Episode 171: Liz Allan and Rolle Niemenen - The Technology Driving Trust in EV Charging

Episode 171: Liz Allan and Rolle Niemenen - The Technology Driving Trust in EV Charging.

Liz Allan speaks to Rolle Nieminen, Head of Sales and Country Manager for the UK and Ireland at Kempower, to dive into the technology, strategy, and innovation shaping the next era of EV charging. From distributed power solutions and exceptional uptime to megawatt charging and the electrification of heavy transport, Rolle brings clarity and insight into what it really takes to build reliable, future-proof charging infrastructure.

Rolle shares his journey from early EV adopter to co-founding EVA England, before joining Kempower, a manufacturer known for its robust, customer-focused charging systems that "just work." Together, Liz and Rolle explore why reliability matters, how drivers build confidence in public charging, and why more connectors often matter more than peak charging speeds. They also tackle the complexities of electrifying buses, ports, and EHGV fleets, including the real-world engineering needed to keep 24/7 operations running smoothly.

Quote of the episode:

"We want to be in the confidence-building business for customers; you should be able to plug in, walk away, and trust that the charger will do exactly what you need." Rolle Nieminen

Rolle Niemenen Bio:

Rolle Nieminen is a long-standing advocate for electric mobility with a background spanning automotive manufacturing, consumer insights, and infrastructure delivery. An early EV adopter, Rolle has spent years championing the needs of drivers, including co-founding EVA England to ensure the EV driver voice was represented in national conversations. Today, his work focuses on applying that user-first mindset to complex charging environments, from public rapid charging through to large-scale fleet, bus, and heavy-duty applications. Rolle brings a pragmatic, systems-led approach to electrification, shaped by real-world experience of what works and what does not. 

Rolle Niemenen Links

Website: https://kempower.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rolle-nieminen-63484325

Transcript

Liz Allan [00:00:00]:
Hi everyone, and welcome back to Electric Evolution. Today, I am joined by Rolle Nieminen, and he is the head of sales and country manager for the UK and Ireland at Kempower. Rolle, it's absolutely lovely to meet you. Thank you very much for coming on and joining me. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Rolle Niemenen [00:00:40]:
Thank you very much for having me. Looking forward to a chat and actually.

Liz Allan [00:00:44]:
I said lovely to meet you. But do you know what? We did meet, but we didn't get much chance to talk, did we? We went to a kind of meeting together, but we were on the other side of the room, so I'm just calling it the first time, really. Here we go. So let's start by getting a little bit of your background before you started working for Kempower: what you did and what interested you in the first place to get you into the sector and into the role you're in.

Rolle Niemenen [00:01:17]:
Okay, well, how much time do you have? So I got into EVs about seven years ago by leasing an EV. I was at the time working in the automotive industry, which I've done since I moved to the UK 20-odd years ago. And as soon as I got into my, my little, little Kia ev it was like, okay, yeah, this is, this is, this is what it is. So this is the, at that point, you could say that it's like this is tomorrow because it was, it was not what EVs are today. But, but you, you could see that it's like, okay, this makes sense, it's silent, it's comfortable, etc. And yeah, so I realised that at the time I was working for an automotive manufacturer, and then over time I got involved in different EV-related projects. Still, it wasn't my main job and I felt so strongly about that EVs are the future that I started really getting, getting involved and at one point I realized there's like, there's a lot of, a lot of discussion in conferences etc about what, what the drivers need. Still, there wasn't a voice for the driver who would represent the drivers in those discussions. So I started looking around, contacting people, and then yeah, this was something I did around 2019, autumn 2019, so pretty much six years ago. And that led to the birth of EBA England. So we set it up in early 2020 and obviously, after that, I was sort of fully, fully involved in the EVs as a, as a, well, starting to build up a consumer advocacy group and then getting into understanding both the business side and the consumer side of it.

Rolle Niemenen [00:03:51]:
And then there was late 2021 when I saw that Kempower is coming into the UK with some new interesting contracts, and I approached them, and here we are. So yeah, I started with Kempower at the beginning of 2022, so I'm approaching my four-year anniversary at Kempower in January.

