Matt Simmonite joins me for a deep dive into Synthetic and eFuels. Matt currently races at a club level using P1 Fuels carbon neutral synthetic fuels and has a great understanding of the topic. We coves some of the positives and negatives along with some common beliefs and misconceptions. Will we all be driving our cars with E Fuels in the future?
http://www.p1fuels.com/
Enjoy,
Sam
Show Notes:
00:00 – Intro
03:04 – What’s the difference between all the fuels?
10:13 – Synthetic fuels for mainstream use
17:36 – Volume of production
22:47 – ULES and urban air quality
29:50 – Pushing EV tech forward
38:22 – Synthetic fuel cost
49:30 – Synthetic fuel use-cases
1:04:15 – 5 Questions
Hi welcome to the car chat podcast I’m Sam Moos and with us today we have Matt simonite hello hi how you doing very good thanks um can you tell the audience just kind of a little bit about who you are what you do and and sort of why
We’re here yeah so obviously my name is maximite and KN front up maximite racing um we’ve just undertaken a little project to demonstrate how synthetic fuels can be used in sort of Grassroots level Motorsports um we’ve been working with P1 fuels from Germany and basically had three or four
Events this year where we’ve obviously uh taken their fuel dropped in our race car going to compete in a few events and um just trying to publicize the fact that these products are out there and I think from a motorsport perspective um we need to start looking at a sort of
More early adoption of of these uh fuels just to sort of future proof Motorsports and uh and protect sort of like the racing Heritage we have in this country yeah um so yeah we had a sort of busy year setting it up um getting getting obviously a hold of the products and
Working with uh 750 motor club in our our instance and a few other partners um to just basically get get this uh sort of product out there a bit more and and demonstrate to people what it can do yeah yeah yeah yeah okay well let’s
Let’s have a little bit of a dive in here um can you would you sort of call yourself a knowledgeable Enthusiast around this subject or yeah so I think it piqued my interest when Porsche mentioned they were looking down the synthetic route a few years back
Um I’m a I’m a big petrol head cars have been a part of my life for 15 15 odd years now um and I’ve raced at different Club level events over the years um but obviously as we know there legislation coming what’s going to change how we uh interact with the internal combustion
Engine so I’ve I’ve had a bit of a knowledge of the products for a while um and obviously dug a little bit more deeper into it in the last 12 months um after making contact with Ben from P1 fuels um and having quite a few conversations with him about the products how the
Industry is developing and how the products can be rolled out not just in Motorsports but across the automotive industry as well um and how a lot of the OEM manufacturers are already on board with this as you’ll be aware oems are always five to 10 years down the line
Already so what we see them coming out with now they’ve had in the pipeline for a significant amount of time um and a lot of them have have jumped on board with this in the background um because of obviously legislation changes yeah and and let’s let’s let’s clarify some
Of the sort of terminology and the things I know there’s synthetic fuels there’s e Fuel and then is that that’s then broken down into a few different types am I right is it we’ve got e fuels biofuels they’re not necessarily the same thing and then syn that’s correct
Is that right can you can you explain all the the differences of the different types yes so obviously you have it um the common term what everyone knows is e fuels that’s sort of like the the pr tag what a lot of the press use um an e fuel is slightly different
To a biosynthetic fuel so an e fuel is um carbon captured from industry or carbon capture machines so purely just extractor from the air or or a byproduct of Industry that’s obviously then mixed with hydrogen to make hydrocarbons and then obviously processed into the fuel whereas a biosynthetic fuel is used from
Waste feed stocks and obviously sort of Bio product to make methanols and ethanols and then the process introduces the hydrogen into there um the end products are pretty much the same um and the end products are pretty much identical to the standard gasoline you get from crude oil yeah but the carbon
What’s in the product and is burn is not new carbon it’s it’s not being trapped in the ground for 6 million years it’s been taken out of a product or out of the atmosphere or out of some waste feed stocks potentially six weeks six months ago so it’s its
Carbon’s being dragged back out of the atmosphere and burn and put back in so it makes the product circular um there is slight differences with diesel so this hvo hyd hydrogenated um vegetable oils basically biodiesel but like the second gen biodiesels and then there is talk of e diesels coming out within the
Next sort of 12 months I’m not too sure on that side of things because obviously we were focusing on on on petrol but yeah so that’s the basic differences they’re um but the end products are kind of the same the end products yeah pretty much look like petrol and I think even under
A microscope they’re basically they’re the same aren’t they so yeah that allows you to drop them into a Car Any Car Any whatever um and run exactly the same you don’t need any modifications as long as it’s the same run or whatever um do you I guess there’s a couple of things there
That worth looking at it in terms of from a sort of sustainability environmental point of view if you’re pulling carbon out of the air straight out of a that’s I know that’s or or that sort of thing which I believe is what the Porsche plan is in
Chile are they pulling carbon out of the air or are they pulling are getting the carbon from that that’s that’s correct so they are using carbon capture and using full sustainable electricity so obviously you’ve seen images of the factory it’s got the huge wind turbine there so that’s that’s how you obviously
Keep the sort of carbon account as neutral as possible carbon capture uses a lot of power so without having full Renewables going in there there is still some carbon Legacy in there so it’s not a 100% product but I believe the Porsche product is it’s just very difficult to
Make that on mass um carbon captures still obviously new technique and a new technology whereas if you used carbon as a byproduct from industry so for example ammonia production creates a load of CO2 on on the backside of that you can scale up a lot easier because it’s a lot more
Readily available in that for form but in theory it’s the same you you’re not going to release that CO2 back into the atmosphere as a as a waste product you’re going to recycle it and use it again to then create energy in in the fuel um so yeah po Porche doing it sort
Of like the purest way I think zero petroleum is pad L’s company down in Vista they’re doing it that way as well I believe so they’re doing 100% carbon capture um and obviously then it’s 100% carbon neutral as long as all the energy in the life cycle of the fuel is
Renewable yeah cuz if you’re if you’re pulling carbon off a some industrial process whatever it is um I guess yes you’re helping and if you pulled off all the carbon of all of the production as part of your process and it and it’s like a
Nice little sort of extra on the side um then I guess that’s sort of completely fine but if you’re just in enabling some of these industries to just that we need to change fundamentally I’m not saying there’s an easy solution for whatever it is construction or something um then
That’s probably a little more in the the gray area it’s it’s like good but not as good yeah that that’s it um and that was one of the the things in my mindset going forward with this is yes potentially there is some new carbon being created out of these sort of the
Waste products from the from these industries but that would have just been dumped into the atmosphere yeah so is giving it a second sort of life cycle um but yeah you are right in what you’re saying the purest form would be carbon capture machine um and and doing it that
Way but then the biosynthetic side is technically a natural carbon capture machine because the plants are pulling the carbon out for growth yeah the bits we don’t use would normally just get much back into the ground and release that CO2 back into into the atmosphere again so again it’s just recycling that
