Electric cars are revolutionizing our roads, but are we all on the same page about their potential and pitfalls? This episode peels back the sleek exterior of EVs and equips you with the knowledge needed to navigate the electrifying world of battery-powered transport with confidence. Kicking things off, we address the pressing need for consumer education, from understanding the nuances of electric car insurance to safety measures that rival those of aviation. As your guide, I promise to demystify the complexities of EV ownership, pinpointing the dangers, precautions, and money-saving insurance tips every driver should know.
Shifting gears, we examine the tumultuous EV market dynamics, where price swings and dealer hesitancy could throw a wrench in adoption rates. Drawing on my expertise in cost management accountancy, I offer unexpected insights into pricing strategies that defy conventional wisdom. We'll explore the power of effective communication and technology like chatbots in firing up EV sales and discuss my strategy to engage policymakers and propel electric transport into the fast lane.
Our journey culminates with a critical look at the challenges facing electric car charging station infrastructure. I argue for a strategic approach to chargers that goes beyond mere numbers, emphasizing the need for visibility and user-friendliness to alleviate range anxiety and steer consumers towards making the electric switch. We also bust the myths clouding EV practicality and unveil a groundbreaking training course designed to enhance public understanding of battery technology and safety. Tune in to ensure you're not left idling as the era of electric cars accelerates ahead.
To buy a copy of Electric Cars - The Truth Revealed visit grahamhilltraining.com
Electric cars are revolutionizing our roads, but are we all on the same page about their potential and pitfalls? This episode peels back the sleek exterior of EVs and equips you with the knowledge needed to navigate the electrifying world of battery-powered transport with confidence. Kicking things off, we address the pressing need for consumer education, from understanding the nuances of electric car insurance to safety measures that rival those of aviation. As your guide, I promise to demystify the complexities of EV ownership, pinpointing the dangers, precautions, and money-saving insurance tips every driver should know.
Shifting gears, we examine the tumultuous EV market dynamics, where price swings and dealer hesitancy could throw a wrench in adoption rates. Drawing on my expertise in cost management accountancy, I offer unexpected insights into pricing strategies that defy conventional wisdom. We'll explore the power of effective communication and technology like chatbots in firing up EV sales and discuss my strategy to engage policymakers and propel electric transport into the fast lane.
Our journey culminates with a critical look at the challenges facing electric car charging station infrastructure. I argue for a strategic approach to chargers that goes beyond mere numbers, emphasizing the need for visibility and user-friendliness to alleviate range anxiety and steer consumers towards making the electric switch. We also bust the myths clouding EV practicality and unveil a groundbreaking training course designed to enhance public understanding of battery technology and safety. Tune in to ensure you're not left idling as the era of electric cars accelerates ahead.
To buy a copy of Electric Cars - The Truth Revealed visit grahamhilltraining.com
Hi, I'm Graham Hill and I'm the author of Electric Cars - The Truth Revealed. You can buy a copy of the book by going to grahamhilltraining.com and you can download a copy immediately by paying the small fee. You can also forward order the training course which will be coming out in 2024. If you forward order you won't have to pay the full cost which is set to rise to several hundreds of pounds when officially launched. I'm not here to make fortunes out of this. All I want to do is get the message out there and let's get more people into Electric Cars as a result of being provided with more information as included in the book. I'll talk about that again in a short while.
In my last podcast I explained the theory and process known as the Diffusion of Innovation. Please go back and watch it if you're unsure as to what it is. Many of the car manufacturers have viewed electric cars as simply a progression from the ICE cars that they’ve been making for many years. That has been the wrong approach. We should be treating electric cars as innovations not progressions. When stop/start was added to ICE cars that was a progression. When power assisted steering was added to ICE cars, that was a progression. But with electric cars only resembling ICE cars because they have 4 wheels, a steering wheel and a driver, there are very few major similarities. No engine, no gearbox, no axel, no oil required and they drive completely differently. Drive long distances at a steady speed in an ICE car and you’ll save fuel but drive an electric car around town and you’ll optimise the range due to the recharging under braking. So with all the differences we should view electric cars as innovations – as Elon Musk did. As a result we need to get more information out to potential customers in order to remove the fear of transition. We've got to move into the big numbers and cross what I've explained as the Chasm through greater knowledge. At the moment, all customers are seeing is adverse information in the press, social media etc. I’m not advocating the ignoring of any dangers attached to electric cars simply suggesting that potential buyers are given ALL information in order to make an educated decision.
