The EV Ecosystem: What is going on? With Natalie Sauber & Bill Frazer

In this insightful episode, we dive deep into the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem, exploring the challenges, opportunities, and the future of mobility. Joined by industry experts Natalie Sauber and Bill Frazer, we unpack the broader context of electrification, the evolving market dynamics, and the critical role of infrastructure in driving widespread EV adoption.

Key Points:

✅ The broader context of electrification: Why are we electrifying, and what's the big picture?

✅ Navigating the evolving EV market: Trends, new players, and the struggle of legacy automakers

✅ The importance of infrastructure: Addressing the charging dilemma and the need for sustainable funding models

✅ Bridging the gender gap: Exploring the male dominance in the industry and the need for more inclusive design and marketing

✅ The future of transportation: Balancing car ownership, urban mobility, and the shift towards shared and autonomous solutions

This podcast is powered by Y-Mobility.

Transcript

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Welcome, everybody to conversations with Park. My name is Tim Pepin Dreyer. We're having a great conversation today with our featured guests, Natalie Xapo and Bill Fraser, we're talking about electric vehicles, the whole electric vehicle ecosystem in space. And guess what's happening with it? Where's it going? We've seen a lot of different takes on it recently. It's not happening the same everywhere in the world. We're seeing very different things happening in North America versus Europe, and even Asia specifically. And we're seeing things happening rest of the world that a sudden to raise some questions raised some eyebrows. We're going to cover all that in today's episode. But first, I want to welcome our two guests. Welcome, Natalie. Hey, Tim, nice to see. Welcome bill. All right. Thank you, Jen. Good to see you again. Like razack. Right. So why don't we kick it off with Natalie, why don't you provide us some broader context on the electric vehicle ecosystem? And where are we at in terms of like the your the world view? Like, what what? Why are we electrifying? And what's what's the big picture? What are we seeing? It's a really good question to ask, what is the big picture? I think if we, I mean, depends how far do you want me to go back? I think the big picture in terms of why are we electrifying is because we frankly need to, we realize that we are at an impasse in terms of our co2 emissions. In terms of reaching our net zero targets for 2030. For 2050, we need to change the way that we are currently emitting gas throughout it. And transportation does contribute a massive, or has a massive impact towards that. And hence, we are looking at electrifying our race, our cars from petrol diesel, offerings, electric hybrid, and even hydrogen to a certain part, although in a very different niche. From that point onwards, I think where we are right now in terms of the world view, and it depends really by market. So whether that's Asia, Europe and North America, we've obviously made some really great strides across the world. In terms of the adoption of Eevee. I think Tesla was a major influencer to really sort of like push that at the beginning. And get us really excited about it. Some of the traditional OEMs are catching and sort of like getting on board as well. It also opens up the playing field for a number of new players entered the market. And I'm sure Bill will come in to kind of that as well. And it's, yeah, it's progressing to various degrees in certain markets. But it really depends in terms of the regulations or policies, and also the consumer uptake as well. Yeah, that's a really great, thank you for doing that. Don't Don't be overly because it isn't as clear cut as people think it's not just that we just do this, we go from day to day, there's a lot of things that have to happen. And I think what people are, I think people outside our transportation node space are realizing that, you know, the system is it's a system, it's an ecosystem, like, we have petrol and petroleum based cars. But we also have a gas station system. We also have parking structures, we have a whole network of laws, rules, regulation. Yeah, it's massive right? freeways, the ultimate thing. And then we have all these issues around that stuff, you know, this massive subsidies from the fuel to the production of the vehicles to the roads, even the way that we manage our housing. It's all tied to end designed around the vehicle, whether you like it or not, but all the numbers show that it's not sustainable for a whole bunch of reasons. And then electrification comes in and says, Well, maybe we can be a little bit better, a little bit greener, a little bit more, more focus, or a lot better. But the fundamentals of this auric car oriented transportation and land use system are still huge and major. And you know, we have a lot of question marks around that, from there, to the point that you made about that. The OEMs are struggling to basically catch on to Tesla and even the Chinese automakers, who saw very early on that they're not going to compete with internal combustion engines that they can't compete with the legacy systems, but they will be able to compete in this new technology on electrification. And it's also brought in a bunch of new players in the in the system. We had a previous episode on all the EVS that were funded through specs and a lot of them crashed and burned. But one of them is really interesting and intriguing and this is what we Bill wanted to bring on the show. or other than doing I go way back. But, Bill, tell us a little about DeLorean. And why are they doing this? Why? Why are they focusing on bringing back? What is probably one of the most iconic, at least in the 3d space? iconic vehicle out there, right? And that everybody instantly says, you know, DeLorean Back to the Future. Oh my god, I love that car. I was amazing. Yeah. So that bringing that back, but tell me more about like, you know, the quick story on it and why they're doing what they're doing. Yeah. So. So I was involved in a few of those companies that you mentioned before, that have gone through specs and fail, and it started again and failed again. So it's not easy spec. So I'm very, very familiar with that. The reason that I got intrigued with with Dorian was that a lot of these companies are struggling with plant, you can have the best technology, but you don't have a brand. And so that's where I think, you know, it's taken Tesla 20 years, ribbing is doing a great job, they've got their niche, the off road, the people that appreciate that brand, appreciate what it brings to the industry, as far as being