bought Ford Puma Jennings, a very nice car, and they had done so because of the electric car grant. And so we've done some video on that.

20:47I've got video proof. People say, no, I wouldn't have made this move unless the electric car grant existed. So that's really interesting to see and hear that directly from buyers. Yeah. And actually, I saw a news article on AutoTrader that in, and this was published in October earlier this year. and they said that searches for eligible models since the electric car grant has been announced are up 118 so they are seeing a profound uptick in that interest um but of course there is a there is an argument that actually that grant and its eligibility isn't necessarily attracting the right kind of people because would have they would they have purchased an ev anyway yada yada yeah well i spoke to three people and two of them said actually this this was decisive i wasn't necessarily getting EV, this was decisive.

21:33This is a straw poll of three. It's completely unspeakable. I'm going to lean on it too heavily. A wise man said, you know, surveys are for, you know, like lampposts there for illumination, not leaning on, you know, the reality is I spoke to three people, two of them said, actually, this made me buy one. And one other guy who said I was on the cusp anyway, and I kind of got lucky. But the reality is that just the government standing up and saying, actually, we support EVs gives that technology a degree of subconscious legitimacy. that means that people do go actually okay this is the direction of travel i will go in that direction because people in the uk are kind of quite scared scarred i would say by what happened with diesel you know government recommending people get into diesels and look how that that turned out so the electric car grant has had a positive effect it feels like a bit of a sugar rush you know a bit of a low calorie way of getting people in we think education is the best way to get more people in to make them realize that these cars are actually cheaper and better and just repeat that as a mantra but what we've seen in the budget longest answer to your question ever is some other little little tweaks so pay per mile now is something that is being looted for 2020 per mile yeah and also that was off the back of the london congestion charge uh which the evs were exempt from changing in january next year so you're getting very very mixed signals the opposite of joined up thinking, I think, from government.

22:57And obviously, you've got the part of the trade, the part of the transport, you know, the list goes on, you've got Treasury, you've got all these different stakeholders to satisfy. But it is a little bit of a mixed bag. Now, my battery is half full, that's the way I kind of choose to live my life. And the reality is I'm very positive that EVs will win out over time. But we want to make it as frictionless and seamless as possible. And when you do send out these negative signals, it can be difficult. I think as an individual, I'm pretty sanguine about the fact that the reality is that the congestion charge zone is there to reduce congestion.

23:29There are loads of EVs in central London now, and that's not the point. So I think, you know, that's right that that exemption comes to an end. But the language maybe confuses people. And then the pay per mile announcement is interesting. It's only going to come into effect from 2028. Technically, it's a consultation. But in government speak, that's normally we've decided this, but we'll give you a little bit. think we're having a chit chat yeah i think we're having a conversation um certainly there will be people trying to urge them not to do that there's a three p per mile um uh rate mooted for evs and a 1.5 p per mile rate mooted for for plug-in hybrids as well but i do think that anyone who's sat there driving their petrol car thinking oh we're not being uh you know taxed in that way it's failing to see that ultimately governments want to move to a per mile solution across all fuel types over time.

24:25And this is a way of introducing that process. It just happens to be EVs and plug-in hybrids that are going to be the canary in the coal mine on that. But be under no illusion, governments have long wanted to bring something like this in. And it's really controversial because, of course, there are specific groups that will feel particularly penalised by a pay per mile model, irrespective of whether you're driving an electric vehicle or combustion car. For example, yesterday, I drove to Leeds and back. That's a long way and I do that kind of trip every week. I mean, fortunately, I'm expensing that.

24:57So thanks, Nan. But the point is that not everyone is able to live a really local life. And of course, you know, actually, house prices are cheaper if you live outside of the city. So there's also an equity challenge there as well. But of course, this is all motivated by the fact that if we all transition over to electric vehicles there will be a 13 billion pound deficit not recovered from sort of um the tax that's currently on fuel but what irritates me a bit about this is that okay so i think this will equate roughly to about 250 pounds per year for the average driver the three people per mile but these it just feels really like for like it's like oh we don't have the tax that we get from fuel so we'll put that tax on another mode of transport and it's like but also So what money is the government saving by having improved air quality in cities?

