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We talk about EVs, from the British perspective.
Practical, Technical and all about Electric Vehicles.
Welcome to Take It EV, your go to podcast uncovering the world of electric vehicles and the clean energy evolution an evolution as well. I'm Greg, your host, and I'm thrilled to have, have you here today. Thank you for listening. We have an awesome interview for you today. We've got a special guest joining us, David Martel, a visionary behind Polar Network and the currently CEO of Anderson EV Charging.
Speaker 1:And, he'll be sharing his invaluable insights with us. Before we dive in, a quick heads up. This recording was made at Fully Charged Life, so there's gonna be some background noise despite that. I, of course, want to express my sincere gratitude to the wonderful team at Fully Charged Life, especially Dan Caesar and Robert Llewelyn for granting me access, to the show. This made episodes like this possible.
Speaker 1:I would like to thank today's sponsor Our sponsors, my awesome patrons. If, if you would like to, you know, support this podcast, Just it's totally optional. Just check out the, patreon.com/takeitev. I would really, really be Grateful if you do. If you do, you know, support me.
Speaker 1:But again, totally optional. Now let's embark on An exciting conversation as we delve into the industry and the latest developments in EV charges.
Speaker 2:You're listening to TakeIT EV. I've got David from Anderson with me. David, would you know, introduce yourself and tell us what you're doing. What what's what's going on?
Speaker 3:Hi. Well, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me on this. Yeah.
Speaker 3:My name is David Martell. I'm the CEO of, Evios PLC, which owns Anderson. My background is I've been involved in the EV industry for, I think, 15 years now. So, and in 2000 and at at 8, I formed, ChargeMaster. We built that up to be the biggest, manufacturer and operator of charging points with 400 staff, the biggest public charging network, Polar, over the following 9 years, and we sold it to BP.
Speaker 3:So I then took a couple of years Off, but recognize that the EV industry was still in its infancy. Lots of new cars coming on board. Government's saying by 2030, all cut new cars gotta be electric. So I can see there's still a bit, a great business opportunity. So formed, Evios, and we, launched the, Evios, one product, In April 2022, which has gone very well.
Speaker 3:It's a high-tech, charging point for home use and business use with a PIN so you can select, number of different users, different different reports, and so on. And then in October 2022, we, Saw that, Anderson EV had gone into administration. So we negotiated a sale of the business, and within a week, we completed it. Anderson's a a great product. It's unique in the market.
Speaker 3:The fact that it's got over a 100 different, specification choices in terms of color, finish, and so on, it's got like a very clever Cable arrangement where you although it's a tethered unit, the cable is completely hidden when it's not not in use. So we bought it in, in October. We've grown it. We've recapitalized it. It's gone very, very well.
Speaker 3:We're growing sales at Growing every month by about 15%, and, we're here at fully charged, showing it off, and we're very pleased with it.
Speaker 2:That sounds amazing. I, do you mind talking about, your previous endeavors, or is there any, You know?
Speaker 3:No. I mean I mean, I, ChargeMaster, I I mean, before ChargeMaster, I I ran a company Called Trafficmaster, a telematics company, and we floated that on the London salt market. But, I've always been passionate for the last, 15, 17 years about electric motoring. I've and I've I've I think I've done half a 1000000 electric miles. I've got I've had, So many electric cars, and I I I I can't recall them all.
Speaker 3:So, so, yeah, I'm very passionate about, helping people go electric with, and we we we're pretty good at growing a a business from a low Key to, something very successful. We sold, Chargemaster to BP for a 130,000,000. I didn't own all of it, but I owned, you know, close a third of it. So we did quite nicely out of that, and, we look at doing a similar thing again.
Speaker 2:What made you start, You know, Chargemaster as a business.
Speaker 3:Well, this is going back to 2,008, 2009.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because it like, You know, back then, if you think about it, rapid charging, back then, obviously, not too many electric cars on the road.
Speaker 3:Very few. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the customer base, obviously, limited. What made you that's that's like early pioneering. Like, what made you go that way?