off road, not having gas, you know, kind of environmental type aspect. And they're great vehicles. So what we're trying to do is that to pay homage to the touring legacy is that it wasn't necessarily a vehicle that we're like, it needs to be electric. There's a lot of reasons why I think it should be electric. But the reason is that based on John DeLorean and his legacy of always pushing the limits, we were going down the path of if it kept going today, what would it be? What are those limits that he would be pushing, and technology design and everything that goes with it, along with the customer journey, getting into web three, and all that type of technology that we can tie into one vehicle. So that's why we decided to go with electric powertrain. There's a lot of other reasons to performance. Being able to you know, to have the car do what you want to do. It's it's much easier than with an ice vehicle. I've got history in both, as well as our CTO, he's got a wealth of knowledge in both ice power, our ice, hybrid and electric. And to get the vehicle to do what we wanted to do, it just made sense to make it electric. Also, with everything pushing forward, having the having an electric vehicle right now just makes sense. As Natalie was talking, you know, we're trying to be more than just a car company, we're going to be a low volume kind of niche automaker, we want to be able to really resonate with the customer. So it wasn't just oh, we're trying to jump on the bandwagon. It's if you look at the whole package, this is just a great car. So that that's where it comes from. And I think that what we're trying to do is that when you mentioned electric cars, so I live in Texas, so you can imagine that's a very polarizing statement. Although there's a ton of Tesla, there's a ton of electric cars, ice Hummers radians every day. However, Texas is a big oil state, right. So that can be a bit polarizing. So instead of saying, Oh, we're doing electric, because it's good for the environment, although it is which is great. We're saying we're going electric, because it's the best car we possibly can. We're trying to kind of massage that narrative a little bit. To show people it doesn't necessarily have to be a political or personal stance, it can just be I want the best possible car. And between us pushing that, and people like rivian, doing things to show look, if you've got this vehicle, that's electric, look at all this extra storage you've got look at how much stuff in front of the front, right? If we can do that partner with people like Natalie, who was pushing the other side of it for other reasons to to enhance the infrastructure, the policy, all that if those come together, you've got a great marriage of technology and policy. So that's the avenue we're going down. And we're really hoping that we can make a difference instead of saying, Oh, we're just electric carmaker because it's the latest buzzword. We're a car maker that happens to use electric powertrain because it's the best option we could possibly find. So that's the kind of direction that we're going down. And we've we've had a lot of good feedback. And I can personally support that. As well as I do appreciate the fact that it's good for the environment. I do appreciate the fact it's reducing the carbon emissions. But I also like the fact it's got fantastic performance, the way you can package it, right, the different things you can put into it. So that's kind of our take on it and where we're coming from, and kind of what we can do with the vehicle moving forward, especially with being electric over the over air updates and things like that. So that's kind of that's kind of our position right now with it. Not really like that. I think it's again, focusing on you're saying that the whole impetus of what Are you doing this is because of the brand, you know, focusing on the brand storytelling, the actual overall package. Electrification piece happens to be part of the package, but it's the leading cause of love. But I do love that one comment Deborah was making in terms of, you know, if it's electric, you're gonna have more storage in your booth or the front end. I mean, yeah, not be one of the reasons. But I would say, but it's actually yeah, it's I mean, you kind of I think, though, back to your question, right? Do you have to almost sort of like, collect the user from all sorts of angles? Absolutely. Yeah. reviens point, what he was saying, I think he has a saying that, you know, what Reagan did very quickly is that they said, We're going to put a charging infrastructure at the national parks, because that's where our customers are gonna be, that'd be recreational customers. So the endpoint understand the customer journey from the beginning to the end, which is why I wanted to just touch on this right now, Natalie, you know, the infrastructure is fundamental. I think it's personally, I want to hear your perspective on this, I think is actually more important than the vehicles themselves. Because the infrastructure, what's holding us back worldwide, especially in places like North America and other parts? What is your take on why is it so bad right now? What Why is the general infrastructure just so poorly, poorly implemented, because that's the biggest complaint we hear from people saying, I cannot get access to reliable charging, like, it's it is terrible, unless you have a Tesla cannot get access to reliable charging. And even now, Tesla has opened the gate for other people that come in, and so now have to wait. Right? So tell us what's, what's the what's going on in that space? Okay, I think it's a little bit of a chicken and egg situation. Because what basically happen is, I mean, the infrastructure is as old as they were dealing with some legacy infrastructure across the world. Some of it is older in other parts, you know, in terms of like Asia, for example, the infrastructure is in Europe, we're also building pretty much cities from, from scratch, even nowadays. So it's a lot easier to sort of, like integrate new technologies, whether that's, you know, Evie, charging infrastructure, whether it's autonomous cars, whether it's last mile delivery solutions, and, but also working on a much smaller scale in terms of proximity to these types of things. And then you've got, you know, the US where everything is extremely spread out, there's potentially, it's not easy to get electricity to certain parts, to hook it up to the grid. And then you do have a lot of space. And then does it really sort of like make sense to try and sort of like, cover that area with the electricity. And then of course, you have Europe, where everything was very urban and very dense. With that being in mind. I think, what my my whole point amount of chicken