Carbon before it just gets dumped in the atmosphere but both of those products both of the processor sorry create a circular economy so obviously it gets pulled out the atmosphere and back in pulled out the atmosphere and back in So if you for example could swap every internal combustion engine car to
Synthetic fuels overnight the carbon emissions at the minute would be capped at that because you’re just going to pull that it had never grow beyond what we’ve currently got so if you then looked at forecast for newer um sorry increased IC use over the next 10 years it’s a net gain
Because we’re not going to be putting any new carbon in there from crude oil right you’re pulling more out yeah so you’re going to cap it wherever it’s all theoretical obviously because there’s 1.6 billion internal combustion inured cars of vehicles but you you would basically have a net gain because you’re
Not going to be increasing that year on year you’re just from a fuel side from a fuel yes from the fuel You’ got to make the cars yes yeah but that’s sort of like a different a different side of it yeah that is it is interesting I know when
I’ve looked at it one of the things that’s that’s come up is well yes it seems like a good idea it seems like a good idea for things like Enthusiast cars historic vehicles that we want to keep going which could be a car that’s like new
Right now but in 20 years time um and racing and stuff like that that seems like a very good use but as you said with creating these fuels it requires a lot of energy like a lot of energy that for mass transport I I hear a lot of
Journalists going yeah yeah yeah yeah but we’re just going to crack synthetic fuels and then we’re just going to all drive on synthetic fuels and that will be the end do you think then that is an option no I don’t I don’t think it is I
Think I think going forward it needs to be a part of the solution so we need access to synthetic fuels hydrogen whether that’s fuel cell or combustion and evv E each of the Technologies plays a part in this and each of them have pros and cons um and if you deploy them
In certain ways you can benefit more from the pros than the cons of each of the Technologies so my thought is ev’s e is going to be brilliant for around like Urban transport City centers Etc where you want clean air and less emissions but you’ve got to factor in
The carbon Legacy of creating it there’s obviously a higher sort of carbon price tag of building an EV in comparison to an IC vehicle plus you’ve got all the other questionable points from the lithium Mining and Cobalt mining Etc so but there is a place for it slly ignoring the oil drilling problems
But yeah yeah yeah so we’ll get to that bit as well so obviously with the EV stuff um that seems to have been the um sort of chosen path from a lot of governments yeah because on the face of it it is is probably the best solution
In terms of no tail pipe missions they’re quiet they’re practical now obviously they’ve got decent range coming but On The Backs side of that the prod side pretty bad but again like so with crude oil you still have that issue with um deep sea drilling oil spillages
Transporting it around in ships Etc so there is pros and cons to the current sort of um fuels we use and then obviously this hydrogen which is probably the newest technology so hydrogen fuel cell is uh we’re still really learning that that sort of technology I know a lot of oems Toyota
Mainly have been pushing down that way away for a while and they are getting there but EV and synthetic fuels have actually been around for hundreds of years they pre second world war Technologies but we just never had the necessity to use them so they’ve sort of
Been ring fence to where they are now for a significant amount of time and they’ve never really developed um but obviously now’s the time we’re going to push them a bit more but yeah I don’t I don’t think any of the three Technologies are a silver bullet um I
Think we do need to have have an option available to everyone um EVS they’re pretty expensive to buy and a lot of people generally can’t afford to go out and buy one themselves I know most of the people I know Drive EVS are either company vehicles or they own a company
And they bought it through there for the tax benefits um until people crack a cheap EV you’re still going to want to go and buy your your small capacity engined IC car yeah um and that’s where the synthetic fuels can potentially make up that that sort of carbon deficit there because you can
At the what they call tank to wheel so putting the fuel in and burning it that’s where you’ve got some some carbon neutrality yeah I like that I’ve not heard that term but I like that um and then it sounds like also it all depends on it’s it’s the
Whole Global infrastructure doesn’t it that that works with all this stuff if the UK becomes we get to the point where we’re 100% renewable energy now I I don’t think we’ll ever get to 100% in Pure Solar Etc because that’s kind of impossible but if you include nuclear
Which we probably should have more of um then we will get to a point where we might have and then who knows more technology in the future Fusion Etc blah blah blah we might have lots of and lots and lots and lots of cheap energy like
If we’ve got loads of solar during the daytime we actually don’t need we could create a significant amount more than we need and that could all just be pumped the excess could just go into carbon C capturing creating synthetic fuels to then be used elsewhere Etc yeah you make
A good point there so the the beauty of Renewables is obviously it’s it’s free abundant energy but the negative of bu is unless the sun is shining or the wind is blowing it’s not there and when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing
You have to use it unless you put it in some battery stores so battery stores is obviously a huge part of this uh sort of solution and that will be the driving force of it like I said it’s going to be near impossible to be on full Renewables
Especially in our country yeah the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun definitely doesn’t always shine so I think if we if we went down that route and like I say instead of just dumping that electricity into batteries transferred it into synthetic fuels carbon capture machines hydrogen production because again that’s that’s
Quite a big draw on energy it then enables the other two solutions to be deployed wider across the country and if other countries followed suit it that’s that’s going to be a big driving force in the solution it’s again it’s having all three options on the table Yeah and driving them from
Renewables because it’s no good me going out there and firing up a diesel generator to charge up a batri car defeats the object doesn’t it so I think we need it’s slightly more efficient it’s slightly more efficient um I think we just need to have a look at sort of
Broad scope and governments are sort of coming around to the ideas now but previously it was Renewables and Battery Renewables and battery and not actually deploying that energy into other Technologies thankfully now obviously that’s that’s changing but whether that’s too late there’s a lot of scam hungering
Going around at the minute I think of we’ve missed the boat on the U climate targets Etc but the Technologies just weren’t ready yeah and that that’s an interesting sort of statement to make it’s it’s I’d say it’s not very helpful to go we’ve missed the boat because well
What are we going to get on another boat like we don’t have an option so we have to just deal with whatever is going to is going to happen as a result of all this stuff one of the things I’ve seen um is it looks like the landscape
Of industry and where it is will change significantly based around if you if you’ve got industries that use a lot of power they will end up moving to places that are basically like you can have pretty much free Power like we’ve got loads of sun you might as well just
Build your plants in the desert and you know that’s it off you go Happy Days um which will be quite interesting to see how that works in terms of land mass and population and Industry and stuff I think the uks we’re quite dense but these things should should move around it’s
Um it’s it is an interesting topic I’ve not heard really do you know the sort of volumes that we might be able to produce of this stuff versus what we currently use yes i’ I’ve tried to work out the current usage and it’s it’s it’s a significant amount more um from my
