Electric Car Chat

How An Air Fryer Changed My Mind About Electric Cars

• Graham Hill • Season 2 • Episode 13

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A half-price sticker never changed my mind about anything—seeing it work did. That’s the simple truth behind a story that starts with an air fryer and ends with a clear plan for accelerating electric car adoption without leaning on blunt discounts.

We begin with a familiar arc: scepticism, a friend’s invite, and a hands-on demo that shatters assumptions. Watching an air-fryer roast a chicken, dehydrate fruit, bake cake, and sync cooking times reframes what it is and what it’s for. Sales didn’t take off when retailers slashed prices; they moved when placement improved, TV cooks showcased real recipes, and social feeds overflowed with demos. Information created desire, and desire made price relevant instead of decisive.

That lens changes how we think about EVs. Pitching electric cars as “petrol, but with a battery” sets buyers up for confusion, because ownership is fundamentally different: charging at home or work, trip planning with reliable networks, regenerative braking, software updates, and new cost structures. If we want mainstream drivers to switch, we must fill the knowledge gap with honest, practical guidance. Show winter range in the real world, explain charging without a driveway, break down total cost of ownership with current tariffs, and highlight infrastructure that actually works. Tiny VAT tweaks to public charging won’t move someone to spend tens of thousands if their core worries remain unanswered, but clear, repeatable demonstrations will.

We also look back: early ICE cars faced scarce fuel stations and starting handles; solutions came, and adoption followed. EVs are on the same path, with expanding public chargers, better route planning, and maturing battery warranties. Our goal is to move upstream—educate first, spark desire, then let improving prices and targeted grants play their supporting role. If this resonates, share the episode with someone on the fence about going electric, subscribe for future deep dives, and leave a review telling us the one question you still need answered before you make the switch.

To buy a copy of Electric Cars - The Truth Revealed visit grahamhilltraining.com. Buy the current copy and receive the totally updated version in early 2026. If you are interested in sponsoring this podcast or would be interested in working together please visit grahamhilltraining.com/contact


Hi I’m Graham Hill and this is my podcast Electric Car Chat. Over the years I’ve told my now famous or infamous airfryer story in order to make a very important point. So I think it’s about time I told the story to my new audience especially given the grants announced by the UK Government in July 2025 that will remain in place till the end of the 2028 – 2029 financial year, aimed at increasing the sale of new electric cars. You’ll understand the relevance of this later in this podcast. 

So here it goes. I should add that this was actually a few years ago now. Every 4 to 6 weeks I tend to meet up with an old friend of mine. We normally meet in the same pub and either have a bite of lunch and a drink or we just meet in the evening for a drink and sit in the garden when the weather permits for a couple of hours putting the world to rights.

On this particular day we were meeting for lunch, I arrived a little early and I got the drinks in and I was chatting to the landlord when the door burst open, creating his normal entrance, and in bounced my old mate, nothing changes. He’d hardly got through the door when he shouted, ‘Graham, before I forget, Ninja air fryers 50% off’ and he mentioned the store which could have been Amazon, Currys, Argos, I can’t remember but it seemed the important message was that one of the stores was offering 50% off Ninja air fryers which I assumed at the time was a good make.

I looked at the landlord and we both shrugged our shoulders and I answered, ‘And your point is?’ He said, ‘Oh you’ve already got one haven’t you?’ To which I answered, of course not, you know I don’t eat fried food these days! Well, I said that but obviously that didn’t include the occasional bacon sandwich. He then follows this up with, ‘Ahh, You don’t know what they are do you?’ I said of course I know what they are, they’re a slightly more healthy fryer than a deep fat fryer. No use to me because I eat healthily these days. I’ve actually got, as you know, type 2 diabetes.

To which he then said, ‘Right I need to sort this out, what are you doing this evening?’ I told him I’d nothing planned so he pulled out his mobile phone and called his wife, who happens to have the same name as my ex-wife Jackie. Not sure why I mentioned that. Bit weird. When she answered he said, ‘Jacks, what have we got for dinner this evening?’ Didn’t hear what she said but he said, ‘That’s perfect, you know I’m with Graham, well he knows nothing about air fryers so have we got, oh OK always got enough food for Graham, right, what time? 6.00.’ ‘ Graham, is that OK?’ I nodded and he confirmed with the wife. We carried on with our lunch and had a couple of shandies or whatever whilst we put the world to rights. 

