Liz Allan [00:00:00]:
You.
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 fields in order to educate and increase our knowledge of clean energy, electric vehicles and the electric vehicle infrastructure. So whether you're an individual one to make a difference at home, a small business, or a corporate, this podcast is just for you.
Liz Allan [00:00:31]:
So today I'm talking to Karl Anders from Mer and just like to say thank you very much for joining me, Karl, and welcome to Electric Evolution. And Karl has actually been Managing Director Mayor for just a short while now, haven't you? But you've got a long kind of background of working in the journey to electrification, which is kind of what I'm on at the moment. So, again, welcome and just could you give me a little bit of your background to start off with, please? How did you get to where you are now?
Karl Anders [00:01:01]:
Sure. Thanks, Liz, and thanks for the invite. It's great to talk to you again from myself. I'm a car person by trade, so when I left university, I went into marketing for Hyundai. So my background is from there, that was overseas. And then I was also in dealer operations. And then I did some stents through the dealer networks. I'm just trying to remember them in sequence here. And then ten years with General Motors. So I was in future strategy at GM. So Vivoxel, SAB and Chevrolet. Then I spent some time within fleet. And so it's within fleet, we first started to get vehicles like the Astra Eco Four, some of the first cars that were really focused on low emissions. It was a diesel, it was very aerodynamic with different gearing. And then we started adding things like Chevrolet and Cadillac. So some vehicles I didn't really want to be associated with. So I then went and joined Energy Saving Trust. So, Energy Saving Trust, we were advising people on low emission transport and we were doing green fleet reviews for government departments and also for major corporates. So looking at their entire fleet policy and what they were spending, how they were managing it, the vehicles they operated, the data they were using. And that pretty quickly. I went to Est in about 2007, and we started on electric vehicles around 2010, 2011, although they're very different to the vehicles that are available today, I can imagine. So, seven years of doing that and I went and joined 2014. I was the national EV manager at Nissan GB. So that really was focusing on Leaf and EV. And we were at about 85% of the electric vehicle van market in the UK and about 65% of the electric car market. So I have a bit of a history in electric vehicle. So Nissan for four years, and that's when I moved into infrastructure, firstly working for RWE, which is one of the big energy companies, and I started their energy division under Energy Renewables here in the UK. That was from then. And then I built that company up and then we sold it in December last year, 2021. So we moved from RWE, which is the owners of Npower, to being a subsidiary of Eon. All right, okay, so I worked with an Eon and then we sold the company to a German competitor, Complio, back in December 21. I was consulting with them through this year in Glove now. Ended up running the mayor companies here in the UK. But my EV history goes back further. My father had a small, well, you could call it an electric car, more of an electric quad recycle, really, back in the 90. So 1990s was the first time I drove an EV. And the oldest EV I've ever driven was a 19 four waverley. So I have actually 115 year old EV.
Liz Allan [00:04:13]:
I was talking about this, I've got a little team and we were talking about this yesterday, and kind of like how long electric vehicles have actually been around. And we were talking about the electric milk floats. And I must admit, I remember moving down south in 95 and I thought, because up north, because it's so hilly where I'm from in Hallefact, it's so hilly. We did not have electric milk floats. They would not have made the hills. So coming down here, I could hear this funny little noise and I was like, what the heck? And saw these little milk floats. But I just thought, oh my God. All I could think of was Ernie and the fastest milk float in the west. So that's kind of what sprang to mind. But they've been around for a long time, haven't they? Really?
Karl Anders [00:04:59]:
That's classic Benny Hill.
Liz Allan [00:05:01]:
But exactly.
Karl Anders [00:05:03]:
If you look back and find the very first car that ever hit 100 was called Le Jimene Contain. So it was 1897, I think. So they were setting speed limits in electric vehicles back in the eight, the late 18 hundreds. And one of the very first hybrids that was developed was by the original Mr. Porsche, and that's called a Learner Porsche, and I think that was 1898.
Liz Allan [00:05:37]:
You are a font of knowledge, aren't you? Goodness me, I love that.
Karl Anders [00:05:41]:
I've been in EV too long.