Conversations with Ben at P1 they they are building a second plant at the minute so they’ve got a plant in Belgium they’re creating another demonstration plant in Germany and the sort of next phase would be to build one in sort of Northern Sahara against tap into all the
Renewable energies down there yeah um so breaking back down to synthetics and how the sort of carbon is measured you have sort of three um three sort of measurements you have Welter wheel so creation of the product all the way through to burning it at the end which
Is the whole life cycle of the product you have wel to tank which is making it and getting it to the vehicles and then you have tank to wheel so most of the products now are carbon neutral tank to wheel so the carbon coming out isn’t new
Carbon it’s it’s being pulled out the atmosphere via whatever means the other two aren’t always 100% carbon neutral because of industrial processors not being able to tap into 100% renewable energy yeah and the transportation of the products yeah a lot of vehicles are still using diesel Etc
So they’re not a million miles off um they’re not a million miles off and I think the next phase and everyone’s next development in the uh in the production line and the life cycle line will bring that more towards 96 97 98 to 100% most of the products now are 80 plus% life
Cycle but the bit we were focusing on is the the sort of tank to wheel so the the end product the carbon coming out the tailpipe um but again just touching back on your point about industry moving around the reason they’re looking at putting it in the Sahara is you can
Capture all that sunlight convert that energy into synthetic Fuel and we’ve got current infrastructure to ship that around the world now we also touched on obviously the tankers moving crude oil a lot of those are already on biodiesels which again is is reducing the carbon life cycle of the products
So to flip that sort of the utopian dream is a huge solar farm in the Sahara a load of cables going out to every country around the world because it’s got enough energy there to sustain the entire planet but current conductor technology isn’t good enough you’d lose so much
Power down the cables it’s just not practical to do that hence why they’ve probably not attempted it yet so using it to convert that energy into a synthetic fuel and changing the power into a different product and then changing it back into through a generator or whatever yeah
Still gets that power around the world in a carbon neutral F carbon neutral fashion we just need to bridge the gap with the transport links Etc um to get it 100% but there’s a lot of other uses of the products not just putting it in a racing car and going racing yeah that
Again if if government start to listen to this and take note there’ll be a significant if more incentives for companies to create these plants what are required to to make these fuels whereas at the minute all the incentive is around creating batteries and and EVs and and renewable uh sort of
Technologies so yeah I think I think there is a there’s a wider use for the products and a wider use for synthetic fuels it’s it’s just not sort of got that traction yet the focus at the minute is mobility and and how do we create more carbon neutral Mobility
Going forward it’s always been the the easy target hasn’t it vehicles have always been sort of stigmatized on that’s where all the pollution is coming from but actually your gas central heating probably creates more CO2 than most people’s Vehicles nowadays but nobody looks at that the um yeah and
That that is slowly we we are so behind in the UK on on that that particular one one that annoys me and it’s not a either or situation in in London for example is you know we’re pushing we’ve got all this ulet and stuff like that
Which I think I think overall is a good thing but it’s Savage like it’s really brutal on a lot of people that don’t have a choice um on the flip side the air pollution is pretty brutal on a lot of people that don’t have a choice but
Ignoring the UL Point um we allow wood burning stoves wood burning fires in cities yeah which is something it’s it’s actually a really high percentage of the air pollution it’s like 30% yeah burning Wood’s one of the worst ones it’s so bad for the atmosphere burning wood hence why if you look at
Sort of less developed countries where they do have a lot of wood powered fire etc for industry their air quality is horrendous yeah hence why we moved away from it hundreds of years ago it’s very inefficient and it and it does pull a significant amount more than than other
Fossil fuels Etc like surely surely if you’re going to be doing like UL which is brutal on a lot of people you should ban woodf fires done yeah it it needs to be a broad scope doesn’t it you can’t just Target the vehicles you’ve got to also
Look at everything within the UL Zone like say if you’ve got an EV but you’ve got a wood burning stove you’re sort of contradicting your what you’re doing to try and reduce your carbon footprint so yeah the uling again I know it’s it’s a very touchy
Subject I’m not sure I agree with how it’s deployed I’m reading article very it’s very tax inefficient so it costs more I think it C for every two pound it costs every for every two pound they get is one pound in tax benefit to then try and reduce emissions through other
Projects that may get better but like you say it was dropped on a lot of people who have really suffered in terms of having to change vehicles or potentially just get rid of the vehicle because they can’t afford to go into an EV or a hydrogen fuel cell
Car and it’s yeah it’s a very touchy subject the the UL thing we have one up here so I live in Chesterfield and um I’m obviously right next door to Sheffield and they’ve put a Clean Air Zone charge in for um commercial vehicles only no sorry commercial
Vehicles buses taxis and motor homes not sure why motor homes got captured into there few in the city center yeah but in a city center I don’t think it’s quite a common area for a Mot home to go but maybe that’s how they did it um and it’s
Something ridiculous like a for for a truck to go in and make a delivery it’s A50 pound charge oh W and businesses can’t afford to do that if they’re getting daily deliveries it’s it’s £50 and they have to push that on to the customers and then customers stop going
There so I don’t think charging people to charging people doesn’t clean up the air it just moves money from one person to another it’s not the way to do it it’s we’ve got to incentivize people to use better public transport and things like that and it doesn’t seem that the
Money from these projects so UL C Etc does get dumped back into public transport it seems to into the E it just disappears yeah that’s it and nobody seems to see an end product from it and you’ve probably seen yourself especially like in the London stuff there’s a video
Of the guy going around with the air quality meter and he gets on the tube and it’s like hundred times worse than a major High Street what’s full of cars so we I did this and I was not that person but I did this my
Um my wife is a marine biologist um does a bunch of research and one day we had a pollution meter like a proper you know bag type thing um and the sort we did you know walking around the street near us which like our street was fine there wasn’t L much
Traffic and it was sort of like you know let’s say this graph tiny tiny one c one 2% of the of the graph walked onto a main busy street where there was buses and stuff and it went to sort of 20% let’s say started up my old 911 with no
Cats that was pretty bad don’t stand behind one of those funny enough yeah um went on the tube and it went up to like 80% it was three times higher than standing next to a diesel bus and that is every single second you are on the tube the the level is consistently
Horrific and I I have not heard they might be doing it they might be looking at it maybe they I don’t know I think it’s a tricky situation what they are doing for the air quality on the tube because if you could improve the air quality on the tube that’s going to make
A way more of a difference to way more people than a minor reduction like if you did woodf fires and the tube that would be a massive difference to London I realize you’ve got to do all of the things in one but it you’re it’s not is it and again it’s
Always been a case that the motor vehicle is the easiest Target and and and drivers have always been exactly it’s always been the easiest Target and it’s always been stigmatized especially over the last 5 to 10 years years yeah um especially when scandals come out like the emission scandal from VW Etc it
