The Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars podcast : Episode # 123 – Polestar Boss on sales and the future

Podcast: Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars

Episode: 123 – Polestar Boss on sales and the future

Date: 7 June 2026

Hosts: Trevor Long & Stephen Fenech

Guest: Scott Maynard, Managing Director, Polestar Australia

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Scott Maynard (Polestar Australia) — Polestar model range, sales growth and future plans

[00:00:01] Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech. Thanks to NRMA Insurance and Uniden. Great to have your company. Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars and NRMA Insurance helping Australians protect what matters most for 100 years and many more to come. And all we ask is that you give them a chance. If when your renewal comes up for your insurance, get a quote, and hopefully there’s a better deal out there for you. Frankly, you should be doing that regardless.

[00:00:27] Stephen Fenech: Should be doing that.

[00:00:27] Trevor Long: But you need to make sure NRMA Insurance is one of the people you call to get that quote. And you Uniden Smart Dash Cams. If you’ve got a car, you should have a dash cam. You should have a record of what happens around you because it’s peace of mind, not just for the silly things that you want to tell your wife happened, but if something unfortunate happens and you’ve got a record of it then. So the ultimate peace of mind, Steven, with a Uniden Smart Dash Cam. Good to see you, mate.

[00:00:48] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, great to be here. Big busy show today.

[00:00:52] Trevor Long: Of course, we don’t muck around.

[00:00:53] Stephen Fenech: We talk to a lot of people on this show, very important people as well.

[00:00:56] Trevor Long: Very important people, and you are important to us. So if you have a question about electric cars and you’re sitting on your big screen TV watching us on YouTube, or you’re going for a walk listening on Spotify, doesn’t matter. Send us a text message, 0477 657 657. Send us a text about your electric car questions, your journey, or your experience. We’d love to talk to you, as we do with hundreds of people on the show. But first, Steven, this week the managing director of Polestar Australia is joining us on the line, Scott Maynard. Welcome to the show, my friend.

[00:01:25] Scott Maynard: Good morning, guys. Thank you for having me on, mate.

[00:01:28] Trevor Long: Absolute pleasure. Um, Polestar is a brand we’ve had a little bit to do with. We’ve, we’ve driven, I think, at least 2 of your models, maybe 3. 3. And just, we get a lot of very positive feedback about the Polestar brand. People love that they’ve bought a Polestar. Is it an overwhelmingly positive experience compared to the many years of automotive experience you have in your, in your experience?

[00:01:52] Scott Maynard: Yeah, I have been around for a little while and been fortunate to work for a couple of brands. This is a positive experience. It’s really lovely to work inside a brand where everyone in the brand working for the brand is very passionate about not just the cars, but the cause that it represents as well. The position that Polestar takes on sustainability, its positioning as a performance luxury brand. It’s, it’s very serious business inside Polestar, and I really enjoy it.

[00:02:17] Stephen Fenech: I’ve got to tell you a little story, Scott. When I first drove my first Polestar, I was lucky enough. I don’t know why, but I had the car a couple of months before it actually came out officially.

[00:02:28] Trevor Long: They don’t know why. I had— it was an accident.

[00:02:30] Stephen Fenech: I had people stopping me in the middle of the road, literally like stop the car. I want it. What is this car? Yeah, that’s it. That was the interest in it. And it just looked so different and stood out. So that’s obviously an advantage for the brand if you can have that kind of appeal.

[00:02:49] Scott Maynard: Our styling is quite minimalistic and it doesn’t scream Polestar. I still have that today. I drive a Polestar 3 and on occasions I’ll walk back to my car to find 2 or 3 curious onlookers staring at it and they say the same thing. What is that exactly? Well, it’s a Polestar. They’re understated and I think that goes over really, really nicely.

[00:03:07] Trevor Long: For people listening who are at the start of their electric car journey, and we should acknowledge there’s plenty of people listening who either own a Polestar, have driven a Polestar, maybe test drove a Polestar and bought something else, doesn’t matter. You may be familiar with it, but for people that are— because we do have a lot of people joining us that are new to the concept of electric car because for all the reasons that we’ll talk about soon, it’s become a really hot topic. Talk me through the model range because it’s actually, with greatest respect, it’s a touch confusing because your 2 into your 3 becomes an SUV, then you go into kind of sports car stuff. Like it’s The numbering. I don’t know that the numbering works for me, but talk us through the range and how you position the range.

[00:03:44] Scott Maynard: Let me make it really easy for you. It’s very, very simple. The cars are numbered quite simply in the order that they came out and were released. So.

[00:03:53] Trevor Long: Well, that makes sense. That’s logical.

[00:03:55] Scott Maynard: Yeah, but there’s a— stick with me. There’s a twist at the end.

[00:03:58] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:03:59] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:04:00] Scott Maynard: So we— yep. So we started the whole thing with Polestar 2, which has been a really fantastic car, and it’s had some really great updates. We switched that car from front-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive partway through its lifecycle and did it successfully as well. So Polestar 2 is a smaller car. It’s, it’s like a coupe, really practical, and has served us well. We, we backed that up with the Polestar 3. Polestar 3 tops the range as a luxury SUV. It’s the largest car, and that runs single motor or dual motor models, really spacious, really roomy, and its styling is fantastic. Shortly after 3, we launched Polestar 4. Polestar 4 is also similar in size to Polestar 3, but it’s a lower-slung coupe-style car. That’s the car that is famous for not having a rear window. Yep. Yeah, no rear window.

[00:04:58] Stephen Fenech: We drove that. Scott, sorry to interrupt, Scott. We drove that and loved it. The only thing we picked up on, you can’t give a thank you wave in the car, mate.

[00:05:11] Scott Maynard: No.

[00:05:11] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:05:12] Scott Maynard: No, I don’t know.

[00:05:13] Trevor Long: You gotta wind down your window and give a wave.

[00:05:16] Scott Maynard: You wind down the window and give a wave, or you just do the hazard lights, a quick blink, just to let people know that you’re grateful. It does. Yeah, it does block that right out. But the camera system and the screamer inside the high definition, yeah, it works really, really well. So we’ve got that. That’s selling well. That’s the The hottest selling product we have right now. Yeah, we’re selling a lot of the Polestar 4 product.

