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We talk about EVs, from the British perspective.
Practical, Technical and all about Electric Vehicles.
Welcome to the new episode of TakeItEV. Today I have Dan Caesar with me, and we're gonna be talking about green stuff, business, fully charged life, and perhaps other things. So, Dan, introduce yourself and, you know, and tell us briefly who you are for people who don't know, which I don't think people in the sort of who are listening to this sort of podcast won't know, but, you know, in case there is somebody who doesn't know who you are.
Dan:Well, thanks for having me on. It's really good to, to to be doing this podcast and nice to do it in person. I see you at shows and we kind of cross paths all the time, but Yeah. Never get to spend spend any quality time together. So this is good.
Dan:So, yeah, I mean, my, short, thing is that I'm the CEO of the Fully Charged Show, which includes the Everything Electric exhibitions, 2 YouTube channels, a podcast, and we also, about a year ago, started a a campaign against misinformation, called stop burning stuff. So all of that keeps me, pretty, pretty occupied, but I don't I've I'm kind of I guess when I go to the live shows, people know who I am, but I I don't think they do in the real world. You know, we're still we're still got a long way to go, before we kind of get all of this out into the into the true mainstream. So we're very passionate about making that happen, but it it takes time like anything.
greg:Yeah. I mean, brilliant stuff on the, on Everything Electric YouTube channel. So if people are not signed up or or subscribed, which, again, I can't believe that you're listening to this podcast and you don't know who you guys are, but, you know, I'll leave the link, obviously, in the description. So how how long have you been doing this? And and briefly, like, what what's the story?
greg:Like, how did you get there? Like, obviously, you've been doing other green stuff before, Fully Charged Life. Right?
Dan:Yeah. I met Robert 8 years ago. It has never not been interesting. It's really fun to work with Robert, and the market has been really incredible. We've had an an amazing, run of 8 years and and hopefully many more years to come.
Dan:But I actually started in the energy industry 21 years ago, and I came out of university, actually had a had an English degree for my sins and, I went into publishing, magazine publishing, and I found it fun. I found the whole principle of, you know, creating content for an audience really interesting, but I didn't I didn't particularly enjoy the sector I was in. And then I got into the energy industry, and that that changed suddenly. What I had had, which most people have, is a very abstract relationship with energy. You know?
Speaker 2:Power just arrives at your house. Yeah. You know? Your your gas comes through the pipes and and comes into the boiler. I never gave it any any thought.
Speaker 2:And when I got into that world and I started to see that for myself, that totally expanded my mind. And I got into heat pumps and solar, very, very early on from from you know, in terms of this wider market, so about 2,003, 2,004, and then into batteries and battery EVs, a few years later. And I've been for mice, you know, do my best really to promote those amazing technologies, ever since really. And it's amazing how quickly things have changed and how slowly things have changed as well. You know, I can see myself doing this for 10, 15 years at least and that's only I I wouldn't stop but at some point I'd be too old to do it.
Speaker 2:But, you know, the reality is that it's just an ongoing communications channel. All these technologies are fantastic. But for one reason or other, whether it's cost or accessibility or maybe misinformation, you're constantly trying to explain and persuade and entice people to come over and and try these technologies, and that's a that's a constant process that will continue for many years to come.
greg:I mean, I feel like I'm in a similar business except, you know, I've I'm a software engineer by trade, so I've never actually done any media training. So if you have any notes for how to do this podcast better, I'll, you know, I'll be happy to hear. But, in in all seriousness, so you've you've been doing energy stuff. I somebody asked me asked Dan about hydrogen, what what Dan what history Dan has with hydrogen, and what does he think about it today?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, the the one of our YouTube channels, the second one is called Everything Electric, and, the the live shows are now called Everything Electric. And that's really inspired by the electrify everything kind of mantra that you'll hear electrification fans, enthused about the world over. And I believe it's possible to electrify almost everything, and there will be some edge cases where different technologies are are required. But I'm very much of the camp that actually mostly everything can be done through electrification because it is everywhere already. You know?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's there's plug sockets all around us. Yeah. For example, we've done some of the, the hard work, already. And, obviously, what you can do with electricity from things like wind and solar, is obviously very, very easily, you know, get energy from renewable resources. So I'm a big fan of that.
