Innovation Built a $500M Pipeline With Zero Marketing | Justin Lunny Founder of Everrati

0:00And I think that agility, that ability to deliver, you know, we've done effectively four car programs in six years.

0:17I'm a recovering petrolhead, so I've always, always loved cars. We have 5.2 billion data points on that car, which is billion, which is, you know, quite a lot. What I would say is we also turn people down.

0:29Olly Fawcett:And then, look, you'll always get the haters. You know, we're very open that this isn't for everybody. Zero marketing in B2B, and yet we've now got nearly half a billion dollars worth of opportunity in our B2B. Half a billion? Half a billion dollars worth of opportunity in our B2B market. You've got to have self-belief. Because actually there are days when, you know, this is really, really hard. That's what worries me now, is that there are some really cool European brands that won't make it.

0:58Justin, welcome to What It Takes. how are you? I'm very well thank you very much thank you for inviting me.

1:02Olly Fawcett:No a pleasure I mean this is uh this is going to be a very interesting conversation for sure you've been uh you've been building something very special in a very busy market so we're gonna we're gonna dive a lot into that but firstly how are things how's the start of the EV? Very good very very good thank you very exciting um you know strange things happening in the world um bizarrely um creating some opportunities for us because I think uh the move towards uh EV is uh had a bit of an up and down But actually, I think the EV winter is actually starting to fade and the respring is coming back again.

1:32So that's an interesting place to be.

1:34Olly Fawcett:Well, we're going to talk a lot about over RT and the business you've been building since 2019 or so. That's right. Yeah. But before that, you've had a sort of 30 year career in many different elements of fintech and technology and business as well. Can you just give me an insight as to what those 30 years really look like? Yeah. So I started my career in tech, but as a business development, sales, marketing, that kind of thing. so which is what I loved um I I joke but I look at my son and in fact my daughter and they can talk to anybody they love just being out there and I think I'd probably uh was the yeah that that was where I was when I was there their age I guess um uh yeah and started started there uh always wanted to do my own thing but never really could could see what that thing should be um and then and I guess what I did was I I used the fact that I was at places like Hewlett Packard SAP fantastic sales training background and then yeah went out on kind of my own but with a with a very very good friend of mine in 2006 which is really when I started my first business yeah that'll lead to start your first business in 26 2026 sorry yeah 2006 as well going for it yes what was that experience like for you different times now yeah do you know it's funny it was something I always wanted to do it's obviously you know it's quite a risk I already had you know some responsibilities um uh and i suppose but at the same time it was one of the things if i don't do it now i never will so so that was kind of something that i just had to do yeah um and i suppose back back then as well you know you think you can do anything um and still think you can do anything quite frankly so it's not you know you have to have that level of confidence for obvious reasons um but it was exciting you know and and you know honestly the world changed pretty quickly because we were in a financial services business 2008 happened so that was awkward uh two of a business it'll be interesting so we pivoted uh and we made it through and actually made a made a business out of it that was yeah hugely successful so and you ran that business for how long uh that was around 10 years yeah that was around 10 years with a partner 11 years exactly 10 11 years uh with a partner uh that's something we we kind of started on one thing again pivoted which you have to do in business uh yeah you've got this grand plan and then all of a sudden you kind of think okay what can i do to modify that plan um and uh yeah built that into an fca regulated payments business which was then sold to a to a private equity business so so that was great did some other things in the interim um uh but always always yeah loved doing small exciting new businesses um i'm probably entirely unemployable uh quite frankly at this point in time but that's but that's fine you know i've had a had a great career and selling a business that must have been an interesting experience, particularly the first one you started.

4:15Yeah, absolutely. What was that like? Yeah, look, yeah, we were, I'll be honest, we were fortunate. We got a tap on the door one day from somebody that, you know, was interested. And, you know, it's a long process. It was a very, very long process, especially because it was a regulated business. So yeah, that was a, I think it took over a year. And then there was kind of a sort of an earn out type process as Well, I recall very vividly sitting in a big London law firm and you could see genuinely a sea of paperwork on both sides of the table for the legals for this thing. But again, learning experience.

4:50You know, you don't think you're going to be in these positions when you start, but it was a great outcome.

4:54Olly Fawcett:And you had a business partner then. You have a business partner now? Yes. So I have a business partner who's my co-CEO. He is fantastic. So I actually bizarrely met him during my time in my previous business. So he was actually a client of my previous business. He was our main client. So we got to work together pretty closely. Entirely different to me. You know, he is super, super focused in terms of diligence around staff members and kind of process. I'm far more, I just need to open doors and get things done, you know. And he actually works very, very well as a partnership. He's ex-military.

5:33So again, very, very focused on the job in hand. Yeah. thankfully brings me back to reality sometimes which is what i need but yeah so it works very very well and i think there's some people that you know entirely build businesses on their own um but it's all about a group of people and it's never i don't think it's never truly on your own

5:50Olly Fawcett:from that perspective yeah do you do you think there is a kind of key lesson in being a great business partner maybe from certain business i mean you started this together and sold it after 10 years but i'm like that's right um and then you sold it very successfully is there a secret to getting that dynamic life there really is yeah and it can go very very wrong obviously as well so i think it's more about knowing your own strengths and therefore if you can find somebody that also covers off your weaknesses at the same time and now you can collaborate you the problem is you'll never really know that until you get into hot water um but where it works then it's it's a really really you know positive thing as you can imagine no definitely so you decided to start Everati at some stage yes where did this initial idea come from so I am a complete I'm a recovering petrol head so I've always always loved cars you know I hello I yeah I from a I mean my my mother bless her who uh unfortunately not really well so she can't talk about this anymore but she always said yeah your first word was car um as a you know whatever yeah a few years old um I was constantly playing with toy cars I was constantly looking at cars I was the kid in the back of my parents car on a dark night saying which car was coming towards us just from their headlights you know I was well I was entirely obsessed so given the opportunity when I'd sold a business um and by the way during that journey I you know spent far too much money on cars and you know various various toys um but actually uh a couple of things happened actually so I was sitting around yeah thinking about what I should do next yeah um I had my daughter who was then seven had genuinely started worrying about the earth flooding climate change um she had she had which is you know a parent to a seven-year-old was is kind of kind of worrying um and then the other thing that happened which uh is i guess the real thing that really kicked me off was um harry and megan so prince harry uh and megan drove away from windsor castle uh in an e-type that had been changed to an ev um so it was a one-off ev uh electric e-type so uh i saw that and thought that's a brilliant idea i started doing the research around that you know my view was i love beautiful cars at the time there wasn't so beautiful evs and arguably there aren't too many even now so you know driving that passion into uh you know car true car passion into an ev market space is is wasn't happening and arguably still hasn't happened so it's just kind of taking taking a view that actually you can take what's already there bring it into the future bring it to a market and an audience that potentially has never had the opportunity to experience those beautiful shapes those beautiful designs so um that was kind of the thesis and yeah we are now in a place where that's kind of starting to work out which is great was there ever an idea to build cars from scratch yes and I think I would say never say never you know we're getting some really interesting opportunities now where you're on my team I have people who have done exactly that they've they've been technical director for a supercar company they've done you know full vehicle builds for for an OEM I think the great thing about technology and advancements in technology is that there's actually becoming a place now where you can start to think about doing that at a price point that is significantly less than the 50 million that it would have cost you to do before and actually therefore we you know we are looking at a few programs with partners where we will be the power train of choice for some really really cool stuff that's coming through and actually you know we're not too far away from being able to do it whether we do it is another matter or do we just support others in doing it and there's that more of a strategic thing for the business it is absolutely yeah make sure you get that right totally and when you're when you're day one on a on a business like this because you know i've started business before they're mostly service-based businesses and some brands so there's an element of like get a few products or start with one service or get your first client whatever whatever that process normally is i'm trying to get in my head how you what your day one or week one looks like for starting a business like this can you give me an insight it was interesting uh not least because uh yeah bear in mind this is 2019 right um so did did some research started thinking about okay um what's the being being honest what's the quickest and most efficient way of getting a first car developed um and that you know in the same way let's be honest as tesla took an existing chassis from lotus and created that into an ev but which is the original tesla roadster and various other you know businesses in the past is take what's already there and how can you create something out of that existing uh vehicle um and of course the poster car for me at the time certainly when i was a kid was a wide body 911 so i was thinking okay how might we create something around that so looking at partnerships you know who's got some of this technology um and then all of a sudden covid hit which was which was interesting so um and i worked out i needed a much bigger team than i kind of had first pictured i thought i know we'll do this just with partnerships and actually you and partnerships basically yeah but you need a head of engineering you need you know ev um you need kind of high-end eb technicians you need um mechanical engineering guys you need a full team so the crazy thing was that i put some things out on linkedin and i'm a bit of a linkedin fiend as i think you're very listening um but actually all of a sudden i started getting people coming to me saying oh i love what you're doing and they'd seen the website and all this sort of stuff so all of a sudden i'm getting engineers from lotus mclaren jlr approaching us and saying you know we'd love to come on board which is wonderful is this a concept sorry so you had to do anything at this point is that just your vision it was a concept we'd built a website yeah you know it was really just vaporware quite frankly at that point uh it was it was a it was a dream um so so that was really fantastic because a um yeah these people were being let go by the big oems and they wanted to get involved in something you know different um secondly you know it meant being blown we didn't have any recruitment fees um the crazy thing was when we eventually met them because we're doing all this on teams because at the time you weren't really supposed to be meeting for anything other yeah that wasn't super important you know two or three of them are over six foot three which doesn't sound bad but when you're trying to build kind of fairly compact classic cars into evs you know great story one of our cars which is the gt40 they have to take the entire seats out and sit in it to even do the testing because they couldn't fit in them so those those kind of um stories you know will stay with you forever um but that's kind of what starting a business is all about yeah sure how what were you looking for when you're starting to build a team because for you i imagine building your previous business is financial literacy it's account like you know it's a level of understanding when you're building a brand like a variety at the early stages what are the key attributes you're looking for do you know it's it's all about attitude it's all about you know yes of course experience in mclaren is it's a fantastic tick in the box.

