Episode 133: Liz Allan and Josh Spencer - Electrifying the Fleet: How EV Trucks are Revolutionising Decarbonisation

Episode 133: Liz Allan and Josh Spencer - Electrifying the Fleet: How EV Trucks are Revolutionising Decarbonisation. 

Liz Allan speaks to Josh Spencer, EV Sales Manager at Ford and Slater. They delve into the evolving landscape of electric trucks and their critical role in achieving net zero goals. Josh shares his inspiring journey from apprentice to influential advocate in the EV truck sector, highlighting the transformational shift occurring within fleet management. The episode explores the practicalities, challenges, and substantial benefits, including significant carbon savings and operational efficiencies, that electric trucks offer businesses today.

Key insights include the pressing need for robust charging infrastructure, innovative solutions like the ZEID (Zero Emission Haulage and Infrastructure Demonstrator), and the future-proof strategies operators are implementing to ensure successful transitions. 

Josh Spencer Bio:
Josh Spencer is the EV Sales Manager at Ford and Slater. He brings years of industry experience from technical apprenticeship to his current role leading EV truck adoption. Passionate about decarbonisation and sustainable transport, Josh plays a pivotal role in guiding fleet operators through the complexities of transitioning to electric trucks. His practical knowledge and dedication have positioned him as a trusted voice in the UK's sustainable logistics sector

Quote of the Episode:
"The carbon emissions and local air quality benefits of electric trucks outweigh everything else. But operators also need a compelling economic case, and that's precisely what's emerging now." — Josh Spencer.

Josh Spencer Links:
Website: https://www.fordandslater.co.uk/trucks/new-generation-daf-electric
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-s-16b0246b

Episode Keywords: 
EV charging, electric trucks, net zero, fleet decarbonisation, sustainable transport, public charging, EV infrastructure, carbon emissions reduct

Transcript

Liz Allan [00:00:01]:
Okay. So, on today's episode, I have got Josh Spencer, the EV sales manager from Ford and Slater. Josh, thank you ever so much for joining me. We met last year, didn't we? Was it about November when my husband came to speak at DAF Trucks?

Josh Spencer [00:00:17]:
Yeah. That's right. Thanks ever so much for having me, Liz. No. Yeah. It's great to see you. And, you're right. Yeah.

Josh Spencer [00:00:22]:
It was part of one of DAF's EV events last year that we all got. So yeah. No. Thank you much for having me.

Liz Allan [00:00:30]:
And that and it was organized by Amy Carter who I've also had on the podcast, and she was amazing. But you were at our table when we were kind of when both Richard and I were there, and it was just great to get to know you. So, of course, I wanted to get you in and have a chat with you about Deaf from your point of view and what you're doing at Ford and Slater. So I always start off by asking people how they got into into the industry, into the sector. Do you wanna give me a little bit of your background and tell me what your journey was to get to where you are now?

Josh Spencer [00:01:01]:
Yeah. Of course. Of course. So, truck trucks have been my career, really. So I started out, as a as a technical apprentice back in 02/2006. So I was, as when when I was a when I was a school student, I kind of wanted to be vocational. I want when, at 15 or 16, I went down and got some work experience, wanted to go into apprenticeship, got myself that apprenticeship, and knew it was what I wanted to do at the time. And and and at the at the same time at the same time, love working with people, have always loved working with people, and knew that the technical grounding would be the best possible start I could get in the industry.

Josh Spencer [00:01:45]:
And, and and I've never really felt that that was the wrong choice. Like, it's, in the meantime, I've then part time studied and, you know, get gained my degree last year with the Open University and wonderful Good. That is. And, I would never you you should never have any regrets, should you? And part of me sort of would have, you know, can see very much the benefit that I didn't see at 16 in going to university and things like that. But at the same time, I've loved my journey and I spent a little bit of time kind of spent the first six years of my career on on the tools, so to speak, and then spent a few years in the customer service side of first truck businesses and then a couple of years in car businesses. And I actually owe an incredible amount to a lady called Kim Hampshire who, I was helping support her with some issues with her car, when I was a service adviser in a car dealership. And she'd had some issues with her car. We got them sorted.

Josh Spencer [00:02:47]:
We got chatting one evening, and and she was the owner and manager of the, DAF training school. So DAF, like a lot of organisations, has a training sort of side of the business and or or another business that supports them with that function. And she was the managing director of that business. She said, I would love to sort of get you in front of our team to see what they think of you. And so a couple of months later, I started as a technical trainer for DAF. I spent probably a year doing that and then found my way into technical sales, and realized I found my vocation and sort of that I love, you know, talking to people about trucks, helping people find the right solution for trucks. And, of course, then that's evolved into EV, which I'm sure we'll get into a bit more. But, yeah, that's that's sort of a brief history.