[00:05:44] Trevor Long: Which, for perspective, is an $80,000-$90,000 car, right?

[00:05:48] Scott Maynard: It is, yeah. So most of the range sneaks under the luxury car tax threshold. There is a super high performance dual motor car that pops above that, and we sell a few of those as well. But it’s a great, great value package. Just recently we put on sale the sports car. It’s a grand tourer, it’s a 4-door coupe, it’s Polestar 5. And we’ve been doing some launch events with Polestar 5 around the country. We flew a left-hand drive pre-production car to Australia. We had that on our stand at the Melbourne International Motor Show just a little while ago. And we’ve recently been running that car around Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, and now back Kiri.

[00:06:34] Stephen Fenech: What’s the reception been like?

[00:06:37] Scott Maynard: It’s been great. It’s been a really, really pleasing reaction to Polestar 5. It’s not a cheap car. It’s a $200,000 sports car, but it really is taking it up to supercar rivals in terms of its performance, its fit and finish, its polish, its extraordinary styling. And so we’ve been really excited to see the public reaction to Polestar 5. We will get our first cars here a little bit later in the year, in the second half. And we’re starting to take some orders on it now, which is really pleasing. And so that sits at the top of our range. We’re really excited about that.

[00:07:12] Stephen Fenech: So Scott, I take it that the other models will still be available. So the 3, the 4, and the 5. So there’s a choice for customers, you’re not— So even though the numbers are going up, they’re not being— they’re still available. It’s not like an iPhone where the 16 is long gone and outdoes the other one.

[00:07:30] Scott Maynard: No, no. All the models are still on sale. Okay. There’ll be some enhancements and changes and all the sorts of things that car companies do will continue to happen in the future. And then off into the future, we’ll see some changes to Polestar 2 next year. And then shortly after that, we’ll see a new SUV and we’ll be calling that Polestar 7. We skipped to 7 because there is a 2-door coupe badge Polestar 6, which is still on the drawing board. We’re not going to release that just yet. We’re holding that off.

[00:08:00] Trevor Long: Wow, you’re going to skip a number.

[00:08:01] Stephen Fenech: It’s like Windows going to 10 from 8.

[00:08:05] Trevor Long: Skipping numbers, but that’s completely fine. Let’s talk numbers. We’ve obviously reported over the last few months some pretty extraordinary sales figures for the industry, record EV penetration through the sales. I’m assuming that’s, that’s been part of the Polestar story as well. My question for today is, is it still happening? Because, or was it a 2-month bubble? Because obviously fuel prices are receding back to where they were, but I assume that people have gone, I now know how volatile fuel prices can be, I’m getting out.

[00:08:37] Scott Maynard: Yes, yeah, you’ve got it exactly right. The customers that we spoke to during that initial, you know, sort of 6-week period were customers that were now aware that Australia only ever holds about 30 days of fuel in reserve, and so any disruption to the supply that replenishes that puts at risk our ability to be able to buy fuel on a day-to-day basis. And so The moment the government sort of released a 4-step plan that had the word ration in it, we saw a run for the door. And that really did create a frenzy of activity right across the EV industry, as you point out. And Polestar certainly got its share of that, which was pretty exciting. The customers we spoke to over that period, they wanted a car right now, right or wrong. It has settled from there, but it’s settled to a level that is higher than it was before. And that’s really pleasing to see. It feels like that there is now a broader understanding of the benefits for an electric car. There is a greater appreciation of the flexibility that an electric vehicle brings and independence to be able to charge and run your car. People have done a bit more research and realized that there’s cost benefits to it as well. And so I think we’re now starting to see just a gentle rise or a sustained level of interest that’s higher than it was before that peak period. We’ve rolled off the peak, that was expected. We wouldn’t have seen it continue continue like that. But last month we saw electric vehicles take up 16% of the total new car market. We’ve not seen a number like that before. We’ve seen electric vehicle sales double in the first part of 2026 as compared to the same period last year. And so that’s good news. It will now be interesting to see just where it now settles to and what it runs like, but it’s looking good.

[00:10:31] Stephen Fenech: Okay, Scott, you’ve been in the car game for quite a while, so I want to know, how does a brand, especially especially in a very competitive EV market, how does a brand, how do you get your edge over your competitors? And you, of course, can look back on your experience with your, with, I think you worked with Audi for a while.

[00:10:51] Trevor Long: How does Polestar in this instance, how do you stand out from the crowd?

[00:10:55] Scott Maynard: Yeah, that’s not an easy thing to do. Manufacturers need to be able to demonstrate some form of legacy, a little bit of history. They need to be able to demonstrate a A car is a complicated thing. And so not everyone can knock one of these things together and make it last. And so Polestar works hard to demonstrate some history that goes back to the ’90s, a history in motorsport, a history that aligns with development in step with Volvo, an established brand with a long history. So we draw on that.

[00:11:28] Trevor Long: Like a DNA trace, essentially. You’re kind of doing your family tree for people.

[00:11:32] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:11:32] Scott Maynard: That’s it.

[00:11:33] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:11:33] Scott Maynard: Face the family tree, run the family tree back and you’ll see that we are Swedish through and through and that there’s a whole heap of Volvo in there as well. We’ve done the motorsport thing. We employ engineers that know how to make a car handle. We employ people that know how to make a car last and make a car look good. It’s interesting. I was lucky enough to travel to Sweden and spend some time in the design studio there. And that’s not an easy place to get into. There’s a bit of cloak and dagger in that. And in speaking with the design designers, just talking about some of the designs that are prevalent in electric cars now, and ours do seem to stand out. Why is that? And they said, well, we take a lot longer to design a car than a lot of brands delivering vehicles to market in Australia at the moment. We take that time to stand back from the car and ensure that it’s going to look good from every angle, in every light condition, for 20 years. And that, that takes a bit of time, but I think that that’s appreciated by the market where there’s a lot of, you know, semi-disposable product being sold, and we’re building cars that last, that drive well, high quality. But getting that message out is the challenge for us. And we’ve just got to keep pushing that.