Speaker 2:But I did actually I've worked fairly extensively in the energy industry for, 20 years and set you know, probably about 14, 15 years before I even started working on fully charged. And part of one of my jobs was actually to be a director of communications at a fuel cell company. So I have I have worked in batteries and solar and heat pumps and, obviously, more recently, EVs, but I did spend some time at the coalface looking at, fuel cells in quite a lot of detail, writing, you know, shareholder documents and and press releases and being at the sort of the cutting edge of the fuel cell industry from a communications point of view. I I have to say, technically, that's not my my thing. I think I'm the kind of person a bit like Robert who likes to be able to break down complicated subjects and make them a bit more easy to understand.
Speaker 2:So, inherently, I think the fuel cell is an incredible thing, but obviously there are some issues with it. And we've always said quite consistently we just don't we think it's a nonstarter for cars. Yeah. And we think it's a nonstarter for home heating. And then my pushback, my heavy pushback against hydrogen was not so much that it it couldn't, fulfill some applications, but my worry was that by desperately clinging onto the fact that it might be viable for cars and homes, the hydrogen lobby was actually neglecting the applications where it could do well.
Speaker 2:It was fighting a war it was never going to win, weakening itself and perhaps undermining its own credibility. But there are areas where hydrogen can play a role as long as it is renewable hydrogen. But then you come to another problem, the cost of that. And you need significant quantities. And obviously, there's a catch 22.
Speaker 2:You need demand first before you can, you know, ramp up supply. So it it has played out broadly as we expected so far. There's very few people now who will say hydrogen for cars with a straight face. And similarly in the last year, the, argument about hydrogen for heating in the UK has kind of collapsed. And I think that's right.
Speaker 2:I think, you know but if, you know, there's any hydrogen fans, you know, listening to the podcast, I'd say I'm a I'm a big fan of it as well, but, you know, it's about using it for the right applications. So, yeah, we've been fairly opinionated and and strident on that. But I the one thing I would say, the best thing available is, Michael Liebreich's fantastic hydrogen ladder, which actually breaks down hydrogen and the applications where he thinks it's a no nonstarter and those where he thinks it's, you know, applicable. And he's done various, iterations of that hydrogen ladder, you know, consulted with industry. He's super knowledgeable.
Speaker 2:He actually had one of the first hydrogen fuel cells, I think a solid oxide fuel cell in his house for his, combined heat and power in his house years ago. So he knows what he's talking about, and that's a really, really good thing to look at if you're wondering where hydrogen hydrogen can play a part and where it's probably not going to.
greg:Yeah. But, it's quite telling that you you kinda moved on from that industry. Right? And, it hasn't been as as as successful as as, as everybody. Some people well, I don't know.
greg:I don't wanna go on the hydrogen tangent, but the, I thought I'll just ask you because, you know
Speaker 2:It's a great it's a great it's a great topic, and it's it's fantastic. And and the company I used to work for was a was a was a fantastic company, but, you know, the the reality is, actually, that was at a time when I I just started to get to know Robert. And, I was kind of had one eye very much on on helping him. And I went and and and did a role, at that particular company. And they were really good guys, and they're, you know, technologically, you know, super advanced.
Speaker 2:But, ultimately, it you know, no matter how clever you are, no matter how you got a good with technology, if there's no addressable market for it, then you have a you have a problem. Actually, that company is doing very, very well because I think it's found applications where it would work. But for cars and heating, it was for me, it was always a a big red herring. So I'm glad I think the majority of the, of the population have kind of realized now that actually hydrogen cars aren't gonna come anytime soon, if at all. And and for heating, it's just a, you know, just a nonstarter.
greg:Yeah. So some of them actually got themselves EVs now, and others moved on to hate everything EV, but, you know, that's the, yeah, that's the world we live in. I mean, I again, I don't wanna go on a tangent, but my late not late, because it's still alive. Lately, my bug bearing is, bug bear no. What's the saying?
greg:The thing that bugs me Yeah. Is, when I go to Facebook or whatever social media and I see ads for, like, I don't know, Ford, and, you know, all electric van, there will be emoji reactions, and loads of them will be, like, crying or laughing or or annoyed, and I'm, like, it's an ad for a car. Just stop stop being such a snowflake. And I and I and I I think some of these people are basically, like, oh, yeah. Well, if I don't get a hydrogen, gonna be annoyed by everything and just, like, put my feet, you know, and, and be, be resistant.