Liz Allan [00:03:43]:
I love that. I love that. I mean, I've kind of worked in apprenticeships and improvement apprenticeships myself before and delivered them. So I know what it provides to people, and not everybody wants to go off to uni or is as academically inclined, you know, with regards to kind of going to university. So I think it is a really, really good way of getting in there. And actually, do you know if you've got a degree through an apprenticeship or are using a degree apprenticeship? I think that's fantastic. So well done to you. Good on you.

Josh Spencer [00:04:21]:
Yeah. I think the apprenticeship for the fixing trucks just gave me such a great grounding in the whole industry, and it's meant that I've never been afraid of doing anything within the business and all that kind of stuff. And I'm really, like, such a great believer in that. You know, it teaches you to treat everyone, you know, everyone across the business with respect and, you know, you you know the troubles that people have day to day and that, you know, they don't so think things evolve, things change, but there's still core same challenges for people remain and, you know, it gives you that empathy and compassion with that. And that and that's so important. Like, I'm, I'm super grateful to have done done the business degree through the OU, and and that, you know, took took me about twelve years in the end on and off. But what a great experience and, you know, wonderful to I've always it's never been about the piece of paper. It's always been about the learning within that.

Josh Spencer [00:05:16]:
And, yeah, I'm just grateful to the people who supported me along the way. That was funded to begin with and then, you know, went on and and

Liz Allan [00:05:25]:
Yeah. I was gonna say because I know you've done yours through Open University. And I know that Amy is doing a degree through an apprenticeship. So because I spoke, they've only just kind of come in really over the last few years, anyhow. So that's but like I say, either way, it's just brilliant, you know, the fact that you've had these opportunities, and you've kind of taken the bull by the horns. But let's talk about how trucks are transitioning over to electric because there must be kind of a level of scepticism from fleet operators. Am I right? Because I know that we went to that event where my husband was speaking and I'll add that I've got a question to ask you later about that but, actually, it's a big move, isn't it? It's a big move from a diesel truck over to an electric one. What are you kind of experiencing or what have you been experiencing?

Josh Spencer [00:06:27]:
Yeah. So I think, to kinda continue that journey, it it's four years ago that the business I work for, Ford and Slater, came to me and said, we're we're getting a demonstrator vehicle, one of the first staff demonstrators in The UK for electric. Would you pick that up and run it from nothing? And as a privately owned business, you know, we're we're probably somewhere around, you know, close to 900,000 staff. Wow. But we're ultimately a privately owned family business, and I'm, you know, incredibly grateful to the vision that that that team has shown in, you know, trust in me growing this. And to take on, you know, to take your question, which is a great one, I think the challenges, you know, exist at varying levels and have probably evolved within that time. So, you know, I'm absolutely not naive to the fact I started out four years ago with it. You know, a 19-ton truck, a rigid vehicle, which would do great, you know, local deliveries, obviously zero-emission, save money and running, etcetera, etcetera.

Josh Spencer [00:07:32]:
But but most transport people, you know, care care about three things primarily. How much can I carry? How far can I go? How much is it? And it doesn't, you know, yes. You can build everything around that, but it starts with those three core things. Right? And it would carry, you know, only slightly less than the diesel equivalent. It wouldn't go as far as the diesel equivalent, and it was obviously a lot more expensive than the diesel equivalent at that point. Mhmm. But actually, surely but surely, we developed relationships with customers. I spent the first sort of two years with that vehicle, showing its people, helping them appreciate where the technology was going, what it was doing, educating, etcetera.

Josh Spencer [00:08:11]:
That resulted in some wonderful sort of early adopter-type vehicle sales with customers, to whom I'm, you know, super grateful for the trust they placed in us. To the point where we probably have looked after, a dozen or so vehicles within our area, which when there are, you know, not a huge number of electric trucks on the road anyway, has given us a huge amount of experience as a business. And I really do mean it. Like, this is a team effort. And so I've been building the culture within the business where bit everyone is behind it and wants to see success for the, you know, electric vehicle transition in trucks. And so, actually, that's then allowed us, like I say, some of the relationships we've we've been building with people are, you know, we're three years into that. And

Liz Allan [00:09:00]:
Mhmm.

Josh Spencer [00:09:00]:
As I said, the challenges have changed. They've probably scaled up because the pressure to reduce carbon emissions within big businesses is increasing, you know, rightly so. Actually, people need people with experience to provide solutions and help them appreciate all of the different attributes of the products in the marketplace and how they might be able to deal with those. To touch on your question, the biggest challenge is not the trucks but the charging infrastructure, as I'm sure I'm not the first person to have said all of this. And actually, that's where two years ago I, you know, probably no longer realised that ZERF, as it was known then, ZEHID now, the zero-emission haulage and infrastructure demonstrator, was going to be the route into kick-starting this for us as a business. So we're incredibly, you know, I personally am so grateful to the customers who are putting their faith in us to be able to deliver their ZEED vehicles. And we've gained over 15% of all of the ZHID orders as a single business.

Liz Allan [00:10:11]:
Oh, wow.

