The EV Charging Podcast
The EV Charging podcast explores the journeys of founders and leaders of Electric Vehicle charging organisations in the Australian market and around the world. We uncover the funny stories of the early days of the Electric Vehicle market, the key dynamics of today's environment and stargaze towards some of the exciting innovations that are already on the way. This podcast is hosted by www.solarchoice.net.au
The EV Charging Podcast
#11 Ludicrous Feed (Tom Gan): EVs, V2G and the Future of Home Electrification
We sit down with Tom Gan — doctor by day, creator of Ludicrous Feed by night — one of Australia’s most trusted voices on electric vehicles and home energy.
Tom shares:
- What he saw inside China’s mind-blowing EV factories — and what it means for Australian drivers
- How his Tesla Model S still runs at 93% battery health after a decade
- Why most EVs in Australia are already vehicle-to-grid (V2G) compatible
- How his household earned $60 in one night with Amber Energy
- Why Tesla is facing serious competition from BYD, Zeekr, XPeng & MG
If you’re curious about EV charging, solar batteries, or how to future-proof your home energy, this conversation is packed with insights you won’t hear anywhere else.
Welcome to Season 2 of the EV Charging Podcast. We're back. I'm Geoff. And I'm Dan. And as always, this podcast is brought to you by Solar Choice, Australia's only online quote comparison tool for home electrification. So season two is going to be a little bit different. Dan, what's
SPEAKER_00:changed? Well, we've got a few little tweaks and a lot of things are staying the same. We've still got EV charging as a North Star of the podcast, but based on feedback and reviews and chatting to our friends, we've broadened our horizons a little bit. We're taking in a bit more content around the EV vehicle side of things. We'll be talking about home electrification, policy, basically anything that touches EV charging in some way. And I think that's going to bring in a really interesting range of guests as well.
SPEAKER_01:Sounds exciting. I think we'll have some more interesting conversations and possibly some more diverse conversations. So who have we got to kick us
SPEAKER_00:off? Well, we've got a special one today to kick off season two. Our guest today is Tom Gann, who some of you in our audience will better know as the man behind Ludicrous Feed. Ludicrous Feed, of course, one of Australia's most popular channels for EV content. You can find Ludicrous Feed on basically any of the social media networks. Tom is really known, I think, by his audiences for authentic, genuine, straightforward content. He does great reviews of new vehicles. He really digs into some of the technology behind things like vehicle to grid and batteries. And he shares his own experiences as a normal person who's passionate about home electrification. And I really think that's why his channel is building so much momentum over the last few years. And rather than talking all about it in the intro, let's just get straight into the conversation. Here's our chat with Tom.
SPEAKER_01:to kick things off, it'd be good to learn a little bit about you, Tom, in terms of your background before you got into creating EV content.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So, well, first of all, thanks for having me on the show. It's a real honor, actually. So, yeah, I started this channel in 2018 and I'm actually still a full-time doctor, believe it or not. So, I try to squeeze content whenever I can in my busy schedule and look after the family as well. So, I wish I had more hours in the day, but yeah. So, before the content started, I was a doctor and I still am. So, yeah, trying to keep everyone happy.
SPEAKER_01:So, Saving lives by day and creating EV content by night.
SPEAKER_00:There's a lot of content coming out on the channel for someone who's doing these sorts of videos as a side hustle.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. So there's no schedule as such. A lot of people ask me, what's your content schedule? I just look at them like, well, whatever happens, I just cover it, right? Because as you know, the EV space is very, very cutting edge at the moment. So much happening every single day. So there's no shortage of content or things to cover, which we're very fortunate with the channel.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You've got to be dynamic, right? You've got to ready to get in the studio hit record of a weeknight because there's some big news that's come out of China and if you wait three days there's a good chance you've missed some of your audience
SPEAKER_03:exactly yeah my wife Joy helps me a lot now so every time someone's sort of breaking news drops I'll just pull her okay just come over here 10 minutes quickly on the camera and she's happy to do that as well so because I do all the editing so she just comes and helps me out you're doing all the editing generally yes all the editing yeah so I try to make my videos very straightforward nothing too fancy as you can see it's just vlogging and chatting and a leave all the mistakes in so i think people like watching that just being honest and genuine on the channel
SPEAKER_00:yeah and it also means that you have a reasonable workload if you're doing high production values sharp cuts lots of different bits of shoots it'd be up until midnight trying to put everything together
SPEAKER_03:exactly i'll be there for hours no can't do that and so just keep it simple straightforward and um like i've actually got the idea of what i want in my head already when i film a review or when i go to an event so i just sort of film to my storyboard in my head and then that way when i go home And I just go, okay, paste, paste, paste, paste, cut out, just sort of transition a bit here and there. And then that's it. That's an hour long video done.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's helpful that you have that foresight. Take us back to 2018. Like what were you thinking when you started the channel?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I entered this renewable space in 2013 when I bought a hot water heat pump because my electric heat pump, when I first moved into my house, was sort of on the brink of dying. So I thought, let's get something more efficient. And the heat pump was great because it used 20% of like a normal electric hot water system would. So that started my whole journey. I thought, you know what, what else can I save around the house? So the next thing was solar panels, obviously. It's a no-brainer. Then the battery came along back in 2013 2018, the Tesla Powerwall 2. And then, yeah, actually just before that, I bought the Tesla Model S because my family at the time was feeling very ill with our diesel Hyundai Santa Fe. Okay. So that's what we had, believe it or not. And the fumes just made everyone sick and cough and my kids had asthma at the time. So I thought either I buy a more efficient petrol car or I change to hybrid or electric. I thought, you know what, let's go all out, just get an electric car. And at the time, only two brands stood out, which was the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S. So obviously, being a doctor, I've got a bit more income, which is very fortunate. So I thought, let's go out, all out and buy a Tesla Model S, which was not cheap at the time. And then on Australia Day, 26th of Jan in 2018, I got a GoPro for my Christmas present from someone the previous Christmas. And I was bored that day. I thought, you know what, I'm going to go out and just film myself talking about the car. So I stuck the GoPro on my dash pointing back at me. And I was in Chatswood, where the Bunnings site is now. And that's where the Tesla store is now, actually. But it wasn't back then. And so I had the car sitting there at the future Tesla site. And I said, this is how you start my Tesla Model S. And I put the shift down to drive and I just drove off. And that was a 20 second video. That's how it started. And
SPEAKER_00:when you did that, you didn't have a vision of what was to come. You were just having some fun making a video?
