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Gary C: Hi, I'm Gary and this is episode 197 of EV
Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric
vehicles, and things that are interesting to

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electric vehicle owners. On the show today we'll
be looking at EV education and what we can do
about it

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This season the podcast is sponsored by Zapmap the
free to download app that helps EV drivers search
plan and pay for their charging. Before we start,

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I wanted to let you know that I'm already looking
at episodes for next season. Any particular topics
you want me to cover suggestions to

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info@evmusings.com Please.

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Our main topic of discussion today is education. I
recently encountered a young EV driver who will
call Sarah. She was at a charge stop trying to use

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one of the high powered chargers there. As I was
looking at the Tesla V4 units which are co
located. Sarah was trying to plug her car into the

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charger in the adjacent parking slot rather than
the one attached to her slot. So I went over and
asked her if she'd rather try and the new Tesla

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chargers which are cheaper. Now Sara lives in
Brighton, she has no off street parking she drives
an eCorsa, she uses local AC to charge and she's

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only recently passed a test as evidenced by the
provisional driver's ticket on her car. As she
charged and we were chatting, I learned several

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things that concern slash annoying me. Number one,
Sara uses Waze to locate her charges. Now I've
checked it out and there's some fairly decent

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functionality in the app, but it doesn't have all
the charges on there and it doesn't show all
charges on or near a route. For example, on the

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route to my mother's it only shows the units
located physically on the road I was taking and
not the ones that might use that were located just

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off a motorway junction such as Duckmanton on the
M1. Although it does show both surprisingly
therefore confusingly enough, but the northbound

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and southbound motorway service area charges
despite the fact that you would only be travelling
in one particular direction. Sarah had no idea

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that specific EV charger location apps such as
Zapmap exist. She's also concerned when using high
power chargers in case he puts too much power into

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the battery and damages it. She tries not to use
really fast charges as a result. Thirdly, Sarah
always charges up to 100% on rapid charges, and

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wonders why it takes so long to finish. Number
four, she had no idea how fast her car was
supposed to charge , and what's a good charge

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speed to expect. And fifth, Sara has no idea which
charging networks rate highly amongst drives and
which are the ones to avoid. Now at the risk of

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sounding like a broken record. This comes down to
one thing and one thing only education. Now I
don't fault, nor criticise Sarah, for not knowing

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these things we all have to learn. But somewhere
down the line in the big scheme of things when she
took delivery of her car Sarah was not given a

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suitable handover or a link to information sources
that help answer those questions. In other words,
we the generic, we failed Sara. Education is the

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most vital thing when it comes to electric
vehicles. We've talked before on this show about
the mindset change. People think that EVs are just

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ice cars where you put electrons in instead of
petrol. At the basic level, yes, they are. But as
we've also said on the show, nobody's born knowing

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how to drive or run a petrol car. You either learn
by osmosis, or by actually getting out there and
doing it. Nobody knew exactly how to use a petrol

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pump the first time they did it. And having worked
in petrol stations for several years, I can tell
you from experience that many of them still have

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very little clue. A friend of the podcast Ashley
Bannister from LinkedIn reply to a post I wrote on
this subject and he said, quote, education is so

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important. And you're right. It's not the driver's
fault. The first stage of learning is subconscious
incompetence. In other words, we don't know what

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we don't know. So it's absolutely up to the supply
chain to provide some education and quote. The key
there is subconscious incompetence. We don't know

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what we don't know. The statements that Sarah was
making are seemingly silly in the big scheme of
things. Quote, I try not to use high powered

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chargers in case they damage the battery. Now
obviously as EV drivers we know that this isn't
the case but someone brand new to drive in these

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would have absolutely no idea. If you have no idea
then a statement like that makes absolute sense.
Now, with nearly 200 podcast episodes covered all

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aspects of the EB and renewable world. I hope
there's an amount of information in education here
which a new driver like Sarah might find useful.

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If I've helped even one new EV driver, I consider
that a win. But in the big scheme of things we
need to build in educating lots of Evie drivers

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and potentially be drivers. I asked a few select
listeners and fellow Eevee drivers to give me
their experiences of how they learned about

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electric vehicles.