12:53But actually, more than anything, it's that kind of go getting hungry, we can get something done. Because there's a lot of individuals that would love on paper to do a startup. But actually, as I'm sure you know, you have to be wearing 30 different hats at the same time and working through whether it's marketing payroll, whether it's, you know, working out why the you know that something's not, you know, working, switching on, you have to have that attitude that you know this can do attitude and i'll get it done you don't have a big team around you so i think that that as much as anything is the most important thing of course you know what what they've done in the past is is hugely important and that's kind of a bizarrely that's the hygiene factor for me but actually it's more about you know the individual and you know their attitude is and yeah a couple of our guys genuinely been there from the very beginning um yeah we were out with them yesterday evening um and the crazy thing is you know they've come from fairly big go again to very exciting businesses like mclaren yeah um but of course at one of these companies they might have only been responsible for a very small part of a an overall vehicle program yeah with us it's everything from inception of an idea yeah right through to frankly showing at salon privé or um monterey car week or wherever it might be and actually taking it out with the client and you're getting a full end-to-end view of the industry that's just amazing yeah how are you

14:12Olly Fawcett:communicating your vision in those early maybe in year one i guess i don't know how long it took you to actually get your first production car was it it was actually uh about two years okay so in that time where there isn't a thing right how do you how were you sorry communicating your vision your ideas because that must be quite challenging so i think again it's you know you the reality is the great thing is you're talking to people who are kind of already converted they love the idea you know we we are you know if you look at really what we're doing we're creating evs out of cars people already love yes so they already love the 911 they might already love the land rover or whatever else it might be that we're doing so you're kind of always talking to people that want you to win you know they want to be short of it um so actually once they get that simple vision which is we're going to create the coolest evs on the planet um you know if you're a car guy or girl that's not a bad thing to be involved in so i think that from that perspective that's you know that's day one i think also if you're in that industry anyway you want something that's more exciting that you can put your own stamp on as well as a as an employee you know all of our employees are shareholders so you know so actually it's a it's a family thing and you know so not and that's not suited everybody you know if you if you've been in a big corporate for example um um you know being in that situation where there is nobody else to ask for for kind of advice you down to you can be quite daunting no definitely but some people absolutely love it so i think that's a key thing nerding out on cars all day it'd be great right exactly in the first so two years to build your first model what was the most challenging part of those two years so it was probably a combination of things circumstance covid didn't help as you can imagine yeah um um access to capital is always challenging i mean i i funded uh you know all of the beginning of the business but you suddenly realize you need quite a few more million pounds than you first anticipated so finding that is you know is always a challenge again genuinely dealing with investors over teams and zoom as opposed to beating them is always you know it's not it's not ideal quite frankly do you mind me asking how much cash you really needed in those first so we didn't realize how much we needed you know we thought we'd get it done for about a million or so and it turned out to be quite substantially more than that um it's but having said that it's still under 10 which you know is when you consider what we've achieved uh is is pretty incredible actually and so we're very we're very asset like we utilize the partnerships in a big way which you know we can we can talk through but um so i suppose so that was clearly a challenge um and then look you'll always get the haters you know we're very open that this isn't for everybody right this is um it's you know our whole ethos is essentially taking cars that were loved yeah um you know we're very careful on porsche most of the cars we start with um they have to be low mileage because they're unloved they're not low mileage because they're special so it will be a tiptronic narrow body 964 that's been left in a shed somewhere it's not a turbo bodied you know masterpiece or an rs so we start with a a blank canvas that is not the prettiest um and create it into something beautiful and i think that when people get their head around that which is this car was never enjoyed anyway um it's less of an issue than people assuming it we're doing it to a you know a halo car of some description the haters part yeah was that pretty intense in the cast first couple years it was intense but it was just funny you know you've got you got guys who just don't get it and that's fine not everybody gets it you know um not everybody gets everything and we have to be mindful of that so um very early days to 2021 really which is when we first started taking cars to things like yeah again salon privé concours of elegance things like that there were there were those who were yeah it was probably 25 percent of people that came to see us how dare you what have you done kind of thing really now it's less than five percent you know because people have actually realized that we're not doing this for any uh kind of terrible reason we're doing it because actually we think these cars deserve to be on the road and enjoyed and seen and you know they're they're rolling up you know if you look at some of these beautiful shapes like the 911 the pagoda uh gt40 you know these are cars that have a place in history as icons and if we're not careful they will just be in history and actually we can we can get them out on the road and enjoy that's right when the first car was done what was the feeling it was brilliant Yeah.

18:34So she remembers it well. No, very, very well. So there's two things actually, what I would say is that we actually built two first cars. So we actually had a kind of a rolling, um, good from far, but far from good looking, uh, Porsche, uh, 911 Targa, um, which we put the kind of bill of materials in, we were testing it. It just wrapped. I mean, it was pretty flaky underneath. Um, and I'll never forget. So I live in, um, I live in, uh, Surrey, um, and you probably you know the a30 um very very you know there's some some great roads in that area but there's a very very straight road that goes through sunningdale and virginia water and um i i pulled up at some lights and an audi r8 v10 was next to me i thought this would be funny so i literally you know floored it as you do and and i lost him um and in sunningdale he flashed me and pulled me over said yeah what have you done to that car and we got chatting uh about that at that point in time So that was a, that was our kind of prototype running.

19:31No one really knew it was an EV, but it was fun. It was, uh, it was very engaging. And then the very first, uh, kind of, you know, client ready or at least client looking ready was, um, a candy apple red 964 wide body, uh, that we launched at Joe Macari, um, just down the road actually, uh, in sort of, yeah, second half of 2021. And that was brilliant. So again, it was still COVID time. So the bizarre thing was that most journalists weren't traveling and a lot of really good motoring journalists are British, right? They're based here in the UK. So thanks to our PR team, we managed to get quite a few journalists to come down and see us.