Josh Spencer [00:10:12]:
Probably about 25%, you know, overall for DAF. We've been involved in a lot of customer conversations with those. And, actually, I think on, you know, we sit within a hierarchy of balance of attributes across different vehicle brands and battery chemistries and ranges, you know, resulting in all of that kind of stuff. And, it's, as I say, been far more about linking people up with the right charging installers and charging partners. We probably have two or three, you know, really good charging installer partners who are each able to bring strengths to different customer relationships, which the psychology of sales dictates that, you know, not everyone at every scale gets on with everyone else in the right way or jails as businesses.

Liz Allan [00:11:00]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Spencer [00:11:00]:
So it's been wonderful to bring the right kind of partnerships to customer conversations to support with infrastructure. That's been critical. Like, without, you know, we started our with our first demonstrator, you know, the battery capacity and the technical features allowed it to AC charge overnight quite effectively. So for overnight, you know, single shift vehicles, perfect. But then that conversation very, you know, starts to grow quite quickly. So, you know, how can I sweat that asset more because, obviously, it's an expensive asset? How can I get more out of that? Then it becomes a DC conversation. And at that point, it's about introducing the right experts. My, you know, core core business for me is about helping people with the with the truck solution and actually why not bring in great people who can who can help support the the charging infrastructure, really.

Liz Allan [00:11:53]:
Yes. So okay. So let's let's flip it on its head then. You were talking, you were talking about, we were we were talking about, kind of the the probably the the way that people think in the, you know, the the negative side in some ways there. What what are the long term benefits besides obviously, you know, you've got your zero tailpipe zero emissions at the tailpipe. But what other benefits are there from electric trucks?

Josh Spencer [00:12:24]:
I mean, first and foremost, clearly, the the carbon emissions benefits and the local air quality benefits outweigh all really. And Yes. And I'm very passionate about that. But I also recognize that we exist in the society that we do and in the economies that we do. And actually, there needs to be a good, you know, a hugely beneficial economic case for these things. And we're now starting to see operators learn what that opportunity looks like really and what and what that economic case looks like. So ZeeHid will Zihid essentially allows customers to derisk that learning process and that's hugely important for our economy and and our decarbonization as a as a nation. And so those operators being able to understand, well, how much when I have a number of vehicles and I'm able to get a better energy price as a result and all that kind of thing, how much can I afford to spend on the vehicles going forward, and how much can I you know, do I need to spend on the infrastructure? That will all become more well known to them.

Josh Spencer [00:13:30]:
Their cultures will improve. That has huge strategic advantages for them as businesses for those eHID partners because they're forward-thinking. Some of their competitors in their respective industries will be somewhat caught off guard because that would mean those operators will be able to provide a reduced carbon emission service for a forecast for for their customers and supply chains whilst also understanding that they can either do it at parity or better than parity from from a running cost perspective. The majority of truck customers can tell you what they paid for diesel that morning because they burn millions of litres of diesel a year, and they buy very, very well. And, actually, they're probably not buying electricity very well because they run you know, they have warehouses with LED lighting, you know, energy saving measures, a few conveyor belts, but and a few laptops, but but not no real consumers. Whereas, you know, a fleet of a hundred trucks could end up charging 50-megawatt hours a night if they're doing 400 miles a day. So suddenly, that becomes a hugely meaningful energy spend with a with an energy company. And we've seen it ourselves on a small scale.

Josh Spencer [00:14:53]:
We've now got four one-hundred-and-eighty kilowatt charger units across four of our sites. So we've got customers, both DAF and non-DAF customers, coming in and charging their vehicles with us. And we're finding that as we've been putting those in and we've been signing energy contracts for those charges across the sites, the pricing's, you know, more than halved because the energy company can see that we're moving into that space. We're gonna become higher users of energy. Yes. The, you know, the overall economic background, of the energy crisis we've been through plays into that to a point, I think. But at the same time, it's it's an improvement where, you know, hopefully, they can see that that the volume will come within that. And from from, you know, small acorns, mighty oak trees grow.

Josh Spencer [00:15:44]:
And I think we're hoping to be in a position in five years' time where, you know, why aren't we looking at putting a lot more charges in? Customers, I think, it's really important. I I speak to a lot of the CPOs and the energy providers and the, charge point the the actual commercial vehicle people who are in this space wanting to put in charges in The UK. And we see ourselves as having a a small but meaningful place within charging where at our Lester head office, we we'd service between thirty and forty vehicles in every twenty four hour period. And so our our kind of central, one of our central pillars is that we deliver those vehicles back fully charged. When they when they move to electrics, obviously, there aren't, you know, there are some today. But as that grows to volume, we want to deliver all of those vehicles back fully charged. We we don't want customers to have to take vehicles back to their own depot, recharge those, lose productivity on the assets, all that kind of stuff. So we see there's bit, you know, and our customers see there's there as being huge value in that once every six weeks or once every eight-week inspection cycle for the vehicles, that those those customers can get, can get a full charge.