Liz Allan [00:05:44]:
So actually, moving on to what mayor do, can you just kind of give everybody a little bit of background to what mayor do?
Karl Anders [00:05:53]:
Well, mayor in the electric vehicle charging infrastructure industry, the company is not that long. Basically, it's six different companies across Europe. Sorry, one in Norway, one in Sweden, two in Germany, two in the UK. So I'm managing director of the two UK entities. The first one, which is mayor Fleet Solutions is based up in Concert County Durham and they do Fleet Solutions. So basically depot charging and home charging for fleets, et cetera. So they're based up there, and the second one, Mayor, UK Public Charging, is based in London Bishopsgate, and that's a public network. So we have a couple of hundred charging right across the UK, where the public can go and charge their cars en route or destination. So they're the two different organizations, both in charging, but both very different. One a public charging network, one a provider of charging solutions.
Liz Allan [00:06:50]:
Okay. And Mayor's owned by Stackcraft, isn't it?
Karl Anders [00:06:54]:
That's correct.
Liz Allan [00:06:56]:
They're quite different again, aren't they?
Karl Anders [00:06:58]:
They are. Stackcraft are owned by the Norwegian government and they are Europe's biggest renewable energy generator.
Liz Allan [00:07:06]:
I was really interested here when I read that. Yeah, that's really interesting.
Karl Anders [00:07:10]:
Well, they're based in Oslo, in Norway, but at the moment what they do is mainly hydro was what they were starting. Statcraft has been going over 100 years, but they're mainly hydro. And then also onshore wind, offshore wind, and also solar generation. So a lot of the wind farms that are going up in the west of Ireland, et cetera, are Stackcraft. It's all 100% renewable energy. And then we have distribution companies like Bright Energy, which is 100% renewable, and then we get all our energy from them. So it's holistic. So you generate renewable, you only distribute energy which is renewable, and then we have the Mayor group, which is the infrastructure companies, the six of them, that then basically put them into the cars at the end of it. So it's a very strong sustainability message, definitely.
Liz Allan [00:08:02]:
And you manufacture, supply and install, don't you? You do the whole thing, is that right?
Karl Anders [00:08:10]:
In terms of infrastructure, we don't actually manufacture, but we do have a back end that we use as well. Across those. A company I used to run here, Energy UK, we were a manufacturer, whereas Mayor is more the solution side, not actually building the stuff.
Liz Allan [00:08:26]:
I get you. Oh, crikey. So my question then, now is, you drive an EV, don't you?
Karl Anders [00:08:36]:
Of course I do.
Liz Allan [00:08:38]:
How long have you been driving an EV and what are you currently driving?
Karl Anders [00:08:44]:
The first one I drove was in the then being at Nissan, I had a series of Nissan Leafs, strangely enough, but like most people, I had a Leaf as a second car, but also a kashkai as well. And when I very first started driving them, the kashkai was my first car and the Leaf was our second car. But quite quickly I realized that with an 80, 90 miles range, I could do a lot of my driving in the Leaf. So I was in the Leaf for ages. And towards the end of my time at Nissan, I started working on a new car, which is called the Aria. And the Aria is an SUV coupe, sort of mid size, and we were starting work on that vehicle and then I left in 2018. And then in the energy years, getting hold of an EV was impossible. So I've had a succession of Mercedes plug in hybrids, although my last one, which went back up to two years, the A 250 was delivered with a quarter of a tank of petrol. That lasted me six months. I filled it up once and it went back with a quarter of that tank. So 10,000 miles in two years, because I had the charging at the office and charging at home, and other than that was train station. So I literally did 10,000 miles on a tank of petrol.
Liz Allan [00:10:03]:
Oh, my God.
Karl Anders [00:10:07]:
I think the app was telling me I was on 600 miles a gallon or something silly, but that went back and then as soon as I've joined here at Mayor, I've gone strangely, I've got one of the very first Nissan Harriers in the country.
Liz Allan [00:10:20]:
Have you?
Karl Anders [00:10:23]:
So if you can imagine the starship that Darth Vader drives, it's like being a Tron game to drive. So it'll do well over 300 miles per charging.