20:07Gordon Ramsay came down to see us. There was a load of people in and around Joe Macari. So all of a sudden we created this buzz, which was fantastic for, let's be honest, a company that had zero marketing budget. We just built this car and wanted to show it. So that was fantastic. But not only that, people started writing about it. And then all of a sudden we started getting US press writing about us. And that just was a, you know, that was a snowball from there.

20:30Olly Fawcett:And that car, was that built on your spec of what that was made for a customer? No. So it was our development car that we'd kind of started. Interestingly, that car is currently in California as a demo car. So it's a UK demo, but it's a roving demo. Yeah. That's probably done 25 ,000 miles as an EV. um five thousand of those probably sideways and michelin are you know very very happy with us because they we get a lot of tires but but that just shows again these are these are not just toys to be kind of looked at they can actually be very much you know used and enjoyed yeah so by that point the brand of business isn't making any cash no right so was that the launch pad for speaking with clients and finding clients absolutely did you have an idea of who when you're kind of building the brand and as you're obviously you're selecting a certain car and a certain market and ev is its own market in a way that's right did you kind of have a good idea who would be the end consumer of the product we thought we did okay yeah and that turned out to be partially right so who did you think it was going to be so we thought that you know you'd get car collectors that have say got a 964 in their collection they don't really want to drive it why don't we create almost a carbon copy for you as an ev you get to use this every day and by the way i've got an rs in in the garage kind of thing to a point that's been true so we've got a couple of those more more the the bigger piece that we have is i guess and i it's an overused term but we kind of have kind of thought leaders that are people that love design they love technology they love you know the sort of um uh a certain part of of the car whether it is from a design perspective whether it's its history whether it's designer themselves um but then actually you know they they have an eye on sustainability and they want to be as you know conscious and you know conscious as they possibly can um they may by the way still fly private you know and there's that whole yin and yang balance but but but actually i'd say 90 of our clients are have never driven or owned the original of what we end up building for them interesting yeah so it's somebody that loves the look of a 911 yeah or loves the look of a pagoda yeah always promised themselves one but they're not really car people right so they are you know they might be professional sports people yeah they might be film directors in hollywood they might be tech billionaires we've got a really eclectic mix of incredible clients they might be a um middle eastern prince you know we've got all these incredible uh people that just love the look and the design of something which is why we say it's rolling art because it's a beautiful kind of piece of of uh iconic history but they want to be able to use it either every day or on a regular basis and they're not the sort of people that you get in it and it lets them down when they've driven it to lunch and that might well happen you know with some of the classic cars as original yeah all of a sudden no no they know it's going to work so it's kind of really interesting from that perspective that we assumed one thing that is to a point true but actually more we've got which is the really interesting thing about us as a business which we're not just focused on your car guys and girls it's actually a very very broad cross-section and probably broader than people think it will be for them as well absolutely right and up until that sort of point so year year two year three that i mean it feels like you are a business purely built off of innovation right yeah innovation is expensive to do and for you in terms of that initial plan you could obviously have innovated even more right but that would have cost something so how did you know the kind of stopgap for innovation so you know what i mean yeah so i think look i'm as a business person you have to know when to when it when when it's ready enough you know the problem is nothing will ever be absolutely 100 perfect there'll always be elements you need to to evolve but for a business perspective you need to have income and you need to have early clients that are you know prepared to work with you on that and you know being open with them say look this is a gen one and you know we will update it to gen two when we when we can but actually work with us on this so we've got some great early adopter clients um one of which is you know a very um incredible uh tech uh entrepreneur in in silicon valley you know he was incredible so he out of that first piece of pr that we did in london we just get this email one day from this this gentleman um he turns Turns out, you know, they'd sold a business to Google for$3 billion recently.

24:58And he ordered a car, you know, and entirely again, hadn't met us, hadn't seen a car, read some PR. He was our first US client. But my point is that if you always wait, especially in this, you know, in this industry, if you always wait for perfection, you probably never get there. And I think that's the reality of tech generally. You know, there'll be a beta program. There'll be, you know, various different iterations. um so as long as it's safe and as long as it's as reliable as it can be that's kind of what you have to to live with yeah um uh it's different if you're doing you know there's different industries where it's easier to get perfection right um but the reality is as a business person you have to be realistic about what's enough um and can we then improve upon it once we've got

25:41Olly Fawcett:that yeah and the partnerships element of starting out i imagine that sped up innovation yes but also decrease risk right yeah is that really kind of key to honestly we we have been so fortunate to have the partners that we have um so you know we one of the partnerships we have um is a electric electric motor company um they normally only supply you know the likes of lotus or mclaren or aston martin due to our network of our engineers we were able to secure them as a partner for our e-motors so they are the most power dense and some of the best e-motors in the world yeah similarly uh the inverters we use which is how you get the power between the motor and the battery you know in a you know in a safe way um silicon carbon inverters again there's no way on the planet most people even access to these we have them as a partner um battery system so we're you know we're very fortunate that we have best in class technology components and elements what's really then key is our software so our software that manages all of this and actually controls the powertrain that's how we've been able to grow as quickly as you know as we can as we have so far and i'm going to make an assumption about your industry that it can be quite um tough in the sense of people being like oh no they're too small or oh no they're not serious enough etc yeah and that must be similar in other industries as well how did you get past that how do you go about that uh again it's i guess it's circumstance insofar as that's what i had in my last business as well so okay it was uh so the the business i previously was an electronic money business so it was a uk regulated business it was one low level below retail bank in terms of regulation but because there was so much innovation in that space the little players were winning yeah they were the ones that were winning because they could be far more agile uh quick to market than a let's say a bank and that's that's proven true and now the fintech industry you know has been massive over the last 15-20 years because that's right yeah um exactly right and let's be honest the early days of paypal and elon musk you know you know there are some um synergies there so so i think the automotive space has been guilty of that as well right you know you had to be huge to make anything work and actually technology has evolved to the point now where small players actually can make it make a huge difference right um and i think that agility that ability to deliver you know we've done effectively four car programs in six years now that that would not that would not be a normal thing now don't get me wrong we have an oem light approach so we're not testing you know to the nth degree in the arctic circle we're not you know we're not taking cars to south africa to go and test them in the heat but we we do things in a way that is that's safe reliable and to own standards but we do it in a you know very much kind of shorter time period um and that is fantastic because it means a we can get cars to market and happy clients but it also means that we've been approached by a load of other companies wishing to also build cars and that's kind of where our business is going now so yeah we're continuing to build some incredible cars for you know our um kind of direct clients so our b2c clients but uh on the other side of that we now have a significant opportunity you know developing powertrains for other other people as well insane what do the oems think of it when it first happened you know what did porsche think of it really interesting so we again i think you make your own luck but we we kind of we're so respectful to let's say the porsche you know we we um we we do not we try and make it look as as correct as possible as good as possible you know i'm sure you you know that singer had some challenges with porsche and people were calling a singer porsche we're not an everarty porsche we are it's a porsche it is redefined by a variety in terms of you know the work that we do right um we had a couple of really interesting again luck in the early days so i mentioned michelin earlier uh we had a partnership with michelin we still do um they were and i think this might have been 22 and maybe 22, 21, 22, Michelin had offered us a place in their supercar paddock at Goodwood, Goodwood Pester Speed.

30:06So they had four kind of vehicle spaces and they were talking to us about being one of them.