SPEAKER_03:Not at all. No way. I wouldn't have projected or perceived what I'd be doing right now. No way. So I just thought I'd just do one bit because I was kind of answering the same questions to all my friends and family who saw me in an EV and they always asked, oh, what are you doing with the EV? How far can it go? How long does it take to charge, et cetera, et cetera? What happens if the battery dies? So I thought, you know what, I'm going to put my thoughts to camera and that way I can just point them to the channel. So it was really intended for family and friends at the time, but it's grown from there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And it's grown a long way. I think you're probably one of the largest creators of EV content, non-independently in Australia. So it's come a long way. And in that time, have you put different types of goals in terms of what type of content you're trying to create? Or is there a particular purpose that you now have for the channel? Or is it still kind of creating things that you like creating?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I guess I've never had any agenda or such, I guess, apart from just showing people how easy it is to use an EV in Australia. That's just a regular guy, as a regular family guy. And that was always the agenda, the goal, just to be honest and open, and not be super positive, but always just show the reality of it. It's not perfect, it still isn't. And also to show that, yeah, you can run a house without with solar and batteries as well. Basically try to be as net neutral, net zero as much as possible. And at the time, Tesla was pretty much the only dog in town, sort of only EV worth buying at the time. I'm going to offend some Nissan owners here, but for me anyway, Tesla was the car to buy. And then from there, obviously MG came along, Polestar came along. And then as you know now, there's just so many brands now, which is great. So I can branch out and explore more options.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's good that there are models coming out. So you've got more options, for content, otherwise you'd be doing Tesla reviews till the cows come home.
SPEAKER_03:There's so much stuff to cover, honestly. I couldn't do it all, but I try to anyway, as much as I can.
SPEAKER_01:And what's the story behind the name, Ludicrous Feed?
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so the original Teslas had this mode called Ludicrous Speed. I think it's an homage to the Spaceballs movie. Oh, okay. I think Elon Musk was a big Spaceballs fan. So with Ludicrous Mode or Ludicrous Speed, you could press this button and then you could launch like 0-100 in whatever, 3-4 seconds. So I thought as a player that i would say okay i would go all right let's um let's call the channel ludicrous feed because obviously social media feed and evs were ludicrous at the time and obviously some people still think it is and me being you know having no journalistic skills no media skills no media training is ludicrous that i a doctor can go on social media and just do stuff like this do content so i thought that was ludicrous myself so that's how the name stuck
SPEAKER_00:oh i like it i think a lot of creators say this online but you're a real example of it working We often hear, all you have to do is start, start a business, start making content. And that's exactly what you did. You just started making some videos at first for fun. And here we are seven years later, you've got a great following and a channel that's growing every month and producing some content that people really genuinely connect with. Was there a point along that journey where you started to see it take off and you thought, wow, this is something I'm really going to put more effort into or take more seriously and invest in?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I guess if I'm honest, It comes down to income, really. I think if I was to support my family with the income the channel is producing at the moment, it's not feasible, not viable. So I have to keep doing my day job, which luckily pays fairly well. But, you know, if I really wanted to take plunge, I probably could give up my job and just go full on production values and hire people and stuff. But as you know, business is a huge investment. So I'm just not ready for that yet. My kids are still going through school, but I think I'm not closing that door. I think that time could come in the next five years where, you know, Someone could say, hey, why don't you do this professionally and, yeah, do it full-time and there's so much to cover, as you know. Yeah, I think that day could possibly come.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we're still at a point with less than 1% of the vehicles in Australia are electric. So your audience may increase 100-fold in the next 10, 20 years. So you would think in that time there would be space for, you know, plenty of different creators of EV content to be, you know, sort of making a reasonable living out of the space. I hope so,
SPEAKER_03:yeah. And I think YouTube is great because you can be transparent and the long format is great because people have the time to sit down and watch the content. And I think they're further along that decision-making process as well with cars and possibly solar and batteries too, whereas maybe Instagram or TikTok, it's kind of a short burst of awareness and the demographic watching may not have the disposable income yet to buy a vehicle. Whereas with YouTube, you've got older folk who sit down and watch it for 10, 15, 20 minutes because they're kind of wanting to buy an EV. They want to know everything about the car. And I can't produce enough detail i'm always asked asked to put more detail in my videos so yeah
SPEAKER_01:right okay people want to get right into the nitty-gritty yep
SPEAKER_03:and they want to spend the money but they want to know everything about the car before they buy the car so
SPEAKER_01:yeah well it's a big purchase even now you know even you know obviously the the cheaper and there's some 20 30 grand uh evs which is insane but for the most part you're still talking about 60 grand plus for the majority of the models that are out there
SPEAKER_03:exactly i think the biggest segment is now the suv segment and that's between 50 50 and 60 grand. So that's like the sweet spot for value and choice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that kind of mirrors Australia's ICE vehicle trends as well. Medium and large SUVs are the second biggest category after the top selling heavily polluting utes. And I'm sure what we're going to see soon, as we've already seen with the BYD Shark, even though it's a hybrid, as soon as there are full battery electric utes and work vehicles on the market, they're very quickly going to take off, take a lot of market share from those high selling vehicles like the Ford Ranger and the Toyota Hilux, and we'll be seeing a lot of electric utes on the road as soon as they are open to the market and at a reasonable cost.