greg:Anyway, that's just, you know, absolute tangent. But, so the cool thing you mentioned that I wanted to talk about next, I mean, if you wanna talk about fully charged, live and and shows, that's great because I think you've done a fantastic job. Like, Robert Robert was learning the channel, and I started actually watching him his channel when it started, you know, however many years ago it was, but it was a it was a fairly small production. But I think you're responsible for actually making it a big thing that it is now. Right?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I mean, I've been consistent about this. We're standing on Robert's shoulders. You know? There's no two ways around it. What he built was incredible.
Speaker 2:I met him, and I and I said, this is you've done it. You've cracked it because frankly, we need to take these communications to normal people. I've been working in industry, and we all went to industry events. So we'd all go, isn't solar great? Isn't batteries great?
Speaker 2:You know, aren't electric cars great? We'd all go, yeah. They're great. And inside was this kind of longing for me to say, we've gotta take it out to the public. How do we do that?
Speaker 2:And Robert had already started that. He plowed his time, his investment, his reputation into starting Fully Charged. And, we have a laugh sometimes because I think we were on about 60,000 subscribers when I came in, and, obviously, it's grown quite a bit since then. But 95% of the credit goes to to to him, and then I'm not even taking the other 5%. That's our team, you know, that have built upon what he started.
Speaker 2:And so from our perspective, when I came in, I said, it's amazing what you've done. The quality is like television. Because he had a television background. He had television sensibilities. So he was not just sitting behind a desk and and and presenting stuff.
Speaker 2:Nothing wrong with that, by the way. He was producing stuff which could have passed off for real TV. And with the advent of, you know, better camera technology, he was able to do stuff much more cheaply. And I was just awestruck, and I just said, well, you know, how big is your team? How does this work?
Speaker 2:I was just genuinely I wasn't even angling for a a role. I was just genuinely interested. And he basically almost started crying. It's it's me and one camera guy and someone else helps occasionally, and I plowed money into it. I don't made money out of it.
Speaker 2:And, you know, and I I shared the same passion as him. I said, well, I I think I can I think I can be the other the other bit that you're missing? You know? I think I can help, to turn it into into a business with, you know, turn it from pirates into navy. And that's hard for the audience sometimes, I think, because we've been, you know, an insurgent, and we have to become a a business.
Speaker 2:And I I feel sad about that in some ways as well. You know, we would love to be the people sort of the rebels shouting on the sideline, but, obviously, we can, I think, move more people into EVs, into these technologies if we're part of the the the the the broader, industry? And so, yeah, the first thing was an event, fully charged live back in Silverstone in in 2018. And I just worked in the bottom of my garden to get that going. I have I have an office, by the way, and it's sitting in the corner of my garden.
Speaker 2:And, and I remember it. It was it was a real real real slog to get people to realize what it what it could become. And, yeah, sort of winding forward a few years, it's been, you know, an incredible, incredible ride. And, I think there's a lot more we can do, and I think we're improving what we do, all the time. But, yeah, I mean, Robert is is I think most people know.
Speaker 2:If anyone's in doubt, he is pretty much the loveliest person you could you could ever meet. So generous and so humble. And so it's been, yeah, real real pleasure to work work with him, for him, and hopefully add something, over time. And I'm not, you know, trying to be be humble. I just I just think he did he did the hardest bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And we've been able to capitalize on that.
greg:I mean, he's a he's a great communicator. Right? The, he's got a bit of a silly side to him, but he's also trying to ask serious questions, and he's got a very good, like, presenting style, which as an engineer, I, you know, I like the facts and and dry, you know, to the point mocking about it. It's always it's always nice to to watch somebody who can be a bit, you know, bit fun about it, and, I hope I hope I hope to learn to, you know, because I I I got that side of me as well, but I can't do that on a on a podcast.
Speaker 2:He's he's he's really, really funny, and, he's really good communicator. As you say, he kind of makes it makes you know, I love engineering. I'm not an engineer, but I do I do appreciate the ability to take complicated ideas and then sort of repackage them as something interesting and, you know, to persuade people. But he's just natural at that, and he's we do get into script stuff sometimes and, you know, we do give him script sometimes, but a lot of what Robert does just comes straight out of his head, off the cuff. You know, he's just a a brilliant communicator and very, very passionate and curious, you know, really, really curious.
