Liz Allan [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Electric Evolution with Liz Allan. This podcast is about the journey to a more sustainable future. In order for us to be able to do our bit to achieve net zero, I'll be discussing a variety of topics with experts in their field in order to educate and increase our knowledge of clean energy, electric vehicles and the electric vehicle infrastructure. So whether you're an individual to make a difference at home, a small business or a corporate, this podcast is just for you. On today's podcast, I have got Jarrad Morris, who is the founder of Fleety and Plug Charging. And you're based in Cardiff, aren't you, Jared? And thank you very much for joining me.
Jarrad Morris [00:00:43]:
No problem at all. Glad to be on here.
Liz Allan [00:00:47]:
And it seems ages ago now, but we met at the EV Show in November 2022, didn't we? It is ages ago, really. We've been trying to get you on here for a while, so yes, thank you. Thank you. Because I know you're a busy guy.
Jarrad Morris [00:01:02]:
No, all good, let's be honest. Thank you.
Liz Allan [00:01:04]:
Now, I'm going to read a few things out because you've got a number of accolades against your name over the last kind of few months, haven't you? So you're a finalist in the Fleet Estartup Awards. You've won the Great British Sustainability Entrepreneur of the Year. That's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? They could have turned it into an acronym. Cardiff Entrepreneur of the year. And you were one of the top 100 Most Influential People of the Year. How did you manage to do all that? That's amazing. Well done.
Jarrad Morris [00:01:37]:
Thanks. I think it's lots of consistent work and just chipping away at it throughout the year. A few of those are unexpected as well, to be honest. So, yeah, I was glad the judges picked me on a couple of those awards, particularly the Top 100 Most Influential People. There's a few big hitters on there. I think Ben Fogel is on there, which is obviously doing lot for the environment, and I think there's a few other guys on there as well, so that was a bit of a surprise. So, yeah, be interested to see what comes off the back of that because that was announced in December for 2023, so, yeah, really good and really proud and privileged to be on those lists.
Liz Allan [00:02:11]:
Totally. That's amazing. Well done, you fabulous. So when we met, you were exhibiting at the EV Show with plug charging and you had a big prototype vehicle and I was with my colleague Chris, and we were kind of wandering around it and I think I saw know we started talking to you then, didn't a it's a rather large, clean fueled vehicle, isn't it? Just explain what it is, will you? And just kind of why the prototype? Why did you decide to create this prototype?
Jarrad Morris [00:02:52]:
Yeah, no, definitely. So we were at the show with the manufacturing partner who actually built the vehicle and the whole concept behind the vehicle and the idea behind it is effectively a mobile EV charging solution. So target in a number of different areas, whether that's areas without off road parking, whether that's music festivals effectively anywhere there's demand for EV charging, but without that fixed infrastructure. So obviously aware there's other mobile EV charging solutions already in the market. One of the kind of USPS we were going on for that was the fact that it was going to be rapid and with an onboard power generation system as well, using clean fuels. The opportunity to scale that and effectively, rather than having one charge and going back and need to recharge a battery in some sort of vehicle, we could keep going throughout the night, basically, and charge vehicles. The idea with that was, if you live in London, for example, with no driveway as a prime example, we could come outside to your house in the middle of the night and plug in charge your car for you. You wake up in the morning to go to work with a fully charged EV. I think that's a real benefit for some people, and we see it all the time. And some of the barriers of switching to electric is charging, whether that's public charging or the lack of opportunity to have an off road home charging solution. So that's kind of where the mobile charging opportunity came from, and we are still looking to progress with that. That's something we'll be launching fully in the next probably twelve to 18 months to cater for the demand.
Liz Allan [00:04:30]:
Excellent. And actually talking about charging. I'm just going to go on to a slightly different topic, which is something that you were writing about on LinkedIn that I read today, which I think you've written a couple of days ago. Which was about the Wales, maybe it was in the last day about Wales and kind of the lack of charging and the fact that the Welsh Government haven't quite well, I'm saying haven't quite hit their target. Are they massively off their target for EV charging rollout?