SPEAKER_03:I think so. I think, yeah, I've already got a few hybrid utes at the moment, but yeah, look, it's getting there. I haven't been to China a few times. I've seen electric utes. It looks promising. I think Geely's got one called the Radara. They've obviously looked at the Australian market. It looks like any other ute in Australia, but it's not yet in the export markets yet. But yeah, I think that's a very exciting segment that could certainly flourish in the next few years.
SPEAKER_00:So were you at the Shanghai Auto Show recently? I
SPEAKER_03:was, yeah, yeah. I was lucky enough to be flown by Geely. My wife and I, we were there for five days in Shanghai and in Hangzhou, which is where Geely is based. So we saw the auto show for a day and then they brought us to the HQ in Hangzhou to see all their developments and the R&D. And the auto show, oh my goodness, it's just insane, honestly. If you've ever been to any of the auto shows here, just think the ICC in Sydney, that was literally one sixteenth of what the Shanghai show was. That was one... upstairs wing of the Shanghai Exhibition Center. We were just blown away when we were driven there.
SPEAKER_01:And there must be a whole load of brands that we've never even heard of or seen here. Is that right? Absolutely,
SPEAKER_03:yeah. I was at another event with Xpeng, and they told us that there's about 80 to 100 brands in China, and they reckon in 10 years' time, it'll consolidate to about 10 at the most.
SPEAKER_01:Right, okay. It'll
SPEAKER_03:just shrink and get gobbled up by the bigger players, like the mobile phone market last decade. So, yeah, it was incredible. yeah
SPEAKER_00:yeah right so you think there'll be some companies who just won't go the distance there'll be others who are bought out by the really big players and i'm guessing those big players are the ones who we're already seeing in the australian market the ones who have the the capital and the brand capital to make the early jump overseas
SPEAKER_03:yeah i think so i think there's a lot of you know concerns about the chinese brands making the like lasting the distance in australia but i think from what i've seen the last year the brands that are here in australia now are the big players they're the ones that will survive i think you know byd is huge they'll around for 20, 30 years already. Geely's massive. You've already got Deepal, which is part of a big brand called Chang'an. Zika, which is part of Geely. Zika Polestar. MG is huge, of course. I think the ones that are here will probably stay.
SPEAKER_00:That's really interesting to hear and also reassuring to hear, especially given you have this insight, the lay of the land over in China, certainly more than most people do here in Australia. I think there's a bit of a concern amongst the general population, but particularly amongst those who are quite easy focused and EV curious that there's a risk if you buy a vehicle from one of these manufacturers who are brand new in the Australian market, because there's a concern that they won't be around in five or 10 or 15 years to keep selling vehicles and also to provide support to people who were early adopters of their brand. But knowing that these are the big brands in China gives us some confidence that these are very likely going to be the ones who go the distance in Australia too.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, for sure. I mean, look, the tech will improve, as you know, with any tech You have to jump in somewhere, right? Because if you keep waiting, it'll just keep progressing. Obviously, with phones, we're starting to see it plateau a little bit. But I think with battery tech, it's still a fair way to go. And also with charging infrastructure in Australia. So there's this concern about range anxiety still with mainstream Australia that they won't be able to charge a car anywhere. And to some degree, that's true. The infrastructure on our highways is still quite nascent. I think there's room to grow. But you could easily drive from Sydney to Melbourne or Sydney to the Gold Coast or Brisbane or even to Adelaide now fairly easily. with a lot of the chargers. I guess it's where the regional centers are where it could be improved. And then obviously the speed of the charging as well. So now we're seeing cars that can charge between 15 and 20 minutes for the high speed chargers and high speed vehicles. But if we can get down to say 10, equivalent to petrol, then I think it could be quite compelling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think I saw BYD were celebrating a thousand kilowatt charger, which I think with my BYD here, I don't think I've charged it more than 80 kilowatts. So That's, yeah, more than tenfold increase in charge speeds that's possible, you know, with the newer technology that's presumably on the way. But like that must be like more like a three or four minute charge in theory. So you're kind of almost getting down to, you know, a similar time to pulling out a petrol nozzle, sticking it in your car, going in and making a payment, grabbing something from the shop and you're pretty much the same round trip.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, exactly. Now we talk about having a break inside, you know, at the service station or local cafe for 15, 20, half an hour. But if it's, yeah, 10 minutes, 5, 10 minutes, there's no way you can do that. You have to wait in the car and pull out and go somewhere else. Yeah, which is great. I mean, we don't have to wait half an hour. I'm awful at that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, I think that's going to be a big inflection point in the Australian market because there is still a lot of range anxiety. We're a big country and still have relatively low amount of public charging infrastructure, certainly relative to some other countries that have higher EV uptake. And for those with range anxiety, I think a lot of people will just be looking out for that point in time where they know that they can charge their vehicle in five minutes to have that same experience that they're used to having with an ICE vehicle at a petrol station. Even though for a lot of people, they'll be charging at home most of the time, it's a real mental shift thinking this is now as convenient as what I've been used to.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, home charging is the panacea, is the gold standard really of EV ownership. If you've got off-street parking and charging then yeah you're set you know why would you buy a petrol car in the city you just charge it home and use it like 95% of the time look I get the people who need that range if they live in the country or live on property where you need a ute that can tow and charge and all that but that's very small segment of the market as you know so but they seem to be quite vocal and putting a lot of mainstream Australia off which is disappointing I think because the average Australian drives 50k's they live in the city they do one road trip a year why do you need a range of 1000k's really 400-500k's is enough and if you've got a decent and charging network, which admittedly is coming, then you're pretty much set for most people.