Speaker 3:Well, in in, in those days, we we got a Through previous business, Trafficmaster got a lot of connections in the motor industry, a lot of friends in the motor industry. And we could see this move towards Electrification, it was happening. And thought, well, actually, there's going to be a big business opportunity in getting involved in In, in charging, car manufacturers don't know much about charging cars, and Didn't really think they were gonna get involved in it. So it's really an opportunist thing. We saw the business opportunity.
Speaker 3:I've got a, you know, A bunch of guys around me tend to come to where I'm going in terms of business, including my chief technical officer, Jeff Solomon. And between us, we developed the products that we think the consumer wants. And, we grew, we grew, Chargemaster from literally 2 people. I can remember the 1st Christmas lunch we had with just a couple of us there And steadily built it up and went very well. Raised initially raised some venture capital money to to do that.
Speaker 3:The venture capitalists all did very well out of it. And I'm glad to say, obviously, with the late latest venture that, they're doing that now, I could finance most of ourselves. So, so the the fundamentally, I'm a businessman Yeah. With a passion for electric Technology and electric motoring.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's amazing to me because one of the things that you often hear is, you know, I'll buy an electric car. I mean, what I used to hear, been driving electric since 2016, so not as long as you have, but, you know, quite a long time by now. And or no. 2015, actually. And, what I quite often heard from people back then was, oh, I'll buy an electric car when there's enough charging on charges on the roads.
Speaker 2:And you'll hear from charger manufacturers oh, sorry, car manufacturers, OEMs, oh, we'll build electric car where there's a demand for it. And, you know, it's like a vicious circle, And somebody has to break it. And Yeah. You know, it's always always amazes me that somebody comes in and says, no. We'll do this.
Speaker 2:Even though it's not very popular now, but I can see this is Going somewhere.
Speaker 3:Well, it's a matter of seeing the business opportunity and using a bit of commercial judgment on where it's going. I mean, most people, I I think the press don't, the media overall, unfortunately, paint a bit of a Complicated situation for charging electric car. It's actually very easy. Yeah. Particularly if you've got off street parking.
Speaker 3:You don't have to have off street parking, but 70% of people do. And if you, if you, have off street parking, put a charging unit at home. You can have low cost electricity, often 10 pence a kilowatt hour, so maybe a third of the cost of of of running your car compared with using, Maybe public charging. And, you put your a lot of people ask me, well, how long does it take to, Charge your car. And I say I always say 3 minutes because I get home at night, I plug it in, go in, have my dinner, and go to bed.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I come out in the morning, and it's fully charged. So it's very simple. People make it unnecessarily complicated, and, so with Anderson, we try to make the whole process Easy and an attractive proposition. In terms of public charging, well, if you most EVs these days will do 200 miles.
Speaker 3:There's very few that do less than that. And on on a full charge, if you got 200 miles For 90% of the time, you never need to think about anything about charging apart from at home. And I I do 20,000 EV miles a year, and I've only used public charging 3 times in that year. So, and then, You know, I'm I had to go up, to north of, mountain north of, Birmingham the other day, and It was a journey I don't do that often, but on the way back, I thought, okay, well, I'll stop just a motorway service area to top up, Had a cup of coffee, put 30 miles in in 20 minutes, and carried on, and it all worked. So I think the charging experience actually The overall is is pretty efficient now.
Speaker 3:People you know, I'm sure a 120 years ago when people said about what about these horses' carriages and What are you gonna do to fuel them? Because there's no petrol stations around. Well, before very long, there were petrol stations because Commercial mark the need for them. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's a bit of a situation that you probably see here at Fully Charged Live. There's a number of public charging Companies, some of the oil majors, BP, Shell, others are also putting rapid charges in. It could be more. I mean, I think when I Sold the business to BP, and I was involved in their strategy for a year before I left. I said that you need to put rapid charges in every BP station.
Speaker 3:So if you see a BP sign, you know, there's a rapid charger. They're not there yet, but they will be. Same with, you know, likes of Shell and so on. So, you know, charging is pretty straightforward, and particularly charging at home where, it's so easy. You know?
Speaker 3:If you had a A petrol car and you could fill it at home, you would you would do that, wouldn't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That that's it. This is this is something that nobody who's never driven electric car for a while Can't comprehend is the fact that, you know, your your your charging station is at home. Yeah. So the the, I mean, I I I have so many other questions that I can ask you about the, you know, Chargemaster and and and things, but I don't know which way you wanna go.
