The Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars podcast – Episode # 128 – We drive the BYD Atto 1, and callers all get new cars!

Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars

Episode: 128 – We drive the BYD Atto 1, and callers all get new cars!
Date: 12 July 2026
Hosts: Trevor Long & Stephen Fenech

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[00:00:01] Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars with Steven Fenech and Trevor Long. Thanks to NRMA Insurance and Uniden. Great to have your company. Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars. NRMA Insurance, one of Australia's largest insurers of electric vehicles, helping Aussies protect what matters most for 100 years and many more to come. And Uniden, smart dashcams. Get yourself a dashcam, whatever car you've got, electric or petrol or diesel. Get yourself a dashcam to protect what's happening around you so that you've got evidence just for your own peace of mind, let alone anything else. And as Stephen always says get yourself a rear camera.

[00:00:34] Stephen Fenech: Front and rear. Yeah, look for the R. A lot of accidents happened from behind, so you need to have eyes on the road there.

[00:00:42] Trevor Long: Appreciate that insight, Stephen.

[00:00:45] Stephen Fenech: It's the facts, mate. It's happened to Stephen.

[00:00:47] Trevor Long: It happened to Stephen.

[00:00:48] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

[00:00:49] Trevor Long: In the old Mirksky.

[00:00:50] Stephen Fenech: In the Mirksky, that's it.

[00:00:51] Trevor Long: Yeah, not good. Anyway, great to have your company, mate. You good?

[00:00:54] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I'm great. Yeah, very good. It's a lot of interest, mate. I'm really pleased when I'm hearing people's feedback for the show and their interest in the EV space. Space is growing. So it's a good place to be right now.

[00:01:07] Trevor Long: I was at the Today Show on Monday and Peter Coorey from NRMA Motoring and Services was there back to talk about petrol prices when they were going up back in the start of July. And I said, I just, we're just talking rubbish. And I just said, oh mate, we do an EV podcast and the listener numbers, the viewer numbers have just been unbelievable. He goes, mate, same for us. Just a huge uptake in website traffic. And he also said, 'cause NRMA Motoring and Services runs the charging network. He said to me, we also also noticed a huge increase in the usage of the chargers.

[00:01:39] Voice Over: Wow.

[00:01:39] Trevor Long: And interestingly, and this is just anecdotal from Peter Currie at the NRMA, he put a lot of that down to plug-in hybrids.

[00:01:46] Stephen Fenech: Aha.

[00:01:46] Trevor Long: So a lot of people who own plug-in hybrids suddenly going, actually, hang on, I should probably—

[00:01:51] Stephen Fenech: this in.

[00:01:52] Trevor Long: Yes. And take advantage.

[00:01:54] Stephen Fenech: You're saying a lot of them are driving on the petrol rather than, oh, hang on, I've got a battery here, might as well use it.

[00:01:59] Trevor Long: I've always thought that too many people buy plug-in hybrids and essentially don't use it to its full electric capacity. Right.

[00:02:05] Stephen Fenech: And I'm guilty of that.

[00:02:05] Trevor Long: We'll maybe next week or the week after about the Lexus we've been driving. There's been a few days where I've gone, "Nah, I won't worry. It'll get me there 'cause it's got a petrol engine, right?" But in a fuel cost of living crisis, you're like, "Hang on a minute, take every bit of energy you can get." Absolutely. So it was fascinating that they'd seen that.

[00:02:24] Stephen Fenech: Isn't that funny? People think, "Hang on a minute, I've got a battery. I better charge it.

[00:02:27] Trevor Long: I'm gonna save money on petrol." I don't need to switch to an electric car. I've got a partly electric one in the driveway.

[00:02:32] Stephen Fenech: Got half an EV in the driveway.

[00:02:33] Trevor Long: There you go, folks. But we'd love to hear from you as well.

[00:02:37] Voice Over: 0477 657 636.

[00:02:39] Trevor Long: 6557. Send us a text or a WhatsApp message. Thanks to Vodafone, you can contact us directly and we'll get you on the show to talk about whatever you want in the world of EVs. If you're in the market, you've just bought one, you've owned one for years, or you wouldn't consider buying one for some reason. Yeah, exactly.

[00:02:54] Stephen Fenech: I would love— we haven't actually had that conversation, but I would welcome that. Would you not welcome someone expressing an opinion about why they wouldn't adopt?

[00:03:04] Trevor Long: I'd be blown away that someone that absolutely hates EVs is even listening to or watching an EV podcast.

[00:03:09] Stephen Fenech: But if you're rage-watching this, On YouTube, Prayuge watching.

[00:03:14] Trevor Long: SMSs are basically unlimited and free. So send us an SMS, 0477 657 657. Would love to chat. And here's the thing, you could suggest that would be a debate or an argument. No, no, I want to hear it. I want to understand why. And so that's one of the other things, even if you're an EV owner and you're having these conversations with colleagues at work or around the barbie about why they don't want to leave, what are the reasons people are still saying? What are the reasons people are against it? And let's have a chat. Give us a call.

[00:03:42] Stephen Fenech: Have you seen those memes? You know, like they have people holding up a sign, you know, talk, convince me, convince me I'm wrong. Or yeah, maybe we should be doing that. Hold up a sign, EVs are better. Convince me that I'm wrong.

Chris — First-hand BYD Sea Lion 7 purchase and dealer experience

[00:03:53] Trevor Long: All right, well, you organize the sign, I'll take the photo. 0477 657 657. Chris is on the line. G'day, Chris.

[00:04:00] Chris: Hey, Trev. Hi, Grandpa Steve.

[00:04:02] Stephen Fenech: Hey, mate, how are ya?

[00:04:04] Trevor Long: Not too bad, mate. Where are you at in the world of EVs? I think you've finally decided to take the plunge.

[00:04:10] Stephen Fenech: We pulled the trigger, mate.

[00:04:12] Chris: Yes, a couple of weeks ago we pulled the trigger and bought a— I'll put the money down on a BYD Sea Lion 7, which I'm super excited about.

[00:04:18] Stephen Fenech: Nice. So what, what— before you decided on the BYD, had you no doubt listened to our show, I'm hoping, but did you go out and do any other test drives? Were there any others that were on your shortlist?

