Chris Hazell from Fellten Systems

[00:00:02] Listeners, I'm really excited to be sharing this episode with you. I know this is an interview I've been getting a lot of loot for the last couple episodes, but in today's we speak with Chris Hazell he's the CEO of Fellten Systems.

[00:00:16] We talk all about their technology, where the company started and how their kids are really making it a lot easier for cars that are currently on the road to become electric. It's especially of interest to me because while my daily driver is a Tesla Model Y,

[00:00:31] I do love the 1987 Land Rover Defender 90 we have. The one thing I don't like and usually as cost of the most headache is actually the combustion engine in it. So we talk about the kit and many of the other things that they're doing to really make these cars

[00:00:46] that are on the road, be able to kind of come into the new generation of electrification. I also want to apologize because you might notice during this interview I had with Chris that I am a little bit

[00:00:57] Sineseer, more congested sounding than usual and I was just getting over a cold. But either way I'm really so excited to share this with you and I hope you enjoyed as well. Thank you.

[00:01:09] As long Chris Hazell on the CEO and co-founder of Fellten alongside Alex Darwin who is our CCF, the Amazora, our future developments and design side things. And we started in 2018 and we started in the stunt industry so we started by actually building three high-farm stunt cars

[00:01:30] for a show in the Cal, just as I'd China, I could see now which was the first all electric stunt ship basically. And we built these three high-farm stunt vehicles, they were space-traumatic, Tesla batteries, Tesla running gear and then they two had Nissan's 350Z shells on.

[00:01:47] One of them had a 496 shell on top of it and they basically used to go out twice the day to do drift demos within the casino. But inside of closed environments obviously the E-D stuff would absolutely perfect for that apart from our steel and tire smoke.

[00:02:00] So it was a little bit better for people's help. But when we started doing that we quite quickly learned that there was a massive gap in the market and no one was doing four systems or kits of any level at that point.

[00:02:13] So we had the bigger players in the game back then which was the E-D West, the world which were fairly well known but there was sort of no one else really around there with the only port of contact.

[00:02:23] So we sort of took out part of ourselves a long side of the stunt vehicle staff because we also did stuff with Warner Brothers and Disney and other films, which also we can't open the part on our social media.

[00:02:33] So many people don't know that we've actually built probably 10 or 12 different stunt vehicles for different films over the years. But alongside that we were doing design and development of parks and systems for integration.

[00:02:45] The stunt vehicle was really helpful because they were, they allowed us to do a lot of rapid prototype. I think we build vehicles, they'd go and run for three months and they'd come apart so we didn't have any legacy we're going out on the road.

[00:02:53] They didn't end users that you just had stunt drivers using and abuse in the product to find the weak point and what was going to break. So it really did help us sort of move forward quite quickly. The show development point of view.

[00:03:05] And then we moved heavily towards the kit design and development very much away from the conversion market. So enabling people to do conversions.

[00:03:16] And enabling the restoration shops and the sort of the custom shops around the world to actually do a conversion because they're amazing doing what they do best, which is.

[00:03:25] You know full perfect restoration on Pacific vehicles that they're specializing but they don't have the knowledge based on the electronics and the ED conversion side of things.

[00:03:33] So we basically took the approach that we're going to do what we do best, which is the ED conversion system and then do what they do best rather than us trying to do conversions and never doing anything to their level.

[00:03:43] Because you can like they may do it in the 2030 years a lot of these shops so that the finish product they're going to produce around up to surface the normal is going to be astonishing compared to.

[00:03:53] Ask if we were any de-conversion shop trying to do that as well as the ED side of things. So that's sort of where we focus so far and I'm going to load about the questions which will cover loads of other topics along the way.

[00:04:05] No, this is great and I think maybe it's just coincidental it's funny because hearing your experience and having worked with others who. Have been in the EV space not necessarily conversions but even building EVs that were kind of prototypes that then became actual.

[00:04:24] OEM or product ties cars it is really interesting to hear how kind of making these cars for movies that are really usually like crank to 11 or really put through their pace isn't kind of just beat the hell out of is actually almost kind of like.

[00:04:42] Maybe the modern motorsport of how in the 60s and 70s all these cars would be raised and then through these optimizations they would be kind of finding these new things I just think it's really funny that I've kind of heard that from a few different people.

[00:04:54] In the industry and it does seem to be true that it really puts the cars. Through a pretty high intensity and kind of finding those weak points that break and then you're able to really take your learnings and product ties it really well I think that's.

[00:05:08] I couldn't agree with you more about letting the people who have that kind of subject matter expertise in doing restorations do whether it's restorations in general or obviously there's a lot of shops that will do specific.

[00:05:22] And then they make some models and so having that and then this kind of product ties conversion get I think really is going to start making this a much.

[00:05:32] One more approachable but to kind of a common practice just because even in my own research and kind of working with different people and looking at it over the years it can be.

[00:05:42] I think it's a very nice thing to do but to really expensive and I think just being able to get to this greater scale and what your team is doing.

[00:05:50] Is really impressive and it's going to be a huge impact and I'm personally excited to use one of your teams kids to probably do our defender here in the next year or so so.

[00:06:03] I would kind of love to hear a little bit more about the business because I know yours is coming in interesting one how. Between your original company and then John and then you kind of came together and so you do have kind of this global subject.

[00:06:17] I guess to use the term subject matter expertise around two different continents but if you could kind of share that a little bit I think that's really interesting. And then the progression of your company I've seen over the years.

[00:06:29] Yeah so we've been running a zero B since 2018 and then what we wanted to start pushing globally as a as a company we obviously had to go on trade marking.

[00:06:39] At that point it became very difficult with the word zero any of the international trade runs and those other companies in the woods zero and EV and stuff so we sort of hit a point very quickly where we knew we weren't going to go ahead with that brand name.

[00:06:52] We ran last year to Felton so basically zero B just became Felton all the business state the same underneath staffing everything out with just a rebrand.

[00:07:00] Alongside that we started talks with George to try and work out how do we bring in more sort of light minded people into the company trying to find staff is really hard and trying to find people that actually.

[00:07:13] Our staff also capable of running a company and growing a company or even more difficult so what we found with Dave and Martin that that own John it was bringing them on board with us.

[00:07:23] It was a massive benefit because in the Australia market it's going to grow very very rapidly. And as much as currently they're building finished vehicles through John they'll become a time when there's that transition between.

[00:07:36] They can potentially stop doing the job vehicles other people start building vehicles and they can supply the kits out to them. This is not yet but we're going to see that transition happen like we did see in the UK and stuff.

[00:07:47] I'm just bringing in the economy's crazy so they've gone from in the UK and the US we had.

[00:07:53] Type one jar doing I think you pass it as in the US and we call it just type two charging here which is just AC charging only everywhere and then CCS charging came in.

[00:08:03] Whereas in Australia all the service stations they're just putting a DC charging then not even putting AC charging in it just doesn't exist is not a thing that even thinking of putting in say just leap frogs and gone.

[00:08:13] All the other things ages to get to this point that's just straight to these which is great but now we're like our. We're going to have a lot of things that we've got to do with the job.

[00:08:24] But it shows the progression that if you look at the way Australia's gone and then you compare it to maybe some other countries out there that aren't.

[00:08:31] Even focused yet and maybe more not necessarily intentionally third world countries in the future like years down the line that we're going to suddenly leap frog to this higher level from day one they're never going to do the slow progression we did all the way through just an jump straight to DC fact charging and five directional list up and they want to jump and the Australian tire business or a really good.

[00:08:54] Sort of play around for us exposing one way to just see how a new market adapts to EVs rapid rate basically.

[00:09:03] Because that's a really good way of us looking at other smaller countries and go well this country is going to do exactly the same thing and so this country but they're all going to do it at their own time over the next sort of 10 years should we say.

[00:09:14] We might build up a model that works to drop into each other countries as they start coming online from the eb point of view.

[00:09:20] So there's some really interesting other countries out there especially things like Thailand but they're not important classic cars so you can import use vehicles therefore their classic car market could be massive because the value of them just keep going up and up because you just can't import them.

[00:09:33] So there's this certain countries out there as EV becomes more normal. And as standardized we'll have we'll find new and mercies coming online for the classic side of things as well as we go along.

[00:09:44] So yeah the title with jump was mainly because it was allowed us to get into a new market and we had great people in that team from day one that already were really passionate about the EV space and brought some very very sort of.

[00:09:58] And a different diversity of skillset that we didn't have within fountain through day and morning from a commercial side of things and then from the more creative side of things from day to day is pointed to from his background which we really needed within the company he's been a massive health on our brand.

[00:10:13] Like all the felton brands or things so heavily involved in how are we doing the brands, how we structure it, how we make sure it's follow brand guidelines.

[00:10:20] So we're going to grow from that point of view and then the next thing now is us looking to the US as our next.

[00:10:26] Our next big step I suppose of how do we enter the US market and grow into that because there's quite a few new players obviously popping up in the US now. But haven't taken what we've learned in the UK.