Jarrad Morris [00:05:05]:
Well, I think in 2021 there's an action plan set out by Welsh government post Pandemic. The whole idea behind that action plan was to improve the availability of charging infrastructure. So one of the mission statements they set out was, by 2025, if you're an EV driver for business or personal usage, you should always have access, or readily available access to an EV charging point, whether that's public charging in your local area, or whether that's the availability of home charging. So that massive report, if you have a read of it's, about 25 pages, if you have a look at that, that action plan set out in that set out a number of key aims which they were looking to achieve, I believe it was nine in total. So some of those aims cover things like improving the grid connectivity in rural areas where EV charging really is limited, and particularly in Wales, there's a massive disparity in the distribution of charge points across Wales, with rural areas really suffering. Another one of those was around the regulations associated with developers and the requirement to implement EV charging as part of development plans, whether that's residential or commercial. That was something which was due to be looked at similar to what they've done in Scotland. A few of the other things were looking at the growth of fast charges, so not Rapids, so you're looking at kind of seven to 22 kilowatt charges in your local area. So they set a really ambitious target of having a total charge account of 55,000 by 2025, which that's hugely ambitious with that type of timescale. And obviously there's so many different external factors which come into that. So I think at present they've hit 2400 installs and actually live charges since then. So off the back of that action plan, which was set out across Parliament committee in the Senate, which is the Welsh Parliament in Cardiff, they were basically asked to look at what's happened with the plan, what's been achieved, what's not been achieved. And I think one of the main headlines which come off the back of that yesterday, and some of the comments they made, and one of the terms they used was embarrassing, was the result of the action plan of what they've actually achieved. They've actually missed five of the nine deadlines they set in terms of those targets, and obviously fallen massively short of their targets in terms of the installs as well. And I don't think it's completely their fault in its entirety. There's so many different external factors in that, whether that's charged by operators are not really incentivized to invest in Wales at the moment, compared to Scotland, businesses are obviously incentivized a little bit with the workplace charging scheme. You do have the fact that the home charging scheme was abolished last year, so the grant, when that disappeared, for that the cost of living crisis. People aren't going to be incentivized to spend 1000 pounds on a home charger if they can't afford to, and that's even if they have a drive. So all of a sudden there's lots of different factors involved in that. But ultimately, a lot of the blame does fall on Welsh government for not following through with some commitments they made and I think also a bit of a naivety in the fact that they should have engaged with people. In the industry to look at where things should have you know, where things like public charging, where that distribution across Wales should have gone, where the grid connections should have been improved in rural areas. They should be engaging with people like myself. There's other people in the EV sector in Wales. South Wales particularly at the moment, is a bit of a hotbed for people in EV, and there's plenty of people who are willing to give their advice free of charge to help facilitate the switch to EV, but it's not really being pulled upon. So, yeah, it's a really interesting one and I think the response from Welsh government yesterday was disappointing in the fact that they came out and basically said off the back of that report, because obviously it's an independent report so they don't really get any control over it because it's a cross party committee. But off the back of that, they came out and said, well, we've put the foundations in place, we've got some key partners in place and we're making moves towards it. But if I set targets in my business and out of nine targets, five were missed, I'd seriously be asking questions about the direction of that strategy, and I'd be looking at who to blame for that and how we can improve on it as opposed to trying to dodge a bullet on it and trying to say we are doing well. So, yeah, it'd be interesting to see if they respond in a more positive fashion and start engaging with people in the sector now to try and look at working collectively and commercially as well to achieving something beneficial.
Liz Allan [00:09:33]:
Right so they've got, what do you say, 2400 charge points currently and they promised how many?
Jarrad Morris [00:09:40]:
I think it's 55,000 in total by 2025.
Liz Allan [00:09:45]:
So obviously, like you said, the estimate, it was massively underestimated, wasn't it? How much the issue to actually kind of roll this out? Is there any way in your mind that they can get to that target within the timescale?
Jarrad Morris [00:10:07]:
I think hitting that target is probably too ambitious but they're definitely not going to get anywhere near that target if they follow the same strategy they're currently following. The problem they've got with plug charging is a new chargement operator to the market. We see it and there's an existing chargement. Operators I know for a fact have tried to enter the market in Wales, not really been incentivized to do so. If you're trying to do anything in Scotland, there's a pot of money available to improve public charging infrastructure. If you come to Wales, that pot of money is very limited in comparison. So when you start looking at new connection costs and the cost of getting the DNOs to actually come on board and install the new connections, that cost could be huge in particular areas because the grid connectivities in certain areas aren't as good as they need to be. We've experienced that firsthand, but also we've experienced the bureaucracy in going to local councils or Welsh government and saying, look, we have a solution, can you implement it? And that gets passed around the houses and before you know, you're eight months into a process which fizzles out. So I think there needs to be a degree of entrepreneurship is probably one of the words I'd use for it. You need to have a bit of an entrepreneurial approach to it, where they think well actually, let's have a go of this and let's try it and see how it works and I think that's the only way they're going to hit that target. If they start saying, well, it's got to go through a process for eight months of approval to get these charges put into empty car park which has otherwise been overgrown and not used, then I think they have no hope hitting the target. So, yeah, something has to change. And I think that comes down to them taking more of a commercial view, engaging with people in the industry and taking more of an entrepreneurial view on how things roll forward from a policy standpoint as.