Speaker 2:But the, with Anderson, The the main proposition is obviously a good looking charger that kind of blends in with the environment, and the cable is hidden so you can't even see it. 90% of the time when I drive past a house that has one of them, I don't even see it straight away.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Well, that that's exactly the point. They're they're the 2 Kia, I mean, it's got lots of nice features. It blends.
Speaker 3:It works with solar, works with low cost tariffs. But the main, unique aspects of it that it looks attractive. You've got different fascias, different colors, over a 120 different, variants of, of color and finish. So you can blend in with your house, and it's got a cable which, wraps up inside it, and is cleaned automatically when you when you put it in with with some brushes. So it looks attractive.
Speaker 3:It's unique in that area of the market. We work we got the preferred supplier with Jaguar Land Rover and with Porsche We're in discussions with other luxury manufacturers. And we see as the market goes forward, that, more and more people will be discerning about what goes on the side of the house? Yeah. You don't wanna, you know, there's a lot of wall boxes that, you know, you just got a cable hanging down.
Speaker 3:It works, but, you know, it looks pretty scruffy on the side of your house. And, you know, so our Anderson unit might cost, Yes. 3 or £400 more than others. But if you're spending a lot of money on an EV, maybe a lot of cars, you know, these days, you could, Yeah. Easy spend, you know, 50, £60,000 more.
Speaker 3:Porsche, maybe over a 100,000. A Range Rover, £100,000. To spend a little bit more on having something that's aesthetically very pleasing, that you're proud of when you got visitors around, say, look at this. You know? Where's the charging You can't see it.
Speaker 3:It's it's it's a it's a good one investment. You probably know when you if, you know, if you buy a a new car these days, particularly at that sort of level, You get an option list where you can have, you know, different color lighting inside. You got different wing mirrors. You can have carbon carbon trim and things like that. Those options are often very, very expensive.
Speaker 3:And so, you know, spend a a few 100 quid in, in getting a really nice Looking charging point is is something more and more people are, you know, going going for.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That you mentioned the, solar? Yeah. What what level so I I've got a ZapE, which is my energy product. It's quite famous for, you know, the the Redirection of of solar energy.
Speaker 2:Does your, does Anderson work the same way? Or
Speaker 3:Yeah. It our unit, Does everything the SAPI unit does, in terms of solar integration with electric electricity. So you can you can choose to, You can choose to just use solar. So if you're you've got your car park for 4 or 5 days, you can leave it on. Charge it completely even even in the British climate.
Speaker 3:You can choose to use a mixture of solar and the grid. So it's fully it does all all that. And, all the same with, off peak electricity increasingly Going forward, I mean, we've had a disruption in the energy business in the last 2 or 3 years. It's now getting to the stage where, energy companies looking for customers, And they're looking for customers that will use that use electricity at times when there's plenty of supply. An EV is perfect for that because you, you know, you don't, you don't do your cooking too much at 2 o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2:No. But
Speaker 3:you do charge your car, so it's perfect. The EV's perfect for using some of that renewable electricity that's that's available at time of day. So we do we see increasingly, energy companies They are offering tariffs that are very attractive if the if the charging point can use it. And it's I was making the point that, people I know, you know, with petrol and diesel, there are a number of apps around which show you where the cheapest fuel is, Particularly used by taxi drivers and things like that. And people will go maybe a diversion of a mile or so to get petrol 2 or 3 pence Cheaper than somewhere else.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that's, you know, maybe a, you know, a a a very small, saving. With elect with electric charging, you can literally do more than half half your cost.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Public charging, as you know, is pretty expensive. And so charging home, particularly if you can take advantage of solar and you can take advantage of, low cost tariffs is, Yeah. Certainly. I think as the market matures, people are gonna get and and obviously, you know, people with with podcasts like like yours were helping to get the message across. People recognize that actually they can save an awful lot of money.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. We we currently have 7 and a half pence, per kilowatt hour, at night?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Between half midnight and half four, I think. Yeah. Which, you know, it cost me, like, 2 quids to charge the car Yeah. From 0 to 4, if I wanted to, probably a little bit more. I can't really I can't really do the that much maths in my head, in the morning, but, You know, it's
Speaker 3:cheap. That's just And and and people I mean, I think where we can spread the word is so let people know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that that actually He makes running an EV very, very attractive. And, you know, particularly if you mix it with solar. Yeah. And, It's something that's so easy too because, you know, you've got the right kind of charging point like, like the Anderson unit. You it does that all that sort of stuff automatically for you.