Speaker 2:And I think so a lot of the long term fans have followed that journey of curiosity over over many years. And it's been, yeah, it's been I I I love watching Robert to to this day and our audience too as well. And but as you know, we've got lots of different presenters now as we try and
greg:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Scale up our business, in terms of the number of episodes and also globally as well.
greg:Yeah. I mean it's it's great stuff. We're gonna take a short break and then afterwards we're gonna talk about some business stuff business. Alright, so let's talk about business, serious stuff, no I'm just joking, by the way actually if there's a music, you can hear music in the background whether you're in a pub or in a coffee shop, so, in a corner, but, you know, I can still kinda vaguely hear it in the background, it's a nice background music, I don't, so I didn't add it to the, don't ask me about this, I don't know who, I don't know what this is, coffee shop music. So Dan, if somebody say somebody has an idea for a business or somebody says, okay.
greg:Well, I know about this stuff, and I would like to actually do something about this, you know, nobody does it, or somebody does it but not enough. What would you suggest to said person to do? Like, how would you encourage them to actually do something good in life, something greener? Well, I
Speaker 2:think I think from my perspective, I've always said I have the utmost respect for engineers, and, I have the utmost respect for people who work in the automotive industry for example because that is competitive. Getting ever more competitive all the time, and doesn't need any more entrance. You know, I don't think anyone's probably listening to your podcast thinking I'll start a a car company. The the bar to entry is extremely high, and the and the the journey is long and very, very difficult. Really fascinated by what Tesla is doing at the moment and how Rivian are approaching things, for example.
Speaker 2:And Rivian, for its long, patient capital, are starting to make some real progress, for example. In terms of what I do, it it really is just publishing. And that's what we used to call it back in the day, publishing at events. You know, we'd have a magazine and I run magazines. We'd we'd we'd do events and awards and all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:But now what I'm doing is a very similar thing but for the digital age, you know. And first and foremost you've got to really really love it because I would say it's a cliche what we've done is really all about blood, sweat and ideas. The initial idea of coming up with a concept and doing it is one thing, but actually almost everything, almost the whole iceberg beneath the water is the effort. And I have to say if I didn't love what I was doing and if I didn't believe what I was doing I could have walked away, not just from Fully Charged, but previous jobs many many times. We used to have a business before fully charged called the renewables roadshow, and we used to promote those technologies around the country.
Speaker 2:This is we're talking 12 years ago or so. And the government I think David Cameron and the UK government came out and called all all the stuff that I was promoting, heat pump, solar, etcetera, green crap, and, removed policy. And that pretty much killed our our business as it was then. And so we've been through some of those ups and some of those downs, but it really is the determination and resilience that you're gonna need more than anything. If you don't have that, then you're probably not gonna be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:You've got to be a self starter. You've got to be able to get on with it. But if you don't have that thread of I really need to make this happen, people will walk away. That's that's the reality. So from our business, which is, you know, it's a communications business.
Speaker 2:Right? And I love doing that and creating content that hopefully will get people to go, yeah. I I would I will get an EV or, you know, I I'll get this EV or I'll I'll actually move to electric bike or heat pump or whatever has been a really, you know, a really great thing to to to work on. Because even in the tough times, I'm like, no. This is really, really important.
Speaker 2:It's an important job to do. As I say, as
greg:soon as
Speaker 2:I got into the energy industry, the first thing I was doing was actually around gas safety, would you believe? And I very quickly switched horses to heat pumps, but the reason that made me passionate was, sadly, with gas, there are, you know, there are carbon monoxide poisonings, for example. And that actually was my first real job in the industry was working on tackling carbon monoxide poisoning and communicating the dangers of that. And I met families who had actually lost people to carbon monoxide poisoning. And that for me was an absolutely significant moment because I thought, actually, what I'm doing here, it matters.
greg:Yeah. It gives you a sense of mission. Right?
Speaker 2:Matters, purpose, mission, you know, all those things. And if if you really, really love it, then even when times get hard, you can you can stick at it because that fundamentally, that's what all these things about. I bet I'm sure that RJ Skerringe at Rivian, for example, they've been building that business for well over a decade. I'm sure there's been times where he's wanted to, you know, put his head in the his hands and and sort of walk away. And he's sort of stuck at it diligently presumably because he shares that same through line, that same that same passion, that same level of focus.