[00:10:37] Bring it into the US but do it cost effectively in volume and see if we can understand the US culture because it's slightly different to the UK and Australia. So we're different to everywhere.

[00:10:48] Yeah, I'm certainly getting ahead of them and starting to see how we need to do it is just obviously as it's seen recently in that's a big eye opener to tell how the US market is from the after market point of view.

[00:11:00] So it's actually honest this year was so different to previous years when I've been there. It was a completely different atmosphere, it was all the EV stuff was in the central hall so it was front and centre. And the conversations we had this year, the previous years.

[00:11:18] The people that work completely against it are all starting to come around now. They're all starting to sort of change their opinion on it. They have one of each.

[00:11:26] Wouldn't they're not trying to get rid of the eights they are trying to have both like they used to see us as the enemy that was trying to just wipe everything out and now they're going to actually.

[00:11:35] Maybe they're not maybe they just want to have best of both worlds there's a place for both in the industry which is a fetic fuels as well as with the EV stuff.

[00:11:43] So I'm hoping that both can sort of co-exist alongside each other and that the real sort of. The real lovers of the the the ice engines will sort of accept and they can get really high to form and stuff out of the EV stuff.

[00:12:00] And I don't know if you didn't generation to come in as well as still having their older stuff as well. Right and I do want to actually talk to you more about see mine your kind of experiences and the things you learned there but.

[00:12:10] I'm hoping that you can have a better time for to take a quick step back for US listeners or maybe outside that can you tell us a little bit more about what felt in means and where the name comes from.

[00:12:22] Yeah so fountain is not an out south and I'm not going to try and pronounce the exact way to me. And so it's a Welsh word for sort of enlightening slash thunder that's the translation I suppose but it's pronounced very differently to how we use it.

[00:12:37] I'll be a lot of people in Wales that just follows the fact we're using the name, felt and not pronouncing it correctly.

[00:12:43] But it's a cool name we quite like it and it was very different and no one really used it so we've taken a very different approach to expose.

[00:12:50] The other companies in the market because we've gone actually just taking a completely irrelevant name in one way and we're going from it whereas I see all the other companies out there are doing something EV related in somewhere or another.

[00:13:02] So you understand what they are as a company whereas we've sort of got the opposite and gone let's do a completely different name that's people only know who we are if they understand the know our brand.

[00:13:12] Which I think is a really and I think the story behind it and the meaning to it is really cool and it's just a unique sounding name.

[00:13:20] I love the name but going back to see my I want to I'm not sure I just should have discussed this earlier, but how much you can share about what your plans are for this year going into the US market or if it's still a little too early for them.

[00:13:34] No no we're pretty open. I'm not really not cheeky. So we've basically partnered up with legacy which is sort of probably the biggest distribution for EV company in the US side and they've got all the training courses and lots of stuff together.

[00:13:49] So we've been working quite close to legacy of EV team for the last year on and off this year at Cema we actually did a live build on stage with the legacy of EV team.

[00:13:59] So we actually converted their hot rob to electric using our Sonic motor range and our universal battery pack over four days at Cema now.

[00:14:07] We probably could have done it in one day but we sort of, you know, drive that out of it just to just to keep everyone interested.

[00:14:13] So that drove in as a V8 drove out as an electric and then it also did the parade afterwards as an electric so that was that was really exciting to do bit different.

[00:14:21] It brought back the old sort of overhauling days sort of thing being done like a live build at the show which was quite cool to do.

[00:14:28] So we've now partnered with legacy legacy of basically going to do our US distribution as support because it's it's difficult from the UK I think to do that support with a time difference.

[00:14:39] So plus there is there is there is just like culture difference of what support the US customer need the UK customers.

[00:14:46] So legacy is very good now offering the training courses and then go this is a documentation our US clients are expecting to get with your product whereas we may do that slightly differently so they're going to be able to do that and hold stock and then.

[00:14:57] The customer comes then telling them basically what they want and they can choose the best system for that customer it may not be a felt and system in certain cases.

[00:15:05] It may be that they they're going to run I don't know where I've the craft system or something like that instead with modular battery packs rather than our complete universal path.

[00:15:14] It depends on the customers needs and that's one of the things we've sort of done with legacy is we know that they are not just pushing out and products they're going to push the best products for those customers.

[00:15:24] But they're also going to give us a massive amount of feedback on what are they selling the most of what's the trend in the industry where is it going where is the support need of what new products are needed in the future that we can start developing over here.

[00:15:35] The other benefit is we've done this is we don't have to set a location in the US we don't have to manage the manufacturing in the US which obviously has a huge cost the overheads in the US for manufacturing and labor and stuff are considered by the UK at the moment.

[00:15:49] It may seem from the US looking into the UK and they see the opposite but actually from the UK looking into the US and understanding all taxes and finding staff is hard in the US in certain areas depending on where you based.

[00:16:01] That actually with the Chinese import tariffs as well into the US it can make it quite expensive to try and use products in so what we do in the UK we can bring in Chinese product from the China into the UK.

[00:16:12] We can do all our re-manufacturing in the UK build those components into systems into kits at which point we're doing probably about 60% re-manufacturing on the products so that point the origin changes to UK.

[00:16:23] So when it comes into the US it's got a different tariff on it than the Chinese tariff. So you already savings they are 20% import fee.

[00:16:31] I think that's a pretty underestimated impact for a lot of these conversions when I've looked at it or I was and I think just to kind of go back to just we have been hoping to get the legacy EV team on probably in a month or so.

[00:16:49] They were great and I actually when personally took their EV training course in May and went out sponsored by them but anyone interested in doing I can't recommend enough it was I feel like I already know a lot about this space but.

[00:17:01] I still learned quite a bit and it was a lot I mean I was kind of I remember I was talking to their CEO and I described it because I was probably the only kind of like average maybe.

[00:17:12] Amateur guy there there are people from Shelby America from all sorts of different actually out of mode of companies and I told them like you know each year I try to learn something new and I've done some of this.

[00:17:23] To make stand and used to build a race electric cars in high school but I kind of told my wife or if you go off and think of it as like a adult summer summer or summer camp and so I went down to Phoenix for a week and took the course and it was so much fun and made a lot of great.

[00:17:41] Connections through it so anyone that's on the fence I highly recommend it. But and I think that's great in your approach to it makes so much sense because there have been other.

[00:17:52] Kind of groups out there in the US that you can buy parts from but I think they've really mastered the kind of only one they have the parts they have the education they have the support support and really make it a lot easier and more comfortable to kind of go with them and use them as a.

[00:18:09] Supplier and who you buy your products from so I think that's great and the way you guys are approaching and I don't know can you announce us when you're expecting to start bringing them into the US or have come a rough idea for that. I mean the.

[00:18:24] I mean the legacy of the project is very good I mean it's approach we did in the UK.

[00:18:28] A couple years ago with our city and goes training courses now or TV courses to deliver that but we wouldn't be to be only we never did be to see because it is just too much hassle doing the full the after sale support.

[00:18:51] Yeah so legacy of really happy to sell to everyone which for us is great because we never looked at the B to see market.

[00:18:59] So they're happy to do the additional training needed and the additional support the additional paperwork in able to enable that the other thing I think people really to understand is that there's a lot of stuff that says are EVs are really easy this lot less moving power. Right.

[00:19:15] Right.

[00:19:16] It is in one way but the technical knowledge required to build a backup from scratch and then make the mistakes you learn along the way then build another one or two it's all by time you add a lot of that time up and it's easier to work for someone like legacy and buy a system that you know go together and you know all the software works and you know you got support of how to wire it.

[00:19:37] And as much as it's great for someone if they can afford the time in the money to do a from scratch build.

[00:19:42] By the time you've done that from scratch build at the end of it you'll go next time I am not doing this I'm going to buy a pre-made kit because the amount of time that goes into it is vast.

[00:19:52] And the customers are the same like we found with some of the B to B customers we work with it's like.

[00:19:57] They say to their customer the cost of the parts is this or the cost of the kit is this and say to cost of the kit I didn't know it's 20 30 thousand more but then when they go actually it's going to take us this much in labor to go.

[00:20:06] It's going to be a little bit more in labor to build it from scratch or buy a kit that labor is what we have very tied up into our kit and done all that work on to fine tune it in so couple that labor time.

[00:20:19] So the B to B company is not the business is not having to actually do. And the development and building a kit from scratch looking at one of is very hard in the world of the conversion world to make good money from it.

[00:20:32] If you will do it in low, there's a different vehicles because every vehicle is a fresh build every vehicle is a fresh development and you've got to look at reliability, long term safety whereas the kit has been fully developed with building safe 50 100 up kit a year minimum.

[00:20:45] You've done all that and we spent all that money because we can afford to because we're building them in a batch and you're never going to get that I suppose on a one off there's always going to be some level of compromise or a huge amount of additional labor so there isn't any level of compromise which makes it extremely expensive to do a one for sure.