When you get into any car, whether it's petrol or diesel or whether it's an electric car, there are dangers involved as there are in any form of transport. You've only got to board an aeroplane and before you even take off, they're giving you all these warnings. They start by checking that your seat belt is fastened. That's not to stop you hitting your head on the seat in front if the pilot puts his foot on the brake. It's to keep you in your seat if the plane turns upside down. The cabin crew then point out the exits in the event of a crash and then how to put on the life jacket, in case we land in the water and that set of warnings are provided every single trip. It's not going to put people off, but they're aware of what they need to do in certain circumstances. But I get moaned at for explaining that it is possible for batteries to catch light along with other warnings to the public. What happens if you get caught in a flood? What happens if you get caught in a traffic jam? What happens after an accident? All these things come to mind after the event. We need to get the information out there before the event and make sure that people are aware of what to do. Then build on the positives, low cost maintenance, low cost per mile if charged at home, environmentally friendly and so on.
I'm going to talk a little bit more about these warnings in a minute. In the next few podcasts, I've taken out just one subject of about 50 included in the book – that subject being insurance. It’s been in the news recently with many drivers of all vehicles complaining about hefty rate rises. There are also items that are specific to electric cars which I felt needed to be exposed so it’s a strong subject to start podcasting on. There are quite a few podcasts but they don’t cover everything in the book because that would be unfair on the people that have already bought the book, but the podcast will cover all of the major insurance issues that you need to be aware of if you're going to get into an electric car or you may even already be driving one and you can improve the situation by making sure you're aware of what could happen and what could go wrong with your insurance policy, things to check within the policy, and important things to check before you even order your electric car. In some circumstances you may have to rethink the car and the model before ordering it. I talk about IPT which stands for Insurance Premium Tax? I explain why you need to consider this when you're taking out some of the insurance products that you can buy through the dealership or you can buy online. There's a very big difference between getting the insurance through the dealer and buying it online or through an unrelated broker, and I explain that.
In one of the podcasts I talk about damage to the battery pack. Now, if you damage your battery pack, yes, it's covered by your insurance, but will you be expected to contribute towards the cost? That cost could be something like £20,000 plus to replace the battery pack. Are you expected to contribute towards that? It's something called Betterment. I explain this. It's critical, very critical. When you take out your insurance policy, you don't want to run over a pavement or run through a puddle in which there's an unseen lump of concrete or something else equally damaging in the puddle that has just crunched the bottom of your battery pack. On the other hand what happens when something minor happens to the car and the battery pack gets scraped? For fear of a later battery fire the insurance company could write off the complete car.
I explain all of this in the podcasts. I also answer the question, when is it best to take out your insurance? Most people, when they get a new car, take out the insurance the day before they take delivery, which is actually the worst possible time you could think of in terms of cost. I explain the ideal time to take out your insurance. And it's also useful even if you drive a petrol or diesel car as the same rules apply. Recent reports have shown a disproportionate increase in electric car insurance. I explain some of the reasons for that and what you need to do to get the best rates. Follow my advice and you can save anything up to 40% on the premium. That’s a summary of the insurance podcasts. So make sure you're signed up, tell anybody that you know and get them signed up as well, the more people we've got watching the podcast the better.
Now I would admit that I'm not the best presenter in the world. I used to be a pretty good presenter but since COVID the voice has gone a bit strange, the brain's also gone a bit strange but I think that's more to do with my age than anything else. But I have a message and I'm passionate to get that message out there even though it might upset a few people so I’ll give it my best shot. Sadly, that is still the kind of guy I am. In 1991, I turned the asset and vehicle finance industry on its head which upset a few people in the asset and vehicle finance industry. I faced all sorts of abuse and even physical threats from crooked dealers and brokers who didn’t lie the idea of minimum standards being introduced. The biggest crooks were the early car supermarkets but of course in time they had to tow the line as did car dealerships and brokers. But against the odds I battled on and cleaned up the market with a group of honest brokers supported by some of the lenders.