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Michael French: Regarding my own EV journey and
the education that I've been involved with, I
mean, I've listened to various podcasts,

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obviously, EV Mmusings, thank you very much, Gary,
I have recommended this podcast and many, many
people. It's very insightful, and also the ebooks

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that you've written. And this isn't a plug, I am
genuinely recommended them. They're very, very
good and insightful from somebody who's been and

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done it. And I think that's the thing that many
people forget. We do need to listen to people who
have more experience in us, especially if you go

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on any sort of social media out there. You know,
someone will post something about an EV and
there'll be 1000 People who have never driven nev

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slagging them off. So we have to be very, very
mindful that there's a lot of misinformation out
there. But regarding education, I mean, I kind of

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did it all myself. So I went out there and I
checked myself out and I took I sponged it all in
from various sources, especially like I said, from

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various podcasts, and my ongoing journey. I just
asked people like that it all comes from people
who know more than us and taking that information

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and sponging off them. Because we all know that
car dealers are pretty useless, and they're
uneducated. And if they're not willing to be

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educated, they cannot give that information on to
somebody else. Why do we all think you know, 20
years ago, when I learned to drive the Highway

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Code said this 20 years later, the Highway Code or
something completely different, but people are so
I mean, egotistical in the fact that they don't

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want to be criticised about anything regarding
driving a vehicle. And they're not willing to
educate themselves any further. So I think there

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lies our main problem.

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Tim R-S: I had a Tesla since 2017, and I'm a
fairly technical person. So I actually had been
researching about electric vehicles for a good

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couple of years before I took the plunge. I had to
find a lot of the information by myself, but there
was already even then quite a lot of good content

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out on, say YouTube. And then I discovered the
Electrek, both podcast and website, which had a
lot of good news about the EV industry. And so I

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used that to start following very closely what was
going on. So I discovered the Fully Charged
channel, which covered an awful lot more than just

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Tesla's and, and really, I think that that's how I
learned an awful lot about electric cars. And I
had to learn things like what's the difference

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between kilowatt and a kilowatt hour, I had to
learn the difference between fast charging, rapid
charging, all of this stuff was really covered on

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these YouTube videos. I was lucky in that Tesla
were very good back in those days, giving
information to drivers to help them understand the

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Tesla's what I understand is that, as of today, at
- the kind of orientation that I had, when I when
I went to pick up my car, and I managed to get

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probably a good half an hour with somebody from
the showroom. A lot of people don't have that same
education and a lot of people, if they're buying

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other cars from dealers that are not Tesla's, I've
heard that there are some dealers - and so of
course, some are better than others. But I've

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heard that there are some dealers that really
don't seem to be that committed to the electric
vehicle transition. Final point. Of course, when

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we all grew up, and some of us are getting on a
bit more than others. We were exposed to watching
people drive cars, you know, right from, you know,

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from as long we as early as we can remember. So,
that hasn't happened in electric vehicles. So even
though they're basically the same, they're just

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calls. The subtle differences are things which we
haven't been exposed to all our lives. And so it's
no surprise that, you know, we have to make some

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effort to learn.

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Mark Garland: I first discovered they were even a
thing in 2015, when a relative mentioned by his
Twizy I started researching did a lot of YouTube,

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which says style engaged with YouTube discovered
fully charged. I had a four day test drive in a
Nissan Leaf, which I thought was very generous. I

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had a email conversation with BMW dealer about the
realistic range of like three. And in the end, I
settled on the B class for Mercedes. The dealers

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didn't really understand them, and gave out lots
of misinformation. For example, the salesman had
been in this B class for a year, and he had a

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route to work which was either motorway or
backroads. And he, obviously the motorway burned
through more, more electrons. And he was

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absolutely convinced the reason why he was because
there was no ability to regen on the motorway, and
I said, No, no, it's speed in the square law and

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all that and he was absolutely adamant that I was
wrong.

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Gary C: In that segment, you heard from Michael
French, Tim, Rault-Smith, and Mark Garland. Quite
a few different stories there about how people

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were educated, which means the challenge is quite
difficult. For the purposes of this episode, I'm
going to split education into different aspects,

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each of which need different approaches, different
resources, and different educators. So let's
start. The first level of education is basic

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education which a current high ICE driver will
need to make the decision to go electric. What
range can I expect with a car? How do I charge it

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if I don't have home charging? Will the range drop
in winter? How much cheaper will it be to run than
an ice car? How efficient is the vehicle how

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powerful is this vehicle? For some people, this
will be the result of going into a car dealership
and speaking to a salesman. And this is where the

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first problem occurs. Discussions I've had with
car dealers so far indicate that there are two
main issues with dealer education. The first one

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is that not all dealers get the information they
need to know about EVs. In a typical Ford
dealership, for example, each salesman will have

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will have a car that they take home every night.
The cars they use aren't chosen by them, they're
allocated by the dealership, and they tend to be