SPEAKER_01:So you started your channel on the back of buying a Tesla. And for a lot of the reasons we just mentioned, Tesla's facing some serious challenges going forward. There's all these new competitors coming out of China. There's also some problems at the top of the ship in terms of who's captaining the boat. What's your thoughts on where's Tesla headed? Are they still going to be the big market shareholder in the next two three years
SPEAKER_03:yeah that's a great question I mean yeah look that's why I sort of was very pro-Tesla at the beginning of the channel because they were doing great things you know in the renewable space you know batteries encouraging EV uptake obviously but yeah something's obviously happened in the last few years without going too political it's kind of Elon's turn from more left wing to now right wing and I guess it turned a lot of people off and let's be honest whether you're a pro Tesla fan or anti-Tesla fan he's distracted the mission has been distracted I think so that's one issue and the other issue is China China's the big disruptor at the moment they're just bringing cars every single day almost and there's so many good brands out there as we've discussed earlier and they're cheap not cheap in a bad way but affordable and really good value I was at a launch yesterday a brand called I am presented by MG which is MG's sort of luxury brand it's like the Lexus of MG and for you know for 60 grand these prices are public 60 grand for a starting price that car is phenomenal it's like a It's so plush on the inside. So, you know, that's the kind of competition Tesla is facing at the moment. And look, obviously, they've been around in the country longer. So the servicing is there. The name is there now. But yeah, I think in the next five years, they could have a lot of competition on their hands for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, my feeling was that certainly in the early days, Tesla had created this amazing brand loyalty through just the uniqueness of it. You know, they were sort of going their own path. They were sort of going in a completely different direction to all the other car manufacturers. You know, sitting in a Tesla even now is a much different experience to sitting in almost any other car that you could think of. But it feels like that was all tied to Elon in some way. And yeah, you know, now he's a mega rich billionaire and he's got his political things going on with Donald Trump. It's just like, it's kind of noise that you don't really need as a car manufacturer, right?
SPEAKER_03:I think so. I think with that, the distraction, you know, I think Tesla was, would have been really good with Elon at the helm. Obviously, he's still doing other things like SpaceX and politics now. But yeah, I think there's a lot of distraction going on at the moment, distracting from the good work that Tesla is still doing. I think the big thing about Tesla was the supercharging network. So prior to say two years ago, the network was locked to Tesla. So you had to buy a Tesla to use their network. But since I guess the government funding came in two years ago, a lot of the new supercharging locations are now open access to all cars. So suddenly, if you don't want to buy a Tesla, you don't have to. You can buy another EV that can charge at a Tesla network. And that has opened up a lot of options for road tripping now, which is great. The other thing about Tesla is the autonomy or the self-driving. So I think they're banking a lot of their future in that rather than the cars themselves. Like, sure, you've got the new Model Y, which looks okay. It's an improvement, but it's the autonomy that you buy into as a fan, as a shareholder, as a loyalist. And I think that's what a lot of Tesla owners are looking forward to.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And do you have any thoughts or knowledge around when this kind of self-driving autonomy is likely to come to Australia? I know you can already get a driverless taxi in the States in certain areas. So, I mean, is that something we can expect soon, do you think?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, there's a lot of hints towards that happening pretty soon. There's been two videos posted by Tesla online of full self-driving demonstration in Australia, one in Melbourne and one in Sydney. The Melbourne one was a month ago. It demonstrated hook turn in the CBD and avoiding bicycles and people. And then the Sydney one dropped last week and it was going through the CBD and then up through the Harbour Bridge in Sydney. So it's possible. Admittedly, it was fast forwarded. It wasn't like sort of authentic. You couldn't see what the reactions of the people or the person in the car was. And that was one take. So I wonder how many takes they took before that. But clearly it can be done. Whether it does happen, I don't know. I know the country manager of Tesla, Tom Drew, has said there's no regulatory block at the moment in Australia.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Is that right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So it's actually down to Tesla now to launch it and release it to the owners.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. So if the technology in theory was there and good enough that Tesla could launch a driverless model.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Wow. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And just without getting too technical, there's hardware three, hardware four systems in the cars now. So they want to release it to the, obviously the high spec cars first, possibly to more responsible owners. Obviously you don't want the product to be trashed by someone who just wants to make it look bad. So maybe just select a few owners, select a few journalists first, and then maybe sort of release it to everyone after that.
SPEAKER_01:Hopefully you were right at the top of that list. I'd love
SPEAKER_00:to try that
SPEAKER_03:actually.
SPEAKER_00:Although you may not be in the, in the good books because you're no longer driving. I
SPEAKER_03:still got, my Model S, my 10-year-old Model S, still going strong, but I would definitely think about maybe loaning or buying another new Tesla to try the FSD product. I think it'd be pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00:And how is the Model S going? After 10 years of ownership, we certainly see this coming up in comment sections of content all the time. People concerned that in 10 years' time, your battery will be dead, your resale value will be zero. What's your experience been?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's so funny. When I bought the car secondhand, it was six months old when I got it. Yeah, as you said, the same car were like, oh, it's going to die after two years. Your phone dies after two years. Your laptops die after two years. Your car will die after two years. So I thought, being stubborn, I thought, I'm going to keep this car as long as I can just to show that it doesn't die. And if you charge the NMC battery, which is what it is, to 80% every day, which I did, the degradation is pretty minimal. It's 7% I checked last year after the warranty ran out. So still going good for 93% of the original capacity. Yeah. So this year, at the 10-year birthday, I will get an independent assessor to check the battery as well, just to prove that it's still going good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So that's 10 years, is it? 10
SPEAKER_03:years in November this year.