25:47What impact is that having to the economy by reduced absenteeism or reduced asthma or reduced having to kind of clean buildings that were previously really dirty from fumes? Equally, it's like, well, if you're going to increase a cost elsewhere, how are you leveling that out with supporting public transport and making other options much more easy and available? And you said joined up thinking, and I think that's the thing that bugs me with this. ultimately it's not a huge cost but it just always feels like this tip for tat and I don't feel that that's particularly strategic well we live in a world where you know I think it was Churchill said that kind of you know history is rewritten is written by the victors basically we live in a digital age now where you know we could live in different histories at the same time depending on who we read there's evidence to support lots of different claims you know the algorithms have a way of kind of you know telling us what's going on and we choose to believe one version of events or or another and i think at the moment the uk government and other governments around the world have got themselves in a situation where media and algorithms are perhaps quite negative on electric vehicles wrongly in my opinion and it's very hard to find a journalist it's very hard to find someone who runs a big tech firm even or a politician who drives electric really understands it and the bigger picture as you say you know has to be about all of transport you know how does it all fit together and health as well as you say and all these different things and if you have you know if you don't stand for anything if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything that's the old saying and the reality is that if you don't really have a philosophy around transport and how we can improve the world then you will be pulled around by the latest bit of news you know our EVs only for the rich for example well I can say categorically that if you get an EV and you have a driveway you can save a fortune whether you're rich or or or not you know so the reality is that we live in a very sort of difficult time in terms of information and unfortunately I think politicians there's a lot of short-term thinking based around electoral cycles and those sorts of things sometimes even much shorter cycles you know headlines you know how can we kind of uh we're giving with one hand we're giving electric car grant on the other hand how can we kind of make sure it doesn't seem unfair rather than standing up saying this is why we believe in electric vehicles this is why we believe in more public transport etc and ultimately in politics we've got ourselves into a little bit of a mess really i think and that's coming through i'm very very confident about the uptake of electric cars it will continue to grow in the uk but it seems to me to be really really important we get up to about 50 % of new car sales are pure electric by the end of the decade.

28:29I know the ZEV mandate targets are higher, but it seems very, very important that we get to about 50 % by probably the next general election, which in the UK will be in 2028, 2029. Because once we get past that point, I think the network effects kicks in. Most people have seen people with EVs, understand that they're enjoying them. All the problems that the Daily Mail might have you believe are coming don't actually exist. And I think that's going to be a sort of crucial tipping point because the next election in the UK, for those that don't follow it closely, I think it's going to be highly consequential.

28:58And I think if another party from the more right side of politics gets in, I think that EVs and clean energy more generally will be in their crosshairs. Oh, 100%. And I think that is something that we definitely need to continue talking about in this weekly podcast. But it is interesting, I think, the different things that happen at the different percentages of vehicle uptake. and a lot of the policy support that we had in the early days was at a point in time where the EVs weren't as brilliant because that's what happens with a new technology it takes time to mature but also you have these bunch of early adopters who were just kind of willing to accept inconvenience because being first is cool and they can be really passionate about these technologies and obviously you need a bit of incentive support to get that kind of groundswell going but equally these early adopters will just do it anyway and then it's strange when you tip over into that early mainstream because whilst people absolutely may care about the environment in a world where the cost of living is our number one concern actually cost convenience comfort are the priorities and in order to maintain those things you also have to have that consistency and that consistency of policy support and it was interesting I did an interview yesterday and this was not to do with electric cars it was actually to do with uh electric heating and the ceo of this company i said to her you know what what would be the one thing that you'd ask for from the government and she was like the government is incredibly good actually at supporting innovation and ensuring that we can sort of come to fruition initially she's like they are less good at providing that long-term consistent support to ensure that we get that ongoing adoption and can tip over into those really critical percentages that just mean this becomes you know the momentum is such that you don't need that same kind of push and i just hope that you know loads of things in here that are positive for example the fact that the electric car grant's been extended things that kind of feel contrary to that three p per mile blah blah it just requires that consistent message so people can be sure that this is the right direction of travel as well in my very humble opinion we need we need to build as they have the norway cross-party consensus over the long term that actually evs are a good thing and reality is that organizations like electric vehicles uk which is something i'm involved in are trying to build that consensus cross-party but it does seem to me that as an industry the ev industry has got too hung up on charging let's say an infrastructure as an Achilles heel and has focused too much of its time on that.