So let's get back to the purpose of this part. This is part three of the introduction into insurance. So we've seen the national stocks of electric cars start to build up. We're seeing stocks at dealerships increase along with electric cars going from 18 month lead times to pre-registrations by dealers and leasing companies available for immediate delivery. We're also starting to see the new electric car prices start to drop, which is also having an effect on used cars. I don't really understand why it’s suddenly becomes headline news that the price of used electric cars have started to drop away. It's nothing to do with the cars themselves, It's the fact that the new cars are dropping in price and having a knock on effect.
So obviously, if you've got a used car sitting on a forcourt, that's £2,000 more than the cost of a brand new one. Which one are you going to buy? So obviously used car prices have to drop. I know a trader who lost £10,000 on his Jaguar iPace when Elon Musk announced his two price drops earlier in 2023. When Musk dropped his prices by £7,000 the trader’s used Jaguar immediately dropped by £6,000. After Musk dopped his car prices even further he ended up trading it out and losing a total of £10,000 on it, and that's unfortunately the reason why a lot of the dealers are not buying electric cars, because they can't afford to risk taking a hit every time they buy one and end up selling them at a loss.
If the numbers of electric cars are very high in a particular area compared to other areas of the UK it doesn’t mean anything more than the fact that electric cars are more suited to some areas than others such as city centres like London. It doesn’t necessarily follow that the area is more affluent but it could mean that the density of public chargers is greater. The fact of the matter is that electric cars are becoming more affordable. PCP rates are dropping as are PCH Personal Contract Hire rates because even though the used car prices are dropping, the new car prices are dropping at the same time, so it makes them more affordable and that's what we're looking for in order to improve sales. We need to forget about the retail price of the cars. That doesn't really come into it. It's really what you can get these cars for monthly once the dealer has added in his discounts and bonuses, and on PCP, low or zero rate interest. I'll be explaining all of this in other podcasts in the future, Including how discounts are build into the deal, what discounted and zero rate finance means and what discounts are in terms of PCP.
We're going to talk about all these sorts of things in the future, so make sure you sign up to the podcast and get all the information that you need to move forward. So, with what's been happening recently with the falling away of the sale of new electric cars we need to get the sales back on track. I believe that we should have reached a million battery electric car registrations by the end of 2022. In fact we still haven't got there at the end of 2023. In my view we're way behind where we should be. So we need to put a lot of effort into getting the electric car registrations up. So as I’ll be explaining later I want all related product and service providers to have my electric car chatbot installed on their websites so that we flood the marketplace with essential and important information and not waste time and effort myth busting. I'm going to talk about this obsession. It's pathetic. Why do well intentioned so called experts take stories that appear in the press, on TV or in social media and tear them to shreds? The stories are often there for a reason expressing real concerns held by potential electric car drivers. We need to stop this myth busting. We're reacting to the stories that appear in the press instead of being proactive and putting the positive messages out there in the first place. Anyway, I'm going to be talking next about how we change our attitude towards this situation and the problem.
I'm what's known as a creative. I come up with solutions to problems. My background is accountancy. I was a cost of management accountant and that's the one arm of accountancy that is creative. We have to come up with solutions for the companies we work for. Maybe different ways of manufacturing, different ways of pricing.