Liz Allan [00:11:52]:
The the rest of the so England. I know that we've still got quite a massive target to meet for charge points anyway, haven't we? Is it the incentive that is provided in England that is kind of supporting ChargePoint operators and DNOs, et cetera, et cetera, in order to kind of because there's a lot of negativity anyway about this but there's going to be more negativity, isn't there? If you find out that there's this been, like I say for the Welsh government, that there's been this massive issue with the amount that they've said why would you say this unless you know that you've got some gut feeling? Well, even more than gut feeling, there's got to be data to prove that actually you can do this. But is it the comparison? So you say about Scotland, there are incentives, so there's incentives in England as just not in Wales.
Jarrad Morris [00:12:54]:
I think there's definitely little to no incentive in Wales to install public charge infrastructure and I think what a lot of local authorities are doing is they're looking to central government and higher powers to have that guidance and leadership, but the problem is that no one has taken that guidance, leadership and central government. So there was supposed to be a committee formed when the action plan was basically announced and before that as well, which was called a Connection Committee. That Connection committee would basically look to work with DNOs and charge point operators and local stakeholders to find out where those charge points should be installed and other committees as well to advise them they've not formed that which I think is a problem because you've got politicians and civil servants looking to make infrastructure decisions based on industry, which is quite news for everyone. Still, despite it only embryonic, it's been around for, what, 1015 years so far.
Liz Allan [00:13:47]:
Still embryonic.
Jarrad Morris [00:13:48]:
Exactly, yes. I think we're very early stages and I think they're trying to make decisions based on information which isn't available to them, whereas information is available to the industry. So if they come to people who are the fleet operators in chargeman, operators like us, or maybe insurance companies, there's Direct Line have got a huge business set up in Cardiff, admore similarly as well. There's EV leaders there who we speak to, there's data they have of this distribution of electric vehicles across Wales that they could very easily pull from that data. Where are those gaps in usage? So look where the least number of electric vehicles are registered and let's look at those areas and see is there a gap in the network infrastructure there? And if there is, then maybe that's where we need to put the charge points, as opposed to probably paying a very expensive consultancy company to come in and provide white papers and say, well, we think they should go. Here based on some figures that we've looked at, actually. Get down in trenches and speak to people who are dealing with the sharp end and the good, bad and the ugly and let them advise on it.
Liz Allan [00:14:52]:
I always say to people, because background that I work in continuous improvement. I always say get down, get down with working with the people who've actually got eyes on it, because they're the ones that can give you context and they're working their way through it rather than just bringing somebody in who has to research it. If you've got it there, if you've got that ability to be able to provide you've got these people there, then just utilize that. But back to you. Tell me about Fleet Tea. How did you form your because I think were you working with kind of with no, just I'm going to shut up. Tell me about your background.