and egg is, I think we started off by producing a product, the electric vehicle, and then basically pushing it out to into the market. And then only afterwards, were we thinking, Alright, great. Now there's this great electric car on the road, hold on a second, how are we going to charge it, where we're going to charge it? And how do we even sort of like promote, explain market and then also sort of like talk with government, I think all of this was happening so fast, at the same time, that we're still trying to play catch up in a lot of different places. So I think from a almost sort of like an Arcadis perspective, we kind of do believe in almost a dual approach. So we're evey design and infrastructure improvements must cater to both the current realities, but also sort of like future possibilities. And I said that, you know, it's easier to perhaps do that in countries where either you have more funding, or you have governments, which are really actively pushing for that. So it's going to be a lot easier to optimize these types of solutions, and also be able to upgrade grids and implementing adaptive charging solutions and sort of like have that kind of space. But what is now sort of like happening, at least, what I see as a bit of a trend is that Evie charging and data centers. So you know, all things AI, we want more data we want, all of the grids will be connected. They're competing here, Tim, and there is a bit of an incline, competing for space on the one hand, but also access to the grid. And if you look at it from an investment perspective, in terms of where do we see the return on investment, where do we see the greater investment and the need for it? At the very moment, we at least with our clients, and also what we've seen because we're working also on a data center front is that money is more for data center. So EB charging infrastructure is almost taking a step back. And that is another major thing that is currently really impacting that sort of like rollout and design to make that infrastructure more sustainable and I guess also paramount and that sounds kind of seed is coming. No I mean, like you know I'm, I've been working in this transportation, energy, data space. So come on, we need data centers we need, we need electric, we need electric vehicles. We're electrifying everything. So basically going from multiple sources of energy to one source of energy. One source of power, I should say. And I mean, it's not rocket science to be like, well, that's going to create a bit of a bottleneck, you know. So what, why, why are we coming to like late, late at the stage? And why have we put too much pressure on the car companies in the veal companies, but not the utility grid operators? Like, guys, this is your space, like 120 years ago, they ran the show. And we had electric electric cars, and we had electric everything. And is it nice to have, you know, let's just focus on lighten power. And so now to come back this time around announcing, well, we've been under investing for 50 years, and we don't have enough capacity. It's like, well, why why have you been man? Like, seriously, like, wake up? So what's that all about? Get a wrench into this a little bit. Yeah, good. Question where go for it. From my point of view. I'm wondering, I feel like we missed a step. We went from gas to electric. Although the Prius was a hybrid, you know, one of the most well adopted hybrids, but plug in hybrid vehicles are a great solution. And I feel like it's an overlooked market, at least in my mind. I feel like I don't see them very often. I whenever I travel, I tried to write enough bill. But people, we used to say I couldn't do it, why people drive Priuses? Because they are pIaces. Right? They weren't prays with Piatt, right. Look at me, look at me. I'm green. I'm recycle. I'm ECO or compost. And amazing, you know, yeah, Natalie. But the plus is purpose. And yeah, I think on the hybrid side, I'm going to have a clear stamp. I don't get it. I really personally, I don't understand why it's in one car. It's silly. Exactly. It was supposed to be the sole transition point. And the idea of it seemed seemed fair and right. But it was almost, yeah, I think it might have been a little bit due in terms of, and again, I'm just gonna go back to the whole marketing in terms of how do we actually communicate this to the actual customers? We did go to electric, and then all of a sudden, we made the jump back and say, Oh, actually, there's a hybrid, as well. And then people got confused in terms of whether it's a hybrid, then how does that sort of correlate with, with the electric vehicles? Or is it just sort of like petrol is that even a very viable solution in that aspect, I think there was a whole point where OEMs, were trying to figure things out first, somewhere faster in terms of adopting straight TV, others, we're trying to almost sort of like be in denial and saying, at least it doesn't ever going to happen, we're going to invest some billions of pounds into into hybrid just to sort of like make sure that we meet our sustainability targets. But guys, it's just never gonna happen in that aspect. So there's a whole thing that it hasn't really been communicated and discussed with the consumers, but also with the industry. And also in terms of making it a viable option, as per se. And now, similar to your point, Tim, it's almost sort of like to date. I mean, it's always great to look back retrospectively and say, Oh, we could have done XYZ, faster or better. But it's Yeah, I think we missed a few things. And this wouldn't be the first in human history. So yeah, like, missing. Yep. I think they're missing a real market, though, because I think a lot of it's about education. Because if you can have a battery that could you could operate on electric 30 miles a charge. For me, I put eight to 10,000 miles a year in my car, it's not very much. But at least once a year, I go to Arkansas, Georgia and throw my bikes in the back and I end up biking trip with my buddies. I can't do that in electric car. So I always have to have a gas car. I would love to have two hybrid, you know, plugins, but and that would allow me and I think this might also be an American thing where I drive all over a 12 mile or a 12 hour trip for me for a two day vacation with my friends is nothing I would do that every month is different in Europe and in like, other places. Here we love to dry, I think is what it is right? Why in Australia, it's like you drive that just to go to the grocery store. But for the most part, and especially when I was in Jacksonville, where I met you, Tim, my whole life was in a five mile radius. So I really had this kind of nucleus of where I was, but my family lived four or five hours away, and I wouldn't want