EV Café Takeaway

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178

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Aug 2026

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About the show

Guests from across the EV industry will join the crew for The EV Café Takeaway, having candid conversations to highlight the work of the Electric Vehicle and Sustainability industry, to uncover stories that we all need to learn from and importantly, to understand something of the people behind the work. The EV Café crew, have the wonderful privilege of talking to some amazing pioneers, innovators, and collaborators in our industry. The generosity, openness, honesty, and insight from our guests has been truly humbling and inspirational. We want as many people as possible, to be challenged and inspired by these podcasts.

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August 12, 2026Episode 17957 min

179: Alun Davies | ElectrAssure

Alun Davies once told his team that electric vehicle charging "would never catch on" — and sent someone else to do the first installation jobs. Today he leads ElectrAssure, the electrical contractor behind nearly 2,000 charging sockets for National Grid, the chargers that greet every electric Volkswagen arriving on UK shores, and some of the first DC rapid chargers for Western Power Distribution.This week, Alun sits down with Paul and John to trace the line from qualified electrician to business leader — and it's anything but a straight one. Along the way: a theatre degree, a stint as sound engineer for the England football team's press conferences (and Girls Aloud), a summer spent on commercial roofs, and a cherry picker licence that landed him an apprenticeship in the family firm.Alun talks candidly about the roundtable moment six years ago when nerves nearly got the better of him — and how a "nuts and bolts" perspective turned out to be exactly what a room full of fleet managers needed to hear. He opens up about running a business with his wife (a former deputy head teacher, now Ops Director), why they've agreed never to switch off from work, giving up alcohol in 2022 to think more clearly, and measuring success by the energy in a room rather than the numbers on a spreadsheet.There's also a school report that shattered a 20-year self-image, a son whose GCSE English presentation was titled "Why Electric Vehicles Are Rubbish", and the revelation that this softly-spoken sparky is the lead singer of a heavy metal band, Before the Sirens.Whether you're wiring up a depot, scaling a family business, or just wondering how a self-confessed class clown ends up advising National Grid, this one's worth your fifty minutes.Connect with Alun and ElectrAssureAlun on LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/alun-davies-electrassureElectrAssureelectrassure.co.ukBefore the SirensYouTubeSpotifyApple Music

August 5, 2026Episode 17855 min

178: Andrew Clint | myenergi

What does it take to steer a £50 million business towards its founder's vision of lasting 100 years? Andrew Clint, CEO of myenergi, joins us fresh from the company's 10th anniversary celebrations to talk about the next 90.Eighteen months into the role, Andrew explains why myenergi — best known for zappi, the first solar-aware EV charger — is refocusing on Lee Sutton's original ambition: a complete home energy management system. That means vehicle-to-grid on the horizon, the libbi home battery, Grid Pay rewarding customers for grid flexibility, and software that quietly optimises solar, battery and EV charging without the homeowner lifting a finger. His maths is compelling: a full ecosystem could save households around £1,500 a year — close to a zero-bills home.Andrew is candid about why so many charging companies have come and gone while myenergi endures: knowing exactly what you are, and what you aren't. He also digs into how AI is accelerating the business, from a new data lake on AWS to machine learning that learns a household's habits.Andrew also discusses walking away from British Airways after missing out on a job, growing a De La Rue division from £30m to £90m, and the mother whose question — "is that really the best you can do?" — still drives him today.Connect with Andrew:LinkedInFind out more about myenergi:myenergi.com

July 29, 2026Episode 17750 min

177: Dan McLaren | BP Pulse

Dan McLaren left school with no qualifications, spent his early years as a greenkeeper at a private members' golf club, and now looks after half of the BP Pulse network as Network Optimisation Lead.Dan talks about growing up dyslexic in a school system that dealt with it by "putting you in a class with less people", and about the father-in-law who took him on as a project — daily five o'clock phone calls, hard questions, and a £600-a-month leg-up that let him start again from the bottom in the motor trade. It's a powerful case for why everyone should find themselves a mentor, and why Dan now makes time to be one for the younger generation coming up behind him.We also cover: Falling into EV by accident — how a fixed-term contract at the Electric Vehicle Experience Centre in Milton Keynes (taken mainly because it came with a car) turned into a career, once Dan swapped a cautious rental policy for a simple philosophy: bums on seats sells EVs. Life as "Dan Dan the EV Man" — taking on the myths and misinformation head-on via TikTok, why he actually quite enjoyed the naysayers, and why he stepped back from it to make a bigger difference from a commercial seat. Where BP Pulse goes next — the shift to purely rapid and ultra-fast charging, why it's about the right charger in the right place rather than the most chargers in the ground, partnerships with M&S, Q-Park and Transport for London, and an honest reflection on the reputational baggage that comes with being one of the industry's earliest movers. Playing to your strengths — how Dan turned dyslexia into an engine for ideas, relationships and front-of-room energy, and learned to let the analytical people do the analytical bits. Plus, Dan receives the legendary EV Café magic wand and uses his wishes on happy kids, a healthier heart, and making BP Pulse the biggest and best charge point operator in the UK.Connect with Dan LinkedIn: Dan McLaren BP Pulse: bppulse.com TikTok: Dan Dan the EV Man