30:12Olly Fawcett:And such a huge moment for the young brand. Yeah, for us it's absolutely incredible. So we kind of started planning this and then somebody said, are Porsche okay with this? Because actually Porsche are the main sponsor of Pester Speed at that point. time i think they said they are um anyway so they did made some calls and and porsche said absolutely no we love what they do so that was a starting point um we were then at monterey car week in 2023 um so we had a really uh cool um sort of yeah stand there and whatever um and the head of head of porsche classic came up to us and said again looking around our car uh love what you guys do um so we've been very fortunate that again because of the way we approach it we're very respectful to the original brand um you know the way we do business is actually the client brings the donor now we may help the client buy the donor right but the work we do to that is it's actually their car when we start the work so again as i'm sure you know if it's your car you can do whatever you like with it um we don't sell a finished Porsche 911 EV we do the work to a car that happens to be in their name so that kind of is a slightly different you know technical process should we say yeah and do you think there's a point where I know you're thinking about other brands do you think there's a point where brands will start to not like it is is there a way that obviously you're saying it's about being respectful right yeah but again with what some of your customers want they probably want some interesting things in a sense so is there a way that you think you would approach that if you maybe think you're pushing it too far yeah look i think the the reality is again we we we we want to be known for to be doing the right thing and the right thing is being respectful to what was there before um and let's be honest be you know getting having the ability to use that car in a city that zero emissions having the ability to use that vehicle in in places that wouldn't normally see them around um so i think from that perspective you know you remember yeah there's there was i think 60 odd 65 ,000 964s built so we're we're doing a very very small percentage i mean given there's 80 odd percent of all Porsches are still on the road you know we're taking a fairly small uh percentage yeah what i would say is we also turn people down you know so we did yeah we had a middle eastern client who wanted to create a Porsche 959 as an EV um and we politely declined because that's too special um um don't be wrong if you can find a burnt out you know shell um we'll gladly look at it but that was kind of a step too far so so again it's about being respectful um probably the best way to be yeah longevity of the brand as well that's right so after your PR uh moment in London yes three years in how much of a springboard that give you in terms of is that that the moment where the business became something that's right it really was and you know i think um so that was again you make your own luck but that was very very fortunate quite frankly uh it also meant that we you know again had some so given that we're a fairly small uk company um almost 70 percent of our clients are in the us which is kind of crazy so that moment gave us you know global um or certainly international uh kind of coverage um so that really was the springboard you know second thing i mentioned before um a guy called matt rogers which is our first u.s client um he came to us and and again it was during covid so we couldn't see him he couldn't see see us uh he commissioned a car and the very very first time that we could fly to the u.s i got on a plane went to see him in um marion county and uh sat down with him and said look matt what if you don't are we asking we love that you've kind of done this with us but why um and his open comment was look you know i he's a very uh so his business had been in sustainability so it was actually he was one of the co-founders of nest which is the home energy saving device um and he said look justin i grew up in the back of my dad's 964 me and my brother's my our fondest moments yeah being in the back of my father's car but he said and because of his views on sustainability clean energy you know he was he actually had when i saw him i think it was day three he'd had the very first lucid on the road so he's out we lucid the parts outside we were chatting outside this coffee shop but he said you know that he'd always promised himself a 964 but he'd never drive one if it wasn't electric which is kind of the mentality of some of the clients that we we deal with um which is they're not you know these aren't necessary petrol heads they're going electric some of them are but others are just they have an absolute love of a certain type of car and their belief system and they they want to drive something that's zero emissions and therefore we're offering them something very very different than they get elsewhere as you can imagine yeah definitely so that point are you starting to get a lot of inbound a lot of requests absolutely was the business ready for that uh it was just about ready i mean i think you know you never turn these things down yeah so uh we started getting inquiries so so the the choice of vehicles that we did as i said before so we started with the the 964 very early however we also chose to do the land rover so our land rover series um so we now the land rover series twos and threes um very deliberately not the defender um i think you know defend has been done if we're going to do a defender which we will it'll be uh you know a more elevated um vehicle but we started also developing that at the same time so actually we could start to talk to clients that weren't quite ready at Porsche level but actually loved the idea of a you know a kind of a beach runner or something to use in in the mountains um so we've now got those yeah we've good grief we've had uh Land Rovers now in well in Switzerland um obviously the UK Holland Palm Beach Florida the Hamptons Boston so we've got you know we've got a set that people like Land Rovers yeah um and that's been great and again such an iconic car they're not they're not long distance evs but neither was the original quite frankly no i have one you know um it's uh i always joke that you know if you're doing more than 50 miles in one you need a chiropractor anyway so you're not you know that kind of puts you off yeah um so that was great and again we got some early clients on there and in fact early clients on there actually were some of my kind of friends and kind of colleagues from my previous industry so again nice they were great first clients very you know very supportive so again it's just using your network um and and creating those connectivity pieces um but yeah i mean so that was the other i guess what i would say we were kind of almost yeah we were we were developing that vehicle whilst we're developing the porsche just happens the porsche at the road first yeah actually when success is happening which it sounds like it was at that stage growing is painful and expensive did that feel like it at the time or was it just like this is working let's say no no it's it's like from the outside you have to you know look like the swan but underneath you're really really pushing hard as i'm sure you know so the big thing is i guess you know we're now at a stage we've had a couple of investment rounds we've got some fantastic investors it always costs more than you think but actually the opportunity is way bigger than than we ever thought as well so we're in a fortunate position now where the b2c business actually you know with the following this year will be cash flow positive which is wonderful and then it's just about growing from there uh the b2b businesses is embryonic but it uses exactly the same technology so that's more about how we go to market how we scale um but yes it's it's always hard there's always late nights there's always sleepless nights um but the reality is we love what we do you know we're very fortunate that we're in a space that is uh it's exciting you know um and we get to play with some incredible cars yeah we get to you know i'm i'm always astounded by the clients that we you know we will get an email from somebody that's a professional sports person just completely out of the blue um which is a yeah an amazing place to be as a small company as you can imagine and for you doing doing at this stage when you're going and building a business the second time very successfully what are the kind of biggest lessons that were coming from that 10-year journey you went on almost 10 years 20 years yeah almost now what are the biggest lessons you took from there to make sure you got it right or improved what you were doing this time yeah i think look you've got to have self-belief because actually there are days when you know this is really really hard um you have to we talked about this but you have to be able to pivot you know if there's one thing i'd say to anybody set up a business you know it's so unusual for that one idea to be the thing that ends up being successful so pivoting you know slightly yeah we talked earlier that we did different vehicle types um for for a very good reason you know yes we could have stuck to let's say the Porsche 964 but actually you know that's a fairly it's a narrow it's a fun market but actually adding the adding that let's say the mercedes-benz pagoda and the land rover meant that we were multi mark very very early right the key reason for that of course is they're generally fairly different biotypes but also the kind of clients we have i mean i was chatting to a client last week in california um and he said oh can you bring my vehicle back to the back to the house um and i assumed it was one of the other three houses already talked to about this is a fourth house and i think this is the point which is the clients we have have you know a number of properties generally so actually the Land Rover might be right for his one house but actually the Porsche is right for his other house and I think again we've got that ability to then you know help them with those cars in yeah which which is unusual um so again being able to pivot early is really important um and I and what I say is yeah you've got to have self-belief you've got to have supportive people around you uh my my dear long-suffering wife um and people that believe in you because i think that again it can be quite a a lonely thing being an entrepreneur having that vision but not everybody getting it you know and actually doing it it's always a challenge and also i think most entrepreneurs are really bad at communicating the feelings but also the vision sometimes to the one right host them in that in that element how um how would you say you know when to pivot when it's not working so i would say uh you're constantly evolving anyway right you know you're constantly trying something on the edges of what you're doing because that you know you never quite know it might be a messaging thing from a marketing angle it might be uh the publications that you're in from a pr perspective it might be how you're telling the story you know we actually this year last year shall i say we created the everarty coffee table book which is a leather bound you know kind of a hundred and sixty page book the story of our business which was kind of a real you know it was it was a moment of a big investment because that they're not inexpensive to create but all of a sudden i know there's 50 to 100 meter yachts floating around the mediterranean with our book in it alongside you know an aseline book a ferrari and whatever it might be so again having the ability to think okay how do we want to position ourselves as a brand it's not just about the engineering we're not it sounds weird are we selling a car yes but actually selling a lifestyle yeah and again it's all about messaging and pivoting and all the time sort of um editing and trying and if it's not working do something else and but not flipping entirely just kind of editing what you're doing and and refining what you're doing and that's constant quite frankly Do you think there's a time where you've got that wrong, like in a big way or, or is it more just been those micro adjustments?