[00:04:32] Chris: Yeah, we got really interested by the, obviously, the less expensive Chinese brands that were coming into the market. So we went and test drove the JACU and the Geely and the Chery and a couple of others sort of thing. And we liked them. We loved all the bells and whistles. And coming from older vehicles, which don't have any of those things, it was really great. My 10-year-old loved the fact we could change the lights in the cabin. He thought that was the best thing since sliced bread. But you know what, as inexpensive as those vehicles were, we ended up spending a bit extra and going to BYD just because we figured they'd been in market for longer than these other companies. And so we had that bit of that brand certainty that they weren't necessarily just gonna pull up stumps after a few years of poor sales or something like that, as well as a dealer network in market and all those sort of things. You know, they just, a little bit more confidence. We thought, you know, well, we'll pay a bit of extra money just to get that buyer confidence.

[00:05:24] Trevor Long: Isn't it interesting that it only, took, let's call it, 3 years, maybe 4 of time for it to feel confident.

[00:05:32] Chris: Because it's funny because it's not a lot of time. No, but you think when Hyundai came in and then later on Kia came in and now we look at those as sort of legacy established brands, right?

[00:05:42] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:05:42] Chris: For better or worse, you know, I see BYD as just another one of those.

[00:05:46] Stephen Fenech: Now, Chris, we've had a bit of talk in the last few months actually of dealer experiences, especially with BYD. Can you give us an insight into how you— what was your experience?

[00:05:59] Chris: Very, very quickly. I had the same sort of thing. We ended up having previously test drove some cars. We realized that, you know, if you get there at 9:30 for your 9:30 appointment, you're late. So we got there, we got there at quarter past 9 to BYD Parramatta and we waited 15 minutes, then we waited another 15 minutes. Then at almost 10 o'clock, I was ready to pull up stumps and leave. But there were plenty of people there. But they were all just walking around doing other things. And so I was ready to go and thankfully something happened in the background. My wife managed to get a hold of someone and she took us for a test drive. She sat in the back of the car, which was also different, and we just went for a bit of a drive. We both had a go. Came back to the dealership and said, "This is great. We want to buy this." This was on a Saturday. She said, "I only work on Saturdays and Tuesdays." I said, "No worries at all. Give me your email address. I will send you an email. Call me on a Tuesday. We're going to put a deposit down." and whatever. Didn't get a call. And I waited another week and I didn't get a call. And another week after that and didn't. So literally it was 3 weeks had gone past and my wife was chatting with a friend of hers. She said, "Oh, we went to BYD at Castle Hill, had a great experience," and gave me the people's names. And I called them and, mate, they were beyond helpful. It was fantastic. Christina and James at BYD Castle Hill, they were great.

[00:07:11] Trevor Long: Did you go there or just call them on the recommendation and say, "We want to buy one now"?

[00:07:15] Chris: I called them on the recommendation. I called her in on the recommendation because I had a trade-in I wanted to talk about. And so she said, "Oh, come on in." She said, "Give me a call when you're ready to come in that morning and I will make sure there's someone here to deal with you." And sure enough, that's what happened. And then I had to postpone it a day. So James even texted me and said, "Hey, Chris, I know you're coming in, but you missed. Let me know when you're coming in and give me a text back and I'll make sure I'm here for you." So it went from one experience to the other.

[00:07:39] Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:07:40] Stephen Fenech: That's remarkable. You know, does that mean To me, that suggests they mustn't work on commission. They do not work on commission.

[00:07:46] Trevor Long: That's the only logical explanation for that outcome.

[00:07:48] Stephen Fenech: If you worked on commission, you'd go the extra mile.

[00:07:53] Chris: I agree with you. I agree with you. I also think maybe they've got so many people beating their doors down that they don't need to worry about—

[00:07:59] Stephen Fenech: What, a girl that works 2 days a week can't ring you back, mate?

[00:08:02] Trevor Long: Like, that's phenomenal. So you're obviously— the money's down. How far off? What's the lead time on a Sea Lion 7?

[00:08:10] Chris: Well, I saw it. It's funny because I did it the week the big BYD ship had already arrived in Perth and it arrived in Melbourne that week on its way to Sydney. And I said to the, to the sales guy, oh, you don't think I'd get one of those, do you? And he said, I'm sorry, 98% of the cars were already sold before the ship had even left China and the other 2% would have been sold on the way there. So I'm sorry you missed out. It's going to be 2 to 3 months. And we're like, okay, no worries at all. Happy to wait.

[00:08:35] Stephen Fenech: They're still doing really well though, aren't they? Like they're, they're, they're, despite all the stories we hear, good and bad. The people are still wanting to buy the cars.

[00:08:42] Trevor Long: I think a lot of that comes down to just the brand awareness. You know, it's, it's a weird thing, but even the number of Sharks around with the big BYD logo on the back, that brand building that you get from just having cars on the road and then the stories in the media, like I would argue all publicity is good publicity because frankly, negative stories about EV sales or EV cars always mention BYD because they're one of the big sellers. So it's probably helping them. And so And frankly, they're just getting so much publicity, they're literally ignoring people, not even turning them away. What's the plan at home for charging and what sort of driving do you do?

[00:09:22] Chris: Well, we have solar. It's gonna be on my wife's daily driver, so I get to miss out on that fun experience every day. But we have solar on the car, sorry, solar on the house. And I had the electrician around last week to fix up some stuff in the garage and he looked at it and said, yeah, mate, we can put a 15-amp pin plug in here, no problems at all.

[00:09:39] Trevor Long: Okay. Charger, put a 15-amp wall plug in for the trickle charger.

[00:09:45] Chris: Correct. Correct. And see how long that goes. Obviously, I want my wife to continue to have a great experience with the car and don't want to turn her off. Yeah. So we'll— so maybe I'll every other week, we'll be able to— she's home during the day, so we'll be able to charge it during the day and then plug it in at night. I have been looking at the EV plans and the like.

[00:10:04] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:10:05] Chris: But the fact that we have solar and we're on such a good rate here that I'm doing some sums and it really doesn't seem overly beneficial to go on an EV plan that's charging me more for daily supply and more for connection. I need to get a triple charge between 12 and 6.

[00:10:20] Stephen Fenech: I'll tell you now, mate, I've got solar and a battery at my place and I'm on a plan. I'm with OVO and they do free 11 till 2 and then 8 cents a kilowatt overnight. So I've taken advantage of that.

[00:10:32] Trevor Long: Big numbers during the peak though. That's the challenge, isn't it?

[00:10:35] Chris: Yeah, it is.

[00:10:37] Stephen Fenech: It is.

[00:10:37] Chris: You know, I think I'm already getting solar during those 11 to 2. And then if I'm, if I'm plugging in the car between midnight and 6:00 in the morning, and it's just getting a trickle charge, albeit a slightly faster charge.