to stop halfway to go with my family. So there's a lot of these things where I think that it's missed. Also, we've got some really good friends that live down in Key West. Again, they drive maybe within a five mile radius each one every day. So she would love to have an electric car, but if there's a hurry Again, she's got to get out, she can't be messing around with having to charge. So then it gets to that point of, I want an electric car, but I can't. So that plug in hybrid for some people does provide a benefit. I understand what you're saying. And you know, Natalie, Tim, we kind of missed the boat on it. And then too, I was saying, I feel like if we hit that and said, You can do this bill and then graduate, right, that might have been the way to go. But they are available, like you can get high bids in, in almost every category, the sales kind of speak to themselves. And they're doing okay, but don't doing amazing. Neither are the, you know, the thing is, I think with the electric vehicle, and I think Natalie met me spring before going all in and Evie upfront, meant that they could basically leapfrog all this stuff and really focus on the experience. But it's high end right now. Still, we still don't have it. I wrote about this in Forbes in the we're still trying to get this 20,000 or $25,000 EV still has happened, at least in the North American European context. And, you know, we have the will touched in a second, we have, you know, the huge, frankly, barrage of Chinese luxury vehicles trying to crawl in any way they can. Any question. And so we have this huge issue right now, where it's like, there's multiple things happening to the legacy OEMs or all around them. And you just saw recently nurse DeLanda CEO, basically said to everybody who supplies the vehicle parts, you better cut this by 35%, because we're not gonna even have business with you anymore, because that's the differential between the Chinese EVs. So it's kind of like the move, you know, everything everywhere, all at once. And like, what is the OEM do? Like, how do they just have? Like, they have they breathe, and there's just so much happening, right? And, you know, in the US, I think we've complicated it more where it's like, it's a, you know, you're you're with this party for for electrical, you're with this party, if you're not for electric, and it's like, wait a second, what does the customer want? I want us to touch more about the customer. Natalie, you've done so much research on this, and you guys know this stuff? So well. Walk us through? Who are the current customers, the topologies? Who are the future customers? And what are we missing? Because last time I checked, half the world is, you know, identified as male, and half the world enterprise is female, and a tiny portion of everybody else in between. But there's fundamental needs and differences in this space that I don't think the market has even tapped into. And I would love to hear your perspective on that I get we have got the urban market, the suburban market with the rural market, but there's also like, you know, differences, you know, with just you know, who we are, and then our our preferences, like, where are we in all of that and have have the EVS just really focused on the wealthy, eco conscious people first, you know, the early adopters, like where, where are we at with all of that? Really, really good question. So from obviously, from the research that I've done, and I think your writing, in terms of the sort of core demographic, the male customer is still very predominant. I don't have exact stats, but I would I think it's about 70%. I think from a from a US perspective, and I'm pretty sure it's going to actually be the similar in terms of Europe, and also Asia. So we have predominantly 70% of males, I think, age wise, wouldn't really not probably say, you know, anywhere between 30 to 50, I guess it also depends in terms of purchasing power, because EVs are still extremely expensive. With that being in mind. But I also think that in terms of you actually going out and buying an Eevee, you have to obviously be a little bit of a an order or head coming as a petrol head anymore, but other heads, so you have to go ahead and vote ahead. You have to buy into the market, you have to obviously be a little bit of a trendsetter in terms of sort of like following, it's kind of cool to charge my vehicle, you know, like, I don't have to go to a gas station, I can just either charge at home or I can have on street charging and whatnot. And you have to sort of like follow the kind of the lifestyle of some of these OEMs in or whether it's the cool Chinese OEMs or a Tesla or any sort of like of the other new European Evie heads in terms of following that Eevee ownership in terms of geographic distribution 100% of urban areas, because that's sort of like where it makes the most sense. And then obviously, we know that China is the leading Evie distributor at the moment. I think they own about 60% of the market. Europe runs about 25% and us comes in I think around 10 That's also you guys aren't doing too good, but again, demographics are so polarized right now, for independence. don't have like your car, your you know, your you know, your anti, you know, Orange Man, you gotta get electric car like it's a cost obstruction. Yeah, for sure for sure. And I think it's, it's what is definitely missing here it's in terms of female ownership and that hasn't actually been really talked about or discussed much conferences earlier this year. And it was actually raised quite a lot that in terms of back to Bill's point, in terms of marketing and education, that language has actually is, is really male dominated in terms of like it speaks in terms of it picks up all of these sort of like very key technical terms, but it doesn't actually simplify it in terms of making it easy to understand. And also sort of like, compliant in terms of what does that actually mean, where can I charge my vehicle? You know, we talked in an earlier session in terms of safety as well, I think from a US perspective, more than from a European perspective, in terms of EB charging points where they're located in fairly on the street, I can see what actually here right now looking out of my window, so in terms of its seemed very safe, versus I think you will probably have more experience from the US side, maybe they are in a bit more of sort of like whether it's dark alleyways or whether just really far away from sort of like, public equities, where perhaps women can feel a little bit unsafe, and men too, I mean, goes both ways in that aspect, you know, so I really liked what you're touching that it's like, you know, the thing is, you know, if you study the current Chinese brands and the current