Speaker 3:So you don't have to consider, okay, well, well, you know, I've gotta I mean, we have an app that is very intuitive, and so you just set it up so that, you know, You let let let it know what you want. If you wanna boost it and charge more quickly, you can do that very easily. And, Yeah. You wake up in the morning and see, you know, what what your car's done overnight, you know, by just looking at your app whilst you, you know, get getting out of bed. So it's great.
Speaker 3:You know, it's a Great experience. And I think, yeah, the very fact that there's so many people at, you know, shows like this shows that there's more and more people going towards electric motoring.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. I didn't mention the fact that we are fully charged live, which is why there's so many noises going around in the background. Okay. But, yeah, This this show, I've been here 3rd or 4th year now. It just grows steadily every year.
Speaker 2:There's more and more people coming in, more and more, you know, Different businesses showing, and I'm just amazed. Like, you know, I remember the one of the first ones of these was Just a whole or even half of it.
Speaker 3:But they originally had the Silverstone, didn't they?
Speaker 2:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was quite small by comparison.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Anyway, so with the, With the, the Anderson, we obviously as we're getting getting the electrification, you know, domestic electrification Of cars and other things going, there's gonna be more and more demand to have multiple charges at home, Potentially. You know, I don't think that's the case even if you have 2 cars, but there might be times when you need to charge 2 cars. Yeah. Do you see yourself Expanding into that or do you have any other We've
Speaker 3:been to that already. I mean, in my in my home, we got 2. My wife's got an electric car. I've got an electric car, So we got 2 units.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:The the limiting factor normally is the, is the supply into the house.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, most cars Charge at 7 kilowatts, which, is fine for most. But to to charge, most houses have got a maximum 100 a 100 amp supply to the house. So we have the ability to Balance the the power between 2 units. And, and that's, something I agree with with you. It's gonna be more and more.
Speaker 3:If a a 2 car family wants to charge at the same time, you might you probably often won't be able to charge at the full rate, with both cars because not nothing to do with the charger unit or the car. It's the fact that supply going to the house.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And, I mean, it's interesting in mainland Europe, most, houses have three phase supply.
Speaker 2:Correct. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Fairly unusual in the UK. About 30% of our charges are supplied three phase. We do a three phase 22 kilowatt unit as well as a 7 kilowatt unit. But the the idea the thing is to give flexibility, and and, and if you want to, you know, if somebody wants to upgrade, you know, their supply is often Often quite expensive. And often it's unnecessary because, you can you don't need to have your car drop your car up every night.
Speaker 3:I mean, particularly, you know, like, my wife is often at home in the daytime more than the nighttime. So, you know, nighttime, I can charge my car, and My wife can charge in the daytime. Yeah. So yeah. So, you know and and you can set all this up pretty easily.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I, I charge at home I I work from home most of the time. And, unless I go to a show like this or visit family or people, other friends, but, yeah, in the summer, it sometimes gets to the point where There's enough solar energy going to the car that we have to draw go for a drive in the evening just so that next day, we can top up that much more. So we just have a nice jolly in the evening when it's, you know, in the summer. That is a nice Free
Speaker 3:of charge.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Quite literally. Yeah. Even though it's obviously from solar is quite It's much cheaper than or, than even using the, the cheap electricity parts.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I I I think going forward, I'm often surprised, you know, we again, we are fully charged, and there's quite few other car, charger manufacturers here, and loads of them don't have that option. And I always kinda wonder, like, this is, like, one of those things that's probably not difficult from a technical perspective, but it adds so much more value.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And I think increasingly, the customer wants something that's intelligent, that can do that kind of thing. Yeah. And we We cater for that, that, not only you got an attractive product, but you got something that does everything. You know, we got, you know, as I mentioned, a few minutes ago, we A lot of experience in this industry.