42:08Olly Fawcett:I think it's micro adjustments, thankfully. Yeah. There's been micro adjustments. Um, there are elements that, you know, you, you, you learn from obviously. Um, and you know, I think there's, you know, we've had people on the team that weren't quite ready to be in a very small startup and they've, you know, they've, they've moved on, but actually our, our team is pretty solid. You know, we've had people from the beginning and very, very few people have actually moved on. So that's been amazing. I can imagine internally for the way the business operates and the product you deliver, it's probably about pushing pretty hard, pretty consistently.

42:40Olly Fawcett:How are you keeping the team pushing as hard as you are? I think a combination of shared vision, trying to make sure that you communicate as much as possible. um i think also you know by definition our team all have a real passion for what they do you know they wouldn't be doing otherwise you know there's far easier ways of earning a living quite frankly um but actually that that shared vision and shared passion and let's be perfectly honest there's not many sort of at the time three-year-old companies that can take four cars to pebble beach and have on show and you know the world's media and and kind of car people uh coming to that before i don't know but yeah i very yeah it's a it's a very small number i'm guessing um you know so actually being involved in something that is exciting you know that has the ability to i'm not gonna say change the world but but really change people's perceptions is is really exciting and let's be honest you're not selling photocopies you're selling something that's beautiful that's engaging that's you know it's it's a work of art quite frankly so i think again if you're into that kind of thing which a lot of our you know all of our staff are yeah it's easier right yeah they forgive a lot at that point in time and they understand as well right i guess their backgrounds must have been going through lots of you must have had thousands of technical challenges and thousands of client challenges but absolutely but the experience kind of comes through on that it does you know i think again you know we've been very fortunate that we have um we have people that have genuinely built cars from a piece of paper to being a you know successful supercar brand so we've got people that have got so much knowledge and so much experience that means that not only for our own vehicles but then when we're talking to third parties about helping them build a build a car yeah um we just got some of those nuggets internally which means that we're always adding more values and frankly just as an engineering company we're already you know we've got clients at the moment um on the b2b side that are building a brand new brand you know they've got tens of millions of investments to actually build something new they're coming to us as this tiny company quite frankly saying how would you market this how would you promote it what what do you do at pebble beach what you know and we've done all of this stuff over the last few years yeah so we're kind of um we're in a very very unique position and and that you know that bodes well because it means that we're then getting more and more people approaching us to do to do the same so we're yeah by definition you want to talk about it and yeah and people get to know about it with so much opportunity around you do you opportunity cost i think is a very interesting it is variable that many entrepreneurs have to think about right is that i could do that thing or i could get involved in that or i've got a little side thing etc how do you stop yourself from getting distracted it's actually quite hard um yeah it really is um i am i don't switch off really very easily so just there's always something going on i think having i mean i'm very fortunate i have a business partner that is good at that piece and kind of refocusing um and by the way things very rarely come off the list they might just go down the priority if that makes sense so there's not such there's very rarely a bad idea it is might be the time isn't right for that idea um so it is about trying to refocus it's about you know let's be honest seeing what what is ahead of you and what's what's priority number one and gradually kind of going down that you know going down that list and taking what the ones off the you know the wolf closest to the door or the biggest opportunity quite frankly um but yeah i mean yeah we're constantly talking to you know whether it's journalists new clients investors you know it you have to switch quite quickly in some of these uh conversations but actually because the product is so cool and engaging and fun yeah um it just you know it is not yeah i don't think there's many people you know my friends you know will see me on whether it's on being on linkedin or instant and i'm on pacific coast highway driving a really cool car again it's not really work when it comes to that you know i'm driving down you know um mulholland drive in a in a pagoda you know whatever it might bit yeah i get it but what we've done with that is create a lifestyle and a brand that people are you know is resonating very very well so and that's by the way it doesn't come by accident but we have done it kind of in a way that you know i'm really pleased with you know the way it's gone and the result competition people starting to look at what you're doing yeah in the last couple of years it's obviously exploded and expanded so much and it doesn't look like that slowing down anytime how do you look at competition so i would say from the outside world you're absolutely right we have some competition i think we would say there's probably only one or two companies globally that do really what we do which is redefine the entire car to i'll use the term concourse standard it's not concourse because the original engine is no longer there but to to a standard that is um so high that it's better than original better than new um so there's very few companies that do that there are people that convert cars and that's that's an entirely different space we redefine the whole car we take it right back to the chassis the chassis is treated selected it's better than new and then we build it up as an ev so there's very few companies that do that but my view on competition actually is that even those that do similar to us um are actually doing different vehicles so by the way they might by one of theirs one of ours uh which is which is great secondly i think um a rising tide floats all boats so in other words if there's more and more people talking about what we do that's good that's a good thing right and and we i don't think we've ever had a scenario actually thinking about it with a client that was that was even considering talking to anybody else um so now there might be people that that assume one thing which is okay these cars are going to cost x because they've seen what conversion costs and yeah it is very very different you know we've got thousands of hours of of engineering and even paint you know 3 000 hours worth of paint on some of our vehicles so it's a it's a big thing in in terms of um uh what we do there are people that don't get that and that's fine it's the same thing if you don't know your watches and want to go and buy a petech but you end up with a swatch right it's a different kind of uh market but outside of those individuals that probably haven't necessarily understood what we do and therefore what it's going to cost we don't really see any competition at the moment yeah in that side of things um and when it comes to our b2b market again we're kind of paving a market that doesn't really exist today um so again we've been very fortunate the way we've positioned ourselves our our b2b marketing and what that is by the way is where we're developing four turnkey powertrains for news for new vehicles whether they are sports cars supercars uh we've got some opportunities in defense and marine where again companies that need to build a new product get it to market quickly they don't want to go and hire 20 ev engineers they need to rely on somebody else to do that within you know working with a number of companies in that so those that maybe don't know fully what that would be the b2b product that you have yeah just explain it in maybe a simple simple terms yeah so really i guess what you know we are we are uh taking best so let's say you're a chef you know taking best in class ingredients essentially and you're creating a dish now somebody might want a slightly different dish so they don't want you know the power train they we built for our gt40 they want it maybe slightly more refined for a sports car or supercar um so we have the best in class components um and we bring all those together for what it's worth you know within our software environment we can then tune that we can do drive modes we can do all the things that you would expect of an ev that if you are starting from scratch will take you probably years to develop yourself we've done all that for our own cars and then we're sent selling that as a service that service i suppose i'm going to use another metaphor you know if you go to uh savile row and you want an entirely bespoke suit that's one thing yeah but if you want a made to measure i.e it's it's something that's already kind of existing and you just want it tailored to you yeah that's kind of what we're doing so we've yeah we've built very high performance powertrains we built mid performance and lower performance in different shapes and sizes people come to us and say actually i want to build a you know a next-gen sports car supercar wherever it might be i would like i want one like that yeah one and 800 horsepower and new meters of torque 800 volt system that's our dt40 now you might want to slightly different shape and size but we can we can develop that very very rapidly for them how have you managed to do that so quickly that's a very good question because we it's happened so much quicker than we like seven years in now you managed to do that honestly it's been so the crazy thing is we've not well how can i put this we we always knew there was going to be an opportunity there right and the reason for that is that you just look at the way the world goes and actually you know like my experience in the in the kind of financial services uh or the kind of fintech world the more innovation happens the more you have the opportunity to then you know punch above your weight quite frankly um but what's been really incredible is our b2c operations right have been what's driven our b2b market in other words we've done zero marketing in b2b and yet we've now got nearly half a billion dollars worth of opportunity and our beats a billion half a billion dollars worth of opportunity in our b2b market so it's crazy now not all of those will come to fruition um but the crazy thing is it's been on zero marketing dollars because we've even had a client on b2b um where they're building an ex-gen supercar the guy saw a reel of our gt40 doing donuts on our test track and i want some of that basically that's how you found it yeah and that's so you're basically saying without your b2c business b2b wouldn't exist that's right exactly so it is it's our proof point you know it's our you know we've got clients i mean generally we've got clients that use our cars every single day so we've got thousands and thousands of miles of data we do we basically we do data logging we don't currently do over the air updates but we've got we've got so much almost we're a mini oem from that perspective um and all of my team are used to working in oem environments so they're used to you know everything is has build books everything is professionally done you know we we we are very much um you know if someone came in to to view us again it's like a mini oem so what that means is then when we're talking to people that want the same we talk their same language but the point is that again because we've got so many cars in the road we've built a brand that people respect and love people then come into us and say i i just need some of that you know just give me some of that we want to be you know we want to be part of uh what you're doing and by the way we can get them you know we can get them therefore and because there are proof points you know we might be able to get their their vehicle program testing and on the road within 12 months that might have taken three years and and that's the real value add um i think you said earlier it's obviously about team massively but to be able to do the the operation you have is even bigger than i thought it was like obviously knowing the brand and i'm researching before their show but like it's it's way bigger in complexity than i even imagined is it just purely down to the right people yes because you also haven't raised that much capital so like i'm trying in my mind i'm trying to work out you know how you're managing to basically four or five times x the speed it would normally take in the way you're doing it i can understand the e2c connection that that element but like everything you're doing from operations to marketing to brand to technical to software like the whole picture for a brand that's been around for seven years it's just crazy yeah people i is it it look it's always all about the people quite frankly you know you can have the best ideas in the world but you haven't got the people around you to to help and deliver um and it's all about not only people but teamwork you know it's about having um that joined up approach um and being honest it's about being right place at the right time you know if we'd have tried to do this even four or five years before we did you know it would be in a different story i'm sure because again people's openness to what we do is is changed um uh and therefore that allows us to create some amazing cars that are getting fantastic coverage you know we're about to deliver another car to um a very wealthy individual in in san francisco again that car will be seen in the bay area by all the right people and you know you look at you know we sometimes forget how much um a money and influence there is in california but also a willingness for people to succeed as well and again this is you know it's it's a fantastic environment so you know we are we as a business are at the moment expanding uh to set up a base in in california um so i think from again from from a small company that's been incredible but to your point you know a you can't deal with other people b you need you need luck now you can say you can make your own luck but actually um which is entirely true by the way but actually you just have to if you have that belief and you have the right people behind you and around you pretty much anything anything is possible um sometimes as i say you have to pivot and sometimes you have to pivot a lot but actually um you have that core vision is right and again you just have some some luck and uh you know the right people around you incredible how much development time really goes into these projects from a from a from a team side yeah it really is significant so we're talking earlier about a project that we're looking at for a client which is um one of our bespoke programs so it's a private office bespoke um program where a gentleman um came to us and said would you build the world's first lamborghini lm002 uh as an ev um for those who don't know the significance of that car like just for non-car people yeah could you try and explain that yeah it was it was it was essentially it was built as a military vehicle uh first and foremost as a as a as a kind of an architecture lamborghini then picked this up and essentially it was a middle eastern um family that wants to create these into kind of cool off-roaders essentially um and it was then known as the rambo lambo because sylvester salone uh famously had one but it was a it basically used the same as the i think the the kuntash engine so big you know big uh huge lump in in the vehicle unfortunately it doesn't actually drive like you'd expect because it is a really quite heavy as a vehicle it's yeah it's challenging um it's challenging you've got to love it uh and really want to drive it but it's iconic right and again if you go and look at lm002 you'll see why it's it's arguably it's got a face a mother you would love rather than anything else but it is iconic yeah um and yeah i mean we've done a full study on that vehicle so again you know when we say we're going to do a vehicle you know we've we take it all the way back to you know the bare bones um Everything is 3D scan.