Speaker 2:And, you know, I can talk briefly about Elon Musk, but probably until, until relatively recently, he was very focused on Tesla. And, again, that was his through line, and and he had to well, remember, they were extra tent on the side of the Fremont factory to build the Model 3 to the to to the level. He didn't go home, and he focused on that. And and that is really what it what it takes. So if you are looking to start something, you have to know that you can really fully commit to it because otherwise it's it's very very difficult to to see it through particularly in a new market where you're talking about emergent technologies.
Speaker 2:You've you're subject to the vicissitudes of politics. You know, so policy gets removed to do with maybe, I don't know, plug in car grant or EV charges and your business is in that area. Yeah. That can be extremely painful to to adjust to that. So, yeah, above all else, you have to have very, very thick skin and a clear, clear mission.
greg:Yeah. But I I do think that now is probably the the best time to get into more green technologies. You know, I know people who started something in 2015, 16, and that didn't get the traction, or they had to search for for, outside investment, and we know how badly that can go sometimes. So, you know, I think now is the much better time to the, the the the curve of the uptake of all the, like, people buying EVs and then getting themselves into heat pumps, solar, and all that is much the the wind's picking up. And, obviously, in the UK, we have a change of the government, which hopefully is gonna, remove a lot of the, the anti green crop.
Speaker 2:Yeah. In in in the UK, at the moment, at the time of recording, the sentiment towards electric vehicles and clean tech is much more positive. And that is important because it sends a signal. It sends a signal that these technologies are legitimate and also sends a signal equally important to negative trolls, for example, that, you know, this is the the the direction of of travel. We have regressed in terms of what we've done around clean energy and EVs over the last few years.
Speaker 2:And now with the new government, we there's a sense of optimism again, and people are starting to maybe invest and think this is a market to get into. If I, right now, had to choose a job and I had to start a business, I would get into installing clean energy technologies for homes. That would be for me the logical thing to do. I can't make them, but I could install heat pumps or I could install solar, and we know what's coming. I think the educated people who know the industry will know what's coming with vehicle to grid, you know, all those technologies.
Speaker 2:Anything to do with electrification of homes and buildings, I think you will have a job for life because it's gonna take an army of people to actually install all those technologies over the next 2 or 3 decades.
greg:Yeah. I mean yeah. It it's okay. That's a that's a good point that the you don't have to come up with a super original idea. It, you know, could be just something that needs, you know, momentum and build up.
greg:Although, I don't know how I feel about people installing solar. I mean, when we had our solar panels installed, I purposely, seeks 3 or 4 quotes, and I would say 2 or 3 of those companies no longer exist. And what they offered me for the money that they offered me was just, I mean, pardon the phrase of cheap Chinese crap. And the other company that I picked was slightly more expensive, but they're still on the market today. I can go to them and get the support 7 years later.
greg:So, you know, I think it's important to build businesses like that that are sustainable, not just about sustainability.
Speaker 2:Consumer protection is really, really key because, actually, I'm I'm making it sound like I didn't I could install solar panels tomorrow. I I couldn't, but it's not desperately complicated, and so the bar to entry is relatively low. And, obviously, when there was, you know, feed in tariff and things like that, obviously, there were a lot of people who moved into that market and and, you know, some for the right reasons and and others just to to make a, you know, a quick financial killing. So, solar actually was an interesting ten years ago was a very, very interesting period in the UK solar industry. But, yeah, those consumer protections are really, really interesting, and that's why, you know, organizations like the MCS, Microgeneration Certification Scheme, the Renewable Energy Association with its RECC, you know, that that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:So you can make sure you're picking the right installer and getting the right the right product is is absolutely critical. So, yeah, I think, I think the UK has improved a little bit, but there was a while where we had it was just an anecdotal. I just don't know. It's popped into my head. We had a guy come around and, you know, he, you know, he he just they just clean windows, which is obviously a great profession.