Liz Allan [00:10:37]:
Goodness.
Karl Anders [00:10:37]:
May incredible interior, really well built. It's very much a premium vehicle without a premium badge. So I absolutely love my area. So the work we did back in 2018 finally paid off.
Liz Allan [00:10:51]:
Yeah, that sounds amazing. How do you find the actual obviously, like you say, you've got was it 200 charges across the country so far. So how do you find the charging network? When you can't get to a mayor.
Karl Anders [00:11:08]:
Charger, it's relatively easy because they're programming the cars. So in terms of charging a car, or you can go into Zap map, so ZapMap has all the networks and you do have the cards now that allow roaming right across they allow roaming right across the network. So you have things like I've got a Power card and I've also got my Octopus Electric Universe card, and that will cover most of the charging across the UK. I recently did 1500 miles from John Agrotz to Land's End as part of the Gbev rally. So 24 cars and 24 vans from the top of Scotland to the bottom, the long way around the country. And we found it a lot easier than we thought. Once you have to do it, you realize how easy it is.
Liz Allan [00:11:59]:
Because this is the thing I said to you, didn't I am from Halifax originally, so my concern has been, obviously, what vehicle do I get? I was just talking to another chap about this as well, but how would I be able to get from reading up to Halifax, which is about 220 miles, can I get there on one charge? It's things like that. So I suppose the cars that have got bigger batteries and more capacity, it'll make a difference. But there's some that haven't got that capacity, haven't they?
Karl Anders [00:12:29]:
There is, but then you'd have to think about particularly if they've got reasonably quick charging. So literally, and one thing we found doing those mileages was you don't sit and wait for an hour to charge, you literally do shorter hops. So how far did you say Halifax was?
Liz Allan [00:12:44]:
100 and 5220 miles.
Karl Anders [00:12:47]:
220. So if you've got an EV that even an early one, that does say 150, what you would do is you'd probably go about 100 and 3140 miles, stick the car on the charger for about 2030 minutes while you're having a tea, having a comfort break or like that. You don't have to think about charging from empty to full, you just do enough to get there. So that's what we found. We rarely charge more than 2025 minutes. And my cloth driver was in his sixty S, and he can't go more than 2 hours driving without stopping for a Wii. So we do and and literally, Steve would start with you realize we've got two and a half Wii stops range.
Liz Allan [00:13:36]:
I love that.
Karl Anders [00:13:37]:
220 miles. That's going to take quite a few hours that you're a three or four hour drive. You shouldn't be doing that as a three or four hour drive without a stop anyway. Stop halfway and stick it on a charger for 20 minutes. You can go well beyond I can almost make Scotland here in my car.
Liz Allan [00:13:59]:
That is really and you're not that far away from probably, what, about 45 minutes away from where I live in Reading?
Karl Anders [00:14:07]:
Yeah. Here in West Oxford.
Liz Allan [00:14:10]:
Yeah. It's good to know that, because I think a lot of people, and this is the same with us, that we just need to think a bit differently about how we're managing our journeys. I mean, like you said, when I was a lot younger, I could drive. I used to set off to go to Halifax at 07:00 at night. I'd be there by ten. 3011. I'm not telling the speeds I used to get up to, but anyway, that's beside the point. We won't say. And I kind of could sit in the car for three 4 hours, but actually these days I'm in my 50s. It's something that actually I'm not saying I need to have weed stops all the time, but you do need to get out and stretch your legs because it's not good for you anyway, is it? So actually, if you kind of think of it like that and it's a bit like the way we charge our phones. I don't know about you, but we were both talking before we started the recording, weren't we, about phones? And the iPhone that I've got. The battery is NAF. I'm not saying that I don't know what happens with the battery on an electric vehicle, but actually you have to charge a different way. You have to manage the way you charge it your phone. So I'm assuming the car is no different.