SPEAKER_01:And the batteries 10 years ago would have been miles off the quality of batteries that are going into EVs today.
SPEAKER_03:I think so. Yeah, it's still NMC, but yeah, the efficiency wasn't as good, but still gets theoretically about 300 Ks at full charge.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. For a 70 kilowatt hour battery. So it's not bad.
SPEAKER_00:Hopefully there's a lot more data that comes out over the next few years as well that's similar to yours. Because at the moment we've got a bit of a gap that just aren't that many vehicles on the road that have been driving and charging over and over for 10 years to combat some of the concerns and the misinformation about the battery life and what battery efficiency will be after a certain period of time. Obviously, we have data from the lab, but data from the labs is not the same as real-world data, and it certainly won't please the objectors.
SPEAKER_03:Correct. As you know, you can cycle the battery whatever X number of times and show that theoretically it can last this long, but having that human element to it and showing that someone's living with us for 10 years, it's still good. I think it will speak volumes.
SPEAKER_00:So if the Model S is no longer your primary car, what's your daily driver now?
SPEAKER_03:Good question. I actually just sold both our cars the last month. I sold our Tesla Model Y after two years, and I sold my BYD SEAL after 18 months. I did this not because they were bad cars, but because we're getting so many cars to review that my SEAL was sitting in my garage doing nothing, just depreciating on its own. So after 18 months, I had 10,000 Ks on the clock, so barely driven. I thought, I'm just going to sell it because it's just a waste otherwise. So yeah, we've been carless actually, apart from the Model S, for the last month, just reviewing cars. My wife, Joy, she was lucky enough to get an Xpeng G6 on a long-term media loan, so she's driving that and giving her thoughts on long-term ownership of that vehicle. Yeah, and then I'm just reviewing cars week to week, which has been good.
SPEAKER_01:What's the lowdown on the Xpeng? Yeah, how do you find it? I
SPEAKER_03:think X-Plane is probably the closest brand to Tesla in terms of its philosophy and its direction. It's built very much for efficiency. In fact, it's better than the Tesla Model Y efficiency. And it's also very tech-driven. So the tech and the options and the UI in the screen is probably as good, if not better, than Tesla in some regards. And it drives pretty well too. Very comfortable. The finishing's inside probably nicer than Tesla as well. Wow, okay. Yeah. And price-wise, I think it's a little bit cheaper than the Model Y too. So I think XPeng is probably one brand to look out for. And they've also got autonomy direction as well. They've shown us the sort of self-driving tech that they've got set up in China and Hong Kong, which is pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's a pretty strong early review, but we don't really know how well the XPeng is selling at the moment, do we?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So I'm just going to call it XPeng. They should be reporting their numbers. They're not officially reporting their data. Right. We just don't know, which is a shame. So most cars report to either the FCAI or the Electric Vehicle Council. XPeng just haven't been doing that. best guess I think we're talking maybe a thousand cars in the country at the moment in the last since January so in the last sort of seven months which is not bad for a new brand they've had issues with shipping cars into the country and also in China I call it China time because it just happened so quickly China time dictates that there's a new Xpeng G6 already that's been brought out in the domestic market so obviously people are like well why should I buy this one when the new one's already in the country in China so hopefully that'll arrive next year early next year I think the problem with a lot of the Chinese brands is that not just Xpeng, but they're bringing new cars in their country so quickly that we kind of feel like, well, we're getting leftovers. We want the latest and greatest from China at the same time as them. Then we'll get excited.
SPEAKER_01:That's how you see it, that we're getting stuff that's sort of six months or maybe 12 months behind what's domestically being driven around in China?
SPEAKER_03:Correct, yeah. And some of the features aren't present either. So a lot of the AI features, a lot of the things like zero gravity chairs where the chairs lean back, those kind of cool kind of features we're not seeing in export markets i think just because of regulatory factors
SPEAKER_01:what other features are there
SPEAKER_03:oh so there's one car from zika uh it's called the zika mix it's like a small uh what can i call it it's like a lifestyle vehicle it's like the size of a bit smaller than the model y and it's a five-seater but the front seats can rotate uh so you're facing each other so it's designed for like their camping in china where you park the car and then have lunch outdoors but you're facing each other in this dining table in the middle. There's a fridge in there.
SPEAKER_00:And you can do that while it's driving or is that only in parks? It makes me think of some of those old RVs where the driver's seat and the passenger seat could swivel around and face the dining table in the next section of the vehicle.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely, yeah. That's what I was thinking too when I saw it first.
SPEAKER_00:For those thinking, oh, that sounds pretty cool. I'm going to wait until that comes out before I purchase my first EV. That's not a good reason to wait. There are much more compelling reasons to get one right now.
SPEAKER_03:Correct. And there's so many... cool cars in China too. Xiaomi's got some very fast cars that they're producing at very good prices as well. The Xiaomi SU7, pretty zippy, pretty good looking. Looks like a Porsche basically, but a fraction of the price.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, I remember I saw that video of the Xiaomi, I don't remember the name of the model, going around the Nürburgring in record time for its class and you could tell from the video it looked fast. Do we know if they have any plans to come to Australia? I
SPEAKER_03:think they're having trouble filling their own domestic demand in China. Right. So there's no reason to export yet. It's funny, they're exporting their cars for most brands. They've told me that it's worth their time. They earn more money exporting to Australia, Europe, US maybe one day, but then selling into their own people in China. So that's why they're doing it.