July 22, 2026Episode 17659 min

176: Will Rowe | Octopus Energy

What do you get when you cross the world's most innovative energy company with the world's largest battery maker? Swaptopus — a joint venture between Octopus Energy and CATL that's bringing HGV battery swapping to the UK and Europe. And the man growing it is Will Rowe, Entrepreneur in Residence at Octopus Energy, who joins us this week from a tennis club, the day after selling his house. Commitment.Will explains why battery swapping cracks the three problems that have stalled electric trucking: grid connections, charging downtime, and the mismatch between when trucks need power and when power is cheap. Swap a battery in minutes, keep the truck earning, and let the swapped-out batteries do a second job — because a network of stations full of batteries is also a virtual power plant, storing cheap renewable energy and feeding it back when the grid needs it. This isn't just a transport play; it's an energy infrastructure play.He's refreshingly blunt about the road that led here, too. Will previously founded a hydrogen business for exactly this market — and he tells us candidly why it didn't work, why losing two-thirds of your energy is no route to energy security, and what China's thousand-to-one preference for batteries over hydrogen tells us about where this is all heading. His verdict on hydrogen for transport is one you'll want to hear in full.Along the way we get into: Why trucks are the easy win — 32 TWh of new annual electricity demand if the UK's trucks go electric, lowering bills for everyone, while governments obsess over data centres instead Autonomy changing everything — a customer planning to go from 60 to 160 hours of weekly truck utilisation, and what cab-free, 24/7 freight means for an industry whose two biggest costs are labour and fuel Bringing Chinese OEMs to Europe — and conversations underway with four of the five biggest European truck makers Geography-specific energy strategies — why a swap station in solar-rich Spain looks nothing like one in windy Britain Growing up dyslexic with a reading age of six, passing A-levels anyway, and why resilience — and a mum who insisted he could do anything — mattered more than school ever did Honest talk about failure — why it hurts, what it teaches, and why loving the problem matters more than loving your first solution And when handed the EV Café Magic Wand, Will's wish is deliberately unglamorous and absolutely fundamental: just make electricity cheaper. Get that right, he argues, and the business case for electrifying everything falls into place on its own.Connect with Will: LinkedInOctopus Energy: octopus.energy

July 15, 2026Episode 17552 min

175: Paul Jewell | CarCloud

Most households and small businesses don't have an automotive expert on hand, just a relative who gets cornered at barbecues or "someone who used to be a mechanic" now responsible for a multi-million-pound fleet. That gap is the problem Paul Jewell built CarCloud to fix.Paul joins Paul Kirby and Sara Sloman to explain how CarCloud surfaces the MOT deadlines, lease endings and maintenance costs that usually blindside drivers, pairing each one with a solution rather than just a warning. He makes the case for the SME sector, not the big fleets, as the real engine of electric van and car growth.He also covers his work in last-mile transport: 10,000 pedal-assisted, motorcycle-grade electric bikes already on UK roads, care workers using them to fit more home visits into a day, and a new grocery sidecar that carries 40 kilos for around 14p per 50 miles.Along the way Paul traces his approach back to selling used cars in Birmingham's subprime credit era, tells the story of a remarkable homeless man who taught him chess and life lessons as a kid, wishes for baseline foods to be sold "net free" with no VAT or profit attached, and sets out CarCloud's next phase: automotive and mobility banking that returns real value to the driver.Connect with Paul Jewell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-jewell-55476122/ CarCloud: https://carcloudsolutions.com