[00:10:47] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:10:48] Chris: You know, how many, how many kilowatt hours can I jam in there during the free time to make up for the extra?

[00:10:52] Trevor Long: Well, I think what you need to do, and this is the challenge, if I can just, you know, assume that your wife's in a similar situation to mine where you'll be guiding her through this journey, right?

[00:11:03] Chris: Yep.

[00:11:04] Trevor Long: It took my wife a while to understand how much sun was required for it to be working, for it to be charging, because just the sun being out isn't enough. Even a cloudy day with beaming sun behind it is often not enough. You actually realise is that, you know, several months of the year there's just not enough sun that comes through in the weekend. You've got to make it—

[00:11:21] Stephen Fenech: winter—

[00:11:22] Trevor Long: you've got to make it part of your life to go and choose other charging options or switch to nighttime charging and things. So, and you know, the 15-amp will be nice and low amount of charge. But again, if she's not doing a lot of driving, then it won't take long for it to top up. So I think you've done the right— you've made the right assumptions broadly, but really want to keep your eye on the, on the week-to-week usage for that first month and a half to then truly decide whether or not maybe you need a little bit faster into the car, either from the sun or from those overnight hours. And just now and then contemplate what would happen if we had a week of rain, you know, even though you had sun, what would happen if we didn't? How would that affect our charging kind of portfolio?

[00:12:07] Chris: It's all a learning curve. It's all learning. Yeah, exactly. About learning curves. I've been looking at all the BYD Sea Lion owners Facebook groups in preparation.

[00:12:15] Trevor Long: Oh, how's that?

[00:12:16] Chris: I will say that sometimes that stuff can make you pause and rethink your decision. Yeah, you know, thankfully we've always been early adopters to a lot of stuff, but, and that, so, you know, just issues come par for the course. But, but most of the time people jump on there either to show the brand new car they've got or to talk about other connective issues or phantom autonomous braking or this, that, or the other. And you think, oh geez, really? Because once again, it's going to be my wife's daily driver and I don't want her to have a bad experience. So yeah, I'm learning all the settings I've got to turn off to try and make sure that we don't have any of these issues or Yeah, well, most of the talk we've had about the BYD, the Sea Lion 7 especially, has been very positive.

[00:12:51] Trevor Long: A lot of people have opted for that and they're quite happy with their purchase. And I would argue you're not actually massively early on that car. That car has been around now for a good year or so. So I think there's enough in it that true bugs should have been fixed. Little things you might learn. And remember, people don't log on to Facebook to go, had a great drive today and things went really well.

[00:13:13] Stephen Fenech: Exactly.

[00:13:13] Stephen Fenech: Normally they go with a grievance before a compliment, don't they, on Facebook.

[00:13:18] Trevor Long: There's a difference to that. But I think it's really just about making sure that she's ready to understand that it's a new car. It doesn't matter that it's an EV or a BYD, it's a new car. Remember that safety systems, safety alerts, all these ADAS things, they're on most new cars. So a lot of the things, it wouldn't matter whether you bought a Subaru or a Kia or a BYD, you may get some of those things. Phantom braking. Mate, I get that in so many cars. I get a lot. We're driving a Lexus at the moment. I get— I've had alerts. I'm like, hey, it was telling— it was trying to suggest that a car was going to pull out of a side street. I had eyes on that guy. He maybe he was still crawling instead of come to a stop, but it was of no risk to me. But the car decided to brake and I'm like, whoa, that was overaggressive to me. So that, that experience may not be BYD Limited. So So maybe exactly keep that in mind.

[00:14:12] Chris: But actually, and of course, I, e off e-sales, I rushed out and grabbed myself a dashcam last week. Ready to install it in the car.

[00:14:19] Trevor Long: Nice. Well done.

[00:14:20] Chris: It's a Uniden.

[00:14:21] Trevor Long: Lovely. Good man. Good choice.

[00:14:24] Chris: And as we say in the EFTM Mancave comments, like Uncle Steven says, get the model with the R at the end.

[00:14:29] Trevor Long: So I got that correct. There you go. Well, mate, congratulations on the new car. Look forward to hearing from you after maybe you've had a month or two in it and had a bit of an experience with the charging and stuff like that, we'd love to hear a bit of real-world experience, mate.

[00:14:42] Chris: Thanks a lot, guys. Great to chat.

John & Mary — First EV purchase: choosing the Tesla Model Y

[00:14:43] Trevor Long: Good stuff, mate. Always good to hear from you. And we'd love to hear from you as well. 0477 657 657. I don't know what eyes he was giving down the camera then, but it was quite off-putting. Ladies, I apologize. Two blokes talking electric cars. John's on the line. G'day, John.

[00:15:11] John: G'day, Steven. G'day, Trevor. How are you guys?

[00:15:14] Trevor Long: Mate, we're really good, buddy. What's happening with you in the world of electric cars? Questions, thoughts?

[00:15:20] John: I had a question earlier when I sent it to Trevor regarding EV utes as far as a single cab ute, which I've never seen around. Yeah, I own a Triton and it's just a single cab ute, it's a diesel with aluminium tray on the back, but I've never seen an electric one with aluminium tray on the back.

[00:15:43] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:15:44] John: You know, something that probably tradies would be looking at buying more than ever.

[00:15:48] John: Yeah.

[00:15:49] John: Being an ex-tradie, I sort of kind of own one of those and I find it very useful.

[00:15:56] Trevor Long: I think the issue is that if you look at around, just drive around the roads for an hour and you count all the utes, right? You go, there's a bunch of Toyotas, It's a bunch of Rangers, bunch of Tritons. But then what percentage of them are metal tray cab chassis utes, right? It's big, but it's probably at my guess, 30%. I'd say 30% at most. The rest of them are dual cabs because they're part family car, part trader ute, right? And so we're getting there. We're getting there because we've got that KGM Musso we spoke to a caller about a few weeks ago. That's a full electric electric dual cab ute. Toyota do have a Hilux all-electric dual cab ute. It'll be, you know, small quantities. I don't think it'll be well received because I think it probably won't have range and it's probably not got electric credentials, but we'll see how it goes. But I think taking the plunge then to a cab chassis, there's one big issue with a cab chassis. If you— I mean, I'm not a massive ute guy, but if you take the tray off and you just look at the cab chassis, you realize there's nothing there under the chassis, right? It's just leaf springs, the wheels, and the chassis. Where the battery needs to be. Yeah. So I think there's probably a lot of risk around design, safety, and still fitting in a big battery to allow you then to go cab chassis style. That'd be my thought.