Liz Allan [00:04:18]:
And that's brilliant. So you know, and I, I spoke to somebody previously from Chem Power, right, probably at the beginning of the podcast, before I was even an EV driver, you know.  I said to you that I can wax very lyrically about KEMP Power because I've always seen the Kempower brand as kind of, as a really, really good brand, and a reliable and just kind of just works. And that's always a good thing, you know. Because you're building that, that kind of trust that you need, you know, with the drivers that are, you know, that are actually driving the vehicles in the first place. I was going to ask you, so, so what, since you've actually been working for Kempower, what's kind of made the UK and Ireland that kind of exciting for you? You know, what's, what, you know, what's. Have you had that kind of feedback from lots of people? Because I'm sure you must have done.

Rolle Niemenen [00:05:23]:
Yeah, I'm very glad to see positive end-user consumer EV driver feedback, and I think that's one of the founding ideas of Kempower. So obviously we're the, I'd like to call original distributed charging solution provider. So, from the very early days, we built the charging solutions to be reliable and have high uptime, and we do that by distributing power from the centralised power unit to multiple dispensers, which we call satellites. So you have a modularity in the design that allows for high up times. Even if something happens, let's say somebody runs over a cable with their car, you will, in most public charging applications in the UK you will have multiple other connectors that you can connect to. And then on the other hand, if something happens inside the power unit that is again modular in the way that it will then just Utilise the high number of other power modules, for instance, to provide a good charging experience. So that's the idea that there should always be connectors. So we talk about more plugs and then the power available to the chargers.

Rolle Niemenen [00:07:06]:
So you're not reliant on a single point of failure on any of those things. So that means that you can always show up. And that's actually like in the UK, like I said, most of the solutions are those that are the distributed power unit satellite systems, which means that you can, you can have more plugs, more connectors from the grid connection. So you can optimise the use of that grid connection and therefore provide a better customer experience. And yeah, our ideas all the way been that the customer experience should be as seamless as possible. So we're asking people to make a big change in their lifestyles when they're moving from liquid fuels to electricity, that they have to learn something, something new. And making that as simple and intuitive as possible is the key in our design.

Liz Allan [00:08:26]:
And I think, you know, kind of back to right at the beginning when I started this podcast, and probably by the time this episode goes out live, it will be around three years since I started the podcast itself, and you know, things, things, things that just. You don't realise that even just talking to people, you know, kind of from charging or you know, charging networks or from other automotive brands or wherever. It isn't until you kind of get into an E,V, and then you use public charging, public, public networks or wherever, that all of a sudden, you're, you kind of go, oh. Because I thought I knew, I thought I knew all of, you know, oh yeah, everybody's told me this stuff, but it isn't until you go out and, and then it's like, oh, okay, all right. So it's that confirmation, isn't it, of how these things work.

Rolle Niemenen [00:09:26]:
Exactly. And I think that it's like I, I have to go way back to my first public charging experience. And it was, it was very exciting. It was, it was a. At a motorway service area, I was getting 50 kilowatts, which was loads more than I was able to get at home. And yeah, it was at the time it was something new, and it was a good thing that the first couple of experiences were positive. Everything worked the way I expected it to. So you build confidence from that, and we want to be in the business of building confidence for customers.

Rolle Niemenen [00:10:10]:
That is like they, it should be as simple as you, you pay, and you plug in, and then you go about your business. Because a lot of our customers in the UK and actually globally, the charging is a secondary activity. So, so it is. You charge while you do your shopping, you charge when you stop, when you're on a journey, and you want to get coffee, or you want to have a meal or just a break, and then you plug in, and then you do what your primary activity is. And therefore, the charging side of it needs to be as simple as possible. So, so, yeah, that's, that's what it's what, what, what our philosophy on it is. And yeah, as simple as possible and accessible. So as accessible as possible as well.

Rolle Niemenen [00:11:09]:
So that people, people with, and I'm not just talking about people who have physical disabilities, but any, any person should be able to use, use the charges as, as easily as possible.