July 8, 2026Episode 17449 min

174: Nikolaus Mayerhofer & Alexander Millinger | Aviloo

How do you actually know what's left in a used EV battery? Nikolaus Mayerhofer and Alexander Millinger from Aviloojoin us to draw the line between a real diagnostic and a glorified readout — and why that difference decides what a second-hand electric car or van is worth.NiKo has been building electric things since he was 12, soldering together his first e-bike back in 1987 and developing battery management systems by 19. That four decades of battery engineering — lead acid, nickel cadmium, lithium iron phosphate, NMC — is now baked into Aviloo's three-minute flash test, which pulls up to 50,000 data samples through the OBD port, sends them to the cloud, and returns an accurate, independent State of Health certificate. Eight years of collected data from thousands of vehicles (over 50 million kilometres) sits behind every result, and (from July) a UK warranty backs each certificate.We get into the things the surface won't tell you: Why mileage no longer equals battery health — a study of 600 Model 3s found consumption varying by a factor of two depending purely on how they were driven and charged How charging to 100% every night, hammering the autobahn, and preheating all quietly age a pack — and why average degradation is fine but the variance is the reason you test before you buy The honest take on fast charging, solid-state hype, and why a Model S still runs a 40-year-old cell format Battery second life: diagnostics feeding power storage in Japan, reuse from scrapped vehicles, and what happens when OEMs stop making modules Scaling Aviloo from two friends talking on mountain bike rides to 100+ people and one million tests sold — across the UK, US, Benelux and Asia Guests: Nikolaus Mayerhofer, Founder & CEO — LinkedIn Alexander Millinger — LinkedIn Aviloo — aviloo.com

July 1, 2026Episode 17353 min

173: Jamie Sands | Welch Group

Guest: Jamie Sands — Operator-led zero-emission freight and innovation | TwentyForty | Welch GroupCompany: Welch Group (welchgroup.co.uk · twentyforty.uk)LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/j-sandsWhat does a 92-year-old, family-owned haulier with 70 trucks know about the future of freight that the multinationals don't? Quite a lot, it turns out. Jamie Sands is Head of Solutions at Welch Group — a role that, as he points out, doesn't exist in most operators — and he joins us to explain why a regional independent from the east of England is winning tenders against the big 3PLs on something other than price.We get into the commercial logic underneath the green badge: how Welch turns its fleet into a test bed for startups in exchange for preferential terms, why the "green premium" basically doesn't exist, and how being two steps ahead on scope three reporting now wins business outright. Jamie makes the case that decarbonisation is really an energy and infrastructure problem, not a vehicle one — and that the smart play for an operator is treating charging, energy arbitrage and demand response as new revenue, not just a cost to swallow.There's plenty for the technically curious too: system-level thinking across siloed networks, what L4 and L5 autonomy actually mean for hub-to-hub night runs, why he's done arguing about hydrogen, and why "technology neutrality" can quietly become an excuse to do nothing until the 2035 cliff edge arrives. Jamie also walks us through TwentyForty, the not-for-profit he's built to pull other independent operators into the research, the media and the policy conversation — including the 12 Pillars framework for getting the whole industry talking to itself.Away from the trucks, Jamie talks music, comic books, a Project Hail Mary obsession, staying genuinely calm in an industry that runs on chaos, and the loss of a close friend that pushed him to do work that actually matters. He closes with one wish that doubles as his whole mission: that operators — the people this transition is being done to — get a seat in the rooms where it's being decided.Plenty of marginal gains, one or two God complexes, and a reminder that the future we're all hoping for is mostly available right now, if we work together.Connect with Jamie: LinkedInWelch Group: welchgroup.co.ukTwentyForty: twentyforty.uk