Speaker 3:I got a great technical team. So as more and more opportunity, electricity tariffs get smarter and smarter. We're always keeping ahead of the game so we can work with those to give customer, low cost charging. And indeed, you know, I think that Area the market's gonna, you know, expand and expand. And people want something that's easy to use too, don't they?
Speaker 3:They don't want to, Yeah. They have to, you know, to spend, you know, hours looking at how do I work this app, how they figure it all out. They wanna be able to plug her in A charger and to know that it's charged, I have confidence that it's all working. It's all actually very, very straightforward. And we we you know, in the industry with with, with Anderson, we're trying to make it not only straightforward and easy to easy to use, but something that actually looks attractive on the side of the house.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Go going back to, to your previous ventures, then, because yeah. I mean, the the the car charger sounds amazing, and You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a nosey around your booth and and have a look at it. And if I if I could get a unit to review, I'll be, You know, I'd be happy to take it home for a for a spin. Going back to the, you know, Chargemaster, it it must have been pretty hard to find hardware back then.
Speaker 3:Fine hardware?
Speaker 2:Yes. To to
Speaker 3:We developed it all ourselves.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:So we designed, the electronics, the PCB, the the units weren't as sophisticated in those days. We haven't got an app in the early days. We had a 7 kilowatt and a 22 kilowatt unit, effectively a dumb charger. So you have to go through all the safety approvals, EMC, and all the rest of it. And we probably had 18 months, 2 years development.
Speaker 3:We launched the 1st Chargemaster Charger, and you see them still around. I mean, they're the overall ones that
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I know friends who still got them after, you know, 10 years, but fairly basic. In those days, there was a subsidy for home charge units.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You could get them for free a while, actually
Speaker 3:while you got them for free. That was abused by a lot because people were taking abuse of it.
Speaker 2:I I still know some people who never own an EV, but they have a charge over their drive.
Speaker 3:And they would probably paid to put it put it on there and drive it. It was a mistake by the government. But the, so we we we started with the home charger unit. We did public charging the post, both 7 and 22 kilowatt, we developed a, DC 50 kilowatt unit And, established a public network, with, some 7 a half 1000 Charges across the country. As I say, that, it was going it it went very, very well.
Speaker 3:We were going to float the business on the stock market, And then I had approached from PP, and I said, well, you know, if we can negotiate the right kind of terms, we'll sell rather than float it. So, you know, it's it was fun. A lot of the people I've got, quite a number of people All that work with me at Chargemaster came across to the current business.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Lot of lot of experience there. My head Installation engineer was with us at ChargeMaster. We we had 35 electricians on the road there. My PA and office manager was a charge master. She's with me now.
Speaker 3:So we got and and and same with
Speaker 2:as I mentioned. Team, basically.
Speaker 3:A good team. Yeah. And it's you know, we're very I think we're pretty good at growing a business, and the focus is making sure that what we produce is is what the customer wants.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean End end of the day Yes.
Speaker 3:That's the key that's got you know, you got
Speaker 2:They pay the bills. Right?
Speaker 3:Well, you you you got, you know, you you, I can remember, you know, people in, I've dealt with in who are involved in the you know, currently involved in the oil industry say, well, well, we're gonna We're gonna blend the market so that people everybody wants to charge at a filling station with their electric. Well, you can't blend the market. You gotta go what, you know, basically, the consumer will will do what they they wanna do. Yeah. And, charging an EV at home is the easiest possible thing to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like I say, 3 seconds. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 2:To fucking walk away.
Speaker 3:Exactly. And and and as you as you mentioned a few minutes ago, it can be as It could be cheap. It could be free.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So did did you guys put out any point involved in, because ChargeMaster, I remember, visiting the, the place,
Speaker 3:at Luton or Milton? Luton. Luton. Yeah. Of Capability, Ukraine.
Speaker 2:Just to do the the test drives because the because you guys had a program where you would give a car for a week if you won the ruffle.