58:04Everything is weighed. Everything is catalogued. Are that literally piece by piece? Piece by piece, absolutely. No, you keep the chassis intact and the body on, but everything else, everything that can come off it comes off it. So we know the shape and size of pretty much every item. You know, we have 5.2 billion data points on that car, which is billion, which is, you know, quite a lot. So we've got a full 3D model. And then when it comes to developing an EV powertrain for that, You know, we have best, and we talked before, best in class motors, batteries, power electronics. So not only can we, you know, determine what weight we can play with.

58:42So we took 1.1 metric tons of combustion engine stuff. So engine, gearbox, transmission, you know, fuel tanks out of that vehicle. Clearly, we now have a 3D space that we can package. And by the way, 1.1 tons of battery and motor is quite a lot to replace, which is fantastic. um so we can and we we've we've got designs for up to a megawatt of power in that vehicle now a megawatt yeah which is again quite a lot um is an actually what how could you compare that to what uh so it's like a almost i mean if you look at what's in a taycan uh taycan is good grief i'd need to i'm licking my drinks but if you look at something like a rimac nevera yeah you know that that really really ultra high performance um is kind of edging towards that it's not that exact thing but my point is the interesting thing is because of the technology we can have access to we do have you know motorsport grade batteries we do have um a motor set that is derived you know and in formula e cars we have the power electronics and the inverters that are in again some of the biggest the best known hypercars so actually arguably we're kind of shrinking down some of the things that are in a nevera into a package of a you know of an lm002 whether we end up building it because you know he's in the uae and there's challenges there at the moment but yeah but i think the point is that's the level of detail that we go to and that's when you think the thousands of hours of engineering therefore that that go into it but what comes out of it of course is something that we can be hugely proud of and once people see those on the road somebody else will want one and that's the cool thing about what we do it's always need estimate from your side in that perspective yeah what's the