[00:17:16] John: Yeah, I believe that's probably the case and I think it's coming, but it'll probably be a bit of a wait. At some point. Yes.

[00:17:25] Trevor Long: So you're driving a ute now. What else is in the family?

[00:17:29] John: Ah, well boys, I've just picked up a brand new Tesla.

[00:17:34] Trevor Long: Hey!

[00:17:35] John: Yesterday.

[00:17:36] Trevor Long: Wow. Right. All right. What brought that on?

[00:17:41] John: Yeah. Well, we were looking at going electric. We got solar on the roof and batteries when sort of subsidy was announced with batteries. So we got that. So we figured the car was due for an update. We were driving an XC Volvo, which is a 2020 model. So it's getting on a bit. I mean, but we thought, well, which way are we gonna go? Are we gonna go back to petrol? Are we gonna go to an electric? So we kind of had a big talk about it and I managed to convince the wife that we could go all electric.

[00:18:15] Stephen Fenech: So tell us, how did you, John, arrive at the Tesla? Was that always something you had in mind, something you admired from a distance, or was it the result of test driving other vehicles and deciding the Tesla was was the model for you?

[00:18:31] John: Actually, the Tesla was the first one we test drove.

[00:18:35] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:18:36] John: And then we went and test drove other cars. We test drove an EV5, I think. And another car we drove as well. We only had like 3 test drives basically. And every time we went back and she wanted to test drive the Tesla. So we test drove the Tesla about 3 or 4 times. Wow.

[00:18:59] Stephen Fenech: And so you decided on the Model Y.

[00:19:02] John: And we, BYD was one of those we test drove as well. Yeah. And so we went down there, that road down there, and she always liked the Tesla. So, you know, I was quite happy whatever she decided she wanted to have.

[00:19:16] Trevor Long: Happy wife, happy life, my man.

[00:19:18] John: Good call, John.

[00:19:19] Stephen Fenech: Good call, John. So yeah, so what's— so this is obviously your first EV.

[00:19:24] John: What is it?

[00:19:25] Stephen Fenech: What have you done to prepare at home? So you've already got the vehicle, haven't you? So you've already got it.

[00:19:30] John: I picked it up yesterday.

[00:19:33] Stephen Fenech: Okay, so what have you— what's your charging situation then?

[00:19:36] John: The charging situation is basically granny charger. So I'm doing a granny charger at the moment. Yeah, I figure I'll try that out first and if I need to go at a higher charging, then yeah, I'll outlay money for that. But at the moment this works fine.

[00:19:52] Trevor Long: At the moment I think that's a great strategy, John. I think it's a great strategy. It requires no additional infrastructure at home, no additional expense. You've got solar and batteries so you can trickle charge as you need on your own power choice, which is awesome. And if you do decide to take longer trips or whatever and you get home and it's, it's a much deeper charge, you could obviously go to a public charger or you could learn from that experience. Absolutely. Decide to do something else. So, you know, you've got the Tesla Supercharger network, which is probably the most valuable part of owning a Tesla.

[00:20:24] John: Yeah. And there's a Supercharger in the local shopping center up the road from where I live. Perfect. There's quite a few of them actually. I'm at Oran Park and all the new shopping area down up there and Oran Park's being upgraded all the time and they've got heaps of superchargers there.

[00:20:40] Trevor Long: John, you're hurting me, mate. Okay. Oran Park should be still a raceway.

[00:20:43] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:20:43] Trevor Long: In my view. But anyway, you just live there.

[00:20:45] John: I know.

[00:20:45] Trevor Long: You live there. That's fine. That's fine.

[00:20:48] Stephen Fenech: So, John, let me ask you. So your wife was obviously taken with the Tesla. Did you realize what was it that appealed to her about the Tesla? Was it the sort of the space age, sort of the scare the sort of the minimal cabin or the brand or what was it that got her over the line?

[00:21:09] John: I think basically it's just the look of it. It looks different from all the others. Yeah, probably the space, space-saving, the space-age look. Yeah, but it looked different to the others on the inside. And I think what probably got her over the line is the back seat. You could push the button and the back seats fold over and push the button, back seats lift back up. She says, they get kind of heavy.

[00:21:31] Stephen Fenech: And she says, I wouldn't be able to lift it.

[00:21:33] John: If I need to have the back seats down. So I think she loved that part of it.

[00:21:38] Trevor Long: It's the little things.

[00:21:40] John: Yeah.

[00:21:40] Stephen Fenech: And it sounded like, it sounded to me, John, you didn't have to wait long for the car. Did you get it? Did you say, okay, I want one and they had one in stock or you had to wait? What was that situation?

[00:21:50] John: Who knows? Yeah, we ordered the, placed an order on 30th of April. We were told it's gonna be here July, August. Then we got updated and it came earlier.

[00:22:07] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:22:08] John: So it ended up at the end of June. So about 2 months. So basically.

[00:22:11] Stephen Fenech: That's quick, yeah. Yeah, it's quick.

[00:22:12] John: About 2 months. So it's been way too long. I was prepared to wait that long, but being with the Gulf War and all that, with the oil prices, everybody's been buying electric vehicles.

[00:22:25] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:22:26] Stephen Fenech: What color? What color did you go for, mate? What'd you get?

[00:22:29] John: We went for white.

[00:22:30] Trevor Long: White.

[00:22:31] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:22:32] Trevor Long: Typical.

[00:22:32] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that's a popular color.

[00:22:34] Trevor Long: And so I'm assuming then if there was an electric ute, that might be the thing that replaces the other car in the driveway, John?

[00:22:41] John: Yeah, I would really want a single cab, but that's probably going to come eventually. But, and with the aluminum tray on it, I mean, if I could say, usually the single cab utes, a lot of them come up with sort of a body style that's sort of like, like a dual cab, but a single cab. Yes. If you know what I mean.

[00:23:03] John: Yeah.

[00:23:03] John: And basically they take that part off and put an aluminium tray on top of it.

[00:23:06] Trevor Long: That's right.

[00:23:07] John: Yeah.

[00:23:07] John: So, so basically I think it's coming, so I'll wait a bit longer.

[00:23:12] Trevor Long: He's going to hold out and you might get there in the end, John. Well, that's made that super exciting.

[00:23:15] Stephen Fenech: I hope your wife lets you drive the Tesla occasionally, mate.

[00:23:19] John: Yeah, I'm sure she will.

[00:23:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Trevor Long: Like I get to drive the here now and then. Um, whatever. Uh, mate, congratulations. Is that the wife right there? Is she listening in?