Speaker 3:That that was at Milton Keynes. Yeah. The EV experience center.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But I'm sure there was 1 in Luton as well.
Speaker 3:We possibly did it from Luton. Yeah. I think we did. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But, at some point, I've seen I've seen the, I've seen you, You guys had inductive charging as well. Are you are you still thinking about or looking into it? Or
Speaker 3:We had a Partnership with Qualcomm, the big American company.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They're actually one of our shareholders, a small shareholder in Charge And, Qualcomm had developed well, they've actually bought the technology of a New Zealand company called Halo. And, we work with them to commercialize it. We had a number of cars, a Nissan LEAF, BMW I3, use a demonstration. We had a unit outside our office you might have seen, and it works. The challenge with and we we work with Formula E to put, inductive charging on, the BMW I8, course cards, safety cards, and to promote it that has been paid by Qualcomm.
Speaker 3:The challenge with inductive charging is, is is a bit chicken and egg. You need to have the cars with the equipment on. You need to have the infrastructure. And and from a car manufacturer's point of view, It's, the technology, it basically involves a big copper coil on the bottom of the car Yeah. And a controller and the rest of it.
Speaker 3:And by nature, that is quite heavy and quite expensive. And there's 2 things car manufacturers are always trying to take off their car It's weight and money and
Speaker 2:cost. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so it will come, as it's come with mobile phones. Yeah. A lot of mobile phones you can charge, inductively wirelessly, because it's great. You know, the idea that you can Park your car at home or park your car outside the office and just get out of it and it charges.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's great.
Speaker 2:You get away with, you know, you register 3 seconds to 0, basically.
Speaker 3:Exactly. You don't have to worry about it at all. And the technology works. I think the commercial side of it's gonna take a little bit of time. I would say maybe 5 years, you'll get 1 I mean, it's quite easy to do.
Speaker 3:BMW. We we were working with BMW on A, wireless charging system for the home, they they would sell the pad that goes in your garage at home with a car Well, they're actually leasing it because it's quite expensive. The the challenge they got so, basically, when you bought the car, you could put the pad in the garage, so when you Home, you you just charged well, let's see. So it didn't have to be, compatible with other manufacturer's units because that's the other thing that's, the challenge there is just cost. Okay?
Speaker 3:And I would say this will probably come at some of the higher end cars. Yeah. They they withdrew it from the market because of It just wasn't commercially available.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, like like you say, it's you know, the kit needs to be in a car. It's if it costs money to put in the car and then you have to put something in your drive. The overall cost is gonna be 1,000 probably.
Speaker 3:It it yeah. It it would came out to the cost of 3 or $4.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So it was, but it'll come. It's very attractive proposition.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think the only problem with these things that that I when I tested, you know, It's, one location is the the parking, the fact that you have to park very carefully. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You you the the the
Speaker 2:You can't just turn up on your drive.
Speaker 3:The system we had had screen in the car with arrows so you could see whether you're aligned.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But have you seen people parking in the public car parks?
Speaker 3:Well, you had to make make the assumption people follow that, but it's but it it it's not too difficult. And the and the system that we developed was, sufficiently tolerant that, You could, you know, you didn't have to be ultra precise. You're obviously within a few inches of Location, they would tell you. And if you're a little bit offset, it just lose efficiency. It still work.
Speaker 2:Okay. Any any other exciting things that you guys were working? Or or Can I ask you, what do you see going on in the future? What do you see what what do you see the industry is doing, you know, in the next 5 years? We talked about the, the inductive charging, do you think might make a return?
Speaker 2:Anything else you you,
Speaker 3:I I I think I think more and more people will have, you know, EVs. Most EVs, you know, there's gonna be a big shift towards of the Chinese manufacturers
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't think, you know, I think the consumer is going to We support for choice.
Speaker 2:I mean, we already are. Like We already we already
Speaker 3:are to a degree. But some of the Chinese The Chinese market is the biggest in the world bound for EVs. It's going to you know, and some of the manufacturers over there, the quality is really good. The Teslas that are built in China are actually better quality, in my opinion, than the ones built in Germany or in in than in California. Interesting.