Chinese offerings of vehicles, they've really honing in on the customer experience, the interior of the customer experience, that, basically smartphones on wheels that they're really have taken, you know, and Xiaomi actually created the iPhone eicar, that of the other one was what was waiting for Apple to do. Xiaomi did it. And so the question I have, you know, is the design perspective, like, you know, we keep pushing for this idea that we're just basically electrifying the, the ice design and approach and everything, which is a very specific male, like, Is it male driven, so that the numbers the performance, zero to 60, like to three seconds for two seconds, whatever. People don't care that like Billy made the point before about, hey, this has more. There's, there's a there's a frunk, right, there's some there's a front trunk, those things are much more use case storytelling, right? It's like, these are the use cases for talk a bit like, you know, from your perspective, like, you know, why are we still focusing on performance? Is that this the transition to, to grab people's attention? Because the use case is like, I love the idea. I think it was Ford actually, I think you'd mentioned a bill to me many, many times ago that the idea that you could take this truck, camping, and then use it to pay the plug in for your stuff that you want, in your camping, credit, an opportunity for glamping, right, like you've actually got glamping with an electric that you couldn't do before. So why are we why are we still in that, that that mindset go? I'd love to hear your perspective on that. So we've had this conversation, at least internally with between me and my friends. I mean, I've been in this industry for you know, 20 years and 25 or more if you want to include you know, my my college experience and all that. So it's just a very it's an old white male dominated industry. And I mean, there's no way there's no way around it and it's changing and it's changing definitely for the better. But there's a GM standard or requirements, I don't know if they still do it, but you have to be able to fit two sets of golf bags in the back of a car. That's that's a requirement right? Because you're gonna take this car golf and it doesn't say anything. I mean, that's a I mean, predominantly 25 3040 years ago, that's a very male dominated sport. Right? So those legacies continue to carry over. And you know, there's these new cars out there 4000 pound trucks with you know, zero to 60 times of 2.5 seconds. That should not be happening right like you put a 16 year old at that if I was in that car, there will be bad things happening if I was 16 years old, right? I had a truck but it was like zero to 60 in 17 seconds to manage it. So I it's just this has to change and even you know when I started my my career the Eevee industry it was a very sexy car I won't I won't say names or anything but it was a very you know, very nice looking car it was you know, sexy car and only you see it sexy car right and the all the advertisements was this car with like, women on the hood in like bikinis and stuff. And I'm like, you're missing an entire like that doesn't get me to buy a car. All right, especially now with a wife and kids looking for, but like, that doesn't attract me to go buy the car. And my wife's not going to care about that. So they need to change this whole mindset of, of here's a car. And that's where I think that I've seen. I've read I see stories where Chevy with their electric Silverado shows all the different things that this truck can do in the storage. And it folds down in the the availability of space and in different features. Because it's electric, that you can fit all this extra space, you can plug in your tools. So you're in a worksite, you can plug your tools into it. Like as you're seeing Tim or the forest, you're going camping, you can charge up your house, especially where I'm from in Florida. There's power outages all the time from hurricanes, if I've got a I mean, a Tesla can do it, but a for whatever, if I can plug my house and run my AC, my refrigerator, whatever, that's awesome. So you can't do that with a nice vehicle. And I think that they need to start changing this narrative and it is changing, but it is still like, you know, dominant towards as you guys were saying kind of towards that that male buyer, which I don't think it should be. Because for one, I'm not buying a car without my wife's approval, whether I like it or not, right? So it's like it, it needs to change and be the usefulness of the vehicle for all the customers, not just one specific, you know, customer that they think is going to buy it. Because it that's that's not the case, it needs to change. It is changing. But I don't think it's changing fast enough. I think that there's a bigger use case out there. I'd love to hear what you have to say, Natalie. Yes. And I don't know if you've guys made it out to Beijing earlier this year. Now that I have, obviously read all about the auto show. And I think what's it's almost like watching what you're saying. But as well we are making we are seeing a transition here in terms of the auto show itself was incredibly more inclusive. So you had a really good representation, both female and male, turned off that they were making an incredible push in terms of getting celebrities, social media influencers, and also making a really sort of like, great storytelling around the cars itself. So we talked about the glamping, right? I mean, in Asia, having a karaoke system at the back of your autonomous is obviously managed. So really sort of like fate story around that and making it more inclusive, similar to what we've seen with the kinds of events which Apple's putting on a year by year basis, they almost sort of like want people to queue up outside of dealerships, or where have you not get a glimpse of that car, and get involved in that to almost have that conversation that the car is still a means to get from A to B but now it's sort of like a fun, sexy, and almost sort of like a really tech driven way for you to be getting from A to B but inside of your home or sort of like your your safe space where you can, you know, answer emails, you can catch up on movies, with the kids in the back and have that sort of like extension of your home pod on wheels. And we ask you to focus is now way more in terms of what's actually inside the car, then what kind of noise to the car because ultimately, to be honest, cars, hopefully, fingers crossed, will be silent going forward. And then what really matters is the tech that goes inside and the battery that's been poured. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So go ahead, Bill. Good. I was just gonna say that's another big change where you need to the younger generations, my daughters are four and seven. They they love Tesla. They love electric cars. I think there's just so cool. But before when I was growing up, it was like, what's the loudest, right? No replacement for displacement. That's it. It's got to be big. And that was the only technology in the car was the engine. Baby wrong? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. And now it's changing where I vote what you're saying and where it's an extension of your home where, again, I've got a 47 year old, I work from home a lot, which means I don't get a lot of quiet or privacy time. So sometimes I go with my wife's minivan, which is very luxurious and spacious. And I do work in there. I can have meetings in there. If my car was an extension Wi Fi the electric. Yeah, that's exactly what it should be the whole news. You're not just how loud it is. So I just wanted to I fully agree I think that's a great point. So that's okay, if I'm gonna play actually in Tokyo or one of the car sharing companies was fine that people were renting their cars at lunchtime just to have lunch in there because there's no there's no room right? So it's like yeah, when even using the vehicles, but like let's, let's shift a little bit now to pardon the pun. But let's, let's let's shift over to The bigger ecosystem. So we're talking about we've been talking a bit about the industry and the industry insights into the space. But let's go one step further out. Transportation, the mobility of our society moving from A to B around the world, the world is now more people now live in cities than ever have been in the history of, of our civilization. And I think we're going to have more than three quarters of population living in cities. There's a geometry issue here. And Natalie, I want to ask you this, like, you know, there's a point where we can't all have our own car, even if it's electric, even if it's recycled, if it's made out of like, you know, regenerative materials, etc. There's just physically not enough space, we do need to have more compact living and more complex environments. And from the European perspective, you know, there's been a lot of push now by cities and governments to, for example, to start, you know, basically saying, We don't want you to bring your cars in the central city, we want to basically reduce the number of access for vehicles in the central city areas. And if you do have a vehicle in these areas, they have to be zero emission you obviously live in London with with the low emission zones. They became very political very fast, when in fact, though, quite straightforward. So where are we with all this in terms of like, on the one hand, the big the national government is saying, everybody's to buy cars, because it's good for the economy, it's good for, it's good for our jobs, et cetera. There's this huge tariff war going on right now with like the inputs of these vehicles, but from the city's perspective, saying, No, we don't want you to buy cars, we want you to walk by can take transit, because we can't have too many cars in our city. So that, again, the customer is getting these mixed messages. You know, what, what's your take on this? Like? What's going on? This is just a lot going on right now. There is there's an incredible lot going on? I think. So I'm gonna answer that. I think in terms of it matters where you live. And it matters. He in the immediate ecosystem slash infrastructure that you have surrounding yourself. So I myself, I live in London, central London, there would be no way I would be owning a car. Yeah, because it's an absolute nightmare. In fact, me, I've actually just rented a car for the weekend, we went out to the countryside, it made absolute sense to drive out there, coming back into London, it took me over two hours. Yeah, for a mere distance of, you know, less than 10 kilometers, it was an absolute nightmare coming back in. And London obviously has made it very specifics in terms of you know, you can only drive 20 miles an hour, there's a speed camera camera after every corner. So they've made it that way. Yes, because they don't want cars in the city center. I personally think it's a great idea. I think we should actually restrict all cars in terms of just have public transport, and obviously logistics as well, to obviously get the goods into the city center. But try and make the car make it as car less car centric as possible. Because that increases not nevermind, the environment increases living in terms of really having more open space for greenery, people obviously are more pushed in terms of like actually walking outside, we can have a lot in terms of mobility as a service. Last Mile, we seen a lot of scooters, a shared bikes. And we can also sort of like look into short term car rentals within within that sort of like distance, it makes sense from a European perspective, because we are very sort of concentrated, if you look at it similar to Asia as well, because obviously, again, constrained for places on the US side, the distance are a lot larger to cover. So you would still very much rely on your own vehicle. Unless, of course you have an amazing public transport system. And now I don't want to go into this. But I think there's lots of issues, states and all things having documented Natalie, this is very low. Reliability. And also safety is super important. And I think that's exactly as strong in some countries than others and others. So I think it is important to keep keep the city as coffee as possible. But I do agree with you to the maximum that the messages are extremely mixed. Because yeah, you are listening to a lot of different people who don't want you to basically confined to governments also changing the laws. As they said, We're going to have one government prior to coming in there obviously have different priorities to the next one. There's a lot of interchange where obviously we just had votes, we're going to have a major change in government here in the UK, France is going to Zambia sames I think you guys in the states are going to be having your share fair fun later this year as well. So there are different stakeholders to please but I think ultimately, it is the people that we need to take out into consideration and also the planet in terms of making sure that our kids have something or have a place to live in. As the US perspective, you know, you and I worked on this together, we tried to figure out ways, you know, we worked in a very, what was a traditional order audit oriented environment and trying to do different things. But it's a huge lift, right? You're in San Antonio, like, you know, you can't really go anywhere without, you know, your car. Yeah, there's some places that in the US is tiny pockets in