Liz Allan [00:11:28]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I've got it. And I've got to say, you know, when I really love the fact that I can build, we can build charging into it into a journey. As in, you know, like you say about stopping somewhere and either picking up some shopping or, or whatever we want to do, you know, kind of just going for a bite to eat or something like that, and plugging in and knowing that the car's gonna be charged, you know, when we, when we get out, that makes such a difference. And I kind of said to you, didn't I, before we started recording that, that our car doesn't take a lot of kilowatts. I've talked about this before. It doesn't. It's, you know, the maximum we get is like 48, 48 kilowatts, and it's from your kit.

Liz Allan [00:12:14]:
You know, I always get really excited when I'm like, look at that, look. And it is just, it's just one of those things that just kind of, it's. I'm. I am a bit of a geek, and I love seeing the maximum speed that I can get from a charger. And I know that everybody, probably people watching and listening are going to be getting like 100, 150 or whatever. But for me, it's the little things. Do you know what I mean? You know.

Rolle Niemenen [00:12:46]:
That actually then brings me to a point because. And this is not just for us geeks, but people who want to plug in and then go do their shopping, whether it's supermarkets or like, there's one great site now that is at a really lovely Farm shop in the world West Country. So whether it's just your everyday shopping or whether you're taking a break, on a journey. From very early on, our software guys thought of a clever thing, which is the follow-on mobile functionality that we have on the screen. If you scan the QR code that is on the Kempower screens, that means that you will have a view of your charge, and you can follow it. So, so it's like you go for a meal, you don't have to wonder, is my car charging? You can just check it on your phone. There are no apps needed for that or anything. It is, it is something that you just grab the view of your screen and then if you really want to get into the Kiki stuff that you talked about, you can then see your charging curves and everything by going deeper into it.

Rolle Niemenen [00:14:11]:
But it is about that, building the confidence and making sure that it's like you can just rest assured that your car is charging.

Liz Allan [00:14:21]:
And the other thing that you can get, or I've seen, you can see the cost, people can see the cost as they're charging. You can see that I was one of those when I was younger that I used to be put. I'd put 10, 10 pounds worth of petrol in my, you know, when you could get a lot for 10 quid, you know, but I'd be. It's some. It's important, isn't it, to be able to see all of these things and if you want to go for the geeky stuff, then great. But actually, if you want to see how many, you know, how full your battery is and what it's costing you, you've got, you've got all of it.

Rolle Niemenen [00:14:55]:
How long is it going to take to get to where you want to go?

Liz Allan [00:14:59]:
Exactly, because then you can kind of go, okay, so I'm just finishing my cup of tea. I've got to 77%, you know, for example, it's only going to be 3%, you know, till I want to stop at 80 because, you know, obviously, because of the charging curve, etc. Etc. Right. I've got time for. I've got time to finish my cupper off and get back. So it's those really simple things, isn't it, that when you've got people who, who don't drive an ev and I was talking to somebody else on the previous podcast that went out before this one about, you know, kind of, oh, what, who wants to sit for half an hour and, and wait for any, you know, wait for a car to charge. That's not what we're talking about here.

Liz Allan [00:15:39]:
We're talking about working it around your lifestyle, aren't we? With what, you know, you build it around what else, the other things that you're doing.

Rolle Niemenen [00:15:48]:
Yeah, exactly. We've done quite a bit of research into that, and the whole idea of building it into your lifestyle is critically important. It's like people are not really willing to wait that long because they want to continue with their journey or they want to get their shopping done, whatever it is that they're running, running errands. So having the availability of the plug, your journey breaks on a motorway, they're usually anything from a sort of 10-minute, very quick pit stop to half an hour, 45 minutes. And you will get different, different amounts of charge in that time, depending on all kinds of variables. But what people do not want to do is wait for 10 to 15 minutes for a free charger. That's why, from the very beginning, we've been looking at this. It's actually more important to have more plugs, especially for car charging, than to have enormous amounts of power per car.

Rolle Niemenen [00:17:15]:
We can still do the sort of peak, peak numbers of 400 kilowatts, but your, your everyday charge isn't going to be always 400. Even with cars that can do it. The temperatures have to be right, and the battery state of charge needs to be right. All of these things need to be right to get to the 400. But as long as you can plug in and do what you need to do, then the charge, as long as it's a meaningful charge. So yeah, you need to have some power behind it, but the expectations of it needing to be enormous, they're not your everyday reality. They're more of a one-time test. I have to admit.