So, I arrived at their house just on 6:00 keen to find out why he was getting quite so excited about a piece of kitchen equipment. My mate was in the shower so his wife Jackie said, ‘Lovely to see you Graham, I’m just finishing off the prep and then I’ll show you how the air fryer works.’ In the meantime, I opened the bottle of wine I’d brought with me and poured us all a small glass. In the meantime, Jackie pushed towards me a dish of what looked like Kettle crisps. I do love kettle crisps. As we were chatting though, I picked up one of the crisps which I have to say smelt a little bit unusual. I took a bite and it turned out that it was apple with a few spices added like Cinnamon. I have to say, they were delicious. I asked Jacks where she got these crisps from, was it Marks? She said, ‘No, I made them in the air fryer.’ To which I said ‘They’re amazing, they don’t taste of fat at all.’ Assuming they’d been fried somehow. She said, ‘No, they’re thin apple slices that have been lightly coated in a few spices then dried in the air fryer for a few hours at a very low temperature.’ I really couldn’t get my head around this so she invited me over to show the dinner that was about to start cooking in the two air-fryer drawers and explain what the air fryer could do. There was a small chicken and roast vegies in one drawer and other veggies in the other I seem to recall with a steamer puffing away alongside.  

She showed me how they co-ordinate the cooking so that all is ready at the same time. I have to say that I was seriously taken back, this was not what I believed an air fryer to be even though I’d seen ads on the tele. Simply amazing. She then took me through the settings. They could use the airfryer for frying, baking, roasting, grilling, broiling, reheating and of course dehydrating all sorts of fruit and veg. The meal was brilliant and even before she gave me a small slice of Air Fried Madeira cake, or should I say Air Baked Madeira Cake, which was delicious by the way, I was totally sold on this air fryer. Now I have to say that I didn’t dash out immediately to buy an air fryer so I missed the big 50% discount. But I did buy one and I use it all the time now and wouldn’t be without it. In fact, whilst I still occasionally use the hob of my electric cooker, I never use the oven or the grill. I now recommend the air fryer to everyone. I think I’ve become an Air Fryer evangelist.  

Now, whenever I told this story I got some quizzical looks from the audience obviously wondering what air fryers have got to do with electric cars. The answer is nothing but the process of acceptance had everything to do with it. I, like many others a few years ago, was of the opinion that air fryers, as the name suggests, is a fryer not an all in one cooking machine. Given what the air fryer does I couldn’t think of a worse name. And to prove the point we need to go back to the launch in 2010.  Whilst the Air Fryer was created by Dutchman Fred Van Weij fellow Dutch company Philips bought the manufacturing and distribution rights and introduced the Air Fryer into the UK. To begin with it was being sold through high street stores and it flopped, sales were nowhere near those predicted. Even dropping the price didn’t work so in desperation Philips sent teams out to the departmental stores and specialist kitchen equipment stores to question customers and see if they could identify what was going wrong.

They immediately found that the main problem was product placement. The staff had put the air fryers alongside deep fat fryers, sandwich makers and other not so healthy food makers. As a result, they gave new instructions to the stores and got them placed alongside healthy food makers such as slow cookers, juicers, steamers and so on. But whilst sales improved, they still weren’t hitting their targets. So the economists on the board decided that the only solution was to invest further by giving extra discounts but that still didn’t improve sales.

Looking at the issue through a creatives eyes the problem was lack of information. Advertising was poor but something else happened that saved the day by providing the essential information to potential buyers. TV cooks picked up on the product and showed how they could be used for just about every cooking process. In addition social media started to show many more ways to use an air fryer, did you know that you can boil an egg in an air-fryer without water? I kid you not, I found out via a Tik-Tok clip. 

The information was now out there and the air fryer has now found its way into an estimated 66% of all homes in the UK. The solution to selling air fryers was upstream, selling the product not the brands. And selling through information not through random discounting which is the constant solution provided by economists. 