It makes it even easier for it to be a Target then so yeah I don’t think just taxing people to the to the nines to try and reduce air quality sorry trying to reduce reduce pollution and increase air quality is the solution when you’re not looking at everything that contributes
To the air quality in those areas I think it’s just a cheap shot to get cash flow as we all know the the country is not in the best state and a lot of councils are struggling with funding and it’s like well have they sort of give them license
To put another stealth tax on people to just balance the books of of the councils it it’s it’s a it’s a tricky subject to sort of talk about but I don’t think it’s going to be the solution I think incentivizing people to move on to synthetic fuels hen fuel cell
EV is the way to do it and we seem to have just dropped most of that I know a lot of the EV incentives have gone now and big tax is creeping up on them now so again it’s still better than having an IC vehicle but it’s year on year the
Big tax Rises because obviously they’ve got to bring some Revenue back from from that so yeah it’s it’s I I think like with all these things like EVS pushing people to buy EVS right now saying to en public you’ve got to buy an EV right now
Like I’ve driven a lot I’ve owned I own one like a have reasonable experience of the cars and some people will disagree with you and say they’re perfectly fine now they’re great in my view they’re not quite there and it’s not they’re good products but I think in 10 years time we
Will be have significantly better products that will fit pretty pretty much do the job for everyone but if you buy one now a brand new car right now all you’re going to do is lose a lot of money over the next five years that unless you’ve got some
Tax benefits Etc so getting people to buy them through companies Etc you’re pushing this progress you are helping the companies develop the next car and the next you know gen two gen 3 and those are the ones that actually probably will be reasonably cheap all the range you need and then hopefully by
Then the charging infrastructure will be sorted for most people and we’ll be okay but you can’t we need to help people now it’s not sorted people are not you’re seeing it in the states where they’ve trying to push people to buy EVs and basically everyone’s going nope and it’s
Happening now I think as the incentives tail off people will just not buy them as a private individual there’s like why would you buy why would you buy an EV really unless you really want to and you’ve got a lot of money that you kind of want to spend yeah I think that’s
Right um it’s it’s not just obviously like I said there’s potentially going to lose a lot of money because if you’ve seen the sort of EV um used Market as as tanked lately because a lot of a lot of company cars coming out of threee leases now getting
Dumped into the market so um it’s a big gamble if you’re using your own money to do that and yeah that will get better obviously Technologies get better but the um on the other side of things is it’s a it’s I say a lifestyle change but it’s a completely different approach to
Using an EV you’ve got to obviously remember charging isn’t an instant thing so you got to factor all these bits in and a lot of people aren’t ready for that switch yet I think the fact that it’s more of it’s not it’s being sort of forced on to the general public as soon
As you tell something they’ve got to do it the heels will di in because they won’t want to do that you’ve got to give people option to make their decisions and make these changes so if you put more and more options on the table going back to the synthetic fuels hydrogen
Combustion and hydrogen fuel cell as well as EV you give more people choice they’ll adopt it easier but at the minute because we sort of blinkered on everybody’s got to have a battery EV after 2035 it’s it’s just not it’s not going to work people will just like I’ll just
Keep running this car for 20 30 more years we’ll just put all the money into keeping it going and yeah newer cars are better obviously in terms of we’re not talking about like i’ you said you got the old Porsche I’ve got an old Alfa Romeo and again it’s
It’s got no cats or anything in it I fire that up in the garage it stinks very quickly in that garage um we’re not talking about those cars now we’re talking about very efficient internal combustion engines with GPS filters and cats and all this to catch a lot of this
Particulate so they are in a lot better position and if you want to get rid of the carbon emissions put the synthetic fuel in yes there’s still a bit of tail P emissions there but it’s not new carbon so you’ve got a net gain on on
Your overall emissions as a as a country um and again the UK does one perish of total Global emissions this is not really a problem for us to solve it’s a problem for us to push out to the world and say right you’ve all got to get on board with this
Quicker because if we if we nied it in the bud here and and we became carbon neutral overnight and the UK had 0% emissions the other 99% still going to get us we’re not isolated from the rest of the world so I think it’s more we
Don’t need to be as hard on ourselves as as we are it seems every day the news is government aren’t doing enough this protest groups out there constantly causing Havoc to try and obviously prove this point but it’s it’s we we contribute a tiny amount and yes we have to solve that
But we also need to go out to the world and say right what are you guys doing because this is what we’re doing and you need to adopt that as well um as we are all going to be in the same boat yeah I think as a as a developed country I
Think we have a responsibility and we also have the skills to push the technology and showcase what can be done but also what can be done in a profitable way like it’s got if we provide if we can help create solutions that are better and profitable then other people
Will adopt them I don’t think I think you can’t you can’t just say to everyone else you’ve got to fix the issue like and I don’t think that’s not that’s not necessar what you’re saying I’m with you on we shouldn’t just beat ourselves up um but I think setting I think setting
Targets is a really good idea I I’m not sure the the hard line is a great way of doing it what I would prefer and we’ve done a fun one around um car sales but I would prefer emissions from a manufacturer point of view have to reduce
By 4% a year or 5% a year every year till the end of time and eventually that will go down to zero but you’re pushing them to just do a little bit each time and just keep keep keep keep keep doing it and they will they will get to the
Point where marginal gains isn’t it like you say instead of going to sort of a a hard line of right from 2035 onwards it’s nothing yeah which is it’s not it’s not very far away and it’s not a lot of time for him to sort of get
There yes you are you’re right the solution is probably more marginal gain of right reduce it by this reduce it by this and you could it doesn’t even have to be a linear graph you could ramp it up because technology will get better as they start mastering this to the point
Where it may scale up that the first few years you’re dropping it by 4% 5% 6% but then you might go 10 20 30 because to nip that last little bit in the bud is probably a bit easier once they’ve developed the Technologies to do so but
Yeah you’re right putting a sort of a deadline on it it it encourages the manufacturers to potentially Rush the Technologies out there because they’ve got to they’ve got to hit that deadline and maybe then the people buying the products at that point are going to get LED with a product that
Over the next 10 years in its average lifespan isn’t as good as as it could have been but if you waited two more years or three more years people buying the products then are going to have an EV what could last for 20 years and do 500 miles range and charging five
Minutes but the people who’ have already committed and put their money in are going to be going to be stuck aren’t they in a in a maybe not I think best solution product time has shown that we can’t just we can’t just leave it up to uh Private Industry to solve this
Because if you look at some of the private Industries possibly some members of the oil industry it’s been shown that synthetic fuels for example we’ve known that existed but they’ve gone nah we don’t want any of that um or electric cars it didn’t work out for I think it
Was batteries was one of the reasons um why it didn’t work out whenever that was that was like a hundred years ago um so you can’t at some point you do have to do a hard line and I think saying to like if you’ve got a big manufacturer
