The Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars podcast – Episode # 121 – The Farizon Electric Van owner review, and our Skoda Reviews

Episode: 121 – The Farizon Electric Van owner review, and our Skoda Reviews
Podcast: Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars
Date: 24 May 2026
Hosts: Trevor Long & Stephen Fenech

[00:00:01] Trevor: This is Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech.

[00:00:06] Stephen Fenech: Thanks to NRMA Insurance and Uniden.

[00:00:09] Trevor: Great to have your company. Thank you to NRMA Insurance, helping protect what matters most for Australians for 100 years or more, and one of Australia’s largest insurers of electric vehicles. We appreciate it if you just, in the— when, when your car insurance comes up, just give NRMA a call, ask for a quote. That’s all we ask. It might be a better deal than you’ve ever seen, it might be spot on, it might not be. Fine, whatever. Make a decision based on that quote. Same applies to getting yourself a dash cam. There’s plenty of brands in the market. Uniden are a great bunch of people, Aussie-based bunch of people that make excellent products. And we’d love you to consider them for your next dash cam in your car. If you bought a new car, get a dash cam. One with a rear camera is our advice.

[00:00:47] Stephen Fenech: One of the first things you buy. Whenever I get a new car, first thing.

[00:00:51] Trevor: Window tinting, dash cam. Oh yeah, that’s up there too. That’s fair, that’s fair.

[00:00:55] Stephen Fenech: They’re in the top 2.

[00:00:56] Trevor: Uniden, just give them consideration. Have a look at their huge range. At every price point, they’ve got a camera to suit you. A bunch of things to get through on the show today, a bunch of calls and a bit of information to come through as well. But Steven, I wanted to address a comment that appeared on, I’ve just got to save that so you see it, that appeared on YouTube last week after our interview with Andrew from Zeka. I can never, it’s a YouTube username, so, okay, Damanthaf, anyway, said, great show, really enjoyed the Zeka interview, however, I think an important question was missed regarding their service network. And it’s a great point. It’s a really good point.

[00:01:33] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:01:34] Trevor: They say, which I believe is one of the major disadvantages of buying into the new brands here in Australia. It would be value— it would have been valuable to understand what their plans are and what’s currently in place for servicing their vehicles. Haven’t driven a Zeekr yet. I’m exploring options for a second EV, one that my wife will primarily drive. I’ve shortlisted the Zeekr X, Xpeng G6, Subaru Uncharted. And of course, there the major concern is is the service networks of ZEEKR and XPeng.

[00:02:01] Stephen Fenech: Now, ZEEKR have responded.

[00:02:02] Trevor: I’d say, well, give me, let me get there. I’d say first and foremost, XPeng, with the greatest respect, I’d be avoiding like a plague right now because we don’t know where that company’s going. In China, they’re unbelievable. The Australian distributor has filed for business concerns. I don’t have the details in front of me, but broadly speaking, it feels to me like what’s happening is a more combative version of what happened to BYD. I think XPeng in China wants to come to Australia and run it themselves. And I think the Aussies who, you know, brought them here are probably being gutted. That’s what I think is probably happening. But I would be worried about where they are initially in the service network.

[00:02:38] Stephen Fenech: You know what, in the whole scheme of things though, it just gives you another question to ask when you buy a car.

[00:02:43] Trevor: Spot on.

[00:02:43] Stephen Fenech: You know, you want to— because, you know, whenever we buy a car, it’s all rosy and everything and everything’s happening, it’s all happy. But you never consider what happens. A, if I have an accident, is it easy to repair? Service, all those things are not really top top of mind when you’re considering it?

[00:02:59] Trevor: Well, there was someone else, might have been in the Mancave, sent me a video of— there’s a bloke called, I’m going to say, The Electric Viking on YouTube.

[00:03:06] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:03:06] Trevor: And very clearly he’s got a big beard and like, he looks like a Viking. But anyways, he runs— talks about electric vehicles every day, like crazy numbers of videos. But he had this big drama with an insurance company about them canceling his insurance when he had an incident. And it was like, oh, but— and everyone sent it to me and I went, listen, I’ll tell you right now, there’s more to this story than you believe. So I was holding off. And it turns out he has an Xpeng. And I think what I read between the lines after next video, which said they gave him his money back and everything, was that they looked at it and went, we don’t think we can reliably insure this car because we don’t think we can get parts now because of what’s happening with XPeng. So I think that’s why they canceled the insurance. So those things are a real challenge for this industry, right?

[00:03:46] Stephen Fenech: A consideration for buyers.

[00:03:49] Trevor: So with that, because we saw your comment on YouTube, I sent it to Zeker and I said, listen, I don’t want to get Andrew back on. I don’t want to bother him. But could you ask Andrew this very question? And so he has responded in email, so I’ll read it verbatim. And the response is, “Fair question, and it’s the right one to ask of any new brand. We built the service model deliberately rather than chasing a dealer count for its own sake. We’re on track for 25 dealerships within the next 12 months, with another 10 to follow as volume grows and we find the right dealer partners. As I said in the interview, we’re building this brand sustainably for the long term, and finding the right people to partner with is critical. We won’t just put a dealership up for the sake of it. Behind that network sits our Melbourne Parts Hub, where our local after-sales team is working towards a 98% fill rate and monitoring it constantly. If we need to put parts on a plane to get a customer moving, we will. When a car is off the road, the owner is anxious to get it back, and our job is to make that happen as quickly as possible. That’s why we have a 48-hour loaner commitment if your vehicle is off the road for warranty work. The ownership experience doesn’t end when you drive off the lot, and we’ve built the operation to reflect that. So bravo.

[00:04:58] Stephen Fenech: Great answer.

[00:04:58] Trevor: Great answer.

[00:05:00] Stephen Fenech: And you know what? And you could tell when we interviewed him last week, there was a lot of consideration about, you know, and how many times have we seen companies in the past grow too fast to stay sustainable? So, you know, kudos to them for going that deep in their consideration, not just throwing up dealerships for the sake of it.

[00:05:18] Trevor: Spot on. And look, again, the other thing that proves is that firstly, we’re reading your comments. We want to hear from you. If you’ve got a question about EVs, we don’t just say it for fun. 0477 657 657. Send us a text. To have you on the show and talk about it. And we will challenge the industry. If you’ve got a question about a car company, we’ll ask them. We’ll get answers for you. We’ll get them on the show. I mentioned we’ve done some outreach to the car companies. I think Polestar are keen to come on soon. So yeah, we’re keen to hear from the industry. And if there’s someone you want us to talk to, tell us. We’ll get them on the show. We’re here every week recording. So we’re happy to talk EVs with anyone, anytime, any day of the week. So happy to have your input though, most importantly. Thanks to Vodafone, send us a text. Just save us in your phone as Two Blokes, right? Very easy.

[00:06:08] Stephen Fenech: It’s Trevor’s personal number actually, so yeah, call him anytime.