Speaker 3:Probably in that order. And, and and some of the new Chinese manufacturers. We we all are electricians, that install our charging points for Anderson are, We we want them to be, you know, trip you know, the drive around the country in EVs. There isn't an electric light van that has Sufficient range on the market moment Yeah. Which is crazy.
Speaker 3:I think it's gonna change in the next year. But, when we need 200 miles at least. And so we we have a fleet of m g five state cars. We got, I don't know, 15 or something like that. Great Jap I mean, MG is old.
Speaker 3:It's a British brand, but, of course, it's Shanghai Automotive, and it's a really good car.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Good
Speaker 3:quality. You know, alright. It's it hasn't got some of the, bells and whistles that, you know, some European cars have, but it's very good and very well, but Very well built in a 7 year warranty. So, we see, the Chinese coming, strong very strongly into Europe. But also from a charging point of view, I think making giving a bigger variety of of of, the aesthetics on a we think is very important.
Speaker 3:People are gonna be more and more, demanding in terms of what the unit looks like. They want it easy. They want it to, to work with solar, work with, off peak electricity more and more. And they want it to be simple to use, you know, so yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, you you you buy your EV, you don't need to open the user manual to see how to, to charge it.
Speaker 2:Just like you do with your phone. Right? You don't you don't have to think about this.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, nice you know, more and more sophisticated apps. So, yeah, it's it's exciting times. I think I think, wireless charging will come.
Speaker 3:It's gonna be a matter of which OEM He's brave enough to to take it. I'm not a great believer in battery swap. Some of the Chinese manufacturers you probably know Doing that in China, it only works with 1 brand really because every OEM has their own, intellectual in the battery. Yeah. And therefore, you can't really swap a battery unless it's the same mark and model.
Speaker 3:So I don't think that will happen in big scale. So, you know, it it I think just more and more on better Quality, better range. I'm a great you know, now when when EVs first came out, you probably remember the first Nissan LEAF We had a 80 mile range
Speaker 2:Yeah. If you're lucky.
Speaker 3:If you're lucky. And, you know, for heater. I know one of our guys at at, ChargeMaster used to live in Basingstoke. We were based in Luton. And his leaf was, I think, was a couple years old, so the battery is starting to degrade.
Speaker 3:And in the winter, he'd come in with his coat and everything gone because he he couldn't have the heater Honestly, he drove to work. I think, you know, now most most, EVs have got pretty efficient and the and the batteries, you know, as I say, 200 miles is appears to be the norm. If you got 200 miles, I I think that's pretty adequate. If you got 300 miles, that's Right. But, you know, 200 miles is adequate.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And, so, yeah, more more of the same, really, which is very exciting, really.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, with regards to Anderson, do you guys gonna be or are you involved in public charging at all? Or
Speaker 3:No. We don't intend to be involved in Public charging is plenty plenty of people already. We we don't Anderson is, home charging, and we will be bringing our workplace Charging.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:We don't I think public charging although there's a lot of publicity
Speaker 2:In the
Speaker 3:in the media about a non public charging is coming. There's plenty of people in that. Both destination charging and, and rapid charging, all all the Major players in energy will have charging networks, and you don't need to have an app for each one of them. By law now, everybody everyone has to be Usable on a contactless credit card. So, you know, you don't need to worry about, oh, whose whose make is it?
Speaker 3:You just have a a credit card. So we're not getting involved in, public charging, but we will be doing workplace charging. Most companies, we believe, will all their Charge all their parking areas will have charges on for their staff and for their guests.
Speaker 2:Makes sense if you if you if you're working for a company and you wanna drive to work every day? Exactly. Plug in somewhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, in our office, we, you know, we got charges outside, and we got of the 40 staff, we got half of them with EVs. So we got Outside the office, you know, quite a number of, cars being charged also.
Speaker 2:Great. And in in terms of, like, the future of Anderson, what do you see what what can you say anything about, like, what's coming next? Or any
Speaker 3:We we we we're expanding. As I say, our sales are growing pretty rapidly. We expect More and more partnership with car manufacturers, with energy companies as well. And, we, We will be expanding into Europe, later this year, some of the the key markets in Europe. But, you know, we're very proud of the fact that It's well built.