Jarrad Morris [00:15:45]:
How did you get into it? So my background is predominantly in vehicle leasing and vehicle finance. So started my first leasing company in 2015. Prior to that was involved in asset finance and project finance. Prior to that was in Cardiff University and Cardiff Business School. So spent three years there, looked at working with a couple of people, and then went off on my own, then to start my own setup. So I've got a real good background in vehicle leasing over the last seven years, which sounds like a very long time, and then left my last setup in 2021. In that setup, we had vehicle hire, we had a franchise for Levcs, so the electric taxis. So we opened the first one of that into Cardiff and we did just vehicle leasing for normal Ice vehicles. I was always looking at the opportunity, particularly with electric vehicles, and lots of the stuff that we were looking at with regards to public sector was really kind of going in that direction. So lots of our clients were saying, well, we're being asked now on Tenders, for example, about their provisional electric vehicles and what are we including in our fleet to address those green credentials? So then made the decision to split off from that setup and go by myself again then, and basically form fleet e from a standing start, but only focusing on EVs. I think where a lot those ideas came from was the lack of information in the industry. And I think particularly back then. We're in the middle of a global stock shortage coming out the back of COVID as well. We've got the semiconductor issues all over the place. It was just a crazy time for everyone. You couldn't really go into dealerships as well because there were still the restrictions with regards to people being inside to an extent, which I think really added to it. So not only was there very little stock available, so very little choice, you couldn't go in touch or feel a vehicle of your choice, you couldn't really speak to them face to face and have those conversations. And lots of the people that I'd contact and networks I've built up over the years really needed that, I think, and really needed the handholding piece of saying, well, what are you looking to achieve as a business? What vehicles do you run currently, and how can we assist with that, and how can we recommend the best way of funding those vehicles? So started fleeting in March 2021, so two years old this month, and really started trading fully with that. But I had the FCA license, et cetera through that was in kind of probably August, September, but really didn't do anything because there was literally no stock around. So spent all of that time then just building the client base in terms of speaking to people and doing lots of webinars on the switch to EV and just really being just the fountain of knowledge for people and using my years of experience in leasing. On how to recommend what vehicles people should be going for and start building that personal brand piece. On being a kind of a go to person in the industry when it comes to looking to switch to EV. So that's where it's kind of developed from and it's kind of grown arms and legs from there, I think. So when we first started the business, we were just doing contract hire, so we do normal business contract tire and personal contract tire for leasing. Now we basically cater for long term, short term and medium term stuff. So company car schemes, so short term stuff will do flexi, so anything from kind of 30 days onwards, which is a great taster for businesses or a great opportunity for people to fill a short term gap in their vehicle requirement with an EV. We then do the traditional leasing through the panel of funders that we work with. So business contract hire and personal contract hire across all brands. Then we also have them the Fleet Sari sacrifice platform. So we have the opportunity to work with lots of businesses, again giving them the opportunity to basically speak to us and have the knowledge, but also use our portal to order vehicles and scale that as they need to. So we're trying to maintain the personal touch and the consultative approach, but also trying to scale that up as well. Then in line with what we're trying to achieve as a business?
Liz Allan [00:19:53]:
Well, I was going to say the accolades that you've had recently kind of demonstrate the personal touch and kind of the professionalism that you're putting into the effort that you're putting into this, into the sector in the first place. And I said to you before, as somebody who's not actually just got an EV just yet, you're the kind of person that people like me need to be talking to because it's not a cheap transition. When we talk about cost of ownership, I get that, I do get it, but, but actually it's not just the financial side to it, it's the physical kind of, you know, working out, how do I need to do this? What what behavior do I have to change? And at the moment, it's all theoretical to me, but to have somebody to talk to yourself who kind of can provide that support and advice, it's just a massive help for people.
Jarrad Morris [00:21:03]:
I think what we've seen in previous businesses as well with leasing, having a vehicle is the second biggest financial commitment you'll make in your lifetime compared to you've obviously got a house first and a mortgage, et cetera, then you got your vehicle. So whether you're buying that outright with a normal car, it could be anything from 15 grand or up to the sky's the limit. So I think you've already got that uncertainty from people when they're making that commitment because it is a big commitment and it shouldn't be taken lightly. And you need to consider all avenues on that and make sure you're furnished all the right information before you make a decision. If you now add into that uncertain decision or you've got even one certainty in that process you're talking about right, the range aspect of that, is that suitable for you as a personal user? The range is one of the things the home charging, does that work for you? You then start introducing the business questions into that as well. So things like, what are the tax benefits of me switching to EV? Is this EV going to be a good fit for my business and what I try to achieve as a business? And I think for businesses it's even worse. And I think them making that commitment is an even bigger leap because if that goes wrong, that's a big impact on the business. So if you're a business and you've got ten sales guys on the road and you're giving them ten cars to drive round in, then all of a sudden they're all annoyed because they can't get the range because you've chosen the wrong vehicle that comes straight back on the fleet manager or the MD, for example, depending on who's made that decision. And then it's a whole thing of trying to unwind that process, which in most cases is quite difficult depending on the contract they've got. So I think where we try and front load is have that consulted approach right at the start. So when they do make that decision is very much a case of saying, right, we've gone through the decision tree of information you've given us, and off the back of that we recommend this, and obviously we compare that with a finance option of their choice as well.