Sometimes I've actually recommended that the price of a product is increased to sell more, and it works. That is certainly the case in the perfume industry. I spent a few years working in the perfume industry and if you started to drop the prices of your perfume, you'd sell none. They sell on price. And if you bought your partner an aftershave, eau de toilette or perfume and announce that it's brilliant, it smells exactly like the real thing and it was only a fiver. Do you think you're going to score too many brownie points? You can only really reduce prices without affecting the perceived quality when you have a promotion. People are more likely to buy an air fryer if it was on special offer, reduced from £200 to £100 than another air fryer simply priced at £100 with no discount. When we buy it involves a lot of psychology. Sometimes you need to increase the price which also means that you've got to improve the message and the story, and that's where I come from and that's the stuff I'm going to be pushing out there in the very near future. That's what I've included in the book. It’s all about getting the message right. So if you're looking at new ways of selling, then you need to get a copy of the book, find a way of getting into the information part of the exercise and get more information out into the general marketplace by taking on board the chatbot. I'll probably produce another podcast on just that subject.
So my big suggestion to get more electric cars sold and registered is going to seem a bit strange. First of all, I want to take an idea that is an economist's or accountant’s idea. When I say economists, these are people that talk in terms of numbers. I put some ideas to the transport minister a couple years ago, I don't know how many ministers ago it was, but I sent my report through. The under secretary of state sent me a very nice and very long response and it was numbers, numbers, numbers. We've invested this, we've spent that, we've put this in place at a cost of, we're doing that after investing and so on. We want to get these numbers to numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers.
That didn’t and doesn't solve the problem. You can't just keep chucking money at stuff and expect it to resolve itself. You've got to do something. You've got to change the messaging, you've got to reframe. Let me give you a good example of this.
There's been some talk about installing roadside panels displaying electric charge station information, like we do with petrol and diesel but with the price per kWh displayed on them. I would actually go one step further than that because invariably at each charge station you've got more than one type of charger. So you might have a rapid charger at 150. You might have other chargers on-site at, say, 50 and 22 kilowatts. These are the speeds of charge. That's all explained in the book, by the way. Unfortunately, what is not always understood by new drivers of electric cars is that you pay more per kWh when connected to a rapid charger compared to a fast charger. So if you connect to a 150kWh charger you will pay more per kWh than if you were connected to a 50kWh charger. What is also not necessarily explained is that if your car is rated at 50kW, that is the fastest you can charge your car so even if you were connected to a 150kW charger you will not charge your car any quicker. You’ll just end up paying more for your electricity. That's the way it works. So what we need is the cost per kilowatt hour for the chargers available on roadside boards.
Then I would suggest that we have additional information on the electronic boards, like how many chargers are available and of those how many are free. So you've got 2 x 450 kilowatt chargers and there are two available for use etc. This is useful information because invariably the location of the charge stations are not like petrol stations and sited on the main drag, they’re maybe a mile or two of the main road because of the need to connect to the grid and planning permission would be easier if the charge station could be located on an area of scrub land just off any main roads. The land would also be cheaper to buy. So the charge station it may be just a mile or two away but you can’t see it from the main road. It's not immediately visible or easily accessible. You've got to turn off the motorway, the A road or the B road you’re driving along, to get to the charge station. So I would suggest that, by having that information regularly displayed it would not only help electric car drivers but also petrol and diesel drivers. Let me explain.
Most people that talk about these roadside boards enthuse about the information that could be displayed for EV drivers. Clearly anybody who drives an electric vehicle needs that information, much of which is available on the various apps such as ZapMap. However, a roadside board can be updated in real time with available charging spaces and rates that are changed to reflect demand. The displays are clearly for the drivers of electric cars so that they can see that there's a charge station coming up, their charges per kWh along with facilities. So whilst apps like ZapMap display much of this information the display boards are easier to see and understand. Alerting EV drivers to an upcoming charge station along with costs and availability would make locating charge stations much easier. Combined with the information on ZapMap such as payment methods and hints and tips from other ZapMap users of each charge station will make life better for those driving electric cars. However, there are other ways to view the installation of these information boards.