SPEAKER_00:Is that because we're used to and happy to pay a premium for premium cars?
SPEAKER_03:I think so. Yeah. I think also there's so many brands in China now that have to be competitive with their pricing. Whereas I guess, yeah, there's a bit more leeway here Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Do you have any sort of guide on, you know, you mentioned the XPeng is maybe around 60 grand. Like what is the Australian equivalent that that would be sold at in the Chinese market?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I would say we usually pay about 25 to 30% markup, I
SPEAKER_01:think. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:I should look at those figures, but yeah, it's something crazy like
SPEAKER_01:that. 25 to 30. And then, yeah, I mean, shipping these days, China's pretty good at doing that at scale. So yeah, you'd think there'd be plenty of money to be made. I think
SPEAKER_03:so. Yeah. And they can pump them out pretty quick. to having visited some of their factories. It's just insane how automated they are. There's so many robots doing things. It looks like Iron Man's workshop, basically. And the humans are just monitoring the screens and doing little fine tunings for the interior. But it's just phenomenal.
SPEAKER_00:It reminds me of a podcast I was listening to recently, Planet Money from NPR in the US, where they were talking about how manufacturing jobs still have this stigma attached to them about manual labor and repetitive tasks. But actually, these days, that's not what they industry looks like. People are monitoring robots and programming incredibly complex machines.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. Robotics is huge over there in their factories. The techs there, they're definitely very skilled. It's not a manual labor workforce. Very highly trained.
SPEAKER_01:You've done some factory tours, I imagine.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we went with BYD, Zika or Geely, and also Chang'an brought us around their workshops too. They're all very similar in their impressiveness and scale. Most impressive parts are actually the battery sections when they produce the batteries. Everything has to be sort of very sanitized and hermetically sealed because you don't want any contaminants in the battery.
SPEAKER_01:Of course, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Obviously, you don't want a fire to break out. So they're very careful with contaminants in the production.
SPEAKER_01:And from what I've seen, you know, mostly on videos, you're talking about football field size warehouses. And like, from what I see, there's very few actual human beings on the floor. It's almost entirely automated.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You've got massive robotic arms from, I think the brand's Kuba? It's a German brand. There's a lot of those robots and a lot of Japanese robots too, doing the hard work. Yeah. Lifting up massive chassis and shells and sticking tires on cars and wheels. And it's just, wow. It's just so amazing. Yeah, really. And the scale that's, they're basically university campuses, if not bigger.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_03:People live there or like little housings for the workers there too. And we couldn't see it all in one hit. We would driven around to sort of specialized parts, but they were just the tip of the iceberg.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay. Yeah, fantastic. So Dan and I were having a look at your channel and we came across a recent video you did on V2G and like a demo site that you'd had a play with. Can you give us a bit of backstory on that charger?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I still am very desperate to see examples of V2G. I'm happy to talk about my installation soon, but I'll talk about this one first. So Infipower The guys invited me to visit one of their one and only site in Melbourne when I was down there for the recent EV show. So I went there one morning to check out, I guess, the dummy or the simulated V2G or V2H setup. It was in a shed in one of the back streets in Melbourne. So they set up a charger and then an inverter and then power going to their home. It's like just a PowerPoint. That was the home. And then back to the building, which is the grid. Okay. And they showed me that the BYD seal that they had, which is just a stock car, not modified, just a regular BYD seal, and just plug the DC cable into the car, and it just drew power from the car straight away, which was really impressive. So I always thought that you had to modify the car or you had to tweak the car somehow. But from what I understand, having seen that demo and having spoken to the guys from AMBA, that basically most of the EVs in the country now are actually V2G compatible, which I'm really impressed with.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I know Red Earth, who have a V2G charger, I think may be available, or if not, very soon, did testing across, I think, 40 different vehicles. And I think, yeah, almost all of them were able to perform V2G, just the stock standard ones. The few that weren't was BMW and Tesla.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the Germans. And the takeaway was that even though some of the German vehicles are a little difficult to get started, the vehicles are actually still compatible with V2G. It's just a case of working through the technical issues with that initial hand. handshake and then they're good to go
SPEAKER_03:okay well that's very promising i guess my understanding is the warranty isn't it that the yeah that's right about
SPEAKER_01:yeah i think the only as far as i know the only car with a warranty that's 52g safe or good is the ford lightning so very obviously very expensive in terms of like the entry level but as far as i know all the other warranties don't have those clauses in them
SPEAKER_03:interesting i'm very curious about um the tesla vehicles i actually, because obviously, you know, just logically, if you allow Tesla to do V2G, then it sort of cuts into their battery profits, right? I mean, I don't know. Maybe you guys can fill me in on that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely. And we've seen that with the home battery market as well. It kind of mirrors that drop off in product sales and market share now that all the solar companies and lots of new companies are bringing solar batteries to market for homes. The Tesla Powerwall that used to be kind of a family name, it was almost a synonym for a battery their sales have plummeted their market share has gone down and it's pretty hard to imagine them focusing on that product going forward
SPEAKER_03:yeah i mean that's why i you know jeff recommended i speak one of the installers in my area so i've actually signed up to a paid a deposit for a sig energy battery which i'm very excited about it's being installed next month so excited yeah
SPEAKER_01:lucky you got your hands on one they're hard to come by at the moment the sig energies are sold out for months
SPEAKER_03:and it's got a dc uh module to which I'm very, very excited to install hopefully one day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So are you getting the DC fast charger from the beginning or are you waiting until that's going to be compatible?