Speaker 2:Everyone needs their windows cleaned, but he said, oh, yeah. He pointed at my solar panels. He said, oh, yeah. We we were doing that until recently. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So, you know, so he was, I think he was kind of you know, lots of people just jumped on that bandwagon because it was it was, you know, there was a lot of money in it for a while. And, obviously, it's taken a while for that to consolidate. And and now I think the quality of installers is is is much, much higher, and there are consumer protections in place, which is super important. But, yeah, all these technologies, there could be heat pumps. There's lots of other electrification of heat technologies.
Speaker 2:You know, I talked about, you know, vehicle to grid, EV charging, and so on and so forth, anything like that. You know, a robot AI is not gonna be able to come in and and put a heat pump in for you. They might be able to do some of the calculations and tell you what, is best for your technology, but you're still gonna need people to come in and and do that. So, yeah, if I if I had to start again, I had a small pot of money and I was gonna bet it on something, that's what I would do.
greg:I mean, previous guests on this podcast, My Energy and, Duracell Energy, and some other companies I spoke to at your show into you know, not not on the podcast, but just, like, talking to them at their booths. Everybody's trying to make their their installations much easier to to to do for the installers themselves, a, to kinda minimize the support goals, but also to encourage people, I think, to become engineers who install things in the house or in in businesses. So, I mean, that's a good point. I haven't thought about it. I thought, you know, if somebody has a brilliant idea and they're not quite sure how to go about it or they, I mean, they wanna write another app.
greg:But, yeah, I mean, just going back to the fully charged show and or Everything Electric, you know, shows, one of the biggest kinda growth area is the, the home installation or I don't know what you call it exactly, but the the area where people can find out about stuff for the house, not just cars, not just solar panels, but actually heat pumps and, you know, other improvements. Is that gonna grow, or or how do you see that, expanding?
Speaker 2:So so we think we're we think, we hope, we're trying to build the electric home and motor show. You know, that's that's what the live events are designed to to be. And from our perspective, initially, we had a lot of traction with the car companies and some of the mobility, so maybe ebikes and motorbikes and vans and things like that. But very early on, I because home energy was my background and my passion. And Robert loved it as well, by the way, but very early on, I said, this is the other side that we need.
Speaker 2:We need to do both because so many people get solar panels and then they'll get an EV or the other way around. This is absolutely critical because when you get an EV, suddenly energy is much more visible to you and suddenly you're thinking, well, you know, which supplier am I with? You know, can I can I generate my own energy? Could I store my energy energy? These are the natural questions.
Speaker 2:So we've really worked really, really hard to to put more of that, hence the second YouTube channel. And also we we envisage the the show as being probably half of half of it being home energy. And in some of the shows, we've had almost that already. So we're we're building that out, and I think, yeah, as over time, you'll just see a really nice balance between electric vehicles, all shapes and sizes, and different home energy technologies too. And because we've called the shows now, the live shows, everything electric, we're actually finding some interesting benefits to that as well.
Speaker 2:Some appliance companies now thinking, oh, this is interesting. We've got energy efficient appliances. We had Stihl, the kind of the
greg:Oh, yeah. I remember. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The lawnmower guys Yeah. At our our last show, they did really, really well because they've got new electric streamers and mowers and all the rest of it. And what they're finding is that that consumer who's buying electric car might be quite interested in that sort of thing as well. So we had Starlink at our shows, you know, so it's bringing slightly broader audience as well as a broader kind of, exhibitor base.
greg:Interesting. Yeah. They're still actually quite nice. The, in Harrogate, I actually walked past the booth a couple of times and spoke to the people because some of the lawnmowers actually looked like the petrol lawnmowers, and I was like, should this be here? And they're like, no.
greg:No. It's everything you see here is electric, that that was pretty cool. But, like, speaking about MCS and and all these, just going back to the businesses, because obviously, fully charged show, I I I keep calling it fully charged show, it's everything electric show. I think I'll never,
Speaker 2:like Robert still does the same thing.
greg:It's just, you know, it's been years. Right? So it's very hard to rename things. The, how does that how does the UK kind of perspective compare to Australia and Canada and the US? Do they have, like, if somebody's listening from the US or Canada or Australia and has a sort of bugbear about, you know, doing something for the green business industry, Would the the the would the stuff you said about consumer protection and stuff translate very well there, or how how do the how does those countries compare to to the UK?