1:00:24Olly Fawcett:what's the biggest challenge with developing that kind of product like in terms of is it knowing how far to go is it just standardized challenges around you know what you're replacing what you're changing is there is there a common challenge that comes up with that kind of development yeah so i think it's combination of things obviously we are generally speaking the lmw2 is a bit different but generally speaking we're working in fairly compact spaces these are not vehicles that were designed for batteries they're not designed for so yes there might have been a biggish engine in one you know one or two of them but they're not you know they're not they weren't designed as a skateboard chassis for example like a modern ev would be so space is is always a premium our ethos is that we don't cut the chassis or the body so again we've got to make sure we're we're working within the constraints of the color at all no i mean there are areas you might have to cut a tiny hole for a for a cable but outside of that it's you know it's our whole ethos is the car is the star it's the most important thing and even though we're changing the power train and the heart we want it to look as good as yeah exactly right um the other you know the other key principles for us is it must never weigh more than certainly than the gross vehicle weight that it did before but ideally weigh below that so our porsches actually weigh about 20 kilos less than a 964 turbo why is that um because we use a load of composites so the body panels in the main are you know we'll replace with with carbon right but why do you never want it to weigh more because we evs obviously have a bit of a um uh you know a negative story around weight you know being heavier than than others yeah part of our engineering is trying to make sure they're actually lighter and therefore we kind of um knock down the head straight away yeah obviously you lose some range on that but actually our view is you know you'd rather have the car feeling as it did before than being dragged down by extra weight um and yes you can manage things through suspension and and various other things but actually if you can create a car i mean the 964 is a prime example that's about 60 percent more powerful than a 964 turbo but lighter yours is yeah so 60 percent more powerful now you can imagine this therefore a load of fun so you don't what you don't want to do is lose the fun element of why people wanted these things in the first place um our pagoda is just a work of art you know and actually um but you can do nearly 250 miles in that thing so it's kind of again the engineering involved in doing that isn't is quite significant yeah um so yeah key things are we don't cut the chassis and you know we try to keep it um below weight weight distribution and central gravity was again trying to manage uh to to being as close as possible to original if not better so again these are all engineering challenges that are way way more than most people would even consider doing but but the output is we get journalists in our cars and they absolutely love them and that's that's the great thing you know johnny leverman as you may know um uh it's quite a character he and i were on the angelus crest highway rolling down that at break next speed um and he said you know afterwards he said this is the best 964 i've ever touched you know and that for us as again as a small company um is wonderful feedback as you can imagine how does it feel for you oh it's incredible yeah if you read so there's a few things that are just make me so proud so first and foremost you know our team who are just so committed um and love what love what they do things like journalist feedback is incredible um we've got one client um who this is another thing we one client who uh lives principally in singapore but is has his car uh has one of our land rovers in his home in switzerland every winter he'll send me a picture of that car you know a beautiful background uh one year he sent yeah with his son in front of the car you know just just loving it you know um we uh i mean he for example uh openly says it's the only car that will get up his driveway to his home in switzerland uh in in you know in in their conditions um right through to other clients will just send me a text now again saying i'm loving this and again that that whole kind of you know we do it for a reason we do it to delight people and actually when they are delighted um it's a really good feeling yeah and the satisfaction for you with i mean the countless hours you put in so the sacrifice as well that's right you put into it must be make it all worth it completely yeah it really does and and again you know i can genuinely see such a huge opportunity ahead of us um you know there's i don't think there's many uh companies of of our age and size that have that much opportunity ahead of them at this point in time that aren't ai or you know uh or a sas business quite frankly so we're in a really interesting space i think you know i talked earlier about you know the ev winter i think is kind of coming to a thaw because the global energy crisis because people are getting more used to the fact that actually any you know those who didn't even look at an EVS time is to look at an EV new vehicle programs are now a lot of them are EV first rather than EV last or second or third yeah so so that from that perspective that's really exciting and as I say we're seeing opportunities in in other spaces as well whether it's commercial vehicles whether it's marine whether it's defense again they all need high-end sort of powertrain provision yeah and of course again for a small company that's super exciting getting involved in some of those projects as well you i mean your uh your linkedin speaks a lot about the industry what do you think is maybe wrong in public perception about the ed industry um so i think there's a number of things i think that um unfortunately well there's a lot of you know there's a lot of misinformation uh definitely um and without being too direct you know there's a lot you know the the billions of pounds spent by all companies for eb not to happen uh you know is is absolutely insane uh and in what games are they doing that uh they're just misinformation right and and and that clearly you know if you're a um uh somebody that listens to that and by the way i don't blame them because if they're being pushed that all the time um then they're going to believe it um and not everybody wants to look under underneath the surface at the reality um so That's one thing.

1:06:47I think, unfortunately, Western governments haven't helped. They've tried to force things, and now they've pulled back. Zero. Absolutely. And I think the problem is then, let's be perfectly honest, Western manufacturers have lost tens of billions as a result because it hasn't been clear. We're not saying, by the way, EV is the only option. It's an eclectic. it will you know power trains will either be you know there'll still be combustion in the same way there's still horses on the road by the way you know there will be e-rev so electric uh range extender vehicles whether you know the the power is uh still electric but maybe there's a you know power generator um clearly hybrid is there the challenge with hybrid for me still is that you're carrying around a a duds powertrain most of the time you know i was i was in a car yesterday uh doing a 150 mile journey it was in a hybrid it was an uber yeah he openly said that it's pointless having the you know having the two because you're in an uber for 150 miles yeah which is you know well it's quite boring uh there and back 150 miles so uh yeah but but but you know he was he was saying that you know can i say how much do you use the ev and settle unfortunately probably you know 10 percent of the time in and out of you know let's say into london you know my wife had a Range Rover, one of the very first Range Rover hybrids again, you know, at that point it was only doing 20 odd miles as a, as an EV.

1:08:13You're then carrying, you know, you've even got a four cylinder engine in a Range Rover that's carrying around a load of weight. So it just doesn't really work. Um, and of course most people don't charge their hybrid. So actually you just, it's just a complete waste of time, but for certain use cases you have to, right. And we're not, we're not unrealistic. EVs still aren't in mass market terms, still can't do, you know, four, 500 600 miles now do they really need to not really most i don't know many people that do 600 miles a day right but for the odd journey you know to drive up to edinburgh or down to you know john o 'groats or whatever you know it's it's kind of a misnomer people will buy a car for that one journey a year yeah and that's the crazy thing still but the reality is the technology is moving on so fast so to your point what's the issue so i think it's a combination of things i think um As I said before, misinformation by big oil companies has not helped.

1:09:10I think, unfortunately, governments are swayed by those. But we're not saying EV is the only answer. We're saying it's a very strong solution because also we're looking at E-Rev as a market. Can you explain? E-Rev is basically where the driving wheels are still electric, but it's topping up the battery. So it's using a small combustion engine that's creating, it's basically a generator,

1:09:32Olly Fawcett:charging batteries and then driving exactly you're also charging car that's right exactly right so that we think is quite an interesting space and then if you look at just pure play battery technology um we certainly are working on a couple of programs now that will likely end up being solid state or semi-solid state batteries um and generally that is a game changer it's been coming for for you know being talked about for for decade well it's only a decade now um but some of that's come into reality now and and that is a game changer you know it's almost doubling the power density therefore you can either massively reduce the weight of the battery or if you have the same battery you're doing almost double the range or certainly things then plus range and that's going to be a big game changer um and there are cars now that will do over a thousand kilometers um you know as an ev um they're just not all all there yet but i think again range is again i personally do 20 000 miles a year in an ev i've done i think i'm writing 80 000 miles in four years in evs um and i've charged eight times because i don't i plug it when i get home so i've only ever had to charge away from home eight times right in about 80 000 miles what's actually going there i thought it's a pretty big one but my point is my use case is i do less than 200 miles in a even a long day i'll do less than 200 miles so i've always got enough charge um i get home and if you know by 4 a.m it's charged again so i don't have to worry about it i know that's you know not everybody is in that scenario but um i think a lot of people probably are do you think the industry was kind of running before it was walking in terms of the industry i think 2014 2015 yes time so i think it was everywhere and then lots of negative came out about yeah and then like it was kind of like a work back and then governments are involved and bigger oems are it's just it was all very it feels like it's been up and down for the last 10 it has and i think there's combination things i think there's again not enough western oems jumped on this quick enough whereas the chinese absolutely have and you know if you if you ever uh get bored and have a look on instagram at some of the chinese uh vehicles that come through it It is just insane.

1:11:44You know, the rate of innovation, the fact that they built companies that are entirely vertically integrated. So the same companies building the battery, the motor, the power electronics, they literally are vertically integrated. And don't be wrong, they've had a lot of Chinese government support to achieve that. But they're going to take over the world when it comes to certainly the mass market vehicles. And that's what worries me now is that there are some really cool European brands that won't make it.

1:12:15Olly Fawcett:They won't make it. You're talking about smaller brands? No, very big ones. Yeah, because genuinely speaking, you know, if you look at, you know, people have a very narrow view sometimes and they'll look at, let's say, the UK market and they'll say Mercedes, BMW, Stelanis, some of the other products, you know, they'll see what's in front of them. And they'll still see thousands of these on the road and that's brilliant. and you know the anti-EV in people say I'll always drive a combustion car the bigger picture however is those brands used to be selling tons of cars in Latin America tons of cars in south you know in parts of the world that we don't necessarily see that's all being replaced by Chinese EVs right now um that's happening yeah that's happening and that's the challenge which is the volume is no longer there people talk about Porsche and the fact that they've lost billions uh over the last years and blaming it all on ev ev is some of it but actually that the chinese market dropped from being one of their biggest markets to being now one of their smallest because chinese innovation has been able to recreate the likes of a taikan and you can buy them for a third of the price in china um and and the chinese are less worried now about brands they're actually quite yeah back back in the day they would have porsche i've got to have a porsche yeah now they're very very supportive of local brands um and so so again lots of different moving parts but my my worry is that um some of western brands have left it too late and they're pushing back on regulation because let's be honest they have to you know that they are they're in a no-win situation you know if you're a german oem and you've got thousands of combustion engineers in your employment you can't get rid of them because the employment laws are pretty tight.