[00:23:28] John: Yeah, she is.

[00:23:29] Trevor Long: What's her name?

[00:23:30] John: She got up.

[00:23:31] Trevor Long: Mary. Mary. Well done, Mary. Don't let John drive the car.

[00:23:36] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:23:37] John: Uh, look, I'm a bit nervous driving it myself. I haven't even sat in the driver's seat yet because I get nervous about it.

[00:23:42] Trevor Long: You picked it.

[00:23:44] Stephen Fenech: It's your car.

[00:23:46] John: I know.

[00:23:46] John: There's just so much about it that we have to learn.

[00:23:49] Stephen Fenech: You'll be right.

[00:23:50] Trevor Long: It's easy, Mary.

[00:23:51] John: You'll be right.

[00:23:51] Trevor Long: You'll Be fine. Fine. Everyone loves them. Well, good on you.

[00:23:57] Stephen Fenech: Congratulations on your new car.

[00:23:59] Trevor Long: Congratulations, Mary and John, on your EV journey. And you keep in touch if there's any questions you've got about the car or anything in the world of electrics. Okay.

[00:24:06] John: Thank you, guys.

[00:24:08] Trevor Long: Thanks, guys. Thanks for reaching out.

[00:24:09] John: Nice talking to you.

[00:24:10] Trevor Long: Good on you, John. Thanks. Good to hear from you, mate. There you go. John and Mary.

[00:24:13] Stephen Fenech: John and Mary. Lovely. I could hear her in the background there for a minute.

[00:24:17] Trevor Long: Yeah. She was just wanting to chime in. She was nervous to be on the phone and driving the car.

[00:24:22] John: Apparently.

[00:24:22] Stephen Fenech: There you go. Well, well, you know what? The only thing to do is to get behind the wheel and give it a go.

[00:24:26] Trevor Long: That's— I mean, I don't know. They've had the car for a little while. Get in the driver's seat.

[00:24:32] Stephen Fenech: Mate, I had my Tesla for 5 years. My wife never even—

[00:24:34] Trevor Long: we've had this discussion.

[00:24:35] Stephen Fenech: She sat in the passenger seat but never drove it once.

[00:24:37] Trevor Long: She's never driven the Mercedes. She's never driven the Tesla because she's afraid of you. No, she doesn't want a ding, a scratch, anything.

[00:24:50] Stephen Fenech: Life, that's life. Life happens. I don't mind.

[00:24:53] Trevor Long: Okay, I'll take your word for it. But you know what? I can't wait for Jo to get an electric car though. Yeah, she'll be able to enjoy it as much as we do.

[00:25:02] Stephen Fenech: I hope so. I hope so. She's sort of more leaning towards a plug-in hybrid. Yeah, I think given the grandma duties at the moment, drives up the coast, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know, we'll see, mate. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Brenton — Kia EV3 owner navigating company-car charging logistics

[00:25:14] Trevor Long: All right, well, let us know where you are in your world of electrics and electric journey. Send us a text 0477 657 657 or on WhatsApp. Thanks for Vodafone. Just save Two Blokes in Your Phone as 0477 657 657. Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars. We'd love to hear from you. Brenton's on the line today. Brenton.

[00:25:44] Brenton: Hey, g'day guys.

[00:25:45] Stephen Fenech: Great to be here.

[00:25:46] Trevor Long: What's happening in your world of electric cars, mate?

[00:25:49] Brenton: Well, we've just got one about a week ago, done about 800 kilometers.

[00:25:53] Trevor Long: What'd you get?

[00:25:55] Brenton: Kia EV3.

[00:25:56] Stephen Fenech: Nice.

[00:25:57] Stephen Fenech: Great little car.

[00:25:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, right.

[00:25:59] Brenton: Yeah, it goes like a rocket. Yeah. But now we'd like to charge it.

[00:26:04] Trevor Long: And it's pretty important.

[00:26:06] Stephen Fenech: That's an important part.

[00:26:07] Trevor Long: Granny.

[00:26:08] SPEAKER_C: Yeah.

[00:26:08] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:26:08] Brenton: Yeah, dude.

[00:26:09] Stephen Fenech: So what's your setup at home, Brenton? Do you have solar? Do you have a battery? Well, what's the go?

[00:26:15] Brenton: Monday, Monday the solar's going in, batteries, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, but we're sort of about 50 kilometers round trip from the nearest business charger.

[00:26:32] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:26:33] Brenton: So you're sort of limited a bit. You need to make sure that you've got 50 to 100 km in the tank to get back to work sort of thing. It's a company car.

[00:26:42] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:26:43] Brenton: So don't really want to charge it at home, but we might just have to have one up our sleeve for that rainy day.

[00:26:51] Stephen Fenech: If you're getting solar and the battery, you could maybe look at having— well, if even using the granny charger, at least during the day you may be getting the free energy from your solar. And then if you're on a plan, you might get the overnight cheaper, cheaper cost of as well.

[00:27:09] Trevor Long: It's a strange— sorry to jump in, but it feels like a strange situation where you're getting solar and a battery, but you actually don't want to charge at home because it's a company car. You want to be able to charge the company for the charging. Is that what you're saying?

[00:27:21] Brenton: Well, yes. In the past it's been a petrol card.

[00:27:24] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:27:25] Trevor Long: Aha. Gotcha. Gotcha. So what you're saying is you want the solar that you're putting in to charge the battery in your house to save you electricity for your house usage. You don't want waste any of that stored usage, stored power or generator power on a car that the company should be paying for.

[00:27:41] Brenton: Yes, correct.

[00:27:42] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Okay. So, well, in this situation, it's very interesting because let's say you do have a company car, they normally give you like a petrol card or something.

[00:27:50] Trevor Long: That's what he's saying.

[00:27:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. So is it, is it possible to maybe get an allowance for instead of the card, if you're charging at home, spending your money, could that be maybe negotiated with the business to say, well, I'm charging at home, how about giving me, give me $50 a month allowance to cover those costs.

[00:28:08] Brenton: Yeah, look, you're probably right, but that's a conversation yet to be had.

[00:28:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, right. Okay. And so, but you say you're looking for a solution in that sense and you're 50, you're 25 K's distance, so 50 K round trip from what, a Tesla charger or another brand?

[00:28:24] Brenton: A company charger. A company charger.

[00:28:25] Trevor Long: When you say company, your company's charger?

[00:28:27] Brenton: Yeah, yeah. At one of the branches.