[00:21:04] And I think probably the biggest thing people don't understand is there are elements in doing conversion that are tedious but they're not insurmountable.

[00:21:12] Building the battery from the cells to the modules that is incredibly tedious trying to get all of those different connections right it's not as straightforward thing has a lot of people think.

[00:21:25] And especially if you're this like your first time that you're going to do build yourself I could not recommend doing a pretty built battery pack more that I'll save so much headache.

[00:21:37] And it's it makes it a lot safer to because it really does minimize how much of the. Dangers parts of the pack that are the the battery that you're going to be most exposed to and.

[00:21:50] I mean yeah there's going to be enough kind of headaches and work you have to do with kind of the low power 12 hault schematics and figuring that out.

[00:21:58] That taking into the battery pack level just becomes infinitely more difficult I remember when I was at the legacy program we were kind of doing a mock up of building your own.

[00:22:08] And it took us like two hours just to do like a couple of them and they're like okay now that's the first said and now you've got 12 more to do. And even then it just wasn't. It just yeah I couldn't recommend it.

[00:22:21] I'm just a hand crimping every thing exactly. Yeah, everything here is automated made so all the. Correct. So crimping and crimping machine stuff like that so we know every crimp is perfect. We're not going to get an issue as hand crimping will be used to years ago.

[00:22:37] You know the the biggest issue with most build it comes a wiring harness because you get one bad crimp one bad connection then you could be chasing it.

[00:22:45] And it's just a little bit you don't see I think when you do your first build and then you learning go. I don't know this way I wouldn't be chasing that for exactly and even a bad crimp on a low voltage system isn't good. But it's manageable.

[00:23:05] When you start getting to the actual battery side like the impact is so much larger of like just what looks like a good.

[00:23:12] You have to pretty much test it sometimes that's the only way you can tell because you I ball it and you would know have no idea that the resistance as high as it is in that one specific one and so it.

[00:23:22] I can't recommend which guys are doing now I think I think it's great and so good to be seeing this going at a larger scale. I guess maybe like hopping back a little bit too.

[00:23:33] I know we were kind of focused on the North America bar and we do have a lot of North American listeners but we have quite a few in Europe but I think it'd be great.

[00:23:40] Because I've been really impressed with what you guys are doing as well in the UK around education and here in the US and it's been really fun working with the legacy people but.

[00:23:51] I think maybe even said it is kind of the wild west as far as the regulations and the specifics I think they just announced at Cema that there has now been come more of an official certification and can recognizeation of that.

[00:24:05] Whereas I know in the UK you guys already have a decent level of official certifications and requirements that conversions have to meet.

[00:24:14] So we have the European regulations which is TV which is very very strict and then there's something called our 100.1 which is to do with maybe back to box safety so it doesn't meet these safe that set date you know is it in a enclosure has about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:25:01] We've done everything we possibly could to meet OEM standards. We can't do any more than that, whereas obviously there's a lot of people I suppose globally They don't need to meet any standards so they will cut corners

[00:25:13] They'll do what they think is best because they got nothing to follow So it's seen where we announced that we could evtech Which I'm not sure on the board of ed tech And the ed tech is there to help set these standards

[00:25:23] From a educational point of view to trying to set these as a standards you have to learn in order to be ed tech qualified And from a safety standards point of view there's two sides of it

[00:25:34] So I'm heading up the safety side of ed tech along with Chris who's also my trainer in the UK to try and go These are the base standards we want to impose in the UK and across Europe Just around base safety that battery management systems must be used

[00:25:50] And the battery management needs to be inside the battery pack not outside the pack And it's the A-SILed box that you can't get wet You know, it's just there's a base level of safety which is fairly easy to achieve That probably makes a system 99% safer

[00:26:09] Just from doing those base couple of things and then the last one presents the really hard bit So you make even safer but we've been we've been fairly clever with the way we design our systems So you can't run our systems without the safety's in place

[00:26:22] Well you have to actively do a bypass willingly So I'll see CS kit for instance You have to have HV isolation sensing otherwise it does not operate You have to run HV which is HV isolation monitoring So if you ever unplug something it will open the contactors

[00:26:39] So there's no HV on that plug you've just unplug So there's certain things that we've been trying to put in place which you cannot bypass And therefore you have to do it a certain way

[00:26:49] And what we found is because we are one of the leaders in the market If we do that people naturally do it Whereas if we allow people to do it have the option to do it wrong That would just always do it wrong

[00:27:00] So we basically have been designing our products and say actually this isn't what we've produced there for you must put it inside of the silve backpack And you cannot bypass this so if you want CCS charging you have to run it Otherwise you just don't have CCS

[00:27:12] So there's all these things we've been doing which is I suppose something we don't like us for doing it But overall we prefer to make sure this systems and the conversions on the market is safe Because it only takes one bad system

[00:27:24] It has a massive problem in herpsum one for it to damage the entire market So what we're trying to do is make the whole market safer because it protects us as a company long term

[00:27:32] It only takes one person to build a bad conversion to a large people's house And then suddenly the whole market has got a really bad name for itself When actually it was just one person not following any standards

[00:27:42] So it's we've been trying to impose standards that people can bypass Shall we say through it within the systems that we sell and that we supply

[00:27:51] And also we've been tying that into our warranties as well to say like if you want your warranty on your back to back for instance We're trying to offer you something that will be starting to offer like a three year warranty on a back to back

[00:28:00] And so the only way your warranty is maintaining you must do these download data every Every quarter to log the data and it must be wired in this way otherwise your warranty is voice So that makes someone do it properly because they won't warranty

[00:28:15] Because it helps them resell the products that customers Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think one of the takeaways when I did the EV course was Kind of to engine, whether that not necessarily like someone trying to cut corners

[00:28:29] But they had a couple really good examples of conversions of people who are kind of coming from the traditional kind of Resto mod or Restoration business that weren't doing the electric car and so like the wiring and a lot of these were done really well

[00:28:47] But when you start thinking about like okay, you have the battery pack but then you also put your fuses and a lot of these kind of safety controls right behind it

[00:28:57] So in the event of like a head on collision the batter just going to go into that and just destroy those and then you could have a fire very quickly

[00:29:05] And so there's like there's two elements and I think what you and the like CVT are doing the exactly the right thing

[00:29:14] It was it was great to see what was kind of announced and being done at CMA too to kind of help like okay there's two components. There's doing it right or doing it safely and doing it in a very high

[00:29:26] A efficient manner but then also you do have to kind of just change your thinking of where you put these devices to even make the ideally the car safer than when it was a combustion engine vehicle

[00:29:38] So then when it does get an accident there's an even better likelihood of either someone walking away or at least not at being a truly devastating accident. Yeah, I mean I think a lot of situations you don't know what you don't know.

[00:29:52] I think the train exhaust is like we shouldn't in the past and there's people that because they don't know they think they're doing things safely

[00:30:00] And as you learn more knowledge, but I look back now it's stuff I did 2018 I think oh my god I did that like how did I make that like why did I make that my knowledge base is very different now.

[00:30:13] I think the training courses that are out there even if they don't give you everything you need to know about EV conversion. At least I'll show you how not to do and that is just as important in a lot of situations.

[00:30:27] And you've said about crash data so on all of our paths we do 20G crash simulations to make sure that the mountain points will take in 20G crash which is because everything is in cads.

[00:30:39] We can do that we can do a simulation in cab to make sure that if it was in a crash scenario that and that's part of the Australian regulation.

[00:30:45] So in order to do you on the road in Australia you have to prove to the engineer that yes, you can well new brackets onto the chassis and you can make modifications but you have to show that any modifications you've made will sustain the 20G crash.

[00:31:00] So that's the way they've done it so they've allowed you to make modifications but you must be able to show simulations and it would be safe and a 20G crash scenario.

[00:31:08] And that's also made us up our game on certain ones of our factors and how we've done it for the Australian marketing and going actually we do need to add some extra brackets and here we're going to have to fit in points here because when we did the crash simulation it didn't quite meet 20G.

[00:31:23] So with us being said over across so many sort of countries we're picking up different bits of regulation from different countries which means we probably go a bit too extreme to some countries.

[00:31:33] But it means we've sort of condensed all of them together into sort of a standard that we follow which makes us be able to meet Australians standards as well as UK and European standards as well as potentially US standards.

[00:31:44] We just don't exist yet, but we know whatever we produce here and we push into the US. Normally above and beyond the standards are in the US because they haven't yet been set.

[00:31:54] I think that's great and I think just once it just goes back to what I was saying earlier it's one more example of when you're building or doing a conversion for the first time it's like why over complicated this and puts I mean you might as well do it right and make the conversion of it a lot.

[00:32:12] One safer but also my opinion more enjoyable just mitigating a lot of these other challenges that someone's already figured out for you. With kind of looking at the US market with everything your team did it seem and I was really I wish I'd been there this year.