[00:06:11] Trevor: Obviously tech questions welcome, but you know, broadly, uh, that’s for Two Blokes Talking Tech. It’s a separate podcast and we’ll bring you the news of the week. Thank you for listening if you’ve been listening to that show as well, because we have more listeners to the Electric Vehicle Show even though it’s only been around for 2 years and we’ve been doing Two Blokes Talking Tech for, um, coming on 16 years now. Yeah, um, uh, we, we do many more things, so if you just learned about us, welcome. Yeah, thanks for having us.

[00:06:33] Stephen Fenech: Spread the word.

[00:06:33] Trevor: Um, there’s a lot more you can get us if you want to talk tech, movies, or just general gibberish. Got it all, we’ve got you covered. Uh, 6 days of the week there’s a show from the two blokes. We’ve got you covered. Um, but let’s get to your calls right here on Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars. Great to have your company. Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars, thanks to NRMA and Uniden. We’ll tell you more about them, uh, throughout the show. Uh, let’s take your calls though. Uh, thanks to Vodafone, 0477 657-657. Mark is on the line.

Mark — MG4 owner review and road trip to Gold Coast

[00:07:11] Mark: G’day, Mark.

[00:07:11] Mark: G’day, how’s it going?

[00:07:12] Trevor: Yeah, really good, mate. You got an MG4, buddy?

[00:07:16] Mark: Yes, MG4. Had for 2 years now and done about 70,000 K’s in it.

[00:07:20] Trevor: That’s a decent amount of K’s.

[00:07:22] Stephen Fenech: You would have been one of the first to get that. It’s only been out a couple of years, hasn’t it, the MG4? You were early days.

[00:07:27] Mark: Yeah, it’s a 2023 model, but I bought in ’24.

[00:07:31] Trevor: Okay, so yeah, 70,000 K’s. Are you doing long trips or do you just have a big commute every day?

[00:07:37] Mark: Big commute every day.

[00:07:39] Stephen Fenech: How big?

[00:07:40] Mark: Somerland Shire to Seven Hills, 6 days a week.

[00:07:44] Stephen Fenech: Oh, that’s solid. That’s solid.

[00:07:46] Stephen Fenech: So what is— so you obviously had to make some adjustments with your EV. You’ve had it a couple of years, so I suppose you’re pretty much in the groove. So what was the big changes you had to make? How did you handle the charging situation?

[00:07:59] Mark: So when I first got it, I didn’t have a wall charger, so I just did trickle charge and I found I was having to charge about once a week at a supercharger or something.

[00:08:09] Trevor: So the trickle wasn’t, wasn’t enough to get you topped up every day?

[00:08:14] Mark: No. Back then I was actually doing closer to probably 40-odd thousand K’s a year plus. I’ve since reduced that a little bit. But yeah, I put the wall charger in. I’ve got a 3-phase Ocular charger, so I’ve got the AGL plan based on you guys talking about it.

[00:08:33] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, good, good call. Good call.

[00:08:35] Mark: 8 cents overnight. And so that was, that was an instant change for you.

[00:08:37] Trevor: We obviously then didn’t need to go to the fast chargers, public chargers, because you could do it all at home. Is that what you found?

[00:08:44] Mark: Yes. Yeah. Every night just plug it in and I’m good to go for the whole day.

[00:08:49] Stephen Fenech: You sound like you put a bit of— you said you put a few K’s on the car. How? And I’m sure you were obviously doing this before with your previous petrol car. How has the EV like day-to-day wear and tear gone compared to your previous petrol car?

[00:09:04] Mark: Good question. Look, it’s pretty good. My other car’s a Volvo V40 diesel. And it’s 11 years old. And but just weighing up the costs, it was— that was a big factor. It was going to cost sort of $400 or $500 a week in diesel— sorry, a month in diesel.

[00:09:25] Mark: Whereas the electric charging before I switched over to the AGL was about $200 a month roughly. But that’s drastically reduced now. I’ve sort of cut my energy bills in half by switching to AGL.

[00:09:38] Trevor: Have you noticed anything to Stephen’s point about the service or the life of the tyres, anything like that as an EV driver as opposed to your traditional car?

[00:09:49] Mark: Not a huge amount. The tyre’s about the same. The one thing, like the quality compared to the Volvo isn’t quite as good. Like the paintwork isn’t as great, like especially with the shape of the bonnets and that, you pick up a lot of stone chips. There’s little bits and pieces that don’t work quite as well, but generally it’s very good. I’m really happy with it. Yeah, it’s a great little car actually. I enjoy driving it.

[00:10:17] Trevor: In your text to us, you said you’d done a big road trip. I think you went to the Gold Coast from Sydney. So what was that like? You’d obviously done some public charging, but what was it like on a road trip? Did you meticulously plan it or you just fly by the seat of your pants and hope to goodness?

[00:10:32] Mark: A bit of both. It was the first one. We kept the diesel because of those road trips, but with the diesel prices going through the roof, we decided to go, you know what? It’ll be less than half the cost to take the electric. So I thought, let’s give it a go. So I downloaded that ABRP app and it planned everything out pretty well for me. Not having used it before, I was a little bit skeptical on what sort of range I’ll get and everything, but generally overall it was within about 2%.

[00:11:01] Trevor: I’ve never used the ABRP, the Better Route Planner, that is, isn’t it?

[00:11:05] Mark: Yeah, yeah, it was really good. Yeah, talk me through it.

[00:11:08] Trevor: So is it just set origin and destination and it gives you some info? Do you tell it about your car. Like, obviously, I think we would agree, even as a non-Tesla fan, we would agree Teslas do it best. You tell the car where you want to go and it will say, here’s how you get there, and here’s where to charge and how long to charge for. And that is gold standard, right? So as a non-Tesla owner using an app, what’s the process like with a Better Route Planner?

[00:11:34] Mark: It was great. You put in your car, the model and everything. You, you can set like a battery degradation sort of percentage, which I just thought I’ll put in 5% just as a bit of a guide. And you can set a minimum for the charge that you want when you get to your destination. So I think the first time I planned it, it said 3 stops and I’d get to my first one with 7% left. I was like, well, not having used the app before, I thought, that’s getting a little bit fine. So I said it was, I said it was 10% and then Yeah, it was— it gave me 4 stops, which was good. The interesting part I had with the charging, because I thought I’m going to sign up to the Tesla app like you guys suggested, and that was great. And I just use the Tesla Superchargers because I’ve had some mixed sort of results with some of these, like the EV Chargers and things like that. The Tesla were really good. Normally in a Supercharger I’d get sort of 130 to 160 kilowatts out of a charge into the car. I was finding I was getting 100 to 130. So the first two stops, so it wasn’t too bad. It told me I’d stop for about usually 20, 25 minutes and charge to about 70, 75%. Yeah, I found I was probably stopped for closer to half an hour in most of them.

[00:13:00] Stephen Fenech: You mentioned, Mark, in your message to us that some of those charges were quite slow. And what did you conclude? It was ’cause of the, it was cold or what was the conclusion?