Rolle Niemenen [00:18:11]:
I have, I have probably tested all of my EVs that can, can they get that? But it's like once, once I know that, yeah, it can do its 200 or 250, whatever, whatever it might be, then it's like I, I will charge when it's convenient for me, not necessarily when it's convenient for the client to get the highest charge.

Liz Allan [00:18:29]:
Yeah, well, absolutely. And that's the, that's the best way to be, isn't it really? So I was gonna, I was gonna say get you to talk about some of the projects that you've been involved in because I know that this is what the meeting that we were at was talking about, your work with kind of EHGV charging, and that is, that's. Well, tell me if I'm totally naive, but that seems like a very different beast, to kind of regular just EV charging. I know it's an EV, but it's a massive one, isn't it? You know, so, so how, how is that, how's that been, and what was, what was the, what's the projects that you've been involved in?

Rolle Niemenen [00:19:08]:
Yeah, it is, it is a very different space and I think that I, I was thinking that it's like maybe before, before I move on to the EHGBs. Just that because we are obviously as, as a manufacturer, we're well known for providing public charging solutions for a number of, number of great customers and obviously last, last week's ZAPMAP best Best Networks results were great to read. Obviously, in the medium Medium Cat category, we had Smart Charge by Sainsbury's and the top top and Beb, who uses a lot of our kit as well. Number two, Arnold Clark in the, in the rising stars on the medium and obviously the, sort of one of the, one of the first, first big users of Kemp, Arkansas in the UK, Osprey scoring, scoring third place in the Large Networks category. So yeah, that's been the work that we have been doing for years now, and it's great, it's rewarding. It gets masses of people moving under electric propulsion, and that will continue. But cars are just one part of this whole electrification equation. So that's obviously something that is close to everyone.

Rolle Niemenen [00:20:49]:
Everybody's been in a car; most people drive them, and it's sort of close and easy to understand. But then yeah, when you scale things up to bigger, bigger vehicles and machinery, the principle still remains very much the same. We actually use the same architecture. It's the same idea of centralized power units and then dispensing the power to satellites or they can be coming, coming from like ceiling mounted control units, pantographs, etc. Etc. So then there's a, there's more variety in how that power is delivered to the vehicle or machine that needs it. So yeah, we've obviously we've done quite a lot of bus charging in the UK through some of our great sales and service partners who have done turnkey solutions for a lot of the major bus operators. And I think that that's another area that's actually maturing quite well on a European scale.

Rolle Niemenen [00:22:15]:
A lot of new buses are electric, most of them are for both sort of total cost of ownership reasons but also because of regulations and the demand that city transit buses need to be cleaned. So that cleans it out, it covers a lot of different ground. If we look at noise pollution, an electric bus is a, it sort of whispers compared to a diesel bus. It removes a lot of the particle pollution from city air and then obviously the CO2 benefits on that. And I think that with buses, there's certainly a challenge with space, and a lot of city centre bus depots are tiny. I could not drive and park the buses in those depots.

Liz Allan [00:23:22]:
No, me neither.

Rolle Niemenen [00:23:23]:
So what we've done with our solution is that there are a lot of sorts of space-saving benefits from the power unit and satellite or other dispenser solution. So you can, there's still going to be a lot of sort of high-powered power electronic equipment in your, in your bus depot. But the sort of what, what is in those parking bays between buses can be very slim or it doesn't even need to be there. It can be up in the sea, high up in the ceilings. And some, some of the solutions we've done in different projects are things like underground solutions, etc. So, so there are ways to keep, keep the same number or at least very close to the same number of buses in those pet poles as it was before. And, and that's, that's, that's what it's all about with, with buses is efficiency. So you need to utilise the grid connection efficiently, and you need to distribute the power to the buses efficiently.

Rolle Niemenen [00:24:37]:
And then yeah, so buses are a car,s buses sort of maturing markets but obviously yeah EHGBS as you mentioned it's, it's the same same stuff just charging powers and battery sizes are massively bigger. So, so if we look at like medium to long haul trucks, they are currently in the ones that are available in the European market, they are sort of up to 600 kilowatt hours battery size.