[00:28:30] Trevor Long: Yep. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

[00:28:32] Stephen Fenech: So if you were to charge publicly and then you got a receipt to show then for your charging.

[00:28:40] Trevor Long: Could you get that back?

[00:28:40] Stephen Fenech: You could get that reimbursed as well then, or?

[00:28:44] Brenton: Probably, but we're just trying to be very company orientated. Right, okay. Yeah, so the granny charged about 150-odd kilometers a day.

[00:28:58] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:28:58] Brenton: I'm not sure if, does that keep up?

[00:29:01] Stephen Fenech: Well, with the granny charger, you're doing 150 a day, so I'd assume you'll be home in the afternoon, evening, and then charging overnight. I don't think you're going to get back 150k charging with the granny charger overnight. You'll get that back with a wall charger. If you've got a 7-kilowatt charger, you'll get that back overnight, not a problem. Granny charger, you may— you'd be lucky to get half of that back, I reckon, maybe a third. Yeah, it's pretty slow.

[00:29:26] Brenton: Okay.

[00:29:26] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:29:26] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:29:28] Trevor Long: So what Steven's saying is, you know, the expense of putting in a wall charger, but again, it's another expense for you, isn't it? Right?

[00:29:35] Brenton: Yeah.

[00:29:35] Trevor Long: Which the company's not paying for, is gonna give you the quicker top-up, which would also then allow you to do what Steven's talked about only early with another caller is look at those companies. And I don't know what it's like in South Australia, but a company that has an overnight charging rate so that you can get a really cheap rate from midnight to 6:00 AM, for example, and make sure that you use the wall charger, which is fast and efficient in that time.

[00:29:58] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:29:59] Stephen Fenech: So it's only costing you like 8 cents a kilowatt. It'd be pretty cheap. Like, it'll be costing you like $5 to top up the car overnight.

[00:30:06] Brenton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And but that, that became a bit confusing because AGL looked like they wanted that special charger that they can control, uh, OCPP.

[00:30:18] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:30:18] Trevor Long: And, uh, protocol. Yeah, yeah.

[00:30:21] Brenton: So that's $1,000. Without installation, roughly. There is a— I've been looking around. Bunnings have got one of their home brand, Detta. I think that's about $300-$400.

[00:30:36] Trevor Long: Bunnings got a few. And you're right, like there's cheaper chargers out there, installation in addition. But the offset of speed versus efficiency is why a wall charger is a better option. Mate, I'll be honest I agree with you. You know what you need, but your biggest challenge is you're trying to put it through. Yeah, it's an expensing situation. So like, and we've talked about this is like someone, Amanda said to me, like, why do you want, why do I want to go and charge it at Ampol as opposed to at the house? Because I can put like the company can pay for the charge as opposed to using our electricity at home.

[00:31:17] Stephen Fenech: I get that.

[00:31:17] Trevor Long: I totally do.

[00:31:18] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:31:19] Trevor Long: But I think that Stephen's point about what you probably need to do is do some calculations about what it truly costs because it's not petrol, right? Filling up a petrol tank is $100. Filling up your electric car, not a full tank, but you know, the 150 Ks. That's $5, $6, right? Now, if you were spending $15, $20 a week, that's pretty good. It's obviously your hip pocket, but it's far cheaper than having to use your hip pocket to do the petrol car. And then I think, I think Stephen's right. You're better off thinking about that conversation around, look, I'm gonna try and use the company site whenever I can, whenever I'm on my way home and driving past it, whatever. But when I'm at home and I do this, I'm gonna calculate that we're gonna use it 6 times a month. And we, you know, can we just get an allowance of $50 a month? And you'll feel, you'll at least feel like they're contributing that way.

[00:32:09] Brenton: Exactly. Look, it is a bit of a first world problem.

[00:32:13] Stephen Fenech: But you're, I understand, Britton, you're a sparky yourself, aren't you? You're an electrician. So if, if at a pinch you could install this charger yourself, couldn't you?

[00:32:23] Brenton: Definitely. Yes. Yeah. So you'd send them an invoice too, wouldn't you?

[00:32:28] Stephen Fenech: You'd invoice them as well.

[00:32:30] Brenton: Well, you can't, apparently you can't claim it on your tax. Is that?

[00:32:35] Trevor Long: Oh, we're not accountants. I wouldn't want to give financial advice. I'd be very cautious about what you can and can't claim on tax in this regard.

[00:32:42] Stephen Fenech: You know, if it's a business expense, if you, if you've got a, like a logbook, you've got to logbook it.

[00:32:46] Brenton: You'd think so, wouldn't you?

[00:32:47] Stephen Fenech: It's part of a business expense.

[00:32:49] Trevor Long: If you're running it as a logbook, 'cause if you're running it as a bit like my car's business registered and we run a logbook and every drive's a review. So there's that, you know, there's difference. But I'd be, yeah, I feel like that's the battle you've got, Brenton, is really just balancing that personal versus work versus the overall convenience. 'Cause mate, in the end, the utter convenience of 'cause you could go to Bunnings, buy a charger today, install it yourself.

[00:33:16] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that's saved you a couple of thousand just there.

[00:33:18] Trevor Long: You're $350 in the can, right? You've saved a few hundred on installation. A sparky's gonna charge you. But the convenience, mate, of just going boom, charge, done, is gonna far outweigh the complication.

[00:33:32] Stephen Fenech: True.

[00:33:32] Trevor Long: Honestly, the 5 minutes you spend explaining your charging needs and situation with regards to work is saved just by plugging it in and paying for it yourself. But, but sparingly, you're not going to do it all the time. Yeah. In your own mind, you're going to go whenever possible, let's go down the local depot and charge. But when— exactly when— as a part of our regular routine, let's always try and have the car at 50% battery. So if we come home and it's at 30%, let's top it up overnight and get it back to 50% or 60%. And then let's do the remaining part at the corporate site and things like that. I feel like that's probably the balance is finding how much you need to do at home versus doing it all at home.

[00:34:09] Brenton: Yes.

[00:34:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. And you said you've already got the car. You've already got the vehicle.

[00:34:13] Brenton: It might only—

[00:34:14] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:34:14] Brenton: Yeah. And it might only be on a Sunday night. That's right.

[00:34:18] Trevor Long: That's right.

[00:34:18] Brenton: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:20] Stephen Fenech: And how do you like the car, mate? You like enjoying the car?

[00:34:24] Brenton: It's very, very good. Yes.

[00:34:27] Stephen Fenech: That's a great review.