Josh Spencer [00:17:02]:
And and I think we're probably slightly unique in The UK within that. European trucks don't need to be seen on those intervals. In The UK, we have, you know, incredibly rigorous inspection cycles, vehicles, right, at least over for the size and, you know, potential damage there is for danger there. And and actually, so, yeah, we we see an important place within that. And hopefully, we again, thirty, forty vehicles a day, that's an awful lot of energy that we're gonna be using and and providing to customers.

Liz Allan [00:17:35]:
So like you say, I suppose it's that long term solution, isn't it? Kind of with regards to you're you're going from something that you know really, really well like diesel. As you say, they know every day how much the diesel's costing them. And because of the I suppose there's been an uncertainty in in energy prices, you know, in general, it's it's transitioning, isn't it? It's not just a transition for the vehicles and the charging. It's a transition for your kind of procurement teams and things like that. Actually, all the cute procurement teams involved look at it right. Okay. What does this look like with regards to the right truck, two trucks, 10 trucks, or 20? How does how is that gonna look? I was gonna ask you actually what vehicle and truck charging would look like. And I suppose what I was thinking as well, are any of the companies that you're working with are they also introducing or have they introduced solar and battery storage to kind of optimize what they're putting through? I know it's, again, it's another, obviously, another cost.

Liz Allan [00:18:46]:
But I mean, you know, some of them have perfect roof space for things like this, you know, and enough space out in the, you know, kind of in the car park or wherever the trucks are parked to actually kind of, you know, opt to optimise that, like, make it like into a microgrid?

Josh Spencer [00:19:02]:
Yeah. I think I think there's a bit of that. I think obviously, you know, businesses have ended up putting solar on warehouses before they've ordered been investing in electric trucks. But I probably I almost see things more at a macro scale. So I think there's a place for it for a percentage. Can anyone's, you know, roof space provide enough solar capacity to be able to charge a fleet of electric trucks? Definitely not.

Liz Allan [00:19:28]:
Yeah.

Josh Spencer [00:19:28]:
Like it would Yeah.

Liz Allan [00:19:29]:
No. I get you.

Josh Spencer [00:19:30]:
Quite an awful lot. So I think where where there's possibly more benefit is then, you know, put putting pressure on energy companies for renewable tariffs because that, that moves the whole investment structure away from fossil fuels. And that's the way to that's the way to win this. Right? And I think it's really exciting to see the likes of Octopus Energy braking cover on truck charging. I'm sort of setting up a call with one of their people next week because why wouldn't we be talking to them about, you know, everything from charging opportunities to leasing opportunities? But Octopus is a really exciting one because they're kind of completely vertically integrated from an energy perspective. We are, you know, as a household, completely gas-free, and and I'm really glad that we've made that transition. And, actually, we can see from a personal perspective the benefit in, you know, I'm a high mileage user.

Josh Spencer [00:20:28]:
The other car users within the household are medium mileage users. We've got a heat pump installed, And all of those things together probably save us over a thousand pounds a month as a family. So what are the available savings that can be made as a truck business as the pricing improves on the vehicles, which it will do? We've obviously been through huge r and d cycles, and, you know, as this move to vol moves to volume, that gets better. And, actually, the orders of magnitude cheaper these vehicles are to run, we can see it making more and more economic sense for customers. And as I say, it's super exciting to see how the Z operators will find that out for themselves as well. And then, you know, clearly, we're incredibly grateful for the pipeline opportunities that represent to move out to volume as we demonstrate the vehicle's work this year, and they do what we say they're going to do, and that helps us all move forward. So it's, yeah, it's an incredibly 2025 is such an important, pivotal year, I think, within it. And as you alluded to, we're we're spending an enormous amount of time and energy putting in the support for our customers, not just with the charging, but with every area of the business.

Josh Spencer [00:21:43]:
We want customers to feel that they're electric experience sort of permeates through every area. That means that when you have a salesperson come see you, they see you in an electric car. You get your parts delivered via an electric parts delivery van, which we changed over a quarter of the fleet last year, paying next quarter this year. And that when you bring a truck in for service, and it goes, you know, you take your courtesy vehicle away, that courtesy vehicle is electric as well. So and on top of that, having more than enough electric, heavy vehicle trained technicians to be able to look after the vehicles, we see all of those things as being incredibly important to the overall proposition and journey. And, again, I said it earlier on when compared to charging, but the truck really makes up a reasonably small proportion of the overall value proposition for us. We want to be there as an end-to-end support for our customers and to help guide them, really.