[00:32:29] That was my honeymoon so understandably I didn't make it but I'm sure I'll be there. Maybe we'll do our anniversary in Vegas or something to go to it next year.

[00:32:39] Admittedly Vegas is not my fair place, but it was very entertaining to watch and see everything on the kind of social media is of what your team and everyone was doing it seem especially around the EV announcements and I think it is kind of interesting that.

[00:32:56] EV's have been kind of a difficult one for especially like you take like a test model three you can kind of modify it but it's going to be more aesthetic generally especially it seem like actually improving the car.

[00:33:13] That is where you're starting to see this huge kind of uptick and interest around the restoration the rest of the model where you can take a lot of older beautiful cars and so many great looking cars had just terrible power trains.

[00:33:25] And this is kind of where you can take that and put a battery pack and motor in it and really turn the car from something that I've been kind of boring to not just a sleeper but also just a really great driving and fun car for even around town or on the weekends.

[00:33:43] But I'd be curious to kind of hear like because this wasn't your first time. How many seem events have you been to before? I think oh well, okay. So as you went to see the first time before I started very, very such fountain.

[00:33:58] So the 2017 I went and at that point I was doing Liberty boy body cars and like the 80s and the tens of steps so I went then.

[00:34:08] And even when I went then I was quite surprised there was literally no EV's I think those two EV's there was a poor sign level and some drag race or hit it up somewhere on the way.

[00:34:19] And obviously, COVID happens. So I thought there was gaps might didn't go because of COVID thing but it has changed drastically in the last couple of years since I think going to see us and just how much more accepted it is become.

[00:34:31] And it started to take over a lot quicker and a lot more of the builders and I'll start to get involved with it and seeing it as the next the next thing is that a lot of these custom shops so built the eight today's level and it's like what do we do next?

[00:34:44] So we've already done like just twin to rows and we've done this we've done that like what's next. So to a lot of those these custom shops they're going well actually they they're not bored but they're getting to put where they're dead one the next new thing.

[00:34:55] And the EV stuff suddenly opens up another another revenue stream for them and also something different and it helps them bring in younger generation as well into the customs base and I think that's what we find quite exciting is suddenly we've got a different demographic.

[00:35:09] Like when you will kind of see my seamer is very much in very specific demographic that it ends. Yeah, but what we're trying to work at now is can we produce an EV movement for retrofitting of classics that bring in those younger generations?

[00:35:23] The ones that love the way a classic look but would never own one because they got nowhere to have to maintain it. They know how to look at an iPhone and play with their apps.

[00:35:30] That's what they wanted. They want to go on there and see what their car is doing. They don't know how it's changed the oil or they didn't have to do that.

[00:35:35] So I think there's this new demographic that will come in. That will sort of keep the aftermarket running for a classic point of view, but they will want electric classics. They want stuff that they know they can get in everyday and drive it.

[00:35:46] And we've seen out of the lot of our customer base that we're supplying out to now is like you're doing a electric Porsche that was only ever driven on Sunday suddenly it becomes I drive that car every single day as my daily driver.

[00:35:58] Because suddenly I can get it every morning and know it's going to start. I know it's not dropped all over the floor. You know, I know I've not got a 60,000 pound engine rebuild after a couple of years of driving a heart. There's all these things.

[00:36:10] And you suddenly realize that actually we were building EVs for some of the companies in the UK and they were building them and they'll just be weekend cars.

[00:36:19] And then it came very apparent pretty quickly that what we thought was going to be a weekend car for most people suddenly became that everyday driving car because it was just so much easier to drive being EV.

[00:36:30] They could actually appreciate it a lot more and use it all the time. So I think the approach and after the EV conversion will really allow us to have more classics on the road.

[00:36:39] And it will bring about a completely different market. I think with a very very different demographic movement forward to keep them alive and there'll be I think you'll see a lot more of them.

[00:36:48] Right now we sit down to present that people have got all these beautiful classic cars globally and yeah most of the time you see them only on certain days of the year.

[00:36:57] And maybe in a caravan coffee thing once a year exactly and it's like, well, how do you get these cars the end driven will time again. And I think the EV is the root for that. I've been kind of impressed with that too. I think there is.

[00:37:11] I like to think I know enough about kind of car maintenance and I know for a lot of people it's a skill they just don't have or.

[00:37:18] For a, I kind of mirror at a reasons, but what I have seen that I think is also kind of cool kind of potential to that is like maybe their dad passed away or husband passed away and now the EV conversion thing does make it much more easier for them to.

[00:37:33] As you exactly like you're saying keep a very beautiful, but also a very expensive to maintain car on the road and something that they can still kind of enjoy and have that connection to without.

[00:37:45] The stress of I mean it can be a decent upfront payment, but once you have that you don't have to exactly like your time that with the portion in gen re builds and many many different kind of things that can sneak up on you.

[00:37:59] And the asset side of things is like go by really be and you lose have a value in a year in the first two, three years for instance yeah or you buy a classic.

[00:38:08] I'm literally you spend more on it to convert it but the base asset isn't depreciating in anything it's appreciating in value.

[00:38:16] So there's a different I think it's to do it mindset it's like I prefer to go and buy like I'm at last year I think I drove my poor Steve on every day and day out now that car has gone up in values since we bought it.

[00:38:28] You know, whereas if we got on a brand new Tesla we'd probably lost our value in that two year time period and we haven't invented the car we've done because it's not an interesting conversion.

[00:38:38] The car value stayed the same if anything has gone up so it's just trying to work out the mindset I think as we get more into kits, but in kits that are quick and easy to fit.

[00:38:47] We need to look at how we can offer sort of more finance packages on them to go you've got a classic you can do it.

[00:38:53] You know so many five year finance package on the kit that's in that vehicle and then it's like someone buying a new car at that point they just finance it over five years.

[00:39:02] Right, but if you're going to buy a good beginning finance over five years and the end of it the valuation of the car is still where it was when you bought it or higher. So you haven't lost that money either which is quite good.

[00:39:13] And I think you brought up a really good point with a lot of your kits especially and with what I think the kind of premier conversion companies are doing where it's a bolt in kit.

[00:39:23] It's not I mean there's been a lot of people who do the DIY ones and it can get a little messy needless to say, but I think what's really cool with a lot of these kits is it's designed to be either no penetrations or different than what the car already was.

[00:39:39] Or very minimal if there are any so you can actually if you've decide down the road or you give it to someone and they want to make it back to a combustion engine it's still a possibility.

[00:39:50] But I think that just makes it a very clean conversion and honestly safer in general too. With that, I know you're obviously really starting to scale up the universal battery pack but you do have a few. Brand in models specific kits.

[00:40:07] Can you talk a little bit more about those and kind of where you see those kind of fitting into. Yeah, different products you're offering. So the universal pack wasn't actually a universal packet at the beginning.

[00:40:19] It was actually designed for our new defender kit that comes out in Q2 and it just happened to be that we went oh this actually fits all these other vehicles.

[00:40:28] It's not planned. It just worked but it allowed us to do that and it's actually we can start producing this battery pack in volume before it starts going into the land cover defender.

[00:40:36] So we could start bringing in some cash flow basically on some of the we'd already designed instead of leaving it sat on the shelf for another eight months before we then started building the kit. We could start building that and push me through.

[00:40:46] We started with the Porsche 911 so we have the Porsche 964 and end of Q1 we started building the Porsche G-body kits as well. So there are 62 kilowatt hour battery pack Tesla large drive unit now that the only system we actually still run.

[00:41:01] Sort of recycled components in so we do a full refurbishment on our large drive unit mainly because to get that performance in a brand new motor makes the kit way too expensive.

[00:41:11] It's way expensive anyway but it makes the adds like another 20,000 pounds of the kit costs because remotely high end motor kits, this is just very expensive.

[00:41:19] That's also got CCS rapid charging but CCS one also is two depending on what you're based and also AC and heating gear selection gauges like every single bit you need to convert that Porsche comes in that kit even all the corner lines and everything.

[00:41:34] So it's probably a one-week install on the Porsche's because they're quite technical but it maintains the original balance of the vehicle. It is about 80 kilos heavier overall so it's about a person heavier but the power delivery and what you get from it is above and beyond.

[00:41:49] Right originally was if you know you're a Porsche turbo territory or but from the power delivery and stuff which is really really good.

[00:41:57] And I said the G-body one is coming out Q1 so we started to build any Q1 and start rolling those out very quickly and she will open up market a bit more because the G-body's sort of more common I think across across the US and stuff and same in the UK.

[00:42:09] So one week got here's a G-body we've got a 964 but the G-body is the one that we've done a lot more miles in.

[00:42:15] And then we also have the mini kit so we actually developed that alongside BMW so we did it as a marketing thing for BMW we've got five of them three correct.

[00:42:24] Some of the ones are Paul Smith and one from the quayner and they went out with sort of with the newer electric mini offering so it was like go to a show and you've got a classic electric and we've got the new mini offering.