Whatever you’re selling there must already exist or you must create a desire before discounts are of any interest whatsoever. You may find yourself buying a fan for £10 which was advertised during the summer for £70. You thought you had no desire for a fan but it would be useful to have as a standby in the spare bedroom for just £10 so, as small as it was, there was still a desire. But if you saw a deep fat fryer marked down from £150 to say £20, if you’re anything like me, it would be of no interest whatsoever. I actually wouldn’t have one if they gave me one. 

So this brings me to electric cars. The economists amongst us see only one solution to selling more cars and that’s financial. Some, like the Wilson Whingers have called on the Government to reduce or remove the VAT added into new car prices and that may work on a few who are already convinced that they will buy an electric car one day but this is just tinkering around the edges. 

Some of the real problems were a lack of market co-ordination, an understanding of the psychology involved and the provision of essential information. The first mistake was not to universally sell electric cars as innovations. That would have enabled the industry to start with a clean sheet rather than attempt to build on what was already in the marketplace describing electric cars as a continuation or progression from internal combustion engine cars.

I’ve created a list of differences between ICE and electric cars and there is virtually nothing that you would consider to be the same but many people are sold on the idea that an electric car is pretty much a petrol car with batteries instead of a tank of fuel driving a motor rather than an engine. 

Now whilst I don’t want to frighten people off who generally don’t like change, I would add that these are totally new modes of transport, they are a vast improvement over what you may have had previously. And to be fair the car manufacturers who still produce ICE cars have incorporated some of the improvements into their petrol and diesel cars whilst they can still sell them in the UK till 2030.

But here’s my real point, making cars affordable for those who are already sold on an electric car but couldn’t afford the higher prices than ICE equivalents, would welcome any extra discounts, bonuses or grants but as we’ve seen in the past this will not attract the masses that we need to transition. That will only be done with information as one or two commentators have identified. Following the Air Fryer model. 

This is where this podcast and my book Electric Cars – The Truth Revealed comes in. The book contains everything a driver would want to know before making the transition to electric. Or rather, it will do when the 2026 version comes out. Crammed with help, revelations and advice it will fill the information gap and only then will price play a substantial part. Desire will increase as people become more aware of electric car pro’s and con’s and what gets them excited. By then prices, that are becoming more competitive by the day, will increase the sales of new and used electric cars.

So let’s all move upstream and get more information out there, get customers excited and only then drop prices – but by then manufacturers and dealers may not need to. 

Just one final thought, when deciding what needed to be included in my book and podcasts I carried out a number of surveys. David Ogilvy of Ogilvy Mather the advertising company on which it was believed that the brilliant American series Mad Men was based on once was reported to have said about surveys:

The trouble with market research is: Consumers don’t think how they feel, they don’t say what they think and they don’t do what they say. Which means that most surveys are often very much useless. A great example of this was a survey carried out by Transport and Energy that suggested that 49% of ICE car drivers surveyed would consider moving to electric if the VAT on public chargers dropped from 20% to 5% in order to level the playing field with those who can charge at home. 

On current charge rates that would typically save a driver of an electric car who was only able to charge at a public charge point about £200 a year. Hardly the level of saving that would encourage an ICE car driver to spend £30,000 plus on a new electric car I would suggest but Quentin Willson and the Wilson Whingers believe this to be the silver bullet. It’s this sort of research and results that misses the point completely. If someone asked me if electric cars came with a built in hot tub and air fryer would I buy one, my answer would be a definite yes! Better get moving on the design Mr Musk.

Let me close on this point, when ICE cars were introduced into the market there were just as many problems to overcome as there have been and still exist today with electric cars. Not enough gas stations in the USA to service the increased volumes of cars being manufactured by Mr Ford – does that sound familiar? And, generally speaking, only men could drive these new fangled automobiles. Not for sexist or misogynistic reasons but because you needed to be fairly strong to start the car with a starting handle making it pretty much impossible for women and weak men to own a car. A good comparison with electric car home charging. The starting problem was overcome with a starter motor and the home charging problem will be overcome but we don’t have the answer yet. But it’s coming.

That’s my Air Fryer story, we need information on electric cars not discounts, they can come later if sales stall. I’ve been Graham Hill, still making a ruckus, catch you on the next one, bye for now.