Liz Allan [00:22:46]:
I mean, that's a really good USP, Josh. I mean, you know, to actually, be able to give that solution and prove that you do you are doing what you say you do on the tin. To me, that's what's so important because, you know, if you're selling electric trucks and somebody turns up in a diesel van, then what is what is that giving you? Whereas your USP is, we do this, and we prove that we do this, which is great. And I know it takes time to transition every or, you know, all of your fleet and everything like that. But actually, the fact that you are doing that, in fact, I was just thinking, the only other organisation that I know that's that kind of spring to mind then is EV Body Shops, which I had a little bump when we first got our EV, which was a bit of a silly thing that I did. But EV body shops did exactly that. They kind of the, the car that they gave me was electric and no other, you know, doing it through the insurer, I would have just got a petrol or a diesel vehicle. But going, you know, it it was it was just it makes it makes the experience very different

Josh Spencer [00:24:02]:
Absolutely. Doesn't it?

Liz Allan [00:24:03]:
What you're doing. Do you know?

Josh Spencer [00:24:05]:
Couldn't agree more. We practice what we preach, and it's important for customers to see that we as a business, because we're business partners with them, it's important for them to see that we we can believe in it. And culturally, it makes sense for us. As I mentioned, we put in 20 electric parts delivery vans last year, and those are high-mileage vehicles within our fleet. They'll do 60,000 miles over four years. And, yes, the vehicles were more expensive to begin with. Yes. There's a higher interest cost. But actually, as a net across the whole life of the vehicle, we expect to save in the region of £20,000 running each of those vehicles compared to the diesel equivalent. So I spend a lot of time working with customers on the total cost of ownership calculation for the trucks, and we set ourselves the same challenge with the assets that we're using within the business. So that's been a key way of me helping convince our board to do those things is because actually, it makes economic sense first and foremost and aligns really well with our environmental, sort of culture and plans as well.

Josh Spencer [00:25:14]:
So the two have to be mutually beneficial, you know, mutually exclusive, and, it's, it works very works very well for us.

Liz Allan [00:25:24]:
So is there is there anything else that government needs the government needs to do to to actually start, you know, kind of accelerating fleet decarbonization currently? You know, obviously, you've talked about ZEED, but that's so on the on the charging side because you can't have one without the other, can you really? You know, you can it's kind of make them and they will come. Well, actually, you can't just make them, and they will come. You've got to make them, and they will come. And actually but if they come and then you've not got a charging infrastructure, you've got, you know, so so but it what else what else is needed to kind of incentivize people? Is there something or is there enough there at the moment?

Josh Spencer [00:26:04]:
I think because of the expense involved in the infrastructure, it has to kinda grow, you know, grow concurrently. And, what are you going to find from a gov? So I guess there are two questions there. So, to answer the government side, I spend a lot of time with the Zeegid customers we're working with. One really important element of that whole project is helping the government appreciate the easy wins that are available to be able to deliver upon this transition more quickly. Now Mhmm. For for truck operators, the rest of the TCO is kind of meaningful. But if they can't carry as much as they did before, a lot of these people, especially with bulk products, get paid per ton. And so actually, one of the best pieces of, you know, lobbying effort going on with these operators is that there's a sort of question around at the moment you can run a five-ton five-axle, sorry, combination tractor, unit, and trailer of 42 tons, and there's a lobbying effort to move that to 46.

Josh Spencer [00:27:11]:
Now, to address some of the concerns around, you know, road damage, etcetera, there are markets in Europe which allow five axles to run at 50 tons, so it's kind of well-proven from an engineering perspective. And the reality a lot of people cite, you know, excessive potholes with weight and all that kind of thing. Well, actually, the average payload of a diesel six-axle vehicle is, say, 27, 20 eight tons. And therefore, the average on the 42-ton five-axle vehicle with weight increases and all that kind of thing is somewhere around the 24-tonne mark. Well, if you're three tons down that means that potentially three, four tons down, potentially you've got to send a sixth or seventh lorry for every five or six you're able to send for diesel. So it's a much better thing for roads, you know, concerns around road wear by allowing the same number of vehicles to just carry the same amount of weight as before, perhaps at slightly higher axle loadings rather than seeing, you know, 15% increase in the number of trucks that have to be on the roads anyway. Because this whole transition has to be around energy efficiency and resource efficiency. And so, you know, it's one of the main reasons we the industry is, I think, sort of really coming to the conclusion that perhaps hydrogen for truck road transport isn't the answer because actually it's so energy inefficient.

Josh Spencer [00:28:42]:
And so weight, from a weight perspective, it would allow us to be both resource and energy-efficient to the same sort of level as we are today without having to put thousands more vehicles on the road to carry the same amount of product. So that probably alone is the single biggest, the government. If there's anyone who ends up listening to this in a ministerial position, that would be the one I think everyone would like to push for because the vehicles are completely capable of it. The equipment we use is completely capable of it. And it feels like that would be that would be a nice easy win. From a charging infrastructure perspective, there are some absolutely superb organizations that are working really hard to put in infrastructure for truck operators. And I think that has, you know, a huge opportunity for commercialisation. Even on our own smaller, you know, one eighty kilowatt charger is fast for a car.