Karl Anders [00:15:28]:
Absolutely right. It's a bit strange, but you change it in the very first few weeks. You get things like range anxiety and that. But once you learn how to do it, you wonder how the hell because I do think the kids coming through now, in ten or 20 years time, when they're driving and we're all electric vehicles, I think if you then go to them and say, well, back in the day, in the old days when we had petrols and diesels, we used to have to go to petrol stations. Your car didn't charge when you're at sleep, at night, at home, when you stopped and stuck it on a charger, we actually had to go somewhere and physically put 60 liters of high explosive into our cars. And I really think we're going to get to the stage and you change and adapt. On your point of batteries, an EV battery is very different from a phone battery, okay? Highly engineered. They're over engineered. I think the first ten years at Nissan, I remember the statistics. 350,000 batteries, they replaced about five or six of them EV batteries. Most of them have an eight year warranty anyway. But the problem we have with second life batteries of trying to sell the batteries into other users, recycle them, is they don't go wrong. Taxi drivers who do 100 and 5200 thousand miles in an EV deflate them. When the seats fall apart, batteries are still there, value.
Liz Allan [00:16:57]:
I remember my dad used to always say, oh, I never keep a car past 100,000 miles. Oh, you never do? So it kind of been in my head, you know, like when it starts heading up to sort of like 80, 90,000 miles, I'm like, we should really look for another car.
Karl Anders [00:17:13]:
I've seen 200,000 miles taxis out there who are electric vehicles that are always in motion. So a 150,000 miles diesel engine is junk. It's not worth a lot. A battery that's at 90%, 95% of that time, electric EV battery is still worth thousands of pounds. So the vehicle still has an expensive asset on board, gearbox is worthless.
Liz Allan [00:17:37]:
And just going back to what you were saying about young people driving vehicles in the years to come, my son is 17. He's literally just started driving. He started driving lessons. So he's on his back fifth or his 6th driving lesson. And and it took me a while to persuade him because I said it's a life lesson and he might as well actually learn before he goes to university when he can't actually afford it, while we're kind of looking after him. But what he didn't get until I explained it was the fact that, yes, everything's going to we're going to be driving electric vehicles, but actually learning to drive, you need to learn to drive in a manual car. Because if you learn to drive in an electric car or an automatic, you can keep driving that automatic, can't you? But you can't drive a manual. So if he ever gets into a situation in future where he has to drive a manual, at least he's got it, because you can drive both. If you've been on a manual. You can drive automatic or electric, obviously, which is automatic, but you can't do the other way around, can you? So I had to explain that to him.
Karl Anders [00:18:43]:
You're absolutely right. But the number of manuals, even with petrols and diesels, everyone's more going towards automatics and lot less manuals around. But also, an EV may drive like an auto, but it's not. It's not an auto, it just doesn't have a gearbox. Doesn't need one.
Liz Allan [00:19:00]:
Yeah, of course. But I'm really looking forward to it. I'm hoping to get a drive day in the next few weeks, months, because actually, there are a couple of EVs that I've got my kind of heart set on, but I need to drive them because at the moment, I've got no frame of reference.
Karl Anders [00:19:20]:
Yeah, you're absolutely right. But to drive them and people, I think that's when you change your perception of an AUV because they're built differently. So in terms of weight, you haven't got a big heavy engine at the front, weights filled back and all the weight of a battery is heavy, but it's very low. So it does actually handle a little bit differently. It's a lot better. And also with an EV from hit the accelerator and it goes. That's why you don't need gearbox.
Liz Allan [00:19:47]:
That's why I've heard I've also heard that people who are driving EV trucks, EV lorries and vans trucks, the bigger they are, have to have driving lessons again in a way, because or a little bit of more understanding about kind of the power that the EV electric truck actually has.
Karl Anders [00:20:08]:
It is massive. And you're absolutely right. And it is something to think about because these kids are coming through and traditionally they'll have like a one liter diesel, petrol, Fiesta or Corsa as their first car. An EV is just so much faster than a petrol or diesel. It's almost like coming out of it. So we'll get to the point where they'll come out of doing their license straight to an EV and it's like dropping them into a V Eight BMW. Because we do need to think about that, because an EV is so much more fast and powerful than a petrol or diesel that you need to think about. These guys are now coming to quick cars.