June 24, 2026Episode 1721 hr 1 min

172: Nick Hay | Holman UK

Days before stepping in as Managing Director of Holman UK, Nick Hay sits down with Paul and Sara for a conversation that ranges far wider than fleet leasing. It's a candid look at what three decades in cold chain logistics teaches you about cutting environmental impact without losing sight of commercial reality — and what it costs the person doing the leading.Nick traces a career built on incremental gains: fitting telematics across an entire 100-unit fleet back in 2005, dragging a 400-truck operation's fuel efficiency from 8.1 to over 10 MPG when people thought he was mad to try, and running Euro 5 trial vehicles from every major manufacturer side by side rather than waiting to see what everyone else did. The throughline is a willingness to test, measure, and stop what isn't working — and to do it in partnership rather than at a supplier's expense, from one of the UK's first 100% lithium-ion materials-handling fleets to joint ventures packing 40 million cases of produce a year.We get into why private ownership changes what's possible in the energy transition, how Holman's shared-risk model differs from a standard lease, and why "horses for courses" matters more than ever when logistics spans a tradesperson's van and a long-haul HGV. Nick is clear-eyed on the obstacles too: grid access, the risk of being an early adopter, reactive government policy, and the speed at which Chinese manufacturers are now moving.Then the conversation turns. Nick talks openly about growing up the self-described black sheep of an academic family, an athletics career that taught him resilience precisely because he didn't make it, and a lifelong wrestle with depression that he learned to mask at work — sometimes, he admits, at a cost to the people closest to him. It's an unusually honest exchange about what compassionate leadership actually demands: the willingness to say you don't know, to apologise when you got it wrong, and to keep believing you can be better tomorrow.His one wish? Government legislation that's properly thought through, with a long-term view instead of constant chopping and changing — the certainty the whole industry is asking for.Guest: Nick Hay, Managing Director, Holman UKLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-hay-4b1a52137/Company: https://www.holman.com/uk/

June 17, 2026Episode 1711 hr 0 min

171: Calum James | Farizon

Calum James, General Manager of Farizon UK, joins Paul and Sara to talk about what it actually takes to land a brand new electric van marque in one of the world's most demanding fleet markets.Calum walks through Farizon's lineage inside the Geely group - the same family tree as Volvo, Polestar, Lotus, LEVC and the Mercedes-Benz Smart joint venture - and the role of Jameel Motors, the 80-year-old distributor putting the brand on UK roads. He explains why the SV (Super Van) and the newly launched V7e are built ground-up as EVs rather than adapted from combustion platforms, and why details like a standard ventilated seat, three-pin sockets in the load bay and a payload monitoring system are aimed squarely at fleet managers worried about driver welfare, compliance and downtime.The conversation digs into: Farizon's "fast follower” playbook and why the SV picked up MCFT's fleet after a TCO comparison that delivered £1,500–£2,000 per van per year in savings The AA partnership that puts mobile service, maintenance and repair on a 72-hour SLA - built around owner-operators who can't afford a day off the road What Calum and Paul Kirby saw at the Beijing Motor Show: driverless Farizon vans on public roads, robotic 500kW chargers, and the gap between legacy OEMs that dream the future and Chinese manufacturers shipping it The V7e's sub-£200-mile range, 1.3-tonne payload and 18-minute 80% rapid charge — and why charging speed has overtaken range anxiety as the fleet conversation ZEV mandate pressure (10% market share against a 24% target), the shifting TCO maths as Middle East fuel volatility bites, and why 95% of electric van buyers are still fleets Calum's path from part-time chef and Swindon banking grad to 11 years at Mercedes-Benz vans, and the leaders who shaped how he runs the team now Regenerative leadership, the anonymous fortnightly mood meter Farizon publishes uncensored to its leadership team, and why Calum walks his dog around the same lake twice a day to stay grounded LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/calum-j-b4328059/Website: https://farizonauto.co.uk

June 10, 2026Episode 1701 hr 0 min

170: Stephen Clegg | Topspeed

Stephen Clegg founded Topspeed Couriers in 1985 and has spent the last four years (and roughly £4.2 million) ripping diesel out of a logistics business that moves dangerous goods, radioactive material, and time-critical government samples around the UK. He sits down with Paul and John — joined briefly by Webfleet's Richard Parker before technology has other ideas — to talk about what actually happens when you stop talking about sustainability and start spending money on it.The conversation gets into the specifics most operators avoid: why carbon emissions go up before they come down, why a Carbon Reduction Plan is essentially accountancy with different units, and why the much-repeated line "you'll save money by going green" is closer to "we're going to the moon in ten years" than a business case. Also covered: Winning a King's Award for Sustainability — and the team back at base who actually did the work Why maintenance costs dropped to roughly a quarter once the diesel vans left the workshop The shift to overnight, event-critical work and what that does to fleet utilisation Driving 15mph slower, the bonus scheme that makes it stick, and a 75% reduction in claims after rolling out AI-based driver and forward-facing cameras Public charging discounts that kick in when you're plugging in three or four times a day The smash advert theory of refined fuels (you'll need to hear it) One missing Volvo EX90, one nine-year-old Land Rover Discovery pressed back into service, and a verdict on 15-year-old in-cab tech A useful listen for anyone running a van fleet who's been told the transition is too hard, too expensive, or too early — and for anyone who's been told it'll be easy.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-clegg-b0179242/Website: https://www.topspeedcouriers.co.uk

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