They plan 5 years out for example Etc that sort of thing you they need to know they need to know okay we’re going to have to do this and they’ve now they’re now sort of getting on board and we pretty much General transport is probably all going to be electric
Synthetic fuels is going to be part of it but it’s as you say it’s going to be part of the the transition period yeah and helping clean up the overall if we if we can produce a bunch of synthetic Fuel and sort of mix it into the current
Fuel system so just reduce the overall it’s in there as 10% or whatever um something we haven’t talked about is price yeah how much does it cost at the moment to buy some fuel So currently in the UK to buy so the product Tye we’ll just build on this now
So the product I use um is P1 Eco 100 pro so that Isel that’s a bi well they use a bit of a blend so there’s some carbon from industry some biosynthetic because again you can mix it all together it’s and you can mix it with standard standard fuel
As well chemically at the end it’s it’s identical same yeah yeah so the product is it’s a 97 octane uh en 228 accredited fuel so it’s it can legally be sold in this country in any fuel station currently um it’s like say it’s 90 so it’s equivalent of super
Unledded that goes goes far around5 80 a liter at the minute okay but two years ago these products were more10 a liter and the next two to three years they’re forecasting it to be under two pound two EUR a liter so it’s getting there it’ll only yeah it’ll only get there with
Scale though obviously scale drives price with these things and a lot a lot of I say a lot a few of the crude oil manufacturers are now looking at it whether they’re looking at it as a bit of a green wash though they can keep doing the crude oil in the background is
A bit of a a question to be raised but the dedicated companies P1 zero hiff who do the Porche stuff hiff and seens uh I think there’s another company over in America their products are sort of pure they’ve not got an interest in in fossil fuels U so p1’s mantre is they’re not
Trying to make fossil fuels green they’re trying to replace fossil fuels with synthetic fuels um if if all these companies could scale the price would drop significantly but again they need some incentive to be able to do it because there’s a lot of money invested PL yeah I think the demand’s technically there
Because we’ve been at a price crude oil based yeah yeah so crude is probably only going to start getting more and more expensive as it starts to get crunch time on how much more we can can retail as as petrol Etc um and maybe that’s probably the next hard stop
Is 2050 normo crude oil based fuels I don’t know maybe that would then drive more of the uh the big oil companies to start looking at this I know I think shell are looking at it as well Orco looking at it but they don’t really need to at the
Minute because there’s no end date for them is there you can potentially use crude oil forever until it runs out there’s no so maybe that’s the next sort of hard stop or or the next next goal is the vehicles are changing and now we need to nip it in the bud for everything
Else and get rid of it that way um but yeah a lot of the companies are dedicated to it they’re not not trying to make fossil fuels up green they’re trying to get rid of them and and put a product in place that can and and
What’ll fill the Gap and fill the void but yeah PRI price is the biggest elephant in the room with it um when people speak to me around different race events they sort of they don’t wins but when you actually say to them if you went out and bought the equivalent race
Fuel you’re paying the same amount of money for it because again most race fuels start off with a synthetic base or they have a load load of bits put into them and it’s all small batch stuff so you’re paying the same amount if if you
Made race fuel on mass it would be it be Pence per liter we just we just don’t do it because there’s no requirement for it whereas with synthetics there’s potentially a market for it out there is is all the all the IC Vehicles what are currently on the roads so yeah price is
The biggest downside of it at the minute um but on the flip side and it’s a little little bit of a gain the P1 product I use is ezero there’s no ethanol in the end product so actually you’re getting full fat fuel again and you get a bit bit better fuel
Economy out of it we are planning on doing a test over winter like a back-to-back fuel test um we’ve had a few incidents in the races this year so we’ve not actually been able to measure out how much of a game we’ve got out of it um power-wise it’s it’s it’s
Identical like I said we don’t notice anything in the driveability of it but I’ve got a suspicion we’re getting better MPG out of it for that reason so yeah SC scale Drive price it just needs more incentive for the manufacturers of these products to sort of ramp ramp that
Up so porer own interested in looking after their own products with hers Zero have looked mainly at sort of the aviation industry so jet fuels and plane fuels Etc whereas P1 good one to I’m well in favor of enforcing that of saying if if you want not not on General
Transport but on private jets I think if you’ve got a private jet you should have to run sustainable fuel as long as it exists like so what if you have to spend another 10 grand per flight if you can afford it you can afford it if you can’t
You can’t you fly yet yeah I think if you dig into synthetics quite a lot most of the early adopters were Aviation um it’s obvious quite easier to make Aviation fueld than gasoline petrol whatever and I think when was it the Glasgow cop Forum everybody flew in on private jets
Or government Jets Etc and I do believe the UK government supplied everyone with synthetic AV fuel to fly home on really but it wasn’t really publicized if you dig into it you do find there’s a bit of a sound bite of we gave him all the
Synthetic F to fly home on why are we not shouting about that like that’s a that’s a yeah because the biggest thing was why are all the world leaders flying in somewhere on all these Jets well they can use synthetic fuels and actually the carbon neutral in doing so but we don’t
Shout about it and it’s weird that we didn’t I don’t I don’t get why it was n Front Page News because it’s a good news story about the climate isn’t it and we don’t see we’re always negative about the climate and that is one of that is
One of the big sort of messages that come comes out of these cop events because I I didn’t realize they were every year and I didn’t realize that pretty much everyone goes every year and you see the uh the US like transport situation of I don’t know how many
Planes they send 10 they had something like 300 cars something ridiculous like that doing their Convoy up and then you’re like sorry this is actually if this is every year and you all do this this is ridiculous um but if there I what’s the situation because I think even if you’re
Running um like a sustainable carbon captured fuel if you release it at 10,000 V or whatever it is these planes fly at isn’t that significantly worse anyway that would be a question I don’t have the answer far um you would assume so because you’re putting it up into the
Atmosphere um but yeah it’s obviously I’ve not really looked into the aviation of yeah I suppose if you if you putting carbon back up there what you’ve pulled out of there it’s probably better um but yeah it’s it’s an odd one reading an article yesterday and it was talking about obviously
Missing the boat on the 1.5 degree Target for for climate change and I read I read a statement in there which sort of threw me back is the fact that we’ve got less aerosol pollution in the atmosphere now is going to increase the temperature because there’s less things
In the atmosphere to block the sunlight out so I’m like saying well we’re cleaning up the air and we’re still going to end up being hit with this increase in in temperature so I’m not like what do we do I know there’s obviously cloud seeding Etc which is
Like going to be another big technology moving forward to sort of stop this but but yeah it threw me back that the fact that we’re cleaning up the atmosphere and getting rid of all these CFCs Etc and other aerosol pollutant is actually contributing to the increase in
Temperatures a bit like well how do you beat this how do because if we’re cleaning it up and it’s still going to make it worse what what do we do as as a general populace what what do we then do um and again it’s it’s it’s probably