[00:12:45] Trevor Long: One of the key bits of feedback we get from everyday people, real consumers, owners of cars, purchasers of cars, things like that, is the experience at the dealership before and after buying. Yeah. I don’t think that we’ve had any negative comments about Polestar at all. In fact, as I do a little search of our AI assistant who knows all of our transcripts, there’s a lot of positivity around Polestar in real terms. How, how important and how do you handle the dealership experience for buyers, people that are walking off the street to both understand if they’re educated or not and whether or not they need to be handled differently from a sales perspective? And then what are you telling them about the next 5 years of owning this car? How are they going to be supported and where are they going to be supported and where are parts and servicing? How do you handle that whole experience?

[00:13:37] Scott Maynard: Yeah, so it’s a really carefully put together relationship that we have with retailers. And when Pulsar first started, Pulsar insisted on running every one of its showrooms. We call them spaces. We insisted on running every one of them ourselves because for exactly the reasons that you talk about, the car could be brilliant, but if the person talking to you about it does not is not, you know, pull across confidence, is not able to explain the vehicle well, isn’t able to help you with the questions that you would probably have if you’re transitioning to electric car for the first time, then all the work done on product is going to go to waste. So, we have to be really careful about the partners that we choose. We choose dealer groups that already represent luxury brands. We are a bit particular about how we train, and we also make sure that there’s a lot of support there. In terms of the conversation we have with our customers, yes, that’s, that’s that’s also carefully procured with a lot of training that goes into it. We don’t have showrooms on every street corner. We’ve got 12 across Australia. There’s a couple more in the wings, but we’ve got a good representation across the broader country, but we’re not absolutely everywhere. However, we’ve got almost 20 service points, so we’ve got a great representation of service, and that’s where that partnership with Volvo Volvo comes into play. You can take the Polestar to pretty much any Volvo service department and they’ll know exactly what to do with the car so that it’s well supported. Because we do value that 5-year journey, the worst thing we could do is sell everyone in Australia one car. We need to be able to do this on a model that allows, well, that encourages people to refer their friends to come back to us again. So it’s a relationship that we need to build. And because we’re 5 years young and we still have a containable customer base, we can get quite personal with every one of our customers, which is really lovely.

[00:15:30] Stephen Fenech: Interesting you should mention the getting personal with customers. I can remember a few weeks ago we had a caller who described buying an electric car like buying an iPhone. You just jump on the website, spec it up, and then go from there. So is that, obviously you want to embrace having that reach to customers, but also at the same time, you still wanna make it like a distant relationship. You still wanna have that personal touch, as you just mentioned.

[00:16:00] Scott Maynard: Yes, so you can jump online right now, you can spec up a Polestar, hit buy, put down your money, and you’ll own a car. It’s still possible to do it that way if the overwhelming preference of a purchaser is to do it semi-remotely. However, the vast majority of our customers will come and visit one of our centers and speak speak with our teams, go through the product and drive it and see it in a space. And no matter how it’s purchased, we will still do a proper handover experience in, again, a very carefully set up handover space, which is nice and quiet. We can step the customers through the product and make sure that they leave with a full understanding of it. So we can offer both, but it’s got to be personal.

[00:16:47] Stephen Fenech: That’s what you want.

[00:16:47] Trevor Long: So the big question is 2, 3, 4, 5, 7. I’m assuming there’s not going to be a 1 then. The pipeline for the future, you know, the 7 sounds exciting. What else can you tell us about what people can expect from Polestar as, as you grow in Australia, both globally and here in Australia?

[00:17:07] Scott Maynard: Yeah, well, there’s a bit to come. So we— our global CEO, Michael Löschler, made a fairly strategic announcement a couple of months ago wasn’t even that ago now, recently. And he spoke about an updated version of Polestar 4. We’ll get to keep the coupe that currently is our best-selling car. There’ll be a new variant of that, a vehicle that’s perhaps a bit more practical, perhaps a little bit more styled on a wagon or an SUV style of vehicle. We’re looking forward to bringing that to market. That will come hopefully at the end of this year. It may roll into early next year.

[00:17:44] Trevor Long: A Polestar 4 wagon would absolutely go nuts.

[00:17:50] Scott Maynard: Yeah, wouldn’t it? We’re excited about it.

[00:17:52] Trevor Long: I mean, isn’t it funny though, because, and again, you’ve got a long history in motoring, but we went, as a society, Australia was a wagon country for a long time. Your Commodore and your Falcon wagons and things like that. And then we went SUV. But there’s a couple, there’s a couple in the premium market, BMW and such. But I think BYD at the Melbourne Motor Show had a wagon that was a hybrid. You know, I feel like, I feel like there might be a move back back there. So it feels like you’re, you’re seeing trend and, and picking up on it.

[00:18:19] Scott Maynard: I’d love to see it. And I mean, Europe’s really big on wagons. It now seems to be returning, just as you said, to the Australian scene. We’re starting to see more people opt for, for wagon-style cars. So we’re going to meet that. The, the 4 will be— it’ll still be a little SUV-ish, it’ll still be riding a little bit higher, And it’s a nice size car. So again, I was really lucky to see that when I was over in the design studio spending time with them there, and it looks fantastic. So we can’t wait to be able to release images and then have the car join the range here at the end of this year and the beginning of next. That will be really, really cool. We’ll get Get7 that we talked about, which is a compact SUV that will be built in Europe, and that will come to us. And then there’ll be a couple of other little limited editions and little tweaks and changes that we make through that period as well before we then get into some new stuff, which will be a bit further out.

[00:19:17] Trevor Long: This may be a completely random thing to ask at this point, given where we’ve been talking about, why are you not in VFAX? It’s a very internal thing for the world, but for people trying to report on the market, we’ve gotta take numbers from VFAX, which is 99% of car companies, and then we’ve gotta look at Tesla and Polestar numbers is that a political thing about the FCAI’s views on the new vehicle emissions scheme, or is it just easier or cheaper, or is it the fact that frankly journalists don’t need to know through one source? You can tell them, what does it matter?