31:39So the industry has in fact been leading with its chin. You go into a fight, you want to use your best weapons and that now is the cars themselves. They are exceptional and they can save you a packet. So our kind of whole attitude really is to say we should lead with that. They are cheaper, they are better and let's get people in in the cars uh and try them and that's the way the way forward um and that includes politicians let's get them in the cars that's includes you know people from from the media let's get them in the cars because until you've really sat in one for a little while you you don't know but i'm telling you these cars are superior to what's been out there before and i've saved a fortune that might be tougher over time if the paper mile thing comes in 2028 but that's still three years away and as we've seen a lot can happen in politics in three weeks let alone three years and also over that mileage you're saving a thousand like a roughly a thousand pounds in fuel and then you're paying to about 225 pounds in the three people mile so everyone needs to do the maths for themselves you know driving eevee is far uh it's far better economically so the reality is that nothing changes but you know certainly it is a time for you know time for more doubt I think which we can avoid.

32:57So just before we move on to our third story third and final story for today I'd be really intrigued to get Rory Sutherland back on the podcast because I'm basing this on nothing other than my own brain but I do think that there's a weird we as humans are not always totally rational as we know and my perhaps grievance with the three p per mile is that it forces you to think about every mile that you drive which long term is a good thing because we should be reducing the amount that everyone is driving to reduce congestion whereas like money that you get at the start of the purchase you can be quite short term you can kind of forget that that happened so it's like what could have been more effective having the electric car grant so the 3 750 pounds off a car or free charging for a year and then you really see your total cost of ownership reducing on a month by month basis compared to combustion engine equivalent anyway i'd love to get rory back on to talk about impacts of like like flash in the pan versus sort of ongoing support and how that sort of changes your reaction to a new technology that could be nonsense the budget is a big stick but rory would talk to nudging you know technology how do we nudge people in the right direction how do we do it without them even realizing you know the budget unfortunately is a big broad brush and it has some positive and negative impacts but yeah i mean batteries half full evs will be the the dominant powertrain that's the way it's going to to go but how quickly we get there it depends on you know making this journey as frictionless as possible and we will link to the podcast with roy because it was brilliant because i had to do so little work because he is absolutely fantastic and his brain is astonishing.

34:44Apple Vacations where your story starts. The Splash Into Savings event from Apple Vacations is here. Now through June 25th, save up to$150 on vacation packages, plus instant savings at select resorts in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and top US destinations. Use promo code JUNE26 for these limited time offers. Start planning today at applevacations.com or contact your travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts.

35:19Talking of batteries that are half full, our third and final story today is that Porter a little bit concerned about just how good the Hyundai Ioniq 5N is. Can you tell us a little bit more. I can. I absolutely love this car, the IONIQ 5. And I don't know if you've driven, I know you've spent quite a lot of time in the IONIQ 5. And it's really interesting in a lot of the story at the moment is around EVs is China. And people are kind of overlooking Korea, what Kia, Hyundai, Genesis have done. And also a hat tip to KGM, who were just releasing a formerly Sangyong were releasing a new ute in Australia, for example.

36:01But the Korean car market is extraordinary. They've done incredible things. And the IONIQ 5N is the sort of culmination, I think, of that technology. The IONIQ 6N is coming out soon as well. And for those that don't know, the kind of N series really is where the Hyundai engineers have their most fun and create kind of performance racing vehicles. You can buy an Ioniq 5N in the UK and you can have an incredible experience. And Porsche have noticed this. We did an episode, Jack Scarlett did an episode not so long ago when we actually asked the question, you know, has Hyundai really outdone Porsche?