[00:13:14] Mark: Well, it was actually quite warm. We were traveling to the Gold Coast, so it was 27 degrees. It was nice. I think it was actually the opposite. I think the car must find the battery gets to a certain temperature. And this is where I wanted you guys a bit of opinion. I found it on the third charge on the way up was at Coffs Harbour. It was a 160-kilowatt Tesla charger, I think, and said 25-30 minutes to charge. So we went out and got a bite to eat and did all that sort of thing, came back about 25 minutes later, it was only at 40%. And when I looked at it, it was only charging at 30 kilowatts an hour and got to about 50%, and then all of a sudden it jumped up to 60 kilowatts an hour. And we were stopped there for about an hour in total.

[00:14:04] Stephen Fenech: Were there other cars?

[00:14:05] Trevor: I was just gonna say, were there other cars charging as well? Because that can have an effect. Because, you know, the Goulburn— yeah, the Goulburn spot I often talk about, you know, 20 chargers and normally I’m getting like 120 kilowatt charging. But the last couple of times there’s been 6 or 7 or 10 other cars there and I’m getting 40 and 50 because the site only has so much power. Yeah, you know, there’s only so much power coming into that location. And someone once said to me, even a service station, you know, there’s only so much coming into literally the service station. So if they’ve got all their fridges and freezers and everything on inside, that’s actually taking away from the capacity of the charger, as is another car. So it may not be your car limiting it. It may be the location and other, other impacts like other cars.

[00:14:52] Stephen Fenech: Was it crowded at those times?

[00:14:55] Mark: There were 6 chargers and all 6 were full. Oh my God.

[00:14:58] Stephen Fenech: That’s it.

[00:14:59] Mark: Yeah. But then we got to the 4th charge and again it was back up to 100, 130 kilowatts an hour and it was Yeah, they had to.

[00:15:08] Stephen Fenech: One thing I learned too, when my first EV was a Tesla, so when I was at the Supercharger, one of the first things you’re taught or told by other drivers is to spread out. Like if there’s say 4 chargers, everyone try to go to their own charger. If you’re sharing one, that would impact your speed. So you’d have to spread out. That was sort of what I learned.

[00:15:27] Mark: Okay.

[00:15:28] Trevor: It’s, yeah, I mean, it’s a really fascinating one, Mark, because there’s so many little intricacies to that. Like when I did exactly that with the Goulburn charger, I went, well, there’s 3 cars here and there’s, there’s 3 chargers together over there. I’m gonna work on the assumption that they’re wired, you know, widely separately to the others. So I tried that. But the bottom line is when you go to one that’s, you know, like a BP and there’s just 2 boxes and 4 cables, you are better off with one person on each box if you think of it that way. And I would also say, Mark, and what I’m hearing from you is this is probably a really important thing. I think there’s false advertising in EV world. I think something advertised as a 300-kilowatt charger is actually 250-kilowatt plugs. 150-kilowatt charger is often 2 75-kilowatt plugs. And you can’t actually achieve more than 75 when plugged in. Plus, the other environmental factor is your car— not all cars, but some cars have different limitations. Conditions. Now, you would have seen how high and low your car can go, but there are some EVs today that won’t charge past 75. That’s just what they do. Some that don’t go past 100. So actually, different cars have different charging limitations.

[00:16:39] Stephen Fenech: Even at home, some cars, the limit’s mainly 11 kilowatts, but others do 22, 32 in some cases. Yeah, if you’re lucky.

[00:16:49] Trevor: But I will say, Mark, I’ve just been on— while we’re talking, I went to the Better Route Planner And weirdly, I’ve never used it. And mate, it looks excellent. And what you’re referring to there, Mark referred to the 5%, 10%. So I’ve said, I wanna go from Sydney to Young, visit my family. And you’re saying, when I get there, I wanna be at. Mate, I would never leave it at 10%. I’d say 30 every time. I wanna be at 30. And it tells me I’ve gotta stop somewhere along the way for 30 minutes. And that’s, I would say, a better route planner to me looks like the Tesla experience, but for everyone, mate. So that’s really good feedback from you. Is there any other burning questions that you had for us before we leave? There you go.

[00:17:27] Mark: Well, just, just on the way back, we— our third stop again was at Kew and there was hardly anybody there. I think we were one of two cars. And again, I only got 27 kilowatts out of it. I’d drive away. Well, we stopped there for an hour and a quarter and it got up, got up to 31. But what— on both occasions it was our third stop and travelling and charging was about 6 to 7 hour mark. So I’m just wondering if it was the battery gets to a certain point.

[00:17:58] Stephen Fenech: So you’re travelling with your family, mate, your wife, who’s in the car?

[00:18:02] Mark: Just my son, he’s a swimmer. So we’re going up there for swimming.

[00:18:05] Trevor: I’ll be honest with you, and people, please, we’re not experts, we’re just working from life experience, okay? Anecdotal experience, basically. If you have knowledge in this space, 0477 657 657, talk to us. But I don’t believe, so the only thing that I can tell you about a battery is in some cases the charging charge will initiate slower if the battery hasn’t been preconditioned.

[00:18:27] Stephen Fenech: You need to warm it up.

[00:18:28] Trevor: So for example, in a Tesla, again, because it knows your route plan, it’ll go, well, we’re going to stop in 20 minutes. The battery will actually warm up. Like you can in most cars, there’s a button to precondition. And what it does is it actually affects your mileage essentially while it’s preconditioning, but it gets it ready. But honestly, I’ve never done it because the difference is probably 5 minutes of ramp-up time. If you look at how long it takes the car to, to get to that 75-kilowatt speed of charging, that’s— it just takes longer to get to there. It doesn’t limit the total speed it will get to. So I don’t think, frankly, it’s conditional. I don’t think it’s weather-related or number of charges related at all, mate. I think it’s the location. And that’s why one of the things I suggest is that Plugshare app. Log in and tell the— tell the world, tell the community what you got, what speed you got, because then you can look back and go, everyone’s getting 30 kilowatts here, this is a rubbish site, let’s go somewhere else. So that’s my only thought, is maybe to give some feedback there. And also also check what other people are saying before you charge at a different location. But you know what, good news, you still got a far cheaper trip in the MG than you did in the diesel, mate.

[00:19:36] Stephen Fenech: Did you ever?

[00:19:37] Mark: Oh, it was about $185 all up. Wow, well played. And we did about 2,500 km, I think.

[00:19:43] Trevor: Excellent stuff, it’s great. Well, mate, thank you for sharing your story, buddy.

[00:19:47] Mark: No problem.

[00:19:48] Trevor: We appreciate it. Good on you, mate. Hear from you again one time soon. There you go, the MG4 on a road trip.

[00:19:53] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:19:53] Trevor: And look, that I mean, we can’t cover everything, but that we touched on that a few times, but it’s a really big deal. That’s an anomaly. Charging speeds.

[00:20:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but that anomaly, there’s so many reasons why that could be.