[00:19:48] Scott Maynard: No, I’d love you to know, and I really— I’m so sorry for making your life that little bit more difficult. It’s not a ploy to make you go to two different sources. Our data is published through the Electric Vehicle Council, and you will note that they publish first just before the FCI. And yes, it did get a little bit political there. There was a period of time, particularly while we were developing the New Vehicle Efficiency Scheme, that there was a fair bit of legacy industry pushback against NVS. FCI’s member base requires that the FCI represent their cause. Well, that wasn’t our cause. Pulsar is a brand that believes in the NVS and pushes hard to to continue the electric vehicle discount that’s been generously applied by government to electric vehicle sales. And so to be subscribing into an organisation that actively works against that cause didn’t make sense for POSA at the time. And so the decision was made to step out of the SAI. That meant that our figures were no longer supplied to VFACS, given that it sits inside the NCAI.

[00:20:57] Trevor Long: Fair enough. And that’s the right place to be, mate, really. Awesome stuff. We— people love the brand, owners love the cars, and that’s the most important thing, isn’t it? Just to know that people are driving around with a smile on their face and they’re probably at a barbecue talking to their narky mate who doesn’t love electric cars and they’ll say, listen, come for a drive, let me show you, because there’s nothing better than just showing them what it’s like.

[00:21:22] Scott Maynard: Yeah, I still get to talk to customers a lot. I really enjoy it. And I did have a customer say that, that he and his family were really proud to buy a Polestar. He said there’s a lot of people that will go to a barbecue and say, oh, I bought an electric car. He said, but Polestar is a brand that you go to a barbecue and say, I bought a Polestar, and people know what that is. They know it’s an electric car. And I like that. I thought that was a really lovely way of summing it up.

[00:21:44] Trevor Long: Fair enough. Scott Maynard, Managing Director of Polestar Australia. Mate, thank you for your time.

[00:21:47] Stephen Fenech: Thanks, Scott.

[00:21:49] Scott Maynard: Thank you so much. I love your show. It was really good to be on it. It’s a lot of fun.

[00:21:51] Trevor Long: Thank you guys. Very good, mate. We appreciate it. And we’ll take your calls after this on Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars. Oh goodness me.

[00:22:09] Stephen Fenech: It’s like we get a bit of exercise when we do this show.

[00:22:11] Trevor Long: If that’s exercise, you’ve got problems, my friend.

[00:22:13] Stephen Fenech: That’s as much exercise I’ve had for a while.

[00:22:15] Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s more than I’ve done too. But anyway, great to chat with with Polestar boss there and we’ll bring in many more manufacturers over the weeks and months ahead because if they want to talk, we’ll have them on the show. It’s as simple as that.

[00:22:26] Stephen Fenech: They’re flooding us with inquiries. Well, they want to be on the show.

[00:22:28] Trevor Long: You know, there’s— to a degree, there’s different levels of interest, let’s just say. No, but I do have these conversations with the people in the car brands and it’s sometimes just hard to arrange because we’re very strict in our timing. We only record on a certain day of the week. Exactly right.

[00:22:43] Stephen Fenech: We know this.

[00:22:44] Trevor Long: It is what it is. Anyway, we also love taking your calls. 0477 657 657. Send us a text, uh, save it in your phone as The Two Blokes, and we’ll get your message and we’ll get you on the show. Trev’s on the line. G’day, Trev, how you doing, mate?

Trev — BYD owner on vehicle-to-home charging and bidirectional EV plans

[00:22:59] Trev (Caller): Yeah, all good, thank you. All good.

[00:23:00] Trevor Long: Tell us, uh, where you’re at in the world. You’ve, uh, you’ve got an EV and you’re thinking past the world of just general electric cars. You’re thinking about vehicle to home. You’re thinking about how else you can use that that big battery in the driveway.

[00:23:13] Trev (Caller): Absolutely. Our journey has been purchased a BYD F03 in May ’23. Okay. Since then we’ve done about 44,000 kilometers on it. I did the Tesla Charge upgrade and thanks to you guys for pushing that one through.

[00:23:33] Trevor Long: Oh right, because it wasn’t yours, yours was an early model not compatible with the Tesla chargers. Correct.

[00:23:38] Trev (Caller): Yeah, the modification. And okay, cost me, cost me a lot of aggravation trying to get people inside. After your, after your podcast that day.

[00:23:49] Scott Maynard: Yeah.

[00:23:50] Trev (Caller): It took me a lot of phone calls to get BYD dealerships and parts people to agree that, oh yes, that is a thing.

[00:23:57] Trevor Long: Yeah. What do you end up, what do you end up paying? It was a few hundred dollars, wasn’t it?

[00:24:02] Trev (Caller): Yeah, it’s about $300, just over $300 and And the only person after about 6 phone calls that knew anything about it was the great crew down in BYD Dandenong. They were really helpful. Nice.

[00:24:17] Trevor Long: Yeah. And so just broadly on the EV front, great decision. You’re happy with— aside from the dramas of the charging network compatibility, it’s turned out to be a great decision to go EV a couple of years ago.

[00:24:31] Trev (Caller): Absolutely, more than happy. I think at the time we had a diesel Hyundai Tucson that was end of lease, and this was to be my wife’s car to drive to and from work for probably the last 9, 10 months of her working career. But, and it worked out perfectly, you know, once we’d done all of the the charging installs. We put a Zappi 2 system in. We always also had a solar, Enphase solar micro, micro inverters. Yeah, yeah. Micro inverters. Sorry. And a Tesla Powerwall 2. And between—

[00:25:19] Stephen Fenech: You’re kitted out, aren’t ya, mate? That sounds pretty good. Can I ask, what was the— back in 2023, what was the— motivation to go EV? Were you seeing them on the road and thinking, oh, I want to get amongst that? Was it like a cost-saving thing or was it just wanting the latest and greatest? What was the main motivation?

[00:25:37] Trev (Caller): It came down to looking towards the time where I won’t call it retirement because haven’t done that, where our income streams were reduced and we were looking to minimize our outgoings during that period. So having an EV for everyday use was just a no-brainer as far as we were concerned. The whole hybrid thing at the time, I felt it was like being half pregnant. You shouldn’t do that.