Now, I don't see these information boards as just of use by EV drivers. As a creative, what I'm looking at is not a board with prices on it and available charge positions. I see it as a marketing board. I see an advert. We're trying to get to the people that are driving petrol and diesel cars who notice when they drive past these charge station signs. Contrary to what they’ve read and now believe they will see a lot of charge station boards. Being told that there are far too few public chargers available to meet the demands of plug-in vehicle drivers will come as a shock if they can see that there are so many charge stations available. We've got loads of charge stations, but unless we are already driving a car with a ZapMap or similar app installed we just don't know that they're there. But with the signs installed at the side of all main roads attitudes will change and in many areas of the country fear of running out of electric power will become a thing of the past. You couldn’t get a better advert for electric cars.
The truth of the matter is that if we look at averages the chargers that are out there are vastly under utilised. There is plenty of available charge time as the chargers, using two major surveys, are on average less that 15 percent utilised at the moment. That's been confirmed by others in the industry. I calculated the figures out a year ago and they haven’t changed much from last year to this year. The existing chargers are vastly underutilised. We need to get them in higher use Now by getting more electric cars on the road.
The problem we face as an industry when selling electric cars is perception. Drivers are guided by their exceptional trips. According to Government statistics just 1% of trips are over 100 miles with just 2% over 50 miles but the reason why some ICE car drivers are put off electric cars is the thought that their once a year trip to visit their family at Christmas, their holiday trip to the West Country or the annual trip to meet up with old friends for a BBQ will cause them to have to find a charge station and what if they can’t find one? With the ability to install a home charger and with the vast majority of trips less than 8 miles an electric car is more than adequate and much cheaper to run. The roadside boards could be the answer. The next time a nervous driver makes her trip to their family or down to the West Country and sees how many charge stations there are en-route would help to remove any fears of not being able to find a charge station. I should mention that a trip, according to the Government is one way. So visiting your local Tesco equates to two trips, one each way. My feeling is that the sooner we install the roadside boards the sooner we will see the increased take up of electric cars. As a final thought we cover about 630 trips per annum. That’s just over 3 return trips each year that are likely to be over 100 miles each way.
There are more electric car charge stations than there are petrol fuel stations. However, the perception is clouded because most petrol stations are highly visible as they have been traditionally located on main roads with supermarkets locating theirs alongside their stores. So you can hardly miss them. On the other hand, because of planning permission issues, cost of land and electric feed from the grid most charge stations are located away from main roads. In a recent talk an attendee said, ‘Once we can build as many charge stations as petrol stations we’ll see an increase in electric car takeup.’ The fact is that as far back as 2019 there were already 1,000 more charge stations than petrol stations but that comment summed up the perception. The sight of electric charge station boards whenever ICE drivers are on a long trip will be a great advert for electric cars. They also have more facilities than petrol stations as they need to allow for the time it takes to charge electric cars. This will make the trip more comfortable.
The problem is that potential electric car buyers’ only sources of information are the press, TV, radio and social media. But then you've got the myth busters. Don't you just love the myth busters reacting to what is said in the press? You can do away with all of that by installing the boards by the side of the A and B roads. And as people make the regular long trips in their petrol and diesel cars they start to believe that range is no longer a problem. And as already mentioned, on average, only 1% of trips each year are over 100 miles.and between 50 and 100miles is only 1%. So over 50 miles is only 2% of our trips each year. You can't base your buying decision on just 2% of your trips a year and 50 miles or even 100 miles there and back is easily achievable in many electric cars without having the need to stop en-route to top up the battery.
There are a lot of EV related issues whereby people believe one thing but the fact is something completely different. So we’ve got to be a bit careful with the way we deal with these issues. Anyway, let me get back to these boards at the side of the road. We need some investment by the government to help the charge stations, because they're struggling and they're going to continue to struggle and we're going to get to a point where we're going to start seeing amalgamations, because they did their year, three year, five year, 10 year plans and, of course, they've been scuppered now with the move of the deadline to 2035.
If you're a tyre manufacturer, you were expecting to sell an increasing number of EV tyres a year, building up to 2030. Well, that's now scaled back down. So now there's no investment in TV and other advertising. You very rarely see electric EV tyres being advertised. Then take the investment by the breakdown services - they've got highly qualified engineers, they've got vans that have been fully adapted to use on electric vehicles when they're working at the side of the road working on vehicles with high voltages running through them, along with investment in specialist equipment, specialist tools, all these sorts of things that represent millions of pounds worth of investment but with fewer than expected electric vehicles on the road they're not seeing the desired return.