Questions to ask moving forward and and again looking at the overall picture not just how the vehicles and and Industry Etc apply to it but yeah being being greo is sort of adding to the problem I don’t think that that statement is probably not correct like I know I can hear what
You’re saying but saying being Greener is not the problem no no obviously not we’ve released all this stuff which is those stuff those are really bad for humans all of those gases like really bad um so removing those good thing umly all the pollution Etc blah blah blah
Blah blah blah blah it’s probably an issue what they’ve not it’s probably the the the fact that the air is cleaner now and then it’s obviously we’re getting more sunlight is probably not something they factored in because it it used to be so bad obviously you’ve seen yeah
Sort of Industrial Revolution England it was just Smog and very little sunlight like I say I’m from Sheffield and it’s driven off steel industry from back in the day and my dad used to tell me stories about if you looked across the da Valley which is where all the steel
Works works it’s where the main river through the city is if you were up any of the hills you couldn’t see anything down there it was like Cloud Invasion but it was just smug from the industry wow so they had had its like own weather systems under there Etc and it’s not something
We I imagine back then when we were looking at cleaning up the air we never thought we’d get to a point where ozone would be in a better State than it used to when I was a kid it was all ho in the Oz L is going going to be the biggest
Problem and then that shrunk and shrunk and shrunk as as we’ve moved on because we’ve removed aerosol pollutant so maybe it was I don’t want to say hindsight these are a lot smarter people than me but maybe it’s something they didn’t really factor in in terms of
Having a cleaner atmosphere is going to actually do like more sunlight in and yeah that’s another thing we need to sort of look as a as a wider solution but we sort digressing on massively massively but no it’s I think it’s it’s an interesting one I I I hear a lot
Of journalists because they’re the people writing articles or or talking about stuff going well this is going to be the solution there’s a lot of EV haters out there and I I sort of I I like to reot everyone I hear that’s like a massive you know they just
I hear cart blanch statements of just yeah but Cobalt you’re okay cool but yes there are problems they need to be solved there are also problems with continually digging up oil like it’s it’s there’s no it’s not just a one or the other no one’s you don’t have to
Attack each other over the whole thing um and synthetic fuels does get branded as often as like a yeah but this will be the solution and it’s going to solve everything it’s going to be part of the solution hopefully helping and probably push towards the stuff that’s really hard to Electrify like
Short Journeys there’s no reason anyone should be using fuel for short Journeys in town or what like it doesn’t make sense um some sort of electric situation works really well for that but if you’re a ship you can’t Electrify that yeah that that’s the wind well I think they have hasn’t there
A tanker now with with sales to I don’t think it fully runs on the sales but I think it just helps it along and and I think it makes I can’t remember which company but I did read about this recently that they started fitting sales
Again and it you know it knocks 20% off your emissions or something it’s crazy isn’t it because again going back to the motor vehicle EV and synthetic fuel’s been around for hundreds of years so have sales for boats we don’t need to do anything new the technology has been
There for hundreds of years we need to justo again because actually it’s pretty efficient um especially in certain areas of the oceans you’ll know more than me obviously with your with your partner there’s some significant winds around there to get these boats around to different parts of the world which will
Then like I say there’s potential to Just Wind back these huge huge engines they have and the huge consumption of diesel they use You’ be able to wind that right back and yeah you’re probably not going to get 100% wind power but marginal gains it’s all going to add up to the bigger
Picture um so I I wrote an article recently which went out on the driven chat website um and it was sort of a bit of a summary of I’m I wouldn’t say I’m an Eevee hater I’ve got a few friends who’ve got them and I looked at one a few years ago but
It just wasn’t fit for purpose for me at the time but I have been skeptical around How It Was Always branded of this this is the solution it’s a silver bullet uh as a as a one sort of option so the article sort of sus up the plus
And minus of IC and EV and it’s like you said the co Cobalt yep the the humanitarian problem from that needs to be so solved quickly and I think now that more people are aware of this happening there’s potentially scope for that to happen whether it will or
Not because again industry drives these things is a question to ask I read quite an interesting book uh called Vault Rush that talks about a lot of these things and I’ve forgotten most of it but um just sort of looking at some of these issues and it it sounds like as
Companies are having to become more transparent um and certain manufacturers are significantly better I think like Volvo and postar are doing a reasonably good amount at sort of trying to Showcase where everything comes from because a lot of people like you say are avoiding they’re just like and we’ve got
An electric battery and you go yeah but it was in Cong it then went to China and then processed and then shipped to the UK and then put in a thing like there’s a lot of extra Carbon on that that didn’t need to be there I I
Think that’s it isn’t it there’s there’s a lot more scrutiny around it because again it’s easy for me to say a synthetic fuel is carbon neutral at the tail pipe but actually when you wind back in the life cycle yeah there is bits where you you’re not on fully
Renewable energy so carbon is introduced into the process and and I think that’s where most of this needs to be looked at is it’s not at the end product because the end products are the end products it’s it’s a life cycle of creating it and like you said the
Battery situation earlier earlier on in in EV sort of development shipping the product all the way around the world instead of keeping it as local as possible adds a load of carbon in there and I think think can read something crazy like the average e EV takes
100,000 miles to pay back its carbon this this I’m not taking that as a truth because I think it’s less than that depending on it’s significantly less um I think the report that everyone talked about was the Volvo one when they had it was like an
Xc40 and whatever the electric one is um and they did they did the comparison and I think they said on a bad grid Maybe somewhere like certain parts of America or whatever um it’s it was 80,000 miles and then the electric car was better on
A good grid um it was a lot less I I think now one thing they didn’t factor into that was um uh fuel so they didn’t facture in production of fuel yeah for the fuel car that’s quite a big thing and they also did like worst case scenarios of
Everything um so if you’re on a good Grid or even a reasonably good grid and you’re choosing to charge up on renewable or whatever I think it’s like two years or it’s like 10 to 20,000 miles yeah that that’s it isn’t it it’s sort of saying yes it’s got x amount of
Kilograms of carbon in there what you need to pay back how quickly are you paying that back if you’re on a really crappy grid somewhere in the wilderness and it’s a diesel generator it’s going to take a significantly longer time to do that so yeah there
Is there is that I think the problem is over here still even though we’re in quite a developed country and same across Europe we’re still struggling to get off fossil fuels aren’t we um oh it’s it’s changed significantly over the last like five years yeah um but then I think if you
Look back to earlier this year possibly last year when we had load of crappy weather we were still firing up gas and coal fire ST power stations to get that power back in this is where the government needs to start saying like look battery stores
Need to be ramped up in the country we need to hammer it everywhere so in my profession so I I designed fire fire safety systems so alarms and suppression systems Etc and I did a project for a company I can’t remember the name of now