[00:20:05] Trevor: Correct.

[00:20:05] Stephen Fenech: So trying to, trying to work that out could take, could take a little while.

[00:20:11] Trevor: And you know, the other thing is you get used to fast. Like I go now locally, we have two chargers, an EV charger up in Hornsby and an Ampol in Waitara. I’ll go to the Ampol because I can normally get 75 kilowatts there. And mate, if it’s full, someone’s parked there because there’s only one spot and I go to EV and it’s like 50 kilowatts, I’m like, this is slow. It’s amazing how used to the high-speed charging you get.

[00:20:32] Stephen Fenech: But you haven’t got choice though. Like you’re on a road trip and like, what choices have you got? You can’t leave that joint without the, without the charge.

[00:20:39] Trevor: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, love your opinions too, folks. 0477 657 657. Get in touch. Taking your calls. We’d love to hear from you if you want to talk EVs. Dean’s on the line. G’day, Dean.

Dean — Farizon electric van owner, electrical contracting business

[00:21:01] Dean: Good morning.

[00:21:02] Trevor: How are you this morning, mate? Really good. Excited to talk to you because you text us and said you run an electrical contracting business and you bought a Farizon— is that how you pronounce it? Farizon van.

[00:21:13] Dean: We talked about it, that it’s Verizon. Verizon.

[00:21:16] Stephen Fenech: Oh, like rise with horizon, like Verizon the telco in America.

[00:21:19] Trevor: I can understand that. That makes more makes sense, to be honest. Yeah. All right. So, so talk us through it. Well, you’ve got a business, do you have a bunch of vans and this is a toe in the water or are you going to go full electric? What, what brought this on?

[00:21:33] Dean: It’d been a long-term plan to move my business to electrify it. And the reason we hadn’t to date, well, we have got an ATTO 3 that one of the directors drives, but in that commercial space there was just nothing suitable on the market. I test drove of it late last year and thought it could be a chance. So I was waiting for BYD to get their finger out and bring theirs into the market, and I got impatient and decided once the Horizon was around, we’d have a crack with one of those.

[00:22:01] Stephen Fenech: Sounds, sounds like a massive hole in the market. I know, isn’t it?

[00:22:05] Trevor: Like, we’ve now got the Kia PV5 coming in. That’s, that’s coming. Have you, do you run multiple vans in your fleet or is it just the one van in the business?

[00:22:15] Dean: Yeah. We’ve got 10 vehicles on the road. And currently we’re like a lot of contracting business, we’re a Toyota business. Okay. You know, service them every 10,000 kilometers and they just do what you need them to do. But was looking, we do a lot in the EV space with charging and I felt that I couldn’t really talk the talk if I wasn’t walking the walk. So I’ve been watching this carefully for many years and you’re right, the lack of vehicles in the market has been a bit of a Keen to see the Kia PV5. But I think the— I’m just not sure that its load capacity will be up there. So my early thoughts, but the range looks amazing.

[00:22:53] Stephen Fenech: Can I just— I just picked up on a little something there. So you said you’re an electrical contracting company. And you said you’re doing a lot in the charging space. So are you installing chargers? Is that what you’re doing or—

[00:23:05] Dean: Yes, 100%. So both, you know, for domestic customers, but also for bigger organisations that are rolling them out.

[00:23:13] Trevor: You’re right. Rocking up in a diesel van doesn’t really— smoke coming out of your muffler. So what’s been the— You’ve had it for a month or so. What’s your first impressions as an owner? Not just the test drive, but now you’ve been driving on the road. Is it difficult because you’ve got to charge it pretty much every day? Like, what is the situation? How’s it been for you?

[00:23:36] Dean: Look, it’s been terrific. Um, the director that drives the EV is my wife, so very used to the space. So Piddicake government loves it. Also, cheap installation of a charger for the business. It gets better— she’s an accountant, so she’s looking at the bottom line too. So it was a no-brainer. So look, from a perspective of charging, it hasn’t been an issue. Um, we have developed a strategy of how we can roll this out to our clients, um, and help them electrify their fleets, and that includes agreements and we’ve got a little bit of an understanding, not that we’re tax people, but you know, some of the implications that can affect them there. But so we’re looking that we’ll be able to use our vehicle tracking to work out the reimbursements for charging and the like. But our first impressions have been really good. We’ve got a DC charger here, 25 kilowatt, and we can charge it here quite easily. I haven’t installed, I’ve just had my project managers driving it and the plan was just to change to just start the conversation in my business because there’s a lot of skepticism about whether the range will be appropriate for our team. And I’m pretty pleased to say that one of my project managers who came in last Friday and said, I don’t think you’ll ever buy another diesel van. This thing works a treat.

[00:24:55] Trevor: What do they quote the range as and what does it come up with? Because obviously you’ve got racks and tools and things in the back, I assume.

[00:25:03] Dean: So how does the range equate in the real world So they’re quoting it at 330 to 360. The range on the display is dynamic. So if you’re in town, it’s sitting up around 360. Like, one of the guys drove 30 Ks over to home and back again, and on the range, it ended up only dropping it, I think, 30 Ks in total. So it sort of varies a bit, but the range is holding up to be well in the 300s for us. We’ve loaded it a bit. It certainly has got all the roof racks on it, and so aerodynamically, it’s certainly got a challenge now, but we haven’t noticed a dramatic drop in the range. Charging, we’ve used one of the public chargers to charge it once. It was no dramas. Our guys have certainly got their head around in that space. So, it’s, yeah, we haven’t had any problems with it, and we’ve worked out a way that we’d be able to charge even if someone’s in a rental property property. We think we can get around that with a 15-amp granny charger.

[00:26:03] Stephen Fenech: Now, Dean, you said you’re closer to the field than we are. Is this, you said, I think you refer to the fact that people in the similar industry to you, are they looking at getting into electrifying their fleets as well? Is this something that you’re finding a lot of businesses are prioritising now?

[00:26:20] Dean: I think they’re starting to, but I think the big killer for it, in my opinion, is range. And there’s— people are very skeptical about the range that the vehicles can do. And I’m amused that Verizon have just released a new one with less range, a new van. And I’m like, guys, what are you doing? So yeah, I mean, they can all charge overnight on an EV charger. We need a bit more range just to give people that peace of mind. And I think that’s the bit that’s missing out of the conversation in Australia. People are just scared about range, but they are looking to do it. But I, you know, a lot of people’s misunderstanding of plug-in hybrids and, you know, their range compared to an EV.

[00:27:05] Stephen Fenech: But in your case, it’s just not quite there. In your case, the Verizon, like, how, how is it in terms of convenience, the cost saving? Is that, is it worth it? Is it worth you taking, going this down this path?

[00:27:18] Dean: 100%. My calculations based on a diesel price of $2.50 a litre when I did it, which was kind of in the middle of what it used to be and what it was when I did it, and 30 cents a kilowatt hour and a car doing 100 kilometres a day at 48 weeks in a year, I’ve worked out that I can save about $6,000.