[00:42:34] And we did continue building those kits basically which there's a couple of companies now offer those kits.

[00:42:39] I think as the inter-genre ground in the US that offer them and one or two others and they just gave me and then the UK we have a couple of recharge heritage which we actually own a small amount of but that holds a five year contract with the BMW to use the BMW wings on the classic mini.

[00:42:56] So when you buy a car there actually comes with the BMW branding on it because we're allowed to put that branding on those vehicles which is really good deal.

[00:43:03] We managed to sort of do with the WB which was good so that kit is at such a high level now with you know BMW will have to for us to put their branding on the product which is a really good thing.

[00:43:14] And then alongside that we've now have the Land Rover kit so we did develop a Land Rover kit. We sort of stopped them and we did a redevelopment mainly because we wanted to do it justice and when we produced the kit and release it into the wild.

[00:43:27] We could have produced Land Rover kit a couple of years ago and we could have used test of the motors and batteries and stuff but we sort of hit a point where actually if we're going to do this we want to do it all brand new products.

[00:43:35] Large scale repeat ability because it will move into places like the mining industry and other places so we went we decided actually we want to go all out on our kit and build the best we possibly can.

[00:43:45] And then we'll be production by the pricing point or come down because we've been building volume of them. So our new defender offering which I just don't plug now because we're about to start we're happy to start taking it all just a little. Yeah I mean I'm not.

[00:43:58] As I'm not. I'm not going to do it. And I've been getting built as a Q2 so we'll start building the man and the kit's looking slightly really good so it's the universal fifth five kilo hour pack in the front.

[00:44:07] We've then designed a bespoke seat box you actually take out your old defender seat box new dropping a new seat box and that contains another 55 kilo hours of battery. Wow in the seat.

[00:44:17] So you've got 110 kilo hours you can have just 55 but most it's a 110 is great because that's the that's that's sweet, but that's a 200 miles range plus which revenue. Defender is a blessing. It's like the worst vehicle.

[00:44:32] At 55 are you have you tested is that usually we're in just like a hundred miles range or what. That's a hundred miles range. Yeah, it would on the defender it will depends how fast you're doing.

[00:44:42] As soon as you go over that like 45 miles an hour that's when the aerodynamics really come into play and it just. I don't know if you can see aerodynamics with the different. It's just. Which is all.

[00:44:54] Yeah so we're trying to do what we can to make it as efficient as possible. So we also got a friend of our customers say look please don't personal call on it. It's an EV you know runs.

[00:45:04] It's more tires like there's all these things are like which have a massive impact on range. You know if some of its aerides in one way it's good because they can run at lower at speed to just lower that.

[00:45:16] That that that that that that the air gap underneath vehicle. So there's there's benefits that can be had one interesting really important thing we are doing on the defender is trying to do everything now on the.

[00:45:25] The other car is we weren't too worried because it's like that's a Porsche. It's a mini it's small it's lightish. It's a bit strange. Fender that's obviously not the case. We went and stuck 110 kilowatt hours in a mini we get like 400 miles of range as we're similar.

[00:45:41] As I was the way this is. It works as you're kind of just hitting the ground. Yeah. The mini does 110 miles on a 19 kilowatt hour. Wow. And the defender is a. It is a. It's a 55 kilowatt hour battery.

[00:45:55] So you can clearly see that the difference between the vehicle is just absolutely crazy. Now what is the is it 19 kilowatt hours is the size the mini Cooper conversion kit or is it a larger. Yeah.

[00:46:07] Now, it's a 19 kilowatt hour because we want to keep the weight exactly the same.

[00:46:10] To the car is the same weight as it was for factories actually like killers lighter and that was the important thing with the many is we wanted to make sure it still drove and felt like a mini. Now the engine was never the special part of the mini.

[00:46:21] Right. It was how it drove and how it felt was that was what made a mini a mini. So we had to keep the weight the same and the weight distribution the same otherwise you just lost all the character.

[00:46:31] You need to get like the Porsche we kept the same weight distribution which. Some people don't like and other companies will do 50 50 weight distribution on horses, which I get I get and they probably make the vehicle drive. Even better. But for the Porsche fews the ass.

[00:46:45] They wanted it to still feel like a Porsche. Right. You're taking away this this flat six engine which does sound beautiful. We don't also want to change the driving characteristics as well. We kept some of that character in that which you know has pros and cons. Right.

[00:47:00] With the defender we've gone to the extreme now when it comes to the motor solution. So we've actually got to tell me more about something a so dual torque vector and gearbox now. Some people understand what they're something.

[00:47:11] So basically we have two motors and then we have a central gearbox but the central gearbox is actually two gearboxes in one. So it's not got a differential in the middle. It means each motor runs through its gearbox and it control each prop shaft separately.

[00:47:23] So your front and rear prop shafts are in theory. Just a tronax. Which is for motors. Yes. Yeah. Essentially. So we've been developing that now and we've just ordered all the first prototype.

[00:47:35] So generally for every time you get first prototype to those which will allow us to basically on the defender have a very powerful system. So we're going to really on the Sonic noters so we can have up to two Sonic 70s.

[00:47:47] We can have a 70 at the front and a 180 at the rear or we can run two on at 180s. So we can have 360 kilowatts of power some like 720 new meters of torque at the motors.

[00:48:00] So where it the thousands of new meters of torque when it gets to the wheels. So it would be pretty quick. But the big benefit here is we can work on efficiency. Sorry are you having a how much region can you get out these things?

[00:48:11] Because that's the other issue with the crazy. You've got it giving you to speed. You wanted to really break our. I mean, we'll stop well because we've got independent motors.

[00:48:19] We can basically put like a lot of situations you ever have a motion to rear or motion to front or you have a central motor that shares. But because we're independent now is we can do more region breaking on the front either rear.

[00:48:30] So we can get the break in balance. Which is really good. But we can also do a level as crunch control based on will speed sensors. So we can make sure also we don't lock the wheels up on region.

[00:48:39] And things like that. So there's a level of traction control we can implement. The I keep saying, you know, we've got to do a US test. I am in that is so sweet. That is absurd. That is so great. I played against the first.

[00:48:51] I played again on the thought that during. Yeah, yes. It should help efficiency because we should be able to in theory when you're doing locally speeds shut down the rear motor. I guess we're on the front motor.

[00:49:02] So we can see the motors and efficiency bands which are going to say are they going to be geared differently. They're not geared differently now. But we've been looking at how Tesla have done it because they in a lot of situations.

[00:49:13] If we can talk customer into having a zone, Exxvency and a zone at 180, so have a 70 in the front 180 in the back. That's what we think we're going to get our peak efficiency because we can run on 70 at certain times. 180 other times based on its efficiency range.

[00:49:25] Unfortunately in the US market, most people just want as much power as they can possibly get. There are lots of situations they're not doing in for efficiency at once.

[00:49:32] I do the ideal prefer to do every vehicle with a 70 in a 180 because they both have different peak efficiencies at different arguments. Then you're still going to have a great amount of power. Yes, you still have huge amount of power. But it's a hard sell.

[00:49:48] The rest that you also with the talk veteran is performance as well. Like when you do first pull away we can put more power to the rear motor less to the front.

[00:49:57] And then as you go for your zero to 60 run, we can transition the power between front and rear best on grip and weight distribution change. That sort of stuff. There's some really clever stuff we can do there.

[00:50:08] So we've got a lot of works to do on the talk veteran side of things but it'll be more of a here's a system it works is great. And then over the next year or so we'll do more and more testing.

[00:50:18] And then they'll be software updates going along where you'll be like a Tesla. You could do a software update and suddenly get more range or suddenly get more power. And that's what will happen with our defender kit is the first kits will go out.

[00:50:28] And then the year later we do like to do a software update and we update the VCU to a new software basically file that will allow it to then have higher performance and higher range or something based on the data we've gathered over a year period of doing testing.

[00:50:41] So there's a lot of really cool stuff we can do with that. The other thing we are doing on the defender which a lot of companies aren't doing is we're doing AC calling for the battery pack and motor. Cool. So we're doing this way for a reason.

[00:50:55] How can we do a similar system to Tesla to basically be able to use motor heat to heat the batteries or use AC calling to call the batteries and potentially call the motor and all this stuff.

[00:51:07] So we're doing a very clever rad pack for the front of the defender base. It will have multiple valves that has an AC heat exchanger in there and a motor heat exchanger and all this stuff. So you can basically move all these different temperatures around throughout the systems.