SPEAKER_03:I might wait until the price comes down, actually. Yeah. Yeah, because there's no rebate on that module, obviously. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it's about six grand from memory.
SPEAKER_03:I haven't asked for a price. So there you go, six grand.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's going to take a lot of charging back to the grid to make that
SPEAKER_00:money back. So you said you've got your own setup at home as well. We were just talking about had the InfiPower video. What's the setup you got at home?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, the SIG energy battery, which is coming. I've asked for a 40 kilowatt hour SIG with, I think it's five modules in the stack. And then the sixth will be the DC inverter, a bi-directional inverter, hopefully, not too far away. Yeah, so SIG, if you're watching, I'm happy to.
SPEAKER_01:No problem. So give us an idea of some of the videos that you've got either working on or that you've got in mind at the moment.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so just sort of weekly reviews and then yeah once the battery is installed i'd love to just do ongoing content because we're with amber at the moment um amber just makes sense for us with batteries and we just have fun with the fluctuating wholesale price it's quite fun to watch so yeah just showing viewers how it is in real life with the battery setup and with amber whether it does actually save money and you know just how it changes behavior as well so
SPEAKER_00:well i mean saving money is one side but the other side of the coin is making money and we have companies like Amber and those who have an interest in pushing us to sell energy from batteries back into the grid. They really like to use the edge cases as their case studies. Look at this person who made this huge amount of money in a few hours one night. So it'd be good to get some real world data from someone who's using their battery more functionally rather than just to try to play energy arbitrage.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, until I joined Amber, I wasn't actually myself across how it worked. It wasn't until I signed up and realized, oh, okay, now I understand and now I'm having trouble explaining to people about Ambo persuading them because yeah it's not until you sign up it's hard to fathom how it actually works so I've told people I've gone from being a self-consumer to I guess an energy trader where I'm buying electricity when it's cheap and selling when it's high and I think people generally get that concept so I'm not too concerned what the pricing is it's all about relativity isn't it I suppose if you've got a spike at$20 per kilowatt hour then it's a good time to chuck it all back into the grid
SPEAKER_01:and is that all automated in your scenario or are you turning things on and turning things off when the wholesale market changes?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so on the Amber app, I've got it on energy optimizer, also earnings optimizer. So I just try and make as much as I can or save as much as I can. Got a low-ish reserve, 15, 20%, I think usually I set it on. Obviously winter, it's a different story, but when the weather was better, if you're getting a lower price during the day, if I'm lucky enough to be home, then I just charge the car in the day as much as I can. Joy, my wife, works from home, so she can charge their expo during the day. Winter is about 10 cents, maybe 8, 9, 10 cents at best. In summer or autumn, we were seeing it sometimes 5 cents, 5, 6 cents per kilowatt hour during the day.
SPEAKER_01:And that's to buy energy? Buy energy, yeah. What about selling energy? What's some of the rates that you see to sell energy back into the grid?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so the spikes generally happen in the evenings. I think when the renewables run out in the grid and then the coal fires starting to fire up. So we've seen spikes of$18 to$20 per kilowatt hour, lasting for about half an hour. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And so you've got the Tesla Powerwall, which presumably is on full discharge mode at that point. And so, I mean, if, let's say, best case scenario,$18,$20, what does that look like for a half an hour period?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think the best we've done is, how much did we earn one day? I think I saw about$60, maybe more. I remember we were out for dinner one night with the family and then the spike notified cash account on the phone and the watch and was like, oh, quick, have a look. And you could see it discharging at five kilowatts from the Tesla Powerwall 2 at full bore. And then the next day, because the data comes back within 24 hours, you could see how much you've earned that day, which is pretty phenomenal. There was one scenario about two weeks ago when the spike lasted too long.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03:So if it's an hour, it's great because it's like done and dusted and then you can go back to living your life. But that day, the spike lasted for like two, three hours. It was still going at 10 o'clock at night. And obviously the Powerwall 2 capacity
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's empty. So then you're buying energy at that high price. Yeah. We're like
SPEAKER_03:all the kids, go turn the lights off. Turn the apron off. Stop doing anything.
SPEAKER_00:So the double-edged sword there is automation, but you have to have it set up in a way that makes sense and works for you.
SPEAKER_03:Correct. And that's why we want the big battery now with SIG and then V2G because then you can just keep chucking it back into the grid. No problem.
SPEAKER_01:I've seen automations where people on Amber Energy have set up lights in the house to sort of signify the events or or when the price goes over a certain point. So if it goes red, you go run around the house and unplug everything. That's
SPEAKER_03:hilarious. That's a big flashing red. Yeah, yeah. That's so good. Might do that.
SPEAKER_01:But it's crazy to see, you know, energy, electricity for so long has been something that people are generally being quite apathetic about. Like people don't really care too much about their electricity provider or their bills. And I don't think necessarily Amber is for everyone, but the fact that they've created sites high engagement with the types of customers that really enjoy their product is just quite interesting to see and good to hear it first half from you as well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you're right though, Jeff. It's not for everyone. I think if you don't have a battery, I probably wouldn't go Amber. I know people can do it, but I think you probably need a battery to safeguard those hours in the evening when it's spiking.