[00:26:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, it seems about right. Yeah, it’s, it’s, I think it’s an analogy that’s been used before on this show, but go big or go home. And obviously that initial, you know, income change moving to where you’re at now has evolved over a few years. So now you’re thinking, how else can you use the battery? Is that where you’re at?

[00:26:31] Trev (Caller): Absolutely. So it was, it was always a goal to, to use the battery, to use the car as a, as a vehicle-to-home backup. However, the, you know, the lack of warranty backup and all that sort of thing from BYD was, was the thing that stopped me. Because I didn’t want to void warranty on a new technology that all of that. So I think now it’s getting to the point where I think it’s ask, ask forgiveness, not permission.

[00:27:04] Trevor Long: So I feel, I feel very similar on that. I mean, I know it’s a huge risk to take, but also with BYD, they’re one of the few that has been engaging in this space with some of the trials going on, aren’t they? So there’s a little bit of, there’s a little bit of EYD’s got skin in the game. At least they know what’s going on. It’s not going to be some surprise to them if you tell them you’ve been doing it.

[00:27:29] Trev (Caller): Yeah. Yes. And that was the thing. There was a trial done. I’m not sure if it’s even still underway with, I think it was Origin Energy.

[00:27:43] Trevor Long: There’s about 3 or 4 different trials going on. And let’s all remember, bloody trials always take forever. You think it’d take 2 months to work out if it’s working or not. 6 bloody years. So yeah, the trials are definitely real.

[00:27:55] Stephen Fenech: I still think we’re a while away from this becoming a thing, mainstream feature of an EV.

[00:28:01] Trevor Long: We will look back on the first time we talked about this, which is now a year ago, as being ages and ages ago when it finally is real. But my question for you, Trev, is how much are you prepared to invest in this? Because you’ve got a battery already, you’ve got solar already, you’re gonna have to replace the Zappi with something that does this. That’s gonna be a big cost. So where do you see that paying off?

[00:28:28] Trev (Caller): Yeah, I think again, working towards minimising outgoings. It’s not about how long it takes to pay this off and make it worthwhile. It’s immediate cost reduction in monthly outgoings. So on that basis, I did get a quote from a company called Revcharge. You may know them.

[00:28:51] Trevor Long: I’ve heard of them.

[00:28:52] Trev (Caller): And they were part of that part of the South Australian trials. Yeah. No, I think it was in New South Wales, this particular one. And they’re quoting the Halo Charger as part of their setup.

[00:29:07] Trevor Long: How much?

[00:29:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:29:08] Trev (Caller): Tell us the price, son. Well, the price, the bottom line was $7,500.

[00:29:14] Trevor Long: Whoa.

[00:29:15] Scott Maynard: $7,000.

[00:29:16] Trev (Caller): Yeah.

[00:29:16] Scott Maynard: Yeah.

[00:29:16] Trevor Long: So by the way, that’s come down. When I first started researching this, maybe 3 years ago, it was about $10,000. Because Wallbox have one called the Quasar, you know, bidirectional. Suppose about 10 grand, right?

[00:29:26] Stephen Fenech: By the time it becomes reality, it’s probably going to be 3 or 4 grand by then.

[00:29:30] Trevor Long: Yeah, I think so too.

[00:29:33] Stephen Fenech: You mentioned you have to obviously get rid of the Zappi, but do you have to get rid of your other battery, the Tesla battery?

[00:29:38] Trevor Long: No, no, no, no. You could keep the battery, couldn’t you?

[00:29:40] Stephen Fenech: That’s just additional storage.

[00:29:41] Trevor Long: Was that part of their quote to you, was to plumb it in so that it would charge either the battery or the home or the grid?

[00:29:47] Trev (Caller): Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s, that’s the installation would not take away the Tesla Powerwall because as a comparison, I had a, I got a quote on an additional Tesla Powerwall 3 because they recently announced that you can add a Powerwall 3 to your Powerwall 2 system. And that was that I think ended up being about the, the $18,000 to do that, which was too much. Yeah. And or take out both Powerwall 2 and putting 2 Powerwall 3s and that was about— oh no, that was a SIG Energy system. Sorry, that was about $22,000 or something like that.

[00:30:33] Stephen Fenech: So I walked away from that. But having said that, so even if you were to buy that charger today, that’s way cheaper than having your battery rearranged.

[00:30:42] Trevor Long: Correct.

[00:30:43] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:43] Trev (Caller): Wow. Absolutely.

[00:30:45] Trevor Long: Absolutely. So have you in that configuration, how much battery storage do you have with the Teslas?

[00:30:52] Trev (Caller): The Tesla Powerwall is 13.5 kilowatts.

[00:30:55] Trevor Long: So see, see, it’s funny because it really is, as you say, it’s about deciding your outgoings. And look, I look at it and I’m like, oh, probably in the next 6 months I’ll bite the bullet and it will, it will be a stupid amount of money. More than the solar and everything cost. But the way I look at it is the system I’m looking at is huge. So it’d be a 48 probably kilowatt-hour battery or 40 kilowatt-hour battery and bidirectional charging with SIG Energy. But for me, on my numbers, it’s about, it’s about a 10-year repayment. And I go, well, look, if I can afford it upfront, I like the idea of the minimal payments ongoing and the long, long, longer-term benefits. And that’s kind of where you’re at when you’re in our age and you start to think that, you know, when you get to retirement, retirement, how do I reduce my overheads?

[00:31:41] Stephen Fenech: You looked at me when you said that.

[00:31:43] Trevor Long: Exactly. But isn’t it funny? Look, Trev, I don’t know how old you are, mate, but you know, Steven’s in his early 50s. Late.

[00:31:50] Stephen Fenech: Mid to late 50s, actually.

[00:31:51] Trevor Long: I was being nice for the first time ever.

[00:31:53] Stephen Fenech: I’m 58 years old.

[00:31:55] Trevor Long: All right, well, I’m about to turn 50 and you know, retirement’s 15—

[00:31:58] Trev (Caller): You’re young blokes.