[00:51:20] to try and keep the batteries at the ultimate temperature, which means you get the most range. Try and keep the motions at the ultimate temperature so you can always do crazy amount of launches. So all this sort of clever stuff, I've fast-a-cCS charging speeds

[00:51:31] because yeah, rapidly called the batteries, the charge faster. It's currently not, and I mean just for the health and longevity of the battery too, let alone all of that. I mean that's kind of why the interesting things when I was doing the legacy EV course,

[00:51:48] they're based in Phoenix. So they're talking about cooling the battery pack, and I'll let's say which totally makes sense in this huge. But where I live in Central Oregon like this morning, well of course I'm gonna say in Fairnight,

[00:51:59] it was high 20s, which in Celsius would be like, negative two, I think roughly. And then but in the summer, it can be in mid to high 30s Celsius. I mean it's kind of this high, just like in the UK. We've got the extreme both ways,

[00:52:20] same in Australia, we've got the extreme in Melbourne where we're basically doing that. How do we create a system that can do AC cooling but also do heating in the battery in one system? And that's what we've been working on with a defender

[00:52:31] as I'm trying to do, this is one ramp pack setup that can work in Arizona or somewhere super leacold. It's one system that can basically cover both. So it doesn't matter where we're supplying the kit into, it's the same system basically, and the same setup.

[00:52:48] So now that'll also have software updates as well, which will be as we develop that system more, we'll find certain scenarios where we can get better performance at the battery if you've done it for once or twice a month.

[00:52:59] As we do more and more testing and gather more and more data. So there's gonna be key people who are building these kits for that we will be running like data logging on the vehicles. So continually taking data and up every vehicle every per time.

[00:53:11] I mean there will be that anywhere on every system for warranties and also preventative maintenance. So the big thing on the defender kit is the most advanced system we're basically producing and it's the latest system. And we will have data logging on there.

[00:53:25] So provide them the customer's given permission. The garage or the shop that's fitted the kit will have a login and we can basically set flags. But if we see a temperature spike, or we start to see a voltage spike, the things that we can basically bring the vehicle

[00:53:39] in preventative maintenance. So we know for fan is failing or we know for water pumps starting to fail. Or we know if a battery cell was going bad or there's all this data we can take in and we can basically build an algorithm to go.

[00:53:52] This car has a failing water pump. You need to bring it in and repair it before it fails in the customer. And that's something you can't do with the Ice Engine. Yeah, I mean, we can sell it. We can sell it. Yeah, which is,

[00:54:04] I mean, what your time about is auto-OM and then some grade. Yes. Whereas like a lot of these EV conversion. I mean, I was excited for this drop-in battery pack for the defender. I thought that was cool. But everything you've just said in the last 10 minutes

[00:54:17] it can now blow my mind as to what is possible from well one driving and handling. But two performance, once again, I think that's really just under-recognized is how important it is to kind of keep that voltage consistent and the temp to really make sure that it lasts

[00:54:40] long as it could. And if you do that right, it can last for so much longer than just I think some of the systems we're seeing in these a lot of EV conversions. Even in the OEM stuff when you look back on the road and it's not leave.

[00:54:54] It's a record I was going to say too. It's quite amazing that we as a development of a smaller company that we are, we can develop systems that are close to OEM level because we understand software. We understand hardware and all this stuff.

[00:55:08] We not have when it came to the old ice stuff, you'd have to have manufacturing of engines and all these stuff where now it's all software hardware based. Which we can do with just a small, very clever group of people and implement that

[00:55:22] and get to, we're not going to get to OEM level but we can get to a level where of reliability and performance which. A lot of the stuff you're talking about is it's better than I like to say that early EVs and it's better than combustion.

[00:55:39] I mean, inherently the fact that you can have data communications back to let you know makes it better than most combustion vehicles on the road for everything else. We can also flash over the data communication lines so updates but it's not with probably gonna do

[00:55:55] just because of safety. Yeah. We don't have billions of dollars to put into safety like Tesla do when they do an over the Arab data. We got to be careful when it comes to that. There's certain things we weren't allowed to happen,

[00:56:06] even though we could is too high risk from a safety scenario in space. Yeah, so I'm really excited about that. We have got a couple of other projects who are working on us and we've doing a lot of back-to-back some marine industry recently.

[00:56:17] No problem for companies that are producing electric outboards so we're now producing the back-to-back stick with those and that's obviously is very similar to our vehicle based back-to-week work of cars. It's just we've got to be very careful with IT rating like we do with cars anyway

[00:56:30] but there's a couple of other scenarios that you can't have lots of do with school water in grass over time. It's a little bit more brutal than the normal rain water. Yeah, so we've got to get it right. Right, right. Which I think is awesome.

[00:56:43] I mean, that kind of expertise and building knowledge only means your products are gonna be that much more resilient and tougher. So that's great to hear you guys are doing that too. And then there's a couple. There's another vehicle we are just about start working on

[00:56:57] which is more or two sea airport or cars that are vehicle. Which will be 180 cannot motor and I've 40 something to go with our batch back. But it's sort of a, we're trying to see now if we can do something

[00:57:08] it's a bit more of a, you can take it on a track day. You can go and do some runs on a track. You can DC fast charge it and take it back out again. Now we want to see if we're at that level yet.

[00:57:18] I don't know if we are, we're gonna be pushing it but I hope we're not far off now that we can start doing some sort of retrofit vehicles for track use. Actually, so this will be a drop in for a track car or a search situation.

[00:57:33] Yeah, so there's a certain vehicle that's built in the UK, there's not gonna say too much. Okay. Yeah, it's a fun track car. It's most of us can guess what we'll work out what it is. But we've got the first one turning up this week

[00:57:44] and we're gonna start messing around with that which should be great if I'm, it's a bit of fun as well. Well, it doesn't but it can be then out. Okay. So, we have a couple of companies that make the show we say in order to certain style. Okay.

[00:58:00] I think that's good. And then as long as we are about to start doing battery module production next year. Cool. So we'll start actually building modules because we've seen the change for early ends now moving south pack. So module production is starting to decrease.

[00:58:16] We've already started seeing it decreasing and the availability of the modules we want is starting to decrease. Especially in the aftermath of people that want to do second life. Like currently model three pack is pretty difficult to use in anything other than service storage.

[00:58:30] Yeah, because they're four long modules. So we're starting to see the audience go that route. So we're now trying to start moving towards how to be manufacturing modules to keep the aftermath of our industry fed to apply of good quality modules.

[00:58:43] So that's our next, I think our next big thing is how we start manufacturing modules to keep supplying ourselves mainly but also other companies in the aftermath as things go along with good quality modules. Which has to do with that as well. Some clever integrations and stuff

[00:58:58] we're going to put into those modules and I'm not going to disclose too much about that yet. No, no, no. I totally get that. And I can't remember if it says on the website is the universal battery pack is that?

[00:59:12] And LFP chemistry or is it kind of a nickel in CM or? So it's hard for me. An MC. Very ion MC. I'm sorry, MC. Currently. But when we go to module manufacturing we'll be able to offer LFP but also something called LNFP.

[00:59:32] So CATL and actually released something called LNFP. So adding magnesium in which there's pros and cons with it. So it only ever hits 80 degrees. So it doesn't satisfy, which is great. There are universal factors currently 55 kilowatt hours with LNFP cells will maintain around 55 kilowatt hours.

[00:59:53] So that's really good. But alongside that, they're also releasing a new NMC cell and then you go off at the new NMC will give us 70 kilowatt hours in the same battery pack. So you're in this point where you can have completely non-famble systems,

[01:00:08] which in certain scenarios is great. Like mining vehicles with boats or that row. Great. Yeah. I don't know if we're quite at the point yet of reducing the size of the battery pack because of virus or whether we're still at the point we need bigger battery packs.

[01:00:24] Like I don't, the point's not quite there yet. Interesting. Is it what point do we say 300 mile range is enough in a classic car? Make the battery pack smaller life to a safer? Or is that not enough? We're trying to work out ourselves at the moment.

[01:00:37] It's going to actually 55 kilowatt hours in say a Porsche is 200 mile range. So we could swap the nodes at LN, LN and Mk. And then there are also no virus at all. So it's trying to work out, do we as a company take

[01:00:55] the decision to do not keep increased in our range but increase our safety level? At what point do we make that decision because that could be good or bad for us. It could be really good and then people want to buy more product than us.

[01:01:08] But also our competition could keep going more range but have the fire risk and it's trying to understand the culture in different countries to go at what point is that trade off. I tested to do it on their short range. So the Model 3 short range is an LFP,

[01:01:24] but it takes up the same amount of range as their NMC battery does with their long range. So it's showing that the transition starting to happen because Tesla will already start into doing it. We just haven't worked out yet. How to do it?

[01:01:36] But with our own module manufacturing on that same manufacturing line we could feed in LFP batteries or LMC batteries and produce exactly a same visual module to go in exactly the same battery pack. So we can make a decision at that point

[01:01:50] then rather than having to stop low to each and not know, we could basically chop and change the pending on which customer is that packed for what do they want? Do they want like, improve safety? Or do they want more range? Now, immediately from an improved safety point

[01:02:06] we've never had a pack ever have an issue. We're far as safety point and we'll do anything. So just put out there, you know, they are pretty damn safe. And normally the only time you get an issue is when there's a total charge or someone's crashed it.