Josh Spencer [00:29:36]:
It's it's probably mid-speed for a truck. Right? There are obviously much faster charges out there and faster charge speeds on our on our trucks available. But even with that, we find that the average charge session is for the number of kilowatt hours delivered, three, four, or five times the average car CPO charge session. So at that point, actually, this is a huge opportunity for both the charge up charge point operators, but also because they're delivering so much more, their utilization is and throughput is so much higher, they can afford to do that at better margins for the truck industry, which is what those truck operators will need to accelerate the transition. You're not going to see the same pricing as you do with the car industry for, you know, the majority of cars who might go and use DC once a year because they only ever go away in their car and only once a year. And the rest of the time, they use it to, you know, nip to the shops and back. And that and that's where some of this gets to is that you know, there's probably gonna be very different commercial models for the truck operator, charging because they're gonna be using so much more of it. They they become, you know, business partners with these with these, with these CPOs.

Josh Spencer [00:30:55]:
But then, as I say, it's wonderful to see how much is going on to, how much good work is going on to actually put those units in across The UK. And the coordination because nobody wants competitor charge stations to open on opposite sides of the road and then there'd be huge black spots in parts of the country. So what's lovely to see is there is a real collaborative effort to make sure that that there's good coverage from day one. That's beneficial for the CPOs. They're not, you know, competing as much on a local geographic level, important for the customers because they get better coverage. And, yes, as that grows, then there's a room that that room for a competitive edge, and I think we'll see that reasonably quickly.

Liz Allan [00:31:36]:
I suppose my question you've just made me think of something there. You know, you do see or have seen, you know, roads where petrol stations, you've got one on one side of the road and one one on the other. And so it is, it will be good to actually have that level of collaboration because you kind of think to yourself, why would why would you have two petrol stations on opposite sides of the road? What was the point in doing that other than trying to vie for each other's customs? So I'm glad that there's that kind of effort to make sure that, you know, you we kind of spread this out. How many, have you got any idea how many chargers we're kind of looking at that? I mean, obviously, you've got depot charging but is how is a ZEHid kind of started rolling out the charging infrastructure now? Is it a kind of drip-feeding around the country?

Josh Spencer [00:32:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So it's a little bit tricky in my position to understand every single charger location, but from all of the data points that I see across customers and the ZeeHid consortiums who we're, again, we're super grateful to be working with, the impression I get is that there are, you know, orders of magnitude more charger guns going in than trucks to begin with. And mainly, that's to support people's rollout and build-up of fleets. And, so the actual charging experience will be will be very good from day one with those organisations. There are a number of a number of those consortiums, and indeed, we're looking at it for our sites, who will create booking functions, opening times, site safety briefings, which will create order from that, you know, from from what we can see as chaos in in-car charging sites at times. Mhmm.

Josh Spencer [00:33:27]:
And that will then allow transport operators to plan much better. I think within the industry, it is gonna be hugely important to have that competitive, and that will come. You already see it in the car charging space with different brands of chargers in the same car parks, and and so you already see that. And that and that's exciting that's getting exciting for the consumer whilst the marketing effort around, you know, people paying for the infrastructure and not the energy well, and not necessarily just the energy, it is an important part. We'd all much rather that we can go to the extremes of our own duty cycle, whether that be for trucks or cars, and have a reliable charging infrastructure at the end of it. And if it means, you know, you're not just paying for the energy at that point, then that's an important part of the conversation, isn't it? But Mhmm. Again, I think that the winners within this will recognize themselves as taking a partnership approach with customers and wanting to, you know, help support them on that journey. And I and I think that will pay them bigger benefits in the long term potentially.

Liz Allan [00:34:33]:
Oh, definitely. So there are some rules. I just wanted to just kind of try and you help me remember what the rules are. The rules around stopping and charging. There's a, there's a rule isn't there that that kind of the plugging in of yeah yes so they can only drive for a certain, yeah, certain length of time can't they? But at the moment the, the rules around plugging in is this this kind of it's sort of fallen into the the old, oh, let's, you know, put in the nozzle in to fill up for diesel. Yeah. And and there's there's there's some kind of breakdown needed for that, isn't there?

Josh Spencer [00:35:12]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So there's so there's work going on to allow charging at at driver's rest stops. That's an important delineation for them to make because, as you rightly say, they're not. It's like with cars, isn't it? None of us who drive cars, electric cars plug into a DC charger and then stand there the attendant for the period of charge. Like, it's the last thing that any of us would ever do. And so the recognition of that fact within driver's hours legislation is really important. The yeah. Of course, you're absolutely right.