Speaker 2:Well, the Australian market is the most switched on, I would say, Pun intended. You know, it really is a very vibrant market. They've got so much solar there. So much solar there. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:And in fact, you know, energy providers are working out to turn that off or they want to put it into into batteries. So they're pretty well switched on. We've got about a 1000000 solar rooftops in the UK. They've got a 1000000 in Queensland alone. Wow.
Speaker 2:And so it's quite common to have a solar rooftop and to have a battery as well. So Australia very, very switched on. EV market is starting from a lower base there, but it's growing very fast. It's a really vibrant market. We've got one exhibition there in Sydney.
Speaker 2:We're looking to add a second, in 2025. We've got cities vying for that. So I think Australia is is is a good exemplar. We've got loads of wind here, whereas Australia's got loads of solar, but Canada, and where we operate in British Columbia and Vancouver, has got loads of hydro. So most places have got some sort of, you know, resource or strong in some sort of resources.
Speaker 2:And what's really interesting in British Columbia is the huge percentage, the vast majority of of of electricity is coming from the hydroelectric dams around the province. So what better thing to do than to put that renewable energy, renewable electricity direct into the batteries and battery electric vehicles and heat pumps and so on and so forth. So that market it's it's pretty pretty sophisticated as well. And then America depends state by state. I'm sure I'm not gonna surprise you to say that that, you know, you would get much more traction if you would launch a, you know, a home energy business in California, than you were in Florida for example, not picking on Florida, But you would you would get much more immediate, interest.
Speaker 2:And in America, I think the markets are a little bit less mature, certainly in particular, states. But, generally, we see the same direction of of travel in all. It's just, you know, the future is here. It's not always evenly distributed. We say that quite a lot a lot.
Speaker 2:And, you know, America, bizarrely, is actually in some of these technologies is actually a bit behind, which to the fury of many Americans, and often a lot of the people you might encounter online who are quite anti EV are often Americans because they see a lower proportion of EVs rolling around there and a higher proportion of plug in hybrids, for example. So some of the most virulent anti EV sentiment we see comes from
greg:America. America.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Probably not California either to be fair, but but other other states and obviously that that that could get a little bit worse before it gets better with the presidential election coming up in a couple of months.
greg:Yeah. We'll see how that goes. I'm not gonna speculate, but, you know, that'll be interesting. So we we're coming up on time, but, last question I wanna ask. So, again, going back to business because and and Everything Electric, you guys had a fundraiser recently.
greg:Right? How did that go and what is the future of of Everything Electric? I mean, some somebody asked me to ask you said, oh, is Everything Electric gonna sell to a major TV broadcaster, or are they gonna stay independent? You know, peep some people are worried basically because they love what you guys do. So how did that go?
greg:What is the future? And, you know, what can you tell us?
Speaker 2:Yeah. We've we've we've fundraised three times in the last, 4 years. We don't fundraise as much as car companies. We're not as expensive to run as that, but, obviously, we need a bit of headway and we need to invest in in new things. And sometimes, we need money in advance to to to do that.
Speaker 2:The events business has been quite profitable, but the most of the events are in their 1st, 2nd, 3rd year. So, actually, the the real the real win comes when they get into their 4th, 5th, 6th year when they become more, mature. So we've just crowdfunded before COVID, thank goodness, because we didn't have get to run an event for 23 months. So that was, that was fortuitous. We did a a larger raise, last year, so we could, adjust what we were doing internally.
Speaker 2:We can move into more areas. We could bring in a a chief commercial officer, and that's been very successful. And then we just did a little top up raise this summer. At the end of last year, I was so shattered after doing 5 events around the world. I kind of collapsed in December, and we finished our last our last race slightly early, so we just did a little top up this summer.
Speaker 2:But the the reality is that from from our perspective, we have we see big big growth in the exhibition business. Obviously, we want the YouTube bit to grow. That's the core. That's the beating heart of the show. But the exhibition business, we see that we will go from 5 exhibitions a year globally, this year to 10 a year by 2030.
Speaker 2:That's a big endeavor. Then we also think we might be able to license events out to other places, places that I'm not gonna say that we don't wanna go there, Greg, but places that we are less well equipped to run shows in.
greg:Yeah. You want somebody local who works in the local.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Obviously, language is a big culture is a big factor. But then beyond that, you know, we still have ambitions of of of actually, you know, being on a streaming platform. There's things that we could do with ecommerce. The list of things that we could do goes on, on, on.