Speaker 3:It's, reliable. We've got a supply chain well established so that if you order 1 online today, it's shipped tomorrow despite the fact that there's a choice of 120 different variants. So Our production line is so pick and play. So the core unit, plus if you want a wooden fascia, that's just fitted on. So put in with with the unit, And, and it works.
Speaker 3:And and also, with a premium product such as Anderson, we need to give a high level of customer service. So we've always got somebody there, 6 days a week to talk to if you want some advice. One of our, Our sales team, at, Anderson, offer you consultation. So if you are thinking about buying an EV and thinking about charging and you're not sure what you need, you can book online a consultation for 20 minutes with an hour
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 3:Salespeople. So no obligation. Yeah. Obviously, we'd like to encourage people to buy the charging unit. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But, you know, with a lot of them, they just say, well, yeah, I'm thinking of buying a, you know, a a a a A BMW or a VW or a Tesla, how do I charge it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And and the level of it, unfortunately, you still go into many car Showrooms, child dealer showroom. And the salesman doesn't know all know an awful lot about EVs. So we're you know, our team of experts is there to help people.
Speaker 2:I always tell people when they go and buy a car at a, you know, dealership, just go in go in and know where you want because they will try to sell you whatever the flavor of the month. Indeed. Pushed that that that month.
Speaker 3:Indeed. And often, you'll know more than they do.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I hear that all the time. You probably know more of the bonus question if I may. The vehicle to char to grid, what what is your what is your thoughts about that? What's your thinking?
Speaker 3:I I I tend to be somewhat controversial On v two g, vehicle to grid, because, fundamentally, the technology works. No problem with that. But I asked the question, why do you want it? Because, the the the issue is most people use their car, not everybody, but most people use their car in Daytime. And they go home and they charge at night when they go to bed.
Speaker 3:And, so You're you're putting the energy into the car at nighttime and using it in the daytime. The concept of When you get home at night with the in the car, plugging it in so you can take energy out of the car and put it to the grid Doesn't work if the the car hasn't got any energy in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's a fundamental flaw that I think I tend to think it's a as why I I a bit to being Fairly controversial about it is that I think it's a technology looking for, an application.
Speaker 2:I I have to agree from like, because as an engineer, I I see the same problem. Like, you know, You're not there when when you need it. And, in the middle of the night, you wanna charge. And also from solar perspective, like, you know, solar production is gonna be during the day when you're probably not there, unless you're like me, you work for you work from home. But, yeah, most people are not gonna get the full use out of it.
Speaker 3:But I do think there's applications for, like some of the American pickup trucks are doing using the the the vehicle as an energy Energy storage mechanism for when you're camping and things like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. That's I love
Speaker 3:the idea.
Speaker 2:Brilliant. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I love the idea that, you know, you can go touring. You've got a, you've got a pickup truck. You stop and go camping, and you plug all your your TV, your your barbecue, and everything into the vehicle. I think I love that.
Speaker 2:I I yeah. I saw I saw people on YouTube, driving the pick, like, one of those, f f 150 lightning, is a massive truck Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And having a band standing on top of the bed and just playing in the middle of the field Yeah. Like cows or whatever.
Speaker 3:Running off the the battery. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's brilliant.
Speaker 3:I that's great, but, I I think, you know, the technology v v v two g works, but, you know, why do you want it? Yeah. That's that's right.
Speaker 2:That's I yeah. I I think I have to agree. Anyway, thank you, David, for your for your time. Anything else I should mention?
Speaker 3:No. You're welcome. I mean, if anybody wants To, learn any more about Andersen, it's, we got the Andersen EV website and, lots of, graphics of the unit, customer case studies and things like that. We got over 13,000 happy customers, and, going very well. We're very excited about the future, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk talk today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for, you know, spending the time.
Speaker 3:Cheers. Thanks.
Speaker 1:I hope you, you enjoyed this discussion with David. I think it was amazing. Thank you, David, for your time. Thanks to Evie from Anderson for organizing this. And remember, if you have any feedback, suggestions for future episodes, feel free to reach me, out at take it e v or connect with me at Mastodon at at, mustered on dot social.
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