So we need to get this moving and the duty falls on all of us in the EV related industries. What we've got to do is stop this whingy type of myth busting, because it gets us nowhere. And the fact of the matter is, there's generally some truth behind some of these so called myths which I'm going to explain on future podcasts. I'm going to tell you something interesting about the recently reported fears of collapsing multi-story car parks. I'll be putting that out on a future podcast. There’s some interesting stuff on that. It's fascinating.
So now we've got the drivers of petrol and diesel cars now looking more realistically at the ability to get from A to B without the electric car running out of battery. I mean, it's down to just 2% of callouts. In fact it's about 1% if you believe the figures from the AA, and they say that, even though they're showing 2%, callouts to electric vehicles for drive batteries that have run out of power. It's actually 1% because a number of people call them out when they get low. They may still have battery power, but it’s low and just to be on the safe side because they're parked in the open and I the light rather than breaking down in the dark or on a motorway and to be honest the AA doesn't mind that. They would rather be called out than leave you to be vulnerable. More than happy to be called out in order charge the vehicle up. But be careful, because I'll be talking about this again on another podcast when they say you can have unlimited callouts, you can't have unlimited callouts for the same reason. So if you're in a habit of running out of battery power, you may find yourself getting charged. I'm not just saying that this applies to the AA, I'm talking about all of the breakdown services. You need to check your agreement.
When it comes to company car drivers say salesmen or engineers working a particular area. The company may be considering going electric and from the point of view of the employees, whilst they will make big savings in BIK tax they are reluctant to transition to electric because, whilst travelling around their area they’ve hardly seen a charger. The BIK tax takes a chunk out of their salary, especially when compared to the BIK tax payable on their current ICE car. But whilst the saving is attractive the employees tend to be concerned about missing or being late for appointments because they ran out of battery power as a result o no visible charge stations on their patch. From the reports that I’ve seen this may apply to pockets of the country but generally there are plenty of chargers – just not always visible. Sadly this is putting some companies off making the move to electric following discussions with staff members. Hence the need not just for more charge stations but also the roadside display boards.
Having said that we can’t conquer the world overnight by getting everyone into an electric car immediately. The Diffusion of Innovation requires us to move in stages. If it means we have to put back the transition for people that can't install a home charger because they live in a flat or they’ve got no way to connect a charge box. Those people will come on board eventually. Unfortunately, we can't make charging electric cars fair for everybody. For example there are people that benefit out of salary sacrifice. You may have heard the expression. It's a way of funding a vehicle, but it's only through the company you work for if they're prepared to do it. Now, to be fair, everybody that's employed should have that ability to use salary sacrifice. They can't, so it's unfair.
So why aren't we doing something about that? As opposed to Quentin Wilson who has been pushing to drop VAT from 20% to 5% on public charging. The idea is simply stupid. I love Quentin, I think he's a great guy, but at the same time, why is he fighting this battle? I really don't know as there is nothing obvious that this will achieve. Someone's got to tell me where I'm going wrong, because in my opinion, it’s just daft.
So, moving on from the information boards at the side of the road, we also need to get the information into public and supermarket car parks that have electric car chargers available. When you drive into my local Tesco, they've got some charge points right over on the far side of the carpark. But there's no signpost, there's nothing to say they've even got chargers in there. There's no sign that says EV charge points and a direction arrow. And yet they have two signs showing that they have petrol and diesel available with the cost per litre. We've got to make electric charge information more prominent wherever there are street and public charge stations. By seeing this information all over the place, drivers will feel a little more relaxed about the ability to charge when away from home. That doesn’t mean that no-one will run out of battery power but they will be in the minority. They won't be able to get onto a charger because in their part of the country there's all sorts of planning issues and feed issues from the national grid. So that will come eventually, but it's just going to take a bit more time. So that takes them out of the early majority and puts them back into the late majority.