[00:34:29] Brenton: I bought a petrol car. Earlier this year and I wish I'd have got a battery car for sure.

[00:34:36] Stephen Fenech: An EV, wow.

[00:34:37] Brenton: Electric, yeah.

[00:34:38] Trevor Long: Well, mate, good luck with the business expenses, my friend. I think you'll work it out. Absolutely, yeah. But yeah, there'll be a balance. I think there'll be a balance required, mate. So great to hear from you. Keep in touch.

[00:34:50] Brenton: All right, thanks for the great show.

[00:34:53] Trevor Long: Cheers, Brendan. Thanks so much for getting in touch, mate. Yeah, I mean, it's a balance.

[00:34:56] Stephen Fenech: I mean, well, I think that's reasonable. Wouldn't it? If it's a company car and you previously had a petrol card to cover you, like, why wouldn't you then get a— it wouldn't cost— it'll cost them less.

[00:35:06] Trevor Long: So I think what we probably should have got to there was what he— maybe rather than arguing that they give him allowance, maybe so. But I was going to go there, but I felt like he didn't want to because what I thought was, why wouldn't you get the company to get you a Chargefox account or an EV account or a Tesla account, right? But then it was like they wanted— they want you to charge at the office.

[00:35:26] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:35:26] Trevor Long: And that may be because it's cheaper for electricity, because if they're paying 30 or 40 cents at the office for electricity, that's cheaper than 65 cents at Chargefox, right? So the company is also being smart. But I wonder how many people—

[00:35:39] Stephen Fenech: if it's 50 k's away.

[00:35:41] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:35:42] Stephen Fenech: Like, that's not convenient though, is it? It's not the convenience.

[00:35:46] Trevor Long: But the charge is going to be somewhere else as well. He's got to drive to a charger somewhere. If it's Chargefox, if he was given even a Charge Card with Chargefox or someone. He's gotta go somewhere for that as well. Fair call. It may be closer, it may not be. So I think it's a good question. If anyone is listening and has merged, migrated from having a company car with a Motorcard, Motorcharge, or petrol card into a petrol car, what did the company do for the running costs?

[00:36:11] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely, yeah, that's a good question. He already had the car. Like I'm thinking this should have been discussed before you got the car.

[00:36:18] Trevor Long: That's why I asked him, you've got the car, haven't you already?

[00:36:21] Stephen Fenech: Like, shouldn't you work this out before you got the car?

[00:36:24] Trevor Long: Yeah, because I'm like, you know, he said we got solar and a battery going on. That's what a lot of people say because they're trying to do the whole charging at home situation, whereas he's like, we've got solar and battery coming on, but I don't want to charge here.

[00:36:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but I want the company to pay. Well, look, if it's company, fair call, mate.

[00:36:38] Trevor Long: 100%.

[00:36:38] Stephen Fenech: If it's in your deal, get it done.

[00:36:41] Trevor Long: Now, speaking of cars, we've had the pleasure of driving the BYD Atto 1 for a little while. I got to tell you, I was We took us a long time to get to this car just because our schedules, we're booked so far in advance with cars. And look, it's a fascinating car for me because I was super excited when it was announced this was going to be Australia's cheapest electric car and it still is by a few hundred dollars. And, and but it's also a very small car and I'm partly torn by my enthusiasm for it. It's a, it's a $23,000 car for the Essential, about $27,000 drive away, $27,000 for the Premium, which we're driving. It's $31,000 drive away. And $31,000 driveaway is roughly the same price as that MG4 Urban. Remember last week or the week before we had a caller about that?

[00:37:26] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:37:27] Trevor Long: So it's very similar price. So they're head to head there. Okay. And I'll be negative for a start. I'm very positive about this being Australia's cheapest electric car.

[00:37:37] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:37:37] Trevor Long: But for comparison and clarity, you could buy a Kia Picanto, which is, you know, shoebox size like this.

[00:37:45] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:37:45] Trevor Long: For $20,000. $22,000. So it's $10,000 more.

[00:37:49] Stephen Fenech: What about range though? How's the range compare?

[00:37:52] Trevor Long: Because the Kia Picanto is a petrol car. So, okay, plenty more, right? I'm talking petrol to electric comparison, right? You're still paying— this is Australia's cheapest electric car, no question.

[00:38:02] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:38:02] Trevor Long: But if you're looking for a cheap small car, yeah, there are petrol options. And a Kia Picanto is very fuel efficient, right? It's not like it's burning through a V8 engine, right?

[00:38:12] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, true.

[00:38:13] Trevor Long: So efficiency-wise, it's going to be hard to suggest to a pensioner or a first car buyer that you should spend the extra $10,000 on an electric car. I'd say that up front. However, yeah, it's a bloody good car to drive.

[00:38:28] Stephen Fenech: I really enjoyed this too. Yeah, it's a fun car to drive. It's, uh, I think the ideal driver for this would be obviously someone who's not going to be going long distances.

[00:38:38] Trevor Long: It's like, this one's got like a 280-odd km range.

[00:38:41] Stephen Fenech: It says 310 on the website, but let's call it 280.

[00:38:43] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:38:44] Stephen Fenech: The—

[00:38:45] Stephen Fenech: for someone who just sort of wants something for around town, short drives, maybe someone older, maybe someone younger. This is obviously isn't a car for those customers, those drivers who want to go down the coast or go on trips.

[00:38:59] Trevor Long: And what I found fascinating was, did you— you didn't jump in the back seat for testing? No, mate. It's got roomy room for adults. Yeah, easy roomier than you think because I jumped in the back with my normal driving position. Went on. This is totally fine. I expected it to be cramped.

[00:39:14] Stephen Fenech: I didn't even have to adjust the seat much after because I had it after Trevor had it. And normally I've got to push my seat back. I'm a little bit taller than Trev, but I didn't have— I hardly had to move the seat and I'm a big bloke and there was plenty of headroom.

[00:39:25] Trevor Long: Is it like a sardine getting out of the thing?

[00:39:27] Stephen Fenech: No, not at all.

[00:39:28] Trevor Long: Really?

[00:39:28] Stephen Fenech: It was quite comfortable.

[00:39:29] Trevor Long: It's a small car.

[00:39:30] Stephen Fenech: It is a small car. And but I think for someone like me, I fit in it and like most people are smaller than me, so it should fit fine.

[00:39:39] Trevor Long: I thought it had good get up and go. And I truly believe, and again, design is very subjective. Okay. And I think you can probably see from my Cooper that I have a style. I like sharp lines and hard lines. That's why I like this car. Sharp lines, good design. Nice. Whereas I feel like the ATTO 2 and even the ATTO 3 are more rounded in their design. I think this is the design style that would win them sales across the range. Yeah, but maybe, maybe I'm Robinson Crusoe on that.