About six years ago and it was to put some fire systems in and around some battery stores and the company had won a contract to put something like 140 of these around the country yeah and I say go on then give me give me the figures
Of it and it was sort of like I think it was five 40 foot shipping containers full of batteries and then five inverters um and it was sort of it’s just just north of Newcastle so it picked up all the soul all the wind feeding back into the grid yeah um they
Sort of said like yep if we if we have all these batteries fully charged and the grid asks us for that it was something like three hours and it was like a tiny amount of power in there but it was it was a significant side it was huge obvious imagine 4ot Container full
Of batteries and he’s like oh yeah it’s so many so like 40,000 kilovolts per unit or something and it says we burn through the power in here so quick we need more of of them and he says we got a contract to do 140 sides but we need 1,400 sides or 40,000 Sides
Now that’ll get better because they were probably using like acid Ty batteries or something because it was quite early on uh before lithium was being scaled up now lithium I think lithium phosphorus batteries are the next ones now that the battery technologies are getting better that’s probably going to reduce but it’s
Very quiet in this country I know it’s probably going on in the background but again the government should be that out like this is all the battery stor projects we’ve got going this is all the renewable projects we’ve got going we don’t seem to be talking about that we
Seem to be talking about got the interesting ones um on that and then I think we should probably start wrapping it up is um is there is different types of battery storage that are not batteries that we think of as batteries whether it’s heating up a bunch of
Rocks and then using the heat back again to steam Etc or pumping water up a hill ENT you know kind of reversing a dam all those sorts of things actually I I think they’re really interesting because you’re like yeah there’s a lot of energy stored and you’re not requiring just
Straight batteries um and then we we will have in not that long um a bunch of EVS plugged in at home that could possibly pull power back out to just sort of we just want to reduce those little the Peaks and troughs isn’t it yeah you need to smooth the consumption
Line as best you can so that you are not turning on that PL yeah you’re not you’re not in a negative position when demand increases Supply and you then have to fall back on the older Technologies and yeah I’ve heard I’ve heard the thing with the EVS using them
As a local battery stores for your house Etc it’s quite it’s quite interesting now whether that will shorten the lifespan of the batteries who who knows uh but again don’t think it does much power so low yeah I think that’s something for the again manufacturers to potentially put
In as a selling point we’re going to we’re going to give you this EV it’s going to get you x amount of miles range and also it’ll run your house overnight if you’ve got a solar around your roof Etc What charges it and instead of feeding it back into the grid put it
Into your local battery store I EV and and then that will that will power your your property for the night or the week or whatever yeah so again like I said there’s there’s there’s other options out there not just a case of filling shipping containers with with batteries
And again maybe it’s a case of we have all these old refineries I’ve got all these oil tanks in there filling them with synthetic fuels and and tapping into that as a as an option to uh to generate power even if it’s on a local level backup generator supp places and hospitals and
Stuff we just we we just very blinker at at the minute on the negativity surrounding the internal combustion engine I feel um whereas actually the Technologies what can increase or make th those systems Greener have loads of wider uses for society um we just don’t seem to be
Looking at it or if we are it’s very quiet overall that’s it I think these things are being looked at I’ve heard about all sorts of sort of interesting projects whether it’s like I think there’s a massive um solar farm in between here and like Denmark and all of
That um and I I believe that was going to have a pipeline shipping it was either going to be like hydrogen or it could be synthetic fuel or whatever back to it will provide Power but it will also create other stuff at the same time when no one wants
It um yeah and that could be a source yeah I think I’ve heard that that we’ve we running some some cables over to uh to cross the nor SE or whatever to tap into power and there’s power cables to Africa yeah but I think this is a thing
As well going going back to the original point about how uh synthetics can have a sort of wider scope for society it’ll allow a lot of countries to have a lot more energy Independence instead of having a cable back to um Africa or across from Denmark we could
Just stick a big Wind Farm up at the top top of Scotland tap all the energy up we’ve got CO2 from industry waste feed stocks carbon capture machines we can transfer that energy into the the liquid form and then transport that back around the country and we’re not then relying on
Crude oil from Eastern Europe and Russia and wherever else we’re tapping it in it’s going to change the power dynamics of the world massively significantly insanely significantly and and it’ll allow a lot of smaller countries to uh sort of get off the crude oil te as such
Um and you’re not going to have to to rely on Russia Middle East China America I think Latin America Venezuela make a lot of crude as well you’re not going to have to rely on those those countries and now not to say we’re not going to need crude for products obviously it
Goes into a lot of plastics Etc but there’s potentials to probably use more recyclable plastics as well in future and we pull thousands of tons out of the sea every every year we need to start looking at again bringing that back into into production because it’s a Nob
Brainer we put in there we’ basically given ourselves unlimited amounts of free plastic to to to t back up something I think it was Apple we’re saying in an amount of time they were going to be using some crazy amount of recycled materials in their phones um
Because I know with all the metals and stuff there’s a lot of Technology now where you can basically pull out the same like you literally get you put in your copper you melt down your phone you put it through some funky stuff and you have the same
100% as you started with and you can just use it again which is super cool but I think before we just sort of dive off into all of these random Avenues uh we should start start wrapping this up um but yeah I feel like we’ve we’ve done
A good covering of synthetic fuels and wider Technologies um so I normally wrap these up with five questions do you have a most memorable driving trip or Journey weirdly it’s probably really mundane one so I used to be a service engineer and obviously go out to call outs Etc and I
Think in in a single night I had four or five call outs and I went from Sheffield to Kendall to Newcastle to Bolton to Salford to Blackpool to home and it was like an epic road trip across the country on my own yeah to go and fix
Some faulty equipment but the SES what I took in it was like I went across acoss the top e 66 so we’re like a stone throve some parts of Adrian’s wall then the Angel of the North and then it was over the Peak District and it was like
All Northern England um just in a in a car I think it was a scor Octavia like the most mundane car you can imagine yeah but it was just like yeah the amount of miles I clocked up overnight empty roads empty motorways no smart mot HB cameras just
Cruising around the country yeah yeah probably mundane for most people because it’s just a commu in theory but no it was it was it was pretty interesting the amount of Miles CL there is a joy of just getting in a car and this is this
Is a bit of a problem with Eevees but yeah just getting in a car filling up and just going just yeah yeah and it doesn’t have to be anything special either it can be any car it’s sometimes the journey what makes it it’s not not the vehicle you’re in or or the
Yeah it’s it’s the journey what makes it um yeah that that’s probably it for me it wouldn’t have to be anything special it’s just a vehicle um just the open road if you could only drive one car one sports car so you’ve got a slightly practical something else on the side uh