People talk less and less about range when I talk to them about the transition to electric cars. As long as the range is something over 250 miles, they feel quite comfortable. The other thing to understand is that, although you plug your car in probably every night when you get home from work to charge up overnight, you may only have lost or used 10% of the charge during the day, but the home charger still tops it up to the 80% mark, which is the ideal position to get to. You don't want to top it up to 100%. That's not wise. Apparently it has an effect on the batteries. However, because those with home chargers tend to plug in their car every night, the perception is that you have to charge the car every day. But that’s not true.
I also know that some people that have got electric cars that we've provided, haven't got home chargers and they use a public charger as necessary and they're happy doing that because they only charge their car maybe once a fortnight. This works better if the car is capable of a rapid charge that can be attached to a rapid charger. For example, if the car is rated at 150kW and the car is attached to a public rapid charger with the same 150kW rating they can charge from say 15% or 20% up to 80% in around about 30 to 35 minutes. Whilst the car is charging the driver and passengers can have a cup of coffee, have a walk, or use the other facilities that most charge stations have available. I don't know about you, but I take longer than 35 minutes to have a cup of coffee and maybe go for a toilet break. So for most the stop is not an issue especially if they only need to charge once a fortnight. Yes, it will cost you more, but it's still a lot less than your petrol or diesel is costing you. Now that will vary, as petrol prices are currently at the lowest level for several months, so that difference is currently less than it has been. It's therefore not an issue to use a charging station once a fortnight or even once a week on a rapid charger. The only other thing to consider, when it comes to range, other than normal use is when, where and how frequently you make long journeys and are likely to need to stop to charge en-route. If we had my suggested roadside boards it would make life so much easier for electric car drivers.
I want to close off by being critical of myth-busting. I was watching a ‘Myth Busting’ presentation by a new group that had been set up to help the transition from ICE cars to electric cars. In the presentation the panel was seen talking to a group of about 200 people. The chairman said to them, ‘Stand up if you drive an electric car’. And I think pretty much everybody in the room stood up. My first question is - why are you myth-busting or talking about electric cars to people that have already got electric cars? If you're going to put that information out there then you're putting that information out to the wrong people. You want to put it out to people that are in the market to get an electric car but they just need a bit more conviction and a little bit more confidence before they go out and they get their electric car. However, as I’ll be pointing out in future podcasts myth-busting is a waste of time and energy that could better be applied elsewhere.
Back to the presentation, one of the panel asked the audience, having picked on someone he knew as someone senior in Lex Leasing. He was asked, ‘How many electric vehicles have you got in your fleet? He said 165,000. That's a big number. The panel member then asked, ‘Out of those 165,000, how many battery fires have you had? And he answered, ‘Well, none.’ Yeah, okay, and that was job done as far as the panel was concerned. Another audience member running a lease fleet was asked the same question to which he also answered, ‘No battery fires.’
Now, when you've got these large lease fleets, they're mainly operating in the fleet sector, so they're being provided for business and as company vehicles. When they're provided as company vehicles, the drivers, as a matter of course, have to be highly trained, the health and safety trained, the optimisation train, so that they get the best range out of the car. The health and safety comes into play. Everything, and part of the training will be how to charge the car up and or the vehicle, whatever it is, a van or whatever and where you charge to without damaging the batteries. We don't get that training as private individuals and the dealerships struggle to give you that sort of information. You may get it from one or two, but the vast majority won't be telling you stuff like that. They won't be telling you how to protect your battery because it could catch light. They don't like revealing that sort of information about electric cars. So you're at higher risk as a private individual.
My main argument here is that you're talking about history. Their cars so far have not had a battery fire. That doesn't mean to say that it's not going to happen in the future. As cars get older and new manufacturers enter the fray, having their batteries manufactured in all corners of the world, how safe are they? How reliable are they? You don't know until time has passed. It's all well and good to say it hasn't happened so far. That is absolutely no proof that it won't happen in the future. As batteries get older, they wear differently, the cars are driven differently with all sorts of outcomes. Any of these circumstances could lead to thermal runaway that eventually leads to a fire, or it could happen as a result of an accident.