Liz Allan [00:22:53]:
Is E fleet more kind of a fleet? E, sorry. Yeah, thank you. Sorry. Is it more B to B, would you say, rather than B to C?
Jarrad Morris [00:23:05]:
Yes, I think 90% of our business is B to B at the moment. Obviously Salary Sacrifices is a company car product, so with that one, that's 100% B to B. But obviously we deal with employees, so the level of information they have as an employee compared to a business owner is different because when you're looking at Salary Sacrifice, that's again a different suite of information that they need. So what are the tax benefits of them having a Salary sacrifice vehicle? What's included in that vehicle? The early termination options, all of those different pieces come into that as well. So even though that is B to B, we still treat that as a B to C transactions. And extent in terms of the information that we furnish them with, I think the B to C piece comes into it. On the shorter term stuff that we do as well. So some of the shorter term stuff where people are looking maybe to try an EV for twelve months, or maybe have EV on order and then looking for a stop gap, that's predominantly, I say predominantly 50% business, 50% consumers, but we are definitely seeing a switch towards more consumers looking to go to EV. But they are definitely more conscious on the public charging points that are being raised, and obviously particularly in Wales, because it's currently in the press. But I think there's lots of stuff in the press generally at the moment. Around EV charging lots of horror stories, which constantly annoy me because they're picking the worst that they find and taking pictures of Tesla's Q and at charging points at Christmas circulating that. But equally, they don't take pictures of fuel stations when there's a rush on fuel because people think the price is going to go up two pence or something like that. Even when I was driving ice, I'd been in situations where I had to queue fuel for maybe half an hour once or twice, but you never see that in the press. Yeah, I think it's a real tricky one at the moment.
Liz Allan [00:24:52]:
Even if it was in the press originally when it happened, there wouldn't be a comparison. Now they call it a unique and unique episode, wouldn't they? And then there's people who kind of the negativity is sometimes you just have to put your fingers in your ears and go because actually I call them Negative Nellies. The negative Nellies out there. It's going to take them a while to actually kind of come round to all of this because I always say it, people don't like change and somebody said, you've got to stop expecting that. Everybody's like you. And it's true, isn't it? You are an early adopter. I'm kind of like not early, definitely not early. I'm kind of like probably earlier than some of them. And then there'll be other people. Once people realize it's a bit like during the pandemic when you realize you have no choice but to do certain things in a different way, that's when there'll be kind of like a massive rush and then there'll be something kind of like EVs are flying off the shelf again. There'll be photos and comparisons of vegetables or something weird like that.
Jarrad Morris [00:26:12]:
Yeah, I think it's always interesting to look on things like Facebook and place like that when you see an EV story being posted in the comments section on people and their response to that story. There's some negative comments in there which you can just see are just fueled by the media. And the sun at the moment seems to have a particular vendetta against electric vehicles and they just constantly keep posting stories but negative things on electric vehicles. And you can see a lot of that rhetoric is following through into the comments of social media. But again, it's down to education. If someone's never driven an EV and experienced the practicalities of it, then they're going to think it's the worst thing ever. When someone says to them or you can have a car which drives 200 miles and you should charge it for 9 hours. They don't say that actually. You can get a car which does 300 miles and you can charge a car on a rapid charger which just takes 40 to 50 minutes. So I think having those snippets of information, which are the key bits of information to I think ease that range anxiety piece for people who haven't adopted yet is think.
Liz Allan [00:27:17]:
So you just mentioned Facebook there. How do you feel about the way that people think about EVs on LinkedIn compared to Facebook? Because I suppose I don't spend too much time anymore on Facebook and it wouldn't be something I was looking for on Facebook because I'm looking for something different on LinkedIn. What are your thoughts about that? Kind of the negative positive angle in LinkedIn.