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one of the range of cars sold by that franchise.
So if Ford at a particular dealership have 10
different models and 20 salesmen, each model will

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go to two salesmen. The Ford Mach E in the UK at
least will only ever go to two of the 20 salesmen
even though all of them will be expected to sell

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the car. On top of that, for various financial
reasons, the salesman would rather sell a petrol
or diesel version that sitting on the forecourt

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that they know will sell rather than an electric
version about which they have little knowledge or
which might be on backorder for several months for

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dealers to commission is earned on the delivery of
the vehicle to the customer, not on the order of
the vehicle. So if you had a Ford Focus ready to

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go, or a Ford MachE with a three month wait for
delivery, which one would you as a dealer,
prioritise, selling? I find this a little

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disconcerting, and I wonder how much of it is
deliberate. I mean, if you ask a Vauxhall dealer
about the Vauxhall Corsa, GS or design or

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ultimate, they can speak chapter and verse about
its top speed, acceleration, engine output, fuel
efficiency, etc. But if you look at the electric

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Corsa, GS or design or ultimate, I'm betting they
don't know about top charge speeds battery
chemistry, the power output of the electric motor,

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or whether the car comes equipped with a seven
kilowatt charge cable and a three pin plug cable
or just the seven kilowatt cable. Why is that? Are

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the OEMs not providing them with information they
need to answer these questions. Or is the
information there but the dealers aren't bothering

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to learn it? If not, why not? There's also the FUD
aspect in play her fear, uncertainty and doubt a
lot of members of the general public will have

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heard so on the anti EB misinformation that has
been spread by pretty large media organisations
out there. A lot of dealers will probably not have

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any data to push that back. I mean, how many
dealers could respond to a claim that EV batteries
are quote made from minerals mined by slave

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children and quote without some fairly specialised
knowledge about artisanal mining, battery
chemistry, and alternate use of cobalt? So there's

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definitely an education need around that
particular aspect of EV ownership. That's assuming
the dealers are interested enough to actually find

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the data out to counter the misinformation.
They're not convinced to sell the cars in the
first place, they're hardly going to be convinced

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to look up anything which can be used against
them. If a customer comes in asking you about
cobalt in batteries, it's easy for a dealer to say

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'Good point let's have a look at a nice petrol
Astra instead'. Anecdotally, at least one
dealership of a major German based OEM has had no

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training slash development work at all, on
electric vehicles makes it difficult to then sell
the only segment of their vehicle lineup which is

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electric right. Next level of education needed is
that for when a new EV driver takes delivery of
their first electric vehicle. This will cover

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aspects of running one on a day to day basis. How
do you charge? What are the different cables? Why
are there different connectors? How would you find

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charges with apps like Zapmap? Which charge point
operators worth using and which aren't? Why does
the charge speed vary and Why might it not be what

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you expect? How do you drive efficiently in a
vehicle such as this? Now hopefully a big chunk of
education of that sort can come from listening to,

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he says, modestly, this podcast. The issue here is
one of delivery. And by that I mean the delivery
of the actual vehicle itself. Now, I've mentioned

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before on the show, but both of the electric
vehicles I've had have come on the back of a low
loader to my house, the person doing the handover

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wasn't informed about the details of the car,
other than a rather perfunctory, this is how you
switch it on. And this is the app you need to

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download to set it all up. And this is a prime
opportunity to do an informed handover and learn
about the car. Let's take a little sidebar here.

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Back in the day, Milton Keynes had an EV
experience centre in the main shopping mall, you
could go in there, chat with knowledgeable people,

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and take an electric car away for a weekend or
even longer. But when you did this, they didn't
just hand over the keys and bunch of bits of

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paper. The handover process took a good hour, and
it involves someone going with you to a nearby
public charger and physically taking you through a

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charging session. They were also able to handle
and answer all the questions you may have had,
because they were informed and that was their job.

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Unfortunately, lack of funding shut down this
initiative. But there is something similar in
place, albeit not quite the same. The two main

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Gridserve electric forecourts at Braintree and
Norwich both have people there whose job it is to
educate and inform potential car buyers about EVs.

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The reason it's not the same is that the EV
experience Centre in Milton Keynes wasn't trying
to sell anybody anything they were simply there to

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inform Gridserve are providing their expertise as
part of their leasing programme. So they have a
smaller number of cars. And they're primarily

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focused on helping you make a decision to lease
with them.