36:41And in terms of the money, if you took an Ioniq 5N and a Macan, you know, you're going enjoyed both of those experiences but obviously one is much cheaper than the other uh and the reality is that the Porsche engineers have have noticed the Porsche management have noticed and they've been praising or envying uh what Hyundai have done recently and I I have to say I had a couple weeks with that car it was unbelievable because all of the you know grown-up thinking I like to do the there was a little boy inside of me when that car makes a lot of noise and you put it in you know a grin mode it is a great great feeling so i thought i'd grown out of cars making noises to to be honest but it was great fun and i sort of said it sort of all the vrooms but none of the fumes i mean that was the kind of the kind of the selling point for that car and yeah porsche have recently been looking at the ionic 5n and saying you know it's been eye-opening um they kind of were really looking at it and going how do we kind of emulate some of the things that they've done and I do wonder the Porsche Taycan for example is a stunning car right no one would say that it isn't I do wonder if often the the legacy brands have kind of looked at their vehicles go well we've got the brand we've got the brand loyalty we've got aesthetically beautiful cars whereas Hyundai have gone okay but how can we compete and where some of maybe the legacy brands have been caught a bit flat-footed by that I don't know if you've driven that car yet Imogen so I'm kind of chuckling to myself because um am I going to confess this I it's time I've not told you this and actually we've kept this very within the production team so we actually had it in Australia um not this year the the previous year and it was such a coup because obviously it wasn't here in the UK at that point so we had an opportunity to drive it I did drive it but driving in Sydney if you don't know Sydney particularly well it can be quite stressful because you can end up in that tunnel for like 15 minutes in the wrong direction um so i absolutely was not maximizing the potential of that car but was irrespective of that totally blown away um we'd done a shoot we parked that car we all went off to get some lunch i had the keys all of our kit was in the boot and by kit i mean camera kit that is tens of thousands of of kit uh I can't believe you're confessing this to me live on on the podcasts I know this is ridiculous but I've been carrying this heavy burden of the secret um anyway we like went off to get some sandwiches or whatever and dispersed because people wanted different things and then I get a call from Louis about he's on our team about 10 minutes later to say image and the boots open and so I have never sprinted so fast in my whole entire life with the key back to this car and astonishingly not a single bit of kit had was missing but initially we were just a reduced team we were like we cannot tell anyone else in the production team because they will be so angry with us for like exercising not particular care about this very expensive kit and to this day we're not sure if it was user error i.e me or if it was the car and i would like to blame the car but given how good it is i think actually that's not totally fair or possible um but there we go nothing was stolen but it could have been a disaster especially because this was two days before the show and we needed all of that kit so well i I absolve you.

40:12Thank you very much. I have confessed my sins. Oh, stressful. My hands have got clammy just thinking about it. Well, we have had Kate stolen in London, right? Oh, yeah. And that was, we were in a secure underground car park. So it just felt really cruel that someone had obviously seen us do that. And what was really upsetting about it is that they stole all of the bags from the back of the car, smashed the windscreen, and obviously took Katie's bag, opened it, saw that it was just her pyjamas and her wash bag and just, well, no, we don't need this. Threw it across the car park. She was like, oh, cheers.

40:50Didn't even want that. Yeah, so that is a bit of an occupational hazard, sadly. Anyway, the IONIQ 5N is a great piece of kit and Porsche have noticed. Well, the other thing I'll say, and I believe the embargo lifts tomorrow, so I'm going to have to be vague but last week I drove the Cupra Reval this is their latest urban car which I think given its price point about 26 ,000 euros they're very much pitching it against the Renault 5 but they're also very much making this about the driving experience much like the Ioniq 5n about introducing so much fun into the drive and the noise so I'll share more of that another time when I'm not under embargo but I think it's cool seeing this wave of performance fun focused EVs well the Ford Puma Gen E has got some of that feature as well and I'm going to get my hands on that soon and that's Britain's best-selling car the Ford Puma and the Gen E now is selling really really well as a result of the electric car grant so that's that's good news too but yeah it is interesting isn't it sound and how that engages you and connects you with a car I mean, Jack as a kind of an automotive person has been talking about that for a long time.

42:07When I got in the Ioniq 5N, I really realized actually there is something in that. Although I do enjoy the fact that the cars are much quieter in general terms. So I had in the G-Wagon, it has this sort of soft rumble that's definitely a synthetic noise, which actually I quite enjoyed. but you can turn on the g raw ridiculous name and that was that was an awful sound and it does and there was a few sounds in that car that were extremely high quality and a couple that were very strange like um the sort of to warn you that there's someone in your blind spot that blind spot noise was very cheap and it's incredible to think that actually you can build and design a sense of quality through sound and it's not the speakers it's the sound itself and i think that is such a talent yeah it's interesting I mean you just don't think about it you know the world is so so visual the sound is so much more subtle but I was in a Polestar 4 I think it was and it's got an indicator noise which sounds like a little sort of synth synth noise it's really really subtle and I'm in another car at the moment which I won't mention that has an indicator noise that sounds like a car from the late 90s and it actually just sort of sticks out uh it is it is bizarre isn't it but yeah sound does a play it does play a part in even in this silent revolution um well we have successfully waffled for 40 or so minutes so we probably should leave it there not least so we can save some stories for next time um but any concluding thoughts before we before we close well as it's pulse what i thought we would do is just have a quick a couple of quick ups and downs you know what's going on in the marketplace so i'll keep it short my up really this week would be for byd um i spent some time with byd and it's really interesting how they've grown they're now in the top 100 of the fortune 500 for the first time they are already number three in the world for cars sold uh they are well on track to to selling a million bevs and fevs this year.