Jarrad Morris [00:27:47]:
I think it's slightly different for us just on the Facebook point because we use that as probably one of our main strategy indicators as well. Look at those questions that Joe Public are saying about those comments and look what they're saying and then start tailoring those into our conversations as well that we're having. And if we don't know about it, then we'll find out about it and start saying, well actually this is how we can help with alleviating that concern. But I think we do see it on LinkedIn and often I get people commenting on my post. Saying hydrogen cars are the future. And we're involved in the hydrogen sector with plug charging, so some of our fixed charge points, and obviously some of the mobile charger stuff that we're looking at involves green hydrogen. That's a larger scale usage of a fuel such as hydrogen. Hydrogen cars, as far as I'm concerned, in my personal opinion, have no future. I just think they're not efficient enough and the energy which is required to create hydrogen is just not suitable for that use. So I think lots of people do comment back on some posts. I say electric cars are five years, hydrogen cars are going to be the future. There's a reason why BP have pulled all their hydrogen fuel stations in the UK. And there's a reason why some of the major OEMs have shelved their hydrogen car research and development and production plans, because they don't see as the future. Everyone's looking towards battery electric vehicles. And I think as battery technologies improve and ranges start to improve, I think we'll hit a tipping point almost where the naysayers will start saying, actually, car which does 400 miles or 450 miles is great, and that works for me. So there's always some heated conversations on LinkedIn, which is always quite interesting. And it's quite interesting because a lot of people I'm connected to, obviously in the EV sector, so they tend to wade in on conversations then and start laying down some facts on people, which is also quite interesting, but no one's there to talk anyone down. But equally, there's an opportunity there to educate people and inform them on what the benefits of switching to EV are, whether they want to like it or not. But there has been a couple of heated conversations on LinkedIn I've seen, and some of my comments as well.
Liz Allan [00:30:04]:
Yeah, and I suppose I've heard it from many other people in the sector who've said the same. They've all said, yeah, we kind of manage these conversations and you get trolls and this, that and the other. I think I've got my thoughts about social media and it does just give social media and the media in general, it's an open house for people who just want to if they want, you can have the trolls there who will just flag you off no matter what, won't they? And you can say, whatever and you're never, ever going to make everybody happy all of the time.
Jarrad Morris [00:30:47]:
No, I think the difference is on now. I think as EV becomes more popular, there's more actual studies and white papers which are actually available using actual data as well on the efficiencies and people talking about, well, actually, by the time you actually manufacture the EV, it's not efficient. There's now lifecycle calculations which have been taken into account, which work out the carbon break even of an EV. So those pieces of data, I think, are key pieces of information which needs to be shared with people that kind of have those comments and also EVs they think are going to last longer. And we talk about the second life of batteries, and I wrote a blog which is on our website around the second life of batteries. There's a company in Canada who thinks they can currently recycle 98% of a battery. So if we're there at the moment with the average think about a battery in a car, when that comes out of a car, there's opportunities to use that for home battery storage. If it's in a car for, say, ten years, comes out of a car and then it goes into a home storage system for ten years, that battery is then 20 years old. If you look where we were 20 years ago and look at the technological advancements from 20 years ago, if I was a betting man, I'd put a good chunk of money on betting. The fact that they're going to be able to basically recycle a whole battery within 20 years or find out some sort of other usage for them. So that's something which I'm not really concerned about, but often does come up as a concern.
Liz Allan [00:32:14]:
Yeah. In the next 1020 years, there's going to be some massive changes anyway, aren't there? I can just imagine it. And things that we know now will loan back in ten years and go, oh, we were really early in there, weren't we? We were kind of like it's evolved so much since, in fact. Right. So that leads me to another question. So where do you see yourself in the next 510 years with both organizations? Who are you wanting to kind of bring on board as clients and where are your kind of aspirations long term?
Jarrad Morris [00:33:03]:
I think we're in a very fortunate position. I'm in a very fortunate position, I should say, with having fleety and plug charging. So having a company which is able to provide electric vehicles, but also having a foot in the camp of chargeman operator, I think I'm very privileged to be able to see both sides of that coin as well. On both sides of the industry. I think our plans are to grow both businesses and obviously expand the charge point operation and obviously expand the fleet e side of the business as well. So the benefit of fleet e is this repeat business every three, four years, or lease cycle, depending on how long someone has the vehicle for that's repeat. The more EVs we put on the road, the more public charging points they need. So that does create the opportunity for us then to say, well, actually, it's actually beneficial for us to push that business as hard as possible to try and get as many EVs on the road because it creates demand for public charging. So I think five years is a long time, I think in this sector, so much has happened in the last two years since I've started Fleety and really focused laser focus on electric vehicles and stability. So it'd be interesting to see what happens over the next five years as battery technology improves. And obviously as we're getting closer to 2030 deadline in the UK, and obviously 2035 as we discussed earlier in the EU, be interesting to see how that trickles down. And lots of the OEMs already made the commitments to go battery electric vehicles only by 2025. So we're now in a situation where at the moment people are transitioning from Ice to EV, where I think the next leasing or next vehicle choice they make is going to be EV to EV. They would have already experienced an EV, so we're not going to be having similar conversations. It's going to be more of a case of, well, your previous EV is a 250 miles range, you now want this mile range. So I think the business is going to remain the same at its core. I think just having that consultative approach and scaling, but scaling sustainably as well. So we're just in the process of finalizing a funding round for Fleetee as well. So that's due to complete in April, which is really good for us and that facilitates our next stage of growth. But I think we need to remain true to our mission as an extended Tesla, the right word to use and keep that approach that we've currently got because it obviously works and whilst also remaining agile with how the industry is changing and how the demands of our customers are changing both on the charging side of the business and also the fleet provision side of the business as well.