[00:27:39] Stephen Fenech: What, in total per car, per vehicle?

[00:27:42] Dean: Per car. Just that, that’s the van. And that excludes one other item, which is servicing because the service rate on the Verizon is every 30,000 kilometers. So let’s say it’s $500 a service. You do 3 of them in a year. You’ve only got, you know, that’s another $1,000 you potentially save.

[00:28:01] Trevor: And it’s an interesting point because, and you mentioned at the top, you know, everyone in your game is pretty much running Toyota HiAces, I assume, stuff like that. Right. And I get it. They’re reliable. They do it. They work. You can rely on that, and that’s a critical thing in business. We get that. And you’ve just purchased a car that is essentially untested, both in longevity and in dealership service, right? So there’s a bit of a way to go there to prove itself, and I can imagine plenty of people saying that to you, mate. I’ll wait 10 years until you’ve proven yourself, that kind of thing. But leaving that aside for a minute, what’s it like inside the car? Because the Toyota experience is— what’s the drive like? It’s known, it’s trusted, but it’s also, I don’t think it’s evolved, especially in the commercial space. Does it feel like less like a commercial vehicle to the, to the drivers, or what’s their feedback been just on the vehicle?

[00:28:53] Dean: The vehicle’s, the feedback’s been positive. To drive it is beautiful. And the one thing that everyone knows is driving an EV is how quiet it is and smooth. The tech in it’s pretty good. With regards to the intelligent driving, that seems to work really well. So that once the guys get their head around that, that’s a positive thing. There’s a real small thing that they’ve missed. First day in it, drive it home because I’m the boss and drive it back into work and the cup holder tipped my cup of coffee out. So I mean, it’s a— It’s a simple thing, Grant, that we need a decent coffee cup holder, isn’t it, in the van?

[00:29:31] Trevor: Maybe you want to 3D print one. I— it is. It is the little things though, isn’t it? But just, just finally, you mentioned— I mentioned the PV5 and you said you’ll take a look at it. There’s one, there’s a long range one with like 400 km quoted range. But you say the load is not as— its capacity is not as high.

[00:29:51] Dean: I think the load will be an issue. I think it’s got a 750 kg capacity. Like we’ve put a towbar on the Horizon and a big tradesman’s roof rack. Back and, um, and it’s bigger inside than a HiAce. Would you believe? It’s extraordinary. Yeah. So, but look, the overall experience with it is positive. I, you know, range, I still reckon is a whisker off where it should be. Um, when you go on the highway, it certainly hurts. Um, you know, which we all know that that’s no big deal. And with battery density improving, this will only— this conversation will just get better and better.

[00:30:24] Trevor: Yeah, that’s what— that’s spot on, mate. Well, good on you for being a trailblazer. Look Pioneer in the commercial space. And I appreciate you reaching out because we had a caller, I think, asking about vans and we were floundering. Kia hadn’t announced and we didn’t know much about Horizon. So there we go, mate. Great to hear your experience, Dean.

[00:30:45] Dean: Thank you. And let’s hope that that just drives a bit more competition in this space and we get some of the manufacturers that understand the challenges challenges in it, like when you load them up and get a bit more battery density and a bit more range. And I think it’ll just fly.

[00:30:58] Stephen Fenech: There’s an opportunity there.

[00:30:59] Trevor: I think if you’re listening here, if it takes off, it’ll take off in a big way because of those savings you’ve talked about. There will be people listening right now going, wait, I can save how much a year? That’s hard money on a business. So big win there, Dean. Thanks for the feedback, buddy.

[00:31:16] Dean: No worries at all. Yeah, it’s interesting to talk about that because when you’re talking a diesel car, you never talk about how much it saves.

[00:31:22] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, see how much it costs.

[00:31:23] Trevor: Yeah, that’s right. All right, good to hear from you, mate. Keep in touch.

[00:31:27] Stephen Fenech: Thanks, Dean.

[00:31:28] Dean: Thanks, guys. Love the show.

[00:31:29] Trevor: Cheers, mate. Really appreciate it. Good on you, mate. There you go. I mean, there it is. I feel like we’re having a conversation that resembles kind of 2018, 2019 EV conversation, you know, very early.

[00:31:42] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:31:43] Trevor: Just a Tesla in the market, you know, a couple of things and it really resembles that. And oh, what are the issues? You know, he’s clearly aware of the issues and would prefer some things were fixed.

[00:31:54] Stephen Fenech: You think of, and this isn’t a small vehicle.

[00:31:57] Trevor: You think underneath it would be this huge battery, right?

[00:31:59] Stephen Fenech: Put a bigger battery in there.

[00:32:00] Trevor: Yeah, yeah. But then I think the problem is, and I don’t build cars, but I assume the problem is you have a platform, you put more weight on it and that takes away the potential load that you can put in the van, which sounds like that’s the problem with the Kia.

[00:32:14] Stephen Fenech: So you’ve gotta try to reach a balance.

[00:32:15] Trevor: You’ve gotta find a balance between what you let Dean put in his car versus what the car weighs on its own. Okay. You know, its ability to tow or carry a load is taken away when you add a bigger battery, perhaps. Okay. Anyway, work to be done, but we look forward to seeing and driving the Kia PV5 later in the year, and I’m sure it’ll do very well. Before we take another call, Steven, there was some data, not EV-related, but I think it’s really interesting data that came out from NRMA Insurance, our sponsor, in the last week, just about crashes, right? Yeah. The most popular or top collision types. It’s like, it’s like, hey, what’s the most popular crash this year? But NRMA Insurance data from more than 69,000 claims, collision claims. In 2026.

[00:33:01] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:33:01] Trevor: 69,000 collision claims in 2026. All of Australia. That’s NRMA. That’s a lot. Wow. Gives us an insight into essentially what’s going wrong out there. And the number one, the number one collision type?

[00:33:16] Stephen Fenech: Yep. Rear-enders. Exactly right.

[00:33:17] Trevor: Not really a shock.

[00:33:18] Stephen Fenech: Well, no, no shock. And our other sponsor, Uniden. How often have I said it? But get the R because you want the rear camera because most crashes are rear-end crashes. We’ve been saying it all the time.

[00:33:32] Trevor: Number two, failure to give way.

[00:33:35] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. It’s human error, you know, human error.

[00:33:38] Trevor: Yeah, we’re all humans.

[00:33:39] Stephen Fenech: Not giving way.

[00:33:39] Trevor: We’re all humans except the robo-taxis which don’t exist from Elon, but Autopilot, maybe it doesn’t fail that way.

[00:33:45] Stephen Fenech: No surprise, number 3, reversing.

[00:33:47] Trevor: Ah, yes.

[00:33:48] Stephen Fenech: It’s not even a good reverser. Yeah, have a look, mate.

[00:33:52] Trevor: Yeah, take a look. Yeah, which probably leads into number 4, which is hit stationary object.

[00:33:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, which you probably do in reverse most of the time.