Speaker 2:The hardest thing with the business has obviously been if you don't have huge financial headroom is is if you've got, you know, if you've only got sort of 12 months runway, for example, you might not make the best strategic decisions. So we certainly will be looking for opportunities where we can have more headroom in the future, which may mean the logically that someone bigger comes in to to invest in the business in a much bigger, bigger capacity, whether that's as an investor or someone who wants to acquire us, is is unknown at this point in time. One thing I can say is that from my perspective, Rob and I are absolutely committed to the long term. And if we were to get to the point where someone was gonna come in and and invest heavily, it would have to be on the right terms and the right the right the right people. How many times have you seen have we all seen businesses be scooped up by bigger entities and then the businesses failed because the the founder or the founders weren't involved or similarly because maybe the intentions of the purchasing company weren't pure.
Speaker 2:We've seen that in our own sector. I'm not gonna name names but we've definitely seen companies sort of hoover up, and then you very you don't really hear about them again. That would be a huge shame having put 14 years effort into this. Robert and I, Robert's slightly older than mine but Robert and I are very happy to put in another 10, 15 years minimum. And and from my perspective the potential for what we have is is huge and still largely untapped.
greg:I mean, I'm not gonna go we don't have time to for me to moan about the how badly some financial investment companies can, you know, destroy businesses or squeeze everything out of them, like, to their own not not even in their own benefit, in my opinion, but hey ho. Anything you wanna announce, like, I mean, you know, obviously, there's fully charged shows or sorry. Keep on doing this. Everything Electric shows coming up. I think there's one in Vancouver and but there's there's ones in the UK.
greg:Anything else happening in 2024?
Speaker 2:Well, Vancouver is the is the thing that's occupying me right now. By the time this comes out, hopefully, we would have delivered another successful event, our 16th event around the world globally. Rivian are gonna be there amongst a whole host of electric vehicle companies, possibly our biggest ever contingent of EV companies at one show ever. Farmborough is looking good. So I definitely, if people are starting to look for something to do in October, I'd strongly recommend looking at Everything Electric South.
Speaker 2:And then next year, we have the show in, Sydney in March, London in April, returning to Vancouver in September, back to Farnborough in October, and we're working on a 5th show for November next year, but we'll have to keep you, in suspense on that one. We we do wanna go back and do everything electric north again, but due to timelines we might give that one a a year's rest because we have a very tired team. So we have to we have to kind of take that into account, but we've loved doing that show as well. We've obviously done Amsterdam in the past. We've done the US.
Speaker 2:All of these things are are probably gonna come back, but it's about doing it in the right the right order. We've got really looking at the US quite closely at the moment because it could be a place we really want to go next year or it could be a place we we don't wanna go for another 4 or 5 years. So politics plays unfortunately quite a large role, but, no, we're we're we're really really enjoying life. We're really grateful for everyone who watches the channel and attends the events. There's lots more to to come from us.
Speaker 2:We think we're only getting started. And, frankly, this this you know, we're still in the early really, really early mainstream, the foothills of the growth of these technologies. You know? There's still so much work to be done. So, you know, we've got, we'll be quite tired soon because of Canada and pharma, but we've still got plenty of, plenty of energy and and plenty of drive and and desire to to really make this, this change, happen.
Speaker 2:But thank you very much for your time.
greg:No worries. Thank you. I'm coming up on time. I'll I'll be in Fambra. I'm looking forward to it.
greg:I've got room booked, so, you know, I'll be local, basically. I'll be I'll be staying local. And, hopefully, I'll record more podcasts in there. We'll see how that goes, but I love coming to the, Everything Electric show, and if you haven't been to 1, I highly recommend it. It's a great day out with a family, like, everything can everyone can find something.
greg:If you're just curious, if you wanna test drive cars, if you wanna talk to somebody who actually knows what they're talking about, or if you're, you know, not sure about EVs or anything electric, I think there's loads of great talks and, like, yeah, it's it's a great things it's a great place to be for a couple of days, I I would say, or even just one day, like, so, anyway, highly recommend, I'll leave some links down below or you can Google it, Everything Electric is very easy to Google, and, thank you, Dan, for your time.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. Really good to talk to you.
greg:Alright. Give us, give us an outro.