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Now, the third aspect of education is knowledge
transfer to someone who's fairly technical,
someone like myself, I can research I know what

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I'm looking for. And I know which questions to
ask. But in the big scheme of things, that's not a
sustainable model. One of the reasons I was an

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early adopter to electric cars was because I'm the
sort of person who doesn't mind looking into
things and doing investigations, etc. I don't mind

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working in areas of uncertainty where not
everything is known about a certain topic. I don't
like change. But not everyone is the same as me.

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Not everyone is an early adopter. So for people
like me, the information I'm looking for is by
definition going to be different to the

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information other people are looking at. I'm quite
prepared to go look into things like battery
chemistries, and the C rate for battery charge and

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discharge, that sort of thing. I don't mind trying
to understand charge curves and all the fairly
esoteric things you might need to understand to

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make things like being an early adopter of an
electric car work for you. So the type of
education I need is completely different as an

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early adopter to the kind of things someone in the
general public would need.

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The fourth aspect of education is to my mum, as
she'd been driving on for quite a few years knows
petrol cars like the back of her hand, but bit of

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a technophobe. Didn't want an iPhone or an iPad
because they're too complicated. I'd ended up
getting one anyway. She's constantly calling me

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and asking me why something doesn't work on her
iPad. 'All I did was I click this download link
and...' dah dah da, you know, that sort of thing.

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She needs enough information that she can use the
vehicle without needing daily assistance, but she
also needs to make sure she isn't overwhelmed by

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the huge amount of information that is out there
concerning EVs. There's no way for example, she'd
be able to listen to 200 Episode back catalogue of

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mine because they would overwhelmed. As an
example, she knows I have a heat pump. I've
explained that the heat pump is effectively a

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replacement for my old boiler. What the boiler
used to do is now done by the heat pump. But she
still asked questions like the radiators in the

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normal house work with a heat pump does it still
send hot water around them? Now she's going to
struggle immensely trying to understand things

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like AC versus DC charging charge curves and
things like that, which means she needs to be
introduced in gradually and over a period of time.

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A book probably isn't going to work for her. For
my mum. It needs repetition, and consistency.
Then, there's a type of education you need to

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provide to the second hand market. At the moment,
this is the largest segment of EV growth. Recent
price drops have resulted in more electric

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vehicles being bought secondhand. Many of them are
coming through dealers. So we have the same issue
as we had with new EVs, but a large number of them

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are coming from websites such as Carwow or
autotrader where a dealer interaction may not
necessarily happen. Many roles have been bought

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from auction sites after they come off lease.
Again. The education aspect is lacking.

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And I can't finish this episode without mentioning
as I often seem to do whenever it comes to EVs,
Tesla. One of the reasons they've managed to

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corner the market with EVs is they've made it as
simple as possible to charge. The in car
entertainment system will navigate them

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automatically to a charger. It will tell them how
many stalls are free. Once they're all the user
has to do is go to the unit pick up the charger

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and approach the charge port, it will open
automatically connect and start charging, it will
cut off at 80% if the charge is busy, and it's

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just seamless. That's the sort of thing my mother
wants. She doesn't need to worry about different
charges type she doesn't need to worry about

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payment processing or choosing the correct cable
and charge point she doesn't need to worry about
charge speeds or cutting off at 80% to protect the

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battery. It's as easy and seamless as her existing
petrol car.

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So before we finish, let's have a look at possible
places where you can get good quality EV
education. Obviously, there's this podcast, he

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says modestly, but mine isn't the only one. The
Fully Charged show/ everything electric podcast
also covers a lot of interesting topics that are

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both educational, and fun. As many people have
already discovered, there's YouTube content
creators like Fully Charged, Electrifying.com,

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Andrew Till (Mr. EV) - former guest of the
podcast. TeslaBjorn and many, many others all do
informative videos on different aspects of

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electric vehicle ownership. Then there's the EV
clubs. The EV Nexus is a place to start to learn
about which clubs are in your area. Pretty much

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all the counties have some sort of representation
in the EV clubs. They meet regularly usually over
the summer although the Yorkshire EV club has a

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lengthen definition of what summer means. And it's
a chance for owners to meet and chat about all
things EV is a great opportunity to listen and

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learn. Then there's EVA England, this is the
organisation acting on behalf of EV drivers, and
lobbying government for changes. A lot of the

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recent public transport regulations 2023 have come
as a direct result of the lobbying they're doing.
If you become a member, you get a rather snazzy

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member's handbook, which is one of the best
documents I've ever read about owning and running
an EV. Apologies, apologies. That last sentence

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should read. If you become a member, you get a
rather snazzy members handbook, which is one of
the best documents I've ever written about owning

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and running an EV because, you know, I wrote it.
But all of those resources are things which rely
on you as an individual to find them and engage.