[00:40:06] Stephen Fenech: I don't think so. No, I think I agree. It's 5-star ANCAP safety too. So that's, that's tick that box.

[00:40:12] Trevor Long: It does have a driver attention. It does, yeah.

[00:40:14] Stephen Fenech: In fact, the coffee warning copped me a couple of times. I was driving home from— where was I coming home from? 2GB on Monday night. And yeah, I leave there at 10 o'clock at night. I yawned probably twice and a picture of a coffee cup came up saying, oh, you know, you know what I noticed about that?

[00:40:30] Trevor Long: It's not a loud warning though. No, you notice the cup, but it's not an over-annoying, aggressive— yeah, because I get the yawn warning when I'm singing yawning. You know, sometimes you're belting out a tune, you're belting out a tune, you're like, hey, hey, hey, I'm just belting out a song. Really? Yeah. Did it pick that up? I often get—

[00:40:47] Stephen Fenech: wow—

[00:40:48] Trevor Long: a yawn warning on a song.

[00:40:50] Stephen Fenech: Maybe it just says you're boring. It's yawning, saying, oh mate, can you ease off on the singing? God help us.

[00:40:59] Trevor Long: That could be right.

[00:41:00] Stephen Fenech: Could be it.

[00:41:01] Trevor Long: That could be it.

[00:41:02] Stephen Fenech: But anyway, one other thing, one little bugbear I had.

[00:41:04] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:41:05] Stephen Fenech: I've been using Android for the last 6 months and Android Auto didn't automatically connect. Now I don't know whether it's an issue with the phone. I won't mention the brand of the phone.

[00:41:15] Trevor Long: I will not mention the brand, but I will say this. You had issues with another car from another phone, same brand of the phone. It's the only thing I'd say.

[00:41:24] Stephen Fenech: My bugbear is that it didn't automatically connect to Android Auto. It was paired via Bluetooth and Android Auto didn't automatically start up despite the settings on the phone that was meant for it to happen. It resulted in me having to unpair, pair, unpair, pair several times. Before I got here today, I had to do that 5 times before I could leave. I would've been here 15 minutes earlier than I was because I had to get— I didn't wanna drive with Android Auto.

[00:41:52] Trevor Long: I told you a million times not to exaggerate.

[00:41:55] Stephen Fenech: I seriously would've— it took that long to get it to recognize and start up Android Auto automatically. Automatically. It just didn't do it. I don't know if other people had that issue. You had no issue? You had an iPhone?

[00:42:06] Trevor Long: Apple CarPlay didn't have an issue at all, wirelessly. Yep. The wireless charger right there in the center. No center console, but a lot of center console under storage. So there's two cup holders, but no actual— Yeah, no, no actual storage box, but there's plenty of storage underneath the console. So it's a compromise.

[00:42:27] Stephen Fenech: And the The dial took a little bit while to hang on. Where's the— normally you're used to the stuff being up in front of you, but then, oh, hang on, you gotta twist it up to reverse and twist it down for drive.

[00:42:38] Trevor Long: Yeah, it is.

[00:42:39] Stephen Fenech: Poke the side button for park.

[00:42:41] Trevor Long: And it took me a while to work out the park, to be honest.

[00:42:43] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, a little side button.

[00:42:45] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah.

[00:42:45] Stephen Fenech: Well, I think that's BYD's go.

[00:42:47] Trevor Long: I just put my foot on the brake and open the door, it normally goes in the park.

[00:42:51] Stephen Fenech: It also has, interestingly, you can just jump in the car and it starts up.

[00:42:55] Trevor Long: It's got a start button. Yes.

[00:42:57] Stephen Fenech: And, and so even when you jump out, it stops, but it's got a stop button.

[00:43:00] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:43:00] Stephen Fenech: So make your mind up, you've got both choices.

[00:43:02] Trevor Long: Yeah, that, that is annoying because I want one or the other. Just tell me if it works either way. You get both.

[00:43:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you get both.

[00:43:10] Trevor Long: Impressive. I'm just— I, I like the car a lot. I would highly recommend it to people that just want to run a city runabout. This is not a highway car because of the range, but as a city runner about. Absolute, uh, ball tearer.

[00:43:22] Stephen Fenech: The size— like, I'm not used to driving cars this small. Yeah, the size was handy for parking. You can park this anywhere.

[00:43:29] Trevor Long: Yeah. Oh mate, you probably put two of these—

[00:43:30] Stephen Fenech: you can slot these in a shopping center.

[00:43:32] Trevor Long: Food size is small, but under the, under the boot floor there is also storage for cables and things, which would allow you extra space. But it's not tiny.

[00:43:40] Stephen Fenech: You can drop the seats, buddy. So if you drop the back seat—

[00:43:42] Trevor Long: yeah, yeah.

[00:43:43] Stephen Fenech: So if I want to put the golf clubs in it, I'd have to drop the back seats down and put them on an angle. And yeah, yeah. Tight.

[00:43:49] Trevor Long: Yeah, it'd be tight.

[00:43:50] Stephen Fenech: You'd squeeze it in, you'd get it in.

[00:43:52] Trevor Long: Yeah, but for shopping, which is what this car is going to be used for most, uh, this would do— this would do it.

[00:43:57] Stephen Fenech: There's a bit of depth to it when you open the door. Yeah, there's a bit of shopping for two, no dramas at all.

[00:44:01] Trevor Long: Shopping for a family, it's going to be boot down or two trips perhaps.

[00:44:05] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, stack them, pack them, and rack them.

[00:44:07] Trevor Long: Great little car. Big fan of the BYD ATTO 1. I can see why it's doing so well, but I can also see why in a dealership this car draws draws you in. And then you go, ah, so $290K range, but for a bit of extra money I could get something with a bit more. That's why I think the Dolphin's still selling well. So I think BYD has now made it to a point where they've got enough cars in the range that they're able to essentially explain to people, have people discover on their own that there's a reason why this one might not be perfect and we gotta get the next one or whatever it might be. So love it. Great little car. Let us know if you've bought yourself a BYD ATTO 1. We'd love to hear from you. Send us a text, 0477657657, and we'll do it all again next week.

[00:44:45] Trevor Long: Stephen, I'll see you then.

[00:44:47] Stephen Fenech: Be it.

[00:44:48] Trevor Long: So, yep.