[01:02:18] But there is still a risk there obviously. So I think that's one thing. We're just gonna have to sound at the market over the next couple of years and work out when is that time to transition and say we're only doing LNFP batteries that are fully non-flammable

[01:02:32] and therefore our stuff is way safer. And at that point you start going, well actually can be an extra packed outside of material. Can we change the way we package that up? Because actually from a safety point of view now if you do damage it, it's not available.

[01:02:46] So then other changes start happening as well from other approaches. I think there's a lot of excitement in this really few years to come, shall we say? And there's gonna be a lot of changes. It's just when you choose to take

[01:02:58] those changes as a company from a production point of view. I think we'll see the same thing with the OEMs as they've invested billions and billions of dollars in their production lines. Certain OEMs will not transition to a different module type for some time

[01:03:11] because they've got to get their money back. They can't afford to take right as losses off. And that's the thing is it's a juggling act very much for not these OEMs. Where do they commit to what sell type for now?

[01:03:23] And at what point do they cross over to a new sell type without it having a massive impact on their financials? Yeah, I think it has been pretty fascinating to see and I think a lot of people weren't expecting to see how quickly I think both technologies,

[01:03:38] but also just LFP show how resilient it can be and find ways to even make it more energy dense that it's getting the point that it's competitive to what EMC was just a couple years ago. And then EMC is just really taken off even further.

[01:03:55] So I think you're totally right but I think LFP's gonna be probably become the main or L, I mean variants of LFP become kind of the main stream but still be a decent market for applications whether that be like a motor sport

[01:04:09] or a one-off thing where yeah, having that extra kind of power. And it's still a lot of ways safer than a combustion engine vehicle can be anyway that I think there's really, I think it's a very exciting time

[01:04:23] and I think the way you guys are approaching it is spot on and you're totally right. Once you start coming getting these non-flamable solutions, and you start the delta between weight saving starts changing again because you also have less stuff

[01:04:35] that you have to kind of proactively build into the system. This is how I can different. I have to go back to the defender kit though. I can't stop thinking about that because now I really, there's a lot in there with what you said

[01:04:49] and I'm kind of curious how much of that you plan to productize beyond just the defender kit and be for other cars as well, let's say being in the American market like a classic Ford Bronco. I said kind of the plan to make it so...

[01:05:04] Yeah, so we're practising. Yeah, so the universal factor instance will fit should fit the Bronco as it is. And then you talk about drink airbox with the Zonix set and we need to sell them in volume that that gearbox is cost us a lot of money to develop

[01:05:18] and the first batch of those gearbox are costing us a lot of money to produce so we need to work at how we can get those gearbox into volume because the higher volume we can produce the better we can do for a pricing point for the end users.

[01:05:28] So we will be looking at proper plies in certain components like the seat box we won't ever sell that separately because obviously that's tied with the defender kit so it's going to be certain bits that we won't be selling outside of the kit

[01:05:39] but when it comes to the motor gear box set up and the universal box, obviously potentially maybe the corner system set up so it might be we offer a VCU with all the valves and all the bits to do an AC calling system and then the Garchivet.

[01:05:53] The end user can pipe it all when do all that stuff but we've given them all the base bits they need and the control of it at least then what we do and we also do the same thing where I'll see CS kit

[01:06:02] like we sell a kit for a CCS we would add to their current batch of back. As long as they're using their ride, the MS is they can just add it in some level when sort of in CCS rapid charging

[01:06:12] so there's certain lines we will product outside stepically just to try and help us get our volumes up and potentially we may work with other companies to develop kits for things like Broncos that we just wanna work at where's the volume in the market needed

[01:06:27] and what a specific vehicle is too choose to do large volume kits for it. And at what point do we start doing a lower value vehicle in higher volume at a lower price like when do we,

[01:06:40] it's sort of test the model in that you start with the roadster then you move to the AC and the AC then you move to the model 3 and then then moves the model 2 at some point as well just to really bring the pricing point down

[01:06:49] we're sort of following probably a very similar similar model in that point is as we get larger and larger volumes we can potentially do lower value vehicles at that price in point, which is great and the features, if you look at the model 3

[01:07:03] it has every single feature that we'll have and then model less than double the value vehicle and it shows that as you just do more and more with that technology it just becomes second major and you just put it in everything. Right.

[01:07:16] No, I've been all of that is so cool and great here. I guess one of my other questions would be given how much you're doing with different systems for the defender in your time that you're trying to find and optimize those efficiencies

[01:07:31] is your team kind of looking at also doing low voltage systems and kind of making that maybe more simplified and kind of a waste update those or to make it at least easier let's say I want to update my defender and put heated seats in it

[01:07:44] and just kind of try to figure out what maybe some of those optimizations are around improving the traditional low voltage systems that you could kind of put in. We haven't yet made it because a lot of the defender's special stuff we talked to

[01:07:58] already produced new harnesses for their vehicles. Gotcha. So if you look companies like our conic and stuff that we're working closely with, they already produce every vehicle that every defender they make they put up brand new wire harnesses that they make in house

[01:08:11] which has all those extra features in it. So a lot of the defender drops a lot of matches do that. So we need to pick our battles, I suppose. Oh for sure, for our team. The best part of it we've ever worked. Yeah.

[01:08:22] But a lot of them will be able to put heat seats in and they will put all that stuff into health and efficiency and heat and winter screens and there's all those bits that they need to look at adding into increased efficiency

[01:08:34] but it also depends on what the customer base is as well. It's I think when it comes to the, when we get into the more higher volume and lower value vehicles that's when you start going actually, those vehicles need to have heat seats.

[01:08:45] They need to have a heat and winter because actually it's more cost effective to do that because it benefits them on range in the winter. So there's sort of, there's, there's probably there to take different directions. That's interesting. Yeah. And there's also the ploy, I think I've got,

[01:08:58] obviously I know some front me so the other thing is I'll see, looking at the V2 side of things which is where it becomes even more of an asset when it comes to the classics and the conversion of more regular vehicles

[01:09:10] because if you can do the V2 group G, tie up suddenly or vehicles come to batch back in your house and then you can just by having a classic electric because you know also that's your $10,000 battery power who will put it to your house as well.

[01:09:23] So it does them up. We're doing a lot of work in that area but we're waiting for the chargers to catch up now. So there's not many companies doing V2G chargers they just don't seem to be a thing yet. Well, here's the way US two

[01:09:37] is a lot more difficult which is kind of our wiring infrastructure and gray, whereas I know kind of the UK and Europe how most houses are wired it's actually a lot easier to do that. Whereas here it definitely usually requires like panel up

[01:09:51] grades and a few other things but I guess speaking of chargers and speaking of the US market obviously a lot of the only hymns have been going to the North American charging standard or announced that they will be going towards that

[01:10:05] is that something your team is kind of looking at or kind of weighing to see if there's volume to make that investment as a part of these kids you're doing. So the North American charge standard runs the same communications as CCS.

[01:10:18] So from that point of view in theory, our CCS system would work with North American charge of standards connect on it out the box. The difference is with the North American charge of standard is the DC pins are also your live and neutral. Right.

[01:10:35] So the one thing we've got to look at now is how we produce a small inline product that can basically switch between AC DC on that input line. So it basically just when you plug into DC it basically opens two contractors to bypass the AC charger on board

[01:10:51] to just go straight to the back of your pack but then when you're AC charging it opens the contractors for the DC, it moves it across the AC charger and doesn't allow the basic the power to go to the batch pack.

[01:11:02] So we just need to work at how to do that a bit sensibly in sort of a compact manner. So we have been considering that do we do an update to the universal pack and put it all inside the universal pack

[01:11:13] and then just have the three pin AC coming out into the charger from the universal pack that just flows through and out is that as solution. So we try to work at what's the best approach to do with that. So it's something we've been looking at,

[01:11:28] it's something we know we can do but it's also not able to get the car side connection as yet because they haven't, all the companies who've reached out to that are gonna start making them haven't started making them

[01:11:40] or sort of making them in any volume that you can buy them. So you can buy, you know, use Tesla once to do the circuit with but you can't buy a brand new car side charge for it yet. Like they're just not in production yet

[01:11:52] but it will come. So we're aware of it, we like the idea because most vehicles have a fairly small fuel cap. So the North American charger standards actually allows you to fit them inside the original fuel cap without multiplying the vehicle.

[01:12:06] So from that point of view it's great. And if we had our way, we would just put North American chargers and everything, even if it's in the UK in Europe and just supply it on the adapter kit and adapt to plug

[01:12:17] because it will fit in the original fuel cap place. So we make our life a lot easier to just run the same across the board and then if you need to run CCS type 2, you just put on the adapter on it.

[01:12:27] I think that's what happened with the Model S is the Model X and the UK at the start. Right. That's data around for quite a long time and I wouldn't be surprised if things go back that route. Because it's more compact, it's easier to package for us.