[00:31:59] Trevor Long: Yeah, 15-odd years away. But you do go, okay, well, you see all these calculators about retirement and how much you need to live and stuff and you go, well, if I could completely and utterly, and I’ve done this with my mum, I look at her expenses on the pension and you go, if you had no power bills, it’d be a whole lot easier and stuff like that. So that’s the kind of thought in your mind, isn’t it? It’s reducing those long-term ongoing costs and having that huge battery sitting in your car is gonna be a big part of that.

[00:32:28] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:32:28] Trev (Caller): Absolutely.

[00:32:29] Trevor Long: Absolutely.

[00:32:29] Trev (Caller): That’s what we’re looking for.

[00:32:31] Trevor Long: Mate, we just have to hope the governments the authorities really start pushing this and regulating it. That’s really all we have to hope for.

[00:32:38] Trev (Caller): Yeah.

[00:32:39] Scott Maynard: Yeah.

[00:32:39] Trev (Caller): So I think, I think it’s, you know, now we’re looking at the next model and if as we’re sort of looking at the BYD Atto 3 Evo, you know, and that sort of solves that vehicle would solve another problem where we found on trips that the, the Atto 3 standard range which we currently have is a little bit short on on range. You have to stop a little too often. And we did a comparison where we did a Noosa trip one year from Melbourne. Wow. In the electric and it worked really well. No problems.

[00:33:18] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:33:18] Trev (Caller): We found we had to stop multiple times. We’d stay overnight a couple of times because you can’t get as far in one day. Yeah. And then the following year, our second vehicle is BMW 330d, so it’s a turbo diesel. Okay. And we found less stops. It actually cost us less money to drive to Noosa because we’re not buying $25 worth of coffee and—

[00:33:45] Trevor Long: Yeah, everything. One stop.

[00:33:47] Trev (Caller): Because it’s not just the cost of accommodation.

[00:33:49] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:33:50] Trevor Long: Power and fuel are not the only costs, right? If you put in accommodation.

[00:33:54] Stephen Fenech: True that.

[00:33:55] Trevor Long: And the one thing you don’t want to do is you don’t want to, you don’t want to quote your own time What’s your time worth per hour? Yeah, a lot. So it’s a realistic, realistic comparison. So you’re right, adding range with the Evo will be a huge benefit to you now that you know, like you’ve got everything else in place now that you know what you need. And the beautiful thing is cars today by default have more range. We’re just getting, we’re just getting that in the industry apart from the smaller cars made for the city. So the Evo is perfect for because I think it positions BYD really well to go. We’ve got the ATTO 1 and 2, which are pretty much city cars. And then the ATTO 3 becomes your, you know, you need range, you need space and then everything else in the lineup. So Mate, it’s a good little lineup that they’ve got going on. So it sounds like you’ll end up being a BYD man and hopefully you can get some sort of sign-off for vehicle-to-grid. And so just finally, are you going to look at that quote and go, I’m going to bite the bullet and just do it and hope for the best?

[00:34:47] Trev (Caller): Well, I’m hoping you use your considerable influence on BYD and get some early gin on what they’re going to do in Australia with the EVO. Clarity.

[00:34:57] Trevor Long: That’s a fair question. It’s a fair question.

[00:35:00] Trev (Caller): Can’t get a lot of information out of BYD because they work on the SWOT principle of sell what’s available today.

[00:35:07] Trevor Long: And so that’s not what it normally stands for.

[00:35:10] Stephen Fenech: No, I thought it meant some tactical thing.

[00:35:14] Trevor Long: No, isn’t it? No, no. Well, that’s, that’s in the Army. It’s— there’s also a SWOT in business too. I can’t remember what it stands for.

[00:35:18] Scott Maynard: Correct.

[00:35:19] Trevor Long: What’s it stand for, Trev?

[00:35:20] Stephen Fenech: So SWOT in the EV world is sell what’s available today. I love that.

[00:35:24] Scott Maynard: Correct.

[00:35:24] Stephen Fenech: Oh, that’s great. Nice how you’ve coined that.

[00:35:27] Trevor Long: That’s— well, well played, Trev. Well played. Well, we will take that on notice.

[00:35:31] Stephen Fenech: Trevor with some brains, mate.

[00:35:33] Trevor Long: That’s great. Yeah, it’s great.

[00:35:34] Trev (Caller): And just, just, just one, just one last point. Listening to your podcast from last week, you talked about the Better Route Planner software.

[00:35:43] Trevor Long: Mate, yes.

[00:35:46] Trev (Caller): Just, just a quick, quick, quick addition to that is if you get yourself a Bluetooth-connected OBD interface. Yep. I use an iCarPro. You get the dynamic feedback from the car to the software and it gives you more of what you call the Tesla experiences too.

[00:36:08] Trevor Long: Trev, have you hacked us? Have you hacked our rundown for this show? Because literally, literally after we hung up from you, I was going to talk about this. So let’s just quickly talk about it because it’s fascinating. We brought it up, you said, a couple of weeks ago and Yep. It’s an unbelievable route planner. But so for people that don’t know, an OBD is the onboard diagnostics port. It’s a little port normally under the steering wheel where a mechanic will come in, plug in, and they’ll get the error messages from the car. It gives them data. But also you can get things like loggers. So you plug it in and it logs trips. So if you’ve got a logbook, you can use that. But the one that you’re talking about, and I’ve had a look on Amazon, there’s one called OBDLink. There’s a bunch on the ARBP or the A Better Route Planner website. Basically, you spend the money on this little box, you pair it to your phone, and then this little box is constantly transmitting information about your efficiency. So how much battery you’re using, and therefore how much range you’ve got, what the range prediction of the car is versus the app. And then it’s using that real information to give you the Tesla-like experience. Mate, I am ready to click the button. So tell me, Trev, what am I buying? Because I’m currently on Amazon and the one I’m looking at is $240.

[00:37:21] Trev (Caller): Yeah, I don’t think I’ve paid that much. It’s some time back now, but I’ve got the iCarPro.

[00:37:27] Trevor Long: iCarPro.