SPEAKER_01:And do you think the five kilowatt inverter that's built into your Tesla Powerwall 2 is a constraint? Because I think a lot of people looking at batteries to today are looking at potentially really big battery sizes, 30, 40 kilowatts, but it's limited by the size of the inverter in terms of how quickly it can charge and discharge. So if you've got a 40 kilowatt battery and it's got a five kilowatt inverter, it's going to take eight hours to discharge. So you're probably not going to take advantage of that amber 30 minute window if you're only sort of limited by the inverter.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, that's not spoken a lot about. The storage is spoken a lot about, but not the actual pipe going out of the box as such, which is the inverter. So like with my setup that I'm about to install, I actually increased the size of the inverter to 25 because I want to take advantage of the DC charger one day. If I had a smaller inverter at 15, then it's throttle to 15, which is a waste really. So yeah, you're right. A five kilowatts for us. Yeah, it has been a bit of a constraint because we've tried to electrify our whole home. So the AC is now obviously electric. There's no more gas heating. Even our stove is now inducted. So when we put a few burners on, I still call it burner, but when you put a few plates on, boil the kettle, put the air fryer on, it's already seven kilowatts. So that's over the limit of the five kilowatt inverter. So I know the new Powerwall 3 is, I think, 10 kilowatts. So that's something. But I'm a bit annoyed that you can't daisy chain a 3 with a 2, which is a bit frustrating. That's very Tesla, isn't it? It is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think a lot of people were pretty frustrated with the Powerwall 3, didn't quite deliver to expect expectations but yeah well a testament to that is that you've now gone sig so
SPEAKER_03:yeah i like the fact that you can it's modular so you can i'll just stack more in the future if i need to which is great
SPEAKER_01:yeah yeah that's right we'll throw you some rapid fire questions so you get some quick takes from you
SPEAKER_03:okay
SPEAKER_00:okay what is your favorite ev myth to bust
SPEAKER_03:that the battery will die after X number of years. I just bring out my Tesla Model S.
SPEAKER_00:You've got the first-hand proof. If you were going to buy a new EV next week, what would it be? What's at the top of your list?
SPEAKER_03:Something that's not in Australia, potentially. Okay. So my favorite is the Zika 7 GT, which is this beautiful, sleek-looking estate or wagon from Zika. It's a beautiful car, and that's the one I want in Australia.
SPEAKER_00:Is that the one that looks like a first-class plane seat in the back?
SPEAKER_03:Probably. It's probably an option for that. But I love wagons. I'm not a huge SUV fan. I just like the aerodynamic look of a wagon. So the 7 GT is a wagon.
SPEAKER_00:Is that on the way?
SPEAKER_03:I keep asking Zika to bring it, so we'll see. Yeah, I'd love to see it here.
SPEAKER_00:You need to go over to China, do a review of the vehicle and share it with the Australian audience so that you won't be the only one banging on their door to bring it here.
SPEAKER_03:Correct. Yep,
SPEAKER_00:yep. What sort of EV technology that you've seen or know about are you most excited to see arrive in Australia? Oh,
SPEAKER_03:I think just the rapid charging. Like Tesla's the best network at the moment. There's a lot of them and there's a lot at each location. So there's no waiting, very minimal waiting time, which is great. But you're generally still limited to half whereas if you we can get some faster charges here that are reliable like I said earlier 1000 kilowatts or 1 megawatt then you can bring that charge down to 10 minutes and all you need is 4 at each location because if everyone's spending 10 minutes at each pump or each charger then you don't need that many stalls and I'd love to see a kind of what do you call it, like service centers or like four courts for EV charging. So at the moment, some of the chargers are in some strange locations. You're sort of out the back of a car park or an afterthought of the service station, but I want to see some EV dedicated chargers locations where there's a really cool cafe or place you can sit down for a bit, toilets, et cetera, shops, just a place for the kids to run around. That would be really cool.
SPEAKER_01:Cool. We're getting a little bit close to the end. One parting question, we've talked a little bit about some of the technology that's that's probably a couple of years away. If we look a bit more distantly into the future, 10, 15, 20 years, what do you think the future could look like in Australia?
SPEAKER_03:I think the future could look like China, actually. The times I visited there, it feels like I'm already visiting the future. If you walk around the streets of Shanghai or Hangzhou, so 50% of the new car sales are EVs over there. And it reflects when you walk around how quiet the streets are. There's almost no air pollution in their major cities compared to when I last visited 20 years ago. It was quite smoggy, but I just couldn't believe how clear the air was over the cities I visited. And the EVs helped that cause for sure. It's quiet. All you hear is the tire noise. But yeah, I think that's the kind of future we can hopefully expect. It's better for everyone's health, obviously being medical myself. I want people to breathe easier on our streets. I don't like the noise pollution when I walk around our streets. So less noise pollution, less smog, less emissions. I think that'd be, well, less tailpipe emissions. I think that'd be a good thing for us.
SPEAKER_01:It'd be nice to not have to go to the country to be able to see this in Sydney and have a nice view right from the city. That's something I look forward to.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly. Hopefully in the next 15, 20.
SPEAKER_01:Well, great, Tom. Look, thanks so much for spending some time with us. All power to you and the channel. There's great content. We'd encourage everyone from our audience to check out Ludica's Fees and all the great content that you're making. Yeah, and look forward to hopefully having you again on the show in the future as things have progressed.
SPEAKER_00:And hopefully next time we have you on the show, you'll be a retired medical full-time content creator
SPEAKER_03:but uh yeah thank you dan thank you jeff for uh for the invite really appreciate it and i really enjoyed the chat as well thank you
SPEAKER_00:all right That's it for today. Thanks for listening. And make sure you share an episode with someone that you think might enjoy it. Leave us a review, leave us a comment. It really does make a difference for us. And if you need a quote for anything related to home electrification, solar, batteries, heat pumps, aircon, and of course, EV charging, head to solarchoice.net.au to get instant quotes from pre-vetted installers. See you next month.
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