the US where you can live without a car. I live without a car, because I live in Miami Beach, and everything is a five minute walk. But I have to get into an Uber or Lyft to go anywhere beyond that. But that's mean, that's my personal preference. It's just a it's a challenge, right? So, again, we're getting these mixed messages, especially in the US, it's like, you know, the message is even more mixed. Because it's not just to drive a car or not have a car, it's what kind of car should you have? Should you have an electric car or knowledge of car? It's, I think the public is getting a little exhausted, like, Bill, what's the how do you see us getting through this, like, you know, walk us through your thoughts on like, how do we get through this next couple of years? Because the numbers are showing that more and more people are buying electric cars. More and more people are understanding the concept of electrification. Even more than that, the people who have electric cars are saying, I'm going to keep them, I'm not going to replace it. Right. But the biggest frustration is the charging, you know, the quality of the charging the reliability of the charging. And that's another entity that is the public permitting process. And that is also the utilities, right? So there's a lot of plays there. And in the US, we've got this like push pool right now, as we go into the next election cycle to Natalie's point. If you're with this party, your flip vacation, if you're with that party, you're not literally in liquidation. So everybody bill, what's the what's the solution? I think you just got the podcast that I was thinking of, like 10 different points I wanted to make, as you're asking that. So I'll try to distill it down into like, three minutes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Part of it's generational. I think. I agree. So I, I would have a dichotomy where I love cars. And I think I'll always have one. But this is a point I made before when you and I met him where I do like living in downtown urban environments. I used to live in downtown Jacksonville, the urban core, and I loved it, I didn't need a car, I had a blog to a brewery blog to a coffee shop, ice cream, whatever, I parked my car on the weekends, I never drove it again, unless they needed to say anything. And I was in California, I lived in South Bay Park, my car rode my bike everywhere was perfect. So my car was more of a tool, right? And then it gets into if you've got the public transportation that works. And you've got the green spaces, you've got the access to bipeds, you've got access to transportation that doesn't need to be a car that's more convenient. Then you get the car you want, not the car you need. And so that's where it's like, oh, maybe I'll get the, you know, the rivian SUV, so I can take my family, you know, glamping on the weekend, but, or whatever it might be. Or maybe I can just get a little sports car because I'm only driving it myself to go have some fun. So there's a lot of that kind of stuff that pops up when you get into this discussion of do I need a car now and that's why I say it's live in an automated always want to car. But I do like the idea of enhancing public transportation and urban green spaces. And I think that during COVID, you actually saw a lot of that, where they were shutting down streets, you had outdoor seating, there was a lot of walking, and actually liked it. It was it was like, wow, this is great. You know, this is a nice, urban environment. There's that cars flying me and some urban areas eventually adopted that full time, which I thought was a great step forward. And and as unfortunate as that time was I think it showed that you could do things differently in a variety of fabrics through the status for Exactly, yeah, ironically, you know, net. Just just touching on that. Ironically, Americans fly 5000 6000 miles to Europe to walk. Vacations, come to visit European cities. Walk and eat. Yeah. Yeah, and lose weight. So it's like, trying to walk in citizen they come back and they always say to me like, oh my god, this is such an amazing time in Florida, etc. Do you know why it's walkable? Because there's three or four storeys of housing above it. It's compact, and it's very, very dense. Yeah. Why can we have this cmrp Canyon? This is our I want that. Right, right. Yeah. So yeah, and then a couple other points I had to make Really quick was generational where when I turned 16, I was standing at the DMV door to get my license. I was waiting as the door opened, I went and got my license got tested. Now, I guess it was the culture. Yeah, exactly. And that's the only way I can get around. Well, now there's Uber, there's Lyft. There's the public transportation is slightly enhancing. But like, right, there just there was no public transportation. Right. Now, there's Uber and Lyft. And these other things. So my nephew's are getting to an age, I think they like my one nephew waited like a year or two before he even got his permit before, before he was driving. Kids just don't want them anymore. And I think that if you can enhance their experience not having to drive to having Uber Lyft, rental car sharing that type of stuff, I think you're gonna start to see a difference. I don't think, you know, as you kind of mentioned before, and we talked about before, I don't think that's going to necessarily be political. I think it's gonna be generational and what your options are, right. And I think that it's going to offer some new opportunities as the younger generations come up. One other thing really quick was, we talked about Texas a little bit. And you know, the kind of the polarizing electric vehicles on Texas, in Texas, there's a registration fee of $200 a year for electric vehicles, I believe it's 200 days 400 than 200, which I don't necessarily see a problem with, too, because essentially, that's taken from the gas tax. What I don't like is that it's a one time fee at the state level, instead of being at the local level, like at the local charger, to go into the local infrastructure. Because the Texas electrical infrastructure is not good. As you know, we've all heard when there's ice storms, other things, where I don't know if that's necessarily the solution. But I think we need to start getting a little more creative to enhance the local infrastructure to enhance your support the electric vehicles, and then have more adoption. So I don't know if that's the right thing. But I do, I do think that we need to somehow focus on where the electric vehicles are being used, and make sure that infrastructure has been enhanced. And again, a longer conversation. And so I those are some of the points I wanted to make to what you were saying. I'm gonna read this up, because I think this