[00:34:01] Trevor: I would imagine that’s most likely.

[00:34:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah.

[00:34:03] Trevor: Interestingly, Number 5 is single vehicle accidents. Now, I don’t know what that essentially means.

[00:34:07] Stephen Fenech: Is that where you’ve sort of hit something while you’re driving?

[00:34:10] Trevor: Well, isn’t that number 4, hit stationary object?

[00:34:13] Stephen Fenech: I guess so. If it’s a collision, just to my journalism training, a collision is when two moving objects strike each other. Okay. So which leads you into number 6.

[00:34:25] Trevor: Number 6, well, animal collision. Well, if you hit it, you’re hitting an animal on the road.

[00:34:29] Stephen Fenech: The reason I’d say that is normally moving. Back in my cadet journalism days, whenever, you know, a car collided with a tree— a car, a tree doesn’t come out in the middle of the road and hit you, it’s a stationary object. A car hits a tree, doesn’t collide with a tree. That’s harking back to my cadet training.

[00:34:47] Trevor: Unsafe maneuvers number 7, and number 8, a head-on collision, which would be— luckily that’s the last, that’s the least common in that list. That’s probably the and the worst type. But I think that’s really fascinating.

[00:34:59] Stephen Fenech: You know how like the failure to give way, that rear-end collisions, failure to give way, rear-end collision, it is, it’s just a matter, it’s an attention thing. Hey, you just pay attention.

[00:35:08] Trevor: Yeah. You know, I watch a lot of people use the technology too much. We love technology. We’re tech guys, right?

[00:35:17] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:35:17] Trevor: But honestly, the beeping and the cameras, they’re great. Yeah. But use your mirrors. Yeah.

[00:35:22] Stephen Fenech: Or look over your shoulder. Well, you’re taught when you’ve got your license, look over your shoulder.

[00:35:27] Trevor: Well, it’s funny because Victoria, who’s 15, gets her L’s in, you know, 3 or 4 months. We were playing Forza, the computer game, and we’ve got the simulator wheel. So she was doing what she called responsible driving. So she was driving at the speed limit, which you don’t do in Forza. Anyway, she was at an intersection and she just turned. I went, oh, you didn’t check your blind spot. She goes, what’s that? And I went, okay.

[00:35:48] Stephen Fenech: Opportunity.

[00:35:49] Trevor: Opportunity to teach.

[00:35:50] Stephen Fenech: She’s not a driver yet, so that’s a good question to ask before you get your license.

[00:35:53] Trevor: Great question to answer in a simulator. Yeah, so good stuff. Quick update though, also in this release, I note that NRMA says in recent months, the NRMA Insurance has received a 121% spike in EV quotes. Aha.

[00:36:10] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:36:11] Trevor: That starts in April this year compared to April 2025.

[00:36:14] Stephen Fenech: Wow, what a boost.

[00:36:15] Trevor: So I think last— we spoke about it a couple of times before. It was like 40% and 80%. So now it’s up to 121% increase year on year.

[00:36:23] Stephen Fenech: There you go.

[00:36:24] Trevor: So I think those sales are going to continue, folks. So pretty good. Yeah, great data there. And stay safe on the roads.

[00:36:30] Stephen Fenech: Yes, pay attention.

[00:36:31] Trevor: Get yourself a dash cam because those rear collisions are right up there.

[00:36:34] Stephen Fenech: Well, that’s your record, isn’t it? Like, that’s one thing. Remember, I got hit up the back and I showed that video. I said, here, here it is, and actually helped to repair it. Too. I showed the repairer the collision and they said, okay, well, we can see where it actually hit your car a bit more accurately. Nice. So it’s good for insurance and good for the repairer.

[00:36:54] Trevor: It’s just peace of mind, folks. Yeah, you need smart dashcams. And shout out also to— look, another indulgent mention, but I mentioned my uncle, Uncle Ray, last week who’d bought an ATTO 3. Yep. Rings me. I didn’t I hadn’t put together that he’s actually listening or watching the show. I hadn’t put that together. He mentioned a couple of things and I thought, that’s interesting that he knows that. Anyway, rings me the other night and he goes, I heard you mention me. I got my— anyway, got a quote from NRMA Insurance. $300 cheaper than I won’t name other names, but it was $300 cheaper. So he was pretty stoked.

[00:37:30] Stephen Fenech: And you didn’t send him a United Dash Cam, right? Oh, hey, come on, Trev.

[00:37:34] Trevor: I think does the BYD, I think BYD might have SD card slot or a USB slot for dash cams.

[00:37:39] Stephen Fenech: Do they? I’m pretty sure, yeah, you’d be able to get one in there.

[00:37:41] Trevor: Might not have a rear, so let me know. I might be able to hook you up with a good deal. I’m not sending you a free one, but Brad at Uniden will definitely look after you.

[00:37:48] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:37:49] Trevor: Two blokes talking electric cars. We’d love to hear from you if you want to talk EVs. 0477 657 657. Mate, just getting into it.

[00:38:06] Stephen Fenech: That’s the most animated I’ve ever seen you. Wow.

[00:38:09] Trevor: Did you have— did you drink coffee or something? The YouTube numbers are going up, so we’ve got to perform. I’m wondering if they’re going up because of you.

[00:38:15] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, you know, we put our moves on, mate.

[00:38:17] Trevor: Yeah, absolutely. Two blokes talking electric cars. We’d love to hear from you. Gary’s on the line. G’day, Gary.

Gary — Shopping for his first EV, exploring the market

[00:38:23] Gary: How you going?

[00:38:24] Trevor: Yeah, really good, mate. Where are you at in your EV journey? You’re in the market made?

[00:38:29] Gary: Uh, maybe.

[00:38:30] Trevor: Oh, okay.

[00:38:31] Gary: Just looking at the moment.

[00:38:32] Trevor: Yep.

[00:38:33] Stephen Fenech: So what, what’s caught your eye, mate? Uh, what, what are you looking at there? What, what have you seen that you’re, that you’re attracted to?

[00:38:40] Gary: Well, a lot of the shapes are similar to a car I already have, which is the, um, Mazda CX-5 Turbo. That sort of slanted to the back window look. Um, I do like the, uh, GAC Aion, Aion 1V.

[00:38:54] Stephen Fenech: Nice. Yeah, we’ve driven that.

[00:38:55] Gary: No, that’s, that’s a square shape.

[00:38:57] Stephen Fenech: Yes. If you like that square shape, can I suggest another? The JQ J5. I would suggest, yeah, give that a look.

[00:39:07] Trevor: Oh, what about the price on it?

[00:39:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, and that’s like $38K. I think it’s $36,996 on the road. And you know what, you know, when we first had it, someone looked at it and they said, that looks like a, that looks like a Land Rover.