Josh Spencer [00:35:44]:
Drivers are, you know, restricted to four and a half hour drive time, forty five minute rest stop at the end of that. And within the vehicles themselves, obviously, you've got speed limiters at 56 miles an hour. So we sort of where we've had the most success with customers is actually helping them remember that, you know, we have a 250-mile rear world range on our tractor unit products, and you can only do 250 miles in a four and a half hour period at 56 miles an hour. And those of us who regularly use the strategic road network in The UK know how, you know, impossible a dream that is to do that amount of distance in that time. So I think, customers have definitely become, you know, more at peace with the ranges available to say, well, if I've got distribution centres that are 200 miles apart and we design that today anyway for a four-and-a-half hour drive time, then if you've got charging at the end of that and you've used 80% if you can go back up to 80% in an hour, let's say on a three fifty kilowatt charger, then actually you've got the ability to do a 400-mile round trip within a normal shift with very little, you know, you might yes. It might be fifteen minutes longer, but actually, you know, you've got essentially the ability to be able to do that duty cycle within a normal shift and and not really have any operational sort of interference. So I think that's helping people make peace, you know. The economic cases is coming and it and I think it's in certain duty cycles and with the volume, you know, with the volume improvements in, in the vehicle pricing we see coming, like, it that makes that even easier to justify.

Josh Spencer [00:37:32]:
And don't think it will take operators a huge amount of time to appreciate how much less they can, you know, how much less they can run these vehicles for, at which point I think there will be a a recognition within those businesses quite quickly that actually, you know, we can accelerate this transition. We can differentiate ourselves from our competitors. We can offer our customers, you know, reduce c o two emission transport solutions before anyone else. And that's really exciting. I think that will that will drive their businesses to greater success, and hopefully, it will, you know, drive their competitors to to see the need for change as well.

Liz Allan [00:38:14]:
So, I am just asking you this, stepping back a second. Something just bobbed into my head. How long does it take for a driver to fill up their vehicle with diesel? Because I mean, obviously, you're looking at gallons of the stuff, aren't you? So you know, literally, you go to a DC charger, and you plug in. How long does it take? Because and they've got us you know, if they're filling up with diesel and it's stinking horrible, they've got to stand with the you stand with the cab, haven't they? And they've got to fill up. How on average, have you got any idea how long does that take?

Josh Spencer [00:38:51]:
Yeah. So it it depends. Most okay. So most cars might have a 50 to 80-liter fuel tank, let's say. Say, eight 80 on a bigger car. The average, you know, on a tracked unit, the truck fuel tank is normally 500 litres, but that could be anywhere up to 1,800 to 2,000 litres. Wow. Now you think about how long it takes to fill a passenger car when you've when you've done it.

Josh Spencer [00:39:15]:
Oh. Suddenly, yes, there are high delivery, you know, high delivery nozzles and things like that. But it's still a fifteen to twenty-minute exercise, and then they might have to fill the ad blue tank as well, which is a treatment fluid for the exhaust gases. And suddenly, yeah, it's a half an hour's endeavour. And as you rightly say, that's then considered other work. So, whereas we all know that those of us who drive EVs all know, you pull up to a service. It's actually it takes, you know, five seconds to to fill up because you just plug in and go and do go and do what you need to do and save your labor force. So I think there is there is a massive saving, really, an an unseen saving for operators in that reduced time.

Josh Spencer [00:39:55]:
And it's all incremental, isn't it? Yes. Somebody wouldn't give it a second thought with one vehicle. But if you've got a fleet of 2,000 vehicles and you're saving half an hour, you know, even if it's half an hour a week, suddenly if you're saving a thousand hours a week across the business, that's, that's quite quite large, isn't it? Something worth thinking about, certainly.

Liz Allan [00:40:15]:
And nobody wants to stand out in the rain for fifteen minutes in inclement our inclement con conditions, you know. I mean, today I'm looking out the window in Redding, and actually, we've got it's not quite blue skies, but it's clear skies. You know what I mean? But it's not like that very often, is it? You know, when we do have those weather systems and, you know, so so actually, if we if you can get some, if you can get one of your drivers to plug in quickly with it, you know, rather than having to stand getting soaked soaking wet

Josh Spencer [00:40:46]:
Yeah.

Liz Allan [00:40:47]:
You know, for fifteen, twenty minutes, then And Brucey bonus.

Josh Spencer [00:40:52]:
Absolutely. And my hands, you know, I only spent six years in the workshop, but my hands suffered the damage of, you know, carcinogenic, you know, fossil fuels. And actually, you know, if we were to invent fossil fuel refuelling today and you were to tell somebody that they were to, you know, feed the vehicle a highly flammable, carcinogenic substance, I don't think we'd do it. So, yeah, I totally agree that you know, it has incremental and not necessarily immediately tangible benefits, which help from numerous perspectives. You know, you will have had people on this podcast before who've spoken about, you know, improved driver ergonomics, you know, reduced fatigue, reduced vibration noise, etcetera, etcetera. But I think, again, I've been an EV driver for for two years solid, do big miles, and those who have longer, we all we all can appreciate the benefits, and those benefits only seem to magnify when it comes to trucks, really.