For the rest of your life what would you have uh maybe a 360 challenge to Dary yeah nice I think I think like I say you’ve got something practical on the side so you can be a bit impractical with that I think out of all the Ferraris it’s probably probably my
Favorite it’s probably most people’s favorites when they really think about it the new stuff it’s a bit too much the oldest stuff spell sounds amazing as well sound outrageous that is a car I’ve not driven and and want to have a go in it at some point for sure uh what do you
Think is the most undervalued car at the moment what should be worth more so I listened to one of your recent episodes and I was I’ve been thinking about this question for a while And Hond s 2000s are ridiculously cheap at the minute and they’re an amazing car very capable very fast very reliable uh I’ve got a friend who’s been tempted to buy another one so we’re doing a bit of research and the prices what some of those are going for at the minute are
Ridiculous I think there’s a few now ,000 work these days there’s a few around there for sub 8,000 and they’re only going to go back up I believe because Honda aren’t really interested in replacing that vehicle um so it’s it’s going to become a classic at some
Point um and yeah they they’re pretty easy to live with it’s Honda they’re pretty reliable but yeah they they seem to be significantly cheaper than what I think they should be um I’d imagine they’d be 20 odd Grand by now but they’re not so yeah I think that’s probably the one
Yeah we’ll see that that’s one I always look at and go I think they’re cool I like every time I see one I’m like cool and you don’t see them that often anymore no that that’s it um and again the scarcity you think would have put
The prices up but obviously not are are they scarce like I I slightly question that I feel like there’s a lot of them out World a lot of the early ones get crashed though they’re um they can be a bit of a a bit of a tricky one to drive
Um but yeah like I say you don’t see them so maybe people have just took them away in the hope that they are going to be a future classic um I know a few people are doing that with like ep3 as well the early taiar um anyone who’s got a clean one
Put it away don’t let people build it into a race car because that seems to be the path for most of them nowadays what uh what’s the most interesting car to you at the moment we googling we’re looking up I like the uh the GT4 RS came in the uh
I think Porche cracked it with that I think I think I’ve read somewhere the one with a man Mante racing kits just near nearly beat the 918 round round the Nur ring it’s like a second behind it or something ridiculously like underestimated car um unobtainium for myself but um yeah I think that
That’s probably the most interesting you just can’t get one but yes really cool yeah really again it’s not the flagship product so it sort of it’s got that subtlety to it but yeah yeah they’re really good I see significant amount of gt4s various car meets Etc yeah not so
Much the rs’s again due to people just not being able to get allocations for whatever reason yeah the GT4 is good but the RS just it’s just that extra bit in it it just T them boxes yeah I think that’s final sort of nail in the coffin of the
This all the jokes around a Cayman or a boxer not being a real you know 911 sports car you’re like yeah yeah G4 is a pretty serious I think that’s it isn’t it they’ve got look the the base ingredients have always been there with the car we’ve just spiced it up a little
Bit and look how good it is which just probably bumped the price of most Caymans and boxers up as well cuz yeah probably brought up the perception doesn’t it yeah exactly that’s it it’s it’s a real Porsche now it’s not just the one what people who can’t afford a
911 buy yeah um but yeah I think that is for me my old my old boss has just had a 992 RS GT3 RS delivered um yeah he had to jump through some hoops for that um and they rang him up and basically said look there’s an allocation do you want
It and it was like well if I said no it’s game over isn’t it you’re not you’re not getting an allocation again um so he he he committed to it and he’s had it on track already they invited him to a track day on it and he says nice
He’s got a he’s got an AMG GT3 race car and he’s like it’s it’s nearly the same like it’s not it’s not a Million Miles Away wow yeah but everybody expects that of that car whereas the GT4 nobody really expects it well they do now because obvious it’s quite well
Publicized but yeah it’s it’s yeah really interesting car for me that one yeah really cool right final question five car garage unlimited value so obviously GT4 RS that would have to go in there um I currently own a 1967 Julia TI Alpo Julia TI oh nice that
Had be in there but on the condition it spent some time at alfaholics and they’ve put the super arit on it so all the tit B engine uh it’s to be fair it’s a 1300 and it’s got quite a spicy engine in it um some Webbers and some fancy bits in
The head two ler cams it’s about 100 horsepower but it just screams because it’s a 1300 and it just revs and revs and revs and it’s it’s it’s good fun to drive it’s skinny little tires and rolly suspension but yeah it’s really really good to drive and uh and it’s it’s
Pretty pretty solid for a 50 odd year old car uh I’m hoping to do a video with it and putting the P1 fuel in it um straight out the race car straight into that because again turn the key so that’ll be in there so that’s that’s two trans stradali obviously that that would
Have to be yeah one in there so that’s three need something a bit practical um probably an S-Class a decent spec one um yeah it’s the it’s the Super Saloon isn’t it it’s the best of the best it’s checky at the moment I CU I I’m just waiting for the time when I
Buy an S-Class like it’s I’m not quite there yet but I’m like I I want an S-Class but someone pointed out recently another podcast was discussing this they’re just used they are used as like luxury taxis everywhere for a reason but can’t quite shake that image of like if
You pull up in an S-Class someone’s like can yeah who’s getting out the back of it more than who’s getting out of the front of it that that’s it yeah I guess as long as it’s not black if you just you go if you if you’re black with with
Tints yeah taxi spec um but I think if you went silver or any other color maybe not white White’s probably a bit much on on a car that big um yeah it’d be that and then I think the final card have to have something like super practical so ideally drive a discovery four
So probably Discovery for but with a more reliable engine maybe or I like the new Defenders but there horror stories about Jr products at the minute um I’ve not heard that many about Defenders I I hear so much about jlr but I’ve I’ve not heard that much about
Defenders I’ve I’ve driven the the 130 they’re definitely not as practical as they should be in terms just silly things the door the 130 is a significantly large car um we had a perke around one recently cuz my partner wants a discovery for sorry discover a discovery sport um and while we’re in
The dealership like that’s a 130 so had a look because I heard on a few like podcasts that they’re massive and it was mainly because they were going to just fire them over to America and it needed to be substantial U and the guy was having a
Look around me he’s like oh yeah it’s um it’s eight seats but you can probably fit about 15 people in it but then when you get inside it the doors are like sort of really thick and the seats are like hunched together and the two benches are quite squash I’m like don’t
Quite rate that for that but yeah I think I probably have one of them actually as long as they got a good warranty on it yeah yeah they they’re very cool looking I would have mine on like steelies on like white the white Steels it’s an odd one because when you look at
The design of it and then you look at design of the Discovery 4 that car should have been the discovery not the defender and then the discovery 5 was a bit well they’ve just rounded off all the edges and it’s not really a discovery anymore so then that could
Have been whatever a new product so yeah I think the the defender of carried on the the discovery Mantra um but just with a bit more bit more luxury and and it’s falling into that trap as well of becoming a bit of a footballers car and and whatnot but yeah
I think there’s still some practicalities of it it does look like it’s chunky enough to go off road yeah um well thanks very much for coming on the podcast yeah no no problem thanks having me