[00:37:30] Trev (Caller): I can—

[00:37:30] Trevor Long: the reason, the reason I’ve been a bit careful is because the Better Route Planning website goes into great detail about there being issues with some models, and it’s not yours, thankfully. The VGate iCarPro also works well, fine. Has been tested, but it does say there is no security. So what they’re concerned about is these devices, if left running, are constantly emitting a ‘pair with me, pair with me,’ you know, for— and so you come up to your car with a mobile phone and pair with it and get your data. Do I care? Probably not. So you might have to pay a little bit more for one that has security. You’re saying to me, if I buy this thing, plug it into the car, um, it will then give me this great route planning information, and you Do you almost swear by it, Trev?

[00:38:13] Trev (Caller): Yeah, it works so well on long trips. The map’s a little bit clunky, I have to say, but in comparison to Google Maps—

[00:38:21] Trevor Long: You gotta pay a subscription as well to get the CarPlay.

[00:38:25] Trev (Caller): Yeah, subscription is pricey. It’s over $7 a month. So I only subscribe if I’m going to do a trip.

[00:38:34] Stephen Fenech: Gotcha, yeah.

[00:38:37] Trev (Caller): The thing that the addition that you should, if you’re concerned about security, the addition you should purchase is there’s an extension cable for an OBD port that’s got a switch in it and you turn the switch on or off and it just— Correct. And it just turns the power off and you don’t have to be fiddling under the dash to, well, to turn the thing on or off.

[00:39:01] Trevor Long: The thing that I want from this kind of— the thing that I would love I love, if I drove a Tesla, is the kind of assurance that if it says I’m gonna get there with 10%, I’m gonna get there with 10%. But I don’t believe any car I own or drive. If the calculation is it’s got 300Ks range, I assume 200, and sometimes you’re lucky it’s got 300, right? Absolutely. Is the accuracy of that percentage calculation, do you see accuracy with it?

[00:39:27] Trev (Caller): It’s better because at least then you’re, um, it’s putting it into the map and you know how far you’re going. Because unless you’re using the onboard navigation of BYD, you don’t get that feedback. So this, a better route planner, is, is much better for, uh, all the different charge points and all that sort of thing available on your route. So at least you get the feedback and it’s more accurate. I wouldn’t I probably can’t comment that it’s 100% accurate. Yeah, it’s certainly a lot more information.

[00:40:03] Stephen Fenech: You think maybe a car company might take this over and make it part of their, part of their vehicle?

[00:40:08] Trevor Long: No, because if you use the in-car maps in a lot of cars, it does work like a Tesla. But none of us want to use that because Waze and Google are just better.

[00:40:17] Trev (Caller): Yeah.

[00:40:17] Trevor Long: So I think, I think that’s essentially, essentially the point. So anyway, fascinating. I really appreciate that, mate, because I We’re kind of blown away by a better route planner and how good it looks. So the ability to now really upgrade it like this is mind-blowing. I’m gonna give it a go on my next long trip, Trev. So thanks for the input, mate. And thanks to everyone else who suggested the same thing after that episode a couple of weeks ago, mate. Good to hear from you, mate. Keep us in the loop on how you go with the bi-directional and we’ll keep asking those questions for you, mate.

[00:40:45] Trev (Caller): Thank you, sir. Have a good day.

[00:40:47] Trevor Long: Cheers. No worries at all. Good on you, mate.

[00:40:48] Stephen Fenech: That’s excellent. So there you go.

[00:40:49] Trevor Long: Blake hacked our rundown and went, got ahead of me there.

[00:40:53] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, there’s been a lot of feedback about that.

[00:40:55] Trevor Long: And yeah, it just sounds like a really good system. Yeah. And I’m more than happy to try it.

[00:41:01] Stephen Fenech: The basics of it is you get better, you can predict and also plan. Say you want to have, you know, you want to have 15% battery left when you arrive. Yeah. It’ll help you facilitate that.

[00:41:13] Trevor Long: Yeah. I have noticed in a few cars now and you’ll notice you’re about to take away, it gives you range and then most and least. So it gives you what it thinks it’s going to be. And then it says, but it could be as much as, you know, 700 or could be as little as 300, which is— it’s a better thing for you because it means the car’s going, listen, if you flog this thing, it’s going to be 250. But if you take your time and drive around the city, it’s going to be 400, you know, that kind of stuff. So I like that. The other, the other news about a week ago was The Ferrari electric car, ladies and gentlemen. It’s been revealed, the Luce.

Ferrari Luce — First Ferrari EV revealed, design and speculation

[00:41:47] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the Ferrari Luce.

[00:41:49] Trevor Long: Now there’s a— gee whiz, the internet hates this car.

[00:41:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I’ve had mixed reactions to my comments. Have been one— the one that struck mine, one of them described it as a twisted sandshoe. Okay, that’s whatever that means.

[00:42:02] Trevor Long: The best meme I saw was the car on its roof with a cable underneath, Johnny Depp on it with it like the Apple Magic house.

[00:42:09] Stephen Fenech: That’s true.

[00:42:09] Trevor Long: The reality is, and I was at the Ferrari factory last year, saw the kind of underpinnings of this, this thing is going to be— I call it right now, it’ll be the best driving electric car on the planet because it’s over-engineered to be so.

[00:42:21] Stephen Fenech: It’ll be solidly priced.

[00:42:22] Trevor Long: It’s also going to be a million dollars. Yeah. Which is—

[00:42:25] Stephen Fenech: so you can—

[00:42:25] Trevor Long: you’ll be right to get one. Insane.

[00:42:26] Stephen Fenech: Trevor’s doing very well.

[00:42:27] Trevor Long: But it’s funny watching videos of it because there’s a guy, he goes, look at the charging door, it’s amazing. It goes, and it goes inside the car. And I’m like, Porsche does that, mate. What are you talking about? Like, it’s Some of it’s not new, but the interior, it’s, it’s Johnny Ive all over. So many people have said to me, this is what Apple’s car would have looked like if they released one with Johnny Ive, because it does.

[00:42:46] Stephen Fenech: It is like, design is so— it is really minimal and beautiful and typical Johnny Ive. I like the doors, the— yeah, what do you call that?

[00:42:58] Trevor Long: They call them rear hinges, but opening in the same direction.

[00:43:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Yes. So it’s a 5-seater as well?

[00:43:04] Trevor Long: Yes, first ever Ferrari 5-seat car.