Liz Allan [00:25:06]:
Blimey.

Rolle Niemenen [00:25:07]:
For you, your medium EV is sort of around 60 to 70, so that it's, it's roughly 10 times bigger battery. So that means that the charging powers need to be much higher in order not to inconvenience the trucks. So and you've got a couple of different approaches to that which, which are not exclusive in any way but how you use depot charging overnight or whenever there's a break in the shifts or you use destination and on route charging which are then depot charging can be done at a usually at a lower power because the truck is going to be there longer. But then, if you're trying to get a meaningful charge for a truck in their 45-minute regulation driving break, then you need to be talking about powers sort of 400 kilowatts plus. And for that purpose, we've actually introduced a couple of new products recently, which we already have in use in a number of applications that are sort of up to 1200 kilowatts for an MCS standard charger. And we also have, for CCS applications, a 560-kilowatt solution. So, so yeah, that's, that's when you're starting to then charge those units in the same, same kind of time frames as you would your normal car, just at a significantly higher power. So getting that power at those levels to the right places where the HGV drivers need to and want to stop, that's obviously going to be a challenge as we transition.

Rolle Niemenen [00:27:14]:
It's not impossible, it's not even necessarily always that difficult, but it is a consideration. But then, on the other hand, you can supplement that with battery energy storage.

Liz Allan [00:27:28]:
So.

Rolle Niemenen [00:27:30]:
You can boost the power on a site using better energy storage, which is what our customers have done, for instance, in Sweden, where they basically doubled the available power by using battery storage.

Liz Allan [00:27:50]:
That's a good way to do that anyway. Yeah, yeah.

Rolle Niemenen [00:27:54]:
And, but yeah, so, so yeah, those are, those are the sort of mainstream ones. But then we're also involved in, for instance, electrifying machinery in ports.

Liz Allan [00:28:06]:
Yes, of course, yeah, yeah.

Rolle Niemenen [00:28:08]:
Very, very difficult to electrify a freight vessel that is supposed to cross oceans. But then there's a, there's a lot of things that can be done with the, with the freight handling at the port end which would otherwise be the same things as with the buses that it's like, it's the local air CO2 noise etc. You can reduce this by moving to electric power. But yeah, these are 247 operations. So, so that the, that, that's where it's absolutely critical to then make sure that the uptimes are extremely high and the kit is reliable.

Liz Allan [00:28:58]:
Because I was going to say it's, it doesn't, it doesn't feel, it doesn't seem to me to be that easy to, you know, kind of like you say, electrifying a port as such. But, but the peripheral equipment, you're kind of making a big difference to be able to provide that. Are all of the UK ports looking at that currently? Because they'll all have decarbonization targets, won't they?

Rolle Niemenen [00:29:26]:
I think that I wouldn't say that everyone is looking at it right now. I think that, yeah, as you said, they will have different kinds of decarbonization plans. Different, different port operators are running at different, different paces. But, but I think that it's something that, well, we, we will be talking to a lot of the, a lot of the operators about, but. And then, it's things like vessels, whether they are in public transport you use or whether they are freight vessels. Again, if you're looking at the shorter routes, not the cross oceans but on the rivers and coastlines, there are a lot of examples of electrified vessels, especially in the Nordics. If you look at Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. So there are a lot of, lot of options and they're not all necessarily the massive ones. Still, you can have commuter ferries and stuff like that that are electrified with again the same benefits as electrifying your local buses.

Liz Allan [00:30:47]:
It's funny because you just got me thinking then. So probably just a few weeks ago, I think it was right the end of September, beginning of October October I met Tracey Cairns who's been on the, on, on the podcast previously and she is head of EV charging and for the Welsh government. And I met her in Henley on Thames, which is very close to me. It's only like 15, 20 minutes drive away. And we were just walking along the Thames to go to our destination, and we saw an electric commuter boat. Well, it was kind of like a little cruiser going up and down, you know, going up and down the Thames. But we were both taking photos of this, this kind of commuter boa,t which was really interesting to see. I didn't see any charging in at the time, but actually just to be able to see that there were, you know, all of these things, we're gonna start seeing more of them, aren't you? Aren't we? And it'll come into our daily lives, which will make a massive difference when people start seeing them.