[01:12:41] So we are openly looking at it. It's just I think it's still going to be a year away because of availability of products. For sure, that doesn't surprise me at all with just even the OEM saying it's at least a year away

[01:12:53] for them to get the manufacturing and that ramped up. Wow, yeah. I am very excited to learn and see more of it. I guess as far as the defender product, can you share pricing or ballpark of what that might be

[01:13:10] or how you're expecting that to kind of be priced in the US yet? It's going to be B today only. It's natural. I need to work at how we do the pricing. Notice the pricing will be shared with other businesses for them.

[01:13:23] I mean, I got my name in the package. I'd like to see V to find out the app. Which is not a cheap kit. That's just the way. I mean, with everything you said, that's the first I've heard of a dual transactional which would be so sweet

[01:13:40] but will not be cheap. It's more if you want the best. We're trying to make sure we produce the system that is the best system we can possibly use. Yeah. And that's what Feldon wants to say.

[01:13:51] And then, for we want to make sure we produce the best kits on the market. And it does come up at a cost but as we get into larger volumes, it'll actually potentially become the best systems on the market at the better price on the market because we'll

[01:14:04] be producing more and more and more and more. So we'll always try to work out how we do cost savings and bring the cost in the down. Which we're starting to see slowly as we become more virtually integrated as a company. I do more and more in-house.

[01:14:16] We're starting to get more and more control over that. But I think, until now we've been so dependent on the customers' supply. And actually with our modular and battery and stuff, we'll start having more control over our supply chain. Which means you start bringing pricing down. Yeah.

[01:14:31] And I think it sounds like, in I'd be curious if there's any other things you're seeing but kind of looking through the next few years, it seems like at least for your team. And maybe the larger EV market because so many of the auto-heems

[01:14:46] are kind of going to the cell pack route. Really, growth for you will be kind of taking more and more and becoming more vertically integrated and taking a lot of this stuff in-house yourself. Do you see that kind of being the big difference maker

[01:15:01] for what your team is trying to do and to really get to the scale you're looking for? Yeah, we need to bring in batch and item to systems in-house right soon. We've stopped chasing not to bring VCUs in-house because we went very closely with AM

[01:15:13] and they do a very good job. So we've just stuck with MLVCUs for now. But it's all down to volume, but the bigger and bigger you get the more you want to bring in-house, but it's also picking your battles. I think a lot of the big wins first.

[01:15:26] The only time we tend to bring more in-house is when we start getting issues of product. That's the thing. Like CCS was who was doing a CCS kit? No one was doing a CCS kit. And then we tried to cover different CCS kits

[01:15:38] and they just didn't work properly. So it was like right, we'd got to do this in-house. And we've had issues with our CCS kits. And we still find on bugs in the system now. But we put things in place that we know

[01:15:49] we could go and do updates on those kits in the field really easily if we did find a bug because CCS is really bloody hard. And they keep bringing new chargers out, which run a different way to the other chargers that didn't follow the standards.

[01:16:02] And then we're continually testing on CCS because there's new chargers coming out and then we've got to make tweaks to the software to work on a new charger type because they've made tweaks. So that's going to be a never ending battle

[01:16:15] I think over at least the next couple of years until it really does standardize. MSGS charging point in here. I think in the US, it's not too bad because you've only got very specific make of CCS charger but the UK, they've got like 15 to 20 different versions of that.

[01:16:30] That's true, you guys. You guys definitely have more variance and manufacturers over there. That's why they all do something slightly different. Yeah. I was, I mean, I rented a model three but I did try a couple of just public ones

[01:16:44] that a couple of times just to try it when I did a road trip from London through Cornwall and it was still a lot of fun and obviously the superchargers were just the easiest by far. But it was also just interesting talking

[01:16:58] to people there who had CCS vehicles and they were definitely having some headaches but it just didn't seem to be the same extent that we were seeing here in the US where it's, it seems like this year we run into more isn't even the communication failures.

[01:17:15] That is a thing but it usually just the actual hardware itself is down. So I think that is finally gonna change in the next year or two but that's really what we've seen at least. Big issues for a lot of different auto-OMMs here and CCS vehicles

[01:17:32] and I think that's obviously a big part of the reason why a bunch just said we're going to the North American charging standard. But that's a whole another story. I just started opening up their chargers here to produce very high vehicles

[01:17:46] so we have a handful of new technologies. Yeah. We just quite knew because we can take a classic to a Tesla charger and charge up there and we know they always work and they're really reliable because at the moment you turn it to a charger

[01:17:56] and you're like, is it our system that's not working or is the charger down? And you're in this weird thing, are we chasing something that does not exist as a bug and actually it's the charger that has the issue?

[01:18:07] So it becomes quite difficult from that point of view but hopefully it won't be in the end. But this is what we're finding more recently with our customers, is it's the range anxiety doesn't seem to be the thing, it's charger out as charging sides for that.

[01:18:21] That's a good issue. So the word range anxiety might doesn't exist to me anymore. It might head, it's not really a thing. If I know I can pull up that charger and it definitely works, I have no problem. When I go out and test, Lorette,

[01:18:35] you need to stop here for this time, here for this time, you know you're going to pull up. You know the charger is going to work. So you don't worry about the fact you're going to pull up that charger with 10 miles left.

[01:18:44] It doesn't bother you because you know you're going to get an a charger's going to work. So I think that's the difference. It's all these people that don't have Tesla's are what if that charger doesn't work from my pull-up of the service station?

[01:18:56] And I think that's the big issue we see. For sure. It's a garbage in charge or in different states. Right and it's a fair concern. But yeah, I think you're totally right. I was here in those same kind of horror stories

[01:19:08] and concerns when I was over there two summers ago, even. And everyone I've talked to just seems like it is still persistent. But I really do want to say thank you so much Chris. I know we've kind of got over a little bit of our time.

[01:19:23] One final question that I tried to ask everyone and I think you've kind of shared something. It's just kind of curious to hear your take, especially with your part of the industry and then you're also used just in the UK and globally.

[01:19:36] But in European and what are maybe innovative ways that industry or government can help accelerate the rollout of the EVs and battery tech further? I think it's a very difficult one. Governments, anyway. It's a political point in view. It's quite difficult.

[01:19:54] I think the big issue is that every time a different government comes in, they change it. They need to work out a way of assessing something in place that is a 10 or 20 year initiative, not something that they're going to keep changing every couple of years.

[01:20:10] One thing for me, the conversion space is that it doesn't seem to be huge amount of support if any. Hello from a global point of view. The I think a lot of the governments are so tied to the OEM selling new vehicles

[01:20:20] that they're not really as interested in direct traffic market. They don't put a value on the environment. I think it's probably the way. So from my point of view, from it innovating ways to push the industry, I think they need to put a cost on carbon.

[01:20:35] Tax on it because I think it will make people go I need to go green converting my car, classic car saves this much on carbon footprint, therefore it's worth me doing it for a tax incentive point of view and all this stuff.

[01:20:47] So I think there's different ways they can approach it to try and speed the industry up. But from a carbon point of view, I think it might be the better way to do it because I have to go into someone on the other day

[01:20:58] and I think he said to me that we're not called Nick Glover, warming anymore, we're called a human extinction event now because they've sort of said it's just going too far and people aren't listening. So they need to just read you the way it's being dealt with

[01:21:09] to make it a realising this isn't. This isn't just that I've played with. This is that major problem that is becoming bigger quicker than everyone ever anticipated and what is the route to resolve that? And I think the government in my opinion

[01:21:24] globally need to put a tax on the carbon side of things and the damage to the environment because currently there are your tax on everything. Everything's controlled but they don't care if you're burning stuff. They don't care if you're damaging where you're living. They care about everything else.

[01:21:38] So I think that would be a bloody a huge change obviously from a global point of view if they were actually we are going to put a value on the emissions or your damage to the environment and it would change so many companies approach

[01:21:52] to things like drugs or anything. Yeah, no, I open out change. I completely agree with you on that front. Actually, I mean, I've agreed with you a lot on the on today's episode. But that especially as well.

[01:22:06] So I really appreciate you sharing that in your point on that. But Chris, this has been really entertaining. Obviously, I'm so anathom out to get to learn more about this defender kit when it's available here in the US

[01:22:20] but I just want to say thank you and if anyone is interesting conversion or even just I think it's so an attention just to follow your social media channels and what you're doing online. So, felt it on Instagram, I believe it's just felt in dot com

[01:22:34] correct on as your main web. Go to dot com and then folks and systems everything. So, I'm going to do a wide and little fountain systems. Gotcha. But yeah, I can't recommend what you guys are doing now. So please, anyone listening give it a follow.

[01:22:47] It's a great way just to learn even if you're not looking at doing a conversion just yet or just want to learn more about EVs and kind of the safety and a lot of the engineering that goes into that I just don't think people are getting

[01:22:58] the exposure to or full understanding with kind of marketing out there for new EVs in general. So, just to wrap up, thank you so much Chris and looking forward to having you on again soon. Thank you.