[00:43:06] Stephen Fenech: 4-door.

[00:43:07] Trevor Long: Did you expect it to be a 4-door car? Yes. Because when we saw it, it was in camouflage. It looked like a— looked more like a hatchback, kind of a small SUV size because they had fake— still pretty slick looking— fake coverage on it.

[00:43:17] Stephen Fenech: But I like it. I don’t know. There’s a lot of people who don’t like it.

[00:43:20] Trevor Long: If this was a— so if this was priced the same as a Porsche Taycan, it would— it would be my new first love because if I win Powerball I will buy a Porsche Taycan. I love that car. I think it’s amazing. If I win $60 million, I’ll probably save up and keep a bit for the Ferrari. But just, just in terms of comparing it, I do, I do, I like it. I like the look of it a lot because I’m not looking at it as a Ferrari and going, you’ve ruined the design. It’s an EV. I’m looking at it as a sports car EV and going, this is unbelievable.

[00:43:48] Stephen Fenech: It just happens to have the prancing horse on the front.

[00:43:50] Trevor Long: Like something as simple as, if you’ve seen the infotainment system in the middle, has a handle so you can just swivel it to the right and the passengers get to see it, which is genius because it means they don’t need to build it for the left or right-hand drive. It just works for either. Works. But it’s also really cool to go, hey, can you just set the map for me to the next destination or whatever?

[00:44:05] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s those little things though that matter. And yeah, I do love—

[00:44:10] Trevor Long: 102.5. Yeah, that’s pretty— a motor on each wheel.

[00:44:14] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that is pretty good. And the interior looks really good. It looks pretty compact.

[00:44:20] Trevor Long: Don’t you think the interior reminds you of like the ’70s or ’80s, that kind of the way it’s stitched horizontally on the rear seats. I just, it just felt classic to me.

[00:44:30] Stephen Fenech: The instrument cluster looks like, you know, it’s like an iPhone and then there’s an iPad next to you. You know, it’s sort of same shape as a phone.

[00:44:36] Trevor Long: I can’t wait to sit in it and just feel the buttons because Johnny Ive will have been involved in the feel, the tactile feel. Because they’re not buttons, they’re switches. But I bet you they feel amazing to touch.

[00:44:46] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, you know, you’re going to go you might as well go all the way.

[00:44:50] Trevor Long: Well, you know, it’s interesting because I think I might have mentioned this on the EFTM podcast a couple of weeks ago, but there’s a guy in New Zealand called Grant Baker. I think on Instagram he’s Grant K Baker. He’s, I don’t know if he’s in property or the motoring industry. I can’t quite remember, but he’s very, very wealthy. He owns a lot of Ferraris and he shows videos of them. He orders a new one. He shows you the whole process.

[00:45:08] Stephen Fenech: Is that the video you watch? He videos his Ferraris?

[00:45:10] Trevor Long: Yes. But like crazy amount of them. And the process. And he was asked in the comments, would you buy one? He said, wouldn’t rule it out. And so that’s, that’s, that to me is a green light from an absolute collector.

[00:45:22] Stephen Fenech: That’s it.

[00:45:22] Trevor Long: Yeah, he got absolutely pummeled by saying that. He’s like, well, you’re a suck-up, you, you’re just doing it to stay on their list and all that kind of stuff. But it’s Ferrari though, come on. As a purist, everyone’s heads will turn when the reviews come out because they’ll review this not just on the road but on the track. And I am so confident that this thing will feel amazing. It’ll blow people away. And the thing that we haven’t seen yet is the sound.

[00:45:46] Stephen Fenech: Well, because is that transmitted into the cabin?

[00:45:49] Trevor Long: Is that right? So what they’ve done is they’ve built essentially a microphone into the chassis of the electric motor that turns the sound of the vibration into the sound you hear in the car. Like an engine sound? The way it was described to me, no, not like an engine. The way it was described to me, think of an electric electric guitar. The way an electric guitar has sensors that pick up the vibration of the string and turn it into something else, right, as opposed to an acoustic guitar, that’s the way this pickup will work on the vibrations of the electric motor. So it’s genuine sounds from the electric motor, okay, turn into something— but not like a V12. It will not sound like a V8 or a V12. No, it will sound like— it’s probably the most authentic electric car sound I’ll ever hear.

[00:46:34] Stephen Fenech: It’s more than 5 meters long.

[00:46:35] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s big.

[00:46:36] Stephen Fenech: The pictures, they make it look small. Yeah, it’s 5— more than 5 meters long.

[00:46:41] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:46:41] Stephen Fenech: And 2 meters wide. Yeah, yeah, it’s a big solid car.

[00:46:45] Trevor Long: Anyway, are we going to get to test drive this, you reckon? I’m sure down the track it’ll be in the driveway. Hi, Ryan.

[00:46:52] Stephen Fenech: Um, is that for Ryan from Ferrari?

[00:46:54] Trevor Long: Yes. G’day, Ryan. We love you, Ryan. Um, look, I can’t wait to see That’s it. There’s no doubt. But it’s a next— it’s a 2027 car for Australia. But it’ll be fascinating. The reception after a car this year, this will be all around Hollywood.

[00:47:08] Stephen Fenech: I would have got this if it was this year.

[00:47:09] Trevor Long: It’ll be all over Hollywood like Priuses in the ’90s. What color would you get? I like the blue.

[00:47:14] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I don’t mind the blue. Yellow looks nice too.

[00:47:15] Trevor Long: I don’t think you buy the red because I think that is an insult to Ferrari.

[00:47:18] Stephen Fenech: Maybe. I reckon yellow or blue.

[00:47:21] Trevor Long: All right. Two blokes talking electric cars. We appreciate you listening, downloading, watching, and I hope that you share it with your friends and anyone that’s on the electric car journey. More from us next week. Thanks to the great people at NRMA Insurance and Uniden Smart Dash Cams. Steven, let’s do it all again next week, mate.

[00:47:36] Stephen Fenech: I will turn up for you, mate.

[00:47:37] Trevor Long: Oh, will you?

[00:47:37] Trev (Caller): Yeah.

[00:47:38] Trevor Long: Oh, thanks, mate.