Liz Allan [00:20:48]:
My son at the moment is saying, oh, he had a driving lesson last week and he didn't quite get his seat right. And you know what it's like when you haven't got your seat right when you're in the car. And it's not as if he's an experienced driver who can I can be driving somewhere and I'll get a traffic lights and I'll be like, just adjusting my seat. Whereas he can't say, had the whole lesson in the wrong seat, slightly wrong seat position. And then this week he said, oh, trying to get clutch control was a bit difficult. Once we go electric, there's not going to be any of that, is there? It's just going to be foot down and I can imagine it's kind of a very different experience.
Karl Anders [00:21:28]:
It is. And in terms of the difference in speed, particularly and things like that, I did once see a video and it was two Porsche 911 GT, three S racing. One of them was on its own, but the one that beat it was actually on a trailer being towed by a basic Tesla. So the Tesla towing the Porsche in a trailer was faster than the Porsche and it was I think it was a g. We're talking about extreme Porsche acceleration here.
Liz Allan [00:21:55]:
Wow. Oh, my goodness.
Karl Anders [00:21:58]:
I think BBC Click did one where they had an Aston Martin race car with a national driver, and next to it, I think it was also a Tesla. And they put in with a girl from the BBC, sort of never drew it, and she absolutely slaughtered the professional racing driver.
Liz Allan [00:22:20]:
That sounds amazing. I have to say, I do love my cars, but like I say, at the moment, we've got a VW Golf, which I do love, but it's still polluting, actually. That's what my aim is. So this podcast is basically about learning and understanding of EV, the infrastructure, and also, like I say, because we also, as a family, want to introduce clean energy sources, be more sustainable in the house. We haven't got the money like Robert llewellyn, bless him. But if we can actually learn more and sort of do this, then that's what I want to get from this podcast and get the word out there that there are things that we can do and some things do. Cost money. But there are other things that we can do that cost less just to become sustainable and get to net zero and that kind of thing.
Karl Anders [00:23:18]:
Yeah. In terms of cars, an EV costs more than a petrol or diesel, but most people don't go out and basically put the money down. They will tend to buy a car on a monthly payment. And that gap is much closer between an EV and a petrol or diesel vehicle. But also, as we go through, and it's obviously going to be illegal to buy a petrol and diesel, in seven years time, values will change even more. So therefore you'll get parity, even though the sticker price might be higher, but you're not paying for petrol. I've got solar panels in the house, so all my Mercks were. I'd actually use the three pin plug and when the solar panels are up. So basically, it was free petrol for two years. Brilliant. Whereas now with the big battery EV, I do it at night, so it cost me very little. Yeah, so that's what you got to do.
Liz Allan [00:24:10]:
So, Carl, can you tell me what types of organization you are looking to work with at Mayor?
Karl Anders [00:24:17]:
Well, several different ones. So within mayor fleet, we're looking at fleets who are looking at going on the electrification journey where we can put charging and operate them for people and for the public side. The public charging, it's obviously people to go and use mayor charges, but also more people like retail organizations that are looking at putting in public charges on their sites, facilities, management companies, people like that. So for anybody who is looking at taking that journey, companies or drivers, our email address is hello. UK at mayORMER. That is eco eco. So if anybody wants to get in touch with us, just drop us a line to that. So Hello UK at mayor eco, and we'll be happy to help.
Liz Allan [00:25:02]:
And the web address is kind of without the hello at, isn't it?
Karl Anders [00:25:06]:
And it's the kind of yeah, it's actually at UK mayor eco mayor is M-E-R. That's correct.
Liz Allan [00:25:16]:
Just for people.
Karl Anders [00:25:18]:
It's Norwegian word for more mayor.
Liz Allan [00:25:21]:
Perfect. Well, listen, thank you ever so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it and I will definitely get you back on here. So thank you again and I will speak to you soon and goodbye to everyone else. Bye bye.
Liz Allan [00:25:36]:
You've been watching Electric Evolution with Liz Allen. Don't forget to subscribe and click on the Bell icon and you'll receive all of our weekly videos. Thanks for watching.
Liz Allan [00:25:48]:
See you soon.