Liz Allan [00:41:57]:
I can imagine because, I mean, just even for me being an EV driver, I appreciate the quiet. I mean, I don't I have my music on anyway, but but it's not that. You know, you still get the road noise, don't you? But it was just all the other noises, and I know you thought there are petrol heads that love that revving of the engine and all this kind of stuff. Well, you know, I actually appreciate the fact that you don't get that. You can listen. I can actually hear I don't have to turn my music up because my the engine's too loud. Do you know what I mean? And it's just I don't know. It just feels differently.

Liz Allan [00:42:33]:
And if you're driving 400 miles in a day, I can imagine changing that ability, you know, having that silence or just like you said about the rumble and things like that. It'd be so much better for people.

Josh Spencer [00:42:47]:
Absolutely. And this I, you know, I have to confess traditionally I've been a petrol head and I got the opportunity to drive the m d MG Cyberster at the end of last year. What an incredible EV experience. And I have to say, like, it's got me, you know, very much considering something like that in the future because because it was just fantastic. And I don't think I think we're moving we're we're slowly but surely moving on from that visceral experience needing to have a, you know, an eight petrol engine or whatever it might have. And I still do have a kind of place in my heart for those things. You know? How long that will stay is anyone's guess. But but ultimately, yeah, you you can we we took our sales team to one of the, one of The UK's electric go karting tracks last year, in Nottingham. And I'll be honest, I was terrified that everyone would hate it, and they wouldn't think it was as, you know, as fun as the petrol.

Josh Spencer [00:43:47]:
And I missed the smell. I missed the feel and all that kind of stuff. And you know what? It couldn't have been further from the truth. It everyone absolutely loved it. The karts were amazing. Obviously, I was out with them as competitively as anyone, and and it was incredible. Like, you still got out. You're shaking.

Josh Spencer [00:44:03]:
Your heart your heart's pounding like it was just great. And I think we don't, yeah. There, there's a growing; there's a growing realisation that I think we don't need that within the things that, you know, give us petrolheads our kicks.

Liz Allan [00:44:17]:
Yeah. And do you know what? And that's the, and that's the thing about being a petrolhead is that actually, you're breathing the damn stuff in. Do you know what to mean? You, you know and and, and actually,y and I keep I've talked about this, and we've, and there's a podcast that, it's probably just come out last week, about air pollution and, you know, the stuff that people don't realise that they're breathing into their lungs that that is, you know, we're not

Josh Spencer [00:44:46]:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Liz Allan [00:44:47]:
It you know, if we saw it, if it was black soot, you know, coming out of a chimney, we'd be like, oh my god. That's disgusting. But we don't know this. We don't see it in some ways. So so it's it's kind of it's it we're changing changing things so much. I'm gonna ask you one final question because it's been it's been wonderful talking to you about it. I've got one final question. If you could fast forward five to ten years, what would you like to see the commercial vehicle sector look like?

Josh Spencer [00:45:19]:
I would love to see us fully ingrained in a culture of of electric vehicles, and I can see us, you know, looking after those 30 or 40 vehicle sites. And I think, like, I I measure I measure myself in terms of our sales for carbon emissions reductions. So with the trucks we sold already, if those all do their, you know, their intended duty cycles, then those vehicles alone should save 5,000 tons of c o two from being emitted into the atmosphere every year. And so would I love to be in a place in, you know, five years time where the vehicles we sell have the potential to save, you know, 50,000 or a hundred thousand tons of c o two a year? That that's really exciting.

Liz Allan [00:46:16]:
I like that. And it's, and I think, you have to look at the more sustainability angle on this anyway. You know, I was gonna talk to you about kind of, you know when when my husband was talking climate change, but I think next time I will get you on again and let's just actually, do you know what? I'm gonna talk to you another time and we'll get you back on in a length of time and then see how things have progressed because I think, you know, I'll it's going to be interesting over this next kind of twelve eighteen months perceptions changing and just kind of the whole experience and just winning people like petrol heads over and hopefully, you know, kinda making a real difference. So, Josh, it's been wonderful talking to you. Thank you ever so much for your time.

Josh Spencer [00:47:07]:
No. Thank you, Liz. And definitely, in twelve months' time, we'll have all the ZEHid vehicles in and working, and it would be wonderful to be able to share those learnings and and how we've got on with that. So, yeah, definitely. Thanks ever so much.

Liz Allan [00:47:19]:
Let's let's let's do that. So everybody who's been watching and listening, you know I always say this. Thank you ever so much for every time you listen to this podcast or watch it on whichever channel. I really, really appreciate it. Let's let's kind of get that, you know, get the word out about Josh and get, you know, about Zeehid and DAF and all the electric trucks. All of this stuff is really, really interesting stuff, and it's worth it's worth kind of sharing with people. So, if you can like, share, watch, or just talk to people about this podcast just to get the word out, then it would be very, very much appreciated from my heart. So to everybody watching and listening, I'm gonna say see you later.

Liz Allan [00:48:05]:
See you next time. Thanks. Bye.