[00:39:18] Trevor: And I’ll tell you this, with a JQ, I saw one parked down the on the street here as I was driving to the city the other day in a deep blue. And I’ve got to tell you, I haven’t seen too many cars in this. I don’t know, it was, it was, it just stood out. It wasn’t black, it wasn’t bright blue, it was, it was closer to black. It was a really nice looking car, mate. So I’d give that one a go. What is it that’s driving this consideration for an EV? You’re trying to save money? What’s, what’s bringing it on?

[00:39:43] Gary: Yeah, a little bit of that. Um, just the price of petrol lately with all this, you know, war going on. Yeah. And I have a Honda CR-V hybrid, which is great on fuel as well.

[00:39:56] Trevor: Excellent.

[00:39:57] Stephen Fenech: Nice.

[00:39:58] Trevor: So you notice the, you notice the savings from driving the Honda and you’re thinking I could go one better.

[00:40:04] Gary: I’m getting like 1,000 km out of the Honda and say 500 out of the Mazda with the similar tanks.

[00:40:10] Trevor: Wow.

[00:40:12] Gary: So the big difference.

[00:40:14] Stephen Fenech: And so how have you, how far down the line have you planned? Are you sort of, are you able to do charging at home? Are you considering when you get your EV, will you have a wall charger or are you gonna rely on public charging? What’s your situation there?

[00:40:32] Gary: I have looked into it a little bit. There is a 11-kilowatt Zappi Smart Wallbox. Which will use my 6.5-kilowatt what solar system first and then it’ll go on to the solar too.

[00:40:46] Trevor: Yeah. So the Zap, I’ve heard, I’ve heard that a lot about the Zappi. It’s like our wall boxes that you can, you can allocate it so that it essentially draws because mine, my wall box and I don’t know about the Zappi allows you to be just do your best or full green, but in between it basically prioritises the solar energy and then brings in grid where it’s needed. So I hear, I think Zappi is very similar.

[00:41:08] Gary: Yes.

[00:41:10] Trevor: What’s stopping you pulling the trigger, mate? What’s stopping you pulling the trigger?

[00:41:13] Stephen Fenech: Still shopping around, mate.

[00:41:15] Gary: My wife. My wife.

[00:41:17] Stephen Fenech: What is she against it?

[00:41:20] Gary: She only just bought the Mazda. She only bought the Mazda 12 months ago.

[00:41:24] Stephen Fenech: Right. Okay.

[00:41:25] Gary: It’s a 2025 Mazda CX-5 Turbo. Yeah.

[00:41:29] Trevor: Oh yeah. Righto.

[00:41:30] Stephen Fenech: And so what are you going to do? Are you going to— So is the situation going to sell that or are you going to keep it as well, or what?

[00:41:36] Trevor: Get rid of the Honda.

[00:41:38] Gary: The Honda.

[00:41:39] Stephen Fenech: All right, Honda’s going to go.

[00:41:41] Gary: No, we’ll keep the Honda and sell the Mazda.

[00:41:43] Trevor: Gotcha.

[00:41:44] Stephen Fenech: Well, you get a great— you get a good price on it.

[00:41:46] Gary: You’re on a 24 model anyway, so yeah, that’s only 2 years old too.

[00:41:49] Trevor: But also the other thing is it doesn’t have to happen now, but it’s a good journey to be on. Like, he drives some cars. Have you driven any in the market, Gary?

[00:41:56] Stephen Fenech: Have you gone get behind the wheel of an EV yet or not?

[00:42:00] Gary: I’ve gone and driven the the Aion V only at this stage.

[00:42:02] Stephen Fenech: Okay, right.

[00:42:03] Trevor: Nice.

[00:42:04] Stephen Fenech: Well, you can— it sounds like you’ve got a time on your side to get this done.

[00:42:08] Gary: Yeah, there was, um, a few little things I liked about and a few things I didn’t. Okay. Um, the, uh, I like the power, the range, the value, home charging setup and all that. Um, things I didn’t like, the front— the front seats are a little bit narrow. Even though I’m not big, I’m only 80 kilos, about about 5’9″, 5’10”. No physical buttons, all touchscreen. Door handles feel like they’re back to front. Yeah, that push-in type.

[00:42:37] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Okay.

[00:42:39] Trevor: I mean, those are the little things you pick up from going to a dealer and having a look. I mean, I think that’s the critical thing right now. I think, I think Stephen’s right, mate. Go and have a look at the JACU. Yep.

[00:42:49] Stephen Fenech: J5.

[00:42:50] Trevor: Also, I would pop into ZEEKR and Geely, have a look at what they’re doing. And then, mate, you can’t not look at BYD. BYD.

[00:42:58] Gary: If you go and have just over the next few months, I’ve got 3 other cars that I’ve sort of looked on via YouTube, which is the MG S5.

[00:43:06] Trevor: Oh yeah, nice car.

[00:43:08] Gary: EX5.

[00:43:08] Trevor: Yes.

[00:43:09] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:43:09] Gary: And the BYD F03.

[00:43:11] Trevor: Excellent. All great cars, mate.

[00:43:13] Stephen Fenech: Great choices.

[00:43:14] Trevor: I don’t think you’ll be bitterly disappointed by any of them.

[00:43:16] Stephen Fenech: You know, the problem will be how do you separate it? How do you decide? They’re all great cars, what you’ve mentioned.

[00:43:21] Trevor: Yeah, I think it’ll be something silly like, uh, you know, that fit in car. It’ll be something like, this is comfortable to me because not everyone feels the same in a seat. So I think in honesty, I think you’ll end up finding something that’s very personal to you. How much quickly is the wife’s opinion of the car going to matter?

[00:43:39] Gary: The wife’s opinion?

[00:43:41] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:43:41] Gary: Oh, a fair bit. Yeah. She’s got a full say in what cars we get and when we get them.

[00:43:45] Stephen Fenech: That’s the right answer.

[00:43:46] Trevor: The correct answer, Gary. That was a test, mate. That was a marriage test and you’ve passed with flying colors, buddy.

[00:43:51] Stephen Fenech: Well done.

[00:43:52] Trevor: Well, mate, keep us in the loop. Let us know how you end up and what you end up test driving, mate. We look forward to hearing about it.

[00:43:58] Gary: Okay. Thanks a lot, guys.

[00:43:59] Trevor: Good on you. Great to hear from you there, Gary, who’s on the journey to electrification.

[00:44:04] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:44:05] Trevor: Now, speaking of electrification, Steven, I got gutted.

[00:44:09] Trevor: Absolutely gutted. Why? I picked up the Škoda Elroq. Yep. You picked up the Škoda Enyaq. Yeah, yeah. We got two Škodas at the same time. Okay, so all we normally do What we normally do is we pull up here on a Wednesday to record and then Steven takes the opposite car home. But last week I went out and I looked at it and I went, these look the same. What’s it doing here? Anyway, mate, the Elrok is a $50,000 SUV. Yeah. The Enyaq is a $70,000 coupe. You’ve got the fancy bloody coupe.