Liz Allan [00:31:48]:
It's not just cars, it's, you know, it's EHGVs, it's kind of commuter berries and like you say, all the peripherals. It's just going to make a massive difference.

Rolle Niemenen [00:31:58]:
Yeah, absolutely. And it's like some things, like aviation, are again another hard-to-electrify area. But, but there are things that you can take apart from it. Things like the buses at the airports taking you to and from the terminals to the plane buses to the car, between car parks and terminals, those will have a significant impact. But then also the aircraft themselves, they will have at least electric elements. So whether the sort of longer flights can be battery electric remains to be seen. But there will definitely be electric motors powering parts of the flight because we already see the tests and shorter flights have already been electrified. So that's not tomorrow, that's already existing technology today.

Rolle Niemenen [00:33:11]:
So yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a, an interesting variety, but I think that it's the, there's like, there are sort of cores to our business and to our strategy, which are Obviously cars, vans, HGBs, buses, they will, they will continue to grow the electrification rates for all of them. And then the other areas will be very, very important as well, because there is a need and a clear benefit, definitely.

Liz Allan [00:33:51]:
So if we look at all of the projects that you're involved in, which you've got multiple pingers, fingers in lots of pies, that was pingers in thighs, fingers in pies. But what lessons can the wider sector and industries learn from what you're doing, and what you've been doing? And I know this is part of your overall USP anyway, isn't it your unique selling point or points even?

Rolle Niemenen [00:34:24]:
I think that it's looking at the solution holistically. So, so whether, whether it's, whether it's a charging hub or, or whether, whether it's a, a bus depot, that is like. Rather than that, it's like, okay, I want X number of charges. It's like you, you sort of build the picture. It's like, what, what am I trying to achieve here? What, what's, what's the, what's the customer expectation? The user expectation? How do we make it as convenient and easy for the user as possible? And then start it early, don't order buses and then start thinking about charging needs to be at the same time because. It's a complex process with so many different variables. It's the same with building a charging hub, and a lot of my customers will know this. That's different things that you might come across, different requirements, different challenges along the way.

Rolle Niemenen [00:35:51]:
So it's like plan it, but we actually have a solutions engineering team that will work with our sales team, obviously, but also with the customer and with our turnkey partners to build the solution and build the value for that use case. There's like, okay, how do we sort of eke out the maximum savings or revenue from the grid constraint side using batteries, using different kinds of energy management solutions? How do we make a public charging site as accessible as possible? Where do you place the Satellites, where do you place the power units, so that they are as convenient as possible, and looking at the sort of economics of the installation at the same time? So yeah, we have a sort of modular scalable solution, which means that we can build solutions that grow with the customer's needs and then we also have the sort of engineering support for that before it's installed, but also after it's been installed and understanding also those sort of life cycle needs of a solution from early on. So having the right service contracts in place, having the right service level agreements in place to make sure that you keep the high uptime and reliability all along. So it is about looking at projects and programs as solutions realistically as possible. That, that's I think is the, it's a, it's not just, it's not a USB as such, but it is, is the approach that, that we want to take, that we're there to provide, provide solutions to business challenges.

Liz Allan [00:38:12]:
But I think that is part of your USP, just that's part of the way you think, isn't it, as an organisation? So that's, you know, that's, that's, that's always a possib, a positive thing. What would you like to see? If we look at the kind of future technologies, what would you like to see?

Rolle Niemenen [00:38:30]:
Happen.

Liz Allan [00:38:32]:
In your business, you know, or in the wider sectors that will, you know, help you optimise things in future?