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There's not enough out there coming from dealers,
manufacturers or even the government. Remember the
old 'clunk click every trip' public service

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announcements, or the tell said adverts when
British Gas was been privatised (I'm aging myself
now, right?) Or the communication talking about

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the Brexit referendum? When do you agree or
disagree with it, there was information out there.
These are all funded by the government or branches

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of it. There's a case to say the government should
be producing similar things for electric vehicles.
Imagine one on chargr etiquette. For example, when

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your car reaches around 80%, it's probably quicker
to head off to your next destination. Rather than
wait for it to go right to the top. It'll save you

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time and open up a charge of someone else who
might need it. You know, that sort of thing. The
possibilities are endless. Now, I don't think

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we're going to be able to sort out education in
one episode. But I do know that unless and until
we have a consistent way of informing the new EV

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drivers about some of the fairly esoteric aspects
of EV driving, we're going to end up with
dissatisfied owners. And this will have a knock on

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effect for uptake and ultimately, the impact on
the planet. Also, let's not forget that other
countries such as Norway, have managed to leap

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this particular hurdle without a great deal of
difficulty. If I recall correctly from a
discussion with Tor Harritsjoi last season,  lot

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of this was government funded, especially by
making it appealing to go electric.

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Finally, just to loop back to Sarah, the young
girl I met at the charger I gave Sara my podcast
details so it's entirely possible she's listening

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to this episode. If you are and I know you're not
actually called Sarah but I needed a name with
which to refer to you. I hope you're enjoying your

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eCorsa in Brighton. Thanks for inspiring this
episode.

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It's time for a Coll EV or Renwable thing to share
with the listeners. An Ohio Company change retired
wind turbine blades into beautiful park benches,

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planters and picnic tables for public spaces
across the US with anything up to 9000 wind
turbine blades per year being retired, anything

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that can be second use for them is to be commended
Canvus C A N V U S a US startup brings the blades
into the factory in 40 foot sections, custom using

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ropes or and finishes with epoxy paint. In
addition to the edges Canvus uses recycled
materials from other industries such as old tires,

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shoes, and plastic waste. The resulting pieces of
furniture are beautiful, functional, and
expensive, which is where their business model

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comes in. The pieces are paid for by sponsors and
sponsors can be anyone from a family that wants to
commemorate a loved one to a local business that

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wants to increase his visibility. Each bench
features a QR code that provides more information
about that sponsor. With capacity for around

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11,000 blades per year. This looks like a great
way to promote the circular economy

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And that's the show today. Hope you enjoyed
listening to it. If you want to contact me I can
be emailed at the new email which is info at ev

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00:26:00,700 --> 00:26:08,920
musings.com. I'm also on Twitter, EV Musings TV.
If you want to support the podcast and newsletter
please consider contributing to becoming an Eevee

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00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:16,120
musings patron the links in the show notes don't
want to send them something on a monthly basis.
Well, if you enjoyed this episode, buy me a

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00:26:16,120 --> 00:26:27,070
coffee. Go to ko-fi.com/evie musings and you can
do just that. Okay? Oh dash fyi.com/evey musings,
it's Apple Pay to. I have a couple of books out

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00:26:27,070 --> 00:26:34,030
there if you want something to read on your
Kindle. So you've got an electric is available on
Amazon worldwide for the measly sum of 99p or

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00:26:34,030 --> 00:26:42,760
equivalent. And it's a great little introduction
to even with an electric car. So you've got
renewable is also available on Amazon for the same

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00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:50,500
99p and it covers installing solar panels, a
storage battery and a heat pump. Why not check
them out? Links for everything we've talked about

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00:26:50,500 --> 00:26:58,300
in the podcast today are in the description. If
you've reached this part of the podcast and are
still listening, thank you. Why not? Let me know

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00:26:58,300 --> 00:27:07,510
you've got to this point by tweeting me @MusingsEV
with the words, another brick in the wall hashtag
if you know you know nothing else. So okay, I'll

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wait for that one for you. Thanks as always to my
co founder Simon. You know I often wonder if his
life would have been radically different if he

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decided to become a stamp collector. Looking for a
penny black or a penny read it philately
exhibitions. He told me he really wasn't into

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things like that because it's so easy to make a
bad deal when it comes to buying the perfect stamp

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Mark Garland: that dealers didn't really
understand them. And getting that lots of
misinformation. Thanks for listening.

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Gary C: Bye