1:14:00So you kind of, it's unfortunately, it's a position where they're in a no-win position or no-win situation. So that does concern me. You know, I have friends at some of these places and they're equally worried.

1:14:15Olly Fawcett:Sustainable fuels, if that happens on a mass scale, do you think that changes anything? To a point. Again, I'd say it's an eclectic mix of different options. The challenge, I think, with sustainable fuels, in the main a lot of it's down to you know they're not purely synthetic there is a crop that's being grown there is there's a lot of energy that goes into creating sustainable fuels still yeah two challenges that first of all the energy you might as well put in a battery and put it in a car in other words you yeah you're creating you're using a lot more energy per mile than you would have just put it straight into a battery um and secondly you know distribution of all that fuel again yet the global oil system works if all of a sudden you've got to put you know different entry points into into the system it's quite challenging uh or do you just go to halfords and buy fuel i'm not i'm not sure you're going to do that um and then last but least it's still emitting you know it's not clean it might be cleaner on the way in and the argument will always be yeah but we're growing crops to offset the fact that it's putting out co2 yeah but it's still emitting it's still not um and by there is no perfect solution you know there is still energy being used to build the batteries in the first place but at least once they're built it's a very you know it's a very uh happy uh process you know and e and it's been proven even if energy is entirely coal-fired to charge a battery it's still cleaner than using a combustion um really car yeah so so again but there's a lot of misinformation out there from you know from people that don't it just feels like and it's obviously an industry that affects everyone that's you know in in most countries it's a sharing that and and also affects multiple industries indirectly as well as elements so it's just like it feels very messy yeah um but it also feels like with a variety what you guys are doing is operating in a certain part of that market and actually you probably don't have to worry about the ev hating as much we don't no we generally don't in fact arguably it's working um the kind of clients we have are fairly anti fairly anti kind of almost um establishment in some ways they want to be seen as different they want to you know there's a big thing in the u.s drill baby drill and use more and more hydrocarbons actually a lot of our clients are like the brilliant because we can be seen as different we can be seen as people that are kind of almost going you know not going against but we have our own opinion and we're going to demonstrate in what we drive the really exciting thing for us is because we're we're doing halo cars niche cars cars that actually you know genuinely i believe and and this is the really interesting thing when an ev can be as fun let's say as a gt3 through a canyon pass in northern or southern california is when the argument is actually lost in in many ways and that's that's really not far away now you know that is so so close um with light weighting with battery technology with i mean out and out performances is you know we've everyone's proven evs can be you know far more performant but actually when you can create an ev that's as fun as you know a black on a sunday morning in your favorite car on your favorite mountain pass that's that's actually not too far away now um and yes people will miss sound and yes people will do do other things but you know if you look at what bmw are doing if you look at what hendai have done on the uh the 5n which is yeah again pumping fake sound back in but a lot of combustion cars already have fake sound anyway so you kind of you know what's the argument against it i'm not a huge fan but i think there's great opportunity to increase engagement in evs and that's what people want they want yeah yeah if you don't want to be driven and i spend a lot of time in california and you know the freeway is full of tesla full self-drive people just sat there working yeah for that use case it's great driving into la why would you want to be actually driving but if you want to then go on a sunday blast or whatever it might be that's when you want something that's a load of fun and i think we're not too far away from doing that in some of these products that are being developed right now insane so for a variety what you mentioned earlier that it's grown and got bigger than you thought it would ever be on the the b2c side of things are the plans big yes absolutely um they are big but actually we we we want to keep it refined and what i mean by that is i you know we don't it's certainly never going to be mass market for obvious reasons right you know our our cars are between just so i have 300 000 pounds up to six seven hundred thousand um pounds so they're they're not for everybody by definition um but yeah we see other vehicles in in the pipeline which i can't read right now but there's a we get some weird and wonderful requests as you can imagine but some of them are really worth listening to so we've got a client at the moment who is um kind of a he's in in and around hollywood he wants a certain car yeah he wants that to be his legacy he wants to redefine and recreate a really really cool car yeah we'll do that then as a low volume series of vehicles and this is again if you've got the the wherewithal the ambition the vision and let's be honest some money yeah we can do some really really cool stuff for people and that becomes their legacy um so that's really exciting um but you know and i think what singer you know singer vehicle design approved is that there is a a really interesting space at this low volume halo high value vehicle market um clearly their combustion were ev but actually that the the the kind of ethos is is very very similar yeah so we don't want to be building too many cars obviously um but actually we want to continue to surprise and delight people and you know when they see them and drive them um see the smile on their face and none of the time are you making it yeah it's still low low numbers it's it's a you know at any one point in time i think right now we've got nine cars in build as an example um you know we don't build them one of the same place so we have a stuttgart partner for for our mercedes we have a land rover builder here in the uk and porsche we actually split uk and california just because we've got you know it's easier from from a client perspective um and we'll probably continue to grow that out so we've got a couple of conversations around potentially a bmw right now um so but it means that we're quite asset light so we do all the design we do all the you know the sort of um colors materials and finishes uh you know we work with clients to choose and develop um and then we have third parties but best the best builders frankly in in their in their own area to build those with us as well and do you think if you're doing nine currently yeah where do you think that production level so i think look i think we will be very happy to get to say 100 150 cars a year um we're not there yeah okay but when you consider that these are very bespoke you know uh vehicles you know we're not you know every every single one is unique you know our our cmf ladies her colors materials and finishes she's she actually uh was aston martin she pretty much every valkyrie on the road was spec'd by her with with each individual client so when you've got people like that on the team that can just you know they'll look at a plant and say right what element of that do you like is it the color is that the feel of the leaf is it something else how do we build that into into your your spec of your car there's so much you can do there's so many cool fabrics coming through that wouldn't typically be used in automotive but again you can start to think about that i love that yeah it's really really cool you know we've just done a commission um with a castle in scotland for example and again it's using their tweed it's using elements of a special part of the castle or there's no longer there um in the car yeah and again just entirely bespoken one-off uh pieces which is yeah it's great to do and great to see people's faces when they uh end up uh getting getting them handed over insane well final question for me is what does it take to build a brand like Everati good grief it's vision it's people it's hard work um and it's just people being committed to to what you do you've got to you know you've got to i think you know i said you make your own luck but it's it's so true in this space um given that most of my team are engineers they're not used to building a brand um my most of my career has not been b2c it's been b2b so i'm not been building a band i'm just one of these people i suppose that has always loved brands you know i see value in brand i see this the brand story um and and again we that's exactly what we're trying to do which is it's not it's it's about building a story you know it's it's creating evs out of cars that people already love uh ever rt you may know it's ever keeping great cars on the road forever rati is the goddess of love passion and desire which is what we all have for our have for our cars so it's kind of building that story getting that uh into into people's consciousness um so what it takes is is you know it's real commitment real drive a love of what you do because if you didn't love it this really wouldn't happen so that's like until you absolutely love it and the story's been amazing and thank you for coming on the show and just i think the innovation is is incredible that you guys are doing and obviously the product is stunning and is a work of art but i think the innovation behind it is just fascinating that you guys are building that and in the speed that you have is ridiculous yeah um so i'm interested to see where you'll be in seven years time because who knows at this point but thanks so much for coming on the show it's been a pleasure and i'm sure we'll see you soon thank you for inviting me it's been a real Pleasure.

1:23:56Pleasure.