[00:44:40] Stephen Fenech: Excuse me. The Sportline. Is it the Sportline? Is that the one? Mate, it’s— In all honesty, I never knew that. All right. Upfront, I thought, mate, they’re the same, are they? Like, let’s—

[00:44:56] Trevor: I thought, honestly, I looked, I thought mine was an SUV and yours was like a shooting brake sportback. Just I didn’t realize it was a slightly more fancier car by about $20,000.

[00:45:06] Stephen Fenech: I tell you, and the judge of the SUVs in my family is Jo, and Jo liked this one. She liked the size of this one. This wasn’t too big, too small. This was a bit of a Goldilocks SUV for her. So just right size. And you know what? Really nicely finished as well. Didn’t have leather seats. It’s got sort of cloth seats in it. I don’t know whether that’s an option, but pretty— the design inside the car is— seemed very— this European brand.

[00:45:33] Trevor: Oh yeah. So Skoda is a part of the Volkswagen family. Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda, Cupra. Like to me, this was like getting in my car because it has the same essential infotainment system. I felt the European style. It has the same key as the Cupra. Yes. My favorite thing about the Cupra, Škoda, Volkswagen range is when you walk up to the car, it unlocks. When you walk away from the car, it locks. And when you sit in the car, it’s on. Yeah. You don’t need to— you know what, one of the most responsive cars when you walk away to lock and when you walk towards it to unlock. Right. You can be walking away like 2 meters and boom, it locks.

[00:46:07] Trevor: Right.

[00:46:07] Stephen Fenech: You know, it just saves you the trouble.

[00:46:08] Trevor: Yeah. Well, I noticed it was locked before I got to the front door. Door here, which is like one complaint though.

[00:46:12] Trevor: Amy, cup holders.

[00:46:15] Stephen Fenech: Cup holders are too tight, too small. And yeah, that could be an issue if— I won’t say I had a little accident in it. I had my coffee and it tipped over. Luckily my reflexes are pretty solid. I was turning a corner and my reusable coffee cup, which didn’t quite fit into the— just gently resting there. Yeah, could have been messy. Yeah, fair. Yeah, just a can of Coke, can of drink, perfect.

[00:46:42] Trevor: Just in comparison for the two of them, um, size-wise, very, very close. Yours is about, uh, 20 centimeters bigger, slightly longer. Um, the wheelbase is almost identical. Driver headroom is slightly bigger in yours by about 4 centimeters. Backspace is identical.

[00:47:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s pretty roomy.

[00:47:04] Trevor: Yours has a lot more boot space. So yes, so if you’re looking for size, for the golf clubs Enyaq. Yeah.

[00:47:09] Stephen Fenech: What’s the range? What are the range on these babies?

[00:47:11] Trevor: That’s a great question. I didn’t notice mine being less than kind of, you know, 300. So charged up pretty good.

[00:47:18] Stephen Fenech: Driving mine a fair bit and it was— I got it, picked it up, it was like 98% charged. And I’ve been driving this for like, what, a week and a half now? I haven’t, I haven’t really had to recharge it yet. I’ll need to do it. I’ll need to do— you’ve taken yours on longer trips than mine.

[00:47:32] Trevor: I’ve been back and forth after this trip here.

[00:47:34] Stephen Fenech: To come and see you, I’ve got to charge it up.

[00:47:36] Trevor: Oh, poor dear.

[00:47:37] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but a pretty, pretty decent range.

[00:47:39] Trevor: Yeah, yeah. Look, the thing about Škoda is it’s essentially just European quality. That’s what I love about it. So the Elroq has a WLTP range in the 60 Select of 395, in the longer range 80 Select of 529. And the Enyaq, Stevens one, has range— there’s different variants, but there’s ranges between 400 and 520. Lots more, lots more.

[00:48:09] Stephen Fenech: It is real options in there. And you know what I think? this would appeal. Look, in all honesty, I don’t think Škoda is sort of top of mind for a lot of, a lot of drivers. The brand is not as popular as others. But I think you get in this car and, you know, regardless of what the badge says, this stands up in terms of quality and performance to cars that are even more expensive than this.

[00:48:33] Trevor: 100%. So I would say to you that what you’re getting with this is Audi-level quality because Audi, Volkswagen, Škoda, Cupra, it’s all the same company. Fit, finish, knobs, dials, buttons, all that kind of stuff. It feels premium. And I think that’s a big win for them.

[00:48:48] Stephen Fenech: I don’t mean this to sound mean, but for those drivers, there are some drivers, let’s face it, who don’t want to buy a Chinese car. There’s none, none. So I think I’d rather have a European car. Yes, this would be in their wheelhouse then. Yeah, so 100% worth considering if that’s, if that’s part of your criteria that you don’t want a Chinese car. There’s so many of those to choose from, but here’s one that’s European styling and which sounds like it’s coming from a good pedigree.

[00:49:17] Trevor: The Škoda Elroq, $50 grand. The Škoda Enyaq, The Enyaq is $68,990 on-road. Not bad prices, I’ll be honest. So well worth it.

[00:49:27] Stephen Fenech: For what you get, that’s actually solid. That’s really good.

[00:49:29] Trevor: Big fans. I do. I am all in on this kind of European quality. And I love the color.

[00:49:34] Stephen Fenech: Like the blue. The blue is really nice. I actually saw on the way here, I saw that, the same car on the road in the same color.

[00:49:43] Trevor: Mine is what I described at MSO when I picked it up as Sydney Electricity Green. You remember back in the day before Energy Australia became Energy Australia? Yeah. There was these just little vans and trucks.

[00:49:53] Stephen Fenech: Bit like that color behind us there.

[00:49:54] Trevor: No, it’s a washed out green. Is it okay? It’s more like an army green that’s not quite army green. It’s faded. Do you remember Sydney Electricity and Energy Australia vans? I’m talking 25, 30 years ago. Yeah, I think so. It’s this strange color green. I probably wouldn’t pick it. If I’m honest. Yeah. So I’d look for something— The blue’s a great color. I like blue. Yeah. Anyway, you know what? I would definitely put Škoda on the list.

[00:50:15] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:50:16] Trevor: Worth a walk around.

[00:50:17] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:50:17] Trevor: At the very least, sit in it and you’ll appreciate their product.

[00:50:20] Stephen Fenech: Quality-wise, I think it’s at equal, if not better, than a lot of the Chinese brands that we’ve been driving. And, you know, drives great, really nice, nice big screen. The infotainment system is good.

[00:50:32] Trevor: So yeah, all right, check it out. And we’ll be back again next week with more to talk about, more of your calls. So if you want to talk EVs, whatever brand, whatever your positives or negatives you want to talk about, we’re here to hear them. 0477 657 654. Thanks to Vodafone. Thank you to NRMA Insurance and Uniden for bringing you the show for free. Let’s keep on doing it and we’ll be back here next week, Stephen.

[00:50:54] Stephen Fenech: I’ll be right here.

[00:50:54] Trevor: See you then.

[00:50:55] Stephen Fenech: Ciao. Get the pistols out.