Rolle Niemenen [00:38:47]:
I think that what I would like to see personally, and I'm sure the organisation looks at it, is that if we look at regulatory frameworks and things like EV incentives across different countries or sort of other policy drivers, they are consistent. So our customers can plan, we can plan for a sort of logical path into the future. So if there's an incentive, then it's clear for how long it is what's going to happen with it. If there are sort of volume requirements for EVs, then they stay, because that gives stability to the whole industry, so operators can invest, and they know what's happening down the line, because every business wants to have a level of predictability. I think that from the sort of technology point of view, again, I think we're probably in a good place with this sort of nearly seven-year tried and tested solution of power units that then distribute the power dynamically where it's needed. And it doesn't really matter whether it's a pantograph, a ceiling-mounted control unit, or a satellite. So we can adapt to those things relatively easily. It's more about the business environment.

Rolle Niemenen [00:40:40]:
So it's like, yeah, powers will inevitably grow again. We've moved from a sort of maximum size of a power unit of 600 kilowatts to 1.2 megawatts. So that's logical development, and that can be foreseen. But I think that's the sort of stability to do business and provide great solutions for any kind of electrified vehicle or machinery that is needed. That's what I'm sort of hoping for.

Liz Allan [00:41:19]:
And talking about doing business. You've got lots of partnerships across lots of different sectors. What do you see that makes a strong partnership for chem power? You know, what are the good things that make that strong partnership?

Rolle Niemenen [00:41:39]:
Yeah, I think the key thing is open conversations. So we've got different kinds of customers, customers who buy our systems and then they build bus depots, etc. And then we have public charge point operators who get our kit, and they build their hubs, and we want to be there, enabling their success. Their success will be our success. So having open conversations about both the successes and challenges and then sort of innovating even though we might not produce a brand new product for every single project and we don't, but there are different ways of utilizing the existing portfolio of our hardware, our software solutions to make things work in different environments, like utilizing the same architecture that we're using in bus and car charging at a port and charging the port machinery. So it is about using, using our expertise, our global experiences of doing all kinds of different charging solutions and then being open to ideas and also asking us. It's like, okay, hey, this is what I want to do. Is it possible? And more often than not, something is possible, and it's just a matter of finding the right solution.

Rolle Niemenen [00:43:37]:
So we provide solutions, and charges are a part of that solution.

Liz Allan [00:43:50]:
So one final question then. So what is coming up in 2026 that you are most excited about?

Rolle Niemenen [00:44:00]:
I'm really excited about seeing more and more electric HGVs on the roads. So at the moment we can see the sort of growing numbers in markets like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and there's a significant increase in those. And obviously, the HGV manufacturers are bringing; they effectively have a solution now for pretty much every use case. So from the last mile to, to the long haul and, and then just seeing volumes of those MCS or megawatt charging standard is, is, is something that I'm looking, looking forward to seeing. Take that to the next level. So it's like Even even previously, like we've, we've had truck charging solutions in in use in the UK for several years now in different different places, but just the volume of growth and you utilizing the, the high high charging powers to basically for, for a transport logistics company to be able to pretty much run the same same routes, same same schedules with, with electric trucks. When when we get to get to be building, building those charging networks to support that, that's, that's, that's going to be really, really exciting and I, I, I really hope that next, next year is going to be the sort of big breakthrough in the UK on that as it has been in other other countries sort of this year and last year.

Liz Allan [00:45:50]:
I look forward to seeing that happen. Ro. I really do. I really do. It'll be brilliant. And all this, you know, all the work you're doing is, is brilliant and like I say, you've got a lot of projects on the go. Just. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really, really good.

Liz Allan [00:46:06]:
So I just want to say thank you, thank you for, for joining me on this, you know, on the, on the podcast. I think it's, it's been a really interesting conversation. So. Yeah, so thank you, thank you very much.

Rolle Niemenen [00:46:19]:
It was a, it was a pleasure having, having a chat with you.

Liz Allan [00:46:22]:
Oh, I'm glad.

Rolle Niemenen [00:46:23]:
For hours.

Liz Allan [00:46:25]:
I know. Well, this is the thing, when you get sat talking to another geek, you see, you know, but look, on that note, I'm going to say to everybody else, thank you for watching and listening. I hope you've got plenty out of this conversation, and please do engage with our social media. We've got the Electric Evolution LinkedIn page, and we're on Instagram, Blue Sky, and Facebook, still, you know, and yeah, share the word. But on that note, thank you for watching and listening. Thanks to Rolle, and I'll see you all next time. Bye.