is the closing point. And Natalie, I'm gonna give it to you. So you can, you've got the flaw in this. So one of the things I've been talking about a lot over the over the years with, with governments, especially because you know, the governments are the ones who build the infrastructure after maintaining infrastructure to support infrastructure. The dirty secret is not so secretly, but the dirty issue is that, you know, all of our infrastructure is funded by fossil fuel fares, fines, taxes, and fuel and, and, frankly, permits, fees. And if we go all electric, and give a go all autonomous, there's no more parking ticket, there's no more parking required. There's no more speed tickets, there's no more there's no more fossil fuel taxes, etc. The infrastructure needs to be paid somehow. Right. So I think this is the big question that government is struggling with right now is, you know, how are we going to pay for this infrastructure while we are transitioning, and at the same time, the electoral infrastructure is outdated. And so it's not just an upgrade? It's a complete redo, right? And so there's a huge big ticket item coming up for this for this infrastructure space. So from your perspective, Natalie, you know, are you seeing more and more interest or understanding across the client space that you have about? How are we going to actually pay this and protect it, we need new financing tools, we need new ways to do this, there's a lot of talk about digital curbs and getting the curbs on the street digitize so that there is a per second per millimeter per time fee based on the pickup and drop off. Because to Bill's point, you know, if the future is basically going to be much more automated and shared, we're going to have a lot more issues of pickup and drop off, especially on commercial vehicles. And there's a lot of like pickup and loading happening all over the countries. And those drop off and pick up fees really are going to be the main source of revenue if we get it right. But are people thinking that way? Because I've been saying this for a while. And, you know, I think the UK Government has recently announced that they're going to give tools to help councils digitize their, their their infrastructure, but these are big, big fundamental shifts that that need to happen because like I said, if we just let it just status quo, the government's gonna have less and less less revenue from these vehicles and from these trips, because they're not going to be getting the fees that they accustomed to, to pay for their infrastructure. So closing us out Natalie, like, you know, what's the what's the word on that? Very good question. And I kind of almost like it. I'm pretty sure that the some purpose term how it almost sort of like loops us back to the beginning of it in terms of terrain, we were talking about the entire incidences. masterminded hand outs and the entire ecosystem. So yes, previously to what you've stated, We are losing in terms of I don't want to say losing it sounds harsh. But there are other ways to fund this new electric autonomous future. Yes, the government has done a lot in the past in terms of sort of like providing that kind of funding. But there's other streams that we can leverage. First of all, we need to include the industry. So OEMs cannot just supply the product, they would have to actively be involved and as they have been in the past, will actively contribute towards that future via funding, there's a way of us to leverage more green bonds as well. So issuing green bonds, obviously, can finance largely be infrastructure projects. I talked about the corporate partnerships between governments, the OEMs, between the grid suppliers, or utility companies, they can sort of like come together on that. And then we can still leverage some of the EB infrastructure to pay the fees and taxes. So road users charges, how we're currently doing it here in London in terms of having that ultra low zone emission. But also electricity surcharges in terms of optimizing the grid, making sure that when it is in low demand, basically store up in terms of having the batteries fall, and then basically offloading it when it's sort of peak demand. There is a piece that we can do around infrastructure and service models, you know, this subscription service models I mentioned earlier, or people use models, and then also just sort of like working closely together within that ecosystem, bringing it all together and coming up with with new models. And I think we're doing quite well. Some countries are doing extremely well, for example, Norway, I think it's one of my favorite case studies, because they've just absolutely amazing in terms of the epa.gov, you know, from substantial government incentives, and also just making sure that the charging infrastructure, so in terms of it can be done. It's going to take some time for certain countries to catch on to but I think the blueprint is all there. Now. It's just on us to basically execute, execute, execute. Yeah, that's a really good closing point. Bill closing points so we can wrap up this episode of your thoughts. My final thoughts are, I think it's just going to take a bit of a shift into making sure that people appreciate the vehicles appreciate the environment. And everyone just gets in with wanting to do the right thing. And moving forward. I think what Natalie's doing is fantastic. And going through and educating. And I think isn't a partnership between OEMs like us, and with organizations like Natalie's and just making sure we're all work together. I mean, that's it, it needs to be selling a product and providing an experience in that customer journey, to make sure to the best for everybody in a sustainable future in the next generation. And really, that's all it it's just got to come together. We all want the same thing, just how we're going to do it. And so I think Natalie's doing great work. And Tim, thank you very much for having me here. I've had a really good time today. Talk with you guys. So thank you. Good. Well, I'm glad you both came, I think it's a really good way to wrap it up the we have to focus on the customer first, you know, we've been talking a lot about the OEM side, the city side, the government side, they all have all these competing interests. But as long as we focus on the customer experience and the customer journey, I think we're going to get there and we need to listen to the customer as well. We tend to tell the customer what they need rather than actually asking them, what do they actually want to do. So let's close on that and say again, thank you so much, Natalie. Thank you, Bill. Really appreciate your time and thanks, everybody for listening to conversations in the park. All right. Thank you. Thank you for