The other argument that was put forward was that battery fires were practically non-existent compared to internal combustion engine cars as they account for 100,000 fires a year. Now we know that 60% of those fires are arson, where people have stolen the cars and then they destroy any evidence by setting light to the car. They destroy any DNA and fingerprints. But it's still 40%. That's 40,000 cars that catch light each year. So along with battery fires we need to be addressing that problem because that is a serious number each year. So why aren't we dealing with that rather than using it as an excuse to say, well, if your petrol or diesel car is more likely to catch fire we should simply ignore battery fires and regard the fears as myths. No, I'm sorry, but everybody's life matters to me and if people need to be aware of the facts then they should be aware of the dangers. Sadly, for fear of sharing what could be seen as bad news, there are still people who've got electric cars out there that don't even know that batteries catch fire. They're not avid readers of the press when it comes to electric vehicles so they just don’t know. They are simply not aware that electric car batteries can catch light. However, I've got a solution which you will see if you visit grahamhilltraining.com and on the page where we're selling the book and the training course, there's a solution to the battery fire problem.
Now let me tell you who is taking the subject of battery fires seriously, or so far have taken it seriously and that's car manufacturers. You see, we've had two major recalls. One was Hyundai with their Kona and the other one was General Motors with their Bolt, the Chevrolet Bolt. They had a recall before the pandemic, so there weren't that many cars out there, but it still cost Hyundai close to a billion dollars, that’s one billion dollars straight off their bottom line because they had to recall the cars and replace the battery packs. The other problem was with the Chevrolet Bolt and it cost General Motors or rather they shared the cost with the battery manufacturer L&G but the total cost of two billion dollars affected both their bottom lines. Two billion dollars to recall the cars, that is massive.
Now you may ask the question, what caused them to recall these cars at such a high cost? Especially as battery fires have pretty much been dismissed by so-called experts or as they refer to themselves – myth-busters. Well, according to Reuters, when the Hyundai's were recalled, it was as a result of 15, that’s one, five battery fires. Now that's taking the situation seriously. They weren't messing about spending that sort of money to recall the cars as a result of just 15 cases. In the case of General Motors and their Bolt, it cost them two billion dollars. A lot of that spend was because some of the replacement battery packs didn't work as they were part of the original batch. So they had to recall them again and replace them. Again, according to Reuters, they recalled the cars after 16 battery fires. Yes, that’s one six. So like me it seems that the manufacturers are taking battery fires much more seriously than the FairCharge grouip and others who dismiss the dangers. So when some people look down their nose and say, ‘How many fires have you had?’ and sneer ‘Don't worry about battery fires.’ Ignore them. If the manufacturers take it that seriously, then we should do too. Go to grahamhilltraining.com and have a look at my solution to the battery fires. Okay, so that's my rant over.
To encourage more people to buy electric cars we need more information pushed out into the marketplace. The information necessary is already available via my book, but we'll soon have it available via a chatbot. I'm going to be explaining all that in another podcast which we'll put out in due course. If you're interested in the chatbot and having it embedded on your website so that anybody can come onto your website and ask questions relating to electric cars and be able to get the answers. The government has got a scheme in place, but it's pathetically poor. It's a step in the right direction, but there’s nowhere near enough information for people to make a value judgment on whether they want an electric car or not. We need more information. In fact we need to flood the market with information.
So the next podcast is going to be the first of a series on insurance so make sure you're signed in to be notified when available. As I’ve mentioned I'll be on all the podcasting channels, so have a listen or see me on YouTube. Sorry, I've been rambling on a bit and been moaning, but we want less myth-busting and more information. That's it. That's me finished on this one. Thanks for watching. I always appreciate it and hopefully you drew something out of this podcast. It's a bit of a rant, but we'll be taking things much further in the next set of podcasts in which you’l get to find out a lot more about insurance on electric cars. Thanks for watching. I've been Graham Hill, grahamhilltrainningl.com. Thanks. See you on the next one. Bye for now.