Liz Allan [00:35:28]:
It'll be good to see all of this grow. And actually, if you're all the accolades, I'm sure you're going to be kind of having a massive kind of like list of different additional accolades over the next kind of few years anyway, which is brilliant, and just wait for you to kind of come further up. Well, I don't know where you were in the top 100, which is great, you were in it anyway, so it's fabulous. I can imagine you've got the kind of personality that I can imagine you're a nice, kind of nice guy to deal with, do you know what I mean? And actually people work with people, don't they?
Jarrad Morris [00:36:10]:
100%.
Liz Allan [00:36:12]:
I want to stop waffling now, if you know what I mean. You know what I'm trying to say, don't you? But look, so do you want to just plug your companies by giving your web addresses? Okay, so web address for both companies, what are they?
Jarrad Morris [00:36:32]:
So fleety is fleet e co UK and then plug charging is plugcharging co UK as well.
Liz Allan [00:36:43]:
Fabulous.
Jarrad Morris [00:36:44]:
And you can find us on social.
Liz Allan [00:36:45]:
Media for both as you're on so you're on LinkedIn for sure anyway, because I see you're quite a lot on there. You've got a Twitter handle. You're on Twitter?
Jarrad Morris [00:36:56]:
Yeah. So for fleetie, it's just fleety UK. It's an underscore in there, but if you type in Fleety UK, it'll come up, and then for plug charging, it's just plug charging is the handle for all of them as well.
Liz Allan [00:37:08]:
Brilliant. Right, well, good luck for everything that you're doing. I think it's brilliant and fingers crossed that things change in Wales so that the increase in the infrastructure changes and they start kind of putting their foot down a little bit to make sure it starts moving forward.
Jarrad Morris [00:37:32]:
I think there's definitely an appetite in Wales, I think, with businesses for it, and all the businesses are looking to reduce their emissions and looking to hit their environmental targets, and we see that on a daily basis. It's just a case of I'm a big fan of working collaboratively. And even with people in the industry we work with, lots of other people would call them competitors. But there's so much knowledge in the industry. I think it's better people to work together and achieve those things. And we achieve a lot more working together than against each other. So I think people in Wales will see that and hopefully Welsh governments see that they'll work with other people in the industry to collaborate and actually achieve those end goals, which obviously benefit everyone.
Liz Allan [00:38:14]:
It is a very collaborative sector, which is great. And actually, it's really nice to see. I've met so many brilliant people like yourself. So it's great. We need it, we need it. We need that collaboration, don't we, moving forward?
Jarrad Morris [00:38:32]:
Definitely.
Liz Allan [00:38:33]:
Listen, I want to just say thank you ever so much for your time. It's been lovely talking to you, jared and I want to see the prototype. I want to see it out and about doing things, because it was one hell of a vehicle. So good luck with that in the coming months. And, yeah, thank you very much for your time.
Jarrad Morris [00:38:53]:
No, thanks for having me. And obviously we'll keep you up to date with the developments of the business and how we progress throughout the couple of months.
Liz Allan [00:39:01]:
Wonderful. So to everybody else, I'm going to say thank you to Jarrad and thank you for your time. Thank you all for listening and for watching and I shall see you next time. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to Electric Evolution with Liz Allen. If you want to find out more about Full Circle continuous improvement, please visit us at www.fullcircleci.co.uk Don't forget to keep listening for more episodes coming up really soon.